Mother's Day Cards and Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Hi there everyone. Hope you had a wonderful Mother's day. I am a little late at wishing you all a great day. Finally got my pictures into the computer. A little slow here. We had a nice day. Went to church and watched Jimmy Swaggart on the big screen. Always a good service even though we are not in Baton Rouge, I can still feel the Holy Spirit in Forest Junction when watching on TV!!!

Usually on Mother's Day the ladies are given a gift for Mother's Day. Being I am the only lady there plus the Pastor's wife, I got two bags of pop corn and two Giant Pansies, one purple, one red....so pretty!! We went home and I made gyros and oven fries....yum so good. Wish we could have gone out to eat....would have been fun to not have to do the dishes afterwords.

Mother's Day has sometimes been hard to deal with as even though I had a baby....I was told, that baby had to be given up for adoption. A decision I still regret to this day. That baby is now 49 yrs old....wow time does fly!!! She has two sons and one son has had a son.....I guess that makes me a mother, grandmother and great- grandmother. Three labels, I have but don't have....oh well that is life, we make decisions, or they are made for us, then we have to live with those decisions for the rest of our lives. 

Okay....on to my card making. I recently purchased this embossing folder from Stampin'up which makes beautiful 3D flowers and roses….I fell in love with the image the moment I saw it. You had to buy $50 worth of product and got this floral embossing folder for free. I asked my Stampin'up lady if there was some way I could buy the folder without having to buy $50 worth of product. She checked into it and said I could buy her folder and she would order another one for herself.....nice lady.

So in the above card, I used gold card stock then rubbed black ink on the flowers and a little bit of green on the leaves. Placed the image on brown card stock.....such a pretty card. If you can see it, I stamped and embossed a Happy Birthday verse. This floral image can be used for just about any kind of card, Thanks, Birthday, Thinking of you, Sympathy, Mother's day etc. 

These next two Mother's Day cards, the card on the right, I used silver card stock, rubbed black ink on the flowers then versa mark and embossed with clear embossing powder. Made for a very smooth finish. The card on the left was black card stock and I rubbed silver paste on the parts I wanted to shine the most. 

I looked on Pinterest and found lots of ideas using this embossing folder.....the ideas are endless, can hardly wait to try them all. Chalks, copic markers, water color pencils, Twinkling H2O, lots of ideas on the horizon.

In these two pictures are the chocolate covered strawberries. They did not last long, I made them Friday night and ate the last of them 30 minutes ago. Yes, I shall make these again....maybe for JP's birthday this next Friday. He will be 72 years old.....when did we both get this old?????

I melted the chocolate in the mic and added butter to make it creamy then dunked the strawberries in the chocolate and sprinkled the strawberries with coconut flakes. So good!!!

Well, time to close this post before I get too wordy and start boring you. You all have a great rest of the day. Tomorrow JP has an appointment with the foot Doctor and Tuesday I have an appointment to find out what my A1C is. JP has to renew his drivers licence on Wednesday....gosh this will be a busy week and I have to decide if I am going to bake a cake or buy one....that is something I am not too good at.....baking cakes and decoration....I am no Cake Boss!!!

Take care and keep looking up, better days are coming.
Cheers ~ Louise

Hello????? A Few Hospice Cards

Hi there everyone. Hope you are having a good April so far. Guess I have been missing for awhile as this is my 1st post for April. As I look at my calendar....there has been something going on just about every day. Doctor appointments, the Stanley Cup playoff Hockey games on TV (now that is VERY important), Doggie appointment, shopping, card making, etc. Little things that take up a lot of time. I had to miss my Hospice meeting this month as it conflicted with JP's Doctor appointment. Hard to be at two places at one time. So I took my Hospice cards to Betty's and she took the cards to Hospice for me. I will make the next meeting though.....Lord willing.

Oh...I made something different last week...a carrot pie. Yes, it was very good too. The pie actually tasted like a pumpkin pie. So if you ever want to make a carrot pie, just use your favorite pumpkin pie recipe and it will work out fine. The only thing I did different is I made it an "impossible pie" using a 1/2 cup of flour mixed in with the liquid, it will settle down to the bottom to form a crust. Don't forget the whipped cream!!!!

