I think I am going to have to move! LOL!!! I was born and raised in Monterey California with street lights, sidewalks, neighbors and the NASTIEST bug I can remember is what we referred to as a Potato Bug. They were UGLY and lived in the dirt so the best thing to do was to not dig in the dirt ~ problem solved! I now live in Virginia and have lived here now for 15 years!!! I have experienced a Coyote grabbing one of my chickens right in front of me, bobcats, foxes, Black SNAKES (lots of these), huge snapping turtles, being attacked by barn swallows IN MY OWN BARN!, river otters, being attacked by my rooster (may he rest in peace), a hawk killing one of my chickens and then ME learning to load and unload the shotgun so I can protect my kids and animals!!! OMG, what has become of me!! LOL!!! What brings me to mention my moving (just kidding of course) announcement all started on Saturday when I ran in to town. It all started innocent enough and when I was about 4 miles from my house (I live in a very rural area) I look and right on the side of the road is a very large black bear! No, it was not dead, it was standing there waiting to cross the road!!! As I was sitting in the middle of the road trying figure out why I lived here, the bear very leisurely walks across the road to the driveway of the only house in the area. It actually was exciting by scary too!!! I am sure there will come a time that we have one on our property..... Then, this morning there was a SNAKE in our pool!!! The kids and I were busy retrieving the frogs from the pool and then I look and there was a snake!!!! Mary started crying and telling me that she is NEVER going in the pool again, Joey, my hero, was telling me to get it out, get it out!!!! LOL!!! As I was getting ready to fish it out, I thought we better check to make sure it wasn't a Copperhead because if it was, I would need to kill it!!! Oh fun..... It wasn't a Copperhead so it was safely released back in to the wild!!! And to think I used to dress pretty nicely, had my nails done and actually wore jewelry!!!! Not anymore! I wear jeans, shorts and t-shirts, don't wear jewelry ~ why? do the animals care?? and nails, what nails?!?!? LOL!!! OK, sorry, went off track for a minute there!!! I made this card for my Dad's Birthday that is coming up soon!
The base of my card is Chocolate Chip cardstock with first a mat of River Rock cardstock and then THIS beautiful decorative paper from Memory Box ~ called Grove. The next vertical mat is first Chocolate Chip and then the same decorative paper. The horizontal piece is first matted on River Rock cardstock and then another piece of decorative paper from the same paper pack. I stamped the Inkadinkado ~ Three in a Tree stamp was stamped on Cryogen White cardstock using Chocolate Chip ink. I colored using my Prismacolor Pencils and Mellow Moss & River Rock ink pads and blender pen. The ribbon is from May Arts and was taped (Scotch) under the image and then taped to the back of the horizontal strip. I then took a small piece of ribbon, punched a hole in the side of image and tied a knot on that side. The Inkadinkado Happy Birthday sentiment (Lindsey is sold out of this one!) was stamped using Chocolate Chip ink directly on to the decorative paper.
I'll be back tomorrow with my card for Jacksonbelle's Design Team Tuesday challenge! Thank you for stopping by!
~Lynda
WOW! This is beautiful! I beatiful man card! I LOVE IT! I Love what you did to the tree...I'm so going to have to copy that..I mean case that! : )
Posted by: Kisa | June 30, 2008 at 05:09 PM
Talk about a small world! I live in Monterey!!! Moved up from L.A. about 5 years ago. Just now finding the bugs you mentioned as we now live in a house and have a yard to take over. You forgot to mention all the deer! They are everywhere!!! :-) Oh, BTW, great card! Love that tree stamp!! I have been eying it for awhile and just cant seem to take the plunge....
Posted by: Danielle Barton | June 30, 2008 at 05:52 PM
What a story!!! EEK :)
LOVE LOVE LOVE this card!!! That RIBBON! EEK...It matches SO many Basic Grey Striped papers!!! ACK, must get some!!!
Posted by: Rachel Hope | June 30, 2008 at 05:55 PM
Oh it's so scrumptious!
Posted by: Denise ~ Paper Ponderings | June 30, 2008 at 05:56 PM
Such a lovely job Lynda.
Posted by: Cindy Haffner | June 30, 2008 at 06:36 PM
This card is AMAZING!! I love everything about it! I'm so glad I live in Buffalo, NY because we don't have bugs (well, do mosquitos count? I guess everyone has those). I'm from Oklahoma and have lived in many other places, but this by far is the best as far as lack of critters goes. We do have wonderful summers, as well...worth every snowflake we get in the winter! I am so over the heat and humidity! Have a nice week! Jackie
Posted by: Jackie W. | June 30, 2008 at 09:25 PM
OMG your story was killing me! I could never ever live in a rural area like that. I'm not a city girl but would rather be there. PHEW, how do you do it? if I see a spider I yell for DH! LOLOL! If I saw a snake I would run away! We see bunnies in our yard and sometimes deer. They had bears in NJ at one point but I haven't seen them in CT. How did you end up in Virginia from CA?
Your card is fantastic!
Posted by: Maria Levine | June 30, 2008 at 10:06 PM
Lynda....still laughing out loud...even read your blog to my Husband! I NEVER read anything to my Hubby...but he had to hear your blog! He is still laughing! Having lived many years in California and a few in Georgia...I really felt your pain (even if I did laugh.) You are now the new Erma Bombeck of the BLOGS.
Posted by: Kerry | July 01, 2008 at 01:27 AM
You're amazingly gifted to create a beautiful card all the while surrounded by 'nature'. Some day you'll look back and say it was all worthwhile to be there. With all the world going wacky, economic haywire, contaminated foods, gas crisis.....you'll never starve with all those 'food' products roaming around you. Had a good laugh reading your story but I'm sure at the time, the snake swimming in the pool couldn't have been funny. Where's your camera to record all these great events for prosperity? Hang in there, girl.
Posted by: MarilynY | July 01, 2008 at 03:32 AM
Ok, I thought I had a lot of critters in my area,but you win the prize! We have all the same ones you have, but I certainly hope I don't see any bears in my backyard!
Posted by: broni | July 01, 2008 at 11:12 AM
Thanks for the laugh -- love all your critter run-ins. I'm in VA too, but mostly just run into deer, turtles, and the occasional black snake. Our worst run-ins are saved for bicyclists "sharing" the road...
Posted by: StampMom | July 02, 2008 at 07:12 AM
My first comment at your blog; just got around to reading FeedBlitz posts from earlier in the week.
The card is very nice. Great inspiration.
But the rest of your post about rural living had me in stitches. I was raised in So Cal, but went to the Language School in Monterey. Now I live in Florida, and while it's not quite rural here it's certainly WAY more buggy and humid than our home state. NOT that I could go home now; WAY too many people.
Keep up the great work.
Posted by: margaret | July 04, 2008 at 11:02 AM