Where in the World is Susan Off to Now?

I confess....I love to travel....I love day trips, weekend jaunts, trips to visit family and friends, trips to the beach...and, of course, worldwide travel!  I love history, museums, art, architecture, scenery...you name it! I've had a few busy months with travel first heading to New England to see family and then a week at the beach with my husband, kids and grandkids.  But now I'm off for a really big adventure....
I leave in a few days for Ireland and Scotland!  No, I've never been but I'm really excited about this.  I'm traveling with some great friends and traveling companions so I KNOW I am in for the best time! (Hi, Becky!)
I'll be laying low on the blogging most likely...and obviously no crafting for the next few weeks but I'll try and keep in touch!
Last night I kept David and it was a fun and exhausting (for Omie) evening.  Thankfully he slept until a little after 7 this morning.

Anyway...
Sayonara, Auf Weidersehen, Adieu, and So Long...
See you soon!!!

And Happy Crafting!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

We have had a very busy week celebrating David's 2nd birthday.  What fun it's been.  He certainly has the idea that "pweshents" are fun to open and may have something good inside for him!

I've taken a ton of photos of him this week but sadly it seems that no matter where I am I am always behind him!

I thought I'd share some of the pictures of his little family party that was held for him yesterday.
First of all here is a photos of some of the gifts for the little guy!...or "pweshents". ;)

Then we have a few photos of him opening a pweshent.  He's learned that tearing paper is fun and yields great results!

 And here David is looking at the gift and thinking...wow, this is pretty cool. It's a Lightning McQueen that talks!

And another Mater!

Next, he's getting into a very big gift from his Grandpa....and he's seeing it's THOMAS the TRAIN! ...complete with 'twain twacks, Omie'!
Yep...looking pretty good here, Omie!  I think I'm gonna like this a lot!

Now...being the great Omie I am...I know that I can slip in clothes and other non toy things as long as there are toys to follow!  So here he is politely looking at the pillow which will be for his big boy bed.

And then he politely acts like he likes it...but only for a few seconds by "being sweet" to it:

Same thing with the matching comforter....he acted remotely interested...but only very remotely! LOL!

It's a good thing I remembered to follow up with a good old fashioned Cottadoo (helicopter for those of you who don't speak "David").

And here he is with his Cottadoo and ambulance from his Auntie Cyndi.  These photos were taken 3 hours later when we finally were able to extract the toys from the boxes! What is up with that packaging????

OK, I exaggerated on the time to get the stuff out of the packaging but not by much!!!
Here he is playing but his eyes are so droopy...such a tired little boy but so many toys yet to play with!  Not time for a  night-night, Omie!

Then we went to eat cake! Yay!  Amanda had the cutest Thomas the Train cake made for him.
This is when we were singing to him.  He finds our singing of Happy Birthday very offensive.

Finally, he thinks...the singing is over! Bring on the cake!

And now I get to blow out the candles.  Yep...I can do it!

And then he decided to take a bite out of the cake...see?

And here is more evidence:

My, my this cake tastes great!

Here David is with his parents:

And here he is with his family including his favorite person...Omie.  Omie is the shortie in the photo standing just behind David.

And after cake it was back to trains, trains, and more trains.  Here he is with his grandpa who is helping put the tracks together.

And lastly...NBG (Taylor) slept through most of the party but did get up near the end...here she is in her cute tutu party dress!  She's taking it all in thinking...yeah, I think I'm going to like "pweshents" too!

Yes, busy, busy, busy...but we sure have had a fun week.  Hope you all are making up for my lack of creativity by making all kinds of pretty things!

I'm off to look right now....

Happy Crafting!

Look Who's Turning 2!

Two years ago today my life totally changed.  I've had children and I love my kids more than anything but was totally unprepared for how much a little baby grandson would steal my heart!  Those of you with grandkids may know exactly how I feel. 
Two years ago today I was awakened about 4:30am that my daughter and son in law were on the way to the hospital.  We were in the midst of a huge storm (which turned out to be a devastating one with tremendous flooding in the Atlanta area) and our power was out.  I took a shower in the dark and then my husband and I left the house to head to the hospital.  At that point some roads were already closed but we made it to the hospital thankfully.
Two years ago in the early afternoon at 1:45pm to be exact, David was born.

Two years ago this is what he looked like:

And today, 2 years later, he looks like this:

I love this kid!

So, today we will celebrate his birthday with presents, cupcakes and a good dose of Omie play!

He will have a small family party on Saturday.

My, my....how quickly 2 years have flown by....

Here is a card I made to give him today.  He loves trains right now the background paper is a train print.  The sentiment on top which is embossed says "look who's turning".

 Other supplies included:
Tim Holtz grungeboard (the 2) and the Tim Holtz rosette die.
Marth Stewart Glitter
Paper by Paper Studio: Little Boys and Their Toys
Stampin' Up Ribbon
Nestabilities: Standard Circles large
Splendor Inks
Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher
Zing Clear Embossing Powder
Unity Stamp: Oh Happy Day!


Happy Crafting!

A Few New Things...

We got back from our lovely week at the beach Saturday evening.  Yesterday I spent the day unpacking and I also had a tennis match (we won...YAY!) in the afternoon.  So...I never did get down to my craft room!

But today our mail which had been held for a week was redelivered and in the stack was an envelope from my favorite deal of the day site CRAFTY STEALS!  I had ordered 3 Paislee Pink 6x6 paper packs and a set of Unity stamps with a Halloween theme that were sooo cute.

