Birthday Bowling League

Every year for our friend Ben's birthday we go bowling. It's a ritual that we all look forward to every year. It will be so sad when Ben is too old to go bowling with us. Usually we bowl boys against girls, but this year we were a small group so we all bowled on one team. Karen was the overall winner this year - beating Ann and Steve. I scored higher than Tim for once.

This first page I made for a challenge on SCS. We had to take a test to see what color crayon I was and then scrap a page with that color and the color opposite on the color wheel. I was a yellow crayon so I had to scrap a page with yellow and purple. Thankfully this great bowling paper had both colors in it. I've used it for the last two years and I'm all out of it - need to go shoping for bowling paper.

After we bowl we go back to the house for presents and cake. This year Ben had a yummy Boston Cream Pie - and 10 candles. He got lots of great presents too.

The pages for this second layout were made by my online friend Sally for a swap we participated in. They were perfect for a 10 year-ols birthday.

Displaying Scrapbook pages

I just want to make sure you all know that I have the best husband in the world. I was showing him some wooden scrapbook page holders that were for sale online. They were only 20 something dollars, but he decided he could make one for me. We went to Lowes and found some pieces of polar ( the online version is made of plywood) and a dowl rod for about 7 dollars. In a couple of hours he made me a fabulous wooden frame to hang my scrapbook pages for display. And he even made one for a friend.

The page I'm displaying here is one I made this weekend. My youngest niece was Tinkerbell for Halloween this past year. The title says "Pixie's Just Want to Have Fun". The chipboard flower is covered in purple with silver, celery, and purple ribbon knots and rhinestones at it's center.

Freddy's First Scrapbook Page

Sally on SCS posted a great sketch challenge that I used for this page. "Play Hard Sleep Hard" -That's our Freddy boy. He loves playing with the feather balls, and once he starts playing the other cats join him. The background is soft sky and I used a stip of old olive and really rust and two cute patterned papers. The I scattered old olive felt flowers across the page. One of the flowers has a paw print brad in the center. And that is Freddy's first scrapbook page. I'm sure there will be lots more.

Some Scrabook Pages from the Summer

If you'll remember, this past August, I took a trip down to Myrtle Beach to meet up with some of my online friends from splitcoaststampers.com. I finally got around to scrapping that weekend.

The first set of pages is four of us, Donna, Darcy, Andrea and I, all scrapping on Donna's kitchen table. We had the best time sharing our supplies and being creative. Donna's oldest son, Duncan, actually took the group picture of us because we couldn't get the camera timer to work.

The second set of pages is of Myrtle Beach State Park. Donna, Darcy, and the boys and I went to the beach for the morning. A thunderstorm was coming up across the ocean and it made the water full of beautiful shades of blue. And I didn't even get sunburned while we were there. It's a beuatiful state park in the middle of an overcrowded beach town.

I used some of the same colors - really rust and cool carribean - and pattern papers from the same group to tie the two pages together.

Lovely Yellow Daffodils

I wanted to share a photo of some of my daffodils. I really need to get out and plant more next year.

I took this picture on February 5th. Last year I took pictures of daffodils on January 14th. This little bunch has a few more blossoms now and I also have a couple of clumps by the front walkway. The camillia tree has also blossomed and so has the lenten rose. I'm sure the tulips won't be up for awhile yet.

I cut all of my lovely daffodils for ceterpieces for my Best Books 2007 Tea at work. They were beautiful in some simple glass vases on top of white table cloths. And they have lasted all week. A few more have popped up in the yard, so I still have some to look at our the front window.

A Made up Recipe

The other evening Tim and I picked up this 3 quart round covered casserole dish at the grocery store. The store has been offering these nice baking dishes as a premium. Earlier, I picked up a 8x8 dish in red. They also have a 13x9 dish, a 3.5 quaert oval covered casserole and a 1 quart coverd casserole that I have my eye on. Hopefully there will be some left after the promotion and I can get a couple more pieces on sale. After all, everyone needs more baking dishes - right.

So, I was itching to use my new covered casserole dish. But what to make in it? Hmmm - somehow I ended up with a bunch of cans of white beans in the pantry that really needed to be used. So I spent some time looking at recipes on foodtv.com and came up with something of my own using ingredients I had or could easily get at our local grocery store. I really would have liked lamb, but I'd have to get that in Charlotte. I bought a few things - like spicey chicken sausage and bacon at the grocery store and a nice loaf of crusty bread - and Tim and I made dinner together. And we have plenty left over for lunches this week.

