More Hawai’i

Here are a couple more layouts from my trip home. This first is Hannah the day we met Marilyn & Brian at the beach in Waikoloa. She’s such a beauty…and loves the camera!

Hannah at the Beach

I used the August Club kits at Digital Freebies, by Digital Couture and Joyful Heart Designs.

This one is Kathy with her granddaughter, Ryah (Samantha’s daughter). It was Ryah’s first solid meal of poi and she ate and ate till Kathy said Pau! Then she kept screaming for more!

Ryah

I used Melanie Ann Designs’ Inquisitive kit and a template by Jennifer Schmitt….both at Digital Freebies.

I’m so glad I took all the pictures I did (470+!) Hopefully, the memories will keep me sane until I can get home again.

Acckkkk! Almost forgot I had a blog….

I had an absolutely wonderful week back home in Hawai’i and now have a few hundred pictures to get scrapped! Here’s my first:

My friend Joe – my very favorite musician!

I used a new kit by Verena Karolyi called Natural Inspiration, available at Digital Freebies.

I’ll *try* to keep posting more regularly. Life just seems to get away from me sometimes.

It’s Still Snowing…..

I’ve been terrible about keeping up on this blog…too busy scrapping with all the new and wonderful kits coming out!

The weather’s still wintery here….too much snow and ice. I keep reminding myself that Spring really IS just around the corner! (Well, I can always hope!)

This first LO is of my daughter when she was little and we took a trip to Florida to visit dh’s family there. The kit is brand new at Stone Accents Studio, by JulieC., called Chris Crocodile. The colors and elements are wonderful!

This one is my friend Deb’s new granddaughter, sleeping with her dad just moments after she was born. I just thought the pic was too sweet not to scrap.

This is the same baby…isn’t she adorable? I used JulieC’s Ellie the Elephant kit for this one.

These are some of my favorite pics of my dd when she was little. The template is by Maria Kostoff at NDISB. All the papers and elements are from Stellarific Creations….this new kit, Brocade Peach, is available free with purchase at Stone Accents Studio. The colors, textures and elements are gorgeous!

This is my ds many years ago. Ever notice how boys and buckets are just drawn to each other? This kit is also from JulieC – Cheeky Charlie Monkey. She’s doing a whole series of wild animal kits and, so far, they’re all just adorable.

This is dd’s boyfriend and another friend of theirs. The kit is Boys Will Be Boys by Creative Chaos, also a free with purchase kit at Stone Accents Studio.

My cyber-friend Heather and I are also participating in the NDISB Amazing Digi-Scrapping Race for the next six weeks. There are two challenges a week, some we do individually and some as a team, and lots of cool prizes just for completing the challenges. If you want to keep up on what we’re doing, here’s the gallery for the race: http://www.ndisb.com/photopost/  Just scroll down below the first set of layouts and you’ll see separate galleries for each challenge of the race.

Have a great day! Thanks for taking a look at my blog.

Junk weather & more layouts

I can’t believe it’s been a whole week since I blogged. Must’ve been busier than I thought I was!

We actually had a pretty decent day here yesterday….at least, the temperature got above freezing! Everything melted and there was even a little bit of sun. YAY!! But, this morning, it’s all freezing over again and we have a storm warning for this afternoon into tomorrow. That means roads icing up again, hazardous travel and below-freezing wind chills. I sure am ready for Spring!

This first LO is my great-nephew, again from his first birthday party. He sure was concentrating hard on getting those presents open!

This one is my friend Deb and her fist grandchild. Vanelle was born January 24 and Deb was so excited that she made it to Georgia in time for her birth. Like most new grandmas, she’s fallen madly in love with the little darling!

Both these layouts were made with a new kit by Stellarific Creations — My Darling, it’s called — and you can find it at Stone Accents Studio. Just click the blinkie on the right and it’ll take you right to the store.

This is my dd and one of her friends. I did this for a challenge at The Digi Chick and really had fun with it. It’s not like my usual style so it was really a challenge. I used parts of two kits — Cinzia Loosemoore’s Urban Grunge, and Spring Inspirations by Cinzia and Chere Kaye. They’re both available at www.thedigichick.com.

