buttons......clay buttons......clay flower buttons?

Hey everybody!  I hope you all are having a super duper day. 

Pleasant Poppies, Teeny Tiny Wishes and the new Gingham Wheel.  Strawberry Slush, baked brown sugar, coastal cabana and whisper white cardstock.  Crisp Cantaloupe, whisper white and soft suede inks and daffodil delight and early espresso reinkers.  Big shot, delicate doilies die, very vintage buttons, 1 3/8" circle punch, neutral buttons, simply pressed clay, simply pressed molds, vanilla shimmer smooch spritz, crystal effects and natural twine.

I'm finally showing you the other card we made during group last time.  I hesitated because the buttons are now discontinued and I wanted to make the card again using current stuff. 

That is kind of hard to do when you don't have much current stuff........yet, (I put in an order today for all kinds of new goodies). 

This is what I came up with.  Let me know what you think. 

This was the original card we made together.  I'm really loving the Baked Brown Sugar color.  Its kind of a warmer Crumb Cake and we all know how much I love that.

I also dig on the Gingham wheel.  Now I can have gingham in any color I want!  This is using the new Crisp Cantaloupe.  Try spelling "cantaloupe" without looking it up.  Geez!  

Okay, so my sweet little brown flower button retired.  Now what?  I got some of the new Simply Pressed Clay and molds.  Grace went into overdrive making flowers and buttons. 

See the little white button?  That is clay.  I sprayed it with the smooch spritz to give it a pearlized look. 

Then I thought I'd try making a flower button.  It actually turned out okay but I don't really love it here.  I covered it in Crystal Effects to give it some shine. 

So lets try something else shall we?

This is the new Strawberry Slush paper.  Isn't it pretty? 

I asked Grace to make some buttons using Early Espresso ink.  She made some flowers too.  Only thing is, they look kind of purplely. I didn't make this one a button but I did cover it in Crystal Effects to make it shiny.  Okay, in this pic it looks gray but its purplely........really.  And I know "purplely" isn't really a word, just hang with me here.

I just wanted to show you that the gingham strip doesn't lay completely flat.  I put down some regular Mono tape on the back and used my fingers to gather it.  Make sense? 

So the first one is still my fave.  I did order new Neutral buttons today so when they come maybe I'll get another one made. 

Before you go I have 1 more thing to show you. 

  I still have several bunches of grapes on the vine and have 2 more squash ready to pull.  I cooked the pumpkins I pulled last week and froze the puree.  Things are moving along.  I'm surprised at how pokey the zucchini are being.  I will tell you about my tomato and bell pepper adventures another day.  UGH!

Okie dokie, thats it for today.  I have thank you cards to make and I have been pokey about that.  Bad Beth! 

Thanks so much for stopping by and hanging out.  You give me warm fuzzies. 

Blessings, b.

claying around

Hey there!  Just a few things today.

First of all, I know my photography skills are lacking but trying to get a good pic of this card was obviously beyond me.  Lookee,

Banner Greetings and This and That Rotary stamps.  Pistachio pudding, strawberry slush and black Stazon inks.  Sahara sand, whisper white and strawberry slush cardstock.  Window frame framelits, big shot, this and that washi tape, fun flowers die, corner rounder,  vintage faceted buttons and white bakers twine.


It really does look much better in person.  It looks so washed out here.  I got this color combo off of one of the new Color Coach cards. 

The Sahara Sand cardstock is the old textured stuff.  NOW, we carry each color family in the Core-dinations cardstock which is textured.  I'm going to get me some of that..........but I don't have it yet. 

I'm improvising ;)

 Now this looks easy enough, right?  There is a little trick you need to do to ensure that the white panel is straight on the front.  Check it out,

Die cut what size window you want.  This piece is 2" x 3.5" and uses the 2nd framelit from the middle.  Now here is the trick; lay your window on the cardfront so that it is even and where you want it to be.  Use a pen or pencil to mark 2 of the points. 

Now you can lay the framelit on there and it will be placed right where you want it.  Its an extra step but will save you from pulling out your hair because you cut it and it isn't straight when you line up the holes.  I speak from experience.

