GASC, the day before

We decided to check out the convention center last night after dinner at Texas Land and Cattle Co. The Ranger ball park, Cowboys new stadium,6 Flags and Convention center are grouped pretty close to each other. This is a picture of the new Cowboy stadium that will open this fall, it is massive!
There were only SEI 18 wheelers parked there last night! We decided to see if we could get inside and surprise we could! There was no one in there and boxes stacked everywhere, as you can tell. I was so surprised there were no security guards and the convention center was unattended. Today was a totally different story!

Long and short

of the hair. T has had long hair worn the same way for years. It is hair that those of us with stick straight, thin hair would die for. Her hair curls in nice loose curls, but she uses the iron to straighten it all the time. Last week when we went to get hair cuts, she decides it is time for the long hair to go. This is the result! Of course it is only curly when she is home, public hair must be straight! She looks a little older with this hair cut!

GASC

Here we are in Arlington waiting for the GASC! We deliver our Word Blooms tomorrow very early. I can't wait to see all the goodies that will be inside the convention center! Hopefully I can get some fun pictures of events going on!

Beach Acrylic Album

My friend Karen, made this beautiful acrylic album using our acrylic Word Bloom Album. I love all the techniques she used, painting on transparencies, using HS mask and her stitching around the pictures!

Circle Journal-Julie

This is my entry for Julie's Circle Journal. I always struggle with quotes and what to do with them in CJ's. I copied the idea from the Full Circle book and was happy with the results. I used BoBunny stamps,Prima flowers,black chipboard shapes, and Basic Grey paper.

LoneStars Album

I love this album for T soccer pictures when she played for Lone Stars! The teams colors are red and black so this was just perfect for some of those awesome team pictures!

China Word Album

Sheri created this wonderful album of pictures she took in China. I loved looking at all the pictures, even the bugs and snakes!! Great job Sheri! Thanks!

Texas Chipboard Album

This awesome chipboard Texas album was the first place winner at our lss. Susan did an amazing job with distressing this album. Super job!, its looks like leather, you just have to touch it!

Austin by Linda

My sweet friend, Linda, did our Austin Word Bloom and it is just awesome! I love all the great pictures she has of Austin. Super job, Linda!!

Retreat

I found out yesterday there is a new retreat and event center opening just a few miles from us. Linda, Karen, Janet and I were invited to visit today. Karmen is really nice and is working so hard to accommodate all of the scrappers. I believe it will open in mid June. She has day crops as well as weekend retreats. I can't wait to spend the day and/or weekend here Lone Star Retreat. If you click on the reservations link on her site you will see another beautiful retreat, a little farther, Alabama, but it looks beautiful!

April Pictures

Here are my April layouts for my favorite pictures of 2008 album.This is the link to the first few months Favorite 2008 pictures. It is fun to pick out 2 pictures of each month that will bring back memories every time I look at the album.

Stormy night and

our resident snake. We had several hours of tornado warnings last night. The storms were moving into town from the east and west, so we prepared to get into the guest bathroom downstairs. Luckily for us the storms went around us and we only received a lot of rain and wind. I was sitting on the patio watching the rain and lightning when I looked down and there was our resident snake about 6 inches from my foot. I guess he was finding higher ground but on top of my foot was not going to work! I decided I had enough storm/snake watching for the night. This picture is the clouds building around here last night.

Mothers Day

My DS and DDIL and the 3 boys spent the weekend with us. We played way too much Wii, went swimming and just having fun. Sunday morning the boys made their mom a mini album. It turned out wonderful, complete with tons of flowers and buttons! All the kids cooked breakfast and cleaned up, that made the day really special!

T is now a gainfully employed teenager! She is working at Cold Stone Creamery and this was her 2nd day of work. Typical moaning about working 4 hours and so tired she can't do any chores at home:) We did have a discussion about the hair "do" while working around food, funny the owner/manager was standing right there and the hair seemed ok with her! The plus side of this job is she brought home all the samples she learned to make, all us us were excited for this ice cream treat!

Weatherford Road Trip

Janet, Linda, and I went to Weatherford,Texas, this week. What a great little town, and of course a great Scrapbook Store. Nana's Scrapbook Store is a well stocked and fun store! Pat/Nana is so nice and we had a great time visiting with her. We had lunch at Yesterday's ( on Pat's recommendation) and it was delicious. A tiny restuarant in a historic building that served awesome chicken salad sandwiches and marvelous brownies! Here are some other pictures of Weatherford!

Vegas Word Bloom

Here is a fun, totally Las Vegas Word Bloom!

Art Work

T is taking art this semester and this is a pencil drawing she had to do from a picture in a magazine. I think she did a super job! Wish I could draw stick people:)

Is this a bird house or

a lizard house. This little fella has decided that he/she loves this bird house I have in the backyard. Yesterday I spotted this little head peeping out of the bird house so I just watched to see what would happen. He came out, checked me out and went right back in. He was still taking up residence today!

First Time at Whataburger

Janet has never eaten at Whataburger in her life!! On several road trips we have had conversations regarding how yummy Whataburger ketchup is! Some people know this to be a fact, and you know who you are:) Janet thought we had lost our minds, being so excited about a fast food ketchup. Thursday we were on a road trip to Corsicana and saw this Whataburger sign. We decided this was the time for her to step up to doing her first Whataburger meal complete with ketchup! We had to back-track to get there through a less than desirable neighborhood but we made it. I think Janet found Whataburgers ketchup to be just as the sign said, she had 3 packets with her lunch.

