Darling Dominoes

I made some little necklaces out of dominoes tonight. I could have gone on and on and on but my dang drill bit, well Matt's drill bit broke! ARGH!!! I need to try this with charm size regular pictures...they'd be cute grandparent gifts! You'll only think the bass one is funny if you've seen Napolean Dynamite which is pretty much the funniest movie, EVAH! :D I think I HAVE to give this necklace to my neice 'cause she's the only person I can think of who'll appreciate it. I'm going to give Karen B. the dream one tomorrow. Got to get to bed I'm leaving at 6:30a.m. OUCH! :D

Lilly And Her Lady Friends

***Edit** Apparently there has been some difficulty reaching me so I'll
post the kit info here.

Unfortunately I can't get the mannequins wholesale (if someone can let
me know, please) but I can sell the kits to the mannequin including very detailed instructions. The cost for the kit including the mannequin, paper, ribbon, flowers and sponge brush is 26.00 plus shipping and handling. You will get everything needed except decoupage medium and adhesive. My email is mnrbedsaul@netzero.net. Thanks for your interest.

Such a fun class last night. I think the girls had fun making their mannequins. These are GREAT fun and I had such a nice group of girls! This Chatterbox paper (Greenhouse and Poolhouse) is PERFECT for this. I can't wait to teach this again!

This weekend my neice Kady and I will be working at the dollarscrapbooking.com booth at CKC Valley Forge this weekend. If anyone's going please stop by and say Hi!

Lilly reminder

Wanted to give everyone a quick reminder about Lilly the Chatterbox Chick! If you are in the area and would like to make a mannequinn, Tuesday night at Scrap-Masters is the night! She'll take about 3 hours and the class starts at 6:00. If you have any questions don't hesitate to email me.

Done?

Matt and I finally finished the rocks around the pond today. We'll probably always be fidgetting with it and adding a stone here or there. We need to add additional landscaping but that will probably have to wait till next year. Those rocks are not easy on the budget or back for that matter. We moved well over 3 tons of rock to complete it! WOW!!! Holy backache!


I wanted to show you a quick pic of the dogs, this is what I had to deal with while I was trying to get these pictures.
My two brown wacko's! Cute though aren't they?
 

Stephanie's B-day

My good friend Stephanie just had a birthday. Her husband, Jeff and I have been friends since I was 10, that means 25 years! I LOVE this couple! Stephanie has become my partner in crime
too many times to count at Target and various other stores. Steph is definately one of those friends you could call if you were driving to the bank in the a.m. with your p.j.s on and the car broke down. She's the type of friend that you don't mind EVER if she drops by, whether you have dishes in the sink and dog hair on the floor. Steph, I hope you had a GREAT birthday!!!


Stamps are River City Rubberworks, cardstock is Bazzill and Papers and Chipboard are Making Memories. Hard to read the writing but it says "WE'LL BE FRIENDS TILL WE'RE BLUE IN THE HAIR" Although Steph's hair's going to HAVE to be a shade of purple because for her there is no other!

I totally << heart >> Elsie

Elsie totally rocks the freestyle scrappin! Such a cool, fun, inspiring book! Today, while at Scrap-Masters, Elsie's book completely caught my eye. I am so inspired by what Elsie does and for non traditional scrappin...she RULES!!! I've got scrapper's crush or something! Callie was looking through the book on the way home and she said "Mom, she sorta scraps like you!" LOL too cute! "yeah, honey, I wish!"















My neice told me about a really fun event for the girls the other day. It was a Breyer Horse
Fun day at the Mill. Cute games, crafts and give aways! They had so much fun and just adore everything Kady does anyway. Here's a cute pic of the 3 of them, it's hazy becaue it's so DERN humid here! Poor Peyton has been battling pink eye and you can kind of see her eyes look red. Poor girl!

Good to be home..

We had such a nice time at the beach. Very relaxing, nice long days in the sand. It's so good to be home though! The dogs (Macy and Chester) were totally beside themselves, barking and wiggling when we walked in and Guido (the parrot) was squawking his little green head off.

