The frame was stamped in Memento Black and colored with an olive Prismacolor marker. The fruit, from the retired SU stamp set Fabulous Fruits, was stamped with SU Real Red and Garden Green. The sentiment, stamped in black, is from SU's Happy Harmony. The whole piece was trimmed with a deckle scissor and mounted to a Real Red card.
I have been very busy these past 2 months with a lot of things other than stamping. My "pot" garden is doing very well and I have already had several salads from it. The Serenity Garden is doing extremely well especially with all the rain we have been having although the snails have been having a field day with my Hostas. For several years we have been planning to replace the grass and weeds on our parking strip with somet
hing that does not require any maintenance or water and will not be affected by all the road salt that the plows toss on there every winter. Finally, this year, as an Anniversary gift, we purchased several thousand pounds of red sandstone pavers. We were going to use red gravel but after losing several shear pins on our snow blower while clearing our neighbor's sidewalk because of the gravel in her parking strip, we decided to go with the pavers. It was backbreaking work and took us a few weeks to complete but our efforts were well worth it. 
When we were about halfway through the project we decided that it was too flat and boring so we purchased a few large sandstone rocks to add some interest. Then it poured rain and water shot out of all the gopher tunnels so we needed to relocate the downspout to our rain gutters. Once we did that we realized that our rain gutters had seen better days so we replaced those. Who knows what we'll find next! Any one making a run up to Idaho for lottery tickets?
It has been raining here nearly every day for what feels like forever but I am not complaining. One of the things I miss about living back east is the vivid green of the trees from the rain. After years of what I call Utah Drab Green, we finally have a true green. The roses, trees, grass, perennials and herbs are all basking in the wet glory and if that isn't enough we frequently are 
treated to spectacular rainbows. A camera just can't capture the true beauty of it.
We also have a pair of robins nesting in the apricot tree on our front lawn. They were nice enough to build it in a crook right outside the kitchen window so I can get good shots of the action with my telephoto lens without disturbing the feathered family.
rk and embossing with clear EP. For the capital letters I used SU's Wild West Alphabet and for the remainder of the letters I used Brayton Uppercase from Just Rite Stamps. I then sponged on several colors of Distress inks, wiping the ink off of the letters. While the sponges were inked up I used them on a small piece of cardstock to stamp the rooster from SU on. Using the same colors, I stamped feathers, sunflowers and an ornamental design here and there. The whole thing was overstamped with SU's chicken wire background stamp in pale gray. One more cleaning of the letters and the piece was ready to be cut up and used in Sketch Challenge #225 from Splitcoast Stampers. The rooster piece looked a bit plain so I added the red buttons tied with hemp cord. For those who share my need for all things poultry - the rooster and chicken stamps on the left are Lockhart stamps I purchased from Ellen Hutson and the one on the right is a Stampabilities I picked up at Hobby Lobby.
I belong to Technique Junkies. If you've never heard of it or don't belong, you really need to check it out. Every month there is a One Only Swap where you and a partner swap a single card using any technique you choose from any newsletter. In May I was partnered with Vicki Romaine who chose to use Colored Reversed Grid from the August 2006 Newsletter. Stamps are from StampinUp. Thank you Vicki.
I stamped French Script in Soft Silver Shadow Ink on white cardstock, punched one short side with Fiskars All a Fleur Embossing Border Punch then sponged the punched edge with more Soft Silver Shadow Ink. I stamped the heart from StampinUp's Ever After set in black in the upper left corner and the Lilies of the Valley along the right punched edge. I wrapped a piece of white satin ribbon 2 ¼ inches in from the left side. Stamped sentiment from Very Versatile in black on a scrap of white and punched out with large oval punch then inked edges with Soft Silver. Mounted oval to label that was cut from the Matchbox Bigz XL Die then embossed with Textile Cuttlebug folder. Added white satin ribbon tails to each side of label and mounted over lower center. I mounted the whole piece to black cardstock. I felt it was still missing something so after much deliberation I finally added some pearls to the stamped heart and called it good.
I had planned on showing the projects I made at a Stamp Camp held on May 2nd long before this but somehow an entire month slipped right past me. So much has happened since then that I can’t even remember it all. Any who way.... we began by making a Stationery box with little pockets and dividers for holding greeting cards, gift cards and gift tags. We were given a selection of color schemes to choose from and, although not usually a “pink person”, the gray and pink combination appealed to me. 
