First Day of School

Well, we survived Hurricane Irene AND the first day of school! Thanks for all of the good wishes. ;) We camped out in the basement and luckily we avoided any major damage. The worst part was the tornado warnings! It was the first, and hopefully last, time I've had to have an 'Emergency Broadcasting System' alert.

First up, I have a page that I did recently. I've been having a lot of fun using my Crate Paper stash lately. This page was done for the CP Blog challenge to scrap a routine. Well, I decided to do my LEAST favorite one which is unloading the dishwasher. It NEVER ends!!



I used the Portrait line on here, with a bit of School Day. I decided to add a bunch of circles to show that the job is NEVER ENDING. (like a circle, get it?? LOL!)This was a lot of fun to make!




Next up are a few pics from yesterday. First, here's the gift box that Ryan took into school. I tucked a little kitchen towel, with an apple on it, inside. Just a little something to start the year off. I like to give first day gifts for the teachers to celebrate the hard work they have already put into getting things started. Setting up the classroom, prepping the materials and tons of meetings are always a part of the end of August for teachers. So, a little goodie to say thanks and good luck is well deserved, if you ask me! Again, I used Crate School Day on here.



And being the "crafty-sucker for anything cute and yummy-dork" that I am, I sent in these adorable treats, too.


(I found the recipe on Pinterest. Arent't they cute???)

Finally, here are some pics of my little guy. It's hard to believe he's in third grade already! I still get teary on the first day of school!




Funny story. We were sitting here the night before school started and out of the blue he says, 'Mom, don't make me wear a sweater vest to school tomorrow. Ok? They're geeky.' Guess he'd been thinking about that one a lot. As you may know, I've been known to dress him up for the first day. LOL! Anyway, I told him he could wear his cool new Shawn White outfit (from Target, no less). The 'coolness' factor is setting in! Notice the hair. He came down and told me NOT to brush it. He told me he'd already done it and he liked the 'messy look'. I wanted to grab the brush, but I was good and didn't. :) Just hope he's not asking to dye it blue anytime soon. I can give up my sweater vests and need for neat hair, but that would be asking too much!

Finally, one last shot. I love how this one turned out. Just me and him.



I chopped about 5 inches off my hair the other day. (Patty, this photo is for you!)

Thanks for reading my novel today! And thanks for stopping by. Have a great day. :)

Eathquake, Hurricane and October Afternoon

What a crazy week it's been. First, we had an earthquake. Now we are preparing for the biggest hurricane to arrive in a LONG time. I thought Delaware was a safe place, weather wise. Ugh.

I thought I'd share a couple of October Afternoon projects that I've done recently. I recently got the July Scrapbook Nook kit which featured Five and Dime. It was fun breaking it out and creating!

This first page is about Ryan and my friend's daughters. They've known each other since they were born.



We recently visited them and I got these shots of the three of them. They are as busy as we are, so we don't see them as often as we'd like, but when they get together it's like time hasn't passed at all. I love that about true friendship!




I used some cute Maya Road canvas banner pieces to make the title.

My next project is a card that I did using the sketch from Emma's this month. Can you tell I love these big, bold flowers?



Well, wish me luck as we head into this weekend. Maybe the hurricane will blow out to sea?

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Prima Gift Box

So, I just got home from a trip visiting my BFF on Long Island. I was born and raised there and it's such a treat to go up. We don't go very often. Ryan and I went on Saturday and had plans to stay until tomorrow. We had a wonderful time walking around Main Street, shopping, having lunch and just hanging out. Today, we were going to hit the beach. Sigh. It wasn't meant to be. Ryan started running a fever last night and had a headache/stomach ache. He was pretty miserable, so we decided to head home this morning. Luckily, he's bouncing back. (Already giving me a hard time because I won't let him outside to play with his friends. Guess that's a good sign.)
Onto happier news. I got together with my sweet SIL, Patty O'Malley, last week to celebrate her birthday. She's an avid cardmaker, like me, and we both love the same types of products. Anyway, I had made this gift box using a bunch of Prima goodies, a while ago and she had commented on how much she liked it. So, I filled it up with some of my favorite vintage goodies and gave it to her. She loved it!
Here are some pics of the box. I used notecards from Prima's Annalee collection along with flowers, felt, and vintage trinkets.



And here's what I put inside.




I'm so glad we share a love for the same things. :)

Well, I'm off to tend to the patient. It's our last week of summer vacation, so I want him to get better so we can enjoy it!

Thanks for stopping by. :)

A Couple of Pubs

It's been a while since I've shared some of cards that have been published with Paper Crafts. I can't post them until they come out in print and I often forget to do that. But, I remembered today!!

