New fun stuff....Waiting, PL, Mandala

Hello, I'm excited to be linking up to some new things today. First up is a blog that my dear friend Shahrul is a part of, A Beautiful World. Each week they give you a prompt and you share a picture/story to go with that prompt and link up. I've been waiting to do this for weeks and finally made the time and the prompt is perfect for how I've been feeling the last 2 weeks. The prompt this week is "WAITING" I am in the middle on this, can wait patiently for some things and not for others. These two weeks were the later, waiting for my kids to come home from camp. Each were difficult in their own way, I didn't like sending Sam off when Summer just got back. It was too soon and my heart just wasn't into another week of  "waiting" and "worrying" about one of my kids. I try not to feel this way but sorry it is in my nature so strong nothing can stop it. This picture above isn't the cutest or even him smiling that cute smile of his but it's all I could get from my tired boy once home. This picture does say a lot though, he's back home, he's in his favorite spot, eating a popicle and watching tv with his ipod beside him. I missed seeing him in this spot and doing his "norm".

 

While waiting for you I prayed for you

While waiting for you I looked at your old pictures

While waiting for you I enjoyed chic flicks with your sisters

While waiting for you I worried you'd be too cold

While waiting for you I worried the other boys would pick on you

While waiting for you I worried you'd get hurt from the paintballs

While waiting for you I did some sketching

While waiting for you the house had no boy laughs in it

While waiting for you the girls took bike rides on their new bikes

While waiting for you I didn't have anyone to tuck in

While waiting for you we made you happy mail that you didn't get till the last day, sigh

While waiting for you my heart was sad and empty

While waiting for you Summer got contacts

While waiting for you dad and I had troubles sleeping, same as when Summer was gone

While waiting for you I was thankful the big storm didn't come

While waiting for you my arms missed hugging you

While waiting for you I was hoping you were having a fun time

While waiting for you I realized even more how much I love you and am soooo happy you are my SON. My BOY. The last link to this family and it wouldn't be the same without you in it.

Now it is YOU who is "waiting" to go back again next summer. (sigh)

 

Shahrul, I'm so happy that I finally got this chance to share at http://www.our--beautiful--world--365spot.com and look forward to doing more. Thank you also to the other wonderful hosts at this blog, I did poke around and love the stories and photos you've been sharing. Please go and visit them to see what they are 'waiting" for this week. The picture above was taken by my Sony Cyber Shot and no editing was done. Thanks ladies for letting me a part of your beautiful world.

Below is my Project Life pages that tell you more about my week while Sam was gone.

here is the full spread, his favorite color mixed with some blue. I did change the format from last weeks pages, kinda felt this was more fitted for Sam. He has read it and loved it. Click on the image to see/read it better. If you need close ups let me know and I will do that too, this post already got a little longer then planned. See the last picture on the bottom right side, that is what Sam looked like when I picked him up. Covered in dirt and happy with the great time he had at camp. I had to do all his laundry once home. It smelled soooo bad, he mixed wet things in with clean things so everything had to be washed. It's good to have him home and things back to normal now.

Next up is something new for me too, love that I find all these cool blogs and awesome people.

I'm sharing my first of hopefully many Mandala's with you. I stumbled upon this amazing blog belonging to Dawn and she creates these gorgeous and creative mandalas. I didn't realize till yesterday that she tries to use only dead/dying things from nature. This way you still find the beauty in them even longer. I have been drooling over hers for about a month now and finally it hit me yesterday while I was trimming the hedges. While making a pile of the clippings it dawned on me that these would be perfect for a mandala. So I told the little ones I was watching my idea and they didn't understand but they wanted to help. We gathered the clippings, leaves, petals, flowers, mulch chips, golf balls just because they are fun and got to work in the driveway. Well the wind kept blowing it and messing it up so we took our goodies inside and created this fun mandala. I couldn't remember the exact way, if there even is a right way to make one. The kids got to help put things where they thought they should go and I guided them a bit but wanted them to have the freedom to create it too. We left it up all day and shared it with others that came over and my hubby when he got home. I enjoyed this so much that I couldn't sleep well due to thinking of other ways to create my next mandala, might just need a nap today. You can find Dawn's blog at http://girlunwinding.wordpress.com please visit her and check out the amazing, gorgeous mandalas she makes. I am finding others doing this and sharing thru her blog too. It's amazing what everyone is coming up with and just using things you find in your own yard, park, garden. Thanks Dawn for sharing your wonderful talent with us.

