Cafe' Louise

Dallas Superbowl

2011-01-25T06:50:00.008-06:00

It is so exciting that the Packers won and are now going to Texas for Super Bowl!! We actually will be heading there too the day before the big game but have had this trip planned since fall to see my brother Tony who lives in Fort Worth. Not sure we are going to find tickets to the game or be able to afford them but might just do some tailgating if nuthing else.

2 years ago when we were there last I took these pictures of the new stadium that they were just finishing so it will be interesting to see it all completed now. It kinda reminded me of a giant spaceship that had just landed.

Enjoy!

Colorbok

2011-01-21T16:31:00.011-06:00

Do you do Colorbok surveys like I do? They send out the neatest thank you gifts just for doing them via email. Sometimes it is paper packs and boy do they have some pretty ones but this last week it was a kit called friendly forest. It came complete with album, papers, embellishments, stickers and letters. I've had so much fun working with it and can't believe that I have finished 10 pages already. This really is a kit to buy if you want to complete an album without buying allot of extra's. Above is the pretty blue album that came with the kit.

I loved these papers with the unique frames and found just the right pictures to use. The only item not in the kit was the little saying about brothers & the Lion embellishment.

These next two pages.....

...everything was in the kit except for the jewels that I used on the eyes and in the tree. I also used my smooch to make a few things pop a little more.

This page I did add a few more things that I had in my scraproom.

On the picture mat I used Fiskars threading water border punch and ran a ribbon through it. I put gems in the flowers for some sparkle. I punched out the yellow hearts with my Fiskars scalloped heart punch & added one to the center of the big white flower. The other one was added to a foam white heart that has some extra bling hanging on it (an old earring) and then I used some crystal stickles to make the heart glitter! I really like the way it turned out.

So I just wanted to show how much you can get accomplished sometimes when you get a complete kit that has great papers & embellishments too! Thanks Colorbok!

Update on the house sale

2011-01-20T16:52:00.008-06:00

Well it sure has been a whirlwind year that has gone by. Things change so much when selling a house. It was hard enough cleaning, packing things up and even showcasing the room in a different way..........like my scraproom. If you look below you can see pictures of my craft room and then I will show you how it looks now with a beautiful daybed in it. Bad part is that ALLOT of my scrap supplies got boxed up so I have slim pickings to craft with now.

Ok so when I look at it now.........it did look cluttered tho it was well organized!

So within the first few weeks we had an accepted offer for FULL price but then they backed out the very next day. I do think he had a job transfer to be a school district supervisor and found out too late that he had to live in the district. That was a big disappointment. The rest of the summer was full of showings and then lowering the price a few times.

In August we got an offer on our house so we started doing some serious house hunting because within weeks the gal buying our house had a buyer for hers. The first house we found was really neat, low taxes, great neighborhood, awesome yard but it was a quad level just like the one we are moving out of so after careful thought we walked away from that. It was looking pretty hopeless and then we found THE house. Best part it was vacant so we could start moving in right away. It had the most awesome craft room with all around the room countertop, shelves, drawers and even a sink. I couldn't wait to begin scrapping in it. So next came packing stuff up, changing utilities and getting home insurance to cover both places. The week in September when we were supposed to be moving our realtor told us their was a problem with the one buyer getting financing (not our buyer but her buyer).....so all week we held our breath and then it all fell through. It was really hard getting that phone call and then cancelling utilities, insurance and friends coming to help move.

So here we sit with lots of boxes still packed but we still have a buyer. She needs to sell her house and then it's off to find another house.......hopefully it won't happen until spring and the snow and cold weather goes away.

I have started scrapping again and have been making allot of cards this year. This week I made a gratitude journal. I found writing down one good thing each day kept me from dwelling on all the negative things going on in my family life. Here's a couple pictures of it.

Well that's it for now & Hopefully I will be back allot sooner then in the past!

Selling Our Home

2010-04-07T07:42:00.008-05:00

It sure looks like I have been too busy for my blog and it sure is true. We put our house on the market a few weeks ago and if anyone has sold a home.....then you know how much work goes into getting it ready. I donated car loads to Goodwill while cleaning closets, drawers and just de-cluttering! Trying to keep my craft room clean and organized has been another challenge but I have been working on some projects which I hope to show you later this week.

We were lucky that the middle of March when Kevin had vacation, we had wonderful weather in the 60's. So we got all the yard raked and cleaned up from the dreary winter. Last week we actually had a few days near 80 so I have yellow daffodils blooming and purple crocus too! Hopefully after yesterday and todays rain, everything will be green as so much is already up in the flower beds. Pretty early for Wisconsin as we have had snow storms in April many times but what the heck I will take it! We even woke up one morning last week to find 2 ducks swimming(not the greatest picture as we haven't started up the pond yet) in our pond!

We get asked every day why we are selling our beautiful home. We moved here to Stevens Point about 8 years ago and have done so much inside and out. We have hand painted murals in the kitchen, bathroom and of course out by the indoor swimming pool. We were so lucky to find a budding artist at the University to do that all. Anyone following my blog have seen all the gorgeous pictures of my gardens with the small pond and waterfall............that I will really miss!We have put on a new roof, new garage doors and did just about everything I can think of too.....we are hoping our next home will have all that stuff done so all we will have to do is put our personal touch on it and start some new gardens.

The downsize of this house is that it is 3400 feet which is way too big for just 2 people (and allot to clean). We had hoped when moving up here that the kids would come up with their little ones to visit and take advantage of the pool but they have such busy lives and they are over 2 hours away so it is pretty rare that they get up here. It also is a quad level home which means there are always steps (8 to most levels) to go up and down. At first we thought this is a breeze after living in a loft above my business in downtown Watertown as that place must have had at least 25 steps going up from street level but as the years have gone by both Kevin & I are feeling it in our knees. That is the real reason why we are selling now. We are hoping someone will want to take advantage of the first time home buyers credit etc which does end at the end of this month. In this economy and our part of Wisconsin, this home is a "steal" going only for $179,000 and that includes a double lot with a sprinkler system too. If we were near Madison or Milwaukee...........a house this size with the pool and sauna would go for at least $250,000 but we are hoping to find another house that we can put our love into and also enjoy as much as we have this one. You can find the listing on Coldwellhomes.com and the i.d. # is SP26Z.

We will miss our neighborhood, it is awesome, and all our nice neighbors. We are hoping to find a nice ranch home out in the country with a little land and maybe if we are really lucky on some water so we can fish too! Not going to look too hard until we have some serious nibbles on this place. Never been good at the waiting game but some things just are out of my control.

My Valentine Project

2010-02-18T09:55:00.011-06:00

Last month I got a wonderful gift in the mail from a secret sister for Christmas. It was a kit from Paisley and Polka Dots that was called You hold the ticket to my heart. I've seen their kits online and often drooled over them but never took that splurge to buy one for myself. Needless to say I was tickled pink and couldn't wait to start as it would be a present for my husband.

First of all the most amazing part is that this kit comes in separate plastic bags where every piece for that page is sorted and pre cut. The instructions were flawless and came with pictures that were numbered so you knew which piece to put on first etc. Talk about taking out the part we all dislike the most.........cutting........especially for these hearts that had scalloped edges. Oh my that would have been fun! Actually all I needed to complete this project was glue, stapler and some pop dots.

I started off by inking all the edges of all the pieces with a stain ( I used a walnut color). After letting that dry I started working on the title page. I'm not sure if I would have chosen all the different patterns of papers to use together but the end result was great. I loved the crocheted heart in the middle and using the stick pin too. I added the key with a tag gun.

The back of the title page ended up having room for a picture plus the Love notes place to write on. In between this page and the next there was a smaller chipboard heart and on one side you could list the 10 things I love most about you and journaling available on the other side too. I liked the way these smaller hearts were between the full page hearts......gave it some dimension.

Page 2 has the picture of Kevin golfing on it since that is his big love in life besides bowling. Again look at all the different patterns mixed together yet the overall effect works! The back of this page had room for 2 pics and I used our wedding pictures. The little white plastic heart with the ribbons threaded through it was just the right thing to finish this page.

Again there was a smaller heart with both sides open for journaling between these pages but I didn't take a picture of that. Page 4 had a picture of Kevin bike riding with our granddaughter Allayah (another love of our life). Great use of a tag and ribbons on this page.

Page 5 has a picture of Kevin doing some landscaping in our yard. I think when he first started doing it..........it was a job but as time went on and we developed more gardens it became more of a passion for him that he enjoyed. The stamps on this page were part of the rub-ons that came with the kit too!

Another smaller heart again between pages that weren't pictured here and then the final page has a picture of us on it with a Happy Valentine's day tag, be mine and SWAK rub on. I was totally impressed with this kit and this was the first one I had seen from them and probably one of the best gifts I had ever gotten from a secret sister. When I gave it to Kevin he was in awe ............he loved it and could see how much work went into it. I'm sure it is something he will treasure for years to come.

Vinyl Wall Art

2010-02-12T07:25:00.006-06:00

A few weeks ago I went down to Watertown and spent a few days at my son's house hoping to have a little time with him since I hadn't seen him in almost 6 months. Well when I arrived Todd was busy cutting wood for his outdoor wood burner that heats his house (a necessary thing to do on a day off) so I spent the afternoon with his wife Justin doing some things around the house. Here's a picture of Justin filling the burner with wood. Amazing how much heat you can get out of these little things outside. Very popular especially if you live in the country and have access to wood on your land.

You know how we all have those little projects that we mean to get around to or ones that take 2 people to do. Well she had bought some of those vinyl wall sayings so we got busy working on putting them up. They were not as easy as they looked especially when trying to remove them from the backing. The hardest part though was once you got them up on the wall you then had to remove the other backing while making sure they stuck to the wall. This first one was the easiest and we did it in her kitchen area..........cute huh?

The bathroom turned out to be the hardest. Not sure if it was the texture of the wall, the paint used or the intricate pieces of these branches. But good thing we didn't start here or I would have quit. Their new bathroom is done all in black and white so these words above the bathtub really made a statement and looked so very nice! Imagine how pretty it will look when she has candles in those holders all lit up and she is sitting in her jacuzzi tub.

Unfortunately that evening Todd got a call from his boss and had another semi load to drive in the morning so we didn't get to spend much time together. The next morning he was off on the road by 6am so that morning Justin & I went to the Johnson Creek outlet mall and Berres Brothers coffee outlet. Before I headed back up north we stopped at her mom's and put up 2 more vinyl wall swags. They turned out awesome though it was hard job working above your head as your arms got so tired. Projects like these are best done with a friend or family!

Vinyl wall sayings are something you can make with your Cricut or you can now buy them just about anywhere at Micheals or even Kohl's. No limit to what you can create with your imagination!

Going back to school

2010-02-08T13:36:00.002-06:00

I'm one of those people that love learning new things and actually enjoyed school. Today I just signed up for a 6 week class at the University of Stevens Point for digital photography. It's on Monday nights from 6:30 to 8pm which works out great since that is when my husband is bowling in mens league. Also I am quite fortunate to live only a mile or so from the campus.

I just got a new Nikon Coolpix camera (S570) right before Christmas. It has 12 megapixels, 5x zoom and what I really like is the 2.7 LCD screen. My last Nikon had a much smaller screen. It's a nice small size which is what I need as I love to carry it with me at all times either in my purse or pocket. My last Nikon took great pictures and I just passed it on to my brother in Texas who I'm sure will be taking lots of pictures during his travels.

As a scrapbooker I know how important good pictures are for my books and layouts. Hopefully this class will teach me some of the settings and tricks to taking the best pictures that I can. It doesn't start until March 1st but when it does I will be sure to share any neat things I learn.

Organizing your scrap room

2010-01-30T17:34:00.010-06:00

Doesn't it seem that when January comes around everyone is thinking of doing some organizing and even the stores are pushing all kinds of pretty baskets & bins to organize your "stuff" in. Well I got the bug too but mine came for a different reason. Kevin came home with a nice wooden tv entertainment center and he thought I could use it in my craft room. Well you know what that meant...................re-organizing everything. The end result turned out really nice so I thought I would share a few of my pictures and tricks that I use.

This is my nice sunny room that I share with the washer & dryer (that way I can work while I scrap). It is in the south east corner of the house with windows on 2 sides so I enjoy the time I spend in there. It also has an attached bathroom and a nice small tv on my desk. Lots of cabinets and storage everywhere. I have a large oak desk and that nice big table under the window but when I'm working on a project the space gets used up quite quickly!

Of course I am like just about everyone else and store my buttons and flowers in jars by colors. I have 2 shelves on my desk which hold jars of flowers so not only organized but pretty. I learned my lesson from having all of them lined up on the shelf under the window when the shelf came loose and everything fell. Those jars add quite abit of weight. Now those shelves hold and display many of my stamps.

Ribbon is another problem and I do have a few jars of certain types but the majority I have found that if I hang it...............I see it and I use it. So I used one of those hanging tiered baskets that some people use for fruit. On the bottom basket I threaded the ribbons by color into all the little spaces of the weaved basket. I keep some extra rolls in the basket and colorful clips are all along the edge. I know they sell things out there for ribbon but why spend money when you might have something at home that will work just as well? Plus it is so pretty!

Just like my "clip it up"................no it's not the one you can spend some big bucks on......this was found at a resale shop for just a few dollars and I think at one time it might have been a jewelry display or some merchandise display. I did buy the clip ups and now have all kinds of things organized on here from my bling to stickers etc. It was big but fit in nicely where the tv should have been. My Cricut fit above it and all my cartridges on one of the shelves. The 2 spots on the bottom with doors hold my sewing machine and the other side has all my empty scrapbook albums. The drawer holds all the page protectors. I hate to admit that the spot below my cartridges is kits and projects waiting to be used or finished. Now you can see why I will not be shopping at Michael's for awhile. This year I will use what I have. Who would have thought that this Saunders entertainment stand would have worked so nicely for all my scrapping stuff.

I never feel like the time I spend cleaning and organizing is wasted as I usually find something I forgot I had or I pull aside things needed for a project that I'm working on. Like this past week I was making a scrapbook for my brother for his birthday so during my cleaning time I was finding family related items, hunting embellishments etc. It obviously helped as I finished his album yesterday and his birthday is still a month away! I will end this blog with 2 pages from his album. With as cold as it has been here in Wisconsin.............I have not been out all week and I enjoy spending the sunny mornings in my room!

Glimmer Mist Class

2010-01-19T15:02:00.007-06:00

Last night Jen & I drove to Appleton for a class in the glimmer mist. It was supposed to be 3 hours but probably was only around 2 and during that time we made the above book. Jen has used the mist before but even tho I got a bottle for Christmas I hadn't tried it. I watched a video on the computer last week and did have some thoughts on how it worked.

There was only 8 of us in the class (2 at a table) and this is the back of the book we made. The instructor didn't seem overly familiar with the product especially when I mentioned using the brayer over the screen with a piece of paper towel. On this back page I used a borrowed screen which was actually bigger then the page itself. I really liked that look.

She did show us a few things like how to mix the glimmer stuff on the bottom of the bottle. We used kind of an open box to spray the items that Archivers sold for $5 but I thing any type of box at home would work well without spending that additional money. The class came with 3 small bottles of different color mists so it's nice to come home with something to play with.

We also got a small screen which you will see used on some of the pages here so that will be nice to have. The page above it was used on both of the corners. Unfortunately the selection of screens was very limited and I was hoping to either find the gate screen or possibly some type of swirl. Didn't want the halloween ones or to start off with birds and butterflies. Maybe later but not when I'm still at the experimenting stage.

I have included pictures of most of the pages of the album we made. Noticed how it had some really neat embossed images like the clock and the suitcase. We actually used some Ranger ink on those to make them stand out so nicely.

