Got Artichoke?

We do!  Wee girl & I picked up a 2 1/2" artichoke starter plant from a local organic farm (well, the plant was started at a local organic farm, which we bought at Whole Foods) last year and planted it in our veggie garden.  And apparently, that little arti plant really liked its new home!

It started so small and now, it's almost up to the top of the fence with a half dozen artichokes growing on it.  The initial plant was $2.50 and with the price of artichokes today (saw some on sale at Safeway for $3 each the other day), if we even get one good one off of it (though it looks like we'll have many more than that), it will have paid for itself in full.

Pretty cool, huh?!  We think so.  We're also nurturing our boy's strawberry plant, in hopes it produces more yummy fruit for the third year in a row now.  And our graphed apple tree blossomed for the first time this year and already has little mini apples growing on it.  All of this and we haven't even planted any new vegetables yet.  Yup, pretty cool.

What's growing in your garden right now?  Anything new you plan to get into the ground or a pot this month?

It's a Birthday Blog Hop!

It's a birthday bloghop for an uber special blogger, my in real life friend, Elise of Mamacow Creations!

She rocks the creative span, ranging from oodles of papercrafts (card making to scrapbooking to home dec to food art...you should see what she does come pumpkin time!) and on down the line, to gorgeous fine art paintings (the first one here is  my current fav).  Elise is known to tickle a funny bone, get silly in the wee hours, write and sing an ode to the creative man, Tim Holtz, and make so many of us smile with her sweet heart.

Thanks to the gals at the Just Us Girls challenge site, I'm thrilled to be able to wish her a Happy Birthday!!!

And the birthday gal needs a birthday card, right?!

Elise had been begging for spring not too long ago and when I walked by a few of my Dew Drop ink pads, they whispered to me.  (No, really, they did!)

Well, their shape awoke some slumbering inky card making mojo and so I had to run with it!  I started with the orchid and then filled in with the purple.

A birthday needs sparkle, so after adding a piece of chunky purple bling for the flower's center, spica glitter pens went to work, laying on oodles of sparkle onto the vine ribbon used for the flower's stem. (It doesn't show fabulously in the photo, but it really does sparkle!)

Happy Happy Birthday, Elise!!

I'm grateful for your friendship and
hope your day is wonderful, launching an awesome new year! :>

I hope you'll hop along, visit the partiers, and most of all, stop by Elise's Mamacow Creations blog and leave her some birthday love (even if you're not a papercrafter, we know how fantastic the community of bloggers can be and would love if you stopped by to wish her Happy Birthday! :>)!!!

Supplies:Cardstock: Papertrey Ink
Ink: Tsukineko Brilliance Dew Drops
Ribbon: May Arts
Bling: rhinestone - stash;  Spica Glitter Pens - Copic
Other:  FabriTac, foam tape, ScorPal

Spring Has Sprung!

Daffodils waving 'hello', trees flowering balls of pinks, purples, and whites, tulips smiling, hillsides blanketed in green, vineyards being cleaned up & prepped for the growing season, picnics being packed, daytrips being planned, dreams of veggie garden dance, children running, playing, laughing, and even the adults seem to be nicer! Spring has sprung and other than the fact that I live with a box of tissues glued to my face, I'm oh so enjoying it all. Are you?


A very determined weed in our backyard does have its pretty & entertaining side. My Princess loves to go out back, sing songs, and pick the pretty little blue flowers off of that weed.....and bring me sweet little bouquets! And ya know what............you know its coming............it makes me SMILE!!!!!

Edited to Add:  Thanks to friendly people on flickr, I was informed that this is a Forget Me Not!  We just always assumed it was a weed because it wasn't there when we moved here and we never planted it and it just keeps coming back and back and back.....good thing for a flower picking, bouquet building wee girl/my Princess helping out with its pruning! :>

Butterfly {Dreams}

I flit, I float, I fleetly flee, I fly........oh no....wait...that's Sound of Music...not quite where I was headed here. But, with spring in the air, I have butterflies on the brain. And since there is oh so often a song singing its notes in my head, its not a huge leap....right?

Okay, okay, so I imagine you came here for something other than the inner workings of my brain, yes?! So, I'll spare you the adventure that would require a five point harnass and show you.....a card!

I've had this fantastic butterfly lady stamp in my collection for over fifteen years now and I love her! She's a butterfly who just seems to be made of {dreams}. I stamped & embossed her with fabby pink foil embossing powder, also from my old stash.


Then! I decided to try one of my friend Elise's (Mamacow Creations) coloring techniques.....using Stampin' Up!'s watercolor wonder crayons with an Aqua Painter (taking the aqua painter brush tip to the tip of the crayon and then laying it on the paper) to add some pinks & purples to my fabby butterfly lady. (Okay, I definitely need some practice here, but I had fun trying this for the first time.) After cutting her out, I wanted to pop her up, but not so extreme like with foam, so I cut out three itty bitty strips of white cardstock, adhered them together, and then to the back of her body. See, she has lift! (Those Sound of Music lyrics are floating through my brain again!! :>)

Add some printed vellum with a fun K& Company rubon sentiment, bracketed with some Cosmo Cricket chipboard pieces (that were painted pink and decked out in Tim Holtz's Distress Stickles) and The Butterfly Lady has a safe place to land. (If you are noticing a difference in the colors, the first two shots were in the sun and the last one was shot in the shade.....and then my camera battery said it was tired and wanted a charge.)

The weather here has been like easy summer days this week.......we've been running in the 80's. And with tomorrow being the first official day of spring, it will be nice to have the sun out this weekend.

