Junking Fun!

Love her!

  My sisters and I went junkin' with our husbands last weekend up around Bangor. We had alot of fun. My best find was this planter head. They are usually made out of cement and go for around 150.00. This one is made of fiberglass, I believe.
  I got it half price for 18.00. Color me happy! I have it in my living room right now, but I plan on putting it outside and planting real flowers/ plants in it. I love it when I can get something I want at the price I want. Who doesn't?
  I also had great fun with my friend, Sue. She came over and we worked on a wedding album she wants to give as a gift. I learned a few new tricks myself. Sue makes jewelry , so she had good ideas for her album.
  One idea which I think I am going to use is instead of using wire or a swivel clasp to add my chunky charms to the spine, I am going to use ribbon. Sue came up with this  idea and it looked fabulous!

Love this idea!

The cover....

   We also did some embossing on the spine using my Stampin Up set called Baroque Motifs with the flourish stamp. We embossed it in silver. Love how it came out. Really gives the album an elegant look.    
   The cover was Sue's design. She did a great job. I love the pink and black combination. We used some purple Stickles I had to add a little pizzazz to the front.    
 

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   The inside of the album was equally elegant. Sue had brought with her a collection of wedding paper

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that was perfect for her work.
The roses and tags with lovey sayings made the inside look amazing.
  I had never slanted the belly bands quite so much ,but it really holds in the tags much better than

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      straight across or up and down. I think I will try this idea, too.
   I went to a Stampin Up party at my sister, Rochelle's house and purchased the new tag punch they had in the catalog. I think this will give a nice look to the tags I use in the future.
   I am working on two projects right now. Well, three if you count finishing up the rehearsal dinner invites. They are almost done.
  The other two are an 8 x 8 album using Graphic 45 By the Sea and some Vendor thank you notes for my son's up coming wedding. I will put pics up of those projects when I am done. I would like to do a video of the 8 x 8 album, but I have to remember how to do it. And I need to buy a tripod which would make my life so much easier. My sister says that Walmart sells them real reasonable. So off I go shopping....wish me luck!            

Happy Day, Elaine!

  I finished making my BFF, Elaine her birthday card. It is the Card in a Box design. Love this design. It is so much fun making for someone. I think it is a relatively new card design. I am starting to see this type of card everywhere on the net. I have a board on Pinterest just for this type of card. There are some gorgeous ones out there.
  I cased this card from my Pinterest board. As always I changed some elements to go with materials that I h

Elaine loves flowers.

have on hand.

Another view

 I think I could have
really added a few
more flowers in the middle now that I look at the picture.
But it still looks pretty good.
  I couldn't help using the "Party Chick" stamp on the flap.
I think she is wicked cute. The stamp is from My Favorite Things. There was a tiny ballon that came with the set, but I wanted a bigger one, so I used my Martha Stewart  balloon punch instead.

Love you, Elaine!!!!

  I really like how you can make the back of the box where
you can write a lovely sentiment or poem. As you can see from
what we wrote on the back of Elaine's card that she  is a special person.  
 

Lenny's card

 I forgot to post the birthday card I made for my future brother-in-law, Lenny. We had a birthday party for him last weekend. It was alot of fun.
  This card I cased from Pinterest, too. I used colors from Lenny's favorite baseball team: The Yankees.  I love using the circles everywhere. I like glitter. Not sure Lenny does that much, but it makes me happy to see glitter anywhere.
  I am now working on making an 8 x 8 album. I have made 6 x 6 albums and thought a larger one might be cool. I love Graphic 45 paper. I am using their newest line: By the Sea. Will be showing you the results as soon as I have it done.
   My friend, Elaine and Sue are finishing up their album projects with a little help from me. They are newbies to this kind of project; although they are both crafty  people. I will show some of their finished work, too. Til next time pray for warmth and no snow.

March Fun!!

Having fun working on the albums....

   I have had alot of fun this March with projects and birthday surprises... My sister's fiance, Lenny, has a birthday in March. We all got together to surprise him with a luncheon. Adrianne wanted to make a 6 x 6 album for him. Lenny's daughter, Kate, came along for the surprise; plus she wanted to learn how to make these albums, too. We had a ball. They worked extremely hard at finishing them in a half-day. Wow.. we were tired at the end.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   The albums came out great. I loved the paper collections the girls had purchased for

Fun!!

Using magnets for closures...