I've got some laundry and dishes (Dad; my house/dog sitter, doesn't do dishes) to catch up on. My Jenni Bowlin kit came in while we were gone...MAN I love this kit! And the project kit is beach oriented...how apropos! I tore into that moments after walking in the door. I LOVE me some JB! I can't wait to CREATE!

These are a couple of the 100 pics I took! <---------

Off to the beach...AGAIN!

We are leaving for the beach again tonight. Wow, we're beach bound 3 times this summer! Cool! The kids are going to look like shake and bake chicken AGAIN! (that's what we say when they are all covered with sand)

Matt's band plays this evening at a place called Sonoma's. Then we are OFF ...

I won't be around for a few days, there is no internet at the beach so my GAWD. Now I'll be without internet AGAIN. I'll have to distract myself with the happy squeals of the kids, slathering slimy sunscreen and a good book. Sounds do-able, I think.

I leave you with the most recent beachlayout I did. It's my youngest bending in the water. Bazzill cardstock, Foofala paper, Making Memories BoHo Chic paper, Heidi Swapp ghost letters colored with alcohol inks. Date stamp from Walmart and white chalk ink. The wings are my own design, I drew them than had them put onto a transparency. Stitched with pink metalic thread (that stuff is so pretty but my goodness it BREAKS constantly) Okay, ladies, play nicely while I'm gone and happy scrappin'!

Oh, BTW, my Dad will be staying here while we're gone. So I"m sure the dogs and birds are going to learn an all new 4-letter word vocabulary while we're gone!!! Should be interesting...

Daddy's little girl..and also how I almost died...

First let me say, I really do think my life depends on my internet usage. Really, we went 4 days without it! Dang VERIZON!!! Luckily I finally got a tech support person who was willing to take the time to solve our issues. ARGHHHH It took 3 tries and about 3 hours! But thank goodness it's back!



Okay, this is a pic of my dad and my friend/neighbor Dave. Dave wasn't sleeping, he was blinking....Sorry Dave for the poor pic! :) Dave and my Dad and I went to this cool place in Southern MD called Red Eye Dock bar to watch Matt's band, crashnelson.net (crash nelson) play. Lot's of FUN! At the end of the night Dad and Dave left and we were going to be about 20 minutes behind them because we had to load up the set. One of the band mates said that there was an apparent back up on the bay bridge (which is several miles long). I called my Dad to see if they encountered it. He said that there
was not a back up. Then he said, "What's he trying to find a way to spend a night in a hotel room with you?"

OMG for laughing out loud!!! Too funny. My goodness, we've been married 13 years and have 3 kids. I guess my Dad reverted to "daddy-mode". Maybe you ARE always Daddy's little girl...

A little mushy...

This is one of my favorite pictures of Matt, I took it a couple months ago. He was practicing and he didn't know I had the camera but knew I was there. He thought of something funny and turned around to tell me and I snapped the pic. He looks so natural and happy...I love it and yeah, he DOES make my heart skip a beat....pun intended (he's playing DRUMS)! He's a great dad, a wonderful husband and the teacher that all the kids want because they think he's "cool". I scrapped this tonight because the mood struck me and well I've been wanting to do something with this picture!

The Fruits Of Our Labor!

It's finally getting there. The pond I mean, lol! We've been working hard since the rain stopped. The rain that we had delayed us about a week. We put the fish in about a week ago, luckily my brother gave us 6 fish from his pond, and we had 4 to begin with. You can partially see the one really big Koi my brother gave us from one of his ponds. That big guy would cost almost 500 dollars if we bought him at the pond store....can you imagine the scrap stuff you can get for $500! :)


When it's done I'll post pictures again. These are close up because I'm trying to hide the junk in the background! We have shovels and pumps and rocks everywhere at this point.

Happy 4th everyone! I hope to post again later.

She's a Chatterbox Chick!

Meet Lilly! She's the more flamboyant of the twin mannequins I'm making as part of the design team at Scrap-Masters. I haven't made her more plain-Jane sister yet. She'll be pretty much the same but without the stitching and extra detail at the bottom and she won't have the dangling leaf beads from her sash. Lilly sure was fun to make and I can't wait to teach her in July!

