Whimsy Stamps - Best Buds

Howdy -

Today I have one of the brand new September Digital Release images to share with you. This image is from Crissy's Digis and is called "Best Buds". My heart melted as soon as I saw it. I adore the country feel of it.

I colored the image with my Copics ( colors below ) and then decided that this was a good image for an easel card. It has been a long time since I have done an easel card -

My papers are from Carta Bella and are called Giddy Up! - I sewed a few patterns together with a zig zag stitch, then pop dotted the image once matted on the kraft card stock. I tied some twine around the card under the popped image. The twine reminded me of the string that is around the bales of hay.

My pennant sentiment is also a Whimsy Digital - "Happy Things Pennants"- I colored to match the papers - then cut out as close as I could. I love the look the pennants give the card, so much fun!

For the bottom of the easel card I used scraps of the same papers and then a sentiment from the Gratitude Sentiment Set. Wonderful collection of sentiments.

Here are my copic colors used -

Hope you liked my "Best Buds" card - There are lots of great new images this month make sure see all the new!

Hugs and

Animal Crackers - My handsome Boy... and an new issue with the chickens!!

Howdy - 

Is this a handsome boy or what? My baby....

This is truly my baby... he won't go outside unless Momma says it is ok. He lays right under my feet anytime I am at my desk. He is under me when I am in the kitchen. Yep my Boy.  You would never know that we shaved him an inch long all over at the beginning of summer would you? I think we are going to do it again, maybe this weekend. He will have enough time to grown it in before winter, but he gets so hot and so matted. Plus it is still 100 here remember? And he just feels really good after he is bathed and sheared... Prances around so handsome...

This is Black Jack at the end of his pasture. ( I zoomed...) He is living single again. Here is in trotting up and down the fence trying very hard to get the girls attention.

We put all the ladies together young and old last weekend. They have their old pen on our property... with a tunnel to the neighbors middle pen, gate open up to the back 10 acres. Where there is still quite a bit of coastal that they are munching non stop. We felt bad for Patti and Ellie as they are happier with their old ladies. So now old and young all the girls are together. Well together in the sense that they are in the same pasture... they are still in their groups. Funny they don't realize that the old ladies are the Moms and the young ones are their kids.... Diego, Flavio, Coffee and Toffee who had all been with the ladies are now in a private pen in the front pen at the neighbors. Not happy... but for the best.

Now this is my camera zoomed to the max... trying to show you some of the girls in their new pasture. They wouldn't come see me. And honestly it was 6pm and still 100 degrees and there was no way I was walking across 10 acres for photos yesterday evening. I was melting....

 Please pay no attention to the broken fence.... old old fence that was here long before us, we don't have the property divided like the people before us... and this old fence is on the to do list to remove... yea... it gets moved down according to priorities. Just not that important at this time and it looks like nature has decided to start taking it down on its own... so now it will move up on the list I guess.

Last night the chickens had mixed veggies... frozen. They love them. Cools them down and they peck at them. Think of them as healthy popcicles. Is that spelled right?

Gathered up 5 eggs yesterday evening while the ladies were having their treat... I am now usually up to 6 a day... but the last couple of days it has been only 5....

Then as I close up the coop I turn around and see one of the reds like this... what is she doing???

I have never seen them stand like this, she was rocking back and forth and squatting. AND THEN... OH MY.... she just laid and egg right there in the yard!!! WHY???? And the biggest problem.... while I was asking Hubby to come and why did she lay it there??? Three of the other chickens ran over pecked the egg and ran off with what they could the others stayed there and ate the raw egg... until I ran over and buried it with dirt. OH MY.... we do not want them to start liking raw eggs... and WHY did she lay her egg in the yard like that after she has been doing it the coop? You think maybe she was going to do it in the coop and then when I went in with the veggies she thought she would miss out? Oh I hope that was the first and last time.

And then Little Bit was screaming at me... listen....

