Colorful Om

Mehndi a la Laurie

2012-02-10T21:10:00.000-06:00

Here’s a card that I made last month when I went on the scrapbook retreat. We had a pretty sketchy wi-fi connection that weekend, so I was pretty much on my own for ideas. This one came to me easily, because it was inspired by a lovely card by Laurie Willison, and I’ve made several similar cards over the past few months in various colors and textures. Funny thing is, I remembered that I was inspired by Laurie, but didn’t have her original blog post pinned so that I could find it again, so a working wi-fi wouldn’t have made any difference that weekend. After speed-surfing Laurie’s blog (and finding tons more inspiration on the way!) I found the original card that inspired me. Check it out and see her lovely card. Even funnier is the fact that Laurie was inspired by someone she forgot to pin, too!

Details (all Papertrey unless noted): stamps – Mendhi Medallion, Signature Greetings; paper – Kraft, Stampers Select White, Bermuda Bay (Stampin’ Up); ink – Versafine Onyx Black, Lucky Limeade (Stampin’ Up); accessories – Cuttlebug embossing folder (I think the name is Textile Texture or something like that?), Nestabilities circle die, Corner Chomper (We R Memory Keepers)

Papertrey 5th Anniversary–Day 1

2012-02-05T18:21:00.000-06:00

This month marks the fifth anniversary of Papertrey Ink, the maker of my favorite stamps and many, many of my stamping supplies. Anniversary month is always full of fun contests, prizes, and inspiration. Today’s contest was to look at the personal favorite projects of the last year from each of the Papertrey design team members, choose one, and use it to inspire our own creation. I chose Maile Belles, of course, because she’s the designer who constantly inspires me with her designs. I’m a Maile groupie!

Maile’s card, which you can see above, used chevron stripes in a rainbow pattern. I thought I would make chevrons using my all-time favorite Maile-designed stamp set, Modern Basics. My love for this set is well known. In my opinion, it is the best stamp set on the planet, and will probably remain in that position for a long time to come.

I had a blast experimenting with chevrons using the shapes in this set! In the end, I went with this simple pattern. I only used two stamps from the set, the large solid 3-leaf stamp, and the corresponding single leaf. I love how easy it is to line up the stamps in Modern Basics, even if you’re covering a fairly large area. I started at the edge of the paper and lined up the center of the leaves right along the edge (see the blue stamps at the top of the strip) and then just built from there.

Here’s the card with no embellishment.

And since I’m indecisive, I put a ton of little adhesive-backed pearls on the second card. I like it both ways.

Just another view so that you can see the pearls better.

Details (all Papertrey unless noted): stamps – Modern Basics, Think Big Favorites #3; paper – Kraft, Stampers Select White; ink – Versafine Onyx Black, Stampin’ Up Pacific Point, Perfect Plum, Regal Rose, Real Red, Summer Sun, Old Olive; pearl embellishments (source unknown)

A girly birthday card

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000-06:00

This card is for a brand new challenge, Virginia’s View. This challenge is going to be a monthly one courtesy of the fabulous Virginia Lu. This is the inspiration photo that we were to use:

I love the colors and the dangling hearts, so I chose this dangling heart stamp from my collection and stamped it in various shades of pink and orange.

Details: stamps – Bright Spirits (Verve), Think Big Favorites #7 (Papertrey); paper (all Papertrey) – Stampers Select White, Hibiscus Burst; ink (all Stampin’ Up) – Melon Mambo, Pink Passion, Cameo Coral; tools – large scallop border die (Papertrey)

CASE Study Challenge #74

2012-01-24T20:55:00.000-06:00

I decided to play along with the CASE Study Challenge this week. The muse right now is Jen Rzasa, who is one of my “must read” bloggers. I loved Jen’s design (see below), so I stayed with the same layout. I had scraps of the distressed dots paper on my table, so they became the focal point. I think this card is a first – I don’t think I’ve ever used fourteen dimensionals on a card that could end up being sent to a man!

The distressed dots paper started off as squares cut to 1 1/8 inch on my paper cutter. The black paper was punched with a 1 1/4 inch square punch. I used my corner chomper’s 1/2 inch cut to round opposite corners of all of the squares.

Here's my card:

Details: stamps – Birthday Bash Sentiments (Papertrey); paper – Rustic Cream (Papertrey); ink – Versafine Onyx Black; tools – 1 1/4 inch square punch (Stampin’ Up), Corner Chomper (We R Memory Keepers)

Here is the inspiration card by Jen for this week:

Scrappy birthday cards

2012-01-24T06:00:00.003-06:00

Here are some colorful birthday cards created using scrap strips of various patterned papers. These were fun to make. The only tiny challenge was choosing the ink colors to go with the papers. I made these on the scrapbooking retreat a couple of weekends ago, where I had taken limited inks with me. I found that my dew drop Memento pads yielded close matches for pretty much every paper shown here.

Details: stamps – Birthday Bash Sentiments (Papertrey), paper (all Papertrey) – Stampers Select White, Kraft, Bitty Box Basics, Bitty Dot Basics, Distressed Dots, ink – various Memento inks; tools – Corner Chomper (We R Memory Keepers)

OLW 75–Masculine Birthday

2012-01-23T21:27:00.000-06:00

Okay, so it’s not Wednesday, but I did it! I finished an OLW challenge before the deadline passed me by!

This week’s One-Layer Wednesday challenge was to create a masculine birthday card. I love this new birthday stamp from Papertrey Ink, and the distressed stripes seemed to be a good foil for it. I really like this and might just have to make a bunch of them in different colors.

Details: stamps (all Papertrey) – Think Big Favorites #12, Distressed Stripes, paper – Rustic White (Papertrey), ink (all Stampin’ Up) – Dusty Durango, More Mustard

More scrappy stripes

2012-01-23T06:00:00.005-06:00

Here are a couple more of the cards that I created from the scrap stripes. These were so much fun that I can definitely see doing some more using various papers and dies.

Details (all Papertrey unless otherwise noted): stamps – Think Big Favorites #7; ink – Bamboo Leaves (Memento);paper – Stampers Select White, Bitty Dot Basics, Bitty Box Basics, Distressed Dots; tools – Seeing Stars dies

Details (all Papertrey unless otherwise noted): stamps – Enjoy the Ride, Background Basics: Circles; ink – Bamboo Leaves (Memento), Cantaloupe (Memento);paper – Stampers Select White, Bitty Dot Basics, Bitty Box Basics, Distressed Dots; tools – Seeing Stars dies

Happy stripe scraps

2012-01-22T05:30:00.001-06:00

While at the scrapbook retreat, I decided to make a sheet of striped paper from “scraps”. They weren’t really scraps – I cut strips from whole sheets of patterned paper, but it would be a great way to use scraps if I’d had some with me on the retreat. I glued strips down to a half sheet of cardstock and then started die cutting stars from it, with the intention of using the stars on some cards. My plans went slightly off track when I saw the negative image left by cutting three stars out of the sheet. I loved it so much that I quickly trimmed it to card front size so that I wouldn’t mess it up. This is the card that resulted, and it’s easily in my top five cards that I’ve ever made.

Details: stamps – Birthday Bash Sentiments (“happy”, Papertrey), Mother (“birthday”, Papertrey), Everyday Classics (star, Papertrey); ink – Rhubarb Stalk, Bamboo Leaves, Sweet Plum (all Memento); paper – Stampers Select White, Bitty Dot Basics, Bitty Box Basics, Distressed Dots (all Papertrey); dies – Seeing Stars (Papertrey)

CAS-ual Fridays–Penguin Awareness Day

2012-01-21T10:28:00.002-06:00

This week’s challenge on CAS-ual Fridays is to celebrate Penguin Awareness Day by creating a card using only black and white. I was excited to use this amazing stamp. It’s spent several years languishing in a box across the room from the rest of my stamps because it’s too big to fit in a CD case. My new storage system allows it and the other gigantic stamps in my collection to join the others where I can see and use them!

Details: stamps – Pollen Dust (Fancy Pants), Think Big Favorites #12 (Papertrey); ink – Versafine Onyx Black; paper – Stampers Select White (Papertrey)

Sunflower note

2012-01-21T05:52:00.011-06:00

Here’s another fun card from the scrapbooking weekend. I love, love, love Simple Sunflower. I was born and raised in Kansas, where it’s the state flower, so that’s my excuse for my adoration of the lovely sunflower. This is just about my all-time favorite sunflower stamp set, and I’ve owned (and sold) a bunch of them!

Details: stamps – Simple Sunflower (Papertrey), Background Basics: Sheet Music (Papertrey), Accent Notes (Verve); cardstock – Kraft, Pure Poppy, Stampers Select White (all Papertrey); ink – Chocolate Chip (Stampin’ Up), Cantaloupe (Memento), Bamboo Leaves (Memento); dies – Simple Sunflower, Eyelet Lace (all Papertrey)

Here’s what I took with me on the retreat, in case you’re wondering:

one DVD box of stamps – I focused on birthday, thank you and thinking of you sentiments, and chose a variety of stamp image categories – a few flowers, circles, backgrounds, frames, flourishes, leaves, trees

ink – I only took a handful of full size pads (dark chocolate, crumb cake, bermuda bay, real red, and lucky limeade from SU, Versafine onyx black, Versamark) and at the last minute I decided to bring along my box of 24 dew drop Memento inks

cardstock – full packages of kraft, white, pure poppy; a handful of sheets of bermuda bay, lucky limeade; about 15 sheets of patterned paper in various colors taken from PTI’s bitty dot basics, bitty box basics, and distressed dots collections

tools – Big Shot, box of PTI dies, a couple of embossing folders, Tonic paper cutter

That’s all I took other than my usual stamping “kit” – scissors, adhesives, etc. I was surprised how much stuff everyone else brought compared to me! And then the funny thing was that when people were looking for something specific in terms of stamps or dies, I was often the one who had it. So I guess I packed pretty well. I’ll definitely do the limited color scheme thing in the future. I had plenty to play with, but not having every single color of ink and paper available to me really helped to focus my energy.

Colorful tree

2012-01-20T07:10:00.003-06:00

Last weekend, I went on my first scrapbooking retreat. I’m not a scrapper, but I was eager to go and work on my cards. It was a wonderful experience for me. Since I took a limited amount of supplies, I was forced to be creative with colors and designs. In addition, the bed and breakfast where we stayed was having some issues with their internet router, so we didn’t have a lot of opportunities to check Pinterest and other sites for ideas. Rather than worry about that, I kept myself busy playing with my stamps, and came away with a stack of new cards, which makes me very happy.

This is one of my favorite cards from the weekend. I love the colors on the little tree and the ground created using the Bitty Box Basics paper. With my new stamp organization – separated by category rather than stamp set – all of the plain round stamps are together and mostly lined up in size order, which made finding just the right size dot for the tree super simple.
I have lots more cards to show you from the retreat, so hopefully you will see a flurry of posts from me in the coming days!

Details: stamps – Tiny Giggle Grove (Unity), Birthday Bash Sentiments (Papertrey), Dot Spot (Papertrey); paper – Stampers Select White (Papertrey), Bitty Box Basics (Papertrey); ink – Chocolate Chip (Stampin’ Up), various Memento dye ink colors

Stamp reorganization progress report #2

2012-01-19T23:02:00.001-06:00

Today was an exciting day in the reorganization of my stamps. I’ve been steadily moving the stamps from their former homes in CD cases to their new places in the Tim Holtz unmounted stamp envelopes, and I needed some more of the DVD boxes that I’m using to hold the envelopes. I’ve had four of the boxes lined up at one end of my stamping table, and I love the convenience of having them right at my fingertips. I wanted a shelf directly above the table so that I could line up four more boxes there.

Off I went to the Container Store, which is tied with IKEA as probably my all-time most dangerous places to shop! After conferring with one of their most amazingly helpful salespeople, I decided on a free-standing Elfa unit. It’s been about 20 years since I installed any Elfa shelves, and boy, have they improved since then! This unit is 36 inches wide and seven feet tall, and I built it in under an hour, with very little frustration and zero bad words! It doesn’t attach to the wall in any way, but is very stable due to its nice long “feet”. It’s easy to move the shelves around any way I want, and I can easily add more shelves or drawers if I want to in the future. I can also add another runner to either or both sides and continue to grow the unit. If I had a big enough room, I could even move it out in the center and add on to the other side! Best of all, I got it during the annual Elfa 30% off sale.

I was able to fit my stamping table (BJURSTA square slide-out leaf dining table from IKEA) right up under the shelves on the Elfa unit. My table is 35 inches wide and its legs just slipped right in between the feet of the Elfa. Pretty cool trick.

Now you can see all eight of the DVD boxes right at the end of my table where they’re easy to reach. I’m hopeful that my entire stamp collection will fit here. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to put my unmounted wheel stamps and my large background stamps in here. If I don’t, then these boxes will likely be enough.

Here’s my CD rack after a few weeks of reorganizing stamps. As you can see, there are a lot of cases missing now. And the ones remaining are getting pretty empty. Many of them are down to just one or two stamps.

This stack of boxes is full of empty CD cases – over 250 of them! I’m pretty excited to get this process finished. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.

Clean and Simple Card Making Class–Day 2

2012-01-10T16:29:00.001-06:00

Oh, boy, am I having fun with this class! There are so many great ideas to try out that I can’t wait to play each day. Here are today’s cards.

I always need lots of birthday cards. I’m the hospitality chairperson for one of my daughters’ middle school PTA groups, and I make sure that everyone on the staff gets a handmade birthday card. I’m really enjoying doing this, and the staff is thrilled as well.

For this card, I was using some of Julie Ebersole’s hints about faux letterpress style designs. I love the way it turned out.

Details: stamps – Harvest Berries (Papertrey Ink), Year of Flowers: Daffodil (Papertrey Ink); cardstock – Stampers Select White (Papertrey Ink); ink – Lucky Limeade (Stampin’ Up), Onyx Black (Versafine)

For this next card, I followed some of Julie’s hints for creating the illusion of an extra layer by masking off the edges of my card as well as the flowers, then adding color to the center. I don’t have any of the mists that Julie uses, so I went back to my early days of stamping and applied ink using a sponge. Not sure how well this particular card works, but the idea is great.

Details: stamps – Simple Sunflower (Papertrey Ink), Birthday Bash Sentiments (Papertrey Ink); cardstock – Rustic Cream (Papertrey Ink); ink (all Stampin’ Up) – Chocolate Chip, Marigold Morning, Bashful Blue; tools – Simple Sunflower dies (Papertrey Ink)

And last of all is this little 4x4 inch thank you card. I was pondering the sketch from Day 1 with the three elements in a row, when I came upon this stamp with three butterflies all on one stamp. Makes the stamping much simpler, and I like the resulting card.

Details: stamps – Kindness Matters (Stampin’ Up), En Francais (Stampin’ Up), Floral Frenzy (Papertrey Ink); cardstock – Rustic Cream (Papertrey Ink); ink (Stampin’ Up) – Buckaroo Blue, Soft Suede; tools – Chocolate Chip marker (Stampin’ Up)

Clean and Simple Card Making Class–Day 1

2012-01-09T22:53:00.001-06:00

I’m really excited today because it was the first day of the Clean and Simple Card Making Class taught by Kristina Werner, Julie Ebersole, and Jennifer McGuire. All three of these ladies’ blogs are way up high on my list of “must reads”, so it’s a no-brainer that I would take the class. There are also a bunch of guest teachers, which include a whole bunch more of my stamping idols.

Here’s the link to the class information - http://www.onlinecardclasses.com/cleansimple/. It’s a real bargain, and all of the class materials will be available forever if you sign up.

Today’s class consisted of a few really nice card sketches, examples, and helpful hints. It took no time at all to come up with this birthday card. Using my newly reorganized stamp storage, it was so easy to find exactly the right flower, flower center, and the perfect sized sentiment.

