OK, This is close enough to Fall for Me!

This Morning as I was Driving to Ankeny to work, I was marveling at how beautiful the trees had gotten in the last few days.  We own some farm ground on either side of highway 330 near the Harvester golf course and the trees lining the creek along one edge of our property were absolutely beautiful in morning sunlight.  So I vowed when I came home tonight, I was going to pull up into what use to be my mother and father-in-laws property at the top of a very high hill just off  the highway overlooking our ground and get some pictures.

The sunlight, of course, was starting to go down, as it was approaching 6:15 pm or so, but the view from the top of the hill was as amazing as I had always remembered.  You can see 100 miles (or so it feels) and it is so calm and peaceful and absolutely one of God's most perfect places to view his earth!  I took several pictures, but vow to go back in the morning and get a few more when the morning sun is reflecting just right off this beautiful landscape!

From a top the "mountain" you can see the full sculptured landscape and that in itself, is breath taking!

This is indeed one of the prettiest falls I can remember around here and they are predicting the colors may last as long as the end of October!   WOW!

and as beautiful as the outdoor landscape is becoming,  I did get another big project done yesterday.  My little Grandsons, Aiden and Nicholas wanted their names up in their room and I told them I would make them for them.  Aiden said he wanted a "train" theme---(He's our little Engineer want-to-be) and Nicholas wanted---yup, you guessed it--- a Fishing theme!

 

 

Did I say how much I love Hobby Lobby's own "CHIP DECOR" cricut cartridge--You just buy any of their chipboard 8" or smaller letters or their chipboard words and this cart cuts the papers to match!  No more "tracing" each letter out on your paper and "fussy cutting" them and then dealing with the uneven edges!  Yes, I LOVE this cartridge!  At any rate, a couple of coats of  modge-podge and a lot of embellishments later and they are done except for the hangers on the back.  Need to see how and where they are going up before finishing  that part.

As far as papers , I used a Moxey fishing line for Nicholas' and a Reminise line  for Aidens.  I hope they like them.  Nicholas's is so long I just hope he can find wall space!  Boy, Have you seen his walls!!!!!!  It will be a challenge for sure!

Spent some time "Just Messin' Around" today

Today was a gorgeous, beautiful day outside ---was torn between being out with the girls or playing in my SB room.  For starters, I put the finishing "copper" paint coat on my little stool.   Now I have to decide how I want to add the Patina to it.  I know I want a Turquois color, have been experiementing on some painted boards with various paints and stains--but no luck yet having it look like I invision it.  Will continue to work on it.

In my SB room, I played with a variety of projects I have seen on blogs I follow.  This one is sort of fun.  Witches "legs" filled with p-nut m and m's, witches boots cut from a cricut cart with a circle folded on the top and stapled onto the legs. 

Put this junk binder together  with a book I got last weekend while junking.  Used the cover for the kids "sky diving" book--if the weather ever co-operates so they can jump.  At least I'm partly ready.

I haven't done any of the inking or stamping.  Still have a lot to do on it, but the "bones" of it are started.

These are a couple of the pages inside  of it.

And last, today, I worked on these little 4 x 4 gift boxes.

They are made from square coasters, sprayed with dylusions sprays or pearl mists, then stamped with Taylored expressions stamps, colored with copics--------

then five holes are punched in each side and they are laced together with ribbons.

A separate coaster fits snuggly in the bottom (with a little glue to be sure it stays)  and waalaa, you have a cute little box to fill with a bag of candy or other small gift.  Add a little co-ordinating tissue around the gift and your little box is complete!

Oh, and I just spritzed the inside of the boxes with the spray mist also for color.  That's how my day went--about ready to take the girls out one more time and call it a day.  Tomorrow--????--not sure--  need to straighten my room and go and find some tiny rubber feet for my little stool and maybe some more outdoor time.  Happy crafting everyone!

It's Beginning to look a lot like----HALLOWEEN!

 

Finally, my internet decided to upload some of my pictures at a little bit faster rate--(mind you, we were not winning any races here--but it at least attempted to get it done in a fair amount of time.

So tonight,  I am posting some of the projects I have completed this weekend--mostly Halloween projects, as you can see.

The above project was purely just for fun.  We have these very fun chipboard frames at the store, covered with patterns for Halloween and Christmas  (this one was the orange and black herringbone like design).  They are meant to be decorated and used as picture frames, but I chose just to play with mine, add lots of stuff to it and make it a decorations type thing.  I cut a cricut "haunted window frame and framed the actual picture opening, added bat paper behind the opening and a 3-D prima wire tree with pumpkins and bats.  Around the frame itself, I added  inked cards, cricut made flowers, glitter tapes, mesh ribbons, google eyes, a moon, and cricut cut witch and a few stickers here and there.

The collage above is like the one I made Kristi and had on a previous blog .  This one is mine.  The black paper is a metallic black and the orange is a glitter paper.  I framed it in a 12 x 12 black frame.