This is my daughter when she was little. She used to love finding my clothes and dressing up in them, then modelling for anyone who would watch. I used Toy Box Designs’ Wild Roses kit for this — a lovely, full kit, with soft pinks and greens. You can find this also at Stone Accents Studio.

This is my son when he was around 18 months old. He was such a happy kid and, thankfully, he still is at 17. I used pieces of a bunch of different kits. You can find the full credits here.

I’m amazed I got this much done last week. It seems I spent most of my time watching NASCAR Speed Weeks coverage on TV. Whooo-hoo! Racing’s on again!

Have a great day and thanks for taking a look at my blog.

Dreaming of Spring

What a weekend! As if we didn’t already have enough snow, it started again Friday night. Not just snowing, but blowing and drifting and windchills as low as 25 below 0! The roads were sheer ice and visibility was non-existent.

Have I mentioned that I HATE winter??? It was so cold that, when I opened my car door, it froze OPEN….my son couldn’t go to work because we couldn’t get it to close no matter what we did! Sheesh! Is it almost Spring? Please??

I only got a couple of layouts done this weekend….still not feeling great and my ribs make it hard to sit up for long stretches.

Both of these are of my daughter when she was little. This first one was with a friend, both of them eating their first ice cream cone over. They were completely covered in ice cream, head to foot!

This was the first Easter she was able to get around on her own. When she got up in the morning, Dad showed her the first “hidden” egg and she caught on to the game right away, looking and looking for days after she’d found them all!

Both of these layouts were made with the Easter Morning kit by DarleneH Designs at Stone Accents Studio. Click on the kit name to find it in her Stone Accents Studio store. It’s full of bright colors and great elements, some specifically for Easter and most great for any kind of Spring-type layout.

Thanks for taking a look today!

Still Snowed In….and Sick!

ANOTHER snow storm this week…..AAAGGGHHHH! At first, I thought it might be ok….it would give me a great excuse to stay inside and scrap for a few days. But I woke up Monday with an awful pain in my side that made it painful to breathe and, by the end of the day, impossible to sleep. I couldn’t get in to see my doc till next week, since she’s on vacation and, by yesterday morning, I couldn’t stand it any more. The pain was getting worse and I was coughing and not sleeping. DS took me to the med center. The disease itself wasn’t horrible — bronchitis, which should be gone in a couple of days with meds — but I cracked a rib with the coughing, which was why I was in so much pain. Not much we can do about that….just keep it wrapped and try to stay still while it heals. Of course, the pain meds help…..

Anyway, I did manage to get some scrapping done before it got too bad. This first one is my adorable great-nephew again. I used Stellarific Creations Heart Angel and Blossom Angel kits (some of the elements recolored). Click on the Stone Accents Studio blinkie on the right to find all of her great kits.

My brother Dave has spent years researching our family history and has some great photos of ancestors and important places in our family’s lives. This is one of my favorites. The older couple seated in the center are my great-great-great grandparents and the tall man standing in the center of the back row is my great-great grandfather. It’s so cool to actually have pictures of these people from so long ago. I used the Family Riches kit from Jan Hosford at www.digitalfreebies.com for this LO. You can click on their blinkie on the right to find all her kits. Jan always uses rich deep colors….I just love her designs!

This one is one of my favorites of my wedding pictures. We had such a beautiful setting — an outdoor garden pavillion. I used the Pacific Ocean kit from ToyBox Designs, also at Stone Accents Studio. Toy’s designs are soft and pretty and dreamy. I love using them for romantic-type layouts.

This is a really different type of layout for me. I don’t have any pets and don’t usually take a lot of critter pictures. Last Spring, my friend Janice and I were exploring parts of rural Wisconsin while our husband were working there and we ran across this whole field full of alpaca. I was just fascinated with the look on this one’s face….as though she was keeping tabs on all her flock!  This kit is also from Stellarific Creations — her new Golden Valentine kit, now available at Stone Accents Studio.  Be sure to check her blog, too. She’s been coming up with lots and lots of freebies lately!

