Tropical birds, flowers, and lizards???

Today's card features the word dies from MFT, Absolutely Fabulous. It is accented with a bird and some flowers and leaves from MFT's Birds of Paradise and Blissful Blooms. These were painted with my Zig Real Brush Water Color Markers. I also colored the letters on the Absolutely part since they just disappeared into the plaid.

I'm putting this into the MFT Color challenge # 48. The purple isn't quite spot on, but I'm going for it any way!



Now, my tropical story. I love living in Florida, even if the wildlife can be a little scary. There's a snake that hangs around the back door at work. He's shy and harmless so not many people have seen him. Just yesterday I saw a 2 foot iguana in the parking lot at Tijuana Flats. Sure, if you are going to see an iguana, in the parking lot of a Mexican food restaurant seems very appropriate. Then when I got home I saw this GIANT green lizard on the tree in my front yard. Honestly, it's hard to tell, but he is absolutely fabulous. At a distance. This guy was between 12 and 14 inches long.

Edited to add: I have researched him, and he is a Knight Anole, native to Cuba, and can live 10 to 15 years. Wow.

Remember my Big Louie story from a few years ago? I'm not doing that again,  no way, no how.

Good days start with coffee and you!

It's the last entry for the Summer Coffee Lover's Blog Hop. This card features some of the products I bought at the My Favorite Things store last week. The coffee cup die, the coffee sentiment, and the scalloped border are all from last week MFT store haul. The "Hi" sentiment and the black and white stripped paper were from previous, online purchases. The butterscotch and brown papers are from Lawn Fawn's Let's Polka Mon Ami 6x6 pad.

Looking at the photo of the card, you can't tell if the butterscotch piece is the negative of a previous frame cut, or the background to the brown cut.

Enough Caffeine

More coffee!! Always a plus in my morning, In my opinion.

The cute little coffee go-cup is from Pretty Cute Stamps' Coffee Faces, and the sentiment is from the companion set Coffee Sentiments.

Visit the Summer Coffee Lover's Blog Hop, if you didn't get here from there!

You've got this.

Sometimes I know exactly what I want to do, and sometimes I struggle with using the ONE thing I started out to use.  Sometimes the ONE thing is the only thing that really doesn't work on a card.

These birds from The Alley Way Stamps' set "Bird Brain" have been in my colored images box for over a year now, just waiting for the inspiration to strike. I also wanted to use the frames from Lawn Fawn (Flirty Frames) with a mirrored center piece behind the birds. The shiny silver card stock centers just didn't look right, and I lost the impact of the green striped paper, too.

Sometimes it isn't what you thought it was going to be. This is one of those times. LOL at me.

Oh, the other idea I had was to use the "You've got this" sentiment with coffee, somehow. Scratch that, for now.

Kitty in a cup

I got this little kitty stamp as a bonus for purchasing a magazine. She's adorable! This is the last of the 4 blended coffee cups I did a while back. I used Distress inks,  misted them and dried with a paper towel to create some texture. The cup is a Simon Says Stamp die. The letters for "THANKS" are the pieces that dropped out of the SSS scalloped border thanks die.

It's another case of using paper so old that I can't remember where I got it. I THINK I got it at a Tuesday Morning, so it was even old when it was new (to me).

Enjoy more coffee, everyone!

Summer Coffee Lovers Blog Hop

Another cup of thanks

Another coffee-themed card for the Summer Coffee Lover's blog hop.  This little cup was blended with Distress inks, spritzed and patted dry for texture, and centered on a peek-a-boo stitched window panel (My Favorite Things). The cup is from a Simon Says Stamp die. The sentiment is from SSS Sketchy Banner sayings, on a sketchy banner die.

The patterned paper is so old I can't remember where or when I got it. I guess it is good to use up old stuff, right? Since I just bought up a whole bunch of new stuff, the old has got to go!

I just got back from a visit to my brother's house which is very near the My Favorite Things store in Eustis, Florida. I bought quite a few things while I was there, so I should be mentioning their name in a lot of posts in the future. Quite a few things.

Enjoy your coffee today!

Summer Coffee Lover's Blog Hop

Today I am jumping into the Summer Coffee Lover's Blog Hop with a card I actually finished last week. I have been out of town for the last week and away from my tools and supplies.

I used one of  my new "on the edge" dies from MFT for the "celebrate" part of the sentiment, and Milo's ABCs (Lawn Fawn) for the Hip Hip Hurray portion. You can't really see it here, but the rectangles for the cups are cut with a stitched photo frame die from Pretty Pink Posh. The "coffee" stamp is from an old The Alley Way Stamps set (Breakfast Club). The mugs are paper pieced with a stamp from Your Next Stamp.

On a side note, who knew there were so many different ways to spell "hurray"? After I started worrying about that, none of them looked right.