We are having a cool down for the last week, feels like fall is sneaking it's way in a bit too early. So no summer swimming/beach for us this week. The kids are enjoying their bike rides though and we have been playing tennis and thanks to Renee's new obsession with the game of "LIFE" they are playing that all day too. Hope everyone is doing well this week. Thanks so much for your visits and comments that make my day. Have a great week and please visit these links and let me know what you think. HUGS!!

Week without Summer PL and Hello Story

HELLO PROJECT LIFE!!! I had so much fun putting this week's pages together, kinda made up for the sad feelings all week with Summer being gone. I had some help from the class Hello Story which started 3 weeks ago, LOVE LOVE THIS CLASS!! I've always loved Ali Edward's style of writing and she goes all out in this class, so awesome watching her put layouts together and hearing her thoughts on them. What  I really love too is that each week she gives us one prompt/idea/printables for Project Life, you know how much PL means to me so this is just icing on the cake. Her idea came right in time for the week Summer would be gone and it was so fun to put this together. I used my iphone for these and kept track all week of what we did without Summer and what her siblings did in her place while she was gone. I learned a few things about Summer while she was gone, besides the worries, lack of sleep, bad feelings in the pit of my stomach, praying the weather would cool down for her I found out a few things. First there was just over a gallon left of milk before grocery day, proof that she is the one drinking all the milk, that she teases/pesters me the most of all the kids, that she hangs out with me the most, that Renee and Sam got along better without that 3rd party in the middle of them, the house was quiet and man do I love seeing her smile everyday.

We all missed her like crazy, Sam kept asking about her all day, everything reminded us of her, we were so happy to get her back on Friday. So how about some close-ups....

here is the left side, click on the image to see and read better. I love the title for this week and have already started this week the same about Sam being gone. Summer already read this and loved it so I'm sure in a few years she will love it again. Oh, and she did have a good time at horse camp by the way. She was tired and learned a lot but was glad to come home and shower and sleep in her bed.

here is the right side. I had a few different ways on how to end the week and chose this one. Almost wasn't going to put the two last photos of her but want her story in here too, this week was just as important for her so I did some journaling on one card for her. I love the photos from this week, was a nice way to be reminded of her all week, writing down the notes and taking certain type of photos.

Thanks so much Ali for your inspiration and sharing them with us!!

We dropped Sam off Sunday night and wanted to go back a couple of hours later to get him, even the girls miss him BUNCHES!! We barely got thru yesterday and today but thanks to the pastor at our church going out there today called us and assured me that Sam was doing GREAT and his words to him were "I'm having a BLAST!!" so now we feel a little better and will hang in there till Friday. I can't wait to do another week with this same look. The house is even quieter and no little boy hugs and tucking in at night makes me sad, one day he will be too big for these, sigh.

 

Thank you thank you everyone for your wonderful comments on my garden post. So happy you enjoyed it and it worked out ok for my SOC post, good news is the garden did ok even with all the water damage. All that rain just made it grow even more!! I will keep sharing these pictures with you.

Have a great week everybody and thanks again for your visits!!

A WALK THRU MY GARDEN AND THE LAST SOC

Hello there, are you ready for a walk thru my garden. It's doing pretty good this year and I've enjoyed it more then any other year. We've already had some of the onions and I just picked the zucchini and squash, still need to cook them and can't wait for the corn to be ready. So put on your sunscreen and let's go walking!

I've had so much fun watching them grow and Rich is happy that I'm finally out there with him. All these years I tease him about his constant checking on the garden to see what's grown and now I do see that it all grows, like by the hour and definitely overnight. I call them my babies and sing to them about growing and how pretty they are. Kinda like talking to your plants, haha! Love these bright colors and seeing the joy in Rich's face when he's out there.

Oh and these leaves that grow on them, HOLY COW they are HUGE!! I have to dig my way thru them just to find the veggies hiding under them. I LOVE LOVE them and have been sketching them, need to practice more but enjoying them! I swear these grow by the hour and the biggest ones have the smallest veggies in them are just gorgeous!!

the tomatoes and peppers are doing great!! Rich loves peppers as do Sam and Summer, the tomatoes are for me and Sienna. She loves picking and eating them when she's over. So cool how excited she gets about them and knows that she helped plant them. Rich takes the peppers to work and passes out to friends. His co-workers wait for this each summer and fight over who gets his veggies. He is so proud of his hard work and sharing it with others just makes him even happier.

here is the corn, getting taller everyday. the sunflowers are doing great too

the clouds have been AMAZING AND GORGEOUS this week too

we watched the sunset from the lake, haven't done this in over 10years. MUST DO THIS MORE!!

