Christmas Card Club - Hazel's Feature a Creature

I'm just squeaking in with my card for our Christmas Card Club. It was Hazel's turn ( from My Crafty Outlook) to chose the theme. She chose Feature a Creature and it was a fun card to make.

I had coloured some little mice last year and wasn't sure what I was going to do with them. I coloured two sets...one grey and one brown. I was thinking the brown ones would work with kraft and they sure did.
I am not that happy with the colouring...I only have nibbed copics in green and the lines are too thick...sigh...I may eventually buy a fine point dark green pen and use it for some darker lines on this tree bough.
You may remember the Kraft and white velvety embossed background. It is the front of a set of Christmas cards that I bought on clearance...I bought them just for this fabulous, velvety front piece.  I chopped the front off the card and went from there. I mounted my image under theprecut window aperture and then mounted  that whole new front onto a Kraft card I cut myself.

Now I know you must all be thinking that the red zig zag trim is a die cut .Nope! I fooled you! I broke through my aversion to cutting into my ribbon stash and chopped off a hunk and ran with it. I picked up this rick rack trim up a couple of years ago, at a yard sale with my girlfriend. I have managed to find a couple more packages wince then at the thrift shop...one of them is even wider than this!

I added a couple of K and Co poinsettias and some of their coordinating ivy & boughs. I A snippet of green card to frame the sentiment and I was done. I will mail this card to England as that is a traditional Christmas sentiment there.

Recipe:
Card Base - Kraft cardstock cut to size from my stash
Envelope - Kraft envelope from my stash
Cardstock - from my stash and was a snippet used to frame the sentiment
Poinsettia and ivy boughs - K and Co from my stash
Rick Rack - from my stash
Sentiment - from a sheet of pre-printed sentiments I picked up at my LSS
Stamp - Great Impressions F170

 I am entering this card in the following challenges
1.Pixies Crafty Workplace - must use snippets
2. Christmas Card Club - must be Christmas
3. MFP Speedy TV Christmas Card Challenge - must be Christmas
4. CHNC Extra - must be Christmas
5. Christmas Stampin' All Year Long - Christmas Carol, mine is "Oh Christmas Tree"
6. Winter Wonderland - Oh Christmas Tree
7. Sister Act - Anything goes
8. Craft Challenge - #207 Christmas

The yard...now don't be too shocked!

Thought I would share the perennial bed on the right side of our yard.  In Canada, we call the back garden the "yard". I know that in some other countries that term does not relate to blooms and boughs...at least not in the sense of them being still alive and growing!

This side of the garden shares a fence with Lisa, the friend that I scrapbook and card make with on Wednesday evenings. You can see another one of DH's projects here. Lisa's husband (who is very handy and a perfectionist at any project) and my DH replaced some panels on the fence. It will be my job to sit and paint it after we have had a couple weeks of hot, dry weather. DH was very glad to have Ken's help as DH is not handy that way.

This is the sunnier side of my garden as the two story garden shed and a couple of really tall trees provide dappled shade over on the left side of the garden that I showed you a couple of days ago. As you can see, the extra sunshine has this side full of blooms at the moment.

This is the last almost spent blooms of the forget-me-nots but I like to leave of few till the bitter end so they drop their seeds for next year.

Here is my favourite plant in the garden...a black hellebore. Sadly, it has faded too and now looks a dusky dark purple...but the blooms were black for many weeks.

We had started to lift and divide the perennials on this side too, but had to stop as the plants grew too big to continue. We will resume our project in the Fall.  Just thought I would show you an example of how the whole garden beds used to look. Here you can see a poor daylily growing up through another plant that is about 3 1/2  feet (or more) across and 4 feet deep. Other plants are even growing right up to the edges of that huge one. The whole garden was like that on both sides so we have removed a lot of plants. Some that we have put aside for my sister are they're size of garbage cans!

Now I do like the kind of garden where you hardly see any soil...I like the foliage tips to be almost touching. DH on the other hand likes a good separation between the plants. It is a lot of work every year or two to maintain that almost touching look and  I used to do all of that.  Since my arthritis and my back got really bad and then the car accident,  I just haven't been able to keep up the task. DH is doing the bulk of the garden work so  I have taken his lead and agreed to try his style. So far, I have decided I quite like what he has planned.

We will be taking out a bit of the bed and extending the lawn on this side too. Slowly but surely, the bed sizes will get reduced. This one is about 12 deep I think and I not sure how long...maybe 25 feet or more...too much work for this aging couple!
Down at the bottom of the bed, we had this silly area that jutted into the patio area. It was hard to water and had to be done by hand. We have removed all the plants completely and integrated them into other areas. For now DH has set a bird bath on a cement circle and thrown down the cement rabbits  that the grandchildren love. We have left it like that till we decide if we will put in a water feature there.

