Fireworks and Fairies!

This weekend was our local festival and they had fireworks last night.  So Hope got into her pajamas and we headed in the van to the area where they shoot them off.  We got a great parking spot and just stayed right by the van and watched them.  I got a chance to play around with my camera to get some fireworks photos.

They aren't too bad, but will keep playing with the night settings.

These are the ones that Hope said were made by fairies and were full of pixie dust like in the Tinkerbell movies.  Cute.  :)

I even caught a heart (the red in the middle) in the fireworks.

Well, I am just about packed for Chicago and heading out in a bit to the Harry Potter movie.  I can't wait to see it.  My sister Dawn and I are going to the IMAX theater to see it.  It is bittersweet for it to be done, but it has been a fun ride!

Here is another Christmas card.  This is one of my favorites I made, maybe because it was so simple and the first time I used the glass glitter.  Fun!

Have a great one.  I hope to post while in Chicago, but not sure I will have internet access for my ipad.  So check back just in case.  

Later!

Darla

Happy Holidays!

I am going to share a few more Christmas/Holiday cards with you today.

Hope and I are having a very lazy day and have a baby shower to attend later today.  Today is our suburb festival, so we might head over to the pool later on and come back for the fireworks.

Otherwise, she is enjoying her new craft area (without the furniture).  She is so excited and I think she is going to be creating a LOT of art in the near future.

Now, on to the cards...

The first card I cut into the shape of a tree.  Hope had a few rings from the dollar bin at Target, so I cut the heart tops off and added them to the tree like they were ornaments.  It is hard to tell here, but they were princess jewelry.  This was a reject from a magazine call for shaped cards.  :)

The next card was extremely simple.  I just let the paper do most of the work.  

I tied a ribbon in a bow, added a stick pin and stamped the sentiment.  Done.

That is it for today.  Have a good one!

Darla

She's home!

Hope got home from kc tonight. It sounds like she had a lot of fun, but it was good to get her home. She was pretty excited about her (soon to be) new art area. They come on tuesday to set it up. I can't wait to see it. All of her supplies have been sorted out and she found those in the closet.

Next up she headed to the toy room and loved exploring to see everything. She noticed that the shelves from her closet and basement had been moved to the toy room. So she went running into her room and thought it was really cool tool (although not much was done in there).

We played for a little bit and are now watching a movie in my bed. :)

While she is watching her movie I am testing out how to post to my blog from my iPad so I can hopefully make a post while I am in Chicago at CHA. Looking forward to seeing my sister Dee and hearing all about this past weeks adventures.

I will share some more Christmas cards tomorrow.

Goodnight

Darla

A bit of a delay...

Well, I am a little bummed out that the furniture we ordered could not be delivered and set up before the end of the week like they had originally promised.  So we ended up getting the set up fee taken off.

So it will be delivered and set up on Tuesday.  I will be in Chicago next week for CHA, so I hope it all works out with Joe and Hope here.  The back up plan is to stop at IKEA while in Chicago and check out their stuff, which is where I started looking in the first place, but didn't want to pay $350 in shipping for a $129 shelf unit.  Crazy!

So I have been cleaning out toys like crazy the past few nights after work.  I finally finished up that project tonight and it all looks great!

So very organized and thinned out so she will play with her favorites again.  I got rid of a lot of stuff she had outgrown and am donating it to the church preschool she went to.  They are excited to get everything and whatever they can't use I told them to pass it on or donate it to Goodwill.  It's a win-win for everyone!

So here is another Christmas card.  The green looks a little yellow in the picture.  Sorry!

Well my back is aching, so I am going to take some Aleve and go to bed!

Goodnight!

Darla

When we do something...

...we don't go small.  We have been talking for a long time about converting our dining room into a craft room for Hope for a while now.  We have lived in this house for 5 years and never used the dining room, for a dining room.  Slowly my craft stuff was taking over and the office storage.  So today we took the plunge.  We bought a LARGE wall unit to store and organize all of Hope's art supplies and a new art table.  She is going to be set up by the end of the week.  Once we have it all ready I will share it here.  Can't wait.

Hope will be surprised, because she is in KC visiting aunt Dee.  So we have until Friday to get all of our projects done and work too.  :)  I hope we make it.

Anyway, here is another Christmas card to share with you for my Christmas in July theme.

