Giggle Greetings and Tape It for Cards in Envy and Dynamic Duos

Hi Everyone.   Happy Monday.

Well, I did manage to have vacation for part of the day!  I worked for a few hours this morning and then logged off and spent some time in my craft room playing around with some rubber and ink!  It's the first time that I have felt like doing that in two weeks.  Mind you, today is the first day that I have been hungry in two weeks, too.  All signs that I must be feeling much better!    Nancy and Pam – I took your advice and decided that my "to do" list could wait!

Thanks to all of you who left such warm and wonderful comments for me over the past week.  They really did help me to feel better and I greatly appreciated that you took the time to leave me a message, send me an email, send healing wishes and prayers my way!   Thank you!

One of the sets that was first on my list for the new 2013-2014 catalog was Giggle Greetings.   All of you know that we have several cats and hairballs are a given around here.   The grey boys are especially prone to hairballs.   Consequently, when I saw the color challenge across at Dynamic Duo and the sketch from Cards in Envy – I knew exactly which set I was going to use!

First, check out the challenges

At first, I wasn't quite sure what diagonal elements would be behind the focal image and then I had a brain wave.   Tape It.   It's a new set from the 2013-2014 catty and absolutely on trend.   Instead of stamping directly onto the Pear Pizzazz base, I stamped onto sticky backed vellum.   It feels just like Washi Tape when you put into onto the sticky backed vellum and is easy peasy.  The only thing you have to remember…. let it dry, otherwise it smudges!

I stamped the cat onto an oval cut from framelits and colored him grey with a little bit of white.  I used Copic markers to get the right colors.   You will notice that there are several hairballs at his feet.  This is fussy cutting at its most extreme!!!   I stamped and cut out three hairballs, colored them with a grey copic marker and mounted them onto little pieces of dimensional.    I then stamped 6 more hairballs and fussy cut around those and put three on either side of the oval – to match the sketch. 

Once I had the "washi tape" where I needed it, I stuck it down and then mounted the focal point on dimensionals right over the top of the tape.    The additional hairballs were stuck down with glue from a glue stick.    This card has lots of interest, but easily fits inside an envelope.   I also love the Basic Gray with Pear Pizzazz – and the eyes of the cat match the card base.

Isn't he cute?  Of course, I had to use just a little bit of pink for his tongue and the inside of his ears.  I know that my cat loving friends will appreciate this card and sentiment!

Don't forget to pop along to Dynamic Duos and Cards in Envy.  The duos have quickly become my go to color challenge – and I love the new Cards in Envy challenge site.   You really do have to focus on adding interest and not bulk!

On a personal note:

The landscaping is mostly in.    We have a few bushes, some cone flowers and some trees left to go in.  Hopefully they will be finished this week.    Where the non-native and invasive species have been removed in the wetland and woodland looks terrible right now!   But, we know its for the greater good.  However, I'm an instantaneous gratification kinda gal, and waiting for next year for everything to come in is going to be an excrutiatingly long time!   

Mind you, the seeds that we put in last year are all now coming in.   We have so many black-eyed Susan's coming in and we know it was going to be worth the wait.

This is what they look like right now…..  

Except for this one guy who decided he was about 10 days ahead of the rest of them!

You can imagine who fabulous it is going to look when they all open up.   This time last year, I really didn't think any of the seeds would come up.    But, I was sitting in the gazebo talking with the landscapers and I snapped a couple of photographs of this fabulous little butterfly.   He certainly was appreciating the seeds we had planted last year.

You can certainly see the butterfly, but take a look in the bottom left hand corner – I managed to get a front on view of a dragonfly, too!

Here's another shot of him

Then, I was at my desk on Friday and had left my shoes on the carpet in the entrance hall.   Bailey decided they made a nice place to go to sleep…. no accounting for taste!

Some of my readers may remember the Buddha we had in our last garden.  He sat under a tree nestled amongst some ferns.    Since we moved into the new house last year, we just hadn't found the right place for him.   However, once they had cleared the invasive species away, we realized there was a perfect spot for him.  So, he now kneels on a pedestal under the shade of several trees in a little glade.  

His backdrop are the native ferns that grow in our woodland.   Lou and I were thrilled when we realized that we had a glade full of native ferns.  They have done so well this year because the buckthorn has been removed and it gave them a chance to spread out.    It's such a peaceful little vignette.

I caught a shot of the redbellied woodpecker flying off to the feeder.   We noticed him flying backwards and forwards from the feeder to the dead tree and realized that he was actually feeding a young redbellied!  

The female grosbeak flew in as I was taking photos of my newly made cards

She's so drab compared to her rose-breasted mate, but her markings are pretty amazing.   One last visitor for tonight:

Marina, from far away Africa…. you asked where I get most of my stamps.   Well, the majority of my stamps are Stampin' Up!   I do tend to be a bit of a hoarder when it comes to sentiment stamps and buy from multiple vendors including Papertrey Ink.   Additionally, I use My Digital Studio to create sentiments.   You can easily use a word processing software instead.  All you need is a printer capable of printing on card stock.  There are also multiple areas on the web that actually provide free fonts and papercrafts magazine will also have sentiment downloads occasionally.  The great thing about using your computer for sentiments, is that you can color them and size them to fit any specific card or project that you have.    Hope this helps!

I'm off to cook supper and Lou and I will be eating in the garden under the shade of our gazebo, looking out at our rather brown wetland area……. Come on and grow in some grasses and flowers will you … I mean – it's been a week already :-)   

Have a wonderful Tuesday and warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.  If you are traveling for the 4th July weekend – travel safe.    Happy Canada day to my friends north of the border

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe – all ingredients Stampin' Up!

• Card stock:  Pear Pizzazz, Whisper White, sticky backed vellum
• Stamps:   Giggle Greetings, Tape It
• Inks:  Basic Grey, copic markers