Amazing August!!!

  I feel bad that I have not blogged for a whole two months, I think... Summer is such a busy time and when it is hot I am a slug. This is the end of August and things are cooling down getting ready for Fall. Spring and Fall are my favorite seasons.
  Our garden this year did pretty well. I am especially proud of these sunflowers

Sunflowers from our garden.

that I grew this year from seed. I plan on growing many flowers this way to help save money.
  We grew cauliflower, but I think the grocery store's looked better than ours. We will not be growing that again. Also, the broccoli looked so good with the  leaves and all but the broccoli heads were tiny. Not enough to even have a meal. Not growing that again, either.
  The beans, however, are great. Giving some away 'cause we have so many.

For Andrea...

  I have so many sisters that we draw names to celebrate our birthdays. I got Andrea so one of her gifts was this portfolio like photo album. I had a ball making this. Ginger from My Sister's Scrapper made one, so I just ran with her idea.
  I used my favorite paper, Graphic 45. It is their Secret Garden collection. I embellished the front with some metal items. I also used a stamp from Rubber Monger that I had picked up from somewhere.
   The inside has a pocket on the left for tags and such. The opposite side has a waterfall for many photos to go.

Inside album portfolio

 Again I used more of the Secret Garden
collection. Love the colors and the little girl in the garden. Hope Andrea likes it.


  I have been having alot of fun this summer. Russ and I went to Canobie Lake Park with my sister, Rochelle and her husband, Mark. It was a little hot that day,but we enjoyed the rides.

Too Scary

 I would not go on this ride. It goes way up and then drops you little by little. No way... I don't like heights. Good picture though...
  We had a lovely birthday get together for my sister, Rochelle. It is so nice that they live only a few miles away from us.
  I made a double pocket card for her birthday card that included tags with pictures of her as a kid. This is an easy card to make. I love it. You have to use double sided paper to get the nice effect you see in the picture.
  My sister, Chris, used this same double sided technique and put it in her 8 x 8 mini album  as a page. I think I will use this idea, too.

Double pocket fold card

   Again, I used Graphic 45 paper collection called Botanical Garden. I love the pockets that came with it. You can see that the paper is double sided with the purple pocket edge.

Inside the Rochelle's card.

  I love the bunny I used inside the card. I am not sure where I got that from, but I am into bunnies lately. I used a ruffled ribbon around the circle and stamped, "Happy Birthday".

Geese on Madawaska Lake

  We just came back from a week long trip to Northern Maine. Boy, did we have fun. It is beautiful country up there. We stayed at a camp on Madawaska Lake. It was just on the edge of the lake and it was perfect. We could hear the loons every night and most mornings. We golfed and ate our way through Stockholm, Caribou, and Limestone. What fun!                         While we were away the funeral of  Elaine's mother was held. Elaine is my best friend. This was not a surprise since her mother has been struggling with Alzheimer's for  a long while now.  Her mother was such a lovely person. She is at peace now which is a comfort to her family.
 I made this card for Elaine after I got back from camp.

For Elaine

I used Stampin Up's Garden Silhouettes and Close as a Memory stamps for this card. The ink is also from Stampin Up: Old Olive and Brilliant Blue,

  I leave you with a slide show of some of the fun we had at Northern Maine. I hope to post more often now that summer is winding down. Looking forward to the cooler climate. Happy Labor Day!