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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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!!!