Jake's birthday card

Hello!  No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, I have just had a bit of a dry spell in the stamp room.  I've done some knitting, and reading, and some Bible art journalling, but not a lot of stamping.  However, when a special boy turns 10, I had to get inky!

I used the My Favorite Things combination set of letters and cutting die (Vanity License Plate) to make the focal panel.  It's stamped in Deep Lagoon Fluid Chalk Ink and I added the top and bottom words with some snap-together letter stamps. I also edged the license plate with some coordinating Copic marker (BG97 I think) I inked it with versamark (should have heat set first - it smudged - grr) and embossed with several layers of ultra think embossing enamel (UTEE).  It's very shiny and looks like a brand new license plate.  The various accent layers are from the Wander collection (BasicGrey) and all the papers are edged in Memories Art Print Brown. I used my corner rounding punch (small) to round the edges of the main panel to go with the rounded edges of the license plate.  The card base is Crushed Curry (Stampin' Up).  I felt the card needed an accent of some sort, so I fussy-cut some little cars and a bus from a scrap of paper and popped them up, and brushed them with clear Wink of Stella.  I don't think it made the card too girly for Jake.

It was fun to get back into the stamp room.  I will have to clean it up and get back there more regularly.  I felt a bit rusty making this and I miss my ink and rubber! I think what it is is that my job has gotten very interesting in the last year and I have been really engaged and interested there, which has meant that I am more tired when I get home and needing less to "fill up" my "contentedness reservoir" with stamping.  Not a bad reason, I suppose!  It's nice to feel like I enjoy my job.

The other thing that happened in our household that has taken priority in a good way is this little fellow.  Introducing Finnegan!  He's a shih tzu-cocker spaniel mix and we got him on Labour Day weekend when he was 11 months old.  He's a full-time cutie and part-time criminal mastermind, specializing in aerial acrobatics and petty thievery. He has stolen all our hearts and we can't imagine how we ever got by without him. This is a picture of him from the fall, when he really loved roaring around the backyard and jumping in and out of leaf piles.  He would do big laps and sail off the top step of the deck (top of three shallow steps, don't worry) into an enormous pile of maple leaves.

Happy Anniversary!

A few days ago we celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary and this is the card I made for my dear husband. I used naturals ivory card stock and stamped the heart (Stampin' Up!) in red chalk ink (Memories - Tomato Sauce), lightly sponged with brown chalk ink (Colorbox Fluid Chalk - Chestnut Roan) on one edge for depth. I tried out a few different reds but liked this one best. Can't decide whether the gratfiication of finding the perfect red outweighs the shame of having so many reds to choose from...... I heat set the heart in preparation for stamping the main image (Quietfire Designs) in black and heat embossing in black. I really, really love this image. The calligraphy is stunning and I like how the message is hidden. Next, I matted the image on black cardstock, and then popped it up on a naturals ivory card base. Decided it needed something else, so I used my ruler and .03 Micron pen to add the line to frame it on the inside. There are also Platinum stickles filling the hearts in the words "I love you". I can't usually pull off clean and simple, but I think I did it here! I can see doing versions of this card with all sorts of lovely Quietfire Designs quotations over a nice accent stamp......but not this morning! Have to get dressed, get the kids to camp, get to work, get to 5:00 when the weekend starts! Thanks for stopping by.

PS. Veggie update. I got an enormous cauliflower at the farmstand on Tues, seriously, it was bigger than a soccer ball. Anyway, googled grilling recipes and discovered that grilled cauliflower is unbelievably delicious. Kids weren't too keen, but grown ups scarfed it down with relish. (Actually with veggie box feta cheese sprinkled over! haha.) I couldn't recommend it enough. I normally love cauliflower, but this took it to new heights. Basically sliced off a few 1" slabs off the head, keeping the stem part too to hold all together. Rubbed with olive oil, sprinked with coarse salt and pepper and chopped oregano. Grilled till lovely brown (what makes it yummy). We sprinkled with feta as it was on hand, but wouldn't be essential.

Early efforts in art journalling

Hello! I'm home from a great holiday at Manitoulin Island. Before I left, I picked up a book on art journalling by Gwen Diehn called The Decorated Journal. It's a wonderful book and very inspiring. I particularly enjoyed the section on making maps, and thought that would be a good thing to include in the journal I'd brought on vacation in case I felt crafty/creative. I sketched a map of the route from our house to Manitoulin Island, a drive of about 9-10 hours (600 km), west from Ottawa to Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron. (Note, map for artistic outlet purposes only and not to be used for navigation, academic studies, land titles, etc.) After packing our car (a.k.a. The Blue Jellybean) to the gunwales (including DD2's bike!), we set off. This map captures the journey. Gwen Diehn talks about mapping as selection of what's important, and here I've put down what were important to me, mostly where we stopped driving and took in a bit of local scenery.