I should have waited till I had pictures inside and the whole album finished but maybe that will motivate me to finish it and post those results. It was a fun class and of course we got to do some shopping afterwards as this is the closest Archivers and it is an hour away. If it was closer I'm sure we would be taking more classes as it is always fun to see how a new product works and what you can do with it.

Farmville

2010-01-17T16:26:00.002-06:00

8 days ago, I would have given you a blank look if you would have mentioned Farmville on Facebook but today it is a different story. On New Years day when we went down to visit my son Travis, we saw both him and his girlfriend Jamie playing a farming game on their computer. We asked a few questions and watched them plant and harvest crops. I walked away saying.......I just don't get it. Plus it looked like it could be time consuming.

Well last Saturday night Kevin went and started Farmville on our computer. On our way to bowling I insisted he call Travis to tell him that I didn't do it. Sunday I kinda looked on as I watched Kevin plant some crops and harvest them. Monday when he was at work I thought I better keep an eye on things and harvest stuff etc. And that's how it all started..........next you know I was collecting chickens, eggs, horses and trying to earn points to get to the next level. Here it is ONE week later and I am at level 20. I have 4 penguins, 2 horses, 2 goats,2 sheep, 6 cows, 3 kittys, 58 chickens and 17 calves. Ooops forgot that 1 pig and the 2 ducks. These were all gifts that I received or presents from eggs that I hatched.

I started out planting strawberries and have worked my way up to grapes. I still don't know all the secrets of this game and when I visit other farms I am amazed at all the buildings and how pretty their farms are. Speaking of other farms I am looking for neighbors so if you are playing this game too and want to add me as your neighbor I would be happy to come over and feed your chickens and fertilize your fields.

It's actually very addicting and competitive but FUN! I have quite a few friends on there and some of my family so we are interacting in a new way. I've even found some of my crafting friends and fellow Fiskateers on there.............so if you are out there playing too........add me as your neighbor and send me some trees!

Creative Cafe Journal

2010-01-12T17:32:00.014-06:00

I don't know about the rest of you but when I make or create things they are generally for other people. This time I made something for MYSELF!! I got this 3 ring binder journal kit last year and it is 8.5 x 10.25 so a nice size. Included were 12 photo pages (one for each month) and 72 journal pages. 12 of them were printed with calendar inserts which I had to stamp & decorate for the appropriate month.

I decided I wanted to use this book for my yearly journal. So the first thing I did was make each monthly calendar. Some of the months I was lucky enough to have appropriate numbers and decorations to use but the others well lucky I have lots of stash to use.

So for each month the first page would be a monthly calendar and then below it a space to record your dates to remember. It also came with tabs to put on the edge for each month too. The back of that page is all lined paper.....decorated with some embellishments....and ready for me to journal the things I want to remember.

The second page had the top section with little boxes where I plan to make notes of things I want to do that month and the bottom section was just lined for journaling. The opposite side of the page is lined on the top half for writing but the bottom half is a big box labeled "ideas & doodles".......how neat is that?

The third page is just lined on both sides for more journaling or notes. It was fun finding embellishments for every month to make every page "special". I love how my May gardening page turned out........don't you?

Last there was the photo insert page which will hold four pictures. I really like this because some pictures are not meant to be scrapped but they hold allot of memories for me. For example.......I have a neat picture of Travis & Kevin playing Wii last week-end early in the morning.

The book also came with a dozen various pockets to use but not sure what I can do with them yet. Maybe in my next blog I will post some pictures of these and you can give me your thoughts on what to do with them.

Since this book was for ME, I decided to use some of my favorite papers I have been saving to cover it with. I used Webster Pages........I just love them but actually hoard them as they are each prettier then the next. The paper I picked was so appropriate as it has a circle on it that says On This Day surrounded by the days of the month and the outside circle has all the months. I added a glittered blue bird and a butterfly and for a finishing touch a piece of green velvet ribbon. The picture of the front of the journal is at the beginning of this blog. On the back of the book I used the same paper but just added a rub on glitter saying.

I am really happy with the result and will enjoy using this all year. Almost would like to make this a yearly thing from now on..........guess I will have to see how long this Creative Cafe journal stays around.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-07T15:44:00.005-06:00

Well they say better late then never so here I am to wish you all a happy and healthy new year filled with love and laughter. It kind of reminds me of my prayers every night when I pray that my sons are safe, healthy and loved.... something we can never get enough of. I used to end all our phone calls with "I love you" hoping that one time one son would say it back to me but that never happened and I kinda got the feeling that they hated hearing it so much so now I just say thanks for calling and talk to ya soon. I raised my boys with lots of hugs & I love you's but they didn't end up that way as adults which is kinda sad because the women in their life (including me) miss that stuff. I was very lucky to find a man (Kevin) who not only says those words daily but shows it ....... sometimes just little things like holding hands mean more then words.

Boy did I get off track............but I hope you all had a nice Christmas and New Years too. We've had some weather issues here around the holidays so ours was pretty quiet. New Years day we went down to Lake Mills and spent the night at my youngest son's house. We had so much fun on both days just spending time with Travis and Jamie playing Wii. I brought down a few of our games and our remotes but we really enjoyed playing his Monopoly game. There was so many different versions on that one disc and every round there was a chance of the winner turning into the loser so you just never gave up hope. Plus you never had to count out money and there was also little challenges every round that were fun. On Saturday my daughter in law Justin came over, picking up Alex along the way, and we got to try out my new game which was called Just Dance. Us gals and Alex thought it was a blast and you really got a workout doing it. Kevin & Travis had more fun watching us and laughing. We sat down to a nice ham dinner and before you knew it, it was time for Alex to go home and us to make that long drive home. It sure was a relaxing 2 days and I was quite impressed with all the work my son was doing in his house.

My job at Lands End as a personal shopper for Sears is just about over. I'm only scheduled for one day a week and often I get sent home early for work reduction. With our Wisconsin winters, I really don't mind staying home especially on days like this where it has been snowing all day. It's gonna be our first chance to try out our new snow blower that Travis found for us for Christmas.

I did get some scrapping done this week and did 3 layouts of Travis and Alex during the snowstorm they had last month. Thought I would end this blog with those pictures. Hopefully you will see me blogging more often now that I am home more.

Some things you won't be getting for Christmas

2009-12-13T17:53:00.002-06:00

I went back to work last month at Lands End but I actually work as a personal shoppper for Sears. So all day long when I work.............I am on the computer chatting with customers. Shoppers who are online trying to find something at Sears or Kmart. If I can't find it at those stores, I then go off and search the web for you. Sometimes I actually get a sale but most of the time people are looking for some of the impossible to find items this year.

The one I search for most often is a game called Mindflex by Mattel. Retails for $79.99 but since it is out of stock EVERYWHERE people are selling it on Ebay and Amazon for almost $200. Whoever thought of this game has struck gold. Ellen had it on her talk show last week and the calls have gone up big time since then. It's a game where you wear a head set and send mind waves to the ball to make it rise into the air...........hmm.......what will they come up with next? If you missed it on Ellen and still want to see it, just google the word Mindflex.

Another big item is Barbie's glamour camper or her townhouse. Hard to believe that Barbie is still popular but even harder to believe what people will spend on her accessories. I have close to 30 dolls here at the house for Allayah to play with when she comes over. She does have her own jeep and a bedroom set but none of these were even near $15 which is a drop in the hat when it comes to the townhouse or camper.

Now you can understand how hard it is to come home from work and sit on my own computer just for fun. After 8 hours of chatting with people from all over the United States........the last thing I want to do is type some more............plus there is cleaning, cooking and I still have to finish making some Christmas cards. Don't get me wrong...........I really enjoy being a personal shopper...........especially if I can help them find something they are looking for. It's just that I'm not used to working full time and especially not during the holidays when I want to be decorating my house, making gifts and cards and of course baking cookies. Thank goodness it is only temporary so soon I will be home again full time and I won't have to worry about driving to work in a blizzard. Yes we had a blizzard here in Wisconsin last week........almost 12 inches and then came the bone chilling cold ......................... temps below zero and wind chills at -20.BRRRR!!! They are now talking 3 to 5 inches of snow tomorrow. Good thing I have off tomorrow since I worked today.

I do miss blogging and I miss spending time in my scraproom (the messiest place in the house at the moment) but it is nice to earn some extra spending money for Christmas gifts. I'll be back again soon!

Thanksgiving fun

2009-12-02T19:35:00.010-06:00

I can't believe I haven't been on my blog for such a long time and I can give you the excuse of the new job and Thanksgiving but.................there really isn't any excuse to miss my friends online.

Thanksgiving was great! My youngest son Travis came up with his son Alex and he also brought along Allayah. His girlfriend Jamie came up later that night too. My dining room table looked really nice with all the matching napkins and placemats,a gift from my friend Betsy (thanks again!). I even made little nametags for everyone so they would know where they sat. It was fun using some of my border punches and just getting my creative juices flowing. The turkey was great and if you've never used an oven bag for your turkey you don't know what you are missing. So easy and so very moist.

We had our 2 oldest grandkids for 3 days. They played so well together we didn't even realize we had kids in the house. They spent hours in my scraproom just being creative (they LOVED the cuttlebug), they played at the park and of course we swam for hours. Friday night we all went bowling and wouldn't you know I forgot my new camera (normally I carry one in my purse at all times). But I did get some cute pictures of the kids swimming so I will share them with you.

I took everyone to Lands End on Friday since the company store was open and they all found some really good deals. Plus they got to be the first people to ride in our new car. We went to Sears on black Friday but otherwise avoided the stores. We had too many other fun family things to do and I can shop anytime right? Actually my job is being a personal shoppper online for Sears so that's all I do every day when I work.

Well I'm off to find my scraproom again so I can make some Christmas cards.......yes I know I should have them done a LONG time ago but this has been one very strange year. Do you have all your Christmas cards done??

Busy week-end

2009-11-17T06:02:00.002-06:00

First I have to say that my blogging has been so slow due to working full time at Lands End. I am assuming that after this week my hours will not be full time and then life might return to as I know it. I've forgotten how hard it is to work full time and keep up with household stuff. Forget the scrapping and this is something I truly miss especially when I should be busy making Christmas cards. The job is interesting as I am a personal shopper for Sears.com. So if you happen to be online at Sears or Kmart and click that button that says "chat now" you could possibly be talking to me! It is an awesome service offered by Sears where they will help you find or buy just about anything online or even locate the nearest store to you that has it available. Getting paid to shop................doesn't get better then this!

My husband and I did go to see that new movie out 2012 and I will give it a thumbs up! It was 2 1/2 hours long but it was a movie that had brilliant effects and the suspense kept you sitting on the edge of the seat most of the time. Definitely worth seeing on a "big" screen. I just saw on the news that there are people who actually believe the Mayan calendar and are preparing for the end of the world. Makes you wonder....

Later this week I will blog about our car shopping trip that we did on Saturday and yes we actually did buy our first BRAND NEW car...........more to come in just a few day.

Happy Birthday to me............

2009-11-03T18:41:00.002-06:00

Well today is day 2 at my new job at Lands End where I am going to be a personal shopper for Sears. Sounds like a perfect job for me............helping someone shop online and spend their money! And you know me I'm a GREAT shopper!

It also is my birthday..........not a day I am particularly fond of but today was special. First of all I woke up to so many nice messages on Facebook and Fiskars and emails from friends. At work they have a birthday board so my class found out and sang happy birthday to me. I got cards in the mail from 2 of my brothers and of course my mom and in-laws. My darling husband had a gorgeous card waiting for me when I got home and then took me to Apple bee's........and you can guess what happened there when the whole working crew started singing Happy Birthday too.

While eating I got a phone call from my son Todd and another one just now from my son Travis. Just a few minutes ago my grandson Alex (he's 8) called and wished me a great day (sure Jamie dialed her cell for him but it still was so very special)! Funny thing is why we were eating..........I told Kevin how special it would be if Alex or Allayah called......and 30 minutes later that wish came true when Alex called.

Nuthing makes a birthday better then family or friends! Now I'm off to relax in front of the fireplace with my hubby and watch some tv.

Happy Halloween...............

2009-10-30T14:05:00.002-05:00

Happy Halloween and we have a winner for the Halloween goodies RAK. It is Laura...........please send me an email with your address and I will get it in the mail.

I have been busy raking leaves and covering all my gardens with them for the winter. Today it is actually 60 degrees but very windy and tomorrow the high will only be 45...........which is kinda sad for all the kids going trick or treating. Last year we had Allayah here for the 1st time for Halloween and it was so nice she actually didn't need a jacket until later in the evening. Not sure what she is going to be this year but I know I sent her a cute little costume that was a long velvet dress complete with a muff for her hands...........this year it would be very appropriate.

We have to bowl tomorrow nite in couples league and then are heading to a bonfire so that will be our entertainment. How about you............any plans for Halloween?

Arizona was GREAT!!

2009-10-24T09:37:00.011-05:00

You just can't have a bad time in Arizona..............weather is always the same..........sunny and warm......and even tho one day it was 102, it never felt like it since it is a dry heat. You don't even sweat there.....well at least I don't.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon and was surprised to see BOTH of my brothers picking us up at the airport so we all had a nice visit on the drive home (1 1/2 hours). Went out to eat in the evening and they served Spumoni (Italian ice cream cake) for desert. Here's a picture of Kevin having his and it also has a candle on it!

Sunday after church we headed to Riverside casino for their champagne brunch. It wasn't as impressive as I remembered...............not like the seafood buffets we normally hit on Fridays. We watched the Packers play in the Losers Lounge since they weren't on regular tv this week. After that we headed back to my moms and sat in the hot tub and did some more visiting. This picture is of my 2 older brothers, my mom & I out on her deck in back.

Monday was golf day..............first time I played in over 7 years. It really wasn't as bad as I remembered. I only lost 5 balls............one to the water, 2 to the bushes, 1 across the street and the last ended up on someone's patio (hoping it didn't hit or break anything). This was an unusual course as it was surrounded by condo's so lots of windows just begging to be hit especially from someone like me who doesn't hit it straight and far yet! What a great way to spend 4 1/2 hours ..............getting some sun, exercise and enjoying some wonderful scenery. Here's a picture of my mom, Bob & Kevin just before we went out to play. The 3 of them just LOVE golfing................mom & Bob play almost daily. I think they are hoping that I will get that bug too.

Palm trees, mountains, cactus plants...........and look at how close the houses were. I finally got in a picture too......not a great hair day when wearing a sun visor!

Just had to get a picture of this sign since the comedian playing at the Riverside Casino was Kevin Johnson (same name as my husband). We didn't go see him but the 4 of us did go see Couples Retreat which was a very funny movie.

Now we are back in Wisconsin with temps in the 30's & 40's and lots of rain. I even put our electric blanket back on the bed Thursday night as it was so cold even with flannel sheets. Where is our Indian Summer?

BOOO -- I'm back with a RAK!

2009-10-22T22:07:00.003-05:00

Just got home tonite from a wonderful vacation with warm weather and wonderful family time. Unfortunately came home to chilly rainy weather with maybe even some snow on the way.

So before I go to bed ...........I wanted to offer a Halloween RAK..............all you need to do is leave an easy favorite recipe that you enjoy making...........maybe something for the slow cooker, a desert or hot dish. I know from the past that coming back from vacation means catching up on lots of stuff including laundry etc so you could make my life easier with your recipes. I will draw a name next week-end and this is what you can win. Lots of nice spooky goodies including a set of Fiskars trick or treat clear stamps!

Will tell you more about my trip tomorrow!

