A Very Busy Week & A Caterpillar

  Wow!!  Have we had a busy and crazy week.   A Stingray attack, an earthquake and a hurricane evacuation!  Can't get much crazier than that huh?  This past week we were down in Corolla, NC which is in the beautiful Outer Banks.  We've been going there for vacation for about 8 years now and the last few we've brought our parents with us for a big family vacation.   So on Tuesday morning we're all having fun playing in the ocean and the sand.  I look up from the hole I'm digging and see my husband limping out of the water.  I thought oh geez, he busted his knee again.  He could barely walk and his mom was helping him stand.  When I got to him he said something stabbed him in the foot and he had a puncture wound right below his ankle on his foot.  We got him back to the house and he was having a lot of pain so we called 911 to see if we should bring him to the medical facility (about 40 minutes away) or have the ambulance come.  The EMTs arrived and said that it was definitely a stingray that "stung" him.  Luckily it wasn't a large stingray as those can apparently put their barb clean through which would have been even more painful.  We had to keep very hot water running over his foot for a while and the EMT made sure the barb wasn't stuck in the wound.  Then he spent most of the day with his foot in the hot tub.  The heat helps break down the toxins that are injected when the ray releases its barb.  He was able to hobble around later that afternoon and the next day he was feeling much better and said that it just felt like he had twisted his ankle.   The EMTs told us that in the past few weeks there had been a lot of incidents just like what happened to my husband.  We'd never heard anything like that happening in the Outer Banks and were told that for some reason it just started happening.  Weird!  So we were all kind of paranoid getting back in the water but tried to carry on an enjoy the beach. 

  Later that same day we felt the earthquake too!  Well, I didn't feel it since I was in the water but my mom was reading on the beach and felt it...we kind of thought she was crazy when she told us she thought we just had an earthquake.  My husband was in the hot tub for his foot and jumped out because he thought the deck was falling down.  My in laws were inside the house playing cards and said the whole table was shaking back and forth.  The earthquakes epicenter was only 30 miles from our house here in Richmond so we were hoping we didn't have any damage when we got home.  The house seems fine thank God!

  Then on Thursday morning at 11 we were given the evacuation notice to leave the Outer Banks due to the approaching hurricane.  We'd been watching the storm and kept hoping it would blow far east so that we could stay and finish our week at the beach but no such luck.  They started coming around the neighborhoods with the bullhorns to let people know they needed to leave.  I guess going for 8 years we were bound to run into a hurricane sooner or later though usually September is has the highest risk for hurricanes!  We all got to work and packed up the entire house and loaded the cars and were on the road by 12:45 and that included a quick lunch.  We wanted to get on the road quickly in case the traffic was really bad from everyone else leaving too.  We didn't have hardly any traffic on the way home and arrived in Richmond about 5pm.   It was hard leaving the beach since it was beautiful and sunny and we wanted our 2 more days of vacation. 

  But we're all safe here in Richmond watching the rain now so I figured I'd get on the computer and post another card that I made before our vacation.  I sent this one to my super sweet blogging friend Patti.  Check out her blog Cherish Each Precious Day, she is a great color-er (is that a word??) and I envy her skills.  Patti always leaves such sweet comments for my cards and I wanted to let her know how much I appreciated her taking the time to do that.  I feel like I spend most of my stamping time preparing for classes and I don't get to make many "just because" cards so it was important to me to get this one made and mailed out to Patti.

  I used Inspiration Challenge 197 over on Splitcoaststampers.  My inspiration was this cute little button worm on THIS page.  I thought a caterpillar would be cuter than a worm so that's what I'm calling mine.  I even added antennae to change him from a worm to a caterpillar.  I kept basically the same colors as the inspiration piece.

   I cut out various colors and shaped buttons from my Sweet Button embosslit die.  I used some Early Espresso baker's twine for the antennae and just tied little knots on the ends and adhered to the back of the head button.  Next I arranged and adhered the buttons on the card to form the caterpillar body.  Once I was happy with that part I covered each button very carefully with a nice healthy layer of Crystal Effects.  Once that all dried my button were nice and shiny like real buttons but without the bulk.  Hopefully you can see this cool effect in this close up photo.

  While I was waiting for my buttons to dry I made the little hello banner out of a scrap of Naturals white cardstock.  I colored the words with my markers to get the multiple colors to match my caterpillar.  Next I added Early Espresso brads to each of the corners.  To finish this one off I gave my little bug some googlie eyes.

   Remember if you like the Happy Greetings stamp set used on this card or any of the other ones from the Summer Mini catalog don't wait to order.  Summer Mini items are only available for a few more days.  Click on my Stampin' up! website on my sidebar to order now.  Also, the Buy 3 Get 1 FREE on the Designer Series Paper is ending the last day of August.

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Happy Greetings

Ink: Peach Parfait, Marina Mist, Old Olive (markers)

Paper: Naturals White, Peach Parfait, Old Olive, Marina Mist, Early Espresso

Accessories: Sweet Button embosslit, Crystal Effects, brads, bakers twine, googlie eyes (non-SU)