Oh So Busy

I have been so behind on updating this blog and I am sorry. There has been so much going on. The day after my last post was my DGS Kyle's brthday. This is a picture of the card I made for him using papers from the Everyday Celebration kit and stamps from the August SOTM, It's Your Day. I had some medical things to attend to, nothing too extra- ordinary, but still time-consuming. Then my father had carpal tunnel surgery and needed to rehab at a local nursing home. I took him to the hospital for his surgery and then to the nursing home. I got him settled in his room, had supper with him and then he dismissed me to go home for the night. I quickly packed my suitcase and rolling scrap tote and after visiting him briefly the next morning left for the Regional Conference for Close To My Heart in Minneapolis. I came home from there absolutely exhausted and stiff and sore from driving, darn arthritis! I had only had a chance to barely catch my breath when I got a call asking me if I would like have a vendor's table at a 12 hour crop taking place on Oct. 24th. If you are in the Omaha area, it is a very good deal - $15 for a table all to yourself, and at least for this first monthly crop, includes lunch AND supper. Email me at MotherG1@aol.com if you would like the contact number to reserve a spot. I have been trying to finish up my swaps (Christmas gift tags) so that I could concentrate on some displays, kits, and make-and-takes for that crop. Dad came home from the nursing home two days ago, declaring that it had been FUN. He so enjoyed being waited on, and joking around with the staff and other rehab'ing patients, not to mention being fed 3 squares a day. He gained 3 pounds in 10 days! But he is glad to be home with his cats again. All of us kids are just so thankful that he seemed to breeze through the surgery and nursing home visit so well. He has come so far since last year at this time. Soon I will post some of the projects from Minneapolis and some of the swaps I have made. In the meantime, back to my scrap desk to my many waiting projects.

These kids cannot be old enough already!

I have found out about two of our friend's children getting married this year. One was married in the Caribbean I think and my DH and I were invited to a reception for the couple, and another is going to be married in a few weeks. The last time I saw either of these kids, they couldn't have been older than 8 years old. Now I just about ignored my birthday yesterday, why couldn't they stay little? (Not to worry, I will celebrate Wednesday evening when the MIB [the UPS Man-in-Brown] delivers my latest CTMH order. There will be LOTS of goodies for me then.) Anyway, the Caribbean couple's reception was last evening and I needed a wedding card. With all the stamps I own, you would think I would have the perfect one but NO. I don't think I even own a wedding set. Luckily, I joined CTMH this past spring and got a couple of Valentine type sets with hearts and love sentiments. The reception invitation had a picture of the wedding couple and I took a chance that the deep red flowers in the bridal bouquet was indicative of the bride's wedding colors. (And I was right!) I used cranberry cardstock as the primary color, some patterned paper from last year's CTMH Christmas pack Evensong, found (luckily) a vellum quote that was appropriate and lots of little white flowers and adhesive pearls. I am very pleased with how it all turned out and hope the bride and groom are too.

The drawback to this particular style of card is that when it is folded up, some of the inside sections show, like the '&' and 'n', but it can be very pretty displayed standing up and when it is unfolded completely, it can be used as half of a 12x12 page layout. I included a matching paper with the wedding date that can be adhered over the 'from' section in the lower right. A 4x6 photo or two on the top of page and the page is done! PS. The couple had a Shutterfly album that was very nice, but nothing like a real paper scrapbook!

Class layout

I finally finalized the layout I want to present to my customers in the next few weeks. It took me a while to find just the right photo to show off this LO. This is DGD Courtney 2 years ago at my niece's wedding. She made the most adorable flower girl and I think this picture, with the full length mirror showing the back of her turned out adorably. I think this would be a great design for an Easter picture, also.

Long past time to update

I can't believe that it has been so long since I updated my blog. Bad me! Since the last update my DGS Kyle and I have visited with my sister in Little Rock and school has started again (It is rather nice to have the house quiet for several hours a day.) Kyle and I had a great time at my sister's. We spent some of each day swimming in her pool and some touring the area. One of the exciting things for Kyle was taking the tour of the USS Razorback, a submarine purchased by the town of North Little Rock. It served in the US Navy from 1944 to 1952, was recommissioned in 1954 and served until 1970, then sold to Turkey, where it served until 2002. Let me tell you it is close quarters inside that "sewer pipe" as my DH calls them and no fun to fit this robust body down the hatch and then up again. But I made it without getting stuck to the surprise of my DH.