Gonna Leave this snow & head out west

2009-10-15T12:13:00.007-05:00

Here it is 36 and snowing outside............as pretty as it looks......I sure am glad that I'm am packing to head to sunny Arizona where temps are in the 90's! This fall has just been too wierd and so was summer! Anyhow tomorrow we will be spending the night at my brother Andy's place in Madison and he will drive us to airport there early Saturday morning. We arrive in Las Vegas at 1:22 and my oldest brother Norm will be picking us up and driving us 1 1/2 hours to my mom's place in BullHead City. We will be celebrating Kevin's and Norm's birthday that evening at an Italian resteraunt and my brother Robert from Milwaukee will actually be there too. How exciting for my mom to have 3 of her children together at the same time! I will have seen 3 out of 4 brothers within 24 hours and I spent an hour on the phone last night with the 4th brother Tony in Texas. Gotta love family time!

So while cleaning up my scraproom I got sidetracked and started organizing things. I received this neat bag from Fiskars with some garden tools so I decided to use it for all my adhesives. It is large enuf even to fit my ATG gun (a tool that I love).

Then I had this neat bag that I got in a RAK from Karen (Ladydoc) so I decided to put all my inks organized in there. It too was large enuf for lots of ink pads and stamp cleaners too!

Now I have an empty drawer so course gotta fill that....... so I organized a bunch of my squeeze punches in there. It fit 18 punches and some corner punches too. I like the way they sit nice on top of each other and now I can see which design I have 2 sizes of or 3 ( I actually only have the circle set in all 3 sizes but some of the scalloped ones only came in 2 sizes so they are complete too). The other 16 fit into this nice box and are very handy. The orange ones are the seasonal (Halloween) ones so aren't used year round. The drawer above this one holds all my border punches nicely! Don't ya just love being organized?

Last but not least I organized all my stickles and smooch into this nice little round basket. I put a piece of styrofoam in the bottom so they could all stand upside down in there and actually stay put.

By this time all my laundry was done so I carried it up to our bedroom and started putting it away. While doing that I thought hmmm I should pack socks etc for my husband and next thing I know I was cleaning out his sock drawer, sorting, matching and taking out all the ones that were wearing out. I did get his socks packed but it just shows you how sidetracked I can get from one chore to the next. Does anyone else have this problem LOL??????

Well not sure what free time I will have while on vacation so you might not see another blog until I get back. I'll try to bring back some sunshine!

crafting while it snows!

2009-10-12T14:28:00.008-05:00

Yup it has been snowing all day...........little white flakes that could add up to be 1 to 3 inches. Doesn't seem quite right for October 12th does it? Course it will all be gone tomorrow but still made a nice day to say inside and be crafty!

I spent hours making a birthday card for my granddaughter Allayah who will turn 8 on the 24th. Knowing we wouldn't be seeing or talking to her this month I wanted it to be extra special. The felt frame on the front blends so perfect with the picture I took of her in our gardens back in August. I love the beading in the flowers and even the cake and present are made of felt.

On the top half of the inside I filled it with butterfly kisses and each butterfly is prettier then the next. On the bottom half I used my Cuttlebug folder and in the middle of it used a happy birthday rub on. I used my glitter pens to make this look special plus I remember how much Allayah liked using them and I think she will recognize it too! I enjoy making special cards for special people and hope they will be treasured for many years.

I also made my brother a birthday card and what was unique about it is that I used samples from a wallpaper book. I like the crackled aged look to this lighthouse envelope. I used the coordinating paper to make the card and on the inside I found a sweet picture of a girl on a beach which is so appropriate since I am his only sister. So next time you are near a paint store stop and see if they have any "old" sample books...........the best part is they are FREE and now you have another ideal of what to do with them. I have also used them to make frames which is fun.

As much fun as I had crafting today..........it is almost 3pm so I better get something constructive done around the house too! Thank goodness I made a nice turkey yesterday and fresh apple crisp so I don't think Kevin will mind leftovers tonite especially since he has to rush out to bowl.

I'll try to post again this week before we head out to warmer weather this week-end!

48 pages in 8 days!

2009-10-09T16:46:00.006-05:00

8 days ago I booked a trip for my husband Kevin & I to go out to Arizona by my mom. It is Kevin's last week of vacation for the year and he normally needs some time to regroup before the hustle and bustle of the holidays start..........at his job that is! Right now he has been working some 12 hour days and comes home just beat so we leave next Saturday on his birthday and will spend 6 days where it is nice and warm.

Kevin shares his birthday with my oldest brother Norm so my mom is planning a little get together that night at a local Italian restaurant for us all to celebrate. When my brother was here visiting earlier this summer he left his 2 photo albums with me and said it would be nice if I would make him a scrapbook like I did for our other brother Andy. I sorted through some of the photos but that was as far as I got since my gardens keep me pretty busy during the summer and of course there was also just the big warehouse sale.

Needless to say, the same day I got our flights booked, I started Norm's album and I have been working on it non stop (well at least the days that I wasn't fighting some dental problems). I found this neat album in blue jean material and it even has a pocket on the front. I spelled out his name in brads........kewl huh?

I think the hardest part doing 48 pages was finding paper to match......especially stuff that wasn't "girlish" with flowers etc. Also working with pictures that were 40 to 50 years old..........lot of them in black and white. I won't bore you with many pictures but here are a few. This page was of his 8th grade graduation and I used Hannah's Story line.

I loved finding pictures of both of our grandma's and we had a special name for them too. Grandma Close just lived a few blocks away in Milwaukee whereas Grandma Faraway lived all the way across the city LOL! Here was the one chance for me to use some prima flowers.

I did a page on each of my brothers and spelled their names out in foil trimmed Cloud 9 letters. Simple but sweet. I also did one of both my folks. I am going to bring along a pen in case he would like me to add some journaling but there sure are allot of pictures and memories in this 48 page album I made him. I know it will be something for him to treasure no matter where he moves to or ends up in life. I just wouldn't recommend trying to do it in 8 days!

Computer problems???

2009-10-05T19:55:00.002-05:00

I love computers..........when they are working..........when they are not .......... it's a headache! I was smart enuf this time when we bought our Gateway to take out the protection plan so I gave them a call last week to tell them I was having problems with my wireless mouse. I put batteries in and within a few hours it was telling me I needed new batteries.........hmmm something not quite right with that huh?

So while discussing this with the tech guy, I mentioned that the computer froze allot & I couldn't do ctrl, alt, delete to reboot it either. So it was decided that they would need to take my computer back to how it first came to me.........in other words erasing the hard drive. When I heard that I got scared knowing how many pictures etc I have that I would not want to lose. So it was off to Staples to buy an external hard drive. I was lucky enough to have a clerk who knew the pro's and con's of each type and I walked away buying one that I feel will meet my needs.

It wasn't hard to hook up and only took 30 minutes to backup all my stuff then came the hard part of getting on the phone with the tech guy again and re-doing the hard drive. I spent most of yesterday afternoon & evening re-installing programs and of course my anti virus protection. Today I am trying to find some things that don't seem to be there and the one thing I really miss that I didn't think of copying was my favorite's list. Every morning I would get up and there were a number of sites I checked out daily for deals etc and now I don't have their websites and it will take time for me to remember who they were too LOL! I also have some different things on my screen that weren't there before. Why oh why do they not give you manuals with computers? I love reading, high lighting and taking notes rather then going online and trying to find what I'm looking for in an online manual.

The good news is I haven't had any problems in the past 24 hours besides my computer going to sleep and me not knowing how to wake it up?? But I will learn again and soon things will be back to normal.

I hope in my next blog I will have some pictures of the scrapbook that I am making for my oldest brother Norm's birthday which is in less then 2 weeks.

Back to watching the Packers play the Vikings..........GO PACK GO!!!

Fall is here

2009-10-02T07:52:00.002-05:00

It has been a busy week packing and shipping out boxes of Fiskar goodies to my friends which is why I haven't been on the computer much. Plus the weather has changed and we had one night with a frost and the next night with a freeze. Some of my flowers survived but most took a big hit between that and the HIGH winds we had one day. The wind tore the rest of my canopy on my swing right off (earlier storm started it) and also pulled out my gorgeous butterfly screen that I had in my garden so you can imagine how strong those winds were. All the really tall spider plants were also destroyed. But you know we had a nice September with temps in the 70's and it couldn't last forever.

The temps now are only in the 50's and we are finally getting the rain that I have been waiting patiently for weeks. It is in the forecast for most of the next week so it will be a good time to be doing some inside stuff this week. Luckily we have all that wood stacked and stored as we do have our wood stove going right now!

My favorite part of fall is waiting for the leaves to change. I love taking a long drive just to see all the gorgeous colors at this time of the year. Normally we do it this week-end when we take a drive to Eagle River for their annual Cranberry Fest but if it's going to rain and be in the low 50's I think I can skip this fun craft show this year.

Have a great week-end all and enjoy the beginning of fall!

The warehouse sale

2009-09-25T16:15:00.011-05:00

ok so I don't know the secret to adding lots of pictures to this blog and moving them to where I want them so I started a new post about the sale. If anyone does have a secret to this and wants to share it with me............that would be awesome! This is the picture of all the boxes on my dining room table just after we got home.

So this is a big warehouse with aisles of pallets and boxes and basically you just go up and down picking up what you want and putting it in empty boxes on your cart. If you were not lucky enuf to get a cart you have to push the boxes along the cement floors. As you can see I have my cart kinda full.

Then you stand in a very LONG line that snakes up and down the aisles until you get to the checkout. Good thing is you can shop the aisles as you walk up and down them............bad thing is that somehow the lines got mixed up and were merging together.............the lucky ones got through allot faster then us. They didn't realize this problem until we had been in line for TWO hours. So there were some crabby shoppers and people cutting in line...........that part I could do without.

We didn't get home until almost 4pm (thank goodness Jen ran out and brought back McDonalds for all of us).........did I say Thank you JEN!!!!

These pictures are after it is all separated by the line like Kimberely Polosum, Ink by Steph, Cloud 9 etc. Lots of cute scissors, stencils, some albums, trimmers too.

Now comes the fun part of deciding what to keep, who I bought for, where am I sending it etc.

The day after

2009-09-25T15:25:00.009-05:00

The last few days seemed to fly right by. My Fiskateer friends arrived Wednesday around 5 and after a quick tour of my home & the gardens the pizza had arrived and so had Ashani (another gal from Illinois) and Jen. We ate & chatted and got right down to some crafty business.

Kimberlee was the speedy one of our bunch so no she's not bored.....maybe a little tired after a long day of driving and touring the Fiskars headquarters in Madison.....she is just waiting patiently for the bracelets to dry and us to finish up.

Merlene brought some wooden bracelets along so we painted them green & orange (Fiskar colors) and then embellished them with bling, buttons, etc.

Ashani brought along a make n take earring project since she makes and designs jewelry. She had cute orange & green beads and the little scissors we cut out of that shrinky dink plastic & then shrunk in my toaster oven. They turned out so cute & original too!

In between these two projects we tye dyed t-shirts (my very 1st time). It was a little messy but actually kinda fun and they each turned out so different. Betsy then used her Cricut to cut out our names, Fiskateer numbers & a pair of scissors for the back of the shirt (we stenciled that on with paint). Between all these projects and just gabbing away it was after midnite before we went to bed.

We all got up with Kevin around 5am so that we could leave for the warehouse sale by 6:30am.

It didn't start until 9 but there were already 8 to 10 people there in front of us. The reason we go early to these sales is not only to get the special item that is limited (like Fiskar tree branch trimmers for $20....normally $70) but also cuz they only have so many carts available to use and the way I shop I need a big cart! Yes they do sell garden tools along with the crafty stuff and scissors galore! Here's a picture of us all decked out in our crafty projects waiting a the warehouse for it to open.

Tomorrow or later tonite I will post again with pictures of the sale & all my goodies I got!

Company Coming

2009-09-21T07:17:00.007-05:00

Thursday is the BIG warehouse sale at Fiskars in Wausau. On Wednesday some out of state Fiskateers will be arriving at my house to spend the night so that we can go bright and early in the morning to the sale. A pool/pizza party is planned for that night and some local gals might pop in. Plans are in the making for doing some tye dyed shirts to wear to the sale and some beading. Of course majority of the time will be chatting since most of these women I have only met online. Isn't it great that the internet can connect people from all over the world just by their interest or passion of crafting?

Course with 6 overnight guests..........guess what I have been doing for the past week or so? You guessed it CLEANING! I also wanted to be able to show off my gorgeous gardens that are still in full bloom since our temps are still in the 70's. How bizarre is that for middle of September? We have lacked rain for the past 3 weeks so watering is must and does take a few hours to do all my gardens and the lawn. We do have an inground sprinkler system but it only covers so much.

My hibiscus (red) finally opened up last week since it is only 1 year old. I forgot how huge the flowers were! Also my butterfly bush which I cut down to the ground in the spring is now over 6 feet tall............flowering and attracting butterflies! I did find a plant that I don't remember planting and I believe it is a chinese lantern plant..........here is a picture of one of the orange

lanterns.

By the way thanks for all the names that you came up with............winner drawn was Maxine...Congrats Maxine! I will get that out to you soon. Well back to cleaning!

Wanna Win a PRIZE?

2009-09-16T06:40:00.002-05:00

Okie Dokie I have a neat contest for this week and all it takes is some imagination.

A friend is hoping to open a Pawn Shop soon and asked me to think of some unique names but seeing as I've only been to a few out in Arizona I thought I would ask for your help. Just leave a comment with your suggestion of a name and you can enter as often as you think of a name.

I will draw a random winner on Sunday and the prize will be a Fiskars 45mm rotary cutter from their coastal collection. Great for you sewers but also works on paper, vinyl and cardboard for those scrappers like me who don't sew much.

Good luck and can't wait to hear your names! If you have any good pawn shop stories to share please do!

GiddyUp Little Horsie

2009-09-13T11:41:00.014-05:00

Yesterday we went with a group of friends horseback riding to a place that just opened up the week-end before called K R Stables. Talk about a cute place.............it was picture perfect (must have been if I printed 85 pictures at Walgreens already). It's probably been 15 years since I rode a horse and this was Kevin's 1st time! That must explain why I'm a little sore and stiff today especially in the legs.

The owners Kurt & Kay Ross just opened their dream last week-end. Here is a picture of them in front of their guest house cabin. Inside was so cute including 2 beds and a loft bed over them, mini kitchen, wood stove etc. It would be my "dream cabin" if it only was on a body of water so I could fish. It paid to keep my eyes open as different animals were showing up all over the place. I saw a llama, sheep, donkey,pony, kittens and of course lots of horses.

It was a perfect fall day even tho the temps were almost 80 by the time we got back at noon. You sure can tell how pretty the leaves are when you look at the chicken coop. I'm not too fond of outhouses but this one with curtains on the window and candles and potpourri burning inside was really nice.

Here is a picture of just Kevin & I after our ride and then a group shot of some us. I must not have gotten the memo about wearing cowboy hats & boots. Kevin actually traded in his golf hat for a straw hat borrowed from Chris.

Kurt (the owner) had the wagon hooked up to his big beautiful Clydesdale's "Bill" and "Bob"! What a great picture they made especially with the 3 "cowboys" driving. Notice how the leaves are just starting to turn too.

Here's a picture of Kevin on his horse and the owner Kay is holding the reigns. They own quite a few acres so it was fun following the trails thru all their woods and the scenery and weather could not have been more perfect.

I can definitely see scrapping this adventure. It sure was a fun time and it was only $20 for a trail ride that was a little over an hour long. Could really see doing this in the early evening and coming back and roasting marshmallows on the campfire.............couldn't you?

9/11

2009-09-11T14:57:00.005-05:00

Some days stick in your mind forever and this is one of them. I can remember where I was and how I found out and thankfully I did not lose anyone I knew that day. My heart goes out to all those who did and I'm glad we all take time to remember this day every year.

