Cards Again!

Lots of Cards this week, lots of birthdays! An opportunity to use several vintage Stampin Up sets...Let's Party, Just Beakause, to name a few, and another Sock Monkey cause he's SO cute!

Pink

LuminArte Radiant Rain, a little glitter, and voila, a sweet floral birthday card using the Ruche paper again. Love it!

I do love the K and Company (?) Oriental paper pack. These make great backgrounds for nearly any occasion card!

More New Cards!

One thing that I am s-l-o-w-l-y learning is to make cards faster! I love to use the vintage Stampin Up sets, and this is "Let's Party". "Just Beakause" has the cutest birds, and the K and Company background paper works perfectly here!

Actually, I was inspired by the oriental pack and put together 2 cards, but felt they were missing "something", until the necessity for more birthday cards lit a fire under my creative muse!

The State Fair

I started the weekend off with a trip to Terra Firma. As I like to say, "all roads lead to Terra Firma", since more than once, while out and about, I found myself turning onto Reisterstown Road and heading in that direction! This is Bill Rinker, the awesome owner. You can't go there and expect to be in and out in 10, even 20 minutes! Plan at least an hour, because you will be sure to run into someone you haven't seen for ages, or find a book or tool you can't do without! The new bead room (I say new, but it has been a year, I think!) always has something new, and I am hard-pressed to just get ONE thing! If you haven't been, check out http://www.tfeinc.biz/ for directions.

Saturday brought the Baltimore Bead Society Annual Board of Directors Pot Luck/meeting to start planning for our new year starting with the September meeting. Nancy, our fearless leader, was also our hostess and great food and lively discussion ensued. We have some great programs planned and will be having another Winter Bead Show in January, so keep your calendar free the weekend of January 17th & 18th - last year was a blast, and this year will be even better!

Sunday my BFF David and I went to the State Fair. I had a hard time deciding which pictures to post, there are so many great animals and other candid shots...I was a little distracted and did miss out on some as I think back on it! Dept. of Natural Resources had their new Scales and Tails exhibit hall open and this red tail hawk was featured outside.

I always try to get there in time for the chicken and bunny shows, and as usual, there were some fabulous chickens. It's hard to decide which is my favorite, but I am drawn to the Dominique, one of the older breeds. I did get a pic of this amazing gal, not a Dominique, but with the fuzziest white feathers - more like fur, actually!

The "petting zoo" is a crowd favorite, and those darn little rugrats kept getting in my way! (just kidding!) But I did quack at the duck and had the most majestic Llama pose just for moi!

Last but not least, we passed the track just as another race was starting, and watched some beautiful thoroughbreds strut their stuff. It was David's FIRST horse race! The speed and power of those horses just makes my heart flutter! At the Timonium track you can stand right at the rail, even chat with the jockeys as they amble by winding their way around to the starting gate. Very "up close and personal", charming, really. It is amazing how perfectly groomed they are as they go by to the gate, and one mile, and a few minutes, later, yuck! more dirt and mud caked on horse and rider than you can imagine! ...and it was a dry track!