Here's what I came up with:

White Bean Cassoulet

Four cans of white beans, drained, in a 3 qt. covered casserole.
Add 1 tablespoon chopped garlic and 1 bay leaf.
Cook 5 slices of bacon. Drain and crumble into beans.
Sauté diced onion and chopped carrot in bacon grease, add to beans.
Slice 4 links of spicy chicken sausage and sauté until brown. Add to beans.
Add 1 cup of chicken broth.
Cover and bake at 350 degree for 1 hour.

Serve with grated parmesan cheese and crusty bread.

Happy Day After Valentines Day

I have to show you the cards I made for Dylan and Tim because I just love how they turned out.

It was hard to make a valentine for a 16 year-old boy and not make something pink and mushy - but I did it. This turned out great - blue and brown and red. I had some great red and cream pattern paper that I'd been saving for something. I used the elephant and the saying from the Wild About You stamp set and a heart from another little set. I liked how this turned out so much that I made basically the same card for an upcoming birthday for someone who will be 10! It's our little friend Ben's birthday this weekend. On'y Ben's card has the elephant holding a present instead of a heart.

I have a small collection of martini stamps to use for cards and scrapbook pages for Tim. The man loves martinis. The colors here are green, blue, red and brown. And I used another piece of the red and cream pattern paper I have. I used a card sketch from Beate over on SCS, and it was perfect for this little stamp. I added some olive colored eyelets at the bottom for accent. Inside is the most adorable sentiment - "Giving you Olive my love" - isn't that perfect? I think so.

I hope everyone had a great valentines day.

Happy Valentines Day

I wanted to post the valentine cards I made. I didn't get them in the mail until Tuesday, so they are going to be late.

For the two oldest girls - Sara and Hannah - I made similar elephant cards. Very pink, with some fun patterned paper and some Stickles on the flower for bling.

The two youngest - Sydney and Matthew - got similar cards, only they got a cute frog. They also got some Stickles glitter for bling. But thier frogs also got googlie eyes. I hope the eyes make it through the mail becuase it is so darn cute.

I'll show you Tim and Dylan's cards tomorrow. Hope you have a good Valentines Day.

Minneapolis in March!

I am so excited! I heard today that I got a Career Enrichment grant from the state library to attend the Public Library Association convention in Minneapoils in March. My wonderful Aunt Julie has agreed to let me, and my librarian Aunt Jean, sleep on her floor and the grant will cover my air fare, food and conference registration. How cool is a "free" trip to see my family and college friends - and go to a library conference. All in March. In Minneapolis. My poor southern blood is going to freeze to death - but it will be so worthwhile. I purchased my ticket this afternoon and I will be arriving in the frozen north on Good Friday, March 21st and leaving on Saturday, March 29th. The actual conference is on the 25th-29th, so I will have plenty of time to visit with everyone. I will miss Tim and the cats, but Julie has a kitty who I hope she'll share with me.

The Kitty Chaise

It's a cute cat post today. We've been buying these corrogated cardboard cat scratching boxes. Every now and then we sprinkle a little cat nap on it and the cats love it. And it does help save our furniture from scratching. This weekend we found the Cat Chaise in Target. It's made of the same corrogated cardboard, but it has curved ends. I've caught all the boys curled up and napping on it. The Cat Chaise - good for napping, lounging, biting and scraching. You notice there's no picure of Fizie on it? She's too refined for such things. But she's not above rolling aroud in some cat nip if it's on the floor.

Sympathy Cards

Thankfully I don't need any sympathy cards at the moment, but it's always good to have some on hand. Tim left this morning to go watch some of his riding friends RUN up and down Crowder's Mountain. I'm using my morning to make some cards for my stash. I took a look at some of the card challenges posted on Splitcoaststampers for inspiration, and I found the inspiration challenge (IC113) and the card sketch challenge (SC161) for this week. The card I made has very little stamping on it - just the sentiment, which I also embossed in white. I used a flower and a rhinestone brad from the Pretties set and some white ribbon. I chose the colors of kraft, barely banana and bashful blue from the inspiration challegne.