Are Quilts Just For Winter?

Not when they are crafted from paper!

I have not been fortunate enough to inherit quilts from my grandmothers or aunts.  Now that I think about it,  I can't recall seeing any of the women in my family working in the needle arts except Mama and she did crewel embroidery and and crochet. 

I was fortunate enough, however, to spend several years in the Midwest. I
found a best friend who quilted. Between her influence,  the ritual of autumn craft shows, local antiquing and the Amish community of Grabill, I fell in love with quilts. I learned to recognize many pattern names and their history. 

Ohio Star

Log Cabin

And then I wanted to learn how to quilt. I wanted baby quilts for my little ones. 

Technically I did learn to quilt. It was kindly suggested and agreed upon that a nine patch pattern might be a good one for a beginner, like me. So off I went to fabric stores in pursuit of primary color calicoes for a nursery decorated in yellow gingham and bright balloon wallpaper.

I pieced by hand. I quilted by hand and I still have that sweet little crib quilt. 

I continued to study quilts and began purchasing old quilts that were made by others' grandmothers.

My subsequent quilting endeavors have not been terribly successful. But I do love looking at fabric and dreaming about my next quilt. 

In the meantime, I look at paper the way quilters must look at fabric. I buy paper, then more paper.

And then I try to put paper and quilt patterns together.

I recently joined other Stampin' Up! crafters in a swap featuring the new 2021-2023 InColors. There was no sketch offered, just a list of colors and embellishments required. From a blank canvas, so to speak, a patchwork quilt came to mind.

And about the same time I was mulling over this idea, trying to divide fractions,  I came across a SU Demonstrator that is an avid bird watcher and quilter who is creating paper quilt blocks inspired by her birding. Luckily for me, I was able to purchase kits with cutting instructions and assembly directions. 

Duck Tracks 

Julie Heitz,  The Chirpy Cardmaker of Quilts - and more (her Facebook page), designed Duck Tracks, above.  This is my first attempt with one of her designs. I don't know what I was thinking, but whoa! I was cutting 11/16 th inch squares on the diagonal to make teensy triangles. 

I have another of her designs to try: Return of the Swallows. And perhaps more.

But for tonight, I am going to pull the quilt to the end of the bed; it is too hot for that extra layer.

On my floral square above I used the new Pansy Patch Designer Series Paper, plus Soft Succulent Cardstock and a gem from the InColor Jewels. Of course, you can find those products in my online store, just click Shop Now ~ let me know how I can help. 

Let's stamp!

Grandmama, come play with me!

I have Grandmama duty for a few days with my 2 and 4 year old boys. It is sometimes hard to get these two overly excitable brothers to slow down. Although I am not complaining; they have quite an imagination and like to create play.

I have spent an hour or more being the maintenance man at Mickey's (Mouse) Campground. I have also been the emergency AAA Operator for the driver of the camper who is lost and cannot find the campground. And I have played the un-named puppy friend of the Paw Patrol Pups.

Tonight we settled down just before bath time for an art project, otherwise known as Paper Pumpkin. Thank goodness the April So Cool Kit was in reserve. 

The brilliant colors, popsicle art and stickers captured this little guy's attention immediately.  His four year old hands easily folded the cards. And he was more than adept at removing the stickers and decorating cards and envelopes.

Oddly, he ran out of stickers before cards! Imagine that. 

I am going to swipe a popsicle card to use as  an embellishment and journaling spot on a scrapbook page with these pictures. 

In fact, I am going to take two; when I get back home I'll write the boys a note telling them what fun I had visiting them. This little creative one sorrowful admitted to me, "after you visit, I am sad when you leave." Me, too, buddy.

And a little silliness before upstairs for bath:

How thankful I am to have these boys close enough to visit frequently; I know many envious grandparents. 

These two boys are just another reason I love having a Paper Pumpkin subscription. We share crafty fun. We experiment and explore with art. We  stay in touch and make memories.  AND I can help settle them down with a little special attention.

This month’s kit, which arrived while I was away, is the perfect, PERFECT, kit for my two older grandsons who play in youth baseball leagues (and granddaughter in youth softball)! 

Am I a cool Grandmama or what?!

Have you subscribed to Paper Pumpkin (it's not just for Grandmamas)? Any questions about the kits, subscribing? I am happy to answer them all. And if you are ready, you can subscribe right from my blog by clicking that orange Paper Pumpkin button. 

Let's stamp!

