Good Saturday Morning

Hope your Saturday has started out well. Mine has. After all, it can't be anything but good when you start the day off with a delicious cup of coffee and warm weather. Well, warm for Wisconsin in late October, anyway...(60+ degrees at 7:00 in the morning). In between saying 'good-bye' to company and getting to the cleaning and errands earlier this week, I have played a little in my craft room. Hopefully later today after more of the same, I can sit down, do some commenting, and maybe even make a card or two. That's the plan, anyway. We'll see what happens.

Since I hadn't played at Muse or CASology as of late, I thought that it was about time to remedy that. There's a sweet card by Lucille for our inspiration at Muse, and a fun cue card at CASology:

For my Muse card, I stayed pretty much with Lucille's sketch and colors. Just changed things up a little bit.

mmmm....coffee.... Bought this Jillibean Soup kit a few months back, and I'm still having fun with it. Except for the cardstock scraps and base, plus the ME die, everything is from this kit. Pretty fun and pretty EZPZ.

When my kids were little, a bandaid was the cure for every little boo-boo. Well, that and a kiss. So that's where I went with my "Cure card."

I love this darling little stamp set from Taylored Expressions. That bandaid is adorable in my book. Beside the matching die, I used a couple of WPlus9 circle dies and called it good. Pretty darn CAS, if you ask me. So that's what I've got for this morning. Hope your weekend is blessed and happy dances everyone!

Blessings

Hi kids. It's been quite a while since I've had time to write a post. But I've been busy with some blessings! Earlier in October, I had the opportunity to spend a week with some of the most wonderful cardmakers at (what we've come to call it), the Lake House right smack dab on the shores of Prior Lake, Minnesota. Anita, Ardyth, Darnell, Geri, and Kim are just amazing. It was relaxing, productive, and oh so much fun! What a blessing!! I'll have some photos in just a minute... Through the kindness of our daughter, Cathy (and her family), and our next-door neighbor (and as I like to call him, my third best girlfriend), Michael, I had 'round the clock care for my sweet little DH for the ten days I was away. Another wonderful blessing! I left home on the 6th of October and drove to my son Tad's house to visit with them and spend the night. He's that amazing young man you've been praying for. While I have you for a minute, I'll let you know that even the Mayo Clinic could not put a diagnosis to his neck/shoulder/back/arm issues; oh pooh!! He has made some improvements, but continues to have pain pretty much every minute of every day. His attitude, however, is one of Christian grace; he recognizes his daily blessings and is doing his level best to concentrate on them rather than the constant pain. (If you could, I know we'd appreciate more prayers for him....) The next day after a lovely breakfast and some shopping with Marsha and the kidlets for early birthday presents, I headed to the airport, picked up Anita and headed off to the Lake House where Darnell awaited our arrival! Saturday, the rest of the crafty crew arrived! A whole week of craftiness. Ahhhhhhhhh...... Yep, more blessings. We ate at several fun places with good food, including meeting up with Tad and family at Punch Pizza. Oh. My. Goodness!!! If you live anywhere near, or are headed to the Twin Cities, you absolutely must go to Punch for pizza. Delicious. How about a photo or two? These were taken by Kaylin, who is four years old....

It's a little fuzzy, but not a bad photo for a four year old! Meet my super fantastic daughter in law, Marsha. She is an incredible woman, and we love her very much. That's Tad photobombing...silly boy! And the little face belongs to my granddaughter Samantha.

Sorry. Can't identify the fellows in the background, but that's Ardyth waving to Kaylin, with Geri peeking out from behind Anita.

Darnell and Kim. Folks were packed into this place, and they kept coming and coming and coming. It's almost worth the drive from here just to get one of their pizzas...

And here's our "official" photographer giving 'bunny ears' to Grammy. Isn't she just precious?? Our haircolor nearly matches, too.....hahahaha

Since this post is already waaaay too long, I'll cut to the chase with my cards; the first two were made at the Lake House:

Becca Cruger is sponsoring a hop to raise awareness for victims of domestic violence. Please head over to her blog, The Damsel of Distressed, and read. Then make a card and hop along. Much more than a worthy cause. Seriously. Look around you. At the women and children you know. We can help.

Masculine card for AAA Cards. 

And one last card for SSS Wednesday Challenge with the theme pink.

After returning from the Lake House, I jumped back into my cooking/cleaning mode. We'd been blessed with company from Phoenix, so have had ZERO time in the craft room. Until this morning. But I'll shut up for today. Will post again soon. Happy dances everyone!

Guest Designing for Inkspirational Challenge!!!

Last month, Marina contacted me and asked if I'd like to Guest Design for this fortnight's Inkspirational Challenge. You see, I'd been a Top Pick with this card, inspired by Carol. As soon as I could frame coherent sentences, I replied with an emphatic, "yes!!!" To say it's an honor and that I'm humbled is a huge understatement. The DT is amazing, they are generous with their comments and have been absolutely encouraging. So a shout-out to the team at Inkspirational Challenge, and a thank you as well. I'm delighted you asked!

The brief for this week is "Use five (or more) stamps." Small amounts of panic, as I usually only use a stamp or two and die cuts. Turned out to be much easier than I thought!

All of the flowers and leaves are from my NBUS set by Altenew; Peony Bouquet. Layers, and layers, and layers. The outlines alone were three stamps, done in Versafine black ink. Next I grabbed some Altenew Buttercream ink, and stamped those little leaves next to the berries. Are you keeping count? That's four stamps...The berries were done in some Studio G blue (five). For the large leaves, I used some ME Hazel ink, lightly stamped (six). The peonies and their stems were done in the same blue and hazel inks (seven, eight, nine). And my tenth stamp was the Gina K. sentiment done on a vellum strip. (As to those sequins...they're pretty CLEAR, but photographed pinkish.) Kind of proud that not only did I use five stamps, I doubled the requirement without any problem whatsoever!

Hope you're inspired, and that you play along this week! Lots and lots of ways to use five or more stamps - make your own background, layer stamps, stack a subway of sentiments... well, you get the idea, and don't forget to see what the DT has made, too. You'll see some incredible inspiration there! Happy dances everyone!!