A Tradition of Ornaments

My family has a tradition of getting a new Christmas ornament every year. When my brothers and I were growing up Mom would buy us a new one every year. When I moved out on my own I had a small box of ornaments to take with me to my new home. Mom has continued to buy us, and now our spouses, a new ornament every year. Tim and I also started a tradition when we travel to new places, or places we love, of buying an ornament as our souvenir.

During the last Virtual Scrapbooking Night on splitcoaststampers, one of the challenges was to make a mini scrapbook using chipboard coasters as the cover. When I first looked at the challenge, I thought there was no way I could do that project in two hours. But it is a very quick little project. I didn't go overboard with the embellishments which helped keep it a quick project. On one side of the book I put photos of some of the ornaments my mom has given Tim and I since we've been married. The other side of the book is ornaments we've bought as souvenirs. I have more photos, so I will need to expand my book a little.

I used two pieces of pattern paper from Flair Designs along with Garden Green, Mellow Moss and Real Red cardstock from SU! The stamped labels are from the Label Classics stamp set, and the title is done with the Rough Edges alphabet. The stamped ornaments are from a set of stamps by EK Success my friend had just picked up for me at Big Lots. I used a little ribbon and a chipboard letter T on the cover. I used my circle punches to make a place to write the name of where the ornaments came from. Unfortunately, I don't have dates for most of them - I'll have to start keeping that information.

I love how my little book turned out, and now I can look at my pretty Christmas ornaments all year long.

Chicken Stew

I'm home for lunch. I had to come home and let Fred out. It was raining when I left this morning and he decided to stay in. My lunch was some leftover Chicken Stew from last night. It was very good, so I wanted to share the recipe. I made this up, so please pardon the lack of a "real" recipe.

Chicken Stew

saute chopped onion, garlic and carrot
add: about 2 cups of chopped cooked chicken
one can of corn
one can of black beans, very well rinsed
one can cream of chicken soup and one can cream of celery soup
one can of chicken broth
diced cooked potato
diced green chilies to taste
simmer until hot

The temperature has dropped since our rain this morning. This was so warm and yummy for lunch on this chilly day. I hope y'all like it.

This and That

Just wanted to share a couple of pictures with you. I didn't get any scrapping done this week. I'm trying to move all my stuff out of the dinning room and into the spare bedroom. We might actually paint our living room and dinning room. And maybe even repaint the kitchen. Tim put some test colors and the wall, and I think we like them. Green for the living room, red for the dinning room and yellow for the kitchen. Whoever painted the walls last used and exterior oil paint - or something really funky - and it all needs to be sanded before new paint will stick. It's going to be a huge mess - which is why it's taken us four years.

This weekend, Tim sadly had to cut up the new bike frame he got for his birthday. It's a steel frame and it developed a crack in the bottom bracket. The company is sending him a replacement, but first he had to destroy his and send them photo proof. It was a very sad day at our house. The new frame probably won't get here in time for him to rebuild before our trip. So we are going to SD bikeless for once. My brother Jim has a bike at my parents, so if Tim gets desperate, and the weather is good enough, he can ride.

We now, officially, have a new kitty. Yes, this makes FOUR. We took Fred to the vet on Friday to be neutered and have a rabies shot. He pouted a little when I brought him home. But we've let him out several times over the weekend and he keeps coming back. He is a darling little boy. The vet's office considers him cream colored - I was calling him orange.

And that's all the excitement around here.

A Little Nut

One of the challenges during VSBN last weekend was to use the phrase "Families are like fudge, mostly sweet with a few nuts" as a starting point for a scrapbook page. My little nephew, Matt, is a little ham. He makes the greatest faces when his picture is taken. So I had to scrap a page with his adorable scrunched up face. It's a very simple page - no embellishments to take away from the cute photos.

Holiday Lights

Here is my VSBN challenge and sample page as promised.

Holiday Lights The holidays are full of lights and glitter. Candles burn, Christmas tree lights twinkle and tinsel sparkles. Your challenge is to make your page sparkle. Use glitter, rhinestones or other sparkly stuff. I don't usually use a lot of sparkle on my pages, so I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with.

