February Is the Month of Love

And so I'm starting it off with a Valentine that uses a totally cool embellishment Audrie sent me...the tiny key charm!

The heart with the key hole is from a Martha Stewart punch, and the text heart stamp is from StampinUp. I layered the punched heart using tiny dimensionals. The key is attached with a couple of small glue dots. I used a craft knife to tuck the edges of the glue dots under the key, so they barely show.

OLW77
Jennifer will be posting the OLW for this week. Thank goodness she's back and I don't have to do the odd numbers anymore! I will comment on all the cards for OLW75 and OLW76. Sorry it's taking so long.

Grab Bag Update
All but one of the large papercrafting grab bags are gone. All the scrapbooking bags are still available. Don't think that just because they have a small album or two that you have to use all the stuff for scrapbooking. There are plenty of stamps, card stock, ink, and embellishments in those boxes as well! For instructions on ordering, please go to the For Sale tab.

Use-My-Stamps Resolution and a New Inventory Plan
As I announced in January, my new crafting resolution is to use every image stamp I own. Again. Someone asked how I was going to keep track of which stamps I had used, and I realized that I didn't have a good answer for that. The first time around, I simply checked the stamps off in my stamp inventory, but as that inventory is hopelessly out of date and completely useless now, I didn't know how to track everything.

Soooo, now that I've purged a whole bunch of stamps, I decided it was time to do a new inventory, this one based on how I organize my stamps. I'll do a post soon with photographs of the new stamp storage categories and an explanation of the process for doing the inventory WITHOUT giving myself stamper's elbow. It'll be slow but methodical!



Supplies
stamps: SU (not sure of the set, though...I broke it up!)
ink: SU real red
paper: SU real red, PTI white
accessories: Corner Chomper, key charm (thanks, Audrie!), Martha Stewart punch

Remember the Crimper?

The fall issue of Take Ten includes a spread of colorful, highly embellished cards that use corrugated cardboard. Seeing them made me want to break out my paper crimper and see what I could do with it.

You could say that I went in a COMPLETELY different direction than the inspiration cards.

You would be right.

To make this card, I ran a piece of Papertrey white through the crimper multiple times, rotating it 90 degrees each time. This repeat crimpling breaks down the paper fibers and gives you a pretty soft piece of paper. There won't be problems mailing this. The small leaf is from Martha Stewart, the larger leaf punch is either EK or Marvy. Not sure. Everything is glued. No dimensionals needed.

All-white cards need texture. And yes, texture plates and expensive machines are more stylish and versatile than the old-fashioned crimper, but I don't have texture plates and expensive machines.

I have a crimper.

And I'm not afraid to use it.

What are your favorite "old-fashioned" stamping tools?

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey
ink: Memories Soft Silver
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: Fiskar's Paper Crimper, leaf punches

Postage Stamp Punch Meets Hero Arts Designer Alphabet

Today's card made me so very happy, but then, soft, beachy colors always make me happy. So does using a tool that has languished in my stash, in this case the postage stamp punch. Can't remember using it before, although my memory isn't what it used to be. Or perhaps I just have too many supplies to keep mental track of them all.

Whatever.

Design Discussion: This is a super way to spotlight small accent stamps that come with alphabets. The tiny sentiment is from an old, discontinued Hero Arts set. I arranged the colors very deliberately, giving the darkest color to the sentiment (those letters are pretty thin and needed the deeper color), and balancing the two blues diagonally and the two greens (well, baja is greenish blue) on the other diagonal. The butterfly is flying into the composition.

Jennifer has posted the OLW for this week, and it's awesome: Clouds! Click on over for the full scoop and to link up your creation!

Thursday afternoon, I will post my first batch of stuff for sale, including the SU paper stacks and some SU stamp sets. I've got some other stamps (lots of Hero Arts) to organize for sale as well.

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts
ink: SU celery, marina mist, baja breeze, bashful blue
paper: SU celery, marina mist, baja breeze, bashful blue; white
accessories: postage stamp punch

Inspiration Takes an Unusual Direction, Part 2 and a Critique

Inspired by the rad texture of peat pot cards in Take Ten, I pulled out several different textured papers and played, just to see what would happen. Sometimes, as with yesterday's card, playing around works happily. Sometimes, well, it doesn't quite hit the mark.