Barn Swallows are

Supposed to be afraid of wind chimes. We have a tall entrance at our front door and for years we have been pestered by these messy little birds. They build their nests out of mud and trash and love to build at the top of porches and their poop and nest mess drops down right in front of the door! We put plastic up to scare them off, that worked for a year or so, then they adjusted to that and tried to make a nest. We put up wind chimes to scare them off and that seemed to really scare them away until this spring. These birds have no fear of the wind chimes or the plastic, in fact they built their nest on the wind chime. What a mess!! Bird poop and mud on our windows, front door and porch. These birds will now have to visit another porch since we have put up netting. It will probably only take them a year to get over their fear of that and move in again!!

Texas Road Trip Word Album

I finally finished this fun little album with pictures of some short road trips we took last month. I am trying to get my samples ready to take to GASC in June.

Circle Journal again

Here are my pages for Susans Circle Journal. The Mexico is a sneek peek of the Word Bud that we will be doing. I used White Out paper, copper dabbers,stamps and bling. The title and flourishes are laser cut and painted with copper dabbers.I used my Circuit with the SCAL program to cut the palm trees and welded words.

Retreat in Milford Texas!

The 9 of us had such a fun time in Milford, Texas, at Our House Retreat. This is such a super place, food was great, rooms,crop room and 2 really super nice people. Of course the retreat would not be complete without some excitment and funny things!
We stopped in Corsicana to shop at Scrappin Good Time but our GPS,Jill, was not wanting to give us directions, so we detoured via a beautiful cemetery. We met Susie and did some shopping, then on the Milford, Texas. Milford is a tiny town and we even got lost there, so we stopped at the police station and got directions from a very handsome policeman. We arrived at Our House, unpacked, and headed for Wax. We had lunch at the 1879 cafe, shopped and visited with Carolyn at the Crafty Scrapper and then went to Just Scrap It, to finish out the day shopping. The rest of Friday night was spent scrapping and visiting, it was so much fun to catch up with people I don't see very often.Janet said that Debbie and I kept her awake all Friday night with our snoring, probably true, I am, sure so she was moving to another room. Saturday was a yummy breafast and off to more scrapping. That night around 11 Janet said she wasn't feeling well and as the night progressed she got worse. About 1:30 Debbie and I took her to Wax. to the ER, amazing how you can find a hospital in middle of the night in a strange town! They gave her an iv and meds for her upset stomach and soon it was 5:30 am. Debbie and I getting totally silly over a blue barf bag and it was a good thing the ER was not busy! We decided to go sleep in Janets SUV while she was getting another IV so we had to bump butts to keep warm. A side note, everyone was making fun of my socks with my Crocs but those socks kept my feet warm! We finally got back to Milford around 6:30 am and crashed for a few hours. Janet felt better after the meds but was still weak so we left around 1:30 Sunday. This was such a great retreat and I can't wait to do it again minus the ER visit.

On the Road Again

There are 9 of us going to ,Our House in Milford, Texas for a weekend retreat. This is sponsored by Just Scrap It in Waxahachie. We are all so excited and of course we will have to make a few shopping stops along the way. First we are stopping and shopping at Scrappin Good Time in Corsicana, then to Milford to unpack, off again to The Crafty Scrapper and Just Scrap It in Wax. I will post pictures of the retreat and shopping fun when I get back!

Backyard Resident

Along with our turtle Dodger,that has been living with us for 4 years,and several families of lizards, we have acquired a new resident. We saw a snake skin in the grass a few days ago but didn't give it a lot of thought. Last night the owner of the skin made its appearance. I have no clue what type of snake this is but he has taken up squatters rights in our back yard. I don't mind him living here as long as we each stay in our own space and don't cross paths.

The Iris

in my backyard has a lot of memories. It was last year about this time that my sweet little aunt became ill. I spent the following 3 months caring for her in Lubbock. She was really not a flower garden person but she had planted iris in the alley and they bloomed without care. I dug some up and planted them in our backyard and this one bloomed this week. Every time I look at this purple iris I will be reminded of her and all the memories.
Tomorrow another story about our backyard.

School Word Bloom

I made this yesterday using Cosmo Cricket paper,blackboard chipboard, and the matching dies. Love the bright happy colors of this paper.

Chipboard Waterfall Album

We have had a beautiful weekend, sun shining, blue bonnets blooming, just love this time of the year. We worked in the yard some, just enjoying the weather.
I finally finished this waterfall mini album. It has been sitting on my desk for weeks. I used Basic Grey and Cosmo blackboard chipboard, added some little acrylic birds and bling!

12 month book

We have had a cold rainy day here and I finally found time to scrap for me. Here are March pages 1 and 2 for my 12 month book. Tuck was a big 6 in March and we were there to celebrate. My friends and I went on 2 road trips to do some shopping, what fun!! Starbucks and Sonic! When we were in Waxahachie,every time we started taking pictures a stranger would volunteer to take our group picture. We were going into Stabucks and a nice lady going through the drive through, stopped and asked us if we wanted her to take our picture. She got out of her car and took our picture. How nice was that!!
January and February are posted in a previous post.