"Why have you been lecturing us for a month to learn to go into the coop to lay eggs... we haven't had one egg yet and you lecture us... and now she has one outside??? huh what is going on here..."

I swear that was what she was saying really... as as soon as it all happened she was following me around yammering like crazy... LOL

I gathered up the safe eggs and started heading in... goats thought that it was dinner time... in fact Gracie was hysterical about it.

 She would yell... run over to the fence and me... yell and then run back to the bowl and put her front legs in it. Then do it all over again. I told Hubby I think she is talking to you Dear... "Feed me now! and put it right here ok??"  Too funny....

I will try and get some photos of the Girls this week in the large pasture, they are in heaven with all the grub over there.

Hope you have a great day and weekend. We are sticking around the farm this weekend. Maybe we can mark a couple of things off that list....

HUGS and -

Whimsy Stamps - Birthday Cow Too cute!

Howdy -

So lets see the past few days have been just an unbelievable blur and stressful. Took a day off and went to a town about 3 hours away to go antiquing... other than a basket to display in... zippo.. nada... depressing. Work Work and more Work....  Then yesterday we were shopping at Sam's Club. Yea one of those Discount huge quantity enormous shopping cart warehouses. Had a FULL cart when Hubby's phone rang just as we were about to start heading to check out. Lady down the road from us.... "uh you have donkeys right??" yes.... "Well there are 4 little donkeys on the road at the curve" You can only imagine how fast we ran out of the store, and were driving home. About a 20-30 minute drive. One of my biggest fears... my babies loose on the road, on the curve. Won't even discuss what could happen. We were both panicked and thankfully the traffic wasn't too bad and we didn't pass any of those nice people with flashing lights on their cars.

As we got to the curve, the lady was at the end of her drive. "They went down the road and down that street over there." U-Turn in the road... and turning on the road my pounding heart coming through my chest slowed down and I calmed down. Whew... they are not our donkeys. Hubby and I looked at each other and then both looked up and said thank you - Then we pulled over to see if they would let us near them. They are not ours but we sure don't want them hurt. We need to find out who they belong to. They were young adults and looked like they may have been a mix of a miniature and standard. And they were not like our babies... they trotted away from us... couldn't get anywhere near them. Calls were made from the neighbors to report them. We couldn't help them, so I needed to get home and hug my donkeys ASAP...

Then we remembered the cart at Sam's ... guess we will be going back this weekend, apologizing and starting the shopping all over.

To calm down and find my happy place I colored a happy card... Really does calm me.

This is one of the new August Release images from Whimsy Stamps - and Crissy's Digitals. "Birthday Cow"

Bright Happy colors and lots of coloring... yep that is what I needed and this one sure worked! I colored with my Copics (colors below) and then I layered up papers from the Farm House Kountry Kitchen collection. I even took the time to totally dig and unpile my desk to find my sewing machine and do some sewing. I then printed one of the Whimsy Stamps Digital Happy Things Pennants - Love these!!! Adds too much fun on a card. I colored the pennants with the same colors of Copics, cut it out and then attached it over the image and corner of the card. I punched out a few tiny Marvy flowers, Martha's frond leaves and branches and stuck them down on the bottom left corner. I then pulled out Viva Decor Pearl Pens in yellow, blue and gold and added some flower centers, and confetti on the cupcakes. Oh and then added more yellow Pearl Pen to birthday cow's hat.

Here is a photo from an angle so you can see the Pearl Pen -

Inside is more of the same papers -

And my Copic colors used.

I think we are going to be calm and try and not rock any boats today... hug lots of kids... and maybe thing about doubling up the fencing... LOL

I'll be back tomorrow for Animal Crackers -
Have a great Friday -
HUGS and-

High Hoped Challenge - Pearls or Gems?