Details: stamps (all Papertrey Ink) – Beautiful Blooms II (flower and center), Gracious Vases (sentiment); ink (all Stampin’ Up) – real red, pacific point, summer sun; cardstock – PTI Kraft, SU Real Red, generic office store white (yeah, I know – it’s what was plentiful and in my way at the time!)

Progress report–stamp reorganization

2011-12-31T16:52:00.001-06:00

So, I thought you might like a progress report on the big stamp reorganization project. As I showed in my last post, I’m in the process of moving my stamps from CD cases to Tim Holtz unmounted stamp folders. I’ve been at it for two weeks, but we were traveling one of those weeks, so let’s call it a week. I’ve probably spent about 25 hours on the project so far.

Here are the two DVD boxes that I have almost filled with stamps. I’m probably not even halfway done yet. I initially predicted that four of these boxes would hold my entire collection, but I’m now guessing that it will take at least six.

I’ve done a few big sentiment categories and several image categories. The scariest one to tackle is the flower images. There are just so so many of them! But at least when I finish the flowers, it will put me much closer to the finish line.

Here are the flower folders all laid out on the table. There are 13 of them now, with quite a few more to come.

As I separate out my sets, I’m really getting a good picture of just how many stamps I have. More than anything else I’ve done, this is bound to help me to be much more frugal with my stamp spending. I’m really loving the stamps in their categories, too. I can see so many possibilities for using things together that I never would have found before.

Here’s the folder count so far:

Christmas sentiments – 12
Thank You sentiments – 6
Birthday sentiments – 5
Love sentiments – 4
Sympathy sentiments – 2
Handmade sentiments – 2
To/from/invitation/gift sentiments – 1

Flower images – 13
Tree images – 7
Star images – 3
Heart images – 2
Snowflake images – 2

I initially purchased 100 of the stamp folders, and I’ve used nearly 60 of them already. I’m sure there will be more. I’m enjoying the process, and I love the result even more.

Working toward better stamp organization

2011-12-18T14:40:00.004-06:00

Warning – this is going to be a very photo-heavy post.
Like all crafters, I’m constantly rearranging and changing how I store things. My stamps are a prime example. I have a fairly huge amount of stamp sets from a variety of companies, some clear photopolymer, and some rubber mounted on EZ Mount. I currently store them in CD cases. Well, everything is in CD cases unless it won’t fit in CD cases. Here’s my CD rack, which will hold a bit over 500 CD cases. It’s actually completely full – some of the cases are missing in this photo because they’re on my table being “processed” like I’m going to show you below. When I finish this process, this CD rack will go away, back to the garage with all of the other stuff we don’t really need but keep anyway.

Here’s the blog post from Jennifer that started me down this path. Thanks so much, Jennifer, for posting such a thorough explanation of your process. The difference in my process and Jennifer’s is that I’m actually splitting up my stamp sets. In the past, I’ve had a very-poorly-maintained index book showing stamps by category, and I found that I always turned to that book first when making anything. So I pondered Jennifer’s post and realized that I could use it to combine the category index with the actual stamp storage, saving me the step of going from finding the perfect stamp in the category index and then having to cross-reference and go find the CD case containing that stamp. And this will take much less space than storing all of those CD cases. What a deal!
Here are the Tim Holtz unmounted stamp refill pockets that I’m using. They come five to a package and cost about $2.50 per package. I found the best price at the time I purchased at Scrapbooking Alley, which is part of Ritz Camera, but has lower minimums for free shipping.

The first part of my system is an index book that has one page per stamp set. Once I separate out all of the stamps, this will be the only reference back to what came with each set, so it’s vital that every set be in the book. Fortunately, I had this book well underway. At the bottom of the page, you can see that I have handwritten the company, set name, and my personal code for that set. My codes are a letter or two for the company, plus a number. I’ll use these numbers when I separate the sets to reference back to this book. The pages of this index are just 5x8 inch index cards, which I’ve hole punched to fit in this little binder that I found at Office Depot.

Here are some examples of the completed unmounted stamp folders in use. I’ll go over how I created them in a moment.
Here’s a folder with the stamps and index sheet inside. When I take them out of the folder, you can see that I have a sheet of cardstock with the images all stamped on it, with their stamp set codes written under each stamp, and a sheet of acetate holding the actual stamps. To put them into the folder, I lay the cardstock right on top of the stamps and then slide them together into the folder.
Front view of a folder:

Back view:

Here are the two sheets removed from the folder:

Some folders contain all clear stamps, some all rubber, and some have a mix of the two.

Some folders contain all sentiments (birthday, Christmas, etc.) and some contain all images (stars, birds, trees, etc.)

All of those great “back of the card” stamps that I previously had to go hunting for – conveniently together at last.

Now for some process pictures. I found a “thank you” sentiment that needs to go into a “thank you sentiments” folder. I take the sheets out of a folder that has room for the stamp. I lay the stamp image down on the cardstock to find it a spot. Then I grab the stamp with an acrylic block and ink it up and stamp it in its spot. Then I clean the stamp, put it right back down on the cardstock in its spot, and use the partially-loaded acetate sheet to pick it up to join the others. Simple!
I do all of my indexing in blue, because it stains the stamps (and me!) less than black. Here I’m using Stampin’ Up’s Not Quite Navy, but I sometimes use other dark blue shades.

Once I’ve stamped the image on the cardstock, I handwrite the stamp set code underneath it. This is easy to do because my current CD cases have the code on the spine. Having the stamp set code written here will make it easy for me to find the set name for a blog post, or to reassemble the complete set, if I decided to sell the set, for instance.

The end result is a folder that’s super thin and easy to store. I’ve found that each folder holds anywhere from 30 to 50 stamps, depending on size. The cardstock and acetate are both cut to 6 by 8.5 inches.

To store the folders, I bought some nice DVD boxes from the Container Store. This box currently has 22 folders in it, and you can see that it’s only about half full. I believe that I can fit my entire stamp collection in four of these boxes. We’ll see if I’m right! My plan is to eventually have the four boxes sitting right on my stamping table where I’ll have every stamp I own in arm’s reach.

It’s going to take some time to get everything I own into this system, so I’m working on some of the biggest and most rewarding categories first. For me, that incudes birthday, thank you and Christmas sentiments, as well as images of stars, hearts, trees, birds, and butterflies. I find that it’s easiest to focus on just a small handful of categories at a time, or I get too confused and messy with dozens of folders and index sheets in progress at once.
I hope this has been helpful in showing a way to index a ton of stamps in a very small space. I can’t wait until I can say that I have the entire process completed!

Obsessive compulsive ink indexing project

2011-07-16T10:43:00.000-05:00

There has been a lot of discussion lately on the Papertrey Ink forums about which inks are the best match for various Papertrey cardstock colors. I was inspired by this discussion to start finding out which of the suggested colors I might already own, since I've been collecting inks for several years. What I found was kind of shocking:

No ink here.

No way.

Uh uh.

What I found was that my ink pad total is nearly 200! Yikes. But the good part is that I really do have lots of inks to coordinate beautifully with almost all of the Papertrey colors. And many are dead on matches.

I made a set of pages for my notebook showing all of the coordinating inks. These are on Papertrey white cardstock. I made the grid in Microsoft Publisher and filled it in with the inks that I own. I stamped each ink in its spot and then attached a piece of the corresponding cardstock color so that I can see them side by side.

These pages don't even show all of the inks that I own. This spawned a separate project where I made a master page for each color, with every single ink I have on it. The blue page has nearly forty colors on it! I'll have to show those pages in a future post. They're pretty cool, too.

June Papertrey Blog Hop

2011-06-25T22:00:00.003-05:00

This month's blog hop challenge was to use this photo for inspiration and create a project.

I tried and tried to get this uploaded in time for the blog hop, but missed it by one minute. Oh well. I still love the way it turned out!

Be sure to stop by Nichole's blog and see all of the entries. There are some awesome things there!

CAS-ual Fridays Challenge - Color Block

2011-06-20T19:15:00.000-05:00

This week's CAS-ual Fridays Challenge is to use color blocks in a project. I had an idea that ended up coming together very quickly. I'm super excited about this design and can't wait to make lots more cards like these. It turns out to be a perfect way to use up lots of those little scraps of cardstock that you can't bear to throw away but are not sure you'll ever use.

A patriotic thank you, perhaps for a soldier?

A colorful birthday card.

A sweet card for a friend.

My scraps were cut to 1 1/2 by 3 inches. I marked guidelines on the back to make it easier to get the punches exactly where I wanted them. I love the Tim Holtz Design Ruler for this! I put a black punch-out in the photo below to show where I punch once I have my pieces marked. No need to erase the marks because they're on the back.

Once my pieces were punched, I put dimensional foam in all four corners and adhered them to my card base. There is 1/4 inch between pieces and 1/4 inch at the top and sides. I found it easiest to place the two end pieces first and then center the middle one between them.

Details (all Papertrey Ink unless noted): stamps - Enjoy the Ride ("happy birthday"), Giga Guidelines ("just because"), Think Big Favorites #4 ("thank you"); paper - Stampers Select White, Kraft, Pure Poppy, Brilliant Blue (Stampin' Up!), Summer Sunrise, Orange Zest, New Leaf, Hawaiian Shores, Lemon Tart; ink - Onyx Black (Versafine)

Party gift

2011-06-18T17:35:00.000-05:00

We were invited to a 50th birthday surprise party for a dear friend this weekend. Her husband requested gag gifts. Here's ours:

This was great fun to put together. I used a random basket that I found in my garage, plus some blocks of floral foam (about $4 for a big package from Hobby Lobby; I only used about half of it), and three bags of Tootsie Pops. For the "50 sucks" sign, I used the By the Numbers dies from Papertrey Ink for the numbers, and the Simple Letters Sizzix dies from Stampin' Up for the letters. I taped a few popsicle sticks on the back with Scor Tape and then stuck the sign into the floral foam. Easy peasy!

Eagle-eyed readers will spot one Blow Pop in the front row of the Tootsie Pop basket. Three bags of pops should have given us 51, but we were bitten by the "about 17 servings" bug, and three bags actually only contained 49. So we found one lonely Blow Pop in the house and used it as a stand in.

CAS-ual Fridays Challenge CFC1

2011-05-06T20:52:00.000-05:00

Today's card is for the brand new CAS-ual Fridays Challenge. This week's challenge is to use text on your card. I love this challenge! Here's what I came up with.

This card is a real mash-up of different companies' things. My focal panel is glossy white. I stamped the Everlasting Romance in Versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder. Then I stamped the Script background with Crumb Cake ink. Finally, I sponged Bermuda Bay ink over the whole thing. A silver ribbon and a sweet little tag made with Tiny Tags completes the card.

I can't wait to see what the challenge is next week!

Details: stamps - Everlasting Romance (Unity), Tiny Tags (Papertrey Ink), Script background (Stampin' Up retired); paper - Glossy White (SU), Soft Stone (PTI), Smokey Shadow (PTI); ink - Versamark, Crumb Cake (SU), Bermuda Bay (SU), Smokey Shadow (PTI); other - clear detail embossing powder (SU), silver ribbon (PTI?), silver cord (SU), dimensionals

Papertrey Make it Monday 13 - selective embossing

2011-05-02T11:41:00.003-05:00

This week's Make it Monday challenge from Papertrey Ink is to use impression plates and dies to selectively emboss your cardstock. I have to admit that I only own two impression plates which had never been used, and that my embossing mats were still in their original packaging. So this was a great opportunity for me to get them out and give them a try. To see all of the great entries for this challenge, click HERE.

I've had congratulations on the brain lately because our school kids in Texas just finished their standardized testing last week, and they did great! So the Book Print impression plate plus a star die seemed like they would fit the bill for a congrats card. The tiny stamp in each corner of the star was done by inking just a little bit of one of the stamps in the Guide Lines 2 set. This is a really fun technique and I know that I'll be using it again. Right now, I'm off to shop for more impression plates!

Details (all Papertrey Ink unless noted): stamps - Signature Greetings, Guide Lines 2; paper - Basic Black, Blueberry Sky; ink - Memento Tuxedo Black (Tsukineko); accessories - Book Print impression plate, Seeing Stars dies, black rhinestones (source unknown), embossing pad kit

Papertrey Make It Monday - draw a frame

2011-04-30T14:13:00.001-05:00

This week's challenge for Papertrey Ink's Make It Monday was to draw a line frame on your card. I have been loving all of the great work that everyone has been doing for this challenge. To see the whole list, click HERE.

I'm so excited about this card! I had a picture in my head, and I actually was able to make the card just the way I envisioned it. I have a bird feeder in my back yard, and I love to watch the birds come to eat and play. My favorites are the cardinals. We have several pairs that visit regularly. So for my card, I had to have cardinals. The male is all red, and the female is mostly brown, with just a hint of red peeking through. For my female bird, I swiped under her wing with a red Copic marker, then colored over it and the rest of her with my light brown Copic. Sorry, but I didn't write down what colors I used on this card.

For my frame, I used a piece of cardstock measuring 5 inches by 3 3/4 inches. To make room for my sentiment below and the bird above, I left 1/2 inch margins at the top and bottom, but only 1/4 inch margins on the left and right. I also had to mask with a Post-It note on the right side when I stamped the branch, because it was slightly longer than I needed for my scene. Everything else is pretty straightforward.

Details (all Papertrey Ink unless noted): stamps - Little Bitty Bird, Bird Watching, Think Big Favorites 3; paper - Rustic White, Kraft, Pure Poppy; accessories - Copic markers, Copic multiliner marker

Papertrey Ink Blog Hop - Masculine cards

2011-04-25T21:54:00.005-05:00

This month's Papertrey Ink Blog Hop theme is masculine cards. What great timing - I was running super low on guy birthday cards. Nothing like the last minute either. I think I'll barely have time to post before the deadline.

I couldn't decide if the car should be orange or blue, and I also couldn't choose between the two mat stack dies, so I made one of each. I finally got decent photos of these cards, on the third try! Kraft is kind of vexing to me at times, or at least to my camera. I went back to my older camera, because I had been suspecting that it took better card photos. Boy, was that the truth!

Details (all Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted): stamps - Enjoy the Ride; paper - Rustic White, Kraft, Terracotta Tile, Ocean Tides, Pyrus (Basic Grey); ink - Chai Tea Dye, Memento Tuxedo Black (Tsukeninko); dies - Enjoy the Ride, Mat Stack 1, Mat Stack 3, Double Ended Banner; accessories - Gelly Roll glitter pen (Sakura), dimensionals

To see lots more masculine card inspiration, head over to the blog hop list on Nichole Heady's blog.

Butterfly sympathy

2011-04-09T19:11:00.001-05:00

Sympathy cards are no fun to make at the last minute. I always prefer to have a supply on hand so that I can take my time and not feel rushed. I want them to be special. Here's one that I especially enjoyed making, and love the way it turned out.

The edges of the sheet music panel were sponged with the tea dye ink, which is also what I used to stamp the music. I also used it to stamp one of the images from Butterfly Dreams onto the die cut butterflies, which were cut from Basic Grey's Indian Summer paper.

Details - stamps: Background Basics: Sheet Music (Papertrey Ink), Butterfly Dreams (Papertrey Ink), Brighter Tomorrow (Stampin' Up retired); ink: Ruby Red (Stampin' Up), Chamomile Vintage Touch tea dye ink (Papertrey Ink); paper: Vintage Cream (Papertrey Ink), Ruby Red (Stampin' Up), Indian Summer (Basic Grey); accessories: Butterfly die (Papertrey Ink)

Modern masculine birthday

2011-04-07T16:10:00.001-05:00

I have a new favorite stamp set. That's saying a LOT, considering the hundreds that I have accumulated. Maile Belles is one of the designers for Papertrey Ink, and her brand new set, Modern Basics, had me squealing the moment I saw it. I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. And I was right - it's just exactly my kind of stamp set. It has tons of geometric elements, all perfectly proportioned for building wonderful patterns. Here is my favorite card that I've made with it so far:

Details: stamps - Modern Basics, Enjoy the Ride; paper - Buckaroo Blue (Stampin' Up retired), Fine Linen (PTI); ink - Buckaroo Blue (SU retired), Sahara Sand (SU), accessories - blue rhinestone

Papertrey Make It Mondays Challenge

2011-02-10T21:10:00.000-06:00

Okay, so it isn't Monday any more. But I finally got something made for this week's Make It Mondays challenge! This week's challenge was to make a "Go To Sentiments" card, using sentiments to form a background or design element on the card. While playing around with a bunch of love and valentine stamps, I noticed that I could stack them up by length. A little more playing revealed that they would make a pretty neat heart shape!

