Graduation Day

Tonight we are going to my niece's High School Graduation. Wow, I feel old today! I just don't know how we got here so quickly. And it's now only one more year until my first baby graduates, too.

Anyway, enough of the sentimental stuff, here is the card I made for my niece. I made it a 5x5 so that I would have enough room to write and include my little check enclosure. I started with white whisper card stock and stamped the graduation caps from the set Little Layers Plus and the flowers from Little Pieces using Basic Black and Real Red. The sentiment comes from All Year Cheer. I added red brads in the two o's and layered with red and then black. I also used my corner rounder on the white and red layer of the sentiment and the bottom of the card. I tied the layers to the card with red grosgrain and added a scrap of black grosgrain into a square knot.

For the check enclosure I wrote a little poem and printed it on the computer, folded it up and glued it together. Then I tucked the check right in there. I even stamped a little on the envelope, which is something I rarely do.

On a personal note, I will probably not be posting too often as I have a big new job at Church that is taking a lot of my time. Not to mention that summer is here and the kids are demanding attention. It's always more fun to play and hang out with the kids that to sit at the computer anyway. Talk to ya soon(er or later)!

A Star is Born

Well, he was born almost 17 years ago, technically. Jacob had the lead role in the Spring Musical at his high school. They performed Bye, Bye Birdie four times in three days. I was able to attend all three evening shows and loved every minute of it. Jacob played Albert Peterson. He was cute and funny and has a terrific singing voice. This photo shows Jacob in the brown suit in the center. He is telling (singing) about Conrad Birdie arriving soon.
Jacob will even get an opportunity to reprise his role at another high school's show. A nearby high school happens to be doing the same musical but, unfortunately, their student who was to do the role of Albert, has become ill. Jacob feels badly for the young man who has to step down, but is excited to help out and do two more shows. This does mean more rehearsals for the last two weeks of school and driving about 25 miles each way to get there. I can't wait to see him sing again! I'm such a proud mama!!

Friendship Frame

I suppose it's about time that I share an art project. I made this frame for my dear friend, Beckie. We got to see each other in January. It's such a bummer that we live on opposite coasts. I searched through dozens of quotes about friendship before I found this one. I printed it onto vellum card stock. Then I layered that onto white, then chocolate chip. I attached these layers with silver brads and attached to some patterned paper I had in my scrap pile. I also added some layered prima flowers with a cool silver, flower brad from the newest Hodgepodge Hardware kit. I found the frame at Michael's. I hope that Beckie liked it. I sent it for her birthday. I also made the card to match. Take a look!

The Prom

So, my first baby went to the Prom recently. I can't believe that he is old enough for this!! Hubby and I were remembering going to our respective proms back in high school. How did we get here??? So here is the silly pose of Jacob and his sweet date, Jennifer. Aren't they just adorable? They look fabulous in their formal wear. They had a fun time and Jacob is looking forward to going again next year.

California Poppies

I have the fortune of living only about 10 miles from the most beautiful array of California Poppies. Today I went out there with my dh and three of my kids and two families from our scout pack. We hiked about three and one-half miles of trails there. The flowers are absolutely stunning!! We also saw one rattlesnake and several lizards. We had a great time. The weather was just gorgeous with enough of a cool breeze to keep you from getting overheated. I really wanted pictures of my kids amongst the flowers, but they decided to run ahead on the trails and leave poor old mom in the dust. We spent about 2 hours hiking and then another 20 minutes or so enjoying some delicious oranges before heading home. The oranges are Cara Cara Navel oranges and they are the best oranges I have ever eaten. I have not ever really been a big fan of fresh oranges but these are superb. I highly recommend them.

As for the poppies, I highly recommend a visit there if you are anywhere nearby. They are breathtaking!

Circle Journal your Senses

My circle journal swap is on the move again. Yeah! So here are the pages that I did for Mary's journal. The theme is senses. Which one is your favorite? Sight, hearing, touch, taste, or smell? Of course, I can't actually imagine living without any of them, but I made my journal pages based on touch. "We all need the human touch," says Rick Springfield, and I agree. You can click on these photos for a closer look at the journaling. I used some adorable patterned paper from Stampin' Up! I also used the small star punch, decorative scissors, silver hardware, red grosgrain ribbon, and sponging. I'm about to work on the next journal so be on the lookout. Have a great day!!

