Clean and Simple???

Well I had to ask the question, all because of a challenge on SCS, clean and simple. Is that what life has been for me over the past few days? A little yes and a little no!

I have been very grateful for the privilege of celebrating Easter and with my family. The weather, although cold has been fairly nice. My husband is feeling much better (thanks to any of you who have been praying for him!) Everyone has been in really good moods.

But I forgot how much more work it is with even one more person in the house. Living in a parsonage very, very close to the church we have a lot of people stop by often. Mind you not all the same people!! We are also on a main highway, so very visible and people passing by who need help will frequently stop too. So keeping the house at least in some semblance of order is important to me. I'll admit it, I can be a clean freak!! Not a "no clutter" freak. Just a clean freak. Hey a girl has to have some clutter!! But dirt and grime, eeewww!!

We even have lots of our boys friends stop by often, like this week. They just pop in to say hi and often stay for quite a while. I really like that, but like I said, I tend to forget when I am all settled into my routines how much more work it is to have extras around.

Then I remember what a blessing those "extras" are! I'll take the messes, the increased clutter, the dirty pile of dishes, a few more shoes behind the couch than usual any day!! Having those around me reminds me of just how blessed we are as a family to have so many wonderful friends who are like family to us. I am so thankful!

So what made me think of all this? Well the SCS Clean and Simple Challenge! This week we were to make a card that is monochromatic. I was excited because I have been saving a few special scraps of paper for ages (one of those small bits of clutter a girl has to have!). So I finally used them and love what came from them.

I don't remember where most of the paper came from, but some is origami paper, and some from Creative Memories. Both of the lighter dp's have little dragonflies on them.

Both of the stamps I used are from Hero Arts. I love the dragonfly!! I have used him a lot and it looks like it. The wood of the stamp is quite discolored from all the use. Both the dragonfly with Chinese script and the sentiment are Stamped in Stazon Jet Black.

I water colored just a little and then accented with colored pencils. And to spice up the card a little I added just a touch of clear embossing powder on his wings. I used Ranger Super Fine Clear Embossing Powder.
I hope you like my card today! I also hope you are thankful for all the "extras" that happen at your house. Let them remind you how blessed you really are!!
Have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by again!

A Beautiful Spring Day!

This has been such a beautiful spring day!! Even though it started out cold and a little spitting of snow, the sun came out and it was a lovely day. I even took a few minutes to play outside. I decide to sweep off our porch so people would quit dragging in old pine needles from outside. We have quite a few big pines near the house that shed like crazy. They get tracked all through the house and I seem to find them by getting them stuck in one of my feet. I can tell you that is NOT fun!

Since I was outside sweeping the porch it lead to sweeping all the steps and then sweeping some of the patio, which lead to getting the lawn rake and raking out around a couple of small bushes near the porch, which lead to pulling up a few dead stems, which lead to gathering up lots of small pine cones, which ........ I think you get the idea. I was only out for about 15 minutes, but it did me a world of good as well as the appearance of the house and yard! It was nice to breathe fresh air and look to see what things are poking their heads up out of the soil now. I have had daffodils and narcissus blooming for a while. I noticed today that my iris have bloom stems already. Can hardly wait for them. One I have is a lovely pale pink with the most fragrant bloom!

Our oldest son is here. His old car died and he had another one here. So he is getting it ready to be on the road. It has been an adventure for him with his old car. Unfortunately he had to miss work a few days because the thing died and he had no other way there. But with a some rearranging plans and helping him figure stuff out we think he will be settled with more reliable transportation. He is getting it plated tomorrow.

After a long and full day I really needed to do something creative, so I worked on the SCS Sketch Challenge for the week. Having a sketch is a great place to start and to get the creative juices flowing.

I used a flower stamp from Hero Arts. It was part of a set of four different flowers. It is stamped with Stazon Jet Black ink. I colored it with watercolor pencils.

The other stamp I used is from Magenta. it too is stamped in Stazon Jet Black. I smudged around both of the stamped images using Stampin Up's Baja Breeze ink.

The large piece of light colored paper is a piece from the stamping store I worked at. It came to the store as a sample and is pre-embossed with flowers. Unfortunately I don't know what the name of the company is. But I have seen similar paper in special packages at Hobby Lobby.

I also got to use some of my origami paper stash. I love doing origami and have a bad habit of hoarding the paper. So I force myself to bring it out every now and then. It is so pretty!! And since it is so thin it doesn't add a lot of extra thickness or weight to the cards.

There are three little blue gems on there too. The ribbon is velvet. It just really added to all the different textures on the card. The large square, the flower and the sentiment are all popped up for dimension.

I made the card for my husband. I am giving him a card a week for our 25th anniversary. It's been fun doing that!!

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have had a wonderful day and that the Lord has blessed you abundantly!

Taking Care Of My Birds!

Phew am I tired!! I had a good day, even though the guys in my house were getting on my nerves. They do that from time to time. But I was able to get a lot done. I am thankful for that! I cleaned in my craft/stamp/scrapbook/office room. Yes, it's like most of you, that very multipurpose room where we steal every bit of space we can to do our thing with paper! The room looks so much better. I even dusted. Now that's clean!

One thing I got done was something I do every year around now. I try to help out all the birds in the area with nesting material. When our boys were younger we used to empty their Easter basket grass and let the birds have it. (Of course we always used the paper grass, never plastic!) Now that my boys don't get baskets anymore I use my suet holder instead. This picture shows what I do.

The suet holder is hanging from one of our lilac bushes (more tree though it is so big), full of paper Easter grass and yarn pieces of all sorts. I tend to find skeins of yarn that are clearanced to use for fibers on my cards and crafts. So I have lots of small skeins to share with my bird friends.

Oh in the background of the picture is the church my husband is the pastor of. I'm standing next to our parsonage. Yes, we live that close!

Every year I watch for nests that fall from trees and see if there are pieces of what I have provided for them. Very often I find bits I left out. So I enjoy doing this for them. God gave us some beautiful creatures to enjoy here on Earth. So I take every advantage to do that!

For today's card I worked on the SCS Featured Stamper Challenge. There were a lot of cards to choose from, but I chose this one by Julie. She is an amazing stamper!

My card is much simpler than hers. She went into a lot more detail. I just wanted to have fun with mine and do it quickly. So instead of using textured paper like she did I used dp from Creative Memories. The balloons were made with the Creative Memories 1 1/4" Circle Maker and a small heart punch. They turned out cute didn't they?

The stamp is from Hero Arts. I've had it for a long time and it often comes out for birthday cards. The thing has been used so much that the color of the wood on the back is not really wood color anymore!

Well in the morning we have church. I will be teaching the ladies Sunday School class. We are studying women of the Bible right now. This week (and several before) is on Rahab. It's been a very good study. So I need to get some sleep.

Thanks for stopping by again! Don't forget to sing my guest book clear at the bottom.