I love SPRING!!!

Spring just has to be the best season EVER!

My tulips, daffodils and trees are blooming...

...,which gave me a chance to play with my new camera.  

Hope and I also planted some flowers around the trees and in the pots out back and one in the front.

I think this is the earliest I have planted flowers in YEARS!  I usually don't get the chance until well after Mother's Day and things are usually picked over pretty good by then.  Well, I am not done, but it always feels so cheery after I have planted colorful flowers in the backyard.

The weather was fantastic too.

Even Reilly enjoy some time in the shade.

Here are a few photos from last night...

Hope smelling the flowers.

She found this tatoo in the drawer and decided she wanted it on her forehead.  Good grief!  Oh, well.  It didn't last long anyway.  :)

She didn't have school yesterday, so she was at the after school program all day.  She must have had fun with her friend Katherine, because she was filthy.

Well, if you lasted this long I finally have a project to share.

I completed a wedding layout of Joe's brother, Rick and his wife Julie.  They got married on Christmas Day.

I wanted the flower to be similar to the flowers in Julie's bouquet she carried that day.  I had some flowers that had more rounded petals, but were the color I was looking for.  I cut them apart and slimmed down the petals to look more like a lily.  The quote was also on their invitations, so I decided to add that as well.

The papers I used were from My Minds Eye.  This was my favorite line and am using every tiny piece and scrap I have.  I am about to run out so will probably have enough to make some cards.  I will share those when I get a chance to make them.  :)

Well, I am going to take my tired bones to bed.

Good night!

Darla

Reilly & Hope layout

I have had these pictures for quite a while now and wanted to do a layout with them and I guess I finally found the right papers to put something together.  Reilly is so gentle with Hope and they are BFF's most of the time.  He pretty much let's her do anything with him, but can get a little freaked out once in a while too.  She has been known to bring him up to her room and put him on her bed and try and dress him up in doll clothes or put make up on him, etc.  They are pretty cute together.

When I took these pictures, she was trying to get him to sit down so she could put the flower lei around his neck.  As you can tell, he finally gave in and let her do it.  :)

I actually can't decide if I want to keep the dog house in the layout or not, so right now it isn't attached.  What do you think?

I used MME  papers with a few other products mixed in for fun.  I love the red and turquoise combo on the layout!

I know the banner craze has been going on for a while now, but I am just now starting to add them to my layouts once in a while.  Not sure why I had troubles working them in to begin with because I always like how they look.

Here are a few close up shots of the detail areas.

They really do love and adore each other.  We love our dog Reilly and hope we have many more years with him.

Well, that is all for tonight.  Just waiting for Hope to get off the bus and see if she wants to help me bake cookies for a friend's birthday at work.

Have a good one!

Darla

Baby Memories!

I thought I would share a really easy baby gift I created for my daughter's (previous) pre-school teacher.

She isn't really a scrapbooker, but wanted a place to write all her baby memories in instead of buying a pre-made book.

I decorated the inside cover (below) so she could put a 4x6 picture and a lined tag so the baby details could be added after the baby is born.

The album has lots of line pages, a few photo pages and a few pocket pages to save special memorabilia.

Now I have several more of these books to make for a few more friends, but I get to use PINK!  I am used to working with pink, so I have a lot more embellishments to choose from (butterflies, flowers, bling, etc.).  :)

Well, I am going to crash as it is raining and I think the sound is very mesmerizing and relaxing hearing it on the roof as you drift off to sleep.

Goodnight!

Darla

Happy Easter!

Wow!  Things have been crazy around here this week, so not much blogging going on.  Well, just wanted to wish everyone a happy Easter and safe travels if you are visiting family.

We finally made it to see the Easter Bunny, but first another Hope story to share.  She is so sneaky!

We had plans to see the bunny the past few days and things just kept coming up, so Friday was finally the day.  Anyway, before we left for the mall she ran to the bathroom.  I am in the other room and she yells from the bathroom this question..

Hope:  Mom, IF I had had an accident today, would we still get to go see the Easter Bunny?

Me:  Why? (in kind of an angry tone because I knew she had probably already had the accident and was afraid to tell me).

Hope:  Just answer the question mom!

Me:  Why?  (same tone)

Hope:  Well, I almost didn't make it in time, but I got most of it in the toilet.

Good grief!  She is always problem solving trying to make sure she doesn't get into trouble.  Luckily for her she had already had a good week, so we went to see the bunny and met Dawn and the twins there too.

Annie couldn't decide if she was too cool for the Easter Bunny, but in the end she decided to go see him (or her????)

The bunny was being funny with all of the girls and was raising their arms all around, tickling Hope, so they all had a good time .  I am glad Hope's hair looks ok.  It had looked kind of messy while we were waiting, and I got distracted keeping track of them while we waited (45 minutes) for the bunny to get back from his dinner break.

Well, that is all I have for today.  I do have some projects I will start sharing next week.  It is going to be another crazy week!

Have a good Easter!

Darla

Tough Questions!

Well, the past few days has been just Hope and I and tonight, she had some tough questions for me  Not sure where it was coming from, but she asked me why I didn't have a baby or why I didn't want to have a baby.

I explained that I always wanted to have a baby, but most importantly I wanted to be a mom.  I explained how my body just didn't work right and God wanted us to have her, but she had to be in J's tummy to get to us.  She is slowly understanding the adoption concept and every so often a question sneaks out of her.  I always wonder how long she had been thinking about it before she thought to ask.

