With Sympathy~

The husband of one of my mom's dearest friends passed away this week and I made this card this morning to express our family's sympathy to her and her family.

It's always hard to make cards for my mom's watercolor friends. They are all professionals and their work is so beautiful. I choose to make a card that nods to their medium (although many of them are mixed media, acrylic, and digital artists) by creating a card using Fabriano notecards.

I used 2 cards - one for the image, one for the base.

The image is created by:
1. Liberally spraying notecard with water from a spray bottle
2. Drop reinker (Adirondack Pesto and Caramel) and allow to spread, freak out a little while it does its thing.
3. While still wet, but not sopping, sprinkle a little salt into wet color
4. Dry with heat tool, rub off any excess salt
5. Flick rubbing alcohol with fingertips
6. Dry with heat tool
7. Stamp flower image (Hero Arts) with Versafine Black Onyx
8. Quickly dunk into clear embossing power, brush away excess powder, heat
9. Trim to size, tear top and bottom edges
10. Wrap gold cording around, tie, mount to base with dimensional foam.

V.~

GKD Lean on Me Preview Blog Hop~

This sample was inspired by a sarong that we bought my niece while we were on vacation. The card, matching sarong and a little cash is headed to Ohio where she remained over the summer working at the college she attends. She's a Cali-girl at heart and we knew she would love the sarong....it may not be practical for Ohio but it will be a reminder of warmer temps of home come winter!

Card details:
Finished card is 5" x 5"
Stamps: Hibiscus flower from Lean on Me
Ink: Vivid! Aqua, Lemon Ice, Wild Lime ; Versamark
Paper: Pure Luxury Ocean Mist, White, Blue
Other: clear embossing powder, heat tool, white mini brads, aqua grosgrain ribbon,distressing tool, corner rounder, dimensional foam

This flower image (flower and stem are separate images) reminds me of agapanthus flowers. I'm not sure if that's what they are intended to be but that is what I made them into ☺.
I used to have a number of agapanthus planted in both the front and back yard here and now they reside in just the front yard. For some odd reason or another Riley likes to eat them, flowers, leaves and all, so since she hangs out in the backyard we had to take them out. Weird dog.

Card details:
Finished card is 3-1/4" x 6-1/2"
Stamps: Flower and stem from Lean on Me
Ink: Vivid! Violet Mist, Cobblestone; Memento Bamboo Leaves
Paper: Pure Luxury Smokey Slate, Green Grass, Lovely Lavender and White
Other: silver mini brads, satin ribbon, loose glitter, distressing tool, dimensional foam


For more samples with the stamp sets being previewed tonight, please check out these participating designer's links:

Gina Krupsky
Jessica Fick
Melanie Muenchinger
Theresa Momber
Tami Mayberry
Cathy Tidwell
Lee Murphy
Kurtis Amundson
Suzanne Dean
Bev Gerard
Colleen Schaan
Sankari Wegman
Nina Brackett
Miesje Flach

You are invited to join us at the StampTV Release Party Forum tomorrow night August 26th from 7-10 central time for contest questions, challenges, and chatter along with tons more samples! The party leads up to the new products featured this week on our blogs being available for purchase online through Gina K Designs at 10pm.

Thanks for stopping by!

V.~

Lessons learned...

I learned (re-learned, actually) a few things while on vacation and thought I'd share them here. In no particular order and certainly not all of them:

Family is so important to me. Togetherness sometimes gets lost in the details of raising a family; running a household, homework, balancing the checkbook, laundry, etc, etc, etc, things all a necessary part of family living, can also be a cause for disconnecting. Reconnecting and spending a week of quality time together reinforces that importance for me. Rediscovering how much I enjoy hanging out with all of them; my family, my parents, both of my brothers, my brother's girlfriend and all of our 6 kids - some families can't be in the same room for long, we had 13 of us in one vacation rental house for 8 days and loved every minute of it. I just wish my sister and her family could have joined us - another vacation, someday.

Slowing down and breathing life in, enjoying what life is offering now. Slow isn't how I would typically describe our vacation as we crammed as much as possible into the 8 days. But the overall feeling on the island is a slower paced lifestyle and it fit me nicely. Heck the speed limit on most of Kauai is 25mph - a bit strange at first but once we were adapted to it, it was kind of nice to actually observe what's going on around you when driving from place to place. I intend to add slowing down to my daily repertoire (although not on the roads, LOL, pretty sure it would be stressful for me if I did, iykwim!).

My watch came off on the 7th and didn't put it on until the 14th. How freeing!

No TV for me for an entire week and I didn't feel like a missed a thing (our dvr here at home says otherwise LOL). I think I'll re-think what I watch here at home.

Computer time was minimal. We purposely left our laptop at home,so any computer time for me was quickly done on my brothers iPad. Another freeing experience and it will have an impact on me now that I am home. I will not be on the computer as much. As far as keeping this blog up and running, the decision is still out.

I left my cell phone at the house most days, not all, but most. Although I did send out a dozen or so picture texts, so it was helpful to have around. :) But not feeling naked without it was a great feeling!

Mahalo, Kauai, for everything!

V.~

Back Home~

13 of us, all family, just returned from a week on the island of Kauai -
we had the time of our lives exploring the island's beauty; everything from sea rafting up the Napali Coast to Ziplining and everything in between.

This is the early evening view from the vacation home we rented during our stay in Poi-Pu Beach. I can't wait to return someday.

Not so sure about that red-eye return flight, though..... haha!

Now it's time for a vacation from our vacation :)

V.~

Deepest Sorrow~

While I was away in Chicago having a wonderful time, my very good friend and neighbor, Kelly, received very unexpected and life changing news. Her father passed away, at much too young an age, and all alone in his home. My heart is so heavy for her and her family.

V.~

Supplies:
Stamps: Spring Florals by Gina K Designs
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Desert Sand, Versafine Olympia Green
Paper: Gina K Designs Pure Luxury Ivory, Fresh Asparagus, Black Onyx, Sweet Corn
Patterned Paper: Curio by Basic Grey
Other: Copic Markers, Antique mini brads, Oval punch, Scor-Buddy (embossed lines on green strip), Corner Rounder, Dauber, Dimensional foam