More New Orleans photos...!

Photo #1 is of Cafe DuMonde! We walked down Decatur street to get here! The street was full of souvenir shops, street vendors and tons of fun activities! When we got to the cafe it was packed! We got in the line and one of the employees came up to us and offered to sneak us into the cafe! Guess we were just in the right place at the right time! He saved us an hours wait in line! What a sweetheart! The place was really hopping! We ordered our breakfast and it was sooo yummy! Photo #2 is of our breakfast! Everything was covered in powdered sugar! I must have gained three pounds just sitting down there! Photo #3 is of my son, Daniel goofing around in Jackson Park! Photo #4 is of one of the many horse and buggy rides offered at the park. Photo #5 is of a store front in the mall outside of our hotel.

I am LOVIN' New Orleans!!!

I must admit...I LOVE it here! I do not think I would want to live here, but I have been so intrigued and fascinated by this place! The streets never seems to sleep and there is soooo much culture and excitement everywhere! We have ridden the trolley (which is actually called the street car by the locals!) several times! That fun thing will take you all over the place for just $1.25! We have eaten at some really neat places! The Camilia Grill and Sweet Fire and Ice have been my favorites so far! I got to try jambalaya last night...YUUUMMMM!!! We are going into the French Quarter in a few minutes to have coffee and beignets (pronounced been-yays!)! So excited about that! We got to see the Garden District and the houses there are amazing! Such beautiful architecture! We went to Tulane (the college my sister in law graduated from!) for a big Wave Goodbye party! There was lots of food to sample there and music! I have included some photos for you guys! : ) I will post again later today! We are planning to go to the zoo and aquarium and maybe take in an IMax movie later! Have a great day!

Photo #1 is of the street car driver! Photo #2 is my gang on the street car! Photo #3 is of Tulane University. (Gorgeous campus!) Photo #4 is of the Wave Goodbye party! Photo #5 is of the band Kermit and the BBQ boys! They were awesome! : )

Going on an outting...!

Hiya everyone! : ) I am writing from New Orleans!! My sister-in-law is graduating from college this weekend so we made the drive down yesterday from Virginia! 14 looooong hours, 8 of which were in the pouring down rain! Yuck-o!! My kids are great travelers though (not even one complaint or "Are we there yet!). We arrived safely and I wanted to share our trip with you! We will be here for a couple of days and I will post pictures each night! Hope everyone is having a great day! Back tonight with more! : )

The first picture is the New Orleans sign (taken from the moving car!)! Picture #2 is of the Mississippi River with some angry looking clouds hovering over! Picture #3 is of the street in the middle of downtown New Orleans that all of the 'notorious' streets (Bourbon, Canal, St. Charles) branch off of. It is quite different than our two lane tiny, curvy roads back home in the sticks! Look at those Palm Trees!! Picture #4 is of the Harrah's Casino sign (right across from our hotel!) and the last one is of a Mississippi River boat!

Happy Mother's Day!

Thought it was safe to share a couple of the Mother's Day cards I made! **Hopefully my mom received her card by now (in Alaska!)! Sometimes she gets my mail in three days, sometimes it takes two weeks! The first one is for my Grandma! I used butterfly scrapbook paper and soft subtle pinks. I added a few pieces of sparkle, but opted to keep this card clean and simple!
The second card is for my mom! That gorgeous stamp is from Rubbernecker Stamps . I only colored the blanket because I wanted it to really stand out! She will probably get a repeat card with this stamp later because she will really like this image! I will color the whole thing next time!

Happy, happy Mother's Day!

Mother's Day paper bag album!

I am hooked on these albums! I am a mini album nut anyhow, but these are just so much fun to make! I made one for my mom and one for my Grandma! I have two more in the works today for my mom-in-law and my kids surrogate grandma! I used a hodge-podge of papers, punches and ribbons! I kept the color theme brown, pink, cream and green! (LOVE that combination!) I didn't photograph them, but I had my 9 year old draw pictures on the pull out pages! Makes it even more personal for the recipient! Also, we all signed the back pages with mushy love sentiments! I added these black and white photos of my kiddos! Happy Mom's Day, guys! : )

I am feeling like such a neglectful blogger!!

My poor sad blog! It seems that I am averaging only a post or two a week! I have just had such a busy, crazy and full schedule this month! I have about 12 different to do list going at once! My home school group is gearing up for our graduation/prom. My son is one of the graduating seniors! In the next couple of weeks I have two baby shower's to host, a yearbook to put together, an out of town graduation to attend, an art marathon to put together and several other smaller home school functions! My days are planned almost down to the minute to try to squeeze everything in! LOL I am feeling guilty about my neglected blog though, so I thought I would stop by and leave a little poem!