Howdy -

The Doll show this weekend was good, but honestly Sunday and Monday we were sort of out of it. Just did the have to things around the house and farm, other than that we were just calm. Like being calm don't you? But now we have a very long list of "too do's" - projects that we have been saying for the past couple of weeks... "after the doll show we have a few weeks to get some things done"... urgh... now we have to get some things done. Oh well I love getting things checked off the list though.

Today though I have a card for the High Hopes Stamps Blog Challenge - the challenge is to use Pearls or Gems on your card. Well that is easy - Now technically I didn't use pearls... but instead Viva Decor Cream Pearl Pen... they look like pearls so I don't think I will get an "X" in following directions.

I used the new Santa image called "Elegant Santa" - he is so handsome don't you think? I love the vintage feel of this Santa. I colored with my Copics (colors below) and again this week I colored the back ground so his beard would pop.. and man it pops in this photo doesn't it???  I also used the Sm Open Holly stamp to create corners - I really love this little stamp!

My papers are My Minds Eye Lost and Found Christmas - I used a piece of one of the papers as the sentiment. I layered up three pattern papers and matted each piece with dark green card stock. I cut out the Open Holly stamps and popped them on the corners.

The borders are an EK Success punch, I punched in kraft card stock then layered behind it a cream scrap card stock. so the holes would show up more. I then dotted the Viva Decor Pearl Pen in the centers of each of the designs.

Inside I simply used one of the pattern pieces -

Here are the Copic Colors used 

Make sure to visit the High Hopes Stamps Blog Challenge and see all the Pearls and Gems - then join us for some fun and a great chance to win more High Hopes for yourself!!

Hope you have a great day -
HUGS and-

Animal Crackers - Did you know it is Saturday?

Howdy -

Ok, I am not sure where all the days this week went but was it just me and the week was over before it got going! I was working like a crazy woman yesterday, just ask Hubby, getting so much done for the Doll show today. And I got everything done and sat down to enjoy some facebook, blogs and emails. When Hubby looked over at me and said "When did you take you photos for Animal Crackers today?" Being that I was so calm and relaxing he assumed that I had done it all. My response... "Uh... what do you mean?" He looked at me and grinned... then it hit me. OH NO!!! I forgot to take photos!!!! Never even thought for a second about it being Friday, the day before Saturday!!! LOL  So today's photos are from my files from last weeks photos... sorry about that but there were a few cute ones that should be shown. And then I found two on my phone from recently that I had not shown... so I do have a little to show you... Whew....

I took this one with my phone last Sunday. I have been trying for month to get a photo of the this guy to show you -

No we do not have Cows. But the neighbor up our road does. We pass by them coming down our long dirt road. We saw this cutie the day after he was born and I just fell in love with him. I named him of course. Then a few days later saw our neighbor on the fence and made sure to tell him I named him. First he rolled his eyes at me. As to most ranchers you do not name "livestock"... He doesn't know me very well yet... LOL I said well I name everyone on our property. That way they have a name and can never been eaten. Yes, he rolled his eyes again at Craig. LOL ... Then I explained that the new little one that had been born a few days before, he said yes he is a bull. Will be going to Auction as soon as he is big enough. I said well he has a name now. "ZORO"  He laughed and started humming the Zoro theme song. He liked it. And then he said Great if I tell my brother and the rest of the family they are going to want to keep him now that he has a cool name... Yea... maybe I saved Zoro! Don't know if he would really save him, as he is a real rancher and most everything at some point goes to auction... but maybe.  He is a really handsome dude isn't he?

Second photo is also from my phone -

Now this was zoomed to the max on my photo as this it a very tall tree on our property, and I really didn't want to walk much closer... Hubby hates this tree, but honestly there are so many things to do around here getting up into a huge tree to cut out this dead area is not high on my "Honey do list" Can't afford any broken bones. But now... well if these two show up again we may have to do something with it sooner than we thought. I don't want them looking over anyone in my "family" They are just creepy looking up there!!