Today is this sweet girls birthday. Hard to believe she was Sam's age here. Now she is 15 today and is still just as sweet and cute. We missed her this week while away at church camp. So glad she is back home and making us laugh again. Sam was going nuts without her here, no bedtime hugs and play time. Funny that purple was her favorite color then, she never goes near it now. Happy 15th birthday Summer, thank you for bringing such joy and smiles into our lives.

Today we are waking up to a night full of rain, thunder, lightening, I barely slept. The garden and yard have way to much water in them. Please say a prayer that our garden will survive, not sure what will go bad and Rich just planted the pumpkins. You know how much I LOOOOVE my pumpkins, hoping we don't loose them. Thanks so much for taking a walk thru my garden with me. Will do another one later in August, if all goes well.

This was the last week of SOC and I didn't get any cards done. I'm working on some sketches/paintings that I'm hoping to share later with these colors. Kristin, thanks so much for an awesome 6 weeks of color. I was inspired each week and know these colors will stay with me long after the summer is over. My garden pictures/walk will be what my SOC is for this week, not quite the sage and sepia colors that were picked but close enough. It was fun each week to see what the others created, so many amazing, beautiful art being made and shared. Kristin, thanks again for all you do to make this SOC happen. I will stay in touch with you thru the year and can't wait for the next SOC!! Happy weekend everyone!!

PROJECT LIFE....FIRST 2 WEEKS OF JULY

HELLO PROJECT LIFE!! I am happy to post some pages today, it's been too long!! Let's jump right into July shall we, here is the spread from two weeks ago which was also our 4th of July holiday. That week the colors at SOC were gray/pink so I mixed that in a bit, felt a little weird since I usually go all out with RED/WHITE/BLUE that week. How about some close ups...

I LOVE all these pictures/stories so much! Click to see better

Can you say PINK!! I love that some of the pictures came out with pink in them!! Even Rich is wearing his favorite Cleveland Indians PINK hat while weeding. Love the flowers!

I LOVE LOVE this weeks pages. I did this in 20mts this morning, how's that for quick and simple!! The colors at SOC were RED and YELLOW so I tried to put those where I could. My niece had her bday and her favorite color is BLUE so I had to add some blue in for her. Close ups....

Did you notice some collages popped in both weeks, haha couldn't resist. I had soooo much with the SOC colors this collage was perfect and makes me happy!

LOVE LOVE this side so much!! CUTENESS!! So happy for these stories and for PL again this week. I even got my mom and me in there, thanks MOM!! We had a great week.

 

I am caught up now with PL, will post the end of June's pages later this week?? Have a WALK THRU THE GARDEN post coming soon too. It looks amazing and so green!

 

We are a little sad here today since our Summer went to church camp yesterday and will be back on Friday. Its so weird not having her here with us, doing something special in PL about this. Keep her in your prayers that she survives the extreme heat we are having and riding horses all day in the sun.

Hoping to do some scrapping soon if I can stop painting and card making. Ali's HELLO STORY class started last Monday and WOW, she is amazing as always. I really want to work on the first weeks story ideas but it requires digging around a bit for older pictures and I'm in no mood to do that. The class is open till Wednesday I believe if you are interested in joining. Oh and she is showing a PL idea each week too, LOVE LOVE that part. I'm using one of them for this week's pages.

 

Thanks SO MUCH for the comments on my last RED/YELLOW post, so sweet to read them. I really had so much fun with those colors and will play with them again soon. This weeks colors are sage and sepia, not sure what I will do but probably something with nature. Sad to see SOC end this week.

 

Take care and come back soon for more fun posts!! HUGS!!

p.s. Nancy I missed you in church Sunday!!! Not happy about that, lol.

SUMMER OF COLORS.... MY NEW FAVORITE COLORS

HELLO!! Welcome to another week of SUMMER OF COLORS, having so much fun with these each week. The most voted colors this week were RED AND YELLOW as you can see in my card above. This is actually an index card that I did for the icad  challenge this summer too. All I see is color now all day long, not complaining at all. So this week's colors are not my usual go to colors, rarely ever use them together, mostly yellow is my go to and red only for Christmas and fall. So at first these colors stumped me then thanks to some inspiration from friends my cards started whipping out like crazy. I finally quit and said ok, this is enough, my house and family need me now. Kristin, I'm so happy with these colors this week now, can see myself using them again and again. Thanks so much for hosting this awesome challenge again this year. So sad it's almost over but my family will be happy to see the kitchen table again, ha! Sorry I don't have any inspirational walk for you this week, there was no time and I don't have anything of these colors in my house to share either. One of my friends did a walk though and you can visit her and see the amazing teenie tiny journal she made again with these colors. She actually inspired some of my cards. You can visit her at http://suchprettycanvas.blogspot.com hello Shahrul!! Now let the fun begin....

look at these beauties, Shahrul when I saw your little bit of brown/canvas mixed in with your layers I thought of KRAFT PAPER and then my friend Susan's love for red/white polka-dots inspired me to put them together!! LOVE THESE!! I saw the red and said ok let's do it the opposite way now and so out came the yellow dots and WHAM another cute card, the red is my favorite but the yellow is sweet too. This began my obsession with these papers.