The first portion of the journey goes west along the Ottawa River, which forms the boundary between Ontario and Quebec. At Mattawa, the Ottawa River goes north, and the Trans Canada Highway continues west towards Lake Nipissing and North Bay, and then up towards Sudbury, which is a nickel mining town. There is an enormous nickel there (five cents), commemorating something or other (link to Wikipedia entry). We stop there for a play and a picnic on the way home, but my investigations of historical or informative plaques are always severely curtailed due to the long drive and necessity to keep stops short. (My weakness for such plaques goes unrequited, so absolutely no chance of nipping in to Brent Lake to see the meteorite crater and related plaque - 32 km off the highway....maybe one day.....). We did stop in Mattawa for a picnic lunch, and I happily read the plaque there describing the importance of the location to the fur trade when waterways were the main transportation routes. Mattawa also has some lovely heritage architecture and stunning views, nestled as it is in two valleys. Anyway, back to the page...

I sketched the map, using a road map for reference (perhaps should not admit this???), adding the key stopping points for us along the way, and our destination, Manitoulin Island, and some other things I felt like adding. I mainly added rest stops, like the Tim Horton's (a chain of coffee & doughnut shops that seem to appear in every sizeable town). My 5-year-old daughter couldn't tell them apart and kept getting confused about whether we were back to the one we'd stopped at before. Another was the Pembroke Irving (gas station chain known for its clean bathrooms) and this particular rest stop had maps inside where I showed the girls our journey. Another stopping point on my map is symbolic of the many lovely little provincial picnic/rest areas that appear all along the route and make great places for a picnic and a place to get the wiggles out. On my map, the road stops at Espanola, but in real life the Trans Canada continues westward out to Vancouver. The only land access to the Manitoulin is the swing bridge at Little Current, which is a former railroad bridge. I made a few mistakes on the map (in best Bones McCoy voice, "Damn it Jim, I'm a stamper, not a cartographer!"), and Lake Nipissing and the lakeshore are in the wrong place (L Nipissing is east of the French River ghost town). (Random aside: I have always had a fascination with this ghost town since I found it on the map. However, it is inaccessible by road, so I will need to take up adventure canoeing if I ever want to go there. Since I can't actually get there, I keep building it up in my mind into quite an elaborate location that I am missing. In real life, it's probably nothing like I imagine, if anything of the town even remains, so I will hold off on training to become a wilderness canoe expert for the time being to avoid disappointment. Still, I find the notation on the highway map tantalizing.... )

After sketching the map in pencil, I used my daughter's watercolours to paint it. This was a bit of an adventure and I added a bit too much here and there, learning (I hope!) a lesson about leaving well enough alone. (And learning that I should invest in some good watercolours.) Still, I was pleased with the result, and did actually learn something about the geography of the trip, from the fertile Ottawa Valley, up towards the Canadian Shield, then to Manitoulin Island, with its unique landscape and history. The swing bridge at Little Current was a challenge. I could see it in my mind's eye, but couldn't draw it from that. After reading Gwen Diehn's advice on drawing and the art of truly observing the subject, I dug up a photo of the swing bridge and realized that my mind's eye wasn't really very accurate at all. My rendition here is based on my observations and some artistici license, really just capturing the essence of the structure and the main lines. But it really does look like the real thing. Who knew! Before I get too carried away with my new-found drawing abilities, I cast my eye on my fleur-de-lis in Quebec and regain my humility..... Also, the island itself was impossible to draw accurately. Way too many wiggles and squiggles, and hubby said it should be bigger. I maintain that I wanted to convey the vastness of the lake..... In real life the island is closer to the mainland and there are hundreds of islands in the North Channel, as well as large islands on the east side of the island. And the Bruce Peninsula should probably appear on my map. But it's my map and I have never been to the Bruce Peninsula, so on my map, it appears in direct proportion to my experience.

I really enjoyed the observing and the sketching and watercolouring process here, and was quite pleased with the results of my initial efforts. Many thanks to Gwen Diehn and her wonderful, inspiring, and empowering book!

Baby card

Hello! How are you? I'm feeling a bit frazzled, back at work after a week-and-a-bit's vacation. We went to Newfoundland to visit relatives. More on that below, if you are interested.

About the card - I am going to a baby shower and needed a card. I started with this lovely black and white photo from a Darkroom Door Montage sheet (Hello Baby collection) and clipped it out, and tinted the sweater with pink distress ink in a couple of shades. Mounted it on grey linen, then popped up off another layer of grey linen when it turned out to be too small for the final card. The next piece down is white, embossed in the Cuttlebug, and sponged with pumice stone. Next down is dark grey, then the same grey linen, stamped with a scroll (Stampers Anonymous) in Lake Mist. Then the card base is Pirouette Pink, stamped with Linen (Stampin' Up!) in Spun Sugar, which didn't show up very well, but I thought another stamp would be too busy. The "sweet baby girl" is from SU's Everyday Flexible Phrases and didn't turn out well when I stamped it down, so I did it ransom-note style on gray linen and dotted some liquid pearls around it. Then everything was going on down in that corner and the light grey on the other side couldn't hold it, so more liquid pearls went up on the top corner. I also discovered I need pewter liquid pearls (is there such a thing?) and I don't have light pink either. How did that happen? Must remedy that. Had the perfect shade of embroidery floss and spent a happy half hour reviewing all my buttons to find the almost-perfect one. Ideally it should have been a four-holer to match the picture, but it's a two-holer, which is easier for tying bows anyway. I'm quite happy with this - pink and pretty but not too precious. Hope she likes it!

