From my Deck Garden

This is what greets me as I step out on to our deck......a beautiful hibiscus plant that I just bought last week at Sam's Club! It has been blooming profusely ever since I brought it home.

....and this Stephonotis is blooming, too. My friend Patti ,the florist, gave me this tropical plant 5 years ago. Every fall I bring it inside and place it in my sunniest window for the winter. It goes dormant for the winter months, but then, in June, when I put it back out on the deck, it perks right up and sprouts new growth and blooms with these beautiful waxy white flowers. Stephonotis used to be the favorite flower for bridal bouquets....I don't know how widely it's used these days. I'll have to ask Patti. Lastly, we have the grape tomatoes...They grow in a pot on the deck, also. We planted tomatoes and other vegetables when we first moved to our home 17 years ago. One day, I drove down the driveway after work, and there was a big, fat, groundhog...munching on a tomato. He barely gave me glance. It was MY tomato!!!! That ended garden planting. Now all of my herbs (except the chives and garlic) and tomatoes grow high up on the deck....where the groundhogs and deer can't feast! We do have to keep an eye out for the chipmunks, though. They don't even like tomatoes but will take a bite and leave the remainder on the stem...grrrr! So far this year, I haven't seen any.

Short post....till next time. Have a great weekend. It is beautiful here in Pittsburgh this weekend. Temps in the 70's-YAY!

Randomness

I've been looking over my blog today and have decided that it's too wordy. I have a tendancy to just blab on and on and on (my friends are laughing right now!), so this post will be few words but lots of pictures. If you have any questions (the few who actually read my blog) please leave me a comment. Speaking of comments, I'd love to do a blog candy give-away thing but I need you to let me know you're out there. More about that next time.


The first picture is a thank you card for a dear friend who hosted DPG & me for dinner at her tres chic loft apartment.

I decided to post these next pictures after seeing some of the dress forms from this post of Tiffany's and seeing a blog friend, Heidi's, "Spreckels" dress form. I don't have a full size dress form but I do collect dress form stamps. The third picture features my three favorites.
Some recent garage sale, flea market, antique store finds. I've decided to collect children's chairs. Not quite sure how I'm going to paint them or what I'll do with them once they're painted (I'm sure Charlie will score one of them) but for now, I just like looking at them and imagining all the children who have sat and played in these chairs.When I was a kid (before electronic games.....heck, before color TV) we would drag the kitchen chairs into the living room and line them up and play train...or bus...or car. Some of my bears decided to go for a ride today.I've been collecting bears for a long time. These are among the most recent additions. My wonderful friend, Pam, has given me three of these four.When I had my back turned for a moment, they must have circled their chairs around to chat...enough train rides for now. This guy with the bell around his neck is one of my favorites. All four of these bears are Boyd's bears. Some day I'll drag my handmade bears and "others" out to show you. Do you see the stenciled ants on my wall???? I don't like real ants in my house but the stenciled kind always make me laugh when someone discovers them for the first time.

While we're on an ant theme.....here are some pictures of the invitation I made for my Book Group Cook Out for this year. I always use ants in some way on my invitaions and this year I found this cute picnic basket stamp at Stamp Fanci. Aren't the ants carrying the chicken drumstick and the olives a hoot? I stamped the basket on patterned scrapbook paper, cut them out and mounted them with dimentional tape for a 3-D look. If you're in the neighborhood next Saturday, stop in!Thanks for visiting today. I will plan some blog candy for my next post. Thanks to all of you who leave a comment, it means so much to know you're out there.

No new pictures of Charlie this time. So I will leave you with this vintage postcard image. (Does anyone know how to turn this image around?)

I am always amazed and impressed with the bloggers who post every day, and every day they show new things they've created. I let a week...or 2...or a month go by between posts sometimes, and it's always because I'm either eyeball deep in projects and can't post until they're complete or I am so busy reading everyone else's blogs and drooling over their creations that I'm not making anything at all!


