You Make My Heart Swell

Well...this these pics of Mimi & Eric do anyway :) I have so few of Eric period, never mind him with the kids. He is truly photophobic! Mimi is so sweet with her pink blankie wrapped around her neck & pointing to the pictures.

Isn't this cabbage rose paper by Crate Paper to die for?! Had to go with a romantic vintage feel for this one.

The 3D rose is from K&Co., they originally had leaves attached but the green was all wrong. A little trimming and a Prima leaf and problem solved. I tend to alter a lot of my premade embellishments to make them work for my needs :)

I'm a little disappointed that the aqua letter stickers don't show up as well in the photos, they match perfectly.

The trim, button & tulle are actually vintage. Added the pearls to the trim & button.

Had to hollow out the center of the clock face & set the button down into it, it was too thick otherwise.

You Make My Heart Swell:
Cardstock: Bazzill; patterned paper: Crate Paper; canvas border sticker: Little Yellow Bicycle; letter stickers: American Crafts, My Little Shoebox; flowers: K&Co., Prima; stickers: Echo Park (heart), K&Co. (word); journaling spots: My Minds Eye, October Afternoon; chipboard: Heidi Swapp; Doilies: Martha Stewart; pearls: K&Co., Kaiser Kraft, Recollections; ink: Clearsnap; diecut: Tim Holtz for Advantus Corp.; pen: Stampin' Up; misc: packaging, metal trinket, vintage button & trim.

Thank you to the gals at Sketchy Thursdays for making me a favorite this week!

http://www.sketchythursdays.blogspot.com/

Stop on by & check them out, their sketch site is awesome!

Fancy Footwork

That's what this layout is about! Mimi has been practicing twice a week for the last 4 weeks in preparation for a 3 on 3 soccer tournament this coming weekend. The coach agreed to take on this project with the understanding that they would come to every practice and on time! Plus the girls must practice for at least 15 minutes everyday on their own. She is improving everyday, I'm so proud of her :}} 

This is my interpretaion of this weeks Sketchy thursday's sketch  http://www.sketchythursdays.blogspot.com/ 

The flowers are from a punch out pad by K&Co., they are layered & popped, then blinged up :)

I'm getting so lazy! Hand writing is so much easier than formatting on the computer, especially since I have no training. A few lines..voila! Done!

Supply List: Patterned paper: Me & My Big Ideas, SEI; letter stickers: American Crafts, Carolees Creations; diecuts: Doodlebug (borders) , K&Co. (flowers & leaves); gems: Darice, Recollections; pen: Marvy Le Plume II; misc: floss.

Matthew is home from football camp sporting 2 giant blisters under his big toes, what a weird place to get blisters! Poor baby :( He slept all day yesterday, apparently sleeping isn't a high priority for teenage boys at football camp, you'd think he'd be exhausted!

Work for me tomorrow. Hot & humid+ thunderstorms = BABIES!

Phew! I think I over did it!

Spent a couple of hours outside hauling brush from the big storm. Makes me realize just how much work is going to be involved! Very sad that the Magnolia is not salvagable. Snowball bush took a beating and half of the Bottlebrush Buckeye is gone. Hoping nature will work her magic with some judicious pruning and loving care.

The last week or so has been too hot & humid to work outside, so I did a little scrappin'. When I first saw the Elizabeth Park line from Little Yellow Bicycle the colors seemed a little bold, but like many papers it grew on me :}} Slowly working my way through the mass of really bad photos from when my kids were littte. So many times I took just 2 photos. Mimi walking...2 photos. Matthew playing legos...2 photos. You get the idea. Plus almost all the indoor shots have very dark backgrounds, some of them almost black!

I adore these pics of Mimi, just look at how she is wrinkling her chin as she makes sure she gets the very last drop! The title is double stamped, once in grey and then again in pink slightly overlapping. Love the effect.

Some of the butterflies are punched and some fussy cut from the adorable butterfly patterned paper.

Then they are stitched down with floss and gems added.

Sweet Treat Supply List:
Cardstock: Bazzill; patterned paper: Little Yellow Bicycle; acrylic stamps: Inkadinkado; ink: Clearsnap, Stampin' Up; spray ink: Clearsnap; stickers: Little Yellow Bicycle; journaling spot: Jillibean Soup; punches: EK Success, Martha Stewart; gems: Kaiser Kraft, Recollections; pen: Sakura; adhesive: Tombow; misc: floss, thread.

