Flowers & Butterflies

Happy Tuesday everyone! I'm on vacation this week - so everyday feels like Saturday to me ......... what a great feeling that is!

So Tuesday is also Teapot Tuesday over on Split Coast and this week's 'story' is all about butterflies and a school for butterfly behavior, and we're all going to Coconut Creek FL - the butterfly capital of the world for out teaparty this week - We have to bring beautifully behaved butterflies and beautiful flowers!

So I put my butterfly and flowers on this cute watering can card - that I made from Claire's free template over at the Waltzingmouse Store. Isn't this a fun shaped card?! All the stamps are by Waltzingmouse. I stamped the watering can with a background stamp from Pic-Nic Patterns to give it some texture and I also sponged the edges. The flowers are from Big Blooms Chrysanthymums

Here's what I stamped on the inside. The sentiment and frame are both from Fancy Phrases

Every week Cindy also has a destination station to go with our teaparty - she finds people who need encouragement or cheering up - and we can send them our teapot cards. So my card will be going postal to fellow stamper Jackie - who was recently diagnosed with cancer. She loves flowers and butterflies - so hopefully this will give her a little bright spot in her day! You can read all about the challenge and the destination challenge here.

I thought I'd share some pics I took at Gloucester and Rockport, MA when Kent and I went there this past Sunday! It's just about 40 minutes from where we live.

First we drove through Gloucester and took a 30 minute hike through a small part of Dogtown where there are a lot of huge boulders that the glaciers dropped here many moons ago!

A man named Roger Babson decided to have some of the stones engraved so people walking through the woods would be inspired to live morally!

There are a total of 22 engraved stones throughout the reserve - here are just 2 of them.

There's quite a strange history to these 5 square miles of woods called Dogtown. You can read about some of it here if you are interested! Kent and I are going to go back to explore some more of it another time!

Then we drove down the highway a bit to Rockport, MA. The red building is the famous Motif #1.

This giant sunflower was growing in someone's front yard along one of the main streets! I was standing up straight taking this picture - so this must be about 8 feet tall!

We ate lunch at this fun little hot dog restaurant called Top Dog - it was hardly bigger than what you can see right here - they had a few picnic tables out front and out back and a few bar table areas to sit inside - and no air conditioning! But the dogs were good!

This is the artery clogging hot dog I ordered - bacon and cheese! (but it was a turkey dog!) That's two big curly strips of bacon you see sitting on top of the cheese there......

And here's the beautiful sunset just as we were leaving. What a perfect day!

Just a reminder: My Waltzingmouse Sneak Peeks start Thursday!! Hope you'll be able to stop by!

Stamps: Waltzingmouse - Pic-Nic Patterns, Big Blooms Chrysanthymums, Fancy Phrases

Paper: stone, White, Orange Zest - PTI

Ink: Ranger Distress Spiced Marmelade, Peeled Paint, Pumice Stone, Tea Dye

Accessories: Foam dimensionals, glue dots, rhinestones - Kaiser, Watering can template - WMS freebie, Buterfly punch - Martha Stewart, sponge and applicator Inkssentials Ranger.