To The Stars & Treetops

How cute is this little guy? This is my nephew Cole when he was 2. He is about to be 14 now... wow. Love, love this picture of him on the swings at my Mom's house. He was so cute! Oh wait, I think I mentioned that. Can't help myself. I remember when he used to hug trees. We didn't know why until we realized he had seen that in The Giving Tree book. How sweet is that? He was a fearless little thing too that thought he could pick up or do anything. He once tried to pick up my Mom's house (by grabbing hold of the siding) and said "uck" for stuck. I remember eating dinner with him and how he pointed at his sandwich and looked at me and said "it's yours" because I had forgotten to play with him and tell him he better not eat my sandwich (which of course was reverse psychology to try and get him to eat) This picture just made me smile looking at his little face and remembering all those times. Used some more of the Pink Paislee Vintage Moon from The Scrapping Spot. Love this line! The colors and papers are awesome. Be sure to get yourself one. I used the add on for this month too which is the Pink Paislee Top Siders. The one used here is the chip board star. I used the negative part of the image as a stencil. With that and some Faded Jeans distress ink and a make up sponge, I got the stenciled star look that you see.

So vacation day 7 we headed to Evansville and did some shopping for the day. It was great. We stopped first at Panera Bread and had lunch. OK, who has had the asian sesame chicken salad? Oh my gosh, I loved it! How good! Definitely have to go again for some of that. When we got into town it was 1:00 and we are thinking great, the lunch crowd should be dying down. However, when we are having lunch we are thinking the restaurant was still pretty crowded. Well duh... we finally realized that was because it was noon there. Duh. See the town we live in is on Eastern Time zone and Evansville is Central. We know this. We live with it every day. Yet somehow, we can still forget. Goofy huh?! So after lunch we just kind of went where we felt like and hit some things that are normally closed since we can usually only go in the evening. At the first gift shop I got this beautiful fall plate! Isn't it gorgeous? Love it! We also walked the mall, hit some gift and antique shops, a used book shop (which I had to leave early because of the smell..... so sensitive to not good smells... ugh.) a wood working shop for my husband and then at the end, Darrel drove back to the 1st gift store and got me this! (Vera Bradley Cargo Sling) He surprised me. Isn't he the best? He has gone above and beyond this week to do what he could to make this a great vacation. I love him so much. He is awesome.















Do you like Yankee Candles? We picked this one up at Hallmark in the mall. Love the smell!! It totally smells like the Corn Festival we used to go to when we lived in IL. It is called Fall Fesitval.















I've been looking for a great picture to hang in our bedroom over the bed. We found this at Gordman's yesterday.















Love it! It is calm and peaceful and the perfect size for this spot. It totally reminds me of the place where I do my walking. This thing is heavy too! It only took Darrel 1/2 the day to hang it! Ha. Why does that always turn into an ordeal between finding studs in the right place and getting things level and centered? He did a great job and its perfect now! Here is how it looks in the room.















Totally love our room! My pink velvet curtains (from the Shabby Chic line at Target) are one of my favorite things. I am pleased with how the picture looks too. OK, any Koontz girls reading this, can you believe that night stand on the right was your Mom's furniture that used to be in Darrel's room? Darrel refinished/painted/distressed it. I LOVE how it came out!!! Have I mentioned that he is good? Do you remember the knob that drawer used to have on it? If you could call it a knob. It was more like this big flat gold disc. Ugh. Big improvement here.

Do you remember this layout? Well how cool is this? My friend Lisa liked the design and used it in one of the newest page kits for Shabby Pink Designs. Check it out here. Isn't that awesome? She has lots of great kits available. Be sure to check them out in her paypal store.

