Happy Birthday to ...

Matthew-
My darling little nephew had a birthday on Saturday. He is all little boy and loves trucks and tractors and heavy machinery of all sorts. He told his Grandpa that he wanted a quarry for his birthday. Or a real dump truck. Darn stinkin' cute kid. When the SU By Land set retired last year I bought it specifically to use for Matthew. I've used it for several birthday cards and for a scrapbook page. I'm sure I'll get a lot more use out of it. The wheel stamp I bought to use for Tim's biking pages, but I get a lot of use from that stamp too.

And Me -
I have the pleasure of sharing my birthday with Matthew. This year, Tim bought me a Big Shot die cut machine (ok, he really didn't buy it for me - I bought it for myself). This is the newest toy - I mean tool - available from Stampin' Up. Die cut machines are fairly expensive and there are several different types. I had never been willing to make the investment. But this summer, SU started offering this one, and they have a good price. The machine came yesterday, but I'm still waiting on the dies that were included with the purchase. My wonderful friend Judi lent me some of her dies to play with. This is a great little machine and so easy to use. I also bought the cute doctors bag to carry everything when I go to crops. I don't think our Christmas cards will have any stamping on them this year - I think it will all be die cuts.

There are still a few more birthdays coming up this month, so I need to start making some more cards. I'm sure I'll be using that wheel stamp again.

But now I have to go to work. I have book club this morning. We are discussing The Tortilla Curtain by TC Boyle.

The Birthday Season Begins

The Birthday Season begins for us at the end of August and goes until the end of January. Between Tim and I, almost everyone in our families has birthdays and anniversaries during this time. Maybe this holiday weekend I should sit down and make up a stash of cards to have on hand so I'm not creating at the last minute.

Last week I sat down and made a couple of cards that were needed for this week. Since it had been awhile since I had done any card creating, I needed some inspiration to get me started. I came across a color challenge on Kristina Werner's blog, http://www.kwernerdesign.com/blog/, to use black, white, grey, and a small amount of any other color. I needed to make a card for Dylan, so thought this would be a great color combination for a boy. Instead of using grey I used some silver paper I had - Dylan loves sparkly things - a strip of black and a strip of white. I used a circle of orange for my accent color and punched a black star and a black tab. A silver star eyelet and two silver brads accent it all. No ribbon because he's a boy. Actually, at 17 he's not a boy, he's a young man.

While I was at the craft table and had this basic color scheme in mind I made a card for my friend Karen. It's a great color scheme that will work as well for a masculine as for a feminine card. For Karen's card I also got inspiration from Beate's sketch #54, http://beate.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/. It's white for the card base with a strip of black that I scallop punched and punched eyelet holes. The large scallop circle is Cool Caribbean and I again punched eyelet holes. There is no stamping on this, it's all SU's rub-ons. I added some sparkly silver ribbon and turquoise rhinestone brads for some bling.

I hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend. I'll be laboring on cards for the Birthday Season. And a big Happy Birthday to Dylan and Karen.

I know, it's been awhile. We physically got back from vacation, but I think my brain stayed up in BC. Tim brought back a cold as his souvenir and shared it with me and that didn't help. But I feel like I'm back in the swing of things. I sat down and made a couple of cards this morning which I'll share with you later - after certain people's birthdays have past.

Tim and I had a wonderful weekend together this past weekend. The weather was great so we spent lots of time outside - none of the time working in the garden. Fay is here right now giving us lots of great rain.

On Saturday, he went riding at Sherman Branch park and I went along. I took some books, but didn't read them. Instead I went walking/hiking the trails and took some neat pictures. I've got a great idea to scrap some of them, so hopefully I will have a neat page to show you soon. After lots of fresh air and sunshine, we drove across Charlotte to the home brew store. Tim picked out a couple more beer recipes to make, so brewing will begin again soon. To end our nice day together, we had dinner at our favorite restaurante - El Ranchito.

After a slow start on Sunday we drove back into Charlotte to McAlpine Greenway. And I actually rode my bike! Had a great ride of about 6 miles. I felt great. I'm really looking forward to getting back on my bike. I've run into several old riding partners lately, so I'm taking that as a sign that it's time. And Tim was very happy to get my bike out and get it tuned up for me. After our nice little ride, we went to another favorite place for lunch - the Chicken Roasting Company. We don't get to go often enough because it's in Charlotte.