She's all Chatterbox paper from the greenhouse collection. I used Creative Imagination pearl brads (perfect for the "country-club"social set that Lilly belongs to). I used Blue Moon glass leaf beads for her sash accent. If you want to see that closer up, let me know.

 

Delightful Day!

The kids and I tagged along with Matt today to Fells Point in Baltimore. He was taking a drum lesson from a pro so we thought that would be a good opportunity for the kids and I to check out the area. It actually was a little stressful after Matt went to his lesson. I am SO not a city girl! The traffic was totally freaking me out with the kids! Luckily, my father met us about a half hour later and that took some of the stress off. I also had to say a zillion times to Peyton, everytime we walked into an antique store, "don't TOUCH anything." I was really looking for a couple antique crystal knobs to use as an ornament on the top of the paper mache mannequins I'm about to do for Scrap Masters. I think they'd look so cool like that! I'm working on them this evening so hopefully I'll be able to post them soon.

It was so fun listening to my Dad tell the kids all about the area. Tell them about his father being a tug-boat captain, explain about the cobble stone and belgian stone streets, he explained why many of the house/stores are built on an angle. The kids and I had a gelato...YUM!!! Then we went to a bakery in the Broadway market that had some Polish treats, so cool to share things from my childhood with my kids and AGAIN with my DAD! What a nice day! I only wish I had taken more pictures! But isn't that peeling blue paint on that door GORGEOUS!?

Dismay

While out today, we stopped by this delightful antique store that I spied from the road. Cole picked out some antique license plates that I'm going to make an album out of for him. Seems so incredibly appropos for him, my CAR FREAK!!! But my most exciting purchase was a set of 2 lead flower frogs. One is tiny like 1 inch across and the other is about 4 inches. I'm in LOVE can't wait to use them to hold up pictures on my scrap desk plus they'll be so cool to use for flowers too! LOL

We've been working on a new garden pond for about two weeks now. Matt dug and dug and DUG while the kids and I were in Ocean City and now it's MUCH bigger than it was. For a week I've been in and out of the pond laying the stone walls and waterfall, Matt's been moving stone, dirt and messing with the pumps. It's been really fun but we are both ready for it to be finished.

Today while shopping for pond plants, we got an urgent call from my father. My nephew, Marty, while racing motocross, possibly broke both ankles and was rushed to Christiana Hospital. Luckily, it's been discovered that only one is broken and the other has either torn ligaments or deep tissue bruises. I know Marty will not enjoy the rest of summer and it is SO unfortunate that he'll be out for the rest of the season (I'm assuming) but I am so thankful that it wasn't any worse. Marty was in first place in his class this season and has a VERY promising motorcross career ahead of him. Here's a link to a pic of Marty doing some "freestyle" riding, this was apparently going across the finish line earlier this season... http://www.poppopsimages.com/Race4Class9/pages/4-23-06%20Budds2-%20270.htm

10 on TUESDAY

As per my friend Peg's blog, here's 10 things you tell people to try

1. Maryland Crabcakes from the Olive TREE in Aberdeen, MD
2. "Good Nest" cleaning products from Target
3. Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper
4. Boys athletic socks from the Children's Place> for YOU! AWESOME!
5. A DYSON vacuum!
6. "Be Delicious" perfume by DKNY
7. The kids movie "High School Musical"
8. Starbucks anything
9. Dove moisterizer with subtle self tanners- YOU GLOW
10. blogging! :)

My blessings!

Today, I'm feeling especially sentimental about these three cuties. They really are great kids. Not that I don't have the fights and the fussing (jeez, now that I think about it, they WERE driving me crazy right before bed!) They sure do look so sweet when they are sleeping and I quickly forget and forgive the headache that they occasionally give. :) I want to share 3 quick and cute stories about them that recently occured. Oh, by the way, you know you are taking too many pictures of your kids lately when all 3 BEG and PLEAD for you not to take the camera to the graduation party you are about to attend!