If you're a scrapbooker, please join us on splitcoaststampers.com and join in the scrapbooking fun.

VSBN Weekend

It's Virtual Scrapbook Night all weekend on splitcoaststampers.com. There will be scrapbooking challenges posted every 2 hours this afternoon. I am hostess for the 6pm EST challenge. My challenge is using a product I don't normally use, so I'm excited to see what other people come up with. I'll post my sample page later this evening.

Tim is off at a 12-hour race today. They start racing in about 10 minutes at 9 am and they'll quit at 9 pm. I talked to him a bit ago and he's cold. He'll warm up one they get going, so I'm not to worried about him. The high today should be 68, so he'll be all right. He's set up his tent next to some friends, so he'll have a good day.

Isn't life great? I get to spend all day with my online scrapbooking friends (and maybe one in person too) and Tim gets to spend all day with his bike friends.

Happy Halloween

I just had to show you the Halloween cards I made for the kids this year. I made these Saturday night and the crop I went to. It was the perfect project to work on at the end of the day. The sketch came from a SCS challenge, and was the perfect place the start. The pattern paper is SU! from last year, and I love it. The stamps are Making Memories foam, also from last year. I cut out the large image and popped it up with pop dots. I just love how they turned out.

We aren't doing trick-or-treating this year. We never get many kids, and those that do show up are too big and don't wear costumes. And I just didn't need to end up with a big bowl of my favorite candy left over.

Morning Traditions

A couple of weekends ago was the Virtual Scrapbooking Night (VSBN) preview - four scrapping challenges were posted on SCS. The Day Out With Thomas layout I posted last week was for one of the challenges. Another of the challenges was to scrap a holiday morning tradition. Tim and I don't have a regular holiday morning tradition, but we do have a nice Sunday morning tradition - Tim makes us breakfast. The challenge was posted on Saturday, so Sunday morning I took pictures of Tim making us a very nice breakfast - bacon, gravy, eggs and biscuits. And this past Saturday I finished up the page. One of the criteria for the challenge was for it to be cozy and use texture - I hope lots of ribbon counts.

This coming weekend is the big, two-day VSBN. I'm sure I'll get lots more pages scrapped.

It's Fall!

And I can prove it. Well, if you look at the scrapbook pages I did this weekend, you'll know for sure that it's Fall. I did one page of my niece Hannah in the pumpkin patch. I'll show you that page once I do the page for my nephew, Matthew. I did a Fall page for me - a couple of weeks ago I spent a Saturday sitting on the porch enjoying to cool weather. I took a picture of my laptop, cup of Chai, and scrapbooking magazines. I used some Basic Grey pattern papers that I love, and some of the new Prima flowers my friend Judi and I bought, and some great new wide grosgrain ribbon from SU!, I put some little pearl centers in the flowers. It's a page about me using scrapbook supplies I love.

I also did a Fall page for my nieces, Sarah and Sydney. Their mom took them outside for a photo shoot and sent me a copy of the pictures. I love the Basic Grey papers and SU! ribbon that I used on their pages - not typical fall colors, but so pretty with their sweaters. The title is stamped - I used markers to color a flower stamp from Big Pieces. I then cut each flower out and stamped one letter on each flower. It's a good thing I like cutting out, because I had to cut out 8 flowers (4 for each page). And the flower stamp is an almost perfect match for the flower in the paper.

All Aboard

After my walk this morning I finished up a scrapbook page. Splitcoast Stampers had another mini Virtual Scrapbooking Weekend this Saturday. One of the challenges was to make a page without any embellishments - only paper, stamps and ink. I made a page for Sarah or Sydney's book (I'll make another page, so they'll each have one). They've been to visit Thomas the Train several times. Someone even saved one of their admission tickets for me, so I used that for the journaling on the page. I think the picture of the girls is not from the year of the admission ticket - Kirsten can let me know. It's a simple but bright page. I used the stamp set Circus Train for the square embellishment at the top of the page. The colors I used are Summer Sun, Real Red, Brilliant Blue and Basic Black. I cut "All Aboard" out of a piece of pattern paper and made a tag for the title.