I really shouldn't be trusted with red ink. I would be embarrassed to tell you just how much cardstock I ruined with smudges and other little boo-boos. There's just not much room for error here. But I love the results! This will be DH's valentine.

Details (all Papertrey Ink): stamps - Mega Mixed Messages, Men of Life, Simple Little Things, Heart Prints, Limitless Labels, ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, PTI Pure Poppy; paper - Stampers Select White

Papertrey Ink Blog Hop

2011-01-25T18:12:00.001-06:00

It's time for the Papertrey Blog Hop! I haven't been able to participate for awhile, so I'm very happy to be here with a card this month.

Our assignment for this blog hop was to dust off some stamps that we haven't used, or that have been neglected for awhile. I chose Autumn Abundance, which has never seen ink until today. For my sentiment, I chose one from Scattered Showers, also unused thus far. Also seeing their first use are the Distressed Dots paper and the new Limitless Layers 2 1/2 inch circle collection. My card base is Papertrey kraft, and the flower image is on Papertrey's Stampers Select White. The blue is Stampin' Up!'s retired Ballet Blue. I cut the XL rick rack from Papertrey's Dark Chocolate.

New die storage!

2010-11-02T22:13:00.001-05:00

I'm doing a happy dance right now, because my storage for all of those fabulous thin metal dies has been improved greatly - lighter, more compact, and super economical.

Many of you have probably seen Dawn McVey's recent post where she showed how she made super cute little pockets to hold her dies. She used cardstock with acetate sewn on the front to make pockets. It's fantastic! I wanted to do something like it, but I'm lazy and didn't want to drag out the sewing machine. I got to thinking about it, and realized that clear envelopes offer a terrific cost- and time-effective solution.

Check it out! Each die or set of dies has its own little pouch. Each one contains a quarter sheet of cardstock (5 1/2 by 4 1/4 inches) - no cardstock waste! The pouches are made from plain clear envelopes (no sewing!), which I cut to 5 3/8 inches tall. I made them just a little bit shorter than the cardstock insert because it's easier to get hold of the cardstock to pull it out if you need to. On each insert, I wrote the name of the die(s) in the upper left corner, and the name of the company in the upper right. Quick, easy, and cheap!

Here's another cool thing. On the back of each insert, I traced around each die that's contained in that pouch. This should make it easier to help stray dies find their way back home.

I can hear you asking now - what about my Nestabilities? They fit just fine! You can see my solution for dies that are too tall for the pouch. They simply stick out the top. On the back, when I traced the dies, I used a dotted line near the edge to show that a die continued past the page.

Since these pouches are made from a standard envelope, you can store them easily in any container that you'd use for finished cards. The only things not included in the basket you see below are my impression plates, the calendar page die, and the two Favor It box dies. I'm sure they'll go in something similar, but it will need to be a little bit larger.

This basket contains 23 pouches of Papertrey Ink dies, 22 pouches of Nestabilities, and one other. And the whole stack is less than 4 inches thick!

I have a couple of hints if you decide to do this. The clear envelopes with the adhesive on the flap rather than on the envelope body were preferable to me. That way, the adhesive gets eliminated when you cut. I cut the envelopes on my Tonic guillotine cutter. I found them a lot easier to cut if I did two at a time. And I had to really hold the blade in close to the body of the cutter to keep the slippery little buggers from avoiding being cut.

Thanks to Dawn for the inspiration. This would never have occurred to me if not for your post!

Stamp surgery

2010-09-13T21:59:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite things to do is to take Stampin' Up! wheels and turn them into separate stamps, especially when there is a wheel with lots of great sentiments on it. I have the Friendly Words jumbo wheel cut up into separate stamps, and I adore it. I use it all the time.

Here's another one. The new Jolly Jingles jumbo wheel just arrived at my house today, and it was destined to be cut up from the very start. You can see above what I had when I started the process. And here's what I got after I was finished, and all for the amazing price of $8.50! Eighteen holiday stamps! This wheel did require a lot more careful cutting than some I've done in the past. There were at least twenty different spots that were tight enough that I had to use a craft knife instead of scissors to get in between the words. But I love this set and can't wait to use it.

Thanks to Nichole!

2010-08-30T18:03:00.000-05:00

Thanks so much for visiting! We're having a surprise Thank You Blog Hop for Nichole Heady tonight. She is one of the owners of Papertrey Ink, the company that gets the biggest share of my crafting dollars. I'm always amazed at the wonderful new products that Papertrey introduces each month, and am not embarrassed to say that I own a very large percentage of their products. The stamps are unique and beautiful, and the accessories, from ribbon to cutting dies to buttons and more, are all first rate as well. So to Nichole, I offer a huge THANK YOU for all that you've done to make my crafting time the great joy that it is today.

Details (all products by Papertrey Ink unless noted): stamps - All About You, All About You Additions, Flutterby Friend; paper - Scarlet Jewel, Kraft, Stampers Select Cream; ink - Tuxedo Black (Memento); accessories - Hawaiian Shores felt, Rick Rack die, markers (Copic) in shades to match PTI's Aqua Mist, Scarlet Jewel, Summer Sunrise, and New Leaf

One-Layer Wednesday 7 - Repetition

2010-06-06T22:46:00.003-05:00

This week's challenge for Susan Raihala's One-Layer Wednesday is repetition. I decided to use some of the alphabet sets that I seem to collect. For a non-scrapbooker, I sure do have a lot of alphabet stamps. I tried to count them today, and found that I have at least 30 sets. There are probably a few more that I missed somehow, too.

I saw a pillow at Pottery Barn Teen that provided the inspiration for these cards.

Details (all Papertrey Ink): stamps - Fresh Alphabet; paper - stampers select white; ink - plum pudding, enchanted evening, new leaf, summer sunrise, orange zest, pure poppy

Details (all Papertrey Ink): stamps - Trajan Monogram Alphabet ; paper - stampers select white; ink - plum pudding, enchanted evening, new leaf, summer sunrise, orange zest, pure poppy

I prefer the font of the Fresh Alphabet in the first card, but I like the size of the block of text better with the Trajan Monogram Alphabet in the second card. Thanks to Susan for yet another fun challenge!

Oh, and the secret to getting everything straight and even? I used Post-It notes to mask off the lower right corner - one sheet 1/2 inch from the bottom edge from the card, and one sheet 1/2 inch from the right hand edge. Then stamp starting in the lower right hand corner and working up on the diagonal.

One-Layer Wednesday 6 - Overlapping

2010-05-29T22:14:00.004-05:00

I've mentioned Susan Raihala's blog here before. It's definitely one of my favorites. She has new content virtually every day, and her style is fabulously clean and simple, just what I aspire to creating. Susan has a One-Layer Wednesday challenge each week, and though I always mean to participate, this is the first week that I've managed to do so. This week's challenge is to create a card with the sentiment overlapping the main image, which is something that I love to do.

I had it in my head to make a card with a butterfly. So off I went to my stamping index book to look at the butterfly pages. And I couldn't f or the life of me decide on just one butterfly. So I decided to make a set of different butterfly cards. These four butterflies were my favorites for this technique.

Details:

Card 1 (In dreams and in love...): stamps - Butterfly of Happiness (Stampin' Up!), Heart Print Sentiments (Papertrey Ink); ink - Hawaiian Shores (PTI), Memento Tuxedo Black; paper - Stampers Select White (PTI)

Card 2 (You're Amazing): stamps - Butterfly Dreams (PTI), Thankful Blossoms (Verve); ink - Spring Rain (PTI), Memento Tuxedo Black; paper - Stampers Select White (PTI)

Card 3 (Thank You): stamps - Wonderful Wings (Stampin' Up!), Giga Guide Lines (Papertrey Ink); ink - Aqua Mist (PTI), Memento Tuxedo Black; paper - Stampers Select White (PTI)

Card 4 (Know in your heart...): stamps - Pop Fashion (Pink Paislee), Heart Print Sentiments (Papertrey Ink); ink - Simply Chartreuse (PTI), Memento Tuxedo Black; paper - Stampers Select White (PTI)

Papertrey May Blog Hop Challenge

2010-05-25T17:15:00.011-05:00

I thought for sure that I wouldn't be able to participate in this month's blog hop. Our internet was down at home for the past couple of days due to a dead router, and my last-minute self had nothing prepared. But we're back online, and I'm ready to play!

This month's challenge was to use felt in our projects. Papertrey Ink has been coming out with felt in their beautiful Perfect Match colors lately, and they have also given us some great new dies that cut the felt perfectly. So I asked my almost-ten-year-old daughter to find some hair accessories that could use some pizazz, and here's what we came up with.

We cut a variety of flowers and butterflies using Papertrey Ink felt and dies, and then went searching through my supplies for the appropriate accents. I offered up a huge variety of Papertrey Ink buttons, but in the end, my daughter fell in love with some Basic Grey glazed brads that I had. So we used those instead. The butterfly barrette has a bit of Orange Zest swiss dot satin ribbon. I used my limited hand-stitching skills to put it all together (I've even photographed the back of the headband to show that perfection is not necessary!) We had a great time making these fun hair accessories, and now my daughter is eagerly awaiting more colors of felt.

Be sure to stop by Nichole's blog to see all of the other projects for the blog hop!

Papertrey Chicks challenge #1

2010-05-05T20:04:00.004-05:00

Here's my card for the first ever Papertrey Chicks challenge. We'll be having a new challenge every Monday, so please come and join us! I was the lucky chick who got to pick the first challenge. I love these colors together, but definitely was challenged when it came to trying to use them all on a single card!

Details: stamps - Guidelines 2, Giga Guidlines, Background Basics: Stars, Women of Life; paper - Soft Stone, Pure Poppy, Orange Zest, Spring Moss, Hawaiian Shores; ink - Hawaiian Shores; accessories - circle punches (1 3/4", 1 1/8", 3/4", 1/2"), dimensionals

PTI April Blog Hop - tissue paper

2010-04-25T15:50:00.004-05:00

Thanks for visiting me for this month's Papertrey Ink Blog Hop. This month's challenge was to use tissue paper in a project. I chose to use the faux silk technique. I crumpled up my tissue paper and then smoothed it out to stamp on. After stamping, I glued it down to my white cardstock and proceeded to make my card.

Details (all Papertrey Ink unless noted): stamps - A Little Argyle, Masculine Motifs; ink - Hawaiian Shores, New Leaf, Dark Chocolate; paper - stampers select white, Hawaiian Shores, Dark Chocolate; accessories - tissue paper, Top Note die (Sizzix for Stampin' Up!), corner rounder punch (SU!), rustic jute button twine (colored with E40 Copic marker), Hawaiian Shores buttons, dimensionals

Hearts speak

2010-04-24T17:42:00.004-05:00

This card is a bit outside my normal comfort zone, but I love the way it turned out. This is based on yet another sketch in Go To Sketches, this one on page 83. I was digging though a bunch of patterned paper and came across this great argyle paper, which was exactly what the sketch seemed to want. All of the paper is from the All Fall collection by Fancy Pants. I cut the flowers with the Beautiful Blooms II #1 dies, then stacked them up and put it all together with a rustic wood button tied with rustic jute button twine. The sentiment is from the Friendly Words jumbo wheel from Stampin' Up! Mine is cut up into separate sentiments and mounted on EZ Mount.

Details: stamps - Friendly Words jumbo Wheel (Stampin' Up!); paper - All Fall collection (Fancy Pants); ink - dark chocolate (Papertrey Ink); accessories (all Papertrey Ink) - dark chocolate satin ribbon, Beautiful Blooms II #1 dies, rustic wood buttons, rustic jute button twine

You make my heart sing

2010-04-23T21:23:00.002-05:00

Oh, I had so much fun making this card! This is another sketch from Go To Sketches (page 28). I got to use some of my favorite PTI patterned paper of all time, as well as the new anniversary set, Round & Round. And bling! Lots and lots of bling - 15 little rhinestones in all.

Details (all Papertrey Ink unless noted): stamps - Round & Round, Bird Watching; paper - stampers select white, Green Tea Leaves, spring moss; ink - pure poppy; accessories - 1 3/4" circle punch, circle Nestabilities (Spellbinders)

A very bright dotty card

2010-04-16T22:05:00.003-05:00

Did you get your copy of Go To Sketches yet? No??? Run right out and get it now! There are some really fun things in there to shake you out of your crafting rut. This card was made using one of the sketches in there. I have a zillion sheets of fun patterned paper, so my only real dilemma here was deciding which paper to use. The circles were cut using a 1-inch circle punch. I love the silly little bird!

Details: stamps - Shapes By Design (Papertrey Ink); paper - stampers select white (PTI), Lime Rickey (Basic Grey); ink - Memento Tuxedo Black; accessories - 1" circle punch

PTI March Blog Hop - Button flowers

2010-03-25T16:54:00.003-05:00

Thanks for visiting to see my blog hop creation for this month. Our challenge this month is to create something using buttons. No fancy tricks on this card. I was pleased to discover that this flower from the Beautiful Blooms set fits almost perfectly three across on a card front. I'm going to need to play around a bit more with this concept.

Details (all Papertrey Ink): stamps - Beautiful Blooms, Vintage Picnic Sentiments; paper - stampers select white; ink - Raspberry Fizz, Plum Pudding, Hawaiian Shores, Memento Tuxedo Black; accessories - buttons in Raspberry Fizz, Plum Pudding, Hawaiian Shores, glue dots

Springtime is for butterflies

2010-03-19T19:26:00.005-05:00

How about some spring cards? I opened up my Papertrey Ink butterfly and rick rack dies today and made a couple of quick cards. I cut a bunch of butterflies from Basic Grey's Urban Prairie paper (love it to pieces!), glued down just their centers to my card base, then blinged them up with some rhinestones colored with my B04 Copic marker. The new rick rack die is amazing! Check out that cool border - it only takes about a second to make. And the color is Papertrey's new Hawaiian Shores. Such a fabulous blue. The green paper at the bottom of the card is one of the sheets from the Urban Prairie pack.

A few of the butterflies have their patterns very carefully placed. If you want to cut from a specific spot in your patterned paper, just put a tiny bit of scotch tape across the edge of the die to hold it in place while you run it through your die cutter.

These cards were inspired by Lisa's great card here, which was in turn inspired by Heather Nichols.

Details (all Papertrey Ink unless noted): paper - Rustic White, Hawaiian Shores, Urban Prairie (Basic Grey); accessories - butterfly and rick rack dies, rhinestones (Kaisercraft), Copic marker

A musical clean and simple card set

2010-03-17T20:41:00.006-05:00

I have a stamping idol. Her name is Susan Raihala. Susan is the queen of clean and simple stamping. You can visit her blog, Simplicity by Lateblossom, if you'd like to see for yourself. Get a beverage first - you're going to be there awhile. But do come on back here to see my latest project inspired by Susan.

I've had these great music stamps for awhile, planning to make something for my daughter's music teacher. Teachers go through many thank you cards, so I made a special musical set for Mrs. Elliott. These are 4x4 cards. I made 20 of them, two different designs, five colors, two of each color in each design. Quick and easy and so very cute.

I don't use my stamp-a-ma-jig very much now that all of my stamps are unmounted, but it was necessary for these cards. Not much leeway for crooked sentiments on such unadorned cards! It was worth the effort, though.

