Faith

Hi friends! How is your week going so far? Work has been pretty hectic for me lately and I am so very glad that I am home for the evening! Ever have one of those days? Don't get me wrong I am very thankful for my job but sheesh!

Lately it seems we have had our share of friends that have had tragedy in their families. I made this card for a friend of mine who lost her 17 month old granddaughter. I just can't imagine the pain they are going through and I pray for them each day that God may give them the strength to get through this difficult time.

I used Stampin Up's Pocket Silhouettes set and chocolate chip ink pad. The sentiment is from a set from Paper Trey....ever been there to check out their stamps? They have the neatest sets and excellent customer service! The silver frame is from SU's hodgepodge hardware set (that I was lucky enough to win in the silent auction at Get Scrappy!). The pink and cream striped paper is from 7 Gypsies (left over from another project *wink*) and that is basically it in a nut shell.

Thanks for peekin' in today! Hope you have a great week!

Gardening

Hi friends! Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend! Remember on my last post I told you that I wanted to redo the flowerbed down by our mailbox and that I had asked my good friend Mary for some helpful hints? Well since it didn't rain yesterday and everyone was out of the house yesterday I decided to head to Lowes and pick up what I needed and begin my project.

So here is a picture of the flowerbed as it was yesterday morning. My loving husband took the sickly bush out I was telling you about before I could take a picture of it but I am very thankful that he did that for me because this was a bigger job than I thought!





Pretty sad shape huh?

So I head out for Lowes and picked out my flowers and bushes and lets not forget the compost (no one could forget compost that smell is one of a kind!) and mulch. I don't have a truck so I made two trips, one to pick up the flowers and the other for the compost and mulch.

By the time I got back and was ready to rock and roll it was about 11:00 so I started digging. I knew this flower bed had some clay in it but I didn't know exactly how much. Now, Mary told me to throw out the clumps of clay that you couldn't easily break apart. so threw all the big chunks in the trash dumpster. It got to be around 12:00 and my sister came by to check on me. She loves to work in the yard and so she got the shovel out and started helping me dig. We kept doing this for another hour or so and then we decided to take a break and get a hamburger. This gardening is really hard work! By this time we had about 3/4 of the dumpster full of clay and it took both of us to move it over to the other side of the drive where the trash guys pickup...but they had already picked up for the week so I didn't know exactly where I was going to put all of this clay...I still had a long way to go before I was finished. So we went for our burger and she went home and I started working again. I as I dug and made my pile of clay I noticed that the trash bin was tipped over. Even though it was windy yesterday that thing was so full there was no way that it could have been blown over. So I went to check it out and the trash man must of came back around again and dumped it again! I said a little prayer of thanks because now I don't have to worry about where I will put the rest of this clay! So after digging another few hours my sister comes back with a bucket of margarita mix! Gotta love sis! And she helped me dig a little while longer. Here is my pile of clay! Can you get over this?

All through out the day the robin kept coming over to me and I would talk to him and he would just hop here and there so I named him Eddy.

I couldn't figure out why he got so close with out being scared so I got my camera an watched him for a while. WORMS! He saw all of the worms that I was diggin' up and he would go have a snack when I wasn't digging! This is so funny...and a true story...I called to him saying "hi eddy...eddy look here!" and he looked right at me! See....

Here is another little friend of mine that wanted to come out and play with me so bad but if she is not on the leash then she will run faster that you can say stop! So I couldn't let her out front with me.

So around 6pm Mike was getting home from work and he helped me finish digging and then we dumped the compost into the flowerbed and turned it into the soil really good and began planting. Here are some closeups of the lilies that I got.

Don't you just love the vibrant colors? Gorgeous! We finished it off by adding 3 inches of mulch. Mary says...don't scrimp on the mulch...this will keep your weeds from coming up! I quoted Mary so much this weekend my hubby probably thought she was a queen or something! Thanks for all the helpful tips Mary!

Needless to say...I this morning I feel like an old decrepit woman! There isn't one muscle in my body that doesn't hurt! But it was all worth it! Thanks for peekin' in on me! Sounds like we could be in for some nasty weather here today so if you live in KS keep an eye out and be safe today!

thanks SO much!

Are you enjoying this Kansas weather this week? I can't get over how nice and warm it is. I might be working in the yard this weekend if this weather stays nice. I have a project I would like to tackle...we have a small "flower bed" down by our mailbox that needs some serious attention. You see I have this bush that has about 5 green leaves on it and the rest of it looks...well...dead. So I would like to pull that out along with all the other strange things growing in there and totally revamp it. I got some very helpful gardening hints from my good friend Mary as she has this wonderful skill at keeping plants alive. I told her "Mary, I need something that is low maintenance and you could practically water with gasoline and would still live" I know that sounds a touch dramatic but by the end of the summer most of the plants that I have planted out doors are screaming to die because I have forgotten to water them. So we shall see. She gave me several ideas and I promise you I will take before and after pictures.

