No Card Making, But it Sure Was Nice

So, as I mentioned last time, the day after our June card making nights, I headed off in the truck with Bill. He's been taking several loads down to Laredo, Texas, and this time I took a week off work, and went along for the ride! Although I had travelled in the truck with him before, I had never been to Texas. And neither had Kes!

Kes in her bed.

While she had taken a short two hour trip in the truck with us before, this was the first time she had been on a long trip. She was pretty nervous at first, and didn't know what to do or where to go. This was about 30-40 minutes in, when she decided to have a seat in her bed. She even got comfortable and laid down- for about 30 seconds! And no, I am not exaggerating. That bed was mostly in the way the rest of the trip. 

She actually laid down!

As we were about to leave Tennessee on day two, Bill implied I was about to see something special.  I wasn't sure what to expect, so I was ready with the phone in hand to take a picture. It was a cool building, even if I'm not into fishing. It was fun to post it on Facebook for our friend Dave though, who enjoyed it.

The Pyramid

As we got further south, I kept seeing all these yellow flowers along the sides of the highways. In general, I'd call them weeds. But darn, they were pretty. They looked like sunflowers. I made several attempts to capture some images of them, even resorting to trying slow motion videos... the results were rather comical. However, I did finally find a couple places to snag some nice pictures of them. Not sure what exactly they are, but they are enjoyable to look at as you're driving.

On the off ramp in Laredo, TX.

I got a nice close up at a truck stop a day or two later.

Not quite a sunflower?

Now my main goal of this trip was to go to Waco, Texas. Why you ask? Well, as any good HGTV lover will know, it was to go to Magnolia Market! Yay! 

Our first glimpse

Knowing I couldn't go crazy, I spent some time on their website in advance, planning out what I thought I might like to purchase. And yes, I could have just gone ahead and ordered online, but that wouldn't have been any fun! 

They warn you on their website- be prepared for high temps, and lots of shoppers, and they were not kidding! The store was packed, and being an old barn with no A/C, quite hot. (We ran out of water quickly.) It was so much fun to browse around and see so many items that had been on the show, and so many things that remind you of both Joanna and Chip. 

Chip has a whole corner!

Jimmy Don's signs

The cutest fairy garden items were inside!

Herb garden.

Nice!

 So, there were a couple of these cute shelters in the gardens to provide some much needed shade. I really enjoyed the rustic look of them, and the lights strung across the roof beams.

A different view of the silos.

The food trucks

 It was pretty scorching, mid afternoon when we were there. Not too much action at the food trucks. We did snag some popcorn at the popcorn stand though.

The artificial lawn where kids were playing.

Had to prove we were actually there!

 Just in case there was any doubt, I made Bill stop for a picture. He was thrilled as usual.

Cute vignette.

So many people were taking pictures there. A nice man offered to take my picture for me, but I declined. Looking back, I wish I had. I didn't take any pics of myself here. Guess I'll just have to go back!

Cool shot

At the base of the silos is a large stage area. It appears that for the regular day-to-day stuff, it's the home of several picnic tables where folks sit for a break in the shade. While we sat here for a bit, I decided to snap a picture of this little scene.

And of course, when friends in Sarnia, (and even up in Dundas where Bill's dispatch crew are), heard we were going to Magnolia Market, we were told we HAD to buy cupcakes! That was definitely high on the list until this:

Yup. That's the line up to get into the bakery. Several rows. A line so big that they had to put up an awning. I'd guess folks waited in that line at least 40 minutes. I'm afraid a cupcake wasn't worth that to me- it was almost 100 degrees! So this was as close as I got to one of Joanna's famous cupcakes:

The Bakery

I am prepared for next time though. Bill and I spent a good amount of time chatting with some of the girls who worked in the store, and one gave us this tip- there's never a line when they open at 7:30 am! I'm certain that is a bit earlier than I'll head there next time, but perhaps I will get up at that hour to try to avoid that line. 

Lastly, I must say, the American rest areas put Canada to shame! Well Ontario at least. I saw so many lovely rest areas, but this one in Laredo Texas was by far the most beautiful, welcoming, and relaxing. You could have stayed all day, had a picnic, read a book...

