What's on My Kitchen Counter

I am playing in the House-Mouse & Friends Monday Challenge (Plaid) HMFMC#391on this very hot but beautiful Saturday. I just got back from a day at the ball fields where two of my Grandsons won 2nd place in their tournaments.  Now we have State tournament, and then we can relax until football season... I am playing with the cute Curious Kitten image I won a few weeks ago (thanks Sue).  I watercolored the image and made my top plaid with the leftover paints.  To make more room for the sentiment, I cut the image a bit on the right. The bottom rocks on the fish bowl have gold Stickles. I also popped up the food container to add more fun.  I think this made a cute Thank You card.   Hugz, Nancy 

Hello friends! Happy T-day if you celebrate it! This weekend, my youngest daughter turned 28 and she wanted to do a girls brunch.  She picked KimberLia's in downtown Prattville.  This is a picture of her sister's fried green tomato BLT and our waters.  We also had Mimosas and coffee, but, of course, I forgot to take a picture.  The jazz band they had playing was super loud and there was a party next to us of very loud people so it was hard to talk or think.  The service was very slow, but the food was good.  We ended up having coffee across the street just to catch up and relax. These waters are my ticket to T-day over at Elizabeth's blog.   Baseball tournaments are in full swing this week - we have 1-2 games every night this week except Wednesday.  This is the banner for our oldest Grandson's team. One of the mothers is a photographer and very good at making banners.  I squeezed in some art this week too - here a a few of the cards I made. This one was inspired by THI

So happy to have an extra day off.  Thankful to all those who fought and died for freedom around the world.  War has so many costs, and we take the sacrifices for granted.  Here is my card to celebrate the day. I made it after watching  a video from THIS YouTube spray paint artist.  I watercolored the base, but then I did take some crumpled paper dipped in whte paint, blue paint and black ink and dabbed it over the watercolor.  Then I sponged on some black ink.  I added Stickle stars after stamping the Thank You for Your Service Stamp (new from DRS Designs).   Continuing the military theme, a friend asked me to make a congrats card for one of his friends who has recently been promoted in the U.S. Air Force.  I used the new Air Force Proud image. This card was inspired by THIS card by Caterina who is this week's Featured Stamper on Splitcoaststampers.com.  Since it is late Monday, I am also including my ticket to T-day over at Elizabeth's Blog .  I went to lunch with some frien

 Hello Friends! We had a super busy week last week - tons of time with the Grandsons which is our favorite time!  We did lots of baseball, legos, crafting and eating.  Two of our Grandsons made the All-Star teams for their age group.   Our High School Baseball, the Holtville Bulldogs, won the State Baseball Championship for the first time in 40 years.  So fun.  The town went crazy.  Parades, parties, and lots of autographs. The State Champs took time out of celebrating to visit the 8U Youth team one of my Grandsons is on last night.  The boys thought movie stars had landed.  Here is a picture of the visit - my Grandson is the third from the right on the bottom row (hoping he is on the top two rows in 9 years).  It is T-day over at Elizabeth's blog where we share a drink of some type along with other life events.  I have a fun drink to share.  It is a paper fun paper drink to get us ready for Summer. This card is for the Here Comes Summer theme over at House Mouse &Friends Monda

 Hello friends. Yesterday, I visited Erika's blog and was inspired by her very cool flowery journal page.  I haven't done any bible art journaling in awhile and haven't participated yet in Aimeslee's flower theme at *Art*Journal*Journey** , so I got out my DaySpring Illusrating Bible and did two pages.  I have been watching lots of  YouTube videos on sunflowers (my daugher's favorite flower) and quickly drew and painted the sunflower on this first page.  I was too lazy to get the gesso so I painted the flwoer with very little water to limit the bleed through.  I added distress ink and doodling around the border and splattered on some paint too.  The center is gold Stickles and black marker.  On this page I drew the path with  straight edge and then blobbled on watercolor with an old brush.  I added in details and doodling with a black journaling marker and added in lot of Stickles.  Ignore the stars, they are loose and not part of the page - I just forgot they were

 Hello friends! The current House-Mouse & Friends Monday Challenge is Anything goes with an option of Summer.  I like tea and cookies any time of the year and this fun coloring book image spoke to me.   I watercolored the base page with a light shade of Magenta, but I did the cookie in cookie colors.  I have two of the same HM Coloring books so I cut the cookie out of the other page, watercolored it, and popped it up.  I also added a computer generated cookie sentiment and made it look like it was on the tea bag.   Hugz, Nancy

Hello friends. I am so late with my T-day post that it is s W-day post! Starting with some art first and then my ticket.  This first card was for the Wednesday Watercolor challenge at Splitcoaststampers.com (SCS).  THIS is the tutorial we watched. My sentiment is from IO (Impression Obsession), and I used a stencil for the birds. Everything is watercolored with Daniel Smith watercolors.  This next card was for the teaparty challenge which was to celebrate Nick's 79th birthday.  He loves blue so I dressed up my CTMH party gnome in blue, did the cake stand in blue, and added a few blue candles.  I used THIS tutorial to do the cake.  My last two cards are using the new S'more Birthday Wishes stamp at DRS Designs.  I also stamped the Toasting Marshmallows stamp on this first one.  The card is colored up with my trusty Daniel Smith Watercolors and a bit of glitter. This one has a graham cracker made with an old embossing folder and a few score lines.  The marshmallow is some model

  The current House Mouse and Friends Monday Challenge is Anything Goes - flowers . I stamped this darling House Mouse image and the leaves (from a SU! set), drew in the grasses, and then stamped the image 2 more times layering it up so the flower had dimension. Everything was colored with Daniel Smith Watercolors and a black and white gel pen.  A nap is such a lovely luxury - everyone should get one on their birthday. Thanks to the lovely HMFMC design team for another fabulous challenge and their many lovely cards to inspire us.  I inherited most of my HM images from my mother and every time I use them, I see her lovely smile in my mind (she loved these images more than any others). Sniff, Sniff, I need to get a tissue.   Hugz, Nancy

