Scrapbooking...

I have been scrapbooking at a crop today at church, but had to take a break to pick up Hope and wait for Joe to get home.  So far I completed one layout and 13 cards.  I am pretty happy with that and am going back until I am too tired to scrapbook anymore.  :)

So I am keeping it short tonight.  Here are two more cards (continued from the MME So Sofie paper line).

I love how the same line of paper can give you such different looks, depending on which paper is the focus of your project.

This is the inside of the above card...

Well, the dog is barking to get back in and now that it stopped raining I can go get the mail.  Have a good night!

Darla

It is finally complete!

We finally got all the right parts to Hope's art cabinets.  If you remember, I said we went a little over the top, but it will all be put to good use.  So here it is...

When they originally came, all the cabinets were the open cubbies.  We had ordered it this way.  So they left the open ones and replaced them when the correct ones came in.  She got home today and when she saw it, she started jumping up and down screaming.  I think she liked it.  :)

Of course, the delivery wasn't without incident.  They brought the boxes in and started putting it together.  One of the boxes fell over and knocked over one of my lamps in my scrapbook area.  And of course it broke.  It still works for now and they were going to go buy me a new one.

Maybe when they come back I will point out that they put the doors on upside down.  Good grief!  Pay attention to details!

So that drama continues for now...

Anyway, the girls are here now and they are putting it to good use.

Hope wanted her bangs braided.  :)

Hope was at Grandma D's for the past few days with the twins.  They went to the County Fair and saw the animals and went swimming at the local pool to cool off one afternoon.  To get from town out to the farm where mom lives, you have to drive past the cemetery where dad (Papa D) is buried.  They girls always want to stop and "see" him.  Mom was listening to the girls talk.  The twins said they missed papa and Hope said "I don't remember him, but I miss him too".  Oh, break my heart.  Usually mom just drives past the grave, but this time they wanted to get out and send papa a message.  So they gave the gravestone a BIG group hug and then blew kisses into the sky like sending papa an email.  I hope he knows how to open it when it gets there.  :)

Alright, now on to some scrappy stuff.

I showed you a few days ago the two layouts I made from the So Sofie line from My Minds Eye.  Well, here are two cards I made from the scraps of those layouts.

Alright, that is enough for now.  I get to go to a scrapbook crop all day tomorrow and part of Saturday.  So I hope to get a lot done.  It is at a new church we have been going to the past few months so I am hoping to meet some other ladies there that enjoy the same hobby as I do.

Everyone have a great weekend!

Darla

To the Zoo...

I am the featured designer this month at The Scrappy Gourmet.  I created an easy Zoo mini album to hold all of your memories from a trip to the zoo.  It has lots of bright papers and embellishments to go along with it.  You can pick one up here.

Here is what it looks like...

Cute huh?  The pictures were from a trip to the Omaha zoo we took a few years ago.  

And the correct furniture for Hope's art area is finally being delivered today (as I am typing this).  So as soon as they are done and I have it all organized again I will share her new art studio.  Then I am going to get to some scrapbooking.  Hope is at Grandma D's so should be a quiet night with just me, the hubby and the dog.  

Have a good one!

Darla

Hello Monday!

For a Monday, worked seemed to go pretty fast today.  Maybe starting a new project made the day go faster.  I hope tomorrow goes fast too.  :)  Grandma D is taking Hope and the twins for a few days to go to the local County Fair.  They have fun doing this every year.  So I will have some evening time to scrapbook a little bit.  Yeah!

Well, here is the other layout made from the So Sofie line from My Minds Eye.

The picture was taken during her cheesy "cheese" smile phase.  I cracked up when we got these photos back.  And not sure what was up with her hair.  Looks like we just tried to brush it down with our hands.  Oh well, still cute!

After I made this layout and the one I shared yesterday, I created six cards from the scraps.  I will start sharing those tomorrow.

Keeping it short.  Have a good one!

Darla

School Supplies!

Well, finally got around to shopping for school supplies.  It only took me/us four stores to get everything we needed.  Good grief!  I think I found the very LAST boxes of washable markers at Wal-mart and they were out of several other things.  So I picked up a few things at Office Max and a few more things at Target.  Joe had already picked up a few things on sale at Hy-Vee.  It was a group effort this year.  :)

Hope and I will do some shopping this week for her first day of school outfit and a new back pack.  They start back in just a few weeks.  The summer has gone fast, but it has been lots of fun too.

We went to Adventureland yesterday with friends Kristi and Owen.  We had a blast.

Well, now that I have shared all of my Christmas projects in July, I will start off with some regular layouts I have been working.  Here is one of them.

