Sassy & Sweet Notes

Cricket

Remember our little chicklet, whom I rescued from her overly aggressive mother? She's living in the house until she's big and strong enough to go out to the hen house. Well, here she is in all her cuteness! She hangs out with me all day in my office while I work. We've decided to call her Cricket, because she cheeps, sings, and coos to herself all day long -- she really is quite the chatterbox. I rigged up a perch for her out of a small tree branch, and she just thinks it's the coolest thing! To give you a size comparison, the branch she's sitting on is about the same diameter as my thumb. She's a bitty little thing, and is such a pleasant little house guest.

Don't you wish you had a house chicken, too? *grin*

Let's hear your suggestions...

I have been busy busy BUSY working on images for the Spring/Summer 2012 Whipper Snapper release. While there's still a bit of time for me to get final images off to Whipper, I thought I would check in with you and see if you have any special requests for images you'd like to see in the collection!

While there's no guarantee I'll be able to actually DRAW what you request, I'd sure like to hear your suggestions and try my hand at a few! So, let's hear it ... anything in particular that you'd like to see as a Whipper Snapper stamp?

I'm Dreaming of Snow!

It might be 106* outside, but I'm dreaming of winter, and snow!

Check out the latest Whipper Snapper images here!

Pumpkins and Bears and More +100* days...

There's a challenge on the High Hopes blog today and the topic is "Autumn Colors". The challenge runs for two weeks, so I encourage you to play along! Get the details on the High Hopes blog. For my project I chose to use the "Angel Bear Jumping Out Pumpkin" image. I didn't want the angel wings on my project, so I quickly and easily snipped them right off. Sinful? Probably... *grin* The sentiment on this card is from my Whipper Snapper cling set called All Things with Love.

I got this pretty sunflower Scentsy warmer in the mail from my long-time friend Tricia, who knows I'm a craft/stamp/paper junkie. THANK YOU, Tricia!! A small 25W light bulb sits in the base of the warmer and heats the wax just enough to melt it, and the wax scents the room. She sent along a few wax blocks too: Cinnamon & Vanilla, Clove & Cinnamon, and Black Raspberry Vanilla. No matches, no fire! Perfect for my craft room. To get me in the fall spirit I put Clove & Cinnamon wax in the pot and got busy stamping.

Mmmm! The room was filled with yummy goodness and I couldn't help but want to dig out all of my fall and halloween themed stuff!! I had a ball coloring up this image, wishing for cool Autumn days, which are hopefully coming our way sooooonnnnnn.......

Speaking of "cool", let's check in on the weather forecast for the farm, shall we?

UNCLE, already... UNCLE!!!

Happy Sunday!

While going through various drawers and boxes, sorting, organizing, I'm finding all kinds of treasures! This stamp from Inky Antics Rubber Stamps (In my PJs) is my favorite Inky Antics image. I haven't used her in about a year... maybe longer! So I put all the digging and sorting and organizing aside, and inked her up! Can you blame me!? *grin*

This image is sooo me. Well, aside from the short curly hair. You'd never know I have long hair because it's always UP! Since I work from home, you can bet "house pants" are my wardrobe of choice. The only thing I'm missing are the slippers.

I colored her pretty loosely with markers, not trying to blend in every color to the next. I rather like it that way. I like it when I can see an artists personal technique in whatever they do. Not everything needs to be evenly blended, or even completely filled in with color. Find your unique style and let it sing out!

I've GOT to get to the grocery store on Sunday... We're out of produce and fruit, and we're out of milk ... and we don't even have any yogurt left (which is a staple for me) so I've got to pick up a bit of that so I can brew up a BIG batch (4+ quarts) of homemade yogurt. Yummm!! Time to make my shopping list! And after that, more work will be done on the Spring/Summer 2012 Whipper Snapper release. Yay!!

Enjoy your Sunday!!

August ... hot.

It's still blazing hot here on the farm. 107 as I write this. Looks like another 107 day tomorrow. Followed by 105, and then day after day of more miserable heat. We *might* get below 100 on August 26th. Forecast for that day is 99. I'd better get out the scarves and mittens!

Last year in August I had beautiful zinnias and sunflowers blooming in the garden, and loads of cucumbers and zucchini to pick.

This August is quite different. No butterflies in the garden, and certainly no beautiful zinnias or sunflowers!

How dreadful.

 

Faux Stitching Tutorial

I wrote a tutorial on faux stitching that is posted on the High Hopes blog today. Check it out!