Following are a few cards I made for Hospice this month. Below is my Llama....love this guy. I think he can adorn any card I make. In this card I used glue and laid foil on top to make the strips. Laid the die cut Llama on top....and that was that.

The card in this picture was made by using a butterfly die and black embossed "Happy Birthday." The beautiful colored bookmark was covered with silver plumber's tape, embossed with an embossing folder. Then drops of different colored Distress inks and smooshed with a sponge to get the effect I wanted. Pretty, pretty. I need to make more of these cards. Probably for my Secret Stamper.

Here is my Llama again, this time he is on a "Thank You" card. I used a rainbow foil to give it a different effect.

This is a die cut....palm leaves I think. I make different backgrounds then just lay this die cut over it....makes for a very lovely card. The sayings are "Thinking of You" and "Happy Birthday" stamped on vellum. If I remember correctly, I used "brusho's" a powder like substance and spray the paper either before or after and sprinkle the brusho colors on and the little beads spread and mix with the other colors and make for a lovely back ground.

In this picture are the favors for Mother's Day. We make 20 favors, different assorted colors and ribbons. Then we put chocolates inside each favor. We will do this for Father's Day and Veteran's Day also.

Well, time to close here, getting late and this hockey game is about over, Calgary 2 and Colorado 6, it's been a ruff and tumble game, of playoff caliber!!! I wish the Chicago Blackhawks could have made the playoffs.....but that will be for the 19-20 season...for sure.

I am rooting for the Washington Capitals, my favorite player is  Captain Ovechkin. The other team I like is the Las Vegas Golden Knights....favorite player, Mark Stone. There you have it....it will be interesting to see who gets the Stanley Cup this year.

You all have a great rest of the month.....keep looking up, better days are coming. Cheers ~ Louise

Some Cards I Have Been Working On

HI there everyone....hope your week went well. Mine was quiet....which is fine with me. Monday I went for my A1C blood test.....hopefully everything is fine. Will have my Doctors appointment next Tuesday. JP has his blood tested next Monday and his appointment with the Doctor the following Monday. I think he has a dental appointment also....but I did not mark it on the calendar....oh, oh I better get that checked out.

So lately, I have been working on some cards. 5 early Christmas cards in May.....I picked up these die cuts at the secret stamper reveal party. When I saw the card on the table I quickly ran back to the "extra image table" to see if there were more angels....and yes, these 5 were left. I had some sparkle backgrounds in my stash of paper and made my own angles. I must look for this die, I have no idea where the die for these angels was bought at a store or ordered online. I would like to make all my Christmas cards this year with this angel die.....so pretty!!!

Here we have some "Just a little note to say..." I saw this idea on the Internet. The wavy lines is a SU die and the notes I picked up at a stamping store.....I will get the name and place it here, when I look in the garbage for the package. I had originally made my own notes....but alas, they were backwards and upside down. Although the original card on the internet was the same, so I thought that was the way it should be.

When JP saw the card (he plays accordion and keyboard) he smiled and said my notes were wrong. So he went and got a music sheet to show me what the notes should look like. So, I proceeded to take my handmade notes off and replace with these notes....looks much better, if I have to say so myself. I have no idea what the tune is on each of these cards....maybe someone musical can tell me?

Now here is my "secret stamper image for May" I have probably had this stamp for 4-5 years and have no idea where it came from or who I bought it from. Sorry. I thought she would make a great "Mother's Day Card" I colored her in with copic markers, the real beauty of this card is the background. I used iridescent foil. Which was really fun to work with.

There are many ways to use colored foil....I thought only a laminator could be used, which I did not have. I went on YouTube and found other ways to foil. Tim Holtz has a few techniques to foil using sticky embossing powder (I shall check that out tomorrow at Hobby Lobby.) The foil is laid on top, tapped and rubbed then the foil slides off. Now I can't remember if a heat gun was used, I will have to check that out again.

Another lady used her cuttlebug with the foil papers and embossing folders, getting the right amount of pressure, she ran the folder through with the foil. It did not look like much, but she used painters tape to rub the foil off in the places foil did not stick.