The first card comes from Card Creations 9.




I made this soft and shabby card using lots of Webster's Pages goodies.




The papers are from the Lullabye Lane petite paper pad. I added some resin flowers in the border and on the punched flower.

My next card comes from the latest Stamp It issue.



I used some more papers from Webster's Lullabye Lane on here. The medallion stamps are Basic Grey and the sentiment is PTI. I don't usually consider myself a big stamper, but when I do break them out, I love it.



Thanks for letting me share them today! And thanks for stopping by. Have a great day. :)

Winding Down

Sadly, I have that 'summer is coming to an end' feeling. I have loved our carefree days the past couple of months. Ryan is SO not an 'I Love School' kid and I'm not looking forward to our hectic mornings and the evenings filled with homework that will be starting soon. We have about a week of vacation left and I'm trying to savor every day. Yesterday we hit the local children's museum and we have a campout and a visit with friends coming up. Then, it's back to the grind...

Anyway, I've had some time to do a couple of layouts just for fun. This is the page I created for the Crate color challenge for August. I was so excited to see it featured on the Crate Blog yesterday!





I've had this picture sitting on my table for a while. Ryan loves to run outside with his socks on. On this particular day as I was telling him to put his shoes on, he lifts up his feet and says, 'But Mom, my feet aren't even dirty.'. Yeah, right! LOL So of course I took a pic and had to scrap it. I used a mix of several Crate lines and did some paint splattering (for the first time). It was a lot of fun!

The next thing I have to share is a card I made for the Once Upon A Sketch Aug. 15 sketch. I chose to use the design of the cluster on the sketch.



I used Echo Park's Victoria's Garden line on here. And I added a lot of stitching.




To create the banner I used the We R Memory Keepers Sew Easy Tool with the Banners attachment. It was so easy! I recently picked up a few other attachments and will definitely be using them again! I hate punching holes in paper to sew and this makes is waaaay easy.

Thanks to Once Upon a Sketch for having me this past month! It was a lot of fun!!

Well, that's it for today. Thanks for stopping by and have a good one. :)

Country Estate Card Trio

It's been a while since I've belonged to a kit club. Well, I just joined a new one and am loving it so far. My Scrapbook Nook not only has great kits, but the community there is warm and active. I've been looking for a place to hang out and am so glad I found it!

Anyway, I joined in on a card kit swap. Andrea Amu totally hooked me up! We all sent each other a little kit and created cards from them. It was so much fun! She sent me some Webster's Pages Country Estate and My Mind's Eye papers and a ton of great embellies. Here are the three cards I made....



...from this kit:




And here are the cards individually. They all use Country Estate papers from Webster's.




This one has a Country Estate chipboard button along with some scrunched seam binding.





I added a Tattered Angels chipboard piece and Maya Road flower to this one.




The sentiment on this one is from PTI.

So, as you can see, I had a good time playing with my new goodies!
Thanks for stopping by!

Emma's Color Challenge

This week at Emma's we all created projects for the August color challenge. I love the neutral colors in the photo and created this card for it.



The base was made with a piece of Jenni Bowlin paper covered with Prima packaging. Then I made a little collage using Glitz paper, a prima flower, Girl's Paper letters, some lace and some gems. The stamps are Hero Arts. Love them!




This card was so much fun to make. Here's the photo that I used for my inspiration.



I've been loving using photos for inspiration lately. Pinterest is such a great source of ideas!!!

Speaking of photos, here's a couple I took today. While i was at the beach yesterday, my neighbor was texting me saying that a huge storm was blowing through our neighborhood. He swears a tornado touched down, though it wasn't confirmed. Luckily, there was nothing in our yard, but this is what was down the street...



Do you see the street sign bent in half?



Crazy!

Anyway, that's it for today. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day. :)

VSM Cards

Just wanted to pop on today and say hi. I have a couple of new projects that I recently did for the Vintage Street Market blog that I thought I'd share. The first one uses the new Family Fun set. You can see it here. I used the little envelopes that can be cut from the paper to create a little money holder on the card front. I thought this would be cute for a little boy.



I added some vintage buttons and stars covered with glass glitter.




I tucked the money into the pocket and secured it with a velcro dot.




Now, I just have to figure out who will be having a birthday soon!

This next project uses VSM's Dimestore Vogue line along with little chipboard banners from a company that's new to me - Basically Bare. I recently got to play with some of their goodies and I love them. They are made of corrugated cardboard and can easily be altered. You can see that I sewed through it here to make the banners on this card.




So, that's about it for today. Thanks, as always for stopping by and have a great day!