The Tooth Fairy Was Here!

I am at the library giving you a little update. Still no internet... but the computer is slowly on it's way back to good health.

Friday night, the Tooth Fairy visited! Adrianna's tooth has been frightfully loose since before school started. I was *supposed* to have called the dentist to schedule an extraction of the stubborn baby tooth, which was barely hanging on by a thread... but with Adrianna having her ILI (influenza like illness) and such, there just hadn't been time. Anyway... she was brushing her teeth and suddenly a yell came from the bathroom. By the time I got there, blood was all over. (I don't remember bleeding when my teeth fell out... but that was a long, long time ago!) She was thrilled! ... and the Tooth Fairy brought her $5, so that was nice too!

much love,
erin

My MInd's Eye - September Projects

We got sets of My Mind's Eye - Ooh La La line of paper for our projects this month. It comes with a page of die cuts. My goal was to try to use all of them... because, really, if you save them to use later they will just sit there collecting dust. I got one 1-page layout and five 2-page layouts plus 2 cards out of the kit... and I still have a few good-sized scraps left. Not bad!

I just LOVE the MME papers. I almost bought a set similar to this one in pinks and turquoises, but I resisted! Good for me! :) Here's are the pages I made... almost exactly in reverse order:





First off, here is my little sunshine! I recolored the flowers with several shades of Glimmer Mist. Green flowers got green and blue mist, gray flowers got khaki mist and yellow and rust flowers got yellow mist. In real life they have a nice subtle sparkle. I also misted the ribbon (from the packaging of a bulb forcing kit) and the Heidi Swapp title letters with the Simply Khaki Glimmer Mist. This is my favorite color. It just knocks down the brightness of items and makes them look a little bit aged... but still sparkly. Love it! The die cut brackets were from the kit, but the color was too blue-gray... so I ran them through the Xyron upside down, covered it with Martha's Aquamarine Glitter, and then a coat of Glossy Accents to prevent anything from moving. The bling here is the new Basic Gray Bling It On... they are a nice gray/platinum shade... but some of them did not want to release from the backer, ended up separating from the glue, and ended up in the trash. I have better luck with the Kaisercraft ones personally. Oh, and yes, the ribbon was a pain to hand baste... and pain to gather... and a really huge pain to glue down. But it looks nice, right?

The yellow wall at the Taca Cabana inspired this layout. I just *love* the happy shade of yellow... and the food too! :) I used one of the vinyl rubons from Scrapworks over a die cut tag for the small and demure "Family" title. I colored the tag with a Heidi Swapp colored pencil to help it stand out... although in this pic it's hard to tell... perhaps I should go over it one more time!

Here are my two crazies! ... or is it crazys? Either way, they sure are hams for the camera. I wanted to use this older set of thickers... but the black was too much. So I grabbed some black cardstock scraps and added the torn edge to one side and the straight edge to the other. Talk about stretching the paper to make the most of it! The little labels are some super inexpensive ones from 7 Gypsies that came in a little booklet. Of course I sprayed them with some of the Simply Khaki Glimmer Mist since they were too white. What will I do when that bottle runs out?! The shiny dots are just Glossy Accents applied over top of the patterned paper. Simple and eye-catching!

This one is my favorite this month! The dotted paper made me think of the paper on the inside covers of children's book... which made me look for photos of Adrianna reading... and I found Lyle. She didn't like the book that much... only a single read for this one... but the green croc on the cover inspired the page. I rumpled the notebook print paper and inked the edges green to help it stand out from the cream backed dot paper. I accidentally ripped the top edge... so I had to rip a little more to make it look right. Then it needed something else, so the hanging tags were born. I love the framed title and the stitching finishes it off.

Here's a simple romantic page. The title is hand drawn, cut from velvet paper and chalked a bit to help the colors match. I love the gray-blue accents here with the pop of yellow. Very striking to show off our little girl forcing a kiss on Papi at a wedding. I can't remember the date... but I do remember that this was the weekend before the lice episiode... and that was so traumatic that everything else was forgotten! (sorry if you're feeling itchy now!)