Now, on to this card. I made this card for a male friend of mine and I needed something masculine. I had a left over piece of this stripped paper from another project and I thought it would work great for a masculine card. It has been a while since I made a card and whenever I get stumped for an idea I head on over to Splitcoast Stampers because there is a wealth of ideas over there! One of the things that I love about Splitcoast is that you can type in the name of the stamp set that you want to use and usually come up with hundreds of examples. So for instance, I knew that I wanted to use my Stampin Up Pocket Silhouettes set for this card...I buzzed over to SCS and I found several examples I liked. I found this one and changed it up a bit with colors and embellishments.

I am proud to say that this card was totally made using scraps! The white cardstock is SU, the green and blue cardstock are Bazzill, the ribbon is some of that $.99 ribbon from Michael's. You gotta love that feeling huh? The sentiment is from another SU set called So Many Sayings.

If you are a crafter I know you have a "cluttered" work area...like we all do, because you get all this stuff out to work on a project and then before you know it this tidy space you started with is this teeny, tiny space. Then you decided you are gonna clean it up before you begin to craft the next time. Here is my challenge to you...before you start cleaning up and throwing away those scraps, look at what you have and make something with it. Whether it's a tag, embellishment for a page or a card, make something with it and post a comment and show me what you did! Don't you think that would be fun?

Well I hope you are having a great week so far...thanks for peekin' in my friend!

Easter...and other ramblings...

Hi friends. I have been MIA for a while but I was so busy with the end of Lent that I tried to stay off the computer a bit and focus on this holy season a bit more this year and then I had to get ready for Easter! Here are the girls coloring Easter eggs! I don't think we will ever get tired of doing this! It is so much fun!

Here are a few pictures of our little girls at Easter...they are growing up so fast! One of my dear friends made both of their dresses. She did such a beautiful job...they both looked so cute!

I just love this close up...they look like they are really getting along don't they? Naw...I'm just kidding they get along pretty good for the most part!

This is a picture of the lemon meringue pie that I made for dessert on Easter. It is my grandma's recipe and it turned out great this year. Sometimes I have such a hard time with the meringue, but I figured out that I just need to be a little more patient when making the meringue!

And finally some scrapbooking! Here is a page layout that I completed a while back. This was from Thanksgiving 2006. I didn't get any pictures of the Thanksgiving feast that we had but we played a family game and had a blast! I got the idea for this layout from one of the Becky Higgins Sketch books. It is a little bit different than what I usually do. All of the cardstock is Bazzill and the title "Thanksgiving Games" is done with Making Memories rubon alphabet letters.

I thought the edges looked a little plain so I took my black journaling pen and outlined the edges. You can see it here in this close up a little better. The cute little button flowers are a cardstock flower with real stitching on them from Sassafras.

And here is a bit of exciting news...I have decided to start teaching a few classes at my house. I am going to start with a few Basic Grey card classes so stay tuned...I will be having some samples out here in a few weeks. Well thanks for peekin in on me! I appreciate all of your kind words and comments! Hope you are having a great week!

Halloween Page Layout

All I have to say is thank goodness it is Friday! I am going to try to paint our living room ceiling this weekend. We have one of those old "popcorn" sprayed ceilings and I have heard that it can be rather difficult to get this done. But I am going to try. I went to Lowes and had a nice little chat about the right kind of roller to use with the very nice man working behind the paint counter. He told me to use this special little sponge roller with slits in it...apparently it is for very bumpy surfaces. So wish me luck. I will let you know how this turns out.

This is a Halloween page that I finished this week. This was 2007 Haley was the nurse and Sidney was Major Flirt...at least that is what it said on her costume! Don't you just love the blond wig? How about those red hornrim glasses! LOL! And yes...that is me...the pirate! I wore this to work for the whole day. That darn mustache was so itchy! My boss said he couldn't even look at me seriously with out laughing! You should have seen me try to eat my sandwich at lunch with that thing! Anyway....about the page. The base is Cardinal Red card stock from Bazzill. That is quite possibly my favorite red from Bazzill because it is so versatile. The green card stock is also from Bazzill but I can't remember the name of the color. Isn't that funny how you mind works? I am told it gets worse as we get older. Hum. The patterned paper is a Halloween line by Karen Foster. Do you like that little waive on the lower part of the page? I used the Creative Memories cutting system for that.

Here is a close up of the title letters. Sorry the picture is a little bit blurry. The letters are adhesive backed cork board letters from Hobby Lobby. I thought they would look better a shimmery blackish color so I used Granite colored Glimmer Mist to achieve this look. It took about 4 applications until I got the result I was looking for. I was so excited about how they turned out. This Glimmer Mist stuff is way cool. I think I may have to go get some more alphabet letters to spray!

This is a close up of the rubons and little bit of bling that I added. The rub ons I have had for quite a while but I know I picked them up at Walmart. I added them to the corners and on a few of the photos too. The brad embelly is from Michael's, it was in a Halloween set by Making Memories.
Well Thanks for peekin' in on me. I will keep you posted on my painting adventures! Have a great Saturday!