An Update and a Wedding

Happy Wednesday! I hope your week is going well. My recovery is going okay. I think I probably overdid it today so I'm headed to bed early. I'm going to try to work a half day tomorrow from home. My doctor said I could return full time on Monday even though my next visit isn't until Wednesday. So hopefully I'll get back to some normalcy. Being home this week has made me wish for retirement. I don;t mind being home. And another added bonus this week is that my youngest Steve is visiting from North Carolina. He's headed for a wedding this weekend of a college buddy so he asked me this morning to make a wedding card. I saw this card on Flowerbug Inkspot and decided to case it.

I'm really pleased with the results. I used Spellbinders Heart and Scalloped Heart dies. The sentiment is from a wedding stamp set from Clear Dollar Stamps. I used the Victoria embossing folder.

I'm entering this card in these challenges:

• Outlawz Sunday challenge: All you need is love!
• Simon Says challenge: Anything goes

Thanks for stopping by today. Hope you will come back to see the new Doodle Pantry release. It's spectacular! Have a wonderful Thursday!

Donna

Just a Quick Note

I wanted to quickly thank all of the men and women who have given their time, talent and sometimes their lives to protect our country. We honor their lives and memories this Memorial Day weekend and I so appreciate the sacrifices they have made and continue to make to keep us all safe.
One a second note, my weekend didn't turn out quite as planned. Friday night I found myself waiting in the emergency room for three and half hours. When they finally saw me at 12:30am Saturday morning, they found I had a bad appendix and by 6am I was in surgery. They released me this afternoon and I am much better than I was Friday night but sore and very tired. So forgive me if I don't post too often this week. The doctor said to take a week off of work but since I can work from home I may do some things from home later this week. We'll see how the week goes for me. Right now I'm off to bed again. Just need to build my strength back up. Hope your weekend is filled with lots of fun!

Donna

Hoot and Holler

Happy Thursday evening! The weekend is almost here and it's a long weekend to boot! My favorite kind. More work for day camp this weekend but I don't mind. It's all for the girls. I do believe we will have over 200 girls coming to camp this year. That's very exciting!
This weekend we have a graduation party to attend so I needed a card for the graduate. He graduated from Purdue and their colors are gold and black.

So here's the outside of my card. The owl image is from Kaboodle Bug Designs, a freebie. The books were an already colored image but I forgot where I found this one. If it's yours let me know so I can give you credit. I popped the books up to give them some dimension. The inside is more for the Purdue University side.

The sentiment is from Platypus Creek Digital Stamps and I downloaded an image of Purdue Pete from their web site. Kind of cute. Happy Graduation, Colin! Good luck with the new job in Michigan. So proud of you!

I'm entering this card into a challenge:

• Do You Stack Up challenge: a little birdie told me

Wishing yo all a wonderful weekend! I do think I'll be back to show you a few things over the weekend.  Take care!

Donna

More Camp Crafts

The clock is ticking and it won't be long before camp will be here. So this past weekend I worked on crafts for the Girl Scout day camp. Here's what the girls will be working on this year.

Here's a popsicle stick bird feeder. I found colored popsicle sticks at the Dollar Store. The bird perch is a tongue depressor and I used telephone wire for the hanger.

This is my book worm made from a tongue depressor and yarn. Very easy knots tie the yarn down and he gets finished with wiggle eyes. Makes a cute bookmark.

This little colorful caterpillar magnet will look so cute on the frig. Very easy for our little Girl Scouts.

And last but not least is a simple embroidery project using a styrofoam plate and yarn. Our theme this year is Girl Scout Traditions since it's the 100th anniversary of Girl Scouting. Sewing was one of the first skills that Juliette Gordon Low taught her girls.
I have two more projects to make samples for. I have to clean out and organize the shed this weekend and pack everything that will be going to camp. Lots of work to go.
Thanks for stopping by today! Hope your week is going well.

