Summer in the City

New Catalog Product Shares (click for details!)

Oh man, it is H-O-T, hot today. Supposed to hit 102 with 105 heat index and not break until Thursday night. Bummers, bummers. Did I mention we don't have AC?? I took the boys out to Cherry Hill mall this morning because I had errands to run, and it was an air conditioned space, so that was a plus. The downside was having to get back into the baking hot car. I have to say, the humidity is the worst. I was in Kyrgyzstan in July and August one year, and the northern part gets up to 110 during the day, but it is a very dry heat and more manageable than this wet nastiness here. But Max did well and Harry did tolerably well (he is very tired today after the weekend) and we got it all done, which is the important thing.

Fr. Athanasy censing the font.

The other big news is that Max is officially baptized into the Orthodox Church! I'm also churched again as of Saturday, so we all went to church on Sunday morning again as a family and Max had his first communion. My sister-in-law offered to photograph the baptism and she took a whopping 1000 pictures! I culled them down to 135, and then picked 45 out of that lot to work with for the baby book. The 135 will go into a Shutterfly photo book as a keepsake. She did a lovely job.

Max's godparents

We had lots of family here over the weekend for the baptism on Saturday and then my family stayed the long weekend, so we went to New York City yesterday to spend the day, since they'd never been. It was hot, but we spent the hottest part of the day at the Met, and tried to take buses instead of walking, so all in all, very manageable. My feet still hurt today, though!

Fr. Mark baptizing Max

My share today is a card that I made last week using a tutorial from Sophie Landry over at Sunny Stamping Studio by Andrea Walford. The tutorial was for a Christmas card, but I thought that Bob and Larry would work better for a party invitation and adapted accordingly. I'm quite pleased with the result! This card is a great example of how something little makes big difference.

On the original (above) the Tempting Turquoise background was flat, and I kept thinking the card needed a little somethin'-somethin', but couldn't figure out what. It occurred to me that dry embossing the background would probably be the perfect thing, so when I was at Claire's one day last week, I took a Tempting Turquoise panel and ran it through her Big Shot with the Square Lattice embossing folder and voila, that was it! I've listed these in my etsy store if you are interested. :)


Supplies:
Real Red, Glorious Green, Old Olive, Tempting Turquoise, So Saffron, Whisper White, Basic Black cs
Hugs and Wishes stamp set (retired)
Bravo Burgundy, Old Olive, Garden Green, Tempting Turquoise ink, Glorious green marker, white gel pen
1/4" circle punch, 1 3/4" circle punch, boho blossoms punch
Real Red grosgrain ribbon
modern label punch
large circle die
sponge