It looks a little weird and bare, but hey ho, it will do for now. Well not quite bare...that is a hen and chicks sitting on top of the bird bath! We had 2 couples over for lunch on the patio on Wednesday and they brought me that little beauty as a hostess gift...lucky me! The pots on the hot tub slab are for the plant sale...sadly there is not hot tub...but a girl can dream...right?

At the far back on the left of the yard, you get another peek of the garden shed and the houses behind me. Luckily there is a canopy of tree branches that obscure most of them when we are in the seating area. In fact, I think you can only see the one on the left side from sanding at this spot...the previous owner built the shed 2 storieshigh to block them out from the dining area!!!
But what is all that stuff behind the shed? And why are there empty pots hiding at the back?

Well...it's the leftover plants from our toils...part of the 300 we dug out..And a couple of pots we were too tired to fill...hahahaha

Well, maybe only 250ish now...we had friends take a few, a bunch went to the garden club raffle last night and the rest are going in our plant sale this Saturday. My sister is taking whatever is left over on Sunday...she has fingers crossed for rain and no buyers...teeeheee
Here is a shot of some more of the  pots. I tucked them into the shaded beds under the trees...till that space got used up and then tucked them behind the shed where they got a little shade from the fence.Others are even tucked down the sides of the house! DH will be moving them all into the front garden today to set up for the sale...don't envy him that job!

I must say that posting all these pictures has really pointed out how much we need to work on our lawn...it is in a bit of a sorry state!
Well, that's it for me today. Hope you enjoyed the tour...
Off to finish writing up the name tags...150 done, 100 plus to go!!!

4:30 pm and a wee update...DH set up all the plants out front, while I sat in the garage with the door up and wrote more tags. While we were doing that 2 ladies from garden club dropped by and bought 18 more plants...Yay! The numbers are slowly dropping...Fingers crossed that tomorrow brings us lots more buyers!!!

Up Close and Personal

Here are the close ups I promised  of the cards I showed yesterday on WOYWW 206. Sorry my post is so late...we had a wonderfully busy day today and then I went to my neighbours for our weekly craft evening.

This is a picture heavy post so I am going to get started.

The first is from Hettie at Hettiecraft. I loved the sort of feeling of a meadow with the  flocks of birds stamped to create the background. The vibrant orange  embossed card and the gorgeous stamped flowers are even more vibrant IRL.

Bonnie Raduse of  Stamping In The Light made this lovely, cheery card.  Nice hot colours! Reminds me of a great hot day up at the lake...When the thermometer is pushing 40 you sure need an umbrella!

 Sarn at Stamping For Pleasure made this farmyard scene! Or maybe they're biking away from the barnyard...making a quick escape! There is a lovely shimmer spray over the image...it glistens!

Little Miss C and my daughter made this next one for my birthday. Love the glittered butterfly.

Redanne of Redanne made this striking tag. I had complimented her on this gorgeous tag and it arrived just for me and is even more vibrant IRL! The three dimensional poppies have been shaped as well!

Onward to my friends through the Christmas Card Club. We make a Christmas card a fortnight and take turns choosing the theme. First up is Hazel of My Crafty Outlook. Hazel makes hundreds of cards a year to raise funds for her favourite charities. The sweet little duo are holding balloons that  totally match the sentiment paper colour!

 Carol at CM Design sent this lovely Celtic themed card. My Grandfather lived in Antrim for a time and I have visited Ireland as a teenager. I really enjoyed this Celtic look. The perfume bottles are so intricate in their patterns.

Clare, Bert, Simone and Blackie of My Purfect World of Cats, Cards and Crafts made this tall beauty. Lots of stickles make the pretty images pop!

Sue of Olliesmam made this 8x8 beauty. It is the first card of this size I have ever received and I was so excited to open the envelope. Sadly the postman folded it in half to fit it in my postal box. Even though Sue wrote "Please do not bend, thanks" on the envelope. The sentiment is so perfect! I will be meeting up with Sue when I go to England this August.

And now the moment you have been waiting for...
Here is what has been keeping me from creating and visiting and even blogging at times...our garden project!

7 cubic yards or black bark mulch, 2 cubic yards of torpedo gravel, hundred of hours of poor old DH digging and lifting out overgrown perennials, similar hours with me sitting at the patio table prying the tangled roots apart, almost 300 pots of "leftover" plants, what seemed like hundreds of garbage bins of discarded yard waste, and countless bits of blast rock hauled home from the Shuswap, from Merrit and from the Sunshine Coast...

