Enjoying the "Spring" in Spring Break

I snapped these photos today as part of Pioneer Woman's Photography challenge. Green is the subject matter.  This is the little bit of green I could find in the backyard. (My dafodills are looking really nice in the front, so if the color was yellow, I could have that covered better.)

 Isn't this little guy just the cutest. Not sure what the heck it ism but I liked it. Moss?

Lots of drama in the Davis household over the weekend.  Emily pouted and moped about because Miles was going to the Great Wolf Lodge with a friend for two days.  She did everything in her power to try and persuade us we needed to go too.  After offering up several alternatives closer to home, we finally came up with the idea to go on a trail ride. The cloud of doom lifted and we were good.

The plan was to go to the trail on Monday and have a picnic after I ran and she biked for several miles. And then on Tuesday we would drive about 45 minutes from here and ride horses.  Well, we were able to go to the trail yesterday and it was so refreshing to be back on the trail, running with the dog and having my girl tootling along in front of me.  Today however isn't going to involve horseback riding.  The place we wanted to ride and all the other places in the area aren't open yet. It's too early in the season. :(

Thankfully, she has been okay with plan B, which is to go shop around downtown and have lunch.  (We do have a lovely downtown that is a vibrant and happening place because it neighbors the university.)

Later in the afternoon, we started our seeds for the garden.  Beans, zucchini, cuccumbers, basil, fennel, roma tomatoes and Velvet Queen sunflowers planted in tiny little rows in the a tray.  I also cleaned out the back beds and got them looking better.  Will need to add some compost and have Richard expand the side bed for me because the area I used last year didn't have enough sun for the beans to grow properly. (that and the swarm of grasshoppers loved them)

Here's a little creativity from the weekend.  This was for the Studio Calico Challenge last week: Use 3 or more stamps.

 

Not sure I'm loving it.  Maybe it's the orange background.  I went with orange because it is a direct compliment to blue (from the sky). 

Friday with extra goodness

This Friday has a bit of extra promise built in. It's the Friday before our Spring Break.  Ah, the promise of a week's worth of mornings to sleep in and just hang out. :)  I wish we were going somewhere warmer, but praying the weather will be beautiful here so we can do some "stay-cation" type things.

I mentioned last post that I was making homemade granola bars. This is my third go at and I really liked the first recipe from Smitten Kitchen, but this one really is dangerously delicious.  I think the key to this recipe is to toast the nuts and oats before hand, which initially I was against doing.  I just didn't think making granola bars should involve so many steps.  I now feel it adds a really nice texture to the bars and believe it's worth it. I've combined a recipe by Alton Brown and another one someone had posted from a runner's magazine.

Here's the full recipe. Enjoy!!  I'm going to keep playing with the recipe to see if I can get the calories down a little more and try and eliminate the butter (to make it clean) but had to share because taste-wise these are wonderful!!

My studio table has a fairly clean slate now. Hoping to have some time to be creative later today or definitely over the weekend. Have a great one!!

Today...

Today, I'm finally home all day. Yea!

Today, I cleaned up around the house. We had been over taken with paper clutter and dust bunnies in just a few short days of neglect!!

Today, I'm so happy the ground doesn't look like this anymore. What crazy weather we had this weekend!

Today, I ran 3.17 miles and decided I'm up for the challenge of doing a marathon late this summer or early fall.  (Now, the clincher is to see if my body can handle the challenge. I always seem to have some injury or other blocking me.)

Today, I'm wearing my new favorite T-shirt from the Liberty of London line at Target. Love all the florals and happy spring colors.  So inspirational.

Today, I'm going to clean up my studio and start a new project.

Today, I'm going to make homemade granola bars again this afternoon. Yum.

Today, I have this layout to share. :)

Enjoy today!

Fantastic Friday!

So, of course I'm happy because it's Friday!! It is also the most beautiful day here. (Which is extra special because tomorrow is supposed to be cloudy, cold and possibly snowy!)

This week flew by.  On Tuesday, I went with Emily's class to the University of Central Missouri Children's Literary Festival, which according to several of the authors we saw, it is a favorite venue.  The photos from the day are pitiful, so I won't even bother sharing.  The sessions we had scheduled, especially the one's with Roland Smith and Peg Kehret were really fabulous, much better than I had expected. The auditoriums were packed with kids who had read and loved their books. It was very cool to see kids excited about writers almost as much as rock stars. I think every kid left the festival feeling inspired that they too could become authors, I know I did. (And then I wrote and rewrote this paragraph several times, over several days. URgh! Well, they said revisions and re-writes were crucial.) 

Miles came home Wednesday with his model airplane from his Space and Aeronautics Tech class.  Looks pretty great, if you ask me.

This week I recommitted myself to the Project 12 challenge.  I was adding layouts to my albums and caught myself admiring the past Project 12 layouts I had done.  I realized how much I love looking at our year in one concise place, especially since I don't scrapbook in any kind of order regularly. I decided I needed to get back to it!! Plus, I bought these awesome month stamps from Studio Calico that I had planned to use for 2010 and I surely don't want those to go to waste!

Here's where I left off, August 2009. I'm sticking to the basic sketch I started with, which gives a great continuity to the year, but every month is still quite unique.

Monday's really are okay...

I keep telling myself this, especially when I had a really good weekend. And we did.