Here's my new little stash...

Below is the very cute 360 degrees:

Next is the Queen Bee pad:

And lastly is the Bayberry Cottage stack.

Do I have a favorite?  Of course not...I love all my babies the same...

Happy Crafting!

All Good Things Must Come to an End...but...

...there are always new adventures just around the corner!

Our week at the beach is drawing to a close.  We've had fabulous weather...we loved where we stayed...and everyone had a great time. 

This was tonight's sunset....

I hope to get back to some crafting very soon!!! Lots of photos to scrapbook....that's for sure!

Happy Crafting!

Oops, I Did it Again!

Here Taylor is in her Britney Spears onesie that Auntie Amanda got for her a while back.  Actually she got it when my daughter (also Amanda) was pregnant the first time...we didn't know AG (David) was a boy until he popped out! :)  But luckily, baby #2 or NBG (New Baby Girl) came along and we had someone to wear the cute onesie.

OK, so I thought this was just so appropriate for my personal "ooops I did it again" thing.

I went and bought yet another camera!  I am a camera junkie as I mentioned before. As I've said before I just cannot walk past a display of cameras without picking each up and looking at them...holding them in my hand...checking out the features, etc.  It's just something I do!

So...a few weeks back I picked up the Canon SX230 IS which I am loving.  I took this photo the other night off the deck here at the condo where we are staying AT THE BEACH.  That camera has a feature for night time handheld (vs tripod)  photography where it takes 3 photos successively and merges them to make one fairly good one. 

Not perfect, but not bad, huh?

I have my Canon XSi and all the fancy lenses and this fabulous little point and shoot in addition to my iPhone camera but decided I needed more!  I am really hesitant about taking my cameras on the beach.  I totally messed up an old film 35mm camera several years ago by getting sand in the body by accident so just don't take cameras to the beach any longer.  I thought...well, you need something on the beach!  I looked at those horrible disposable cameras but they take terrible pictures and then if you get them developed you have to pay for that and get all kinds of photos you'd never use. Plus...the one use cameras are about $12 a piece so I figure I'll pay this baby off in about 12 days the way I take photos!

So that's how I justified getting a waterproof camera!  I saw this one a while back...researched it a bit...the reviews were ok...nothing great but I thought well, at least it would give me something at not too high of a price.
Here is the new little baby in a very fashionable blue:

I've had a good time taking some photos on the beach and by the pool.  It's stress free because if it gets wet it won't die....
LOL!!!
Love this photo with my SIL and AG (both named David) and I caught the seagull in flight.  And look at those clouds!

and how cute is this?

Hoping to take another 100 or so photos today! :)

Happy Crafting to you and Happy Beaching to me!

Where In the World is Susan?

No long explanation needed....

Another Favorite Mini Album

Why do we scrapbook?  Well, for me it is for several reasons:
1. I love the smell of paper.
2. I love the feel of paper.
3. I love paper.
4. I really love paper.
5. I really, really love pretty paper.

And so on....like I've said before I love the whole process that goes with paper crafting, especially scrapbooking.  I love taking photographs, getting them developed, feeling them in my hands (I am a paper touchy feely person!), choosing papers to go with the photos, and making a piece of "art" with my supplies.

I also love that when an event is scrapbooked that I have a record of an event.  So many times we will say..."Remember that time we fill in the blank.  When was that?" And we can pull out one of the many volumes of scrapbooks I have to find the date, the place, the whys, the hows, etc!  Since my memory seems to be decreasing (according to my family) it is also a great memory spark for me!  I can just visualize myself in the nursing home surrounded by my scrapbooks...working with the speech therapist on memory loss or cognitive functioning.  You laugh...but I did that for many years as a speech therapist.  Wanna get an old, memory impaired person to share?  Bring out the old pictures and they will start...I almost guarantee it!

Anyway here is another mini album I did a while back and this morning when I pulled it out to look at I just smiled at all the memories.  I have a group of local friends who scrapbook together on occasion (not as much as we'd like, of course!) and we call ourselves the Sharecroppers because 1. we crop and 2. we share!  It's so funny...when we are scrapping someone will say "Does anyone have a fill in the blank?" and at least 6 pairs of hands will rifle through supplies to find just that item.

Each year we get together for a party over the Christmas season.  We eat, play games and generally laugh a lot! 
One year I did this little mini album of our party and here are the photos of it.

The cover...it's one of those BoBunny chipboard albums covered with paper and embellishments.

These are great little albums if you haven't used them yet!












The inside cover has a little pocket page.  These little tags were done as part of a game we played.

And here's the whole group:

And a few more pages...some are fold out pages:

Here I am with my friend, Holly...I am wearing glasses here.  I have old eyes that need glasses for reading.  Now I wear contacts because in addition to old eyes I have the memory thing...remember?  And I was always hunting for my glasses (which were usually on top of my head!).

This is a little divider strip...the real touchy feely thing does not adhere to my friend, Debbie's face!

See?

(And actually there is another little photo of my friend, Christine on the left!)
More photos of fun times.....

 

 and here are Holly and Cyndi (below) having a good laugh about who knows what?!

Playing the great Box GAME!

Uh...and a couple of me....

And another group shot:

And...the back cover:

These albums are just such fun to do...and for the majority are probably pretty quick to make.  Not for me of course, the world's slowest scrapper!

But...this turned out really cute and I loved looking at the photos of our annual event!  Wow...before you know it we will be gathering again!!!