Amazing Friends

Did I ever put this layout on my Blog? I don't think I have. I could go back and look...but of course that would be too easy. Ha! I realized today that I had intended to Blog about it but never did. My friend Lisa made this! It is about me!! How awesome is that? Last time I sang at church, I'm up there singing and I am looking around at the people in the congregation and I spot Lisa with a camera pointed at me.... so while I am still singing I am thinking ok, why is she taking my picture? A day or two later she E-mails me a scan of this layout. I was so touched and surprised that she wanted to make a layout about me and singing. How cool is that! Not to mention that she does amazing work! She totally stamped and colored most of this! Isn't that cool? She said she had seen the new Prima's paintables paper and thought she could do that with stamps. She was so right. I still look at this and just shake my head. I am so touched and amazed that anyone wants to hear me sing and then to do something so sweet. Lisa is the best!

Have you been watching premiere week? Did you see Dancing with the Stars? My husband and I looked forward to this week to see that show, the CSI's, more of the new Survivor, House and some others I'm not thinking of at the moment. Dancing with the Stars has gotten off to a great start. I can't decide who my favorite is yet. I loved watching Jane Seymour. Her dance was so beautiful, elegant and graceful. That Indy driver guy, his name is like Helio?? I thought he was really good too. We also liked the guy that is a model, Albert. He was funny and fun to watch. We kind of figured that girl that went home would be the one to go. We also liked Jenni Garth because we used to watch 90210. Sabrina, the cheetah girl was a good dancer and fun to watch but if she said "cheetahlicious" one..more... time.... I was going to seriously gag!! Do you have a favorite yet?

So next week I think my Mom and I are going to hit some antique stores. I haven't done that in the longest time and I usually love it. I also like scrap studios where people have used vintage stuff to decorate and for storage so I'd love some ways to incorporate that in mine too. I would also like to find some more stuff for our bedroom remodel to decorate with. I also think it is so cool how like Jenni Bowlin finds old buttons, trims, ledger papers etc. in the antique/vintage stores and uses those in her scrapping. Hoping to find some treasures!

Hope to work on some fall scrap related stuff this weekend. I downloaded an online class to make this cool fall banner and then the Guest Designer on The Scrapping Spot made this neat set of blocks I'd like to try. Darrel says he has some scrap post wood in the garage I can use. Looked like a quick easy project and so cute!

We have a Newcomer's Get Together for church on Sunday. I get to help with dessert. I am thinking of making something fall like such as pecan bars or maybe pumpkin bars. I have a great recipe for pecan bars that I got off of the Martha Stewart website. These are SO good. You must try them. Bet it's the best pecan bar you've ever had. Here is the recipe, or check it out on the website here. Make sure and use real butter (I use salted) and make sure to not skip the step about chilling your pastry for 20 minutes. That gets the butter cold again and helps make your crust flaky.

Makes about 32 cookies

For the crust:
18 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup light-brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups all-purpose flour

For the filling:

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup light-brown sugar, firmly packed
6 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups (8 ounces) pecan halves
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions
Place rack in center of oven. Heat oven to 375 degrees.

To make the crust: In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix butter and brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add salt, and mix to combine. Add flour 1 cup at a time, on medium speed, mixing until fully incorporated after each addition. Continue mixing until the dough begins to come together in large clumps.

Press dough about 1/4-inch thick into a 9-by-13-by-1-inch baking pan. Prick the pastry with the tines of a fork. Chill until firm, about 20 minutes. Bake until golden brown, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool completely.

Reduce oven to 325 degrees. To make the filling: Place butter, brown sugar, honey, granulated sugar, heavy cream, and salt in a medium saucepan over high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly until mixture coats the back of a spoon, about 1 minute. Remove pan from heat; stir in nuts and vanilla.

Pour filling onto the cooled crust. Bake until filling bubbles, 15 to 20 minutes. Carefully transfer pan to a wire rack to cool completely. Run a paring knife around edges of the pan, and invert onto cooling rack, leaving the pastry on the rack. Invert rack with pastry onto a cutting board, leaving the pastry on the board, filling side up. Use a sharp knife to cut into 1-by-3-inch bars. Store in an airtight container up to 1 week.