Last but not least, here was my first creation of the month. We have to make at least one 2-page layout... and it's always a struggle for me. This is the first time that I used my HP Photosmart D7560 (Yes, I do love it!) to print the photos just for scrapping. I used a few of the die cuts... the photo corner is really a half-frame ... and I love this green honeycomb paper. It is fresh, fun, and modern looking. I paired it with some of the Whitewash Co'ordinations paper. The title is a stamped die cut in a label holder paired with some really, really old Lil Davis chipboard letters. The square letters have sat in my stash forever waiting for the perfect colored layout and this was it. Really, it would be totally easy to recreate these... all you need is some scraps of chipboard, ink or paint, alphabet stamps, and glossy accents to seal it and give it that professional, store-bought look. The journaling is a quote from Laura Ingalls Wilder from a Mary Englebreit card I've been holding onto for 9 years. I knew it would come in handy! :)

much love,

erin

School, pool, and a pooper

School is in session and we are definitely the parents of a 1st grader. We are watching iCarly daily and I had to remember when the special new episode ("I think they kissed"... I really wanted to see what happened) was coming on yesterday so that Adrianna and I could watch it together. I've been sucked in... I know, it's sad. I'm a little old for it, but it's still fun to have something to sit and watch together and both be entertained. :)

Here is our big little girl on her first day of school:

During the Labor Day holiday weekend, we went to Atlantis Water Park in Bull Run Regional Park and had a great time. The weather was fabulous... not hot and not chilly... and I'm sure that helped. The park really impressed me. It's not huge, but it had everything we needed and it wasn't too crowded. They had several different pool areas of different depths with small slides, a couple of bigger slides, a water play area, a sand digging area, and a baby pool that Adrianna said was just perfect! I liked it way better than the other area water parks we've visited. We'll definitely go back next year!

Adrianna is still in love with out bunny Honeybun. (Aren't they cute?) She is getting bigger by the day and is quite a poop machine! Hopefully the litter training will start to work. I thought we were making progress, but when I cleaned her cage she's using the box as well as every corner... even where her dish and hay are. I think she's going to train us to move her food to the middle instead of us training her to go in the right place! We'll see who wins!

much love,

erin

Welcome Honeybun!

Adrianna's been asking for a bunny since last year's trip to the fair. When the babysitter's son got a bunny this summer, the pleading really begin in earnest. Someone even took to fixing her bed everyday to prove that she was big enough to have a pet. (I loved that part!)

So, we went to the fair right at the beginning to be sure to have a shot at getting one. As luck would have it... we got there too early and nobody seemed to be selling their bunnies. Uh-oh! Houston, we have a problem. Little girl desperate for a bunny to call her own and no bunnies available.

After making several rounds of barns, rides, games, bunnies, barns, rides, games, bunnies... finally some smaller ones appeared in some of the empty cages and for sale signs with them! Adrianna first choice was for an all white bunny with pink eyes... not my favorite at all.... so I asked if we could check out some of the other white bunnies with spots. It would be easier to tell them apart and get just the right one, after all. She picked out this little one, the smallest of the four in the cage, and named it Honeybun (awwww!). I love how she (the "she" part is just a wild guess) looks like she has elaborate eye makeup on. Perhaps she's a mysterious, exotic bunny... or just ready to party! Her beauty mark is SO Marilyn!

Honeybun is adapting well and Adrianna has a new friend to watch tv with. I'm staying up late as I have all the sheets in the washer and/or dryer since someone had a bit of an accident on them and only the flannels are clean. Gotta find that litterbox training info online! :)




Here are some Fair shots from last Saturday.... Adrianna on her favorite ride - the carousel, having fun on the bumper cars with Papi, and posing with me on some spinning ride. Luckily between the two of us, Adrianna has someone to ride almost anything with... Sergio for the roller coasters and ferris wheel, and me for the scrambler and tilt-o-whirl. She does the swings by herself... and even puts her hands in the air! :)

much love,

erin

August DT Pages and Projects

Well... since it's the 8th... it's about time that I post my August projects here. I already posted my favorite, but there's more to share! :)

For my 2 page layout this month I really wanted to focus on the orange patterned paper. I love orange! The colors looked great with the photos from the pumpkin patch a couple of years ago. The letters are from KI Memories and were printed to match some paper I've had for ages. I ran some cardstock through my Xyron to cover them. It took some effort to trim, but it's a great way to recyle patterned letters!

