The Paper Element..

I got my first projects done!
Three layouts from each collection... I got my first two collections this month, of my 6 months "term"!
Thanks "The Paper Element"!
And TFL!!
For this one (below) I used their rub-ons for the center of the flowers cut from their printed paper (for added dimension, I just folded them a bit around my finger downward), and the rub-ons for the leaf accents...
I love that their paper has the "speckled" distress on the coordinating side...
VERY simple 8 1/2x 11... but I just love the greens, and I ahve been wanting to scrap this picture for awhile... I just love his cute face and the bandaged knees in this one! :) So "boy"!
(This picture is very clear IRL-not sure why I am not getting a clear one of this LO!!!)
Lot of ink... Grungeboard mini's (get them at Scrapaganza while they last!!!) Transparencies...
This one I futz with a bit... I almost think I could have left the grunge letters "raw"... to work with the greys, but I always wanted to play off the brown distress of the gray paper... This is the same paper used for the girl LO's... talk about versatile!
Crackle paint on the mini-grungeboard letters and numbers... I love this umbrella paper! The one black umbrella on the PP is a rub on...

Lots of kissing...

For Ashleigh! Your engagement session!

If your not Ashleigh, feel free to comment... I tried not to over "shop" these... I got really lucky, and some there is very little done!
A couple like this, it makes it easier, I'm sure!
I had a GREAT time, and got some good shots, I think!

And to think, this is just about 60 of the 400+ we took! Yikes!!
Enjoy!

Ashleigh's link is to the left, go give a visit, and tell her what you think!
Aren't they the cutest couple???

(To see the pictures larger, click on the slide...)

Back from RANGER U!!!!

WOW!!! That's all I really have to say!

WOW!!! It was incredible!! Truly!

I learned SO much! I met the BEST people!

I am SO inspired! WOW!

I can't wait to get it all organized and get TEACHIN'!!

I got in late on Thursday... got a bit of sleep, and off to Ranger we went!

Friday morning was Melt Art with Suze Weinburg! Then {I can't tell you what with} Claudine Hellmuth. :)

Then Precious Pearls with Tim Holtz... and then the next two DAYS with Tim!!

WOW!!

We inked, painted, stamped, melted, created, ironed, embossed, inked, edged, distressed, sprayed.... did I miss anything??

OHHH, and I got to see things being made and packaged in the factory! I got to take a stickles from the line RIGHT after it hit the bottle! Very cool! :)

I am now a certified instructor for Ranger. YAY! I am listed on their site SOON!

And I have a new understanding for all things Ranger... boy was I clueless!! :) "Just sayin'"

Thank you everyone at Ranger, for your creativity, time, efforts, patience, enthusiasm... and thanks to Patti, for the "Patti Splat"! What a fun technique!!

We did each technique on a tag... I have quite the stack!!! We did more than 70 techniques!

Look for Ranger classes in August at Scrapaganza!!

About some of the people I met: WOW!

Of course there was Tim Holtz, Claudine Hellmuth and Suze Weinburg!! (Can't wait to check out some REAL sushi with ya Suze!! Tim, your the best-again, "just sayin'. Claudine, I LOVE your laugh! :) Have a safe move to DC!)

But here are a few other great people I met at Ranger U!

Terri Ventura, awesome jewelry artist! She uses vintage one of a kind many times, pieces in her designs! She had the BEST bracelet on this weekend!! WOW! Come by the store soon! I should be the proud owner of a "Everything but the Kitchen Sink" bracelet SOON (or whatever she sends-doesn't matta-it's ALL fabulous!!) YAY!! Thanks Terri!! I hope to visit New York again soon, and she can give me a tour of Tincel Trading, and her other great haunts!! THIS is a great lady that knows how to "keep it real"!!

Bernie Berlin-altered artist, author, and WONDERFUL lady! Don't forget to check out her animal Rescue efforts here, too! WONDERFUL lady! I hope to go down to Tennessee to visit, help out... whatever I can, and maybe create too... WOW. Thanks Bernie!

Vicki Boutin-Creating Keepsakes Hall of Fame winner 2006. Vicki, your hilarious! Thanks for being so funny and nice, and you were certainly kind! I had a great time, but in my efforts to be "reserved" let's say, I was hardly myself-which can be overwhelming to some... hence my efforts! LOL! ANYWAY, you are easy to be with, and just FUNNY!! Keep it real girl, and I will see ya at CHA!!