Surprise!!!

 their albums. It makes it so much easier to choose the designer paper because it all coordinates. I highly recommend doing this for your albums. We use coupons at Michael's or A.C. Moore to cut down on the cost of making the album.

Wicked fun....down on the cost of making the a

The cake was yummy...

Great page... 

 We had great fun with everyone enjoying the food and all. I made crockpot  lasagna. It was so easy  I found the recipe on Pinterest. That seems to be my "cookbook" lately. Love how it came out.

This was yummy, too.

  I finished a mini..mini... album project or they can be cards, that my sister, Rochelle, showed me how to do. She found it on Pinterest and did some of her own . Check out her blog: Creative Corner Studio Blog for more pics of her mini- paper bag albums/cards. Too cute!      Creative Corner Studio

Inside pocket

Cover: I used Graphic 45 Bird Song paper

Little booklet for pics or message

The open end of bad holds a photmat.  

  Love it when I can use scraps of my designer paper. No waste. Well, I am working with Elaine, my BFF.
She is coming over for help in putting pictures in her 6 x 6 album. I am going to start making an 8 x 8 album.
   Hoping the snow leaves us soon.

Good to be Home!

  I love going to Disney , but boy it is good to be home. I have missed crafting in my studio and getting projects done. The weather has turned warmer here. But we are waiting for another snowstorm today. Bummer. The snow won't last due to the sun being at a better angle with the longer days, too. Yeah!
  I finished working on a mini-mini-album. I found one at a store some time ago and wanted to see if I could make one of my own. It was really quite easy.
 

Front cover

Inside

Folds out

 I really like how it folds out quite easily and does the same when you are folding it back together again.
  I also like how it doesn't take too many embellishments to make the cover look great!  I plan on making more of these to sell at a Christmas Fair .
                                                                                     

Folds in again.....

   I am excited about my sister, Adrianne, coming for a visit this weekend. We are going to work on making a 6x6 album for her. She is bringing her boyfriend and his daughter, Kate. Kate wants to make one, too. I plan on having fun helping them to find their creative side in choosing paper and embellishments.
  We had a great time at Disney. I will leave you with a few pictures of our last day there. We went to the Safari at Animal Kingdom 'cause Tom missed it when he went golfing. We also went to Epcot the last night for dinner. We ate at the Japanese Pavillion. Had a wonderful meal there.

Japan

  We rediscovered the France. We had not been up towards the building for awhile 'cause there was a pastry store there. We decided to skip our diet and check it out. They have expanded the pastry store to include sandwiches. They have also added an ice cream shop. We will be going to France more often now.

Ooh..la...la!

   The storm has not started yet. I guess I will work on a birthday card for Lenny, Adrianne's boyfriend and wait to do some shoveling later. What fun!!!

Our Fourth Day at Disney

  We had another nice day at Disney even though they had predicted rain. We did not see any. In fact, the sun came out in the afternoon.

Toy Story Mania.. Who doesn't like Mr. Potato Head

   We had tried to get a fast pass to Toy Story Mania the night before to no success. It said Standby Only. They had given out all the fast passes. So we thought let's get there early and take our chances. We were smart. We got there and they let us in. We went right on 'cause there were no fast passes yet. As soon as we got off the wait time was 50 minutes.

Cool signage.

     Russ beat me again, but I love this ride. It is the most popular one in all the parks. Disney would do well to make a ride like this at each park.
    Chris had not been to The Legend of Jack Sparrow since it is a brand new offering at Hollywood Studios. It shows off how the technology can be used.
   It was so amazing Chris thought Johnny Depp was actually standing in front of us. Pretty cool..

  

Nice show

  Next, we walked to The Great Movie Ride. Chris had not been on it for
awhile and Russ loves old movies. Disney has done a nice job paying tribute to the stars and their famous movies. I like this ride, too.

Shopping at Hollywood Studios

     It was getting towards noon, so we started walking out. On the way we visited the gift shops that line the Main Street.   Didn't really see much that we wanted. But some great photo ops. Love the hat.                                                                 

It is all about the movies at Hollywood Studios.

   We picked up Phillis and took the boat across the bay to eat at Big River Grill on Boardwalk.