I was also able to get some reading done this weekend. I'm reading some books to judge for a romance writers contest. I've also received a few complimentary copies of new books from the publishers and from several book bloggers. I'm thinking about starting another blog where I will review books. I don't know that I want to post reviews on the library blog, because that blog is not really just for fiction reviews - it's for library news. And I don't want to post lots of book reviews here - I know lots of you would be interested, but this really is more for my crafting stuff with occasional food and books. I'll be sure to let you know if I do start another blog.

Watch here for upcoming birthday card posts and hopefully some more scrapbook pages.

Last Day

It's a rainy day today. Tim has gone to check if they are riding down the mountain today.

Here is the view from our balcony this morning.

The wedding yesterday was beautiful. It was held on Whistler Spit of Green Lake. The weather was perfect.

The first full day we were here Tim and the group from Charlotte did a cross country ride.

While they were out riding I wandered around the Village. I managed to find the Public Library. It's a new building and it's fabulous.

It took a full day of traveling to get here. A delay leaving Charlotte made us late getting into Dallas. The airline met us at the gate with a van to drive us across the runway to make our connecting flight to Vancouver. Customs took some time but we had no problems. The Vancouver airport is under construction - they are getting prepared to host the 2010 Winter Olympics. We got our rental car and headed through downtown Vancouver traffic to the Sea and Ski Highway. The view on the drive up were incredible.

This has been the best vacation.

Vacation Here I Come

What does a librarian take on vacation? This has taken a lot of thought - I want to have enough to read, but I don't want to add too much weight to my bags.

The Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo. Tim and I started listening to this on audio and both enjoyed it. We weren't able to finish listening to the entire thing (it's about 21 CD's long) so I am taking the book so we can finish.

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien. This is a book that Tim loves to read. I have never read it, but I love the movie, so I'm going to give it a try.

That makes two books we'll both be able to read. I also plan on downloading The Tortilla Curtain by TC Boyle onto my MP3 player. My book club will be discussing it this month so I need to get it read.

And, of course, we have a Vancouver/British Columbia guide book.

And that's what a librarian takes on vacation. We aren't forgetting to take our cameras - don't worry - there will be pictures.

Farmer Tim

I do believe I promised to show you Farmer Tim - and here he is. He borrowed the tiller from our friends Steve and Karen and tilled up most of our backyard. I think he just wanted to get out of mowing it. Tim selected all of the plants and seeds one Saturday while I was at work, and then got everything planted. He's been the one to diligently water most evenings and do the harvesting. We learned a lot with this garden - what needs to be planted early, what needs to be planted later, and things like what blossom end rot is. We are already planning for next year's garden. For this page I used a bunch of the vegetable tags from the things we planted. For the title I used several different tags. I even stamped some leaves in green on green and cut them out. The journaling is hidden on the yellow paper at the top of the page and tucked behind the photos.

Favorite Things

This weekend Tim went to the mountains to do the Off Rod Assault on Mt. Mitchell. 68 miles and many feet of elevation changes in 9 hours and 15 minutes. He had a good time.

While he was gone I went to a crop with my friend Judi. We sat next to Nancy and Wendy and just had a blast. Nancy gave me some great ideas for the pages I was working on and she graciously shared some of her supplies. In only got two and a half pages done, but I love what I got done.

When I was visiting my brother and his family in March I had both of my nieces tell me what their 5 favorite things were and I took a picture of each of them. Sydney was wearing a maroon-y colored dress that I've been having a hard time coordinating colors with. I was so excited to find the perfect papers from Creative Memories. The ribbon on this page came from my friend Judi and the great maroon flower came from my new friend Nancy. I used some pearls and crystals out of the Stampin Up Pretties kit. I can not believe how beautiful this page turned out. The tags that are threaded on the ribbon are Sydney's favorite things: Friends and Family, Teachers, Dressing Up, Ice Skating Show, and Dance Show.

