CHA is Here...Check out Queen & Company New Sampler Buckets

It is CHA (Craft & Hobby Association) tradeshow time again ! Woooohooooo! I just love seeing all the new stuff that I will soon be lusting after and adding to my scrap stash to beautify my projects :)

One company that never disappoints me is Queen and Company and this year is no exception. They have come out with the cutest Sampler Bucket ! Too dang cute and I just love the variety of things that will come in the buckets....Here is an excerpt from their website about these new buckets :

"Queen & Co New Bucket Kits Included in this release are new Queen & Co Bucket kits. Fabulous themed embellishments poured into adorable, reuseable buckets! Grab yourself a Bucket of Baby, Boy, Girl, Summer, Magic, Queen or Love. Buckets are overflowing with fabulous embellishments including, big brads, glitter brads, flocked brads, printed brads, sequin flowers, felt flowers and ribbon buckles! Everything you could ever need to embellish your hand crafted creations!"

I can hardly wait to get my hands on those buckets...I love their embellishments. I can't wait to see what they debut tomorrow.

Join Me In Appreciating the Small Things...

I am lounging on my back patio this afternoon enjoying an unusally gorgeous sunny day for this time of year. Normally I would still be at work but I had a doctors appointment mid-afternoon that gave me the freedom to come home earlier than ususal.

As I sit here enjoying the sunshine on my face and the sound of birds chirping, and my favorite songs playing in the background, I am reminded how important it is to appreciate the small things in life.

Take time my friends to just sit and enjoy a glorious day. Notice the shadows playing across the back fence and the sounds of nature all around you. Life is fleeting and we lose so much by rushing around and not taking a moment for ourselves.

Rest assured your chores won't notice if you don't get to them for 5 minutes !

Join me in my backyard oasis and take 5 for yourselves.

I Am Especially Proud To Be An American Today !

My heart swelled with pride today as I watched history unfold as President Barack Obama took office. When Obama said "The challenges we face are real and they will be met"... I truly believe that. Each and everyone of us needs to take time to do something for our greater community and we will make a positive difference in the world around us.

I am so glad to see a President that can motivate Americans to get involved. I pray that he can motivate people to stay involved.

Best wishes to you President Obama and your family...keep the faith and stay close to each other in the upcoming four years that will certainly bring times of joy and strife!

I am Especially Proud to Be An American Today! YES WE CAN !!!

ROAD TRIP !!!!

Last year we took the grand kids on a Road Trip to Dallas to the Annual Irish Festival. To pass the time along the way we played car games like 'I Spy", License Plate game and sang songs like B-I-N-G-O. And of course, no road trip would be complete without snacks...pretzels and juice were among the favorites.

The Festival is held in a beautiful outdoor event area and we had a beautiful sunny day. Lots of great Irish food, Shopping for celtic items, people in authentic costumes roaming around and a stage for Irish bands from around the world that totally rocks all day long !

There is a special kids area with loads of games and rides. The kids had so much fun and we got some amazing pictures of them on a whirly ride that they road again and again!

To keep the memories alive from this special trip, I made this mini album using the amazing Cosmo Cricket blackboard book and their fun and playful "Get Happy" line.

The kids are already asking us if we will take them again this year.....I see another great Road Trip in our future :)

LEAVE A COMMENT ON THIS POST AND I WILL DRAW A NAME TO WIN SOME GOODIES TO MAKE YOUR OWN ROAD TRIP ALBUM !

What Do You Love the Sounds Of ?

It's a cold winters night here...well cold for where I live anyways! It is about 46 degrees and the temperature keeps dropping. It is supposed to get down near freezing tonight. Definitely wintery for us. LOL !!!

As I am bundled up tonight, I have been surfing some of my favorite websites and found on one message board where someone posed the question...."What Do You Love The Sounds Of "?

I was so intrigued by this question, I have really given this some thought tonight and come up with the following list:

I LOVE the Sounds of:

• a gentle rain during the night ....
• the soft sound of my husband's snore while sleeping next to me...
• the warm laughter of my girlfriends as we share a glass of wine or scrapbook...
• my grown daughter's voices when they call and say "Mom, I have a question for you"...
• sounds of college football games in the fall from the college near my house...
• the sweet little voice of my granddaughter asking me if she can come over because she wants to scrapbook with “her Noni"...
• the quick pace of my husband's feet as he runs into the room to give me a quick kiss (again and again)...
• children giggling hysterically about something really silly
• my Dad calling and saying "I love you"... (you never get too old to hear a parent say that)

These are just some of the things that come readily to my mind. As I look at this list, I feel the strong urge to document this on a scrapbook page so I will definitely be doing that later. Sharing thoughts and feelings in such a meaningful way may help give future generations another bit of information about who I am.

Now, what Sounds Do YOU Love? Give it some thought...it will surely bring a smile to your face ! Have a lovely evening and stay warm and cozy wherever you are tonight.

Finally....good bye Christmas 2008!

Good news - My cold is under control, my eye is a normal color again and I finally feel more like my self again. Thank goodness!

After getting some much needed rest the past couple of days, today I tackled putting up all my holiday decorations. Yes, I am that far behind this year already. Oh well, it just means I got to enjoy my Santa collection a few more days. I still BELIEVE in SANTA, don't you :)

Christmas never seems to last long enough...all those weeks of planning and shopping and looking forward to enjoying the holiday with family and friends. Then it is a whirl of events, eating goodies, gift openings with paper flying, hugs hello and goodbye and whoooooshhhhhhh...the holidays are gone!