Re Newfoundland: Had a great time - saw whales, lots of scenic vistas, even splashed in the North Atlantic. The girls were the only ones brave enough to get completely wet, and they had to be hauled out of the waves when the bystanders got too cold to watch anymore.... We were at a wonderful sandy beach (rare, most beaches are rocky) and the waves were wonderful. Came home with some bakeapple jam and more bakeapples besides. The bakeapples were ripe so hubby and his folks spent three evenings on the mash picking them. I declined, as there were already more than enough opportunities to tramp around in the bog. I think those are delights best appreciated by someone who grew up doing it. CFAs (come from away) just can't quite savour the fly bites and wet feet properly. I am, however, quite happy to savour the bakeapple jam! Bakeapples are a berry that grows on the bog or mash as it's locally known, and you might know them as cloudberries. They are orange when ripe, and can be red and yellow. They smell heavenly and make delicious jam. I also came home with my husband's old Olivetti typewriter. There was a bit of grumbling about packing it (weighs close to 50 lb), but hubby came through for me. Now it's right in the thick of things, back to work, girls in daycamp, soccer, swimming, haircuts, meetings, all the normal stuff. Hard to imagine it was only a few days ago I was ankle deep in a cliff-top peat bog, I mean gazing out over the bay with the wind in my hair. Yes, you read that right, I did organize a family hike on the Cape English trail, which goes up over the clifftops at Cape English. The "path" doesn't go right to the edge of the cliff, but there are enough alarming views to cure me of any desire to go anywhere near a cliff any time soon. It was all perfectly safe and we were at least 100 feet away from the edge and the brink of certain death. And hubby assured me that he never heard of anyone vanishing in a sinkhole in a peat bog either. Well, that's enough rambling about our holiday - it was great, I highly recommend Newfoundland as a vacation destination, and ideally you should stay with someone who is a fantastic cook! Apropos of nothing, I would recommend flying Porter - liked everything about it and it was really fast. Our car rental was a Ford Fusion, and since I have been watching so much Top Gear, I now feel qualified to do an automobile review. Like all Fords, this one is built for a race of giants, and they try take your mind off the disappointing performance with lots of rumble and roar and a 3d-effect dashboard. The one good thing about it was the trunk, which was big enough to hold our Prius and a team of sled dogs. The girls didn't like it since, not belonging to a race of giants, they couldn't see out the back windows. Still, it got us around, which was the point in the end.

Must dash - rambled enough! If you made it this far, well done! You can add another 600 miles to your frequent blogger account.

Book recommendation

Hello! Nothing stamped to post today, just a book recommendation. I just finished reading Remembering the Bones by Frances Itani. It's a wonderful book! Frances Itani is an Ottawa writer, and has won numerous awards. I really enjoyed another of her books, Deafening. Remembering the Bones is beautifully written and a wonderful, empowering story. Reading a well-written book is such a pleasure, and when it's a great story, even better. It makes me wish I belonged to a book club, so I could discuss it with other people. Things like why all the women have men's names, and what that might mean. Have you read that book? Do you have a recent favourite? Now that I've finished that one, I'm treating myself to a frivolous mystery novel, and I chose one by Lynda LaPlante, writer of Prime Suspect. So far it's a good one, with a twist in that the protagonist is a bad guy. I'm also reading what claims to be a suspense thriller, but so far the only suspense I'm in is wondering when it's going to get interesting. We recently read our elder daughter another book by Kate diCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. What a lovely story! We'd loved reading another of her books, Despereaux, and I mean to get her others. They are such beautiful stories of hope and courage and the struggles to do the right thing even when it's hard. Not bad messages to convey to children! Happy reading! Thanks for stopping by.

This says it all (or at least some of it!)

I picked this up a while ago, and gave it to myself for my birthday recently. I loved this - it's by Anne Taintor and there are a bunch of great magnets and other gifty items like it. I got another one that says, "I always wanted to be someone. Now I realize I should have been more specific." Too funny.

I was a bit down about this milestone birthday, but thanks to the kindness and generosity and love and support of friends and family, I am enjoying it immensely. Hurrah indeed!

And I want to know where Anne Taintor got my picture.

Wanted: Stamping Mojo

Hello! My mojo has disappeared. Has anyone seen it? I have picked up my stamps, but to no avail. Luckily Krista's classes are this weekend at Heather's, so those should inspire me. If you are hoping for something stampy, please click away from this blog. May I recommend one of the selections to the lower left? They're really quite marvellous.

