Cards I Made the Other Night

Hi there everyone. Thought it was time to change the winter scenes....to something Spring-like!!! The weather is beautiful outside...sunny and in the 60's. It actually feels WARM and I turned down the heat in the house. Maybe I should bring the fan up from downstairs. Was looking at air-conditioners today at Walmart....guess I must save my pennies for a new one this summer. Our old air conditioner conked out, it never really cooled down the room and then it started spitting at me. So, I think it is time for a new one.

I made these Spring like cards last week. Need to make more....they were a very easy process and fun to make.

First I stamped the "Thinking of You" and "Happy Birthday" then taped the verses with painters tape.

Next step was to ink the top and bottom of the card with Distress ink....any colors you might have, after I got the desired look, I then sprinkled the cards with water to get the water spots. Dabbed with a paper towel to pick up the water. Let them dry for awhile.

I had these flowers already colored. The flower is from Stampin'up, I fussy cut out each flower. Each petal, I drew lines and colored in the tips of each petal with an ink pen. Then took copic markers and finished the petals off with different colors that would coordinate with the colored card.

WA-LA....a very lovely card. Think I will make some more like these for Hospice. I have two weeks to get about 60 cards done and 20 favors for Fathers day. There's still time.

Yesterday I went to a Revealing Party. For 6 months I took part in a secret stamping group. You send 12 images, could be a stamped, die cut or back ground to the name you received. Then make 2 cards with that image, one for your self and one for the person you sent the images to. Someone has your name and has done the same. So I came home with 6 cards from the lady I sent images to and 6 cards from the lady that had my name. Making sense much???

When I get the pictures taken of the cards, I will put them on my blog. My card and the other ladies take on the image sent and vise versa. I should add, that the reveal party was at a new stamping store in Neenah, and we could buy anything we wanted and get 10% off....dangerous place for me to go. Yes, I bought something, musical notes for another card I am making.

Well time to close here, JP just left for his job. I got our dinner planed out.....spare ribs in the pressure cooker....they turn out soooo good. Talk to you later...have a great night and keep looking up, better days are coming. Cheers ~ Louise

The Secret Stamper Image Revealing Party

Hi there everyone. Hope you are having a good Monday. My how the weekends fly by so fast. We look forward and in the twinkling of an eye...the weekend is gone......POOH...gone!!!!

So Saturday we were busy spreading red mulch in my little gardens. JP filled the wheel barrel with at least 16 loads in different places. I will take my time in spreading the mulch.....that would be the easy part, unless I get some new ideas for mulch in different places. Yeah, I do that sometimes.

Sunday I woke up pretty exhausted....from all my work on Saturday. But I did get rolling for church. I had dinner already cooked, so all I had to do was heat it up for JP before I left for the revealing party.

About 3:00 I got ready to leave and meet Betty for the ride into Neenah for the Secret Stamper Image Revealing Party. Lots of women were there....maybe about 15 or so. There is one man involved in this group, but he did not come. He lives too far.

So in the top picture, you can see the cards I made with the image sent to me and the cards I made with the image I sent. The lady that sent images to me is the first row of cards on the left and the lady I sent images to is the row on the right (you can not see a few of the cards because I cut them off in the picture.)

This was another batch of cards sitting on another table. As you can see, the images sent and received are so different....so much creativity overload!!!!

These cards were on the same table that the cards I made were on. I totally missed the table with extra images that people brought that they did not want. I took some of my images back, I can use them for Hospice cards. There was also a bulletin board full of cards too.....goodness it was amazing, all the cards.

Well, I signed up for another 6 months...May through October, maybe I will have a better 6 months, with no hitches. I did meet the lady that was sending me images. She was surprised that I did not receive April's images.....the images came today, a bit too late to make cards with. For some reason she thought the revealing party was in May.....duh! Nope, Renea emailed everyone a couple of times to remind them that the party was going to be April 23rd. I guess not everyone reads the MEMO.....oh well!

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you....on our way home from the revealing party we stopped at Dairy Queen. We had a treat, a $1.00 root beer ice cream cone. Oh my gosh was that delicious....I must take JP there for an ice cream for sure!!! On my way home from Betty's I stopped at Pic n Save and bought a pizza and got one free and hamburger and buns and seltzer water.....oh and a loaf of bread for 29 cents and a free jar of peanut butter.....now that's good shopping....lol!

I am going to cut this post short...have to go walk Kylie, she missed her walk yesterday, I was sooooo tired!!! I will feed her and then maybe go spread a couple of piles of mulch before "Dancing with the Stars" starts. No hockey tonight, the Chicago Blackhawks are out of the running for the Stanley Cup. But it will be fun to see who wins the Cup. I will let you know.

Have a great evening and keep looking up, better days are coming.

