Roses July Challenge

Hello everyone! I am now on schedule for the Roses challenge, even though it may look like I'm a little early for Christmas!

This month Mary Anne Rose issued a patriotic challenge, since it's Olympics time.  She said: I want you to create something to show me what patriotic means to you. Use your country's colors and be proud!


Well, Mexico is now my adopted country and the colors of the flag are green, white and red. Green represents hope, white represents purity, and red represents the blood of national heroes.


Getting back to Mary Anne's challenge, being patriotic to me means doing nothing (even unknowingly) to dishonor this wonderful country's flag.  So, rather than doing something that may offend in some way, I am just going to use Mexico's colors to make a Christmas card. I used Cindy's Freshly Made Sketches #45 for the layout of my card. 

Have a wonderful day, everyone, and enjoy it to the fullest!


Betty

Roses Challenge Only a Month Late!

Patti Rose set the challenge this month last month (!) which was to make a summery card. (Be sure and come back tomorrow and find out what the challenge for this month is!) What could be more appropriate for a Roses challenge and a summer card than a bowl full of beautiful roses! This is a photo I had taken of a rose bouquet that I printed from mycomputer. Then I added a border of lace and strung some pink and white beads to add to the edge of the lace.

Both of the cards I'm showing you today are for a friend who asked me make a couple of quinceanera cards for her. I used Stampin' Up sentiment stamps in Spanish on the inside of the cards. The next one was made with an image from the Graphics Fairy that I printed out, then fussy cut, and went over the lines of gold with a Sakura Jelly Roll clear glitter pen. I cut a pretty piece of decorative vellum with a Spellbinders die for the background and then used a Stampin' Up stamp for the leaves. A few light green stick on pearls finished it off. I got inspiration for this card from our friend, Selma. You probably recall her card because she just posted it on Friday. If not, click here to take a peek. Thanks, Selma!

Adios,
Betty

Beauty Abounds

Didn't make a card yesterday but did sell a few at the Market -- and I wanted to let you know that the Peacock Spirelli card did sell! This is a rose that I cut from the bushes that are planted along the side wall of our yard.

This next picture is of a tree that is on a vacant lot nearby. I can see that beautiful purple color as I sit here at the computer if I turn my head to the back just a little! And this morning, there's a bit of a wispy cloud covering the top of the mountain in the background -- lovely view!

I also enjoy the ornamental iron work on top of the front wall -- those little horizontal pieces are terrific little steps for the birdies to play on! They are so cute hopping from one to the next -- I could probably find a picture showing that but don't have time to hunt around -- need to get ready to go to my Bible study group.

Hope everyone has a lovely day,
Betty

Spirelli Technique

Hello All! I made several cards this week with the Spirelli technique as an embellishment. The first card that I will share with you is totally away from my usual style .... so much busier than I usually make my cards.

The 3-D sticker is from the Paper Studio and it sits on the spirelli scallop. Stamp is from Stampin' Up, cut out with scallop punch. Colors are Ruby Red, Sahara Sand, Tempting Turquoise,Taken with Teal and Yo Yo Yellow. I'm interested to see if it makes an impression on anyone at the Monday Market tomorrow.

This one uses Chocolate Chip and Kraft card stock, pine cone stamp from Stampin' Up and sentiment and banner stamp from Layers of Color (sure do miss them!). I used the Cuttlebug Argyle embossing folder on the center panel and Spellbinders die to cut out the banner. I noticed after the fact that the strip of kraft on the right side is a little wider than the opposite side but, hey, that just shows it was made by hand rather than spit out by a machine; nobody likes machine spit, right????

This is the last one -- reminds me of my coloring books as a kid -- more times than not, Barbie's clothes were always pink and purple!!

The lace border is a felt stick on and I've used faux stick-on pearls (pink, purple and white) around the scalloped edges of the Spirelli circle. "Wish Big" is from Stampin' Up and "It's Your birthday" on the inside of the card is Gina K. Designs. Tools I used were Spellbinders dies and a Stampin' Up border scallop punch.

