Time Flies

It can't be Saturday yet! I spent 2 days home nursing my cold, although I will say yesterday I was on the improve and by mid-afternoon was starting to mostly feel like myself again...hurray!  I am off this morning with my friend Vicky for a little girl time out. That's about it on my agenda...but it is a good agenda item to have.
And do you know, we had snow flurries last night- AGAIN! I haven't even gotten my snow tires yet.

It is a fun card Saturday. Love this card, though it is SO simple. Maybe that's why I love it...I am a simple kind of gal. 

All stamps are Paper Smooches. I used white card stock, punched a heart on some red paper, stamped the frog on whitre and colored him, al the hearts are stamped and colored directly onto the cardstock.

Have a great Saturday everyone!



Friday Art

Here's a card that just happened-far from what I planned it to be but I like it. I started with orange cardstock that I sanded and rounded the corners. Then I added a piece of 7Gypsies paper (also corners rounded) which I colored with Marmalade distress stain. Then I stamped in brown the 2 flowery bars on the top and bottome (Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz) and then I used one of those awesome new Dylusions sayings stamps also from Stampers Anonymous. Finally I stamped the flower-Paper Smooches, which I colored with orange Copic marker and a white pen-the leaves are Copic Marker too. FInally I added the VIVA orange dimensional dots along the brown stamped bars.

I think it all falls into place with this card. A little different from my normal style...but it's all good.

Thanks for visiting.

Ten Things Friday-11/11/11 edition

1- I love it! It is 11/11/11!!!!!

Plus it is a holiday and we have no school and Katie is home!

2- My 2 new ecology classes started this week.  And I am glad it is second quarter....not any less busy at work but there is something relaxing about second quarter (maybe how it is so broken up by holidays and a vacation) just like November tends to be less stressful than both October and December for me.

3- So this week Holiday Card Bootcamp class started on-line. So far, it is good, waiting for some real wow cards to come which I expect they will. Still, I love looking at other people's art. It is so inspriring.
4-Still in a major knitting mood. Hat is coming along quickly.

5-I am  used to the time change...but I feel like I am still spending too much time in the dark.  I need another outdoor day, a day when it is in the 60's (don't know if I will get that) and sunny and I can squeeze in a couple of hours of raking so I don't have to do it in the spring. Eevn though I raked the other day it now looks like I didn't rake at all. I am hoping maybe if I can do a bit on Sunday...I will at least get a bit on top of all those leaves. And if I am not up to raking, at least get outside for a little bit.
6- I also bought a groupon French course with Babbel.com. Started it this week too which is pretty fun, maybe I can get over that hump I have with French. I have been trying to learn it for a year and a half now, and it does come along pretty well and I have learned a lot, but then I reach this bump where I seem to get stuck and feel stupid and incapable of learning any more without moving to a French speaking place for a long period of time. Not that I think I have to be an expert or anything, but I would LOVE to be semi-fluent and able to function in French.
7- Tomorrow I am going shopping with my friend Vicky and it will be a great girls morning out! Can't wait.
8- This cold is still there- but I do feel a lot better than I did yesterday morning. I just want it to totally go away!!!! Yesterday I lounged all day and slept and read a lot of the Marriage Plot. It helped and I needed to recoop like that.I really need my glands in my neck to de-swell since they are uncomfortable.
9-I am hoping I feel even perkier later today to go for a little roadtrip with Katie and Brian down to Costco and Trader Joe's since I need so many things and I was planning on going for 2 weeks now.
10-I am still debating what to do about tires for my car, which is turning into a bigger deal than I want it to be. I just want to go buy 2 front tires but Dave says snow tires would be better...hopefully he'll just go for me tomorrow and get it squared away since I could care less about tires...and I have always been so good at just going and geting them...I usually take care of my own car stuff in most things...

