June 6, 2009

From this moment...

ten years ago, June 5th Eric and I were united in marriage. Both our second marriage and certainly our last. I truly have been blessed with a wonderful husband and really overall a wonderful marriage. Not to say that there hasn't been hard times, frustrating times and times well, ya konw that he is just, you know "a man". And all of us women know no matter how much you love 'em, there are still "those times" LOL... But for the most part he is wonderful. So, we normally don't buy anything for each other and we just go out and celebrate our time together. So, last night we went downtown to a wonderful chinese restruant called P.K. Chang where I had shrimp and scallops over a brown rice with a couple glasses of wine and he had salmon over rice with a few beers. Needless to say it was yummy, we had a little desert and then we went for a walk about the canal. This is were he proposed to me 10 years ago so I always love to go back and walk it and sit in the exact place where he popped the question. Then after the walk we went to Ike and Jonesy's and went dancing; we also did that 10 years ago after popping the question. I guess we are just a couple of hopeless romantics. Afterwards we went out and went star gazing... LOL... well here are a few shots from our night out...






















At the restruant...


This group asked if we wanted them to take our picture so we said sure and this gal from the group jumped in our picture...LOL




Then we thought... well, if she can jump in why not have a pic with all of them.....



This is Eric along the canal... kind of being silly...




















Well, this is Eric after a few more beers, being a little bit more silly... HEY who is that chic anyway.. and why does she look so great in that top? And WHY is my husband soo close to her ta-ta's!?!




Yes, after 10 years, he's still the one I cling too.... and kiss!!


I think we make a great couple....



And here I am looking pretty HOT! LOL... not bad for 48! and he's pretty lucky too!





















I love you E-man! XO

Blog Award



Well, I wish y'all could have seen my smile when Helen told me she gave me a blog award! Needless to say I was a bit surprised and excited at the same time!! I have been blogging for just over a year now, mainly just for myself and to share things so it is exciting not only to receive luvins and comments when people pass by, but to get an award from someone who is very talented and thinks the same as you! I have been blog hopping for this whole time too and just truly am at awe the talents that really float about out in cyber space. I use to always think I was talented in the artsy kind of way, but then you enter this cyber world and realize that God gave A LOT of people these talents and then all of a sudden you feel so small in your own talent, well, that is how I feel at times anyway. Helen, from Scrap A little gave me this butterfly award, the same one she was presented with just the other day also so check out her blog as well, lovely stuff there I say, so I feel honored and privileged not only to receive this, but to pass it on to 3 other bloggers. I must admit there are soo many wonderful bloggers out there that I am not doing this award justice by just 3 people, see my "places I love to hang"? They all deserve it and the places I follow that may not be linked there as well... so with that all said and done... I am passing this on to....

Beth - Wind Walker Altered Arts Beth is a wonderful card maker and has lots of beautiful stuff going on there. She just was accepted as a guest designer over at "The Next Level" and she also has a blog candy give away going on right now... so go check her out!

Ami - Basically Ami - Ami, has a very distinct style of scrapping I think. She does beautiful collage type layouts and cards... I just love her stuff and I am sure you will too, so go check it out... she also joined the "Scrap n Art" zine team.

Cora of Clearly Vintage has a great blog for free vintage images and she also has a line of stamps that she sales on Etsy. So, I don't think you will be disappointed by checking out her blog so hurry on over!

June 4, 2009

It's starting to look like summer....

Well, since my blog got a new summer face lift today I thought I would post some flowers from around my yard that have either been in bloom the last few weeks or are now in bloom. I really do love to garden. Not only do I enjoy the time to do it, but I love seeing and enjoying the fruits of my labor too. This first picture is a poppy and actually it is not in my yard, but it is my next door neighbor's Bea's flower. They were gone for a week and it popped out in bloom and I thought I should take a picture of it for her so she could enjoy it. Well, needless to say I still am enjoying the picture too, it was an amazingly beautiful flower!




Now these are my flowers. I love my clematis, in fact this one someone usually breaks and then it just dies on me, but so far so good this year and isn't it just the best in color? Wow so vibrant and velvety!!






and my Hibiscus rock the oranges with a touch of pinkish in the middle. I just love the exotic feel to these! I have three of these in pots and I just love them and they bloom all summer long!




and what about my gerber daisies, I know that same orange, but they are in different areas, but I do love vibrant colors!



These next pictures are of the Robins that made a nest on top of a wreath right next to the door. It was a wreath I was going to take down, but when I went to do that I realized a bird was nesting on top of it so we kept it up. We all enjoyed watching the birds grow and being feed daily on a regular schedule. All I can say is that those robins work hard to feed their babies. I believe that is all they ever did and then they got to rest come evening.

This first picture is one of the adult robins one gloomy morning. She/he was hunting for worms and I just happen to snap this picture when they landed on my stone figure. I think the colors are very rich and it feels so springy athough this was just a few weeks ago.