Lake Norman State Park

Tim and I just got home from a great day out. The morning started with Tim making bacon, gravy, eggs and biscuits for breakfast. Then we drove up to Lake Norman State Park, a riding spot we hadn't been to before. Tim met up with a group of Dirt Divas (local women's mountain bike group) and others. They rode the trails for a couple of hours while I wandered around on some of the trails. I took my camera and got some shots. After the ride, a bunch of us went out for dinner and beer. The weather was great today - warm but not hot. LNSP is a hour and a half drive for us, so we go up there often.

I've got some photos of the day to share with you, but Blogger is having problems again. I'll try to upload later this week.

Hanging Out on the Deck

We started a bad thing this weekend - we let Riley and Tarzan out on the back deck. They are both very interested in the new kitty, Fred. They've all met each other in the doorway when we are going in and out, and they watch each other through the bedroom windows. They all seem to get along just fine. So we let Riley and Tarzan out. They are both really good about staying on the deck and not wandering off or fighting with Fred - because they've discovered the grass growing up between the deck boards. Now every time we open the back door they try to rush out so they can nibble grass. Riley sits at the back door and cries to go out. I think what I need to do is grow a pot of grass for them to eat in the house.

The top pictures are Riley and Tarzan wandering out of the house and saying HI to Fred. The bottom picture is Riley eating the grass (oaky, I'm sure it's a weed) coming up through the deck boards.

Burn

Friday night my friend Judi and I went cropping. It had been awhile since we'd gotten together to scrap, so it felt great. I got 2 pages done and another one started. I had to leave early since I had to work on Saturday. I can't show you the page I made of Hannah playing in the snow because it's my sample page for the upcoming Virtual Scrapbooking weekend on SCS. But I love this page that I did of one of the races that Tim did this year. This is from the The Burn 24 Hour Race that was held at Dark Mountain at North Wilksboro, NC. This was the first time Tim has done a 24-hour race. He likes to do 12-hour races by himself, but for this big one, he was on a five man team. They were set to come in 9th place, but knew that there was a special prize for 10th place, so they worked very hard to come in 10th. They won a case of Burn energy drink and a tube of butt cream each (yes, that's what it's called - it's to prevent chaffing). For the page, I used Wild Wasabi as the base and accented with Softy Sky and Pumpkin Pie and a little black. There is a touch of pattern paper on the chipboard"(". The only stamping is the title and the bike tracks across the page. The journaling is hidden behind the blue paper and pulls out with the orange tab.

It was a Good Weekend

I had a very nice weekend. Tim was off in the mountains riding with a bunch of other guys, so I had lots of time to myself. Saturday was National Card Making Day, so I made a few cards. I also spent time reading, walking, scrapbooking and napping.

Lately I've been making several of this style of card. My friend Melissa made a great card with this design, and I've been CASEing her. It's a great design because I can use up some of the scraps of pretty pattern paper I have laying around. Melissa used a torn edge at the bottom of her card, and I've changed it to a scalloped edge. I used a hole punch along my scallop to give it a lace look. it's a great basic design and I"m sure I'll make lots more of these.





This next set of cards I actually did the stamping this summer when I was at my friend Donna's in Myrtle Beach. I don't own this stamp set. I think it belonged to Darcy and both Donna and I stamped some images of it. I didn't do a nice of job coloring the flowers with markers as Donna did, but I think they turned out lovely.



I also got a little scrapbooking done this weekend. Several weeks ago, my SIL, Nikki, e-mailed some pictures of the kids and I had a bunch printed. I started with a couple pictures of my nephew Matthew in the snow. Now I'm working on the same page with pictures of my niece Hannah. I can't show it to you when I'm done because it's going to be my sample page for the upcoming VSBN on splitcoaststampers.com. I used Bordering Blue as the base of the page with the large photo mat in Sage Shadow and accents of More Mustard and Not Quite Navy. For stamps I used Big Piece and Little Pieces and Be Happy. My accessories are brads and eyelets - no ribbon because it's a boy page. The sketch came from my friend Sally.

