Parrots (and Bunnies) are Pets, too!

Most of the people, it seems to me anyway, on Lisa's Pet Lovers swap have requested to receive only cats or only dogs. Much as I love cats and dogs, the pets I most wish to fill my home are parrots. In fact, when looking at houses the other day, I pointed one out to Main Squeeze that had a porch that could easily be tiled and screened for Darwin to enjoy his summers; he just rolled his eyes. Another house had so many bedrooms, I mentioned Darwin having his own room, and Main Squeeze exclaimed, "You want to give the bird his own room?!" Well, yeah, why not?


One of the most beautiful birds, in my opinion (obviously as this IS my blog), is the cockatoo. Umbrella Cockatoo to be exact. It is in their honor that I made this card. His beak could be a bit darker, I know, but I only had the one shade of gray in my Prisma collection. This will be remedied as soon as possible.

The designer paper is from a stack by DCWV called Pocket Full of Posies. I bought it cuz it is not my usual style and, what can I say, it was on sale. Coordinates pretty well with the SU card stock don't you think? And I like the vine-y look to it. Makes the little guy feel more at home. I am not sure how he feels about the Magic Mesh, though.


Princess A joined in on the fun for this swap as well. For her entry, she chose bunnies. I am pretty sure it was to honor her most beloved stuffed friend, Mel. (You may remember him from an earlier post around her birthday.)

Great Impressions made this stamp as three blocks in a row, but because her swap was for 3 x 3's, she had to separate the bunnies. The card stock is SU and the dp was from a brand new package (thanks to one of my secret sisters), an 8 x8 slab from Provocraft. The bunnies are colored with SU markers and the card is finished off with some baubles I had received in a long ago swap.

Be sure to leave her some love!

Happy Birthday Kathleen

Yesterday was my friend Kathleen's birthday. I found out rather late, around 10AM, thanks to a reminder from Facebook. Having just a few hours til her quartet's dress rehearsal, I ran to my workshop. (Also known as the table and requisite supplies that have taken over the living room) (and perhaps I did not really run, but I did put it first on my 'things to do today' list)

Here is a card very similar to the one I whipped up. For after finishing Kathleen's, I decided to use the same design for Mary's Getting Ahead swap; and this morning finished a batch. This is Lily from Pink Cat Studios. (For Kathleen she had black hair, a teal outfit and a purple alien). Lily is stamped on GP, colored with Prismacolor markers and mounted on pop-dots on a newly discovered (by humans anyway) cuttlebugged planet. All cardstock besides Lily is SU.

I must give a shout out to Main Squeeze who listened to how I wanted the alien to look and made one for me to trace onto cardstock. Trust me, this was not as easy as it may sound.

On the inside I wrote, "Hope your birthday is Out of this World!"

(Mayhem, the quartet, during whose dress rehearsal a birthday celebration was planned, upon seeing this card, has requested that I make them 23 of design of my choice for them to give to the other competing quartets. Oy! ...Breathe...)

Ring around the Rosy, Dragon Picked Some Posies...

Do you know Dustin Pike? I just discovered his blog and am anxiously awaiting his opening of his new website. I admit I was not a fan of digi stamping, as I don't consider it stamping if there is no rubber involved, but this dragon and all of his cohorts have won me over! So no, I can never call it 'stamping', but they sure make for some cute cards! And for all you diehards (like me!) he is coming out with a line of rubber stamps starting in May!!

This cute little guy was a freebie at Easter time; the original image has him holding an egg with a chick. I put him into my photo editing software and removed the egg and chick and then drew in the missing part of his hand. A technique akin to masking in my mind. He is colored with three different shades of green Prismacolor Markers coordinating with the greens in SU's Bold Brights family. (This card and 5 others just like it will be sent off as part of jbmak's Color Family swap on SCS.)

The flowers are Doodlebug Paper Posies which I must have received in a secret sister swap, cuz I am certain I did not buy them. In fact I have no idea if any shops around here even carry them. A Cuttlebug embossing folder was used for the background and all cardstock except the white is SU. The white is GP.

I hope you love this guy as much as I do. As I told the swap hostess, I am going to have to just close my eyes to get these in the mailbox; otherwise I don't know how I will part with them!

Recycled Tea

This month's theme for the Sisterhood of the Traveling Cards is Green/Recycling. In other words, the card should be green and have something recycled on it. I had lots of fun digging these tea tags out of the garbage, I'll tell ya! Just kidding, I ripped them off tea bags I had yet to use, but I drink enough tea that I will go through them in a trice.

Image is from House Mouse Designs. Funny thing about this stamp. I always think it looks so relaxing (what I wouldn't give for a hot tub!), but then I think of mice in my tea and Eeew!

I stamped with Memento onto Georgia Pacific 110lb White and paper pieced (seems to be my "thing" lately) with SU dp. The edges are torn and inked with SU (Garden Green to be exact) then layered onto SU cardstock embossed with the D'Vine Swirls embossing folder run through the Cuttlebug. Tea tag is popped up with pop-dots and the sugar cubes are enhanced with glitter. As usual, non-paper-pieced sections are colored with Prismacolor Markers. Oh! I almost forgot - the steam is drawn over with a glitter pen. Gives a very subtle sparkle. You will have to trust me on that last detail.