This is a pic that same morning right after she found the worm and brought it back to feed them...





















This picture is soo sweet I think, they were just relaxing while dad and mom were out working their hinies off to find worms for them, but now doesn't this little birdie look soo content in that snuggly little nest!?! If you look really hard you can actually see all three of them.





















This picture is about a little over a week later, they grew soo fast and so big that I was amazed that all three at this point were still in the nest. I think if I would have been a sibling I would have shoved that one in the front right out for more room!! LOL...




This was the last picture snapped of these little wonders. The next morning when we got up the nest was empty! It was really quite a joy to have these right next to the porch for all of us to witness the small wonders that surround us everyday and to actually take joy in them and to truly be in tune with "it's the small things that matter"! So, take time this week to enjoy the small things around you that you might otherwise just notice, but never have really taken the time to look at closely and enjoy! Have a GREAT day!






Alright alright, I know these next two pictures are not summer pics, but they crack me up and since I am uploading and sharing... LOL.. guess you are the lucky recipents of these! This first pic is a picture of our newest addition to our family, Storm the cat. Well, just before Storm we got Easter rats! LOL.. yes, you heard me right, Easter rats! Well, needless to say Storm finds these rats quite interesting. I walked into Avery's room the other day and there Storm was fast asleep on top of their cage. If you look closely you can see Athena and Louise checking him out!



Well, it has also been like 17 years since I have owned a cat and I have forgotten about all the silly stuff they do. This was the night before Rachel's open house and that warmer was sitting on the floor while I was running around crazy. It almost looks like he is not alive and I am going to serve him up for dinner!! YIKES! But really he is just asleep! and I PROMISE I washed it before I used it!! LOL... my guess was that it was nice and cool and felt good and he fit real nice in there. I wondered later what he would have done had I placed the lid on? LOL.... but of course I did not, I just grabbed my camera and took his pic and went on about my business!! Hope you enjoyed these!





hope you get a cat nap in today!!

June 3, 2009

Mother Day Cards

These are the mother day cards I made this year... needless to say with graduation and open house I am a bit behind in posting these. This first one I seen over at split coast stampers. I could not find any kind of template or tutorial on how to make it over there, so I thought I would make my own. So, just so you know this is not my original idea and do not claim it as mine. To be honest if there is an original template out there, I do not know who gets credit for it, but this one I made on my own by just viewing the other's in the gallery. If you would like your own template that I made you can find it if you click on the title post. That should take you to the flower pot template with the instructions on how I made mine. I did use a fiskars border punch long the pot rim to add a little decorative touch. So if you download my template and make a card, please give me credit for it. You can size it too to make a smaller pot if you like too! I think this turned out super cute and found out later that my mom at first couldn't figure out how to "open it"... LOL... I didn't think she wouldn't know to just pull on the flowers, so one might all "pull up" on the back side! :O)






















This picture is what the card looks like once you pull the sentiment piece out of the pot.


These are the other cards I made:


Since when I make cards, I pretty much ALWAYS use my own idea and design. So I have decided to go to my printship program and everytime I make a card I am going to make a sketch for that card to post too. I figure there are a lot of people that use these and love to have a base to start their idea out with. So, today I made these two sketches to post with my two cards. So keep coming back because I will try to post a card sketch every week. I think I will look at my lo's too and do some layout ones also! I have never done this before, but found it to be easy so why not? Hope these sketches help some of you out. I also would love to have the credit if you use one with a link back to my blog as well as seeing your card from the sketch too!!

























thanks for stopping by today!

June 2, 2009

OK... I have all my mother day cards to still upload, but a major storm is coming through so instead I am logging off of here.... catch you later and thanks for stopping by my blog and double thanks if you left me some comments or luvins!

Purse Gift Card Holders

Ok... let's just say I loved making these for the teacher's this year!! I slipped in a gift card and a little thank you card that matches. I also printed off a special quote for each teacher and slipped that in it too. I have one of these purses posted a little back in date if you would like to have the template. It is on another blog Scrap a Little is where you can find the tutorial/template. Thanks for looking.







Artist Trading Cards

These are some atc's I made for a swap over at scrapbook.com. It was a mystery swap so you could make whatever you wanted. This top one is one of my favs. I made a zetti, which is one of my first and I used a story people story with it which I just love that site.




















OK.. I now think I must have been a little off with this little story, it too is a story people story... LOL.. and I think it is sooo hilarious... I think you must either be really deep for these stories or off and sometimes a little of each... but I thought it was a hoot so I used it. The dogs are actually a piece of my art work. It is a color pencil portrait I did and it is one of my favs and thought it would be cool to use it on this atc. and don't you c'ha just love that hat?! LOL.. This card just makes me laugh and smile, I hope who ever gets it thinks the same instead of thinking the artist is just off!! :O) oh well, I am, what can I say!






















This is just a pic of all five designs together... I made a total of five of each design.