My altered item is a 12x12 welcome sign. The base is chipboard from Rusty Pickle. It's meant to be a 4 page book, but I borrowed one page for my wallhanging instead. I used some Maya Road chipboard pieces to accent it and foam Heidi Swapp letters. My favorite part is the roof of the house. I cut strips of cardstock with scalloped edged scissors and glued them on to really give it a cottage feel.

I made an extra 1 page layout featuring a friendly butterfly... actually he's on my knee in the photo! He didn't want to leave me alone! I like the serene color scheme here... lots of cream with green and pops of turquoise. Lovely!

Here are my cards. First a circular Hi card made from one of the die cut frames...

and then a simple patchwork card with a Basic Grey rubon. This Nestabilities die is my favorite... and this bracket shape makes every card look special!

thanks for stopping by!

erin

True Love - Circa 1949

I am so tired and must get to bed. It was a busy birthday partying weekend. Overall, quite successful... and busy... and tiring. :)


I can't let the weekend end without posting my newest favorite layout. A special thanks goes out to my Shel-bell for scanning the photo and sending it to me. You rawk! :)




I love this photo of Grandma and Grandpa and it took me almost a week to get the layout to be what I saw in my head. I hope that I did it justice. We aren't sure of the year... the photo came from a friend of theirs and nothing is written on it to give us a clue. We *think* it's from before my mother was born... and Grandma's obviously not expecting in the photo. :) We decided to date it "circa 1949" just to be safe. The journaling says "Grandma just adored her Alfred. He felt the same way about her."

Supplies: Lily Bee paper, Bo Bunny chipboard swirls, Kaisercraft pearls, a little die-cut from Recollections (their last Easter line), title is American Crafts Thickers and Making Memories tiny letters, lace from Fancy Pants, velvet ribbon is May Arts, and the white pen (and my horrible handwriting) is Signo Uniball. The buttons are from Grandma's own button jar.


thanks for stopping by,
erin

Peaches and Pages

Last weekend we went to Hartland Orchard to pick peaches and blueberries. It was a beautiful day and we got a ton of fruit. Now I'm looking for a good peach freezer jam recipe! :)

I'm working on my August class for ScrapbooksPlus. I'm a little nervous about it, but I'm sure it will go just fine. It's a clear layout set of three pages. The first two are on a 12x12 clear base and the third is on regular paper. When you put them together they layer into a beautiful combination.

I recently finished the last 1st birthday layout for Adrianna with July's Design Team kit. Now I just need to do the other four years!

When I was in Houston last I snapped these photos of the house numbers painted on the curbs. I thought they were pretty cool and we had a great time looking for new designs for my photo collection. Of course, this was on our accidental 2-hour walk where we probably walked five miles... so we had to do something to keep it interesting!

much love,

erin

Final July Projects

Looking over my project files, I only have 2 items that I didn't load yesterday... so I'm not sure why I didn't just put them up! I post on the Scrapbooks Plus Design Team blog on the 3rd, 20th, and 29th. I needed to get my post up for today and decided that it was better to stay up late to get it done than to get up early. I figured I'd post an update over here at the same time. I guess my brain was sleepy! Oh well... at least it's all up now. :)

Here is my 2 page layout featuring the new birthday paper from Bo Bunny. The center pulls off and is a little accordian album with all the details from the day. We tried to get photos of us with all of the different families of guests... and got all but a couple. It's a nice memory of the day. Hard to believe that it was almost 5 years ago! Wow!

My final card uses some of the KI Memories shimmer paper. I used my new Nestabilities dies to cut the bracket shapes. The inside of the card is stamped with "You sure dont' look THAT old! Happy Birthday!" The glitter paper was left over from last month.

Have a great holiday weekend!

much love,

erin

I can't make this stuff up!

My little girl is amazing... amazingly funny, amazingly cute, amazingly difficult... the list goes on and on.