I packaged the cards and envelopes in a cellophane bag with a simple topper. I liked the treble clefs in a row on my scrap that I used to choose the ink colors, so I replicated it for the topper. Easy peasy. I should have gone ahead and used the stamp-a-ma-jig here, too. It bugs me a little bit that the treble clefs aren't perfectly in line, but I'm going to let that slide.

Details (all Papertrey Ink unless noted): stamps - treble clef and eighth note by Stampabilities, thank you sentiments from Stampin' Up!'s Thank You Kindly set, handmade sentiment from Papertrey Ink's Spiral Bouquet set; paper - stamper's select white, spring moss, spring rain; ink - spring rain, spring moss, raspberry fizz, aqua mist, orange zest, Memento tuxedo black; accessories - stamp-a-ma-jig, cellophane bag, 4x4 envelopes

Button organization

2010-02-10T10:00:00.003-06:00

Time for more organizing. Isn't that always the way it is with craft supplies? We all seem to love sorting and organizing. My buttons from Papertrey Ink are multiplying rapidly. The come in so many luscious colors. I store each color in a jelly jar (Polaner All Fruit). My problem was that I hadn't labeled the jars as I purchased the buttons, and it was becoming difficult to tell them apart, especially the large number of pink and red ones.

My nine year old daughter helped me get all of my jars labeled the other day. We punched a circle of the appropriate color of cardstock, and then used my Karen Foster snap stamps to stamp the color names. Perfect!

Papertrey color challenge - Dawn's colors

2010-02-09T20:17:00.004-06:00

I'm back with some more contest entries for Papertrey Ink's big third anniversary celebration. Today's challenge was to make cards using the favorite color combinations of Papertrey's design team members. There are twelve choices. We are to make cards using as many of the different combinations as we like, with each one giving another entry into today's contest. If you'd like to enter the contest, the details are on Nichole's blog - her post is a long one - scroll down to find the contest info.

Details (all Papertrey Ink unless noted): stamps - Everyday Button Bits, Signature Greetings; ink - Dark Chocolate; paper - stamper's select white; accessories - buttons in raspberry fizz, hibiscus burst, summer sunrise

Papertrey color challenge - Lisa's colors

2010-02-09T20:11:00.004-06:00

I'm back with some more contest entries for Papertrey Ink's big third anniversary celebration. Today's challenge was to make cards using the favorite color combinations of Papertrey's design team members. There are twelve choices. We are to make cards using as many of the different combinations as we like, with each one giving another entry into today's contest. If you'd like to enter the contest, the details are on Nichole's blog - her post is a long one - scroll down to find the contest info.

I ended up using a design straight from Dawn McVey's blog, changing some of the stamps and the colors. Check out her gorgeous original card.

Details (all Papertrey Ink unless noted): stamps - Background Basics: Petal Power, Fancy Flourish, Star Prints; ink - Spring Moss, Memento Tuxedo Black; paper - kraft, spring moss, vintage cream; accessories - spring moss satin ribbon, border punch (Stampin' Up!), Kaiser rhinestones

Papertrey color challenge - Niki's colors

2010-02-09T20:03:00.004-06:00

I'm back with some more contest entries for Papertrey Ink's big third anniversary celebration. Today's challenge was to make cards using the favorite color combinations of Papertrey's design team members. There are twelve choices. We are to make cards using as many of the different combinations as we like, with each one giving another entry into today's contest. If you'd like to enter the contest, the details are on Nichole's blog - her post is a long one - scroll down to find the contest info.

Details (all Papertrey Ink unless noted): stamps - With Sympathy, Friends 'Til the End; ink - New Leaf, Raspberry Fizz; paper - kraft, raspberry fizz, vintage cream

Papertrey color challenge - Maile's colors

2010-02-09T19:53:00.003-06:00

I'm back with some more contest entries for Papertrey Ink's big third anniversary celebration. Today's challenge was to make cards using the favorite color combinations of Papertrey's design team members. There are twelve choices. We are to make cards using as many of the different combinations as we like, with each one giving another entry into today's contest. If you'd like to enter the contest, the details are on Nichole's blog - her post is a long one - scroll down to find the contest info.

Details (all Papertrey Ink unless noted): stamps - Giga Guide Lines, Guide Lines II, Beautiful Blooms (tiny flower), Around & About Sentiments (tiny dot), Say It With Style; ink - Dark Chocolate, Enchanted Evening, Raspberry Fizz; paper - kraft, enchanted evening

Hot birthday wishes

2010-02-02T22:41:00.006-06:00

This is my second post tonight, so be sure to scroll down for another card. This is another entry into the birthday contest at Papertrey Ink. See my earlier post for more details.

This card was created using Melissa Bickford's birthday wishes sentiment. I chose the colors to match the wild pink and orange bull's eye patterned paper, which is from Basic Grey's Lime Rickey collection.

Here are the Copic markers I used to color the image.

Details: digital images - birthday wishes by Melissa Bickford; paper - Lime Rickey (Basic Grey), Orange Zest (PTI), stampers select white (PTI); markers - Copic

Bright cheerful birthday house

2010-02-02T22:17:00.003-06:00

Tonight's stamping was fun and different for me. I am working on some challenge cards for entry into a contest. Papertrey Ink, one of my favorite stamp companies, is having its third birthday this month, and for the next several days is giving away all kinds of goodies. Check out Nichole Heady's blog if you'd like to play along. Each of Nichole's stamp designers gave us a free downloadable image to play with. We're to make a card with any or all of them, with each card granting another chance to win a bunch of free stamps.

This card was created using Becky Oehlers' sweet balloon house image. I chose the colors to match the bright dotted print, which is from Basic Grey's Lime Rickey collection.

Here are the Copic markers I used to color the image.

Details: stamps - Shapes by Design (PTI); digital images - birthday balloon by Becky Oehlers; paper - Lime Rickey (Basic Grey), Summer Sun, Riding Hood Red (Stampin' Up!), stampers select white (PTI); markers - Copic

Big Stamp Sale! - prices lowered

2010-01-05T20:50:00.027-06:00

Like many people, I'm trying to clean up my craft space to make more room, so I'm offering a huge number of stamp sets for sale. Unless otherwise noted, these sets are used. Some may have some staining of the rubber or wood. They're all in great shape, though, and no stamps are missing. If you'd like to make a purchase, please email me - chrissimon (at) verizon (dot) net. I'll use flat-rate Priority mail to send your items to your U.S. address - I'll pay the postage for you if you buy $40 or more. I prefer Paypal for payment.

I've included links to the Splitcoast galleries for many of the sets listed, and a photograph of the sets if it seemed like it would help.

There are several sets from other companies down below the Stampin' Up! sets, so scroll on down and check them out too.

Stampin' Up! sets mounted on wood blocks

$5 All I Have Seen
$5 Best Blossoms
$8 Both Way Blossoms
$5 Fun Filled
$5 Good Things Grow
$5 Shapes & Shadows
$5 Simple Sketches
$5 Simply Circles
$8 Groovy Lines background
$8 Fine Lace background
$8 Victorian Lace background
$8 Holiday Print background

Stampin' Up! sets - brand new, never mounted

$8 Fancy Foliage

Stampin' Up! sets mounted on EZ Mount foam for use with acrylic blocks, stored in CD cases

$5 A to Z Accents
$10 Amazing to Zany - in two CD cases, with lists of the words on the outside for easy reference

$5 Around & About
$5 Darling Dots
$5 Delight in Life
$8 Doodle This
$8 Double-Line Doodles
$10 Everyday Flexible Phrases - in two CD cases, with lists of the words on the outside for easy reference

$5 Friendly Flowers
$5 Happy Harmony
$5 In the Spotlight
$5 A Little Bit of Happiness
$8 Love It
$5 Never Ending Joy
$8 Oh So Lovely
$5 Polka Dots & Petals
$5 Reason to Smile
$5 Say It With Scallops
$5 Take Three
$8 Unfrogettable
$8 Wonderful Words II

Kitchen Sink - clear stamp sets

$10 Playful Christmas
$10 Snow Flurry (retired)

Lizzie Anne Designs - rubber on cling foam

$5 So Swirly

The Stamp Man (UK) - red rubber on EZ mount

$10 Swirly Flutters 'n' Florals - this is a huge set, in three CD cases

Sassafras Lass - clear stamps

$5 Stunning Spirals

Purple Onion Designs - red rubber on EZ Mount

$8 Great Circus Alphabet

Teacher holiday gifts

2009-12-16T21:36:00.005-06:00

It's that time of year again - when crafters everywhere try to figure out a way to make something beautiful and memorable to give to their kids' teachers. I love to give bookstore gift cards, as I've never met a teacher who doesn't love books. But I'm always looking for a clever way to package them. I also love to bake, so this year I decided to combine a home-baked treat with a gift card holder. Here's the outside:

And here's what's inside:

The flat part of the staples are covered on the front by the strip of red paper, but the bent ends are exposed on the back. I left them showing on the back so that the teachers could open them with a staple remover and not destroy the topper if they so desired. The gift card is held in very simply by a couple of punches with my slit punch. Two little half moons of the gift card also show on the back of the topper, which will hopefully give the recipients a clue that they should go ahead and open the package! Rather than use up precious buttons for the gingerbread boys, I used a little circle stamp instead.

The cookies are gingersnaps, made from Nichole's gingersnap recipe, which is completely fitting, since Nichole is one of the owners of Papertrey Ink, which sells nearly all of the supplies that I used to make these little gifts.

Details (all PTI unless otherwise noted): stamps - Holiday Button Bits, Polka Dot Basics; paper - Vintage Cream, Bitty Box Basics; ink - Pure Poppy, Close to Cocoa (Stampin' Up!); accessories - Top Note die (Sizzix for SU!), slit punch (SU!)

Birthday card for hubby

2009-08-06T14:51:00.002-05:00

Today is hubby's birthday, and it just wouldn't be acceptable to get a store-bought card, or worse, no card at all, right? So here's what I made for him. I took my inspiration from this fabulous card by Becky Oehlers.

Details: stamps - Birthday Basics (Papertrey Ink); paper - Ruby Red (Stampin' Up!), Boxer (Basic Grey), Vintage Cream (PTI); ink - Night of Navy (SU!); accessories - Nestabilities stars (Spellbinders), rustic wood buttons (PTI), rustic twine (PTI)

Fathers Day card, and another "stamping" friend

2009-07-04T16:34:00.007-05:00

I'm a little late getting around to showing you this, but here's my Father's Day card that I sent to my dad. I wanted to make some background paper using the compass rose image from Father Knows Best. The Guidelines 2 paper made it very easy to do. I looked through a lot of Papertrey Ink sets to find images to use - the compass rose and the small brown concentric circles are from Father Knows Best; the large green medallion is from Simple Little Things (2008 anniversary set); and the green bars are from Simply Stationery.

Details (all Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted): stamps - Father Knows Best, Simple Little Things, Simply Stationery; paper - Guidelines 2, Ripe Avocado, Dark Chocolate; ink - Ripe Avocado, Dark Chocolate; accessories - dark chocolate twill ribbon, key tag punch and horizontal slot punch (Stampin' Up!)

Remember I mentioned in my last post that my daughters were members in my craft room? Here's another member. This is Tom:

Tom is a two year old parakeet who lives in my craft room. Tom thinks he should be allowed to play with my craft things. What do you think?

I have no idea what's so fascinating about these monster paper punches, but Tom will play with them for hours. He noses around them for a long time, then tries to get on top of them. But they're smooth and he can't get a good foothold, so he slides off and flies away, only to come right back and try again.

If he'd fall in love with a tool that was more his size, he might be a useful contributor!

I have new stamping partners!

2009-06-11T08:41:00.002-05:00

A very happy milestone has been reached in our house. My daughters are now full "members" in my craft room. They've both proven that they're able to take good care of all of the toys in there, so I've given them permission to make things pretty much whenever they like. It's interesting to see what they choose to use. Juliette, 11, is drawn toward coloring on stamps with markers to achieve multi-colored looks. Katrina, 9, has been practicing with Copic markers. Both of them love the Elzybells girls and the Chichiboulies from Stamping Bella.

Here is a poster that Katrina made. I love her Copic coloring. I haven't given her any instruction at all. She's learned by watching and by doing.

I bow to Bakerella!

2009-06-07T22:45:00.007-05:00

So, if you're not a food blogger, do your baking adventures belong on your stamping blog or on your crochet blog? Hmm. I say they go here. I've been a regular reader of Bakerella's blog for some time now. I love to bake, but have never had the guts to try to make her super-adorable creations before. Today seemed like the day. So I rounded up my nine-year-old daughter, and we went to work. We were using the Cupcake Bites Made Easy recipe.

We certainly have a lot of practice to do before we can make things as gorgeous as Bakerella makes, but we had a great time!

Lots of fun supplies were gathered.

We got messy rolling up balls of cake.

We filled our candy mold with candy melts and sunk the cake balls into the candy.

We dunked the tops of the cake balls into a second color of candy melts and topped them with sprinkles.

This recipe makes a lot of cupcake bites!

This is the most beautiful of the cupcake bites that I could find to photograph.

Fun stamping day with nearly 50 of my online buddies!

2009-06-01T08:59:00.008-05:00

Last Saturday was the annual North Texas Stamping Day. We have a big shoebox swap every spring. Each person creates a stamping project and brings all of the supplies prepared for each person to make their project. We spend the day moving from one project to the next, creating beautiful things without the pressure of having to design them all ourselves. It's a great way to get new ideas. And of course it's also just a ton of fun to meet so many people who share a common interest.

This is my project for the swap. I borrowed the design from Joan Bardee. Check out her beautiful card here.

Details: stamps - Friends Til the End (PTI), Friendly Words jumbo wheel (SU - my wheel is cut up into separate stamps); paper - Gina K pure luxury 120 lb. ivory, true black (PTI); ink - pure poppy, true black (PTI); accessories - scallop edge punch, black button (PTI), hemp twine

This was the door prize that I donated. It holds two stamp sets. I don't have a template for this - it was a last minute kind of thing. I based it on designs that I've seen that are meant to hold cards in the two side boxes/pouches. I measured my stamp set boxes and sized the pieces accordingly.

Details: stamps - Beautiful Blooms, Friends Til the End (PTI); paper - lemon tart, spring moss, stampers select white, green tea leaves (PTI); ink - pure poppy, spring moss, true black (PTI); accessories - oval and scallop oval mega punches, spring moss grosgrain ribbon, jumbo eyelets, scor-tape

Some spring gifts

2009-05-15T10:53:00.011-05:00

Here are some fun things I've made this month. I borrowed Dawn McVey's fabulous design for these Mothers Day cards. I used the same papers for both cards, but reversed the colors, which was a great way to get the most use out of the 8x8 papers.

Details: stamps - Mother (Papertrey Ink); paper - All Fall (Fancy Pants); ink - dark chocolate (PTI); accessories - scallop edge punch (Stampin' Up!), Beautiful Butterflies die (Sizzix for SU!), new leaf buttons (PTI)

And here are some little gifts that I made for Teacher Appreciation Week at the girls' school. The sweet little box is from one of Lauren Meader's My Timeless Templates from Papertrey Ink. This template is called Rounded Wrap Up. Super quick and super cute! Inside is a handful of chocolates and several of the little iced tea packets that are meant to be shaken up in your water bottle.

Details: stamps - Seeing Stars (Verve Stamps), Thankful Blossoms (Verve Stamps); paper - kraft, pure poppy, ripe avocado, plum pudding, stampers select white, bitty dots basics (PTI); ink - true black, pure poppy, ripe avocado, plum pudding (PTI); accessories - Nestabilities ovals (Spellbinders), word window punch (SU), ribbon (PTI)

Fun with markers

2009-05-02T15:25:00.003-05:00

I've been practicing more with my Copic coloring. I have thousands of stamps, but not a lot of them are "coloring" images (yet). Here are some sweet little chicks from Elzybells. I was mainly trying to concentrate on where the sun was shining on them (I hope it's obvious that my sun is in the top left corner). I really like how the shading came out on the pink/purple egg and on the chicks. I still need more practice, but I'm very happy with the things we're learning in Colleen's class.

