Projects & Posts »

Hi again, Stampers,

Here’s the second card using the same technique and stamp set as yesterday’s post, but this time it became a Thank-you card.  Another difference is that I embossed two leaves (as in the background)  in gold on chocolate chip cardstock and brushed gold cardstock and cut them out to give it some dimension. Chocolate Chip twill 1/4″ ribbon was used for the accent.

Compare this card to yesterday’s post and see how easy it is to take basically the same card and yet dress it up slightly differently for a new card and new purpose!

3-D & Folding, Projects & Posts »

Hi Stampers!

You won’t believe what this card was meant to be in life.  What do you think? Now if you guessed a baby shower card, you’d be right! Say what?? Well, here’s what happened. My son called me from work and said he needed a baby shower card for a baby boy, but here were the restrictions:

1.) Don’t use traditional little baby colors. 2) Don’t use any cutesy bunnies or other animals. 3) Make it Art Deco or Frank Lloyed Wright and 4) Think outside the box! Don’t make it like every other baby card.

Be careful what you ask for, that’s my motto! When you ask for art deco (a love of mine), that’s what you get. I think even this one was a bit of a shock for him though. “Well, mom, maybe a LITTLE blue would be ok.”  LOL Back to the drawing board, but I still like this one and I thought I’d share it with you. I’m saving this card for a different occasion now and I’ll figure out later what the sentiment should be.

Items used — Just click on the link to take you to the ordering page:

Brushed Silver cardstock (Item #100712)

Night & Day Specialty paper from the Holiday Mini (Item #116768.)  It’s folded in a lattice pattern –which is easier than it looks. This was done freehanded. I then rubbed it with a little Lavender Lace craft ink

Lavender Lace craft ink  (Item #103144)This was  used to rub to a burnished look on the cardstock.

I used SU Two-way glue (Item #100425) to attach everything.

A CB die was used to cut the diamond shapes and the small fleur de li’s and dots.

Happy Birthday, Projects & Posts »

Hi Stampers,

How easy is this?? An quick birthday card using only rub-ons from the sets Dots & Designs (Item #115728) and Chit Chat (Item #111804.)  Now don’t try to tell me you can’t make cards!  The base is Kraft cardstock with a small piece of Chocolate Chip to border the Naturals White piece where the sentiment and flower were placed. Then I tucked in some 1/4″ grosgrain ribbon in Rose Red and Chocolate Chip.

You can’t believe how fast this went together, so give it a try!

Projects & Posts »

I’ve  been meaning to tell you a little about our trip to Iowa for my mother’s funeral, but it would have to be done in installments.  I’m doing this because I’ve never experienced a week wherein everything that could go wrong, did. First of all, for those of you who don’t know me, at times my sense of humor tends to be a BIT sarcastic, so bear with me. Get the salt shaker out to use a grain or two for this. So here goes….
 
Days 1 and 2:
 
It all started in the hospital when my brother and I were talking about how to get to Iowa. He and my son, Daniel, and I talked about flying, but such a short notice thing would cost a lot. There was a storm coming, so we didn’t want to risk driving across Nebraska and Wy(oh why did I come to this state?)oming. Too many bad experiences in winter driving there, folks. Then Don came up with the idea of taking the train…probably brought on by lack of sleep and a strange sense of nostalgia…the romance of the rails and all. Our dad, who had been a railroad engineer, would be proud.
 
So the time came to make a decision and we booked three seats on the train. We almost upgraded to a sleeper car, but decided to be frugal instead. Mistake #1.
 
We were supposed to be at the train station by 3:30 a.m. to pick up the tickets and board the train, so I decided I’d book a hotel room downtown so that we wouldn’t have to go so far in the middle of the night. My brother thought it was such a good idea that he asked me to book him a room as well, even though he only lived about 15 miles away. We met up at the hotel and checked in. Daniel went over to a girl’s house whom he has dated from time to time so that they could watch a movie. I took a bath and settled in for the night since Dan would be gone for a while.
 