These are a little tedious with all the steps... but so worth it. Enjoy! Have a fabulous Friday! Blessings!

Cards, New Stamps & Birthdays

Made a few cards this afternoon with scraps from my DT kit. Thought they came out kind of fun. It's been nice since doing the DT work because I make cards at the end of kits and therefore always have a few handmade cards on hand. Very handy! I am really liking the yellow flower. That was made with one of these new stamp sets that I picked up at Target this past Friday night. Here is what they look like:

I think each set was just $1.99. For the flower you pick a flower center and stamp that and then pick and stamp your petals and then put it all together. I chose to cut out my center and place it on the card with a pop dot for some dimension. I haven't tried the leaves yet, but of course fall being my fav. I could not pass them up.

This picture is from my Dad's birthday about a week ago. It cracks me up! Does it not look like the cake is like seriously on fire!!! He was 64 and we started out trying to make the number 64 with the candles since we didn't think we could fit that many on the cake. Well once we got going we were almost to 64 anyways so we kept adding them till we got to that number. Well that practically set the cake ablaze! When he blew them out.... our smoke dectector went off from the smoke!! It was SO funny. Can't wait to do a layout about that one. I mean goodness can you even see how much light this thing was generating? We could have like generated power for a small town or something you think? Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. I need my little rolling around on the the floor laughing smilie guy! Ha.

We had our church picnic this afternoon. It was nice. We had good weather, but HOT. Hot especially for the end of September...which can you believe that by the way? The end of September. Where did the rest of the month go anyway? I wasn't looking I guess and it's gone! Even with the heat today we did have some fall weather about a week ago and the chill then was enough to start the trees turning! I was happy to spot some fall color today! I LOVE, love the colors. Can't wait till peak time.

Hope you have a great week!

Mini Crop Day

So today I spent the afternoon watching the QVC scrap shows from yesterday that I had TIVO record for me, and scrapping. Had my own little mini crop all by myself. Darrel had a meeting at church first thing this morning and then had to work. So I was by myself and got some more design team work done. This layout is again using the WRMK papers. Love these photos of my Dad and my husband. I took them on our "family fishing trip" day back in August. I guess that was just last month. Seems like its been longer than that.

So did you watch CK on QVC yesterday? They had several new items which always makes it more fun! What is it about the latest and greatest stuff that draws our/my attention? I guess when you have a lot of scrap stuff you are always looking for that next new cool thing that you haven't used or tried yet.

Last night we had dinner at the Outback. We had not been there for the longest time. It was very good. Love those bloomin onion things and they have such good steaks. They are pretty expensive so we don't go often. That makes it all the better when we do go though. Hit Target and Walmart after dinner. Target has some new stuff in their scrap section that was fun to look at. Also found 2 little pink plastic baskets for .99 to hold some of my ink pads. They also had these cool new autumn leaves mini clear stamps. I got the set that was leaves and make your own flower. Hope to try them out on some cards tonight or tomorrow.

Tomorrow we have our annual church picnic. It should be fun and we have a good weather forecast. You never know this time of year. Some years we freeze and some years we are wishing for air conditioning.

I'm off to scrap a bit more before bed. Hope you are having a wonderful weekend.

My First 8-1/2 x 11 Layout

Layout #2 completed today using my DT kit from The Scapping Spot. I am still so loving these papers. I have always liked the We Are Memory Keepers lines They always have that vintage look to them which is so my style. This is the first time I did this layout size which is 8-1/2 x 11. I liked it! It seems to much smaller than the 12 x 12 I do normally. If I wanted to use more than 1 or 2 photos, I think I'd still have to stick with the bigger size. I like my journaling and embellishments too much and I don't think I'd have the space with the smaller size. I recently switched to the American Crafts 3-ring chipboard albums! LOVE them. They blow away the post bound ones which can be such a pain to deal with. Also with the 3 ring, you can put assorted page sizes all in one book!! LOVE that and can't wait to add this one.

