Happy Birthday to Ladybug!!

Ladybug turns 11 today. That's 77 in "dog years". LOL

Mom Thacker turned 87 on Monday and here she is with all her grandkids and great-grandkids (and Ladybug too. Not sure where Tudi was)

The butterflies don't like this heat either

We finally got some much needed rain this morning and last night. There's been storms all around us for the past week but we haven't gotten any of it. Its been record breaking heat (100+ degrees) the past week so today its only 78 degrees out and feels great!! I'm sure as the day goes on, it will get near 90 again but for right now I am enjoying the 78 :).

The hummingbirds are out in full force!!!

Since it was so hot this weekend, I made some birthday cards

to have on hand for birthdays coming up in the next few months. I also made 1 Halloween card... it won't be long before its Halloween!!

Happy Birthday to Mom and Aubrey

Its Marie's birthday and Aubrey's birthdays Monday. I made these cards for them. We're having everyone over for a big cookout. I hope its not 100 degrees later.

Everyone went home and I miss them already!!!

We had so much fun and I hated to see it end!!!

We had so much fun laughing, eating, stamping ... Lesa taught us how to make the washer necklaces with alcohol inks so guess what everyone I know will be getting for Christmas this year?

The lighting in our dining room was not the best so Charlie brought out a few extra lights we had. One had a magnifying glass on it and Joanie said "Gosh where did you get this?" The next thing we knew Charlie went to Harbor Freight and got 10 lights! Before he bought them, he told them he worked at a nursing home and alot of the residence needed them. He asked if there was any way they could each be 20% off since he had only 1 coupon and they said sure. So each one came to $17 and they were more than thrilled with that price!!!

Another funny story is ... whenever I say "Charlie", certain people think I am saying "Troy". I said "who is Troy?" They thought his name was Troy so they started calling him Troy for fun. Lesa thought his name was George. I said "Who's George?" She thought that was HIS name so then he became George. A little while later, we all were calling him Charlie, Troy, George and he was being a great sport about it. LOL

We all picked tomatoes in the garden. Angie LOVED tomato sandwiches for lunch. I took them for a ride in the golf cart to see "Humphrey the Camel" and all the goats, donkeys, horses, pigs, gazelle... down the street.

Charlie's mom announced yesterday she is coming Monday - Friday for her semi-annual week long visit so I'll be "recovered" by then. HA Guess we will have everyone over Monday for her 87th birthday.

A great day at the stamp convention was had by all ...

We got an early start and got to the convention by 10 am. The closer we got there, the more the rain poured down. As soon as we got inside, it stopped raining long enough for us to get inside and then, the sky fell out and it poured even more. It was not at all that crowded and we all got lots of neat new stamps. Met up with Paula from Silva. Every few hours they drew numbers and Paula won $100 spending money at the show. Lucky her!! Here are some photos I took ...

We had a full day yesterday!!

First,we started off the morning by having to take my van to the Toyota dealership to get my brakes looked at. They were making a horrible noise so I had a feeling I needed new rear brakes. Sure enough, i did so we left the car there for that and an oil change. Our first stop was Stampers Alley in Mooresville. We had the whole store to ourselves and everyone shopped like crazy!! We then met up for lunch at Red Robin. Then onward to Enchanted Cottage in Lewisville. We all did not buy as much as we did at Stampers Alley but still managed to spend more $$. (LOL) It was time to eat again so we ate at Texas Roadhouse. Got home around 9 pm. Here's a photo of all of us at Stampers Alley... We will be headed out to the stamp convention in Winston-Salem at 8:30 for another fun-filled day!!

From left to right: Angie, Joanie, Me, Ellie, Mary, Patty, Chelsea, Lesa, Michelle

Winston-Salem Rubber Stamp Convention or Bust!!

This weekend several of us are meeting at the Winston-Salem Rubber Stamp Convention. Lesa, Joanie, Michelle, Paula, Ellie, Patty, Chelsea, Angie and Mary are going. Some last minute planning went into it with Chelsea, Patty, Angie and Mary. They actually wanted to surprise everyone they were coming. It was all I could do to keep it "top secret" for a whole week. If you know me at all, I do not keep secrets too great. I'm too excited and too loud to keep secrets. LOL We made it until Tuesday and then Angie spilled the beans to Lesa and I spilled the beans to the others. I made these fun cards for everyone going in the group. I mailed them this week. This card was not that hard to make. I showed you step by step how I made the card. First, I stamped the big cloud stamp by Hero Arts. I love this stamp. It sure makes clouds easy now. To the cloud images, I added a yellow circle as the sun and I added some birds. I then punched out the grass using my Martha Stewart grass border punch. Another punch I love. I then stamped the Amuse "stamp store" stamp several times and colored and cut each one out. I stamped all of these Hero Arts girls several times, colored them and cut each one out adding them to the card. I think it came out cute. Looking forward to the stamp convention tomorrow. Today we are going to Stampers Alley and Enchanted Cottage so we are all excited about that!!!

