It's JULY and More Rain

Yep, it's true, 7 months into 2024 and it is raining again today. Where is all this rain coming from???? I know the farmers need the rain, but now even they are complaining. They can't get into the fields to plant and do the haying. My, my, the weather sure is weird all over the world. 

Update: we had so much rain today my basement and backyard flooded badly (no pictures). We were warned via the cell phone to please stay home, if at all possible, the streets are flooded, and emergency boats were out to help people evacuate if necessary. One family who lived in their house 52 years had never seen the water this high before in all the years they lived there.

Just a few cards here, I might have used these already, but not sure. Made these a couple of months ago. This top card is a tri-fold, was fun to make, but not sure I would make it again. I think I already put it in the box to give to Hospice.

The giraffes are an old stamp from years ago, they were stamped and colored, but I never made cards out of them. So here they are, made into Father's Day cards. Gave them to Hospice already.

Cute little pandas from Stampin up, finally turned them into a card and gave to Hospice. Will probably make some more of these guys, I found the stamps at Thompson Center, so all I need is a good juicy ink pad and stamp off some more cute pandas.

Well, it finally stopped raining outside. The last couple of bad rains I found water on my kitchen counter....uge hope my roof is not leaking again.

Nothing much has been happening of late, just living life the best I can, pay the bills, shopping, car upkeep and Louise upkeep at the Doctor the last couple of weeks. They are keeping tabs on my blood pressure and now medication monitoring. Signs of old age when the Doctor wants to see you every week, I guess.

This month, July 25th, JP will have been gone 3 years already. Where did that time go, it feels like just yesterday. It's funny, I wake up every morning and have to remind myself, "oh that's right, I am alone in this house", there is always that feeling that JP is still here for some reason, creepy huh???? But when I remember all the pain he was in, I am glad he is not here and does not have to bear all that pain anymore.

I guess I will cut this blog short for now, have to go take my pills for the day, but first I have to put them in the pill boxes, I may have to call in some prescriptions today.

You all take care and keep looking up, better days are coming!!!

Cheers ~ Louise

Well, Hello June!!!

Hi there everyone!! Yes, I know, been awhile since I last communicated on this blog. Just been a lot of this and that going on. Doctor appointments, changing meds and checking blood pressure. Don't know what is worse, changing meds and stopping a few others which changes and discombobulates my whole body....now I am dealing with swollen ankles because the diuretic was discontinued, uncomfortable to say the least!!! Oh well, not a happy camper right now. Next Doctor appointment is the 18th.

Yeah, signs of old age, I guess. Would rather stay at home then go out and mingle with people and drive around with maniacs on the road who speed around me, because I am going the speed limit!!!!

Next Hospice meeting we will meet in September. So, we have the summer off, no rush making cards and I can work outside. I have lots to do and have had a bit of help with the neighbors. Will have to take some before/after pictures of their work and mine.

Here are the cards I created for Hospice. The meeting took place yesterday, and now I'm taking a break from everything, essentially doing NOTHING!!! The cards showcased are foiling cards. I purchased some new red foil and lace toner cards. The flower design was crafted using two different punches at the Thompson Center.

Once again, we see foiled cards, two birthday cakes, and birthday wishes set against various backgrounds.

Creating these cards was enjoyable with the use of 3D embossing folders and vellum, followed by processing them through the Cuttlebug. You apply color to the bottom side (the indented side), for which I used Copic markers. Once fully colored to your liking, you then sweep black ink over the colored bottom side, from top to bottom, achieving the coverage you desire. Afterwards, you can adhere it to the card and affix your chosen verses.

It's fascinating to see the evolution of this blog. The initial two paragraphs remain untouched, penned by my own hand. The subsequent three paragraphs, along with this one, were crafted by "copilot." While the words were altered, the essence remained intact, and arguably enhanced. It's curious to observe the outcome of this paragraph. AI is becoming increasingly ubiquitous. Initially, its presence on this blog eluded me, but upon engaging with it, I found the articulation to be superior to my own... hence, I'm inclined to let AI articulate on my behalf...haha!