Cheers ~ Louise

No...Haven't Been On Vacation....But

Hi there everyone. As my title says....No, Haven't been on vacation....But.........

I sure wish I could take off to someplace nice and sunny, with lots of water around me.....these two pictures look mighty fine to me.

So what have I been doing since my last post on June 11th???

Visiting my neighbors garden to see  how her garden is growing....these are some of her lovely Clementius

Making cards at Betty's. Plus making cards in my basement.....keeping very busy there.

Cooking.....ah yes......cooking with Blue Apron and whatever I may come up with on the days without Blue Apron.

Celebrating Father's Day with this cute and yummy little Chocolate cake from Festival Foods.....when in doubt....buy a cake!!!

Going through storms that eventually pass. This limb came crashing down on my pond garden and hit the cloths line....no damage though.

This past weekend I went on a Garden Walk, put on by the Master Gardeners. This garden was in Neenah....every plant is grown in water and some never touch soil till it is planted outside. Those blue tanks hold Tipila fish....their waste is converted to fertilizer for plants and the plants filter water that returns to the fish....Now that is what I call the circle of life!!!

I bought some Heirloom tomatoes from them and were they ever delicious. I have plans of going back there a couple more times this summer, as they have duck and chicken eggs for sale. JP has been wanting duck eggs. When we had our 20 acres, I raised chickens and ducks and we got quite a few eggs. Two chicken eggs = 1 duck egg and JP always got a duck egg and bacon for breakfast. He misses those eggs. So now we found them in Neenah and he is a happy man!!!

This was a cute little wheel barrel on a walk.....the gardener is just now working up this section of his yard and for added eye appeal, he added this wheel barrel. I have an old wheel barrel in my yard too....it's growing cucumbers and a drawer of radishes, onions and swiss chard. I shall have to take a picture soon. I have been re purposing my drawers, repainting, putting knobs on, filling with dirt and planting stuff. (pictures to follow)

This same man's garden, square foot and rotating garden. I really like this concept as there is no deep bending and everything is up off the ground. I will show you more pictures at a later date. I took over 30 pictures on the 4 places I walked through and then I missed 2 of the places.

At this garden the lady had over 1000+ hostas' in her back yard....it's her hobby for sure.....it sure was a lovely garden though and each hostas was marked as to what it's name was. This is her wheel barrel.

Another view of her yard. More pictures to follow in future posts.

This stepping stone was in her garden.....I just had to take a picture. One of my plans this summer is to make my own stepping stones.....I have the cement, forms and some broken pottery and cracked marbles and such. So I am ready for the great experiment. If I make an abundance of stepping stones, I might try selling them.....who knows?

A few signs in the gardens....."Happiness is a butterfly in my garden"

"There is no set Path....follow your heart.

I have a few other things up my sleeve that I want to make....but that may be down the road a bit. I think by the time I do everything I want.....Fall will be here and I still have not gotten all my ceramic figures out yet.....yikes, times a wasting!!!!

I am so glad I am feeling better this summer and not sick, like I was last summer with my hernia problems....2015 was a tuff year for me with dental, eye surgery and the hernia surgery plus being sick and throwing up so much. Yeah, this is definitely a better year.

Well, time to close here before I bore you to death. Have a great day and keep looking up.....better days are coming.
Cheers ~ Louise

On the Mend and Ready 2 Join the Human Race (?)

Hi there everyone. Thought I would write a short post tonight. Watching the Green Bay Packers play the Seahawks, oh gosh the Packers are losing 17-13. I shall update you as we go along. With one eye on the TV and one eye on my typing, mistakes not included....hahahahahah!

So as my title says, "on the mend and ready to join the human race".....I think. Saturday, JP and I went shopping, probably walked more Saturday then I had the last two weeks. Whew, was I ever tired when we got home, but it was a good outing. Spent lots of money on food and did not even buy meat, just things that we were running low on. Had not shopped for two weeks, so needless to say, we are now stocked up for another few weeks.

Mingling with people was interesting....as I was walking really slow through the store, people were whizzing by me, they probably thought, "boy that old lady sure is slow," if only they really knew. JP was impressed that I knew where everything was and by all that I bought and surprised that I knew how to compare prices....geez JP, that's what I do all the time!!!!

Oops....forgot to update; Seahawks 17 and Packers 16 with 10 minutes to go in the 4th.  OH YEAH!!! Packers just scored...I think they just might win this....sorry Seahawk fans.

In the above picture is a "Blue Footed Boobie" That's how I felt walking through the store, people were watching JP and I for some reason and smiling.....wonder why??? They must have known JP was a novice shopper....right??!!??

So yeah....every time I get my ducks in a row, something always happens and off they go. Oh well, such is life. Least I don't shoot them like I would have in my younger years....hahahaha!!!