Since my last post, I have been doing both! I've just completed a wedding book assignment for a customer.
I created a two page layout in 8X8-inch size for each member of the wedding party. On one page is a place for a picture or two, and on the facing page, a personal message to the bride and groom from the bridesmaid or groomsman. The title page pictured above is the couple's monogram. The last page features a spot for the bride and groom's picture, with the tag "happily ever after". There are 3 small brothers and sisters in the wedding party and so I created one page for all of their pictures and then a facing lined page so the ones who can print a message can do so. It was a fun album to make as the bride's favorite color is red, so I used the cranberry of the bridesmaids dresses and cream for the main color scheme with black (to match the tuxedos) as the accent. This allowed me to use my favorite Foof-a-La papers in red, cream & black and I thought they made an elegant book. Making custom memory albums is what I do for people. I enjoy creating books where pictured memories will be stored for years to come. Only twice have I made albums using the person's actual photos and that is hard to do when you might not know the person whose pictures are going in the album. I usually do just the creative part and then let folks choose their favorite pictures to place in the album. Baby shower albums, baby albums, wedding shower albums, First Christmas albums, Dog and/or cat albums; I've made lots of books for people in the past few years. Do I have a completed album for my 8 month old grandson yet? No, but I'm working on it!


The other project that I completed this afternoon is for a friend of mine. Her beloved cat recently died and the vet who who had been caring for the cat, came to the house and stayed with the cat and my friend and her husband until the cat passed ( which has to be a rare thing) My friend asked me to make a thank you gift for the vet using a favorite verse of hers.
The board is 6X8-inches. I used Basic Grey papers for the front and scaled down vintage sheet music for the back. I will give the completed piece to my friend tomorrow at church. I hope she is pleased with it.

I've run out of projects for now but I will leave you with two pictures. The first is my little friend Amelia, who comes to hang out with me on Thursdays (surrounded by 3 bears from my collection) We always have a good time together. The second picture is from Charlie's visit last weekend. He came with his Daddy to see us while his Mommy was out of town. We had a wonderful visit.
This last picture is of Charlie and Papa's feet....they have matching sandals! Papa thought that was pretty cool!

Back from Vacation

We are back from vacation and I can finally add some explanation to the pictures I uploaded before we went away. First of all, I must tell you that part of our time away was spent visiting this sweet boy. Charlie is now 8 months old and growing by leaps and bounds. He is crawling all over and pulling himself up to stand. He is always smiling and squealing with happiness, I'm sure he must know how much he is loved. Anyway, these pictures are among our most recent. If you notice in the picture with the blue t-shirt, there is a drawing on his shirt and the words "I miss Jerry". Both of his parents and our other son Michael and his wife, are big Grateful Dead fans. When we saw this shirt on Charlie (in a 6 months size) we just cracked up! The other picture of him is with his Papa who is just crazy about him.

Before we went, I was able to finish this banner with Charlie's name. It is hanging in his room, from a valance that is trimmed with little farm animals. So cute.

This little birthday card was made for a very special little friend of ours, Amelia. I get to spend many Thursdays with her while her Mommy, my good friend Bethanie, is at work. Amelia just turned "one" so I made this card for her. I couldn't resist the mary jane stamp. The white eyelet trim on this card was made using a Martha Stewart punch. The card design was taught at a mini class at my favorite stamp store, Stamp Fanci, by one of my favorite instructors, Carolyn Dewey.

Now I mentioned in a previous post that I participated in a fun summer swap called Parasols, Pink Lemonade and Polka Dots. My swap partner was Samantha and I must say that I was so lucky we were paired together. We both like alot of the same things although my "vintage" goes back further than hers......her idea of vintage is the 60's, when I was in High School and she hadn't been born. Her blog is an interesting read and when I see the furniture and things she's interested in, I have to chuckle. It was fun to gather things for her, some of which is pictured below. Dig those crazy candle holders. They are vintage Scandanavian. The fun part of the swap was that we had to make something for our partner. Because Samantha loves Pyrex ware and is an avid collector, I made this funky collage for her kitchen in her favorite color-Green! OK-who remembers green stamps?

When my goodies came from her, this was what the outside of the package looked like. There was a wonderful assortment of goodies inside the polka dot wrapped box, including but not limited to......vintage cards and book pages, ice cream scoop, popsicle molds, the most awesome flamingo pink Pyrex baking dish complete with a recipe for Pink Lemonade Cake. There was also a beautiful paper parasol (big, too!) with directions for conversion into a ceiling light cover. Hanginf from the underside were funny tags...like the one shown with Mary Poppins. Thanks Samantha-you made this swap so much fun!