I love how this layout turned out.  The colors go great with the outfits the twins (yes they are twins) are wearing.

This is almost all My Minds Eye products with the exception of the flowers, pearls and twine.

Here are two detail photos...

This shows the bows in either side.

Check back this week.  I made another layout and then used the scraps for a few cards too.

Have a great evening.

Darla

Christmas in July...Finale

Ok folks!  This is the last card I have to share for Christmas in July.  This was my favorite card I created.  It was based on a card sketch on Page Maps.  As soon as I saw the sketch I knew exactly what I was going to create.

I loved how the santa looks like he is standing outside and peeking in through the window to see if you are being good or bad.

I actually loved this card so much, that I didn't think I could send it to anyone.  So today, I turned it into a framed decoration.  I am going to enter it into the State Fair along with several other scrapbook projects.  I haven't entered anything the past few years because I forgot to get the tags ordered.  Oh well.  We will see if anything gets a ribbon.  :)

I will try and get a photo of the project to share here.

Well, we are off to Adventureland tomorrow.  Should be a fun day!

Darla

Fun weekend...starting early!

Today was my Friday since I have tomorrow off.  Yeah.  I have some phone calls to make and then I am going to do some scrapbooking.

I haven't had many funny Hope stories lately, but she had one tonight!  We were reading books when I was putting her to bed.  Then we turned the light off and she said she had a sharp pain in her side.  So I asked questions about it to figure out if it was serious or just trying to not fall asleep excuse.  Well, it kept moving around, so she was trying to keep from falling asleep.

Then she got really quiet and then blurts out that she can't remember what happened when she had to breathe in the gases and got cut open (aka her surgery a few years ago).  So I explained they made a small cut in her throat to remove the lump (it was a benign cyst).  She asked if there was blood.  I said yes.  Then she starts telling me about all the blood in our bodies, etc.  She asked, was there a lot of blood.  And probably not to most medical staff, but the little I saw grossed me out.  I didn't tell her that.  :)  Then she explained that she sees her blood when she picks her scabs and figured her surgery was like that.  Sure, just like that.

Then just like that, the blood conversation was done and she went to sleep.  I hope she doesn't have a scary dream about blood tonight.  I better get to bed so if I am up in the night I have a head start on my sleep.

Ok, on to a more fun topic.  Scrapbooking...

Here is another Christmas/Winter card...

To add some details I added glitter glue over the snowflakes in the pattern paper card base.  Super Easy!

Well, I have one more card to share tomorrow and then my Christmas in July will be finished.  I have several other layouts I have created lately and can't wait to share them.  So check back again!

Have a great night!

Darla

It's HOT!

Oh my!  I have had headaches the past few days from going in and out of the heat/AC too much.  I am ready for it to cool down just a bit.  How about you?

Anyway, not much exciting going on today, so will just share another Christmas card.

This is my FAVORITE card that I made.  I tried a new technique.  Here is how I made this card...

Step 1:  The card base is cut from a clear transparency.  I wanted it to have shimmer, so I covered the front with mod-podge and sprinkled on glitter.  Once it dried, the card was semi-transparent with lots of glittery shimmer.

Step 2:  I cut a small block of paper for the center of the card.

Step 3:  The main focus of the card/sentiment was a border sticker.  I applied it to the pink pattern paper and trimmed it to the size of the card width.  Before adhering to the card base, I added a snowflake brad I have had in my stash for quite some time.  I thought it added another touch of sparkle to the card, which goes perfectly with the sentiment.

Step 4:  On the inside, I added a block of paper slightly larger then the center block on the front.  Here is where you can add an additional sentiment inside the card.

The card was super easy, if you have the patience to let the mod-podge dry with the glitter.  :)  And another great thing is that it doesn't flake off either.

Well, that is all for today.  Have you checked out The Scrappy Gourmet lately?  They are starting to get in some of the products ordered at CHA.  Today I noticed they added some of the Authentique paper lines.  I loved both of these lines, so must do some shopping.  

Later!

Darla

So much to share!

I am back from Chicago.  Dee and I had a great time at CHA and The Scrappy Gourmet will be full of great new products over the next few months.  Exciting stuff.

I am not going to go over all my favorites, since I have so many.  If you are interested in seeing all the layout pictures I took (and a few silly ones of Dee) click on the following Shutterfly share link.

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AcNmjRyzaNW7q

Enjoy all the great layouts.  I can't wait to start getting all the new product.  Going to CHA always gets my creative ideas flowing.

On Wednesday, Joe and Hope drove up to meet me in Chicago and we stayed the rest of the week.  It was SO hot, but we still had a lot of fun.

