Paper Expressions Rubber Stamping & Video Tutorials

Butterfly Festival Day!

We had the BEST Saturday yesterday! We met up with our adopted family the Buckners at the Butterfly Festival held at the Botanical Gardens in Springfield, Missouri and although it was scorching HOT, we had a fabulous time!

We visited the vendor booths while the girls played on the playground.  Kay and I joined the Hosta Society and the Daylilly Society as well as met some awesome gardeners and found out tonight we WON the Hosta plants at the Hosta Society Booth! woo hoo!

 

We all gathered at the Butterfly House to watch the release of 50 Butterflies! Kayley was able to be one of the kids who released one!

 


And then after the kids left Kay and I wandered around the gardens, took photos of ourselves....

We were able to see the Campbell-Gray Homestead = evidently he is the man who began Springfield as a town way back when-  

OF course we have a TON more photos but they are all going into an 8x8 My Digital Studio Album and 2 copies will be printed!!

Hope your weekend was awesome too!

Fresh From My Garden

Yep! Just picked this morning!

Beets

Dill

Zucchini on the left and cucumbers on the right!
Let the summer eating begin!

I am enjoying  a day off from my job and working in my home and gardens.  I love harvesting and I HATE the squirrel who thinks my green tomatos are there for it's robbing pleasure! They take them and then nibble a little and go off and leave it laying on the ground to rot!

  I am going to fix this with bird netting later today when Kay gets home to help.  I dont plant my garden for the deer and squirrels- they have PLENTY of feed of their OWN! argh  And I HATE the deer who think the leaves of my beens and my moon glow flowers are there for its nibbling too-  it's getting really old. I work VERY hard in my gardens and it is to have food for my husband and I, NOT for the critters they have food "everywhere" they can eat!

 

Over 135 Garden Tour Photos

Hi All!

Yesterday Kay and I went on the Greene County Master Gardener Garden Tour- We saw 8 of the 10 featured gardens before our company arrived at the house. I loaded over 135 photos to THIS LINK

Took me all day to get them loaded too!

Be Sure to check out the photos of the gorgeous gardens and see how we grow in Missouri!

And don't forget you can click on the right column on the link to MY garden photos and under it is the album to the MG tour photos too!

Have an awesome week and we will have more stamping and gardening as the week goes along!

 

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Customer Testimonial & Booth Photos

I received this in my Facebook messages!

Sandi wrote:
"loved your booth... best one in the show...didn't get anything, except what I got from you :-)

Thanks Sandi! I ALWAYS love seeing you at the craft fair and in my home!!

Kim wrote:
"Gwen, your booth was awesome, missed you, you were taking a break.  Hope your husband told you I said hello.  I have a friend that wants to talk to you about her stamps, I will hook you all up later.  Hope your sales have been stellar!!"

Thanks Kim!!

 Here are some photos taken Saturday during a lull....

Gardening Inspiration Goes HIGH-TECH!!!

A simple solution to both express your love of gardening

and drive your creativity in garden design.

 

Dear Gardening Friend,

If you're anything like me, you love spending time in your garden.  As a Master Gardener I find that there's just something about being outdoors, surround by the fruits of your labor that is immensely satisfying.

Unfortunately, I don't get to spend as much time in my garden as I would like.  Like you, I'm usually stuck in front of a computer all day.

Staring at the cold, electronic screen one day, I had an idea...

If I can't get out to the garden, why not bring the garden in to me?

And so, the "Gardens From Missouri Screensaver" was born!

The Gardens from Missouri is a CD-ROM containing a 50-picture screensaver, complete with easy to install instructions that even a novice computer user can understand.

Each picture is a beautiful, high-resolution photo of some of the most stimulating gardens and plants you will ever lay eyes on.

When I'm stuck at my desk, wishing I could be breathing fresh, rather than re-circulated air, I watch this screensaver and I am transported to the place I really want to be.

Although I created this screensaver for myself, my husband convinced me to share it with my fellow gardening enthusiasts.

And so, I'm making this screensaver available to YOU.

Installation couldn't be easier.  Once you download the file, you're just five minutes from enjoying your escape to the garden!

To order your downloadable screensaver for $19.97 (shipping included in price within the U.S.)  click the Buy Now button below.  International shipping available and appropriate postage rates will apply.

P.S. I truly hope you enjoy these photos as much as I continue to today.

 

Canning Meat Sauce

My dear friend from church Christina was here  so we could can meat sauce together- it was delicious and we saved some out for tacos before watching movies while the pressure canners did their job! I am sworn to secrecy (mums the word) on her recipe but let me tell you it is sweet and it is delish!

Just click on a photo to see it full size

We always put our camp stove on the deck when we can- that way we don' heat up the house or the garage.  We really had a good time and are plotting our next canning day! Probably green beans...... we will see!   We packed the sauce she made into pint jars and processed at 10 bs for 75 minutes just like the recipe she used said to. 

PERFECTION!  She uses this sauce in tacos, spaghetti, lasagna, and casseroles to name a few ( I have forgotten the rest of what she said! lol)

I hope this inspires you to use your pressure canner and get your delicious, healthy foods made and stored for winter!

I AM AN ANT,  NOT A GRASSHOPPER and in a couple weeks I will be making a couple batches of this sauce to can for myself!

Canning Meats

Today a friend from our Church is bringing over her meat for me to teach her how to pressure can it.  It takes hours to do this, Kay set up the trusty camp stove on the deck outside because of the heat when canning.  Each batch will take about 2+ hours to do.

I hope to get some sleep today too because I was up until 2:15am putting touches on the new Retreat Website getting it ready for public view. I NEVER stay up that late! lol  Today I am so tired I can hardly breathe lol---

wish us good luck

See you tomorrow

TOMATO BLIGHT ALERT!

I found an awesome article with full photos all about Tomato Blight

check it out HERE

and happy growing season!

Garden Update

A photo update of the garden as of yesterday-  I posted more photos to the 2010 gardening photo album- ignore the date on the photos, I think my camera is miss-set and I will have to fix that today!

My very favorite roses- old fashioned Cabbage Roses, the perfume smell is amazing!

My herb garden and some volunteer yellow flowers in the path-  cant weed those out!

far to front-   cabbage, head lettuce, spinach, radishes that need to be thinned- not sure it will get done "this" week because I am going to focus on the inside of the house as Saturday is Graduation!

We went to a garden show and I found these cute plant stakes for 50 CENTS each! yes you read correctly! I bought all he had left and gave him a dollar tip!  They were blank and I hand wrote the name of the veggie on the plate myself with a sharpie marker.  I wish I had about 12 more!  I did get 9 of them though. Thank you to my mom for my birthday money! I love Garden art, signs, stakes, doo dads, bird houses etc!

Another birthday gift from My hubby Kay. I found it in a nursery on the way to Picayune Mississippi last week.  We stopped whenever we found a place that was open and had stuff we liked! lol

And this is my beautiful Mother's day bouquet from Kay!  I love that man!

Have a wonderful day!