Oh poor blog! As you sit neglected
not getting the attention you expected
Getting bored and collecting cyber dust
Please understand my to do list is a must
I tried to post three times today
but that darn list kept getting in the way!
You see I am so busy with life
because I am a mother and wife
Laundry, dishes and cleaning house
no time left for that computer mouse!
I create and stamp and photograph
but finding the time to post just makes me laugh
Maybe one day things will settle down
I'll have the time to play around
Until then I will post when I can
Know full well it is part of my plan
Number 27 on my to do list
Please know however that you are missed!

LOL There is my Ode to my blog! I really do love blogging and plan to become much more faithful to it after the next few crazy weeks! Until then thank you for your patience! : )

Big hug!

WE DID IT!!!!!

I happen to have the most amazing little grandma in the whole wide world!!! She is going to be 91 years young this month! I had been wracking my brain trying to come up with the perfect gift for her birthday. She either has it, wouldn't use it or just doesn't need it?! I wanted to do something really special though and so I decided that I would try to collect 91 birthday cards for her! I thought she would really appreciate opening a box full of cards for just her from all over the coun try! I e mailed my mom and told her my idea and she started to collect cards too! I am THRILLED to say that WE DID IT!!! I put out a few notes in different places! E mailed some friends and made a few phone calls! It only took about three weeks to have 91 cards ready to go from ALL over the country! So, thank you dear friends soooooo much! YOU guys are the greatest! I will be mailing her box in the morning and cannot wait to hear her response!!! Here is a pile of the cards! : )

Tea bag folded flower!

I learned how to make these tea bag folded flowers in a class recently and am totally hooked!! They are soooo easy and soooo pretty! They really dress up a project! I put one of these on the covers of each of my paper bag albums (below!). I added a flower punch out and some icicle sparkles on the end of each petal!

The rest of the paper bag album!

These posted backwards, but I am sure you get the idea! : )

Paper Bag Albums for sale??!!

So, about a week ago I was approached by a super sweet lady in our community with a small request! She told me a a story about how she went to school (K- 12th) at the same school with the same 6 girls and how they have been out of school for 55 years now!! She said they meet once a year (every year!!) since school let out and always exchange little gifts with one another and share a dinner. Well one of the ladies has been diagnosed with leukemia and has less than a year to live. :( So this year she (the one that approached me) wanted her gift to the ladies to be super special. This is where I come in (LOL)! She asked me to make her 6 paper bag albums! She wants to puts photos in each of them and recipes that are special to them and little souvenirs! I left blank pages near the back so that they could write a little note in each others books! I also made a 7th book for her so she would have her own! She has offered to pay me, but I am sooooo bad at the placing monetary value on my work thing! : ) These are they!

Well, now it is official...!

We officially now have three teenagers! Three of my four children are now of the dreaded teenage age! My youngest son turned 13 on Friday! He is my most laid back, easy going kid and I am so hopeful that will stay the case as he approaches teendom! He and I got up very early and snuck out of the house for a mom and kid one on one breakfast! Then we went and did a little birthday shopping! He also got to have his special requested meal Friday evening! His choice this year was 'breakfast for dinner'! We had cherry crepe suzettes, scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon and oj (all of his favorites!)! Yumm-o!

I've included a picture of the man of the hour! Also, one taken of him in his Spiderman costume (which he spent a lot of time in for a while) : ) and one of him blowing out his candles!

It makes me sad that my kids all seem to be growing at the speed of light! You blink and they go from crawling to toddling to borrowing the car keys! Ah, sigh!

Daniel, we love you more than you can even begin to imagine! You are such a great, wonderful amazing person! Happy, happy birthday kid!

Love this stamp!

Isn't this stamp just soooooooo pretty?! It looks like a quilt waiting to happen to me! I love the endless amounts of possibilities that it has! I love to layer and this stamp just begs to be layered! I discovered a whole batch of these on my outing a couple of weeks ago with my SU! demonstrator buddies! It is made by Outlines Rubber Stamp Co. I stamped it four times and cut down each one. I used pop dots to layer them and added some icicle stickles to give it some sparkle! I stamped it in Purely Pomegranate and matted it against soft pink paper then Pale Plum and put that on a Close to Cocoa base. I used the Word Window punch from SU! to make two 'hinges' from SU! Basic Black and added a gold brad to each and a sparkle brad the the star's center. I stamped the sentiment from SU!'s So Many Sayings. I was pretty pleased with the way it came out! : ) I cannot wait to play more with this stamp and other colors and layer combinations!