It was a good weekend.

Baby Shower

On Saturday afternoon I went into Charlotte for a baby shower for one of our bike friends. I was so nice to be invited since I'm not a rider myself. It was a very nice shower and we on;y had to play too games and they weren't too bad - well the melted candy bars in the diaper was a little disgusting.

Several years ago my friend and I took a class on how to make a wedding scrapbook from envelopes. I never completed the project so it's been sitting in my craft space waiting to be used. The color scheme was pink and creams so it was perfect for a baby girl album. I bought some baby accents and added a little more pink ribbon. It turned out beautifully, and the mother-to-be seemed to like it.

Happy Birthday Tim

Tim's birthday was yesterday. I made his card from a retired SU set called Rip and Shred. This week's SCS color combination challenge was perfect for a manly card - old olive, more mustard and bashful blue. I also used this week's SCS card sketch challenge for the layout. And tada - it's a birthday card for my sweetie.

He has to work this morning but this afternoon he will be out on the inaugural ride of his new bike. I bought him a bike frame for his birthday. He's spent all week getting it built up. There were some technical difficulties and he's waiting for a few parts to be delivered and then he'll have it just how he wants it.

This afternoon I'm off to get my hair cut and then into Charlotte for a baby shower for some bike friends. I'll post later the gift and card I made.

Congratulations Tim

After five years of racing, Tim won a championship trophy in the Charlotte Mountain Bike Series. The trophy is in the spot of honor on the center of the mantle. Next to it is the 3rd place Cowbell trophy he won several years ago. This year he rode in the single speed class. He's come close a few times before, but this was his year. I'm very proud of him. The series started in April and ended last weekend. They race every Wednesday night for four weeks and then have a week off and repeat. Each race earns the riders points, and at the end of the season the rider in each class with the most points overall is the champion.

Now is a short rest period. I bought him a new bike frame for his birthday, so he is working on getting that built. Then he will work on repainting his hardtail. He's decided to retire his full suspension bike and with all his various parts, plans to end up with a fully rigid single speed and a hardtail single speed.

Fall and winter riding and racing will start soon.

Happy Anniversary

This great picture of my parents was taken at my cousin Paul's wedding in May 2005. Today my parents celebrate forty-two years of marriage. Way to go!

TGIF

Tim sent me flowers yesterday! Everyone at work was jealous :) It was a good birthday even though I had to work. I had some authors in to do a program, and it turned out well. Joyce and Jim Lavene live in the area and write cozy mysteries together. They are very interesting people, and we had a nice little crowd who came to hear them speak. Then Tim took me to El Ranchito - it was mariachi night.

We are both off today. Tim is running a few errands - paying the taxes on the Buick (13.50, since we're past due) and getting his drivers license renewed. When he get back I'm going to do the grocery shopping. Then I don't know what we'll do for the rest of the day. I'd like to do some crafting since it's been awhile since I've stamped or scrapped.

Our little miss kitty still doesn't have a good name that she likes. We tried the girls suggestion, but she wasn't interested. And now Tim has sweet talked another kitty. This one is a male and he is light orange. He looks like a little lion.

New Kitty Needs a Name

It looks like we have a new kitty at our house. This little sweetie showed up at our back door several weeks ago. Tim is a big softy and started feeding her. She was so scrawny at first. We said if she was still around after our trip to KY that we would keep her. So now we need to name her. I've been calling her Girly Girl, Tim has been calling her Yowler - neither which is a good long term name. One suggestion from a co-worker is Sheena. She came to us wearing a pink flea collar, and I've discovered that she is declawed in her front paws. Hopefully that means she's been fixed to. We'll take her to the vet and have her checked out. I heard Tim tell her she had to stay outside this summer be when it got cold she could come in. If you have a suggestion for a name, leave a comment.