I am amazed at how many markers you can use to get a nicely shaded picture. I used 26 different Copics for this image. I even took a picture. Enjoy, because it's unlikely that I'll be organized enough to show them regularly!

Coloring for grownups

2009-04-20T22:13:00.003-05:00

I'm taking an online class on coloring. No, really. There are these cool markers called Copics, and you can do lots of great things with them, but there is a learning curve. In an effort to move up the curve a little faster, I signed up for a class taught by Colleen Schaan. So far it's a lot of fun. We have homework and things to practice, plus a place to post our samples and discuss what we're learning. Here's a little sample of what I've been doing today.

I realized after I uploaded this photo that I wrote down the wrong colors on the top butterfly. It should be "YR" instead of "Y" on all three colors for that one.

I'm looking forward to seeing what other new tricks Colleen will be teaching us.

Hubby's (accidental) color challenge

2009-04-05T15:34:00.004-05:00

Conversation in our car while driving yesterday:

DD age 8: I want to get a new Frisbee. I need a teal one because pink might not always be my favorite color.

Me: Maybe you need one of every color in the world, just in case your new favorite color isn't teal.

DH: (rolls eyes)

Me: Oh, yeah, I'm the one who needs things in every single color. Especially craft stuff.

DH: And yet, you don't use every single color in one project, do you?

Me: (thinking, "Hmm, he's got a point. I wonder if I could?")

So with that, my DH's color challenge was on. He was blissfully unaware of the challenge, so I was able to focus on how in the world I could get every color into one project. The result:

This will hang on the wall in my craft room. I love the way it turned out! I think this could be my mantra.

Details: Stamps - Fresh Alphabet (PTI) - the word "color" is stamped, the remainder was printed on the computer; paper - 91 different solid colors of cardstock (SU! and PTI); accessories - 6x12 picture frame, 1/2" circle punch

New toys from Papertrey!

2009-03-19T22:27:00.003-05:00

Wow, I think I have a new favorite stamp set! Papertrey Ink's new Guide Lines Two set is just fabulous. Nichole is such a great designer - she truly thinks of everything. This set has lots of interesting geometric pieces for building your own backgrounds. The design starts with a grid of lines and circles. Then you add the various medallion-type stamps, using the grid as a guide. All of the medallions have nice little features that make them easy to line up. I stamped a full sheet of this background, with color selection help from my eight-year-old daughter. I still have enough of it to make at least a few more cards. Very fun! I can't wait to make some more backgrounds in different colors and patterns.

Details: stamps - Guide Lines Two. Everyday Classics; paper - Hibiscus Burst, Spring Moss, Stampers Select White; ink - Hibiscus Burst, Plum Pudding, Summer Sunrise, Spring Moss; accessories - Plum Pudding satin ribbon

Details: stamps - Guide Lines Two. Heart Prints Sentiments; paper - Hibiscus Burst, Summer Sunrise, Stampers Select White; ink - Hibiscus Burst, Plum Pudding, Summer Sunrise, Spring Moss; accessories - Plum Pudding satin ribbon, Summer Sunrise swiss dot satin ribbon, Spring Moss grosgrain ribbon, Hibiscus Burst twill ribbon, Nestabilities classic circles

Wow, that's a lot of paper!

2009-02-17T19:04:00.004-06:00

I'm sure that most if not all papercrafters have the same problem - what to do with the tons (literally!) of paper we accumulate. My solution for 8.5 x 11 cardstock was a couple of Cropper Hopper totes on wheels. This was working okay when all I had was Stampin' Up! cardstock. But as Papertrey Ink introduced more and more yummy colors, my storage system began to fail me. And my 12 x 12 paper really needed a new place to be, as well. The Cropper Hopper totes can be used for 12 x 12, so I set out to find a new way to store my 8.5 x 11. I checked on Craigslist to see if there were any file cabinets available that would fit my needs. I was surprised and thrilled to discover that one of the thrift-type stores that I've driven by countless times is actually completely dedicated to donated office furniture, and their sales benefit a local children's hospital. I went to check it out and found row upon row of filing cabinets. Look what I got! A three drawer lateral cabinet, which holds way more paper than I currently have (one drawer is still empty). It's also the perfect height for my paper cutter and Big Shot.

Christmas in February?

2009-02-11T21:17:00.004-06:00

I was looking at the awesome card sketches provided by Nichole and her Papertrey Design Team this month. The ladies have come up with some beautiful designs using a new floral set that will be available beginning on February 15. Of course, I don't have it yet. But I wanted to make some cards using one of the sketches. They're super because in addition to the sketch, they include all of the cutting instructions and supply lists. What a timesaver!

While looking for a stamp to use instead of the flower I don't have (yet), I came upon the Snowflake Serenade set, and thought the snowflake would stand in nicely for the flower. So I made a few Christmas cards. Never too early to get started, right?

You can check out the sketch I used, and see how I modified it to use the supplies I had on hand. I didn't have the ribbon that Nichole used, but I had a different ribbon of the right color. I only had clear buttons, so I embossed a little snowflake on the button to keep it from blending in quite so much. I also used silver cord instead of twine, and decided not to do any sewing on my card.

Details: stamps - Snowflake Serenade, Holiday Treats (the tiny snowflake on the button), Holiday Wishes, Silent Night; paper - Vintage Cream, Ripe Avocado; ink - Vintage Cream, Ripe Avocado; accessories - slit punch, 1" circle punch, ripe avocado dotted satin ribbon, clear button, clear embossing powder, silver cord

A very dotty card

2009-02-07T12:56:00.005-06:00

So, today's contest for Papertrey Ink's anniversary celebration involved making a card to fit a sketch (design of the basic layout of the card). The prize is nearly $300 worth of ribbon, so I was determined to finish the challenge in time. I thought I was making a flower card. The various dots on the central panel of this card are all flower centers from the Floral Frenzy set. But for whatever reason, the dots took over, and I ended up with a polka dot card. Kinda fun!

Details (all PTI unless otherwise noted): stamps - Floral Frenzy; ink - Summer Sunrise, Spring Moss, So Saffron (SU!); paper - stampers select white, summer sunrise, spring moss, polka dot parade; accessories - 1/2" circle punch (SU!), 5/16" neutral brads (SU!)

Valentine treat bags

2009-02-06T23:56:00.003-06:00

These sweet treat bags were created for Papertrey Ink's anniversary contest. We were to create, alter, or decorate any type of bag. These will go to my two daughters. Of course, we have to be fair and make them very similar. But since the girls have very different likes and dislikes, it's easy to tell whose is whose. Katrina is all about pink and blingy things. So the bag on the left with its flowery hearts, eyelet border punched edge and yummy raspberry fizz colors is for her. Juliette is much more of a tomboy, so the red polka dots, less frilly border bag is for her. Filled with chocolate hearts, I think they'll be a hit.

Details (all PTI unless otherwise noted): stamps - Heart Prints, Around & About Sentiments; ink - raspberry fizz, pure poppy; paper - stampers select white, true black, raspberry fizz, pure poppy; accessories - eyelet border punch (SU!), scallop border punch (SU!), large heart punch, small white coffee bags

Same image, two very different cards

2009-01-29T22:14:00.003-06:00

Interesting stamping session tonight. I was playing with this gorgeous tree stamp from the new Stampin' Up! set Thoughts & Prayers. I inked it up with a big handful of SU! markers (chocolate chip plus several different greens) and stamped it a couple of times. I really liked the way it looked, so I started playing around to see what kind of cards they wanted to be. I ended up with two very different cards, one more masculine and one more feminine, using almost all of the same basic supplies. Very small changes, such as the mat color, knot versus bow, and font made a big difference in the overall feel of the cards. I think I like the masculine one best. What do you think?

Details: stamps - Thoughts & Prayers (Stampin' Up!), Birthday Basics (Papertrey Ink); paper - Aqua Mist (PTI), Figgy Pudding (Basic Grey); ink - dark chocolate (PTI), markers (SU!); accessories - ripe avocado twill ribbon (PTI), 5/16" neutral brads (SU!)

Details: stamps - Thoughts & Prayers (Stampin' Up!), Birthday Basics (Papertrey Ink); paper - Aqua Mist (PTI), Figgy Pudding (Basic Grey); ink - dark chocolate (PTI), aqua mist (PTI), markers (SU!); accessories - aqua mist twill ribbon (PTI), eyelet border punch (SU!)

Look ma, no red!

2009-01-13T23:27:00.002-06:00

Can you believe it? I finally made a card with no red paper or ink! I have been seeing photos of these Top Note die quilts for the past week or so, and decided to try it out for myself today. It's not difficult at all. Just cut a piece of scrap paper (I used regular computer paper) 3 3/4" by 5". Then punch twelve pieces of patterned paper with a 1 1/4" square punch - or you could cut them with your paper cutter. Glue the pieces down to the scrap, then run the resulting quilt through your die cutter with the Top Note die. It doesn't take long to do, and it's a real wow!

Details: stamps - Quilter's Sampler (Papertrey Ink); paper - barely banana (Stampin' Up!), vintage cream (Papertrey Ink), Urban Prairie (Basic Grey); ink - regal rose (Stampin' Up!); accessories - 1 1/4" square punch, horizontal slot punch (SU!), corner rounder punch (SU!), Top Note die (Sizzix for SU!), vintage brads (SU!), summer sunrise twill ribbon (PTI), dimensionals

What have you done with your life?

2009-01-13T11:35:00.004-06:00

Saw this on Shannan's blog this morning and thought I'd play along. All of the bolded lines are things that I've done in my life. Want to play too? Just copy the list to your blog and bold your experiences instead of mine. And link back so that I can see your list!

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Gotten flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee

Two little lovebirds sitting in a tree

2009-01-10T00:50:00.004-06:00

Well, no tree, but aren't these little birds adorable? When my order from The Cat's Pajamas arrived a couple of days ago, these birds in the Puppy Love set immediately caught my interest. I paper pieced the birds using two of the papers in the Basic Grey Eva 6x6 pad, which is also where I got the super-cool dotted paper at the bottom of the card.

Details: stamps -Puppy Love (The Cat's Pajamas), Mailbox Greetings (Papertrey Ink); paper - rose red, kiwi kiss (Stampin' Up!), vintage cream (Papertrey Ink), Eva (Basic Grey); ink - Memento Tuxedo Black (Tsukineko), Copic markers - R29 for the hearts and YR09 for the birds' beaks; accessories - 1 3/4" circle punch, scallop circle Nestabilities, kiwi/vanilla satin ribbon (Stampin' Up!)

Here's a fun use of some of my supplies that we came upon at our house recently. We have four identical mp3 players, one for each member of the family. We were looking for a way to distinguish them from one another. Enter my stash of rub-ons from Stampin' Up!

I got out a bunch of different packages of rub-ons and gave everyone their choice. We decorated the backs of our players and now they are all easy to tell apart! Here's mine:

Birthday girl

2009-01-02T23:14:00.006-06:00

Today is my older daughter's birthday. I can hardly believe that she's eleven years old! We had a wonderful day. Juliette decided that we should eat dinner at Cold Stone Creamery, which serves only ice cream. So the girls both had ice cream for dinner and then cake at home for dessert. I'm pretty sure they'll be starving at breakfast time. But birthdays only come once a year, so the sugar high was well-earned. Darrell and I opted to skip the ice cream and have some actual dinner before our cake. We also went along with Juliette to the local game store, where she spent all of her birthday money on game cartridges for her Nintendo DS. She's a very happy kid tonight.

Here's the birthday girl, crooked ponytails and all.

And here she is at about 16 months old. She's always been a cutie.

And here is her birthday card. Juliette loves cats and black is her favorite color at the moment. She can purr just like a cat, so the sentiment on this was "purr-fect"!

Details: stamps - Cats (Inkadinkado); paper - ruby red, basic black (Stampin' Up!), stampers select white (Papertrey Ink), Scarlet's Letter (Basic Grey); ink - ruby red (SU); accessories - Nestabilities - classic rectangles and classic scalloped rectangles.

Moving on to non-holiday stamps

2009-01-01T22:28:00.011-06:00

I don't know about you, but I'm ready to leave the Christmas stamps alone for awhile! I got in the mood to make something bright and floral today. I was born and raised in Kansas, and am partial to sunflowers, which are the state flower. Papertrey Ink's Floral Frenzy set makes really great sunflowers! I stamped a few panels of flowers, then figured out what to do with them after I was done. I'm really happy with the nice variety of cards that I ended up with.

The following supplies were used for all five cards: stamps - Floral Frenzy (Papertrey Ink); paper - vintage cream, pure poppy, summer sunshine, ripe avocado, dark chocolate (Papertrey Ink); ink - pure poppy, summer sunshine, ripe avocado (Papertrey Ink), chocolate chip (Stampin' Up!). Other supplies used are listed under each card.

Additional details for this card: stamps - Thankful Blossoms (Verve Stamps); ribbon - ripe avocado polka dot satin (Papertrey Ink), Cuttlebug Embossing folder - swiss dot

Additional details for this card: stamps - A Little Somethin' (Stampin' Up!); ribbon - ripe avocado polka dot satin (Papertrey Ink), 1 3/4" circle punch (Stampin' Up!), Nestabilities - classic scalloped circles

Additional details for this card: stamps - Thank You Kindly (Stampin' Up!); Cuttlebug Embossing folder - diamonds in the rough; scallop edge punch (Stampin' Up!)

Additional details for this card: stamps - Thankful Blossoms (Verve Stamps); scallop edge punch (Stampin' Up!)

Additional details for this card: stamps - Thank You (Green Grass Stamps); ribbon - pure poppy polka dot satin (Papertrey Ink), Cuttlebug Embossing folder - textile texture

I want to show you a peek into my index book. I don't index every single stamp I have, but I have started to stamp various categories, especially sentiment stamps. This makes it so easy to find the right size or shape of words to fit the space I need to fill. This is one of the "thank you" pages in my book. Under each stamp, you can see that I've handwritten a code, such as V21. Each of my stamp sets has a code on the spine of the CD case. All of the "V" codes are for Verve Stamps, the "S" for Stampin' Up!, the "P" for Papertrey Ink, and so on.

Here's the spine of one of my CD cases. You can see the "P8" label, which corresponds to the codes in the index book. You can also see that this case has a special "PTI" label. All of my Stampin' Up!, Verve, and Papertrey sets have color-coded labels indicating the company name. These three are the largest in my collection at the moment, and these labels make it much easier to spot them in the CD rack.

Here's the CD rack holding my stamps. You can see the SU stamps with their green labels, and also that some of the SU stamps have both a green and a red label. I add a red "retired" label once the sets retire. Papertrey sets have blue labels, and Verve sets have yellow labels.

Holiday treats

2008-12-11T22:59:00.005-06:00

I have a habit of making some kind of little gift for every person on the staff at my kids' elementary school. We love their school so much, and after four years there, the girls and I have worked with so many people that it's impossible to be selective in who we give to, so I make a whole bunch of something cool but relatively easy. Here's this year's treat.

These little boxes are a snap to make. Each takes a half sheet of 8 1/2 by 11 cardstock, plus embellishments. While surveying my stash, I found that I had hoarded three full packs of last year's retired Christmas paper, Dashing, from Stampin' Up! So that made my decision of what paper to use very easy. The stamps are from Papertrey Ink's set, 2008 Holiday Tag Collection.

Here's the whole basket of treats, ready to go. There are eighty of the little boxes. Each box contains ten Hershey Kisses. The best part is going to the school and stuffing everyone's mailboxes!

Details: Stamps - 2008 Holiday Tag Collection (Papertrey Ink); paper - Real Red, Old Olive, Very Vanilla, Dashing (all Stampin' Up!); ink - Real Red, Old Olive, StazOn Black; accessories - 1 3/4" circle punch (SU), 1/4" circle punch (SU), Nestabilities classic circles and scalloped circles, silver elastic cord (SU)

Time to play with my new toys

2008-11-16T01:17:00.003-06:00

Boy, have I been in a stamping slump lately! I've been in the craft room playing with my stuff, reorganizing and labeling things, but every time I sit down to make something, my mind wanders. But today I finally stuck with it long enough to make a card. And it only took me an hour and a half! Eek. I'm going to have to improve on that if I want to get my Christmas cards made.

