Happiness Is...

Images copyright Stampin' Up!
card created by Pat -Arkansas

I'm happy tonight because:

(1) The Diocesan Convention in Little Rock is over. Our church was in charge of 'hospitality', meaning coffee, tea, fruit, veggies, cookies and snacks of all sorts.  We didn't have to provide the noon meal; it was a catered box lunch.  I served behind the scenes washing dishes for over five hours. Let me hasten to say that I actually like to wash dishes. The convention had 300 attendees, and I washed about 1,200 glass coffee cups, and sink after sink full of water glasses, silverware, serving utensils, serving trays, bowls, etc. 

(2) Stamp Camp has come and gone.  My stamping partner got the show underway since I was still at the convention, but I arrived in time to do a bit of visiting with the attendees and to help take it down and pack it up.

(3) Gardening Daughter's husband called right after noon and invited me to have supper with the family since he knew I was working at the convention and Stamp Camp most of the day and probably wouldn't feel like preparing a meal. I gratefully accepted. Good supper!

(4) Gardening Daughter rubbed my feet before I came home.

(5) I have already set all my clocks ahead for Daylight Saving Time (which I abhor!) and have set my alarm clock for a reasonable hour.  

Tomorrow is also a day.

My Den of In-Ink-quity ...

... is otherwise known as my craft room. When I first occupied this house in 1990, the room, which is located just off the kitchen and contains the doors to my back yard and to the carport, was set up as my den. The furnishings included a sleeper sofa, a comfortable recliner, a side-chair for extra visitors, bookshelves that actually held books, and a television set.

In 1999, I discovered the world of rubber stamping, and my cozy den soon became a thing of the past. When I first started stamping, most of my supplies would fit into my office closet. It didn't take long for me to outgrow that space, so I soon converted the den into my stamping room. Over a period of several years, I've managed to fill it almost to capacity.

Four eight-foot shelves that hang on the wall, plus several free-standing units, hold boxes of stamps and stamp sets, which after 12 years of acquisition are too many to count. Multi-drawer units, about a dozen of them, hold papers, ribbons, embossing powders, and other accessories. Three six-foot tall bookcases line the back wall. Tools of the trade occupy the shelves of one of them. Boxes of envelopes, reams of specialty cardstock and other 'have-to-have' items almost fill the other two.

Gardening Daughter helped me convert an old library table into my stamping surface. The sturdy table, which made the journey from New Mexico to Arkansas in 1950, has been raised another 6" on wooden blocks to allow me to stand to stamp, which is sometimes preferable, or to sit on a bar-stool and have the surface at the proper height. The top is fitted with a 3' x 5' piece of three-quarter inch plywood, upon which I stamp, and where I keep my most often used supplies (inks, pens, colored pencils, glue, tape, scissors, bone folders, a small paper cutter, etc.). Several drawers of  the legal size file cabinet next to the table hold yet more card stock, the colors I use most often.

Between the stamping table and the back wall is a revolving, four-sided cabinet with shallow shelves on which I store additional ink pads and other items. (A few of the shelves, and a few of my ink pads, are shown in the photo above. Someone, not a stamper, once asked me why I had so many ink pads, to which I replied, "They are all different colors!)

When I walk into this room, I am completely surrounded by my obsession hobby.

What brought all this on, you may ask? I’m in the midst of preparing for another Stamp Camp. I will be up to my eyeballs in paper, ink, and stamps for the next couple of weeks.

I’m not abandoning my blogging, however, since it will be a relief to write about something other than stamping. Aren’t you glad (that my posts will not be about stamping)?

Tomorrow is also a day.

A Good Day for Cards

(click to enlarge)

(*see note below)

I belong to a rubber stamping group that has been in existence for over 11 years.  Although the group's members are currently all female, we have had talented gentlemen members in years past. Our youngest active member is in her early twenties, the most mature in her mid-80's.  A faithful group of folks, many of them charter members of the group, meet on one Saturday afternoon each month to practice new --or old -- card-making/designing techniques or to demonstrate new tools and materials used in the craft, to swap handmade cards, and to catch up with what's been going on in our lives since the last meeting.   Eighteen of us gathered this afternoon, and it was great fun, as usual.

Since I had cards 'on the brain,' so to speak, when I got home I started looking back through my computer files at the hundreds and hundreds of images of cards I've made and received during the past 11 years. I selected a few (of the cards that I made myself) to create the above collage.   

My taste in rubber stamp images is eclectic, to say the least. I require only an interest in or appreciation of the art.  Some tickle my funny bone: the image in the lower left hand corner of the collage is one of my favorites.  Art?  Maybe. Or Not.  Whimsey? Definitely.  I presently own a great many rubber stamp images of various sorts, having acquired them with the same abandon that I once reserved for the purchase of books.

