Do you craft at odd hours?

So, here's the deal - I wake up at 3 a.m. thinking about a card I started last night.  Pretty soon I'm up, pulling out supplies and working away at my card.  My brother's cat, Misty (you may have heard me talk about her), is visiting me this week.  She just looks at me like "what are you doing?"  She was even more confused because I wouldn't give her any kibbles!!  I want to hear about your experience with odd hour craft time!

Anyway, niece Annika is heading off to camp so I made her a card.  Did any of you ever go to camp?  When I was a kid we went every summer - one week by ourselves with our age group and one week with the entire family - to a church camp in Northern Wisconsin.  If you received mail, you had to tell a joke, sing a song, etc. to receive it.  So all your friends and family back home made sure you were bombarded with mail....  Well, they do the same thing at Annika's camp so I'm armed with my pre-printed address labels and will fire off a card per day - mostly postcards, although I did this handmade card for the kick-off.

The kids stay in little cabins so I printed this cute cabin (Three Bugs in a Rug for Silhouette - Design id#9993) and the sentiment (can't remember the font - sorry) on a piece of blue Basic Grey paper using my Silhouette and a Lexmark printer.  Then I die cut the pine trees (Hero Arts for Silhouette -Design id #22748) with another slab of Basic Grey paper and stamped them with Hero Arts Newspaper Background (still a fave!) inked in Iced Spruce (fitting) Distress Ink.  Next I used my Distress Markers to create a little grassy knoll and path for the cabin.  Finally I stamped and paper-pieced a little sun (from an old baby boy set by Hero Arts) and added some stickles.  A pearl turned into a doorknob and I was done!  I know Annika will love it, as well as the $$ I threw in for her to buy snacks... At my camp they sold the candy bars frozen - still love them that way!

Hope you're having a great weekend and thanks for stopping!!

A storm and a thank you

Wow - what a storm we had early this morning!  I awoke at 4:30 to horrible winds, thunder and lightening, driving rain and loss of power in the neighborhood.  Got ready for work by the light from a flashlight - still no power when it was time to leave.  Hmmm - electric garage door - I could open it manually but it was hard to lift and wouldn't click in the open position, just slid shut again!  Luckily the rain and lightening had ended so I set off walking to the bus stop 2 1/2 miles away.  About 5 blocks from home, a couple who also takes the bus stopped and offered me a ride - how sweet!  I didn't even know their names, they just recognized me.  So Kelly and Mike got me to the bus on time when I figured I'd have to take a later bus due to the long walk.  Then they offered to be sure I got home at the end of the day too!!  To thank them, I made this card tonight:

I used a fun Hero Arts/Basic Grey (Indie Bloom) set called Enjoy that I bought at the Mall of America Archiver's last week.  I met Hero Arts Flickr group friends Barb and Daria for dinner (Tucci Benucch - yummy!!) and a bit of shopping.  Here's my photo of our shopping spree.  In the background you can see a bit of a display for a Cards by Hero Arts class - I took it and enjoyed it very much! 

Barb and Daria are showing some new Tim Holtz seasonal Distress Inks; my stamp set is behind my back - I forgot to show it off, oh well... Had to use my 43% off coupon, don't ya know.  We had a great time and it was wonderful to see them both again!  Two years since I last saw Daria - hope it's not that long til the next time.  Luckily, I get to see Barb more often.

I made the card below on Sunday after all the Father's Day festivities.  I used the same stamp set as above but in a totally different way.  I used one of the sketches from this month's Hero Arts contest.  Really had fun coloring the flowers with Copics - I'm not very good at it but still enjoy it!

Hope you're having a crafty week!  Thanks for stopping!!

Happy Father's Day 2012!

Happy Father's Day to everyone celebrating!  Mom and Dad drove to my house and I drove us across the Cities to my brother's and sister-in-law's house.  Donna made chicken in wine sauce and then we all played Phase 10, our favorite card game.  Dad came from behind to wipe us all off the map.  Poor Donna had been working on Phase 10 for 3 hands; I was stuck on Phase 7 but had finally completed it - a day late & a dollar short...

Here I am with my sweet Dad (holding the card I made him):

 I'm so glad he's still in good health and able to enjoy life.  He certainly has given me a great life after giving me life to begin with!  Happy Father's Day, Dad!

A Productive Evening

Happy Sunday!  Hope you had a great weekend.  I mowed the backyard this morning and escaped the heat (93F today) by going to a movie this afternoon.  I saw "The Hunger Games" (again - love both the books and the movie) but they had a bit of a sound issue so it wasn't as good as it could've been.

Thought I'd share some cards I made last night.  The usual suspects went to Scrap Mania at Archiver's - Julie, Sandy, Sayo and I were very productive.  First up, a retirement card for a guy with whom I worked twice in my career - years ago, in both Eau Claire WI and Mankato MN.  He retired from managing the St Cloud Social Security office. 

