A new venture...

Just checking in for a quick note. I know there are some of you who go through withdrawal when you come to my site and I haven't put anything new up. I just go back from vacation last night at midnight. We spent a wonderfully relaxing time up at my dad's cottage in the Upper Peninsula. It was nice that we could all be there together. His place is on a little inland lake where the water is much warmer- nothing like the cold frigid water of Lake Superior. We had beautiful weather and we all look sun kissed. This vacation ended up opening a new door from me which I will tell you about further in the post but onto the subject at hand.

For this card I used my cuddle bug for the background and DCWV Nursery-Baby Girl paper. The Wrought Iron Grille stamp is from Stampington & Company and the birds are from Magenta. I added some pearls to the top of the grille and rhinestones around the birds for some added bling. The printed flower in the upper right is from Hero Arts - Art Flowers vintage cottage. This card actually got purchased from a neighbor up at the cottage. She wanted to see some of my cards and I had a bag of my most recent ones. She had family coming in and needed three birthday cards. This one she chose for her 23 year old granddaughter.

As I started to tell you something very exciting happened for me on this vacation. While I was up in town visiting my cousin, someone saw my cards and I was commissioned to sell them at a store up in Calumet which is where I grew up. It is about 20 miles from my dad's cottage and a very big tourist place in the summer. So to that I had better get started on making some cards. I will share a little more about my vacation in a later post.

Have fun and enjoy!

~Kim

Celebrating perfect creation

After the pictures I posted on my last blog I was thinking how incredible the creation of all the different flowers and birds really is. The different colors and shapes of the petals and leaves is unfathomable. This is what brought me to today's card in celebration of his work. As I am writing this there is a wild turkey walking out back along the edge of our yard at the tree line with her two little babies. Just another example of his perfection.

I used the SU set "God's Beauty. The designer paper is from DCWV Nursery-Girl. I used two different border punches from Martha Stewart. It is a little hard to see but the white scallop has embossed flowers on it and I put a small pearl in the center of each one. The sentiment barely fit in my oval punch with just the edge of a scalloped oval peaking behind. The little lime flowers I made with my SU Trio Flower punch. I have looked at this punch several times and never bothered to order it. Now I see all kinds of uses for it. I was looking for small flowers this size and now I can make my own of any color I choose. I thought they would also look great as centers for larger flowers. I don't know who makes the chipboard butterfly I used because I took them out of the package for storage. I got them at Hobby Lobby and they were in a divided plastic packaging. There were four different colors. Two were metallic like the one I used and the other two had flocking on them. They all had the rhinestones which caught my eye immediately. You know the bling bling will get me every time.

My daughter is home from North Carolina and boy oh boy the garbage men are going to be sorry. We have gone through my cabinets, fridge and freezer and pitched and organized like crazy. I can always count on her to get my Tupperware cabinet looking good when she comes home but this time we went to town. It is a standing joke with us that the only time it gets organized is when she comes home. We even found enough time to weed my gardens and clean the very high windows inside in out on the house. This is no easy feat because we need a 16 foot ladder to reach them (or should I say she needed it to reach them). She was even on the roof over the front porch to clean the large window on the outside over the front foyer. It is such a good feeling when these types of projects get done and having her here to motivate and help me was even better. We had accomplished this all in 2 days believe it or not and now we are just relaxing and enjoying our time together. Her husband flies in tonight for another week. I bet the garbage men will be afraid to come back next week.

Have fun and enjoy,

~Kim

In my very own backyard

Well I promised you some picture of the visitors I had in my yard the past weekend. I was sitting out on the deck and I was just enjoying the day with my eyes closed when I hear a bird call that I usually don't hear. I opened my eyes and saw this beautiful Baltimore Oriole at my hummingbird feeder. I quickly ran in and got a bowl of grape jelly. It didn't take long before several of them found it. They hung around in the trees for about 3 days and then moved on. Take a look.














While I had the camera out and the sun was shining so nice on my flowers I thought I would take a few more. To my amazement there was this little friend perched on the spike in one of my planters.









You can only imagine how excited I was to get these pictures. I wonder why... he or she stayed there for the longest time. I thought about using it in my header but I still like the blue in the one I am using. Here are just a few more of my flowers.

















Hope you have a wonderful day and enjoy!

~Kim

Did Cinderella loose her dress...

I want to start off by saying that this was not my original idea. It was taught in a class at Strawberry Fields just outside of Cape Coral Florida. The creator of this dress form said that she couldn't sleep one night so she got up and came up with this idea. I don't know her name but if I ever do I will be sure to give her credit for such a unique idea.

A few of us got together at my friend Carol's house (she is back here in Michigan) and she showed us how to make these dresses. This one is my creation. We used the new paper from Graphic 45- Botanicabella Collection. The cut out butterflies are on the front and I also showed a picture of the back. The coat hanger I made out of wire and it turned out pretty good if I say so myself. I always look forward to going to Carol's because we just relax and have such a good time while we create. I think we do as much talking was we do creating.

I made a tuna noodle salad and brought some fresh cucumbers and a nice loaf of french bread. Carol lives on a large river that carries freighters from the great lakes as well as several other boaters under the Blue Water Bridge that connects Michigan to Canada. The view is absolutely beautiful and lunch feels like you are away on a vacation.

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July. I didn't even make anything patriotic but I did put flags out and I am ever so grateful to live in such a wonderful country. Though we may not be in the best spot economically we at least know what freedom feels like. Not everyone can say that.

I took some beautiful pictures of visitors to my backyard and I will share those with you this week. Have fun and enjoy!

~Kim