Beautiful Blooms and Baubles

It's been awhile since I've been to a structured garden.  Our house is more of a plant and pray type of set up.  It's more like Seussville than anything else.  The trees grow lopsided and at an angle or they grow with a piece that goes straight out of the top...quicker than the rest of the branches, or they don't grow at all.  We plant four and two die.  We can plant the same thing in one place and have it thrive and in another and watch it wither away to nothing.  Yes, I know, it's all about the soil, the ph balance, the moisture, yada, yada, yada.  Again...plant and pray.  My mother has a beautiful yard and garden...very well tended, very well loved.  Maybe when I retire I too can put the time into our yard and have the flowers, trees and maybe some creative structures that I dream and Pin of!

In the meantime I get to visit other beautiful gardens like the Botanical Gardens in Denver that are currently hosting the Chihuly Exhibit.  I fell in love!  The mixture of plants and glass....amazing!  The placements were odd and some a little Seuss looking themselves but so much fun and incredibly colorful and beautiful.  I haven't wanted to drag my camera out much of late but knew that this exhibit would not disappoint and I was right!  We'd seen some Chihuly pieces before in Vegas, the Bahamas and even in Breckenridge but never in a setting like at the Denver Botanic Gardens http://www.botanicgardens.org/.  It was a very warm, humid day with my hubby, my sister and her roommate Susan, but it was a much needed day out for all of us!  Enjoy some pics!  Just a few.  I took almost 200!  I actually like my shot of the first boat picture better than the one on the website for the Denver Botanical Garden.  Just sayin' :)

The boats were my favorite!

These were my husbands favorites.

I grinned from ear to ear to get this!

You could make big wishes with this one!

 Bug houses...I will be making something like this in my yard!

Bubbling brook?  Also one of my favorites.

More of the boats.

Classic Chihuly!

Stolen Moments

After the time I put into the first Explosion Box I made (previous post) I wasn't so sure I would make another one.  But, I was in my craft room today to do some clean up and organization....yeah RIGHT! OK, I actually did spend an hour trashing trash, organizing scraps and putting things away and finding my work space.  This gave me the inspiration to work on a project.  I had started an Explosion Box and put it aside because I wasn't happy with the way it laid out on the inside.  But, I took a second look at it today and started playing around with it a bit.  Three hours later...Explosion Box #2!

I've been working with G45's Botanical Tea papers and had some scraps to start the project with and was able to pretty much use up the scraps I had without going to new pages.  I'll confess that I did use a bit of new pages but plenty there to use for my next project.  Maybe for a start on the projects I am now several months behind on for the craft show in October.  YIKES!!!

Sitting down for the evening to load pictures I was looking at other Explosion Boxes on Pinterest and I have to say that I am not a bit inspired.  They would be great to hold a special Christmas ornament, a CD of special music, a decorated candle (in a votive holder of course).  Let's see if I get any sleep tonight!

I only took pictures of the outside of this one.  I seem to struggle with the interiors but it did come together nicely.  The flower was created by punching the same flower (Stampin Up) four times, curving the petals downward on three and upwards on the top flower, and by placing a large pop dot adhesive between each flower.  I glued a clear button with a ribbon pulled through it to the top of the stack of flowers.  I curled the thin scraps around a skewer to get the ribbons...it's a new favorite technique for my projects.  It may be a gift for a friend for her anniversary.

The motorcycle card was an image I pulled from Google and loved the rough version of the motorcycle.  It's difficult to come up with masculine cards and I very happy with these results.  It's a one and done since the image wasn't mine but would love to do a whole series of these.  I printed the image on velum.  Unfortunately you can see the adhesive under the velum in the corners.

 

This card was inspired by another one I saw on Pinterest or maybe on the G45 site since it does involve using Botanical Tea papers.

Blue, Blue, my worlds been blue

I wish I could say that I have been crafting so much that I haven't had time to write but it's just not the case.  Other than making my Christmas cards and starting on these beautiful pinecones I saw on Splitcoast Stampers http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/pineconeornament/ and making a handful of dry snow "globes" and a few cards here and there, I haven't done much.  I haven't even attended my fun and inspiring Stampin Up classes.   I just haven't been motivated. 

I work fulltime and things at work have been very stressful over the last six months.  I don't want this to be a downer post so I won't go into details but it has been making me somewhat blue and I have only been creating when it's been necessary and not for fun.  That sounds so sad!  Ugh!  I need to snap out of it because I have so many beautiful things I've seen that I want to try and so many pieces that I've accumulated that are screaming to be repurposed!

My wonderful husband bought me a tv for my craft room.  I had hoped that my time watching the Denver Broncos weren't being done with my hands not creating.  This left my craft room in total disarray and it took me a long time to get it back to where I even had space to make cards.  I did a bit of de-cluttering and this gave me a little more space but, I have a long way to go.

Okay...enough of the pity party.  

I am still in love with anything Graphic45 and have been very inspired by the papers and by what I've seen on Pinterest and on the G45 website.  I also always love a new challenge and have tried several of the new pop-up and box type of cards. 

So I'll keep this brief, post some photos and pull myself up by my bootstraps!