Another lady used different colored embossing powders, a stamp and heat gun. While the image was still hot, foil was laid on the embossed image, if it did not take, she heated the embossing up and laid the foil on top again. You could use words or flowers, the ideas are endless.

My method was using foil paste. Rub the paste on the card stock with an old artist spatula (maybe I will look for a plastic one, mine was metal and all rusted.) Place the foil on the paste and I used the heat gun. The top one turned out better then the bottom one. But then, it really doesn't look bad either.

Here is a question for you....do you think these cards need something more, like ribbon, sequins, gems???? Or maybe it is fine just the way it is? Or, maybe it is too busy??? I might add a "Happy Mother's Day" greeting using the embossing powders.

Let's see, what else could I talk about??? I have started a couple of blogs and saved them in a draft. I made my first cheese cake a couple of weeks ago....pictures and blog to follow and maybe another cheese cake.

Another draft, is the cards made and received at the "Secret Stamper Image" reveal party, Part 1 and Part 2. There will also be a draft for the cards I made at Betty's house last month. My how time flies, I will be going for another session next week, maybe I should hold off on last months cards till I get another set of cards made at Betty's.

Hospice is next week Friday, so I need to get cards and Father's Day favors done for that. That could be another blog....Mother's Day and Father's Day favors.....we'll see.

Well, time to close, hockey is on...Nashville Predators and Winnipeg Jets. I am rooting for the Predators...so far the score is 2-0 Predators leading. I am also rooting for the Vegas Golden Knights....so we shall see what happens. Hopefully next season it will be the Chicago Hawks in the Playoffs!!!

Have a good evening and keep looking up, better days are coming. Cheers ~ Louise

Cards and a Busy Week

Hi there everyone of you.....guess I have been a bite busy lately. It's been 11 days since I last posted. Last Wednesday was my card making day at Betty's. That is always fun. I like getting new ideas.

Betty does most of the work designing, cutting and measuring. She puts everything in an envelope, card stock, paper, ribbon, tags, etc.  We just put the card together, using her copic markers, stamps and ink and gems.

This was a neat card to make. Betty had the flowers embossed with black. We painted in the colors with Pearlex which makes the colors iridescent...so pretty. I am giving this card to someone...I know she will love it.

This was a putsey card.....nothing colored in, except for all the peddles of the flowers. Betty stamped in the tree. So the flowers were colored then rolled on a rubber mat, glued then the gems were added. 

I really liked this card...will make for a nice birthday card, maybe I will give it to JP for his birthday. We used to have a truck like that....but I think it was green. JP tried to teach me to drive shift...but I never got the hang of it. Standard for me all the way. The background was sponged in with ink, then the windmill, foreground stamped in black. The truck was colored in with copic markers then putsey cut the truck.

We got our refund from Uncle Sam this week.....it will help for awhile. We will be getting our new (to us) dryer from Howie Voight Used Appliances next Wednesday. JP is getting tired of hanging clothes and towels. He hung towels outside on the line, they were out there for 4 days...till I finally brought them in.

The next day, Thursday, I will be taking the car to Muntz to get our radio/CD player installed. Gosh, I have been without a radio in the car for at least a year....it will be nice to have music and talk shows to listen to.

JP has a Doctors appointment on Monday. Keep him in your prayers. He is going for his 6 month check up for "active surveillance" to see if the cancer is still there. I heard the other day that a man had stage 4 prostrate cancer and is having the prostrate removed this next week. I am not even sure what stage JP is?? Will have to ask the Doctor....if I don't forget.

Friday, is Hospice meeting.....almost have my cards finished. Just a few more cards to add to the collection. I made some neat Mother's day cards and Birthday cards. I will have to take some pictures after I am done.

Well, it looks like a busy week....only day open is Tuesday. I need to stay home and wait for the call from Howie Voight to set up a time for them to deliver the dryer. That will be a great day, I am sure JP will have all his wash done, so he can put it in the dryer when it is delivered. No more hanging of clothes.