Tonight she got me to laugh a couple of times. Once on accident... and once on purpose. Read on:



First, she announced that she is going to cancel her vacation for the rest of her life. Why I asked... this is a new topic, previously unvisited; my interest is piqued. Well, she said, I'm going to get a poodle so I need to stay home and take care of her so I'm canceling all my plans to go to Bolivia, and Texas, and Kansas... because I'll need to wash her and feed her and walk her and give her food and brush her and feed her. (This is why dogs have a weight problem... you know!) Last month we discussed getting a bunny or a cat... but poodle was never in the equation. I tried to mention off-hand that we haven't really made any definite plans to get a pet. Well I have, she replied... on July 3rd at 5:00 pm... I planned it. I didn't laugh... you should be proud of me. Totally wanted to. I can't wait to tell Sergio that his little girl has already made plans... and that it involves a poodle. That should be fun!



Second, we were watching the results show of So You Think You Can Dance. As were sitting there, an iPhone commercial comes on. This is good:

• Adrianna: Can I get an iPhone?
• Me: Well, honey, I don't really think that you need one.
• Adrianna: Well... can I get a butt phone then?
• Me: {grin} {giggle}
• Adrianna: {snort, snort}

I think this was her first real joke ever... or at least the first one that was funny! :)



Anyways... here's a bit of what I just finished for the store. We got papers from multiple lines and colorways... so here is the Doodlebug pink section for now. I'll get the rest up later this weekend.

First off a couple of cards. I love this one... especially the cupcake stamp from Elle's Studio. Too cute!




This card says "too sweet"... but it's a little hard to see here. I stamped in Robin's Egg blue ink on vellum and used clear embossing powder with rainbow sparkles.




I saw a beautiful centerpiece at the Melissa Frances booth at GASC. I am still looking for the parts to copy it. This is the closest I could do using a scalloped tray and an inverted bucket to create the cake plate, and wooden boxes for my cake. I added white tulle circles with silver sparkles from the wedding aisle to glam it up a bit. Crazily enough I cut out 20 ovals to overlap and create fluffy flower petals to intersperse with the Prima flowers on top.



Finally, my one page layout. Pretty simple and prettier in person. The pink is Bazzil bling cardstock and the blue circles and blue strip behind the ribbon is glitter embedded cardstock from last mont's DT kit.






much love,
erin


PS. Adrianna successfully read 25 books for the summer program already and is in possession of her color changing cup. She is a happy camper! :)

Inspired!

Friday I took a vacation day to go to the Great American Scrapbook Convention just up the road in Chantilly. I signed up for only one class this time around, since the last couple of times I really didn't like the ones I chose. The class was a Pink Paislee class - LOVE their stuff - and we made a really cool altered item/page to display. I stayed up until almost 4am Friday night finishing the project (trying to get the title to fit on it!) and yesterday I made the two coordinating pieces. You know it's a good class when you actually finish it right away! I can't wait to hang them up!

Our instructor was Staci Etheridge and you can see her originals here. The class was great... her instructions were well-timed, commentary interesting, and, since she's a Texan, we got some authentic y'all's in there too. Bonus! It didn't hurt that I won a package of the Pink Paislee fabric strip flowers. Yum! :)

My pieces follow hers fairly closely, with just a few changes... I added a few Rusty Pickle buttons and put Dymo word strips on each one. I liked her photos with the white mats... but I there was no way I could get my little house off and shifted over (wow, self-adhesive chipboard that actually sticks!). Since I couldn't put the mat on each of them, I thought it best to leave them off altogether. I added a little door to my house... in part to add another outlined piece and in part to break up the strong pattern on it.

I had serious difficulty with the tree. Staci used a circle sticker... but since I changed the background, that wasn't an option. After several failed attempts at sketching a cloud-like shape, I pulled out my tin of Maya Road trees and traced one. I wish I could take credit - 'cause it looks fab!


