New Layouts, a Project, and More Trip Photos

First off let me start by sharing a few projects I finished up over the past few days. I've been blessed with a little bit more time than usual this past week with Marc at home enjoying his last few days of summer before heading back to school yesterday. He has taken the boys just about everywhere and let me have some time to myself or with just a napping Spencer. It has been really nice for me as well as the boys. They have loved having all this time with their dad! They have been swimming, roller skating, to Chuck E Cheese, shopping, running errands, repairing things around the house, going out for Icees, bike ridding, etc. I've gotten in on some of that action, but mostly the boys have been getting some great "guy time" with dad. It's been fun to watch them together and I know they are going to really miss him now that the school year is starting back up again. They don't start school for about a month, so I guess they will just have to enjoy some "mom time" now.

Anyhow, here are some of the projects I got accomplished over this past week:

This layout features papers and stickers by Bella Blvd and is about one of the stops on our big road trip. We went up to Maine with some family and just had a wonderful time on York Beach with them. It was one of my favorite days of out trip!

This next layout is made with some older papers made by Pebbles Inc. It features a favorite quote/saying of mine. When my first son Ty was little my mother gave me an adorable little pillow with this saying on it--and it is so very true as all mother of little boys know:

and I did a matching card too:

Lastly here is a little wall hanging I did for Blake. He is getting ready for Kindergarten to start and we are drilling him constantly on his ABC's, uppercase vs. lower case letters, letter sounds, and some basic reading; and all of that drilling inspired this (again with Pebbles Inc papers/stickers):

Okay, let me also add the next part of our trip re-cap here. After visiting in South Carolina we headed north to Washington DC. Marc and I had never been before so we decided to start our stay there with the "Monuments by Moonlight" tour on the trolley. This ended up being a great way to see the main sites around DC. We saw everything from the Capital to the White House, Arlington Cemetery to the Lincoln Memorial, and all the other major (and some not so major) monuments along the way.

The Trolley was fun for the boys and kept us moving along at a good fast pace that let us see all the sites we (Marc and I) wanted, and helped us avoid boring the boys--at least they weren’t too bored :) I would highly recommend it!

The next day we headed out to the Smithsonian in search of things that would fascinate the boys.

First stop was the Space and Aerospace Museum. They boys loved it--they have a children's section there that they found highly entertaining.

My favorite thing here was seeing the original planes used by the Wright brothers.

I have to admit after visiting Nasa a few times, the space side of the museum didn't seem all that impressive, however, I'm sure it would have, if not for the fact that we are used to seeing rockets (bigger rockets) down in Texas :)

Next stop was the Natural History Museum, which was also fun, but very crowded. We were getting tired and didn't stay as long here, much of what we saw was very much like our excellent Natural History Museum here in Houston with a few fun exceptions. This elephant in the rotunda for one:

My favorite stop of this day was to the National Archives to see the "Charters of Freedom" the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Very powerful and interesting to see. Sadly photography was not allowed. They also had an interesting copy of the Magna Carta there.

Last stop that day was to the Museum of American History where we saw some fun pop culture items and "The Star Spangled Banner" (sadly, no photographs allowed again).

Here is Ty and Blake with Judy Garland's Rudy Slippers.

And, I had to have this photo of Ty with Kermit the Frog as he was such a big Muppet fan when he was pre-school aged.

 This was an interesting stop. We all learned a lot and saw many things we had always wanted to see. We asked Ty and Blake what their favorite part of this stop was and they said it was riding the subway...go figure--boys and trains, I shouldn't have been surprised!

Have a great day everyone!

Brand New Queen and Company Fall/Winter Release

I love this time of year! Not only is it summer, but it is also time for the Craft and Hobby Association Summer show--which means all new products from my favorite scrapbooking companies are debuting this week! It's like Christmas in July for scrapbookers :)

And speaking of Christmas, here is a peek at Queen and Company's new products for this show. They have new Felt Borders, new Bling Shapes, new Epoxy brads, new Ribbon, new Ribbon Buckles, new large Shaped Brads, and new tiny Alphabet Stickers. They have all this for Christmas/Winter and Fall/Halloween themes. Along with some new colors of Pearls and Rhinestones.

Take a look:

Here is a look at the whole Christmas line--except the felt, I don't have a good image of the new felt borders, but you can see them on Queen and Company's web site here:

And here are the fall products:

And here are my projects with the new fall line:

Have a great day, and thanks for stopping by!