We went for our walk today. Made 2 miles in 34 minutes. I am getting so close to that 2 miles in 30 minutes goal. Today Darrel got to see what I mean about cars NOT getting over. We are walking on a country road people. Country road. So WHY do cars have to drive right up to us and then act like big sigh... .guess these people walking aren't going to move... I'll have to go around... Well D. U. H. It's a country road... there is no other traffic coming 9 times out of 10... so why not just stinking go around? It is so annoying!! I swear they want to sit there and wait for us to go in the ditch so they can not have to move. Darrel said it made him want to walk right down the center and not move! ha. I'd have to get a picture of that one! Headlines would read Irate protective husband refuses to move from middle of country road.....

Moved on to vacation book #2 and am reading The Memory Keeper's Daughter. Have you read this? I've heard lots of good things about it on the message boards at 2 peas and others. Enjoying it so far! Hope to finish before back to work time on Tuesday.

Hope you are having an awesome LaborDay Weekend. Blessings!

Vacation Day 3 & 5

So, did someone put this sign in the mall just to prove me right? This cracked me up when I saw it. I just had to take a picture and told my husband it was very blog worthy.. ha. ha. ha. T'his was part of the "Fashion Mall" near Indianapolis IN. This was the second mall we visited on Monday. The first one was the Castleton Square I mentioned. We did get to eat at both Stir Crazy (for lunch) and Cheesecake Factory for dinner too. We did not hit any scrap stores... can you believe it? We ran out of time. At the Malls though I ended up with some new Nike walking socks, some Godiva chocolate (YUM) (I got some pecan carmel clusters.) a little pink maglite flashlight, an armband for my ipod, and the best thing...some new Nike+ shoes and a Nike+ sensor/receiver for my ipod. Have you heard about these? SO COOL. The shoes have a spot for a sensor under the insole and then there is a reciever that connects to the ipod. It tracks my walk and tells me exactly how far I've walked, what my mile/minute ratio is, how long total I walked and calories burned. It is awesome. I have used it 3 times now. It syncs with your ipod so you can play your favorite playlist and a little voice talks to you and tells you your progress during your walk if you press the button. We walked with it at Pride's Creek twice and then at my parents town yesterday. They have a very nice new walking trail that we walked last night. Wish I had one here!















So that was day 3. Day 5 was spent here. Isn't it pretty? This is Patoka Lake. We borrowed my Dad's fishing boat and went over to the lake for the day to fish. Well, ok we wanted to fish, well Darrel did and if it counts that fish jumped all around the boat..then we fished. If you have to actually get bites and catch a fish...then not so much. It still was a beautiful day on the water. See, doesn't he look like a serious fisherman?















This is what I did...................
















At least you have proof I was there. Darrel tried to fish. I tried to finish my book. Almost made it too. Just finally finished this afternoon. (Charles Martin's Where The River Ends) Good book! I always like his books and I love the way he writes men and couples. They always remind me of my husband and I. Anyway, we had a picnic type lunch on the boat, enjoyed driving around the water a bit and Darrel tried to convince a fish to get on his hook. He needs to work on that one. When we were done, we had a nice dinner in town, after we went walking on that new walking trail I mentioned. We did 2 miles there in 34 minutes! See, a girl can go faster when she doesn't have to fight her way up 99 hills.

Today we have been lazy at home. I finished my book and am doing some blogging as you can see. Darrel made ice cream! Yum. We both enjoyed some of the Godiva that came home with us. Earlier we walked. I got sick part way through. It was pretty hot today and 2/3 of the way I got over hot and nauseous. Had to stop in the shade and rest a few minutes. I was able to finish though. Some cold water and a cool shower helped when we got home. Need to try not to do that again. Ugh.

Tomorrow we may go to a different town for the day. Still deciding. Might get some more scrapping in. Definitely want to walk again and read another book! Hope you are having a great week! Blessings!