So this week I have an appointment with Dr. Flanagan for a check-up to see how the hernia is doing. Hope things are healing well, cause I could never go through that again.....so very painful. I think I might try making some cards this week....as I am starting to feel a little bored and needing something to do besides lay around. Guess that is a sign I am healing.

Today, we were talking about taking a day off next Saturday...that's about all we can afford, (bills are starting to come in and we are looking at 40K and that is not including the Doctor bills) maybe we will go to Neenah and sit by Lake Winnebago with a lunch and soak up some sun. If it is a nice day.

Well, there is only 3 minutes left and the Packers are winning 24 to 17.....there could be another touchdown!!

Packers Win 27 to Seahawks 17

So you all have a great week and keep looking up! Cheers ~ Louise

Tooo Much Snow and a Etsy Sale!

Hi everyone, how is it going??? As someone said to me the other day, "Life is full of changes, and they come without notice". Sometimes it would be nice to have a memo once in a while, but then again, if there was a memo, maybe I wouldn't want to see a change come!!!!

Today we had another change.....or challange.....or maybe it's an inconvenience???? JP and I had to go to the UPS store in Neenah (which is 10 miles away) and return the at&t DVR that stopped working. At&t sent a new DVR on Tuesday, the old one had to be back in their hands in 10 days...or else we would get charged $150!!!! Yikes!!! So needless to say we wanted to get the DVR back asap. We got back to Appleton, went to the Post Office to mail the Etsy order. Dropped JP off at home and I took off again to go pay the Electric/gas bill and to the grocery store. Here is where life changes.....I get back in the car and...gosh the brakes are feeling kind of strange??? So each stop I came to, I found the brake peddle becoming more squishy. Suddenly the brake light comes on........oh, oh, I better go home, will I make it home??? Dozens of questions filled my mind!!!

Thank God I got home with no mishaps. I told JP what had happened and he called the service station, they said to bring the car in....when JP drove the car to the garage, there were NO BRAKES!!! When you think...how a gazillion things could have happened. Apparently the brake lines are rusted out and fluid had leaked out. We will be with out a car for the weekend. JP is at work right now....someone from the company came to pick him up and take him to work. The service station will let us charge the $400.00, which is okay....but we still have a bill with them for $600...so there you have it $1000 bill for car repairs, and a loan on a car for $4000. I am wondering, how in the world does a person ever get ahead in this world....I probably will always wonder that, till Jesus' return or the day I die!!!

So here you can see how much snow we have had already....so much snow, but there are lovely flowers growing under all that snow. Tulips, roses, crocuses, peonies, lavendar, daisies, mums and misc. perrenials......it will be lovely when things start to grow again.

The snow is almost up to the porch....gosh that is deep, I don't remember seeing the snow that deep in all the 22 years we have lived here.

Here's a picture of our backyard.....snow is up to the back of the chair....so much snow and there's still 6-7 weeks of winter to go.

Well as I said in the title of this blog, I had another Etsy sale....so happy am I. She is a return customer and hopefully she just might return again and again. I am planning on getting more cards into my store. St. Patrick's Day is coming up soon, so I need to get some "green cards" in my store also!!

Time to close this blog and get some cards made and ride my bike for some exercise. Talk to you all later and keep looking up. Cheers ~ Louise

Our Anniversary Weekend♥

Well.........38 years ago on the 27th we were married by the Justis of Peace at City Hall in Chicago. Not the the most beautiful place to get married but it was what JP wanted. He just could not take time out from racing to get married in a church. So, at 11:00 am on a Saturday we were married and at 3:00 pm we were signing the papers on the closing of our house. By the afternoon we were moving into our little house in Arlington Heights. I had put my foot down, and told JP I would not move into that house until we were married. We lived together for 2 1/2 years before getting married. If I had it to do over again......no, I would not live with someone before being married, some how the beauty of marriage is destroyed, it just is not the same after marriage.

Lighthouse on the point...........our excursion to Neenah.
A visitor dropping in to see if we dropped some food or............would throw some to him/her.

♥

JP took the day off today from work, so we did some errands, then went to Neenah, bought a subway and went and had lunch at Kimberly Point by the lighthouse. We have decided to do this again and maybe just pack a lunch and take the dogs for an afternoon "break away" we really need to learn how to kick back and enjoy..............................♥

Tomorrow the 27th, we'll go out for lunch at Stevie B's, and a steak in the evening some place....not sure as yet where we are going. That is another post I guess.


Well, I guess I will close this blog for tonight and continue on tomorrow. Pray God will keep those in the path of "Hurricane Irene" safe and not many lives will be lost.................Be safe people on the east coast.


Louise