This was super simple to make.  The trees were die cuts and I added some glitter and foam tape and a rub on sentiment.  DONE!

Ok, off to do a few more things before heading to bed.  Goodnight!

Darla

Holiday Gift Set

Here is a gift set I created with the scraps I had left over from making the Merry Christmas mini-album for The Scrappy Gourmet.  The box was recycled from some jewelry I purchased at a party.  It was already shiny silver, all I had to do was take off all the stickers.

I also made a matching gift bag to put the box in.

I am always on the lookout for things I can repurpose through scrapbooking.  I am getting better at it.

Well, I need to go drop Hope off at my sisters so my hubby and I can go out to a nice dinner to celebrate our anniversary.  Have a good night!

Darla

Happy Anniversary to us!

Today is our 16th wedding anniversary.  Joe has been sending me pictures by email from our wedding day.  How cute is that?  He is a great husband and my rock.  I love him so much!

We look like kids!  :)

Here we are, the new Mr. and Mrs. Weber.

This picture was so CUTE!  The girl on the right is my niece Lauren and the one of the left is Joe's niece Kayla.

We have reservations tomorrow night for a nice Italian restaurant.  I can't wait.

Now on to more Christmas in July cards.

This is actually a clear card with a die cut paper on the outside.  The back inside cover is covered with dark brown/black paper.

Ok, I am heading off the get my hair done.  Later!

Darla

Officially 6 1/2 years old!

Today is Hope's half birthday.  She asked me the other day when she would be 6 1/2 and I realized it was just around the corner.  So when I picked her up from the summer program, we decided to go eat pancakes (her favorite meal).  We also went to Target and she got a new pair of flip flops for her trip to KC and a movie that was on sale.  It was only $5 and I had actually borrowed $5 from her piggy bank the other day so I would have money to go to the pool.  :)  Now we are even.

Anyway, she is watching her new movie and then off to bed.

Here is some more Christmas goodness.  It is a gift bag I recycled.  I covered the front and tied on a baker's twine pom-pom and a bell.

Enjoy the rest of your evening!

Darla

False Alarm!

Well, last night ended up with no storm in our area.   It was heading right towards us and I kept waiting for it to get here.  Finally I checked radar again and it was pretty much gone, just some small rain areas.  So no basement time for us last night.

Anyway, not much else going on here lately, so I will just share more Christmas in July cards.  These two cards a similar and are not from your typical Christmas colors.  There were just small hints of green and red to bring out the Christmas spirit.

Really these could be any kind of card.  Just replace the sentiment and exchange the bell for a button and there you have it.

Well, going to do some more reading.  I am currently ready the newest Stephanie Plum book by Janet Evonavich.  Love these books.  They are really easy to read and make me laugh out loud, with a little bit of romance and mystery thrown in too.

Good night!

Darla

Take Cover!!!

Ok, making a quick post before a bad storm hits us.  

Here is another Christmas card to share.  Enjoy!

Well, off to eat supper quickly and will probably have to head to the basement.  Later!

Darla

Happy Independence Day!

I hope all of you have had a great 4th of July.  Last night we had Dawn and the twins over for a BBQ, and Grandma Deloris came up in the evening and joined for the Dueling Pianos out at the mall.  After the pianos, we stayed for the Fireworks.  We weren't expecting the fireworks to start on the lake we were sitting around.  We all SCREAMED when the first one shot off right by us, and the ducks swimming around on the lake will likely never be the same.  :)  Of course, every time the sparks went off the girls screamed.  It was a lot of fun.

Today we relaxed this morning and met in Waukee for the afternoon parade.  

We got a spot in the shade and thee girls had fun tackling each other for candy.  Hope had the shining moment when she didn't get any candy early on and had to pout!  It was pretty funny.  

Eventually she got over it and came home with LOTS of candy, due to her no fail technique of jumping up and down with her hands in the air yelling, CANDY! CANDY! CANDY!

And to close things out, I want to thank all of our trooops who are currently or have served in the past for our freedoms.  Thank you for everything you do.  Also, thanks to their family members too.

Tomorrow I will be back with my Christmas in July theme of showing Christmas cards.

Have a great night!

Darla

Project 12-June layout (School Days)

I had a chance to do some scrapbooking last night and completed the Project 12 Layout for the June sketch.  I am excited that I won last months prize.  Good stuff.  Come on, play along!