The 2 lovely ladies in the photo are my grandmothers. This picture was taken at my sister's wedding. Aren't they cute? Both were great ladies in their own way. I miss them. I could just stare at the photo and think of so many memories. I spent so many different weeks at Grandma's house. We would stay up late and watch movies. Grandma would fix us egg sandwiches for breakfast. We would play rummy together. We would look forward to grandpa getting home from work on Friday because we would head to the bank and then to Bonanza for dinner. Saturdays we would head to Dominicks for groceries. Sometimes grandma and I would order pizza for dinner and she would make grandpa something else. He was not a big pizza eater, or anything spicy. We also loved to listen to Glen Miller music together.

Now with Mamaw I have memories of baking pies together. She would give me a piece of dough to play with while she made her pies. Then the piece I had would go into a little pie pan for my Dad and I would have a little pie to give to him. I also remember going fishing with her. Watching sesame street at her house. Leaving my doll at her house because when I came back the next time it would have new clothes on that she had made. Lots of good memories. A favorite memory from this time of year had to be of what must have been close to my first Halloween. My Mom and Dad had me dressed up like a Hobo. I think my hair was messed up, dirty face, Dad's old t-shirt, etc. I don't know how old I was but it had to be younger than 4 or 5 because they moved away then. I remember knocking at their door to do "trick or treat." When they answered they both screamed and yelled and acted afraid and went running to hide. One of them (Mamaw or Papaw) got under the kitchen table and the other went hiding behind a living room chair. I thought it was so cool and funny. I guess it shows that it was a good moment since I was so young and can still remember it now.

So that was why I titled my layout "My Heritage." Both of these ladies impacted my life. They both have so much to do with who I am now. I am thankful that I had them in my life and that I have such good memories of them now that they aren't with me anymore.

Have a great week!

Blessings!

Fall Favorites

Here is my first Design Team Layout for The Scrapping Spot! Love these papers from We Are Memory Keepers Precious Metals Pewter Press Line. So pretty and so great for fall photos. They have a lovely aged, inked look about them. Of course that didn't stop me from adding my own inking! Ha. This is from the "perfect spot" kit which is the smaller of the two kits offered. It's a pretty reasonable price at only $16.50. Be sure to check it out!

Not been feeling so great these past 2-1/2 days... not sure if I got a cold/flu thing going on or just allergy stuff. Feeling tired and throat is hurting. I went to work today and did OK, but would definitely not have minded a good nap! Mostly took it easy this evening except for some scrapping as you can see. Seems every year, every time the weather changes, whichever season, I manage to catch something. I even load up on the vitamin C. That helps some, but doesn't always keep the bug away. Hoping it will be all gone by morning.

First thing tomorrow I head back to my eye surgeon for a follow up on my cataract surgery from a few months back. Hoping to get a clean bill of health from that. As far as I can tell things seem good. Just need my reading glasses and they told me that would be true before the surgery. I am feeling like the eyelid droops now on the eye that had surgery. I have read that can happen. I plan on asking her about that. I guess I can live with it how it is if I have to, just would at least like it not to get worse.

Just happened to end up on this blog today and loved what she had shared from a lesson on "How Did The World Get So Messed Up." If you go to her blog here and then scroll down to the Sept. 11th entry it is worth reading.

And with that I am heading to bed. The DR appt. is early tomorrow!

Have a blessed week!

A Few Good Men

I finished this layout this afternoon. I had started it on Monday at my crop. I got my background done, got my picture placed, and then I was stuck! I had been wanting to use the picture and papers together for the longest time so I was glad to get that much done, yet I was still stuck. Stuck for a title. Wasn't sure what I wanted to say from there, just knew that I love this photo and wanted to say something about my husband and his Dad. Couldn't move on until I figured that out. I need to know my title, what I want to say before I know how I want to embellish or what I want the "mood" to be. So I'm sitting there thinking and the song the Gaither Vocal Band does, "A Few Good Men" came to mind. Looked up the lyrics on the Internet and they were perfect. I thought the first verse was more fitting for what I wanted to say here so from there I had a plan and was ready to move on and complete. I am really happy with the result. I was kidding with the girls at the scrapping spot that the next time I decide to cut all my journaling into individual words please stop me. Like 1/2 way thru I was wondering what was I thinking? See patience is so NOT my best thing and typing your journaling, printing it, cutting into stips, cutting those into words, inking each one, laying it out and glueing it down..... tedious at best. It was worth it though because I love how it turned out. This may now be one of my favorites.

