Serendipity Stamps Blog

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.

In my last post I mentioned seeing lots of Goldfinches at my bird feeder.   Well just last week I saw a Goldfinch AND and an Indigo Bunting on the feeder at the same time.  It looked like a tropical rainforest with all those bright colors!   There’s a little wooded area with a creek near the end of our road and that’s where the Indigo Buntings hang out.   I don’t know if they like the shade, the water, or the water bugs, but it’s always a treat to see them flit by.  Here’s a picture of an Indigo Bunting in case you’ve never seen one – I hadn’t before a few years ago.
  

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.  

We have a bit of a twisted history with the Easter Bunny in our family.   My husband is a hunter – and bunnies are sometimes on his list of prey (but usually only as a last resort – if he just can’t find anything else to shoot, squirrels fall into a similar category).   ANYWAY – as the girls run around the yard hunting eggs, my husband yells threats that he’ll shoot that Easter Bunny for hiding all of the eggs we worked so hard dying!   But no one, not even my husband, would shoot a bunny as adorable as this little guy.   The Sleeping Bunny Cling Set – 983QCL includes a lovely Laura Ingalls Wilder quote.   Or you can get the same stamp individually – 983E – Sleeping Bunny.  As you can see, this stamp would be great for baby cards as well as Easter cards.

The card below was made by Lynda Benden.

The card below was made by Carolyn Hurst.  She also used 706D Happy Easter and if you look closely at the background you’ll shadow stamping of butterflies and Easter Eggs.  

The card below was made by Sue Eldred.  She also used 617B Thinking of You Small.

And last, but not least, is another card from Lynda Benden.

My daughter received a pair of black, high-top, Converse for her birthday on Sunday.  The circle of life….I still have “one” of my favorite pair of Converse.  They were orange high-tops.  I wore them in college – 25 years ago.  I have no idea where the mate went!   Below are two awesome cards made by Dina Kowal and Jennifer Woodward.  They used the Serendipity Stamps image 221G – Tennis Shoes or 221QCL.     And look – no mates!

When I asked the new design team members which stamps they wanted to begin working with, I was happy to find many of them chose one of my very favorite stamps, Three Dresses – 017G.  This is one of the “original 65″ – the 65 stamps I had in my first printed catalog.  It is very dear to me because I have three daughters!  When I started SS, my oldest two daughters were 5 and 7 yrs old and wouldn’t wear anything BUT dresses (boy has that changed!).  Now there are three girls, ages 14, 14, and 16.  And the closest they get to a dress is a too-short jean skirt!  Anyway, I thought you might like to see a group of these wonderful dress cards!