Something beautiful now -

Miss Patti standing out in the "weeds" - I am so thrilled to see her looking so fabulous. We came so close to loosing her a year ago - For those that didn't read back then or you don't remember the daily life of each of my children. Patti was very ill and spent two weeks at the vet then three weeks here on strong meds and special food. It ended up that she had been bit by a Coral Snake. First one in 10 years we have seen on the property... and hopefully the last. She survived, filled back out, and now I VERY excited to share the news..... SHE IS PREGNANT!!!!  We put her and Ellie Mae in with Black Jack a few months back, main goal to get Ellie pregnant. Still don't look like that happened. Poor girl may never have a baby of her own. Anyway,  her at Patti are really close friends, I didn't want to take them away from each other. So Hubby agreed that we could let her in the pasture with Black Jack too. Whoo Hoo... a baby in the future!!! We may have a few more accidentals as we had a escapee a while back for a day or so... but this is a for sure... Patti will have a baby. I still need to do the counting to get an estimated date, but she is already really getting that baby belly!!

Got a great shot of Scaredy Cat -

The outdoor kitties in the kitty condo. Ok, I'll try and splain this quick here.. Hubby brought home the stray cats from our business we sold last summer... they would not make it here just to let them go as they were protected at the business and really didn't now anything about coyotes and other predators. So Hubby built a Kitty Condo with a large outdoor area for them. Two of them are very friendly and then there are three that we hardly ever see. They are Momma Cat and her two "kittens" that are now full grown. They are Fraidy Cat and Scaredy Cat. All of the cats were strays that they took in and fed and gave a safe place to live. Now they have really great sheltered lives and seem very happy in their private estate. Now a year later.... Momma Fraidy and Scaredy actually will let us get up to the pen, and sometimes even talk to them a few minutes before they run for cover. Who knows another year from now we might get to pet them!! LOL anyway I am 90% sure this is Scaredy Cat... all three look a lot alike, Momma has more spots than stripes... and Fraidy's eyes are a little darker. But who knows...  If you are wondering why her ear is clipped. The city has a program for the stray cats. You trap them, get them to them and they will give them shots and fix them for a small fee. After lots of can food and trapping all the cats in the area of our business had been done thanks to my BIL and SIL. Great program.

One more photo -

Alice and Guinea Girl -

You can see that the Guinea's have gotten pretty big. They are full grown and very happy in the goat pen. This one I call Guinea Girl... she I think .. LOL they look so much alike. She I think is the "Momma" guinea. The one that keeps checking on the eggs and sitting on them. Poor thing... we haven't had the heart to tell her they will never do anything. We have now started taking them away a few at a time.  I am trying to convince hubby that we need to find a "boy" for them. Doesn't take much convincing.. he would love to have a whole bunch of them. They do have a good purpose too... we have noticed that they are really taking care of the bugs, so they are good to have around. Heck they are good to have around just for the giggles, they crack me up.

Well guess better get the day going and the Doll Show!  I will try and shoot some photos to share with you - Have a great Saturday! Sorry there aren't too many photos this week, but I made up with lots of rambling stories right? HA !

HUGS and -

Whimsy Stamps - SUMMER

Howdy -

Ok I know I talk about the heat a lot. Sorry, I hate the heat, it bothers me. Since the accident I really can't handle it at all. I hate that I can't I would like to be out with my kids more and would like to help more, if Hubby would let me. Well Maybe I would "enjoy" the heat better if I could look like this and just go to the beach -

LOL - This is "Summer" from Whimsy Stamps Digital images by artist Marika Collins. Isn't she pretty.. and skinny.. and good looking... and long legs... and pretty hair... and big eyes with long eye lashes... Yea I could handle being at the beach and looking like this. All though.. Me I would probably still be in the one piece with the shirt over me. Maybe.. never have had a chance to see how brave I would be with a skinny hot body! Never Know....