I Love Bird Houses

Have I ever told you that I love bird houses? They just make me happy when I see them. I have quite a collection of them in my home. Now that my patio cover is up, I will also be able to put some of them outside as well. A couple of years ago, I bought this bird house from Michael's. It was unfinished and I knew that I wanted to paint it. But my usual procrastination and uncertainty kept the darn thing in the cupboard, undone. Well, I got inspired a couple of weeks ago and got started. I stamped the flowers and the bee and free handed the rest of the artwork. I was inspired by the colors that I am going to be painting inside my house over the next few months.
The kitchen will be about the same green as the top of the house and the leaves and stems. Then there will be red accents throughout. In fact, I just recently got a Kitchen Aid Mixer in red. I have wanted one of those mixers for years!
As I get rooms painted, I will share pics of my new, pretty spaces.

Scrapping Friday

I'm all set to scrap the morning away again this week. I have finally printed all the digital photos that I have been holding in my camera for nearly a year. So I have TONS of photos to work with. I really need to get on the ball and get some pages done. Here is a page I did last Friday while scrapping with my mom. This is from Mother's Day 2006. I very rarely do a one page layout or a page with only one picture. But what the heck, it was a cute pic of me (which are rare in the scrapbook) and my littlest sweetie. Remember that I mentioned I stink at taking photos of scrapbook pages? Well, this is case in point. I need some tips. How do you photograph your scrapbook pages for blog land? Help a girl out!
Last night I went with my oldest son to get measured for his tux for prom. Aww! My baby is going to prom on April 26th. I'm looking forward to scrapping those pictures and they aren't even taken yet!
Do something creative today and have a great weekend.

Birthday Soup

April has several birthdays. This card is for my father-in-law. Meagan was actually born on his 50th birthday. I think he likes that. So here is the card I made for him. Blue is his favorite color so I used an assortment of shades of blue. I started with a blocking effect for the background. The largest block seemed to need something so I used the Flannel Plaid BG stamp in Versamark. The lower right section was stamped with the Crosshatch BG also in Versamark. I left the top right piece alone except for faux stitching and sponging the edges. The focal point is from Alphabet Soup. I used SU! Markers to color the stamp in three shades of blue and stamped onto Whisper White. I punched the corners with the ticket punch and mounted onto yet another shade of blue. I added some more faux stitching and also some silver brads in the corners. The focal image is popped up a bit with dimensionals. The blues used are: Bashful Blue, Brocade Blue, Night of Navy and Brilliant Blue. I honestly have a hard time with more masculine cards. I should work on that!
Next time I will share a scrapbook page. I'm going to be scrapping again on Friday, so I should have some more of those to show you. I'm not very good at photographing my 12 x 12 pages though. Any tips would be appreciated.

For my Birthday Girl

Yesterday my sweet Meagan turned 15. I can't believe how quickly the years have passed. And of course, she can't stop reminding me that it's only one more year until Sweet 16 and a Driver's License. When did I get so old?
I made her this simple card yesterday. Nothing like waiting til the last minute, right? Her favorite color is pink so I started with Pretty in Pink for the card base. Then I just rifled through my Soft Subtle scraps until I found two other colors that inspired me. They are Lavender Lace and Barely Banana. I new I wanted the "happy birthday" stamp to be in white to make it pop against the other colors on the card. I stamped the words in Regal Rose and cut out a strip That helped determined the length of the top set of boxes. I then figured how big the banana piece needed to be and then cut the lavender piece to fit. I used the Headline numbers to stamp "15" in Lavender Lace ink. At this point the yellow piece was looking a little plain so I pulled out my retired soft swirls background stamp to give this piece a bit more interest.
For the focal point I layered up a bunch of punches with one stamp from the Little Pieces set. You can see from this side angle that I used dimensionals under the top layer and the bottom layer for lift and interest. I like this layout so much that I think I will use it again soon and I also plan to use it on a scrap book page. I will be scrapbooking tomorrow so hopefully I will have some pages to show you after that.

Tanks on Tuesday

I know, it's been a while again...I am so unreliable!! haha Anyway, today my ds went to see my baby brother, get promoted. My brother in the Army and has been for years. Anyway, Matt is out of school this month (I hate year round school, btw) so Grandma took him with her for the occasion. All Matt has talked about for days is going to the base and seeing tanks. He got to do all of those things and he even got to put the pin on my brother for his promotion. So cool. So here is my ds and my db with one of those super cool Army tanks. Thanks Mom, for taking Matt. He loved it!

Tomorrow is my dd's birthday so I have to make a card pretty soon. (read-tonight!) So I'll take a photo and post that later this week. Have a good one!

Rejoice!