Donna

S'mores Birthday

Happy Thursday! The weekend is almost here. Yeah! My favorite time of the week is Friday at 5p.m. I have the entire weekend to look forward to. This weekend Tom's parents will be with us so I'm sure we will be out at Baby Creek (our little getaway place) for the entire weekend. And Mother's Day continues this weekend because my oldest son Dan will be flying in from Utah. I haven't seen him since Christmas so I'm looking forward to his visit. He flies in on Friday but he's spending Friday and Saturday with some buddies at his alma mater and Sunday he will come to visit us and stay until his plane leaves on Monday. So I took Monday off next week so I'd have the day to spend with Dan while he's here. So a three-day weekend ahead! WooHoo!
I needed a quick birthday card again since I was a little late in sending to my BIL. So I came up with a fast guy card last night.

This is a Gina K stamp set created by Theresa Momber called Happy Camper. Since my kids were all in Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts this set has gotten used quite  a bit (just not recently). I love the sign that you can put different greetings into. I colored the images with Kohinoor pencils and odorless mineral spirits. On the bottom panel I first stamped the sentiment and then ran the paper through my Grand Calibur using the Victoria Cuttlebug folder. Pretty simple.
I'm entering these challenges:

• Simon Says challenge: clean and simple card
• Hiding in My Craft Room: super scrap Saturday
• Outlawz Sunday challenge: birthday card

Hope you have the most wonderful weekend. I'll be working on more day camp crafts this weekend. I can't believe we are only about a month away from day camp. Yikes! Take care!

Donna

As Promised... More Gift Sets

Our Girl Scout recognition event went very well on Monday evening. I was given on Outstanding Volunteer award. And we honored many other volunteers. But the two people who do the most work for our county is our Service Unit Managers. It's usually my job to make something special for these two special women. So this year I made a gift set for each.

The double-sided paper is from Authentique. I made a double fan-fold flower for each set from the same paper.

When you take the lid off, the box folds down and the inside holds regular sized cards, 3x3 cards, tags, a birthday/anniversary book and a pen. I added a book of stamps to complete the set.

Tags and 3x3 cards.

And the card set. The tree card uses a Gina K Christmas set stamp and uses the gradient technique. The other three cards use Doodle Pantry colored images: Buttercups, Pelican Dreams and Cuddly Bear. I love the way all of them came out. The sets looked awesome!

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Hope your week is progressing very well. I'm off to make another birthday card! I need another manly card!

Donna

Gift Set

Happy Mother's Day to all my friends who are mothers. Both my boys called me earlier today and my daughter gave me a gift. It's the first year that I have been without the boys being home for Mother's Day. But they both will be home this month. Dan will be visiting next weekend and Steve will be home at the end of the month. So I'll have Mother's Day all month long.
Tomorrow is the Girl Scout Recognition dinner for our county. Part of my contribution to the event is to make some of the gifts that will be given out. I normally make the leaders' gifts but this year I didn't do those. My first gift is a set of 3 X 3 cards for the Girl Scout office assistant.

This is the entire set in one picture. All the cards are very simple and made with Doodle Pantry images. I used the colored versions except for the ants image. I just love the cute little sayings that Laurie has with each set. Here's a pic of each card separately.

Don't forget about the Doodle Pantry challenge. Just participate in the challenge and you get a free set from Doodle Pantry. Lots of freebies available in the store to use too.

Hope you will come back to see the other gifts I made. I'll have pictures of two other gifts sets I made later this week. The dinner will probably keep me out late tomorrow evening. Back to work tomorrow. Hope your week is spectacular! Thanks for stopping by.

Donna

What a Challenge!

Well, it's Tuesday. Seems like it should be closer to Friday with how the week is going but I guess I shouldn't be wishing my week away. Last night we had a huge storm with several inches of rain. Lots of places flooded. Fortunately we are high and dry. Tom went out to Baby Creek this evening to see how we fared out there and he hasn't returned home yet. We are having all the people that I work with out to Baby Creek this weekend so I'm hoping the driveway didn't wash away. Yikes!