I had so much fun at the crop I went to Friday night.  I'm not usually a very productive scrapbooker at a crop, but I put together (not totally finished, mind you) 2 layouts!!  I was quite pleased.  I finished them up over the weekend. :)

This one is done very tongue and cheek. lol  Journaling reads: While Tucker isn’t necessarily my very favorite photo subject, that would be Miles & Emily, he is definitely the easiest to photograph.  I just say “Sit.” or “Down.” and snap away.  He’s a regular “Supermodel” in every way.

The 7 Gypsies stickers I've been hoarding are perfect for this layout! The red paper is from Reminisce and the March Solo kit at BackPorch Memories.  Stamps from Studio Calico.

I finally broke down and got some of Studio Calico's Home Front line this month. Love it!

And because it's Monday, I'm off to the health club today. Got to try to get back on track.  The last time I ran with this tenacious little booger of a sinus infection I wheezed and coughed for several hours after wards.  Hoping I'm good enough now to avoid that.  Happy Monday to you!

Looky, looky...

...what I found yesterday at my Hobby Lobby... the March issue of Scrapbook Trends!  Guess who's layout is on page 47?

I was so elated,  I walked over to the lady near me and showed her my layout.  I know, I know that's a bit crazy, but what's a girl to do? I had to share my excitement with someone!!

I've always loved how they stage their layouts.  So clever.  The glasses are even like mine in the layout. :) It's a knockout issue. Lots of Studio Calico represented this month and some great inspiration as always!

I'm also very excited about the crop I'm going to tonight with some ladies from my church. I haven't been to a crop in forever! It's a Happy Friday!!!

Lots to share...

I can't believe it took me this long to post the exciting news I got on Monday!!  I was on my way to pick up Miles from track and called to check on Emily.  She said, "Some Heidi Something-or-other called about a design team and wants you to call her back."   I was totally shocked and really had to try to connect the dots because I didn't expect to get a call. In hindsight, it completely me cracks me up because once I figured out what she was saying I started screaming. "No way!!  Oh my gosh!! That is so cool!" over and over! I could just hear her eyes rolling! :) Later, I was super thrilled to talk to Heidi Sonboul and hear about the Facebook Gal Design Team she created for us. I can't wait to get started with GCD Studios.  This is my first time to work with a scrapbook manufacture company and I know how lucky I am to get to work with Heidi!

Now, I can share the layouts and a card completed for my March Guest Designer gig at BackPorch Memories.  What a fun collection of papers and embellies from the Solo kit to work with!! I had planned before hand which photographs I was probably going to use so the pages came very quickly to me.  I was able to create 3 layouts by 1 am Friday!! The same day I received my box!  I definitely had some creative mojo going. :)

I'm really getting into the Maya Mist craze, a little late, I know, but I wanted to create a second layer of papers and used the Turquoise Metallic to do so.   I can't believe I dragged my feet so. (All of the patterned paper and stickers in the Solo kit is from Reminisce's Unwritten line. Ribbon from May Arts.)

  I can't help but smile at this one.  That face!!

This one was a sketch assignment.  The music note paper was an antique image I found online. More misting for the background and  I removed the first layer of paper on the blue Thickers and misted them with brown.(Rhinestones from KaiserCraft and Thickers from American Crafts.)

For my card, I thought it was a clever idea to use the felt loop from Queen and Co. as a spring. :) Pretty simple card using my Slice for the frog and one of the flower stickers from the kit. Oh, I should have added eyeballs to the frog!  I may have to go and do that!! lol

I've been trying to catch my breath from the whirlwind of cleaning and getting the house ready for the meeting I had here on Tuesday.  All went well and I have a completely clean house now. :)  I do have piles of laundry to fold today.

Almost done...

Almost done with getting the house ready for the meeting at my house today.  Almost done with my layouts and card for BackPorch Memories Guest Designer project.  Be back soon with some fun news!

Here's a photo from last spring I'm clinging to today.  My tulips are just peaking out of the ground.  I went hunting for any kind of flower to plant in my front planters yesterday and came home with nothing.  Not a flower in sight at any of the stores.  Can I just plant this photo?

Redecorating, recooperating

Next week I'm hosting my PEO group's monthly meeting, so I've been pretty focused on getting the house in order.  We've lived here for 2 1/2 years now and I haven't really done any decorating since then.  I found "homes" for all my decorative pieces and called it done.  I've been wanting to get curtains for the living room for a long time now and as much as I know it finishes a room, I hadn't made it priority until now.  After the day long fiasco of wrong sized rods, out of stock replacements and so on, they are hung and I think they look wonderful.  They did however create a need for some redecorating. 

The gold curtains and the gold candles were just a little too monochromatic for my taste.  The red candles you see in my before photos are a bright Christmas red, so I didn't think they really worked either.  So the big shuffle of pieces began. Here's what I came up with from things I found around the house.  

 

The blocks under the relief piece spell "spring".  A little something I made last year.  It was time to get all the Easter and seasonal decorations out too! I'll be sharing more soon, hopefully tomorrow.

As for the recooperating, appharently I've been stewing on a sinus infection for a while.  It got to the point where the socket of my left eye was aching, so I finally went to the Dr. yesterday and got some antibiotics and a nasal spray. Hoping to feel back to my normal self soon.

I finally got a chance to glue down all the pieces to this layout today. It's based on the Sunday Sketch at Studio Calico by the wonderful Stephanie Howell.  Love her style. I flipped the sketch so I could use two verticals.