And before I forget
A Big Thank You to all you Vetrans whom we have this day for, especially for my Uncle Russell and Uncle Bob- Uncle Russell was a bomber for the RAF during WWII and made it all the way into his last flight (when he would have been done) and then their plane got shot but luckily the pilot was able to land it in neutral Sweden, which Uncle Russell spoke fluently. So he survived and spent the rest of the war there working as an aide to the general . And then there was Uncle BOb who served in both WWII and Korea on a submarine (and growing up in Downeast Maine couldn't even swim).
And of course, my own DAD, I miss you!!! He was in intelligence during WWII in India and China spying on the Japanese. Wish you were still here to tell your stories but I can hear them in my head and I won't forget them!

End of the work week

Woke up this morning feeling icky. Throat and chest cold....GRRR. I am going to stay home and go back to bed....I know if I work I wil have NO voice at about the end of my first class. Plus I am just feeling plain under the weather...and all I want to do is go back to bed once I can call in...(pretty bad when you're up earlier than you can call in sick but I was awake since Dave had to get out early and I needed to email in sub plans.)

Anyhow, today I will show you 3 scrap-journal pages that use tape. That is all they really have in common, other than they are part of my OBX journal from last summer.

Horrible shadow here from the binder, but here is the hubby at Kitty Hawk. I stenciled on the page and did some inking and added some green tape and doodled the words and borders and added some gold shiny stars and some blue Dimensional Paint dots (Ranger) and some blue eyelets....

And here is my good friend Ina and myself. If you ignore the words on the top left corner, I made this page strictly put putting pieces of tape onto water color paper. Then I added the photo. I did make this tag out of acetate and using Staz On ink I stamped the sayings and some leaves, which I colored.

And finally, pelicans. Now I might be losing my mind, but maybe I showed you this page already. I stamped the fish (Studio 490) in brown and blue inks to make the base. Then added both polka dot tape and blue tape, the post card, a bit of doodling, the bracket die cut and some glass fish beads. The tape here is similar to the page at the top, only it's on the opposite side. And in another way, the pages are similar in lay out too, only there's no stamped background on the top page and some embellishment differences.

So that is my art for the day! Enjoy yours

Already, Hump Day

AND it is the first day of 2cd quarter at school. I like having first quarter behind me. Not that I am rushing life, but it is that start up quarter. Things seem to settle down a bit this quarter- maybe because everyone is so busy with all the holidays that fall between now and the end of January when this quarter ends.
So today is a busy day with 2 new classes, a walk with my third block of kids that are not new, going to get my tires after work and I feel like I am fighting a head cold....erggg. Hopefully that goes away ASAP.

And yesterday was gorgeous warm-up near 70, and since I got home earlier since we had exams and the kids left early, I went out and raked a bit. No sun in the sky, but getting some outside fresh air did me good. Plus I cleaned up some of the leaves- until the rest fall down and it will need to be done all over again!!!!

And today my 2 new ecology classes begin.

And also today, 2 cards I made last weekend with this pair of house stamps from Penny Black that I recently purchased (on my trip to my craft store last Friday) and that I think are great fun rubber stamps.

I like this card a lot. It is very different for me. The card is actually white (hard to tell in this photo-so much for indoor although natural looking lighting versus using sunlight). Then I took some paper I sprayed with Tattered Angels and Ranger/Adirondack inks. I cut that and stamped on the shadow evergreen trees (Impression Obsession) and I added but white dots with a white pen (for stars) and some Sakura glitter pen silver dots for stars too. Then I stamped the house on white, colored it with Copics, and cut it out before attaching it here. I did add a bit of Glossy Accents to the windows which you can't see at all here but it gives them a real window look. I used black and silver Spica markers to make the smoke coming out of the chimneys and I hand wrote in the saying around the bottom edges.

So here's the other house stamp and I went a bit daytime cheery here. I used blue cardstock and I doddles the clouds on white and then stamp some Spanish script from CHF on them. I cut them out and attached them, as well as the green paper I attached to be the grass. I stamped the house on white paper and used Copics to color it along with more Glossy Accents on the windows. I punched the cat with a mini paper punch and I free cut the heart and wrote in the saying. Finally I outlined the card with a white pen and I drew the flowers with the white and the stems/leaves with Spica and Copic markers. Then I added a dot of Viva yellow dimensional dot paint to each flower.