 

Pansies for Thoughts

 

The Snowdrops bid you 'hope,'
The Bluebells say,  'I'm true!'
The pansy is for 'thought,'
Good luck (Heather) sweetheart for you!

The Victorians may just have perfected the Language of Flowers. Guides to flowers and their meaning were printed in 19th century ladies magazines, why? Proper conversation was dictated and defined; often thoughts that may not have been considered proper to whisper aloud or in person could be subtly conveyed with the presentation of a bouquet of symbolic flowers.

Ivy was symbolic of fidelity, red roses of love, lily of the valley of purity, daisy of innocence and so forth.

Flowers were sent between women and friends as well as between opposite sexes. London born writer and artist Kate Greenaway produced a small hand sized volume titled Language of Flowers in 1884.  Reproductions are still available.

The pansy is sometimes considered the best flower for beginner gardeners to plant and grow. Even I have never killed a pansy plant ~ about the only one.

But, I can turn to paper pansies thanks to the new Stampin' Up! Annual Catalog 2021 - 2022.

In my garden, a pair of scissors is my trowel and glue is the soil so that perfect flowers grow abundantly. This card was inspired by Jennifer Cotton. Before it looked like this, it looked like

something of a mess. The inspiration was just the beginning: which Designer Series Paperpatterns from Pansy Petals work well together, I asked myself.  Then, which of the three gingham colors to choose?  How to layer two patterns on top of each other? What color or colors for the pansies? I won't tell you how long that process took, but, I do like the result.

 My upcoming May class will feature the Pansy Patch Suite and the new 2021-2023 InColors, so one card design is not enough.

 

 More inspiration was found in a sweet fun fold card designed by Windy Ellard, and I wanted to play with it a bit. This is still in the works, but Stampin' Up! has more gardening tools I can use.

 

 

The Pansy Petals Dies include two different leaf outline dies and two flower outline dies that prune these perfectly. In each set of Pansy Petals Designer Series Paper there are two sheets of printed leaves in a variety of greens and two sheets of two sizes of printed pansy flowers. The new InColors of  Pale Papaya, Soft Succulent, Evening Evergreen, Fresh Freesia and Polished Pink combine with a few old favorites to create the sweet faced flowers and leaves. 

And an extra feature of these dies is that they fit in the new Mini Stampin' Cut and Emboss Machine. Die cutting them is just about as quick as cutting them yourself from the garden. And, they don't wilt or fade. Of course, the dies also fit quite easily into the larger Stampin' SU! Cut and Emboss Machine.

 You can find all of the items in the Pansy Petals Suite on pages 28 and 29  of the Annual Catalog. All images Stampin' Up! 

  This is my Shopping List :  

 https://www.stampinup.com/shared-lists/178d50fb-b06e-489b-8518-5f9068fabd8c?  

                         

You are welcome to order right from this blog, or I am happy to place an order for you.

 

Pansies - thoughts. Isn't that why we create our beautiful cards?

 

 

Let's stamp!

 

 

 

 

 Pansies for Thoughts

The snowdrops bid you  'hope,'

The Bluebells say, 'I'm true!'

The Pansy is for 'thought,'

Good luck (Heather) sweetheart for you!

The Victorians may just have perfected the Language of Flowers. Guides to flowers and their meaning were printed in 19th century ladies magazines, why? Proper conversation was dictated and defined; often thoughts that may not have been considered proper to whisper aloud or in person could be subtly conveyed with the presentation of a bouquet of symbolic flowers.

Ivy was symbolic of fidelity, red roses of love, lily of the valley of purity, daisy of innocence and so forth.

Flowers were sent between women and friends as well as between oposite sexes.

London born writer and artist Kate Greenaway produced a small hand sized volume titled Language of Flowers in 1884.  Reproductions are still available. 

The pansy is sometines considered the best flower for beginner gardeners to plant and grow. Even I have never killed a pansy plant ~ about the only one.

But, I can turn to paper pansies thanks to the new Stampin' Up! Annual Catalog 2021 - 2022.

In my garden, a pair of scissors is my trowel and glue is the soil so that perfect flowers grow abundantly. This card was inspired by Jennifer Cotton. Before it looked like this, it looked like

something of a mess. The inspiration was just the beginning: which Designer Series Paper  patterns from Pansy Petals work well together, I asked myself.  Then, which of the three gingham colors to choose?  How to layer two patterns on top of each other? What color or colors for the pansies? I won't tell you how long that process took, but, I do like the result.

