First sunburn of the season

Washington's encampment

Just for the record, I am pale. I mean, like vampire pale. Give me yellow contacts and some glitter and I'd fit right in with the Cullens. I'm one of those people who burns and peels and then burns again but never really tans. I even burn through my clothes, I'm that pale. The second worst sunburn I ever had was through a t-shirt while wearing SPF 50 sunscreen while in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan a few years ago. The worst burn I ever got was in high school after a day at a water park--I actually got sunstroke and 2nd degree burns I was burned so bad. My muscles even hurt--I could hardly walk for a week!

Militia men in period costume

So you'd think that with my propensity toward burning, I'd be better about sunscreen, right? Wrong.Yesterday, we spent the day at Valley Forge with some other Orthodox homeschoolers (we are thinking about it, but not yet committed to homeschooling) and while we had a nice time, it was HOT and very sunny. I had put something on my face and had on a floppy wide brim hat, but forgot about my bare arms and legs.

Looking in at the officer's hut

The tour guide on the walking tour was just a little too enamoured of the sound of his own voice and we spent a fair bit of time at one stop just standing in the direct sun (on a 90 degree day with plenty of humidity). So I wasn't too surprised to find that my arms were burned when I got home and my knees were a bit pink (burned through the tea-length dress I was wearing). Neither my (Greek) husband nor my kids were even the least bit pink, of course. Piglet's getting a bit of a farmer tan, actually.

Remember I said I was running out of baby thank you cards? I made another set of 8 on Sunday and I'm quite pleased with how they came out. I had four 1"x12" strips of designer series paper left over from working on Boo's baby book, and couldn't bring myself to recycle them, but didn't want to store them either, so I thought I should design the card around them, so I did!

With Delicate Dots dsp

I went with a bright bold color scheme--I really like SU!'s new brights collection. It is so much easier to work with than the old one! The only problem is that my first try didn't turn out right and the dsp got messed up in the process, so I needed one extra 1" strip of So Saffron dsp.

I rummaged through my little file of scraps and found one from the retired Washington Apple collection from two years ago. Perfect! I wish I had a bit more of it--I would have done a few more with that pattern.

With Washington Apple dsp

Supplies:
Tempting Turquoise, Pumpkin Pie, Melon Mambo, Old Olive (textured) Whisper White, Washington Apple/Delicate Dots dsp (both retired)
Fox and Friends, Short and Sweet stamps
Tempting Turquoise, Melon Mambo, Pumpkin pie inks
Modern Label Punch
Melon Mambo grosgrain ribbon
1 1/4" & 1 3/8" circle punches
dimensionals
2 step bird punch

Sunny Sunday

Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there, and my husband in particular. He and my toddler went to church this morning and got back early afternoon, so I had a bit of time to myself. (I'm not churched yet, so I stayed home with the baby and stamped in between nursing and trying to soothe his screaming). I'm happy to say I got a lot done this morning! My baby thank you card stash was starting to run low, so I made another set of 8, that I'll share with you tomorrow. Actually yesterday wasn't bad either on the craft front--I got caught up on Boo's baby scrapbook, so that feels good.

We just went out to dinner for Father's Day--my hubby had wanted to try a new sushi place in the neighborhood, but when we walked over there, we discovered they aren't open on Sundays, so we ended up at a local coffee house that serves a pretty full menu and uses local ingredients when possible. Since my husband's birthday is in less than two weeks, we'll go there for his birthday instead.

This morning, I CASEd a swap that a sideline of mine received last fall that I just loved. It was the card that convinced me to get the Two-Step Bird punch. When I first saw the punch, I said, "meh" and flipped the page. I'm not that into birds, quite frankly. I was drawn to the little branch that is included in the punch, and I started to see some cool tulip cards made out of the bird wings, but still, I said, pass for now. Then I saw this card in March at a stamp camp, and that pushed me over the edge! I've been having a ball with this punch--you'll be seeing a lot of birds in the next little while.

The original card was designed by Debby Kainu, of Middleton, New York. All I did was change the sentiments and used naturals vanilla cardstock as the base instead of Very Vanilla. I just love the little birds peeking at one another on either side of the circle window. I'll probably make this one again with different colors.


Supplies:
Naturals Ivory, So Saffron, Chocolate Chip, Real Red cs
Wings of Friendship, Of the Earth stamps
Real Red, Pretty in Pink ink (used for sponging)
2-Step Bird Punch
Dimensionals
sponge wedge
tombow glue
scallop edge punch
1 3/4" circle punch

Ever check a sleeping baby...

to see if he is still breathing? I did that constantly when my toddler was an infant, and while I don't do it as much with the new baby, when he fell asleep before supper time and slept for almost 5 hours without feeding, I had to wonder! He normally eats almost constantly from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., so I kept going to check on him to make sure he was okay. The upside was lots of stamping time for me!! Having a few hours to myself, with no baby attached to me and a sleeping toddler was quite a psychological boost, I must say.