I've had this little chair cut and stamped for quite awhile and finally thought of an idea for it.  This Hero Arts digi cut for the Silhouette came to me when I was a Hero Hostess last year.  It perfectly matches their clear set Wish You Were Here - so cute!  Their Designer papers made great card bases too.  The diamonds are from a Tim Holtz cling set called Boundless Flight and the sentiment I borrowed from a friend - it's an oldie from American Arts Stamps.

From there I worked on my Father's Day cards - needed 3 - one for Dad, one for a special uncle, and one for my brother-in-law.  So, here are the cards:

I love using Hero Arts folded cards - such great quality and easy to use.  I stamped each with a Hero Arts background stamp.  A new fave is the Houndstooth Background, used on two of the cards, and I finally used the Formula Fun background from the HA/Basic Grey (Oxford) collaboration.

I was on a roll so moved on to making a set of cards for my friend Connie (the one who's more like a sister who also sings).  She's part of planning a day for the chorus directors in our Region of Sweet Adelines International.  She asked if anyone would donate a door prize for the event so I offered a card set.  These are the first two I did and I will make a few more using the same set, Hero Arts Musical Clef.

That's it from here.   Thanks for stopping by!

A "Summer" Scramble

Well, it's not quite summer on the calendar but we had a fun time with Janet today for a summer-themed Hero Arts Flickr Group Scramble (90 minutes to design, create, photograph & upload a card).  I just loved Janet's inspiration photos which you can see on her Scramble thread.  The other two options were emboss/resist and "summer"; her daughter wanted her to say flip flops so I complied and gave her some - LOL!

I did the flower background on this sandy colored paper from Authentique (their Genuine set) that has beautiful blues, whites and browns in it.  Stamped the Flower Pops from Hero Arts with Versamark and white embossed, then rubbed Walnut Stain Distress Ink into the edges.  The darling flip flops are a Hero Arts digi cut done on my Silhouette SD; I put an offset mat behind them to give them more definition against the background.  I think most of my 90 minutes was spent waiting for those flip flops to cut!!  The sentiment is from an older Hero Arts clear set called Thoughtful Messages.

Doing this Scramble really put me in the summer mood!  I got my tree trimmings hauled off to the compost heap and mowed my front yard.  Saved the back yard mowing for tomorrow since I'm crafting with some friends tonight and still have to organize my stuff (a challenge after a Scramble!!).

Hope you're enjoying the weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Welcome Baby Lila Grace!

I can't believe I'm posting two days in a row - yay for me! 

One of the fabulous Hero Arts designers, Jennifer McGuire, had a new baby girl on Mother's Day - congrats Jennifer and family!!  A friend of hers, Jana Millen, organized an online card gallery to welcome Lila Grace and I finally had a chance to contribute something.  I've met Jennifer at several ScrapFests (hosted annually by Archiver's) where she's done some delightful classes along with the amazing Shari Carroll.  I've also taken quite a few of Jennifer's Online Card Classes.  What a talented woman - I could go on forever...

Here's my card:

I used Hero Arts layering paper for the card base, stamped with the Chevron Background, a Hero Arts/Studio Calico collaboration, with HA's bubblegum mid-tone ink.  This is a new stamp for me and I just loooove it!  Lila's name is stamped with Hero Art's Fancy Letters and the sentiment is from Find Joy.   The butterfly is Soft Wings from Penny Black; I stamped it with the custom stamp pad I made during Tim Holtz' Creative Chemistry 101 class. 

So, welcome Lila Grace!  May you have a long and wonderful life!!

Hope you're having a fun and crafty weekend - thanks for stopping by!

More singing and a BIG birthday

It's been a while since my last post - May just flew by!  I've been busy singing and crafting so thought I'd share a bit of each.

The weekend after Mother's Day found the City of Lakes Chorus at our Regional convention and competition held at the Mystic Lake Casino complex.  What a great facility and how amazing to be on the Showroom stage where fabulous entertainers like Jay Leno, Maroon 5 and Adam Lambert have performed.  As outgoing chorus champions, we performed a show package and helped behind the scenes with the contest.  Here are a couple of photos of me with some of my friends in our new costumes - just love all the metallic blues and silver!

Elaine, Lou & me

Connie and me

Becky, another chorus friend, knows a woman from her mom's chorus in Iowa with a special birthday coming up.  This sweet lady, Mary Ela, turns 106 years old on Monday!  And she's still singing in shows with her chorus!  I can't imagine making it to that age but, if I do, I hope I can still sing too!!  Becky let us know about a card shower for Mary Ela so I made this card last night.  I used Hero Arts fun clear set Wish Big and a great cling background Life of the Party Words.  I cut the numbers on the balloons from a friend's Cricut - don't ask which cartridge cuz I don't remember :)
I used fun papers from Basic Grey's PB&J 6x6 paper pad.

Happy 106th, Mary Ela!  And thanks to you for stopping.  Have a great weekend!