Three Flower Friend

I made this card using my Three Flower Friend stamp. The image is colored with markers and a bit of glitter added for sparkle and shine. I used a Sizzix embossing folder (sorry, I don't recall the name of it) on the base of the card to press those cute little flowers into the paper. Once embossed, I used a sponge ink applicator to rub a bit of ink on the surface to bring out the raised edges a bit. A bit of twin and a button finish it off. And today, it got mailed! *Yay!*

Give this Photo a Caption

A Flowery Hello

There's a challenge being hosted on the High Hopes Stamps blog and the theme is "Anything High Hopes" (any High Hopes stamp will do) - how easy is that!?! I chose to use this pretty floral greeting for my card for a quick and easy note. Participate in the challenge and you'll be entered to win free stamps! The challenge is open until August 15th. Details can be found on the High Hopes blog.

a chicklet...

Seems we have a new house chick for a little while. Peanut, my little Mille Fleur hen, has been sitting on three of her own little eggs. This is chick #2.

Yesterday morning chick #1 hatched. Unfortunately it was injured to the point of me not being able to nurse it back to health. Poor baby.

Last night while I was locking up the chickens I made a point of checking to see if her other two eggs were close to hatching. I picked Peanut up off of her nest and found a freshly hatched chick (chick #2)! Surprise! Within seconds, Peanut saw the chick and attacked it. Not good.....

Poor little thing... so, in the house with me it went. I checked the remaining egg (#3) with a flashlight and found that it had stopped developing early on, so it got tossed into the pasture for the ants before it turned into a stinky mess.

Until this little one is big and strong enough to be moved to a brooder outside in the hen house, she's in the house with us.

Cheep cheep!

Close-up!

Birthday Chick

I've got several friends, and even an Auntie, celebrating birthdays in August, so I got to work on finishing up a few birthday cards. Happy Birthday Chick is colored with markers and colored pencils. I used the sentiment block from All Things with Love for the background. Rustic, country, chickies. Gotta love 'um!

Happy Monday! I've got the day off work, and plan to make a trip to town for a bit of shopping to pick up a few odds and ends. Yahoo! *grin*

Local Fire - Too Close to Home

At noon today, a firetruck zoomed past our house with sirens and horns blowing. That's never a good thing. Alan stepped outside and saw that there was smoke coming from our neighbor's place. Responder truck after responder truck zoomed past the house, from all sorts of neighboring communities.

We watched from the edge of our pasture, being thankful that the wind was keeping the smoke and fire from our own pasture. (Our pasture stops at the treeline you see in the distance.)

It appears that perhaps two cigarette butts were tossed out of a passing car on the highway which started two separate fires about 100 yards apart, burning three pastures, and coming VERY close to homes.

What's even a little more concerning is that it wasn't too long ago that new gas lines where buried in this area.

Thankfully, the country road we all live off of stopped the fire from spreading farther north into thousands of open land pasture acres. And thankfully, responders were able to put out both burn areas. (I don't have photos yet of the second burn area.)

Alan will be getting the tractor out and creating a fire stop line around the area on our farm where the house, garage, barn, chicken coops, and hay storage are on the farm. A little proactive activity, since we haven't even begun to see the last of summer, and all it takes is a tossed cigarette butt from a passing car on the highway to cause such a disaster.

Ten Gallon Tex

As a "Dirty Dozen" alum on SplitCoastStampers.com, I was delighted to have the opportunity to host a challenge yesterday for an annual stamping event that's organized for the SplitCoastStampers.com forum members. What a wonderful reason to spend some time being crafty this week! Ten Gallon Tex seemed to be fitting for my challenge, which was all about keepin' it rural! You can find all the details of the event here. And if you're into rubber stamping and are in need of inspiration, you MUST check out the member galleries! They're LOADED with amazing creativity and ideas!

Supposed to be HOT HOT HOT here this weekend, so perhaps I'll spend a bit more time being crafty. Inside. *grin*

What are your big plans for the weekend?

PS: Speaking of chickens, I just saw this rare coupon at coupons.com for .75 off Land O Lakes EGGS! I personally don't need this coupon, but you should grab it while you can, zipcode 76670.

Whipper Snapper Fall/Winter Release

Check out the latest Whipper Snapper images here!

Oodles of fun!!

August.

The month of August in the 2011 On the Farm calendar features butterflies! I love photographing butterflies, and they tend to be plentiful when the wildflowers are blooming and the flowers are blooming in the garden.

I should be enthusiastic about the changing of the calendar month, but August isn't exactly what I would consider to be my favorite month. I have no doubt that we'll see all 31 August days at well over 100 degrees. By mid-September we should see a bit of relief, but personally I'm rootin' for OCTOBER! Come on OCTOBER!

Stay tuned for the 2012 calendar details in the next couple months! It promises to be a good one!

August.