I picked up the stack of print-outs on the train ride to make sure everything was in order. Then I noticed something about their new Identification policy and to view it on the website. Well, I didn’t have internet access at the hotel, so I called Amtrak to see what was going on.
 
Much to my dismay the lady said that I had to have a govt-based photo ID. Problem. BIG problem. A few days earlier and while I was preoccupied with my mom being in the hospital, I misplaced my driver’s license. I had searched high and low for it, but I figured I could take care of it once I got home. I told the Amtrak agent that I had my SS card and a photo ID from a store, but she insisted that if I didn’t have the DL, I’d have to show my birth certificate and SS card or passport, etc. They were really strict on it and no exceptions or substitutions would do! It was now after 11:00 p.m. and panic set in big time! I couldn’t get on the train, and Daniel and Don would have to go without me? Then what would I do?
 
My other son, Kevin, had driven us up there because he had to be in class near there by 7:00 a.m. I didn’t feel he could drive me home to look for my birth certificate. Who can instantly place their hands on their birth certificate in the middle of the night anyway??
 
I called Dan and his friend Heidi offered to drive us home to look for it. So that’s what we did — drove 55 miles home at midnight. They tore my car apart looking for my license and I went in to find the birth certificate. I looked through a file in my filing drawer that I hoped had it, but couldn’t find it. Then I started looking everywhere else — boxes, drawers, files, everywhere!  More panic setting in. Dan said he wouldn’t go without me. Last gasp chance, I looked through the same file I had earlier and there it was! So we raced back up there to get to the station before the train left us.
 
We all went to the “station” — they ain’t what they used to be in the old days, that’s for sure. They’re sort of a step-down bus station now. Anyway, Don went up to get the tickets and guess what??? They NEVER even asked for my ID!!! I was livid, to say the least. I had lost a night’s sleep and the cost of a hotel room because they had insisted I needed to show that blasted ID.
 
Anyway, we boarded the train — the California Zepher — in what we found out later to be the oldest car on the line. No electrical outlets like the rest had and just a generally an overall rundown feeling. We each had our own double seats which was nice to try and get a little rest. The seats weren’t that great and people going by all the time made sleeping difficult. Then my son stopped by after using the restroom. “Mom, you’re not going to like the bathrooms downstairs. They’re tiny and not that clean.” Was he suggesting I try holding it for 24 hours? As it turned out, if that had been an option, I’d have done it. I’m not sure all Amtrak cars are built like this, but these were two story numbers with a steep winding staircase going up to the seats. The bathrooms were in the “basement” I guess you’d call it. Indeed they were tiny. They made airline bathrooms look like master bathrooms. Plus the neato thing was that about 8 hours later, they all backed up anyway and were unavailable. I told the conductor about it, but his answer was, “Really? Yeah, they do that. I’ll have someone check it in Denver.” DENVER?  Ten whole hours away Denver??  We had to use the bathrooms in the other cars.  I’m sorry to go on so much about the bathrooms, but when you’re trapped in a slow-moving vehicle, you think about them a lot.
 
As I said it took 24 hours to get to Omaha because as we wound around through the Rockies, at times it was so slow that I pictured them asking the occupants of the last car to get out and help push. That would be us. I have to say the food in the dining car was pretty good but pricey. The observation car was nice, but I kept thinking how the mountains outside looked exactly like the mountains at home. That only left me thinking about how much longer I could hold it till  my next bathroom run.
 
It seemed to really annoy the conductor that most of us had our own 2-seaters becuse he frequently stopped by to tell us that once we got to Denver, the party was over. There would be throngs of people getting and nobody got their own set of seats anymore. They even started making announcements about it over the loud speaker. OK, I got it already, sir! I’ll move over!
 
So Denver was a major disappointment to the conductor as people got on and found seats and we really didn’t have to share. Even as they were boarding, he was warning us not to take two. This guy had serious sharing issues.
 