A full house at the Thacker's this weekend!!!

Another freebie by Kirsty

I am having so much fun with these freebie digitals from Kirsty. This one is called The Pines ... I added Stampin Up birds.

A free digital image from Kirsty in Australia

You can find it here. This is my card.

Another cute Stampendous stamp from Archivers

This stamp is exclusively sold at Archivers and I just had to get it. Perfect for all those summer time cards don't you think???

Ladybugs in blue?

I made this for my friend Joanie. She loves ladybugs but instead of making them red, I punched them out in blue at the bottom and I love how it came out. This cute image is another great digital image by Mo's Digital Pencil.

PS Charlie thought of the sentiment. LOL

I love my new clear stamps from Archivers

Isn't she cute? And when I saw this "picnic" paper at ACMoore, I knew it would go with this card. Ants and all. LOL

Stamp by Stampendous

How do you keep track of your inkpad colors?

I love Memento Inks and I have lots and lots of different colors. I saw this idea on someone's blog but I can't remember whose. I first punched out a bunch of circles and then I dabbed each one in each color of ink that i have. I punched a hole in them using my Cropadile and then I put them on a string. I also made little itty tags using my SU tag punch. These inks are my little Versamark cubes I have. I wanted to use the itty bitty tag so I can also use that to figure out if a word will fit on it since its so small. I then carry these in my car with me whenever I go to the stamp store.

I also do this with my Nestibilities. I have them each punched out and I carry them on a ring. Its hard to keep track of labels 1 vs labels 2 so this is a great way to know what I have when I am out.

Congrats Becca!

My friend Suzi's daughter got her drivers permit last week so I made her a cute card to celebrate the occassion. I paper pieced the "vw bug" and I used a brown/polka dot ribbon for the road.

Do you ever make a card that just cracks you up and makes you laugh?????

This is that card that made me laugh. Its for my friend Lesa who had gallbladder surgery on July 1st. Isn't it hilarious? I hope she didn't laugh too hard or her stomach will hurt. LOL Get well chicken image by: Great Impressions. I hope she likes it :).

My stamp room ...

A few of you at the Stamp Shack want to see my stamp room so I took some photos while its clean. Wanna see???

My stamp room is really small. I would love a big stamp room one day :). I still have my birthday cards up. I guess I need to take those down since my birthday was in May! LOL

I love my punch storage. I got it at IKEA. The drawings on the wall Emily and Nicholas both drew them when they were just 4-5 years old.












In these photos I have some things that my friends have given me. Nancy gave me the 2 amish girls. Chris gave me the moose. Kim gave me the little girl that she baked in the oven. Erin made me the other little girl with braids. Chelsea & Kim gave me that sock moose. Emily drew that flip flop portrait and its my favorite of all of her drawings. That box on that stand is where I do my airbrushing with my Copic markers.



The photos here are hanging from the ceiling. I got this thing at IKEA for around $5 and i love it. I have my favorite photos I've taken lately.

Have you tried digital stamps yet?

At first I will admit I was VERY SKEPTICAL but now I have several favorite companies that I use pretty regularly. I came across DigiStamp Boutique the other day and they are in the UK. I really like alot of their images. I bought 2 and made these Christmas cards. I love how they came out.

Happy 4th of July!!

Emily and her friends had to get matching bathing suits to celebrate the 4th!! (Found them at Walmart for $10 each)

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes ...

we have PLENTY of cherry tomatoes in our garden ...

Back from Ohio

I am back from Ohio visiting with my aunt and uncle. Uncle Jimmy continues to improve since his stroke 3 months ago. He has really been working hard since all this happened and it shows!! He continues to get phys therapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy 5 days a week. He is hoping to go home at the end of July and they will continue to come out and give him his therapies at home. On my way home I managed to find a stamp store called A Stamp Artist Place in Swannanoa. Its right off I-40 near Asheville and she has been there for 7 years. I also drove by the Thacker Christmas Inn in Caryville, TN so of course I had to take a picture of that. No relation I'm sure! LOL