Trees and Birdies

The ColourQ challenge this week has similar colours to Picture Perfect Creations which was handy as I already had half of what I needed on my desk when I went to make my card!  :)

Supplies: CS: SU & Bazzill; Stamps: Unity & PTI; Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black & SU Baja Breeze

I decided to ink up another Unity stamp and thought this stand of trees would be perfect for the different greens in the challenge.  I thought the little blue "hello" went well with the little blue birdies and the line frame was inspired by PTI's Make It Monday technique.  (I know the only PTI element is the hello but I might just post it over there anyway...). Unity's current challenge is to incorporate birds into your project and even though my birds are tiny they're Unity and they're there so I will add this to their gallery too!  :)
Off to watch the wedding!  Are you watching?

Missed It Again

I am cursed when it comes to the Just Add Ink challenge.  I seem to miss it every time!  This week's challenge was Just Add Friendship.  I combined it with this week's sketch at The Sweet Stop.  At least I'm in time for that one!  :)

Supplies:  CS: SU Cherry Cobbler & Not Quite Navy; Stamps:  Unity & Hero Arts; Inks: VersaFine Onyx Black; Dies: Nestabilities; Punches: Woodware; IP: Cuttlebug

I'm continuing to explore my new Unity stamps.  This girl stamp is from their April 2009 Kit of the Month.  I got a great price on a secondhand set (thanks, Diane!).  There's so many images with each set it's going to take me a while to get through them all but I could think of a lot worse ways to spend my time!  :) 

Blue Without You

This week's Picture Perfect Creations colour pallette is blues and greens and I immediately thought of feeling blue.  I pulled out my favourite Hero Arts birdies and came up with this:

Supplies:  CS: SU & Bazzill; Stamps: Hero Arts & Lawn Fawn; Inks: SU Pear Pizzazz and Not Quite Navy

I did some paper piecing with the challenge colours and added HA's envelope pattern for some texture on the bird's chest.  It's based roughly on one of this month's sketches at Hero Arts and is also masculine (in my opinion!) so I'm going to enter it over at Hero Arts as well.  

Now back to the Craft Cave where I hope to complete a few more projects this afternoon. Have a lovely one!

Lawnscaping Critters

Just a quickie post today.  Lawnscaping Challenge #8 is Calling All Critters!  Lawn Fawn has lots of cute critters but at the moment I only have the Critters in the 'Burbs set.  I needed a graduation card for a friend's son so I reached for that cutie Lawn Fawn doggie and made a quick and simple card.  Hope you are all well!  Later, gators!

My Top 5 Tuesday - Albums

Top 5 Albums
1.  A Grand Don't Come For Free - The Streets  
         Tells the story of a relationship from beginning to end
2.  Hangin' Tough - New Kids on the Block
         Brings back a lot of happy memories :)
3.  Life Thru a Lens - Robbie Williams
         The album that gave us "Angels".  'Nuff said.  
4.  Rise - Gabrielle
         Love her voice 
5.  Rites of Passage - Indigo Girls
          Reminds me of an old friend and boy can these girls harmonise.

       

   

Beautiful Weekend

Thankfully the prediction of wind and rain for the weekend turned out to be completely wrong.  We had 3 gorgeous days.  Saturday was spent cleaning the house, mowing the yard and cleaning patio furniture in preparation for a BBQ that night.  Sunday Luis and his friend Ruben finished patching and painting the roof (as seen in the photo below).  It's now a blazing white - need sunglasses to look at it!  LOL!  Emily asked if there was a particular reason we use white paint.  Traditionally a lime wash was used on the roofs which helped to cleanse the water.  Nowadays a non-toxic paint is used.  I guess now you could paint the roof any colour but the white is traditional and also helps to keep the houses cool.

The dogs got long walks and swims every day which they were thrilled with.  I was thrilled too as we had some returning visitors down at the dock.  There's a gorgeous parrot fish that comes around now and then and I hadn't seen him for a while.  You can't quite tell from this picture but he's at least 2 feet long.

Our octopus has also come back!  He was living under our dock for a while but I didn't see him at all last year.  Yesterday he came out of his hole for a wander around and nearly got run over by Atticus when he charged along the shallows to get his toy.  The poor octopus inked everywhere and took off back to his hole!  You can see a bit of him sticking out of the hole in the picture below - the reddish-brown splotchy bits.  I'll try and get some pictures next time he's out and about.  

I actually managed to get some cards done yesterday too.  My friend's birthday is coming up so I made her a little set of cards with one of my favourite Hero Arts sets.  They'll be winging their way to the Cayman Islands hopefully in time for her birthday in May.

One last shot.  Lynn was talking about her sleepy boys in this post and I had 2 sleepy boys last night too!  I found Jem in our bed when I went to change the sheets.  I dragged all the bedding off the bed and onto the trunk at the foot of the bed and he never budged!  When kids crash they really crash!   

More Wag, Less Bark

.It was a beautiful Good Friday here!  There wasn't much wind in the morning but by early afternoon there was a good strong breeze and lots of kites to be seen.  I tried taking some pictures and was just looking for my camera to upload them but I think I left it at my mom's so the pics will have to wait.


We actually didn't fly any kites ourselves but we had a busy day.  We took the hounds for a long walk this morning along a new route so they had a ball - noses working overtime! Back at home we had a big pancake breakfast with my mom (we don't eat them often so they're a special treat when we do).  Then it was off to work on the roof.  It needs cleaning, patching and painting and we decided that the long weekend was the best time to tackle it. Once done on the roof we took the hounds for a swim off the dock - their favourite activity ever!  After the swim was bath time for the hounds, shower time for us and then a few minutes of chillin' on the sofa... which became a 4 hour nap which we woke up from at 9:30pm!!  Whoops!
  
More Bermuda facts for you today:  Roofs in Bermuda are painted white and need to be cleaned and painted regularly as they affect our water.  Bermuda houses have water tanks underneath them.  When it rains the water runs along our white roofs into gutters that funnel it down into the tank.  Because this is our primary source of water we have always been conscious of water conservation - no leaving the tap running when you brush your teeth, only run full loads of laundry, no dilly dallying in the shower and baths are a special occasion luxury.  


So today Luis power washed the roof and since we had the washer (on loan from a neighbour) we did the windows, porches and cars too.  Tomorrow we will patch the cracks and on Sunday we will paint.  Busy busy!


So no crafty time for me today but I made this card the other day with another of my new Unity stamps.  I thought it went well with the sentiment from Hero Arts and the clients at the veterinary hospital I work at love animal cards so I can never have enough.  Have a great weekend!

Supples: CS: Rubber Stamp Co, Paperbilities; Stamps: Unity, Hero Arts, Stampendous; Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, VersaFine Onyx  Black, VersaMark; Nesties & Copics