Stampin! with Jaydee

Hi Everyone.  Happy Sunday.

It's the fabulous Nance's turn to host our Paper Players challenge this week and she has a theme challenge:

Isn't that another great badge from Nance?  She really does a fabulous job with them.  I just want to sit down by that fire and roast vegetarian marshmallows! :-)

The great thing about this theme is that there are so many different directions you can take your creation.  I remembered that I had kept a couple of my very favorite Stampin' Up! sets and decided it was time to ink up Moon Lake.  I wanted to keep it very clean and simple so that I could let the image shine.

I used my stitched oval dies to die cut a... well... oval :-) and stamped the image with Memento Tuxedo black ink.  I then colored them image with Copic markers.  Once the coloring was done, I stamped the sentiment on the card base and used some fun foam to lift the focal element a little from the card base.

Here's my card:

I really like the images in this set and I decided to use the image of the bird on the branch on another card that I will share with you later this week.

I hope you will play along with us this week and, as usual, if you are looking for some inspiration, you have to look no further than the creations from our amazingly talented design team:

• Claire
• Joanne
• Laurie
• LeAnne
• Nance 
•  Sandy
•  Deanne
• Jan
• Annie

On a personal note:

I have no idea what is happening with the weather, but it is more like late September than early August here.  It's been getting down into the low 50s overnight.  Thursday night was the first night in ages that we were able to open the windows and sleep without the airconditioning.  The humidity was low and the temps were cool!  I'm hoping it's going to warm up soon!

Our garden at the front is an explosion of color and the bees are loving it!  As are the small number of buterflies we have seen this year.  A couple of years ago we planted to small butterflyweed plants.  Those two little plants have cast seed all around the garden and there are bunches of it sprouting up everywhere and we are thrilled.  It's a favorite of the pollinators - especially the Monarchs.  We have the Common Milkweed at the back and the butterflyweed at the front in the hope that it helps them out.  It's also a beautiful looking plant - you can see where it has seeded itself against the step.  The bright pop of orange is gorgeous.

Near it are the asters, bee balm, goldstrum and the echinacea.   The grasses are little bluestem.

Here's another part of the garden - you can see where it has seeded itself!

The echinacea are marvelous this year and they continue to be wonderful even after they have seeded and died off for the year.  The goldfinch love to feed off the seed heads in winter, so we don't trim them back until Spring.

We introduced a new plant this year - Hyssop and the bees LOVE it.  It has the most amazing smell - it really smells like licorice and it certainly smells good to the bees :-)

I'll be back tomorrow with another card.  In the meantime, warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe:

• Stamp:  Moon Lake - Stampin' Up!
• Inks:  Memento Tuxedo Black; Copic Markers
• Card stock:  Neenah Solar White #110