Put On Your Travelin' Shoes

This will be my last post for the next week or so. We leave tomorrow for Virginia and will be up bright and early. My friend Frdea is coming in from South Africa and will be on the road with us. I am just praying the boys are good in the van. They usually are, but having a guest makes me nervous.

I made this card for a SCS challenge this week. The challenge was to be Bold and Bright and this is about all I could muster. I grabbed a few scraps and popped them onto black. I colored the image with copics, then used glitter to help them look a little more fun. The aliens are from Stampotique.

Freda is arriving tonight and I feel like there is still tons to do. The laundry is done except for whatever last minute load we find tonight. We still have to pack up, load the van, get the dog to the kennell, get the ginea pigs to a friend. Even without company, the day before vacation is the busiest of times for me.

Free Wheelin' Friday

I went to someone's house this week to learn how to make tote bags. She's the friend of a friend and she has a very fun and funky style. When I met her she had the coolest bag with her and I loved it. She said "come on over, I'll teach you." So we went over this week. Turns out she doesn't use measurements, she just eyeballs and cuts. She has a neighbor who sells furniture and he gives her all his old sample fabric pieces, so she had tons of odd ball sofa fabric for us to use up.

I chose a fabric with a floral theme and I liked the bird on it, too. I chose a complimentary inner fabric and went to work. One problem with not measuting or having a pattern is that I placed my inner pockets too high and sewed them shut when I did the trim and bead parts. Oh well, no one gets anything perfect the first time, right? Pockets are over rated anyway. The bag is also bigger than I really wanted, but I learned a new skill and now know how to recycle old fabrics. I had great fun doing it, too!

I made this card for a sketch challenge this week on SplitCoast. I took it out to the yard to photograph as we finally had some sun I could use for natural lghting. I think the card is lovely. The card was supposed to have three squares on it, but I changed it up a bit, while still keeping things in their correct places. The girl is a Ketto image from Stamping Bella and the saying is from Amuse. I made some paper flowers and used some felt flowers from Stampin' Up. The only problem? I like it too much to give it away.

Jambo!

SplitCoast had a challenge the other day to add some text to your card that is in a foreign language. Apparently they don't know how old I am and how long it has been since I was in high school Spanish class. So, I had to turn to Africa to find a word. I chose the one word I could remember from my trip to Kenya two years ago. Jambo means Hello in Swahili. The only other word I could remember is Mzungo which means White person, and wasn't really fitting for my card. The image is from Rubbernecker stamps, which has such a great little line of African stamps that I think Iown them all. I colored with copics and used my paper piercing tool and some flowers, dew drops and brads.

I am filling my hors with entertainment for the children. We saw Paul Blartt Mall Cop today at the one dollar kids movies and I have to admit, it was a decent movie. I don't enjoy many kids' movies but I would recommend this one.

I hope whether your day brings you crafting or movies or kids, that you find a way to enjoy your day.

I Need Stronger Drugs

This little guy from Doodle Factory has a cute coffee saying that goes with him, but I need something stronger than coffee to get through this week. I have company coming from South Africa next week, and we had planned a vacation already, so my friend will be vacationing to Virginia with us. I hope she likes 10 hours in the car with badly behaving children.

The morning routine is the same here, I need a quick shower, a Diet Rite and a protein bar while I make my card for the day. After that, I am theirs for whatever amusement they can suck from my old bones. They follow me around and tell me what they plan for the day or how I can spend more money on them, they turn on TV's and leave the room and come back to ask me to play with them. You'd think at 12 and 9 they could find amusement on their own, but no such luck. I know, people say I should feel blessed that they still like to spend time with me. I am okay with that. But every waking moment? Not so much.

We had an enjoyable time at Holiday World over the weekend even if the heat index was 101 degrees yesterday. And now I am back to the reality of having a husband who is trying to get to the bottom of his medical problems. He has been ill for about 2 months with a constant cough, then he also got swelling in his extremities and a rash. His doctor lost him in the shuffle and finally he got a CT scan and X rays last week. Next up? A PeT scan and a lung biopsy. Seriously.