Can't believe it has been so long since I updated. Where on earth did the week go? Wow. Time just seems to fly anymore I mean can you believe Sept. is 1/2 gone too? One good thing about that though is that we are closer to the trees changing. I cannot wait for the fall color. LOVE that. We had some fall weather too this week. LOVE that too. Nice cool fall temps. We have all the doors and windows open. Feels so good to have the fresh air in the house.

Got my first DT kit for The Scrapping Spot. Hoping to get started on some layouts tomorrow. The colors in the We Are Memory Keepers Precious Metals papers are soooo pretty. Love the distressed aged look to the WRMK stuff.

Better head for bed. Church time will be here EARLY and you know me and mornings.

Blessings!

Photo Frame Class/Tutorial

Hi! Just wanted to share a photo frame project I completed today. This is my sweet husband. Isn't he cute? I had come up with this idea and did one of these a little while back using pictures from our 20th anniversary Colorado trip. I made this one so I could write up instructions with step by step photos for an online class/tutorial at the club I design for. It is a new kit club called The Scrapping Spot. The instructions are posted there if you are interested. Please come join our board and meet a great bunch of ladies and scrap with us! The site is still under construction but from the main page here, you can access the message board and our first newsletter. There are some great sketches and articles in the newsletter including one I did about embossing transparencies. I hope you enjoy it!

Had my second monthly crop this evening. It was fun. There were 3 of us this time around. One friend was able to make it which was sad. Hopefully we are going to try again next month. What is it about scrapping that makes scrapping together so fun? I used to totally NOT be a crop kind of person and now it is totally growing on me!

Hope your week has started out well! Blessings!

Fall Is In the Air

It's beginning to look a lot like.................. nope, not Christmas.... Fall!! I love the fall. Have I mentioned how much I love the fall? Love, love, love the fall. Look at this cute little pumpkin soap dispenser from Bath & Body. For me it's like picking out a Christmas tree to start Christmas. Every fall I need to go to Bath & Body and get a pumpkin soap dispenser. I drove a 1/2 hour 1 way to get this.... I know, I have an illness don't I? What can I say? A $10 pumpkin to sit on my bathroom sink just makes me happy. That's not such a bad thing huh? Of course while I was there they also now had this little ceramic pumpkin with a pumpkin candle inside.






















So now I have one of these sitting on my coffee table.

So today was a good day. Spent the day house cleaning, but it just felt like fall to me. Actually it was pretty humid outside. It was also cloudy and rainy though. So with the house closed up and the cloudiness, hearing the thunderstorm, having some fall candles lit and seeing the decorations I placed around the house today, It was just like a perfect fall Saturday. I so love this time of year.

Yesterday started off with a funeral for my cousin Howard. I went and attended the funeral with my parents. It was just one of those times when I felt like I needed to be there. As funerals go it was a nice funeral. Maybe that sounds weird to say, but with family there, the peace of knowing that Howard is with Jesus, and a good message from the minister, I found it a peaceful day and service. The minister made several good points. I even grabbed a pen and paper from my purse to jot them down. I know I'm a dork right? His message talked about the 23rd Psalm. He talked about the part of the scripture that says "yeah though I walk thru the valley of the shadow of death." He pointed out that it says we walk thru the valley. We aren't supposed to set up residence there. We go thru and God is with us and that is how we get thru. He also said that for there to be a shadow, the light has to be there. Isn't that a cool point? Even cooler is that I read that exact thing the day before. Usually when that happens, God is meaning for me to get something out of that. The minister also talked about if we have our eyes on the problem, we might miss the provision. God's provision and answer for us. We need to have our focus on Him. I thought all of those things were very good and found them comforting.

After the funeral my Mom and I took a ride to town and that is when we hit Bath & Body. We also stopped and checked out a new LSS (local scrapbook store) in town. I got some plain chipboard for a project I am working on, a new adhesive eraser, 2 new colors of stickles, and a portable pink paper trimmer. I have a 12" trimmer, but its not so much portable which makes it hard to pack for trips or crops. Next we headed back to my Mom's town and checked out a store that carries Vera Bradley stuff. Mom wanted to get her first Vera purse.













This is the one she picked out. It's the "on the go" style in Windsor Navy. I have one in this style too. Love that you can have a long strap and love all the pockets.