Here is the sketch...

I chose to do a layout about Hope's first couple of days in Kindergarten.  I am also going to complete a couple other layouts with more journaling about specific events throughout the year.  I have had these school themed papers/stickers for quite some time now and knew I wanted to use it on a school layout.

I had Hope write her name on the handwriting sticker.

I will be back tomorrow with more Christmas in July projects.

Have a good day!

Darla

Christmas in July

I have actually started making Christmas cards for this year.  Some of them were for submission and others were just to use up some scraps after I completed a few Christmas layouts.  So throughout the month of July, I am going to be sharing all my Christmas card creations.  Enjoy and happy holidays!

This was a card I created using the sketch for the Paper Crafts December magazine call.

Ok, I have the night free to scrapbook, so I am keeping it short so I can get back to my layout for the Project 12 June sketch.

Have a good night!

Darla 

Reilly Speaks

Hope was FULL of it today.  Lot's to share!

She threw a fit this morning and didn't want to put on her swimsuit for pool day at summer program.  And she didn't want to take one with her, because it was cold last week.  Mind you, today, it was the PERFECT day to go to the pool.  Too bad for Hope, because she had to go to the pool in her clothes and sit there and watch everyone else swim.  That was a tough lesson to learn.  We will see how next Tuesday goes.  :)

Then this morning, Joe got a call from the head teacher and Hope had punched a boy in her class.  Good grief!  Yesterday, she got in trouble for pushing a boy and had to write a note to us letting us know what happened.

Well, at least today ended with a funny story.  :)

We just had a quick meal tonight, so she got ABC's & 123's with meatballs.  While she was eating, she suddenly got up and got a new spoon.  I asked her why.  She smiled and said, well, I gave Reilly a taste of a "C" to see if it would go to his brain and make him talk.  Ok, for those of you that don't know, Reilly is our dog.  She got the idea from the show Martha Speaks.  The show is about a dog that can talk because when she ate a bowl of alphabet soup it went to her brain and then she could talk.  So we spent the evening encouraging Reilly to make a "C" sound.  She said, maybe I should have given him a "D" for dog.  :)  Love it!

Alright, here is another Halloween card.

The date was actually left over wall rub on.  I put it on a transparency and put it on my card.  To cover up the transparency line, I added a line of glitter glue.  It also added a nice detail.

Have a good night!

Darla

Big Country Bash 2011

We had a blast yesterday at the concert.  All the acts were great.  Here is a glimpse of our fun yesterday...

The first several acts included a local Jason Brown, The JaneDeer Girls, JB and the Moonshine Band, and Steele Magnolia...

Below is Josh Thompson.

Here are me and my friends/sister at the bash.  

As you can see, the clouds were starting to form earlier in the day.  Below we were trying to stay dry during one of the downpours.

This was Colt Ford during his set.

We made friends while standing in line to get corn dogs.  They had a deal of five corndogs for $20 or you could buy them separately for $6 each.  

Here is am with Eddie Hatfield from the morning show on 92.5 radio station.  We both work out at Farrell's.

Here we are again, trying to stay dry when the next shower came through.  This one was more of a downpour, so we covered up completely with the tarp.  :)

When Dierks Bentley came on stage, we worked our way to the front stage.  It was awesome.  I even got a guitar pick from him.

Trace Adkins finished off the concert.  When he started his act, I got a text from Joe.  He was on his way to get us because there was a BIG storm coming.  He only got 4 songs done and they made him stop and said we had 10 minutes before the storm hit.  

We packed up everything and headed to where Joe said he was waiting for us.  So along with thousands of other concert fans we trudged through the mud.  When we got to the van, it was stuck in the mud.  So some strong guys helped push us out and then we gave them a ride to their car.  We picked up a few others along the way.  Just after we let them off at the cars, it cut loose.  The hail started falling and the wind picked up and the rain was coming down in sheets.  By the time we got home, the storm had mostly passed.  I am so glad that we had Joe drop us off and come get us, because we would have been stuck in the mud/parking lot for hours.  We LOVE you Joe!

Alright, I got out my Halloween scraps a while back and made some cards.  Here is one of them...

I have a few more Halloween cards I will share over the next few days.  Then I am going to share a bunch of cards to celebrate Christmas in July.

Check back again soon!

Darla