What does all that add up to? My new "tidier" flower beds edged in blast rock and a much safer walkway down to the hose spigot. Here is the walkway that is just off our patio area. It slopes down slightly to the side of our house. I nearly took a header there this spring as muddy water running down to the drain can be quite slippery. DH did a lot of digging and improved the drainage to this area. He made a stacked rock wall  around the garden bed to help contain soil erosion.
Warning...I have a typical Lower Mainland house (suburbs of Vancouver). I am overlooked as are all my neighbours. Don't be too shocked to see other houses.


Here is a shot of the perennial bed and rock edge. Once he collects enough rock, he will add a second layer.
The little shed is two stories. It is too bad that the tree obscures the pretty windows on the top floor. The barn doors open out to a wee cement area...the garden faces the setting sun so when it is smoking hot on the patio, we can sit up there in the cool shade.

The patio furniture is obscuring the bed so here is a close up of the part behind the table. Here you can see the area that is roped off to protect the new grass seed. We cut the length of the  bed back about a foot to coincide with the runoff  from the eaves of the garden shed. Dh  has set it up to direct the water down to the drain by the gravel I showed in the first picture. No more chance of me taking a header again!

Yep, here's where the water runs down to ...the drain is located just past the bottom left of this photo ( I am standing behind it with the camera). Those with good eyesight may notice my poor clematis draped over the edge of the cement wall...we don't have the trellis back up yet since the fence was painted...I'd better get cracking on with that tomorrow as it is getting about 2 feet long now!


I didn't think to take any before and after for contrast...but the plants were all touching and many were growing in together. You could not see any of the soil or the old mulch...just a sea of plants. My bulbs, anemones, trillium, toad lillies, etc, have just finished so I have removed all the spent greens...not all the perennials are up yet but the majority will be 3 to 4 feet high by July.

.Hope you enjoyed the tour of the cards and of the left side of the back garden! I might get brave and show you the right side another day...there are still some overgrown sections there that we will divide in the Fall...

Currently we are working on improving the lawn...we've dethatched, moss killed, fetilized and overseeded. Hopefully it picks up as you can probably tell from the pictures...it needs "a little work"!

WOYWW 206 - Happy Mail

Hard to believe it is WOYWW 206! It has been a few weeks since I have played along.
We have been busy in our garden so my blogging and time to create has been sadly curtailed...

I had planned that sometime in April I would do a post showcasing all the cards I received in March (my Birthday month) . Somehow that fell by the wayside in the ongoing saga of gardening exhaustion......

The work in the garden is finally finished...well as finished as it can be till Fall. The plants have just grown too large to risk moving  and dividing them up right now.

So, with all my newly found spare time, I have set up my work desk with all the Happy Mail I received in March/April. You only get the generic "work desk" shot. This is WOYWW after all!!!  Tomorrow I will have another post that showcases each individual card and a link to who made it!!!

If the weather holds, you may even get a couple of pictures of the new and improved garden! DH did all the heavy digging, lifting, and dragging. He was a real trooper as he really doesn't like to garden and has done a great job on it.

And just to whet your photo appetite further, here is a bit of a close up...the little pile of stuff to the right of the photos are all the precious supplies I have dragged out to make some Mermaid cards. Images, lace, netting, shells, DP, and a few seaweed and shell stamps...everything is stacked there waiting for my mojo to
kick into mermaid gear!

  Hope you have enjoyed seeing just what I've been up to...if you want to see more desks and creativity then hop on over to Julia's Stamping Ground where you can join in the fun visiting all the other desks too!

Another Card Kit Card

Here is another card I made up from the card kit my neighbour brought over last week..
 I showed you a similar one about a week ago. It was my lucky night that evening as we had a third friend who was to join us but was unable to attend at the last minute. Lisa offered me the second card kit and I made this little cutie.

As our kit rules state...this is a nice easy card, able to be assembled in 15 minutes or less. Lisa used images from a sheet of patterned paper. Sorry I don't know the name of it or even the manufacturer...she brought it over already matted on the yellow card stock, so there was no info available. The second bit of yellow card was already embossed and I just had to stamp the sentiment and fussy cut it before popping it onto a wee bit of black card. A couple of black rhinestone gems and it was finished!!!

I kept it really simple with a "just a note"  sentiment. The inside is blank so I can write a little letter inside. This will go to a gardener for sure...in fact I have someone in mind already!

I used a blank white prefolded card from the dollar store...Surprisingly they are a nice heavy weight and come 3 or 4 in a packet with the envelopes included.

We usually get together on Wednesday evenings around 7:30. Her kids have gone off to bed and we start creating. We exchange the card kits right away and get those finished up first.Then it is on to a cup of tea or coffee and settling down to work on our own creations.