Ok, had some excitement while blogging. I giant spider just ran across the room. He was fast. Darrel and I are sitting here watching a movie and here goes this big spider! I start yelling "big spider, big spider" while pointing and getting myself all the way up on my chair!! Then of course I realize the big fast spider could run right up my chair! Darrel went to the kitchen to get the fly swatter. I'm yelling hurry, hurry.... are you getting the impression that I hate spiders? He came back and is trying to find the spider which ran under the dog bed. The spider runs at Darrel and he tries to smash it under the dog bed. When he picks up the bed to see if he got it, now its missing. I'm like, "whats that on the floor next to you?" It was the spider! Darrel starts smacking it again with the fly swatter and now the dog is trying to figure out why is Darrel swinging a fly swatter towards him.... It was soooo funny. Finally now the spider is dead and we can all breathe normally again.

We are watching "Though None Go With Me." It's pretty good. I TIVO'd it way back in April. Cheryl Ladd plays a grandma in the movie. I looked at my husband and said, OK, if one of Charlie's Angel's is playing a grandma, what does that say about how old we are? Don't answer that for me please.

Hope you are having a great weekend. I need to go make a shopping list for tomorrow. We also have church in the morning of course.

Blessings!

Birthdays, Cool Stuff and a New Layout....

So how did so many days go by since I have updated? Wow. Where do the days go? Seriously.

Here is a new layout that I made this weekend. This is my niece Lauryn when she was about 2 yrs old. How cute is she? It was fun making a sparkly pretty girly layout and of course PINK. A sweet lady from the club I design for sent me some stickles just because. Wasn't that nice? I had never used it before and she was so sweet she sent me some pink and a pearly color. I used it to outline a few of my stamped images and they came out all cool and sparkly. A lot of the product used here was from some Jenni Bowlin kits I had from earlier this year. She always puts together the coolest stuff.















Let's back up to this past Friday night... Date Night! We headed to Evansville which we tend to do maybe once or twice a month and had dinner at Penn Station. Do you have one where you live? They have the best sandwiches and fries. YUM. We both had the cheesesteak. Mine minus the mushrooms. Good stuff. After that I was wanting to hit the mall and the LSS (local scrapbook store for those of you who don't know scrapbook speak...) The LSS was having a sale and the mall has Bath & Body Works which I love especially in the Fall. Can you feel fall in the air? I can sense it... I cannot wait. I LOVE the fall. Anyway, back to Friday. We hit the LSS first. They had things marked down, but their selection is not so great these days so I didn't find all that much that I needed/wanted. On the clearance table I did find some of these Mimi stamp cases for my alpha stamps. The were like 75% off so I grabbed those. Don't my stamps look all nice and organized now. Love that! I do have 1 question though. They make these things to hold your little alpha stamp sets... the alphabet has 26 letters last I checked right? Well they make these things with 25 spaces!! What is up with that? Do people do these things just to make my head hurt?

Next stop was Bath & Body to check out the Perfect Autumn stuff. It is like part of fall for me to go there and get some candles and the orange soap in the pumpkin dispenser. I know its a sickness like the scrapbook thing. Of course they didn't have the pumpkin soap, but they did have a pumpkin candle and this cool tea lite reflector thing. Can't wait to decorate with my fall stuff. Next we walked down to Macy's to browse around and I found this cute Martha Stewart stuff there. Aren't the little prep bowls cool? They are so vintage/retro looking and they are actually made of melmac! I thought the little red colander was so cute too! Both things will look so great in my kitchen.

After that we headed for some Baskin Robbins and came home and watched a movie called Disturbia. Wow.. Creepy, but an OK movie. Saturday we tried to relax at home and that was when I got some time to work on my layout.

Sunday was church and then afterwards we headed to my Mom's for a birthday cookout for our nephew Cole. I cannot believe he is officially a teen! The big 13 this time. Wow. I must be getting old. This was his Dairy Queen birthday cake which was a chocolate extreme blizzard cake. It was yummy. So we had a great holiday weekend. Hope you did too.

Hope you have a great week. It's a busy one for us so I am looking forward to the weekend and then my 2nd crop night coming up on Monday! Yay.

Blessings!