Up Close and Personal

Here are the close ups I promised  of the cards I showed yesterday on WOYWW 206. Sorry my post is so late...we had a wonderfully busy day today and then I went to my neighbours for our weekly craft evening.

This is a picture heavy post so I am going to get started.

The first is from Hettie at Hettiecraft. I loved the sort of feeling of a meadow with the  flocks of birds stamped to create the background. The vibrant orange  embossed card and the gorgeous stamped flowers are even more vibrant IRL.

Bonnie Raduse of  Stamping In The Light made this lovely, cheery card.  Nice hot colours! Reminds me of a great hot day up at the lake...When the thermometer is pushing 40 you sure need an umbrella!

 Sarn at Stamping For Pleasure made this farmyard scene! Or maybe they're biking away from the barnyard...making a quick escape! There is a lovely shimmer spray over the image...it glistens!

Little Miss C and my daughter made this next one for my birthday. Love the glittered butterfly.

Redanne of Redanne made this striking tag. I had complimented her on this gorgeous tag and it arrived just for me and is even more vibrant IRL! The three dimensional poppies have been shaped as well!

Onward to my friends through the Christmas Card Club. We make a Christmas card a fortnight and take turns choosing the theme. First up is Hazel of My Crafty Outlook. Hazel makes hundreds of cards a year to raise funds for her favourite charities. The sweet little duo are holding balloons that  totally match the sentiment paper colour!

 Carol at CM Design sent this lovely Celtic themed card. My Grandfather lived in Antrim for a time and I have visited Ireland as a teenager. I really enjoyed this Celtic look. The perfume bottles are so intricate in their patterns.

Clare, Bert, Simone and Blackie of My Purfect World of Cats, Cards and Crafts made this tall beauty. Lots of stickles make the pretty images pop!

Sue of Olliesmam made this 8x8 beauty. It is the first card of this size I have ever received and I was so excited to open the envelope. Sadly the postman folded it in half to fit it in my postal box. Even though Sue wrote "Please do not bend, thanks" on the envelope. The sentiment is so perfect! I will be meeting up with Sue when I go to England this August.

And now the moment you have been waiting for...
Here is what has been keeping me from creating and visiting and even blogging at times...our garden project!

7 cubic yards or black bark mulch, 2 cubic yards of torpedo gravel, hundred of hours of poor old DH digging and lifting out overgrown perennials, similar hours with me sitting at the patio table prying the tangled roots apart, almost 300 pots of "leftover" plants, what seemed like hundreds of garbage bins of discarded yard waste, and countless bits of blast rock hauled home from the Shuswap, from Merrit and from the Sunshine Coast...

What does all that add up to? My new "tidier" flower beds edged in blast rock and a much safer walkway down to the hose spigot. Here is the walkway that is just off our patio area. It slopes down slightly to the side of our house. I nearly took a header there this spring as muddy water running down to the drain can be quite slippery. DH did a lot of digging and improved the drainage to this area. He made a stacked rock wall  around the garden bed to help contain soil erosion.
Warning...I have a typical Lower Mainland house (suburbs of Vancouver). I am overlooked as are all my neighbours. Don't be too shocked to see other houses.


Here is a shot of the perennial bed and rock edge. Once he collects enough rock, he will add a second layer.
The little shed is two stories. It is too bad that the tree obscures the pretty windows on the top floor. The barn doors open out to a wee cement area...the garden faces the setting sun so when it is smoking hot on the patio, we can sit up there in the cool shade.

The patio furniture is obscuring the bed so here is a close up of the part behind the table. Here you can see the area that is roped off to protect the new grass seed. We cut the length of the  bed back about a foot to coincide with the runoff  from the eaves of the garden shed. Dh  has set it up to direct the water down to the drain by the gravel I showed in the first picture. No more chance of me taking a header again!

Yep, here's where the water runs down to ...the drain is located just past the bottom left of this photo ( I am standing behind it with the camera). Those with good eyesight may notice my poor clematis draped over the edge of the cement wall...we don't have the trellis back up yet since the fence was painted...I'd better get cracking on with that tomorrow as it is getting about 2 feet long now!


I didn't think to take any before and after for contrast...but the plants were all touching and many were growing in together. You could not see any of the soil or the old mulch...just a sea of plants. My bulbs, anemones, trillium, toad lillies, etc, have just finished so I have removed all the spent greens...not all the perennials are up yet but the majority will be 3 to 4 feet high by July.

.Hope you enjoyed the tour of the cards and of the left side of the back garden! I might get brave and show you the right side another day...there are still some overgrown sections there that we will divide in the Fall...

Currently we are working on improving the lawn...we've dethatched, moss killed, fetilized and overseeded. Hopefully it picks up as you can probably tell from the pictures...it needs "a little work"!