Saturday.....all day

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

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

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

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............

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?

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.....

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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......

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

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

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

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

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!