And that's all she's writing for today.

Bye-bye!

Yesterday

It was so easy to get up in the morning, though when I did I had a a few take home tests to finish grading. And I left in the light. But at 2 it felt like 3 and at 4 it felt like 5 and I got home at 4 and it was practically dark- twilight. But it was a pretty warm and nice day and I wished I could have stayed home and gone out and raked the millions of oak leaves in my yard (along with a few snow piles) and gotten outside into the warm beautiful day.

But, today the kids are done early and the quarter ends and that means we are 1/2 way through first semester and 1/4 of the way through the school year.

That much closer to summer. Well, I will rephrase that. That much closer to the time of year when it is not getting dark at 4:15 and when it is consistently warm on a daily basis and I can get outside and get some sun...which is what I really really miss at this time of year...

OK, travel scrap-journal pages for you. More OBX summer vacation pages. Dave is wishing he caught this BIG BIG fish, which was really plastic by the way.

He did do a bit of beach fishing with my friend Ina's male friend (at that time).

And here's a journal page which I like made with blue check paper, some Studio 490 fish stamps, some aquamarine and blue ink for distressing the background, and Copic markers for my journaling.

This is the big fish I journaled about in the page right above, but also in this picture there is a great reflection- and no black smudgies on the page, those are light shadows from the window where I took the photo of the page.

Don't know about you, but I am starting to think Christmas. Not decorate my house or buy my tree...though I have done a bit of holiday shopping...but it is Christmas craft season-or almost. Think I will do a December daily album which is Allie Edward's brainchild, but mine is going to start of Thanksgiving weekend and go to New Years, and maybe a bit more journalistic. I did do one a few years back that was scrap bookish and I did do an advent calander style book one year.  I also am serious thinking about my travel journal for February when we go to Arizona to escape winter for a few days. I know MaryAnn Moss in her Dispatch from LA blog makes cool journals...thinking about if I want to come home and scrap photos (like my OBX travel journal above) or just put photos into my journal. The travel books I usually do are board books and I don't come home and add my photos to them. Would I like that method?That is what I need to decide...but I like the journal idea because it would be something new and different to try...love trying new things. I really do.

Or I could use the Smash journal I bought as the base....somehow, it doesn't feel super personal to me to do that though.

Anyhow...

Enough about thoughts in my head.

4:45 and the red sky at night is here.

I will leave you with this is the view off my deck yesterday morning when I was on my way upstairs to get dressed after breakfast, just past 6 a.m., I love the light blue sky against the black trees....

Have a great Tuesday!

When another Monday rolls around

It is Monday morning. Another weekend has ended, already! My body clock is off since we changed clocks and it feels an hour later than usual, but at night, it is pitch dark shortly after 5. Means if I get home late from work I will be coming home in the dark. That is dreary.

 But this week is choppy for me, exams today and tomorrow. No school Friday for Vetran's Day. New classes start Wednesday and I have ecology which will hopefully be 2 fun groups. Should fly by, I think.

Yesterday I made 7 great cards. Still need to get photos of them. I wasn't in the mood when I started for creating whimsical cards but quickly got into the swing of it and had fun for a couple of hours. Playing with a bunch of Paper Smooches stamps. They are a lot of fun.

I also did a bit of cooking yesterday too. One thing I made was a big pot of beef stew in my crock pot which is for dinner tonight...love coming home and having a hot meal all cooked for me, especially on nights like this which will be dark so early and feel so much later than it is. I know, I know, I'll get used to the time change.

And today Christmas Card Makers Bootcamp starts on-line. I'm hoping it will be a great class.

Plus I purchased my first groupon yesterday...for French lessons on-line with Babel.com. I am excited to have some fun new November activities.