I wish we could just stop and enjoy the holidays a little more than we seem to every year, don't you? As a final swansong to Christmas 2008, I wanted to post a few pics of my favorite holiday decor since I never got around to that this year.

I cross stitched this little pillow a few years ago...


This 1950's Santa is my prized Santa possession...but
don't tell all my other Santa's that! LOL

This year I did an ALL Snowman dining room table decor...

it was a nice change of pace.

Just a few more in my Santa Collection...there are more actually

scattered all over my house.

P.S. We don't have a fireplace in this house so

I got creative and hung the stockings from

the Santa bookshelf instead...Santa was still

able to locate it and fill them up :)

Our fresh Christmas Tree this year was very fragrant for a long time.

It made coming home each day such a nice surprise when you

opened the front door. Oh, and guess what...my tree is also ALL SANTAS....

And Yes, I do realize I have a slight "santa addiction" but with his twinkling eyes and jolly laugh, who could resist him ! Have a wonderful week. I will post some scrapbook projects I finished last week so stay tuned.

Aaaaaaaaachooooooooo!

Well, just as I made big plans to start posting every day I have come down with a heck of a cold. I have been sniffling, sneezing and running a low grade fever for 3 days now. And today, I woke up and my eye was swollen and red. Guess what? After three hours at the doctor's office....don't get me started on how long I was sitting in a room filled with other sick people. The doctor said I have congunctivitious...isn't that special. I feel terrible but wanted to atleast make a quick post today. Heading to bed to get some much needed rest.

Hope you are feeling happy and healthy tonight !

Welcome 2009 !!!

I am sooooooo glad it is FINALLY 2009. The last few months of 2008 have been tough to get through and I was very very thankful to see the backside of '08!

GULP......has it really been 4 months since I last posted here??? So sorry to those of you that follow this blog regularly but I just lost my mojo to Blog OR Scrap.

However 2009 will see me being a more dedicated scrapper and blogger so rest assured you will once again be getting your "inspiration" fix here :)

Let's see..what have I been doing for the past 4 months:
* Helping Hubby deal with my BIL's death in July...it was truly tragic and we were devastated.

* Working like crazy launching a new HR application at my office...it became much more complicated and time consuming than I had anticipated so I spent many a day and night working through to get it launched by year end. Thank goodness that is over !

* Surviving Hurricane IKE in mid- September....12 days without power can really test a girl's resolve to blog or scrap or be civil ...LOL. We are fine, house is fine , just a huge inconvenience.

* Celebrating my 49th birthday mid-hurricane power outage with grilled food and s'mores in the backyard with family and friends.

* Planning, postponing due to Ike and re-planning a WAKE for my BIL...we ended up with about 75 people coming to a celebration of Robert's life party....it was a fitting tribute to Robert and helped ease his lost for many of his friends and our family.

* Decided to make a BIG personal lifestyle change in October...entered a weight maintenance program through Methodist Hospital system and have already lost 35 lbs !!! Woooohoooooo. I am about halfway to reaching my goal.

* Completed a home project to re-assign room functions in my house which included shifting lots of furniture from room to room. We now have a room for use as a dedicated library for hubby AND I have a new HUGE scrap area with room for up to 5 of my nearest and dearest to scrap with me PLUS have room for my scrap stash (promise to post pics later).

* Helped my dear friend launch her new graphic arts business by hosting an open house to introduce her new business to new clients. So fun...turned out great.

* Packed up and sold my BIL's house. Lots of work but we finally can put that aspect of his passing behind us.

* Took the entire family to Renissance Festival the Friday after Thanksgiving and have a lot of fun hanging out together, eating yummy food, seeing some shows and going on some rides.

* Planning and hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas and Birthday activities for my family and friends. All the decorating, shopping, meal preparations and gift wrapping seemed to be nearly endless activities for November and December. I am sure you can all relate to that!

* Planned and hosted our company Holiday Party at the #1 Seafood Restaurant voted by Bon Appetit ...REEF. Food was fabulous, employees had a marvelous time and the staff was wonderful. Could not have turned out better :) YIPEEE !!!

* Attended a broadway production of White Christmas with my dear friend, Anne. It was a birthday gift to me I had waited months to do and I was not disappointed. The music and costumes were spectacular AND at the end of the night they made it SNOW (ok it was bubbles) down on the audience....what a fun surprise for all of us who attended !

* Enjoyed a 4 hour snow here in Mid-December which only happens about every 20 years ...it was so beautiful but I don't know how all of you in winter wonderful deal with all that cold for weeks on end.

* Helped my DGD celebrate her 6th birthday...hard to believe our little princess is growing up !

* Attended the Rice Owls Texas Bowl game...Enjoyed a tailgate party with dear friends before hand and finished the game off with a spectacular fireworks show....leave it up to to us in TEXAS to combine FOOTBALL and FIREWORKS !!

* Learned how to download music to my IPOD....so MUCH FUN !! And so easy too!

* Instituted "Jammie Time" at our house and watched a zillion movies over the past four weeks.

* Had girlfriends over for a "scrap day" at my house. FINISHED BG Calendar AND a Mini album about a trip we took in 2008 to Irish Festival in Dallas.

That should just about catch you up with me for the past 4 months.

Here are a few pics of some of these events. More pics to follow in the next posts.

Some Christmas Decor...my special Santa Treasures.


Swinging on the BIG SWING at Renaissance Festival !




SNOW falling in HOUSTON. See it....on our BBQ Grill Cover!



Friends gathered at BIL's WAKE...




DH and I hosting the Viking Send Off at BIL's Wake




Happy New Year Everyone !!