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