On Thursday morning, we drove to our downtown hotel and we had tickets to see the muscial Pinkalicious, which is based on the book of the same name.  It was really cute and after the show we got to meet all the characters, but the only one Hope wanted to talk to was Pinkalicious.

On our way back to our hotel, we stopped by the American Girl store and the Disney store.  Hope wanted to get the dress that matches her doll Kanani.  She wanted to wear it every day the rest of the week.

We also went up to see the views from the Hancock building.  Here is Joe and Hope and the Willis tower (AKA-Sears tower) in the background.

Then we headed back to the hotel and swam the rest of the day because it was too hot to do anything else outside.  I think it was close to 100 and I am sure the heat index was over 100.

On Friday morning, Joe was keeping an eye on the weather.  A storm was heading toward Chicago, so we decided to go to the Shedd Aquarium and spent most of the day there.

Here is a picture of the storm just before we ran inside.  It was very strange looking and they were yelling at everyone to get inside.  Luckily we made it within a few minutes of it starting to rain and storm.

This was the end of the dolphin show.  I caught all three dolphins in the air together.  Cool!  The new camera came in handy with the continuous shooting.  I actually have them coming out of the water and about to go into the water too.

You can view the dolphins at the underwater viewing tank too.  This is Hope watching the dolphins swim around.  They were fun to watch.

The afternoon turned out beautiful.  So we took a watertaxi to Navy Pier and then on to Willis tower.

Here is the picture we got with all of us out on the "ledge", which is a glass box you can walk out into looking over the edge of the building.  It was very scary for me and the first time I got out there I had to hold onto the wall.  Hope would only go out if one of us was holding her.

On Saturday, it rained again in the morning, but by the time we were ready to head out it was just a light sprinkle and stopped shortly after.

Here is Joe and Hope on the large ferris wheel.

We walked around and Hope rode another ride and then we headed for the Children's Museum.

Here are Joe and Hope building.

Hope loved the water exhibit.  I thought it was cute they had rain coats for the kids.  The one in Des Moines also has a water area, but no rain coats.  :)  It definitely came in handy a few times, otherwise, she would have been pretty wet.

Then we ended our week at Buckingham Fountain...

...and the bean at Millinium Park.

We got back to the hotel and expected to go to bed early, but as Joe was surfing the channels he came across the beginning of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.  I love this movie and it was based in Chicago. Neither of us had seen it in years. So of course, we ended up watching the entire thing.

Well, if you made it this far, good for you!

I have several layouts and cards ready to share and a few more Christmas in July projects.

Here is one of them...

Let it snow, ok not really.  It is hot out, but I still prefer the heat over the freezing cold.

Well, that is all for tonight!  Check back for the rest of the Christmas in July and then onto some other projects.

Have a good night!

Darla

Melting in Chicago!

It was so hot i can't even remember what some of my favorites were from CHA. :)
Just kidding, but I won't be able to share all the photos I took for a few more days. Check back later next week while I finish up my Christmas in July projects. Enjoy and stay cool!

This was a small gift bag I made from a paper bag. So easy. You just cut off a portion of the top, and cover the front and back sections. Finish it off by adding the handle.

Oh my aching feet!

We covered a lot of ground today at CHA and I got a lot of photos and will share them with you soon. Lots of great inspiration.

The most exciting part was picking up a free sample of the Create mini albums magazine and seeing my first ever published project. I have a few other things coming up too.

Well I am going to hit the sack so will close with a few more Christmas/holiday cards. Since it is so hot outside, maybe these will cool things off. :). Enjoy!

Darla

CHA

Well we survived day one at CHA. We got to a lot of booths and made some great purchases for The Scrappy Gourmet.

Some of my favorites to watch for include: My Minds Eye, Melissa Francis, Pink Paislee and Simple Stories. We have a lot more shopping to do over the next two days, so will report back in with other favorites on their way.

In the mean time, here is another Christmas in July project to share with you.

Have a great nice! Please check back soon!

Darla

We made it to Chicago!

The bus ride was very long, but I survived. :)

I did actually sleep a little on the bus. I was tired from being up late trying to see the Harry Potter movie. My sister Dawn and I had tickets to see it at the IMAX theater. We got 40 minutes into the movie and the projector broke. We ended up getting a refund and going to a different theater and seeing it in 3D. The movie was awesome. There were a few minor things I would have like to have seen done differently, but overall it was a good ending to the adventure.

Well aim posting from my iPad,so not sure if the photo will attach or not, so here it goes. Just continuing from the Christmas in July theme. This was a door hanger I made for our front door. Enjoy!

I will try and post about the first day of CHA tomorrow night! Goodnight!

Darla