My little Angel...

Well, if that isn't an oxymoron I don't know what is?   Hahaha!  I am talking about Hope.  I love her to death, but angel isn't exactly how I would describe her at least 80% of the time.  :)

However, the powers that be at The Nutcracker auditions saw differently and assigned her the part of an angel in the 2012 production of The Nutcracker.  She was pretty excited and screamed when she saw what part she got because that is the one she REALLY wanted.  I was a little relieved myself because even though she told me she was ok with whatever part she got, I knew she would be a little disappointed.

So for those family and friends interested in seeing her in the show, let me know and I will get details to you as soon as I have them.

Well, since I on the topic of Christmas...here is a layout I created from some of last year's Christmas activities.

Each year the city fire department drives around Santa to all the neighborhoods they support.  This year was the best year yet for weather.  It was so warm the kids were playing golf and hopscotch on the driveway.  CRAZY!!! for December.

I worked on this layout at a crop I went to a while back and when I pulled out the papers someone mentioned they were kind of bright.  These weren't typical colors I had used before in a Christmas layout, but something drew me to them in the store.  This was one of the My Mind's Eye lines from last year.

I got the idea for the wrapped candy from Pinterest (of course).  I was at a crop I didn't think I had anything I could use to make it since I had originally planned to use a snack baggie.  However, I did have the clear packaging the chipboard pieces came in, so I cut up pieces of it and used it instead.  It was a little stiffer than I had wanted, but with some glue dots the twisted areas finally stayed where I wanted them to.

I added gems and black twine to the chipboard ornaments you see below.

And as I always do...I made some cards with the scraps I had left over from the layout.  Here are two of them and I will share more in the next few days.

The sentiment I actually cut out of one of the pattern papers that had it repeated over and over.  And there is another one of those candies I made.  :)

The chipboard was actually 12" long and I was able to cut it down in length for two similar cards as the one shown below.

Well, hopefully the Christmas like weather doesn't show up too early, but I am hoping for it to be a little colder and whiter this year at Christmas.  We will have to wait and see what Mother Nature has in store for us this year.

Darla

So busy...

Oh my, we have just been on the go since school started and work has been crazy too.  Now that we have our first (almost) week of school under our belt we are ready to hit the ground running this week.

This week we add dance to the schedule.  Today was tryouts for The Nutcracker.  Hope was very excited to do this again this year and has been talking about it for months since last years performance.  Again, she is hoping to be an Angel, but is ok if she is a Baby Mouse (or something else too).  We should know something by the end of this week.

Then after the audition we had a neighborhood party to attend.  They had all kinds of fun activities for all ages.  We took a paddle boat out a few different times, played BINGO (Hope won a cupcake), played mini golf, Joe and I each got a chair massage and Hope got her face painted.

I am going to enjoy a little quiet time before I head to bed tonight.  Here are the rest of the cards I created using the birthday party layout scraps I shared last week (I think).  :)

This card was simple a section of a border pattern paper.  I simply matted it on a dark brown pattern paper, tied tulle, stamped a sentiment and added the button.  Super easy!

Do you ever have a tool in your stash you bought and hardly use?  Yep, I finally pulled out my piercing tool and hole template and created a border around this card.  Then I drew between each hole.  I was pretty happy with how realistic the faux stitching looked.

This is another card using just what was on the pattern paper.  I simply cut the paper to the size of a card, stamped a sentiment and decided to add the three small pearls for an additional touch.  EASY!  Just the way I like it.

That is it for tonight!  I have SO many more projects to share with you in the next few weeks.  I hope to get back on schedule of posting more often.  I usually try and get it done between the time I get home from work and I am waiting for Hope to get off the bus.  So, now I just need to keep my end of the bargain.

Good night!

Darla

That's weird!

Hope started gymnastics last night and she was pretty excited.  She has the same teacher as last year, but the weird part was that there was another Hope in her class.  I think they both thought that was pretty cool.

She said that the teacher would say Hope and they would both answer.  :)  She will have to come up with a way to call each one differently.

