I haven’t been very good about announcing our Design Team’s Challenges or organizing Customer Challenges and I so apologize for that.   This week’s challenge has been one of my favorites so I wanted to make a point of encouraging everyone to take a look!   They were asked to make a Christmas Card featuring a stamp that is not a typical Christmas stamp.   Boy did they get the creative juices flowing!  I promise - before long I’ll announce a similar challenge for our customers – so start planning!

And I want to take this opportunity to introduce Serendipity’s Guest Designer!   Jenny Gropp will be working with our design team for the rest of the year.   I’d been noticing the beautiful cards that Jenny has created using Serendipity Stamps and asked if she’d be interested in being our GT and she said YES!

This first card was made by Jenny Gropp using 233E Candy Jar and668C Merry Christmas Small.

Next we have Amy Cokley’s card made with 1201G Chipmunk and 668C Merry Christmas Small.

Next is Kathie Bailey’s card made using 213H Typewriter.

Below is Anya Schrier’s card made using 282K Cheryl’s Postcards and just the top part of 1140E Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

And last but not least is Lynda Benden’s card, made using 992G Mare and Foal , 1194H Winter Fenceline and 668C Merry Christmas Small.

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.

Our little piece of land sits on a 2-lane highway in western Missouri.  When we bought the place, I noticed some pretty pink and white flowers growing along the pasture fence up by the road.   I asked a neighbor and she told me that they were Sweet Peas.   Below is a notepad that Anya Schrier created for our DT Notepad Challenge.   Anya does a beautiful job of collage with several different word images plus the Sweet Pea 1215H and Earth Laughs 417D images that are both included in the 1215QCL Sweet Pea Cling Set. 

Here’s a close up of Anya’s project.  Watch for more posts this week showcasing our new Summer Stamps!

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.

This isn’t exactly a “spring” turkey card, but it is one of my favorite cards of all time.  It’s super easy and beautiful!   Sue Eldred used 800K Turkey Large to create this card.    You can also get a small version of the same image – 801E Turkey Small.

I don’t have an image of a Morel mushroom – and I need to remedy that.  But I do have a  Toadstool – 1012G that makes beautiful cards – just don’t eat anything like these that you find out in the woods.

Below is the view coming down my driveway this week.  And to think – this is not landscaping – just Mother Nature in all her glory!  Blooming redbuds only last a short time and the very best time to see them in on a cloudy day just after an April shower.

This view is just as pretty in January, though not as colorful.   But it was the inspiration for 1194H – Winter Fenceline, shown below.   All it takes is someone full of imagination, like DT member Anya Schrier, to turn January into April, as you can see in the card further down.