Happy Haunting!

Has it been just a year ago that my favorite little guy was only 1-1/2 years old and enjoying Halloween? Where does the time go? We had dinner with Jonas (and his parents) last night and he just LOVES to engage in conversation now! The waitress came over and asked who wanted to give her their order first, and Jonas jumped right in and said "I do" and proceeded to tell her that he wanted mac 'n cheese and lemonade. I nearly fell off my chair in a fit of giggles! I can't wait to see what his folks will dress him as this weekend! We're having the annual family Halloween event at Jeremy's parents' home. Everyone brings a "spooky" side dish to share and it's always such a fun event. I do remember one year that Marilyn made sloppy joes that actually "glowed". Tomorrow Sterling is making The Pioneer Woman's cheesy olive loaf (like pizza bread) and using the green olives as "eyes" ... here's lookin at you kid!

Falling For You

Here's a pic my sister Gloria took of her granddaughter, Avlyn, over the weekend. Isn't she just the cutest?!! She looks SO MUCH like her mother, Trisha, and then again at times she's the spittin image of her dad, Craig. But whomever she takes after, she's a cutie patootie!

As you can tell by the photo, our weather is definitely starting to show signs of cooler fall weather and the leaves are really starting to drop. It won't be long before old man winter starts shaking his fist at us.

I had a delightful weekend. I spent most of Saturday with my scrapbooking pals at Archiver's and while I didn't accomplish much, it's always such a good time chatting with those gals. Sunday morning I took my brother to a "birthday" breakfast at Cracker Barrel. The folks decided to tag along as well, so it was a nice morning spent with my family. The rest of the afternoon Sterling and I just vegged and relaxed as neither of us had much energy for some reason. And every weekend I swear I'm going to get so many things accomplished, but my "to do" list hasn't seemed to shrink one bit. Going to have to start tackling my "honey do" projects a little each evening in order to get things accomplished, I guess. Although that in itself will be a challenge as the evenings are getting darker quicker, and once I lose the light it's REALLY hard to get motivated. Does anyone else have that problem? It seems my hibernation instinct kicks into gear once the sun goes down and all I want to do is grab a blanket and lounge on the couch with a good book or my crochet projects.

Happy Birthday Bro!

I couldn't find a more recent pic of my younger brother in the limited computer cache of family photos (another project for another time), so you won't be able to see his balding gray head ROFL ... but take a look at his hairdo from back in the 70's! Seriously, though, he's a peach of a brother and would give you the shirt off his back if you asked ... although most people would DROWN in it as he is around 6'7" tall (give or take a few inches)!! Happy birthday, Marty! I'll take you to dinner on Sunday ... or make your favorite - chicken and dumplings, if you prefer.

Happy Birthday to my Daughter

TURN AROUND

Written by: Harry Belafonte

Where are you going
My little one, little one
Where are you going
My baby, my own

Turn around and you’re two
Turn around and you’re four
Turn around and you’re a young girl
Going out of the door

Where are you going
My little one, little one
Little pigtails and petticoats
Where have they gone

Turn around and you’re tiny
Turn around and you’re grown
Turn around and you’re a young wife
With babes of your own!

I've had this tune rolling around in my head since last night. Before falling asleep last night I was remembering when you were just a little girl ... even then so self assured and fearless, so loving and compassionate. You make me so proud to be your mother, and I marvel at the wonderful mother you've become to Jonas. Have a wonderful day today, my dear, and always know that I love you.

Thank You, Mimi

Look at this fabulous prize package I won over at Mimi's blog: http://mycharmingblog-scrappermimi.blogspot.com/. Go check out Mimi's blog and tell her I sent you!

Uptown Girl

I can't believe how FAST my week of vacation flew by. But I ended it with a BANG. My 2 sisters and I drove down to Kansas City for the CKC Scrapbook Convention vendor fair on Saturday, which we've gone to for the past four years in a row. LOVE seeing all the new products and demos. My niece, Trisha, was so sweet and used some of her personal points to get us a FREE room at the hotel company she works for. THANKS so much Trisha! We started out EARLY on Saturday leaving at 6:00 a.m. My sister, Gloria, did ALL the driving (thanks, sis!). We stopped in St. Joseph at Cracker Barrel for breakfast - YUM! Then we drove directly to the Expo Center in North KC and spent FIVE hours shopping and doing make and takes. After checking into the hotel we continued our shopping spree - stopping at Kirklands and two other craft stores in Shawnee Mission. Let me say that we all agree The Scrapbook Page is the bomb! LOVED that place, and the gals were EXTREMELY nice and helpful. We can't wait to go back for one of their manias sometime soon. During our drive, my younger sis, Shari, had Gloria and I in STITCHES. In our family, we have this oddity of at any given moment finding something hilarious, that one of us will get into a giggling fit ... which then has the rest of us laughing so hard that we can hardly breathe. Thanks, Shari, for that moment! After shopping, we continued on to Legends and had a nice dinner at Bob Evans. We then met up with my good friends, Marcia and Bunny, at their hotel for an evening of chatting and working on projects. Marcia had us ALL laughing with her story about "Uptown Girl" and did her best to entertain us by lip sinking to several songs playing in the background. We finally CRASHED back at the hotel around 10:00 p.m. We drove back home Sunday morning, and I pretty much napped and relaxed the rest of the day. I got a pad of 7 gypsies paper that I used to make this card. I used a Tim Holtz bird stamp on the tag, and am having a blast with the hug snug seam binding, which I inked to match the color of the rust colored egg on the tag. I also added a hand crocheted flower that I made over the weekend. An EASY pattern that I found the the latest issue of my Papercrafts Magazine subscription.