Happy Spring and Happy Easter. I actually made several Easter cards to mail to friends and family this year. I'm not sure I have ever done that before. I have been so enamored with the cute little birds I've been seeing everywhere lately in scrapping and stamping magazines. So I felt inspired to use this cute chick on my Easter card. It's from the set: Fun and Fast Notes. This layout is the same as the Valentine Card I showed you yesterday. This seems to be my favorite layout. I used my Coluzzle to cute the two circles. The card is Almost Amethyst and the background flowers and sentiment are stamped using Versamark. The chick is stamped with Black Staz On. I didn't want any bleeding when I water colored. I used Water Color Crayons and aqua painters to color my chick and flower stem. The circle layer is Apricot Appeal as well as the flower. I stamped just the flower on Apricot and cut it out, attaching it to the card with a Celery brad. The background paper is from retired Designer Paper: Petals and Paisley. I've hoarded my patterned paper so long that I have a ton of retired paper and I'm trying to use it up. I have a hard time justifying buying more paper when I have so much on hand. Ya know? So anyway, I finished the card off by attaching white grosgrain ribbon to the right half of the card and tying a square knot. I love the square knot so much more than a bow. It's so much less fussy. And I am not a fussy person.

I'm off to prepare food and fun for Easter tomorrow. Enjoy your weekend and remember that you are a child of God. Rejoice in meaning of this holiday!

You Mean Everything To Me

This is the card I made for my DH for Valentine's Day. I just had to use my, then new, Always set. The heart image is so pretty! I started with Pretty in Pink card stock for the card base and stamped the heart twice in Chocolate Chip on a scrap of the same pink. I cut the hearts out and sponged the edges in Chocolate Chip. On the card base I used the heart image from Petite Patterns randomly over the background in Pretty in Pink. I cut a strip of Rose Red card stock to go across the middle of the card and sponged that with the Chocolate Chip also. I wrapped the card with chocolate grosgrain ribbon and tied on scraps of rose and light pink ribbon on either side of the chocolate knot. I then used dimensionals to attach the hearts to the card. On the top heart I had to use two dimensionals stacked where it meets the card to give each heart the proper dimension. Lastly, I stamped the sentiment in Chocolate Chip on the card, added a little more sponging...and voila, I had a beautiful card for hubby for Valentine's Day. As for the photo, I tried something new. I thought there was enough morning light streaming through the window to light the card, but, alas, there were shadows anyway. I probably won't try this method again.

Enjoy your Easter weekend. I will share an Easter card tomorrow in honor of the holiday.

SCS Color Challenge 158

So I decided to do this week's Color Challenge at Splitcoast Stampers. I don't think I've ever done that particular challenge before and this week's combo was definitely a challenge for me. The combo is Kraft, Orchid Opulence and Sage Shadow. I like Kraft quite a bit but Orchid and Sage are two colors that I almost never use. I have lots of those two colors in my stash. So I figured this would stretch my creativity and use up some neglected paper. Before I started I looked at a dozen or so samples from other stampers and I found 3 or 4 that I really liked. So here is my attempt. I used the set Unfrogettable and the retired background Word by Word. The card base and focal point are Very Vanilla. Word by Word is stamped in Creamy Caramel. Froggy and shroom are stamped in Black Staz On. I used reinkers and aqua painters to add color. I even water colored a sky with Bashful Blue. The layers are Kraft and Sage Shadow. I used the paper piercing tool and a Close to Cocoa marker around the edges of the Kraft layer. All pieces have Creamy Caramel inked around the edges. The ribbon is Taupe Grosgrain with a Clear button that backed with Orchid Opulence. I kind of like the overall card. What do you think?

Cool Bargain Find: Today I went to a thrift store to take a look around. My 12 year old daughter has been wanting a new pair of roller blades and there was a pair there that was BRAND NEW! For only $10.95!!! WhooHoo!!

How fast do you type?

45 words
I took this online typing test. I've always wondered about how many words per minute I type. I only took one semester of typing in high school. In the last fourteen years I have only typed at my computer for the internet and various personal projects...and now for my blog. I think that 45 words per minute is pretty respectable! Yeah me!

California Bella

Here is a Bella Circle Journal Page that I forgot to share with you. This photo has been stuck on my memory card for months without me downloading it. Silly me! So here you have Michelle my Bella. The facing page was a postcard of California Poppies which grow abundantly here. The journaling tells of some of the fun things to do in California. The page is simple but Bella steals the show, as she should!

So did you see American Idol last night? I have to admit I've become a wee bit obsessed with AI this season. It's the first season that i have seen every episode. And I'm even voting every week! I have four favorites so far and one of them-Jason Castro-sang my song last night: Michelle!!! I think he's so sweet and I just pretended that he was singing right to me. Ahhhhh. Gotta run. Bye.