A few notes from the home front:

DD2 turned 5 a while ago and we gave her a Playmobil school. She loves it, well they both do, and are getting up really early to play with it before school. I am in love with Playmobil - the quality is amazing and it provides endless hours of entertainment and imagination play. And they've thought of everything: the globe spins, the backpacks open and a book fits inside, there are even bathrooms (a boys' and a girls'!). It's the most amazing set.

There's been a bear in the neighbourhood for about a week. Our neighbours across the road saw it in their backyard and there have been other sightings too. I know that sounds like a Canadian cliche, but I would like to point out that I live in a city of almost a million people. Yes, my part of the city is bound by greenbelt, but still. It's a busy place, lots of cars, etc. Not a place you would normally see a bear. That said, the Ministry of Natural Resources handed out flyers that assure us that it can happen, it's likely "passing through" and we should avoid leaving out birdseed and garbage to attract it. How about the tempting appetizers on the swings? Yikes. So there you go. Everything you heard about Canada is true, eh.

I have a birthday on the horizon and I was trying to figure out how to celebrate it. I thought maybe a stamping road trip but hubby didn't like me trying to flee the scene in order to celebrate. He didn't have any other suggestions though, so I thought he should be more creative, so I said, "You should channel your inner Victor Newman" and he said, "What, you mean find another wife?". After I stopped laughing, I realized that I would have to plan my own party. [Victor Newman is a central character on a soap opera - the wealthy magnate of some big conglomerate of unspecified nature. He's been married to all the ladies on the show at least once, if not several times, and he's famous for his grand romantic gestures where he sweeps the current love interest off somewhere exotic and showers her with cliches and lavish gifts.]

So there you have it - no stamping, but 3 things that are going on in my neck of the woods.

Floral wedding card - NOT!

Grr. Grrr. Am trying to upload a picture so I can blog about it, but blogger won't let me. Is it some recent 'upgrade' that won't let me? Or is blogger on the blink again? Grrr.. Have no patience to try to figure this out, so will go and stamp instead. Only that ticks me off too, since they've cancelled Studio 93 at 9 pm and moved it to Saturday nights instead. Which is fine, except I don't listen to the radio on Saturday night. Usually we watch a movie or something. Weekday evenings is when I listen to the radio while I stamp. It was a wonderful system. There was no need to change it. I must quickly become a billionaire so I can take over the radio station in a bloodless coup and reinstate the program. In the meantime, this may be the incentive I need to figure out how to work my MP3 player. Nevermind, that ranks right up there with trying to figure out how to fix blogger and/or computer settings.

Happy Birthday!

Quick post today, and nothing stampy. It's DD2's birthday party today and I am madly flapping around trying to get ready. (As you can see by me procrastinating, posting to my blog.) So this is mainly why no stamping is happening this week. Only cleaning and tidying and party preparations.

We are doing a Ladybug Picnic, but it's raining (that was sooo not in my plans) so everything is indoors. I love nothing better than large groups of children in a bungalow for two hours.... I have orchestrated the schedule so that the sugary treats will be plied shortly before they go home. I made a very cute ladybug cake, quite easy if the look you are going for is amateur-chic. I just used a 9x13" pan and lopped off some corners to make a ladybug shape and iced with black and red icing. I got the no-taste red, so it's not completely vile. And we'll do some games (the classics) and songs and a craft. Egg carton ladybugs involving paint. Hubby was a bit dismayed by that plan until I told him paint was better than buying 8 red and 8 black markers for the kids at $5 each. He wisely avoided mentioning I could have chosen another craft that didn't need markers. I think he was still reeling from my reaction to his suggestion that I not make the cake "disgusting". Anyway, another few hours and this will all be a distant memory. In the meantime, we will joyfully celebrate that happy day when my dear little girl was born. And then collapse in a heap.

Inkurable Stampers April Challenge

Here's my card at literally the eleventh hour for the April challenge at Inkurable Stampers. This was a tough challenge: 3 stamps, 3 colours (including neutrals), and the number 3 somewhere on the card. I thought I would go with a vintage typewriter theme, since I have a Stampers Anonymous stamp (Going Somewhere set) with letters and numerals on it, satisfying that condition. I stamped the typewriter (Cornish Heritage Farms) on vanilla paper and embossed in a lovely green (Topiary) and trimmed out. The "missing you" is from the same Cornish Heritage Farms set (On the Desk), and embossed in white, tinted with Copics, which was probably a mistake since it seemed like it rubbed off a bit on the tip. I just don't have vanilla embossing powder (must be the one colour I'm missing!). These bits and pieces were layered up and matted on black and put on a dark green card base (Pinefeather, by PTI), on which I stamped the same letters/numerals in Memories Pine Tree ink. The typewriter is popped up on dimensional tape. This was a tricky challenge and took all month to percolate in my mind. I like how this turned out, crisp and clean and beautiful colours. Tricky challenges are always the most fun!