Hello friends and happy T-day! I usually start my Tuesday posts with a drink and finish with a bit of art, but today I am switching it up.  First up is some art done for a black/white and red challenge and a challenge involving a picture of poppies.  My black watercolor was running out so I ended up with a lot of gray in my painting, but I still think it came out well.  The sentiment and birds are from Close to My Heart We had two dinners at work last week.  We had some great appetizers at one.  The shrimp appetizer was so good that I ordered it for dinner too.  Here is a picture of two of my smiling co-workers and my after dinner coffee. These pictures are my ticket to Elizabeth's T-day party . She has a lovely post about Tea this week.  I went with coffee and water.  The other dinner was an awards dinner with a lovely buffet, but I forgot to take any pictures. I was part of a group of four managers that came up with an innovative way to motivate and evaluate our teammembers.  We

Happy T-day if you celebrate it.  I am late, late, late but I didn't want to miss catching up with the T-day gang over at Elizabeth's Blog .  I visited California last week after 40 years and would you believe I have only two interesting pictures?  First, my trip was a quick one for work, but almost immediately after I landed, I started having pains.  Turns out a kidney stone decided to visit California along with me.  The people at the hospital were super nice!  Here are my two interesting pictures: Hwy 1 - I was lucky enough to get to drive along the beach on the way to the office.  Not a great picture as I was in a hurry and also not feeling great.  I love Mexican food and I got to eat one of my favorite dishes ( Chile relleno)  at a fabulous place in Oxnard. This is the worst thing you can eat with a kidney stone by the way.  No interesting drink pictures from the week - the only picture I have is of some sweet tea at Firehouse Subs (local town near my home).  Closing with

Over at the House-Mouse & Friends Monday Challenge it is Anything Goes with an option of Water.  I dug out one of my favorite little water themed images and drew a little relaxing bathroom around it.  I stamped it again, watercolored the image and popped it up. I created a plaid background with the leftover watercolor paint and added Stickles to some of the stripes.  I liked the Stickles so much, I added some to the bubbles and my light fixture but they are hard to see in the picture.  The sentiment is from Home to Roost (SU!).  I used Tim Holtz ground expresso around the edges of everything.  This is going to a friend who is lucky enough to be retiring this month.  She is a big crafter so I know she is going to absolutely love retirement.  Hope you have a fabulous and relaxing week. Nancy

Over at **ART*JOURNAL*JOURNEY* , Elizabeth and Bluebeard have us recycling, reusing, and repurposing.  Here is my first attempt.... This is going in my 6x8 Me Journal.  I haven't done a page for it since mid-2020 so it was about time.  I used some new paper and a new stamp I ordered from Close To My Heart (couldn't resist the dragon or the fairytale paper) and an older SU! set (the girl in the water and the sentiment), but I stamped the dragon on an envelope keeping part of the Queen stamp on it (the envelope was from my friend Jayne) and I cut the little purple heart from a used postage stamp laying around the counter. I also had the main panel painted up and ready for the trash bin as it didn't come out like I wanted so it was great I could find a way to keep it.   We all slay dragons every day - internal and external. Hugz, Nancy

Hello friends.  It is T-day over at Elizabeth's Blog and time to share what fun I had this weekend at my Grandson's The Sandlot themed birthday party (you have to look closely for the drink girls).   He turned 6 and The Sandlot is his favorite movie (he is a big baseball addict and would play it every minute of every day if you let him). He has played since he was 3 and hit a homerun last week.  His other Grandmother is super crafty (a few levels above me in talent and time), so this party looked awesome! Here he is in front of the main table which Terri decorated.  She made him the shirt too.  The original cake artist had a death in the family, so Terri whipped up and decorated a cake.  It was super cool and tasted awesome!  They own a heating and air company, and we joked they could add AND CAKES to the end of their name.  I know she could come up with some cute shirts for that!  We were only half kidding on the new name.  Close up of the cookies made by one of our friends -

Happy T-day if you celebrate it.   I am meeting up with the T-gang over at Elizabeth's Blog who post a wide variety of things going on in their life and ensure something is drink related.   This weekend, I participated in the Prattville Plein Air Art Event.  I was especially drawn to the comment about it being mentally stimulating and relaxing. I had chickened out by Saturday morning, but my daughter encouraged me and said she would go with me so off we went.  We picked the Pratt cemetery because it is hidden away on a beautiful high point in town and has the coolest gravestone for Daniel Pratt who founded Prattville and contributed greatly to industry in Alabama.  This is the cemetery.  We arrived very late (the last two hours of the two day event), but we still found people around town painting (we drove to the top of the hill as it was a bit too far for me and all uphill so our walk was a short one). They gave us water, snacks, a lovely art journal, and a cool bag to put our sup

Happy Saturday.  I received a fabulous card from a friend this week, and she included a new stamp (Yay).  It was the Rose Nap House Mouse image, and it made me smile because my Mother loved HM so much.  It has been a long time since I played with one, but I now I totally remember why we loved them.  Isn't it the sweetest image? I stamped, watercolored, and layered in the image into an ATC sized panel.  Then I was stuck with what to do for the background until I saw a fabulous rug on Pinterest.  I decided to try and acheive a woven rug look by drawing the lines with a marker and then adding in various water colors and making sure to use the main colors of the image as well. Entering this in the House-Mouse & Friends Monday Challenge:  Anything Goes Spring Theme .  Hugz, Nancy