Thinking of Warm Summer Days...

Another Friday sketch challenge done! The YSS blog has had some great links to fabulous sketch websites. Here's the challenge from 2/15/10.

And here's my take on it...

Patterned paper (DCWV), cardstock (Bazzill and Colorbok), tag (Lil' Davis), flowers (Bazzill), brads (Bazzill), rub-ons (heart=QK Icing; butterflies=American Crafts), rick rack ribbon (Bazzill), diecut title (Quickutz), tools (Fiskars border punch, Provo Craft scalloped edged scissors and hole punch on circle)

It makes me long for those hot summers - and it's so much cooler up in the mountains. I absolutely love it there... if we could afford a place up there, I'd want to move! In the meantime, picking raspberries will have to suffice...

Burst of productivity...

It's been a little busy over here (Daddy Dude is having a work function party here tonight - at least it's catered! - but we've been frantically cleaning the house) but I managed to get a couple of layouts done over the last couple of days... thank heavens for sketches! Both sketches are from yourscrapbookstore's blog.

I rotated this one CCW 90-degrees...

Patterned paper (Heidi Grace), cardstock (unknown), flower (Prima), rhinestones (Bazzill), rick rack (Bazzill), foam (unknown), alphabet stickers (Making Memories), mirror (unknown), diecuts (Quickutz)

I shifted things around just a little bit... but I was still troubled by this layout. I never liked the orange/black color theme for the Orioles (too-Halloweeny looking).

Cardstock (Bazzill), diecut border (Bazzill), diecut frames and letters (Quickutz), epoxy stickers (Colorbok), baseball sticker (Paper House)

Halloween 2009

I'm a wee bit behind... I have had this sketch from the blog of yourscrapbookstash.com for several weeks and finally got around to building a layout.

I thought the sketch would work for a Halloween page (picking the pictures out was easy), but it wasn't until today that I had the time to pick out the papers and scrap away. =)

Patterned papers (Imaginisce), cardstock (Bazzill), chipboard stickers (Imaginisce), ink (Versacolor), diecut numbers (Quickutz)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

The girls were super excited about today, even though they should have enjoyed maximum hub-bub at their class parties. We had a small packet of presents to give the girls and we girls got some things for Daddy Dude (nothing says "I Love you" on Valentine's Day like NERF - can you tell he had a deprived childhood? Poor thing...!)

Daddy Dude had these beautiful flowers delivered yesterday, but Mika was very concerned that I didn't get any presents today. That was very sweet of her... =)

A big first! Mika went to her first dance on Friday night - and look, there's her date! A fine fellow, we're all fond of him. Yup, that's Daddy Dude (no worries, folks!). The PTA had a fundraising "Father Daughter" dance and the two of them skedaddled off. Mika had a great time - when she came home, she shot through the door and proclaimed, "THAT WAS THE BEST TIME EVER!!!"

On an amusing note, Mika got to be the photographer for awhile... here is Daddy Dude engaged in a group Macarena lesson... =)

On a crafty note, I got the Silhouette starter rhinestone kit for my birthday and finally got around to using it. These are some shirts I made for the girls... what's nice about making the templates is that you can use them over and over again. =)

And here is MY shirt! Daddy Dude likes it a lot - on me, that is. I offered to make him one, but he respectfully declined... =)

Happiness is...

... when hard work pays off! Today, Mika's school had its awards assembly for the fall semester of Joggers' Club. The rules state that every four laps counts as 1 mile, but honestly, I think that's pretty optimistic. In order to win a medal, first graders had to run 48 laps (= 12 miles) by the end - this was Mika's goal. She ran pretty consistently, running 4 laps every time, except once (when there was a "wardrobe malfunction" with her shoes (accompanied by some screaming and crying)... and we'll never buy velcro shoes again!).

Last year, they also presented a special award to the top two runners in each grade.

This year, for whatever reason (budget cuts?), they only gave one award (see trophy above) to the top runner in each grade. Lo and behold, Mika won! Her certificate said she ran 18.75 miles, or 75 laps. Mika looked so happy - and even her classmates looked proud of her! Way to go, girl!

The rain came back this morning, but Marika and I enjoyed a couple of days of bike riding and playing at the park. Remember when swinging high was enough to make you feel euphoric? Ah, those were the days... =)

Happy Groundhog Day!

Did you know that Punxsutawney Phil has his own club website? Unfortunately, he saw his shadow today, which means 6 more weeks of winter. *sigh*

I love the look of transparencies, but find them rather challenging to work with. I started work on this layout last week and only finished it this morning. I still feel that it's lacking something, but... here it is!

Supplies: transparency (Fancy Pants), patterned paper (Fancy Pants), cardstock (Bazzil), pen (Sigma Uniball [white], Sakura gel pen [black]), wire (unknown), brad (Making Memories), diecut sun and leaves (Quickutz), diecut circles [flower petals] Sizzix)

It's All About Marika

Well, not really - but it is for this post!

Last week, Grandma came by for a visit. Oddly enough, on the mornings she is here, the girls usually bound out of bed to help her make breakfast together (French toast). On this particular morning, only Marika bounded out (the other whined and cried) and so, here she is, hard at work, all by herself... (Grandma is cooking them on the stove, don't worry!).

Cute craft, eh? Marika brought this home from preschool last Thursday. It was edible, but apparently - too healthy for all of the kids to eat (cottage cheese, raisins, bananas, etc. - only the snout was sweet!).

I needed a workout today, so Marika allowed me to tow her around in the bike trailer. The deal was, though, that I would take her to a park afterwards. Lo and behold, but what did we find? A bunch of leaves!

And so, she went to work! I was impressed with how diligently she piled the leaves together... and I like her persistence...

The little girl wanted a picture together, so I had to oblige her. =)