Hope, Girlfriends, and Gullfriends

Hello, Stamplings!

Before we begin today, I just want to reach out to my friends in England who have been impacted by the horrific bombing at Ariana's concert in Manchester. You are in my thoughts and prayers. 

There is so much anger we all feel after these cowardly acts of terrorism, but there are no words to express the depth of outrage we feel when our children are targeted. As so many others have said, the best revenge is to carry on and not allow the fear these acts evoke to paralyze us from living our lives to the fullest.

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Lots of photos today, so once you grab your beverage, let's start with a little card of HOPE. We can all do with some hope about now.

I love embossing this "Hello Lovely" stamp from Concord and 9th in white and painting it with my Ziggies. I think it pairs nicely with the hope die from W Plus 9, which was colored with orchid hues of alcoholic ink on glassy paper. Sorry, glossy paper.

Challenges

• Double D Challenge: Flowers Galore.
• The Flower Challenge: Case a DT Member. I chose to CASE the very talented Maria.
• Stamp Ink Paper: Cardmaker's Choice. Congratulations SPI on your 100th challenge!
• TIME OUT Challenge: "Flowers and friends make life a garden."
• Where Creativity Meets C9: I'm entering this challenge for the first time. This is challenge #9 and the theme is "florals."

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Here I made a simple card by embossing some of my beautiful pp with one of the Die-Namics stitched dies:

I added a "Hope Happens" sediment and that was it. Oh, and I attached it to a colored card base to use up some of my colored card, too. 

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Travels

I mentioned last time that we attended our niece's graduation over the weekend. There were two other highlights along the way that I wanted to share with you.

The first highlight was meeting "for reals" my dear bloggie friend Marybeth!

She is every bit as lovely as I imagined she would be and I was so pleased that we could meet! It was like we'd known each other always and our time together was waaaaaaaay too short! If you don't know Marybeth, be sure to click on her name which will take you to her stunning blog. Her talent is awe-inspiring!

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We traveled home via the coast and stopped for a few days in Santa Barbara. Our second highlight was taking a boat out to the Channel Islands where we hiked Anacapa, the smallest island:

The Mister failed to mention that in order to get UP to the island, we had to climb up from the boat 157 steps! And after we reached the top, we still had to climb a hill! 

I guess it was best that he sprung it on me just before we went or I would have fretted myself into a tizzy. I don't like heights and I have mobility tissues, but after three wodkas, I just breezed to the top! Just kidding, I didn't have any wodka (good idea, though!) and I did have to take breaks, but I made it!! And it was so worth it!

Peppered along the entire island are Western Gulls who were busy nesting - some of them right along the trail. According to our docent, there are no "sea gulls," just "gulls." Don't tell Jonathan Livingston that.

She also said that the red dot you see on the under side of a gull's beak is a "target" for the little chicks to aim for when they want to get fed! (Maybe they aren't born with a sense of smell or they would pick up on that fishy odor, doncha think?)

Here you can see that their eggs are speckled! Notice the little guy just beginning to emerge:

The docent said that only three nests have hatched so far this year, so it was a treat to come upon this one with two speckled chicks:

Mom told me off, but just look how cute they are!

And, finally, on our way back to the mainland, we were treated to a show by lots of playful dolphins and two blue whales!

The whales wouldn't breach for us, but they are a pretty rare sight, so it was amazing just to see these mammoth critters surface and sail alongside for a while!

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Thanks for hanging in if you're still here! Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* 

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower!  Please let me know you came by so I can be sure to return the flavor!

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