A site for my handmade cards, accompanied by my photos and written meanderings which are occasionally witty, often tongue-in-cheek, and rarely profound. Beginning in June 2013, you'll also see lots of NBUS, which is an acronym I coined for Never-Before-Used-Schtuff. Note: my Privacy Policy can be found at a tab below and you can find my NBUS Challenge online. I hope you'll join in the fun there! Thanks for coming by! Have a beverage and enjoy!

August 17, 2012

OLW #101 ~ Blue! and Addicted to Stamps ~ Boys!

And we're back around to Friday!

I'm playing in a couple of challenges that don't see a ton of participants.  If you're looking for something new to play with, they'd love to have you join in!

This week's One Layer Wednesday challenge is being hosted by the MMS CAS artist, Heather Telford on her site bits and pieces.  The MMS stands for Master of Masking and Sponging.  It's hard not to be intimidated by the talent of some of the folks around Blogland, but they are all so warm and welcoming that the inspiration overcomes the intimidation.  Still.  Go see. 

Heather's challenge this week is to make a one-layer card featuring BLUE.

That's almost too much freedom.  I've got a lot of Real Life distractions (don't you hate that?) right now, so I alley-catted my way around the Intertube for a piece of flint to spark my creativity.

I found it at a newish challenge blog, Addicted to Stamps.  It's "theme" week and the challenge is to make cards for boys.

Well, duh, blue . . . of course, boys!  Rather than a baby boy card, I used this image:


I can't say I'm overfly fond of this card, all and only in shades of blue.  If I'd had more time, perhaps I could have worked and shaded and layered on more color and I don't know.  And raised the sentiment higher, too.  There's a mom somewhere with several girls and one boy who would be amused.

~~~

I had quite a few positive responses to the cool red shoes in my last post, so I thought you'd get a kick out of the fact that I have the green ones, too!  Why are you not surprised?  Only I don't have the red shoelaces or the cool Pipi stockings. 


The red ones are Vans. The green ones are Keds.

And, in case you're wondering, no, I don't have tennies in every color.  Just those two pair, other than normal colors.  I do, however, have loafers in lots of different colors.  You know what I always say, "If you're feet are smiling, the whole world smiles with you!"

~~~

I had a lovely three-hour lunch with my girlfriends yesterday. I made the delicious dish I mentioned a couple of weeks ago here, using our abundant tomato and basil crops.

You may remember I told you that we didn't plant any new tomatoes this year; we just let live the volunteers that came up.  Check out how that worked out for us!



Pretty awesome!  DS and the Mister are quite impressed and now wonder why anyone buys new plants every year?  I wonder can you keep on growing volunteers every year, or do they lose their gusto after, say, one year?  I think it's rather fun, and certainly green.  I may keep up this experiment next year and see how it works out.

Enjoy!   Next on my agenda is being the Emcee at the Saturday night banquet for a statewide professional organization I belong to.  I'm as nervous as nelly, I'm not gonna lie.  I just want to get through it at this point.  I may adjourn to the Playhouse and create through my nervousness with a post tomorrow, or I may just go do laps around the house.  On the inside.  The neighbors already think I'm cray-cray as it is.

Have a great weekend!  As always, thank you for stopping by to visit.  Special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower or leave a comment!

Paper:  PTI rustic white
Stamps:  Boy: Art Impressions, Q-1524 Back;
  Sentiment:  Penny Black, 435D
  Dots and Star:  Stamps by Judith
Ink:  Stamp-n Stuff pacific blue embossing powder;
  SU navy embossing powder; Prisma pencils
Corner chomper

22 comments:

Lynne said...

That`s a really cute card Darnell.
Lynne xxx

Unknown said...

Hi Darnell - love your card; what a super image and perfect for our "boy" theme over at Addicted to Stamps. Thanks so much for joining us this week. Love your red and green - very cool - shoes - they match that card perfectly although I was disappointed not to see the tripsey socks!!!lol Thanks for that lovely tomato and bean stew - gorgeous. Really impressed with your volunteer toms - with our weather over here in the UK I have to dry and save my seed to plant next spring so am very jealous.

Hugs.

Karen xxx

Kara Lynne said...

So funny you have the green ones too that go along with the card. You sure take this card making business seriously! Your card today is a cutie, I get so intimidated by one-layer cards!

scrappymo! said...

Your volunteers look tasty and fabulous. It is too wet here to overwinter the seeds but where my sister lives in the semi arrid Okanagan Vaslley, she can ddo this.
What a treat!
Those yellow ones look so delicious.

Bonnie said...