Well, time to close, I need to go make dinner for JP when he gets home at 1:30am....yeah, it's a long day, no wonder I take a nap at 4:00pm gets me through the rest of the day.

You all have a great week and keep looking up, better days are coming. Cheers ~ Louise

Cards, Hospice Meeting, Mother's Day and Pops

Hi there everyone. Hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day yesterday. Mine started out fine, I was blessed with a friend that gave me a personal Cricut for $30 with case and 4 cartridges and maybe even the cartridge that came with the cricut. With this cricut I will be able to use it without my computer, which will be nice. No pictures yet....I need to set it up and figure out how to use it as well.

In these next few pictures are some of the cards I made for Hospice. The cards above are the funny Tim Holtz Crazy Bird set. I got the die cuts for these birds....maybe I will use them more. No more fussy cutting for me. This yellow bird is probably my favorite of the six birds...easy to color too.

My vintage golfer about to hit a golf ball. I made these cards into Father's Day cards as were the yellow chick cards above.

These cards were what I made up for my secret stamper lady....I sent the stamped pineapple, rose and leaves. Colored them in and added a gem. Added a feather and circled die cut and embossed folder for the background. I inherited 2 rimes of yellow card stock and 1 rime of yellow paper....so yeah, you probably will see lots of yellow cards coming out of my creating mind.

In the above picture are the Father's Day favors I made. At the meeting we slipped Hersey candies in the favor. Usually we put little stickers on them saying they are from Hospice....but I guess the stickers were not made up as yet. I thought I had taken a picture of ALL the favors together, that were made up, but for some reason there was no picture.....gosh, maybe I did not press the button to take the picture??????

In this picture we are looking through the cards each one of us brought.....maybe getting new ideas from each other and oo-ing and ah-ing the cards as we looked. Next meeting will be June 2nd, so we have 3 weeks to get some cards together.....I better get my rear in gear....then we will have the summer off till September and we need to have Halloween cards made......yikes!!! I think that is why my days fly bye.....I am always on to the next holiday before this one even comes.

I did not finish my Mother's Day blessings. After the Hospice meeting, I drove Betty home, but before we went to her house, we stopped off at a second hand shop and I bought myself a purse and a couple of tops.....oh and a cute little teapot which I mishandled and dropped on the ground and it broke. I will glue it back together and just use it for decoration....maybe it won't be usable again. (that part was NOT a blessing)

We went to Woodman's, a really big store that I very seldom go to. BUT...I probably will go there again, I found my favorite bread there. A big loaf of Turano Bread that makes the best grilled cheese sandwiches...oh yum!! Oh and I just saw a recipe using this bread to make (French) Italian toast......trying this tomorrow morning.

I bought a few other things, that I don't see at the other stores I visit...I always have fun shopping!!! I was really enjoying my Mother's Day weekend and thinking, gosh....what did I do to enjoy all these blessings?????

Then Saturday came.....the phone rang. A call from a lady that has been in contact with my step-father in Las Vegas. He died in his sleep, in his own apartment on his easy chair. That's the way he wanted it and he got it. I won't be going out there....no reason to. He had made plans with this lady that she would take care of everything....she sort of adopted him and my mother and became their daughter. Taking my place.....oh well, I never did have good feelings about this whole situation. But who am I......nobody!!!!

Can you sense some anger there??? Yes, there probably is, when I think back on all the things that Pops did to me, the things he said to me, the way he controlled me and made me angry, to the point that I would only stuff the pain and say "he will never hurt me again" only to be hurt again and again. Nope, I am not sad for him, nor do I really care.

He wanted me to call him "Dad" one thing he wanted to hear me say....I said you are NOT MY DAD and I will never call you DAD!!! I had one Dad....You are Pops and that is what I will call you. He said, I figured you would say that and chuckled. ERG....he made me so mad!!!! And when he said he loved me, I was always forced to say....I love you too....but did I mean it??? I am not sure.

So here we are today....I hope he is happy where ever he ended up. The lady is going to take his ashes and spread them in the mountains of Las Vegas along with the ashes of my mother.....hope they meet again, where ever that might be.