What fun, the above paragraph cracks me up, makes me sound very intelligent to say the least!!! This is me speaking....lol!!!

Question: Shall we let AI speak for us now!!!!

Well, I think I shall leave you now with this question to ponder. Talk to you later, maybe I will try for another blog this month just for the fact of having another round with AI and letting it rewrite my paragraphs. Hope you have a great June, don't let the bugs bite you too badly. Cheers ~ Louise

Easter is Just around the Corner

 Hi there everyone, hope you are having a good month. Today was the first day of Spring and we will be getting a snowstorm starting Thursday night. Got my car parked in the garage, so no snow on the car and also my soft maple is dropping those little red thingy's on the ground. So just trying to protect the car from all "that stuff" defacing it.

Well Easter is just around the corner! Guess it is early this year although it just seems time is flying by so fast. Making cards for Hospice keeps me on my toes because I have to always plan for the next holiday a month early so the cards get to Hospice in time. Then we are on to the next holiday, oh well, makes life interesting. 

So, the card above is a die I used at the Thompson Center. A large donation of paper, dies and stamps came in and I used this die above from the donation, makes for a nice card.

The Birthday Blessings cards, the background came in as a donation to Thompson Center, that is one embossing folder I do not have, so when I saw these backgrounds, I found a way to use them. The roses are from a sticker set I bought at the Dollar store. Made for a nice, simple and easy card to put together.

Now this was a fun Easter card to make. One of the ladies at the Thompson Center led the class and gave us instructions on how to make this card. She had all the pieces cut out and we colored them in and placed them on the card, then the card is set up so that it sits up, hard to tell in this picture, but the Happy Spring is holding the card up.

I was at the Thompson Center today and finished off some cards I am making for Hospice for our next meeting. I will take a picture of them for the next blog. I found some more dies and did some cutting with them. Hopefully I can make a few more cards with those dies.

The Hockey season is almost over, my Chicago Blackhawks are in last place (there are 32 teams in the NHL). Hopefully in the next few years they can get in the playoffs, they are in a rebuild right now, so things are not looking good for them. But they are fun to watch. a young team with lots of guts and desire. One of the kids, is only 18 years old is going to get the "Rookie of the Year Award" he is almost as good as Patrick Kane and Patrick is the best!!!!!

Well time to close, the game is over, and the Hawks lost 6-2. Need to finish this blog and get ready for bed....getting late. You have a great rest of the month, keep looking up, better days are coming!!!

Cheers ~ Louise

Happy Valentine's Day

Hi there everyone, Happy Valentine's Day this month to you, better late than never!!! So here are a few cards I made for the Valentine season.

In the top set of cards and second set of cards, these were made last year. The top cards were a print off the internet (I think, sometimes hard to remember because I pick up pictures along the way and from other people.) The second set, bottom two cards were copies from original Valentine cards from the old days. The top two were cards I put together with odds and ends I had in my "Valentine card stash" All these cards ended up going into the collection of Hospice cards last year.

These butterfly cards were made at the Thompson Center. One of the ladies let me use here die, Only made a few of these, so very classy, Maybe one of these days I can borrow this die from her again and make a few more cards like these.

In this picture, this rose die was at the Thompson Center, someone donated it, sure did make a lovely card. I still have about 12 cards left over, the rest went to Hospice.

In this picture, I had ordered on -line from Scrapbook.com a roll of Valentine stickers that look like stamps. I just place them on cardstock and layered glitter glue around each stamp to keep them from falling off. Made quite a few of these and gave them to Hospice.

Now these were fun to make, and I have this die in my personal stash. Except for the butterfly corner punch. The heart was colored in with Distress Ink then covered with the Heart die. Thinking of you added for the verse.

So there you have it, Valentine cards for February. Next month will be St. Patrick cards. I am not usually into to St. Patrick, but guess what, I will have a few cards made up which will be going to Hospice. One of the men in our group gave me a folder with St. Patrick stamps, stamped on paper that I could run off on my printer and color, and make into cards. So that is what I have been doing the last week or so, making St. Patrick cards.

