Happy Birthday Matt!

Yesterday was my oldest's birthday.  Matt turned  31 which is hard to believe because although my sons appear to be getting older I do not feel like I am!  lol Of course then I look in the mirror and see the laugh lines and the gray hair (cleverly covered up by a good colorist at my salon) and I know differently.  But life is good and aging is a part of it.  So happy birthday Matt...enjoy your 30's they will be some of the best years of your life.  In honor of Matt's birthday I did this layout of him as a baby and my grandfather.  Unfortunately my grandfather died about 2 years after this picture was taken so he never did get to enjoy his great-grandchildren very much.  So I really treasure the few photos I have of him.

Entered in scrapbook circle banner challenge

The Paper Variety Guest Design Team

A couple of weeks ago Suzanne of The Paper Variety extended the invitation to be a guest on her design team this week.  I was so surprised I quickly shot back an email and asked her if she had sent the email to the right person!!  She told me the challenge would be to incorporate numbers on our projects.  That started the wheels turning in my head.  I decided to use a little pack of vinyl building product samples and create a little number book for my 3 year old granddaughter Abigail.  This is what I started with:

and this is the finished product:

I had a great time using up items from my stash with this project and hope that you will jump in and create a project...anything qualifies as long as you use paper and numbers.  Link it up to The Paper Variety and you could win this awesome prize:

The sponsor this week is an Etsy store called We Scrap Kits and you can check them out HERE . Thanks again to Suzanne for the opportunity this week and kudos to Abby and Suzanne on The Paper Variety which has quickly become one of the best and most popular challenge sites.  Because of TPV, Wednesday is now one of my favorite days of the week.

Other challenges entered with this project:
Wee Memories All Things Adorable

All Things Adorable

I have been busy all weekend being crafty,  I made 5 Easter cards today.  This one is for my husband's brother and his wife in North Carolina.  They have two adorable little boys with another baby on the way this fall.  I just love working with these vintage die cuts that I won recently from Pretty Little Studio.  Isn't this little duck the cutest thing?  Because he is so cute I decided to enter him over at this week's Wee Memories all things adorable challenge.  I just LOVE the stamps they are offering as a prize this week.....especially those mermaids!! Check out their awesome blog and all the wonderful projects....you will get as inspired as I do.

Easter Gift Bags

I did something new this time for my grandsons for Easter.  As I have mentioned before I live 1000 miles away from my sons and grandchildren.  I often send them packages of goodies in the mail.  In the past for Easter I have sent their goodies in baskets with their names on them, beach buckets and various other containers.  This year I thought I would just decorate a couple of plain kraft gift bags and save myself a little money on shipping costs .  I was really inspired by the gift bag challenge over at Moxie Fab World.  These are simple but nice and everyone loves to have something with their name on it!  Plus with the savings on shipping I was able to add a few more goodies.  These are currently on their way to Indiana now and will be there in time to be enjoyed for Easter.

Dave's Birthday and Card

 Here is another entry into the twine challenge this week at Wee Memories. We celebrated my husband's birthday this week.  I made him a card of course.  I wanted it to be somewhat funky and yet get the message across.  I free hand cut a heart out of an old dictionary and attached one of those cool Tim Holtz keys to it with some awesome twine and used a computer generated sentiment and a tiny little dimensional heart.  Then I doodled around the edges in Julie Bonner style.  He loved it.  He sees me making things for others all the time and I really feel that I need to make more little handmade and heartfelt expressions of love for him.  He saves EVERYTHING I have ever given him.  Don't you just love sentimental men? (sigh!) 

We celebrated by taking the day off work (right in the middle of the work week....) and doing some of our favorite things....out to a simple, healthy breakfast, walking the Volusia County Farmer's/Flea Market and then we went into Orlando and he took me to an awesome scrapbook store and let me shop! He even found me cool stuff and encouraged me to keep buying.  He's a definite keeper!  Then I took him to 2 guitar shops and we actually found a couple of cool guitars that he would not mind adding to his collection.  Now, just to find a way to afford them and that awesome entertainment center we found!  We stopped for an early dinner at one of our favorite healthy salad bar places to eat -- Sweet Tomatoes.

Here's Dave enjoying his awesome pasta after polishing off a big bowl of Irish Potato and Leek soup.  It was a wonderful day to celebrate a wonderful man....so glad you are my husband, honey.  Here's to many, many more birthday celebrations with you!

Easter Card and The Paper Variety Challenge

I tried something a little different for my grandson Cole's birthday card.  I created a little springtime Easter scene and a play on words for the sentiment.  I kinda like it....it's different.  The die cut is another from the awesome pack of vintage die cuts that I won recently from Pretty Little Studio.  My friend Kim made me the clouds which I embossed, the grass is from my friend Abby.  I received it in a recent border swap I took part in.  The flowers are from my stash....one of which I made from vintage dictionary paper.  I am entering this card in The Paper Variety's flower challenge this week (check it out HERE ).  This card is going postal to Cole tomorrow from Florida to Valparaiso, Indiana with love.

