It's about time!

Wow, you would think I've been really busy or on vacation as long as it's been since I've posted something. I'm always bummed when I'm checking blogs and they haven't been updated for more than a week or two and here I am doing just the same. I haven't been up to anything too exciting, just life.

Well, this post doesn't have any photos of the boys, although I'm behind on a few posts that do feature my lovely sons, but those will come at a later time. Right now I just took some photos of a project I've been working on for the last week. I have a friend that asked me to make a paper bag scrapbook album for her sister and it's finally done. She first asked me back in October, but it was right around the time my Grandpa passed away and then the holidays came and went and just being the general procrastinator that I am, I finally started it this week and I think it came out really cute.

I think I've posted one of these before and have to say that they are not my original idea, but they have been so fun to duplicate. I originally saw these done by a very talented lady named Mandy and I've been hooked ever since.

This one is supposed to be for a baby boy and I really think it turned out so cute. It's made from 3 brown paper lunch sacks, some great thick textured card stock, some fun ribbon and pewter embellishments. I'm hoping to make some more over the next several months to sell at some craft shows in the fall.

Instead of posting each photo individually, I've put the photos into a slide show so this post won't be so long. Enjoy!!

Feeling Crafty!

I've had a couple of crafty moments in the last week, so I thought I'd share...

I got a little gift for my friend Linda's birthday and made a cute little gift bag/purse to put it in. I did some "random stamping" to create my own design on the cardstock, added some embellishments, a little dot of velcro for the flap closure and Voila! I think it turned out pretty cute.





My other project was a swap. I've posted about these in the past and I subjected myself to it yet again! My assignment was to create a 3 1/2" x 8" card using a new paper called Daydream and a particular embellishment (white daisy mini medley for those of you familiar with CTMH).

I procrastinated and had to create 44 cards in the last few days. Sometimes cards can go quickly, but I chose to do "paper piecing", which made this project take FOR-EV-ER!! Paper piecing, for those that don't know, is stamping an image on a base paper, then again on a patterned or different colored paper, then cutting it out and placing it over the image that you stamped on your original paper. The example on my card is the girl's dress and the buggy & wheels. And how cute is she? She's from a new stamp set called "Ms. On the Go".







Thanks for looking! Have a great week!

Best Wishes in 2009!

Christmas week re-cap

Hello~ I hope everyone's had a happy and health holiday season so far. I haven't been good about posting lately, so I thought I'd just do a re-cap of last week.

Of course there was more and more snow. It didn't seem to end and I really liked it. I would have liked it better if I'd been able to stay home from work, but oh well, gotta pay the bills!

As each day brought more snow, we became obsessed with how much snow we were getting and both Chico and I kept taking pictures. Sorry if these are boring, but we just don't remember having this much snow in a long time.

12/21/08
Chico shoveling snow off the back deck. I needed a model to give some perspective on how deep the snow was. Look how excited Chico is to be my model.























12/22/08
Here the boys are getting ready to take me to work. We were down to using the Excursion for all of our driving because my car was burried (behind Chico's burried work van). So, I had to be chaufered to work each day, so Chico and the boys could run around.





This was an updated picture of our front yard.


Did you notice my neighbor's VW Bug in the background?




Can you see my car behind Chico's van?


12/24/08 - Christmas Eve Day!!
It's still snowing...


Aren't these icicles cool? A little dangerous near our front door, but cool nonetheless.


Chico decided he'd better get some of the snow off of his car. I was inside in the nice warm house taking pictures thru the window. Snow's pretty deep!


Jaxon & Mateo decided to go out and try making a snowman. They did a pretty good job for their first time.





























OK, I'm sorry. Enough of the snow already!! Let's get on with Christmas day... Yes those are wooden trees in the background. We didn't ever make it out to cut a tree this year, so Chico dug out our old wooden tree that he made years ago. I didn't even get all of my Christmas decorations out this year, just the stockings.

The little trees were made by Chico and the boys the weekend that I was doing the holiday bazaar. Aren't they cute? Mateo actually cut the trees out with a jig saw! I told them they should make some more for our "Crafty Ladies" sale next fall.





Some of this year's hits...