So lovely

Several covered picnic areas.

Kes enjoyed getting out to play.

Haha! I almost forgot... I didn't tell you what I bought at Magnolia Market! Here's my haul for the day:

My Magnolia Market haul

 The small bag is a bar of soap- it smells so good I still haven't used it; we brought back most of the popcorn to share with the kids; and I thoroughly enjoyed reading the Magnolia Journals. They're very nicely made- thicker paper than a usual magazine. Much nicer quality. At the back is a great blanket I found on my second pass of the sale area- we got all our purchases for almost the exact original price of the blanket- yay me!
And this was me doing a bible study one morning under my new blanket!

Side note, I thought it would be hard to keep up with a daily bible study while on the road, but it was actually easier than since I've returned home. I think I better head to a quiet place and do a study for today before bed. 

Night all!

June's Card Class

Sorry for the delay on posting- its's been a busy month! The day after my last card class in June, Bill hustled me out of the house at 8:00 am- on a Saturday- ugh! But it was for a good cause- I was going to Texas with him! I will share more about that next time.

Here are the cards we did in June. I asked my ladies what they were interested in doing this month, and the first response I received was all cards form one stamp set. Since I had already been playing with the Daisy Delight bundle, and had this bright sunny card all set to go- that was the set we used. I'm afraid Pinterest doesn't seem to be working for me this evening, so I cannot say who's beautiful card inspired me to create this. Hopefully I can let you know soon. 

Bright and sunny. Daisy punch with sentiment from Cool Treats.

Another card inspired by a Pinterest find. I have always loved my Hardwood background; I use it a lot. I think I would say Shasta daisies are my favourite, but then I really do love any and all daisies!

Shasta daisies on Hardwood.

As a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, I receive lots of help, advice and inspiration from the Stampin' Up! team. This card was created by someone from Stampin' Up!'s design team, and then shared with us in an email, to help inspire us to make some great daisy cards. I loved that the "other flowers" were the focus of this card. So often we get transfixed on the focal piece of a stamp set, and forget about everything else. This card was so perfect, I don't believe I changed a thing. Thank You is embossed in gold embossing powder, and really gives the card an elegant look.

CAS Thank You with Daisy Delight

So, I'm pretty proud of myself in regards to this next card. I was looking for a way to incorporate the three tiny daisies stamp, and I thought it was possible that we could do too many large daisies. Not in my opinion- but maybe someone else's! :-)  Actually, I spent time trying to create purple coneflower. I was successful with the flowers- they were beautiful- but I was having trouble coming up with a stem that would work well. So I scrapped them for the time being, and moved on to what turned into this beauty. This is the new In Colour, Lemon Lime Twist. It looks quite sharp with black and white. I originally stamped the three daisies in the Lemon Lime Twist on the white card stock, but decided that it was just too plain and I didn't like it. So, I stamped them in black on a strip of CS. That was nicer, but the card was still boring. So, I went to my stash of DSP, and found this retired DSP pack- completely black and white! I'm so happy with how this card turned out!

Lemon Lime Twist Thank You

Thanks so much for checking out what I do. I am currently working on cards for this month's class- just a few days away! So I better get back to that. I will share a little about my trip to Texas soon!

Some of my Favourites from April and May

Ever since we bought our 1965 vintage trailer four years ago, our family has really been into everything vintage/retro.  So, Oh my gosh! When I saw this card, I just knew I HAD to make it! I found Sandi's card on Pinterest, and followed the link to her site, Stampin With Sandi. Sandi, this is an awesome card! I was all set to order the mint macaroni DSP, when I remembered that I still had a ton of Mint Macaron pieces from the Tins of Cards our club had made last year. They were meant to go on the tabbed dividers, but no one wanted to use them. They all preferred their dividers plain white, as I did. So we said that we would find a use for them someday, and this is that some day.
Funnily enough, if the macaron was more blue, say Pool Party, it would be the exact colour scheme that we had originally planned to use in our trailer. (FYI- we went brown and blue instead.)

