This is the 3rd and final card that I made last fall during the OnStage Online Stampin’ Up! event. All of the projects used products from the Dandy Garden suite and I love the variety of cards that we created. When we got to register, we didn’t have any clue what “Dandy Garden” would mean, and I confess that I was very surprised to see that the name comes from the dandelion images in the Garden Wishes stamp set. Dandelions aren’t a flower with a lot of fans, but they are definitely a sign of spring and summer. And I love the summery garden images in the papers and stamp sets, so this suite is a winner to me. Some of the products in the suite are also in the “big” catalog, but others are retiring at the end of the month. The retiring products on this card are the Mossy Meadow Braided Linen Trim and the Dandy Garden 6″x6″ DSP. In fact, several of the retiring products in the suite are also discounted including the Mossy Meadow Trim. Use this link to see the retiring products from the suite, and see what the discounted prices are.

Speaking of summer… it is definitely here in VT, at least in terms of the heat. We set some records yesterday, and it’s expected to get pretty darned hot today, too. Thankfully this heat blast is expected to be relatively short and then we’ll return to normal temperatures. Is it hot where you are, and how are you doing with it? And thinking of the heat, and considering unwelcome plants, I have a funny story to share. Josh came home for a brief visit on Mother’s Day weekend which was absolutely wonderful! One of the things that I wanted to do together was to clear out a front bed that had gotten very weedy, and put down landscape cloth and mulch. We got that done very quickly and it looks great. A few days later, Steve noticed a hump in the mulch so we very carefully moved the mulch aside and cut a hole in the landscape cloth so the plant could get sun. We were thinking that this was perhaps a late starting perennial that hadn’t succumbed to our weeding efforts. Well, the joke is totally on us – it turns out that we have a lovely clump of milkweed! So far I’ve left it alone. My sister commented that there are folks intentionally growing milkweed now in butterfly friendly gardens. I do know that it can be challenging to eradicate this plant because the roots go deep and easily break when you try to pull them out. So perhaps if it stays contained in that corner, maybe I’ll leave it be. What do you think – am I nuts?

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