Just call me Suzy Homemaker

I don't know what's gotten into me this summer. First I decided I needed to make cookies - and I never make cookies. Now I'm making jam and freezing tomatoes. Just call me Suzy Homemaker.

One of my co-workers was kind enough to bring me a bag of plums. I spent about 15 dollars on cute little jars, Sure-Jell and sugar. And now I have jam. It didn't set up as nicely as I wanted it to. But it's pretty tasty and I did it with no special canning equipment. Yes - I'm proud of myself.

We are starting to get tomatoes out of the garden. We've had an issue with blossom end rot, and Tim is treating that, but we are still getting a good edible crop. Instead of just freezing them plain, I am roasting them with garlic, onion and olive oil. I'm using my friend Melissa's recipe (http://fromlaptoptostovetop.blogspot.com/). I just cut up the tomatoes, add some chopped garlic, and chopped onion (I cheat and use the frozen kind), drizzle all with olive oil and bake at 300 for about 2 hours. It's so good that Fitzie helped herself to the last batch.

Next time I'll post about Farmer Tim.

Not All Business

Guess it's time for another scrapbook page. The butterscotch oatmeal cookies were very good by the way. I made this layout about my trip to Minneapolis in March. I got a grant to go to the Public Library Association meeting, but I was able to extend my trip and visit lots of family and friends. My friend Judi made the little booklet that is in the middle of the right hand page. It's a travel journal made of library cards and library pockets - get it? Library conference, library cards and pockets? There was one pocket and card for each day for me to jot down notes and memories. So I put the entire journal on the layout and included a variety of pictures from the whole trip. I had so much fun seeing my extended family and old college roommate. Plus the library conference was so inspiring.

I have book club this morning and I just finished the book. We are discussing a memoir: Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail by Malika Oufkir and Michele Fitoussi. So what should I read next? People of the Book, which my online group has just finished discussing or The Story of Edgar Sawtelle which we'll be discussing in a few weeks?

What a great weekend.

We had a wonderful 3-day weekend to celebrate the 4th of July. It was so nice to stick close to home and spend some time together.

I got to started my holiday on Thursday evening when I drove to Matthews to buy my new toy - a Kitchen Aid 5-qt. Artisan stand mixer in red. Friday morning I put it to use making Cindy McCain's Butterscotch Oatmeal cookies. I like the oatmeal cookies better than Michele Obama's shortbread cookies. But everyone at the cookout liked the shortbread better. I don't know that I've heard Tim say which he likes best.

We had our traditional cookout with our friends the Grochowskys. It was such a nice evening - good food and great company - and fireworks. We were so relaxed that I didn't take any pictures.

On Saturday, Tim started brewing his beer. It is fermenting away in the dinning room. I think it will be a couple of more weeks before he starts bottling. I need to work on stamping some labels for the bottles. Isn't it sweet that we can combine our hobbies?

And now it's back to work. I hope everyone had a great weekend.

Honoring Freedom

This is the week we celebrate our freedom. Friday we'll be grilling with friends and shooting off some fireworks. I'm planning to make grandma's macaroni salad and some cookies. Tim is going to buy the fireworks tonight. We can't wait to get together with our friends.

I made this page this weekend for a VSBN challenge on SCS to scrap someone in the military. I've done a nice page about my Dad being in Berlin, but I hadn't done anything for Tim's Dad. Tim had to call his brother Brent to see if he had any old photos scanned and Brent was able to email Tim several old photos of their Dad in uniform. In place of journaling, I used a newspaper story about James' service and being captured by the Germans at the start of the Battle of the Bulge. The title is simple chipboard that I embossed in white to give the page a red, white, and blue color scheme. There is a circle of stars under the title that I made by punching the shape out of a transparency and edging with white ink. The page is very simple to highlight the meaningful story of James' service to our country.

Happy Fourth to everyone and thanks to all who have served our country in peace and war.

Where did the week go?

Wow - it was a long hectic week. I didn't get any scrapping done. But I do have this adorable page to show you that I made last weekend. I am getting some more scrapping done today.

The title of this page is: Grandpa Makes the Best Playmate. And yes, I know I have a typo on the page - it will get fixed. These are pictures of my Dad playing with my brother Joe's girls when we were up in Michigan in March. Grandpa just played and played and never seemed to get tired. He's a great Grandpa.