BUT...the really weird thing was when we were leaving, we realized that they were the ones in the exact same color and kind of mini-van.  We joked that it would be funny if the mom's name was Darla and the dad's name was Joe.  So stay tuned...I will have to ask their  names next week.  :)

Well, keeping it short tonight and will just share a layout that has been a few years in the making...

I was able to take pictures of various activities during Hope's Kindergarten year, so instead of making several separate layouts, I decided each year I will  make a memories page of class parties, field trips, etc.

Most of this layout is using Simple Stories, with one paper and wood letters from Pink Paislee.

I am going to finish watching TLC-Craft Wars.  Have you seen it?  I am addicted to it and now Hope is too!  :)  I would so FAIL on this show.  I can come up with some different ideas, but not in that kind of time frame.  That is why I am a viewer and not a contestant...

Darla

State Fair and First Day of School

Well this is going to be a VERY full post with LOTS of pictures.

This year we had originally decided not to attend the state fair, but then some friends from out of town came to visit and were heading to the fair.  So we tagged along too.  We did the normal stuff and the weather was great.  I don't think I even broke a sweat all day long.  The day started out crazy like that.  I was the last day of the fair and we drove right into the gate.  Usually there is a line to get into the area for parking on the fair grounds and you can wait up to 45 minutes to an hour just to park, but not this year.  It was just strange, but in a good way.

So onto the days activities...

Between eating mini-donuts, corn dogs, pork chops on a stick, fried oreos, etc. we went through the little hands on the farm.  Here is Hope delivering her bale of hay and hauling her basket of veggies.

...and here she is learning how to milk a cow.  :)

Then we went to the free tiger show.  This was the male tiger showing us how tall he is.  The twins decided they wanted to feed the tiger, so they did that after the show.  They put meat on the end of the stick (like the trainer is holding in this picture) and feed it to the tiger.

We went to the petting zoo, where they had all kinds of fun animals:  zebra, deer, goats and a kangaroo.  It was very soft and I had troubles getting the girls to leave.  They also spent $2 to go in and see the worlds smallest horse.  :)  Go figure.

Then Hope and Ally jumped on this thing.  They had a lot of fun.

And of course we made a trip through the Varied Industries building and Hope collected several (temp) tattoos up and down her arms.  She actually ran out of space.  :)

Now onto today's events...The First Day of Second Grade!!!

Last night we went to meet the teacher night.  Here is Hope with her teacher, Mrs. Harper.  This is the teacher she was hoping for because she has a pet rabbit she brings to school (if nobody has allergies).  We are still waiting to make sure it can come, but Hope is anxiously waiting.

Here she is getting onto the bus this morning.  She has the same bus drive, which we like very much.  She is so nice.

This is her first day of school outfit (although it was not the one we originally purchased for the first day).  :)  I still liked it, so it was all good.

Well, going with the school theme, here are a few more school related cards that any teacher would love to receive.

Alright, time to go get my kiddo to bed.  Have a good night!

Darla

The golden tooth...

The first night Hope and Joe were home was quite eventful.  We all settled into bed and around 1 am Hope came to join us.  :)  So that was my first wake up call.

Then about an hour later our weather radio started wailing that a severe storm was headed toward us.  So that was the next wake up call.  We were actually awake for about two hours because that jumpstarted Hope's chatterbox.  She just kept talking and talking and talking.  :)  Then after the storm  passed we all settled back in to get a few more hours of sleep, but...

...minutes later Hope sat up and yelled "I lost my tooth".  She declared it her golden tooth because she is seven years old and it was her seventh tooth she had lost.  Funny!

In other exciting news (at least to me) Joe bought us new luggage for our trip (in the planning stages) to celebrate my 40th birthday!  Yeah!!!!

We also have the first day of school coming up next week.  All the school supplies and new clothes and shoes have been purchased and we get to meet Hope's teacher next week and start school the next day. FUN STUFF!  She is getting excited.  I am excited to get back into our normal school year routine.

Well, here are several more cards from the birthday layout I shared in my last post.

When I am making cards from scraps, I love to use the pattern paper itself for the card base, if the paper is strong enough for a card.  There are several ways you can use "busy" patterns and not overwhelm you overall card.

