And a Happy Birthday to Me!

Yesterday was my birthday...I turned a big ol' 6-oh.  I am no ashamed at all.  My mother grew up in the era where "ladies" did not discuss their ages. Not me...I'm proud I can start getting senior citizen discounts at various places! No shame in that!

I had a wonderful day including a 5 1/2 mile hike at Stone Mountain Park.  The weather was perfect...bright sunshine, warm weather...low HUMIDITY! Perfect for a wonderful walk with my #1 daughter.

Here we are at the beginning of the trail:

We had a great time...I love hiking and the Cherokee Trail at Stone Mountain is a wonderful trail that makes you think you are out in the wilderness at some parts.
Some of the views were quite lovely:

This photo was straight out of the iPhone...could be edited for some improvements, I'm sure....but isn't that reflection just wonderful?

After our big walk we went out to lunch where my son surprised me:

It was such a special treat to spend an hour or two with these two. They decided it would be fun to just have some time to Mom themselves and I loved the idea.  We will have a big get together with the spouses in another week or two. :)
Lastly I did go to my daughter's in the evening for a steak dinner.  She also prepared my favorite cake...German Chocolate and I had a little help blowing out the candles!

 Life is grand, isn't it?

And now on to my card share for today...a simple watercolor card involving the smooshing technique which Laura Bassen describes so well in her video HERE.  It is a highly technical and difficult technique. (not...)

The sentiment at the bottom is from a rub on set that was included with the Simon Says Stamp Kit for April.  Perfect for the my highly technical and difficult watercoloring.  True (the part about the sentiment, anyway.).

The striped tape is Washi....love it.

Her is a closer look at the sentiment:

It really is all lovely in person than on this dream like website.  LOL!

And that's it for today...hope you all are having a tremendous day...don't forget to stop and smell the flowers...and spend a little time daydreaming, too!

Happy Crafting!

More Fun with Simon Says Stamp!

I am still on my mission to use up supplies that come with the Simon Says Stamp Card Kits.  It is quite a task as SO MUCH STUFF is included in each kit!  Not complaining....just stating fact, ma'am!
Anyway, I am continuing with my fun with the March kit which you can see here:

Here is a card I made with some of the contents as well one of the little Kraft envelopes that came with the February card kit. 

The sentiment was stamped on a Lawn Fawn sticker and then I just punched some assorted hearts out of some of the paper that came with the kit with a Martha Stewart punch.

I made a little card to be inserted with another sentiment from the set as well as some Washi tape (that also came with the kit, too).

I love this wood grain paper:

Fast and easy!

Happy Crafting!

Vintage Football

We don't have many pictures of my husband as a child.  So I was happy when he gave me a couple of pictures of him in football uniform when he played the Pop Warner league in Hawaii many, many moons ago.  The original photo was badly damaged but was repaired and these are the result.  I just think they are great...he's so young and although he's never been heavy he is certainly very skinny here!  I also love the old car behind him...what is that...a Corvair?  I'll have to remember to ask him.

Lucky guy...he grew up on Maui.

I used Echo Park's This and That by Lori Whitlock...I thought these colors were just perfect.  This layout was QAS...Quick and Simple.  I haven't journaled yet and I may still add some buttons but this isn't the kind of layout where you'd add bling or lots of ribbon.  A football player just wouldn't have that!

Here it is:

Tomorrow I head back to Atlanta after my month vacation at the beach.  It's been a great month but I'm looking forward to getting back home and seeing the kids and grandkids!

Happy Crafting!

Project Life: Week 5

I am just moving right along with my Project Life and still enjoying it and so happy with the result.  It is certainly a different type of scrapbooking but it is sort of freeing....I really don't worry about paper colors matching photos or making sure I have enough photos of an event, etc.  It really has been a lot of fun.  Five weeks down and FORTY SEVEN to go!

Here are my layouts for Week 5....first the left side:

 

Very simple this week....I used some little cards that I picked up at Michael's when they were 40% off.  They are Michael's own brand, Recollections, and I thought they were such fun with such bright and happy colors!  I added a little Washi tape here and there...and some trim....and the Week 5 frame in the bottom right was cut on my Silhouette from some shapes and text I welded together.  I love the way the chevron border worked when I welded it onto the frame.  Ahhh....the possibilities are endless!

 And here is the right side:

 I love those blurry little pictures on the lower left that show my little grandangels in constant motion!  And they are!!!  They were just running around the living room having a giggling grand old time!  I also love the photo of David in the top right with the pancake that's bigger than his head!

 I used a little notecard from Michael's for the journaling above and some Hero Arts stamps for "you & me" which were embossed with some black pigment ink and some clear embossing powder.  I added a couple of buttons although I don't recall what brand they are. 