I seem like I have been very busy this past week just trying to catch up from the Labor Day week-end. My brother Andy and his fiancee Genne came up on Friday and stayed until Tuesday. The guys did allot of fishing and we women did allot of shopping. When home together we played croquet, yahtzee and grilled out. We also watched some good movies on our new tv. All in all we had a really nice visit and it was very relaxing. Speaking of our tv...........here is a before picture of our BIG projection tv that took up allot of room and here is another of our new tv hanging on the wall. Quite the difference...........and boy do we love the clear picture, the awesome color and high definition with surround sound. It is an anniversary gift that we will

enjoy every day for the next ten years!

Course after company goes home then it is back to the real world. Cleaning, laundry, paying bills, yardwork and now I hope to find some time to do some scrapbooking. I actually have been keeping track of my scrapping and so far this year I have made 107 cards, 85 layouts and 19 projects or mini books. June was my most productive month and April was my worst. I've never kept track before so this will be nice to see how each year progresses.

Our 10 year anniversary

2009-09-02T06:40:00.013-05:00

I wanted to make something special for this day and I found this neat 6 1/2" board book with 16 pages and windows. Wasn't sure how easy it would be to work with all those windows but actually found it quite fun! The first thing I did was distress the whole book with some chocolate brown ink and then I picked out the coordinating paper (Black Market Paper Society), ribbons, brads and embellishments. It is all done in teal, brown and a hint of green.

The ribbon I used on the front was a perfect match and wider then I normally use. The flowers were velvety soft and I used flower brads for the centers. The word Love I made with Thickers. This is the first window which centers on the picture from the next page. Neat huh?

This is the back of the cover and you can see the blank window too. I continued that gorgeous ribbon around to the back of the book and added jeweled brads to the center of the prima flowers. Then a few rub-ons to finish it off.

This is the page that you see through the window of the cover. I used thickers for the words and added a small jewel to the center of the wooden embellishment. This picture was taken shortly after we first met................ahh to be so young and lovely again LOL! Yes I was wearing contacts too!

Wedding pictures............we all love them and I love the paper that I used to display them. The picture on the left is Kevin & I on the riverboat waiting for the ceremony to start. My parents are sitting behind us. I added corner embellishments to the picture and a family rub on. On the other side is a picture of me the next day in one of those dress up studios. I use thickers for the numbers and punched out hearts with my Fiskars squeeze punch.

Here's a couple of pages of wedding pictures. Don't ya just love the wedding cake brad in the center of the flower? The flowers and leaves on the bottom are actually soft like velvet and I used a small brown heart brad for the center. These were all taken out in Arizona.

This has to be one of the best pages in this book. I took this picture of us at my son Todd's wedding and put teal mesh behind it and used a fabric tag on the bottom. The other page has a neat rub on and I used thickers for the numbers. 2 great events..........a wedding and Disneyland!

Ok here is another page with a picture window. I added some ribbon and rub-on's and it was done. The other side is one of my favorite pics of my dh at a craft show (Yes he does have a crafty side to him too). Added that neat arrow, ribbon & a rub on to finish it.

These next 2 pages are of our trip to Reno. I did use the 2 mini windows and then used brown & white Prima flowers and then glitter brads. I'm glad I distressed the book as I really like the way this window page turned out. Only thing special about this next page is ribbon and rub-ons.

On the final page I used a wooden flourish embellishment and added a mini flower to the center of it. On the other page I criss crossed ribbon behind the picture, then added some mini Prima flowers on the corners with a mini brad in the center of it. I liked this effect.

On the back cover I used my new Cuttlebug folder and in the frame I put our years together. I just love that folder...........love the swirls and love the versatility of it. But more then that I love my wonderful husband and can't wait for another 10 years with him! I love you Kevin!

hand made flowers RAK----Winner

2009-09-01T13:24:00.002-05:00

Well I guess my flowers weren't a big hit as I only got a few cards for our 10th anniversary tomorrow. By the way they were all very lovely and special to me. Winner drawn was Lorraine...congratulations and I will get them out very soon.

Watch tomorrow and I will post pictures of the mini book I made my husband! It is really nice!

A fun visit with our granddaughter

2009-08-31T15:37:00.013-05:00

Yes, we had Allayah for 3 days last week and had a marvelous time! It's amazing how much she has grown this year. Grandpa had to take off her training wheels so she could ride her bike and she was great on 2 wheels!

Speaking of Grandpa........Allayah was so happy to see him when he came home from work she jumped right into his arms to give him a hug. While we were grilling out she had to play a little golf with grandpa too.............she's getting better everytime she comes up. She even decided to wear a golf glove and here she is carrying her clubs!

Allayah still loves to play with the Barbie dolls & her baby dolls. We have so much Barbie stuff and she sets it all up in the rec room and plays so nice. She has 2 baby dolls that look like they are about 3 months old & we took them to the park and played with them on the swings. Someday (a very long time from now) she will make such a good mommy!

We got to do allot of swimming and her new swimming suit barely fit! She is one girl who could and does spend hours in the pool diving for toys or playing volleyball or games with me. That is a good thing too since the 1st day she was here it was raining.

We had to do some crafting of course so I taught her how to use my Cuttlebug and she not only made a birthday card for her cousin Alex but she made a bookmark and some images to take home and color. She loved using my new "toy" and also my glitter pens. Had to send a few home with her so she would have some to color with at home.

Our 3 days went fast and we had so much fun. My only regret is I never got one picture of her and I together but I did get a bunch of her to scrap. I also made a collage at Walgreens of some of the fun things she did here, framed it and sent it home with her. She loved her Hannah Montana backpack I got her for school and this has to be the first time that she loved all the clothes I got her and took them back so she could wear them to school. We can't wait until she comes up again!

Where have I been?

2009-08-28T16:14:00.003-05:00

Sorry about the delay in blogging...............don't think I have ever gone that long without blogging but it has been an eventful week.

Right now I am involved in a Fiskars online crop...............challenges, questions and just plain fun. This group has meant allot to me and has become an extended family. Not only do we share our love of scrapbooking, crafts and gardens but we are there for each other when we just need someone to listen or care or even get advice from.

Speaking of Fiskars they are planning another warehouse sale next month...........that means more shopping and more bargains! I can't wait! I'm even hosting a get together on the night before it starts since there is a group of Fiskateers coming down this way from Illinois and spending the night at my place. We are going to have a pizza/pool party, do some crafty stuff and just spend time getting to know each other in person since most of us have only met online. It should be a ton of fun!

Today is a special day too as my grandson Alex turns 8.............sometimes I just wonder where did that time go? Here is a picture of him and his cousin Allayah from yesterday when we stopped over with birthday presents. Aren't they the cutest? While I was visiting with my son Travis they both drew and colored pictures for me to take home and hang up on my fridge. That was the end to a perfect day.

moving stamps to a binder

2009-08-18T09:17:00.008-05:00

I will be the first to admit that I do own a FEW stamps both wooden and acrylic. The wooden stamps are displayed on 2 long shelves and also stamped in a book so I know what I have. The unmounted ones were all in CD cases in a CD stand...........they looked nice and it worked but I was always searching thru them to find the ones that I wanted to use.

So I meet this new friend Lori and she sells stamps from The Angel Company and while looking through their catalogue I see that they sell plastic storage sheets for the stamps. You get 3 sheets in a package for $4 and of course you can use both sides of the sheet. You can fit allot of stamps on a page and then when you are done.............you ink them all up and press a sheet of paper against it so that you have a stamped image sheet next to your stamps. Some of the clear stamps are very hard to tell what they are until they are stamped (as you can tell by the first couple of pictures). It took me 3 sets to do all my stamps and each set is in a binder so I have 3 binders full.

I think not only is the right way for me to store them but I will be using my stamps more since they are easy to access and easy to find! I actually did even find some stamps that I won't use so will be sharing those with someone soon.

My 1st acrylic album

2009-08-16T12:57:00.011-05:00

I think I bought this little album over a year ago but put it away cuz I never felt quite comfortable doing something new like this. Always waiting to take a class so I could learn to do it the "right " way. Well I finally got that urge and took the plunge and I like it! The back of this album has a quote that says "when You are not by my side you are in my heart.......I miss you!

I found some gorgeous 2 sided paper from the Black Market Paper Society and searched thru all my ribbons and embellishments finding things that matched. I actually made another small mini album for my husband for our 10th wedding anniversary which comes up in a few weeks so you can't see that one yet.

I love the way the teal and brown work together and even the green. The tag shape was actually easy to use and cut out the paper and pictures to match. The size was 5 x 3 so it will fit nicely inside my purse. I used the Zip glue but though it says dry clears..........I can still see it so when necessary put embellishments and pictures over spots I wanted to hide.

So for a first attempt (no instructions included) I am really very pleased with the way this turned out and will try another one very soon.

Stop & smell the flowers

2009-08-11T13:22:00.007-05:00

Endless summer hydrangea..............blue, purple or pink...........gorgeous huh? And they will bloom all summer!

This morning Kevin & I went to IHOP for breakfast and then came home to do some yard work before the heat set in. He is on vacation this week though we have no big plans at all. He mowed the lawn and I pulled a few weeds and did some dead heading of my flowers. It seems like everything is in bloom and so many pretty flowers out there that I thought I would share some pictures since he went off golfing for the afternoon. If you can remember earlier this spring we put in some new flower beds to finish off our landscaping project and they looked pretty sparce back then but take a look now!!!

And this is near the pond and waterfall tho it is quite hard to even see the stream anymore!

Flowers seem to bring out the peace in me and I love the way they attract birds and butterflies and especially all the hummingbirds right now. The beauty just goes on and on and the fragrances back there........well I wish I could just bottle it!

I Love my green thumb and love sharing the beauty with all of you.

house warming gifts

2009-08-06T12:38:00.008-05:00

We are going to a house warming party out of town this week-end and since I have not seen the house it really got my mind working as to what could I give my friend Shirlee?

I made a cd case mini album so that she could just add pictures from her party. I used the paper line Max's Backyard.........the embellishments were so pretty and the paper is foiled and glittered. Here's the front and the back of the case. Some were rub on's and the other stickers. It actually is a pretty easy project to do & we all have cd cases laying around after we end up putting the cd's in a player or case etc. All you need to do is take out the inserts and then make an accordion style insert for pictures and journaling.

Here's a couple pictures of the inside. It actually will hold a dozen pictures. I'm not sure if you can see how pretty the paper is but it looks awesome without even pictures in there.

I also made this altered clipboard. Not sure if the color scheme will fit in but it is pretty and most of us women like to keep lists.........whether it be for shopping or things to do.....so I added the friendship theme to it by using some rub ons. I attached a pretty pen with a ribbon and then added more ribbons to the top of the clip. I made some pretty paper with my border punch and then just put some plain white ruled paper behind it. It turned out so nice that I need to make myself one soon!

The best part is both of these gifts are handmade and I know she will treasure them just because they are from me and made with love.

hand made flowers RAK

2009-08-04T14:46:00.003-05:00

This next RAK will be for an envelope full of flowers............right now there 17 crocheted flowers of various sizes and colors that I made. To win these you have to send a card before our 10th wedding anniversary on September 2nd. For evey card you send you get your name put in a hat & I will draw out a name on our anniversary. You can also get your name put in again if you become a follower of my blog or send someone over to visit and they mention your name. If I get more then 15 cards in the mail the envelope will continue to grow or if I get 15 more followers!

I will continue to update with the progress and take new pictures if more flowers get added.

Guess some of you will need an address huh?

Louise Johnson

1008 Sunset Blvd

Stevens Point, WI 54481

A pretty neat treehouse

2009-07-31T14:22:00.009-05:00

Last time I was in Watertown I stopped by my youngest son Travis' s house and got to spend a little time with my grandson Alex. He was so proud of the tree house his dad had made him and was eager to show it to us.............he even has all the colors picked out that he wants to paint it.

As you can see it has a shingled roof, windows and a door. When you go inside there is a bench attached to the wall he can sit or sleep on or fold it up for more room. I took a few pictures so his great grandmother in Arizona could see it too. Can't wait to see it when it is all painted. A great family project!

He also wanted his dog to be in on some pictures.

Hard to believe Alex will be 8 in August.....that time has surely flown and look how big he is getting! He is also smart as a whip (think he gets that from me LOL) and likes to draw pictures. He sent me home with a couple that I proudly have hanging on my refrigerator.

Hope everyone has a good week-end! I just finished mowing the lawn and need a break!

Fiskars 360th birthday

2009-07-28T20:16:00.006-05:00

Hard to believe any company can be that old huh? Yesterday they had a HUGE birthday party at the happiest place on earth.........DisneyWorld in Orlando. Wish I could have been there as it looked like everyone had an awesome time. Instead Fiskars had a 2 day online crop for all of us that couldn't be there so I spent ALL day scrapping yesterday and actually completed all the challenges. Today hasn't been as productive but thought I would show you a few of the layouts that I did yesterday and today.

This was a layout that I scraplifted from someone else..........meaning they made one very similar that I liked so I copied it. I made the flowers with one of my punches in 2 different colors and just put a blue brad in the center of it. Embellishments can be made easily with things we have on hand in our scrap supplies. Fun to see my grandchildren playing with the Fisher Price toys that my sons played with when they were that age too.

This layout of my grandson Alex was to use different pieces of pattern papers and nuthing bigger then 8 inches. I love the scalloped hearts that I made with my Fiskar punches. The stamped saying on the bottom "You have a very special place in my heart" is also one of my favorite stamps to use.

Sometimes it takes a day like this when you actually pull out old pictures and scrap them......like this layout from an outdoor concert Kevin & I went to. Rockfest was back in 1999 and I got some good pictures of Ted Nugent.............ooh those were the days!

This paper and the transparencies that I used had to be some of the prettiest stuff that Fiskars ever made! The challenge was to use a key in the layout and I love the way it turned out!

In 6 weeks it will be

2009-07-22T13:35:00.005-05:00

Our 10 year anniversary! Where has that time gone? Seems like just a few years ago we were hopping on a plane and flying out to Laughlin, Nevada to get married on a riverboat at twilite. It was so romantic and I am glad that I have a video tape of it as it went so fast. September 2, 1999.

Trying to keep my mind occupied today I made this 2 page layout for the upcoming event. I cut allot of different strips of papers for both these pages as I wanted everything to stand out. I used glitter chipboard in green & red and then mixed in black too! On the 2nd page I journaled 10 reasons that make our love strong and our life wonderful. Hopefully you can click on the pictures and actually get to read some of them. I had a good time making this today and it brought back some lovely memories. Not sure what our plans are yet for our anniversary but I'm sure we will come up with something special.

Family layouts

2009-07-20T16:08:00.007-05:00

This is a BIG week for me and a scarey one too! Family has been on my mind for the past few weeks and even more so now. I did these 2 layouts and absolutely love how they turned out.

I had 4 sons in a little over 5 years and felt they were so lucky to have each other to play with (and yes fight with sometimes). We lived out in the country on a dairy farm so they not only played together but worked together too. When 1 grew out of his clothes it just went in the next boys closet since they were all just 1 head shorter then the next. They had more mini farm equipment then you could even imagine! I named them all starting with the letter T.....Troy, Tory, Todd and Travis. Lots of fond memories and lots of love during those years but times change and I think their memories of those good ole days are long gone. Scrapping pictures like this bring many smiles and warm fuzzies to my heart!