NSR (RWR): Not Stamping Related (Royal Wedding Related)

How about that wedding!!!! I got up at 5:15 to see the arrivals at the Abbey, and got the girls up at 5:30 to see the families arriving. It was so exciting. What a beautiful service. I found it very moving. You will get all the fashion commentary elsewhere, but I will say that I agree with millions of others that the Duchess of Cambridge looked incredibly beautiful. I will also note that someone at work observed that a certain royal cousin looked like she was wearing moose antlers. Probably her head gear was intended to be appreciated on a different level, perhaps like jazz music or Booker Prize novels. The girls and I had a great time watching the ceremony and processions, etc., and breakfasted on English muffins, crumpets and tea. I thought the Bishop of London's address was very inspirational, and the music was incredible. That said, I do love to hear bagpipes and I did miss them today. The trumpet fanfare was lovely, and the orchestra was too, but still, it doesn't seem like a proper "big do" without bagpipes. But I would hate to criticize an otherwise spectacular celebration of marriage.

Happy Easter, Again! Plus Twinkling Eggs

Hello! Happy Easter! What a wonderful day. By popular demand (100% of blog comments yesterday - 2 of 2 - requested a photo of the twinkling eggs), here's the photo, thanks to a very fancy camera-phone-Angry Bird player.

That's it for the artsy chat, so click on to your next blog unless you're interested in our day today. We got up really early to go to the sunrise service at 6 am, which was so lovely. All four of us went and it was very special. DD1 said when we woke her at 5:30, "My eyes are open, but I'm still asleep." DD2 required the slight incentive of an Easter egg hunt when we got home from church and then she was all right. After the service, there was a delicious breakfast at the church, which was so nice to share with our friends there. Then home for an Easter egg hunt and checking out the goodies in the Easter baskets. That dear little Easter bunny brought some more Playmobil mermaids to round out the set, much to the girls' delight. And he brought hubby some fancy Belgian chocolates, and he brought me some Caran d'Ache watersoluble pastel crayons. Yay! Many chocolate eggs later, it was time to go to church again (hubby and DD1 are in the choir) and it was the full-on pageantry, complete with trumpeters and flowers everywhere and favourite hymns all around. It was a wonderful service, with the church packed to the rafters. Then home again for some quiet time and a well-earned nap, some playtime outside in the gorgeous sunshine, and hubby even got the parkas and snowpants dried on the line, a sure sign of spring! The birds are really active now, even saw a pileated woodpecker in the woods behind the house yesterday! There are cardinals nesting in the cedars beside the driveway and the chickadees are everywhere. I love it!

Around 4 my brother and his family arrived for the Easter feast and we had a lovely visit, and my sister-in-law saved the green bean casserole with a quick dart home for sour cream, which I'd forgotten in the big grocery run yesterday. Good thing too, because the only alternative was a mushroom-laden recipe, which would have strained the good will of at least half those around the table. As it was, the beans were only a hit with the grown-ups. Still, I shamelessly played to the crowd and received accolades from the under 9 set for my Kraft Dinner à la boîte. There were actual cheers and dancing when it was revealed that we were having it. My only fear is that I've set a dangerous precedent..... Nigella's ham in coca cola was unbelievably easy and marvellously delicious. Our hams here don't have that nice layer of fat on the outside so it didn't look like the picture, but it was still really good. It did get nice and burnished on the outside nonetheless. And the Joy of Cooking scalloped potatoes (with a tweak in preparation thanks to Jean Paré, who suggests making a white sauce instead of dredging potatoes in flour - definitely an improvement as it would quickly have become drudging with that many potatoes very thinly sliced....) were perfection - silky and delectable. I also sautéed the onions before adding them, which made them much nicer in the final dish I think, and not much effort for the payoff. The green beans had fresh lemon in them, which was very nice, and the coleslaw was the perfect zingy crunch in contrast to the other things. I also had a delicious beet chow chow out, which was quite vinegary and crunchy, and very nice with the ham. The chocolate lime cheesecake for dessert was wonderful too - and quite tart with all those fresh limes, but with the sublimely velvety texture of really good cheesecake. My sister-in-law brought a raffle cake she made (and won!) for the school bake sale, very cute in the shape of an Easter egg, all decorated with candy. The kids were so excited about that. A wonderful day all around. So much to be grateful for, so much abundance, not merely on the table, but all around it, and those dear ones absent from the table are missed and ever in our hearts.

Parcels!!!!

Goodies, stamping goodies in the mail! First was a lovely little envelope from a wonderful, inspiring person, Jennifer McGuire. You probably know her blog (it's on my sidebar), which features lovely creations, mostly for Hero Arts. She liked one of my comments one day and sent me some stamps - what a sweetie! Hope to get those inky pronto.

Also in my mailbox was a parcel notice - could only mean one thing - parcel from Darkroom Door has arrived! I whizzed over to the post office and, sure enough, it was!!! And even better, I won the customs lottery and didn't get dinged. Yippeee!!! Now to dig into that and see what's in the box. It was a mystery 'grab bag' type of discount so I can't wait to see what's there.

So, no time to post, time to play!!! Is it too early to send the kids to bed?????