Finally, I wanted to post the pictures of the project I made for Vicki Chrisman's challenge. Each of the 20 participants received a package of papers, embellishments and an image from one of the Crafty Secrets journaling booklets. Vicki has such a good eye for selecting items that will work well together, it was a dream to make this project. I was lucky to be given an image with a robin and nest on it....you know I love the birdies! I distressed the edges of the images and both pieces of cardstock for the matting by running scissors around the edges, inking and tearing. The image just begged for music and since we could use stamps, I grabbed the little sheet music stamp from the Crafty Secrets set "altered Art", and stamped a strip of music, mounted it on cardstock and placed it behind the mounted image. These was a beautiful piece of lace in my package and I hated to cut it so I just tied a knot and fanned it out to look like a butterfly and mounted it on the corner of the frame with a glue dot. Buttons were the final touch. Did you notice that the whole little collage is mounted on the inside of the back of the wooden frame? I wanted a recessed, shadowbox look.

OK-if you haven't drifted off to sleep or wandered away to watch something interesting on the Discovery Channel, that's all I have to post for now. It's been hard not being able to upload pictures and keep my blog updated. Hopefully this will be the start of some consistancy! Now I will leave you with one final treat. See you soon.

What a nice surprise!

Imagine my surprise to find out that I have been given the following awards by Vicki Chrisman.














Now the rules are, that you must


1. Post the logos to your blog


2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you


3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs


4. Add links to those blogs on your blog


5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs


Thanks Vicki. Now my nominees are:


Michele~a dear friend I don't get to see often enough


Bev~a former work-mate and friend who is a great card maker


Samantha~a great swap partner


Heidi~one of the sweetest bloggers I have had the pleasure to meet through blogging


Mimi~my partner in Garage Sale hysteria


Dawn Edmunson~The Feathered Nest (I love to visit there)


Michelle Wooderson~ MishMash (one of the most inspirational card makers)


Whew! I did it. Please visit all of these blogs and say Hi!


Thanks again Vicki and have a blast at CHA.

On Vacation

Hi Everyone!
We're on vacation visiting friends in Crisfield, Maryland and having a very relaxing time. Before we left, I uploaded about a dozen pictures to Blogger so I could update my blog with pictures from the Parasols, Pink Lemonade & Polka Dots Swap and the WOW! goodies I received from my partner, Samantha, my challenge from Vicki Chrisman and some other things I've been working on. When we arrived at our friend's place, I found out that the only internet service they are able to have is dial-up. It would take me 3 days to download the pictures to my blog so please be patient. I have lots to show you!

It's Been a Long, Long Time

Boy, time flies whether you're having fun or not! I still don't have a new computer, I'm working on a borrowed laptop, but it's time to get back to my blog or people will take me off their list.

I have signed up for a swap...Parasols, Pink Lemonade and Polka Dots. Just love the images that title conjures up. There is a questionnaire to be answered and posted so here goes:

What is your favorite summer drink(s)?
Iced tea or pink lemonade.

What is your favorite summer activity?

Being outside!


If you could spend a lazy summer afternoon reading, what would be in your hands?

Any book by Jodi Picoult or a big stack of decorating or paper craft magazines.


What is your favorite type of craft/art medium?
Mixed media with vintage papers....sheet music, book pages, and trims and buttons

What is the one art/craft supply you absolutely have been dying to have or try?Score-Pal and beeswax...but not together


What are your favorite colors in our "rainbow sherbet" theme? Pink, lime green, yellow,orange,aqua (or blue)?

All of them but soft versions....pink being my favorite. I always tease my husband that if he dies, I'm doing the whole house in pink....he says that would kill him.


What is your favorite sweet treat?
Ice cream! We all scream for it you know. Of course you can't mail it so.....my favorite candy is licorice, mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Are there any craft supplies you would not be interested in receiving?
Can't think of any.