I Made Cookies!

The other day I saw an article about Michelle Obama's and Cindy McCain's cookie recipes in Women's Day. They both look delicious, so I have decided to try them. I started with Michelle Obama's Shortbread cookies. Tim has a big 12-hour race today and since he loves shortbread cookies, I made these for him. Hopefully these freeze well since I have most of them in the freezer right now.

I'm not going to the race. It's just too long for me to be outside in the heat. I'm spending the afternoon and evening scrapping at today's Virtual Scrapbook Night on Splitcoaststampers.com. Which means I'll have a bunch more pages to show.

Michelle Obama's Shortbread Cookies

1-1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1-1/2 cups plus 2 Tablespoons sugar

2 egg yolks

2 Tablespoons Amaretto (I used 1 tsp. almond extract and a little water)

1 teaspoon each orange and lemon zest

3 cups cake flour (not self-rising)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 beaten egg white

chopped nuts or dried fruit (optional)

1. Heat oven to 325 degree F. Line a 17x12x1 inch pan with non stick foil. In a large bowl, cream together butter and 1-1/3 cups of the sugar.

2. Slowly add egg yolks, and beat well until smooth. Beat in Amaretto and zest.

3. Stir in flour and salt until combined.

4. Spread dough evenly into prepared pan, flattening as smoothly as possible.

5. Brush top of dough with egg white; sprinkle with nuts or fruit (if using) and with remaining 2 Tablespoons sugar.

6. Bake at 325 degree F for 25 minutes or until brown, turn off oven and allow cookies to sit in oven (with door ajar) for 15 minutes. Cut while slightly warm. Makes 6dozen 2x3-inch cookies.

Trick or Treat

Here's a layout I did for my nieces. I made two pages almost identical - one for each of their albums. The girls are bigger now since these pictures are from 2006 (correct me if I'm wrong Kirsten). I had some Cars paper that I cut the emblem and Lightning McQueen out of to use as embellishments. I also had some stickers so I used those to flank the title. I ran a wheel stamp across the page in a couple of places - that has been a versatile stamp and I use it a lot. It's a simple page with bright colors - so saffron, real red, brocade blue and black. I hope you like it girls.

Celebrating the Seasons

I got a bunch of pages scrapped this weekend. But I'll share this one with you first since I just finished it last night - and I love how it turned out.

The pictures are from Easter when I was in Minnesota. My Uncle Gerry and Aunt Sandy had the Holles family over for Easter dinner. The siblings also exchanged their Christmas gifts. I got to see my cousin Elly and spend some time with her. The group picture is Uncle Gerry, Aunt Jean, Aunt Julie and Dad. The other picture on the left page is my Dad and Uncle Gerry relaxing and visiting. On the right side is a picture of my cousin Elly helping my Mom with her cell phone, a nice picture of Aunt Jean and Uncle David, and then a picture of all the women sitting at the table visiting.

Every week on Splicoaststampers.com there are challenges to get people stamping and scrapping. So for this layout I used the sketch challenge and the variety challenge which was to use pattern paper from three different manufacturers. That was really hard for me, but I did it - and it worked. I used a red pattern paper from Stampin' Up and a tone on tone paper from Basic Grey and the black pattern paper is unknown. I put everything on a vanilla background. The title and journaling were done with a SU font. And the simple embellishments are black painted chipboard.

The Prize

Here is the page I made to show off the Blue Plunger Award that Dylan won for his psychology project. Dylan wrote out the journaling part for me that explains what his project was. Stamping Up has a cool punch that makes it look like the paper was torn from a notebook. I bought the papers on my last shopping trip because I knew the blues would work well with the very blue plunger and then I could use browns to tone it all down.

Summer Hair Cut

An interesting Southern tradition is that every year after school's out young boys get their hair buzzed for the summer. Tim decided he would try it this year since he has so much hair and it grows so fast. Turns out, we both really like it.

For this layout I used a sketch my friend Sally made for me, SBSC143. I used Not Quite Navy for the background and some new pattern papers by Paper Studio that I bought on my last shopping trip with Judi. And I used a little ribbon for accent. The other pages I made this weekend are a secret until the next Virtual Scrapbooking Night on Splitcoast - but they turned out darling.