I made my swaps for the Inker's meeting in New Jersey on the 29th and worked on an order from an etsy customer. I thought I might get a few more scrapbook pages done for the baby's book, but ran out of time. (Plus my Bree Tanner book came yesterday and I wanted to start it before I fell asleep! I'm not sure what I think of it yet)


I had great hopes for getting some stamping done today, but I had my 6 week post partum visit this morning which pretty much killed the morning, and we are going to a potluck birthday party for a friend this evening and I've got to make something to bring along for that, so no time. Oh well.

This is the card we made on Monday at the Inker's meeting in Philly. It uses the new Cherry Cobbler, which is an absolutely scrump-diddly-dumptious color! The photos don't even begin to do this deep winey-red justice. It is so color saturated--I love it! I think it may end up being my go-to red color. I also love the wheel that we used to give the Elements of Style image a bit of vintage--it is called Textured and it is a jumbo wheel in the current catalog that is carrying over to the next one. It's definitely on my wish list! I like the new skinny taffeta ribbon as well--I wasn't sure I would, not being a huge fan of skinny ribbon, but this ribbon is a nice heavy ribbon that has a good feel in the hand and looks nice on cards. You can layer it or have it by itself, as on this card. (Like ribbon? Stay tuned for ribbon, button/brad, and cardstock shares, coming in July!)


Okay, I'm off to make chickpea curry. I like this recipe (it is new) but the whole house (and me and my clothes) smell of curry when I make it--that part I'm not so crazy about.

Swaps, swaps

I have a clean house, I have a clean house, I have a clean house!!! (Did I mention I have a clean house??) I have someone who helps with the cleaning a couple times a month right now while I'm still getting my feet back under me with the baby and she came this morning. I feel so much better now! With the near-constant nursing the last little while, I've barely been able to keep the house picked up, much less dusted and mopped. I'm hoping I get more time between feedings by August so that I can put up salsa and jam. (My sister thinks that the phrase "to put up" something is hilarious, by the way. I guess it is a little old-fashioned. I'll be canning for those who don't know that particular turn of phrase.


Our monthly Philly Inker's meeting was Monday night, so I packed up the baby (ha!) and took him along for the ride. It was held in one of the far western suburbs of Philly, so our carpool had a bit of a drive, but it was a fun meeting, and so worth the time! We made a gorgeous card using the new Cherry Cobbler (love it!) and Elements of Style, which I'll show you tomorrow or the day after, but I wanted to share my swaps from the evening. Each meeting we all swap card fronts, which is a great source of ideas. I had seen a version of my swap on another forum (splitcoast or stampin' addicts, can't remember which) and really liked the clean and simple look, so I decided to make it as my swap. It had the bonus of being easy to put together, and given my fragmented stamping time these days, that was a plus!


I should add that I'm typing this post with a nursing baby; if only I could figure out how to stamp with a nursing baby! Then I'd be in business!! The card above is an actual card I sent to my brother-in-law who has been struggling with an awful cough for a while now. I wanted to change up the colors a little, and used Dusty Durango, which I like very well on this card. The blue version is a nice cool version and this one is warm and toasty.

Supplies:
Naturals white, brocade blue, dusty durango cs
Pocket silhouettes, sincere salutations stamps
chocolate chip, brocade blue, really rust inks
sponge
dusty durango grosgrain ribbon, whisper white taffeta ribbon

Batting 1000

I looked at my hit counter this evening and I'm up to 917 hits! I'm hoping to hit 1000 sometime this summer. A silly goal, I know, but it makes me feel good that someone reads my little musings on life and stamping. :)
I'm not getting as much done as I would like these days because the baby is in that phase where he wants to be held all the time, or at the very least, to nurse VERY frequently. So I'm not getting a ton of stamping done, to say nothing of housework, etc.
I took the kids downtown this afternoon to meet a friend and her two kids for our own little walking club--got to work off the post partum jelly belly somehow! It is pretty hot and very humid, so I'm quite draggy this evening. I want to go get a snack, but the thought of getting up out of my chair is a bit much to contemplate at the moment.

I am trying to work on my etsy store right now though, milk vampire aside. :) One thing I've been meaning to make and put in the store for a long time is stamped onesies. I bought the onesies last summer, but with the custom work I had lined up, and then the sickness and general yuck of pregnancy, I never got around to stamping them until yesterday. I'm pretty pleased with how they came out, actually! I'm especially fond of the choo choo train one. I think these would be great baby gifts! (Can you tell I have babies on the brain??)