Today's card uses papyrus, some lovely textured white cardstock from Marco's Papers, and some handmade inclusion paper that has rose petals, twigs, and leaves imbedded in it. It's also an example of good things taken just a bit too far. I'd like to share my analysis of what went wrong, particularly as it relates to adapting collage/shabby styles to clean-and-simple design.

I'm not fishing for compliments...just sharing my thoughts in the hope that they will help inspire you to play around and not to be afraid of making something you don't like.

I don't like this card nearly as much as yesterday's card mainly because it's not as visually simple. The punched bird has a lot going on with it...the petal on its wing and the twig on its body, combined with the handmade texture of the paper are a LOT to look at. Add the two differently toned buttons with twine, the rough natural edge of the papyrus, and the curly sentiment, and the card crosses the line from CAS to, well, I'm not sure what, but it's not exactly CAS, is it?

Also, the balance is off. The ivory bird and button need a third element to ground them visually, and I thought the white base would do that...but it doesn't. Perhaps it's because the papyrus panel is just a titch too big. Perhaps the layout itself is simply not effective. Perhaps the sentiment needs more visual weight. Whatever. It's a card that almost works but, in the end, doesn't.

I love all the individual elements of this card....I just should have limited how many I used and rearranged them a bit. This bird card shows how tempting it is to keep adding more stuff...and how in the interest of clean-and-simple design, more stuff often isn't better.

But you never know what will happen if you don't even try.

On the Fence

In keeping with yesterday's post about the joy of new stuff, I recently purchased a few new punches at Michael's, including this fab Martha Stewart fence border punch. The first version of this card used a kraft card base. It looked dreadful. Oh how I wish I had the gift of kraft. Alas, plain ol' white tends to work better for me. Especially when I stamp Memento Pear Tart on it. *swoon*

I'll bet there's no one else in the world who thinks that the name "pear tart" makes reference to ANYTHING but a fruity dessert. Am I right?

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Through the Trees, Paper Tray
ink: Memento
paper: PTI
accessories: MS fence border punch, rhinestones

Inspired by Lindsay Amrhein and a Link to a Lattice Tutorial

This adorable kraft-base card by Lindsay Amrhein appears in the latest issue of Card Creations, which is my favorite issue EVER. It's loaded with tons of clean and simple inspiration.

Lindsay paper pieced her sweet bowl of cherries using turquoise and red designer papers, and I loved those colors against the kraft.

I kept the colors (though my turquoise is a lighter aqua) and rather than piecing, I opted for the much easier punching. At first, I was going to punch circles for the flower centers, but then I remembered these giant brads, so I used them instead. The three brads form a visual triangle around the sentiment, and the top large flower and bottom small flower are popped up on dimensionals. Lindsay rounded all four corners, which makes sense given the curves of her focal point, but I felt the pointy flowers on my version needed at least some pointy corners. Rounding the opposite corners gives a nice dynamic feel to an otherwise static design.

Scor-Pal Tutorial: For those of you who asked for a tutorial on yesterday's embossing, please thank blog reader Susan who linked to an awesome Gina K tutorial on the subject. Gina's tutorial shows a much tighter lattice than the one on my baby card, for which the lines were scored at one-inch intervals. I used a Scor-Pal (12") rather than the smaller Scor-Buddy. Also, my card is one layer, so I began with a 4.25" x 11" card base and scored at 3.5 and 5.5 inches...the 5.5" score was the fold for the card, and the 3.5" score, which is covered by ribbon on my card, gave me a guide for scoring the lattice on the lower two-thirds of the card.

For those of you who aren't using your Scor-Pal for more than folding cards, DON'T WORRY. That's what I use it for 99% of the time, too. It's worth every penny even if that's all you ever do with it!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Ink's Green Thumb
paper: Mark's Finest Kraft, PTI's polka dot paper
ink: Memento
accessories: brads, dimensionals, Corner Chomper

Before and After: Color Balance

Before

When I made this card, one mistake caused some odd design elements. When I stamped the Text Style background, I left a bit too much space between images. So that's where I put the twine, to cover the gap. Then, I decided that I'd use a red starfish for a pop of color, highlight it with some rhinestones, and stamp the sentiment in cool caribbean.

Sadly, the starfish is just a little too visually insignificant and just floating there on the twine oddly. (You try attaching a skinny-armed starfish over twine!) Plus, the sentiment really needed to be red.

After

By replacing the starfish with a couple of sea horses, anchored from below with the twine in a more realistic manner, the right side of the card has more visual weight and makes more sense. The sentiment also doesn't disappear now that it's red.