Mojo!

My mojo's back! I'm creating today, so I'll have some scrapbook pages to share with you this week. Stay tuned.

Creative Cooking

At least I'm being creative in the kitchen if I can't be creative at the scrap table. Tonight I made Mexican Egg Rolls. I got the idea from an appetizer at Chilis. I didn't have any corn in the house, so these aren't very colorful. But they were yummy.

Mexican Egg Rolls

1 lb ground beef, browned with onions and garlic

1 can black beans, drained

1 can green chilies

1 cup frozen corn

taco seasoning and/or lots of cumin and chili powder

2 cups grated cheese

I used 2 won ton wrappers for each egg roll and about 2 good spoonsful of filling. Makes 12. Spray with Pam and bake at 400 for 15 min. Serve with sour cream and salsa.

Who cares about scrapping when I can eat?

I made a new recipe for dinner last night. You can find the instructions here: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/08/spicy_shrimp_yu/ . Oh man, it was so tasty. We just had shrimp and bread. But the shrimp would be good with some rice to soak up all the sauce. I think any leftovers would be great in some sort of cold salad. This was so simple and easy to make that I think it will become a staple at our house anytime shrimp goes on sale. I have also made the Pioneer Woman's bacon wrapped cracker appetizers and they were very good also. Be sure to check out all of her recipes and the rest of her blog.

Will I ever stamp or scrap again?

Seems like the forces of the world are against me ever getting anything creative done. This long holiday weekend when Tim was supposed to be riding in the mountains and I was supposed to be getting lots of scrapping done - we ended up making an unscheduled trip to KY. Tim's Mom is in the hospital with some heart problems. She got a pacemaker late last week and spent several days in CCU. She's in a regular room now and doing so much better.

We did take some time Sunday afternoon to drive up to Owensboro to see the kid. And, of course, I took more pictures that seem like they'll never get scrapped. Dylan did a project for psychology class using his dogs to test biocommunication. The teacher handed out awards for the projects. Dylan got a Blue Plunger for the best topic award. He's very proud of his blue plunger. He has one more week of school and is planning on working at Burger King this summer.

I guess this week I'll work on catching up on housework and laundry. Then this weekend I am going to scrap! Because my nieces have dance recital this weekend which means more pictures to scrap.

Mother's Day Cards

As usual, I was late getting my Mother's Day cards made and mailed. But they did finally get done. Everyone should have received theirs by now, so I'll share them with everyone else. A couple of weeks ago, my friend Judi and I went to a new stamp store in Matthews. I bought my first official unmounted stamp set. Unmounted stamps don't come on wood blocks, when you want to use one you mount it on a reusable acrylic block. The stamps are stored in a CD sized case. Which means they don't take up as much room so you can have more stamps. The set I bought is called Jolies Fleurs by Lizzie Anne Designs. They have been very easy to work with, so I think I see more unmounted stamp sets in the future.

I love the color of these cards - celery, coral and pink. I used a half circle punch to make the scallops and did some paper piercing along the bottom by the ribbon for interest. The large scallop circle is a punch my friend Donna has. I used the small hole punch in the scallops to make it lacy. A little ribbon finishes it off. And inside is stamped with Happy Mother's Day.

The New Bathroom

The bathroom is almost done. Tim is working on replacing the old weights in the windows. When he finished with that then he'll paint the window and door frames. The wainscoting and woodwork is a soft white and the top part of the wall is Koi Pond green. It turned out exactly like I pictured. Now that we have a new couch, we can move on to the living room and dinning room - maybe in the fall. This weekend we are going to take a break from working on the house and yard and head to the mountains and do some camping, hiking (me) and bike riding (Tim).

Home Improvement Day

Today we are busy working on the house. Tim is busy putting in base moulding in the bathroom. The house was built in 1930, so the walls are a little wavy. But he is doing a beautiful job. We ran out to Sherwin Williams this morning and bought paint for the top part of the wall. It is a soft green color called Koi Pond. It's a different shade of green than the towels we have so I might need new towels.