I've been playing the last two nights and I have two cards for you tonight. Both of these cards were challenges. My first card features a ribbon wreath. I've always wanted to try making one of these. It was fairly easy once I got the knack. Here is the video I used to make the wreath. It's the best one I've found so far. I've seen several and I couldn't follow some of them.

Clean and simple. I added some punched flowers with pearl centers to the wreath. I used a Martha Stewart border punch for the background paper and the sentiment is from Flourishes Strawberry stamp set. I punched it out with a scalloped circle punch and and sponged it with several of the same colors as the flowers.

I entering this card into these challenges:

• Delightful Challenges: Mother's Day
• Sentimental Sunday challenge: for a special woman & sentiment
• Scrap Creations challenge: Mother's Day
• Outlawz Monday challenge: anything goes with a sentiment

 My second card tonight was another challenge for me. I'm not very comfortable doing vintage cards. They just don't seem to be my style. But Scrapbook & Cards Today had a challenge over the weekend for National Scrapbooking Day and I was intrigued with the post. So i decided to give it a try.

The vintage image is from TLC. I used Bics and Copics to color parts of the image and some parts I left black and white. I then cut the image out with the largest Spellbinder square die and then cut the square into 9 pieces and glued it to a black background piece. I added 3 Cheery Lynn butterflies that were cut from patterned paper and then sponged the edges with Memento Desert Sand to make them look vintage also. What do you think? Is that vintage? I hope so. I'd love to win the prize at Scrapbook & Cards Today challenge.
I hope your week is progressing very well. I have a couple of projects to finish this week for a Girl Scout event next Monday night. I'll be sure to share them with you when they are completed. Take care!

Donna

It's a Guy Thing

Happy Sunday! I can't believe I have a card to post. That doesn't happen very often on the weekend. Especially on a weekend like this one. Tom and I drove to Cincinnati on Friday night to fix his parent's lawnmower. We stayed overnight and then drove back in the late afternoon. Tricia was working her first day on her new job so I picked her up and we drove to Baby Creek for a cook out and stayed the night. I brought Tricia back about 9:30 this morning so she could be back to work by 11:00. Then I did grocery shopping, 3 loads of laundry, a load of dishes and planted tomatoes, peppers and green beans. I bought radish seed too but I don't have them planted yet. And I managed to get this card done too.

I have several "guy" birthdays this month so here's the first of my guy cards. I used Doodle Pantry's new set called Reel 'em In. I colored the reel with Bic markers and I used one of the sentiments to go with the reel. I printed and colored and extra handle and then popped it up from the front of the card. So here's the inside of the card.

I used another image and sentiment from the same set. I sponged both sentiments with Memento Desert Sand and then inked the edges with Memento Chocolate Chip. The lure is popped up from the card stock. I just love punny cards so I'm 'reely' happy with this one. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I'm entering these challenges:

• Paper Makeup Stamps challenge: sketch
• Simon Says challenge: anything birthday
• Do You Stack Up challenge: use circles
• CAS-ual Friday challenge: birthday card

Don't forget about the Doodle Pantry challenge for the month of May. If you enter the challenge you get  a free set called Scuba Sheep.

I think those scuba ants are just hilarious! You have until May 24th to play along.
Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you have a wonderful week!

Donna

Birthday Buzz

It was warm today. I think we set a record.And tomorrow is supposed to be more of the same with storms returning on Friday. Busy day today at work. I seem to have more meetings this week than usual. I cleaned my bedroom this evening and washed up all the bed clothes. My favorite thing is to crawl into a bed with clean sheets. Ah, so relaxing!
My card tonight is for a birthday.

I used the sketch from Sketches by Carly. The sentiment is a digi from Create with TLC and the bee image is from Gina K. Background paper is from my stash and I added a flower from Michaels. I'm entering this card into a couple challenges:

• Sketches by Carly challenge: sketch
• Cuttlebug Spot challenge: flowers
• Simon Says challenge: anything goes birthday
• Paper Playtime challenge: anything goes

Thanks for stopping by today. Here's hoping the end of your week is even better than the beginning.

