Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Yellow Flowers

 


I needed a little refresh in the guest room this month. It all started with a beautiful painting we were gifted with recently. It's a beautiful scene of a village in the Cotswold's. I loved the warm color palette, and knew it would look great hanging in the guest room.


So out went the "plaid and woodsy" theme. Birch trees went downstairs, and the bed was stripped. But what to put in its place?

I went rummaging through the linen closet and found this quilt. And even better, it's made for a twin bed. Perfect!



My husband's grandmother took up quilting in her retirement, and this is one of her precious quilts. Look at the tag. 1975!


I love incorporating old treasures in our house, mixing the vintage with the new.

These yellow flowers make me happy whenever I walk by this room.


I hope your day is as happy as a yellow flower!

Monday, July 14, 2025

Coffee...Because Mondays

 


Happy Monday! How was your weekend? We went to the annual Michigan Celtic Festival this weekend for some music and festivities. (And a beer. Slainte!)

I needed a coffee card for a swap, and wanted something that looked sweet and summery.  I grabbed Simple Stories Strawberry Fields papers for the job.

I used the Cozy Cup stamps from the Greetery, and stamped everything on the front of a Cozy Coaster die cut. I needed the spoon die cut in this set because of the sentiment.


This one from Riley and Company cracks me up!


Hope your week is off to a great start!

Saturday, July 12, 2025

The Humble Marigold

 


Marigolds are not the showiest flower in the garden. They are often planted for utilitarian purposes, like keeping bunnies out of vegetable beds. But I think they're sweet, like little smiling faces peeking out from under squash leaves.

Another benefit of these yellow and orange flowers...they can segue from summer beds to all the colors of autumn very easily, blending in perfectly with the mums and pumpkins.


This Penny Black kit is perfect for making a summery card. I colored these with COPIC markers.




Blessings on your weekend, café friends!

Thursday, July 10, 2025

Penny Black Butterflies (and a sale!)

 


Penny Black has some really fun butterfly layering stencils and dies. I got mine a few months back, and finally got a chance to play with them this week.


I used my handy Catherine Pooler color wheel to come up with some combinations. This helps when you are going from light to dark shades.

Here are a few things I found:

*Cut out your die piece first, and then start the layering with ink blending.

*Some of the stencils are pretty intricate, so examine them first. Mine had a few leftover pieces of plastic that needed to be removed first.

*Use a gentle hand with the intricate parts, as you don't want to accidentally tear the plastic stencils.

*Have some sticky post-it notes handy for masking off areas.


This set is called Flutter. There are two others called Floral and Aerial, and each one is unique and fun.

Penny Black is celebrating their 35th anniversary with a bundle sale. You can purchase these butterfly bundles (stencils and die) for only $14.90 each. A great deal! Here's the link:



Sale ands July 13th. Enjoy!

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Summer Stitching

 


I love to stitch in the summertime. I can take a project outdoors with a cup of coffee and listen to the birds at the feeder. Outdoor stitching is also great for the lighting. These old eyes need all the help they can get!


I'm often bringing projects on the road when we travel. I can stitch while my husband drives. This is only possible now with the bigger count Aida fabrics. There's no way I could do this with tiny linen any more.

I love the happy colors in this project. I'm sure I picked this one up at Always in Stitches in Noblesville. And the funny thing is that our former hometown used to have a very active hot air balloon club, too. We'd often see them floating over the house, and once we even had one land in the nature preserve just beyond our back yard. Sometimes, you would hear them before you'd see them, as the blowers are pretty loud.


I'm already working on another Pine Mountain pillow kit, and will share that one soon.

Monday, July 7, 2025

Pre-stamping for Fast Cardmaking

 


When I have some spare time in the craft room, I like to do some pre-stamping for future projects.

Recently, I posted how I pre-stamped inside sentiments for future cards.

I decided to do the same thing, but this time for the front of cards.

I used two new-to-me stamp sets from Creative Worship Stamps: Hymn Blocks and Hymn Word Art.

I thought that Hymn Word Art would make a good "chalkboard" type sentiment, so I stamped some of them on charcoal and black card stock with white ink and embossing powder.  And for Hymn Blocks, I chose white and soft stone gray.


I think these will be very handy for mailing to church friends.


Simple, inspirational pick-me-ups.

I'll be in the cool basement making a stack of these this week. Our AC decided to die, and we probably won't get it fixed until the end of the week. It was humid yesterday, but some overnight rains have helped to bring the heat down. Praying for some cool weather relief!

Saturday, July 5, 2025

Birthday Headlines

 


Hello, café friends! I hope you had a happy fourth! We survived another one, thanks to Calming Chews and closet time with Jemma. It was a pretty quiet celebration...just Ed and I, chilling out with good books, BLTs and corn on the cob. Yum!

I needed some birthday cards for a few family members this week, and I had these panels from Concord and 9th's Happy Headlines ready to go.





I love to pull out this numbers stamp and dies set from C and 9th when I need to mark a special birthday or anniversary. Works like a charm!

Today's forecast: hot! I think I'll visit my Mom today...indoors!

Blessings on your Saturday!