I didn't do a good job of taking photos of anyone else Christmas morning. Granny & Uncle Lee came over to watch the boys open thier presents and Granny make a nice breakfast for us.

It snowed some more in the morning, but by the time we were ready to go to Nona & Papa's, it was beautiful outside.


Nona made a great ham lunch. We did Christmas after that. The boys got stockings there, too. They also got some nice presents from Nona & Papa, but my camera battery was dead, so I didn't get pictures of that part. At least we got a couple photos of when we first arrived.





After a good lunch, opening presents and playing the Wii for a bit, we were getting tired, so we headed home. Soon after we got home our electricity went out. It wasn't out very long, but the boys found their "head-lights" that they had just gotten in their stockings from Nona & Papa. They wore them the rest of the eveing "just in case".




Well, I think this post is LONG enough!!! I'd better run. Come back soon!

Happy Birthday Linda!!

You still look 18. Do you still feel 18?



Have a wonderful day my bella friend!!

Snow, snow and more snow

The snow has finally stopped today. Now it's turned to freezing rain! Crazy weather for this part of Oregon!! Here's a little re-cap of the last few days...

12/16/08

12/19/08

12/21/08

It's hard to show exactly how much snow we have in the photos, but thought I'd give it a try anyway. Chico and I dropped the boys off at Granny's and went out shopping most of the day yesterday and it was dark by the time we got home. I measured how much snow we had on the railing.


We have about a foot on the ground. We even have icicles on our house and our car. I'm not sure if we've ever had that happen to us before, at least not in recent years.





I took a little video of Lucy trying to go outside in the backyard this morning. She didn't get around too well with the layer of ice on the snow.


Here are a few more random shots:

The main road near our house. Not so smart people walking in the middle of the road!


This happened in the last few days and it spread all the way across the windshield both ways. We watched it move several inches on the driver's side yesterday morning as we were driving. How frustrating!


Last night in the driveway.


It's not supposed to warm up today, so not sure how the commute will be for everyone tomorrow? I'm hoping to not have to go in to work, but we'll have to wait to see. In the mean time, we do need to get out and go to Hillsboro today to pick up the boys. Granny's probably getting a little cabin fever with them since yesterday and I'm sure they're anxious to get home and play!! Wish us luck!

Rudolf the Red Nosed... Candy Cane??

Remember these? I saw these on another blog awhile back and it jarred my memory of when I made these with my mom when I was younger. I had to run out and buy googly eyes, tiny red pom-poms and brown pipe cleaners so the boys and I could give this a try.

After the boys played outside in the snow on Sunday, I surprised them with this project and thought we'd make enough for them to take to each of their classmates and teachers. Here they are crafting away.









Now we've got 45 Candy Cane Reindeer waiting for new homes, but no way to get there because school's been closed all week because of the snow & ice.

Maybe I should take them to work or to the neighbors? I guess they can wait and go to school after the new year. I suppose it would still be a nice treat after the holidays and these candy canes are yummy because they're Hershey's Chocolate Mint flavored. Yum!

What kinds of holiday crafts do you remember doing when you were younger?

First Snow of the Season

Well the weather people predicted it and it turned out they were correct, on Sunday we got our first snowfall of the season. The boys were so excited!! We weren't sure how much snow we would get. It was exciting when it started to stick and by about noon we had almost an inch.

The boys were begging to go outside, so they suited up and headed out.

They played outside for over an hour while Chico and I stayed inside the warm house. I just wasn't up for getting out of my pajamas and going out to the cold. Yes, I was still in my pajamas at noon. I did manage to take a couple steps out onto the front porch to capture a little video of Mateo sledding down our hill in our front yard. Jaxon was busy building something at the top of the hill and didn't want to sled.



We ended up with about 2 inches of snow at our house and it stayed around for Monday and it's still here and so far schools have been closed this week. It supposed to snow again tomorrow, so I think it's likely that there won't be any school for the rest of the week. I know the kids are excited, but it's also kind of a bummer because there were a lot of fun activities planned at school for the last week before Christmas vacation. The Winter Program was supposed to be Thursday, so hopefully they'll reschedule it after the 1st of the new year.

Well, I'm off for now, but will be posting more stuff in the next few days. I've got a few things that I've been meaning to post. Stay tuned.