Not a whole lot has happened this past month, I did find out that I won't have to move like I thought I would, whew, such a relief off my shoulders. I just did not know how I was going to manage the move if I had to leave, and I really did not want to leave. So now I have found out I don't have to leave....I just got wrong information. Thank God I got wrong information and got the RIGHT information.

Time to close this blog, you all have a great month, I will, now that I have a load of bricks off my shoulders and now maybe I can enjoy living in my home. Take care and keep looking up, better days are just around the corner.

Cheers ~ Louise

Where Did September Go????

Yikes! Time is flying by!!! As someone said to me, "I shut my eyes Monday night and wake up, it is Friday morning already" Yep, it's true. Why did time go so slowly when I was younger and speed up so fast as I grow older???? Never will understand this concept of old age!!!!!

Well, can't believe 5 weeks have passed since my last blog, either I am lazy or just running out of mojo to blog, either or, just not much happening in my life (for now), which is fine with me at this time in my life. My Chicago Blackhawks have started their pre-season games and October 10th is the first of the regular season. So, this is good! I like hockey, then NASCAR, then Football. Hopefully the Packers do well without Arron Rogers. Oh, and the Blackhawks do well without Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews. Time will tell, I guess.

Hospice meeting was yesterday, always fun to meet together and see what the others have brought to the table as donations to the "card ministry" to Hospice.

So, these were some of my offerings. The cards above were fun to make, an idea I saw on Facebook. I really should make a template next time, so the pieces will be uniform and fit. I sort of pieced together the segments, so no, they were not uniform, each one was a bit different, but maybe that was part of the fun. I shall have to make some more like this, maybe some Christmas cards and Valentine cards too.

The bottom card, another pieced together card in a different design. Liked the new "blessed" word for this card, just bought it recently, filled up the space that did not have a blocked design.

These two cards were made at the Thompsom Center. There is a room set aside for Scrapbook and card makers. All the supplies have been donated, so the classes given are free. They usually have two teachers that give of their time showing us how to make cards. Then on the days they are not there, it is free time, and we can do what we want using the supplies that are there. So, this is what I came up with, the medallion was there to use, and the leaves die I brought from home to use there.

In this picture is another leaf card I made at the Thompson Center. The card on the left was made at home with my laminator and foil and ran a strip of green cardstock down the center and then placed the "blessed" word on it.

The cards below were an idea I found on the internet, not sure where. But I found the marbled cards from Hobby Lobby and thought they would make a nice card, I added the flowers and "just a little note" and left the inside blank.

So, this month of October will be "yard clean-up month"? The big tree in the back yard will dump millions of leaves, last year I never finished the whole yard, maybe this year will be different. The front yard, I have to cut down the peonies bush, daisies, my large porch vine and whatever else I can get too. Yeah, a lot of work for this old lady at this time. We'll see how it goes.

I have been going through some more of JP's old files from the 80's and 90's, gosh he had a lot of stuff. There were a few tracts intermingled, so I will be able to send them to Bob, who has been passing out all of JP's tracts that he had in his office. I moved all of JP's prayer journals to where the files were kept and put JP's ashes with his prayer journals, kinda keep it all together. Then there will be room in the file/safe to put a few other of JP's keepsakes. Along with a folder I am putting together that is titled "In Case of Emergency and/or Death for Louise E. Gatti" Everything that I can think of that has to do with JP, Louise, this house, Insurance, Wills, etc. so whoever the Executor is will know all there is to know and where to find it. Is that all possible???? I don't know, but I have been told to do this by a couple of people, it is a gift to those left behind that will have to take care of everything after I am gone. A morbid thought!!!!!

Can't think of much more, the time is 4:30 and I have yet to accomplish anything around this house. I am going to make a chicken dish tonight that I saw on Facebook that looked really good. My tomatoes are starting to ripen so one tomato will be used in the dish. I will take a picture of it, if I remember and don't eat it first.

Talk to you later, keep looking up better days are coming!!! 

Cheers ~ Louise

More Cards in My Stash!!!