And the set of blocks above, I made today, fashioned after a set made by Maggie at the store.  (Thanks for the inspiration).  Actually, I made 2 sets today--this is for Kristi, --they are made out of 2 4 x 8 blocks of wood and a small 3 x 4 piece (thanks to my wonderful husband for cutting them for me!)   On my set, I put spiders, as Maggie did on her set.  They really are sitting straight--it was just the angle I was holding the camera that makes them look like they are leaning.

The last 2 projects I finished up were Paige's ISU magnetic board and pencil holder.  Made them just for fun the same way we made them for my Kidz class in Sept., but with ISU papers.  Thought they would be fun to hang in her study area of her apartment.

I also got  several layouts done at the crop on Friday, so I feel I have had a very productive weekend, all of it fun and yet it was very relaxing--and for all those that haven't heard--my kids were not able to skydive Saturday as scheduled due to high winds.  It will be rescheduled, just don't know when.

A GNO Junking trek !

Having a terrible time today getting my pictures to upload into my blog, But I did get a few.  Yesterday our Girls Night Out group had a junking day that several of us went on.  We went to

Gilbert, Iowa where JB Knackers is and another litle gift type shop and ended in Story City where there are several other "junk" stores, and an antique mall!  We had lunch in Story City as well.

These Pictures were taken at JB Knackers in Gilbert where we collected quite a few "treasures" amongst us.  I got a couple of things here.

I got a little stool that I want to redo for my SB room.  It's a little metal stool, show below a couple of pictures.  Right below is a picture of the little gift shop we visited.

As you can see my little stool needs a lot of clean-up work---which my husband has already done for me!  What a guy!  He's been into refinishing old cupboards for his shop lately and although they are in John Deere Green, they look better than most of my house cupboards! So he got it all sanded of and it is ready for me to redo.  I'm am hoping to do it in some sort of colored stain for metal (like a TH alcohol stain in a commercial type).  We'll see what I find.

The rest of my pictures just plain failed to Upload!  So I will save my "at home " projects for another blog update.  Maybe if I reboot everything, I will have better luck.  It's NEVER been this slow!  

HAVE A CRAFTY WEEK EVERYONE!

A Feel of Fall and a little Halloween

 

Yes, fall is definitely in the air---the cooler, crisper air--just has a certain smell about it.  The pumpkins are everywhere--tho they keep saying there is a shortage--seems I've noticed an awfully lot of them this year.  And since I've been trying to buy halloween since August, and finally have been seeing it in the stores--I'm really getting in the mood of the season.  Now if the leaves would turn into a beautiful picture of color--it would be perfect.

Last Saturday, when Callie Jane was visiting she got out some of my little wooden "ornaments" and

decorated my little white tree.  Might still add a little something to it --cobwebs or something--but it really put me into a full steam ahead mode into Halloween.

Then, this week, I made this 12 x 12 shadow box using a Cricut "words" cardtridge and adding a little bit of deco's in the form of ghosts to it.   This one's for my daughters new house, but think I will make me one also.    I got some new  Taylored expressions stamps at the store this week--Christmas ones--and can't wait to get my copics out and use them.  They are sooooo adorable!  Thanks Dawn and Kellie for always  getting us such cute inspiring Supplies to keep our Scrapbooking fresh and exciting!  Also will be taking a  Taylored expressions class in Oct.  Can't wait!     Today, I spent printing a huge bunch of pics for an all day to MN crop on Friday.   So many projects----so little time! Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Turkey Parts, Kids Style--Can it be Nov. already??

 

It seems like forever since I've written on my blog, but in looking back, I really had no completed projects to take pictures of and share.  Oh, I did complete my Circle cookbook that is the next big project for GNO, but I haven't taken pics of that yet.  I think I was just so relieved to have finished it, I just went to be that night and forgot. 

Then, on Thursday, Danny and I went to the Clay Co. Fair--was suppose to go with my brother Tom and sis in law, Betsey, but something came up at the last minute and they weren't able to make it.  Bah, Hum Bug!  So we went alone, had a great day, lots to see (and a few things to buy), but I took only 5 -6 pics!  What kind of a scrapbooker is that!  I guess, I have taken so many pics in years past and it all looked pretty much the same, that I just spent the day (almost allergy free, I might add because of the big rains the day and night before) just wondering around enjoying the sights and sounds and smells and tastes of the fair. 

And then Yesterday (Friday)  I spent another whole day finishing up my Expression 2 class notes and projects for my upcoming class in Nov.---Not anything to photograph there either, but a lot of writing and typing and verifying steps on the Expression 2 and rewriting and well, you get the idea.  It is now all neatly in a notebook--the worst part of formulating any class is putting it all together the first time.  Now I can teach it whenever and maybe only have to revamp a project here and there!

 

Today, I concentrated on my Nov. kids class.  A wreath of some sort was my objective, and I have been trying to come up with something that would be appealing to the kids and fun to make.