I made this card last weekend when we had 16 inches of snow on the ground. I sent it to Katie and she got a kick out of it. All stamps are from Paper Smooches. I started by stamping some snowflakes in white from the Snowdudes set all over the blue cardstock background. I stamped the snowman (also SnowDudes) on white paper. The toucan is from the bird set Kim released in October. It is such a fun set, and you can add the snow hat which was one of the stamps in the set. I also added some strips of white paper on the bottom of the card to be the snow background. Then I colored every stamped image with Copics, cut them out and then attached them onto the card. I finally used some white flocking powder on the bottom to make it look snowy...maybe I used a tad too much but I like how it gives some textural element to the card. Finally, I used the alphabet set, Alphadots, to write out my saying, which is something I think a lot of New Englanders were thinking last weekend with that wintery weather.

Thanks for visiting.



The Pain!!!!!

Oh a loss. Especially when your team way outplayed the other team (something like 35 shots on net to 21) but their goalie being far superior that evening kept out more shots and your goalie, let in 3 (final score-Maine2, UNH 3) , and one of those 3 shots should NOT have gone in. Oh, the PAIN!! Our guys certainly outplayed UNH a lot and deserved the win.

We will have a rematch in January at Fenway Park and we have tickets- we'll be out there freezing in the Boston cold on January 7th- hope for a warm night. And if that doesn't work, the final game of the season is March 3 at the Alfond up in Orono. A VERY tough crowd for sure. We won't be there since we'll have just returned home from Arziona and Orono is 4 1/2 hours away.

But this one hurts- especially when your kid goes to the rival school UNH.

This is much better. Put myself back on the beach in Duck, NC in July. Serene, relaxing. Don't have a clue why this loaded with those diagonal stripes on the page as there is none, but I am trying to put myself back into a food place. The page is distressed with light blue and brown ink, just very lightly. I started by stamping the bottom frame-became journal tag-with a Prima stamp. I colored in the outside in one color of Copic and used a brown on the inside. Then I stamped with word Special  by Hero Arts(- remember when they made those BIG word stamps several years ago...they were great!) in brown and the small saying in black (Rubber Moon). I attached the photo and used some paper scraps laying on the mess of my table, a paper edde and a blue circle. Then I added some real shell bits I picked up during our trip and a piece of brown twine (another scrap off the table) which I turned into a bow.

It is me, simple but complete.

Ok, stop being so deep n a Sunday morning when I set the bedroom clock wrong (I went an hour ahead) and thought I was getting up at an un-Godly late hour instead it was way earlier. That was a relief. Dreaming I went to this Chinese food buffet and I ordered noodles with fish and when they opened the serving pot it was full of baby snakes. I was crying because they had live guinea pigs too in this little cages where they could hardly move and they lady just served me a can of Bud beer instead of asking what I wanted, which was a Diet Coke...weird!

So yesterday I did get my basement cleaned up a bit!!!! Yahoo, but not my studio table. Right now I am going to make Trader Joe's brownies and coffee cake and then it is studio time...another COLD morning...maybe later when it warms a bit I'll go out for a walk and get some fresh air. The doggie-man would love that.

Have a good Sunday everyone!

Big Hockey Game Tonight!!!

Tonight Maine takes on New Hampshire...a huge rivalry game. I am of course rooting for the better team...Go Maine! Dave and I are going to the game, as is my sister-in-law and her hubby-we're going for pizza first. Maine needs to win since last year we lost by 1 point...after Maine missed a shot on open net. But it was a fantastic game even though we didn't win. I love my Black Bear hockey.

So last night I watched Project Accesory which I recorded on my box. I like that show, and since I dabble in a bit of jewelry making sometimes, I am enjoying that show and I get my own ideas, except this week they had to make some shoes. Wow, how would you even do that? I know nothing about making shoes.

Had a nice little trip to my favorite craft store yesterday too. Spent more money than I wanted to, but was getting some Christmas craft items...a couple of small snowflake dies from Cheery Lynn Designs, a Flourishes clear stamp set, some paper tape and the black ink I needed. Plus the tea cups set from Spellbinders that I went down for in the first place...