Hi there everyone, how's it going with you??? September is right around the corner...where did this summer go to???? 

My husband and I would have been married 50 years yesterday, August 27th. I still remember what we were doing that day, of course, every woman remembers her wedding day!!! Mine was kind of weird, as JP was racing cars and just could not take time off for a wedding. So, we got married by the "Justice of the Peace" in Chicago at 11:00am. When we came out of the courthouse, JP went to get the car and there was a ticket on it, good grief!!!! The day was hot and sunny, I think we might have gone out to eat. No, our family was not there, as they did not appreciate the way we got married, they had already said, "It would not last!!!"

At 3:00pm we were signing the papers on our new little house in Arlington Heights. I had told JP I would not move into that house unless we were married, otherwise he would have been very happy had we never got married. He was very unconventional to say the least!!! The paper saying we were married, and the ring meant nothing to him. Oh, I had to buy my own ring, because he had no time for that!!! Oh well, water under the bridge. Here it is 50 years later, I guess we did okay, his racing ended after we got married in 1973. He got the Track Championship with fastest car which still stands for that year, because the track was torn down in 1980 or so.

Now on to some cards I made for Hospice. I am definitely into these lovely butterflies; they make such a nice card that can be used for anything actually. I used yellow vellum for the background and the butterflies in black with pearls colored yellow.

This next card was done the same way but with blue vellum and gems embossing them.

Both these cards were done with a corner embossing folder and cut out with a die. The top card was covered with silver past and rubbed on gold paste to enhance the rose, flowers and center of daisy. The bottom card, I rubbed on the gold paste and enhanced with the silver paste.

These two cards are a sampling of the Veterans cards I made, the top card was strips of paper layered on a pattern and embossed with button as the center of interest. It's kind of like and "Iris" fold card without the folding of the papers. 

The second card is a napkin glued on to cardstock and smoothed out like wallpaper and then embellished with the "Freedom is not free" and blue stars. We will be making Veterans cards every month now because these cards will be going to the Vets that take that plane ride to Washington DC to see the Wall and out to Hawaii to see Pearl Harbor.

This last card is another Christmas card I will be making for this Christmas. It's a stamp which I colored in with copic markers.

So, there you have it a few more cards for Hospice, our next meeting is September 1st, so I have quite a few cards in my stash for the next few meetings. I just need to add a verse of Happy Birthday or Thinking of you or Thank you in the rest of the cards.

I have been getting a few vegies from my gardens. Beans, cherry tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and dill. Actually, the chipmunks have gotten quite a few of my tomatoes, here's hoping they get a stomachache after eating too many tomatoes!!!!! I kind of gave up getting tomatoes from my garden.....not like the old days when I was not so hard to garden around my house.

Well time to close here, need to get some things done around this house and water the plants outside. All those putsy everyday things to do. You have a great day and keep looking up, better days are coming. Cheers ~ Louise

Some New Cards

Hi there everyone, hope you are enjoying this HOT summer!!! I have no air conditioning, so it really gets miserable warm in this house. Oh, I have the fans going, ceiling fan, floor fan, little fan by the chair, yep, fans a blowing everywhere and no place to cool down. I also have one of those little artic air conditioners, but it in no means cools down a room, it does cool me down while I sit by my computer. Today, the artic conditioner is not on, as it is still kind of warm or at least not HOT in this house, but comfortable.

So, today's cards, some were made at the Senior Center and some at home. The butterfly card (above) was made at the Center. People donate a lot of stuff, and this butterfly die was a donation, I sure do like it, it made a lovely card. Think I will make some more diagonal cards at home and when I go to the Center, hunt up this die and cut more like it, hopefully it will still be there and did not walk away.

The above cards, the diagonal grey with leaves was made at the Center. The other card I made at the Center a couple of months ago. Now the bottom card, "yellow daisies on a black background" is a new die I bought from "Scrapbook.com". It came with a 3D embossing folder and the die to cut out the corner flower. My technique was to use the Tim Holtz Distress inks and with a steeple brush (hard bristles) color the flowers and leaves. I have also tried gold and silver paste and smeared it on the flowers. Those cards will be in my next blog.