The problem with the kids in my classes are, they don't want to make "little kid" things.  They want projects like the adults do with all the techniques adults do.  So I have to meet somewhere in the middle--something they understand with challenge and techniques built in.  So here goes-----

We'll start with flowers  cut at 4 sizes from 1 1/2" to 2 1/2"

Then bring out the spritz's  --Angel mists or perfect pearl mists

and then the turkey parts--no giblets allowed--  I always try and make a cute die cut to use in their projects and being it's Nov., I chose a Turkey from Create a Critter.  He had quite a few PARTS, as you can see.  So I started putting them all together.

I bet this little gobbler is wondering about all his buddies lying around

But alas, all the parts fell into place, and with a little detail doodling, they looked quite cute--well almost cute----

Along came my little chatterbox, Callie Jane to spend the afternoon and help me out in any way she could. She offered a child's eye view of the project and a few very intelligent ideas which I took to heart.  Callie is quite a little artistic creator in her own right, so I do take her comments seriously.

The two of us decided the turkeys really needed wiggle eyes, so she helped put them on every one of those turkeys.

They did look really fun and she said she was sure the kids would like them.

When we got the wreath all put together, it looked like this and we were both really pleased with the results.  Since Callie is 8 and gave it a thumbs up, I'm sure the kids in my class will too!

A Very Quiet Labor Day, My "Teddy Bears Find a Purpose"

Every day is a Holiday when you're retired, so today was nothing but another Holiday.  We had no special plans--just hang out at home.  It started off by discovering that our icemaker was not making ice.  After pulling the fridge out of it's very tight spot, we discovered the water tube into the icemaker was frozen up, an easy fix for sure, thank heavens!  But as any minor project goes, you have  10 other  things to do before it's done--so we cleaned and scrubbed the floor under the fridge, and of course vacuumed out the bottom of the fridge.  At any rate, that was a job done that needed done anyway.  The rest of the day was spent in  my SB room workng on my Teddy Bears.  Remade a few of them smaller to fit on cards better.  Got all my washy tape and Halloween glitter tape out to work with.  Such pretty colors.  I really love all the different ones out there.

The first card I put together was my little witch one below.  I sprayed a piece of acetate with perfect pearls,  green apple (I think) and it was dry and ready to use on my card.  I "hooked" it onto the card front with glitter tape around all the edges.  You can't tell, but the card base is purple and it looks really cute with the lime green spray over it.

 

She's on wobbles of course, so there's movement to the card.  and the inside is shown below.

The next one I finished was my little pumpkin guy.  He too, has a piece of acetate behind him sprayed with pumpkin spice angel glitter mist and mandarin orange perfect pearls.  He has a lime green card base,  really pops the orange.  and I used one of the Halloween Washy Tapes to apply it to the front of the card.

Still haven't finished the insides of the above card or the next one, but the fronts are done.  The next one is a Thanksgiving card with the cute little turkey on it.  I didn't wobble him--he was so heavy with all his feather layers.  He is pop dotted up tho.

The little guy below is not finished either, but he is on wobbles as he "flys" through the air!

 

And this last one is my favorite and I will be making another one like it for my Grandson, Nicholas, I'm sure for his Birthday next month.  The little guy is not on a wobble, but the water bubble with the bobber is and it is connected to the pole with real string, so it all wobbles just like a fish is on the end of it.  and this is the inside of the fish card.  I have 6 or 7 more started in various stages.  Maybe tomorrow, I will get them done.

Thanks for stopping by my blog sight.  Hope you enjoyed it and maybe even got an idea or two.  Hope your Labor day was a day of REST and Fun!

Scrapping with friends on a Sunday afternoon!

 

 

 

 

I spent today Scrapbooking at Memory Bound with a couple of Friends--one of my favorite ways to spend a Sunday Afternoon.  Now I say scrapbooking--but I didn't actually Scrapbook any pictures today.  I worked on some prep work for a Christmas Craft I hope to get done before Christmas. and I spent the rest of the day detailing some adorable little bears I made on the Cricut.  But first, here are a couple more of those "camera" cards I made.  They are on display at the store.  This one used the "Wordle" program to make the background.  It's a free program online where you can put in your own words, colors, fonts, etc. and scramble them to make cool word blocks..

I used wordle on the card above and printed it on glossy photo paper.  Really love all the color!  The one below was just a card I put together following a "page map" I found online.

But now on to my little guys.  This is the new Lite Cartridge, Teddy Bears on Parade.  Bears with around 60 different costumes for every occasion.  You can see, I had a hard time deciding which ones to do, so I did a whole bunch.  Spent all day today adding the details.  Still have a few more to add, but they are looking a lot better.

I will use these on a variety of cards and yes, many of them will be on action wobbles.

 

The little guy below shows some of the details.  Can't wait to use him on a Christmas Card.

and this is his buddy!

and last, I want to remind everyone to be sure and visit Memory Bound during the month of September to see our awesome mixed medium projects--including all the circle journals the the Girls Night Out group has just completed.  Wow!  You will be amazed at pages in these books!

 

 We are also having several Mixed media classes during the month and during my kids class in Oct., the kids get their chance to paint, ink, distress, emboss their own project.  More later.

Have a Great Labor Day Tomorrow!