Saturday Morning Catch Up

Happy Saturday!

Wow.  Feels like forEVER since I've posted!  I started this one last Sunday ... was it really only 6 days ago??  I'm not even kidding when I say the last 3-4 months have been a BLUR for me!  The kids keep asking me "remember?" about conversations we've had, things we've done ... and I can honestly say "no!"  Rings a bit of a bell but I don't remember!  This week my head has been well and truly lodged up my backside!  Driving the girls to school the other day (after 8 months of doing so) and I missed the turn ... by SEVEN BLOCKS!!!  Whaaaatttt??  Just really dumb things all week long.  Keep entering the wrong PIN on my credit card (and believe me, I use it a LOT so there is no excuse for getting it wrong!), going to the store to buy a certain item and then buying everything BUT that item ... just silly, "not thinking" things that aren't like me.  Oh sure, I'm a bit of a gong show a lot of the time but not to THIS degree!  I chalk it up to just going to hard for too long.  I "crossed the finish line" Monday morning and had 7 full days without any stamping commitments on my calendar.  I've been playing catch up on things (still haven't started my taxes yet, though!), taking longer walks, getting back on track and trying to decompress.  Now that I'm starting to slow down a bit I'm realizing just how exhausted and tense I was!

It's been a crazy ride of emotions since Tamye passed.  I will be numb with sadness one day and then so full of love and gratitude for all the gifts she gave, and continues to give me.  Last Saturday many of the Panda Cubs (aka my Stampin' Up! side-lines ... Tamye's Team ...) were over for a team get together.  It was great to see so many of my friends but, obviously, it was bitter sweet as the one person who originally brought us all together, and fostered SO many connections and friendships wasn't physically there with us.  Of course we felt her presence and there more laughs and smiles than tears ... but still ...

Many delicious snacks were brought - fresh, home made scones, muffins, breads ... and Christine brought us home-made Macarons that were over the top amazing!

She hand piped and colored them.  They were divine!  Perfectly soft, yet chewy ... ohhhhh they were delicious!

The plan is for the Panda Cubs to get together every month, as we did at Tamye's.  None of us want to lose what we have.  I look so forward to getting together again next month.

How about some projects??

I had class last Friday night and I wanted to use products that haven't seen NEARLY enough ink time before they retire May 31st.

These are all the sets I own that will be retiring !!!

First up ...

I LOVE this card!  It uses the retiring Emerald Envy In Color green ... and the retiring set Garden Grown.  It's a bit of, what I call, a high-maintenance card, in that there are a lot of steps to creating this image.  I stamped the sentiment in Emerald Envy, using my Stamparatus.  I then wiped off the green ink from the stamp, used my black marker to ink the sentiment and then stamped it again.  THAT is the beauty of that tool!  The stems and leaves are green, but the sentiment is then black ... and it's perfectly stamped!  You would never know it was once green!

I then had to stamp the entire image in different colors on scrap whisper white paper - lemon lime twist, tangerine tango and daffodil delight.  THEN I had to use the framelits to cut out the flowers and attach them with glue dots.

The pot is stamped in Tangering Tango, cut out with the framlits, popped up on dimensionals and then I added some shadowing to ground the pot, using my Smoky Slate Light Blend marker.  I don't even know where I got it, but I found some Emerald Envy Bakers Twine for the side, and I added some clear Wink of Stella to the flowers.  Yes, high maintenance, but I love it!

Next up ...

I wanted to play with the retiring Magical Day bundle of products.  I really am surprised this stuff is retiring - it really is a great bundle to own!!

I took inspiration from this card Brandi Mah showed me ...

I wasn't feeling in a very mermaid-y mood, so I played with the dragon ...

Old Olive and retiring Tangering Tango were the colors used on this one.  The DSP was from the Magical Day DSP.  The dragon was stamped and cut out with the framelits (as were the flames).  The sentiment was stamped in Old Olive and then again in Tangering Tango on scrap so I could cut out the "you are" with a pari of paper snips and popped up on mini dimensionals.  I used the retiring self-adhesive backed sequins and some Wink of Stella for a little shines, after coloring the dragon with the Old Olive Blends.  LOVE those blends!!

Finally I wanted to use the Watercolor Wings retiring set.  I also decided not to hard the lovely Sweet Sugarplum cards stock.  I struggled with this one, as I RARELY use colored card stock for the base.  I asked people on Facebook which one they preferred.  As always, the results were mixed.

In the end I went with a bit of a mix of the two.  I used a softer ribbon (retiring) along with the White Perfect Accents (SOOOOO sad those are retiring as well!) ... and this is what we had in the end.

The "Lovely" is from the Lovely Words thinlit dies.  I really like how it turned out in the end.

So there you have it - a not-so-brief update (when am I EVER brief???)

Things ramp up a bit more again this week.  Team training Tuesday night, Rebecca's birthday and volunteering Wednesday, class Friday (guess I should design those 4 cards soon) ... and the dreaded of all things ... doing TAXES ... but, as always, it will get done.  Somehow!

Today is Rebecca's birthday "party" with friends so I guess I should rotate my back side off the couch, walk Doodles and get this day well and truly started.  Thanks for popping in - have a stampy weekend!


Tam