This 2 page layout I used Scenic Route papers and it is all done in black & white (except for the pictures). Both my grandmothers are up in Heaven now but I was glad to have pictures of them with my sons when they were born. It seemed quite common at the time to have 4 generations in one picture but as time goes on that isn't always that easy. We used to call one Grandma Close and the other Grandma Faraway because when we lived in Milwaukee one was only a few blocks away and the other was way across town. My grandchildren call me Grandma Weze. On Thursday I will be going to court for my grandparent rights and hope to win back time with my granddaughter Allayah. Say a prayer for us! I know I am doing allot of that every day!

A Rusty Pickle kit

2009-07-19T09:13:00.006-05:00

I was lucky enuf to get some kits from various clubs and I've been pulling them out lately. I like that with limited time indoors I can pull out a kit and mostly everything is included except for the pictures! So this kit was for a 2 page Celebration layout. A couple of interesting things were done and one was that I cut a frame into pieces to make the pink corners that framed the pictures. Also liked threading a thin strip thru the tabs on the bottom of the picture frame. Another interesting thing done was making a "belt buckle" out of mini frame and then rounding the paper strip to make it look like the belt winded thru it. None of these were very hard things to do but just made you think out of the box when using ordinary items (like frames) in your layout!

I also made a couple more cards with the new Cuttlebug folders. The green one is using the Harlequin folder and the pink one is using the Moroccan Screen. Just some simple cards that were fast and easy to make but wanted to try them all out. I am accumulating a nice drawer full of cards so now all I need to do is personalize it before I send them out.

Well after 2 very chilly days in Wisconsin........temps at night in the 40's and the high barely being over 60.........today we are supposed to get back in the 70's. Hard to believe it is the middle of July and that Texas (where my brother Tony is) and Arizona (where my mom is) both are having heat waves with temps near 115!

Have a great day all!

A Purse book I made

2009-07-16T17:00:00.006-05:00

I do have a passion for purses and shoes so not sure why I have never made a purse album before but I think it turned out pretty cute! I think the title captured me perfectly as I was born to shop (and boy do I know how to find a bargain LOL).

Here's a few of the pages but haven't decided on pictures yet. I did use some pretty bright paper, ribbons, brads & flowers. I was very surprised to see how sturdy the book was too. I wasn't sure with all the opening and closing how it would hold up. I did make a cardboard copy of the shape and used that to cut all my papers.

As long as we are looking at pretty colors I will end this with a picture of my garden. Thanks for looking!

My new Cuttlebug Folders came............

2009-07-15T16:00:00.009-05:00

YUP I got all 11 of the new ones off of HSN last week and the man in brown dropped them off around 5:30. Now that was kinda funny cuz I'm talking to the UPS driver while his truck is parked in the road and in pulls my husband just home from work. So the 2 UPS guys never seem to see each other at work as they work in different cities and this gave them a chance to catch up on stuff. I obviously didn't get any time to play with them last night but I did this morning and here are a few cards I made with them. The first cards are made with the owl flourish folder. I chalked some of the image and then used a little green smooch to make his eyes pop and the question mark too!

I made this masculine card with the Fleur-di-lis folder. I then stamped & colored the deer head and added it to it. I also ran just the top of the card thru the folder and thought that was a stunning look.

These 2 cards were both made with the Flourished frame folder. The pink one I distressed it abit and then added a flower to the center. The blue one I actually cut the frame out and then stamped Happy Birthday in the middle of it. I also outlined it with a gold glitter pen.

This card was made with the new Victorian folder.

This card was made with the folder called Moroccan Screen.

So that's 5 of the new folders and I still have 6 more to use and show you maybe tomorrow! I can see lots of possibilities with these and I'm sure glad I ordered them last week.

Some fun filled days

2009-07-13T19:45:00.005-05:00

Well the past few days have been very interesting around our house. My youngest son Travis came up with his friend on Thursday night and stayed until Saturday afternoon. They made allot of trips to Iola for the big car show hoping to find some parts for the 1948 Chevy business coupe that he is restoring. He didn't find anything there but did get one phone call yesterday so hoping that might lead to something!

We went out Friday night for a fish fry to Sentry golfcourse and we just had a very nice visit. I wish I would have taken a picture of his truck which was a 1993 lowrider truck. It had air shocks or something like that ............and when you pushed them it could lift the front end of the truck up and the back end down or all kinds of possibilities. Funny thing is while it was sitting in the driveway some kids walked by and were checking it out and were amazed that there were no door handles on it and wondered how did he get in (that would be using a remote control)!

Not sure why I didn't take any pictures while they were here but allot had to do with him not feeling well. He is only 23 but has had 3 back surgeries after a beam was dropped on his back while at work almost 3 years ago. He just recently had the pain pump inserted into his back and has to wear a fanny pack to hold the equipment but it still isn't working to control the pain but we are hoping in time that it might. After walking a few hours at the car show he would come home and have to rest as he was hurting so bad. It is so hard to see your child in pain no matter what age he is and nobody at his age should hurt that bad and have his life so rudely interrupted.

No sooner did they leave on Saturday when some friends called up and asked to come over and swim so we played volleyball in the pool for hours and then entertained them all by letting them try out our new Wii! I wish I could have video taped the guys trying to do the hula hoop.....just hilarious!

On Sunday instead of just laying around the house and catching our breath we took a drive up to Minocqua to see my in-laws who had rented a cabin on Squirrel Lake. It was too windy to fish when we got there so the 4 of us headed to the casino for a few hours and then came back to fish. I played some neat new games there including one called Jaws and somehow got an instant bonus game that paid $100! That was exciting! Course what I won..........Kevin lost so we came out even but had fun doing it.

Today I spent a few hours in one of my gardens and it looks so much better. I did make something for my garden that I thought I would show you. I had 2 old milk cans that my dad gave me many years ago & I recenty gave one to my daughter in law who was looking for one. She sent me this picture to show what she did with hers.

Not sure where she got that wonderful sticker for hers but it was awesome so I thought well I could make something like that with my Cricut. So I worked hard on some letters and flowers but found that they just had a hard time sticking to the rough metal of the can so instead I used the negative leftovers from the words to create a stencil and then I painted mine. I thought the secret garden can would be nice at the entrance to our back gardens since they catch people by surprise as you can't see them from the front. I will have to get a better picture tomorrow in the garden.

A GREAT mail day!

2009-07-11T13:43:00.007-05:00

My mystery box came today from Scrap Attack and it was just awesome. I took some pictures so you could see what all came in it. There wasn't much if anything that I did not like and I really think it was worth the price. There are 3 packages of felt items, 1 pkge of Prima leaves, a box of xyron photo mount tape, Heidi swapp pink gel blossoms, 1 pkge of softie charms and not sure about those last 2 pieces of possibly grunge board?

There was 6 more packages of embellishment stickers etc. I have never seen the Halloween studs one and thought that was pretty unique!

There were 6 packages of different chipboard. I really liked the Maya Road tin ....it was the heart and home collection. So this box was so much better then the Maya Road mystery box and it only took 4 days to get it too! So if you are thinking of it go to.......

http://scrapattackscrapbooking.blogspot.com/2009/07/its-mystery-box-time.html

One picture is ribbons, brads and bling and I luv it all! Then there were 8 packages of rub ons.

So what do you think of my goodies? Plus I got a package today from my secret sister filled with some wonderful things too...............paid to wait for the mailman who was 2 hours late today!

a stunning flower

2009-07-09T16:46:00.005-05:00

Last year my husband picked out a perennial called Globe Centaurea and it didn't do much that year. This summer it grew and it grew (it's probably 3 feet tall now) and then came the buds. Well everyday he would go out there to see if it finally did something and today was the day. As you can see it is TALL and it has something like a brown honeycomb type of bud and then from the center of that comes this yellow flower.

I took a closeup of one that is just starting too. I imagine with all the buds on this that it will be a show stopper in time. I will take a picture when the full thing is in bloom. You just never know with all this cool dry weather we have been having when anything will bloom. Normally my morning glories are open by now but not this year. My clematis are doing very well tho! What I really need to do is a garden journal so I can keep track every year what is where, what the name is and when it will bloom................hmm good intentions but will I get around to it?

A few 2 page layouts that I've recently made

2009-07-08T06:35:00.005-05:00

Since the weather has been nice with temps only in the 70's I've spent most of my time out in the gardens. Happy to say I have all the gardens done on the south side so after my back takes a break I will finish the gardens on the north side. I wanted to show a few of the layouts I have made this past week. Nuthing elaborate.........just ribbon, buttons, brads and tags but I like the mix of papers.

I do have a question for all you scrappers out there.........I bought a 3 ring binder album at Kohls and I love it but I have found that a 12 inch paper just doesn't fit in the plastic sleeves just right so I always have to take some off. It's not much but if I forget about it and add ribbons etc across the page it's a job to remove it and trim the paper. Am I the only one that has this problem or do others have to trim paper to fit the album??

cards I made at the Make n Take

2009-07-05T16:31:00.007-05:00

Not too long ago I went to a scrapbook convention in a nearby town with my friend Jen. We were a little disappointed in the amount of vendors but we did do a few Make N Takes and these are the 3 cards that I made. The first one is just a birthday card that turned out cute. The second one was using a cuttlebug folder that featured what looked like a dandelion to me. I colored it somewhat after I got home and that really help make it pop. The other card used the neatest outdoor paper with a cottage on the lake theme. On that we used a sizzix to cut open the pop out center of the card. It's nice cuz it also has a male theme for all those guy cards you have no clue as to what to make.

I also picked up a little project kit that the funds went to some good cause and it was a cute little mini folder card with mini tags in it. I had fun making this one. Not sure what I will use it for but sometimes these mini kits where everything is together just give you that little motivational push to keep on scrapping. I actually did 6 pages this afternoon while my husband was off golfing but soon we will be heading down to the park to hear Otis & the Alligators, watch the boat parade and our fireworks are tonite. We did go to a friends house last nite where he put on quite an amazing show of fireworks so we are lucky enuf to have 2 nights in a row as I do love fireworks! Hope everyone had a happy and safe 4th!

My free hours are in my gardens

2009-07-02T16:39:00.007-05:00

Do you remember how I told you that we got a bunch of mystery bulbs at a garage sale from someone who was going to throw them out? Well this beautiful orange one at the base of our waterfall is the first one of them to flower. It is so pretty! I'm glad we took the chance and planted them all...........now just have to wait for the rest of them to flower.

I've lost track of how many truck loads of compost I have put on my gardens after weeding them this past week plus on my new gardens but flowers are blooming everywhere so I want to share a few pictures to show you how much they have changed since I posted last month. I love my yellow primroses they add such beauty to the garden and just multiply so fast too!

We finally got past those temps in the 90's and went down to the high being 61.....can you imagine that? Had to pull out the sweatshirts and jeans again! We got a little rain but not enuf so I need to water all my gardens plus that umm "new grass" that the city graciously planted in our ditch with no instructions. Trying to find something to water 20 feet across and on both our lots was near impossible. Today I finally hit the jackpot when I thought about using a long sprinkler head attached to the hose.......well it didn't work as I thought (putting it down and walking away) but by holding it in my hand I could actually cover all that area. YEAH!!! I even took it thru my gardens and found it work nicely covering large areas at one time so saving me some big time out there. Some days it actually took me over 2 hours to get it all watered. These are pictures of the 2 lawn areas with the grass seed sprayed on last week. Cute huh? The city park across the street has not been watered one time in the week since it was sprayed on and when I finally called the landscaper who did it he said we were supposed to keep it moist and water it like 2x a day. So many homes on this street have no clue that they are supposed to be watering it. Our mayor told me personally that the city would help water and we should do our part too well guess they forgot that. Funny thing is they came to water the flowers in the park across the street yesterday but didn't bother with the swails. I've tried calling the mayor (he is on vacation), the city street dept and the engineer dept and they all said "well there is rain in the forecast". Gonna be some high water bills on this street for sure this summer.

Have a happy 4th of July everyone! I love fireworks!!!

A baseball Album I made

2009-06-25T12:07:00.007-05:00

I made this awesome little album for my grandson Alex who is 7 years old and playing baseball on Monday nights. I haven't got to see any games but had a few pictures sent to me which is what I used to start this album.

I used a blank 8 1/2 x11 portfolio. Notice the cute baseball brads that I found to use in here! On the cover I used 2 of them with some ribbon to make a closure.

The inside has 2 mini albums in the middle to add pictures as the summer goes along.

The left side I made a pocket underneath the picture of him ....maybe he will put in score sheets from the games. The big word Baseball on the middle flap is a raindot from the Fiskars line. So are the words like at bat etc and the little baseball bat & baseball. They sure added a little extra bling to this project.

I will be waiting to hear what he thought of it as he was off with his dad when I stopped by yesterday so I missed seeing him & spending some time with him. Next time I need to make my plans more firm after driving all those hours.

But to my surprise I got to see the HUGE treehouse my son was building for him. It even had windows and a foldup bench he could sit or sleep on. Hard to imagine anyone having the talent to build something like that without even having plans. I took some pictures but can't wait to see the finished product. I'm sure Alex will remember it all his life and really enjoy it during his childhood.

Fathers Day book

2009-06-23T10:06:00.010-05:00

I haven't blogged for abit but I do have an excuse.....I have a condition called "costochondritis".
Pain caused by costochondritis may mimic that of a heart attack or other heart conditions (that's the definition) I think all the stress in my life finally caught up with my body and this kicked in big time. So I took my meds, rested ALLOT and just chilled out. We even did some fishing over the week-end and at this moment I feel all better. When it happens it can be real scarey as I don't know if it is the "real thing" or not.

I made this little paper bag album for my Kevin for father's day. He has been such a great step dad to my sons, a great grandfather and a great husband with little recognition from anyone. So while he went golfing with his dad I spent the day doing this.

I used everything from staples to ribbons to paperclips and I think it turned out well. There are 3 pockets with tags that pull out and also have pictures on them too.

I also liked that I tried a different way of making this album......instead of closing it and punching holes on the outside to tie........I opened it to the middle and made 2 sets of holes on the top and bottom and threaded ribbons thru them and tied them on the outside. Made a big difference!
I hope to get another project done today since it will be in the 90's so stay tuned!

City destruction at our home

2009-06-17T14:49:00.011-05:00

This is the day the city came to put in swails (ditches) to solve a water problem we don't have. It was heart wrenching to watch them destroy the lawn we took care of so well for 7 years but the city has a right of way and can do what they want when they want.....so much for our taxes. Anyhow this is one side of our driveway........before and after.

This is the side in front of our home. Real pretty huh? No they did not hit our golf ball mailbox which is one reason I was out there all day watching and taking pictures. I'm not sure they had supervisors like me at every property but I watched every branch break and every scoop of dirt. I think they nick named me "trouble maker" as even the mayor was out today right before they started on our lot.

I went to the council meeting the other night and even called the mayor but all I managed was to save part of our lawn which we use as a 2nd driveway since we do own 2 lots in 2 tax parcels. Watching them work was heart wrenching but I will let the pictures tell the story. Sorry that I can't get all the pictures in order but still haven't figured that out but I'm sure you can tell where it starts & where it ends.

Landscaping project DONE!

2009-06-14T18:57:00.008-05:00

It has been a very long week here and first I want to say thanks for all your kind words for the difficult situation I am in. I still have not been able to contact my son and Allayah's mom has not returned my emails or phone calls either so here we sit in limbo wondering when we will ever get to see our granddaughter.

We did put our time and energy into finishing landscaping our yard. We already had a pond and waterfall that my wonderful husband Kevin built plus many flower beds but we wanted to eliminate having to mow the grass back there so we dug up the rest of that section and put in more flower beds and paths. I'm sorry did I say WE.....Kevin did all that hard work. We then went and got a few truck loads of mulch for the paths. Hit some nurseries and garage sales for more perrennials which I planted and now it is time to sit back and enjoy it. Plus Kevin has to go back to work tomorrow. So enjoy the pictures.

