Update and Thank Yous

I want to thank everyone of you who expressed concern for Jim and sent such warm well wishes. It meant a lot that you took the time to drop a line. Thankfully the fires are out, the air is clear and Jim is doing well.
A special Thank You to Mary Marsh of The Charmed Life for the lovely blog candy. Sorry I didn’t take a photo of it all but Mary was extremely generous. 

I am sorry for my long absences. I took an unplanned last minuet trip. With Jim’s illness I am not often able to leave him for long. Whenever he feels well enough I drive the three hours to visit with friends and family.

Earlier this year I purged my craft closet and gave my niece Maggie everything I no longer needed for her scrapbooking. Since then I found some wonderful storage at a yard sale and I’ve reorganized The Closet. This eliminated my need for quite a few old storage items including several sets of leftover metal grid storage cubes. As crafters we all have a tendency to make a mess but picture a 16 yr. old crafter with no storage system at all. Maggie and I spent several fun filled hours setting up cubes and organizing her supplies, much to her mother‘s delight and relief. When her parents came home from work I left her to do the finishing touches. They are such sweet friends and I do wish I could have spent more then a few hours with them but my time was limited.

It was a joy to visit with my son and family. Just sitting and get caught up with my oldest son was wonderful. My 16 yr. old grandson thought it was fun to put his arm around my shoulders and look down at me. He is 6’1” tall and still growing. My DIL and granddaughter took me to a few thrift and craft shops which was a lot of fun and I did find a few bargains. All to soon I was on my way home again.

As some of you know I have a bad neck and periodically it goes out on me. Once again I turned my head 'just so' and out it went. Thankfully I am recovering but I haven't felt like creating or even visiting any of you. I plan to take a few more days to heal completely.

My Mojo has taken a hike to parts unknown and taken my inclination to create with it. I’ll be back when they’ve returned and I have something to share with you. In the mean time I will be stopping by to visit with you all again.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks again to all of you who have so kindly left your sweet comments and well wishes for Jim.
Have an Amazing Day!
Blessings
Bernie
Click here to give --- It’s Free

Kick Up Your Heels

Hi There; Sad news this morning. There is a forest fire raging here in SE Washington State. Although St. John’s Monastery and Bakery were saved by the feisty nuns and firefighters many homes and barns have been lost. Thankfully no injuries have been reported but the fire is totally out of control and the outlook is grim. Thousands have been evacuated.

I’ve mentioned before my Jim is ill, he has end stage emphysema. Although we are in no danger from the fire the air is filled with smoke which is making breathing much more difficult for Jim and others with breathing problems. Please keep our wonderful firefighters and those suffering in any way as a result of this fire in you thoughts and prayers.

I did something new to me on my card. I stamped one boot masked it then stamped the second one. It may sound silly but I was just tickled that it turned out so well. Learned a lesson, don’t mask with cardstock it leaves a little gap at the edge, paper next time. In this case quickly remedied with a marker. I watercolored the boots then heat embossed silver EP on the spurs. Big Scalloped Squared was used to cut and emboss. A few iron on studs were glued to the corner and a bit of jewelry hemp to finish.

Have an Amazing Day!
Blessings
Bernie
Click here to give --- It’s Free

Happy Birthday Pat

Seems summer isn’t going to give up without a fight here. It’s gotten a bit to warm for my liking but when I think of what the weather has been doing around the US I realize I am truly blessed. My heart and prayers goes out to those who have lost homes, businesses, crops and loved ones as a result of the dreadful weather this year.

My card today is for our dear friend Pat.   Pat, his wife Lynne and Jim and I have been friends for over 25 years. We now live three hours apart and with Jim’s poor health we don’t see them as often as we’d like but distance can’t hurt a true friendship.

I spent more time taking pictures of this card then I did making it. No matter what I did I couldn’t capture it properly. The colors are much more vibrant IRL. In a way this card designed it’s self. When I pulled out my green scraps file the branch fell out onto another lighter green scrap. Wa La a card was born. A little glue, a bit of jewelry hemp, a sentiment and it was done. Just wish all masculine cards would be so easy to make.

Have an Amazing Day!
Blessings
Bernie
Click here to give --- It’s Free

Happy Birthday Susie

Hello! I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Labor Day weekend. We all enjoyed our BBQ. It was so good to see Donna be able to enjoy food again. We all enjoyed the food.  Although we each only ate a few bites of each there were so many different dishes we were all so full we could barely move afterwards. All in all we couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day. Even the weather was beautiful.

My card today is for Susie, my dear friend, of 50 years.  We started out as friends in a prior life as neither of us are really that old.  :} The doily is the pointy end of a large heart shaped doily. I used one of the organza flowers I made.  Spellbinders Foliage, MS punch and a few curled Cloth Stem Wires were used for the greenery. I have a Possibilities Box. When I find something I think I may possibly be able to use one day I put it in that box. I found the stings of beads in there.  I believe they originally held a toy to the box of my grandson's Christmas gift. My butterfly was a complete surprise to me. I stamped it with chalk ink on to velum, heat embossed it with Sparkle EP and cut it out. It was so pale it blended into the card so I decided to watercolor the back of it. I didn’t realize velum would curl up when wet but I was thrilled with the result. A bow and sentiment finished it off. I will be trying the velum treatment again. Wonder if velum has a vertical and horizontal to it as paper does.            