Cole was sitting on my lap (yeah, so we looked a little like the elephant in the kiddie car but don't tell him) and I took a little nibble on his ear lobe, and before you get all squemish and freaky, it's something I've done to him forever since he was tiny. He's got these super squishy lobes that beg to be bitten! Weird I know....don't call the authorities on me or anything. Anyway, I asked him if he'd still let me do it when he got big and he said "Sure, as long as my wife doesn't see you!" I love that boy!

Yesterday while we were making a quick trip to the grocery, Cole was droning on and on about various cars and other vehicles. Callie begged Cole to not talk about cars for 10 minutes. I told her that he couldn't help it and it was something he was PASSIONATE about. She said "Well, if I'm ever PASSIONATE I hope I don't annoy anyone else!" I love that girl!

This is quick...Callie was tickling the back of Peyton's legs yesterday and she screeched, "Please don't tickle my leg pits!" I love that girl too!

BEACH BUMS

I'm baaaaack! Wow, we had a great little 6 day vacation! The kids had so much fun and it was pretty relaxing except for 2 days of rain. It can be a bit difficult to keep 5 kids entertained in rainy weather! We had 4 truly WONDERFUL beach days where we got to the beach by 9:30 or 10 and stayed way late! Of course I have a gazillion pics! The kids were so sick of me by day 2!










This is a shot of Callie and Cole on the pier at the recreation park! That is an AWESOME park with tons to do, the kids took their scooters and Cole got a ton of exercise scooting around the HUGE park. Unfortunately half of the playground has latex mulch so Cole was VERY limited with what he could do on the playground. We Celeberated Stephanie's little guy, Gavin's b-day at Dumsers's dairyland. G O O D icecream!





















Finally, this is a picture of Peyton begging to take off her jacket one night at the beach. She was afraid she wouldn't look like a big girl!

Almost Here!!!!

Sorry, I know these pics have been up all day but blogger wouldn't let me in to add to the post...WONKY!
Well the twins had their picnic today...it was very fun and they had CHIC FI LA...gosh how do you spell that? Anyway, it was GOOD!!! I love me some of their chicken! :D These are the cards I made for the teacher, one is from the entire class (with a visa card inside) and one is from Callie and Cole. The top one is SEI and a Heidi Swapp flower and a Foofala button and the bottom is Foofala paper, 7 gypsies sticker and embossed letters I stamped from the Philadelphia font of MM foam stamps.


Callie and her friend Heather, they've been friends for years and are so cute together! I love when Callie wears pigtails, I know it won't for for too much longer.



Here's Cole and his teacher. That boy is ALWAYS willing to give a helping hand! I love that! Gosh, look how tall he's getting! Mrs. W is probably 5-10 or 5-11.

The kids and I are leaving for the beach on Saturday. We are soooo looking forward to it. Peyton has asked every morning this week if today is the day we go to the beach! :) It has been a CRAZY week with something going on everyday...I can't wait to just do nothing! Ciao!

Okay so I LIED!!!

Really, this will be the last one I show! Finished this tonight after I worked on some other goodies for a contest. I'm not allowed to show that so this is what you get! :-) I used Heidi Grace paper and most of the embellishments in this purse pal. I know you are probably sick of these pictures too but when you print a passport size, you get 6 so....

Yet Another Purse Pal Tin!!!

I PROMISE this is the last sample of this! I know I keep showing them but GOODNESS are they sooooo FUN!!! This is THE tin that I'll be teaching at Scrapmasters, Tuesday June 20.
The class cost will be 25.00 and you will complete the tin in class. Pictures are not required but recommended. The super cool thing is that if you bring a cd or memory card to class, you can have your passport size pictures printed then!!! Just get there a little early so you can have them done for the class. At only .25 a sheet of 6 it's a good deal!






This paper is American Crafts Tres Chic line. It's not a new release but just shows you what you can do! It's a nice bright, summer line that goes well for the whole family! Heidi Swapp fuzzy rubons and some prima flowers...all pretty basic stuff.