The Pumpkin Patch

Just a quick post to share my latest LO. Finished up this one today using the Sept. Pink Paislee kit from The Scrapping Spot. Like the last LO, this one is using the new Vintage Moon line. Love love these papers. So pretty like just about everything Pink Paislee comes up with. The Pumpkin Patch is a rubon from the same line and the blue alpha stickers are also from the line. I made the leaves from some scraps of cardstock. I first ran it thru my Sizzix Big Kick using the texture plates. Then I used cookie cutters to trace the leaf shape. After cutting those out I inked to bring out the embossing and then used an embossing stylus to make the leaf veins. I thought it turned out kind of cool. The pictures are our nieces and nephew and Darrel's sister and her husband when they came to visit in the fall a few years ago. We had a fun day at a local corn maze and pumpkin patch. I can still remember how beautiful the weather was too. LOVE the fall. I think I've mentioned that. Smile...

Had an AWESOME time shopping yesterday. I'll post tomorrow or Thurs. when I have more time to tell you all about it. Today for vacation we mostly hung out at home and relaxed. Tomorrow we are going boating/fishing. Hopefully I'll have a few pics to share of the giant fish Darrel catches.

Blessings!

Pink Paislee Vintage Moon

This....is my beautiful niece Lauryn. She took this picture herself. Isn't it cool? I love the relection in the mirror! I saw this on her facebook page and had to snag it and scrapbook it! Didn't hurt that the colors just happened to go perfectly with the new Vintage Moon papers in The Scrapping Spot's September kit! The Pink Paislee Vintage Moon line was one of my very favorites at Summer CHA in July. They had an awesome booth and make and take too! So hurry on over to the spot girls and get yourself a september kit! The 2nd kit for September is also Pink Paislee in the Pop Fashion line.

The Scrapping Spot Store is also having a great sale. Lots of things are 20% off which includes some great kits like the Prima Morning Song line. Don't miss out!

Well day 2 of vacation was pretty good. Got in some scrapping as you can see, some tv watching and best of all I finally made 2 miles on my walk!!!!! Yay me! I hit 2.1 miles today. It felt so awesome!!! I should have taken a picture so I could scrap it and celebrate! Ha. So what is on the agenda for day 3 of vacation? We are going to Indy for the day to shop! Cool!! Darrel has spent some time this evening planning our route. We plan to hit this mall first. Evidently it is the largest mall in Indiana. We also plan on hitting The Cheesecake Factory for dinner and possibly Stir Crazy for lunch. If I don't get to eat anything tomorrow but a piece of that Chocolate Tower Truffle Cake from Cheesecake factory, that will be just fine by me. Want to hit all the good places we can while we are in town! We may also go to Clay Terrace which is a really nice outdoor style mall. We went there last summer and they had a great Vera Bradley store.... might have to stop there again. May make a stop here or here too. Smile....

Have a great week! Hope your Monday is fab! Blessings!

Can you say VACATION

OK yesterday.... 5:15 PM 10 days of vacation officially began!!! Yay!!! So ready. Life has been busy, hectic, and lately highly stressful. I am so ready... So to start off vacation Darrel and I headed to town for Date Night. We had dinner at Sirloin Stockade and then went to the mall to kill some time before our movie started. We are walking thru the mall when my eyes spotted FUCHSIA PINK CROCS in the front of the Journey's store window. OH my goodness!! Why did no one tell me they come in fuchsia!!!!!! I love them. love them. Did I mention I love them? My husband bought them for me and he got the very last pair! Well of course he did, who doesn't want fuchsia pink mammoth Crocs?!!!! My black mammoths were my absolute fav. shoes all last fall and winter. They are SO warm and comfy. And now... I have bright PINK!! Got tired of trying to remember how to spell fuchisa but see now, I had to do it again just to explain! Ha. So now I need some fall weather so I can actually wear my pretty pink shoes.