Does it look like spring where you live? Do you have any spring like activities planned this weekend? We're hoping to get some work done in the backyard, plant the parsley, sage, and chives that came home with my daughter and I this week, and clear out some room for the tomatoes that my kidlets are dying to plant! Happy Friday! :>

Supplies:
Cardstock: Hibiscus Burst - Papertrey Ink
Paper: Vellum - Dollar Tree (I've had it in my stash for over five years now...lol!)
Stamp: Butterfly Lady - Hippo Heart

Ink: Versamark
Watercolor Wonder Crayons: Stampin' Up!
Rub On: K & Company
Chipboard: brackets - Cosmo Cricket
Other: embossing powder - from stash....and it has mysteriously disappeared, if it just as magically reappears, I'll update the info.; Paint - Delta & Making Memories; Worn Lipstick - Distress Stickles by Tim Holtz for Ranger; Bling - Stash (off brand from Walmart)

Knitted Sweets & A Hippity Hop!

Time is a concept that always seems to amaze me! When I was a teenager, I remember thinking that ninety years old would probably approach faster than the next couple of years. When you are waiting for a certain time to come (like a sixteenth birthday or graduation back then) time passes so slowly. And then when you are either really busy or even simply trying to slow down time to cherrish treasured moments with a loved one, time just speeds on by! I know its a cliche, but that's what is on my mind this morning as I'm realizing May arrives on Friday!

Two sweet delights were waiting in my daughter's Easter basket from my Mom, her Grammie. Mom was excited to find a great way to use the smaller left over amounts of yarn from other various projects. And I am just tickled that the pink beads and two blingy buttons on the cupcakes are from my grandmother's collection. So now, I am watching my daughter have tea parties with her princesses using cupcakes made by her Grammie with treasures from her Great Grandma on them. It just warms my heart. The bears were not from my Grandma's collection, but are vintage. Aren't these just so sweet?!

Mom wanted to make sure that her grandson had something fun too. Knowing that he loves bunnies right now, she knitted one for him! She said the knitting was simply a square that is folded and tucked a bunch of different ways. Since I don't knit, it looked pretty amazing to me! :> Thank you for your hand crafted goodness! :>

CPS 107 & Pink Elephant #6

Spring has definitely sprung around here! The trees are flowering, the daffodils have been smiling for awhile, and the vineyards are all being manicured and prepped for the growing season. So, I was in a springy kind of mood and thought it would be good to apply that to some challenges! I combined the current CPS sketch challenge and The Pink Elephant challenge to include buttons on this card. The sparkle on the card is from the pre-glittered DCWV cardstock and a little Stickles on the flower center. I inked the edges of the leaf stamped piece just a little, wanting to keep this extremely clean and intentionally quite white and bright. But, in hindsight, I would ink them heavier. There's always next time, right?!

With the sun still shinning and kidlets wanting to go outside some more, I'm gonna head out back and play (maybe even get ambitious and pull some weeds.....I'm so not a gardener! lol). For those of you who have sunshine, I hope you are able to enjoy it. And for those of you still with Winter weather, may your Spring spring soon!!

Supplies:
Cardstock: Stampers Select White - PTI; Glittered green - DCWV; medium green - from stash
Stamps: Best Blossoms - SU!
Ink: Gable Green, Glorious Green, Pink Passion (all classic inks) - SU!
Ribbon: Raspberry Fizz Twill - PTI
Other: Magenta Stickles; Buttons from stash; lime green embroidery thread

Hoppin' Out of Time

Well, I meant to post this much earlier in order to participate in PaperTreyInk's blog hop. But, as the day would have it, I wasn't able to 'hop' onto my computer until it was substantially too late. Though I still wanted to play, so I did! Who really needs an excuse to craft some time for paper, stamps, and ink?!

This month's blog hop challenge was to get geared up for spring and pull out spring colors, flowers, holidays, or themes. I do not initially gravitate towards pastels, so the challenge was a great springboard, so to speak, for me. I was able to use some SU! Soft Subtles that I often neglect. Over the weekend, I was at a scrapbook retreat and a friend was kind enough to give me the cutest hand stamped birthday card....so so SO cute! Besides all the awesome PTI that was used on the card (Guide Lines, Love Songs, Raspberry Fizz), she also used the Martha Stewart dot scallop border punch. Well, I fell in love with it over the weekend thanks to watching this talented artist (and another awesome scrapper at the event!) and just had to make a run to go get one for myself.....and use it on this card. Now, you may ask, who is this talented friend? Well, you might recognize her, she is this month's PaperTreyInk Guest Star Stamper featuring a fantastic stationary set, Dana! She inspires me often, even on this simple card. While scrapping with her, she inked up some alphas with multiple inks and it looked so soft and pretty. So, I played with that today. I inked up PTI's Trajan Alpha with four Brilliance ink dew drops and love how it came out (if you click on the picture, you can really see the ink sparkle!). I hope you get a chance to check out Dana's blog and let her inspire you as well!!


Supplies:
Cardstock: SU! - Barely Banana, Lavender Lace, Almost Amethyst; Bazzil - pink; stash - blue
Stamps: PaperTrey Ink - Trajan Alpha
Ink: Tsukineko Brilliance - Pearlescent Orchid, Pearlescent Purple, Pearlescent Lavender, Pearlescent Sky Blue
Ribbon: Taylored Expressions - Lemonade Twill
Embellisments: Martha Stewart - dot scallop border punch; Kaiserscrapbook - Mixed Flowers Rhinestones