Anyways... back to work. My Design Team projects for the store are due on Wednesday and I have a lot left to do! ... not to mention the yard work, house work, grocery shopping.... bleh! I work on Monday for payroll and then am off the rest of the week... so I may put off the groceries until then. As long as we have enough milk and bread! :)


much love,
erin

Little Reader

I took yesterday off of work and - after popping by the post office to drop off Papa Louie's belated Father's Day package - Adrianna and I went to the local library. The plan was to check out some books and sign up for the summer reading program. I couldn't find the handout about the program and I didn't want to miss signing up... I thought you had to sign up by June 22nd.... but really you can sign up beginning June 22nd... so we'll be back at the library on Monday! If you read enough books, you can get an extra S+ in first grade... and - the part that Adrianna really likes - you get these cups that change color when you put cold liquids in them. Wow! We'll just keep the extra credit/good for your brain/improve your reading skills over the summer part a secret... after all color-changing cups are worth the time and trouble alone! :)

We ended up having a great day yesterday... running errands and whatnot. Adrianna wanted a haircut... it hasn't been cut since the end of January. So we headed over to Cartoon Cuts for a wash and trim. I asked them to put in some layers. Poor Adrianna has so much hair and just sweats and sweats in the hot weather. The little thing usually has sweaty hair whenever the temp is over 75 degrees. The cut turned out really good, with nice long layers that really activated the curl she's got. She was pleased too... "Mommy, it's SO beautiful!"

Here is before.... reading "Lyle, Lyle Crocodile"...

...and here is after... reading "Harry the Dirty Dog."

Have a great weekend!

much love,

erin

PS. Here is the last layout from last month's DT kit... this was our highly unsucessful kite. After numerous attempts we concluded that it is not easy to fly... at least not for us. I think our biggest success was only about 5 seconds airborne. Oh well, at least it looked cute.... and matched this paper too! After all, that's what's really important! :)

What the..... fungus?

When I first saw it, I thought that perhaps the sunset was throwing a strange light on the tree stump in the backyard causing it to glow orange.... but then I realized that the glow was on the wrong side.

Here it is... and yes, I think it's a fungus. This was taken a week ago. Yesterday the fungus was brown and gray. When you touch it, the gray sends out puffs of spores, but the brown must not be "ripe" as it just sits there. I hit it with the watering can, and smokey plumes flew up as though you are extinguishing white coals on the grill. I even got Adrianna to come out and take a look... and then a week later check out the spore spewing action. Isn't nature cool?

Lately Adrianna does not want to be outside... and she does not want to be inside by herself. I try to get her to come outside in the garden with me... but 90% of the time she refuses... after all, there are **bugs** out there. A mud dauber got in the laundry room sending her into her room to hide. I have to admit, opening the laundry door and staring a large black waspy thing in the face almost caused me to fall over backwards... darn flip-flops... in my frantic escape attempt. :) I don't like bugs, but she takes it to an entirely new level. Sunday, we did manage a picnic on the lawn... as long and we were together outside... and as long as we left the house at the same time to take up post on the beach towels on the front lawn... she was okay.

The yard and garden still need a lot of work... and some mulch so that I can stop doing so much weeding. In the garden, two tomato plants are in and two are waiting for their chance. The peas are popping up, the beans are coming along nicely, and tiny little carrot sprouts have just appeared. We also planted some beets and zucchini this weekend. The ants had taken over a section of the garden and hopefully we've gotten rid of them for good. My brand new purple phlox is blooming in front. The white will be coming soon, but the pinky-purpley one - although it's the tallest - has yet to show signs of blooming. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll take turns throughout the summer. They are some of my absolute favorite plants in the garden... right up there with hostas. You can see a peek of one of my hostas here with my new copper birdie bath. I thought of getting a feeder too... but haven't found anything I really like yet. I also want some more gazing balls. The design house out at Lucketts had small and medium sized silver gazing balls tossed all over their flower beds. It was quite lovely and I'm not sure why I didn't take a photo of it. I'll have to head back over there some time and snap a pick. Unfortunately I didn't see them for sale there, and I've never seen such small gazing balls before.

I was going to share a new layout or two... but I only have one new one (I'm such a slacker!) and I accidentally saved the photo at work thinking that it was a bulletin board. I'll have to email it over and post it later.

much love,

erin

No New Pics... So New Layouts!