Always...

I love this stamp set. It's called Always. When I sat down to make this card I just wanted something peaceful and simple and beautiful. It is not quite what I had in my mind's eye but I like it a lot. I started with the serene color of bashful blue for my ink color. I stamped the branch on whisper white once full strength and then once again slightly off set without reinking. The focal image was then layered on Bashful Blue, after inking the edges directly from the pad. The another layer of Ballet Blue was added to give it a pop. I stamped the round always image in the lower right corner and added a white band with inked edges to the middle of the bashful blue card base. I tied blue grosgrain ribbon around the front of the card before attaching the focal image with dimensionals. All in all it's simple and elegant. What do you think? Does this achieve my vision of peaceful, simple and beautiful?

Today I'm back to working on my Circle Journal project. It's been a while. The one I have now is themed: Family Traditions. I am journaling about our Fourth of July traditions. So many fun memories of friends, family and fun. My favorite memories dating back to when Beckie and her family would spend the day with us. What a blast!! I'll show you my pages when I get them done. I spent 3 hours today looking for my favorite picture from July 2001. I had made matching t-shirts for everyone in the family. We were so cute! Of course, this was before we went digital so I had to find the actual print. Finally I told Beth what I was looking for and she knew right where to find one. Yeah for Beth!! I just wish I had asked her sooner.

Tag Book

I started this little book at least a year ago and I finished it in January. The tag book is made from So Saffron card stock and embellished with Stampin' Up! Designer Paper. Stamps used are from Office Accoutrement and Everyday Flexible Phrases. On the inside there a rub on from an unknown source. I used several of my SU! punches to embellish this cute little book. All of the pics inside are punched with the small tag punch and layered with card stock punched from the regular tag punch. The file tabs at the top of each page ore also punched out. There is a semi circle punched with the slit punch on the back of the tag book that will hold the book closed. I used Cool Caribbean card stock for the file tabs and Apricot Appeal and Certainly Celery for the tag layering. The ribbon is Spring Green. Overall I like the way this turned out. I'd like to keep it in my purse but I'm worried it would get destroyed in a matter of days. Maybe I should try making one that fits into an altoid tin. I've seen those but have never gotten around to actually making one.

Tonight hubby and I are going out to dinner!! Yeah! It's nice to get away without the kids once in a while. They won't mind since they get pizza so we don't have to cook before we go out. Ya know? I hope you all have a great weekend. I'm working on some Easter cards to show you next week. Bye

Dahlia Fold

Well, even though I haven't been posting regularly I have been doing some creating. Unfortunately, I have let most of those creations out of the house without photographing them first. I do have a few that haven't been given away to share with you though. A few weeks ago there was a challenge on Splitcoast Stampers to use the Dahlia Fold. The examples sure looked pretty. A few of the comments said that it was a bit difficult but I didn't let that scare me away. I went for it. And here is my effort. The fold isn't the easiest thing, but I got the hang of it after thrashing a couple of attempts. Once I had my eight circles folded I glued them onto Certainly Celery card stock in the flower formation. I used my Layer Ease to cut a perfect layer and added a celery 1/2" circle and a rhinestone brad to the center of my flower. The card base is Bashful Blue with a layer of white, a layer of patterned paper (also used for the folding) and a piece of celery ribbon. The flower is attached using dimensionals. The sentiment is from Sincere Salutations. You can find the instructions for this fold here.

I've got sick kids again this week. Spring is always a big cold season around here. Darn it! And spring break starts next week, too. On a happier note, my oldest son got his driver's license this week. I'm loving having another driver in the house. I think this will help our gas bill AND give me more time to stamp and scrap. Speaking of scrapping...I mentioned a while back that my goal was to bring my scrapbooks current this year. So far I've made a whopping 3 layouts since the beginning of the year. I'm going to have to pick up the pace!! And I've determined that I need a Cricut for my titles. Do any of you have one of these handy little things? Do you like it? What do you recommend?

Well, DD just called from school, I've got to pick her up. Bye!

Hey there! I am alive! Let's just pretend that February never happened! Everyone here got the nasty flu going around. Three of us needed antibiotics to get over it. But now that the sickness has retreated and the weather is beautiful here, I'm feeling inspired. I don't have any new stamping projects to show you today, but here is the other cake I made for class. The words are a little cramped but I like the way it turned out anyway. I especially like the dots around the side of the cake. I'll use that idea again.

I'll be back soon with some fresh card ideas. (and btw, soon is relative)