If I made a third version of the card, I'd make the popped water panel a smidge taller, to give more room for the sea horses. The twine is just a little too low on the panel.

And yes, I understand text-covered water is weird, but I don't care. I love text, and I love the ocean. If you want to do something similar but not so English-major geeky, you could try polka dots or flourishes or something nautical. But I'm sticking with text.

Supplies
stamps: Text Style (PTI), Life is a Beach (PTI)
ink: cool caribbean, real red (SU)
paper: Mark's Finest Paper
accessories: Martha Stewart sand dollar/starfish punch, sea horse punch, Fiskar's ocean waves border punch, dimensionals, glue dot, twine (PTI) 

New Goodness

*Squeal!*

I received my Stampin'Treasures order in record time (ordered Tuesday, got it Thursday!). I took a picture of all the Hero Arts goodness I got. Oh how I can't wait to play with these!

In the meantime, I'm going to share a card I found and can't remember posting before (maybe I have and simply can't remember...wouldn't be the first time I forgot something). But it's so pretty and simple and made with a Hero Arts sentiment, so it seemed fitting to post it along with the picture above.

Happy Monday, Everyone!

Here's a reminder about OLW27. The give-away ends at midnight tomorrow night, so get your cards posted in time!!!

Tomorrow kicks off the new release of the Mark's Finest Papers November stamp sets. There are six of them this month...a nice mix of holiday and other sets. I'm looking forward to the hop and hope you enjoy all the stuff I made for it!

Using Twinkling Paper in a CAS Layout: Part Two

Today's cards are a variation on yesterday's use of squares punched from shimmery paper colored with Twinkling H2Os. I used a slightly larger punch (1" rather than 3/4") and six squares rather than three. Each square was stamped with small images appropriate to the color scheme.

For the blue and lavender paper, I used Hero Arts snowflakes and sentiment stamped in Memories soft silver ink. The ink dried very quickly on the shimmery paper, too. I alternated blue and lavender squares to add interest here.

The red and gold paper became a fall card on a PTI vintage cream base. The leaves (Hero Arts) and sentiment (Mark's Finest Papers) were stamped in Palette dark chocolate, and as above, I alternated the colors.

I can't decide if I should have put the Happy Autumn sentiment in the center or not. I rather like it justified right with the edge of the squares. Perhaps I need to put a couple of brown pearls beside the upper left square to balance it, or perhaps the asymmetry works well enough alone. Indecision may or may not be my problem, but I usually err on the side of CAS in cases like this.

I do know that the Merry Christmas sentiment--with all the letters in caps--looks MUCH  better in the center.

Tomorrow's Twinkling card will be something completely different from yesterday's and today's cards. Not a punch in evidence, LOL!

Using Twinkling Paper in a CAS Layout: Part One

Painting an image with Twinkling H2Os (or any watercolor) like I did for yesterday's card is tons of fun but time-consuming. And 'cause y'all know I'm a quick-and-easy stamper at heart, I wanted to show how you can create shimmery paper and use it to make a variety of quick CAS cards. [Note that this technique would work with regular watercolor paints, reinkers, etc.]

I started with a watercolor paper block of Arches hot-press paper. Blocks are sealed on all four sides so all the pages are attached to each other. This means the paper wrinkles less than it would if it were a loose sheet. I use a butter knife to cut the paper off the block after it's totally dry.

Hot-press paper is smooth; cold press is textured. Hot press is MUCH easier to stamp on later, so I mostly use it.

First, I painted plain water on the area I wanted to paint. Then, I started with one color on one side, and while it was still wet, I painted the other color on the other, blending them together in the middle. As you can see on the red/gold side, I got some blooming of the paint, which isn't terribly pretty, but I just worked around that section when I started using the paper.

The two cards I'm sharing today are very minimalist...the CAS-est of the three days of Twinkling Paper I have planned. I used a 3/4" square punch to punch three squares of twinkling paper and stamped a single, small sentiment on the third square. Very shimmery. Very graphic. Very minimalist. *happy sigh*

The cool colors of the lavender and blue are so soft and required a clean, smooth, white base of PTI cardstock. You'll see the red/gold paper above shown on a card tomorrow, but below, I used squares punched from cold-press cardstock treated the same was as above. I used the same cold-press watercolor paper for the card base.