My card was made for the challenge of making a background that looks like denim. I used Brocade Blue card stock, smeared it with Brocade Blue ink, Ballet Blue ink and then a layer of Whisper White ink. You smudge it on horizontally and then do it again vertically. Whew. Thankfully I used a whole sheet of card stock so I have plenty left over to use again. I love how it turned out, and I guess I need to learn more cool tricks like this since I have no local scrapbook or stamping stores.

Last week at Vacation Bible School Noah's class had to offer up their talents. You know, God gives us all different talents. Noah said his talents were making rubber band music and hand farts. Thank God he has something going for him. I am sure when he gets older the other prisoners on his cell block will be very amused.

Text Challenge

The challenge of the day at SplitCoast yesterday was to use text on your card. I went looking through my papers, sure I had some background paper with text on it, and actually found I had this paper in two different colors! I used the set Quilter's Sampler from Papertrey Ink and a quote stamp that I had on hand.

Yesterday we had wild storms and rain all day again, thus no outside lighting for my photo. Today we have blistering heat. The newspaper reported that we have had nearly six inches of rain this month, and we average less than two inches in past years. I would just like some cooler days when we don't have rain. We seem to go from one extreme to the next and neither is fun.

I took the kids to a living history museum near us today and it was too hot for the kids. You know that is bad! My kids do not generally complain about the weather and just go with the flow of things. We did not even eat lunch there, as we usually do. It seems this season they have closed the indoor restaurant and moved it outside where an ice cream shop used to be. Seriously? Who wants to sit out in the heat to eat a sandwich? It's tough times for everyone I suppose.

We are going to Holiday World for the weekend to enjoy their water park. I am hoping the water is as cold as ice.

Workin' Hard

Today's card is a wee bit dark thanks in part to my shade covered screened in porch. I keep thinking outside photos are so pretty and forget that in the morning my back porch does not have natural light as it faces west and the sun is still in the east. Note to self: Find a place in the front of my house that is suitable for photography.

The kids are up and ready early and I forget what I was hoping to do to entertain them today. Karate is not until noon. Darn the luck.

I have been crafting with kids at Vacation Bible School this week. Sometimes I can say no to volunteer opportunities (don't laugh, it happens once in a while). But this week I am the craft boss and it was my crazy idea to use Procion tie dye dyes to make batik fabric using a flour and water method I found on the internet. The MS and HS kids are great but the younger kids are wild. Their art will end up looking fine, but it is hard to keep them working amid all the ADHD and sugar energy in the room. I will show you a finished project once I get their fabrics through the wash. Tonight's craft is rolled up beads from left over magazine and scrapbook paper.

My card today is made with a pack of Stampin' Up paper and a stamp from Penny Black. I had loved this tamp when I saw it posted on line but couldn't find t as it was retired. I found it in a little stamp store last month and snatched it up. It is called "Spinning a Yarn" and the knitterly side of me is in love.

Monday Crafts

Not much is happening here, but it is enough to keep me from card and scrapbook making. The boys were supposed to go to Karate today but I took them to the library first. Once they had books to read, they wanted to just stay home so we missed karate in favor of quiet time. We had grilled cheese and I spent some time putting together crafts for vacation bible school tonight at church.

At first I said I didn't need any helpers for craft time and now I am thinking I should not have tried to be a matyr. I need help! I will have to pick someone up at dinner time to give me a few minutes of service. Our church does an evening VBS starting at 6 PM with dinner and breaking for classes from 6:30 till 8PM. I am providing crafts for the different levels of kids from pre school through high school. The theme of the week is related to safari in some way so I am leading African crafts.

Tonight we are starting on batik projects and then we will move on to making beads from leftover magazine pages and scrapbook paper. The hardest job is just getting all the supplies ready and divided up into the different age groups.

I got a book on canning at the library today. Anybody can anymore? I never have done it, but know people complain about what a hot job it is. I'll have to see if it is something I want to tackle or not. I have dreams of giving away home canned foods at the holidays.