Blossoms by the Basin

I got back today from DC. I had a great trip, got to see the cherry blossoms and the grand kids in one visit! Now I can check cherry blossoms in DC off my "bucket list". If you haven't seen them in person, you really should try someday. Yesterday they were soooo gorgeous over at the Tidal Basin. Don't know if I spelled that right, anyway we went over to the FDR Memorial and the trees were in full bloom and gorgeous. I got some great pictures and I want to share a few. Tomorrow I will be back stamping getting ready for my stamp club. Maybe I'll have something to show you later this week. Maybe a new addition to the family. My daughter in law graciously waited for me to get home before having her baby. Now I am waiting for Jaxon to arrive. Until then enjoy the beauty of God's handiwork.

The cherry blossoms were not the only trees blooming. The Tulip Trees were in bloom everywhere as well as the yellow forthisia (I know this is not the right spelling but maybe you know what I'm talking about). The daffodils were in bloom too. It was just all beautiful!

Cherry Blossoms

I arrived last Thursday in DC to rain and cold weather, but woke up Friday to a dry day. My son was off that day, so we loaded everyone up and headed to town as soon as my grandson got home from Kindergarten. Well, actually we stopped off for lunch at Five Guys for burgers and fries. Five Guys is one of our favorite eating places when I come to DC. Okay , so we arrive in town and for some reason my son thinks I want to go to the museum! We spend the afternoon at the Museum of Natural History looking at orchids, sea life, birds, and dirt! When it was time to leave I said when are we going to see the cherry blossoms? "What? I didn't know that was what you wanted to see, it's time to go now!" I said, "what did you think I came all the way from Texas for?" I'm inserting a picture of one of the orchids we saw that day.

It's pretty, but it's not a cherry blossom!! Saturday was cold and rainy so we had to stay indoors the entire day. I even took a nap! The forecast for Sunday did not look promising, more rain! We got up Sunday for church to see gray skies and mist. BUT when came out of church the sun was shining!!!! Hallelujah!
We put our walking shoes on and headed to the city, with a stop on the way for a delicious Mexican lunch at On the Border! We decided to park out side the city on the Virginia side and ride the train into town. Once we arrived it was a blustery day on the hill but we had brought kites so it worked out great! Here are some photos. We are going back tomorrow to see the cherry blossom along the river. These photos were taken by the Washington Monument.

Taking Off

I'm off the D.C. in the morning to see my grand kids and the cherry blossoms. I have been trying to get there for the past five years, ever since my son and his family moved there, but something always comes up. This time my other DIL is expecting her first child. She and my middle son live here in The Woodlands, TX near me. This will be the first grandchild I will see right after it is born AS LONG as she does not have it while I am in DC! She is due in 9 days! I told her to just cross her legs and wait for me to get back. I will be back two whole days before she is due!!! I debated about going but my hubby said, "Just go!" So I am and my mother is meeting me at the airport and going with me. I just hope the trees are blooming!!!

Greetings Dad!

My dad has a birthday coming up in April. Decided to play with my new occasions mini stuff and make him a card at the same time. I used Eight Great Greetings and paired it with Chocolate chip and Baja breeze card stock. The stripe is from the Parisian Breeze Specialty paper. Now I have to make a card for my oldest son how also has an April birthday.

Manhattan Flower embossing folder is awesome!

If you haven't seen Julie Bulher's tutorial on making this card, go there now! It is another great idea for using the Manhattan Flower embossing folder, exclusive from Stampin' Up! Here's my first attempt, but I plan on adding ribbon at the bottom and trying other color combos. Just one tip when you emboss yours: since you want the raised edges to be on the front, pay attention to how you place your cardstock into the folder. I didn't get it right until my third attempt, that's when I looked closely at Julie's tutorial to see how she had hers.

Glitterin Gals demo swap

Today was my demonstrator's meeting with my side and down lines. We had a shoebox swap. Everyone designed a card, then brought all the materials for us to make each other's card. It is always fun to see what our group will come up with.