Any way I love this image even if to just dream a little - I colored her with my Copics (colors below) and then edged her with a dark red Copic then sewed her to a kraft card stock. My papers I thought were just perfect for the image. They are from Simple Stories collection, I {heart} Summer. Love the little bingo papers that come in the collection. I cut them up and sewed down all the papers.

I didn't use a sentiment, the bingo cards say it all for her -  OOH and then I added stickles to the sand area...

Here is the inside - same papers inside and another bingo card -

And here are the Copic colors used -

Was a fun card to put together - And as much as I love lots of embellishments, I do enjoy cards that have no issues for mailing them. FLAT cards are nice.

Just came in from getting the chicken eggs for the day. I love going out and seeing how many are out there. We are now up to a regular 5 a day!! Then I have one girl that is having a bit of trouble getting going and she has given me three very mushy eggs... yesterday it looked like she had it all worked out and there were 6 out there.  Got very excited.. went to pick it up and it looked great but was mushy... boo hoo. Put out some oyster shell for them so that should help her too. Anyway went out just now and got 5 beautiful eggs.. and was backing out of the coop and hit my elbow on the frame of the door... yep... I was so sad... I dropped three of them!!! And the chickens were not happy about it either. I felt so bad, not only am I stealing their eggs (two of them would like to sit on them all day despite them not being fertilized) but now I am just dropping them and wasting them!!! So so sad... Sigh.. Oh well I think it is time to start carrying out something to carry them in instead of just holding them.  I don't think either of us, me or the chickens, can handle me dropping any more.

Now I have to get to work... Doll show in two days and I am still washing pressing and folding doll clothes, and pricing dolls. Since this is not an antique show - I can take more of the modern items I have accumulated. I sure hope I sell a bunch of it as it is starting to take over storage of our stock.

If you are in the area Saturday - we will be set up at the at the 5th Annual HILL COUNTRY DOLL SHOW & SALE,  * *New Location**   Schertz Civic Center, 1400 Schertz Parkway, Schertz (San Antonio).  9am - 4pm, Adults $5, Children $2.  Hourly door prizes & free parking.

Have a great day - 
HUGS and

High Hopes Challenge - Make it Sparkle!

Howdy -

Today there is a new challenge starting over at High Hopes Stamps blog. And it is a pretty easy one - Make it Sparkle! Add a little bling to your project.

Me I used another one of the new release Christmas Stamps - Snowy's Cup - Cute snowman in a cup don't you think? There is a great set of stamps that match up perfectly too! Cup of Cocoa

I had lots of sparkle on this one! I had a scrap of the DCWV candy cane paper left from last week. Since the snowman was holding a candy cane I thought it was a good match. I colored with my copics. Love to leave the snowman white and color the back ground. Makes the white pop. I then added stickles to the snowman, lots of stickles. Now you might notice that the dark red card stock has some sparkle to it. LOTS of sparkle. Bazzil Glitter card stock has the glitter made in it, and man it really blings! I added a light green satin ribbon and put it all on Bazzil Dotted swiss card stock as a base. Also a scrap from last week. Love using things up!

Here is the snowman up close!

Now here is where I get upset with myself. I forgot to snap the inside photo. I was in a hurry and I thought I took it but late last night when I was getting my photos cropped it wasn't there. Oh well.. it looks a lot like the outside, except I made a pocket on the left side for the package of cocoa... that I was going to have to explain to you that I forgot to buy at the store... LOL Been one of those weeks...

Here are the Copic colors used -

Now hop on over to the High Hope Blog and see all the Sparkle from the DT and then join us for a chance to win more HIgh Hopes!!

Hope you have a great day - Long list of too do's today heck this entire week... getting ready for the Doll show coming up. Hubby is so excited about it. LOL I am hoping we can move along a bunch of the extra doll things I have been accumulating. I'll try and snap a photo of the box of doll clothes I have been working on the past few days... I am about nuts....

Have a great day - HUGS and