The only excuse I have is that it is summer vacation time and I have been relaxing and spending a lot of time with family and friends. Many events have happened in the past 2 months or so since I have last blogged.
I have some sad news....the ducklings did not survive. I had a very upset and sad 12 yo DD for a long time.
We now have a new kitten named Bow. Bow is doing her best to help with the grieving process.

I have not stamped or created hardly at all this summer, all of this time off of work and I haven't squeezed in any craft time..or not much anyway. A friend of mine, Karen Van De Walle challenged me to stamp some random images onto white cs and then practice coloring them with my copic markers. I did just that last night while watching a movie. I chose the image that I liked the best and made a card with it. I used my newest stamp set: Poppy Patch from Flourishes.
The butterflies are from Artful INKables. The ribbon is Jodyribbon. I stamped the images in Versafine Onyx Black and then heat set. All coloring was done using copic markers. cut out the butterflies and added a little glitter gel pen to them and adhered them around the image.
I am hoping that this is a jumping off point for me and I will continue to craft and stam and get back on track with doing what I love to do.

We have adopted an orphaned baby duckling. My 12 year old Daughter Rebecca and her beautiful giving heart just could not abandon this homeless babe....LOL
She now gets to share a room with her new found 'baby' and like any newborn this one cries when out down and needs its 'Mommy' all the time...24/7....LOL

My parent will be celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary this month.
I was there for a visit in June and took a lot of family photos, well I get to back again next weekend so I decided I wanted to make them something special for their anniversary. I decided to dive into digital scrapbooking. I immediately went to over to twopeasinabucket
headed to the freebie section to see what I could find to inspire me.I chose this kit by Rhonna Farrer
The journaling on the page is song lyrics, by Big & Rich 'Lost in this moment'
I used Photoshop Elements 5.0 to create the digital page. I then resized it to print at 5.75"x5.75". I used very sharp paper snips to cut around the black scallops. I then mounted this onto some Regal Rose card stock. I used a big scalloped square from Sampin' Up's ginormous pieces chipboard set and covered it with some decorative paper from DCWV. First I watercolored all of the little flowers on the paper with Regal Rose classic ink and an aquapainter. I used my UHU twist and glue to adhere the paper to the chipboard...then as an after thought I used Modpodge over the top of the entire frame. I cut a piece of transparency sheet to fit on the inside of the frame where glass would be in a regular frame. I used my ATG adhesive gun for adhering all of the backing and transparency. I added ribbons and a couple of small wood charms from the Dollar Tree as embellishments. For the back of the frame I used 2 pieces of 12x12 cardboard that I trimmed to size and glued together to make them sturdier. All of the layers are permanently attached using the ATG adhesive gun.
My next problem was how is this frame to be displayed? Do i want them to hang it or sit it on a table or dresser or other piece of furniture? I went for sitting it up on a piece of furniture...hmmmmm how do I accomplish that? with 2 chipboard coasters and 2 small hinges and 8 small brads that's how. I kept 1 coaster whole, the other was cut in half diagonally. I attached the piece that was triangular to the back of the frame with the hinges and brads, then I cut a slit in the center of a square coaster and one in the triangular piece, so as to slide them together. It worked!
There was a funky little 'wing' sticking up out of the back and I just trimmed it off with scissors.

I have been home from work for the past 3 days, first 2 days with some horrid stomach stuff....terrible cramping and heartburn and just overall tummy distress, that is getting somewhat better and now I am hit like a train with a head cold....sore throat, sneezing sniffling just over all miserable.