I must have been behind the door when God passed out creative/artistic abilities.  There seems to be a broken connection between what my eyes see and what I can do with my hands.  I simply cannot transfer what I see to any sort of media. I don't sketch; I don't paint (except walls and woodwork); I once tried sculpting in clay - hahahahahah! All I got was dirty hands!

I truly enjoy my stamps, inks, papers, ribbons and other embellishments, and the physical act of creating cards or other art work using images that I could not have produced through my own abilities.  

* Insofar as I can remember correctly, since some years have passed since I created most of these cards, copyrights to the images shown above are held by: Hero Arts; Stamp It!; Magenta; Red Castle Rubber Stamps; Personal Stamp Exchange; B-Line Designs; Stampamania; and Penny Black, Inc.

That's about it for this (almost) end of the first month of the year.

Tomorrow is also a day.

New Year - Day 8 - Birds, SPEBSQSA - Random Thoughts

Clear Sky with Birds - January 8, 2011

(all those little black lumps on the branches are Grackles)



Not all the birds in Arkansas fell out of the sky last week, as is evidenced by the hundred or so Grackles that are perched on the branches of this tree.   I was working in my craft room in midafternoon when I heard raucous noises from the back yard.  Black birds (not Blackbirds, but Grackles) were thick on the ground, scratching in the leaves for any dropped seeds around the bird feeders, or under the trees and bushes in search of bugs.  Dozens more were  fighting to drink from the bird baths at the same time.  When I tried to sneak around the side of the house to photograph them in the yard, they took flight, many perching in the neighbor's tree before flying on to where ever it is that Grackles go.

I consider Grackles 'nuisance birds' but they do have their own beauty. Sunlight glancing off their feathers reveals a blue/purple/green sheen; their feathers are actually quite pretty.  I hate to have just filled my feeders with expensive bird seed before a Grackle throng appears. They can clean out every feeder in a matter of minutes, leaving my Cardinals, Wrens, and other sweet little birds without a bite to eat.

After supper, I visited one of my rubber stamping buddies.  She lives about five miles from me, and I am a frequent visitor to her home. She has a marvelous craft area, a separate room that her sweet husband built for her several years ago. He says it was in self-defense; he was tired of seeing and walking around her craft supplies in the main part of the house.  That she also entertained her stamping friends in their den, where he really would have liked to have been watching TV, probably had nothing to do with his decision. Wanna bet?

My son, whose birthday it was today, was in Dallas at a Barbershop Quartet competition, so we had no birthday celebration.  He is very active in the Barbershop Harmony Society, also known as the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, Inc.  or SPEBSQSA.  You can read all about it here should you care to do so.  He is the director of the Diamond State Chorus, and he and three other fine fellows sing together beautifully in a quartet they have named Flashback, They do quite well in local and regional competitions.  I've been thinking about him and wishing them well today.  We'll celebrate his birthday one evening this coming week.

That's about it for this eighth day of the new year. Tomorrow is also a day.

What I've Been Up To Lately

Besides yardening, that is. Making greeting cards; attending parties; posting to another blog.

Read all about it here. (long article about rubber stamping activities, with photos)

Yes, the cake was delicious!

Post Publication Clarification: I did NOT make this cake!
RSVP is the rubber stamp group to which I belong. We observed our tenth anniversary as a group last Saturday.

A Welcome Break in the Weather

It is sixty (60) degrees outside!!! What a wonderful change! I was in the yard at 6:30 this morning, to do the weekly mowing, even if the grass was still damp. I don't like to cut wet grass, but the temperature was so right! A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do! It's the first time in weeks that the temperature hasn't already reached the 80's by that time of day.

I "broke a sweat" anyway, even at 60 degrees, but I did get all the front and back yard mowed without having a near heat-stroke. The bug-eating birds are happy to have their breakfasts stirred up. The feeder birds could hardly wait for me to leave the yard.

Mowing at such an early hour presented an interesting (for me) problem: how to mow all the nooks and crannies of the yard by walking only north-south/south-north, and east to west only. Otherwise, the rising sun was blinding!! There are some pretty convoluted mower-tracks in the grass; looks like I was under the influence while mowing. But... it's done. Yay!

I have a few chores to do at the church this morning, but this afternoon I'm going to play. The Little Rock rubber stamping group to which I belong will have it's monthly meeting this afternoon, an event to which I always look forward.

More, later.