The close-up shows the texture. For stamping a small outline stamp like this, the cold press is okay. But these were scraps saved from a botched attempt to use the cold press with a large block stamp. Ick. Very splotchy and ugly, even though I used a stamping mat and lots of pressure. After salvaging the unstamped areas with a punch, I felt so much better about myself.

Aren't small square punches absolutely the BEST!?!?

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts
ink: Palette Noir and Dark Chocolate
paper: PTI white, Cold Press and Hot Press watercolor paper
accessories: Twinkling H20s, square punch

Hero Arts Pre-Made Cards

A while back, StampinTreasures sent me some free stuff, including a few colors of Hero Arts' pre-made cards and envelopes. The cards are made of two-sided cardstock...colored on one side, white on the other. The two-sided aspect is very classy, and it's fun to play with colored card bases every now and then! 

Design Discussion: Using the border stamp like this helps ground the circle so it's not just floating on the card. Of course, sometimes, I like floaty. Floaty isn't always bad. But in this case, the stamped panel needed to be achored. by stamping the text border in soft blue ink, it's there but not intrusive or busy.

I used three different sets of Papertrey Ink stamps: Honey Bees (flower), Text Style, and Everyday Classics (a limited edition, sentiment). This layout gave me an excuse to use my circle and scallop punches, which are wonderful additions to a CAS-stamper's tool box but too often neglected by me.

What tools are languishing in your tool box?

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey
ink: Palette noir, VersaColor Atlantic
paper: Hero Arts card, SU brocade blue, white
accessories: circle punch, scallop circle punch, dimensionals, rhinestone

Bee Happy

In my previous life as an academic intellectual, I despised puns. Now, however, I'm starting to like them. Or at least not despise them. And sometimes, I can actually use one without feeling like grading the card in red ink with a big, fat F.

Such is the case today with these adorable bees from Hero Arts. LOVE them! (By the way, in my previous life as an academic intellectual, I never used all caps or exclamation points, either. My goodness, how the snob has fallen!)

I made this card from bits and pieces I found in my tin of bits and pieces...punched and/or stamped pieces that have been sitting in a tin for months (or years) just waiting to be used. I'd made about five or six of the heart circles with the gemstones long ago, and, at another time, had stamped, colored, and punched the bees. When I dumped the tin out last week, bees fell next to the heart circles and INSPIRATION!!!!!

(More all caps and exclamation points. Have I no shame? No, not really. This blog isn't, after all, the Publication of the Modern Language Association or the Journal of Medieval Studies. How many of you would be here if it were one of those revered and respected scholarly journals? Yeah, I thought so. Typographical shouting and punctuational enthusiasm add charm to my current life as a stamp-obsessed, stay-at-home-mommy blogger. Go, me!)

Tomorrow, I'm posting about photographing cards, which seems really strange because I don't feel my photos are anywhere close to the quality of, say, Julie Ebersole's or Joan B's. But for those of you who are novice photographers with limited equipment and next to no photo editing skills, well, I'm here for you. Or will be tomorrow.

Don't forget about OLW25! There are some amazing cards already posted to Jennifer's challenge, and I'm hoping to play sometime today. I have the perfect stamp!!!

There I go again. Let's hear it for egregious punctuation!

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts, Papertrey Ink (sentiment from Honey Bees)
ink: Palette Noir, SU markers in amethyst and celery
paper: PTI white, SU amethyst
accessories: heart and circle punches, rhinestone, dimensionals, scallop scissors to round the corners a bit

Scale Matters--Edited

I got a little punch crazy recently and made this card:


Oh how I love the colors, the layout, everything...except the scale of the sentiment. I thought the small sentiment (from PTI's Sign Language) would be perfectly understated, but instead, it's perfectly TOO LOST AND SMALL AND WIMPY!

So (after photographing it) I carefully removed the green strip (which I'd glued down) and replaced it with a larger sentiment from Simple Little Things (also by PTI). So much better!



Please note how I slightly rounded the four corners of the grid with scallop scissors. Oh, yeah. Deco scissors ARE cool.

Edited to Add: Lining everything up wasn't as hard as it looks. I just put the little squares on the big squares, glued the long strip down, then arranged the big squares on the card where I wanted them and started gluing them down using tweezers. No rulers involved.