And this was last Saturday night...my first snowstorm in October-glad it is not tonight...

anyhow, enought of that kind of weather...

It is COLD this morning and I have school papers to grade.

But, I would rather have this...

Found this cool sticker at a store last summer on the Outer Banks. It is not crooked on the page, but my photo is a bit crooked. I painted a page with some water color paint and then used Versamark ink to stamp on some seastars.  Then I took this BIG photo of my honey on the beach and laid that along the the left side of the page. Then I added the sticker. Along the bottom I but down the seastar stickers (they're those epoxy ones) and used some white and yellow ink to make the dots to connect them.  Then I die cut the sun from yellow paper, really colored in the middle circle and then stamped (Paper Smooches) the sunglasses. I know, I snapped this photo while it is still in the 3 ring binder and you can see the rings...maybe not the best photo, but a diferent kind of page for me.

Happy Saturday. I off to grade those papers.

10 Things Friday-already!

Right now...today...10 things going on with me!

1-The snow is not all gone at my house...but it is getting less and less every day (and nights, we even had a big amount of melt overnight)-if the weather stays as it is we should only have the piles in the shade left by tomorrow-I hope-maybe I can even get out and rake this weekend...ha-ha! (Or maybe not!)

2- We change the clocks this weekend-I don't like that. Means it gets dark SOOOOO early and even though I have some more light in the morning....it doesn't last very long. And it is a hassel to change all the clocks.  But I do like having an extra hour this weekend.

3-Only 2 days left to the first quarter at school. 2 days of exams, and then it is a NEW quarter. I get rid of my 1 whiney class, yahoo, and hopefully the 2 new classes are great.

4-Been into hat knitting lately and wanted to make a Fair Isle tam style hat. Found some yarn I had stashed away and started my tam #1 this past week. It is prime knitting season right now....and I am so excited to have a project to work on at night while I watch tv.
5- Also want to do some more reading than I have been lately. Started the Marriage Plot last weekend and I am  thinking  a book a week would be great. Just have to make a point to sit down and read. That is not as easy to do as it sounds....
6-All I want to do lately is be home in my studio and hanging around knitting, cooking and reading. Hibernation mode has set in BIG time. I am not even interested in going on a road trip....think work has been so busy that I just want to hang...and as it gets darker earlier and earlier....homebody season.
7- Tomorrow night is the big Maine versus UNH hockey game at UNH. I am going!!!!! GO MAINE! I do love hockey in the winter...it is the one thing I actually want to go out for. This is a HUGE rivalry game...and it will be a great game- that I know.
8-This afternoon after work I am off to my craft store...I had them put aside a Spellbinder's tea cup die they had in their newsletter, and I have actually been looking for a tea cup die...I love a good cup of tea and I have tons of tea related stamps and I made a lot of items with tea cups...like a tea with the queen book I made last year (or the year before) and a whole set of cards the year before called the buggy picnic and my first publication ever was in Cloth, Paper, Scissors with a cloth tea book I made. Anyhow, I am excited to go since I haven't been there since September and I need some envelopes, glue and black ink along with my die.
9-I hoping to get a few chores done this weekend and relax too. I want to clean off the table where I do my art....it is such a mess I hardly have any room to work. I am trying to figure out how to store my Copics...I want them on the wall...right now I have them in some perfect cups on my table, but they are taking up too much room and they are too heavy to hang, so I am trying to figure out what to do.  Another chore I need to do is vaccuum my laundry room in the basement...my kitty got stuck in the basement yesterday and attacked a roll of paper towels...he does that sometimes...and I have shreds to clean up...plus dog hair and sand...and if I get to it early enough saturday before Katie comes home with bags of laundry, I should be able to clean up...now that I am more caught up on laundry (though not 100%) than I have been all October.
10-Feels like I have been in the dark all week. I can see the sun out the windows at work, but it doesn't come into my classroom. It is dark when I go to work, and the late afternoon shadows are out when I come home. Not dark, but no direct sun. Oh winter is coming...

and did you know, saw this on the news-
yesterday was the 100th birthday of Chevrolet.