Hello

Hello! Nothing new to post. I have been being very grown up and responsible lately which has meant no time for stamping. This has been about as much fun as it sounds. I am hoping to get back in my stamp cave next week, or sooner if I need a mental health break. I did do a little bit of stamping last night, but it didn't turn out and I didn't have any more of that colour and only that colour would do (I'm sure you know what I mean) so I need to get out and get some more. Happily, I also need to make a run to my LSS for a little treat. I am on a self-reward program where I get a little something from Heather's like a Copic marker or a small stamp, etc. if I work out at least three times the week. I'm just back from workout number three and there are some new Crafty Individuals stamps in stock that are calling my name! I've already used up Feb and March allowance, so these weekly incentives really help me get to the gym. My Feb-March allowance is chugging its way here from Australia so I have no idea when to expect it. It can take 3-4 weeks from the States, so I have no notion of how long it will take to get here from the other side of the world. I get freaked out just thinking about it. (freaked out at the enormity of the distance involved, not freaked out by waiting for stamps. I'm not that obessessed with stamps, well I am, but not in this case. I am actually feeling quite patient and zen about waiting for the order, leaving lots of room in my psyche to freak out about transglobal shipping.)

Well, I have taken enough of your time considering I don't even have something stampy to post. Hope you're able to get some stamping in!

Take care and I'll be back as soon as I can.

It's Sweater Day

It's National Sweater Day - time to turn down the thermostat by 3 degrees and put on a sweater. I feel a bit like it's cheating since it's going up to plus 5 today, but still. It's a balmy 15 in the house right now - not too bad so far.

Check out the website:
Turn down your heat on Thursday 150,000. That’s how many Canadians we need to participate in National Sweater Day this Thursday, February 17. Help us meet the goal by turning down your heat by 3°C and putting on a sweater. You will make a big difference in the fight against climate change.For more information about National Sweater Day, visit our website.Other ways to get involved:
Take the National Sweater Day pledge for the chance to win a $500 gift certificate to Loblaw or one of two $250 gift certificates to Joe Fresh Style!
Sweater yourself on Facebook with our app. Dress up your profile picture and show your friends that you’re serious about fighting climate change.
Bid on a designer sweater, donated by leading Canadian designers. All proceeds go to WWF.

Happy New Year!

Hello! Happy New Year! I hope you are having a nice New Year's Day, wherever you are. If you're here for a stampy post, stamping references will be thin on the ground. Feel free to click my sidebar to greener stamping pastures. Otherwise, get yourself a cup of tea and settle in for a nice fireside chat.

We've been having a great Christmas. Here are some highlights:
- lots of family time, with cousins, grandparents (my parents), my brother and his family, and friends over
- great food, from family favourites to several marvellous recipes from British celebrity chefs (Jamie Oliver's greens with flavoured butter must be tried - fantastic! and his festive strudel was a wonderful way to use up the leftover Christmas pudding and well worth the trip to the produce market for a quince, though an apple would be fine instead - I just wanted to try a quince; lots of great Nigella recipes)
- pyjama days
- the new Maeve Binchy
- the new Jack Whyte
- Playmobil (the kids LOVE it, we are all converts. It's great stuff, fantastic play value and very good quality)
- great Christmas CDs (faves are Barenaked Ladies, the new Bob Dylan, Maddie Prior and the Carnival Band, the Irish Tenors, John Denver and the Muppets
- picnics in forts with the cousins
- Church on Christmas Eve
- listening to DH play his guitar
- tobogganing
- lots and lots of other great things!

Since it's New Year's Day, I thought I would mention resolutions. I don't normally make a lot since I am not very good at keeping them. I more take a day-to-day approach since trying to be perfect for a whole year at a time seems doomed to failure since I can't make it through even one day without some sort of lapse of character, if not several lapses on many dimensions throughout the day. Still, I did try to think of some goals. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Eat more fruits and vegetables.
2. Put laundry away when it's done in the dryer/off the line.
3. Be more patient with the children.
4. Use my bread machine.
5. Hang out at airports and train stations in effort to see real-life flash mob.
6. Go to bed before midnight.
7. Send some of the cards I make.
8. Have friends over more often.

Well, that's it for blogging this evening. My first post of 2011. Here's to many more, hopefully more with stamping in them! Happy New Year! May it be a good one for you.

Fun (?) Challenge

We were out for dinner with the kids to a family restaurant called Montana's. They give kids a placemat with puzzles on it and, lo! there was a word puzzle. I am a sucker for these and have been interested (my husband went so far as to say "obsessed" with it for a few days). The challenge is to come up with as many words as you can from the phrase "Escape to Montana's!". That was it, I was happily occupied for the entire meal, and for the rest of the evening. I have been adding a few words now and then since then, but I am running out. So far we have 181 single words, plus another 127 plural/conjugated words, and another 7 of questionable validity (though not sure there is a judge). The 8 questionable ones are santa(s), poo, pee (stop snickering), panto(s) and namaste. I didn't include any proper nouns. I allowed contractions as there was one apostrophe in the phrase. We astonished the waitress - she said people don't normally do that puzzle. What kind of joint is that? I mean you can't put a price on that much fun. It's just like Boggle only better because there's no timer! By the way, the puzzle comes with 16 spaces for the words. Sixteen! As if!!! We found 315, including the dubious ones. You can't write small enough, especially with the crayons they provide to fit those all into 16 spots, so we had to sacrifice the square challenge, colouring picture (moose and stag) and the maze.

