{ Birthdays & Bones in the Flower Garden }

If my sister-in-law isn't off with her girlfriend playing bingo, or busy with her own business, you can find her in her garden caring for her myriad of beautiful blooms. I believe she has nearly every kind of lilly imaginable planted in her garden. Most are transplants from my brother and sister-in-law's Atlanta home garden. I chose this stamp for her birthday card because it reminded me of her.


I like these stamp images by Karen Stolper at American Art Stamp for their unusual design and uniqueness. And of course the "Fetch" image was one I had to have for my personal "Gone 2 the Dogs" collection. The layout was inspired by the SCS Layout Challenge SC 118. The text along the side was digitally created.

{ Happy Mother's Day, Mom }

When I ran across this Hallmark card image this morning I had to laugh. Mom is always fussing that she can't figure out how to make that darn DVD player to work so she can the DVD of those good looking Il Divo fellas or her Boxed Set of the entire collection of the West Wing television series, or that her email is all messed up and she can't find the latest pictures my sister and niece have sent her. (She doesn't ask me about her cell phone very often because we both have to ask my niece how to do that.) It seems you aren't alone, Mom, lots of Mothers apparently have the same issues. Why else would Hallmark made this card so don't feel bad. You've spent years raising us, taking care of us, doing for us and loving us. We enjoy doing these little things for you.

This is the card I made for my wonderful mother in celebration of Mother's Day.
The paper is Basic Grey from the Perhaps collection and SU Pretty in Pink and Whisper White. The flower stamp is from Stampendous and the sentiment is an old PSX stamp which i purchased several years ago. The twill tape is from the Martha Stewart collection at Michaels. I stamped the flower image with black Versamark Ink and heat embossed it with black detail embossing powder. The white detail on the flower was achieved with bleach.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom
I love you!

{ pitching horseshoes & my brother's shirt }

My first memory of Horseshoe Beach was when I was still living at home outside of Atlanta, at least, still, during the summers. On one of those Christmases our family set out on vacation to southern Florida. We spent our first night in a little fishing village in a true fisherman's cabin. It belonged to the father of my brother's best friend and was built on stilts. You could look between the cracks in the floorboards to the ground below. I think Mother was worried about snakes and probably didn't sleep too well that night. It was already dark when we arrived. Dad went down to the marina to see if he could find a fisherman who might be willing to part with a mess of fish as all the grocery stores we had passed were closed on account of it being a holiday. I had never eaten mullet but to this day, I think it is some of the best fish I have ever eaten.

That was over forty years ago and until the last four or five years Horseshoe looked pretty much the same. My brother continued to return regularly with his friend Ralph. He spent more and more if his leisure time away from the hustle and bustle of the big city relaxing on the porch with friends or casting his lines for the elusive BIG ONE to the tune of a well oiled in-board's steady hum in accompaniment to Jimmy Buffett's lyrics floating lazily over the water. My brother and his wife are now retired and have completely modeled and remodeled one of those fishing cabins into a lovely home. They have moved lock, stock, two dogs, a cat, and three fourths of their Atlanta flower gardens to this sleepy fishing village where you can often find my brother, surrounded by several friends, sporting his Captain's hat, shucking oysters, shelling shrimp, and stirring a gigantic pot of gumbo. Now my family and I look forward to many more Horseshoe memories. My brother was the inspiration behind this colourful Lockhart stamped card.

{ in recognition of National Scrapbooking Day }

I started my paper arts adventure as a scrapbooker after seeing the amazing things my little sister was creating for our family. A book of Christmases Past sets on our mother's coffee table in her living room that documents some of the joyous and memorable times our family spent together over the years. Another labor of love sets on the a coffee table in the family room a memorial to the most wonderful husband and father in the world.


To date my attempts have been smaller and unfinished, but it opened a door into the more immediate gratification of rubber stamping and cardmaking. I wanted to share with you the first page of one of my scrapbooks, The Whippersnapper! A book dedicated to my faithful companion and best friend, Zoe. I am also in the process of creating scrapbooks for my mother, my sister and niece, and my brother and his wife chronicling our Alaskan Cruise late last summer. I approach my scrapbooking much the same as I approach creating a card. Composition, colour, attention to detail, and meaningful text expression, which often results in laboring over a page for days until its just right.

Wishing everyone a bright and creative National Scrapbooking Day! Take a little time today to pursue your art!

{ my new banner }

Not long ago I was one of the lucky winners of a banner design which Melissa Kulesa offered as blog candy on her Stamping Through the Tulips blog.
I'd like to thank Melissa for designing my banner. She has been such a patient and nice lady to work with through the design process. Take time to see her banner designs and watermarks and if you don't already have a banner or want a fresh new look, I highly recommend her. Thanks so much Melissa!!