Quick Yet Elegant Stamped Thank You Cards

Hello everybody!  Sorry I haven't posted in a few weeks, but I was in Chicago on the weekends for several weeks for a class, and running around like crazy at work during the week.  It was soooooo busy, wheeeew, glad I am finished with those projects.  I have also been working like a wild woman on my classes for The Art Studio, can't WAIT to tell you more about them.  Until then, I have a few pics of some simple stamped cards I made this week.  Hope you like them! I have been trying to build my stash of handmade cards back up, but for some reason it seems like as soon as I make a batch they are gone.  Hopefully I will have a chance to actually add some to my stash soon.  :)

I have been working on our garden too.  Here is a pic that is a few weeks old, you should see the plants now!  Oh my, they are growing like crazy.  I have split and repotted so many tomatoes, jalepenos, sweet peppers, some basil, cilantro and more, just waiting til we can plant things outside.  Hopefully we will have a great yield this year so we can share and can boatloads of pickles, pickled peppers, and salsa.  I just planted the cucs and pickling cucs in little cups, and some of the pickling cucs are already shooting up, YAY!  

I watched two of the grand kids last Friday before I drove to Chicago, and took some fun pics.  I can't believe how big they are getting.  

Kaya of course is usually running ~

Cooper usually has that mischievous little smirk going ~

But they are loads of fun and usually play pretty well together.

  

Well, I am off to work on my classes now.  I will share more deets as I am able to.  In the meantime, I hope you have a joyful and creative week ~ Pam

It is JUNE! WOOOOOO, how did that happen???

Hello everybody!  I can't believe we are already into June!  Wooo, the saying time flies when you get older must really be true, because I turned 50 on Sunday, and now it is JUNE!  :)  My word. My lovely and beautiful family and friends threw me a fabulous surprise party.  Look at my cake, isn't it lovely? You can see the garden in the back, the cake was in our little garden house out near the garden. I am so blessed.  Thank you  to everybody for the birthday wishes and their hard work.  It was greatly appreciated!

Next, my guest artist blog spot is up at Luminarte.  I would LOVE it if you stopped in and posted a hello!  Pam's Guest Artist Spot at Luminarte  keep checking back, I have a little tutorial on the project I posted a sneak peek for in the last post. 

Class in Chicago is finished now, and the garden is 85% planted.  Hopefully the rest will go in this weekend.  This crazy weather has been a hindrance to getting everything done.  We have a free weekend this weekend though (YAHOOOOOO!!!) so I have great plans on finishing things.  I have a mile long to do list, but I am actually happy to have time to work on it, even though many of the items are chore like items.  I do plan on sneaking some creative time in, not sure if it will be fabric related or scrappy or mixed media related. Any creating time is good time though, so I can't wait!  Here is a pic of a little layout I recently created (I used twinks, so there is a shimmer to things you can't really see in the pic)~

I have also started taking digital pics of some of the quilts I made years ago.  This is one I designed and made for my wonderful hubby.  I made it about 12 years ago.  I won a blue ribbon at the county fair with it too, I was pretty happy.  It featured machine piecing and quilting, and hand turned applique for the sports figures. It took me a while to figure out how to design the sports figures and make them as large as they are.  My hubs is a sports nut, can you tell?    

OK, I am off to the garden center now for a few flowers for my pots and hanging baskets.  Then it is on with the to-do list!  I wish you have a joyful and creative week ~ Pam

A Quick Hello

Hi there!  How is everybody doing?  Holding up in this heat wave?  It has been so dang blazing hot and humid here this summer, we are all tired of the heat.  Our garden has gone completely wild.  Here is a picture from almost two weeks ago ~

Believe me, it is much more of a jungle now!  I made over 150 zucchini muffins yesterday and took them downtown and donated them to our church's inner city Tuesday night dinner and a service program for the local residents.  We also donated lots of cucs, tomatoes, jalapenos and some cherry tomatoes for residents to take home.  It certainly makes the hard work worth the effort when we are able to help feed hungry people. 