Isn't that flower pretty?  I had a groovy idea for this.  I was just going to use a few layers of cardstock but I wasn't getting the effect I wanted, so I got my handy dandy forgotten brayer out and colored some plain white tissue paper. 

TaDa!  Strawberry Slush tissue paper!  The bottom layer is the Strawberry Slush cardstock, then plain white tissue and then Strawberry Slush tissue.  A Strawberry Slush flower (from the same Fun Flowers Die) and a vintage faceted button. 

You can see where the tissue wrinkled and didn't get the ink.  I thought the white streaks looked cool. 

Kind of like the gray streaks in my hair.  I keep telling myself they look cool. 

Okay, so a few weeks ago I got the new Simply Pressed Clay.  BUT the molds were on backorder.  The molds came on Monday and Grace got busy. 

Awesome!  I really do like them.  The buttons are harder to deal with but so worth it.  Grace found if she put a small amount of clay in the freezer for a few minutes she could work the button molds easier.  I put the clay in the mold first and then froze the whole thing for about 10 min and it worked great. 

I don't have many reinkers so we took a small amount of clay and just pressed it into the ink pad and worked the ink in.  Worked great! 

She got crafty and swirled inks.  This is Strawberry Slush and Crisp Cantaloupe. 

They dry pretty quickly.  Although we've had some pretty dry weather the last few days.  They recommend you let them dry for 24 hours.  We let them go about an hour.  I haven't made anything with them yet but I got ideas.

Try them out, its fun!

Today I thought I would cat-proof the cat's favorite veggie box.  During the winter when I didn't have anything in there (except pine trees) she decided it was the best place to go potty.  OY!

I had added a bunch of soil to that box and mixed it well but between that and the fact she likes to lay in there, almost all the onions I planted croaked.  So I fixed her wagon today. 

I added even more dirt and planted carrots.  I'm wondering if that is what is wrong with my tomatoes too.  The leaves are still curled.  I've tried less water but its been almost 100 everyday and the soil is dry in the evening when I check it.  So I'll have to hope the volunteer yellow pear tomatoes do well.  Darn cat! 

Okay, one last thing.  I've discovered the movie Pitch Perfect.  19 loves it.  She is forever quoting it during regular conversation.  Grace has watched it too and so I had to see what it is all about. 

Yes, I now love it too. 

Whats funny is my entire family will make fun of the fact that I like Glee (poor Cory Monteith) and really, that is what Pitch Perfect is.  Kind of.....sort of.  Who knew Anna Kendrick could sing?

Anyway its cool.  Enjoy.

Thanks so much for stopping by and sticking around.  I love that you do that. 

Blessings, b.

p.s. All you people at convention, have extra fun for me.  I will miss being there. 

home sweet home

Hidey Ho!  I've been traveling and had made sure I got pics on the computer so I could post some stampy stuff while I was gone but never got around to it.  Bad Beth!

So instead of showing you stampy stuff today I'm going to show you the garden update.  Stampy stuff tomorrow.....promise.

Oh wait!  Let me show you a few of our trip pics first.  It was just Grace and I going to my dad's house. 

Grace enjoyed the train so much last year so we took it again this year.  BUT, we flew home.  I couldn't do another 15 hours just to get home.  I want to be home NOW! 

This was on one of the Metrolink cars while we were waiting for the Amtrak.  I thought it was kinda funny.  I don't know why.  A good life lesson I guess.

Holy Moly! but gas was cheap there.! It was over $4.00 a gallon here when we left home.  Geez!

On the plane on the way home. 

What a crummy pic!  This is the only one I have of Dad on this trip.  My sweet cousin Jeni was there for a few days too.  Grace just loves her.  I do too. 

Okay onto the garden.  I planted everything (except the pumpkins) on June 9th. 

These are the pumpkins.  I have 4 ready to pick.  I planted these on March 17th.  Last year the aphids and the heat DESTROYED them and so I thought I'd get a jump on them this year.  Worked good except I'm harvesting pumpkins in July instead of October.  I have more babies on there so I hopefully will get some for Halloween. 