Altered Easter basket

I picked up this little basket at my local thrift store for a dime back during the winter.  Some child had drawn hearts with a marker on it.  Three coats of paint and some paper, ribbon, glue and recycled lace and I am proud to show off the Easter basket I made for my granddaughter Abby.  It will be on it's way tomorrow from Florida to Illinois filled with goodies from Grandma.  I tied that cute little pennant on with twine which I just can't get enough of lately.  I need to order it by the spools.  I am entering this creation over at the Wee Memories twine challenge this week where I was really inspired by all the gorgeous twine projects.  You can check them out HERE.  Maybe I will get lucky and this entry will win me a supply of twine....wish me luck! Also entered at the Max Fab World The Little Gifts Challenge where inspiration abounds!  Check it out HERE 

Daytona

Here's another layout with photos from our day at the races in Daytona in February.  I used the sketch from this week's Sketchy Thursday challenge which you can see HERE .  I will also be entering it over at the journalling challenge at Lasting Memories this week. In case it is too hard to read here is what the journalling says on this page :

The Gatorade Duels at Daytona International Speedway

We have lived here in Florida nearly 4 years and this

was the first racing event we attended.  We took Thursday

off work and enjoyed a warm and breezy day in the sun.

Jeff Gordon led quite a few laps being pushed around the 

track by rookie Trevor Bain who went on to win the

Daytona 500 on Sunday.  Jeff drove the AARP Chevy.

I asked Dave if he wanted a Jeff Gordon AARP tee shirt

and he said a definite NO!

February 17, 2011

Easter Cards

This has been a very crafty weekend for me and I am loving it.  I had a number of Easter projects I wanted to tackle and I am getting them accomplished one by one.  This card turned out really cute and is for my 3 year old granddaughter Abby.  I used this picture from The Paper Variety challenge this week as inspiration:

Then I also made this card for my grandson Jacob:

I recently won several packages of vintage Easter/spring die cuts from Pretty Little Studio so they will be showing up on several of my cards this year.  I just LOVE them!  I still have plenty to do and to share....so I better get back to work.......

Beauty

My in house photographer (Dave) never ceases to provide me with awesome pictures to scrap.  This is another photo from our trip to the Viera Wetlands a few weekends ago.  The embellished butterflies are from my friend Theresa's shop.  For more information you can check her blog out here....she does fabulous work and sell her handmade flowers and embellishment at VERY reasonable prices.

A Day at the Races

We live in the Daytona Beach area and often forget how lucky we are to live in an area that thousands, millions even visit yearly for vacation and we can enjoy all the area has to offer on a daily basis.  In February we took off a workday and made a trip to the Daytona International Speedway for the Gatorade Duels.  Two races, minimal crowds and very exciting racing.  I am working on a couple of layouts this weekend of that day and here is the first. 

I used this week's awesome sketch from Sketch Inspiration and it is also an entry in the Scrappin'-n-Chattin' "Us" challenge to scrap a picture of "us".  We are Jeff Gordon fans so I had to throw in a JG insignia on the page....he even lead the second race for some time...we just had a great day topped off with an awesome meal at a wonderful Mexican restaurant in Ormond Beach.

Dinner Time

I am very lucky to be married to a man who has an awesome ability to take stunning photographs. He snaps 'em and I scrap 'em!! We recently spent a Saturday morning at the Viera Wetlands which is south of Titusville, Florida. We had many photo ops of springtime in the Florida wild. (Wait until you see the alligator pictures!!) Dave snapped this picture of a momma bird feeding her babies....just one of many magnificent pictures taken that day. I used the sketch from this week Sketches in Thyme challenge and also the 1-2-3 challenge this week at The Paper Variety. I used 1 photo, 2 flowers and 3 pattered papers for that challenge. I will also be entering it in Lasting Memories spring theme this week.

Welcome Spring

I love the spring time....one of my children was born in the spring and especially growing up and living in the Midwest, springtime was a wonderful time after the harshness of winter. Now living here in Florida, I really love springtime because (along with Fall) it is some of the best weather that we have down here...perfect tempertures and low humidity....what more can you ask for? To celebrate the arrival of spring this year I made this wreath. The colors of spring really inspire me...I love the pastels of new flowers and new growth and the freshness in the air. I received this grapevine wreath and a couple of others from my local freecycle...it was destined for the landfill before I rescued it. It had some ugly old flowers and ribbon on it. I removed those and added a new roll of sheer green polka dot ribbon from Michael's which along with the flowers is the only thing I purchased on this whole project. The flowers were in a large ziploc bag that I got at my local resale shop for $1. The chipboard birdies were from my friend April and the materials for the "SPRING" pennant were just scraps and brads from my stash. Total cost for this project was under $3. I am currently collecting materials for a beachy one for the summer.
Challenges entered: Wee Memories and Paper Issues and Moxie Fab World Home Decor Challenge

Where I create

I am a pretty neat and tidy person (except when I eat and then it's food and crumbs all over everywhere...lol). I do not throw my clothes on the floor and most mornings I make my side of the bed. I put my dirty dishes in the dishwasher and I hang my towel after I shower. However when I am working on my projects I can make a bigger mess than three toddlers!! Luckily it is my room and my amazing husband never bothers me about it!!