Now these two cards were a lot of fun to make. They reminded me of the "Iris folding" technique. They were made at the Center and finished at home. The top card has a pattern to follow, and the strips cut out to fit within the pattern. I made quite a few of these cards last night in different colors. The butterfly card was made at home. One of the ladies that comes to the Center brought the pattern and directions to make more of these cards. Now if I can just figure it out, I will make more of these in the coming days.

Here is my new Christmas card using the iris fold techniques. The "falala" die was free with my order to Scrapbook.com. Will have to make a lot more of these in the next coming days. I have to make Veteran cards for the Hospice meeting September 1st. So, I think I will make Veteran cards using this method. Fun, fun, fun in the next few days.

Well, there you have it another round of card making. I extended my stamping room to the dining room table as it is a bit cooler in the dining room. My stamping room is a bit stuffy and too warm to make cards, so I just go in there to get supplies. I also extended the dining room table to make it a bit larger. The table can sit 12 people, well that would be about the length of the dining room, so that would be WAY too big for this room. I shall have to settle for this size in this room. Lots of fans blowing on me so it makes it bearable, making cards.

My little garden is starting to produce, YAY!!! Onions and greens, dill, 1 cucumber, got some green tomatoes that the chipmunks found and green beans!!! Hot dog and green beans for lunch today....Yum!!! I noticed I have lots of cherry tomatoes growing, if they make it, just need to remember to water them, they let me know when they are thirsty, they wilt!!!

Another funny oneliner from Brenda's blog; "Big shout out to my fingers ~ I can always count on them!!!"

Well time to close before this gets toooooo long of a blog. Talk later and keep looking up, better days are coming!!! Cheers~Louise
 

Some Cards I Made at the Senior Community Center

Hi there everyone, Hope you are having a good summer. It's going way too fast though, before you know it August will be here, and the kids are going back to school again. When I was young, time went sooooooo slow and I always wished time would go faster. Saying to my mother, "I can hardly wait for my birthday, I can hardly wait for Christmas, I can hardly wait" for whatever exciting experience was coming up!!!! My mother would say to me, "Don't wish your life away Louise, it will all come soon enough!!!" Never knew what she meant, but now I do, time does fly by fast!!!!!

So, I thought I would give you a small taste of some of the cards I have been making at the Senior Center every Tuesday. It's like my field trip once a week and meeting up with lots of other people my age and have a little fellowship with like-minded card making people. Most of the cards here will be going to Hospice, a few I might keep, and send to people. 

BUT....that might be less, as the price of 1 stamp is now $.66 cents. Price just went up yesterday, how crazy is that. Pretty soon we won't be seeing the mail man visit us with bills or cards anymore. Will be just TOO expensive to send in the mail. 

I took a bunch of pictures with my cell phone the other day of how my garden is growing. But don't know how to transfer those pictures to this computer, I suppose there is a way, have not figured it out yet. That might be my next blog...."How is my garden growing" Looking forward to my Italian green beans and tomatoes. BUT that means the summer is rolling along FAST!!!!! Fall is right around the corner!!!! Aren't you having fun reading my blog..........TIME IS FLYING!!!!!!

This is kind of a rough month for me, I suppose if I let it be that. JP will have passed 2 years ago this month on the 25th. Not too sure how I will handle this memory. Most people go to the grave site and put flowers on the grave. JP's ashes are still here in the house, so he is in so many ways, still here. I told the in-laws that when I pass, to cremate me, mix our ashes together in a bag and drop us in Lake Michigan. I always liked the water.

Well, here we are at the last picture. As you can see, I used Copic markers to color most of these cards. The fisher boy included at the very beginning.

Our next meeting for Hospice is September 1st, so there is still 7 weeks to go...how fast will that go????? I need to get some Veteran cards made and then everyday cards along with Fall cards and then start thinking about CHRISTMAS AGAIN!!!

There you go one blog that covers the whole year...lol!!! Oh, I must tell you, I had another miracle in my life. God surely does take care of the widows.

