My youngest daughter and I took the train recently from Kansas City to St. Louis.   Over the years I’ve heard horror stories about long delays along the normally 5 hour route, but recently I’d heard that most of those problems had been resolved so I decided we’d take the chance.   The train ride was great!   Very comfortable seating, similar to an airplane but with lots more seating space.   We left from Independence, MO, just east of Kansas City (home of Harry Truman and the Truman Presidential Library).  
 

It’s a small train station, staffed for just a few hours a day by volunteers.  There was a small, well kept parking lot, and benches on which to wait.     The train stops at least a half dozen times as it crosses the state, but only for a few minutes each time.    Much of the route is right along the Missouri River, through small towns, and farmland.  Very pretty scenery – much better than what we see from the highway (no billboards!!!!).   The trip takes just about the same amount of time as driving, and with two of us, we spent a bit less than we would have one gas.   Our trip back was not quite as idyllic – the air conditioning in our car was working only sporadically.   But the passengers took it in stride – most where St. Louis Cardinal fans traveling to Kansas City to watch the series with the Royals (I’m proud to report that our KC Royals won the series!), and were in festive moods.   This lack of grumbling really made the difference between what could have been a very long, tedious trip and what ended up being a “warm” , but fun adventure.   All of this is a not-so-subtle lead in to a couple of great samples made by our design team using our new Train Engine Large – 1217J image.  The name of each designer will display when select each photo.

Below are two projects created years ago by Cheryl Helm.   Cheryl was a pioneer in tea-dying and created beautiful “aged”  projects long before anyone heard of walnut ink or distressing.   Cheryl used the following images:  047H – Eagle, 206K – Flag, 214H – We the People, and 243E – God Bless America. 

I love it when stampers get creative with our stamps.   Color a Coneflower yellow and it becomes a Sunflower.   Put a snowman in front of a summer porch, add some white gel pen to the bushes and you have a winter scene.   Kathie Bailey simply colored our new little Goldfinch blue instead of yellow and viola!   He’s an Indigo Bunting!   Kathie used our new Goldfinch 1219G and Quick Note Vertical 251D to create the outside of her note pad.

A few of the Iris have started blooming!    A few years ago, a woman in my town who raises a huge variety of Iris thinned her beds and gave me a garbage sack full of bulbs.  Well, I’ve been remis over the years and many of the colors have died away leaving me with mostly purple and white.   But even they are breath-taking and provided the inspiration for our Iris stamps – 546K and 547E.   Below the Iris is a beautiful card created by Pat Connelly.  On Pat’s card, you’ll also see the Spring Flower Background 578H and We Turn Not 573D.

Congratulations to Velta Wesson!   You won the random drawing from our Customer Postcard Challenge!   Velta gets a free QCL sized cling set of her choice.   Thanks for entering Velta and here’s the pretty postcard you sent.   She used our cling set 712QCL – Adirondak Chair.   You can check out Velta’s blog at http://www.impressionsbyv.blogspot.com/

 Watch for my next post to see what our next Customer Challenge will be.