I love my white space so these two cards are about WHITE, LOVE LOVE how they turned out. The one with banner is for my friend Tracey who loves banners. Actually she loved red/yellow/kraft too and is a queen at card making. The one on the right came together last tonight and I think it's so cute, might give it too my dear hubby for his birthday next month. Do the balloons need outlined??

The top one was actually my first card based off the sketch from the last two weeks. I love that you use paper scraps for this. I just got the new congrats stamp and noticed it's crooked, will have to get a new one. The bottom card was made with Shahrul in mind too, she painted a pretty sunshine in her book and I wanted a card with a sun, still might do one with a BIG SUN. The stamp is one I've had and forgotten about, the ink didn't come out perfect but it's still nice.

Here's the polka-dots again, LOVE THEM. I had to have one with a doily and banner for Tracey and just because it's so pretty together. The papers are cut a little too short then planned but it's done and that's all that matters.

This is an art journal page, YAY for something new! This idea is from Shahrul and a special post she did last year on trees, can't remember the specifics but it inspired me to make a few of these last year. I also was inspired by a new friend from SOC, her blog is at bluebeard & Elizabeth. Her SOC post this week got me thinking about apples and I kept saying apple apple apple tree then it hit me... APPLE TREE.... and I knew doing this one from before was perfect. I love the sayings and the words that I thought of when thinking about apple. I had so many of these punch out circles and knew they would work since I have no apple stamps/punches. I did have a few little apple stickers though and stuck them on here. If this doesn't make sense to some of you I'm sorry for that but it's a real cute way that inspired me to do these. Makes me want to them again. My friend Linda loves when I make these trees too. The background is more green looking but it doesn't show up good.

this is another painting with a little sharpie mixed in. It turned out just like I wanted. This is for the WILDFLOWERS class I'm taking. I need to practice drawing/sketching/painting flowers more, love them so much but afraid of messing them up. I went really slow with these, and think it turned out nice. Would doodle more but again, don't want to mess it up or smear it. I LOVE the word BLESSINGS on here, that is truly how I felt today making these cards. I'm so blessed for all my online friends old and new ones from SOC, all of you were here with me today while creating. So happy with this challenge and that it pushed me out of my comfort zone and has me really enjoying card making, thanks again Kristin and for all the readers leaving me comments that make my day.

here is my final piece, it's not done but wanted to share it anyhow. I got this idea from a scrapbook paper and loved it. This is on a canvas and has paint, stamps, ink and sharpie, not sure where to go from here but kinda want to make little mini version cards like this. Will let it set and see how it looks in the morning.

So did you make it thru this long post, are you feeling the love here for these colors!!! I still have more ideas but the next few days are going to be VERY BUSY so no more time to play. Can't wait to go see what everyone made with these colors, so fun looking thru all the projects. I always wait till I'm done then my reward/treat is to go blog hopping!!

To my PL readers sorry I'm 3 weeks behind posting, will try to post them when I can. Hope everyone is doing good, thanks again for reading and hope you enjoyed it. HUGS!!

DID I MENTION THAT I LOVE RED AND YELLOW NOW!!!

SUMMER OF COLOR...WEEK 4

Welcome to Summer of Colors week 4,  this week is another favorite color combo for me. Winning the most votes for this week is PINK AND GRAY!! These are such pretty colors, maybe not summer colors but still fun to play with. These colors make me wish I could knit a scarf or sweater. I've played with these colors before and my half bath is gray and one time has splashes of pink all around. I really wanted to show you the bath but can't find the old pictures of it. For a quick inspiration walk thru these colors this week will be of my past art with these colors. Starting with the images above, it was my first time wanting to paint BIG and the colors pink/gray were calling me that day. This was so much fun to do, I just played and kept putting down layers of pinks and then some gray and white. The tissue paper added some texture to it,  need to do this more. Now for some sharpie doodles...

My favorite thing to do in 2011/12 was doodling with Sharpies. That middle one shows that Christmas trees can be whatever color you want, lol.  The last one is a favorite because it was inspired by my nieces shirt. Next up is some paper scraps inspiration..