That’s it for today….I’m going back to bed.

A World of Ice

On Tuesday, the temp shot up to 44 and all the snow melted….we even had thunderstorms! When we woke up Wednesday morning, it was 7 degrees, with a wind-chill of -22!! *Everything* was ice….everything was shut down. DH took off for work, called me an hour later and said he’d only gotten about 20 miles. He, along with lots of others, sat at McDonald’s for a couple of hours until it got light enough to at least see the road before he made his way home.

Have I mentioned that I HATE WINTER!!?

Anyway, it gave me plenty of time to get some scrapping done — and a good excuse to stay in my jammies all day!

This first LO is my ds and his girlfriend. I used the Impressions kit by TerrellS Designs, which you can find at SAS, here.

This next one is a quilt I made for my son’s friends’ new baby. Joe, the dad, is in the Army and is shipping out to Kuwait next week. The good thing is, he got to be there for her birth…..the bad thing is, she won’t remember him.   The journaling reads: I hope I never again have to make a baby quilt for a child who won’t know her father until she’s more than a year old.  The paper is from Karen Lewis and the flowers from Jofia DeVoe, both at TheDigiChick; the bow is from RachelScraps at K-Joi Studios and the Word Art is from Define Your Life by Paper Boutique Designs.

Please keep this young family in your hearts….they’re *very* young. Dad is just 22, mom is 19. This is going to be a very long year for them.

This LO is my brother’s children. They’re all so beautiful, I keep snatching their pics off his blog! I used DarleneH’s Island Getaway kit for this. You can find it here.

This last one is of my own kids. It warms my heart that they’re so close to each other. In spite of 7 years difference in their ages, they’re best friends and each other’s staunchest defenders.

You can’t have this kit yet! <grin> It’s by my wonderful Stella of Stellarific Designs and will be available at Stone Accents Studio as a February posting bonus. Be sure you head over to SAS and check out all their challenges for the month — all the posting bonuses will coordinate with this and they’re all absolutely gorgeous!

You’ll probably want to check out Stella’s Blog, too. She just keeps slipping in more and more goodies!

Outside is still a frozen wasteland and they’re predicting several inches more snow tonight, so I’ll crawl back into my hole for a couple of days! Meanwhile, I’ll be scrapping and should have lots of new kits to show off next time I post.

Stay warm, if you’re in the middle of winter — enjoy the warmth, if you’re in the middle of summer.

Thanks for taking time to check out my blog.

Hawaiian-Born Camera

So, in spite of the fact that it had snowed to the tune of 8 or 10 inches the night before AND the windchill temp was well into the negative sphere, I decided yesterday that, since I had to go out to the bank anyway, I should take my camera, since there was bound to be some beautiful snow-covered scenery to capture.

I headed down the road to my favorite beach park. Just a couple of blocks away, it’s always interesting — wooded and rolling hills, white sandy beach and roaring waves in the winter. Lake Michigan isn’t exactly the Pacific Ocean, I know, but it’s as close as I can get to here. Anyway, I made sure I had fresh batteries in the camera, got out of the car, and hiked a little way in to a clearing I love and where I often see lots of woodland critters. I stood there for a minute, looking for just the right shot of the sun coming through the trees and sparkling on the snow, when a HUGE deer stepped into the clearing. WOW….how exciting, right? I turned my camera on……and it promptly turned itself off. Tried again…..same thing. Of course, by now, the deer has spooked and taken off.

I went back to the car, thinking maybe the batteries just weren’t good ones. I turned on the heater to warm up a minute before going back, changed the batteries again, and took a couple of shots out the window just to assure myself it was working alright. Hiked back out to the clearing, found a shot I wanted, turned the camera on…..and it turned itself off again! After fiddling around with it for 20 minutes or so (and using language I’d never allow my children to hear from me!), I headed back to the car, thinking that NOW I’d be without a camera for a few days while the shop checked it out, since it obviously wasn’t working right.

