Hurricane Season

Late summer and early fall mean one thing for North Carolina-hurricane season. We felt the effects of Bill last weekend with tons of rain and some wind. Now this weekend is to bring in the effects of Danny who might clip the NC coast on his way through. I think these hurricanes need to get on a different schedule and come Monday through Friday so they won't mess up good beach or pool weekends!

Title Pages

I'm working on four different scrapbooks and one of the hardest parts for me is getting the title page-you know, the first page when you open the cover of the scrapbook. Since the majority of my layouts are double pages, it is hard for me to come up with something for the front. This week I am working on doing at least two of the title pages. One is for our 2009 vacations. We went to Mexico, New York City, and the beach for a few days. The pictures of these trips were easy and fun to scrap, but the title page...not so much fun! My monthly scrapbooking crop at the church is this Friday night so I am organizing papers to work on there and hope to get these two title pages done. Stay tuned for pictures of these!

Cards

I enjoy scrapbooking but I just dabble in cards. Every once in awhile, I will make a couple. The other night I made two. I needed one for my sister and one for a sweet girl, Chelsea, who is away at college. Chelsea's birthday is today. The great thing about 8 1/2 X 11 cardstock is that when it is cut in half, it makes two cards that are called an A2 size for envelopes. Envelopes can be bought almost anywhere that are perfect for these cards which end up to be 5 1/2 by 4 1/4. I always weigh up how I think people would feel about receiving a home made card versus a bought one. My thought is that they probably receive a lot of store bought cards already so it is different and different is good. I love them when I receive them, so occassionally, I have to make a couple. I am not a big fan of glitter. It is just messy and anyone who knows me knows that I am obsessed with washing my hands to the point where they are red and cracked so glitter isn't me. With that said, I have just learned about "stickles". Stickles is a glitter glue that doesn't put that fine powdery stuff everywhere, it is just liquid and then it dries and there are sparkles in it. I can do stickles. Since I am just starting to use them, I am going with the old saying that "less is more" so I am very conservative with the amount of stickles I use. On the two cards, I put yellow stickles where the flame on the candle would go. I was so pleased with how it turned out. Here are the two I created the other night.

Labor Day already?

I know the kids are going back to school which is a sign that summer is over, but I didn't realize how soon Labor Day was coming! We were going to go to the beach and stay overnight, but when my husband went to book it, they wouldn't take our reservation unless we booked the entire weekend which we didn't want to do. The beach is always crowded anyway on holidays like Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day. We think we will try the following weekend. With our luck, there will be a hurricane that weekend!

CD/Jewel Case Mini Album

My sister's birthday is Saturday and I wanted to do something different for her. I thought maybe this mini album would be nice for her to pop in her purse and take with her to share photos of our niece that we are all goo goo over. I saw it online at http://stampspaperscissors.typepad.com/jewelcaseinstructions.pdf
and had to give it a try. The papers are from scenic route. I had so much fun making this. In the inside of front cover is a place for a gift card.

Had to be scrapped!

As pretty as the pictures were of the sunflowers and trumpets, I knew they had to be scrapped. Here's what I've come up with.

Blooming

If you read the August 4th post, you saw pictures of my sunflowers and trumpets just starting to bud. I have to give you, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story by showing you them in all their glory. I am enjoying the view from my kitchen window. Makes me want to do more dishes...NOT!

The Today Show

As most of you know, we had a great time in NYC and were able to go to the Today Show in Rockefeller Center. I finally got around to scrapping it so check this out. A friend of mine, Marilyn, suggested putting the journaling around the circle and I liked that idea! It's good to know crafty people when you're not too crafty yourself!

Temperature

The mercury is rising and it will be 101 degrees today in my neck of the woods. That is just way too hot for man or beast. I am hoping the neighbor has given water to their dog who stays outside, or I will have to show them the error of their ways. I do this while I am watering my flower garden. I just shoot the hose into the dog's bowl. We've become great pals!

Cancer Destruction Zone

Carmen Lucero scrapped this sign, framed it and it is hanging on her local chemo infusion room door. I thought it was beautiful even though it brought back way too many memories of my chemo days!

Scraplift

Scraplift is when you see a scrapbook page and you copy it. It is a compliment to the orginal designer and is really the only time when copying another's paper is okay! hehe I scraplifted this from a girl named andipan.

The butterflies in the upper right corner didn't photograph well, but they look cute with a pearl inside their wings.

School Days

When our daughter came home from preschool the first day, she was so excited about what she had seen and done. When I woke her up the next day to go, she told me she had fun but she wasn't going back again. How funny to think that she will always be going to "school" even now as an adult since she works there. Well we will be fighting the school buses again beginning on August 17th. Teachers return on Monday the 10th.

Kindergarten wasn't around when I started school. I loved school. (You would have to know our family life to understand that comment.) I didn't want to miss a day and I received a prize in first grade for perfect attendance. The last day of school (which was a half day)as I was walking home, I noticed spots on my arms and by the time I got home I had a good case of chicken pox. I thought I would have to give my prize back since I was sick and technically it was a school day. My sisters explained that school was over for the summer and I would be keeping my prize!

What's blooming?

It is August and different things are blooming in my garden. Last year I was a bit green with jealousy when my sister and my dear friend, Jackie, had sunflowers blooming in their garden and I didn't. This year I planted some of my own and I am so excited that they are starting to bloom. This was what I found last night.

My all time favorite flower is Gabriel's trumpet. Mine are just starting to bloom. Here is what I found last night.What I love about this flower is the bang for the buck. The plants really don't need a lot of special care or upkeep, and the flowers they produce are six or seven inches long and can be seen from my kitchen window. Talk about a view! The plants look like they have a ton of buds so I can expect flowers right through to the first frost and then I will look for them again next year at the end of July for they come up every year.

Beachy

Here are two pages I finished this weekend of our day at the beach a couple weeks ago. It was nice to scrap them this weekend when we were having rain.