Have an Amazing Day!Blessings
Bernie
Click here to give --- It’s Free

Candies

Hi There
This is my second post today scroll down for a peek into my garden.

Some of the lovely ladies I follow regularly are offering candy this month. I’ve added links to them on my side bar.

Mina is offering a lovely Multi Frame Square Snowflakes die. While you are visiting her blog have a look around. Mina always uses the most stunning images and does amazing coloring with distress inks.

Lori has some marvelous ribbons and a whole lot more up for grabs. Lori uses the sweetest images and colors them so beautifully with her Copics. Have a look around her blog; I’m sure you will enjoy her cute and cheerful cards.

Brenda’s candy is a surprise this month but I’m sure it’ll be wonderful. Brenda is a magician with a brayer and makes the most lovely cards. You must see what she does for yourself.

Good luck.
Have an Amazing Day!
Blessings
Bernie
Click here to give --- It’s Free

From the Garden

Busy, Busy, Busy. No time for crafting so I thought I’d share a few flowers blooming in my garden.

Queen Elizabeth

Love

Double Delight

Montezum

No Name

Confused Oriental Poppy Shouldn't be in bloom this time of year.

Don't know what this is called but it is considered a weed here.  The angels planted it and I wanted to see just how tall it would get.  It's as tall as the roof and still growing.  Excuse all the seed heads, a friend is coming to collect them this weekend. 

Have an Amazing Day!
Blessings
Bernie
Click here to give --- It’s Free

Quick and Easy

Today we are having a big old fashion BBQ. We are celebrating our daughter Donna’s completing her breast cancer treatments. The Chemo was rough to say the least.  We had promised her when she could enjoy food again we would fix her anything and everything she wanted. This weekend she has chosen everything.  Jim and I have been busy preparing.  When they arrive we plan to sit back and relax while the kids take over the finishing touches, the grilling and most importantly the clean up.   There will only be eight of us but the menu is big enough to feed an army. Everyone will be going home with a dogie bag.

Today I have three quick and easy note cards. I like to have a few on hand. I got out the scraps files and pulled out the biggest scraps I could find. If I don’t use up those big scraps they have a way of turning into lots of little scraps. I stamped each piece with Versa Mark and used a border punch on each. I found pieces of lace just long enough for each card in my fiber scraps jar. Added a scarp square of white and a flower. 
Another one for Jules' Crafty Snippet Challenge Week 34

On the pink I used MS Cherish Hearts punch and used the little pink hearts left after punching on the corners. I was short one so I put the corner of another scrap into the punch and punched out just one tiny heart.

On the blue I used a Fiskars scalloped punch and some rhinestones.

On the green I used MS Lattice Arch punch and half pearls.










Here in the US it is the long Labor Day Weekend signaling the end of summer. I hope everyone will have wonderful weekend and you will all be safe. Please Don’t drink and drive. If you must be on the roads please watch out for those who do.
Have an Amazing Day!
Blessings
Bernie
Click here to give --- It’s Free

Happy Birthday John (again)

Hello; Just a quick post today. My card is for our dear friend John who lives in Valencia, Spain.  John and my Jim worked together in Saudi Arabia nearly forty years ago and have been friends, more like brothers, ever since.  Over the years John and his lovely wife, Beryl, have visited us a few times and we have all become quite close.   

This entire card was made from scraps. The corrugated bit was packing around some salt and pepper shakers I purchased years ago. I am entering this in Jules' Crafty Snippet Challenge Week 34














THANKS for stopping by and thank you for your lovely comments.

Have an Amazing Day!
Blessings
Bernie
Click here to give --- It’s Free

Butterfly Rainbow

Hi There
September, really! I need to get a job. When I worked the weeks were endless and weekends, especially long holiday weekends, could never come soon enough. Now that I’m retired the weeks and months just wiz by. I need to get a job and slow the clock down.

My card today was inspired by and made possible by the LOVELY and EXTREMELY GENEROUS DI. When I complained of my unsuccessful attempts with the brayer and assorted blending techniques Di sent me these wonderful Inkylicious Ink Dusters. 

Thank You Di!! I love them although I’m not crazy about TH distress inks. I only bought them this week but they seem rather dry. I can actually see a line showing the pads aren’t completely saturated. I found I had to pounce on the pad quite hard before I got ink on my brush and I got some bristle marks when I pounced on my card. I didn’t have the proper color for this card but in playing I found my old Adirondack inks were much easier to work with giving me a much softer result. Back to my card. When Di posted her card here Annie suggested a rainbow. I remembered an old paint company’s ad where they’d used butterflies to show their rainbow of colors available.

I set about to recreate a scale down version of that ad. I pulled out my scraps and punched MS butterflies, then put them all in a Swiss dot EF and ran them thru the Cuttlebug then glued them to my cloud background. The sentiment is a clear $1 stamp.
I am entering this in Jules' Crafty Snippet Challenge Week 34  








Thank you for taking the time to visit today. Your comments are greatly appreciated.

Have an Amazing Day!

Blessings
Bernie
Click here to give --- It’s Free