As I was driving out of the park, I decided to turn it on one more time so I could clearly explain to the repair guy what it was doing. VOILA! It’s just fine!

Apparently, like me, my camera is Hawaiian at heart and just REFUSES to deal with this frozen wasteland we now live in. Anyway, I ended spending a half hour or so just driving around the park and taking pictures from INSIDE the car. I did get some great pics and will be scrapping some of them later today. Hopefully, I’ll get them up on the blog tomorrow.

In the meantime, I DID get a couple of LOs done yesterday. The first one was my attempt to warm myself up after I returned from my adventure. It’s my dh, another friend, and me at one of the lovely beaches in Moloka’i. That was our favority weekend getaway when we needed a little R & R. The primitive beauty and quiet were just so refreshing! I used the “Shore Is Fun” kit from DarleneH Designs. You can find the kit at SAS, here. It’s beautiful….full of bright colors and great stickers, perfect for all those beach photos you’ve been wanting to scrap.

The second is from my great-nephew’s 1st birthday party. He was just so cute, tearing into that cake! I used the “Blossom” and “Blossom Angel Add-On” kits from Stellarific Creations, which you can find here. It’s just such a beautiful kit, with softly textured papers of green and pink and lots of cool elements.

That’s it for today. I’ve got lots of scrapping to finish up and am still working on “the quilt.”

Thanks for stopping by.

I HATE WINTER!!

It snowed and snowed and snowed again last night. Arrrgghhh….I’m so tired of this already! The only GOOD thing about this is that it makes for some gorgeous pictures. Still, I’d rather be *looking* at snow pictures than *taking* them!

A busy day coming up today but, unfortunately, nothing exciting. I’ve let the laundry go for a week and dh is crying that he’s running out of work clothes. :p  The dust on my furniture is so thick it’s reflecting what little light comes in our windows. And I have to plow my way to the bank to take care of dh’s paycheck from yesterday so I can pay bills.  Blechhh!

But, I also have a couple of cool new layouts to work on and need to finish quilting my latest quilt creation. I’ve been working on it for months. It’s for my ds’s girlfriend, meant as a graduation present. Since our place is small, there’s nowhere to hide it, so she’s been watching me make it all along, ooohing and aaahing over it. She thinks it’s for my neice! I can’t wait to see her face when I give it to her!

I’m off to get going with my chores. I’ll leave you with one more layout I did with Stellarific’s beautiful kits. The paper is from the Snow Paints paper pack and the elements are from Snowflake Blues. I recolored the bows to fit in more with the photos.

In case you can’t read the journaling, it’s about my dd’s favorite “Lovie” when she was little. It was a My Little Pony stuffed toy that dh bought her and she fell instantly in love with. Unfortunately, because the mane and tail were made of some weird nylon material, it was NOT washable and, after months of toddler messes, that thing stunk so badly we couldn’t even be in the same room with it. We tried and tried to get rid of it, but she’d keep tracking it down and “rescuing” it. Man, were we ever relieved when she finally lost interest!

 By the way, check out Stella’s blog today. I think she may a couple of surprises for you!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Whoo-Hoooo! Another CT position!

I’ve been asked to be a CT member for Stellarific Creations! How cool is that?

You’ve *got* to check out her designs….she has a unique style, using unusual and very creative textures and patterns on her papers. All of her kits are versatile and can be used for any type of LO. I’ve been having such fun playing with them.

Here’s one layout I did, using her newest kit, “Snow Peas.”

This huge bundle consists of four paper packs (Snow Packs, Snow Paints, Snow Pastels and Snow Peas) PLUS a pack of glitter accents AND a QuickPage.  Plus, it’s on sale today for 20% off!! You can get the whole bundle at her Stone Accents Studio store here.

And don’t forget to check out Stella’s blog. You never know when you’ll find a great freebie to play with.

We’re pretty much snowed in today….after a big storm yesterday, now we’re getting bombarded with Lake Effect snow. I’m already SO tired of winter…and it’s not even the end of January! The only good thing about this weather is that it gives me a good excuse to stay inside and scrap all day.

 Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.