The journaling box on the left (above) was just a few assorted papers and some KI stamps I picked up at Archiver's the other day which will lend themselves wonderfully to Project Life.  I used some Hero Arts Neon inks and some Washi tape, too. 

I did do an insert page of a big event which I'll share tomorrow!

Happy Crafting!

Our Little Girl

Well, I've been scrapping along this past week and did this layout the other day.  It's my attempt at the new and improved simpler style of scrapbooking.  I am still enjoying doing 12x12 layouts with all the embellisments and fun stuff but I am also "freeing" myself to do companion pages in a simpler format.  I've been using the sectioned We R Memory Keepers page protectors and I will say that the layouts can come together more quickly!

This is our little adorable baby girl, Taylor, taken when she was just a few months old and she's wearing her brother's sleeper.  She looks so much like him here!

Here is the left side.  The papers are from Simple Stories which is a great line for this style of scrapbooking, too.  All items came from that...I used an EK Success border punch and some Washi tape, as well.

The flower was cut on my Cameo with a design from the Silhouette Store.

The brad is Basic Grey.
And her is the right side...I took the photos out of the page protector on this one so there isn't quite the glare.  The bottom left photo actually has a clear overlay on it...so that's why there is some glare there.

Here is that photo with the overlay:

And here is the layout as it appears in the page protector.

And lastly I always like to show how they look side by side:

Off to the pool with the kiddos today...hope to get some more photos with my waterproof camera!  More fun photos to scrap!

Happy Crafting!

The Three Hour Card

This card didn't really take me three hours....but it took three hours for it to be finished.  I was at a crop on Saturday as I mentioned in a previous post and worked on this card for a while.  I got to the crop about 10....took a while to unload, register, set up, chat with everyone, look over the silent auction items....etc.....by the time I had actually finished this card it was 1pm!  LOL....so it took 3 hours to get one card completed but it really didn't take me 3 hours to do this one card.  Understand?  But I did fiddle a bunch with this....I find scene cards kind of challenging.  Fun....but challenging.

Stamps from the Hero Arts Whimsical Houses set were used.

The sentiment was from Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler Set.

I stamped out the images on watercolor paper, colored them in with various water based markers, cut the pieces out and adhered them to the background...some with foam tape... and then added a bit of Glossy Accents.  The background was done with Distress Inks.
And then I added a little Washi tape to make it look a bit like a road.  :)  (Artistic license on that one!)

Entered this in the Papertake Weekly Challenge: Anything Goes

Joann's has a $.04 sent shipping sale today....hmmmmm.....what to buy...what to buy....


Happy Crafting!

Flash! 4 Cards in 30 Minutes!

My hands worked faster than the speed of sound on these cards.  OK, not really but I did make 4 cards in 30 minutes.  Of course they were the same card but still....that is a good time for moi!  I totally CASEd this....for those of you who don't know what CASE means...well, it means that you find something to steal inspire you and use it.  I was totally inspired by this and decided to steal use it.  (Oh and CASE means "Copy and Steal Everything")  Here is the original:

and is from Danielle Walls at Neat and Tangled.  She has a really great blog with all kinds of wonderful ideas! I loved the simplicity of this card made with Lawn Fawn's Flying By set.
Here is my take on it:

I added another splash of color with some Washi tape because...well, ya know....I now have 427 rolls of it and need to start using it!  (slight exaggeration on the number of rolls....)

I stamped and cut the plane out of some Doodlebug scraps I had and added it with foam tape to the punched circle which was mounted with foam tape, as well.

And I made 4 of them in 30 minutes:

I am going to a benefit crop tomorrow for a real American Hero...Travis Mills who was critically injured in Afghanistan in April.  He lost both arms and legs but is doing really well and is actually walking again with prostheses.  If you'd like to read his story (and it is an amazing one and if you're American will fill your heart with patriotic pride) you can find it HERE.  He has an amazing wife and adorable child and the positive outlook Travis and his wife have is amazing.

I've made these cards for servicemen to use for Operation Write Home.  My father was career Army...I remember the year he spent in Viet Nam in the mid '60s...there was no Skype, internet, cell phones, etc. back then.  We went a full year without hearing his voice.  He wrote letters to my mother daily...but of course, it took a minimum of 7-10 days for them to be received so when the news was received it was old news.  How technology has certainly improved a terrible situation when our loved ones are deployed far away for long periods of time. 

As we approach Independence Day I want to express my appreciation to all the servicemen out there as well as to their wives at home.  I always said wives of servicemen were the unsung heroes....

I entered this in the following challenges (again, thanks to Sunshine Honeybee for letting me know about challenges...if it weren't for her I'd never enter!):
Craft Your Passion: Things with Wings (this counts as having wings, don't you think?)
Tammy's Scrappin' Corner: Anything Goes

Happy Crafting.