I wanted to share two pics of things I made at CHA, they were two of my favorite projects.  The first is a darling little T-shirt I made for the grandbabies (they will have to take turns wearing it) ~

Isn't it super cute?  The products are offered by SEI, and you can customize your tshirt or other fabric item by using various fabric iron ons.  I started with the green monster body and then added the giant eye, the arms, legs, shoes, mouth, tongue, and the band aid.  Love this fun new product line.  They also have ADORABLE coordinating patterned paper and items that would be great for birthday parties.  Love it!

Next, I went to the Silhouette booth over the course of the show (several day project) and made this fab apron for my daughter ~

Isn't it awesome?  I cut the saying and scroll out of velvet iron on fabric, and the hot pink butterfly was cut from matte iron on material.  The last day we added iron on crystals, using a template already cut out to speed things up.  I loved the eaase of use with the Silhouette, I currently have a Klick N Kut and it is a giant patootie pain to use.  I have never taken the time to learn how to use it, so really it is my own fault.  The software is just pretty extensive and I just haven't taken time to play with it as I should.  I love the fact that it and the Silhouette use fonts on your computer, no card purchase required.  I may just get a Silhouette though since it seems so much more user friendly to use.  It is also a loooooot smaller than the giant klunky Klick N Kut too! :)

Well, I am off to go can some salsa.  We used up the 60+ jars we canned last summer (gone before the first of the year, YIKES!).  I hope to can quite a bit of salsa this summer too, but we will have to see.  I have learned that there are only so many hours in the day.......  ;)  I have made boatloads of fresh salsa, which disappeared in no time.

Wishing you a joyful and creative week ~ Pam 

WOOO, sorry to be MIA for a few weeks, but I have been hanging out in the garden!

My word, I can hardly move! The hubs and I just finished planting a ginourmous garden this last weekend, by ourselves. We just have a wee bit more tweaking and planting left to do. We are donating the extra produce to an inner city feed the hungry project our church participates in. We more than doubled our garden from last year to make sure we have lots to donate. Hope we don't kill ourselves taking care of this garden! It will defintely keep us busy this summer. The hubs is even talking about cutting down some out of control apple and pear trees that have storm damage from years before we bought the property and putting in another small bed for just gourds and pumpkins. He feels bad because I whined like crazy that we didn't leave room for any pumpkins for the grandbabies. We were going to wait to cut those tress down until next year, but hey, we are on a planting roll! :0)

I did want to let you know about a sale happening over at Zutter, zip over there and take a peek, loads of covers are on sale and going quick - Bind-It-All
Here is a little blurb from the blog -

Wowie! We need some room in the warehouse! We have a first time EVER sale on Zutter Covers and Inner Pages. 15% Off Site-Wide for a limited time only.


Stock on up on Zutter Acrylic, Clipboard Wood, Canvas Artboard and good ole trusty Chipboard. We also have pre-cut cardstock Inner Pages ready to go for quick album making.

Alrighty, I promise to update with pics of creative projects this weekend when I have a wee bit of free time. I have volunteer commitments several times this week, so I won't be able to do so until then,and I am just starting to feel like my normal self from that dang sinus infection SHEESH. Talk about getting my fanny kicked! Please stop by late this w/e (like Sunday night), and I will have lots of pics to share. If you are going away for the holiday w/e, please be careful and stay safe. Don't forget the sunscreen!

Here are a few pics of the garden so far this year (we started most of those plants indoors, it was a regular green house over here he he) ~

Check out our snazzy powdercoated tomato cages and plant hangers!

I have the best hubby ever. He powdercoated our tomato cages in 5 different colors! I love powdercoated things, and would have them all over the place if I could. I am my hubby's worst customer, the non paying kind! :) Check out our lovely tomato cages and the beautiful planters he powdercoated for us -







Can't wait til the garden fills in more and we have some yummy veggies. WHile we are waiting, we will still enjoy some color though!