More is More

So are you sick to death of this layout yet?  Apparantly I’m not.  *chuckle*

This retired SU designer paper is an unusual color combo for me – celery, olive and saffron – but I like it.  That little rub on in the bottom corner is from a Basic Grey Holy Cow set that I bought ages ago and have never used.  Just another quick thank you card for my mom to use.

I have to share a photo I took on Easter of our little LoveBird Parsley.  She was hanging out in Curt’s pocket while he was chillin’ on the couch and I snapped this picture with her head popping out.

I can hardly believe she’s 14 years old!  Isn’t she cute?

Hope you have a fabulous weekend. Thanks for stopping by!

I just had to share one more video of Alex the African Grey.  This one is from Scientific American hosted by Alan Alda and it’s great to see how he interacts with Alex.  Also this video shows a bit more about how Alex was trained.  Take a minute to watch – I’m pretty sure this will make you smile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGiARReTwBw

I’m finally working on a post to show you the cards from my Holiday Mini Swap.  I’ll have it up in a day or two.  Tomorrow I’m hosting a few of my SCS stampin’ buddies for an afternoon of working on Christmas cards and such.  I hope I get a lot accomplished.  I have several batches (different designs) of Christmas cards started and in various stages.  I really want them finished by the end of October….uh…we’ll see.  I need 80-100 and I’m so not good with production stamping – that’s why I need a get-together to make me work on them!

It’s raining really hard here tonight and we even had a huge rolling clap of thunder – very cool, but so weird for this time of year.  Hope you have a teriffic weekend!

As you know, Curt and I are bird lovers and share our home with three – 2 macaws and a lovebird (Beaker, R.B. and Parsley).  We are saddened by the death of Alex the African Grey – one of the most famous parrots in the world.

Dr Irene Pepperberg purchased Alex from a pet store in 1973 and for the past 30 years she or someone on her research team has worked with or interacted with Alex for 8-12 hours each day.  Alex blew away all pre-conceived notions about bird-brains and what they are capable of. I have watched some amazing videos of Alex as well as inteviews will Dr. Pepperberg.  Alex could count to six, identify 50 objects,  7 colors, 5 shapes  and answer questions about a tray of assorted objects such as

How many blue?

How many keys?

When presented with 2 like objects of different color and size, he could answer “which is smaller?” with the color of the smaller object.

He could ask for what he wanted with full sentences such as “Want a shower.”  or “want corn, soft corn.” Even after 30 years Alex was continuing to learn.  In fact just last month he said the word “seven” for the first time.  And he had the sweetest little voice!

The following quote is from an AP article

“The last time Pepperberg saw Alex was Thursday, she said. They went through their back-and-forth goodnight routine, which always varied slightly and in which she told him it was time to go in the cage.

She recalls the bird said: “You be good. I love you.” She responded, “I love you, too.” The bird said, “You’ll be in tomorrow,” and she responded, “Yes, I’ll be in tomorrow.”

Alex was found dead Friday morning.  Most of what I read said the cause of death was unknown, but birds do hide illness often until it is too late to help them. Alex was an amazing creature and my heart goes out to Dr. Pepperberg and everyone who worked with Alex on a daily basis – I’m sure that their bond with him was incredibly strong.

Here is a link to a You Tube video from Good Morning America – take a minute to watch and appreciate this amazing little guy.

It’s been a busy weekend.  Let me start by telling you about today.  My SCS pal and fellow Dirty Dozen Alum Jody (texasjodylynn) is visiting SoCal on a family vacation.  I got to meet her today at lunch along with friends Taylor and Joy.  *grin*

We ate lunch outdoors at a fantastic little restaurant called The Filling Station, a converted old gas station,  in Old Town Orange.  We ate and talked, walked and talked, shopped and talked.  I am so amazed at the number of friends I have made al over the U.S. (and even outside of the U.S.) through Splitcoast.  I am even more amazed by the number I have been able to meet in person.  What a blessing!

Tomorrow is Joy’s birthday so I made her a little something.  The concept is not mine.  It came from Taylor’s SCS tutorial and Laura’s blog tutorial (check them out!).  I have wanted to make a coaster box ever since I saw Taylor’s first one in person.  Seeing Laura’s pencil holder pushed me over the edge – had to do it!

Most of the supplies are from eclectic Paperie:

Crate Paper – Birdie Collection

medium weight coasters

Daisy Crazy Primas

K&Co. Brenda Walton Adhesive Rhinestones

Crop-o-dile

Sakura Stardust Pen

Versamagic ink – Sea Breeze

PLUS

Stampin’ Up! Celery Grosgrain

Stampin’ Up! Crystal Effects

Royal Coat

elastic gold cording

Marvy Giga and Mega Scallop Circle Punches

Olivia Alpha and Cuttlebug

I won’t type out all the directions and measurements here since Taylor and Laura did that so beautifully in the links above.  I used Royal Coat (like Mod Podge only better IMO) to adhere the Crate Paper designer paper to the coasters.  I only top-coated the coasters to be used as inside dividers.  The designer paper is double-sided so the patterned side was used for the box coasters and the solid side was used for the divider coasters.  (Side note: Crate Paper has the most wonderful texture and is a really nice heavy weight.  If you’ve never tried it, you really must!) To cut the slits in the dividers I drew a line where I wanted the slits to be and using sharp scissors cut just on each side of the line.  This created a slit big enough for the coasters to slide into one another.  While I sanded the edges of the box pieces a bit, I finished off the top edges of the divider pieces by rubbing on some VersaMagic Chalk ink in Sea Breeze.  This project was much easier than I anticpated.  The most difficult (or maybe just time consuming) part was tying all those little knots…oh and attaching the bottom piece with the CE – that was just a tad tricky for me. 

Now I just have one big problem….I want one of these boxes for myself!  LOL!  I got out all my Prisma pencils for the photo above (before wrapping the box up in cello as a gift) and now they are spread out all over the table just longing for a box of their own to call home.  Perhaps this will be a project for tomorrow.  We’ll have to see if gardening or stamping/papercrafting wins the day tomorrow.  *wink*

On a different note Curt was grilling burgers for dinner and called me outside to see

Petey the Possum.  Remember Roger the Lizard?  We’re pretty sure Petey and Roger are friends.  Now  I DO NOT like possums at all, but Petey is the tiniest possum I have ever seen without a momma.  He was about 5″ long (not including his tail) and he just sat and looked at us when we kneeled down to check him out.  Well he did open his mouth really big to *scare* us, but he didn’t run away or anything.  Eventually he did scurry off.  I’m sure it must be hysterical for those of you who live in the country to see me posting about lizards and possums, but hey – we live in the suburbs.  NO WILDLIFE to speak of at all…so this is really something for us!

Yesterday was my SIL’s graduation.  I’ll share to card I made for her tomorrow.  Thanks for stopping by.