Holiday Card and New Technique

I had a bit of time this morning before meeting my daughter for sushi, so I created a holiday card. This is not an original, as I saw this design on one of the blogs I frequent. I loved the look and wanted to create something similar. I used removable 1 inch masking tape to mask off a large square. I then used Tim Holtz distress ink in Peeled Paint and shaded in the square, with a bit more color on the edges. Using the same peeled paint, I took a SU tree stamp and inked off once and then stamped light images in the background. Then I removed all the tape leaving the colored box. I inked up the tree stamp again and stamped the single tree image. I just received a supply of hug snug seam binding, so I used the peeled paint color to ink the seam binding and then spritzed it with water and scrunched it. After drying for about 10 minutes I then just tied a double bow and attached to card, along with the holiday sentiment.

Somebody Stop Me!

I couldn't help but post this last burst of creativity for today. I found this folded butterfly pattern and had to try it out - using a Unity sentiment, I think it turned out super cute. It's hard to tell from the photo, but the "trail" of the butterfly carries through onto the burgandy cardstock. What do you think?

Unity Challenges are DONE! Doing the happy dance!

I can't believe I got all 23 challenges done for the Unity World Cardmaking Day event. If I hadn't been home on vacation this week, I doubt I would have had the time. Sure would LOVE to win this awesome prize. A full year of Unity's kit of the month, and let me tell you that they have some fabulous stamps. Go check 'em out! And keep your fingers crossed for me! Here's some of last of my cards from today.

Day 3 of Vacation

I'm so enjoying my days off. The weather COULDN'T be nicer. Sunshine and mild temps! Loving it. I'm also enjoying my favorite pasttime - making cards. Here are some more of the cards I've been making for the Unity World Cardmaking Challenges.

Day Two of Vacation

I had a nice, although very quick, visit with my good friend, Joyce, this morning. She stopped by and brought me some homemade pumpkin muffins, and loaned me some fabulous craft books to enjoy while I'm on vacation this week. Still working on the WCMD Unity challenges. Here's one I did for the "ribbon" challenge.

I'm also getting ready to go to Kansas City this weekend for the CKC Scrapbook Convention that my sisters and I go to every year. It's a weekend filled with giggling, crafting, and SHOPPING! We always make a stop at Kirklands (my sister, Gloria's FAVORITE store), and will also hit one or two new scrapbook stores. We'll meet up with my friends, Joyce and Bunny, for dinner and an evening of sharing our purchases, chatting and scrapping. It's an event I always look forward to and am counting the days!

More cards for Unity challenges

I've got 12 out of 22 challenges complete ... 10 more to go!

Unity Challenges

Day one of my vacation and I'm in my craft room creating cards for the world card making day challenges at splitcoaststampers.com - Unity. Go take a look at all the wonderful creativity going on during this event. Here's just a couple of my creations so far.

WCMD

Here's my "fall card" creation. After stamping the image on cardstock, I applied a coat of Versamark and then added several coats of UTEE on the flower stamped image. I then let it cool and "crackled" the image. I then added some distress ink to give it yet another element of vintage. So hard to see the detail in this photo, but it really turned out nicely.

WCMD Challenge #7

This challenge was to make a birthday card that didn't say "happy birthday" ... Here's my creation.

WCMD Challenge #5

I couldn't get a good pic of this holiday tag, but it is embossed with gold and very shimmery

WCMD - Challenge #4

This card challenge was to incorporate orange, purple and green into a card. Although my camera made the lime green scallop circle look more yellow.

WCMD - Card Challenge

Today is world card making day. There are TONS of challenges going on. Here's my FIRST entry for Creations with Christina. Check out her blog at: http://www.creationswithchristina.com/

T.G.I.F.

It's Friday! Thought it would NEVER get here. I'll be home next week for some quality R&R time. I always love taking a week's vacation during fall just to relax at home, get some projects done, do some fall baking, and pretty much just recharge my batteries. This photo was taken of my grandson LAST year during fall - he LOVED running through the leaves.

I hoping to get some SERIOUS cardmaking done ... and POSTED. I have some GREAT new stamps that I've won from Unity Stamps - what a GREAT company. If you haven't been to their website, you really need to check them out. http://theunitystampco.blogspot.com/ And on Thursdays they have a fabulous forum on Splitcoaststampers and they give away their fabulous stamps to several lucky participants throughout the course of the day. http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/. Let them know I sent you their way.