Today then is official day 1 of vacation. So what do I decide to do? Well first, we slept in and then my sweet husband made us some yummy pancakes. He is quite the breakfast cook and often treats me to breakfast on Saturdays. One year on my birthday he made me pancakes that were shaped into letters that spelled Happy Birthday... Anyway, back to today. After a leisurely morning I somehow got the idea in my head that I wanted to walk to the library. Well the library is in town. I don't live in town. Thinking about the distance though I didn't think it could be a whole lot different than my daily walks. So, I got my pink walking shoes (well OK, they are white with some pink on them, but of course I would choose to call them pink...) on, grabbed my pink & black (are you sensing a pink theme today?) Vera Bradley back sack (to carry my books home in cause I can't go to a library and not get books... physically impossible! Ha.) my ipod (which we will discuss in a moment) and headed out. OK, first, it was HOT. Not to mention humid. But, still, I enjoyed the walk. I walked to my brother's house first. That took about 15 minutes. Had a quick visit and had some water and then headed for the library. That was maybe 10 minutes further. The A/C at the library felt wonderful. Spent some time book browsing, checked out 4 books and then headed down the street to a little shop called Somewhere in Thyme. It is in this old building that used to be the dime store when I was a little girl. Love that. Now its an awesome antique/crafts kind of store. I didn't buy anything here um cause then I'd have to carry it home. It was another 5-10 minute walk to this store. Then after that I headed home. That took 20 minutes walking straight thru. So I got lots of walking in today and somehow managed to not get heat stroke. I was a little worried by the time I got here because I was so over hot that I was nauseous, had a headache and chills... figured chills were not good when you are hot and sweating. I was fine after some time in the A/C with a cold bottle of water. So the picture above is of the town main street during my walk. That is about all there is to it. I love living in a little old timey kind of town. Isn't it cute? And here is some planned reading activity for Vacation days 2-10. Love, love, love to read. Did I need to go to the library to have something to read? Nope. Got lots of books. Did that matter? Nope! Still love to go pick something out at the library...

My ipod showed up on our doorstep during breakfast today! So so so glad to have it back!! Not so sure however that I am a big fan of Apple anymore. We shall see. I will reserve judgement for a few days till we see how it does. We sent it in for "repair" because it skips. Or lets think positive here and say it used to skip. It sounded like a CD walkman when it skips when you hit a bump or something. We called customer support and were told to send it in since we had already tried all the things they would have told us to try. They had it for several days before basically telling us that they checked it all out, that they didn't find any problems with it and so they were returning it to me. Kind of like when you take your car to the mechanic because its making a noise and it of course won't make the noise for them. They gave me a bunch of talk about how now it has all the most recent firmware updates,etc. Should I be excited about that? Doesn't it do that every time I plug it into itunes and it gets updates? As long as its fixed now that is fine. I just don't want it to start doing the same thing again in a couple of days (as its done in the past) and have to keep fighting with apple about it. Will NOT be happy about that.

Getting ready to have pizza and breadsticks from one of our favorite places and then will be doing some scrapping. My kits from The Scrapping Spot are here and can't' wait to play! The kits for this month are the new lines from Pink Paislee both the Vintage Moon and Pop Fashion. Shhhh!!! Don't tell anyone I told you. Do not miss out on these kits! They are awesome. Should have some Lo's for you shortly!

Blessings.

My Pretty Pink Ipod

So remember my pretty pink ipod? I've not even had it 2 months, but it's been giving me problems. It keeps sounding like its skipping, which from what I understand should be next to impossible. I've tried resetting it, restoring it, etc. That works for a bit and then it starts again. Darrel got them on the phone the other night and they said we need to send it in for repair... Repair nothing I think they should replace it! These things cost $199 and I don't think we should have to settle for a repaired one at that price when its not even 2 mos. old. I am praying they will do the right thing and just send me a replacement. I really hate giving it up even for a few days. I have come to depend on it so much when I am walking. I always use the stopwatch feature and some good music with a beat really helps me climb those hills! I am sure I will survive though.. Sorry... Enough whining for now right?

Have you heard about this movie?? I heard about it on the radio yesterday. I always listen to wbgl.org at work. It is a great Christian station that we used to listen to when we lived in IL. Now I listen to the live stream on the Internet. Love that! Anyway, they mentioned there was a movie coming out next month by the makers of Facing The Giants. Another favorite and awesome movie. You can check out Fireproof here. Love the trailer. It alone had me weepy. Looks like it stars Kirk Cameron! I've always liked him. I can already tell that I want and need the soundtrack from Fireproof. It sounds great on the web site with the few songs they have up. Check it out! I will be sure to be one of the first in line to see it at the end of next month.

