Look what I saw when I opened my blinds!

If you're on my customer mailing list, you may have thought I was jumping the gun when you opened your email this morning to find information about holiday stamp camps. But hey, if you saw what I saw outside my window earlier today, maybe you'd understand!!

All right, it's not really snow, but just the leftovers from one heck of a hail storm we had last night. Even after 12 hours there were still ice pellets in my yard! My 17 year-old son was just a little concerned about what might be happening to his vehicle that was getting pelted by this stuff: "I've got insurance for this, right?" he choked out while we all stared out the front door. (Well, no, honey, being that you're driving an 11 year-old minivan with 150,000 miles on it, we don't have it insured to the hilt--but we didn't mention that last night, and the van was none the worse for wear this morning.)

Actually, I almost forgot that it had hailed last night, so I was pretty surprised to see this as I opened the blinds this morning, so no, the holiday stamp camp announcement was not inspired by the weather but by the fact that I finally scheduled myself for much-needed carpal tunnel surgery. I'm squeezing the October (9th or 10th) camp in beforehand, and will have much of the prep for the November (13th or 14th) camp done early, just in case the recovery estimate I've been given is off some. More than ever, Melissa will be my "right-hand gal" so I don't have to go through too much stamping withdrawal.

I'll post a sneak peek or two of camp projects in the next week or so, but for today, I wanted to share a card that was inspired by the project that's been keeping me busy for the last couple weeks, namely getting my kitchen floor replaced. No, no, I didn't replace it myself, but as with most home-improvement projects, there's always that domino effect, requiring moving, painting, cleaning or replacing of almost every item even remotely related to the affected room, taking WAY longer than ever expected. Haven't had a ton of time to "play" lately so I decided I NEEDED to create one more "domino" and link stamping to the floor project somehow.

I made this card for Steve, my wonderful tile guy. I used retired "Outlaw" Designer Paper to "recreate" the tile design I now have in my kitchen and laundry room. The floor is a combination of 12-inch and 6-inch tiles, so I used 1-inch and half-inch squares of paper for the card.

The colors in the DSP are Really Rust, Chocolate Chip, and maybe Creamy Caramel or Close to Cocoa, some of the same colors in my tile, so I thought this paper was a good choice. Have to admit the colors didn't photograph very true. My punched out "thank you" looks more like Pumpkin Pie than Really Rust, but I like that I'll be able to send a note on a very appropriate card (that looks much better in real life.)

This is what the floor looks like:

Again, the colors are off--my cabinets look like cherry or something, instead of oak, and the tiles are shades of caramel. Guess I need to add a photography class, or at least a good sit-down with my camera manual, to the to-do list!

Enjoy these last days of September!