More layouts to share coming soon!

I'm melting!

Maybe I am the wicked witch of the west, I can't take this heat. Forget wearing makeup or doing my hair...as soon as I go outside  *POOF* it's gone. The makeup slides off and my hair turns to frizz :(  With that said, I"m going to share my final layout from the Big Book of Scrapbook Pages".

I wanted to fill the chunk of white space in the middle of the layout , repeating the title in letter stickers was a fun solution! I was a little scared about cutting my title down the center but it worked!

The fishing pole is one of my first pieced creations. I drew, the pole and then created a pattern. The reel was a little tricky. Matthew helped by critiquing it several times for me :) Used Bazzill Glimmer  paper for parts of it and a really old Basic Grey too.

I'm always excited when I can get a lot of photos on a Page because I love them all!

Hand stitched the fishing line and used a real hook after filing off the barbs.

The blanket stitching on the right page over the patterned paper was an old Basic Grey rubon. I liked it so much that I blanket stitched around the entire layout! You can't see it in these photos but there is a tab on the left that pulls out and my journaling is there. I love how this one turned out :)

Matthew and I are off to find size 16 shoes for football camp this weekend, wish me luck!



Do You Wanna Borrow a Cup of Electricity?

REALLY DAD! The above was was the voice message my comedian of a father left me yesterday. We finally had our electric back at 8pm last night. My husband's humor was even ghastlier! He put a sign up in front of the house that read "Please hook us up, we stink at being Amish!". Appalling!!! He gave up on the sign and went down the street to some workers and asked them if they would hook us up. He & the kids must have looked pitiful because they "hooked"us up (pun intended) even though we weren't on their roster. Bless you electricity guys!!! I came home to a hot shower and air conditioning, yippee!!!

Tonight is the BIG night...The Deathly Hallows Part II. We couldn't get the 12:01am tickets due to the power failure the last 2 days so we had to settle for the 12:20am. Am I insane or what? Home from a 12 hour shift and wondering how I'm going to stay up until 3 in the morning. It will be worth it though. I know I'm going to cry. We've been following Harry for 10 years now! Here are a couple of pics of my Harry Potter fans (Potterphiles as we like to be called) from past Halloweens and a book release.

Made these robes myself, wand pocket and all!

Mimi made a perfect Hermoine. Had to braid her hair in a hundred tiny braids to get that look!

Think of us driving home tonight with tear tracks and wistful smiles on our faces :)

Storm Damage

A terrible storm came through our town while I was at work yesterday. My family slept through the brunt of it! By the time they realized it was happening it was almost over. My son woke to see the cat flying across the driveway (literally) and the trees bending to touch the ground! I called home when I heard there had been 80-90 mph winds, to make sure everyone was safe. My husband said there were a couple of trees down, he didn't want to upset me at work.

I can't describe the scene that met me. I started to cry when I turned the corner to my street and saw the beautiful tree on the high school lawn.

This is the pine in the middle of the driveway

and the tree in the middle of the front yard.

A Cedar in the middle of the driveway landed on my Dad's boat :(

The privacy fence is down and with it came half of my  prized Bottlebrush Buckeye :(

More of the already dead Maple came down and

another (100 year old) Cedar fell on my bird feeder garden, narrowly missing the hot tub and angel statue!

This is one of the Cedars in the front yard...this one took the power line down!

and finally... the Elm that landed on my neighbor's house.

I wandered around the yard crying for 30 minutes before I got my composure and thanked God for sparing the house and my family. It will take us a long time to get this mess cleaned up and for the flower beds to recover. I'll have a lot more sun in the yard now, much to my shade garden's dismay.

Most of the town has electricity now, we will probably be one of the last to get it because our line is disconnected. Luckily our neighbor let us hook an extension cord up so we can use the computer and watch some TV. They were in the process of remodeling this house to sell.

Back to work tomorrow. Life goes on!

I Love My Hubby!

He went to a thrift store & picked up a sewing cabinet last week. It was from the late 60's and still had the machine and all the accessories with it. It was mostly wood but had some pretty ugly panels in the front. Eric worked his magic :) After removing the sewing machine, he made a plug for the opening and then painted it white. He removed the front panels and I covered new panels in fabric to match the armoire in my scraproom. A couple of spiffy knobs from Hobby Lobby finished it off perfectly! The pics are a little dark, due to the backlighting.