A fun album!

We made a really fun album at my demonstrator's meeting last week as our make and take project! It started out as two simple pieces of cardboard, a few pretty pieces of paper, some notebook rings and some page protector's! I added some ribbon and a couple of tea bag folded flowers to the front! I learned how to make these flowers at a class I took a couple of weeks ago and now I am totally hooked on them! Now this album is supposed to house our recipe cards that we have been making for the last several months, but I just couldn't resist turning it into an album for my kids! : ) I added a tabbed section for each child and will scrapbook some 6 X 6 pages to fill it up! I will show you the cover now and will share more as I work on it! LOVED this project! I plan to make several more!

WooHoo!

These are not my original designs, but they are just so darned cute! I saw this pattern one day while blog bouncing and finally sat down and made my own set! If these are the efforts of your brain power please let me know so that I can give you credit!
I used creamy caramel for the base/bodies and chose some matching his and her 'fabric' for the suits! I added a tie from ribbon to the man's trunks, but decided afterwards that ribbon was not the best choice! Next set will have a more masculine looking string! I added a little sparkle to the woman's suit and ribbon ties! They are all set for the summer! Thought these would make really cute beach/pool party invites!

Mini Purse Baskets!

I made these cute little purses as prizes for a trivia game that I hosted at our demo meeting! I used a template from the SU! website and used it as it printed out rather than enlarging it. I wheeled them with the Forever Friends wheel in Old Olive and added flower punches punched from Blue Bayou, Groovy Guava and Pale Plum on the front with a brad. I used a white gel pen to add accents in the tip of each flower. I tucked a couple of pieces of chocolate into each one and gave them out for correct answers during the game! Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet! : )

Recipe card!

My demonstrator's group is compiling recipe cards for a cook book. Each month we choose a new theme and make a new card. This month's theme was a dessert. Yummmm! I chose a chocolate nut cluster recipe! Of course every good nut cluster needs an adorable elephant to gobble it up! I used the elephant from the Valentine's Day set from SU! and the smile stamp from Be Happy. I stamped the Very Vanilla with a stamp from BoHo Backgrounds and popped it off the page. I mounted it on a spiral punch and used bright, cheer-y colors to pull the whole thing together! The size of these little cards is 6 X 6.

Altered Almond Can!

This past Sunday was my demonstrator's meeting! The swap we did required a wheel, so I used my new favorite one called Forever Friends! I have fallen hard for this wheel! It is just so pretty! I took an empty almond can and added some pretty wheeled paper, a few brads, a ribbon handle, a scalloped flower and ribbon accent and Viola! It gave that old can new life! I made an extra for my workspace (without a handle!) to keep my scissors, spare pens, piercing tool etc in while I work! It is the perfect solution to those missing tools lost under the mounds of paper that seem to magically appear while I work! Fun project! : )

Hanna Challenge #2 (HSCApr2)

This is my entry for challenge #2! This was a color challenge! The colors to be used were Pale Plum, Grey, Green and a Neutral color. I used Riley on his bike and a few Stampin Up! stamps together for this one! I stamped Riley and then stamped the wagon twice without it's handle (good ole' scotch tape and my stamp-a-majig!) and once without the entire top. I filled each of the baskets with goodies for a birthday party! First one has Hanna's duck from Riany Day and some pretty flowers! The second one is overflowing with presents from Hanna's Tis the Season and the third is proudly displaying a yummy birthday cake! I drew a road and sponged a green blanket of grass and a light blue sky! I faux sewed my purple corner mounts onto the edges to use that pale plum and added a couple of flowers and some shiny green sparkle brads! I paper pieced a birthday hat on Riley and on the duck! Giggles! I put gold brads in the center of all of the wagon wheels and added a birthday sentiment! I drew in a chain to connect the wagons and drew some squiggles to pull the whole thing together with a border! I will be sending this card to my Grandma for her 91st birthday next month! : )

Hanna Challenge! (HSCAPR1)

Hi everyone! Here is my entry for the Hanna Challenge! The back cover of the card extends about an inch past the front. I used a combination of Hanna Stamps and Stampin Up stamps! This is my version of his hers and ours! I paper pieced the chairs and then stamped Riley and his sweetie onto Creamy Caramel to give them their lovely creamy brown coats. Riley's sweety has pireced ears! I faux sewed the edges and added a few heart brads! Each of their foot stools are stamped with his or hers and the cake is stamped with ours! Don't they make the cutest couple!