BTW, you don't need to flame me for this post. I am well aware that I am a bit of a word geek, and noticed that I thought of words like "capon" and "peasant" before "mat" and "top". I'm not sure if I pass or fail that geek test........

So, in conclusion, I throw down the gauntlet: how many words can you find in the phrase "Escape to Montana's!"?

Scrap Stash Sunday 7

Hello! Happy Thanksgiving! So much to be thankful for, including a few stolen moments this morning to make this card. I guess that would make it technically Scrap Stash Monday, but on a subjective scale, this feels like Sunday (minus church). Plus, it's my blog and I can do whatever I want. Ha!

This lovely partridge in a pear tree (Old Island Stamp Company) is embossed in gold on black paper, and was an orphan from another project. (They prefer to be called orphans, rather than rejects.) He is much happier now that he has been adopted by this project. There was a waifly stray piece of gold paper, no trimming required, immediately under my left hand on the table, so that was pressed into service as well. The music piece was floating at the top of a pile, and seemed like a great backdrop. I'll pretend it's the music for "The Twelve Days of Christmas". It had been stamped (Tim Holtz - Stampers Anonymous) and sponged with various shades of Distress Inks. The card base is a gray-green tsumugi, and had been cut and scored and orphaned during another project. I stamped it with khaki versacolour using a solid pear (Heather's Stamping Haven) and the sentiment is Cornish Heritage Farms (RIP) in India Ink (Memories). I like this card - quite non-traditional colours, but very soothing and still festive in an understated way. I guess the enormous, flashy gold piece in the middle isn't exactly understated, but it's my blog HA!

NSR. We had a lovely Thanksgiving. My brother and his family came over yesterday afternoon and hubby cooked a fabulous turkey. Yum yum. Mt Scio savory in the stuffing, as always (if you've had it once, you'll never want another kind). My sister-in-law brought her signature mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes in halved orange cups. I made pear salad, an import to our family tradition from my aunt's in-laws. Truly Ruly Punkin Pie from my paternal grandmother's recipe (though I wimped out on the pastry and used bought, not nearly as good, but worth it not to have lost my mind in the pie making process). The kids were sooo good and had a great time together. They even organized a Halloween dance party in the living room in their Halloween costumes. Nephew had his robot/spaceman costume and did an impromptu robot dance, complete with deadpan face. It was amazing. Niecelet and nephew stayed over so the grown ups could visit and play cards till the wee hours. It was awesome. Two things wrench me from my state of self-satisfaction (three if you count the pastry).

1. DD2 has asked approximately 17 times if we can have Kraft Dinner for our next big festive meal (Christmas). Yes, Kraft Dinner, that wonderful boxed variety, that claims to have real cheese in it. Yep. That's my girl. The local turkey impeccably roasted and home made Port and Pear Cranberry Sauce are apparently a little 2009 for her I guess....

2. DD1 and Niece (best friends since Day 1) made star badges for DD2 and Nephew that say "Great Job!". These were awarded for staying away from the big kids. My SIL and I had a big discussion about whether this was a very resourceful and inventive way to have all parties happy with the state of affairs (jr cousins wore their badges proudly all night) or whether it was quite a horror. By the cold light of day, I still haven't made up my mind.

Hello! (NSR)

Hello! We're back from a wonderful vacation on Manitoulin Island. We had glorious weather and a wonderful time. It was the perfect cottage - rustic and cosy, complete with a little girl there to play with ours.

Some highlights and other notables:
- sandhill cranes - lots. Could hear them burbling in the field behind the cottage
- swimming, swimming and more swimming. The girls are much more confident this year so everyone had fun in the water
- beautiful church services in Mindemoya, including choral Evensong
- Mum's bakery (homemade bread every day and apple fritters "as big as your head")
- peanut butter (close family has allergies so no peanuts in our house)
- re-enjoyed Seasons 1 and 2 of Flight of the Conchords - it never gets old. Always funny.
- trip to Emergency and gruelling 15 minute wait for dishy Dr Burke. Was tonsillitis for the youngster and got her some antibiotics
- tubing with our friends - wheeee!!!!
- more swimming
- Providence Bay
- Tombow colouring and stamping while VDH took kiddies to Pioneer Museum
- Finally joined the Western world and read the first 3 Twilight books (didn't want to spring for hard back, will mooch fourth book if I can find it)
- Discovered new mystery author - Alys Clare - great medieval whodunit
- Did great butterfly puzzle (1000 pieces) made of of hundreds of tiny pictures (remember the rage about 6-7 years ago?)

