Welcome to my blog!

Thanks for visiting my blog. As the title suggests, I love to scrapbook, stamp, and sing! I will share cards and scrapbook pages I create, as well as information about my music - Barbershop harmony.

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Some birthday cards and a bit of Adare, Co Limerick, Ireland

Well, I'm back again after some busy weeks, including one without my Internet service.  Can you believe I fixed it myself by switching out a bad cord?!  I cheered and did a little happy dance in my family room!

Anyway - once back online, I headed off to the Silhouette online store to search for fish images.  Yes, fish - my uncle likes to fish so I wanted one for his birthday card.  A real fish, not a cutesy fish, and I found one in the Hero Arts portfolio.  Here's my card:

fishcard

I cut the fish (Design ID 17454) on Hero Arts Grass Layering paper, then cut an offset of the image on Pine Layering paper, then flipped the offset and cut it for the back. The back piece is scored by the tail.  I stamped the happy birthday using Versamark and white embossing powder, then overstamped the Envelope Liner Background (a Hero Arts cling stamp) to simulate the scaly texture.  Then I inked the edges and some of the cuts with distress markers for a bit more definition.  Popped it with foam dots onto the card base - done!  Since it was for a guy, I resisted adding pearls, sequins or stickles - it was hard not to do it!!

Here's another birthday card using a Lori Whitlock Silhouette file (Design ID #60412).    Made it for my sweet 16 niece, Abby:

Birthday flower Abby

Just loved mixing all the fun Hero Arts flowers and gems!  Sentiment is from Hero Arts too - a clear set called Circles (CL674).

And now for the next installment of my trip to Ireland back in May.  Heather & I headed from Killarney to Adare County Limerick on Day 3 of our junket into the countryside.  What a sweet little town featuring some quaint thatched roofs (fire hazard, anyone?).  Here's a photo I took in the evening after our long day of travels:

Thatched buildings Adare

We walked into town after checking in at the Coatesland House B&B, where Mr. & Mrs. Hogan made us comfortable.  Here's my room:

100_6110

Heather had a similar one in different colors on the other side of the staircase.  Heather's tea pot didn't work so I fired up mine and popped down the hall with it; we had tea and biscuits before calling it a day.  Here we are eating breakfast the next morning:

Breakfast in Adare

Mrs. Hogan was disappointed that her garden wasn't nice yet - they'd had a hard winter.  But the food was divine and so elegant!  Well, there was a lot more of Adare but I'll save that for a later post!

Thanks for stopping!

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

More from my Ireland trip

Sorry it's been a while since my last post.  I had some catching up to do following my fabulous trip to Ireland in May.  Just tuning in?   This is post #4 about my trip to visit Heather.  I'm relating all the fun of a little junket Heather and I took into the countryside.  On day 3 of this trip we started out with a lovely breakfast at The Harp B&B.  The Harp, like other B&Bs, offers "the full Irish breakfast" but I asked for scrambled eggs on toast, receiving quite a mound of eggs!  Of course, there was tea aplenty.  While I'm a decaf espresso drinker typically, I grew to enjoy a cuppa with Heather. 

We packed up and headed back to Killarney National Park where we were rained out the previous day.  While it sprinkled rain on us off and on, it was so much better weather!  Due to the recent rains, Torc Waterfall was gushing water.  Here's my shot of it:

Torc Waterfall

It's a short walk from a parking lot up to the falls via a crushed rock path.  The foliage was amazing - so many ferns and tree trunks covered with moss.  Then we headed up the road to Moll's Gap, a pass on the R71 road between Killarney and Kenmare.  Across the way, Ladies' View - a jaw dropping view of the lakes of Killarney National Park, so named because Queen Victoria's ladies in waiting were brought here for a view of the lakes.  Heather took my photo and I took hers at this overlook:

Ladies view Ladies view Heather

Then we head up the road, walked out onto some rocks, and I zoomed in a bit on the lakes for this photo:
Another lake view

With the rainy weather, we decided not to make the entire drive of the Ring of Kerry, a 179 km trip along narrow, winding roads.  Instead we just drove to Sneem, on Kenmare Bay just off the Atlantic Ocean.  We walked around quite a bit in Sneem, known as the knot in the Ring of Kerry.  I just loved this little cottage we spotted on our rambles:

sneem cottage

On the way back to Killarney we stopped at the Avoca Shop and CafĂ© at Moll's Gap where we had a Rocky Road bar and I tried the vegetable soup (not as delicious as in Ardmore but still quite good) and yummy brown bread.  Then we headed over to Ross Castle; here's  one of my shots of it:

Ross Castle

Thank goodness it wasn't raining and we got some great views of the lower lake, including this one:

Killarney lower lake
 
Then we headed up the road to Adare, a Tidy Towns winner and a a quaint little spot.  Since this post is getting rather long, I'll save talking about Adare for the next installment :)
 
Thanks for stopping by!