Sunday came and we went to church...good service and lovely worship....our gift on Mother's day, two little red petunia plants....I shall plant them tonight in between the rain drops. I think I will get some white and blue petunia's and organize the petunia's in red, white and blue in the planters.

Well, time to close here and go walk Kylie....the sun is out now after a little rain. Talk to you later and keep looking up better days are coming. Cheers ~ Louise

Secret Stamper Images

Hi there everyone. Well....I should be outside in this beautiful weather spreading mulch in my gardens. But chose to do a quick post while watching the Chicago Cubs.....win.....it's only the 5th inning and the cubs are winning 7-5. Hopefully the Cubs will do better then the Chicago Blackhawks. Sorry the season is over for them....as my Step-father always said, "maybe next year."

So tomorrow, I will be going to the "Image Stamper Revealing Party." I will find out who had my name and sent 12 images a month (she missed April altogether). And who I was sending 12 images to for the last 6 months. In the pictures below, are the images I sent and how I turned them into cards and the images my secret stamper sent and how I turned her images into cards. I will let you know which is what and who as we go.

NOTE: If you go to April 5th post you will see the other cards I made, turning my images and secret stampers images into cards.

In these two pictures are the 12 images I sent to my secret stamper. I kept two images and turned them into cards as you can see below. So the images (above) were in black and white. With the two I kept, I distressed inked the House Mouse image then used pearl-ex to make them shine.

Here is the finished product. One card for the secret stamper and one for me to keep or send. I just layered the House Mouse mice on black card stock then the orange back ground is crinkled up tissue paper and layered on glued up card stock. The scalloped edges were run through the cuttlebug with a boarder die cut. A gold heart embellishes the corner.

In these two pictures are the images I sent to my secret stamper.....I love this snowman....so cute. In the picture below is what I did with the snowman. I have a die cut that cuts him out. I used speckles for his nose and buttons.

Sorry about the lighting, I was using a lamp, I thought it gave a fare amount of light but didn't. I should have taken these picture  downstairs where the lighting is better. Anyways, I turned the snowmen into jugglers of snowballs....I think he turned out cute. The snowballs are just punched out circles and then I outlined the circle, they are on pop-ups. Embellishments are a die-cut Hi, gems and string. The snow is a Stampin'up embossing folder. The white layers are just ripped up card stock to look like layers of snow.

Now whoever has my name.....sent me these Bunny heads. All I did was color in the background, his ears and nose and tie. I was at a loss for what to do with them till one day I just decided to put a picture frame around them and layer them on crinkled up tissue paper that was glued on card stock. Turned them into Thinking of you cards. So I will keep one and give the other to the secret stamper.

In this card.....for the life of me....could not think of what to do with this image. My secret stamper sent me 12 images of the "golf ball on a tee with a bird and the word "Birdie." Finally I remembered I had a vintage golfer and just turned the cards into this. I will give my secret stamper the card on the right. I did end up making 5 more cards like this and will probably send my BIL a card for his birthday. He's a golfer.

Now in this card, I sent my secret stamper 12 pink Flamingo's....I saw a sample of a Flamingo card and liked it....so here it is, cased and turned into a card with my Flamingo. Cute card, it can be most any kind of card I want and simple to make too.

Now, I was completely at a loss with this image and almost did not want to make a card with these 12 images of a dress. Finally I just colored the dress in with red, making a red polka dot dress, adding red feathers, gems and a "Happy Mother's Day" greeting. I actually made a few more cards using this image. For Mother's Day of coarse.

Well, as I said before, the secret stamper lady who had my name, did not send me April's images, so she will only be getting 5 cards from me. That's the breaks I guess. I hope my next secret stamper holds up her end of the game and follows through. Why ruin it for someone else. It does take the fun out for others.

It was a fun game and a challenge to turn these cards into something, I never would have thought to do. I do hope the next session of 6 months is more fun.

You all have a great weekend and enjoy the weather. I shall go work outside and spread some mulch in about 30 minutes or when this Cub game is over.