Here is my / her card. No challenges for this one as I did not design it!

Tea Time

Here is the card my neighbour designed for us last week. We are sure having fun with this project. Each week we take turns creating a card kit for each of us. The goal is to have DP and card stock cut, ribbon estimated, embellies added and anything else required  in a baggie or an envelope. Start to finish, the card should take around 15 minutes.

I enjoyed making her card. It was a lot of fun and the room smelled so pretty with the TAZO tea smell in the air! I wiould make this again...but would try to purchase some of the teensy envelopes I saw recently at the scrapbook store. My neighbour didn't have any and so she cut up a larger envelope to make these little ones.

All in all, it was a wonderful card to make and another one for the finished card baskets.

No challenges for this card as I did not design it and did not use any of my own supplies!

Now, on to my exciting day...

Little Mr P turns 5 tomorrow...I called and sang Happy Birthday to him as he was having his party today as it is Mothers Day here tomorrow. He patiently waited till the end and then announced but I'm not 5 yet...you will have to call me tomorrow and sing it again!!!

Traditionally we do not attend the birthday parties where they have their little friends. They are usually at a venue which is geared to children. Pony parties at the stables, fishing parties at the Fish Hatchery...those are for their friends...cake and pressies with Grandpa and Grandma is usually the day before or after.

This year ( and last) Little Mr P wanted his party at the large picnic barn at his favourite park, Derby Reach. It is a gorgeous picnic area, field, park and campsite, right on the banks of the mighty Fraser River. You can rent a  huge loafing type barn with ginormous picnic tables for 40 or 50 and  a nice patio area to barbque. Little Mr P's favourite part is the huge firepit where Daddy always builds a campfire and they toast marshmallows or toast S'smores. Whenever we walk to school and he spies a stick he hauls it home for the campfire wood box.

Grandpa was determined to get an invite this year. He figured since they paid a flat price for the rental of the amenities and since there was no limit on numbers, it was fair game. DD made the mistake of showing him the invite...It was a picture of the back of Little Mr P, hand up in the air throwing a rock into the Fraser River at the picnic spot.
DH decided that meant she had invited him as he didn't realize that DD was just showing him the picture! He told P that he was so happy to be invited this year. Little Mr P nearly had a heart attack and advised that "no gulls were allowed". DH assured him that Mommy only showed him the invite and that he knew it was guys only...he would leave me at home...Little Mr P stared at him in shock and said no...you can't come...it is only for my friends and my family!!! DH shared that he was his family and Mr P replied quite emphatically "No you're not! Only people who live in my house are my family!!!   hahahaha
DH was trumped and conceded defeat. Mommy must have worked on Mr. P's sweet little nature cuz we did get invited and DH was able to help launch the boat as all the kiddies got a boat ride on the Fraser. What squeals of excitement we heard as they put on their life jackets. DH was beaming as he gave them the motor for that boat for a wedding gift and here it was, years later, still running like a charm  ferrying the partygoers about!

Limited Edition

My neighbour came over tonight for our weekly card making evening.
It was my turn to design the card and have 2 card kits ready for us to make up. I chose a classic car stamp that I inked up for the first time a while back and luckily I stamped several images that day. I coloured them all up on another one of our craft evenings and so I now had the makings of a focal point!

I added a couple of Spellbinders sprocket looking dies and an old button from my stash.  I was going to computer generate "You're a classic" but chose to go with the slightly more generic "Limited Edition" sentiment. I have left the inside blank for now...I think would suit a Birthday card or even Fathers Day.

I think it is a worlds first for me that I actually remembered the blue card stock was the self adhesive variety. I proudly peeled the backing paper off and stuck it down! Sadly, it didn't seem to stick with a vengeance...It just sort of sticks like repositionable tape.  I threw some additional adhesive on the back and finally got a good contact!
Not sure if this will go in my finished cards basket or in with the cards I make for my daughter...

Recipe:
Card base and envelope - from my stash (Michael's)
Design paper - Creative Imaginations Art Warehouse danelle johnston Neutral;
                        Momenta Story of Us (snippet from wedding pages)
Cardstock - from my stash (snippets of self adhesive card stock)
Dies - Spellbinders Sprightly sprockets; Spellbinders round petites; Spellbinders Nested Pennants
Stamp - wooden stamp with no name written on the side!
Sentiment - computer  generated
Button - from my stash

I am submitting this card for the following challenges:
1. Pixies Crafty Workshop - must use snippets
2. Sister Act - Anything goes
3. The House That Stamps Built - Masculine card
4. Clear it out - Use Stash and 2 or more patterned papers ( I used 3)
5. Crafty Sentiments - use a sentiment
6. Flourishes Timeless Tuesday - use black accents