While we were out, we stopped by the local furniture store to look at sofas. We found one that we liked - and it was on sale! I'm sitting on it now. It's not as big as our old one - a little shorter and not as wide. It is a sleeper sofa to give us a little more room for guests. And it was made right here in North Carolina. Fitzie and Riley have checked it out already. The old futon we carried to the curb and the neighbors hauled it off pretty quickly.

The garden we put in last weekend is doing pretty well. No corn or beans have sprouted yet, and the watermelon and cantaloupes don't look too good. But everything else looks great. We also planted a lilac and hydrangea. We've had some good rain this week which has been nice. I still need to get some impatients to plant in the pot on the front porch.

After all this hard work, I'm sure we'll sleep well tonight. I did go to a crop last night so have a few more scrapbook pages to show you next week.

My Mojo is Back

On Tuesday morning I finished up the page that had been on my table for three or four weeks. These pictures are from when I was up in Michigan and had a chance to sit down and scrap with my nieces. I'm going to end up making three different pages with these photos - one page for me, One for Sarah's book and one for Sydney's book. When I started working on this page I picked some papers that matched the purplish color of Sydney's dress so the papers ended up being too dark and drab to enhance the story. I switch over to some lighter colors that would coordinate with the other colors in the photos. But I was using punch star shapes as an accent. When I went to look for some pattern papers to use, I only found paper with flowers. Then I realized I really needed to use punched flowers instead of stars. So after three weeks of changing colors and embellishments, I was finally loving it.

I just spent two days down in Myrtle Beach with some of my online scrapping friends. So Hopefully I can get a couple of pages scrapped to show everyone.

No Mojo

I've lost my scrapping mojo. I got lots of great pictures on my trip to Minneapolis but I haven't had time to scrap anything. I did sit down and stamp for a bit this morning to see if I could get the creative juices flowing. I have two cards in progress, so hopefully I'll have something to show you soon.
This weekend we go to Kentucky to see Dylan and Tim's family. Which means I'll come back with more photos to scrap. I got two of James Patterson's books from his Maximum Ride series at the library conference. I think Dylan will enjoy them. Maybe I can find enough mojo to make a few bookmarks for him.
It's a busy time at work. It's National Library Week, so I've been coordinating activities for that. Thursday night if Open Mic Poetry Night in celebration of National Poetry Month. Need to see if I can write something decent enough to read. Today is Library Worker Day, so please stop by your local library and say hi to the library workers there. I've got book club this morning. We will be discussing Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It is a beautifully written novel about the Nigerian - Biafra conflict of the 1960's. We should have a great discussion. I've spent some time this morning reading a few chapters and the beginning and end of the book to refresh my memory.
Other than that - the cats are well, the redone bathroom is great, and life is good.

I finally got some thank you cards made and ready to mail to my family who made my trip to Minnesota a great one. I had the best time seeing everyone. I got all my pictures printed so should get some scrapbook pages done soon.

For this card I used a color challenge on SCS to give me some inspiration - cameo coral, apricot appeal, mellow moss and creamy caramel. I used the Embrace Life stamp set and mellow moss ink for the leafy background and cameo coral ink on apricot and coral papers for the flowers. The while gel pen added a few accents. Since there are a few layers I didn't add any ribbon or hardware to make it more bulky for mailing. I'm pleased how they turned out and I think the colors are nice and soft for spring.

When I got back from Minnesota my tulips were up. Even with all the dreary rainy weather we've had, they've opened up beautifully. So this picture is for everyone who still has snow - spring is coming your way. Look quick because my tulips never last long - kids walking to and from school always manage to pick them.

I'm home!

I had a wonderful trip to Minnesota and Michigan. I got to see lots of family and had a great library conference. I came how with 23 free books! And I got to see enough snow for a lifetime - actually, the weather was very good while I was there. I flew in to Minneapolis on Good Friday and it was snowing. My Aunt Julie picked me up from the airport. I took a few pictures of the beautiful snow at her house. Most of this had melted by the time I left. I have lots of pictures to scrap from this trip. After I do laundry and go to the grocery store I can get started.

