Summer is Here!!

"School's Out?? Today?? No - seriously. Really?? Today?? Are you sure???"  This was my end of the conversation I have been having with my son and myself all morning long. Add to that the last three days of 104-106 degree temps and it is official - it's definitely summer! Those of you in other parts of the country or without children may disagree, but in our house here in Tucson - summer begins at 12:30pm today and it will be heralded in with a trip to Cold Stone. :0) Now to figure out how to get through the rest of summer!

We have a lot on our plate for this summer, AJ and I. Brian will be doing his thing, working, all summer long without a break it looks like. So AJ and I need to keep busy and try not to get on each other's nerves too badly. Thankfully, he has just discovered that reading is fun and not the chore he once thought. So we will be signing him up for every reading program out there. He is also going to be starting his summer schedule and this year it comes with an allowance! We are all very excited about that. So between the work he'll be doing for me, the chores Dad has lined up for him, and all his normal summer activities - summer is actually looking quite short.

Here is a sampling of what I've been up to this past week:

I am hosting a swap where we are making cards and coordinating 4x4 bag fronts (these will be attached to the front of a plain gift bag). Here is what I did::

This is the card.

Close up of the card front.

the 4x4 piece to attach to a gift bag.

Sorry, my pictures all seem a little blurry - need to figure out why! The next project I did is a tag for a swap I am doing:

The background was an experiment with distress inks and then a transparent modeling paste. I etched into the paste a bit and then added some pearl mist before stamping it with a script stamp. I love how it turned out. The only thing I wasn't happy with is that my calligraphy spread more than I wanted it to. Oh well. Next is an envie I did for a calligraphy swap (address blurred for privacy):

The envelope was first hit with some twinkling H2O's so it looks watercolored, but sparkly. And finally another project with my H2O's - I am part of a monthly postcard swap and so this month I did a resist technique with clear embossing powder and then watercolored on top of the design:

I love how these turned out! Well, that's it for this week, now I need to get in and clean up my mess so I can start in again. Have a great summer and be sure to find time to play!!