Keep looking up, better days are coming. Cheers ~ Louise

Flowers. Cards. Water Pond, Food

Hi there everyone. Hope you are having some nice days. I think it will finally feel like spring this week. Maybe I will get some things done outside this week. I have been enjoying my flowers....tulips, but they are starting to poop out now. It's a good thing I took some pictures of them before the rabbits and frost got them. The flower below, is actually a store bought bouquet that I treated myself to for Mother's Day. It's still sitting on the dinning room table, but it's little petals are starting to fall on the table.

My variegated tulips....so pretty, but for some reason the rabbit thinks it is food. Good thing I took a picture this day, because the next day they were down like the rabbit thought he was a lumberjack and "timber" they fell to the ground. (darn wabbit!)

My pink variegated tulips....I think I planted these the first couple of years we were living in this house and they are still going strong.

Pretty yellow tulips.

My pink tulips.

My orange tulips. I think I need some white and red tulips, maybe I should plant some this fall.

Here is a card I finished last night. I bought a new die cut which makes these cute little flowers, a nice little card for Thinking of you notes or birthdays.

Got my pond going the other day.....love the sound of water trickling. I had to tip the bond back upside and replace the rock around the pond. There's a few rocks that I need to have JP move, too heavy for me. I don't want to get another hernia.

So here is another Blue Apron meal I made the other day....very yummy and tasty. "Pork Tteokbokki with Asparagus and Spicy Black Bean Sauce" I didn't make it as spicy as it called for, so JP ate it with pleasure.

The asparagus was cut, blanched and drained thoroughly. Ginger and the bottom part of two scallions was cooked in oil with salt and pepper. Add the ground pork and cook till browned. Rice cakes (These rice cakes are Korean-a deliciously chewy ingredient often shaped and prepared much like a rice noodle) have been boiling in water till tender then added to the mixture along with 1/4 cup of the rice cake water. Then add the blanched asparagus, black bean sauce, soy glaze and half the reserved rice cake water and as much of gochujang as you like....(that is the spice). Cook a few minutes more, then divide between 2 dishes and garnish with the green tops of the scallions.....Enjoy! Yep we sure did.

Tonight I am making Zucchini pancakes for JP's dinner along with some left-overs. Bought a cantaloupe a few days ago and still have to cut into that. So I guess JP's dinner will be a modge-podge of things to eat tonight. 

Tomorrow, I have to go to the store and get some meds for JP and will probably tackle some weeds. I did get my front porch water fountain going.....yay! Now it is time to sit on the front porch, that is Kylie's favorite place to watch the world go by.

Wednesday, I have a date with Betty....my card making day......so you probably will see those cards on Thursday or Friday.

Well, you have a great day and keep looking up......better days are coming. Cheers ~ Louise

A Gift and a Few Cards for Hospice

Hi there everyone. I sure have been slacking at blogging, haven't I....no need to answer that. Guess I have been busy making cards. Our Heartland Hospice meeting was this past Friday. So all last week I was busy making cards and getting my box of 50 cards ready to donate.

We had a pleasant surprise waiting for us, we each were given this lovely gift, a cup and delicious blueberry muffin, which is hard to see in this picture. (it is actually gone now, that's why I said it was delicious!!! What a nice surprise. Heartland also buys us a breakfast at Denny's in December....so yeah, those are the little perks of volunteering for Heartland Hospice.

Note: I am drinking tea out of this cup as I type this blog....this makes a nice tea cup, don't you think???

Following are a few cards I donated to them....these Sandhill Cranes were filed away for 5 years....I thought, what the heck, lets turn them into a card. The crane was stamped and embossed in gold....just not sure how I did the background though......hard to remember after 5 years. I sure am glad no one asked how I made it or if I have the stamp anymore. The stamp was borrowed from and old friend I am no longer in contact with. Anyways, it turned out pretty neat and colorful too. I really should try and look for a stamp something like this...sure is an elegant card. Guess that is why I am enjoying using my Flamingo stamps....maybe I should look for a more elegant Flamingo like this Sandhill crane.

These cards will be good for a man....a cute raccoon and woodpecker.....I love this die cut and it will be hard to give back to the owner. I think this week I will make about 20 of these die cuts in different colors, so I have a stock of them. Can never have enough. Then I shall have to return the die cut to Betty.