Supplies
stamps: PTI
ink: Palette Noir
paper: SU cool caribbean, tempting turquoise, taken with teal, gable green
accessories: square punches, scallop scissors

Lines Love Curves

There's a saying in design that lines love curves. This means that if a design is too straight and right-angled, add curves. If it's too curvy, add straight lines. The idea, I think, is to create a bit of tension between the two to add interest to a design.

This lined shadow stamp from Hero Arts is old. Very old. But adding some curvy flowers, bling, and a simple sentiment certainly freshen it up and make it happy.

How-To Tips: I cut this card down to fit the shadow, leaving an even border around it and building from there. The resulting card is 4.25" wide by 3 7/8" tall.

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts shadow lines, Papertrey Mega Mixed Messages
ink: bashful blue, Palette noir
paper: PTI white, SU brilliant blue
accessories: flower punches, dimensionals, gemstones

Subtle Blue

As I've said before, it's hard to photograph subtle colors. This paper, a textured cardstock from I don't know where, is so very pretty and soft, and I wanted to make it into cards. To keep things subtle, I used vellum for the butterflies, Sea Breeze ink (VersaMagic), and light and airy stamps. Hopefully, your computer screen shows the details because these really do look lovely in real life.

First up, butterflies and Stem Silhouettes. This little 4.25" square card came together quite quickly with a scrap of white cardstock (with ugly stamping on the reverse) and scraps of vellum.


Next up, a cleaner, more taylored-looking card using another set from SU (Font of You). I used clear rhinestones colored with a Bic Mark-It.


Isn't it fun to take a color and let it inspire you? Why not pull out a color of cardstock that you haven't used in a while and see what happens?

Sucker for a Good Border Punch

Got a coupon? Get a border punch!

That's my motto.

Well, one of them. Along with "You can nevah, nevah, nevah have too many stamps." And "Too CAS? I don't know what you're talking about."

Today's card is one of my favorite color combinations: cool caribbean, sahara sand, and white. So peaceful. So beachy. So ahhhhhhhhh.


And the border punch makes the whole thing work.

Scalloped scallops. That Martha Stewart is brilliant. Well, whoever designs her punches is brilliant.

So, how many border punches do YOU have? Inquiring minds want to know.

On Blog Hops, Envelope Advice, and the SU Bird Punch

On Blog Hops

If you missed the Clean and Simple Blog Hop, please check it out. A bunch of very talented ladies made amazing cards to celebrate the Fall-To Layout's 100th sketch. You can join them by making your own card and linking to it on the C&S Blog.

Envelope Advice

Next, I have had several questions about card sizes and envelopes. I DO NOT MAKE ENVELOPES. I'm just too lazy, and besides, envelopes are even more likely than cards to end up in the trash. Too much effort for too little reward: that's my opinion. So I KEEP IT SIMPLE and limit my cards to sizes that will fit into envelopes I have on hand.

Fortunately, Marco's Paper has a brick-and-mortar store that's an easy drive from my house. It's a fun place to browse for envelopes, with lots of sizes, papers, and colors to choose from. Here are my favorite sizes, all of which take standard US postage:

A2, for 5.5" x 4.25" cards (standard for half an 8.5" x 11" sheet of cardstock)

A6, for 6.25" x 4.5" cards

A7, for 5" x 7" cards

#4, for 4 7/8" x 3.5" cards

#7.5, 7.25" x 3.75" cards

Marco's website for envelopes is confusing right now (looks like they might be updating it), so I'll not provide a link at this time. It's not listing sizes for the envelopes. But my advice for buying envelopes is to find an office supply store (mom-and-pops have more selection than, say, Office Depot, and often will sell by the envelope, not just prepackaged boxes) or a fine stationery store, and browse. Seeing and touching makes a huge difference.

Then, you can adapt your cards to what envelope sizes you have. For instance, you can make a square card using the smaller dimension that fits into a standard envelope (i.e., a 5" square card fits in an A7 envelope). The US Postal Service charges extra for square envelopes, and that's a great way to avoid the extra charge.

To remind me what sizes I can make, I post a notecard on the bulletin board over my desk listing the card sizes that fit the envelopes I have on hand. It's just a little index card with a handwritten list, but it works to remind me that I can change the size as needed.

I hope that helps newcomers to card-making feel a bit more oriented on card sizes. Get the envelopes; then make the cards to fit. It's far easier and less stressful that way!

SU Bird Punch

Today's cards use the StampinUp bird punch and PTI's Text Style background set. The first version uses bright colors, and the second is very subtle. I think changing the colors really changes the feel of the card.