Happy FRIDAY!!!!
Love it!!!!

Thursday

A  few more scrap journal pages from last summer and the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

For this page I first used a Crafter's Workshop stencil and some red paint, then a little yellow splatter. Then I hand drew in the outline letters and colored them, added the photo of the yummy burgers, plus the card from this restaurant. Then I added a piece of holey white paper trim and I colored in the holes yellow. Pretty simple but I think it is a good page. Do you agree?

Here's another pretty simple page. I started by covering the page with this funky printed paper. Then I added a bit of matching green scrap on the bottom right and then I added the cactus photo. The big arrow was on a sheet of die cuts, so I attached it, outlined it in orange marker, wrote in the words and stamped the title by bending the stamp to match the curve of the arrow. Then I added a few orange paper reinforcers as a design element and some Viva pearl dimensional paint dots inside of them, except for the 1 that actually is where I put the page into my album.

And this last page, I started by writing the 2 bigs words then coloring them in, adding the frames around them and the frame around the page. I colored all with Copics and then added the lighter colored diagonal lines. I also added the bottom words and the photo which I knew would do some overlapping. Then I took a fine line black marker and just scribbled squiggles all over the open page. I like the effect, but thought the page needed a bit more pop, so I cut the flowers out from a piece of flowered paper, added a velvet covered brad and glued them down.

Those are my pages for today.

I never did show you any birthday celebration photos from last Sunday, did I?

Have a great day!

The Snow is SLOWLY Melting

The snow is going away little by little....I admit, it just feels strange...not November...not with the white on the ground. I actually miss all the brown leaves laying on the ground and the plants wilting away in the gardens as they die off for the season. It looks so weird, colored and green leaves still on lots of trees, and a few bare trees too, and then the white or muddy ground. At work down at the seacoast there is barely any snow left at all, but not here in the woods of New Hampshire.

There's still a lot of people without power in the state too. And the nights have been SO cold. I keep my fingers crossed for them.

I guess I am just a traditionalist when it comes to the seasons and how things are suppose to be.

Think I'll go back to the beach...

Here's a photo of a beach on Ocracoke Island in North Carolina. There's so much beach that on a Sunday in July there's hardly anyone visable...I used some October Afternoon paper, some yellow Viva dimensional paint dots, some die cuts I made with a Cuttlebug die, a few stickers...some from October Afternoon...

This page is the right summer beach color.

This page works for me. I outlined the photo with some white pen and black Sharpie, and I used some Copic markers to color. I found this bookmark at the Outer Bank National Seashore store near Hatteras Light. I like what it adds to the page. Plus it only cost 15 cents...nice price for an embellishment. (And ignore the shadows from the rings of the 3 ring binder I am making the cover of my album.) I love the title and the doodling here.

I also love this page. I distressed the watercolor paper with pink and mango Memories ink, and then I stamped some swirls (Prima) with the same pink ink. I used scraps of paper and a page torn from an old book, added some Viva dimensional white paint dows and a trim scrap and some bakery twine. The saying is stamped onto the page. I love how this page the background is just enough for the photo.

So tonight we have National Honor Society Induction...won't be a super late night but will keep me out a bit later than usual. And it is hump day, already.

This is the last full week of the quarter and I am now in wrap up and coast mode...the kids finishing up work and getting ready for exams on Monday and Tuesday. That is amazing that we are there already.

And you know, it is only November 2cd but it already feels quieter than last month.

Maybe it just feels mentally quieter.

And maybe now that I am knitting the tam hat I wanted to try and I am starting to settle into winter mode...the snow did that to me. Plus this month is so chopped up with Vetran's Day holiday weekend and Thanksgiving weekend...and new classes next week...

Enough of my chatter.

Have a great day!

November!!!!

OK, October gets the award for being the fastest month this year. Even faster than July and August, and they're really fast. And now it is November, and I am really ok with that. (With 1 caveat- no snow this month, please!!!)