I had a tree growing next to my foundation and the neighbor cut it for me and then I mentioned the limbs hanging over my roof. I wondered how I was going to get that taken care of without calling a tree trimmer and spending 1-2k that I did not have. The neighbor said, "let me take a look" and he said, "I can do that"....well, he cleared off the roof of branches!!! Oh my gosh, that was a load off my shoulders. God is so good!!! I asked him what I could give him $ wise and he said, "nothing" that again was a miracle to me. 

Now mind you, I have not talked to this neighbor or his wife for 7-8 years because they crossed the line and complained about the fence, we were having put up was taller than their fence. The people were not even done with the fence building, they got 3 warnings from the neighbors, and it caused a lot of trouble for the project manager. I thought it was very rude of the neighbors....they should of kept their nose in their own backyard till the job was done.

Well, that's about all for now, I have a funny one liner for you that I read on another blog today, thanks Brenda!!!

"Never use a GPS when going to a cemetery. It's too scary to hear, "You've reached your destination."

That cracked me up, talk to you all later and have a good one.

Cheers ~ Louise
 

Hospice Cards for May 5th

Hi there everyone, how you all doing??? I've been busy with life, guess that is why you have not been seeing me on this blog, sorry about that. I do keep busy though, it's been a long hard winter and not going anywhere. Life changes quite a bit when one becomes a "widow" it's not the happiest place to be in the world. I guess you make your own happiness and I have not figured out how to do that as yet.

These two cards, I apparently colored these turtles a couple of years ago, ran across them and thought, let's make some cards for Hospice with this girl. Yeah, so the background is an embossing folder that I inked and ran through the cuttlebug. I covered the corners with black cardstock because I accidently ripped one corner while cutting it, so to camouflaged it, I covered it.

This card was run through the cuttlebug with a 3D folder on black cardstock. Then I covered with it gold paste with my finger. The white star like pattern is what is called Spirilla (thread art) and a gold dot for the middle. I need to add a Happy Birthday or Happy Father's Day at the top yet.

This card is just sticky back shiny paper. I added a flower that I embossed with 3 coats of embossing powders, gave it a real glossy look, kind of hard to tell in this picture. Again, I need to add a Birthday, Thinking of You or Happy Fathers Day greeting on it.

This card was fun. The black background was run through the cuttlebug (flowers). I used 4 different size circles of different colors, glued them together then cut them in half. Then you place the half circles on the card and it looks like swirlies, kind of a cool look.

This card, the embossing folder was inked and run through the cuttlebug. I added butterflies where the folder showed butterflies, simple birthday blessings.

This flower, along with 3 other flowers, apparently, I colored a couple of years ago and again ran across them and thought they needed to be used for a Hospice card. I think I used pearl-x powders but not to for sure.

Now this card was run through the cuttlebug with a tin looking paper that I had for YEARS stashed away and pulled out.....lets use this for a card, then it sat on the counter for a month or so, turned out really neat, wish I had some more of this stuff. The "Thanks" was stashed away and I added it to the card...guess I am just using stuff that's been laying around for years. Never know when stuff comes in handy.

Here again, these giraffes were done years ago and I just added them to these cards that I had foiled and ran through the laminator.

So, there you have it a bunch of cards I have made for Hospice this month. I should have between 60-75 cards when finished. I still have tomorrow to work on them. The meeting is Friday at 9am. We pass the cards around to each other so we can see what the other card makers made and get ideas for the next meeting which will be June 2nd. We sit around and gab and this month we will be putting together Father's Day favors and we put a Hershey's candy in each favor. We are usually done about 11pm

I suspect this month will go by pretty fast, most months fly by in a twinkling of an eye almost. A friend said, she closes her eyes Monday night and it's Friday morning already!!! That's how fast time flies for her!!!

Well, it you are still with me, I hope you enjoyed my review of some of my cards, the creative juices are running finally. You have a great month and hopefully I will be back again with some more cards. Take care and keep looking up, better days are coming. Blessings ~ Louise