Happy Labor Day!

Our family usually celebrates the Labor Day weekend with a party at our house. When the kids were little, the Schaumburg Septemberfest parade would go past our house on Labor Day. We would invite all of our friends and line our chairs up along Summit, the street we lived on, for parade viewing and to just have great fun. Now the kids are grown up and we no longer live in Schaumburg but we continue to have a Labor Day party. My husband celebrates his 60th birthday on September 16th, so this year's party would also be a surprise birthday celebration. Our granddaughter was so excited when she heard about the suprise, that she had to get busy. One of the things she was busy with was making a "put the bobber in the fish's mouth" game--similar to "pin the tail on the donkey". She knows how much her grandpa likes to fish and that his cake was going to have a fish theme. We had so much fun playing her game and she was thrilled to hear and see all of us adults laughing and having a great time. It was too much fun and we were laughing until our sides hurt. John and I are blessed with a beautiful and loving family, wonderful friends and a good life--all things that we worked to achieve. Happy Labor Day to all and remember to find some time to enjoy life--after all, we have all worked very hard (and continue to work) to live the American dream.

Digi Stamp Purchase

Earlier last week, I received an email from Stephanie Barnard and there was this adorable Birthday4cookie stamp set. As you know, I prefer rubber stamps, but the set was so cute that I was going to order it even if it was a clear stamp set. As I was looking at it, I saw that there was an option to purchase it as a digital set. I decided to try purchasing the digi set. This card is very simple, but I was able to download the set to my computer and then get the stamp to print. All I did was color in the bow, punch it out and use it on a card. I printed up the stamp in various sizes and then played with my markers. So now, not only do I need to practice coloring techniques, I need to learn about using all the images in the set so that my little dog can be wearing a birthday hat instead of the bow!

Happy Birthday

I received my paper pack of neutrals pattern papers. The majority of the colors are very pretty, although the very vanilla on white is my least favorite of all. You can barely see the Vanilla patterns on the white background. On the other hand, the gray on white is gorgeous as is the chocolate chip. The Crumb Cake patterns were used for this card on a Crumb Cake base and Very Vanilla cardstock. Since there are a few males having birthdays in our family, this card is a great "boy" card. The candle flames were stamped using a retired SU set with Stickles used to color the flames. The photo corner punch, a little twine and the birthday sentiment from the Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set finishes it off. I had scraps from some of the Tangerine Tango pattern papers, so I made this little 3x3 gift card using the same idea but different colors. The flames on the gift card are punched hearts turned upside down with Crystal Effects to add a little shine. Have a great Friday.

Digital Stamps

Lately I have come across many projects using digital stamps. Curiosity finally got the better of me and over the last couple of days I have been researching digi stamps. There are many websites offering digi stamps and video tutorials. The card to the right was a free digi stamp from Squigglefly. And I followed her tutorials in downloading the stamp. I will say that I need a lot more practice on downloading the digi stamps, but I was impressed that I got so far as to actually use the stamp! I colored the image using Copic markers. I used SU Tempting Turquoise and Real Read cardstock and retired Tempting Turquoise ribbon for the card. I am looking forward to really understanding digi stamping so that I will be able to use such images without needing a couple of hours to download and resize and use. In the meantime, I am going to create with what I understand--cards using my Stampin' Up rubber stamps.