Mean people

2009-06-11T09:45:00.002-05:00

Well I've been trying to call my son and send emails to ask him to reconsider his decision about not letting Allayah come up here..........but nuthing. Today I went to his My Space page thinking I could leave him a message there in case he doesn't get my emails (his girlfriend has been know to go in and delete them) and under his friends was a picture of his girlfriends 3 kids(2 of them are with my son) and this is what she has written for the world to see

"Nik must be awfully powerful to keep a son away from his mother. I could rule the world! "

Yes her name is Niki and yes she is proud that has the power to keep my son and grandkids away from me but this is just plain MEAN! Don't you agree? A 28 year old woman who goes to these extreme measures just for the fun. Funny she doesn't include Allayah in the picture either since that is Tory's daughter and not her's. So if you think I felt bad yesterday........guess what.....I feel worse! Only good thing is the 1st level of our 4 level home is spotless........back to cleaning the stove and the kitchen. Say a prayer for me!

We are going to miss Allayah

2009-06-10T13:34:00.008-05:00

It's been a rough week around here with the construction and then the scraproom disaster but I was holding on by a fine thread until yesterday. I went to Lands End private sale & I got this adorable 2pc swimsuit for Allayah who just loves to swim.....there is even a little mermaid on it. You all know how we have been waiting patiently for school to get over with this week so we could have her up here before summer school starts. She has been coming here since she was a year old and loves it up here and we try to have her as much and as often as possible.

Last night I got an email from her mother Sarah letting me know that my son Tory will not allow her to come up here anymore. We have always kept on good terms with Sarah since Tory's new woman positively hates us and does not let us see our other grandson Gavin that lives with them. She even went as far as sending his bday gifts back via UPS last summer just to spite us. We have never had a problem having Allayah up here and I can't tell you how heart broken I am that people will keep grandchildren away just to be mean. Do they not know how much they are hurting the child? I am not sure what to do besides being hurt and angry. The only way right now to handle this is to clean and keep so busy so I could be out of touch for awhile.

My scrap room is back in shape

2009-06-07T09:21:00.006-05:00

Yes it's been a long few days living with that mess in there but yesterday on that rainy cold day Kevin finally got my shelves back up. I did promise I would keep my glass jars on my desk and not put so much weight on there again. That might have contributed to the fall.

Speaking of glass jars..........yes I did buy a few more............but what a mess cleaning that up! All those little slivers and shards of glass mixed in with the flowers and brads.........I did get a few cuts out of it. But now they are lined up nicely on my desk and I won't have to worry about them falling off any more.

My shelves turned out nice too and I found some neat organizing tools. The round basket on the left hand corner of my table I put some styrofoam in and then arranged all my jars of stickles in there upside down. I also punched out all the sizes of Fiskars squeeze punches I have and glued them along the top shelf so I would know what shapes and sizes I had.

So everything is in it's place but not sure how much scrapping I will get done this week since Kevin is on vacation. We hope to do some fishing, some landscaping, take a few long drives in the country (with the poles in the trunk just in case) and hopefully at the end of the week get our precious little granddaughter Allayah to come up and spend some time with us. The good thing is we can just do what we want when we want and sometimes the best times are had when you don't have it all planned.

Can you say BAD DAY?

2009-06-04T10:12:00.007-05:00

I'm not talking about a bad hair day cuz that is going good today but it all started yesterday when the city showed up to start doing some ditching in front of our house to solve a water problem that we don't have. This is the before picture. The other picture is the other side of the driveway and the extra lot we own. You can't see the pink flag there (the right of way) as it is in the middle of those bushes in front of our wood pile.

Mind you we just got these letters hand delivered on Friday so really no chance to fight the city on it. Here you can see them marking how much of our lawn we are going to lose to this "swail" ditch system(about 20 feet). I called the mayor, the street department, the engineering department and our alderperson and got absolutely no where except for getting my blood pressure up and stress level up.

Here's a picture of the park side that they finished yesterday directly across from us. Nice huh? Good news is they are going to go down that side all the way to the end so we will be the last block done.

Bad news is that with all those heavy machinery out there yesterday I found that one of my glass jar full of flowers was knocked off the shelf in my scraproom. I cleaned up the mess last night and thought this morning I would do some scrapping.

I was going to move the glass jars so that no more would fall off due to the vibrations but guess what happened NOW? The shelf came away from the window and EVERYTHING fell off........... so now I have a really bad mess.......glass, flowers all mixed together. I will have to take everything off the shelves and wait for Kevin to put it back up more securely...........probably didn't help that I kept buying pretty glass jars and sorting my flowers, buttons etc..........maybe it was a little my fault? Right now I just know that I got to get out of this house before I start pulling my hair out.....maybe some chocolate and shopping might help???

colors of the rainbow

2009-06-03T06:13:00.007-05:00

The other day I was at Goodwill and picked up this bag of mesh remnants and the colors were so pretty that they reminded me of a rainbow. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with it but for 99cents for this bag full I knew I could come up with something and this is the layout that I did. It's easier to see in the closeup but I used the purple mesh as a mat for the pictures and

then I tied a piece together and put a black button on it to use as a decoration in the center of the page. I like the way it turned out.........do you have any other thoughts on how to use this mesh?

Here is a picture of the color of the pool floors and NO the situation isn't solved yet but the pool is almost balanced and I hope to recover it by tonite and start heating it back up to a comfortable swimming temperature. The baby in the picture playing in the sand was Allayah when she was small. The artist actually painted her from a snapshot and added her to that mural. It's funny when she comes now as she will stand there looking at herself wondering if she was really that small LOL!

Well it is only 37 right now but we are heading for a high today of 69 which was the same as yesterday so off to get some stuff done around the house.

Guess what Wii been doing

2009-06-01T21:23:00.003-05:00

Saturday night we went to visit some friends and that was the 1st time that I've seen anyone play the Wii game and it was so much fun.It was impressive that not only kids can play it but adults plus it gets you off the couch. So come Sunday morning (yesterday) we went to Best Buy and got ourself our very own Wii! We also got the Wii Fit game............did I say game? It's actually a fitness workout but fun and challenging too.

The same friends came over on Sunday and helped us hook it all up and we had to move our coffee table but after that it was just pure fun. We have played endless games of tennis which I get beat at all the time but we also have done allot of bowling and YES I can beat my darling husband who is the pro bowler around our house. We have played baseball and soccer but have not yet tried the golf. It is hard to believe all the different games and skill levels that come with it but also harder to believe that you actually get a workout standing there pretending to play the game. The sounds and the graphics are just too kewl!

The Wii fit game comes with a pad that you either stand on or step on and off it. The Wii actually keeps track of your weight and skill levels............believe me I've already had it tell me that I was unbalanced or a couch potato! We haven't had it long enuf to see what it all can do but I've had it unlock extra Yoga stuff already and it seems really funny to say that I've just finished skiing in the middle of summer. Good thing it's all re runs on the tv right now.

I don't want anyone to think that's all I have been doing as I planted a bunch more flowers and I did some weeding out there today. Still working on getting the pool back in shape and NO the paint did not dry in quite a few places.............that's sad but I'm getting it cleaned up and ready to swim whether the floor is done or not. I'll try to remember and get some pictures as I do really like the new color.

Tomorrow is also the day they supposedly are starting the ditch on our road and I've already taken before pictures and not looking forward to seeing the after pictures.

So does anyone else have a Wii? and what are your favorite games to play? Any hints for a novice like me?

Saturday.....all day

2009-05-30T16:46:00.005-05:00

Someone wanted to know what our house looked like so here is a picture of the front....you have seen quite a few of the back and the pond. Notice our mailbox.......it is a giant golf ball on a tee. We have the only one that I have ever seen and it's always fun to listen to someone going by on their bike and saying look at that mailbox! My husband does love his golf that is for sure. I actually wanted to incorporate the little mini golf cart into the front flower garden but sadly not only would I have to chain it from "disappearing" but little ones climbed right thru my flowers to sit in it LOL!

If you look close you will also see some blue flags and a stake right next to my flower garden with a pink flag on it. We came home to those a few weeks ago and just yesterday got a hand delivered letter saying the city was going to put in ditches to help with a water problem that we don't have. I have made many phone calls but have gotten no where except to find out that the right of way is that far into my lawn.............they supposedly are starting this project next week so I'm gonna make sure that I take my blood pressure pills regularly as it will not be a happy week watching my lawn get torn up. I guess it could be worse and they could be putting in sidewalks and making us pay for that.............

Let's see Saturday started off with me making 2 sympathy cards as we had unexpected deaths yesterday. One guy was only 53 and had a heart attack and his son is a close friend of my son's so I know that hit home hard. But there was something else I was supposed to do today.....now what was it??? Oh YEAH.........I need to pick a WINNER for all those neat little goodies. I put everyone's name in a bag (couldn't find a hat) and put doubles in for people who sent friends over and also for those who became followers.............shook the bag up really good and reached in and pulled out the name......................drum roll please...................Mary NSC.............congrats girl and make sure you send me an email with your snail mail address.!!

I want to thank everyone for checking in, stopping by and leaving such nice comments. I think next week I will start another RAK for some of those homemade flowers I have been crocheting.

A winner will be drawn on Saturday

2009-05-28T18:27:00.004-05:00

I have decided one way or the other I will draw a winner on Saturday and that way I can get it in the mail first thing on Monday......not sure if we will hit the 250 mark but I will have hit the 5000 visitor mark which is awesome for only blogging 5 months.

I received a few kits this past week from different companies and I did a few layouts from the April kit of Paper Popsicles. Take a look at these two.............I adore this Easter layout and enjoyed working with the fun green felt. Not sure if you can see the cute bunnies brads that I used on the adorable label.

The paper on this next layout was so cute that I had to just find the right picture to show it off. Then it was the chore of trying to find all the right letters to match, especially when the name Allayah has THREE a's and add Alex to that mix and I then ran out of a's LOL! I did make the a in almost out of a c and half of the i............sometimes you just need to be creative!

Well it's off to hit some garage sales and see what kinds of treasures I can find today!

Got some scrapping done

2009-05-28T08:28:00.005-05:00

Since it did rain ALL day yesterday and I did get quite a few things done on my To Do List.....I decided to do a few layouts. Still working on some of the pictures from our last trip to Vegas and here is another layout of the Bellagio and the gorgeous glass flowers. The butterfly cutout is actually the picture that Kevin took of one on the glass wall of the butterfly house........huge isn't it?

This next layout is pictures of springtime in Arizona & Nevada (my mom lives right on the border so we hop between the 2 states when travelling anywhere). Notice the time and temperature that I took a picture of.......95 degrees at 3 in the afternoon. When my mother called a few days ago it was 112 but of course it is a dry heat so nuthing like the hot humid days we have here in Wisconsin. I am always amazed at the cactus and the beautiful blooming bushes. Rocks and mountains also interest me and I can never take enuf pictures! When my brother was taking us to Vegas for the bowling tournament we took a "shortcut" called Christmas Tree Pass and it was like something that would have been travelled by covered wagons LOL! Can't tell you how many times we bottomed out but the view was worth it............finally towards the end we found out why it was named that as there were some trees just covered with tinsel which is how it got it's name.

Well it has almost been 24 hours so I'm off to check the progress of the newly finished floors by the pool...........I will come back with some pictures too!

it's raining

2009-05-27T08:40:00.006-05:00

Yes it is gonna rain ALL day and be chilly. I plan on trying to clean my scrap room since I need to be home. A few months ago (notice the word months) we decided to do a big home improvement project. We have an inground/indoor swimming pool and it was surrounded with green indoor/outdoor carpet that had seen it's better days.(see picture above) My 1st thought was to just replace it with some newer prettier carpet but then some friends said hey you should just tear up the carpet and have the concrete stained and that would look so kewl. So I tore up all the carpet (not an easy task) and then hired a concrete guy to do the rest. Well it was one of those projects that what can go wrong will go wrong.

First all the strippers that you were supposed to just put on, wait a few hours and then wash off.....didn't work just like that. The concrete was broom swept which meant it had grooves in it which is where the glue for the carpet went & boy did that make it hard to get off. The guy tried 2 different products plus manually scraping it.............couldn't use a power washer or anything since the pool was still full of water. This took weeks just trying to clean it down to bare concrete as nuthing would stick to it if you didn't get it all the glue off. So after weeks of just trying to strip and clean it he put down some brown stain but guess what..... it wouldn't dry! We tried fans and opening the door but it remained "tacky". So now the experts started coming in to see if it was the humidity, the stain, the concrete etc and what could be done to correct the situation. Just a few days ago they finally came up with a sealer that would work so right now I have 3 guys applying the sealer in a new color and we are keeping our fingers crossed this will work. I am really liking the color compared to the brown it was.The teal blue should match the waves that are in the mural that we had painted on the wall. It will now have to dry for a few days and then we will have to shock the pool, backwash it, add some fresh water and then heat it back up to a swimming temperature since this is the 1st time it hasn't been used in months!

It was hard to try and capture some pictures while they are in there painting but here's one. Keep your fingers crossed for us that this will finally work. I will take a picture of the final project once they are done.

More then halfway there............

2009-05-26T08:38:00.002-05:00

Yes we are at 135 for comments so far and I do have a feeling we will reach the 250 mark this week! By the way you can leave a comment under current posts as I am counting all posts since I started the RAK no matter where you posted.

So did you all enjoy your nice long week-end? The weather here in Wisconsin was beautiful....lots of sunshine and no rain. Today it is raining and it will be a chilly day but that's good for all the new plants in my garden.............nice soft rain to help them get established.

I am going to spend the day catching up on bills, paperwork, laundry and housework. With good music playing in the background the day goes pretty fast and the chores don't seem too bad.
Enjoy your Tuesday!

How can I say NO to FREE flowers?

2009-05-24T18:34:00.008-05:00

It was a nice day to work out in the yard today and after working out there all morning we decided to take a ride to Shopko & look at some more plants. Right now we are tearing up all the grass near and around the pond to make more gardens and walkpaths. Most of the garden above with the little golf cart in the middle of it is all new garden that used the be lawn and as you can see I filled it nicely with all the plants I got today! I even put a container on the seat and planted morning glories in it that I hope will go up and over the cart.

In the end we hope not to have to mow back there at all and put up some arbors and gates to fence in our "secret garden". So that is why we went shopping as I have more empty garden spots to plant. We both picked out a perennial that we liked and then I got two 6 paks of annuals. The arizona sun was Kevin's choice of plants and my choice was the Pina Colada. Neat names huh?

On the way home we stopped at a friends house and he has his own little nursery and huge gardens and by the time we left I had 2 pepper & 2 tomato plants and about 90 annual plants! Some were marigolds & allysum ...... actually I hate to say those are the only plants I knew for sure. I think Kevin heard the names but forgot them by the time we got home...........but what the heck I like surprises and they filled in lots of spaces. It may not look like much now but give us a few weeks of sunshine and hopefully some rain and I will show you what it looks like then.

Off for a nice walk with my sweetheart so have yourself a nice evening!

What's blooming in my backyard.....

2009-05-23T17:51:00.008-05:00

We are fortunate enuf to have lilacs on both ends of our back yard so wherever we choose to sit we have that lovely aroma at this time of the year.
This is what lines our fence line on the north side of our yard......and by our pond we have both white and purple lilacs!

I tried to get some good pictures of what is blooming today but it was so overcast. I did get one of the yellow flowers just starting to open in the pond.