Well, last night we decided to color Easter eggs.  Here are some pictures of our fun...

She started out by getting all sugared up eating some Fun Dip, so her teeth and tongue looked like an Easter egg too.  It was pretty funny and a little scary!

Every year, we start out with the original six colors and do all the eggs the standard colors in various shades depending on how patient she is for them to get darker.

Then the experiments begin.  A little yellow in the orange...a little red in with the blue...you get the picture.  Then she starts dying the eggs all over again to get different color combinations.

Some of them turned out pretty cool, like this teal colored one.

And of course, she always gets excited and forgets to use the wire thing to dig out the eggs, so her hands end up looking like this!

They were still like this when she got home from school today.  

Well, I told her tonight we would try and go visit the Easter bunny at the mall.  We got there and there was a short line, but the bunny was on a break.  So she wanted to ride the train.  When we got done, the line was 4 times as long as before the ride.  YIKES!  Then she declared she was hungry, so I gave her a couple of plans.  Eventually, I was able to talk her into leaving the mall to eat pancakes at Perkins and we would come back to the mall tomorrow afternoon before it got busy.  So we will try again tomorrow.  At least all the people in Perkins enjoyed seeing her all dressed up.

Well, the lighting has been so bad lately that I don't have any new projects to share, so I will share some things soon.  Come on, let's hope the sun comes out tomorrow and it gets warmer!  PLEASE!  Well, at least we didn't get snow in this area of the state.

Good night!

Darla

Magical Moments!

I seem to be jumping all over the place lately with my layouts and cards and recently I decided to do some Christmas projects.  I still have more to do, but think it is time to move onto another topic.  Before I do that, here is one more Christmas layout to share.

Here is a close up of the flower that I created myself.  The middle is one of the fan folded circle flowers with a brad in the center.  

Also, the gem border was not how the product came originally.  The border actually had ribbon attached along the length of it too.  I trimmed the ribbon off (& will use it on a different project) and used only the decorative gem border on this layout.

Just because they came attached to each other doesn't mean they have to stay that way.  :)

That goes for the red dangle from the title.  It was actually clear and I used a Copic marker to make it red.

And as I was tying this, I realized that I altered the die cut ledger paper too.  First I cut the paper in half as wide as I wanted it.  Then (under the title die cut) I trimmed the paper's height to match that of the dark paper on the other side of the red circle paper that goes from top to bottom.  The uneven edge didn't matter because it was hidden under the title.

We have a busy weekend planned, so not sure I will get much scrapbooking done.  Maybe on Sunday, since the weather is not going to be very nice this weekend.  Hope you have a good one!

Darla

Spring!

I love it!

Buds on the trees...

and the tulips with blooms soon to come!  Yeah!

Now, I am doing to go in a completely different (temperature) direction.

Here is one last Christmas card I created.

I have a lot more scraps to use up so will probably be trying to make some more as the year goes on.  Maybe it will inspire you all to start early on your cards too.  :)

Hang onto your hat tonight, it is a windy one!

That is all for tonight!

Darla

Mean!

This is actually another Hope story.  She stayed with my sister on Friday night and the girls kept listening to Taylor Swift "Mean" song.  Today, she requested to play the song over and over and over and over... you get the picture.

She had one favorite line that she sings REALLY loud and it is cute!

Here is another cute layout of Hope from last fall.  The neighbor had been over playing at our house after school and it was still raining when it was time for her to go home.  So Hope walked her home with the umbrella and I got these pictures of her on the way home.  She was so SHOCKED when I told her to start jumping in the puddles at the end of the driveway.  She had a lot of fun.

I highlighted Hope in color (in the black and white photo) as she was coming back from the neighbor's house.  I also liked how the circles in the die cut circle paper gives the illusion of falling water or even raindrops as they fall in a puddle.  I needed a few splashes of color so I added the yellow flowers and the pink/plum color.

This layout was completed for a challenge on the My Minds Eye blog:  Blog Challenge #22.  Check out all the other entrants as they post their layouts as well.

Have a great evening!

Darla

March-Project 12 Layout

I have actually had this layout done for several weeks, but was holding off on posting it.  Not sure why.  :)

Anyway, here is the sketch...

And here is my layout.

Here are some detail shots:

I got the title from one of Hope's favorite movies that she liked to watch this winter, "Snow Buddies".  

In the last photo, you can see a gem heart, which is to draw your attention to Hope holding the snowman's hand.  So cute!  :)

These pictures were from 2010, and she didn't really want to get out and play in the snow this past winter.  She did want to go out and build a snowman a few times, but the snow wasn't good for snowman building.  Bummer.

I guess it will wait til next year because SPRING is here!  Yeah!

Well, that is all I have for today.  I am going to enjoy the rest of my quiet morning (Hope had a surprise sleepover at my sister's house).

Later!

Darla

Happy Birthday MOM!

Today is my wonderful mom's birthday.

As I was browsing some of my favorite blogs, I came across this post on the Maya Road blog that was just right to wish mom a Happy Birthday.

Isn't that cute!

Joe found this picture in Hope's backpack this morning.  I love it!

If you haven't guessed, it is a picture of the eagle, the three eaglets and the circles under the big eagle is the cracked eggs.  Can you tell we have been watching the eagles a LOT lately since the birds hatched?  They are so cute and it is so interesting to see them hatch and grow.  If you haven't, check it out:  http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles.

We actually saw the third egg hatch LIVE the other night.  It was pretty awesome.

Well, here is another card from last weekend.

Have a good night!

Darla