Retro April card, Perfect Mix

I fell in love with the Succulents DSP, so even though I knew it wouldn't be around long, I got some anyway. This is the first card I made with it, in April. Because my current focus was on retiring products, I chose to pair Me=Grateful with the DSP. I'm sorry I cannot find the original card that I used for my inspiration. Love the sweet sugarplum card stock that I used for the scallop circle behind the sentiment. Sweet sugarplum is one of the 2016-2018 In Colours, and will be available until the end of May 2018.

CAS Thanks using Succulents DSP

As a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, I am privileged to receive newsletters full of tips and inspiration to help me in my card making business. In one of our latest newsletters, the new Daisy Delight set was highlighted, and I just adored this card. I followed their advice/suggestions almost perfectly. However, I forgot to colour the Calypso Coral daisies on the card base. I decided it looked nice just like it was. Using the stitched shapes framelits to cut the little frames was a great idea- now I need to come up with a plan for the 30 little Pool Party squares that were left behind. Because I don't yet own a set of Stampin' Up!'s watercolour pencil crayons, I had to improvise and use the set I purchased about 14 years ago, when I first started stamping. They have served me well over the years.

Calypso Coral Daisy Thank You Card

I was so excited to see the Sweet Treats stamp set move on into the 2017-2018 Annual Catalogue. It is such a fun summery set! I found Andrea's great card on Pinterest. She shares how she made her card here. She did a lot of great shading, but I found my shading didn't look as nice as hers does. SO I skipped the shading, and used the stamped highlight instead. I also used my Wink of Stella pen to make the popsicles sparkly. They look so yummy in person!

Cool Treats CAS card

Well, I hope you enjoyed checking out these cards from our last two months' card classes.

Talk to you again soon!

Hello Again

So, a little over two months ago, I decided I really should post in my blog- it had been quite awhile. Well, lo and behold, when I logged on, I discovered it had been almost a year! How could that be?!? I had been determined to post regularly! After all, I host a card making night each month- that's four cards each and every month to share with you! So, how could I have let an entire year go by?
Unfortunately the answer is easy, and humbling to admit to- I'm a terrible procrastinator, and as my hubby loves to remind me- I get distracted very easily.
And though my procrastination and distractedness, I have now let another two months pass by. I'm truly disappointed in myself. I know friends like to see what I've been making. It's really not that difficult to snap a couple pictures of what we've made. But there I am, thinking the pictures need to be top notch- so how do I do that? To Pinterest I go... oh look- I have that stamp set! ... that's a great card, we should do that..... what did Sarah pin? Oh look, 6 emails... Better clean out those 253 emails in the junk folder. And so it goes; four hours and one snack later, it's time to make dinner, and I didn't even take one picture, let alone type up a little blog! Ugh!
So, needless to say I'm frustrated with myself. But, knowing you have a problem is half the battle, right? So I will continue to work on focusing, and staying away from distractions, when I set me mind to doing my blog. I will continue to strive to do better. Please be patient with me as I try to defeat my bad habits.
And without further ado- let's look at some cards!

My favourite from January's class.

The inside.

I knew I wanted to use this fun set from this year's Sale-a-bration flyer, with the sentiment from Me=Grateful. Because who doesn't think the chick with the crazy hair is awesome!? I decided I wanted to do something different, so I went to one of my favourite resources, Splitcoaststampers, and searched for a different 'fold' card. I found this one rather quickly and thought it was perfect for what I had in mind. I love it when I come up with my own card design- it doesn't happen very often!

March's Moon Baby

I fell in love with the Moon Baby set immediately when I saw it in the Winter/Spring Occasions catalogue. I'm so happy it made it's way into the 2017-2018 Annual Catalogue!

I love the technique that I used here. I stamped the image in a light yellow ink, then water coloured with my ink refills/ink pads. I lightly outlined the finished image with Soft Suede ink. The finished effect makes me think of a children's storybook. Sorry, I'm not sure were I learned it specifically- someone's wonderful card on Pinterest!

So, I think that's it for now. I WILL write again soon!