I had to have this stamp when I first saw it over a year ago - how often do you find a Christmas stamp that mentions yoga? I never managed to make anything with it, though. The huge size of it made it difficult. But look what happens when I use it with the new Top Note Sizzix die. Wow! And the new Basic Grey Wassail paper - double wow! I had some difficulty deciding on an embellishment, and I'm still not completely happy with my choice of a Build-a-Brad (with a small piece of a fourth pattern from the Wassail paper pack). Maybe a small piece of ribbon tucked in under the brad would help. Who knows. But I do really like the way this turned out, so maybe it will help get me out of my slump.

Details: stamps - unknown sentiment; paper - Wassail (Basic Grey), Confetti White, Metallic Gold (Stampin' Up!); ink - cranberry crisp (SU!); accessories - Top Note die, Build-a-Brad, 3/4" circle punch, dimensionals (all SU!)

Halloween fun

2008-10-31T21:54:00.006-05:00

Each year on Halloween, the girls want to make jack-o-lanterns. Each year, they choose a pattern and help me "gut" the pumpkins. But the sliminess soon gets the better of them, and they leave me to finish. Fortunately, I've come to really enjoy carving them each year. They're really not that hard to do. Just purchase one of the little carving kits that comes with a few simple tools like tiny little saws. They're only a few bucks. Then find some patterns. The carving kit will probably come with some, or you can do what we did this year and look online. I found dozens of web sites that had patterns. These are from Jammin' Pumpkins - a membership giving access to all of their patterns was only a $5 donation.

Swans again

2008-10-26T00:31:00.002-05:00

Maybe you're here looking for some stamping pictures. Sorry to disappoint you this time, but I wanted you to see this. Remember the swan family we watched over the summer in England? I wrote about them back in June, again in July, and once more in August. My husband took some more recent photos for us. This one is from late September. Look how big the babies are now! I'm amazed that they're still gray, but I guess they'll be white soon enough. I've learned a lot about swans since watching these guys grow up. I found out that swans are one of the slowest bird species to fledge their offspring, with the young usually staying with the parents for about seven months. Since we first met them in early June, they're at least five months old now.

In memory

2008-09-11T14:53:00.001-05:00

Brad Ewy
1/20/1971-9/11/2003
Love you, little brother.

Can you believe it? I stamped something!

2008-09-09T00:30:00.003-05:00

But first, I have to show you our family pets. Here's Juliette with our parakeets. Tom is the blue bird, and Roxie is the white bird. As you can see, they're quite tame. Their cage is in my craft room, so I get bird songs to keep me company while I make things.

I finally got the time to stamp a few cards. These were made for the Verve Stamps challenge. The challenge was to follow four sketches and use one sheet of double-sided 6x6 inch patterned paper to decorate four cards. The stamps I used are from the new Beautiful You set by Verve Stamps. They are such fun sayings that I wanted some fun paper to accent them. Basic Grey's Romani line seems like just the thing. The colors are a little crazy, but I like them! I was too lazy to drag out the right equipment to take a good photo at midnight, so I apologize for the quality of this picture. Maybe I'll take a better one tomorrow. Don't hold your breath, though. I get distracted easily!

Details: stamps - Beautiful You (Verve Stamps); paper - Romani (Basic Grey), Basic Black, Pink Pirouette, Bashful Blue, Ruby Red (Stampin' Up!); accessories - brads, dimensionals, scallop edge punch

First day of school

2008-08-25T11:17:00.003-05:00

Happy day! The girls are both very excited about the start of school this year. They're in third and fifth grades. Sorry about the t-shirt - Juliette decided that this was the day to wear her school shirt. The name of the school has been covered for privacy reasons.

I'm always happy when school starts in the fall. The kids and I have fun together, but we definitely need a break by this time of year. They love their school so much, and I do too. I do a lot of volunteer work at the school, so I'm there frequently as well.

Out with the bad air, in with the good

2008-08-16T08:09:00.003-05:00

There's always some sort of surprise after a vacation. In our case, it's the air conditioning. We had it repaired the minute we arrived home on Wednesday. But less than 24 hours later, it was out of commission again. We've been nursing the fourteen year old unit along since we bought this house seven years ago, and it was finally time to stop. So today, we're replacing the whole thing. The guys should be here any minute to yank out all of the crippled heating and air conditioning and put in shiny new high-efficiency goodies. While it's not the most fun thing to have to pay for right after a trip, we have known for some time that the day was coming, so it will be good to have it finished.

Nine weeks of junk mail

2008-08-14T15:19:00.004-05:00

Guess what happens when you have the post office hold your mail for nine weeks? Yikes!

The sweet lady at the post office took my form and disappeared into the back room. When she returned with one of the post office tubs full clear to the top, I was amazed. But even crazier was the fact that there was another tub full as well. Guess what I did this afternoon?

Ahh. Much better.

The best part? Not a single jury summons in the pile! Going on vacation has always been the way we get summoned. I was a bit afraid that we'd come home to one or even two missed ones and have warrants out for our arrest! Whew!

We're home!

2008-08-13T20:51:00.003-05:00

We made it home! It's been a really long day, with a ten-hour flight plus a broken air conditioner to greet us when we arrived. The house was 96 degrees inside. A quick call to our trusty heating and a/c company got us a $300 repair, and we should be back to normal by morning. Meanwhile, we've decided to have a backyard campout tonight, since it will be in the 70s overnight. I made a quick trip to the grocery store and discovered that I do remember how to drive, despite nine weeks as a pedestrian. So all is well, other than the jet lag, but a good night's sleep should fix most of that.

Edited to add: The air conditioning managed to get the indoor temperature low enough for sleeping before we went to bed, so we did get to sleep in our comfortable beds after all. What a treat after a long day on the plane!

Time is running out

2008-08-11T11:43:00.011-05:00

Our summer in London is winding down. The girls and I fly back to the U.S. this Wednesday, August 13. Darrell will be staying here awhile longer for work. We've been making return trips to our very favorite restaurants. Yesterday we went back to the Dove Tail, the Belgian pub that I wrote about here. The beer and the food are both great here, and the atmosphere is friendly and relaxed. The standout among the things we ordered this time - a starter course of a leek, walnut, and goat cheese tart. It was so good that I'm going to have to try to make something similar once we get home. After lunch, the girls found a shelf of board games and decided to play for a little while. Check out the British Monopoly board!

This afternoon, the girls and I went into London to find the Banqueting House, one of the remaining sites on our Historic Royal Palaces membership. The building is all that's left of the Palace of Whitehall, which burned down. King Charles I was executed on a scaffold outside the building. The ceiling is completely covered in paintings by Peter Paul Rubens that have survived since 1635. I think I'm about "palaced" out, because it didn't really do too much for me.

Better than the Banqueting House is what's found right across the street - the Horse Guards for Buckingham Palace. It's kind of comical. The guard sits on the horse looking straight ahead while one person after another steps up for a photo. That horse was VERY interested in Katrina, don't you think?

Here are some London Underground pictures. Since we spent a large part of our summer on and around these trains, it's only fitting to show them. The two stations we saw the most were Uxbridge, where we live, and Baker Street, which is a good connecting point for several other train lines.

I've mentioned the canals in Uxbridge and how close they are to our apartment. Here's our building. This was taken from a little footbridge that crosses the canal. The entrance to the building is on the side away from the road. The canal runs in between the building and the road (actually the road in front of the building is a bridge over the canal as well).

This photo was taken from the same bridge, looking slightly to the right of the previous one. You can see the bridge on the right that is the road in front of the building.

This photo was taken from the road, looking straight at the building. I've outlined our apartment so that you can see how very close we are to the ducks and swans that live in the canal.

And finally, here is our swan family. We hadn't seen them for a couple of weeks and were hoping they'd make another appearance before we left. The babies are still gray, but they're almost as big as the parents now.

The wheels on the bus go round and round

2008-08-08T15:25:00.015-05:00

Today was a high-powered sightseeing day. The girls and I signed up for a bus tour with destinations of Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Oxford, all in a single day. We got up very early and were on a train out of Uxbridge at 7:15 a.m. We had to meet our bus in central London by 8:45. We got there and settled in on the comfy bus with about 50 other folks from all over the world. Our nearest bus neighbors were from Dubai, and we met others from Spain, Australia, Canada, and all over the U.S.

Our first stop was Windsor Castle, which is Queen Elizabeth's favorite home. The castle is about an hour outside of London. Funny thing is, it's only about 15 minutes from Uxbridge. So we got up early, rode the train for an hour and the bus for another hour to get there! It's the journey, I tell you. We toured the State Apartments, which are amazing. The rooms are huge, opulent, and beautiful, which is quite a thing for me to say, as opulent rarely equals beautiful, in my opinion. No photos were allowed indoors, which seems to be the case with all of the castles here. But outside was another matter. This is the approach to the castle. Can you even imagine living someplace like this?

We caught a glimpse of the Moat Garden over a wall. Pretty! What we didn't know was that you can go into the garden. A little while later, we found the entrance, and the price of admission was a very small donation. So in we went.

I'm getting more and more pleased with the things that my camera will do. These roses were in the Moat Garden.

Here's a view of the castle grounds from higher up in the garden. I don't think I'd like having tourists traipsing all over my yard day after day!

We all piled back on the bus for the drive to Stonehenge, about an hour and a half away. The stones are in the middle of a field, in the middle of nowhere. But they're an amazing sight. They're well cordoned off so that you can't get too close, but the walkway is laid out in such a way that you can walk around all sides of it and see it very well. I'm sure that the crowds are much worse on the weekends, but I really didn't have much trouble getting photos without a ton of other people in them. This was one of the major sights that the girls had listed on their "must see" list earlier in the summer, and it was definitely worth a visit. It's way far out in the boondocks, though, so I do recommend taking a tour and letting someone else drive!

Next we were off to Oxford, another hour and a half away. We took a walking tour around the campus. The architecture was fabulous. Some of the buildings were almost 1000 years old. It was very hard to get photos without many other people and their cameras, but I did my best. The atmosphere of the town is very nice.

After leaving Oxford, we rode another hour and a half on the bus to get back to central London. We passed right by Uxbridge, which was unfortunately not a stop for the bus! We could even see our building from the bus. But we had to ride an hour further, then take a train back an hour the other way. By the time we got home, about 14 hours after we left, we were beat. But it was a great day.

Fun word pictures!

2008-08-07T03:39:00.008-05:00

I ran across something really cool in my blog surfing today. While checking out This D*mn House, which is one of my daily reads, I was introduced to Wordle. Just give it the URL of your blog, or type in a list of words, and it will create a word picture for you. You can change the number of words, the orientation, the font, the colors, and lots of other details. Here's what I got using my blog, with all of the recent posts of our Paris trip. Isn't that fun? Click on the picture if you'd like to see it larger.

Try it out! If you load yours into the gallery, leave me a link in the comments. I'd love to see what you make.

Paris trip - part three

2008-08-05T15:26:00.007-05:00

Continuing where we left off, still on Saturday, we left the Pompidou Centre and its generally not-so-interesting (to us) modern art. The next museum on our list was Musée l'Orangerie, which is located along the Seine not too far from the Louvre. This is a small museum which was said to contain a lot of impressionist art. As we approached the museum, Darrell was unable to avoid being eaten by a lion.

The girls were getting along so well that I had to snap their picture. You'll believe me if I say they've been like this all summer, right?

Okay, here's the big deal about Musée l'Orangerie. There is an enormous display of Monet's water lily series of paintings. The entire ground floor of the museum is dedicated to them. There are two very large oval rooms, each containing four huge paintings. This painting is probably six feet tall, and I didn't capture the whole length of it! The lower level of the museum contained lots of other great impressionist paintings as well. I was a happy camper here!

Katrina took this photo of us at the hotel. Does this happen to anyone else? We can't take decent pictures of each other, but both of the girls can get good shots of us just about every time.

On Sunday, we took a trip up Montmartre, the highest hill in Paris, which is home to the Sacre Couer (Sacred Heart) basilica. Our hotel was right at the foot of Montmartre, so it was a quick walk up to the basilica. There is no photography allowed inside, but the ceiling mosaics are amazing. Well worth the trip to see the inside. The outside is gorgeous as well.

Our next stop was a visit to Marché aux Oiseaux. It's a market right near the Notre Dame that is Marché aux Fleurs (flower market) every day except Sunday, when it becomes the bird market instead. Lots of vendors are there selling caged birds. As our family pets are parakeets, we thought it would be fun. The birds were beautiful, and there were many varieties that we had not seen before. I never saw so many different colors of finches!

Here is a picture of an ordinary Paris street. I love all of the balcony railings and the colorful flowers. The apartments seem to be this tightly packed everywhere in town.

This is another view of the Seine from a bridge. It's one of the few peaceful views in the bustling city.

So after four very busy days in Paris, we headed back to the train station to board the Eurostar train back to London. We were so tired, but it was a fun trip. I'm very happy that we had the chance to see Paris while we were here.

Paris trip - part two

2008-08-05T02:25:00.000-05:00

Okay, where was I? It was Friday and we were just finishing up our visit to the Louvre. After lunch, we went to Musee d'Orsay. It's not nearly as large as the Louvre, but it has a wonderful collection of impressionist paintings. My wonderful high school French teacher taught us a lot about the impressionists, so I tend to gravitate toward them in museums. The collection here is terrific - Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cezanne, Seurat, Van Gogh, and lots more. I loved this museum.

Here's a lovely Monet.

And a Van Gogh - Starry Night Over the Rhone - not the hugely famous starry night painting, but I love this one, too.

Musee d'Orsay was originally a train station, and it shows in the shape and scale of the main part of the building. This enormous clock hangs at one end. I have no idea how big this is, but it's got to be at least ten feet across!

Saturday started with a visit to the Notre Dame Cathdral. It was a drizzly morning, and the crowds were not bad at all. The line looks long, but it moves quickly, since there is no charge to visit the main part of the church.

Here is one of the famous rose windows. I played around with shutter speeds a bit, and found that most of the windows photographed well with a speed of 1/10 to 1/25. This was on a very overcast day - I'm sure it would be different if it were very sunny outside.

We walked around to the back of the cathedral to get a view of the flying buttresses.

I had to snap a closer shot of the spires of the cathedral.

Next was a trip to the nearby Pompidou Centre, home to the modern art museum. I remember hearing all about this place in high school, as it was very new at the time. Its most striking feature is the fact that the mechanicals of the building, such as the elevators, escalators, heating ducts, and so forth, are on the outside. The outside of the building turned out to be more interesting than most of the contents, unfortunately.

I have to admit that a lot of modern art leaves me a little cold. Some of it looks like a pack of school kids were let loose with fingerpaints. And some just seems like a great big scam. There were three huge all-white canvases in the museum. There was a breathless bunch of blather on the accompanying placard, saying that the artist was of the minimalist school, choosing a very limited color palette, sometimes limited to white only, for his work. Excuse me? That's just a bunch of baloney if you ask me.

This piece was just bizarre at first. It's an airplane made of branches, like you'd use to make a basket. And it's completely covered in scissors, knives, corkscrews, and things like that. But reading its placard reveals something interesting - all of the objects - over 10,000 of them - were confiscated by airport security in Sao Paulo. This was one of the most fascinating things we saw in the museum.

Thoughts on Paris

2008-08-05T02:18:00.000-05:00

Here are some highlights (and low-lights) of Paris that I thought deserved their own post. I still have a couple more posts worth of photos to share!