Have you ever been to a Moe's Southwest Grill restaurant? My sister has been telling me its really good so we may check it out tomorrow night for date night. It will depend on how the day goes. Their food looks really yummy and I LOVE Mexican food. We might head to town (remember, I'm a country girl now and I have to actually like make a trip to go to town...) and make a stop at Michael's too. I've been wanting to check out some of the Martha Stewart border punches. I've seen some cute things online that people have done with them. Nora Griffin had used one along the top of a photo. It was very cool! I gotta try that. You can see it in this post.

Should be receiving my new kits for September from The Scrapping Spot very soon..... do not miss out on these kits girls! Brand new "hot" CHA releases included in these. You will not be able to choose and will need both kits this month! I promise!














Can you feel it in the air? FALL IS COMING!! Yay!! Love and adore the fall. We have had some wonderful weather here lately which totally makes you feel fall in the air.. I swear I can smell it! First thing I do every year any more to celebrate the arrival of fall is head to Bath & Body to get myself a new pumpkin soap! Love the pumpkin soap! I swear it's like going to pick out the Christmas tree to start celebrating the Christmas season. Gotta have a pumpkin soap to start celebrating the fall. Oh LOOK just went to peek at their web site and the fall candles are already up!!!!! I am so stinkin excited. I have to go now! ha. ha. ha. Mom, are you reading this? You want to go with me again? That was so fun last year!! I cannot wait to be able to take my walks in the fall... I will LOVE that.

OK, while I calm down from fall overload.... I will say goodnight for now. Hope you are having a fab. week! Blessings!

A Peaceful Sunday

This is where I walked today. Isn't it pretty? After we got home from church and lunch, the weather was so gorgeous outside (like 80 degrees, nice breeze, no humidity and sunny) I asked Darrel if he wanted to go walk and then maybe go fishing for a bit after that. So we packed up our fishing neccessities (which we will discuss in a moment), went and bought a fishing license and headed for what we affectionately call..... Globe Pits. Now at this point I am sure you are asking yourself what on earth is a "Globe Pit?" Right? I have no idea why it's called globe... but where we live there are areas that have been strip mined for coal. After they are done mining some of the areas have then been turned into like fish/wildlife areas. We used to come here a lot when I was a kid. So today, we walked first and then settled down to drown a few worms. OK, I mentioned to Lisa that we were going fishing and she told us this story about her son (I think... Lisa, was it your son?) and she said when he was little he had a worm and he was like holding one end of it and smacking it against a rock. When they asked him what he was doing he said he was knocking it unconscious before it had the hook put thru it........ bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha !!!! How cute is that!




















So here is my husband fishing with his fishing neccessities. You know, tackle box, worms (yuck), couple of fishing poles, etc.... Here is my opinion of fishing neccessities just a few feet away...............














See what every girl needs on a fishing trip, Diet Pepsi, lawn chair, good book, a pretty pink case and um what 2 Vera Bradley bags.... This is my idea of fishing. Sitting near my husband sipping my diet pepsi reading a good book or taking some pictures or listening to my ipod (all stashed in Vera bag #1) and then for back up, you have a bottle of water or pop in of course Vera Bag #2.




















Did we catch anything you ask? Notice I say we. I caught some cute pics of my husband. Darrel caught two like baby fish. This was one of them. One was a small mouth bass and one a large mouth bass. They both weren't even as big as his hand. He got lots of bites and fed the fish a lot of worms. I think what we both needed most though was the quiet peaceful day away and alone just relaxing. Life has been kind of hectic and stressful lately with more lined up for this week so today was perfect. Here is another shot of where we fished that I thought was pretty.