My bleeding heart plant is in bloom and it is a mix of both white and pink flowers. Neat huh? I also have been lucky enuf to collect a large variety of hosta's as you can see by this picture that all 3 of them are different and then lo and behold up pops a little purple pansy right in the middle. How sweet is that?

last but not least I took a picture of the 2 little coy fish that I got for the pond. Good thing I did as since then they have been busy playing hide and seek whenever I come out by the pond. Hopefully within a few weeks they will be coming out to the edge and begging for food like they have done in the past. Right now all they need to do is see a shadow and they dive behind the rocks or under the plants. Can you find them in the picture.........they are pretty near the plants and are only about 3 to 4 inches long. Wait to see pictures at the end of the summer and see how big they get. have a great Memorial day week-end.

Over 70 posts so far

2009-05-22T07:53:00.007-05:00

I've been getting some neat comments and new visitors so keep on stopping by or sending your friends over........as this rate we will be drawing a name next week I hope!!

So I told you yesterday that I was crocheting some flowers to use as embellishments and this is what I have done so far. Now that I know they are pretty easy to make I will need to go get some different threads as this wasn't done with yarn and I only had 2 colors blue & white in the house. I found instructions for all of these on the internet so had to try them out to see their size and shapes. I'm actually wondering if anyone would be interested in winning flowers like these on my next RAK? Now here is the layout that I did with them

I used 3 of the flowers I made and then put pink brads in the center. The pictures are of Allayah helping me water all my flowers something she really enjoys doing. Maybe she will grow up with my green thumb! Her other grandma Jean also is big into flowers and even sells them on Ebay. Tomorrow I will post some pictures of what is blooming right now around the yard and the gorgeous lilacs that we have on our fence line. Have a great day all!

a gloomy day

2009-05-21T16:09:00.005-05:00

Today it is gloomy and we even might get a little rain. But the weather matches my mood as I seem to be stressing about some "stuff"...........I should learn that if I can't change it that I shouldn't worry about it but that is easier said then done. I have a condition called costochondritis which when it acts up it mimics a heart attack with severe chest pains etc. There is no cure but I do take meds that help relieve some of the pain so seeing as I am trying to "relax" today I decided to try crocheting little flowers for embellishments. I hope to do a layout tomorrow using them so you can see what I have made.

Speaking of flowers I did this layout from Las Vegas when we were checking out all the flowers at the Bellagio. Just looking at these pictures make me think Spring and our lilacs are just starting to bloom too..........will have to get some pictures of them tomorrow when the sun comes out.

In this next layout Allayah was only 4 when Grandpa was giving her golf lessons. Everytime she comes to visit Grandpa gives her a few more pointers LOL! She was wearing such a cute little cheer leader outfit! We are lucky to have a huge backyard where we can actually put up a large practice net and hit golf balls into it.

Well off to take a nap and hopefully to make some more flowers. Hope the weather is better by you!

RAK -- do you like flowers, squeeze punches etc?

2009-05-20T14:32:00.004-05:00

Yes it's time for another RAK. I started blogging on January 1st and I am enjoying every minute of it. So I have put together a nice prize package and I will draw a name once I hit 250 comments starting today.

You can leave only 1 comment each day until we reach the mark and if you send someone over to enter.......have them mention your name for an extra entry. Also if you become a follower of my blog you will get an extra entry. So do you wanna see what's in the RAK?

We have the scalloped Cameo squeeze punch from Fiskars. We have a tin of brads. Two packages of flowers with brads. 4 different colored ribbons. A mini bird album. 3 paks of raindots, 2 paks of heart embellishments and some neat glitter leaves embellishments. Lots of fun goodies and I love my scalloped squeeze punch (this is an extra that I got at the warehouse sale).

So post it on the other boards you visit and make sure they mention that you sent them. I wonder how long it will take to hit 250 comments??? Thanks for visiting!

Ready Set Go

2009-05-19T06:02:00.009-05:00

That's the name of the race car line that I picked up at the Fiskar's sale last month. I don't have much paper but the embellishments are really neat. I decided to do a layout about my son's passion for truck pulling. Todd drives semi all week but during the summer he loves traveling to different truck pulls in the area plus he is talented enough to work on his vehicles himself. This first layout has a picture of him and then a few pics of him pulling last summer with his newest truck. Look at all that smoke pouring out! If I am not mistaken he even won that pull! Aren't the letters cute with the flames on them? I also like the metallic sticker on the bottom of his picture that says "built tough".

The 2nd part of this layout I found a picture of Todd when he was just a child at Great America pretending to drive this antique Ford. The big yellow truck was his first vehicle he pulled with and then along came the red & black one that my grandson Alex is standing next to. He keeps moving up to bigger & better trucks but that is what the game is all about. I cut the letters out of some silver metallic paper with my Cricut and the brads I used to dot the i's were from this line.

Enuf playing around........yesterday I got a past kit from Scrap Attak featuring Little Yellow Bicycle. Everything was just beautiful from velvet flowers to handcrocheted ones, both which I used in this layout that I did of Kevin & I in Las Vegas.It also contained transparencies and you can see I used 2 of them and then black crystal hearts. OK enough talking about.............let me show you what I created and then I will do a closeup of the flowers!

I know the photo does not do the flowers justice but the big black flower was velvet and the crocheted heart was red and white and then I popped a black heart on top of that. The black I love You were actually raindots from a wedding line. This was another situation where the paper was so pretty that you could end up distracting from it if you added too much so I kept it simple but I think it works don't you?

Mosh Party

2009-05-18T10:20:00.001-05:00

Mosh Posh is celebrating our 4th Anniversary and we want to celebrate with YOU! This is going to be so much fun and we really hope that you will be able to play along!For the next two weeks, May 18 - May 29 I will be here posting daily challenges, giving away prizes and posting lots of projects from our Design Team and our members. (Hint, Hint, upload to the Mosh Posh gallery!!) It is going to be awesome. Yes, I said awesome.

stop on over and leave a comment............maybe u will win! and if u mention I sent you...........well we both could be winners!!

http://mosh-poshkits.blogspot.com/

a few cards

2009-05-17T09:47:00.008-05:00

I've made a few cards this week and thought I would share them with you. The first one was a thank you card for Jen for the mothers day gift that she made. I got this new stamp off Ebay from The Angel Company and it seemed perfect for a gal to be pulling her craft tote LOL! Jen is a lover of bumble bee's so this was the envelope that I made. This was part of the reason why I spent so many hours putting my stamps into CD cases.............when they are in a drawer you actually forget what neat stamps you have.....now I can see them plus have easy access.

This card was just a simple hello card made with some butterfly stamps that I had. It's nice to have a collection to fall back on especially as the weather finally turns nice I will be spending more time in bed..............my flower beds that is!!

I also finished 2 more layouts last night..........one was with that marvelous flowered paper again. This time I cut them out from the other sheet and did a pop up over the same flowers on that page for a 3d look. I added green flowers to the center of the other flowers for some interest.

The last layout is of my grandson Alex playing Tball. The paper said 100% boy which was so appropriate & I wrote his name in Stickles and added some baseball embellishments.

Have a great day & I'll be back.............soon!

When it's cold I......

2009-05-17T08:41:00.005-05:00

When it's cold I stay inside and scrap and I actually finished 2 layouts and some cards. I've spent so much time putting my stamps into CD cases that I really felt the need to make something. Funny thing is I went to a garage sale the other night at Melanie's (another crafter who by the way is celebrating her birthday today HAPPY Birthday Mel!) and got some flowers and some neat paper...........not that I NEED paper right? But I actually used it today on these layouts.

The 1st layout are pictures of my son Travis and my grandson Alex from their trip to California last fall. I love the paper and I love the picture of Alex trying to catch up to his daddy. When you get paper like this you really just need to find pictures to compliment it and not much else is needed to complete it.

The paper I used on the next layout was totally awesome. The black flowers are actually shiny and almost a metallic look. So from the 2nd piece of that paper I cut out the black flowers and layered them on top of the big white flower in the right hand corner for a 3d look. I added little white flowers to the center of all the flowers and then black brads to the center of the flowers. I also used a little green glitter on the flower petals and some of the brads. The paper was so pretty but adding more flowers to the page just made it POP! My mother is 72 and plays golf just about every day. I sure hope I look that pretty when I am her age!

Well I better go check my flowers to see if they survived the frost last nite. It was 28 when I woke up at 5am this morning.............and this is MAY.......go figure!

A new pond addition

2009-05-13T06:14:00.006-05:00

I bet you thought I meant fish didn't you? I got these 2 Jade turtles and a 3 legged Jade frog from my friend Patty yesterday. While we were unpacking boxes for her consignment store I came across all these Jade frogs and turtles not knowing she used to teach Feng Shui and these were items that she sold. I was ecstatic thinking how kewl will they look around my pond. So she let me pick 3 of them out and I brought them back to their new home. I am hoping that the frog which stands for wealth will jump start some money trees to grow in the gardens back there .

So the 2 smaller ones I got yesterday from Patty and the big concrete one behind it was bought about 3 years ago when we took a nice road trip to Tennessee. They look so darn natural in the stream don't they?

These cute little camouflage boots were found at a garage sale and might soon get a little plant in them.......not sure yet but they look darn cute in one of my flower beds! Plus the weather still needs to warm up before I take out the 20 morning glory plants that were started from seed. The weather still has been in the 50's & 60's with even chillier temps at night. Just a few days ago it got down to 32. Next Monday we will see 70 again but right now it is rainy & chilly! Sounds like a good day to get some cleaning done in my scraproom since I just got 2 new kits in the mail the past few days and I can't start them until I get everything back in place. Have a great day everyone!

a new day

2009-05-11T06:25:00.007-05:00

Well I waited ALL day for any of my sons to call but not one did...........so instead of getting all depressed my dh & I kept busy in the yard. I weeded some flower beds and he worked around the pond............did I say work......I think there has to be a better work. He took all the pavers out of the circle near the pond that our patio set had set on and he lined them up and down the path along the flower beds. Then he dug out 3 inches of dirt from there after we went and bought a truck load of sand. After filling it with sand we then put our swing in there so not only can we now have a better view of the waterfall but will be able to see the fish swim in the pond once we get some more. Here's a pic of the final project. Talk about peaceful and serenity...........sitting in that swing, watching the birds and butterflies..............life cannot get better! Lots of green plants coming up but only my bleeding heart is flowering but I will take another picture soon to show you how fast it changes. Hoping this morning's temp of 32 won't hurt anything out there.

But wait it did............My friend Jen appeared as we were just finishing up and she had made me a Mother's day card and gift knowing the situation with my sons. That was above and beyond the friendship call and let me show you what she made. Not only is the star box decorated so darn cute but the candle inside is also adorable. Thanks so much Jen.............you will never know how much this meant to me! This is one more BIG reason why I am proud to be a Fiskateer cuz that is how I met her a little over a year ago.

Happy Monday everyone!

I've been a busy bee lately

2009-05-10T07:47:00.004-05:00

When things are troubling me or I am worried, I am one of those gals that just keeps busy busy busy. So this week I would do house work and yard work around our house in the mornings and then every afternoon I would head downtown and help out a friend who is opening a consignment shop. It's kinda funny to be doing that after owning one myself for 15 years but Patti has rented a building downtown just off the main street that is like 125 years old so it has the high ceilings, lots of room and character.

One day we did nuthing but move things and fixtures that she had bought and then the next day we set up her desk/sales area and showcases. The last few days we have been painting the back room where she will have intake etc. We did it in a kinda shabby chic method of a tan and light purple so it is very unique but talk about hard work as the wood was all so old, uneven and unfinished. The good part is it brightened it up considerably. After working there all afternoon I would come home get supper ready and finish things around the house and yard. Speaking of the yard we had big plans to do some stuff this week-end but didn't count on not only getting our first rain but temps were in the 40's. Can you believe 70 on Friday and then 40 the next day? Way too cold to stay out there long so we hit a few yard sales and Kevin actually found some nice Titleist irons for a fantastic find. I didn't have much luck for myself. Came home and was patiently waiting for the mailman hoping for some happy mail ( I know my mom sent me a little something and my brother sends me a mothers day card knowing how my sons are) but none of it arrived..........how sad. I am happy to say that I did get a card from son #3 Todd who is the only one that is speaking to me. He is a God send and the funny part was that when he was in those 15 to 19 year old years he was such a "wild child" that I never thought he would turn into the caring son who calls at least 2x a week now. I am truly thankful he is in my life!

Well I hope you all have a great Mothers Day! I made my mom a beautiful mini book but actually was in such a hurry to send it that I forgot to take pictures of it or the card I made her. But I did take a picture of the card I made my mother in law. Enjoy!

Fabulous Finds

2009-05-05T18:51:00.006-05:00

Last Saturday I went garage saling with a friend and found some amazing things for my scraproom. The first one started out as glass jars on a spiral turntable that was meant for spices but I could see buttons in them. I spent one night watching tv and sorting buttons by colors and here is the end result. Not the greatest picture but I'm sure you get the drift.

I also found some complete NEW sets of stampin up...........one matched a truck set I just got a few months ago at full price and the other is some adorable kinda sassy stamps. $5 each set....you can't beat that price! There are more to this set but these 3 were so cute. Make sure you click on the picture so it enlarges and you can read them.

Last but not least I found this at Goodwill and it is a huge wooden bird house storage unit. It must stand 4 feet tall and has a terrific magnet latch that is strong. I think it's gonna need some of my TLC as far as some painting etc but I think it will be nice out on the patio and store some of the things we use often.

We have had some nice sunny days so I have doing allot of yard work for the past 4 days. I have moved some perennials and weeded flower beds and last nite after getting the pond all cleaned out we replaced the pump and got that running. Now all we have to do is add fish LOL! Last year we had a couple of dozen different goldfish swimming in there but come winter we gave them away to good homes so time to start over. I have collected many yard/garden decorations over the past 7 years so it takes time to haul them all out and find a good place for them too. But the end is worth it when we sit on our swing and gaze over the pond and the gardens......it is so peaceful...........our own private retreat. During the winter the retreat is my scraproom but I love being outside and today we saw our 1st hummingbird at our feeder too. Gotta love spring!

NSD RAK winner

2009-05-03T20:05:00.002-05:00

Well it was a busy week-end and I can't say that I got allot of crafting done. Yesterday I spent the morning garage saling with a friend and I found lots of nice things for myself and my craft room. Even some brand new stampin up stamps that I had been wanting! The weather was nice and sunny too this week-end so we spent allot of time in the yard. We cleaned out pond out so we are ready to get some fish to put back in for the summer. I got 4 flower beds weeded and cleaned up while Kevin got the lawn all mowed. We both are feeling right now and it will probably be an early night to be to rest our weary bones.

But anyways I did draw a winner for all those nice flowers and raindots and it is.....................
Patty #2832! So email me your snail address and I will get those out to you tomorrow! I hope everyone had a fun week-end and did some crafting and thank you for all the wonderful comments.

NSD RAK!

2009-05-01T08:50:00.003-05:00

NSD RAK............lots of initials there and just in case you are not a scrapbooker or crafter it means National Scrapbook Day (tomorrow May 2nd) and Random Act of Kindness also known as a giveaway or Blog candy. We do not have a local scrapbook store so there is nuthing going on in Stevens Point but there are quite a few virtual online crops that I might partake in tomorrow.

So in honor of this I am giving away a dozen packages of embellishments (a mix of flowers and raindots etc). Adding these to your cards or pages can turn them from ordinary into amazing.

I like that the Heidi Grace flowers come with matching brads too! Oh there are 2 packages of the metal shapes & words also. So to win just leave a comment and tell me about your best mothers day gift that you either got or have given to your own mom! I used to love when my sons were small and made me precious cards with their crayons and picked me dandelions off our lawn. Now they are all in their 20's and I'm lucky if they take the time to pick up the phone just to call. So share your good memories and I will draw on Sunday night so you will have them before Mother's Day in case you need them to make that special card!

