A Scrappy Weekend for Me!

This weekend I'm happily scrapping.  So before I dive head first into all things paper for the weekend I thought I would share a few things going on over at A Cherry on Top.  May 4th is the NSD Crop from 9am-9pm.  There are a terrific team of hostesses this year who will provide us with a wonderful time for 12 hours.  If you have never been to an ACOT Crop mark your calendar and join the ACOT Community.  The forum is already buzzing with activity.

I'm very proud of myself this week as I just have really stepped up on the number of layouts done this month.   There is so much inspiration floating all over the web but I really fell head over heals with The Becky Fleck Sketch Challenge - Week #38.  I knew just the photos to use!  My result below.

 

I chose to use Studio Calico Countryside collection which I just love love execpt I wish the cows on the paper were not Holstein's.  At least they are colored so I could look past the cows not being beef cattle.  I also pulled out some odds and ends from my Paper Bakery Kits.  It felt good to be in the home I have all of my embroidery and stitching happily away on my layout! I haven't done that in awhile. I have a 5x7 photo of these five Charolais heifers that I'll do a page from the same line. I prefer doing single page layouts, but I've been known quite often to put two single pages together in an album to form a double page spread.  I didn't win but each week ACOT offers a 1000 points to the winner worth a five dollar discount on your total order.  Of course the more points you collect the larger the discount.  And I think there is a $20 minimum on an order to use your points.  LOL, I sure can't stop at $20 when I purchase scrappy goodness.

Becky Fleck Sketch Challenge - #41 is up and all layouts must be posted in the same Gallery by midnight on Tuesday April 30th.  In otherwords it is 11:59 on the 29th.

The Challenges for April are all due in on Tuesday so if you are looking for some great inspiration then take a peek here.  Of course you can scroll down to yesterday's post to find the Heritage Challenge link I host.  Next month I'll be bringing the 4x4 back and I'm working on that layout for the example right now.  On May 1st come back and see both the Heritage and 4x4 Challenge examples on Wednesday's post!

Until Monday may you have a blessed weekend!

Atlantic City Boardwalk

Years ago I remember my parents taking the family for the day to Atlantic City when we lived in Wilmington, DE.  I must have been 7 or 8 years old.  It's amazing to me I only remember one thing, the trip home.  I remember Daddy had to pull over because we went through a horrible thunderstorm.  I often think how we store some strange memories of our life.  I have been to Atlantic City one other time and those memories are very clear.  As I have have written I spent my college summers in Wilmington, NC.  I had a boyfriend of four years who also lived there.  Summer of 1981 we traveled to visit his aunt and uncle in Guelph, Ontario so once again I was able to return to the city of my birth and see Niagara Falls.  From there we went to visit his brother in Vermont and then on to spend a half day in Atlantic City.  We strolled the Boardwalk and went in to a few Casinos.  Neither one of us much into gambling spent $20 each to have a little fun at Black Jack and the Slots.  I remember the glitz and glam of the Boardwalk but not overly fond of the city itself.  But the memory I am most fond of is stopping to ask a policeman a question.  My boyfriend was 23 and I was three months shy of turning 21.  I asked the policeman what the legal gambling age was as I sure didn't want to spend any unnecessary additional time in Atlantic City.  He replied with an, 'I don't know.'  REALLY?  A policeman didn't know!  LOL!

Within my collection of photographs from my grandmother are quite a few taken just as the photo is in the layout I'm featuring this week.  Apparently having a photo taken strolling the boardwalk was the "IT" thing to have.  There are three or four I have to scrap.  Pictured in this photo from left to right are one of my grandmother's best friends Bettie McStea, my mother at about 14 years of age, and my grandmother Edith Ramsay in 1948.  My grandmother attended several AGA (American Gas Assoc.) Conventions over the years as American Home Magazine Equipment Editor.

From studying photos of Atlantic City during this time period it looks like they are just outside of the Convention Center.

I did this layout as my example of this month's Heritage Challenge at a A Cherry on Top.  You'll just have to click on the link to see what the challenge is all about!  To me a super fun challenge!  At the end of the month I'll select a winner to receive a $5 GC from ACOT delivered by me to you!

Until next time may you have a Blessed Day!

Bloom & Grow

It's just after 11:00 pm and although I finished my layout at 4:00pm I found my camera dead.  I also had to get to Home Depot because I didn't have a single pot at the house small enough to plant my Money Tree which arrived from QVC today.  It wasn't suppose to arrive until May 1st.  Found not a drop of potting soil either.  I guess all of my plant pots over the last four and a half years made it to the ranch or Lynn asked for them along the way.  LOL....and never as a scrapper let your camera battery go dead!

Well all is solved, the roots currently soaking on the Money Tree.  Beautiful pot Larry picked out and correct soil purchased along with rocks so I can plant it in a mounded and not loose the soil when watered.  Camera battery charged and the layout to an amazing Challenge is uploaded.  Once the post is done I still have to plant my tree, pack some scrapping goodness to scrap this weekend at the ranch. and pack my bag.

And I was relieved to find I still have a little over two hours to post my layout to Imaginisce Blog's amazing challenge this month!  This layout was so much fun and with one of the requirements of using Twine I was all in!  Photos were taken in 2009 at the ranch along the county road we live on.  The bluebonnets are always amazing and they are still in bloom.  With the cold temps the wildflowers were late arriving by two weeks so we will enjoy them well into May this year.  The cold weather just doesn't want to break.  I'm hoping for cool weather right up into June.  Means we get more rain at the ranch and maybe a cooler summer this year.

Thank you Imaginisce for a great sketch this month!  I loved working on this layout!