Supplies:
100 % Pima cotton bodysuits
Sock Monkey, Choo-Choo Train stamps
White & Close to Cocoa Craft ink
Aqua Painter
Iron

Getting my mambo on

I actually started this post hours ago, after cleaning out Boo's fingernails (how does a baby who only sleeps, eats and poops get dirt under his nails??), but got interrupted by life and am just now getting back to it. Boo is now sacked out on the Boppy on my lap, so I'm typing in an awkward position, but at least no one is screaming. :)

I spent this morning working on the Stamping 411 sketch challenge and also plugging away at Boo's baby book, which I am doing as a scrapbook. I made Piglet's the same way. I scrapbook the first year, and then after that, the photos just go in an album because I prefer card making to diligent, sustained scrapping of life's small moments. But for events, big trips and baby's first year, I thoroughly enjoy making a special scrapbook. I will say I'm not a "traditional" scrapper because I don't use a lot of embellishments or matting with my photos, as I prefer the photos to be the main event on the page, rather than part of a composition. But it works for me and I think it looks nice. I might share a page or two later on when I'm a bit further in the process. One thing I do like about scrapbooking is that is forces you to pick the best photos and discard the rest. I'm all about weeding out.
So on to the card. As I said, I used the Stampin' 411 sketch challenge because I went to bed with this card in my head, and it came together extremely quickly this morning because I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I love that! I also discovered a neat trick with Melon Mambo. I don't know about you, but I find that the Melon Mambo ink always comes out a bit brighter than the paper and I am always trying to figure out how to fix that. When I was coloring the flowers for the background, I started out by coloring in regal rose, intending to use Melon Mambo as an accent on the flowers. I accidently colored one in all the way and realized that the two colors together produced a nice deep shade that was closer to the paper color. Happy accident! I had originally wanted to watercolor the big flower (and did one as a sample before setting it aside as too bright) and ended up with my double marker technique on the flowers. I did go back over the Melon Mambo with more M. Mambo to give shading and depth to the flowers.

My color combination comes from Stacey's 2010 Convention Curtain Call Color Challenge. I can't go to Convention this year, and am not planning to participate, but I loved the color combo so much I wanted to use it anyway! I debated about the sentiment placement--I originally had it in the lower right corner, as the sketch called for, but felt it looked too boring or something, so I moved it up into the cherry blossoms. I'm still not sure the composition of the card is balanced this way, but I'm leaving it because I don't want to mess up the panel underneath by moving it.

Supplies:
Crumb Cake, Whisper White cs, Melon Mambo dsp, retired Baja breeze dsp (from clearance rack)
Embrace Life Stamp set
Melon Mambo, Regal rose markers, Chocolate Chip ink
Choc. Chip satin ribbon
Choc. Chip button latte
glue dot
vintage brads (antique brass)
dimensionals
paper snips
scallop edge punch, modern label punch

Aussie baby

The wife of a very dear (Australian) friend of mine from college (probably my best friend from college days) just had a baby girl (their first!) this week. (Was that enough parathentical remarks in one sentence for you??) I wanted to send them a card and a little baby gift. I couldn't figure out where to start with the card, so I followed the suggestion of another stamper whose blog I read, Mike Funke, and pulled out my dsp. I decided I would use Sending Love Specialty (now retired) and use those colors for my pallette. Worked like a charm, and this card came together quickly once I paired it with Karen Giron's Sweet Sunday sketch for this week. Do you like my pink giraffe? I grunged up the dsp with chocolate chip ink on a sponge to tone it down a little and liked the card a lot better after I did that.


I will say,it is expensive to mail packages to Aussie land! The package weighed 8 oz and was $43 to send! I could have sent it cheaper express ($39, whooptie-doo), but didn't want to unbox and rebox the whole thing at the post office. Ridiculous. But they are worth it, so I just swallowed hard and said, okay, mr. post man. Still cheaper than a plane ticket to visit, I suppose, and since I don't think we'll make it down there any time soon, this is the next best thing to wish them all well!

Also, as a complete aside, I wanted to make a correction on my hydrangea punch card--the stamp set Oval All, which I mistakenly listed as retiring, is not. It's a great set and I'm glad it is sticking around a bit longer!

Supplies:
Very Vanilla cs, Bella Rose dsp (retired), Sending Love dsp (retired)
Animal stories stamp set
Pretty in Pink ink, chocolate chip ink
sponges
chocolate chip cord button
linen thread
glue dots
pretty in pink satin ribbon