Copics Class

2009-04-29T11:23:00.006-05:00

Well yesterday Jen & I went to a Copics Class at a scrapbook store in Rhinelander. It was a fun class where we made a few cards using the Copics and got to take 5 home with us. I will post some pictures of the cards I made tho truthfully I'm not sure it is up my alley. I didn't feel that the point was fine enough to get into small spaces and felt like I was coloring out of the lines. I guess it will be something that I will have to play with more to see if it is worth the investment. I do like that they blend nicely and you don't see your lines and also that they are refillable. So what do you think?

I am starting to feel better so this morning I did a HUGE project. During the winter a fellow Fiskateer Betsy gave me a paper rack. So yesterday I washed it and spray painted it and today I loaded up all the Fiskar lines of paper & embellishments into it. I put them in some neat Heidi Grace file folders so that everything I had in that line would be together. Imagine my shock when I realized that I had 43 different lines! and that does not include the Christmas stuff which I put into a file box since I wouldn't be using it on a daily basis. Here's a picture of the finished project. I don't think I ever have to worry about a paper shortage at my house.

Anyone still looking for some Fiskar goodies?

2009-04-27T20:03:00.002-05:00

Well I wish I could say I had a wonderful time out of town this past week-end but I actually wasn't feeling well and spent most of my time in bed. Thank goodness we had a really nice room at the Holiday Inn! I did go to the doctors today but they didn't offer any answers just a new med so we will see how I do over the next few days. I've slept so much in the past 3 days that I thought maybe I had mono.

I have all my boxes shipped out but I still have some really nice stuff left so if you are still thinking about it especially after seeing all the nice comments I got from people receiving theirs...........just drop me an email. Plus I think postage rates go up next month.

Tomorrow, my friend Jen & I are driving to Rhinelander and we are taking a Copics class. Doesn't that sound like fun? 3 hours of fun time learning how to color with them plus we get to take 5 of them home with us. What a great way to introduce people to something new! Will let you know how it goes!

busy packing boxes

2009-04-24T14:06:00.003-05:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that I haven't disappeared just busy packing boxes of Fiskar goodies and running to the Post Office everyday. Some of the lines are depleted but I can actually see part of my table now which makes my dh very happy.

This morning we had a huge thunder storm complete with hail but believe it or not here it is at 2pm and the sun is shining and it is 75. So since the forecast for the next 5 days is 50's and 60's I am going to head outside and soak up some sunshine.

Tomorrow we head to Oshkosh for a Teamsters bowling tournament that we do every year. It's fun because the rest of the team comes up from Watertown where Kevin used to work. It's always great to catch up on the news back there.

Have a great week-end all!

Goodies Box Sale

2009-04-22T15:19:00.002-05:00

Ok I have filled all my orders so far and I have lots of neat stuff left from the warehouse sale so this is how it will work. Right now the only way I know of an easy way to ship craft supplies (especially paper) is to use a flat rate box from the Post office for $10.35..........it fits allot and protects what is in there and no weight limits.

So right now I'm going to list what lines I do have and then if you are interested you can pick a price limit and which lines.
I have a few Heidi Grace flocked card sets
raindots.....all colors, letters, numbers, flowers, etc
flower packs, 80pc brads in a tin (assorted colors available), ribbon packs
Cloud 9 Cocoa Mint (paper only)
Max's backyard (embellishments only)
St. Valentime (paper & emb)
Be Loved (paper & emb)
Dee's Cottage (paper & emb)
Sunrise Smoothi (paper & Emb)
Kensington Gardens (paper & emb)

Heidi Grace It's my Party (paper & emb)
A Little Birds Tale (paper & emb)
Winter (paper & emb)
Reagans Closet (paper only)
We are Family (paper 7 emb)
Time (paper & emb) this line is really neat
Valentimes Day (paper & emb)

Kim Polosum Blooming Love (paper & emb)

You can really get allot for your money thru a sale like this. I'm hoping some of the people I have sold to in the past will put comments here on how much they loved what they got. I haven't taken pictures of any of it but you can check out the links on the Fiskars site to the sale they are running this week at 30%off just to get an ideal what the line looks like.......and the sale prices you see there .... well when you see what you get for your money you will know I shopped the warehouse and passed those prices on to you.

you can email me at wezekj@sbcglobal.net with questions and orders. First come first served as I do have a limited inventory of everything but want to share my luck with you all especially my Fiskateer friends! Sorry I can only ship in the states at these prices.

Raindot winner is...................

2009-04-21T21:07:00.003-05:00

Drum roll please.............winner of all 24 packages of raindots would be Mary #5509.
Congrats Mary and send me an email with your snail address!

Keep watching as I will not only have more RAK's but will be putting together some goodie bags for sale as I have some awesome stuff left from the sale last week now that I have shipped off all the orders I had. There will be Heidi Grace, Kimberly Polsum, Cloud 9 and Litl Davis. Still have raindots available too!

Saturday's crop

2009-04-19T07:40:00.006-05:00

What a busy week I've had after just coming back from vacation! Yesterday I ended the week by going to a Fiskars crop only a few miles from my house. 28 women came from all over and we had a fun day. In the morning we did a make n take that Lisa taught on embellishing a notebook. In the afternoon we did a make n take (sponsored by A Kiss On The Chic) taught by Melanie. Now this one was so much fun as we work with cardboard and distressing it with ink. I took a few pics of the class so take a look. You can see Melanie is holding the finished product.....a little notebook.
This is how the pieces looked before we put them together. Here you can see how we worked distressing the cardboard too. For some of the ladies it was their 1st time working with wood or cardboard as not everyone is into this type of crafting. But the finished project turned out so nice and everyone put their own little spin on theirs.

We had some very nice door prizes and I even won a rolling cropcase seat. I can stash all my stuff in it cuz it is like a mini suitcase even with the pull handle on wheels yet it has a frame around it that enables you to sit on it too. It was a great way to end the week............today I am going to RELAX and then tomorrow it's down to business with sorting all my Fiskar goodies, packing them and getting them ready to send out. Have a great day all!

Do you like RAINDOTS?

2009-04-17T10:55:00.006-05:00

Well I am slowly recovering from my day of shopping yesterday at the Fiskars Warehouse. Actually I am sitting here with one of those pain patches on my back figuring I would take it very easy today so my back doesn't get any worse. Lower back pain can just stop you dead in your tracks and keep you from doing anything so instead I will entertain you with my shopping story.

Jen picked me up at 6:50a.m. and we headed up to Wausau. We weren't even first as there were 4 people ahead of us and 2 of them came at 5:30 in the morning YUK! We did bring lawn chairs to sit in as we knew we would have lots of time on our feet shopping. By the time the door opened at 9:00 the line was down the sidewalk and into the parking lot. Then the race is on to get a handcart or pushcart as they only have a few dozen.

The set up of the warehouse was a little different this time but we raced over to the far corner looking for the squeeze punches as those tend to go very fast. But alas there was none out this time. I raced back to the corner by the door and there were all kinds of Fiskar garden tools...........rakes, shovels, snippers, trimmers etc and I was lucky to get a lawn aerator for $10. There was a very limited supply of tools so it was first come first get!

Then it was up and down all the aisles grabbing papers, embellishments, flowers and ribbons etc. I actually had to go to an empty wall and unload my cart 3 times as it was totally overflowing.
After shopping the whole thing I went thru all my treasures and started boxing them up into boxes worth $50 or $25 just so I could get a close feel as to how much I was spending. After it got past $400 needless to say I stopped taking 2 of some things and actually put some back LOL! Then came the part of standing in line and it was like an amusement park where they funneled you up and down every aisle before you even got near the 5 checkouts that they had. We got in line near the bathroom at 10:45 and didn't get to the checkout until 12:45. Luckily Jen brought a truck along becuz I alone had 9 boxes and my huge bag. You need to checkout Jen's blog as she did some live videos of the whole trip that will give you a clue as to what we went thru yesterday plus she is having a great RAK with some gorgeous product from Heidi Grace Only Time line.............. here's a link to her.
http://www.willubmyhoneybee.blogspot.com/

So we get home at almost 2 pm and then comes the fun part of unloading it all. That would be the first picture of all the empty boxes. Now I will show you a picture of my dining room table (good thing we don't eat there often)

This next picture is one of so many different raindots that I didn't even know they made. There were letters, numbers, hearts, flowers, rain splots, multi colored dots and that was the small packages. Then there were big packages with words like Sprintime, Autumn fun, Snow fun, Family, Happy Birthday and Good Times. This whole box is full of raindots of every color imaginable so my RAK is going to be 24 packages of raindots.....all sizes and colors..........look at the picture and just drool! You can win this............send your friends over to my blog and make sure they mention you sent them and I will put your name in the drawing again. There are letters & numbers in this RAK plus 3 colors of flowers, hearts,orange & green BIG dots (go Fiskateers)and even the water splots. I will draw a winner on Tuesday night since it will be a busy week-end with a Fiskars crop tomorrow and a late Easter dinner at my in-laws on Sunday.

Don't forget to check out Jen's RAK too and watch our video of the sale!

Vegas Vegas Vegas

2009-04-17T07:38:00.008-05:00

Downtown in Las Vegas is a section called Fremont Street. It's only about 4 blocks long filled with shops and some casino's including the famous Binion's casino but the big attraction is the canopy of lights that cover the street spanning about 4 football fields. It has 12 million LED synchronized lights and a sound system that will blow you away. Starting at 6pm until midnite there is a different 6 minute show above you and the best part is that it is FREE...............millions of people watch it everynight and here are a few pictures that I got. Notice they turn off all the street signs when the show starts so that only the canopy is illuminated.

This show is so amazing.......imagine the train running up and down the street above you and then the planes came..............the sounds, the music and such detail. Don't miss it if you ever go.

Back to the strip there is a casino called The Venetian and it has to be one of the most intricate designed casinos including a canal where you can take your own romantic gondola ride in their canal. The guy even serenades you during your ride. You can choose indoor or outdoor too!

Well I'm going to start sorting thru the 10 boxes of goodies that I bought at Fiskars warehouse sale yesterday and then will be back with pictures of that to amaze you.

What a day!

2009-04-15T20:02:00.002-05:00

I know I was gonna post more pics from Vegas today but the weather got to almost 70 today so I spent most of it outside in my sunny yard. Talk about pine cones this year.........I must have raked up 3 wheelbarrows full and there are still more out there! Leaves, leaves everywhere needing to be raked up and I'm seeing so many of my perennials starting to peak out of the ground that I just had to start uncovering them. Course after spending most of the day outside working in my gardens and yard you can imagine how my back is feeling right now (yes I do have a heated pad on it ). I love my flowers and I tend to overdue it (especially in the spring ) and lose track of time when I am out there. I even bought one of those little garden scooters you sit on instead of stooping over all the time but.....
Tomorrow is the big Fiskars warehouse sale in Wausau so my friend Jen & I will be heading over there early in the morning to see what kind of bargains we can find. I love shopping a sale like this and I love shopping for some of my friends who can't make it this far............guess you could say I was born to shop!
So gonna head off to watch American Idol and then early to bed. I promise tomorrow I will show some more pics of Vegas.

Las Vegas

2009-04-14T12:50:00.017-05:00

I have been to Vegas before but I always find something new when I go there. This time we stayed at Harrah's which is right in the middle of the strip so you can walk either way and see so much. Our room was gorgeous and huge but lacking the little things we need like a coffee maker, mini fridg, microwave and internet connection ($12/day...I'm so

glad I carried my laptop all this way)!

Thanks to a blog comment I went to Bellagio to take pictures of the glass flowers that I did not know were there and we found the most wonderful conservatory full of flowers and butterflies. Take a look at some of these pictures!
Those are huge glass flowers that cover the ceiling in the lobby.

Those are actually beams of water going over Kevin's head...........how kewl is that? Same with those big round things that look like glass in the flower beds actually have water flowing all around them & then down into the flowers. And look at all the colors of the tulips and the huge watering can sprinkling on them and around them.

There was a butterfly house in the middle and Kevin got this awesome closeup of a butterfly!

I can almost smell the flowers looking at these pictures! Can't you?

I'm one of those people that approaches people taking pictures of each other and offer to take some of them together with their camera. It's kinda like my secret RAK and people are always happy to get a picture of them when they are on vacation. This time it paid off as those people turned around and offered to take some of Kevin & I so we now have some nice pictures of us on vacation!

This last picture is of the lobby.....looking at that while checking in would make anyone relax.

The one thing to remember if you ever go to Vegas is to check out all the lobbies and pools. The casino's are grand in themselves but the beauty usually shows up in other places. Stay tuned tomorrow for some more looks at Vegas.

The late arriving balls.

2009-04-13T14:24:00.007-05:00

I guess I did forget to mention that Kevin's bowling balls did arrive on Thursday so he didn't miss out bowling in the Nationals but he did miss bowling in the 40frame game on Wednesday nite. If you are wondering how he did.............I would of course say Awesome but not as well as he usually bowls. Not only is it hard bowling with strangers but the lanes are always harder in a contest due to the oil on the lanes. So if a team works together you wear a path through the oil and make it easier to bowl strikes but in a situation like this where you have strangers all bowling their own way it just doesn't work. Plus you have to remember that Kevin just recovered from the torn cartilage in his ribs from that fall on the ice. He was not happy with his bowling and said "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" end of the story LOL! FYI this building was not a bowling alley....they actually build this all from scratch and you just can't imagine how big and impressive it is. I think there is like 70 lanes & they are all full. People come from everywhere to bowl and quite of few of the guys were from Canada.

Friday nite Kevin didn't bowl until 11:30pm and didn't get done until almost 2am. Last year I was lucky enuf to watch him from the comfort of our hotel on my computer since you can watch it live but this year that wasn't happening because in Vegas you pay $12/day to connect your computer in any hotel (guess they don't want you to stay in your room LOL). I also was actually able to take pictures on my computer too while he bowled so this year Kevin's dad did it for us as you can see from these 2 pictures.

Next year the competition will be in Reno which is actually one we went to once before. It's a gorgeous place so you never know we might be going back again! Last year it was in Albuquerque, New Mexico so that was someplace new for us and we enjoyed it immensely. Guess we will have to see if we have some "spare" time!

I'm back..................

2009-04-13T12:28:00.007-05:00

Well I left Harrah's in Vegas yesterday morning at 8am and didn't arrive back here at home until 11pm. Talk about a long day traveling and not a great way to spend Easter either. I should have slept in this morning but I was up early and have already finished 3 loads of laundry and have everything unpacked and put away. Joys of vacation.........coming home and playing catch up around the house.

Speaking of vacation here's a few more pictures of Arizona. As you can see the temperature on Tuesday at 3pm was 95 which was the high for the week. Later it was in 80's & 70's which is just as nice. My mom & I did a ladies day and had our hair and nails done which was so much fun. I actually had acrylic nails put on for the 1st time and they look so pretty! I am having a hard time tho learning to put on jewelry and even typing here so will have to see how I adjust. It just makes you feel so feminine to have long painted nails and jewelry on.

It was great getting all that Vitamin D (sunshine) and a little hard re-adjusting to temps in the 40's. Needless to say I do have the fireplace going and haven't ventured outside yet for groceries!

On our way back to Vegas my brother took us on a "shortcut" called Christmas Tree pass and it was kinda like a road that had been traveled by covered wagons at one time........we even bottomed out at times trying to avoid potholes but the scenery was spectacular. Can you imagine flowers blooming bright yellow & red in the middle of the desert? Here's a few pictures from that side trip. Tomorrow I will do some pictures of Vegas as I am in the midst of downloading them all to Walgreens as they have their 10cents sale special & I will be able to pick them all up this afternoon.

Well back to work and stop by tomorrow for some fabulous pictures of Vegas!