I've been busy working on my poison ivy abatement program... and with the 2.5 inches of rain we got at the end of the week, yesterday was ideal for pulling that horrible stuff up out of the ground. It didn't have a chance, with the ground being so mushy. We have so many weeds growing together, that I have to pull everything in order to get to the poison ivy.... grass, old plants from several owners back, grapevine, honeysuckle, other assorted thorny weeds... yuck! I should take before and after shots... but never think about it until I'm already knee deep in weeds. I pulled 2 big, black lawn and leaf bags full. There's still a lot more to go, but it's a start.



Since I haven't done anything of real interest and don't have any new photos.... I'll finish sharing my new layouts from June's DT work.



Here's a layout of Neva and Shel-bel at Galveston Beach last June. Adrianna saw the layout and commented, "But Mom, where am I?" Guess I need to expand my subject matter, huh? {grin} This one is loosely based on a Becky Fleck sketch from her PageMaps book... specifically the photo cropped into a circle and the title and journaling placement. Some of the rest I changed around a bit.








I made a pair of cards using a flower stamp as a paper piecing pattern. I actually really like these... and they are all made from scraps.

The orange jewels are from Kaiser craft... just love them!




For my altered project, I made a small mini album of our June 2008 beach day trip. The base was a Rucky Pickle tag book I've had for ages.







The best part is the photos I took going to the beach and leaving the beach. I took these from the middle seat, holding the camera over my head, snapping the girls behind me blind.... a little off center, but really pretty darn good!








The book was long and skinny.... with pages that could accommodate photos about 3 by 5... so I included some vertically oriented photos and just let them hang over the top edge. Who is that gorilla? {wink}

I finished one more layout last night... I try to use everything I can before tossing the bits and putting the leftovers in my stash... but I haven't taken a photo of it yet. I'll share it next time!

much love,
erin

Finally success!

First the update: the baby robins are gone. We noticed the nest and four chicks first on a Monday or Tuesday... by Thursday one of the little ones was stuck underneath the nest with mom and dad encouraging him. The next day there were definitely only 2 babies left in the next. By Memorial Day the next was empty and abandoned. Wow, they sure grow up fast! ... and next time I know to take photos every single day no matter what. :)

I've been trying to carve out time for a blog update since Saturday... and now that it's Tuesday, it's finally happening. I almost climbed into bed... but decided a quick post was in order.

The weekend was busy. My boss and I went to the Lucketts Fair... lots of antiques and cool finds. Some overpriced, some reasonable, and some cheap.... we like cheap! I found some loose typeface and a Christmas present. It's my first Christmas find this year and I am behind. I like to have all the grownups figured early out so only the kiddies are left. I had better get to work. Jacki had a lot of luck and left with a wicker rocker, wicker planter, chandelier, and candelabra... oh... and a tea ball for only $2! The weather was great during the day and we had a lot of fun.

Sunday I did yardwork and went on full poison ivy detail... the works.... long pants, long-sleeved shirt, hat, and my trusty yellow dish gloves. Mama said that I probably looked like Grandma Matusek out there. I set out to clear some of the weeds in the far back section of the property with my weeding tool, trash bags, and a bucket of soapy water for cleaning my tools afterwards. I dug and pulled and wrestled two trash bag full out of the ground. At one point I discovered one poison ivy vine up against the tree trunk that was truly enormous... over 1 inch in diameter at the root! I got a chunk of it out, but need to do some serious digging to finish it off.

Adrianna was in rare form Sunday night and seemed to be doing a Christina Aguilera impersonation. Here is she is in full "yo" mode. Absolutely hilarious. Six going on sixteen of course. "Peace, dude."

I have more to share... but will save it for now. Here is one of my June projects for Scrapbooks Plus. This was the first layout I made... love the photo with Adrianna's blurred feet in the background waiting for me to finish. I have a love affair with drops of water... they fascinate me completely. Watering the plants can be mesmerizing... I'll find myself just standing there marveling at how they make everything look beautiful and magical and fresh... ahh....

Anyways.... off to bed...

much love,

erin