Kezia Whittaker-Tinkering Ink owner... Kezia... so glam... so.... good at what she does! It was great to see you again! Everyone, be sure to check out all that is Tinkering Ink! I am sure that they will be out with some great new stuff! Looks like Ali Edwards was just using their adorable Peek-a-boo albums! Fun! :)

Nancy from For Keeps Sake! What a nice lady to have sitting next to me!! Thanks Nancy! You were a a lot of FUN! :)

Teri Davis... Queen of Canjun! WHAT a great personality!! See ya soon "talking head"!!
(Look for Teri in the pages of Memory Makers and other great mag's!)

Susan Johnson from Amate Studios... Thanks for the great jewelry pieces!! And for being one of my fabulous roommates! See ya at CHA!

To Kathy ( from UK)... have a great water birth!! Can't wait to see what you have (boy or girl)... Wait... I will see you in July even closer to your due date!! :)

And to all the other people I was privileged to meet!! Wendy from Maya Road; Dylan, one of the 7 Gypsies? :) Shari Carrol-check her out here at Hero Arts! It was nice talking to you at the BBQ Shari! Joel... what a great guy they have as director of sales at Ranger! Class act! Gosh!!
There are SO many of you! I got to meet the Ursala's from Germany... :) And Lindsey from the UK-Oh wait... JUDITH! Duh. (LOL!) Sheena and Traci... Sheena's job was to keep Traci calm!! She was SO cute!! Oh goodness... it's hard to remember everyone by name!

We were SO busy! There were SO many more people there than scrapbookers! WOW! Manufacturer owners, designers, altered artists, jewelry designers, store owners or managers, Ranger employees, stamp company owners and designers... I am grateful, out of over 125 people that applied, little ole me was choosen to go! Again, WOW!

What a privilege that I could spend my long weekend with all of you!
A blessing indeed!!

*Other things I have learned:
-You can get 7 grown women into a compact car
-Cheesecake Factory is THE dinner out anywhere there is one, and your crafting...
-UTee is my friend!
-Hot Dogs come in many sizes.
-People are not always as they seem... sometimes they are even better!
-Cajun isn't just food!
-The messier the better.
-Not all things can be heated to dry with a heat gun.
-I LOVE Ranger products!!!!

It's 5:45 our time!!!

REALLY??? :)

I thought I would blg, since I am waiting on the shower. THIS is too early!!

OK, you would think after Februarry's botch of forgetting my USB cord &/or card reader, I would remember it this time. Or my husband (hint,hint) would have reminded me!!! NoooOOOO!!!

I have a camera-no way to download. Duh.

Not that I have taken pictures yet. I haven't. Suprised? I am.

Roomates:great.
Flight:great, if I wasn't sitting next to "Mrs. Crabby Pants" the first flight, and "Mr. take up both armrests in the middle", the next flight!! At least HE was nice!!
Bed: (pull out-doesn't pay to be the last one in) not so great.
Ride from airport: not so great.

We start at 9am... I guess we are getting ready early so that we can eat breakfast first? Free here at the Marriot Residence. ANd the internet is free. Who says nothing is free?? :)

My turn to shower!! Check back!! (Not for pictures though-Ugh)

Off to Ranger U!!!

Tomorrow I go... off to New Jersey.
I want to say I am excited. I do. But I haven't had much time to think about it...

And I always miss my family when I go away.

I am SURE I will have tons of scrappy fun.

I am SURE I will learn new thing!

I am SURE I will like my roommates I have never met IRL until tomorrow...

Always an adventure. Just pray my kids don't miss me too much. I know I'll miss them!

I will try to post while I am gone. We'll see how it goes. :) If not, as soon as I get back-on Monday!

Wish me safe travels! :)

Happy Fathers Day!!

OK, so I am 3 days late. {sigh}

Happy Fathers Day to my Dad, my husbands Dad, to my best friends Dad... to my husband...
Ya all deserve your own day. :)

And so did the moms. :)

Create My Keepsake entries!

I admit it, Create My Keepsake is my newest haunt! I still frequent Scrap In Style TV, but I have entered into the "Last Scrapper Standing" contest, to spur my creativity, and I have really been enjoying their site!

Here are my entries!

The first round was just to enter-anyone who scraplifted a LO from one of their design team by the deadline, would be entered in the contest. We are in round one now... they will pick 20 from the 60-some entries! YIKES! The challenge was "what is your weakness"... I hope we can do this challenge soon at Scrapaganza!

ANYWAY, this LO (below) is a scraplift of this LO by Danielle Calhoun...



And here is my "weakness" LO. I think it looks better in person, so come by the store and check it out! :) (click for larger view)
Wish me luck!!

Never a dull moment!!

OK, I will START with today, and then go backwards!