These were made when I had some scraps and only a little time to play. Sorry they look dark here, the lighting wasn't good when I took them. I love using up my scraps this way and keep a little 4 drawer holder full of them. Thanks for letting me walk you down memory lane, next up is what I did make for the week.

I jumped right in with the sketch idea from last weeks card. This shows again how to use up your scraps or strips of washi tape is fun too. At first I didn't like these cards but they have grown on me and I like them now. These colors reminded me of Valentines Day so these are my I Love You set of cards. If I had to choose the last one is my favorite, which one is yours?

I LOVE these two, wanted a different look for these. Most of my gray/pink papers were pattern so I decided to go for it and mix them in the first one. This is new for me, PP usually scares me from mixing them. I LOVE the result though. Click on the images to see better. The bottom one came together by using doily which I knew would be pretty with these colors. Like how this one came out too. I have no one to give these too but it's nice just to have them just in case for the future.

This one is inspired by my dear friend Tracey who is a whiz at making cards. I knew one of my cards had to have a banner and I really wanted to use a doily again. The THANK YOU is from a new $1 stamp I bought that morning at Walmart. I love how this one came out. Picking a favorite out of this set is too hard so I choose ALL OF THEM! Can you pick a favorite?

 

I am so glad to have played along again in SOC, love seeing my card pile getting bigger. At the end of the challenge some of these will be getting mailed out, excited to have my own cards to send for family and friends. Wonder what colors will be voted for next week, soooo fun not knowing!!

 

Last week's colors as you could see make me very happy!! Finding out that I won the giveaway for that week was SOOOOO EXCITING AND WOW FOR ME!!! Thank you for all the comments on that post and the congrats from the community. I can't wait to play with my new goodies, still can't believe that my name got picked, YIPPEEE!! It's been so fun and inspiring to visit all the blogs thru SOC each week and see all the amazing projects everyone has. If you haven't joined in yet, jump in and play along. Thank you Kristin for being such a great host and making our summer COLORFUL and INSPIRING and FUN!! Will be sad when this challenge is over, sigh!

 

For my friends celebrating the 4TH OF JULY TODAY with me, have a fun SAFE day with your loved ones. This is my 2nd favorite holiday and I can't wait to celebrate it today!! Thank you again for all your sweet helpful comments. HUGS!!

HELLO JULY!!

I am happy and sad that it's July already, by this point the rush of summer goes by and it's back to school time already. I haven't done a HELLO post lately so thought today was a perfect day for it.

Hello to ME winning the SOC giveaway last week, all those purple/lime green thoughts helped me win the YUMMY giveaway from Kristin's blog. SOOOOO excited about this today!!

Hello to the new colors at SOC this week, PINK AND GRAY, YOU KNOW I LOVE THESE

Hello to 3 special birthday's this month. My sweet little Sienna will be 5, sigh. My daughter Summer will be 15 and my niece 12 already. I blinked again ladies, gotta quit blinking don't we.

Hello to the garden growing and veggies growing already. So happy it's doing well. We even have some sunflowers coming up too.

Hello to more pool time and hoping to hit the beach finally if weather stays warm enough

Hello to a whole new month to play, relax, enjoy, no schedules, no packing lunches

Hello to celebrating 4th Of July, my 2nd favorite holiday after Thanksgiving. I LOVE LOVE seeing red, white, blue in my house and all over town this month. So proud to live here and celebrate this day with my loved ones.

Hello to having fun at the water parks and amusement parks

Hello to sitting outside looking at the clouds, never gets old to me

Hello to starting a tradition of sunset watching on Saturday nights

Hello to bonfires and smores, YUM!!

Hello to camping, more time outdoors, YIPPEE

Hello to walking the track and more walks with my MOM!

Hello to Sam and Summer going to first time church camp, WILL MISS THEM SOOOO MUCH

Hello to Renee learning to drive, yep we are still in the process hoping tomorrow it will be her temps. license and then driving with Rich starts

Hello to taking Ali Edward's HELLO STORY which starts this Saturday. I am almost there on the money part, after this week I am just squeezing it in on time.

Hello to playing more with my PROJECT LIFE, still love it so much

Hello to making lots more cards for Summer Of Color

Hello to the new movie TURBO coming out, we all want to see it

Hello to whatever new and exciting things that will happen this month

Wishing all of you a HAPPY JULY !! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE SWEET COMMENTS ON MY PURPLE AND LIME GREEN POST BELOW!! I really did have fun and hope to again this week. I'm hoping to post PL in a few days and my SOC for this week so watch for those. Happy holidays to everyone who celebrates it here. Stay safe and enjoy being with your loved ones. HUGS!