This card has been given the Princess A seal of approval; she has already requested one for herself...

Lily's New Release

Lily is hitting the beach. Who is Lily you say? Lily from Pink Cat Studio, of course.





April 23rd is the big day - plenty of time for summer stamping!

Every Little Girl is a Princess

I made this card for celestial_stamper's "I'm a Princess" swap over on SCS. I have had this stamp set forever, but as I tend to put off assembling stamps, this one got shoved in a drawer. Now that I have been getting more and more into unmounteds, I pulled her out and inked her up.

Missy B Designs sold this set as a fundraiser for children's cancer research and it is now sold out. I don't believe it will be available again. Sorry to be such a tease, but like I said, it is an old set...

The sentiment is from the same set, and so true, don't you think? At least I hope Princess A remembers this when she starts dating - if he doesn't treat her like Royalty, he is not worth her time. Since she is only 10, I don't think I need concern myself right now.

The crown paper is from Imaginisce. The White is Georgia Pacific 110 lb from Walmart, believe it or not, and the Pink is from SU.

I used the D'Vine Swirls embossing folder cuz I liked the way the swirls kinda matched the swirls in the crowns. Her dress was paper pieced from the Spring Matstack from DCWV; again echoing the swirls of the crowns. The baubles came from a recent swap and the "princess" is mounted on pop-dots. Finally the sentiment is stamped in Pretty in Pink (SU) to match the cardstock.

Around her neck is a jewel embellished with Cotton Candy Stickles; the hem of her dress is trimmed with Crystal Stickles.

Princess A has already requested one of the extras for her own.

Cake Wrecks

Thanks to my sister, I have discovered a new and hilarious way to spend more time on the computer. Not that I needed more time online, but I just cannot resist. She posted a link on my Facebook wall asking if I still did cake decorating. (I don't do much decorating anymore - not that I did all that much in the first place - for it is far too painful for my hands [Have I ever mentioned that Lupus sucks?!])

Anywho, I was never a great cake decorator, but I was (thankfully) not as bad as the ones featured on Cake Wrecks; and they are from 'professional' decorators! What I like best about this site is not so much the cakes themselves, but the blogger's critique. Think about this... When you are with someone and something funny happens, you tend to glance at the other person and nod, smile or somehow connect to show you think it is funny, too. You laugh louder and harder if you are around who shares in your mirth, right?

Here I am, all by myself, laughing uproariously. There is no one here to egg me on, well, except for Darwin, who eventually will cackle right along with me, but as he is a parrot, I don't think that counts. Sometimes Princess A will be here and ask to see; inevitably those are the times when I am laughing at the ones totally inappropriate for the eyes of a 10-year-old. (Not so much the photos, though there are a couple, but the language used in the commentary)

The more entertaining the post, the more comments that have been attached. Most of which are just as risible. (Hey Mom! I used that word just for you - did you like it?)

(Did I happen to mention at the beginning that this is going to be an excessively long post? I didn't? Oops!)

Are you ready? It's my VERY OWN CAKE WRECK! (OK, not mine, exactly. It actually belongs to Shelley)


You may find this hard to believe, but this cake is, in fact, what was ordered. It is beautifully decorated - there is amazing dimension and attention to detail though I know it is hard to tell from this photo (Ack, I did not have my camera with me, only my cell phone, and I don't know how to send it straight to my blog, so I had to save it from my Facebook posting, hence the really bad resolution. Sorry) . Kudos to Waldbaum's in West Hartford for their superb undertaking of such a bizarre order.

Ah yes, you are wondering WHY someone would order this particular cake on purpose...

My chorus is soon to compete in the Region One Contest for Sweet Adelines International. Should we win (cross your fingers!) we will then be eligible to compete in the International Competition in Seattle, WA. Part of our preparation is to have coaches come for a weekend and show us ways to garner a few more points. One coach in particular, Joe, suddenly stopped during our rehearsal and asked, "what's that smell?" Not knowing where he was going with this we suggested perhaps he was smelling the coffee in the next room. He then followed up with, "is it salmon I smell? Salmon from Seattle?" Throughout the weekend, he would stop us every once in a while and sniff to get people thinking about earning our way to Seattle. (For me however, as this is a chorus of all women, I think a coffee reference would have been more appropriate...)

This past weekend we had another coaching session, but different coach. One of our members, Shelley, stood up and announced that her birthday was coming up, but since it was during Passover, she did not think her 80 best friends would appreciate eating chocolate covered matzoh. She brought this cake instead so we could all celebrate with her and at the same time pay homage to the reason we were all together that day. Happy Birthday Shelley!!

I wish I had a better photo so I could send it in to Cake Wrecks, for I am curious to see just what she would have to say, and what comments it would generate. Anyone out there have one you could send me?