Good food and prices

We ate outside. It was lovely. We won't be doing this when we get home.
  Mom would have loved this, but she is feeling under the weather with a slight cold. She has been resting for most of this trip.
   We went back to the room and decided we wanted to check out The Flower and Garden Show at Epcot. We walked over in the sunlight, so nice.
  The show was nice, but not spectacular. I did get some nice pics of butterflies in the tent. Which was wicked hot. I guess butterflies like that .. The fairy houses were here instead of outside like last year. They were cute, though.

Cute fairy house

Another one

Pretty one

Fairy house tucked in the wood.

Butterfly art

We had really tired feet by now. When I got back to the room I discovered I had a blister on my toes. So we rested for a bit. Tom came back from a day of golfing. Mom was feeling a little better.

Chris with Phinneas and Ferb. I don't now how to spell their names.

 We ate at Red Lobster again for dinner. Great seafood.

We saw the end of The Electrical Parade. Not my favorite 'cause the music is too monotonous.

  We sat around and chatted for awhile and then took the bus to Magic Kingdom. We wanted to see the fireworks. We didn't realize it was late night and they wouldn't be showing them until ten. Too late for us We went on Pirates ride and then took the train around the park to header back to the buses. It was a lovely day.
  Tomorrow I am not sure what we are doing. It is suppose to rain and be thundery. We might go check out a Hobby Lobby here. Who knows ?

Timing is Everything at Disney.....

   We had another great day at Disney. Our sister, Phillis, drove from her home to come stay with us a few days. We met her in the parking lot and got her settled in . 
   Tom was golfing for the day so Chris, Russ, and I headed to Animal Kingdom. Now it is pretty busy down here. I think there are some schools that are on spring break. We thought we might have a little wait getting on the Safari Ride, but we walked in line about 10 minutes before we were right there waiting for our jeep to seat us.

The jeep ahead of us....

  We really got to see alot of animals and it was around ten o'clock. The weather was a little sticky, but not too bad.

They were walking across the road.

We saw these deer like animals as they were trying to cross the road. One of them got by while these two were waiting patiently for us to move on by. Really beautiful to see.

Beautiful.....

Reaching...

 Love, love seeing all these giraffes. It is the most we have every seen in one place on this ride.
They were all kinda together eating. The giraffe on the right here was using its tongue to reach those vines hanging down.

Majestic.....

Close up.....

   They were not bothered by us in any way. I just love seeing them in their environment.
  Another animal that was not bothered by us in any way was the lion. He was just snoozing up on the high rocks as if we weren't there. This is the second time he has been there when I have been on this ride.
  His mate is below him between the rocks, but I couldn't get a shot of her.

Nap time around ten..

  We left the safari ride and were just in time for the Flights of Wonder show. We have seen this before,but
they change it a little each time we go and the tour guide is a hoot.

The Bald Eagle

  They emphasize conservation during the show and really do a good job introducing the different birds in a humorous way. One bird flew by so close I could feel the wind as it passed. NO sticking your hands up here.
  Russ wanted to ride Mount Everest. Chris and I waited to get a shot of him on the ride, but we missed him. He was out before we could see him. Rats..

Mount Everest

We were done at Animal Kingdom and it was lunchtime. Perfect since everyone was streaming into this park. We caught the bus back and met up with Phillis and Mom. We wanted to eat at Beaches and Cream. Russ and I had never eaten there so we were excited to try it out. It did not disappoint.

Old style decor, but really done well.

   It is not a big place at all right next to the main pool at Beachclub. We were really lucky to get in without a reservation.
  The food was really
good. We had sandwiches and fries. Nice vacation food. We shared a brownie sundae which was really yummy.

Pastami  rye

Hamburger and fries

 We went back to the room to rest our feet and get re-energized for Downtown Disney. Mom decided not to go. We thought we had worn her out enough so we took the car.
  Downtown Disney is always busy. They are building a walking bridge between Saratoga Springs and Downtown Disney. They have started construction already.

Big changes....

  They are closing Team Mickey store to make three stores in its place. Also, Pleasure Island on the West side is closing to make room for different stores. It will really be an interesting change. I heard they wanted to rename the place Saratoga Springs.
  We ended the day at Downtown Disney. I have a few pictures of our fun there. Tomorrow we will go to Hollywood Studios. Hopefully to catch the Toy Story Mania ride. But I don't know if we can get on. I tried to get a Fast Past on my computer and there weren't any available for tomorrow. Well, timing is everything....

Showing the way....

He squirts water.

Love him in the World of Disney store.

Ceiling is very interesting..

Nighttime at Downtown Disney

Candy store ...ummm....