Here's an appropriate card for the day, since it is All Souls or Saints Day here  and in Mexico it is Day of the Dead. We don't do anything about it being All Souls Day, but I hear in Mexico Day of the Dead is quite the celebration. Someday I shall get to go to Mexico and see what it is all about, as it sounds wonderfully ethnic and cool.

I made this card on salmon colored cardstock. I stamped the image (it is one great big wonderful stamp by ). I colored using Copics and then distresed the page with some yellow and red ink. I attached it to the card and outlined with black Sharpie. Then using a Martha Stewart graveyard punch I punched out some black paper which I attached and trimmed on the bottom of the card, added some white flower ribbon and stamped the saying (Postmodern Design).

So I figured I'd give you a bit of a peek of our lovely Northeast Weather this past weekend...loaded my photos onto the computer...

Here's the snow coming down on Saturday night.

Sunday morning...

Snapped this from inside my window. The tree is kind of pretty in the snow, I do love the shape of this tree.

And you can see the leaves still on the trees here.

One more snow view first thing Sunday morning.

It is a historic record snow...I guess that's cool in a off beat kind of way, and hopefully people are getting power back...it is kind of slow going for some people.

Anyhow, that's my post for today. Have a good one.

Happy Halloween

It's Halloween!

A day of ghosties and goblins and creepy creatures (and people) of all kinds.

I love Halloween. I don't like to be scared, but I do like trick or treaters and all the decorations. I like the feeling of being a bit apprehensive, but I don't like scary/gory movies or super scary/gory things. You know, chain saw killers and masks...but I do like jack-o-lanterns and black cats and spiders and bats and old cemetaries  and witches. So I guess I am a rated G Halloweener. 

EEEEEK!

So birthday weekend flew by but was fun. Yesterday I seemed to be cooking all day, and then cleaning up, but we had a nice birthday weekend breakfast and a great dinner and then cupcakes for Dave and key lime pie for Katie. But I guess everyone enjoyed their birthday which makes me happy to do it all for them.  Having the snowstorm Saturday night made a lot of extra work, shovelling, snow-blowing, driving Katie to work and then going out to get her...but the snow compacted and melted a bunch yesterday so HOPEFULLY it will all disappear by mid-week. Even though we have school there's still like 160 schools closed down since there's still over 200,000 people without power. BRRRR. Its in the 20's this morning. That means you could get frozen pipes and all that in OCTOBER! Its not even winter yet.

Now that is NOT scary!

So usually for Halloween I something holiday-ish to show you but instead I am going to show you so travel journal pages from the Outer Banks last summer. (I had all my Halloween cards for so many days this month too and  I started a quick little project Friday but the weekend got so busy I didn't get to finish it...quick or not. I

m hoping the spirit stays with me so I can finish it up and then pick up the Halloween stamp bin which is spread out across part of the studio floor.)  I do have snow and birthday pictures but I haven't unloaded them from my camera yet, I will one of these afternoons.

Here's a bright colored fun sign that I mounted on pink paper. I added orange dots and my own hand writing...the dot spots are just some shadow from the window light. On the white edge of the page I added some stamped arrows (Melissa Frances) which I colored and stamped in some sayings.

This is one of my favorite pages. I first used the broken flower stencil from Crafter's Workshop and yellow paint, and then I used the mosiac stencil also from CW woth ablue acrylic paint from Jenny Bowlin. I added the photo, some blue stamped starfish and the saying (both from MSE) and I added some little brownish pearls from Prima and a small tab, stamped with a star, that I die cut.

Here's a journaling page. I make my pages on watercolor paper and sometimes I cover them with paper, but here I left the page blank and first wrote and doodled and colored using black Sharpies and Copics. Then I took some pink Distress Stain and colored the white background but left some white patches to give it that handmake look.

So here's a pink horse page. On the Outer Banks are all these horse statues that are painted in various colors and designs, and here's a pink flying horse, and Dave....The background paper is  from an old book, though it is a pre-made paper (October Afternoon), I didn't make it. The stamps are from Green Pepper Press.