We spent most of our day here. At the end of the day though we went to another spot in the country and spent about an hour there. This was another spot I remember fishing at often when I was a kid. I must have really had some good memories here because I really wanted to spend some time at this spot. I say that because to get to this spot, you have to climb down a rather high (to me - the afraid of heights person) and steep in some spots bank. My sweet husband helped me down, but first I had to walk this narrow path right at the edge with like weeds and sticker bush things trying to grab me. Once you pass that test then there is this steep part that I watched my husband slide down (on his feet) before he turns around to look at me like OK, your turn. I'm like UM I don't think so! I do not like high places, especially ones you have to slide down to smash on the rocks below. See my husband is reading now and laughing at me and thinking I am so over stating it... Well he isn't afraid of heights. So as I am giggling (which I do in those situations when I am scared and nervous) and thinking of reasons not to go the rest of the way down and wondering how I will get back up if I do I made a joke (or so I thought) and said why don't you dig me some steps and then I can come down. He laughs and says he didn't bring anything to dig steps with. Well duh.. Know what he does next? He pulls out his fishing knife and bends down and stabs the dirt and makes 4 little foothold kind of places. Can you believe him? Is he not amazing? He is the best husband ever. Seriously. Once he did that I got the rest of the way down (still giggling....) and when it was time to go, got right back up that part without a problem. Isn't he so smart? And good! He is like McGyver or something. Ask him for steps, he produces steps. You should see the amazing things he can do with a pepsi box. Seems like every year on vacation we have some piece of furniture in our room that is uneven, or an a/c vent not working right, or goodness what else... but he has fixed countless things on different trips by cutting up and using a pepsi box. See I told you he is good.. Look how cute he is too when he is fishing and relaxing and having fun....














Hope you have an awesome week! Blessings!

Full Mini Book Preview & Other Random Thoughts

OK, so yes, I took a picture of my lunch.... why? Because I am weird like that (and cause its kinda pretty! ha) .... and because I have a question. I know, I say that a lot here don't I? So back to the question are there like classes for wrap wrapping? I mean I think I have a wrapping disability and need like remedial wrap rolling classes... (try saying that 3 times fast! ha!) See I can never seem to get the filling ratio right with the size of the tortilla. If you get too much inside, when you wrap it all up, of course your tortilla has a blow out. I tried warming my tortilla a smidgen figuring it would be more pliable but then of course I got interrupted middway thru making my sandwich (2 days in a row.....) so that by the time I got to go back and roll it, it was now stone cold again.... (and no, I couldn't reheat it because it already had all the cold stuff on it.) So anyone have any wrapping tips and techniques for me? I know, I'm silly....















Look, new provisions have arrived! Love, love Bath & Body and I was running low! Thought I had more inventory... ha. ha. ha only to discover I was using the last bottle of Moonlight Path Shower Gel which is my fav! Just so happens next day I got a B&B E-mail with all this stuff on sale, plus 20% off, plus $3 shipping! I couldn't drive back to town to the store for $3. So now when I come in from my walk, I am all set for a nice relaxing good smelling shower. Have you ever tried their moisturizing hand soaps? LOVE those once cooler/dry weather hits. They help my hands not get so dry. Was s happy to find that in honeysuckle this time!

So here is the full book! Figured since there was so many pages/pics the slide show would be the best route. Had so much fun making this! Just took the sample to Melanie this evening so it will be at The Scrapbook Tree if you would like to take a peek in person. The class will be Saturday Sept. 6th at 10 AM. I don't know the cost yet. This will also be a kit with Shabby Pink Designs. As soon as we have a cost and kits are available I'll be sure to post.



















So here is the promised picture of me on my 18th birthday if you can believe it.... and no fair asking how long ago that was. This is the cake Darrel's Mom made for me. She went all out with the clown on top and the little candle holders and decorations. Isn't she awesome? So how cool was it that I got to make the same cake for her for her 80th birthday. Love that. You will definitely be seeing these photos on a layout soon.

