Nov
Clint and Liz’s Mini-album
This mini-album has been a labor of love! I made it for our grand nephew and his new bride. I really enjoyed making this album and it didn’t hurt that the colors were some of my favorite. It is based on the Pick-pocket album created by Laura Dennison of Follow the Paper Trail. The bones of the album was created using her tutorial however, the binding and the tags are my own. Somehow the tags that she suggested just didn’t work for me. I have a ton (almost literally) of cardstock and decorative paper. The first thing I did was go through my stash and pick out all that I thought would work for this album. I ended up going to Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, JoAnn’s and Archivers before I was satisfied that I had the right papers and embellies.
There are not that many pages but it will hold lots of pictures and there are places for journaling. The papers on the front of the album are from JoAnn’s and almost like fabric. The flowers are prima. I used the branch punch by MS and there are also some small satin flowers nested in with the paper flowers. The pearl trim is some that I purchased at Canton from one of the ribbon booths. Many of the pages also have ribbons or trim purchased at Canton.
The paper used on the inside covers is flocked and the lace trim, again, is from Canton.
Following are the pictures of the individual pages which show the page with the flap closed and then again with the flap open. The last few pages show the variation of the tags that were made. I wanted each page to be different. The last picture shows a sample of the folder that was made for each pocket on the sides of the pages. The outsides of the folders were matted and the inside was left plain so that either a picture or journaling could be applied.
Nov
A Couple of Birthday Cards
Here are a couple of recent (ok, late September and early October) cards that I made, one for my son and the other for my sweet daughter-in-law. Fortunately for me I was able to hand deliver them all the way to Denver.
The above card is the one I made for my DIL Farah. As per usual it was made from papers, ribbon (BoBunny) and flowers I had in my stash. I made the stick pin as well as put together the smaller brighter flowers. I was very pleased that the ribbon matched perfectly with the paper
This next card is of course the one I made for my son Jerry. I kept it fairly simple since I was getting ready for our trip to Colorado. Again the papers were from my stash and the bird was made using the SU 2-step bird punch—love that punch!
Since the trip and making these cards I have been working on a mini-album for my grand nephew and his new bride. I have finally finished it and hope to get the pictures posted soon. Today I spent the morning cleaning up my scraproom and can almost see the top of my desk LOL. I have several projects either started or in the design stage. Lots to do before Christmas!
Jul
Christmas in July Sketch Challenge
Christmas is my favorite time of the year to scrap so I am always glad for July to come around as I have an excellent excuse to do something Christmasy a little early. Crafty Steals http://blog.craftysteals.com/, a daily deal site put up a challenge that I felt was made for me. Here is the card I made using their sketch. I used Bo Bunny paper and cardstock stickers throughout. Love their products!
Tags: Bo Bunny, Christmas, Crafty Steals
Nov
Crock Pot Dressing Recipe
Some of my friends in our Yahoo Group asked that I send them the recipe for Crock Pot Dressing that I have used in the past at family Holiday dinners. Here it is:
8 slices day old bread
4 eggs
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 cup celery, chopped
salt
1 1/2 tablespoons sage or poultry seasoning
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 cans of cream of chicken soup
2 cans chicken broth
1/4 cup butter
Pam cooking spray
Lay your bread out on the counter the night before you prepare the dressing so that it will be dry. Crumble all breads. Add all other ingredients except butter. Salt to taste. Pour into a sprayed crock pot. Dot with butter. Cover and cook on high for 2 hours or on low for 4 hours. (Note: you may want to reduce the amount of poultry seasoning to 1 tablespoon. You can also use cream of celery soup instead of the cream of chicken and omit the chopped celery.) I make giblet gravy by boiling the livers of the turkey or buy chicken livers, stir into some cream of chicken soup along with some chopped boiled egg. You can add some milk to the soup but you do want a nice creamy consistency to your gravy.
Oct
Pumpkin Patch Update
I guess now it is a little more appropriate to talk about pumpkins than it was in July. We harvested our pumpkins a little over a week ago and they are now decorating the front yard for Fall. We do still have a small pumpkin patch left but there are just blooms. You probably can’t tell by the picture but the blooms are about the size of a dessert plate. We are hoping to get a few more pumpkins before a freeze occurs. Will be posting pictures of our lawn decorations for Fall in a day or so.
Here are our “kids” with the harvest. The kid on the left is Paddy Dunbar and the one on the right is Baby Quinton. They are with their little friends, the Bears.
One last picture so you can get an idea of the size of the pumpkins. Yes, this was a small variety. Our cat Daisy is posing as she always does. Somehow she knows “her holiday” is coming up LOL. You will see when I post the rest of the pics that she is in a lot of them.
Sep
ScrapFest 2010 Road Trip
ScrapFest is up on us and I am going!! The Road Trip will begin bright and early tomorrow morning. I “think” I have everything packed. This time is different as this is my first scrapping event that I will be doing crops and workshops so of course have to take supplies. We will leave quite early tomorrow morning to try to avoid the morning rush hour in the Dallas area. We are taking our time getting to Minnesota and the Mall of America. I have a feeling it is going to be a whirlwind few days with so much to see and do. I will be meeting a bunch of my friends from our Yahoo group and am so excited about that. There will be 10 of us there, from all over the country. What fun!! To my Friendz, can not wait to meet you all!!! Safe journeys to all of you 
Jul
Autumn in July??