I also dug into my stash of older cards this week and made some changes on them to bring them up to snuff; got twelve of them ready for Monday Market.

Hope you all had a blessed weekend.
Betty

Christmas Card

Well, it's been a long time since I've made a Christmas card. There is a color challenge at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown this week -- Black, White and a Splash of Blue. I have several splashes of blue on my card but hopefully, that will be okay!

Stamps are from Inkadinkado, Holiday Silhouettes, and Stampin' Up. I embossed the side white panel with a Cuttlebug snowflake folder; other tools used were Spellbinders dies and Stampin' Up punches. A ribbon and a brad were added for embellishments.

Hubby and I played Mexican Train with five other couples this evening. The dominoes were good to me and I came in second place. Poor Larry was twelve out of twelve! It was an enjoyable evening -- hope you enjoyed yours too!

Betty

thanks For All You Do

My thanks go to Tui who provided the current sketch at Freshly Made Sketches. My card came together very quickly with her fresh, interesting sketch.

I used stamps from Papertrey Ink, Think Big Favorites 6 and Background Basics: Gingham. My card stock base is also from PTI, Vintage Cream. Other card stock and papers are from Stampin' Up. I never know whether to include Stampin' Up colors, because I didn't update with the last color changes, but the ink color is Always Artichoke. A few adhesive faux pearls from Recollections add a little extra pretty.


It's good to be sharing my cards with you again,
Betty

A Visit to Mezcala

I'm sharing a link to my web album with pictures of our visit yesterday morning to the home of our friends Jose and Marta who live in the nearby village of Mezcala.

https://picasaweb.google.com/117097305471329563789/AVisitToJoseMarthaInMezcalaJuly122012?authkey=Gv1sRgCN2jtInyzun9Aw

We were invited to breakfast and our lovely hostess had prepared enough food to feed an army! Included on the buffet were scrambled eggs, roasted potatoes, bacon, sausage, fruit, veggies, several types of breads, an apple and pineapple salad, juice and coffee. And my oh my, was it all delicious! Do we have good friends, or what????

They gave us a tour of their property which sits right on the lake. There is a concrete dock where they can sit and enjoy the lake and a large brick barbeque grill nearby. The grounds have so many interesting plants and trees. Weeping willows, ficus, and many fruit bearing trees; three different types of plumeria (the flowers that they make leis from in Hawaii); gosh, I can't even remember everything I saw! There was one plant that looked like it was left over from the times of the dinosaurs -- and the leaves felt like felt! They had many avocado trees and a very young papaya tree. One of the pictures has Larry holding the trunk of a plant that had been pulled up from the ground and laid against a fence. But you can't keep a good plant down -- you can see from the picture that it had leafed (is that a word?) out after being pulled up!

We were shown a green leafy plant and were told that it was edible; you can cook it up just like spinach. Jose gathered a bag full for us and we put it to good use last night. I sauteed it in oil with a little salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, and sesame seeds and served it along with salmon, corn, and lettuce and tomato salad. Yum!

Well, hope you enjoyed the visit to Mezcala with Jose and Marta -- we certainly did!

Betty

Sharing a Request To Touch A Special Someone's Day With Kindness

It's been a while since I've blogged -- I've not been feeling really great and fighting depression but yesterday I found out about someone who has been down a much more difficult road than I. A friend of ours from church, Bert Klein, shared with us that he had lost his wife to Huntington's disease in 1995. Now, his daughter is dying from the same disease.

A new drug has been developed which shows great promise in the fight against this disease, which at this time has no cure. However, it will be years before it will be approved for human use. This will be too late for Bert's daughter, Hanna, who desperately needs a way NOW to fight against this horrific disease.

Bert has written to Oprah in hopes of getting the media's attention but for now their efforts are focused on a petition with www.change.org which is being circulated on Facebook where they hope to collect one million signatures. Then they will present the petition to the Canadian government to plead for Hanna's opportunity to take this drug now before the disease claims her life.

If you have a Facebook account, would you search for Hanna's Ride for Life and take the time to read about their situation and sign their petition. A few minutes may help to save a life.

Betty