Vacation Re-Cap--Stop 1, and Some New Layouts

Okay family (and friends), here starts the long awaited vacation re-cap. Stop 1: South Carolina

After driving for a good part of 2 days our first stop on "the big trip" --as the boys called it, was to visit with my sister and her husband in South Carolina. We had a wonderful 2 days with Ryan and Jessica. We spent a morning at a "Dairy Farm" which turned out to be very similar to "Black Diamond Mines" in California. It was nice to see some historical stuff and the beautiful scenery. Mostly, we enjoyed a nice walk where we had a chance to talk and let the boys get some exercise in (especially on this cool suspension bridge) and enjoy seeing some farm animals.

Afterwards we stopped by a farmers market and bought some delicious fresh peaches; we decided to mix them with some vanilla ice-cream and we were in heaven! Ryan then took us to the "World Champion Disc Golf Course" at Winthrop University. We only did three holes because of the heat, but it was nice to pick up a few pointers. Marc was even able to get one in the basket from about 20 yards away!

We love disc golf and are very glad Ryan has taught our family about it! The grounds of this course are lovely!

For dinner Jessica made her amazing and fabulous southern macaroni and cheese;  then the Southerners treated us Texans to some new treats--fried pickles and boiled peanuts, which I also love! Deep fried pickles are awesome! I should have taken a photo. The boys and Marc finished the night in the pool while I visited with my sister.  It was a wonderful visit that ended too fast.

Oh, and I also got to see my first live fire-flys, I thought that was very cool, so did the boys!

Look for part 2: Washington DC coming next.

Last let me leave you with some recent layouts I did for scrapbooks.com:

Kindergarten Hoedown

This layout uses the new Basic Grey Oliver collection with a little of their Max and Whiskers collection tossed in, also some very old Basic Grey rub-ons I've been hoarding for about 4 years!

The journaling reads: This photo is from your first Hoe Down as a Kindergartner Ty. You were so excited to dress up and perform all the dances you had learned that year in PE. You looked so cute in your western wear, and I’m pretty sure you smiled and grinned all the way to school that morning!

 

And here is another one done for scrapbooks.com:

 

King of the Monkey Bars

 

This is Basic Grey's Oliver collection again along with some Cosmo Cricket and Pink Paislee Chipboard letters.

 

Journaling reads: Ty, you spent much of your playground time in first grade mastering the Monkey Bars and Rings. You would proudly display your new talents to Dad and me whenever you got a chance! I have to admit Ty, you are very good at them!

 

Thanks again for stopping by! Next post will have info about the page kits I mentioned earlier!

 

 

5,252 Miles, 24 Different States, and Three Weeks Later--We Are Back!

Whew! That was a lot of time spent in our car! Somewhere around 100-115 hours if I had to make a guess. Thank goodness for a Minivan that ran well and didn't break down or get a flat during any of that :)

We had a wonderful vacation touring the East Coast/Midwest and visiting with our family members who live there! Thanks so much to Jamie and Pete, and Jessica and Ryan, for letting us stay with you during parts of our trip! We had a wonderful time visiting with you all!

And a special thanks to Mom and Dad for taking such excellent care of our home while we were away. Hopefully we can return the favor soon!

I'll have several posts coming up to report on all we saw and did, however, today I'm just reporting that we are back--safe and sound--and happy to be home!

Because we have been gone so long all I have to share today is one last layout from Scrapbooks.com for June. It is about Blake and how he is at an age where everything out of his mouth is a question! This is my way of remembering this stage!

Hopefully I'll be able to dive into my scrapbook supplies again tonight. I missed scrapbooking while I was away!

20 (Thousand) Questions

I hope you all are having a great summer! I'll be back soon with photos and info on our trip, more scrapbooking, and some page kits for sale--so come back soon! :)

4th of July Wall Hanging

Yay for the weekend! Especially a holiday one! Do you have any fun plans? We do....but I'll talk about that some other time. First let me show the project I promised! Here is it is another of my projects for scrapbooks.com. It is made with paper from We R Memory Keepers, which were cut into strips, crinkled, inked, and then stitched into position. I then added some buttons and a title with Basic Grey chipboard letters hot glued to the outside of a 12x6 frame I found at our local Dollar Store. It is a pretty fast project, if you like to machine stitch.

4th of July Frame

This now hangs in my front room. Happy 4th of July weekend everyone! I hope you have a good and safe one!