Well, off to enjoy a nice cold one after our long drive home and catch up on some taped tv. Will it be Mad Men or True Blood???

I'll be back to post something stampy. I came home to a lovely envie from Australia containing the old truck stamp I won from Dark Room Door. Also enormous parcel from Stamping Bella with some grab bag goodies and Adirondack spray washes. Can't wait to try those out!

Happy ending on horizon

Hello! In my last post I bemoaned the demise of our computer, presuming that it had taken the secrets of my class instructions to its grave. Happily, I am married to an engineer who was able to procure quite quickly a replacement machine, and get it fired up. Through some alchemy quite beyond my comprehension, he performed a file transfusion and my class instructions emerged, as quickly as 1, 10, 11, my documents appeared, completely unscathed. I was even able to print them. It's handy having a live-in hero :-)


Speaking of heroes, this makes me think I should start up a fabulous blog, called Civil Servant Woman, and have pictures of my Nerdy Man with close ups of his pocket protector, but that would be no way to treat a hero. That and the bit about the pocket protector is total fiction. And he's not that nerdy (or at least only as nerdy as me). (And I know that should be "as nerdy as I", but I am trying to appear less nerdy here, and being a slave to good grammar is no way to shed the mantle of nerdiness, and yes, this is an uphill battle when I pepper my posts with little binary jokes. One of my favourite jokes is, "There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't." I have a feeling that the mantle is here to stay....) Anyway, if the first bit of this section is making no sense, then I urge to you to check out Pioneer Woman's blog, and admire the pictures of Marlborough Man, with the close ups of his chaps. It's a great read, and a wonderful blog, and I could never even aspire to such dizzying heights of blogitude. [Can you believe my spellchecker flagged "blogitude"????? Just goes to show you that you can't trust computers.]

Happy stamping!

Chit Chat Vol II

If you are here for stamped projects, please move along, I'm afraid I don't have anything for you today. However, there are many other wonderful blogs out there to whet your inky appetites. Might I suggest Stamping Mathilda or Jennifer McGuire, two of my personal faves.

This is a quick post to say I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, just that it's been a whole lot of "NSR" lately (Nothing Stamp Related). That's not strictly true: I have one Father's Day card to post that is not posted yet because not mailed (shockingly late, or, even more shockingly early - either way can't post till Dad gets it). I also have another couple of cards that haven't been mailed yet, plus another card that's too wet to scan and it will be gone tomorrow. So I guess there has been a bit of stamping, just nothing to post yet. For someone who makes so many cards, I am shamefully delinquent at actually mailing them.

Also, it's been a bit nutty, in a good way, around here. On July 1st, DH and I headed downtown with the kiddies to take them to see the Queen. We got really lucky and were right by the barricades so could have a view of Her Majesty through the window of her car as she drove away. We also saw her as she inspected the Guard, and we could see the top of her hat during the ceremonies. It was a huge thrill for all of us. I loved the bag pipe band and the fly pasts and the mounted guard, the whole pomp and circumstance. Very exciting.

Then this Tuesday DH and I were off to Bluesfest to see Iron Maiden. Not exactly a blues band, but a rockin' good show despite the heat. There were a lot of songs I didn't know (who knew they'd put out so much stuff in the last 20 years????) but their encore was full of classic Maiden. It was fantastic. Boiling, sweltering, meltingly hot, but fantastic. And yet another expedition downtown in the space of a week to pack ourselves into a crowd to see British people. Interesting theme. Not sure what it means, or if either British party would appreciate being thusly themed by me.

I don't have pictures ready of either event: royal pictures prob'ly not great and still trapped in camera, rock 'n' roll pictures non-existent as camera strap would have been an unbearably hot additional layer to wear. I would like to go see Arcade Fire on Tues at Bluesfest, and tried to get DH to win tickets off the radio this morning, but he slept through the contest. Sigh. It feels like he would have won for certain now. I'm trying somewhat unsuccessfully not to be cross about it. I do realize that it is irrational to be cross about this, but that has never stopped me before, and is unlikely to start any time soon. Poor DH.

The other thing that has me "busy" is the World Cup. I love it!! I am totally hooked. I have gone from knowing only one thing about soccer ("no hands") to being glued to every game (still don't know too much about the rules though!). It's fantastic. What a sport! Now I see what all the millions and billions are on about. It's so exciting, the plays, the acrobatics, the agony, the drama. Incredible. Tomorrow is the match for 3rd place, and we will for sure watch the final on Sunday. Then I will have to figure out how to keep watching this stuff. I hope we won't need a new channel on the tv, we'll see. Also, taking watching soccer could seriously cut into stamping time, and I don't know if regular season play will be interesting enough to cut it. I do realize that the World Cup is the best of the best (and still includes some real clangers). Will I be interested in the most ordinary of the ordinary? We'll have to see.

Anyway, that's enough of the chit chat. I just had an idea for some mail art that I want to go try. But it's quarter to one in the morning. Sigh. I'll have to make it quick....