{I did it again... I waited a week, and I have a LOT of updating to do... darn it!}

We had a storm today. And one of our trees... big ole thing that didn't look like there was a thing wrong with it, came down. It looks like lightning. I can't be sure...

We left to go to Brady's (Ellison) birthday party. The storm rain and winds were SO bad, (started literally when I got about 5 blocks away) that I got about a mile down the road and came back! I was FREAKED! I thought maybe I was in a tornado or something! BAD! So we get back to the house, there are people lining the road who have pulled over by our house (one of which was stuck in our ditch...) I look into the side yard when we pull in, and there is this HUGE-O tree down! I look too, and the branch of the tree is on/around/?? the pool we JUST set up! Seriously!

We'll, no time to check it out now. We head in and head straight to the basement... about 5 minutes later, it was pretty much passed. We went out to see if the pool (or anything else!) is ruined. God was gracious. The bulk of the tree fell north. Away from the house. The one large branch is hugging the pool, but no punctures. Thank you!

Here are the pictures:
I am assuming that black charred part means that it was indeed lightning? Scary! I think I am glad I was a mile away when this hit!!


What is hard to see, is that the tree extends from the house, to the back of the lot... A smalled "branch" fell towards where I am taking the top picture, and the rest (larger portion-see kids by it!) went out the other way... The yard was {more of} a mess after the storm! We have really been enjoying the back yard with the pool up... and the LAST storm screwed up our trampoline (which is still in progress of being reset! LOL!)


Can you believe the pool was spared??
The kids were out afterwards with me-I come out and they had found the star from the front of the house... around back! WOW!

SOOO.... after things calmed down-we headed to the Ellison's! Literally, like 20 minutes later, the sun started peaking through again! But we had no electricity, and the tow truck was out front trying to get the car out of the ditch...

The party was still very fun for the kids! Gavin won his very first trophy! :) He was 1st in the derby! He was SO excited to get a trophy!!

The Ellison's are that family that make the rest of us look bad-you know the ones {wink}-who throw those parties everyone talks about... they construct (from scratch) games, TROPHIES, make tracks or "speedways" in their yard... you know the ones! :) Ya gotta give it to them!

After the majority of the kids left, we wore out our welcome and Gabriel got a chance to drive the cart, and Brady took the little girls out too... they all had a BLAST! Then they did the zip line (yes {sigh} they have a zip line in their back yard... and no, they do not live in the backwoods... just DeWitt proper! LOL)

...and yes, I think it is QUITE funny the kids are driving a Miller Genuine Draft! :)

Here are the highlights!

And the rest of the week??

Happy Birthday Big (Jerry)!


Gavin's 1st grade class planned a pool party at Ronni's house... well, only two families showed up... I say families, because siblings of the 1st graders were invited too... so it was us, the High's (where we were) and the Brady's. They had fun! It was probably WAY more relaxed with out 6 more families worth of kids there anyway! :)

{And a few random thought and glimpses of my week...}

...I never want to forget that Gabriel, at 5, went to see his brother play baseball as Spiderman...
or that he set up a "band" for himself (each member assigned a different instrument-and "the mice" are back-up singers I think-see them all tiny on the left? :) )...


...or the things my kids all build, and were SO proud of! The blessing of positive reinforcement... it isn't hard to commend them on their creations! I AM very proud!

It's these little moments that I cherish. I don't want to miss a single one. I am blessed indeed!

Have a happy week! I know I will try! :)

Inspiration

I hate to admit it. I love to scope out other blogs for inspiration. I don't do it everyday. At least not all of my favorites. My friends, I'll check them more often (which reminds me... I have more of you to ADD!). But once in awhile I will come across something that really does inspire me.

Here are just a couple finds today!

Found this on Christine Middlecamp's blog...

And this is the same designers door (fabric-not scrapbooking)... check out the fabric covered chairs!

You just have to dive into her blog... drown yourself in color! I am in love with these colors!
http://annamariahorner.blogspot.com/

I have vowed, if things work out a certian way this week, and we are staying in the house we are in now, THEN I will take my space back, and color will abound! Seriously! Paint will soon be my friend (again)!! I will put back ALL my pictures, and add more... I will darn it!!!

I want it to be my space that is all color and pictures that I am showing you! (NOT taking pictures of my mostly staged boring house right now! :)

Oh geez... just one more!
And, on this Sunday, as hot as it seemed, it was quite beautiful... and I caught a bit of God's handiwork. His {not so subtle} reminder of the beauty around us always... OK a bit poetic for me... but anyway, these clouds looked like they need to be on a Christian music CD or something! :)

Have a happy week!

May you find evidence of Him around you too!