Step, step, step

We finally had a break in the weather - it rained most of last night.  The ground is actually soft again after weeks of cracks.  And that's the good news.  The bad news is the Japanese Beetles have arrived and are eating everything the deer isn't.  They were all over the Chinese Wisteria this morning, hundreds of them.  We don't normally use chemicals in our yard, we like the bugs - except for the Japanese Beetles.  I sprayed the wisteria to keep it from being eaten completely.  They were on the zinnias and cosmos, too.  And on the Joe Pye Weed which I don't worry much about, we have Joe Pye Weed out the wazoo.  But on a good note, our veggie garden is gorgeous, bug free (so far) and we have loads of tomatoes, green peppers and cucumbers getting bigger everyday.  No flowers on the bush beans yet but I've never grown them before so I don't know how big they need to get before they bloom - if anyone knows, I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me a comment.

I woke up this morning with this card in my head.  I don't know what made me want to make a step card, I've only done a couple of them, but this one pretty much made itself.  The ingredients are from: Stampin' Up, Basic Grey, Waltzing Mouse, Papertrey, Rubber Stampede, Stickles and Martha Stewart.  I fussy cut the sunflowers and layered them on top of stamped grass.  I just used Memento Rich Cocoa for the stamping and rather like the gold and brown color combination.