A Masculine Page

I took a challenge on SCS to make a masculine page using flowers. I started with this adorable picture of my brother Joe and his two girls, Sarah and Sydney. I printed the photo in black and white to make it more dramatic. The quote says: "There is only one way to lead a child down the right path... That is to go that way yourself". The flowers are gorgeous leather, I know you can't tell that from the photo. I used the colors ruby red, so saffron, old olive and chocolate chip. The stripped paper is from American Crafts, the leather flowers and rub ons are Making Memories - everything else is from Stampin Up!

Now I have to go pack my bags. I won't be able to take as many pair of shoes as I'd like because I have to pack sweaters and a coat so I don't freeze up in Minnesota and Michigan. I'm super excited about seeing everyone and getting more photos to scrap.

Life Takes Over...

... and you have no time to scrap. I've got a page laid out - adorable photo of my brother and his two girls holding hands. I want to use a quote on the page, but can't find what I want. I need to just give up on that idea and move on.

Things have been very hectic at work. Budget requests were due at the end of last week. I've got a bunch of fun things in my request so next year could be busy for me. We are also restructuring our technical services department in advance of searching for a new librarian. The new person will be Systems and Technical Librarian and I am no Acquisitions and Outreach Librarian. I'm excited about my new duties, but I have ALOT to learn.

I'm getting ready to leave on a trip this Friday. I got a grant to go to the Public Library Association meeting in Minneapolis. And it just so happens that I have family an friends there - how coincidental. I am so excited to get to see everyone, and the conference looks like it's going to be great to. While I'm gone Tim is going to remodel the bathroom. The new beadboard wainscotting is in the dinning room but the boxes of sink, vanity, toilet, fixtures and hardware are all in the study. He has instructions to take lots of photos so I can scrap it when I get back.

And that's life and why I have no new scrapbook pages or cards to show.

Birthday Wishes

This is my oldest niece a couple of years ago on her 6th birthday. You can't tell it from the photo, but her shirt has little blue flowers on it, which is where I got the colors for the layout - ballet blue, barely banana, and certainly celery. The title, "Birthday Wishes" is a stamp from the set For a Friend and I double mounted it to make it stand out. The ballon, present, and cake stamped images are done with Birthday Whimsy. I cut them out and mounted them on small squares to accent and ground them. I am going to do the journaling in the green strip in the middle of the page.

A New Recipe

We tried a new recipe last night. It was good for the cool windy day we had. I don't like green olives, but they give this dish great flavor. I also added a handful of frozen peas at the end.

Stewed Beef with Rice

1 small onion, chopped
1 small garlic clove, minced
1 T. canola oil
1 beef flank steak (3/4 pound), cut into small pieces
2/3 cup tomato sauce
2 tsp. red wine vinegar
1 tsp. dried oregano
dash pepper
2 T. slice pimento-stuffed olives (I used 1 small can)
2 cups hot cooked rice

In a large skillet, saute onion and garlic in oil until tender. Add beef; saute 2-3 minutes longer.
Stir in the tomato sauce, vinegar, oregano and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 30-35 minutes or until meat is tender and sauce is thickened. Stir in olives. Serve with rice. Serves 2.

Enjoy!

The Beach

I did two scrapbook layouts today - one page for Sydney and one page for Sarah. I'll share the Sydney page today and the Sarah page latter in the week. Need to dig out some Hannah and Matthew pictures to work on next.

I took the colors from the pictures - close to cocoa for the background as the sand, groovy guava paper and purely pomegrante ribbon for her cute pink and orange Dora swimsuit, and buckaroo blue for the water. I stamped images from the stamp set Shore Thing, cut them out and put them on a tag as an accent. The title is from chipboard letters. I really love how this turned out - very simple to show the cute photos.

Another Trick or Treat

Last week I shared with you a Halloween layout for my youngest niece who was Tinkerbell. This week I want to share with you the layout of my oldest niece who was a singer for Halloween. She's a very creative little girl and she decorated the shoes she wore as part of her costume. The layout came from Darcy's VSBN challenge on splitcoaststampers.com. I used some bright Basic Grey papers, a chipboard flower and some of the new SU rubons to coordinated with the big orange and purple flowers of her outfit.

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.