Good things:

My high school French from over 25 years ago served me pretty well. The girls enjoyed using the phrases that I taught them, such as "parlez vous anglais?" and "soixante-trois, s'il vous plait" (to reclaim our room key from the front desk). I was able to purchase our train passes even though the lady at the ticket window spoke even less English than I speak French. I was able to make out some things on signs, which was helpful in some instances. The directional signs in the subway were clear enough for a non-native to navigate, but a little bit of French sure helped! I found myself very grateful that I was finding my way in French and not something like Arabic or Chinese! One pastry shop lady who said she didn't speak any English accidentally taught me the perfect way to ask for something that you don't know what it's called - "(number) comme ça" while pointing at the item. Comme ça just means "like that". So if you can count to four or five and point, you can fake it pretty well! We also found that the shopkeepers would usually add up our purchases and then turn the calculator to face us, so that we didn't have to understand the spoken total. We only met a few people who said they didn't speak any English.

The front desk staff at our hotel was great. One woman in particular was very popular with my kids. She was originally from Australia and moved to France to go to school. She's now engaged to a French man she met in Ireland. The girls adored her. Katrina kept coming up with excuses to go to the front desk to ask questions. We were very well cared for by the hotel. They had a lot of wonderful suggestions for restaurants and sightseeing.

The big sightseeing spots in Paris are very much worth visiting. I don't care how many pictures you've seen of the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame. They're so much bigger and more impressive in person. And the museums were fabulous. We visited four, the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, Musee l'Orangerie, and Pompidou Centre. The first three, in particular, were filled with one amazing well-known priceless work after another.

Not-so-good things:

Parisians seem very impatient to me. I was raised to avoid pushing and shoving and to respect others' personal space. The rules must be different in Paris, because I was constantly pushed aside. Sometimes it was simply due to people wanting to push through a gap that I considered too small to take. Other times it was not so innocent, like the time I hesitated in a subway station for maybe two seconds in order to read the directional signs. A woman shoved me aside hard with her arm, and looked back while yelling something in French that I couldn't understand. But her expression made it very clear that I was being cussed out. Another time, we were waiting for a train, and when it arrived, nobody inside the train opened the door (the Paris trains require someone to pull a lever to open the door - generally someone who wants off will open the door, and then after they get off the train, others will get on). Since nobody opened the door from inside, I pulled the lever and started to get on the train. The (young, able-bodied) man inside then decided to get off the train and yell at me for being in his way. I understood just enough of the French he was shouting to know that I was not, in his opinion, supposed to have opened the door.

We found that we were swindled by just a couple of euro on many, many transactions. Darrell and I are both fairly hard to cheat, I thought. But there were numerous times that we got taken. The cafe waiter who didn't bother to tell us that they were out of croissants, then didn't make any adjustments to the price of the breakfast to make up for the lack, even though the croissants were 2.60 euro each when purchased a la carte. The souvenir salesman who sold us an empty box for one daughter after making a big production of checking the other daughter's box. We did discover that one fairly quickly and went back and made him cough up the goods. I wanted to think it was an honest mistake (it happened on our first evening), but the events of the rest of the trip lead me to believe that it was intentional. These are just a couple of the incidents. There were several others. I don't like having to be on guard against stuff like this all the time, and it kind of spoiled the fun for me.

Paris sidewalks are ridiculously narrow. On some of the major streets, like the Champs Elysee, they're nice and wide. But on most streets, there's barely room for two people to pass. This often forces you to step into the street to pass someone, risking being run over. Drivers in Paris make it very clear when they think the pedestrians are in the wrong. They won't hit you (at least I don't think they will), but they're not afraid to get within mere inches of your toes if they think it's their turn. There are also hundreds and hundreds of motorbikes everywhere in Paris! The noise from the motorbikes makes our retarded rooster in Uxbridge (he crows all night long) seem quiet.

The prices in Paris are outrageous! We had thought London was expensive. Wow, not even close. The average prices for a simple sandwich lunch were 9-16 euro ($13.50-$24). Soft drinks with a meal? Forget it. A can of Diet Coke (called Coca-Cola Light in France) was 4 euro ($6)! We were able to find half-liter bottles at little grocery stores for under 2 euro each, so we satisfied our caffeine cravings that way. Getting restaurants to serve tap water (instead of overpriced bottled) was extremely difficult, and we had some who said yes to tap water and then magically "forgot" and brought out bottled instead. We didn't even consider wine or beer, as it was 6-12 euro ($9-$18) per drink! We were in Paris for three nights with two kids, and we dropped over 500 euro ($750), not including our hotel and Eurostar tickets. And we're not extravagant travelers! That's a couple of tourist things per day, subway rides, take-away pastries for breakfast, and simple lunches and dinners. I was happy to get back to the London prices. When we return to the U.S. next week, I'm sure the reverse price shock will be amazing. Maybe it will sustain me through the high-speed back to school shopping I'll have to do. Hope so.

Paris trip - part one

2008-08-03T16:36:00.010-05:00

We're back! Three nights in Paris with plenty of sightseeing is just about enough for us. We abandoned our leisurely pace that we've used in London this summer for a whirlwind of monuments, museums, cafes, and subway trains. We're exhausted, but we had fun. I took so many pictures that it will take a few days to show you what we've been up to.

The Eurostar train is wonderful. It runs straight from the middle of London to the middle of Paris. You even go through passport control before leaving London, so you get to Paris and just walk off the train and start your vacation. The train is super fast - over 180 miles per hour - so it's only a little over 2 hours between cities.

We arrived at our hotel and found a nice room on the top floor, complete with sloping walls and ceilings. With no air conditioning, the rooftop location was perfect, as we had windows on both sides of the room and were able to get a great breeze with the help of the fan provided. We scored a room with a double and two twin beds, and still enough room to walk around. The hotel is Hotel Le Regent Montmartre. I definitely recommend it if you're looking for a place in Paris.

With our London Underground experience, we decided to purchase five-day passes, called Paris Visite, for the Paris Metro. There is no four-day pass, but the five-day is discounted to the price that four days would cost, so it was perfect for us. We found the Paris Metro to be fairly easy to navigate. The lines are more tangled up than London's, so we had to consult our map more often. And of course, the names of the stops are all in French and more difficult for us to remember from one moment to the next. Overall, though, it was a great way for us to get around the city.

We arrived in Paris on Thursday afternoon, and got right to work with our sightseeing. First stop was the Arc de Triomphe.

As this has become our "summer of climbing tall things", we took the 284 stairs to the top of the arch. The views are wonderful. We took lots of photos from the viewing platform. I was struck by how densely the apartments are packed into the city. This is the view everywhere you look. Check out the trees along the street, with their canopies all cut into square shapes. You see this in many places around Paris.
After the arch, we headed to the Eiffel Tower. We wanted to see it before the weekend crowds arrived. Here is a view of the Seine from one of the many bridges.

And here is the famous tower. It is awesome to see from a distance, but walking right up under it is just jaw-dropping. I think I took at least 100 photos of the tower from every possible angle! There are three viewing platforms, and it costs more the higher you go. We decided to go for the top, of course. Chances like this don't come along every day! The admission price for the four of us was about 36 euro (about $54). It is possible to climb the stairs up to the second level, but we'd had enough stair climbing for one day, so we took the elevators. The elevator to the first and second level is actually an inclinator, traveling diagonally up the leg of the tower. After that, you take a different elevator straight up to the top. The views are magnificent! The photos were not that great, though, as it was approaching dusk.

As we descended from the top of the tower, night was falling, and the tower's lights came on. It's lit with blue lights at night. I've been learning more about my camera, and was able to adjust the shutter speed so that I could capture the tower at night. I love this picture!

We were exhausted after our first day. It was about 90 degrees during the day, and we were just beat after all of the walking and climbing. We had dinner at about 10 p.m. and then fell into bed.

On Friday, we visited the Louvre. We had purchased Paris museum passes on Thursday, which cover admission to lots of museums and other attractions for four days. We found them to be very useful, as we just breezed into most places without standing in the ticket lines. Here are Darrell and Katrina outside the entrance. Inside the pyramid is an entrance plaza, one level below ground. Admission is there, plus easy access to the various wings of the enormous museum.

We didn't even try to see the entire museum, as it would take weeks. We followed the crowds and the directional signs to the Mona Lisa. It's a small painting and well-separated from the crowds, but it's a must-see. We also found the Venus de Milo. I found the ceilings to be just as fabulous as the ones in the London museums. If I ran the world, there would be a special tour available where someone wheeled you around on a gurney flat on your back, just to see the ceilings! See what I mean?

The girls had fun looking for animals in the museum. They are always searching for dogs and cats. Sometimes they strike gold, like with this tiger painting.

That's not all of our Friday adventures, but I'll save some for the next post!

Taking a vacation from our vacation!

2008-07-30T16:54:00.002-05:00

We're heading to Paris in the morning on the Eurostar high-speed train. I'll be back on Sunday or Monday with pictures and stories. Bye!

Royal Botanic Gardens

2008-07-27T15:40:00.011-05:00

Today we finally made it to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, better known as Kew Gardens. The gardens are 300 acres of beautiful trees. There are some flower gardens, but the trees are the stars of the show here. Many are well over 200 years old, and the oldest tree, a sweet chestnut tree, is over 300 years old.

Here are the girls next to the trunk of an oak tree that was planted in 1846. Amazingly, the sign said that this tree was moved to its present location when it was 70 years old! I can hardly imagine what it would take to move a mature oak tree with today's equipment. I wonder how they did it in the 1920s!

Here's a shot looking up into the branches of the same tree. Wouldn't it make a great climbing tree?

Here's a really interesting tree. From a distance, it looks like it might be some kind of pine.

Let's get a little closer, though. It is a conifer, but the branches almost look like some kind of cactus and are very spiny and stiff. Here's what they look like. Its common name is monkey puzzle. Very cool.

There was also a treetop walkway. It's 18 meters up to the walkway, and it goes around a roughly triangular path. The floor under your feet is perforated metal, so that you can see the ground below. The entire walkway sways a bit with all of the people on it. It's a little bit freaky to walk on. I can now say with certainty that I will never ever be going on that glass walkway over the Grand Canyon!

And lest you think we didn't see any flowers at the gardens, here are some for you. There were lots of fuchsias in the greenhouses.

We also took a tour of Kew Palace, which is inside Kew Gardens. The palace was the home of King George III. The ground floor has been restored to look like it did in George's time. The other two floors, though, have been largely untouched for 200 years. There were a couple of places where the walls were open so that you could see all of the layers of building materials used, such as plaster made from lime and horse hair.

Here is a photo of a beautiful garden, taken from the top floor of the palace.

More royal sightseeing

2008-07-23T13:26:00.010-05:00

The girls and I took an excursion to Kensington Palace today. Kensington was the home of Princess Diana. There were two special exhibitions at the palace; one of some of Diana's dresses, and another entitled "1958: The last debutantes". Both were very interesting and well-done. There was also a tour of the State Apartments. I wish I could show you photos, but again, cameras were not allowed. You're just going to have to visit and see it for yourself!

We purchased a family membership to Historic Royal Palaces when we were at the Tower of London over the weekend. It includes admission to five different palaces for a year, plus discounts at their gift shops and cafes. It turns out that if you're going to visit at least two of the five, you'll save money with the membership. So today's adventure didn't cost much at all. Two down, three to go!

Here's the outside of the palace. It's not actually all that large compared to some of the others. Of course, you could fit my house inside it several times over!

This is the Sunken Garden near the palace. Isn't it beautiful?

In the park near the palace, we found a carousel. The girls enjoyed a ride. Every carousel we've seen in England (at least five so far) has had names on all of the horses. This is new to me. Either they don't name the horses in the U.S. or I've been really blind to it all my life.

In the park is the Round Pond. Look at how many swans live here! We saw dozens of them. And they're extremely tame. Juliette got almost nose to nose with one. You can even pet them. Very interesting.

I think it's finally summer here! The school kids are out as of this week, and the high temperature is staying above 75 pretty much every day now. Yes, I'm aware of how lucky we are, since the temps at home have been topping 95 for weeks. I am happy to leave my jacket at home during the day now, though!

Tower of London, Belgian food, and more

2008-07-20T14:19:00.009-05:00

It was another busy sightseeing day here in London. We're becoming very aware of the passing of our remaining time here. We've been able to see things in a fairly leisurely manner, and it's so tempting to start racing around because we have ONLY three-plus weeks left. Isn't that silly? We still have so much time left compared to most every other tourist, but there's still so much we haven't done!

I had to get a picture of the family in a classic red phone booth. In this cell phone age, I wonder how much longer these will even exist.

Darrell guided us to another of the pubs on his famous list. This one is called The Dove Tail Bar. Its specialty is Belgian food and Belgian beer. We love both, so it was an easy choice. It was over-the-top wonderful. They have over 100 different Belgian beers. And the food - oh my. We had their tomato basil soup and some french fries as a starter. The soup was amazing, one of the best we've had anywhere, and the fries are always great at Belgian restaurants, in our experience. We also had waterzooie, which is a Belgian seafood stew, plus a beef stew, a whole stuffed roasted chicken and lots of roasted vegetables. We all loved it and will try to return before we leave for home.

I just loved this church steeple. It must be made of copper, based on the gorgeous oxidized green color.

Next on the agenda was a visit to Her Majesty's Palace and Fortress, better known as the Tower of London. The tower's primary function was a fortress, a royal palace, and a prison. Today it is mainly a tourist attraction, housing the Crown Jewels and an extensive display of armor and weaponry. The jewels are breathtakingly beautiful, and of course, there is no photography allowed in that area.

Here is the White Tower.

This is the Norman chapel inside the White Tower.

This is a beautiful weather vane atop the White Tower.

The tower is right next to the Tower Bridge, which we visited a couple of weeks ago. While we were sitting and chatting about what to do next, along came a nice tall boat, requiring the drawbridge to be raised. We were all very excited to see the bridge in action.

What would be the hardest thing to learn if you lived in England?

2008-07-19T15:08:00.010-05:00

What's wrong with this picture?

Nothing if you're a Brit! But if you're American, yikes. It's been very easy getting around in England so far, because we've let others drive us around on trains and buses. Today we tried a different plan:

Yes, that's Darrell, sitting on the "wrong" side of the car. We tried driving in England for the first time. What an experience! Here's just one example of a road sign in England:

And that's a pretty simple one. There are much crazier arrows than these on many signs. Why did we decide to drive? Well, we wanted to go here:

This is the Farnborough Air Show. It's huge, and it's only about 20 miles away. So we wanted to go. Finding a way there proved frustrating. There are the trains - at least three transfers and a minimum of two hours each way. There were special buses running to the show - £60 for the four of us. So after much discussion, we thought it would be simpler to just rent a car instead. How naive could we be?

The cars are all manual transmission in the lower price ranges. No problem - we have a manual transmission car. But it's another thing entirely to drive a manual transmission with the shifter on your left, while driving on the wrong side of the road and the wrong side of the car! And then there was the map, or rather, lack of a map. We had directions that I had hand-written from the map site, but no actual map. Anyone who knows Geography Girl (that would be me) is laughing his or her butt off about now at the thought of me navigating anywhere without a map in hand. I love maps. And I especially love knowing that even if we go off track, I can get us back on track. So now we're driving with no map into a part of the countryside where I have no mental picture of where the towns are in relation to each other, and the directions from the map site were basically worthless right from the start. They were about 50 steps worth of "bear left for 0.1 mile, then take the 2nd exit at the roundabout for 0.1 mile, then take the 3rd exit at the roundabout for 0.2 miles, etc." Surprisingly, we actually made it to the outskirts of Farnborough in record time. And then we sat in traffic for about an hour.

Once we got into town, the setup was very nice. The parking was in a huge grass field, with tons of parking attendants. Very efficient. And then there were shuttle buses to the airfield. Many, many shuttle buses. I swear, this is something the U.S. needs to learn how to do. There were no less than a dozen double-decker buses waiting when we arrived. They filled them up and sent them on their way super fast. Same thing at the end of the show. Huge crowds waiting for the buses, but the wait was not long at all, as one bus after another pulled up and took them away.