Products used from Imaginisce Berrylicious, Hippty Hop, Love You More and Soul Sisters.  Included some Ink from Tim Holtz to ink the sides of the photo, Twine from The Twinery and Kaiser Kraft Pearls to make my flowers and leaves, Gesso to to tone down the base paper.  My favorite part of the layout is a little bunny is peeking out of the left photo!  We have some cottontails who have been living in the yard for about eight months now.  We see one or two of them early in the evening just before sunset.  I have yet to have my camera with me.  Need my telephoto to catch most of the shots I would have had if I had had my camera.  We have an abundance of both cottontails and the biggest jack rabbits I have ever seen anyway at the ranch.  The jack rabbits will push 8-10 lbs. and stand as tall as a Checkered Giant Rabbit.

See you again in the morning!

Ibn Zubaydahh

I want everyone to give a great big wave to Department of Homeland Security for doing their job!!!  It's just little ole me again with my Arabian Horses.  This time it's Zuby, with his registered name Ibn Zubaydahh and as you scroll through my blog you'll find his sire is Tammen and his dam is Zubaydahh.  And he has an older full brother Abcar Ibn Tammen aka AC.  By the way DHS investigator we appreciate you keeping us safe and please

I had an absolutely wonderful time using this sketch from Nuts About Sketches #258!  

Zuby is pictured here in May of 1993 as a young colt.  He's showing off a little and having some fun.

Now at the age of 21 he still plays in the pasture with his friend Bogart when he's feeling really good.  He has lived a year with thyroid cancer and shows no sign of  an additional slow down since being diagnosed a year ago. Everyday I treasure each and every interaction I have with this grand old gentleman.  I noticed this weekend Zuby has self braid his mane in to one horrible mess that only a pair of scissors will fix.  How he does that in a single day is beyond me!  He constantly reminds our now four year old Bogart that with age comes wisdom.  And I have seen in the last year Bogart has learned a huge amount from Zuby on how to live life as well as still defer to his best friend as herd leader although it is only the two of them.

Now you might be wondering why I'm writing about DHS.  I suppose with the recent happenings in Boston they will once again come looking at me.  Zubaydahh was born in the early 1980's given her name by her breeder Tom McNair a respected trainer/breeder in the Arabian Breed.  When I posted the layout in 2010 I happened a little under a week later on looked at the tracking of entries into our ranch website via our web server.  I wasn't surprised I was investigated I just didn't think I would know.  Not my fault my mother's beloved mare would share a name with a terrorist who would be killed by our country or that she would name Zu's last foal after his mother 21 years ago.  The difference is in the spelling of the name Zu had two "h's" where the evil one had one "h". They will find little ole me with Arabian horses, Lowline Cattle, an avid scrapper, and a huge love for my country and it's deep history I so dearly love to continue to learn.  I am a constant reader as it relates to my family lineage all the way back to the Pilgrims on my side of the family and on Larry's side the tidewater of North Carolina and how his family arrived in Texas before Stephan F. Austin.  They will also find out how much I love my state and it's rich history as the only state to have once been a nation.  One of my favorite sites is Texas Courthouses.  We have the most amazing collection of courthouses in the state.  I've started on my journey to photograph all 254 courthouses as well as scrap those photos.  It's a bucket list thing for me. They have written in the past it's a 200,000 mile journey on the Texas Courthouse website.  I am so excited at the prospect to see every one and read of the history of each county on the historical markers that can be found at each courthouse.  And if you wonder here's a layout of the Leon County Courthouse with more to come.

So wave to DHS on your way out and know they are really trying to keep us safe.  Have a great day Mr. or  Ms DHS investigator!

And a big whoop with two posts in two days!  

Contentment!

I definitely have been in a progressive state of of MIA!  That terrible process of thinking I need to blog today....I'll do it tomorrow thing going on.  So today as it's 11:30pm CST on the 23rd and I'm doing at least one post for early tomorrow morning.  I have so much I wish to share in one post!

Some wonderful things going on in various places I visit!  Imaginisce and The Twinery have teamed up this week on their blogs to showcase some awesome projects their design teams have created via a blog hop!  Two great prizes to be awarded so definitely check this Blog Hop out.

Yesterday (4/23/12) Prima launched a new Ustream video 1+1 with Frank and Liz doing a mixed media album cover which I viewed.  Totally Awesome and you just have to watch!  I have more ideas in my mind for a mixed media mini album I'll be making for my mother this summer for her birthday in November.  Not to worry my mother is terrible at navigating the web and has no idea I blog or even what a blog is.  Thank you Frank & Liz!

I have been more scrappy though since my last post and wanted to share with you one of my new favorite layout with Belle as the subject!  I used my Paper Bakery Kit from March and just fell head over heals with the layout when I was done.  I also used Nuts About Sketches # 260 to do the layout.

I just love March's Kit!  It's colorful fun and so inspiring.  Unfortunately it has sold out.  Paper Bakery teamed up one week in March with Elle's Studio via their blogs and had some pure awesomeness going on.  This month's kit has also sold out!  If you hop over to take a look be sure to find the Exclusive Elle's Studio Flairs Sarah Designed and I used one this layout!  They are so much fun!

I had one of those moments where I didn't attach the photo of this layout to my email....dumb I know....and it's not on the Nuts About Sketches blog.  I was so busy I didn't go back and check my email either until after the layouts were posted to the blog!  Honestly, it started to thunder and the computers at the ranch and my scrapbook room are in the same separate building.  I hate being outside when a storm is coming in as I've almost been struck twice in the past.  That hair raising thing is a terrible  feeling!  So I was hurrying to move to the house.

Until next time and I hope it's a much shorter time period between posts enjoy your day to it's fullest!