In the picture below are some really easy cards I made. Saw a card like this on the Internet and saved it to my files. All I did was use the alcohol inks and scribbled the colors on, then stamped the tree, which was from Stampin'up and added the salutation and some sequins for embellishment.....very easy, peasy!!!

This was a neat card to make, I saw a copy of this card on the Internet. The stamp is from Stampin'up, it's called "what I love" the stamp comes in 3 phases, first the black is stamped, then the lighter stamp, then the darker part of the stamp to make it three-toned.....I like the look of this card, simple , springy and refreshing.

I donated this lovely lady along with a few other ladies that were similar to this one for Mother's Day cards....I did add some daisy stars along side this card, which completed the look. I sure do like this lady and probably will keep one for myself....maybe frame her and hang her on the wall, as we are BFF's.

This was another easy card, although it did take some time. Each flower was stamped, then cleaned and stamped with another color till all 4 flowers were stamped. Then I drew a line down each side of the flowers, it is hard to see in this picture, but I embellished the cards with speckles on the lines, and sequins for a little sparkle. I dabbed the one card with red ink, but did not care for the look and left the others plain.



I have a few other cards up my sleeves for Father's Day....one will be a golfer, maybe in black and white or brown....kind of simple.

I bought some new Stampin'up die cuts and stamps...looking forward to receiving them. Also from another company, I bought some oval die cuts and stamps.....I think I better hold back from stamp shopping, it sure can get expensive at times. Oh well...."what price, glory"!!!! (now what does that mean??? It just popped in my mind?????? Maybe I should ask Cortana???)

Well, time to close, have to go to bed in a little while. I have a Doctor's appointment tomorrow, they are taking some of my blood....hope my blood sugars are normal and not to high. I always worry about that.....don't want anymore medication to take, things are fine as they stand.

Have a great day and keep looking up....better days are coming.
Cheers ~ Louise

My Ceiling.....continued ~ the kitchen is almost finished plus the front porch!!!

Hi there everyone. I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day. Mine was mighty fine. Rebuilding Together worked on my house all day Saturday. Landscaped, plumbing, electrical work done. Basement windows installed......I never could accomplish all that these people did in one day....it was just unbelievable. There are not enough "Thank You's" in this world to Thank these people for all that they did....it was wonderful!!!!

So here is an update on my ceiling. Here you see the seams and nails covered with cement.

In this picture the plaster guy came to finish off the ceiling and put swirls in the ceiling....kinda looks like a mess....but honestly it looks gorgeous!!!

Here is the finished product.....the walls are painted a soft yellow "Morning Sun" which matches the floor. The ceiling was primed then they painted with white. I have a border that I will put up myself I guess in a couple of weeks that will add some nice color. The paint has to set for two weeks. Oh and Pat who coordinated this work day will be coming back to install my fan.

In this picture you can see a little bit of the swirls in the ceiling and the "morning sun" contrast.

In this last picture is my front porch, the floor and porch were painted along with the shutters which were put back up. They had been missing for 13 years......it sure did add to the house. See that little box on the floor in the center of the windows??? Electric....so I can plug in my porch fountain and JP can plug in for the weed eater and leaf blower. UMMMMM looks like I need to paint or get a new mail box....this one has lost it's shine.

The lady from Sherwin Williams just dropped off the paint for the front door which will be a rust color to match the floor. As Pat put it, it will give the house some "POP". The door has been a grey color for 13 years.....so getting used to the color will take some time, but I am sure it will go POP!!!!! We will probably put the furniture back on the porch in a day or so....time to sit on the porch and enjoy the beautiful weather.

I will take some more pictures in the next few days....you have to see all the work these people did landscaping my front and back yard......they also bought some flowers and bushes and red bark....it's just amazing to me.

Well, time to close here for awhile. I need to put my house back in order.....I feel like I am moving into a new house....I get to nest. Maybe unload some stuff at the same time. I did send a few boxes to the thrift store....maybe a few more are in order.

Talk to you later and keep looking up.....things do get better!!!
Cheers ~ Louise