Hope you have a fabulous weekend. Blessings!

Sneak Peek!

So here it is! Finally! A sneak peek of the mini book that I designed using the Making Memories 5th Avenue collection. This will be a kit for Shabby Pink Designs. I will also be teaching it as a class at The Scrapbook Tree in early September. This will be my first time teaching. I've never been sure about the idea of teaching and quite frankly it makes me a bit nervous. But, I figured the only way to find out if I love it or hate it was to try a class. The class I took at CHA with Lance from Rusty Pickle really helped me with questions about teaching. He gave lots of great tips about how to be a good scrapbook teacher. I even took notes. I know, me, notes, you are shocked right? Couldn't help myself. Smile. Here are a few quick shots of the inside. They aren't as good or clear as I would like but it's late and I am heading to bed. I figured I'd post these for now and then we will give you the full view as soon as I get good photos of the whole thing.





















I decided the colors in the 5th Ave. would be pefect to make my mini book about our wedding. The base for the book is one of the 5th Ave. spiral journaling books. I ripped every other page in 1/2 to make a lift up flap so that for each photo you first see it with the flap down and a portion of scripture from 1 Cor 13. Then when you lift the flap, you see the full page with the photo and all the journaling, etc. Here are a few more views.

I promise to post better photos and kit/class details soon!

Hope you are having an awesome week. Blessings.

The Big Duet

So today was a first. My husband and I did our first "public" duet at church this morning. We have talked about singing something together for years but have never actually done it till now, well as I said in church this morning, unless singing in the car counts.... Ha. ha. I thought it came together pretty well. So if you care to give us a listen, click on the little triangle play button above. Since I have music on my blog too, you will probably want to go to the playlist below on the right and click stop or pause there first.















We just returned from a quick trip to IL to celebrate Darrel's Mom's 80th birthday! She is such a sweet special lady. I had a few minutes just before it was time to leave yesterday (we had to get back for church this morning) and I ran to the LSS (local scrapbook store for you non-scrapbook speakers... smile). Here is what I came away with! Love dew drops! The Scrapping Spot has had them in their kits a few times and they are so pretty! I grabbed 2 bottles of those. Then I spotted the Art Institue adhesive and glitter. I've heard several times (on the Internet) that this is great adhesive and I've wanted to try it so I figured this was my chance. They have great glitter too so I picked up one container of that. Then my friend Lisa had heard at CHA that the Ranger Jet Black Archival ink was like THE best black ink. She also heard the Ranger Inksssentials pen was good so I grabbed one of those. WHY is it so hard to find a good white pen? Also at CHA I saw the new glue dots dispensers. This was the first time I saw one in a store so that came home with me too. LOVE glue dots! Last was a new set of mini alpha stamps. Isn't this the cutest font? Love it! They are from Hero Arts.















Isn't this sweet of Darrel and his Mom? Can't wait to get that one on a layout. She looks pretty great for 80 years young don't you think? We all met at Darrel's sisters house and had a nice couple of days together. How cool is this shot? Darrel took this one while most of the kids were out on the trampoline. Love how they are all up in the air!















I love how this picture came out. Isn't this great with the lighting from her candles? I had the honor of making the birthday cakes. I wanted to make her this particular chocolate cake because she made it for me when I was 18 years old. That was umm a few years ago.....I had just started dating her son about a month prior and she invited me over for dinner and went all out making me a chocolate cake for dessert. Back then I used to love and collect clowns. She had spent quite a bit of time that afternoon making a clown out of a ping pong ball with a sugar ice cream cone for a hat to put on top of the cake. It was so cute. I have a picture someplace of me with that cake and I can't wait to put those together on a LO. Who knew 24 years ago I'd be married to her son for 21 years now and making her 80th birthday cake. Love that.















Getting ready to start a busy work week. Will also be working on and finishing up a new mini book for a class at The Scrapbook Tree and a kit for Shabby Pink Designs. Stay tuned for a sneak peek sometime soon! Blessings!