Hugs,
Donna

Butterflies and Buttercups

Happy stormy Tuesday! We've had about 4 waves of storms roll through today. Nothing really too bad but lots of rain. I was hoping to get my tomatoes and peppers planted this week but that may not happens unless we dry out a little. More rain predicted later this week. I hope you got a chance to check out the new release of the May Doodle Pantry digis. Every month I think Laurie outdoes herself. My card tonight features another one of the new May digis: Buttercups.

I created this clean and simple card using the Buttercup digi image and added a sentiment from another Doodle Pantry set. The background paper is Basic Grey Origins. I used an EK Success punch to create the lattice and the butterflies are Cheery Lynn dies that I bought at Joan's Garden when I visited in march. The image was cut and embossed with Spellbinder's die.

Challenges that I am entering with this project:

• Joan's Garden challenge: use butterflies, use scallops or lattice, yellow or gold colors, patterned paper for background.
• CAS-ual Friday challenge: flowers or trees
• Paper Playtime challenge: anything goes
• Outlawz Thursday challenge: anything goes with flowers
• Crafty Boots Challenge: yellow
• Flourishes Timeless Tuesday challenge: use butterflies

Thanks for stopping by today and checking out my project. I hope your week is off to a wonderful start.

Donna

Doodle Pantry Release Day

Welcome to Tuesday and the month of May! Time is flying by. It's time again for a new release from Doodle Pantry. Laurie has some wonderful sets this month. If you need some masculine sets there are several this month. Just in time for me to make some "guy" birthday cards. I have a brother and a BIL who have a birthday this month. So I'm looking forward to using some of these very cool sets.
The set I chose for release day is called Baby Sea Turtle. This little guy is just too cute. The set comes with both an outline and color version, sentiments and two background papers.

My pizza box will fit a gift card. I used the outline turtle for the box and colored it with Copic markers. The turtle on the card is the colorized version. The paper I used is one of the background papers included with the set. The sentiment on the card is also included.

For the box I added some rhinestone embellishments to simulate some breathing bubbles. I really need a video to show you what's special about the box. I made a spring from 26 gauge jewelry wire and so the turtle bounces and swings when he's touched. You can see the spring a little better here:

The spring is very easy to make. You need two circles of cardstock. I used the scraps from the same background paper. Twirl your wire around a pen. Poke a hole in the middle of each circle, slide the wire through each hole and tape the wire down to the circle. Attach each circle: one to the box and one to the image. Easy as pie and it makes a fun interactive package. I sent this to my son's girl friend. Her birthday is this week and she's also taking final exams so I thought the sentiment was perfect: You've made it this far, so keep on swimming! Happy Birthday Anne!
So I know that you want to see the rest of this marvelous release! You can check it our at the Doodle Pantry blog or the Doodle Pantry store under new releases. You won't be disappointed. The rest of the design team have made some wonderful samples that you won't want to miss too. And as always, Laurie has some specials for the month of May:

• To commemorate National Pet Week, Laurie is giving a free set called Dizzy Dachshund free with any purchase until May 13th.
• The set Man Stuff is free with purchase from May 1st -24th.
• And the new challenge will be posted at the Doodle Pantry blog about noon today. Play along and everyone is a winner. Each person who submits an entry will be emailed the Scuba Sheep set. The only requirement is to use a Doodle Pantry image (not a sentiment). Don't have any DP images? No problem. Laurie has a whole section of freebies. And you have a chance to win other prizes too.
• And what would the month be without some specials? May 1st - 13th there are a bunch of sets marked at 30% off. You'll want to check out the Digi Grab Bag.

So that's it for today! A lot of fun for May 1st, don't you think? Here's hoping that your May gets off to a wonderful start.




Donna