A good time was had by all - Post 88

Celebrating World Card Making Day

Twelve women gathered at the home of one of my friends at 1 p.m. Saturday to make handmade greeting cards. By 5 p.m., we had created 287 cards (one card got "mis-stamped and had to be scuttled; we'll add another one so as to make an even number.) We created thirty six each of three 'thank you' cards, four Christmas cards, and one 'birthday' card. As I mentioned in my previous post, these will be divided equally between Ronald McDonald House and Cards for the Troops.

A Basket full of Greeting Cards - and a curious cat
(images copyright Stampin' Up!)

Let me hasten to say that I don't bear the entire burden of putting together a stamping project such as this. However, my half was enough to keep me busy for several days (I didn't even participate in any of my normal theme posts this past week, but I will try to get around and visit those who did.) My stamping partner Elaine and I design the cards, provide all the stamps, ink, card stock, specialty papers, ribbons, adhesive, etc., for making the cards. We cut all the card stock and papers, score and fold the base cards, cut any specialty papers to the precise dimensions required by the design, cut and pre-tie the ribbon embellishments and get everything ready for assembling the cards. The actual putting together of the cards is just fun; all the 'work' has already occurred.

Anytime we ladies get together for stamping, there is always something good to eat, and this was no exception. Our good friends Jane and her husband, David, operate a part-time catering business, and love to feed us. They prepared a table full of good things for us to eat, all at least semi-homemade: chicken salad, a wonderful cheese ball, delicious brownies, Carrot-Zucchini-Raisin Muffins (Jane's recipe follows below, along with a photo), and crispy crackers, along with soft drinks and really good coffee. You may well ask how we got 287 cards made with all those yummy things calling to us from the kitchen -- but we did!

Carrot-Zucchini-Raisin Muffins

1 package Duncan Hines Decadent Carrot Cake, mixed as directed
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup crushed pineapple
1 cup grated zucchini
1 T. vanilla

Bake at 350 degrees in a bundt pan or cupcake tins. Can also be baked in loaf pans.
* * * *

Now... it's time for me to be thinking of Hallowe'en cards, Thanksgiving cards, and Christmas cards, along with a few between-now-and-year-end other occasion cards. No rest for the weary!

Forgotten, but Not Gone - Post 87

To my Dear and Faithful Readers: I have not abandoned my blogging, but other than to participate in the recurring theme posts (Sky Watch, Today's Flowers, Camera Critters), I haven't been doing general blogging (or visiting many blogs) lately because I'm up to my eyeballs in making cards -- again. The "Stamper" part of my blog name is getting a real work out!

A couple of weeks ago, in a period of about 6 working days, I put together two hundred fifty (250) handmade cards of various types (thank you, birthday, thinking of you, Christmas, all-occasion) for the Cards for the Troops project in which one of my stamping clubs is involved. All told, our club created 695 cards (photo below). One other member exceeded my contribution -- she brought 276 cards! Our club participates in this most worthwhile project with stamping groups around the country. We send our cards to a stamp club in Oregon, the O.R.C.A.S. The Oregon folks actually do the packaging and distribution of the cards. To date, they have gathered and sent out over 72,000 cards.

Cards gathered at Stamp Club meeting

The cards are sent to U.S. military bases all over the world, but are not to individual service men or women, but rather for them. The cards are blank inside so that they can use them to send their own messages to their loved ones. As we understand the situation, greeting cards are not easy to obtain in many areas, and this is one little thing we can do to help.

That particular effort was wrapped up on Wednesday of this past week, and I immediately started planning for the next major card-making effort (and I haven't even begun to think about my personal Christmas cards, yet.). My chief stamping partner and I have designed and are putting together materials (paper, ink, embellishments, envelopes) for 288 cards (36 each of 8 designs) for World Card Making Day, this coming Saturday, October 4. Twelve to fifteen ladies will gather at the home of another stamping friend (she has a large home) to make cards -- all of which will be donated; one-half to the local Ronald McDonald House, and the other half for our own Cards for the Troops efforts. The latter will go to the 39th Arkansas National Guard units which are currently serving in Iraq.

So... if you haven't heard much from me lately, please don't think I'm ignoring you. This particular episode of card-making fever will be over by late Saturday afternoon; perhaps I can get my blogging life back on track after that. Maybe I'll even have some pictures to share.

Blog-Absent, but not Gone - Post 26

It's been a busy week so far, with more to come before the week is over. My stamping partner and I are hosting a "Stamp Camp" this coming Saturday afternoon for 15 to 18 rubber stamping enthusiasts. The week prior to a Stamp Camp is pretty much filled with preparation for the event. I've been up to my eyeballs in card stock, decorative papers, ribbons, etc., and writing easy-to-follow instructions for assembling the six greeting cards they will be making.


Stay tuned. I'll be back to normal (whatever that may be) soon.