Prayers please

Please pray for my family.  I received a phone call a little while ago saying my mom had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance with chest pain.  My mom has two artificial heart valves and a pace maker. 

 My sister, Sheila, had to have emergency surgery a week ago and is still in the hospital due to complications.  Sheila has two young daughters that she is anxious to get home to.

They're all in northern Michigan and I'm here in Florida waiting for news.  I so wish I was there.

Thank you for your prayers for all of them.

Inky hugs!
Shelly

Fresh Srawberries

It's a beautiful, sunny day here in Florida.  A nice change from all of the rain we've been having. We really needed the rain, but it's great to have a whole day of sunshine for a change.  A warm, southern welcome to my newest follower.  Thanks so much for choosing to follow my blog. :)

I love this digi image by Designed2Delight that I've used on my card.  Fresh fruit is such a treat and strawberries are a favorite of mine.  When I was a teen there was a "Pick Your Own" strawberry farm just down the road from my dad's house.  I used to spend a great deal of time there picking strawberries just so I could eat the strawberries fresh off the plant.  If they had weighed me before and after picking they would have charged me extra. ;)  The sentiment stamp is from International Greetings.  The image is colored with Prismacolor pencils. The punch is from Martha Stewart and I added some dew drops to the card for a bit of embellishment.

 Challenges:
Designed2Delight - Free Digi Challenge
Fab'n' Funky - Baker's dozen!

Blessings

• Nice fruit on the clearance table at the produce stand.
• A new devotional book that I'm getting so much from.
• Mark has been finding lots of used books for me lately - gotta read or a day isn't complete. :)

Have a fabulous day!!!

Inky hugs!
Shelly

A Dead Hippo

Greeting from rainy Florida.  No thunder or lightning though, which is strange for us, especially during the summer.

Do you ever get a mental block about a stamp?  I get a mental block about coloring the fish on this stamp.  I avoid using it for ages, because of that.  Then once I force myself to use it I end up liking the way I color the fish better than than the way I color the rest of the image.  (Rolling my eyes at my own foolishness.)  I colored/painted this with my watercolor pencils and a few gel pens.  The stamp is from Inkadinkado and I've had it for ages.  The rest is card stock from my scrap stash.

 Challenges:
Art Impressions - Something from your Stash
Paper Crafting Journey - For Him
Inspire Me Fridays

You may be wondering what a dead hippo has to do with my card.  The answer is, "Not much, except that the odor of a dead hippo under my home does tend to affect my creativity in a negative manner.".  We live in an old, wooden home that is built on stilts and from time to time an animal dies under our home and the odor is very unpleasant.  A few weeks ago a hippo died under the bathroom floor.  How do we know it was a hippo?  Hubby figured it out, because it's taking longer for it's odor to clear away than any other animal we've had die under there in our 30 years in this home.  Makes perfect sense to me!  I just hope that it was a skinny hippo, so that we get some relief soon. ;)

Blessings

•  I had some delicious, fresh grapes for a treat today.
• A coupon to get 30 pictures developed for free!!!  I'm going to have a lot of scrap booking to do with all these pictures I'm getting developed lately. :)
• Life's simple joys - an exceptionally funny day with the dogs, relaxed time to chat with hubby and daughter, seeing a squirrel do some amazing acrobatics on a tree limb.

I hope your day is also filled with blessings and simple joys.

Inky hugs!
Shelly

Flower Fairy

Hello friends.  This sweet fairy stamp is from Stamps Happen.  I'm not sure if this stamp is retired or not.  I really enjoyed coloring it.  I used my Prismacolor pencils.  I added some Shimmerz on her wings. 

 Challenges:
Flutterby Wednesday - Open Week
Crafts and Me - Favorite Stamp/Image
Clear It Out Tuesday - Wing It Out

My little dog, Princess, loves nature.  She will try to make friends with almost any creature that comes along.  The other night she tried to befriend a Blue Land Crab.  Fortunately, it was on the other side of the fence or she may have ended up with a nasty pinch on her nose.  The crabs are about 6" across.

Her favorite friend is one of the squirrels in our back yard.  They spend a great deal of time entertaining each other.  Here are photos of the squirrel peering down at Princess from the tree and Princess peering back up at the squirrel. 

 

Blessings

• Our beautiful, nature-filled back yard.  One of my favorite places.
• I've been able to make some cards lately.
• A good report for my daughter from her doctor.

Have a wonderful day!!!

Inky hugs!
Shelly

Summer Delight

Summer Delight is what I'd name this digi stamp from Designed2Delight.  It includes so much that I love - the beach, flip flops and a star fish.  It's so me. ;)  It's a freebie from the Delightful Inspiration blog and you can get it through tomorrow.  The sentiment is from a digi set by CDSKT.  If anyone knows what the initials stand for, I'd be happy to include the entire name and link.  Sometimes I can't remember a company name when I only have the initials to go by.

I colored the image with Prismacolor pencils.  I popped the starfish and the sentiment up with some ds foam tape to give them some dimension.  I paper sculpted the flower in the dp to give it some dimension too.  I meant to ink the edges of the image and sentiment, but was chatting with Mark and watching tv while making the card and forgot.  Which just goes to show that I can't talk and craft at the same time. lol

 Challenges:
Designed2Delight Image Challenge
Scrap Creations - Summer
The Stamping Boutique - Summer Scene
The Crazy Challenge - On the Beach

Here's a picture I took of a butterfly on a Zinnia.  The Zinnia was beyond it's prime, but the butterfly is so beautiful that I had to share.  I so enjoy nature.

Blessings

• A voucher to have 101 pictures developed for free!!!
• A sweet phone call from a friend.
• A new color of nail polish that my dd gave me.  I can't wait to do my toes. :)

Have a terrific day!!!

Inky hugs!
Shelly

Gray Wolf

Hello friends.  Summer is here and with it comes a different schedule, which makes it difficult for me to fit in crafting and blogging time.  But I'll pop in whenever I can.  A warm welcome to my new followers.  I'm so happy to have you here. :) 

Here is a masculine card, which I enjoyed making.  Usually masculine cards are a real challenge for me, but this one was fun.  The beautiful stamp, which I borrowed from my daughter, is from Sarasota Stamps.  I colored it with watercolor pencils.

 I'm entering these challenges:
CES Challenges - Woodland Creatures
Inspire Me Fridays - Always Anything Goes
Hanna and Friends - Card for a Man
The Stamping Boutique - No DP

My hubby has had some vacation days and he has spent some of that time working on a nice wooden counter in my craft room.  He only has a bit of trim work left to do on it.  It's great to have a handy and loving hubby to do things like this for me.  In fact, he's the one who came up with the idea, so that I could better use my space. 

Blessings

• My wonderful hubby and the new counter that he built for me.
• Some much needed dresses that we've found new and used at terrific prices.
• Lots of rain - we need it so badly.
• Some awesome happy mail.

Have a fabulous day!!!

Inky hugs!
Shelly