Urban Prairie Flower Card…

Hi there! Okay, pick yourself up off the floor, I managed to get into my crafty corner this afternoon and make a card! I know, I am just as shocked as you are. LOL

The girls and I have had a nicely busy first full week of summer break. We are going to a local school for lunch almost every day like we did last summer. It’s not being offered at our home school this summer (they switch schools each year), but it’s still close by and it’s still free. Another family we got to know last summer is going too, so it’s nice to catch up with them. We are also going to the library each week for their free programs and to check out books. They are having a summer long reading “contest,” where if the girls read each day during the week, they turn in their log for a prize. I am participating in the adult version since I read every night before going to sleep. The program this week was by Mr. Bones, a guy who studies dinosaur fossils and even goes out on expeditions to find them. He  found a dinosaur egg not far from where we live (within 20 miles). I’m bummed that I didn’t bring my camera to the program because he makes “puppets” of dinosaurs out of paper mache and foam. They were incredibly realistic. Next week, we’ll start swim lessons again as well.

So, in between our daily activities, I have continued to work on cleaning up around here, helped the girls with their needlepoint projects, worked on a few of my own projects-I got one microphone made, and started the second…should be able to share those soon. The girls still don’t know, so shhhhhhh…

Today I did a aluminum can recycling run and cleaned off our deck before finally heading into my crafty corner. The card I was inspired by was created by Carol of Happiness Blooms blog. It’s the middle one on this post.

Obviously, I don’t have the same stamp sets, but I thought Hero Arts’ Trees, Birds and Messages set had a lovely “vine” that worked nicely. I colored in the flowers and leaves with Prisma and Koh-i-noor pencils and blended the colors with odorless mineral spirits. Very simple.

Last week, Nichole Heady challenged her senior design team at Papertrey Ink to come up with cost effective embellishments and she participated as well. She shared a tutorial on how to make crocheted flowers using DMC floss instead of cotton thread. You know I was all over that! I have loads of floss and was eager to try her tutorial. You can see the result of my first attempt on this card. I just picked a color, any color, and it just so happens that it coordinated pretty well with the Cranberry color in the papers I used for this card. Serendipitous, yes?

I added the circle image from Verve’s Artful Elegance set to help offset the flower on the Nestie scallop circle. Other than that, this card is pretty straightforward.

Supplies:
Stamps: Trees, Birds & Messages (Hero Arts), Artful Elegance (Verve)
Paper:  Cranberry, Breeze (CTMH) Black, Urban Prairie (Basic Grey)
Ink: Breeze, Cranberry (CTMH), Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Accessories: Black Brad (dollar store find), Prisma, Koh-i-noor pencils, odorless mineral spirits, DMC floss, size 2 crochet hook, scallop circle Nestabilities, piercing template/mat (SU), piercing tool (Making Memories)

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The Windows Live Writer “format fonts” function is still not working correctly, despite my attempts to contact them again. Sigh. I’ve tried finding a way to uninstall and reinstall, but I can’t find it. I’ve also tried a repair on the program that didn’t help. Guess the WLW team must be stumped or feverishly working on finding a fix. (at least I hope they are). I can’t change the font in my post, nor can I resize the font. However, all the fonts show up in the watermark feature and I can resize those. Go figure. I suppose I could type up my posts in Blogger, but I do like the features in WLW, so I guess I’ll just deal with this minor inconvenience for now.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I’m hoping to have more to share with you over the weekend.

Hugs,
Jeanne