I'll let the kids carve them if they want before I cook them.  Pumpkin pie anyone?

Cucumbers.  I haven't had luck with these, ever!  Keep your fingers crossed.

Mickylee watermelons.  There is a volunteer tomato plant right in the middle.  Oh well.  I think I have 3 volunteer tomato plants in this box.  Which is weird because I have never planted tomatoes in this box.  Birds must have carried them.  If so then they should be yellow pear tomatoes. 

Zucchini.  So happy to have some this year. 

Red and an Orange Bell Pepper. 

Yellow Squash. 

Celebrity and Sweet 100 tomatoes........and pine trees.  I still have 6 pine trees that grew from seeds 2 years ago.  I'm going to put them in the ground this fall.

What, doesn't everyone have pine trees in their vegetable garden?

I planted the Sweet 100's as seeds.  There are also onions in there.  I have a heck of a time keeping onions too.  They sprout and then die off.  I'm blaming the cat this time though.  I think she got in there and dug them up.  So I only have a few right now.    You can see the Celebrity has been overwatered because her leaves are curling.  18......I mean, 19 overwatered a little while I was gone. 

Yep, 18 had a birthday while I was gone. 

Dad got her an Oreo ice cream cake.  I was very sad to not be there with her.  Grace and I had gotten all her presents and had Dad hide them on her birthday.  Then we sent her clues throughout the day to find them.  It was fun. 

Alrighty then, thats it for today.  Stampy stuff tomorrow.  Thanks for stopping by.

Blessings, b.

Happy Independence Day

Holy Moly Batman!  I can't hardly believe how long its been since I've posted.  I knew it had been awhile but geez. 

Happy Independence Day everyone!  I hope everyone has something fun planned for today.  Most of my crew just left to go get some fireworks.  I hope they bring me back some snakes.  Remember those?

So today I have a bag tag to show you:

Blue Ribbon, Teeny Tiny Wishes and Banner Greetings.  Whisper white cardstock.  Real red, pacific point and black Stazon inks.  Delicate Doilies die, big shot, 1 3/8" circle punch, red baker's twine and polka dot parade DSP.

 Since its the 4th of July I thought I would go with a red, white and blue color scheme. 

 One of the first things I thought of doing with the Banner Greetings set was to use it for the ribbons on the Blue ribbon set. 

I still need to take pics of the cards we made at group last week.  I'll try and get that done today so I can show you. 


We have been enjoying summer.  I've gotten the front yard planted as much as I'm going to this year.  It is so hot now that anything else will have to wait for next spring.  I did discover that my Sweet Brooms have a problem.  A problem that seems to go hand in hand for them.  Had I known this, I wouldn't have bought them. 

Remember what they looked like when I planted them?

Yeah, look at it now;

I was thinking the poor little guy wasn't getting enough water but no.  Look closely...........

These are called Genista caterpillars.  They are all over my poor bush.  This is one instance where you gotta love the internet. 
 

The internet told me to get some Bacillus thuringiensis.  So I did.

This stuff was not cheap!  Anyway, I sprayed them and I'll have to wait until Spring to see if my poor little bushes come back. 

OY!  What a pain!

I've also taken pics of the vegetable garden.  I'll get those together too because I know you've just been waiting for an update on that ;)


I also wanted to turn you on to a site that the girls and I have been fascinated with,  geoguessr.com.  I saw this on The Pioneer Woman site.  It uses Google Maps and will drop you somewhere in the world.  You have to drive around looking at signs and buildings and guess where you are.  We have been having a competition on who can get the closest.  I currently hold the title with a .002 km.  Thank you very much. 

18 was in Italy (in the game)  and saw this tree:

She says it looks like Beyonce.  Maybe Beyonce with no head.  Anyway its been really fun.  We've seen things that we will never see in person.  Very cool and dare I say it?.........educational? 

WHOA!!!!!  dont say the "e" word during summer. 


Alrighty then, I'll be back soon with more stamping stuff.  Thanks so much for checking in and hanging out. 

Blessings, b.