My upcoming May class will feature the Pansy Patch Suite and the new 2021-2023 InColors, so one card design is not enough.

More inspiration was found in a sweet fun fold card designed by Windy Ellard, and I wanted to play with it a bit. This is still in the works, but Stampin' Up! has more gardening tools I can use.

The Pansy Petals Dies include two different leaf outline dies and two flower outline dies that prune these perfectly. In each set of Pansy Petals Designer Series Paper there are two sheets of printed leaves in a variety of greens and two sheets of two sizes of printed pansy flowers. The new InColors of  Pale Papaya, Soft Succulent, Evening Evergreen, Fresh Freesia and Polished Pink combine with a few old favorites to create the sweet faced flowers and leaves. 

And an extra feature of these dies is that they fit in the new Mini Stampin' Cut and Emboss Machine. Die cutting them is just about as quick as cutting them yourself from the garden. And, they don't wilt or fade. Of course, the dies also fit quite easily into the larger Stampin' SU! Cut and Emboss Machine.

You can find all of the items in the Pansy Petals Suite on pages 28 and 29  of the Annual Catalog. All images Stampin' Up!                                                                      

 This is my Shopping List :  

 https://www.stampinup.com/shared-lists/178d50fb-b06e-489b-8518-5f9068fabd8c?  

                         

You are welcome to order right from this blog, or I am happy to place an order for you.

Pansies - thoughts. Isn't that why we create our beautiful cards?

Let's stamp!

Love, Mama

In a recent issue of Garden & Gun Magazine, readers were asked, 'What did you inherit from your (Southern) Mother?'  The magazine is published in Charleston, SC, hence Southern Mother.

Among other qualities and traits, respondents answered: the value of hand written thank you notes. Hand written anything anymore seems to be somewhat of an anomaly. 

Interestingly, when I was growing up, an in-person thank you was more valued than a note. It was not hard to accomplish as most our family all lived in the same city and all lived in Virginia. We were in and out of our aunts' houses and Grandmama's house constantly, and not just for holidays and celebrations. It was a wonderful time to grow up, from my perspective.

So, what did I inherit from Mama? That thin stream of creativity that runs through my veins, that led me, in part, to my playful job at Stampin' Up! Growing up I had cigar boxes full of crayons and chalk, scissors and paperdolls, felt and buttons ~ Mr. Levinson at the drug store saved the boxes for us. I made clothes for the paperdolls and fashioned rooms for them from file folders and magazines. (I did have a wonderful tin doll house ~ 2 stories, each room had 'wallpaper' and drapes and rugs, oh my! I wonder if that's why I entertained the idea of Interior Decoration for a bit?)

Mama liked to sketch, just little scenes. There was an open space beneath our stairs to the second floor at home. That's where the telephone was, on a desk that fit snuggly into the opening and was outfitted with a lamp, pencils and a scratch pad. (There were scratch pads all over the house!) While Mama talked on the phone she would sketch on those pads: birds, flowers, sailboats, little girls; her sketches reminded me of Tasha Tudor, one of her favorite illustrators.

I can't draw, but I can stamp. I can pull together colors, although it takes forever as I second guess every combination. I am in love with the Stampin' Blends for coloring images, and water brushes for watercoloring.  I lean toward images of all of nature that she loved and taught to me. In my collection of stamp sets, you'll find Hydrangea Haven, Daisy Lane, Sand and Sea, Pansy Petals, Beauty of the Earth, and so many more.

I think I picked up her sense of wanderlust, just driving down the road to see where it went, and to see what was happening. She wanted to see the storms, the snow covered roads, and what washed up on shore after the hurricane. 

I am so lucky to have grown up with regular visits to museums, listening to music, trips to the library, country drives on Sundays, family gatherings, home cooking ... 

but the one beautiful talent Mama had that I did not inherit is gardening. I appreciate gardens, and I know flowers and shrubs, but I cannot grow them.  She said she had no luck with roses, but she tended the most fragrant and delicate of roses, the Dr. Van Fleet climbing rose. It blooms only once a season. It is pale, pale pink and just perfectly formed. But once budded, it opens very quickly and drops its soft petals in a matter of days. This rose was the most popular of 29 roses that Dr. Van Fleet cultivated, and it was the most popular rose in American in 1923.

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-van-fleet-roses.html?m=0

And this is from Mama's Dr. Van Fleet, grown from a cutting and living in the garden at the Hunter House Victorian Museum in downtown Norfolk.

What did you inherit from your mother?