Thursday, June 19, 2008

It's June 19th?!? Already?!?!


I can't believe how fast this summer is flying by. To me, it always seems that once we hit July 4th, summer is over in the blink of an eye. I can't believe we're already near the end of June! We love to go camping during the summer, and we've finally gotten everyone's schedules coordinated for next weekend. I can't wait! While I love a lot of things about summer, I'm not a fan of 100-degree temps with 90% humidity, so all it takes is one or two days like that and I'm cranking up the central air and waiting for Fall to get here. Fall just happens to be my very favorite time of year, though, and there's nothing like throwing on my favorite old sweatshirt a faded pair of jeans, going for a hike through the timber, picking out pumpkins, or bundling up in a fuzzy blanket on a Friday night and drinking hot chocolate to keep warm during the local Varsity football game.



Our summer schedules will be slowing down a little bit, as my oldest son just finished Driver's Ed classes. My youngest son is in the middle of his baseball season, so I'll definitely still be a taxi-driver for a few more weeks. He really enjoys baseball, and it's a 'good' kind of busy. Their friends come over to hang out every day, so our house is usually pretty full. Pre-teen & teenage boys' stomachs are bottomless pits, I swear, and we're going through a ton of pizza, snacks and pop. It's a good thing the grocery store is only 5 blocks away!



I have a bunch of new cards to share with you today, but for some reason, Blogger isn't letting me upload more than one photo. I'll add the other cards in a separate post and see if that works.



This card uses 'Take a Break', one of the new 'MFT Presents' images by Annie LaPoint. It's wonderful to see these beautifully detailed images come to life as you color them in. Be sure to check them out at http://www.mftstamps.com/ .



The flowers in the bathtub remind me of lilacs--my all-time favorite flower. Every time I see or smell lilacs I'm reminded of my late Grandmother. I remember spending the night at her house when I was a little girl, snuggled up in line-dried, fresh, cool sheets, with a cool, lilac-scented breeze blowing in the window next to the bed. Grandma's house always smelled SO good----because of the wonderful things she used to cook and bake for us, and from the lilacs and other flowers surrounding her house. She's been gone for almost twenty years and I still think of her almost every day.

Since the flowers were colored to look like lilacs, I decided to try to make the card look sort of vintage and aged. I used cocoa ink and a distressing tool to 'age' the edges of some of the layers. I used my watercolor brush to gave the DP a faint 'wash' of creamy caramel ink.


I need to run---my youngest son's baseball practice starts in a few minutes, and I still need to find the cap he insists on wearing today.

Have a wonderful day!!