What is your favorite song today?
Anything on the 'Wicked' soundtrack

How do you 'pamper' yourself during the hot summer days?
I love to go to the book stores where it's sometimes downright cold and drink coffee and look through books and magazines. (Actually, I like to do this in the winter, too, when it's bitterly cold outside....only then, I might have hot chocolate)

Do you have any kidlets or pets?
No pets....3 adultlets and one adorable 7 month old grandson.

What is your best potluck dish for summer get-togethers?
Ina Garten's coleslaw-Love it!

If you could take a summer vacation anywhere, where would it be?
I've never been out of the country so that leaves a lot of possibilities. My favorite vacation spot is Rehoboth Beach, Delaware......at the Bellmoor.

Describe your decorating style. Does that say anything about your personality?
My husband likes Scandinavian modern and I like shabby cottage-we have an interesting home. I like comfortable & cozy and some vintage thrown in.

What are your initials?
JEG

Why do you like to join swaps?
Sometimes they take me out of my comfort zone. It's great to meet new people and a challenge to choose or make stuff for them. I've had good experiences and some not so good.

You have $25 to spend just on you for a little treat. What do you buy?
Rubber stamps, paper or magazines

What's one craft or art supply you absolutely can not live without?
My framers tape guns

Who's the last person you hugged?
My sweet husband

What's your favorite number and why?
4 and I don't remember why-it's been my favorite since I was a kid.

Samantha-I'm sure this is more information than you'd ever want to know about anyone but there it is.

Tomorrow we leave to go visit Charlie (who is 7 months old now) and his parents. I will update more on this poor, neglected blog when I return early next week. I have missed you and hope you haven't given up on me.

Have a good week and Happy Father's day to all Fathers and Grandfathers and especially to two first-timers, Eric & Dan.

Posies and Party Dresses

On Tuesday evening I had a wonderful time with some women I used to work with. Barb, Carol, Cindy and I met for dinner and then traveled to Ellwood City to our friend, Patti Kuhn's, flower shop, Posies by Patti. Twice a year Patti invites friends to her shop for an evening of flower arranging. We bring a container that Patti suggests and she supplies the flowers and the assistance to make a seasonal arrangement. In the past we have made arrangements in tea cups and pumpkins. The flower choices were plentiful and included gorgeous roses in shades of orange and deep, deep burgandy, yellow and white. My arrangement only had one white rose because poor David, with his wicked allergies, wouldn't be able to handle any more than that. Patti is a generous, loving , friend and you can tell that she enjoys watching us create our "masterpeices". It is always a pleasure to visit her lovely shoppe. In addition to fresh floral arrangements, she has the most wonderful gift and decorative items. My house has many beautiful treasures from her store. I thought it might be fun for you to take a mini tour. The first picture is Cindy, Carol, Patti and Barb.

The second part of this post is about a party dress. We are very fortunate, in this part of Pennsylvania, to have a premier rubber stamp store close by. Stamp Fanci is a jaw-dropping store with thousands of stamps and supplies for stamping. The owner, Margie, is knowledgeable, creative and fun to know! She will always take the time to demonstrate something you'd like to see, whether it's Tim Holtz crackle paint, the Zutter Bind-It-All, different pens and coloring systems or the (I absolutely MUST HAVE) Nestabilities dies. The classes at Stamp Fanci are planned and thought out well in advance and clearly explained and you always leave with many finished projects and the printed directions in hand. Wood mount and clear stamps-she has them all! Needless to say, I've spent many dollars in this Mecca. It's cheaper than therapy, right? Anyway, she has just gotten some of the classiest stamps from a company called B-line. I collect dress form rubber stamps and when I saw this beauty I knew I just had to have it for my collection. I was rummaging around in my supplies and came across this "special" tag that I purchased a while ago on Etsy from Living Room Floor. I thought they'd be perfect together. I think the pale pink seam binding was just the right touch. I've contacted Stephanie from LRF and ordered 10 more of these tags to make more cards with different themes.

Two posts in one day. Is anyone still awake? Have you wandered off to watch Oprah or CNN or are you still with me? I do tend to ramble. Ah, now I can just concentrate on cheering Bethanie on while she works on my "lost profile". Who needs Survivor, when you can have this excitement? Keep your fingers crossed.

Wish I had a lemon bar!