The trip from Denver to Omaha was much flatter and therefore much faster. Little did I know I was headed for a week of life in an arctic meat locker!
 
More on that later….

Projects & Posts »

Hi Friends! This is the second installment of the tale of my journey to Iowa.

You know, if I remember correctly, the hottest place I’ve ever been is Las Vegas in July. It was 115 in the shade and I felt the seared air being sucked from my lungs the minute I opened the car door. Maybe even worse than that was Houston in August. That was a treat too. Not only hot, but humidity so high that you never saw people outside at all… just hapless folks sprinting from their air conditioned car to their air conditioned home.  Once in a while, you’d see someone not make it that far. How pitiful to watch them collapse on their lawns within sight of their front doors — flopping on the ground, struggling to breathe like a fish out of water.  

However, when it comes to extreme weather, I was not prepared for January in Iowa and I even grew up there! I thought I knew what it would be like.  And in all fairness, I remember having a conversation with my mom about her funeral over a year ago. She liked talking about funerals and stuff (hey, she was Irish, she couldn’t help it.)  I was concerned about the weather factor because our family seems to have a penchant for dying in winter — two uncles, my grandma and grandpa (on different sides, ) my sister, and mom’s second husband.  It’s as if losing a family member isn’t bad enough, it just wouldn’t be a funeral if the temperature was above -10 F and all the attendees didn’t turn into cryogenic mutants.  So, as I said, I was talking to mom about it and trying to get her off topic. I warned her.  I said, “Mom, don’t talk about it yet. Besides, if you go in the winter, I’m not coming! I’m not doing another Iowa funeral in January.”

Oh, yeah, kid? We’ll see about that.  It seems mom had the last laugh on me. There we were, January 4th, chugging along in the train bound for the midwest.

Tuesday morning… how many days have I been awake now? (If you haven’t read the first posting of this story the other day, it might help to read it first.) I told my brother there’s a good reason why so many of those old B&W murder mysteries were set on trains. You get cranky after 24 hours on one! Murder probably didn’t seem all that harsh after a while — maybe more like a traffic violation. 

“They found the train conductor crumpled at the bottom of the steep, winding staircase. Some said accident, some said murder! Most blamed the curse of the train itself…or the middle-aged lady trapped in the bathroom downstairs.”

We stepped onto the platform in Omaha, NE, and instantly felt the extreme reverse of that moment of opening the car door in Las Vegas. The air was again sucked out of my lungs and filled with something that felt like dry ice. I couldn’t speak and could only make choking noises.  It was -17 F with a windchill factor that no longer registered on any scale known to man. It’s a humid cold there that freezes your nostrils with your first breath. You can’t blink because your eyelashes have frosted over. It freezes your kneecaps, for crying out loud! Without being able to bend our legs, there was suddenly a long line of us getting off the train doing Herman Munster impersonations as we staggered down to the station. It seemed so far, but it was actually no more than six or seven miles tops. Again, we were in the last car in the line and those suitcases weren’t going to drag themselves down there. Let’s get cracking or die trying!

The sad thing was we passed the old Union Pacific train station along the way that they’ve stopped using. Oh, I remember that place! That’s when train stations looked like cathedrals — marble floors, towering ceilings, huge wooden benches, and nice little shops. You only see them in the movies anymore.  Instead we finally made it to the newer Gulag, I mean train station, where my cousin picked us up.

We crossed the Missouri River into Iowa. Wow, it’s always neat to be home (just don’t make me get out of the car, ok? Please? Please?) We drove up I-29 toward Sioux City and started noticing the aftermath of the most recent Arctic storm to hit the area — the decorative placement of cars in ditches and the highway median. Some even had the extra touch of being arranged upside down. Oh, and it wouldn’t be the same without black ice and patches of fog. Welcome home, everybody! Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!

Join me next time as I explain my theory of time and all about “darks.”