Ok, we all know about Christmas in July. That is something that has been around for a long time. As a matter of a fact, I am in a Card Swap this month that is exactly that theme. But Autumn in July??? Can it be? Check these pictures out.
This is my pumpkin patch!! Evidently they got “planted” back late last fall when we threw our old pumpkins that we used for our yard decorations on the “burn pile”. Well we never burned that pile of rubbish and early this spring these plants started popping up. Now we have pumpkins!! In all my years (I am older than dirt) I have never seen pumpkins growing. The leaves are humongous! For those who are sweltering in the July heat, just sit back and look at these pictures. Now don’t you feel a lot cooler?
Jul
ScrapFest 2010!!
Really meant to add this post last night, but had a busy day yesterday and just forgot to do it at the end of the day. I will be attending ScrapFest at the Mall of America in September!! Yayyy!! Got my badge yesterday, signed up for a couple of the Crops. On Friday night I am signed up for the Fiskars Crop and then on Saturday night the EK Success. I wanted the American Crafts one for Saturday night but it was already sold out, am on a wait list. Now I am having second thoughts about doing a crop on Saturday night at all, figuring that after the one on Friday night and a day at the mall on Saturday I might be worn out—-you think? Plus we leave to travel west on Sunday morning into states we have never been, so really don’t want to be snoozing instead of looking at the country side. Besides I am the navigator of the family lol. Of course, TomTom will guide us along our way
I am now looking at all the Workshops that are being offered at ScrapFest. There are a few that I would be interested in doing. Just have to decide which ones and what days to do them. Really don’t want to crowd the schedule as there will also be lots of Make-n-Takes to do as well. And of course, the most important is that I will be meeting friends from our Yahoo Group there and am naturally very excited about that. We are literally from all over the US and I know we will have a blast. Can hardly wait for that.
Ok, time for a little housework 
before I head to my scraproom to finish up my Christmas in July Card Swap for the Yahoo Group. Still need a lot more organizing out there, but also need my playtime. Hope everyone has a great day and talk to you later
Jul
Color Challenge Card
I really got back to scrapping today. Did not organize a thing so was kind of working in a chaotic space. I created this card using yellow and green for the color challenge over at Stamp TV. This is my first time to enter a challenge like this. I just hope I uploaded the picture correctly over there. Time will tell I guess.
For this card I used some yellow cardstock from my stash for the card itself. The patterned paper is from the Vintage Sara Papers by Hot Off The Press. The image is one that I received from one of my friends in our Yahoo Group. (Thanks Sarah!) The stamped image is Mimo w/tulip by Bildmalarna. I colored him with Copics, using G24 for the overalls, G28 for the leaf and stem, Y13 for the top of the tulip, Y08 for the underside of the tulip, E09 for the shoes, E49 for the soles of the shoes and E00 for his face. I had intended to punch around the page with my MS Double Loop set. However after watching the how-to video on YouTube and trying several times, I realized that one of the little swing out thingies was gone from my corner punch. That was making it impossible for me to get a good punch all around the piece of paper. I had the correct size of paper but just could not get the corners to line up like they should. So I ended up just doing the corners as I only had one 12×12 piece of the patterned paper to play with. The sentiment is from the Curly Sentiments set by Close to my Heart and I used the Labels 4 Nestabilities. Some yellow pearls were placed in the corners.
This card took me the better part of the morning to make. I do regret one thing, there was just no place for ribbon. I do love ribbon.
Thanks for stopping by today and go out and be creative!
Tags: Close to My Heart, Copics, Hot Off The Press, Matha Stewart Double Loop Punch, Spellbinders Labels 4, Stamp TV
Jul
First Day of Retirement!
Hello to all! Well this is/was my first day of retirement! Yayyy me!! I am at this time very happy I took this big step. Won’t go into great details but suffice it to say it was time.
If you have followed by previous blog on Blogspot you know that I have a son who lives in Denver with his beautiful wife Farah. Well, for my retirement gift he created this wonderful new blog for me. Work had gotten so hectic along with other things that I had not kept up with the other blog. Actually it has been almost a year since I had posted anything. I am really hoping that will change with this new blog. I am not saying that I will blog everyday, lets face it my life is just not that exciting lol. But as you know I do love my Scrapbooking hobby. I belong to a wonderful Yahoo Group that I love so much. They have been very patient with me the last few months. I am looking so forward to meeting a lot of them this September at ScrapFest at the Mall of America. Now that will definitely give me something to blog about.
I will tell you this about this first day of retirement. I actually thought it would just feel like I was taking a day off or a week off, like vacation time. But I must admit it did feel different. I was determined that I was going to start this first day off doing the things that I had vowed I would do. First I went for a walk, ok, not a long walk but it is a start. Then came back to the house, got a cup of coffee and called my Mom. We chatted for almost an hour and then I hit my scraproom. I am in the process of re-organizing it and it has changed a lot from the pictures from this time last year. I will be posting pics as soon as it is presentable. Right now it looks like a tornado hit it.
I have other projects ahead of me. Want to join in with my Yahoo Group in some of the swaps. Saw a card challenge today on one of the many blogs I follow that I would like to try. I also would like to pursue some of my other past hobbies, Genealogy, Counted Cross-stitch and maybe some crochet as well. Just depends on how the eyes and fingers co-operate.
Ok, I hope you find this worth reading when I post. Those of you that have waited patiently for another post, hope you enjoy what is ahead.
Many thanks to my DS for creating this space for me. He is the best, my shining star