This card I loved the banners, so I made it the focus of the card.  I stamped a sentiment directly on the card base and added the glitter paper, button and tulle and that was it.

The card below is also using a very busy card base.  I toned it down by covering most of it with a more solid pattern with just a bit of it peeking out around the edge.

Below you can see the glitter detail I added to the stamped detail.

I always struggle using pattern paper with swirls/patterns in the corners.  This one made a great card embellishment just on its own.

I have a few more to share from this batch of scraps then on to the next group.  Until next time...

Darla

They are HOME!

Joe and Hope got home this afternoon and I could hardly concentrate at work to finish things up so I could get home and see them.  They had been visiting Joe's family since Saturday.  I really enjoyed my quiet time, but so glad they are home now.  :)

While they were gone I got some scrapbooking done.  I concentrated on working on some photos that were from a few years ago that were still on my list of "wanting to scrapbook".

These were pictures of Hope on her 5th birthday.  Yep, she will be 8 in January, so I am a little behind on this layout.  I like to jump around to use specific paper lines or if certain pictures work with a particular sketch I have recently found.  Well, that was the case with these photos.  I finally found a two page sketch that seemed to work with the pictures I wanted to use.  And I also challenged myself to get some of the older pictures finished up.

This was a Fancy Pants line that came out several years ago and I have had it matched up with these photos since I purchased it.  So I was happy to finally get to use it up.

I created my own flower using the Maya Road pleated ribbon.  The green "crown" border was cut from a die cut paper from an older Pink Paislee line from several years ago.  The greens worked great with the greens in the paper line.  The "wish" was part of a border pattern paper that actually said "wishful", so I just cut out each banner piece for "wish" and created my own banner.  The smaller banner pieces were from the banner paper too.

Of course, when I was done with the layout I created cards with the remaining scraps.  Here are three of them to share with you for now.  I will get around to showing the rest of them too you soon.

Well, I am off to spend some time with my Hope and Joe.  Have a good night!

Darla

It's REALLY quiet...

at my house.  Well, besides Reilly wanting to go outside every 5 minutes and my blaring music/movies, etc.

I did a LOT of sleeping and scrapbooking this weekend.  I haven't taken any pictures of my finished projects, but will get to it later this week.  I decided to work on layouts that have been on the back burner for quite some time.  I have even had paper picked out to use for quite some time for a few of these layouts, but just hadn't been inspired to work on them.  Now was the time.

Anyway, here are a few other things to inspire you instead...this was another layout that took me a while to get to and used papers, embellishments that I have had in my stash for quite some time.  It feels good to use a mixture of old and new, etc.

This was a wedding my friend Evon and I attended in AZ a few years ago.  Our friend Margaux is going to be coming back to visit her family, so we are getting together on Tuesday night.  I am so EXCITED!  She has one of the cutest babies!  Her name is Marley, which is a combination of Margaux (her mom's name) and Charlie (her dad's name).  Cute huh????

So do you have anything you can use from your stash.  Go get it and create something!!!

Since I shared a wedding layout, how about a few wedding cards too.

Well, off to watch the end of the Olympic closing ceremonies.  Good night!!!

Darla

The windows are open....

and I am loving the fresh air and being able to hear all the sounds of the neighborhood this morning.

Joe and Hope left early this morning to head to grandma Karen's, so I got up early and went down to the farmer's market.  I didn't get much.  I had a dutch letter for breakfast, bought a fresh tomato for a BLT I will be having for lunch, some green beans for supper tonight and a few fun things to add to our fairy garden.  The storm the other night washed out the blue rock that made up our lake, so I bought a few more tiny bags to create that again, a small squirrel and another fairy.  :)

Now I am home for the weekend to just enjoy a LONG weekend to myself (until Wednesday).  I still have to go to work on Monday, but I will just be able to get up and get myself ready and head out the door.  Yeah!

So keeping it short so I can get started on scrapbooking!!!!  Here are a few Thank you cards to show my appreciation to my WONDERFUL husband and daughter how much I appreciate these quite weekends to myself.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.  I will share more soon!  Laters!!!!!

Darla