Isn't it pretty! The best thing is that it has shelves underneath to put my cartridges on.

Another added feature...

The top opens up for added space to put paper & things. The wheels make it portable so I can move it to the computer and hook it up! Now I just need to install the Design Studio I purchased :)

I don't tell him thank you enough...Thank you honey!

Hot, Hot, Hot!

That's what it is today! 90 degrees but with a breeze, thank goodness. I've only gone outside to move the sprinkler and to help Mimi with her soccer drills.

Had a really good time with my pal Missy yesterday. Only completed one 2 pager but it was so nice to have someone to scrap with :) This is a layout of my Bubba when he was little (a relative term), I think he was about 3 in this picture. I was dying to use this "Rocket Age" patterned paper from October Afternoon.

Cut the rocket with the "Boys Will Be Boys" Cricut cartridge. Love the foil paper from Die Cuts with a View.

I  found these adorable pinwheels at Pier 1 Imports. They symbolize carefree childhood to me :) They were cupcake picks. The plastic thingy in the middle was too thick so I pulled it out and added a brad. Bonus...they match the foil paper perfectly!

Off to move the sprinkler again...and maybe run through it a few times too!

Soccer Sweetie

Is another of my layouts published in the "Big Book of Scrapbook Pages" by Memory Makers. I can't tell you how incredibly excited I was to not only find out I was going to be published for the first time, but that not just one...but four of my layouts were selected!

I love the bright colors in this paper from Die Cuts with a View. My obsession with border punches is apparent once again :)

The flowers are "fussy cut" from the patterned paper and layered with foam dots & buttons. Soccer is cut with the "Base Camp" cartridge and sweetie with "Opposites Attract". I scraplifted my own idea in my recent layout "Soccer Party". It's hard to see in this picture but there is a glitter circle around the 2nd from left bottom picture. This is my DD and another team mate knocking heads! Ouch! The picture next to it on the right is her expression afterwards :(

Went on a little shopping spree in Kalamazoo tonight (don't tell my husband) on the pretext of getting knobs for my new Cricut Expression cabinet. I'll post pictures this weekend with details.

Looking forward to tomorrow, my dear friend Missy is coming over for a much needed scrap-a-thon. Bring out the chocolate :) Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the world!

The Purple Pumpkin

Has the most adorable buttons to use for scrapbooking and they don't have a shank. No more snapping the shank off the back with the pliers :) Here is a link so you can check them out! 
http://purplepumpkincrafts.blogspot.com/2011/07/huge-purple-pumpkin-giveaway.html 

Have a great day!

Happy 4th of July!

Tubing is one of our favorite summertime activities. I wasn't at my BIL's house to catch my son's spectacular wipe outs this weekend (that darn job :P) but here is a layout I did of my DD & her cousin last year featured in www.scrapstreet.com, a fabulous online magazine!  Here is the link to get you straight there: http://scrapstreet.com/ss11/7july11/summer2.htm

I did have today off and it was a productive one :) Finished weeding & edging the front beds and trimmed one side of the hedge. Barbecue & strawberry shortcake with my family & stepdad. Perfection!

Hope you had a great holiday weekend!

Rainy Days

Are perfect for scrapping! It took me a while to get moving this morning, but I finally broke out the pretties :)First I said goodbye to my Niece (she is heading back to Tennessee), kissed my Mimi (she is off to her friends Kendall & Olivia's house to stay the night) and sent Matthew off to help Grandpa Joe.

This layout is based on a Becky Fleck sketch http://www.pagemaps.blogspot.com/ She is the queen of sketches :)

I wanted to use soccer balls but make it feel girly too! Thank goodness my sister in law had the Sports Mania Cricut cartridge, as I had not one soccer related embellishment. Still using this line "Petal Pushers" by Bo Bunny, I love the retro, girly feel it has.

"party" was cut with the Opposites Attract cartridge and layered over "soccer" that was cut with Base Camp. A little Stickles and voila, a title that fits!

I am gazing out the window now and I swear I can see the weeds growing! I spent a good portion of the day yesterday weeding and edging, sigh... it's a never ending job :) Off to clean up my scraproom for the next time. Have a great holiday weekend! I'll be delivering babies,or maybe they'll have mercy on a tired OB nurse ;)