Hope you have spook-tacular day and thanks for visiting!

Birthday #2 For the Weekend...plus...

Here's the birthday girl-20 years old today!!!!! The photo is back from warmer and greener times...before we had a late October nor-easter...I can't believe my baby is going to be 20...no longer a teenager, into a new decade of her life. Wow.

Well the snow seems to have stopped coming down. Dave took a measurement and got 16 inches on our deck! And luckily, we have power since there's like 300,000 people in the state without power. Lets hope it stays on but if not we'll fire up the woodstove and make do. We do have a generator we can run a few things on, so we are not helpless. It is strangely pretty-my oak tress with white on their leaves, the colors tempered with white, but also a little too wintery for late October. Later this week I will put up photos....I don't hate winter, but our northern winters are long enough as it is and I am just not ready for winter to start yet.( Call me a short winter gal- 2 months is about all I like then it needs to go away!It is not even the cold, but I feel stuck with snow. Stuck inside...having to give up my gardens and easy walking...having the extra snow removal work...driving in the snow-we picked up Katie at work last night at 10:30 and the roads were NASTY...but  having a snow day and hanging around inside isn't bad...it just seems it goes on and on and there's SO many days like that) One more month of fall...but you just don't know about the weather in New England. (and I saw on the Weather Channel if was snowing as far south as Washington DC too...wow...this is quite the BIG storm).

So instead of wintery photos, I will show you some beautiful oceany photos from back a few weeks ago on our last trek onto the water for the season. It was a summery day for sure then-well into the 80's and sunny.

terns....

and a fishing boat

part of the fleet (here below) in Portsmouth Harbor

This is kind of an interesting little building on the wharf

The birthday girl a few weeks ago.

Lobster traps on a floating dock

Not so great shot of the current going into Little Bay under the General Sullivan Bridge.

And here's one of the bridges from Portsmouth, NH into Kittery, Maine along the Piscataqua River between Great Bay and the Atlantic.

Ok, that's a lot of photos, but I feel so much better showing them and being reminded they were only a couple of weeks back shows how quickly things can change. So this snow will melt and we'll go back to fall and cool.  BUT, at least it is Sunday and I can stay home and at least we don't have to have a snow day at school already. And at least it should melt since we'll be back in the 50's as the week progresses, which is a GREAT thought to keep in your head. And, it is a good day to go hide in the studio for awhile or to read on the couch all afternoon...and we are having a big birthday dinner later this afternoon before Katie goes back to school...and of course, birthday cake(s) (well cupcakes and pie) for both Dave and Katie!

Thanks for stopping by.

It's Birthday #1 This Weekend

This handsome guy is celebrating his birthday today!!!!!

He's catching up to me...51 years old!!

Love you big guy!

***

Ok, and this weather is TOO confused this year. The other night we had a lovely dusting of snow...but at least the roads stayed only wet and not white. I do remember other Octobers when we'd get a little dusting, and I do remember COLD snaps like this one we are having now. Here's a few photos I snapped yesterday morning.

Flowers on my deck snowed over.

Dave's truck and the leaves STILL on the trees.

Harley and my garden.

My yard. The leaves are actually prettier colors now than they were back when they were suppose to be at peak color. Seems our warm fall has pushed everything back.

And that might be a problem

Because today they are forcasting a nor-easter to come in...starting as heavy wind and rain and changing to snow.

5-10 inches of snow!!!

I never remember a BIG winter storm in October, and I have lived in New England for all 51 years of my life. I've even lived much further north in New England, in North-Central Maine, up into the spruce-fur forests, and we never had a nor-easter in October.

Plus if a lot the leaves come down and mix with the snow.

This morning we need to get out and clean out the yard and I need to bake Dave some cupcakes for his birthday celebration...especially since Katie needs to work tonight and we'll be driving her since the truck has 4 wheel drive and her car doesn't.

Dave gets to have snowstorm on his birthday!

Happy Birthday, this will be one to remember!!!