Cardoff

After we came back from vacation we decided to have a card off.  My two kids make cards all the time with me but my husband has never joined in.  This was a little different.  I put a whole bunch of items, stamps, stickers, ribbon, bling, in a bag and everyone got to pick four things.  We each got a card base and there were markers and pencil crayons, adhesive, punches, and buttons that everyone could use.  We had a half hour to create.  Our neighbours were the judges and we were each assigned an award (that way everyone was a winner).  Here are the cards and awards:

Award: "Pretty in Pink"  for good use of the color pink and clean and crisp symmetrical lines.

Award: "Creative" for best color and pattern combination

Award: "Extravagant" for good design and 3D effects.

Award: "Cute as a Button" for most colorful and uniquely shaped.

It was lots of fun and I am thinking about how to do the next one...
Can you guess who created each card?  Husband, me, son, or daughter?

My Birthday Quilt

Back in May I saw this quilt:

at my favorite quilt stores blog (here).  It was my birthday earlier this month so I told my husband he could buy the kit for my birthday.  I'm always thinking ahead and I knew I wouldn't have time to start on the quilt before my birthday anyway.  I still haven't started but I look forward to trying this one.  I am actually going to make two baby size quilts from it.  Check back later in August to see how it is giong.

Vacation

At the end of June my family and I set off for a ten day trip.  We had a great time but spent more time in hotels than we had intended.  The weather wasn't the best at the time and we had no desire to tent in the rain.  Here is a picture of where we were on the 4th of July:

We were so surprised while driving through Glacier National Park, Montana to have a couple of meters of snow along the road.  We got out and it was CHILLY!  It was also inspiring and beautiful.
Although we had a good time it was nice to come home and sleep in my own bed.
The rest of the summer is going to be pretty quiet.

Card Therapy

In June I was pretty stressed with my school and all the end of the year stuff with the kids.  I decided one day that I would just spend time doing some card therapy.  It is always calming to create new things.  Here are the results:

Both stamps are from a set from Stampin' Up.  The bottom one is my favorite stamp.  It just warms my heart and actually reminds me of standing in the wind on the beach on the West Coast.  Now if that isn't calming I don't know what is.
Hope you enjoy!

Back from the Abyss

So...I think it is time to update this site!!  My goal is to bring you up to date on all the posts I meant to do.  Life was busy in May and June and now July is almost over as well.  Boy does time fly.  I will start with the ant farm.  Last year I purchased an ant farm for around $5 from the Bay.  Good deal I thought.  It came with a coupon to send away for free ants.  My kids asked several times to do it but it never seemed right.  I also bought one for a homeschooling friend of mine.  She attempted to send in the coupon but found out that ants don't ship across the border.  We looked into more 'local' sources.  No one seemed to have ants available.  One sunny day the kids found lots in our parking area.  I sent them out with a jar and they collected around 20 ants.  About half of these didn't survive and we did collect more about a week later.  Here are a couple of pictures of their progress:

We had the farm for about a month.  It was interesting to see how far they built overnight.  They started to pile all their 'garbage' into one pile and it began to stink and turn the gel a funky color.  We had to throw it away.  It was getting nasty.  The kids released the survivers and the rest went in the garbage.  Both kids took it to school for show and tell.