Design Discussion: Once I saw these cards in photographs, I realized they would look better with either a) the sentiment on the left instead of the right or b) the bird facing right. I counted on the fact that the leaves point at the sentiment to guide the eye, but it bothers me that the bird is looking away from the sentiment. In fact, it's almost like he pooped out the sentiment. Ewwww.

Other than that little design faux pas, I'm very happy with these light and airy cards.

Supplies
stamps: PTI
ink: Versacolor
paper: PTI
accessories: SU bird punch, dimensionals, bling

Celebrate the Season in Red and White

Oh. My. Gosh.



I have no idea where this came from. Last week, I just sat down and made it. Don't you love the way the border punch echoes the pointy poinsettias on top? Yeah, I did that on purpose.

It makes me happy. Oh. So. Happy.

I hope it makes you happy, too.

Supplies
stamps: Peaceful Poinsettia, Take a Bough
ink: real red, Palette noir
paper: real red, PTI white
accessories: ribbon, button, floss, dimensionals, lattice border punch

CAS38 Brads or Eyelets--Corrected

When I first saw this challenge, I realized that I haven't used many brads lately, so this was fun! I have hundreds of brads in my stash: big brads, little brads, round brads, square brads, matte brads, shiny brads, rhinestone brads, multicolored brads...you get the picture.

I chose to make a black and white Christmas card using the small snowflake from The Snowflake Spot set from StampinUp. The sentiment is from PTI's Silent Night. I punched out the snowflakes with a 1" circle punch, stuck a rhinestone brad in the center of each, and attached them over the sentiment with dimensionals. The ink was Palette Noir, and the paper is, of course, PTI white.

Simplicity Tip: Several people have asked me lately how I get such precise placement of items on my cards. Sometimes, I will place a clear ruler down on the card to get placement precise, especially if I'm working on a single line of items. Usually, however, I eye-ball it, but there are a few things I do to help get the eyeballing right. (I think I just made up the word eyeballing, but it sounds kinda dirty, doesn't it? Or is it just the gutter-minded English major in me sneaking out?)

Anywho, back to lining stuff up. First, I work on a giant green quilting/cutting mat that has a one-inch grid marked on it. I center up the card on the grid and place all the elements for the card where I want them using the grid for reference, adjusting as needed until each element is where it needs to be.

Then, I remove ONE element, put a dimensional or glue on it, and using TWEEZERS, place it back where it belongs. Because everything else is still in place, it's easier to get placement of each piece right. Tweezers allow me to work with small objects very precisely without messing up the other, laid-down elements on the card. Then I attach each other piece until everything is stuck on, and I'm done.

I hope this helps. It's much easier to do than to describe!

Edited to correct size of punch!

Circles on My Cards Make Me Happyyyyy...

They're as good as sunshine on my shoulders.

Here are two more of my cards using PTI's Peaceful Poinsettia using the smaller poinsettia images. I really enjoy cards with circles lined up on them. It's such a clean way of presenting images, don't you think? Especially when those images have lots of pointy petals for contrast.

First up is the gable green card base. I used to hate gable green, but, as with so many colors I have hated, I got over it. I used the outline poinsettias because the solid poinsettias overpowered the lighter green base.



Here's the red base version. I used the solid poinsettias because the green is so light in comparison to the red.

Which do you like best?

I prefer the gable green base because the red base seems overpowering for the green poinsettias to my eye, despite the fact they're solid images. The pint of red, gallon of green works better than pint of green, gallon of red. I have no idea why...it just seems that way to me. If you feel differently, please share in the comments. Curious minds want to know.

Plus who ever heard of lime-green poinsettias? That just ain't right. (Say the previous sentence out loud with a slow, drawling Southern accent. Isn't that fun?!? Just like egregious punctuation!!!) Actually, when I planned this card, I was thinking that white poinsettias often seem to have a tinge of green, but the lime is too, too green.

Baby Update: Many, many thanks to all who have sent good wishes and prayers for my sister and her baby. There simply aren't words to express the depth of my gratitude. Little Grady was having some trouble breathing late yesterday, but the doctors were doing something to help that. I just hate not being there to know details! Since my mom didn't call me late last night after her hospital visit, I'm assuming he's doing better. These tiny babies are so fragile and helpless in so many ways, but in other ways they are incredibly strong. Be strong, Grady!