Another really cheap thing we did was to ride the trolley. It only cost $1 each for the round trip and we saw the Clinton Library among other sites, and rode across the Arkansas River to North Little Rock. There was running commentary the whole way and it was really SO worth the money - and it was air conditioned! This is a picture of my sister and Kyle.

Walk with the Dinosaurs

DD, the grandkids and I are back from a trip to visit my sister in Denver. While we were there, we went to the Walk with the Dinosaurs arena production. Wow, this show is fantastic. Tickets were rather pricey but well worth it. The only drawback was that we had been warned, despite the web site proclaiming amateur photography was allowed, that they were confiscating all cameras. So we left ours in the car and used our cell phones. (It turns out the warning was incorrect and we would have been able to take ours in. Bummer!) Needless to say, the resultant picture quality is B-A-A-A-D! There were some aaaah-dorable moments in the show and some laughter but mostly just an awesome time. Even though DGD Courtney protested that she didn't want to go, she quickly changed her mind and at the end she proclaimed it great!

We also went to the Celestial Seasonings tea factory in Boulder. It is a very nice (free) tour. The tour tickets were actually a tea packet. Ours were for True Bluberry Herbal tea which I think I will make up into iced tea since it is really too hot for hot tea. The gift shop had tons of different varieties of teas, tins, china, and other tea-related items. The gift shop is a MUST for a return trip, especially when I can figure out just which kind of green tea DH would like.

Another stop was the free tour at the Hammond Candy Factory. I didn't go with DD and the kids on this one but I will catch it at another time. The kids had fun and came home with some delectable sweets, including a pear candy cane for me and ribbon candy for their great-grandfather. I delivered that last night and he was very happy to get it. Ribbon candy is his favorite and is not easily found.

The last tour, another free one, was to the Littleton Historical Museum, which we combined with a picnic lunch. The museum includes two reproduction farms, one from 1860 and another from 1890. This barn is from the 1890 farm and DD declared it is THE barn she wants if she ever gets an acreage. DGD was certain that the cow that you can see inside the fence just to the right of the barn door was a horse! We saw cows, pigs, donkeys, sheep, chickens, turkeys, but NO horses. The smell of the hay inside the barn brought back very wonderful memories of the barn at my grandparents farm in South Dakota, which was established in 1840, according to my Dad.

Well, I can't wait to scrap this trip. The dinosaur pictures will be a challenge, I hope that DD's cell phone took better ones.

Goin' Swarming

At nearly the last minute I have the chance to attend the Des Moines Swarm. I had such a fun time 2 years ago when I went. I will be leaving in just 4 days and now have to decide what I am taking to do. I have some supplies coming that would be nice to have but I think they probably won't arrive in time. : ( This is a picture from 2 years ago.

Photo calendar

Last Christmas, my good friend Laurel gifted me with a BasicGrey calendar kit. It has a 9x9 layout for each month. I slacked off a bit in June, finishing that page with about one week left in the month but otherwise I have been pretty good about completing each page. I am now up through August.

January is DGD Courtney with her missing teeth. She lost a bunch of them at the same time!

February had to provide equal time for DGS Kyle. He was doing swim team at the time.

March was perfect for the good picture of DD and DGS's pair of Eclectus parrots.

April was the new French bulldog puppy. She is sooo much bigger now, a real chunk!

May was the new DGD. The caption which you can't read says "The newest flower in our garden"

June is a picture of my father. We almost lost him last fall to cancer but he is doing ok now, as ornery as ever.

July is from last year's fireworks.

August is also from last year.

I have been very pleased with how these pages have turned out. When the year is up, they will be turned into pages for a 9x9 album. Hopefully I will be able to buy a new kit for 2010 and start over.