We watched a lot of great flying stunts. Some of them weren't surprising at all. We've all seen aerobatics from small fighter type planes, for instance. But have you ever seen an Airbus 380 doing aerobatic stunts? The Airbus below did some crazy stuff. I swear, that pilot should fly in the movies! He did some moves that would have had all of the passengers plastered to the side windows of the plane - if he had passengers, of course. And the climb he made on takeoff was amazing!

I thought it was cool that I managed to capture the picture of this guy with his bomb bay doors open. It was tricky taking the pictures, since I have a fairly simple camera. Most of the time, I was aiming a little ahead of the plane and just clicking, hoping that the plane would end up in the frame. I got pretty lucky on this one.

All in all, a very fun day. But after driving back toward the general London area, again without a map, we decided that one day of driving in England was plenty for us, and we turned in the rental car (we had planned to keep it for another day and figure out somewhere to go tomorrow). Darrell was very patient with my no-map freaking out self, and to his credit, didn't even once threaten to make me walk home. He's a keeper for sure! I think we'll let someone else drive from now on.

Who needs a stairclimber?

2008-07-16T13:52:00.009-05:00

Here we have St. Paul's Cathedral. See the two arrows? Those are the outdoor galleries (walkways) that the girls and I climbed to today! (Yes, Mom, you can cover your eyes now!)

We climbed up 528 steps, stopping at the Whispering Gallery (indoor, lower than both of the arrows), then continuing to the Stone Gallery and finally to the Golden Gallery. It was definitely a bit of a workout. The stairs to the Whispering Gallery are broad, shallow, wide spiral stairs. Piece of cake, even though there are 257 of them. Once you leave the Whispering Gallery, you are warned that it's steep, narrow, and one-way - no turning back. From the Whispering Gallery up to the Stone Gallery, the stairs - 119 of them - are spiral, but made of concrete. They're not very uniform, meaning that you have to watch your step, and the overhead clearance varies, meaning that you have to watch that you don't hit your head. At one point the passageway was narrow enough that my shoulders touched both sides. The views from the Stone Gallery are very good, but the railings are high and obstruct the view enough to make it difficult to take photos. The climb from the Stone Gallery to the Golden Gallery is on spiral iron stairs - 152 of them. The Golden Gallery is small - we had to wait at the top of the stairs for a few minutes for enough people to move on so that we could get out the door. The views are spectacular! And strangely, the railings are much lower here, a little lower than my shoulders, so it was easy to take pictures. The total climb to the Golden Gallery takes you 85 meters above the cathedral floor.

The climb back down is blessedly much less strenuous than the climb up. From the two upper galleries, there are separate stairs just like the "up" ones, so the traffic is again one-way. Once you descend to the Whispering Gallery, you rejoin the wide, easy spiral stairs for the rest of the way down. I told the girls that someday when they're 80, they'll visit again and that then they'll be really happy that they made the climb now!

We toured the interior of the cathedral as well, but photography was forbidden, so I'll just have to take my memories with me. Once again, the ceilings were my favorite part of the whole place. Completely amazing!

This next picture is of the main entrance of the cathedral. You can't see the steps in this shot, because I couldn't back up any farther to get it all in. Last summer, Katrina went to "Kids on Broadway" camp, and they learned and performed several songs from Mary Poppins. Katrina's favorite was "Feed the Birds", which begins, "Early each day, to the steps of St. Paul's, the little old bird woman comes..." I was treated to several beautiful rounds of the song while we sat on the steps of St. Paul's! I love moments when everything comes together like that.

Here's some great outdoor sculpture that was nearby, part of a temporary architecture exhibit.

Swan family update

2008-07-15T12:12:00.007-05:00

We have really enjoyed watching our little swan family grow up this summer. I posted these pictures of them about a month ago. The babies are getting very big now.

This is one of the parents. It is amazing how flexible those long necks are! Look at how they sleep, with their necks laid down on their backs.

Here are the babies with one of the parents. The canal is right under our living room windows, and almost every day, someone on a floor above us tosses bread crumbs out the window for the ducks and swans. Lately they'll go for a swim with one parent while the other one naps. When they were smaller, they never went out without both parents. We've been able to watch the parents teach the babies how to look for food. They go down the canal a bit to where the water moves faster and stick their heads under water. I don't know what they catch that way, but it looks like they like whatever it is they find!

This is the ritual after a swim. All of the swans come up on the little island in front of our building for an hour or so of grooming. All of those little white and gray spots in the grass are feathers. The babies lose more and more of their gray baby feathers every day. Their chests are mostly white now.

The long and winding road

2008-07-13T15:33:00.007-05:00

Here's where we ended up today - the prime meridian, where you can stand with one foot in the eastern hemisphere and one foot in the western hemisphere. This plaque is on the side of a building at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.

The red ball on top of this building drops at exactly 1 p.m. every day. It's used by ships on the Thames to set their chronometers.

How we got to Greenwich is the real story for the day. A few days ago, I mentioned that some locals consider the London Underground to be overcrowded, inconvenient, and unreliable? Well, today it was all of those. There are frequently "planned engineering works" on the weekends causing various lines to be partially or completely shut down. This weekend was a very bad one for such shutdowns. We live in Uxbridge, which is on the northwest side of London. Greenwich is on the southeast side of London. Since Darrell had to go in to work for a bit this morning, we didn't get started until about 12:30. It normally would have been about an hour and a half to get there. Today, it took over three hours! There were partial outages on three different lines which affect our travel, and long delays on some of the others, meaning that for about a half dozen stops, we spent more time sitting in a stopped train in the tunnel between stations than we did moving.

Upon arriving in Greenwich (by "replacement bus" service, since there were no trains running to Greenwich at all from the direction of our approach), we set out to find the Greenwich Union, a pub that Darrell had on his "to try" list. The beer was great, we were no longer starving after a snack there, and could finally get on our way toward the observatory, which we knew closes at 5. We hiked up the hill - the observatory is of course on the highest hill in the area - and arrived at the entrance at 4:30. We didn't have much time, but there is no charge for admission, so we made the best of it. We followed the signs to the meridian, where hundreds of people were lined up to take photos of their friends in front of a sculpture straddling the line. I opted to photograph the sign on the wall instead, as we had views to take in of London from the top of the hill, and even more importantly, a gift shop to visit. The girls have enjoyed gift shops almost as much as anything else on our trip. Almost all of the shops have a small pin or badge for less than a pound that makes a good souvenir.

After leaving the gift shop, the girls opted to get back down the hill by rolling down the grassy slope, joining many other kids doing the same. Darrell and I chose to walk, wimps that we are.

After our whirlwind visit to the observatory, we walked back into town and had dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant called Cafe Sol that we had seen on the way in. We didn't have high expectations. All I wanted was better food than we had at the Texas Embassy Cantina last week. Much to our surprise, the food was pretty good, definitely better than the cantina.

The ride home was much less eventful than the ride out. Other than the replacement bus service from Greenwich to the North Greenwich Tube station, everything else was running just fine. I think that we should try again for the observatory on a weekday!

High up over the river

2008-07-12T14:40:00.007-05:00

Today's adventure was a visit to the Tower Bridge. I'm sure you've seen it:

The Tower Bridge is London's only drawbridge. About 1000 times per year, the road deck is raised to allow large ships to pass through. The bridge is over 100 years old and was a major engineering feat in its day.

There is also a tour, called the Tower Bridge Experience. Did we go on it? Of course we did! See those walkways way up high between the two towers? That's where you get to go on the tour. The views are wonderful. The walkways are completely enclosed and don't feel at all scary. There are two walkways, one facing east and the other facing west over the Thames. The tour sends you along both walkways. There are numerous little (about 6x10 inches or so) open windows along the walkways for the purpose of taking pictures. That way you can get your photos without having to shoot through window glass.

This picture was taken from the sidewalk at road level before we went up in the tower for the start of the tour. What a gorgeous bridge!

Here are a couple of shots taken from the walkway. This one shows all of the boat traffic on the Thames.

This is one of the shots that shows why I think that London's official bird should be the construction crane! Everywhere you look, there are dozens of huge cranes working on what must be massive projects. That funky rounded building in the foreground is London's city hall.

This photo was taken from one of the walkways looking toward the other walkway.

As we were leaving, the clouds had gathered, looking kind of ominous. I love this shot of the bridge with the darkening sky.

Groceries, baking, and other kitchen stuff

2008-07-10T07:55:00.018-05:00

Wish you were here! More about this later. Keep reading!

I just returned from another grocery trip. As mentioned before, we shop very frequently due to being on foot, not to mention the very small refrigerator in our apartment. Here are some observations I've made in the grocery stores here. The shopping carts are seriously awesome. The wheels work! Forward, backward, and SIDEWAYS! It's a little strange at first, seeing people slide the carts sideways to the other side of the aisle, but it really makes things more convenient in a lot of ways. I did have to get used to watching for carts moving from any and all directions, though!

I am so happy that I decided to bring some of my reusable shopping bags to England with us! They really make it so much easier to haul groceries home than using plastic. I can sling the bags over my shoulders and carry far more weight that way. Save the planet and my hands at the same time. That's a win-win!

Some ingredients are kind of hard to find here. It's taken me a month to find the vegetable oil in the store. It was there all along, but hidden well away from the places that I would normally look. It's not anywhere near the olive oil, which was easy to find. Strange. Nuts to put in baked goods are in tiny little packages of around 4 ounces each, not in the giant one- and two-pound bags we can get. Pecans don't seem to be here at all. I've had no luck finding chocolate chips, but have made some great cookies with chopped up chocolate bars.

Many things come in much smaller packages than we're used to in the U.S. We get huge bags of potato chips at home, but here the crisps (chips) are more available in bags of individual sized packs. That would be convenient at home when packing kids' lunches - we sometimes have trouble finding the varieties that we want in the individual packs. Sandwich meats seem to come in very small packages here - maybe six or seven slices of turkey or ham per package.

The bananas are wonderful here. I've become so frustrated with the bananas at home. Seems like if I buy them from the big "W" store, they start out way too green and go straight to rotten without ever turning nice and yellow. And the other stores' bananas are starting to act the same way. Every batch I've purchased in England has been perfect. I can buy them with just a tiny hint of green and they ripen perfectly and last for at least three days before getting too "freckled" for my kids to eat them (I personally like them freckled, so more for me if they get that way).

I love to bake. I seriously considered having my Kitchen Aid mixer sent to England in our air shipment. I decided against it in the end, as I'd cry if anything happened to it. So I bought a cheap hand mixer and sent it instead. We've baked at least a half dozen batches of cookies and a cake since we've been here. Earlier this week, the girls decided to try carrot cake for the first time. They loved it, so today, we're making carrot cake. We're using this recipe from the Pioneer Woman, since she's got awesome recipes that never disappoint. Her blog is hilarious, too, so stay and visit for awhile when you go. That's the cake up at the top of this post, by the way. It's so yummy it ought to be illegal. Someday I'll get even with Pioneer Woman for what her blog has done to my rear!

Baking in the apartment has been a bit of an adventure. First, there's the oven temperature. I knew that it would be in Celsius, so I tossed a little oven thermometer from the dollar store in our shipment. Boy am I glad that I did! Not only is the oven in Celsius, it's mis-calibrated pretty badly. A temperature of 375 degrees Fahrenheit equates to about 190 degrees Celsius, but on this oven, I have to set it to nearly 220! So I have a little cheat sheet of what oven temps to use. Then there is the issue of baking tools and equipment. Of couse, I sent a set of measuring cups and spoons. I also sent over a small cookie sheet, since Darrell told me that the oven was small. A small sheet just barely fits in the oven. I can bake eight cookies at a time. I have no large mixing bowl, so we've been using a small pasta pot to mix in. I figured out that a 250 gram package of butter is just a little bit over two sticks of butter. Lop off a little piece to grease the pan, and use the rest in the recipe. Katrina and I just repeat, "we're making do!" each time we make a substitution for an ingredient, tool or dish that we lack.

Here's our kitchen. It's not very big, but it has a surprising amount of counter space. We haven't been cooking much, but it's not been bad for cooking when we do take the time. In the center near the sink, that is the washer/dryer under the counter. Yes, it's in the kitchen, and it is indeed all in one machine. First it washes, then it switches to drying. The load size is tiny, less than half what our machine at home will hold. And it's very loud. It sounds like a plane is taking off in the kitchen when it spins. The electric rates are six times higher in the daytime than after 11 p.m., so we run it after bedtime and put up with the noise. On the right side of the kitchen are the dishwasher, the freezer, and the refrigerator, all under the counter. I haven't seen a refrigerator like that since college. Fortunately, it works better than our dorm fridges ever did!

The royal treatment

2008-07-08T12:30:00.007-05:00

The girls and I set out early (for us) today to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Many people go really early - at least two hours before the 11:30 ceremony - to get in a good position. We did not do that. And I'm glad. Take a look at the people in the good positions. We were across the street, and we still had other people's elbows in our faces. And it wasn't even a really crowded day, I'm sure. It's a weekday, school is still in session, and I could see large swaths of sidewalk behind us with nobody standing there.

Here are the Welsh Guardsmen marching into the palace grounds for the ceremony. I love the scale of the photo, with the guardsmen against the backdrop of the enormous monument.

Here's the palace, with the Royal Standard flying, meaning that the queen was in residence today.

After watching what we could from our vantage point, we left to find a snack. First we walked several blocks from the palace to get beyond the tour groups. The tour buses aren't allowed to get very close to the palace, so they all line up about four blocks away to let everyone out. After the changing of the guard, small groups like the three of us have to be wary, so as to not get trampled by groups of 50 or so people trying to keep up with their tour guides. Once clear of that craziness, we picked up some cake and drinks at a small cafe. Then more walking to see if we could find a little park to sit and eat our snack. I found a little park, sat down, turned around, and what did I see? Check it out! We just accidentally ended up right across the street from Westminster Abbey. Gotta love a town where that kind of thing happens every day.

We took advantage of our find and went on the tour of the abbey. It was great! They have an audio tour, so we all got our handsets and took off to see the church. I could have stayed there all day looking at the magnificent architecture. The ceiling in one area, called the Lady Chapel, was so fabulous that I wished I could just lie on my back in the middle of the floor and stare at it!

I hadn't realized just how many famous people are buried in the abbey. Kings and queens, of course, but also Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Ben Jonson, Thomas Hardy, Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Rudyard Kipling, Laurence Olivier, and many more. Wow.

Upon leaving the church, I happened to snap this photo. What a perfect London sight - Big Ben with a London double decker bus in the foreground. London is just a wonderful town for sightseeing.

Rain, rain, go away

2008-07-06T11:42:00.004-05:00

Another gray rainy day in London. I missed the opportunity shot for the day - in the morning, everyone was wearing coats and scurrying about because it was below 60 degrees, windy and raining. You would have sworn it was winter if not for the fully-leafed trees and blooming flowers!

Another museum visit was on the agenda for today. We made an excursion to Trafalgar Square. Lunch was at the Texas Embassy Cantina, a restaurant chain started by Gene Street, who's well-known to Dallasites. I'd love to say that it was superb Mexican food, but I can't. It was the best Mexican food we've had in London, but that's really not saying too much. And the prices, like everything in London, are outrageous. Enchilada dinners are £12-£15 ($24-$30!) Oh well, it was worth a try.

The National Gallery is at Trafalgar Square. You can see the building in this photo behind Lord Nelson's column. The museum is very large, with collections covering about 500 years. My favorites were the impressionists, as usual. My years of high school French class taught me more about these artists than any others, so I'm on familiar ground in a room full of Monet, Degas, Renoir, Matisse, Pisarro, and their contemporaries. The National Gallery does not disappoint when it comes to this era. It's amazing to me that *cough* twenty-seven years after high school, I can still identify these artists on sight. Thanks, Ms. VanderGiesen!

On the way home from the train station, it was raining fairly hard. We walk about 3/4 of a mile from the train to the apartment. Since Katrina's feet were already wet, she set about jumping in every puddle she could find. Not our usual July kind of day, but she was jubilant, and I loved watching her.