Debbie's card

Delia's card

Chris's card

Judy's card

Shannon's card

Terri's card

Terry W's card

Vickie's card

Tanya's card

Manhattan Flower Impressions and a Ruffled Scalloped Edge

I've been going through the box of new goodies I received when I returned from my trip to my MIL Wednesday. I couldn't wait to get the Manhattan Flower embossing folder, but I was busy cleaning house yesterday. As my reward for getting lots of cleaning done, I was checking all my favorite blogs last night and came upon this card by Julie Buhler. Wow! is what I thought, I have got to try that! So I did and let me tell you it looks great in person! Then I wondered what it would look like in another color and since I had just read my Stampin' Success and saw that one of the card contest categories was using orange, I decided to try it in Tangerine Tango.

I also ran across a tutorial from Jan Tink on how to make a ruffled scalloped edge that looked intriguing. I needed a card for the demonstrators meeting on Sunday using new items from the mini. I thought the flower pot from Wagons of Fun might fit inside the wide oval punch and discovered that it did, so I thought why not try this ruffled scalloped edge around it. Now I have something new to share with the group.

SASSSC Swap

Saturday is my Simple and Serious Stampers Swap Club meeting. Our swap theme this month is female birthdays. I knew I wanted to use my brand new Fifth Avenue Floral stamp set for my card, so I went to the gallery at SCS to get some mojo and inspiration. Well I fell in love with this card by Karmagirl and knew I had to case it. I colored the rose with my baja ink pad and aquapainter. I did not have any chocolate chip corduroy buttons like Jodi put on her card, but I loved the look. Soooo...I created my own "button look" by punching out buttons with my 3/4" circle punch. I used my new whisper white organza ribbon, and added sparkle to the rose with dazzling diamonds. Thanks, Jodi, for inspiring this beautiful card.

Recipe: Fifth Avenue Floral stamp set

Baja Breeze, Chocolate chip, Whisper white cardstock

Parisian Breeze Specialty designer paper

Baja Breeze ink and aquapainter, black staz-on ink

Stampin Up background texturz plates, piercing tool

Back from Mississippi

Well, I got to have the card class with the ladies in Mississippi. Unfortunatly, my MIKL woke up sick that day and was unable to attend. My neice had planned to attend, thank goodness, and rode with me to the class location. There were seven ladies, including my neice, attend and we had a wonderful time making the projects. They gave me permission to post some photos of them hard at work.

Polka Dot Punches card class

Just one more day of school and then I'm off for 9days (spring break)!!!!! My DH and I are going to visit his parents in Gulfport, MS for a few days then come home and chill. My MIL asked me to hold a stamping class for her Homemakers Club on Tuesday. It's an all day affair. In the morning they will make the Bunny Basket and sour cream treat with the punch bunny and a onesie card. After lunch they will make a card set. I decided to use the Polka Dot Punches set since I have three of them and to use the matching designer paper. They will make four cards and a box to put them in.

The fourth card is the one posted in the previous post.

Stamp Club

This is my stamp club weekend. We made the Bunny Basket and the Flower layers acetate card, as well as this Sale-a-bration card (cased from the cover of the SAB catty). I added the scalloped circle flower to show how you can make a layered flower if you do not have the Big Shot and the flower layers die. It's really easy. Punch out three scalloped circles, cut between every two scallopes, curl the edges with a pencil, pop up each layer with a dimensional and voila! I also added a so saffron center to my flower using the boho blossoms punch and cutting between each petal.

Follow Your Heart layout

This is the third layout I made using the Sunshine Garden kit. I just love, love, love these colors together: /baja breeze, certainly celery, and so saffron with some old olive thrown in. I did a lot of distressing on the edges of the paper in all three layouts. It really adds a lot of dimension to the layouts that is hard to see in the pictures. I was inspired by this layout from Chelsea Cook. I loved the distressing on her layouts and cards.

Chelsea stitched with real stitching around her brackets, but I just drew lines with my black pen.

Sunshine Garden Layouts

Next Tuesday my Scrap booking group will meet to put together layouts using Sunshine Garden, a SU Simply Scrappin' kit. I had alot of fun putting these layouts together. I will be working on one more page tonight after I finish this post. The first layout uses the kit's sample for inspiration for the first page, then I created a matching second page. I call it "Hi"
The colors in the kit are Baja Breeze, Certainly Celery, Old Olive, and So Saffron. These colors look great together! There are clear buttons in the centers of some of the flowers, and there is faux stitching along the edge of both baja breeze pieces.

The second layout is called Happy Day and features chip board pieces that have been colored using craft ink spots. I also created a sun using the large scalloped circle die and my big shot. The sun rays were made using one of the stickers from the kit.