That little guy looks like he's thinking of something to get into! I like the green shoes, but not as much as the red. Good luck on your stint as an emcee! I'm sure you'll do wonderfully!

Kylie said...

Well, I think you've done a beautiful job. All the blues and the image are just perfect for our challenge. Thanks so much for playing along at ATS xx

kingstonmama said...

Cute card. Perfect image for coloring in shades of blue. Love your shoes and your tomatoes. We just don't get enough heat up here to get tomatoes like that. I get a few by the end of summer, but that's about it. Hope you're emceeing (sp?) goes well. Ann

Ardyth said...

Love the blue card - I think it looks great all in blue! Good luck with your speech! As for shoes, I haven't heard that saying (my favourite is "Happy Wife, Happy Life", which I often quote to my poor husband) but I'll buy in - Happy Feet definitely make for a happy day!

Anonymous said...

Hi there, cray cray hope all went well being the emcee, I bet it did, if you talk as well as you write you will most probably get a standing ovation ! How lovely of your tomatoes to volunteer brave little things that they are, they look nearly as cool as your shoes. Thanks for joining us this week over at ATS with your blue boy card I think its lovely in all its blue glory , such a little sweetie ( the boy not you )

Marie

Redanne said...

Hi Darnell, the card is wonderful, I love all the blue! Love your volunteers too, never knew they would grown again, we don't have much luck with them. It is good to worry about doing such an event, once you get started you will be fine, I bet you love it in the end - break a leg, as they say in the theatre.....hope it goes well......Crafty hugs, Anne x

Craftychris said...

aaah the card is so sweet! I hope you had a fab time with your girlfriends and your tomato crop is fab! I love tomato and basil xx

Kim Heggins said...

Just so sweet...love that you did the card in all blue, looks like a few of my kids from summer school.
I love your sneakers (that is what we call them in my house) and the green are just so adorable. I love bright and cheery shoes and I never match my socks, I buy them from Little Mismatch and I agree, if your feet are smiling so is the rest of the world! Thanks again for the wonderful inspiration!

Canonbury creations said...

Oh I just love this little boy Darnell! Stunning card for our challenge this week at ATS:) Those tomatoes look fabulous and I checked out your recipe which I well have a go at. Thanks for playing along at ATS
Val x

Inkyfingers said...

I share your feelings about one layer cards - why are they so hard? Having said that - this one is so cute with the little boy looking out of the window. It made me wonder who he was looking for and reminded me of when my little boys used to look out for Daddy coming home from work.

What a great crop of tomatoes too. Ours our only just starting to go red after our lousy summer.

Jacqueline said...

Thanks so much for joining in our challenge at ATS this week with your fab boy card - Jacqueline xx

Victoria said...

Green shoes as well???!!! (Ouch! My pinky!) Yummy tomatoes. Can't believe you got that lovely crop just from your 'volunteer' plants. And of course boys are blue... good connection! I like how he's looking for trouble out of the window! Thanks for sharing with us at ATS :)

Patrice said...

I really enjoyed reading your post! Those tomatoes look divine, and fancy not actually planting any new this year.

I really love your card. You may think it's missing something, or not 'colourful' enough but I think it's perfect. I love a lot of white space and your tones of blue on this gorgeous little image are just perfect.

Thanks so much for playing with us at Addicted to Stamps this week. Hope to see you back again soon.

Deanna said...

First of all, I wanted to tell you I LOVE those the tennies and that card!! I love colorful tennies! you little boy card is so adorable. I agree with Brenda he does look like he is up to something..lol. Tomatoes look yummy. I too love the volunteer plants. We had it come back 2 years straight with just a little fertilizer and they were scrumptious. Don't ask about the 3rd year..lol~hugs Deanna

Susan said...

That little boy is just adorable! Kind of reminds me of my son when he was a little guy! (OH so many years ago)

The tomatoes look yummy. Seems like I remember my Daddy saying that the volunteer tomatoes are only good for a year or so, then the tomatoes lose their taste....can't say that I know from experience thought. The dadgum squirrels have always picked our tomatoes when they were green...taken a bite out of them and threw them on the ground...dadgum squirrels!

BTW...your shoe card is just adorable.

Gillian R said...

Very cute card. Glad your MCing went well. I meant to let you know the font I used on my school card and totally forgot. It is called 'always forever'. You can download it from dafont and it's under the 'hand writing' category.

shirley-bee said...

Now why was I surprised that you had green shoes as well as red shoes? I like this all blue card (I am partial to monochromatic cards). Your crop of volunteer tomatoes has done very well!

Anonymous said...

Cute image. Cute shoes too and a very impressive load of tomatoes.

Thanks for your kind words about my blog and creative efforts.

Heather T