Lemonade colored inspiration!

Today I'm sharing a layout based on this absolutely delicious looking image! Isn't this just the most refreshing sight on a hot summer day like today?

I thought this palette would be perfect to highlight some equally delicious photos from our recent visit to the Crumbs Bake Shop while vacationing in Hollywood, California.

Here are some close ups. For the photo corner embellishment, I used a stamp to add pattern to the pink paper by heat embossing it a shimmery white.

I hand cut a cupcake and added Ranger Distress Stickles, (Picket Fence) to embellish my cupcake. :) It was as easy as frosting a cupcake!  The hardest part was waiting for it to dry. 

Once it was finally dry, I added a chipboard to the back for support and combined it with the green "wrapper" I created using a paper crimper.

The lacy bits were taken from the Sweet Surrender Collection lace paper. Not only did it remind me of lace doilies that can be found in bake shops, it was the perfect light grey color for my palette. 

Supplies from GCD Studios: 

Fun House Collection: Pennet kit, ticket

Sweet Surrender: Buttons, Cut lace paper 

Melody Ross Arsty Urban: Yellow paper; Soul Food: Green paper

Material Girls line: Pink

Other supplies:

Letters: American Crafts, Making Memories

Stamp: Studio Calico

Embossing Powders: A mixture of Pink Pearls by Stamp'n Stuff and Seafoam White from Ranger

Silver Pen: Sakura Gelly Roll

Are you hungry yet? I sure could go for another Cherry Crumb Cake cupcake and I'd take a bottle of fresh lemonade too! :)

Sunny Days and blue skies

Happy Summer everyone! Today I'm here to share some sunshine and fluffy clouds to your summer scrapbook projects.

On a recent trip to California, we spent one beautiful afternoon at the beach.  Bright blue skies and loads of sunshine, just as you would expect in sunny California.

These photos inspired me to create my own happy, blue sky background for my page about our ride on a surrey, a four seat, and more importantly a four pedal bike. ;)

And because it was a page about the shore, I thought it could use some mild distressing.  I sprayed Maya Mist (Sunflower yellow) and Studio Calico's Mister Huey's (white) onto a paint tray a dabbled a mixture on to an old chip brush and made some random strokes and pounces.  I then stamped with some other distressing styled stamps.

Here is a close up of the clouds and the sun and some of the distressing.

One of the main things I wanted to achieve on this page was a dimensional cloud.  I took a ordinary chipboard piece, albeit it was intended to be an angel wing, and added hot glue to the edges.

 I then applied several coats of white paint. It need a few to cover the glue completely.

For the sun, I used a flower shaped chipboard (from GCD Studios obviously) and debossed it and painted it with a base coat of white and then sprayed it with Maya Mist (Sunflower Yellow).

For my title, I created a chipboard base for my title and painted it to match the green from the patterned paper and the surrey. 

One of the things I love about using chipboard elements to embellish a page, is that it's designed for customization.  You always have the ability to make the perfect embellishment for any page.

I mixed a few colors to get a match and painted the piece along with 2 asterisks that I thought resembled a starfish.

Here's another look at the completed page.

Patterned papers: GCD Studios Fun House Collection, Material Girl Collection; Chipboard Shapes: GCD Studios, Ticket Embellishment: GCD Studios Fun House Collection; Paper Borders: GCD Studios Fun House Collection, Sticker Border: Studio Calico; Chipboard Letters: Basic Grey, Studio Calico; Ink: Mister Huey's, white, Maya Mist Sunflower yellow, Distress Inks from Ranger Tea Dye; Stamps: Studio Calico, Bo Bunny.

Who doesn't love a day at the beach?

Working my "cue"

I mentioned last post that I was working on a few furniture painting projects and how I needed to get through "cue" of furniture before I could buy another piece. :)

I used Annie Sloan's chalk paint in Old White.  Just like everyone in the DIY decorating blogo-sphere, I Love this paint.  No sanding or priming needed. Just finish with a couple coats of wax after painting and your good!   Here's a link to a giveaway to a complete starter kit.

This desk has been sitting in the garage since probably May.  Unfortunately, I don't have a before photo, but I can promise you it was in terrible condition.  The paint was peeling on the legs and it was not very attractive, but  I loved the shape and the size was right.

 

Initially, I wanted to keep the chippy finish on the original hardware, but once I had picked out a more modern fabric for the seat, I thought the hardware should be updated with an oil rubbed bronze finish.

I used oil rubbed bronze paint from Rustoleum and then hit the edges with some bronze rub and buff.  I finished it off with a spray clear coat to seal the rub and buff.

I used 2 coats of Johnson's wax on top of the chalk paint.  It went on very easily since it was hot in my garage where I was working.  It does have a slight yellow hue, but not enough to make me unhappy with the finished color.

The desk now provides a functinal use of this pass through area. Previously I had a sitting area with two chairs, which pretty much was just used Emily's backpack holder. We are loving this new space!

Here's a sneak peek at the next project to get finished.  It's in place and just waiting for a final buffing.

Off to go rub this baby down and load her up with craft supplies in my studio. :)

In the yard...

A friend of mine I hadn't seen in a while asked me what I'd been up to, "Have you been doing any scrapbooking lately?" I replied, "No, not in the last week, but we've been landscaping the backyard."  Her reply, "In this heat? You need to be inside scrapbooking!"

And she was right, July is probably not the best time to build a small retaining wall around your back patio, plant huge trees, and move a bunch of dirt around, but that's what we've been doing.  For the last few days  though, I've just been planting a little here and there. I've been waiting until almost dusk to go out in the yard.

We still have to level the three walkways and add pea gravel in between the stones. Here's a peek at it almost done.

Despite how the trees look in the photo, they are doing good.  The big one on the left was a little bare at eye level when we purchased it because of how close the trees were together at the nursery.

See, here's some new growth. :)

It's also not really the best time to buy plants because selection at the garden centers are pretty slim, but the prices sure are good, almost all the flowers I've bought have been on sale.

I was thrilled to find a crepe myrtle bush that is hardy for Missouri.  Well, it may not be a bush forever, it might be a small tree.  Either way, it reminds me of Louisiana and it makes me very happy.

These flowers are making me happy too.

For the spring, I planted some white Rhododendrons, which I've never grown before. I have big plans to plant a slew of daffodils around the trees this fall.

I've also been working on a furniture painting project.  I really thought I had a before photo, but sadly, I can't find it. 

I must admit freely that I have become a Craig's list furniture junky.  I have another piece I really want to buy right now, but Richard says I have to clean out my inventory first.  ha ha! 

Yes, it is that bad.  Behind this desk "in my cue" is a dresser for my studio and an outdoor bench that used to be in our front yard, but once I get it repainted we'll move it to the back. (That reminds me, I need to buy paint, that's why I haven't done it yet.) Needless to say, our garage is a little too full of furniture for me to buy another piece.  I am motivated now though, because I really have my heart set on this piece.

Well, time to put another coat of wax on my desk and the chair.  Hopefully I can share it tomorrow? (And then I'll go back to the California trip.) :)

California Adventure Tour cont.

With that extended break while at camp, I'm now going to continue our California Adventure travel journal.

After a very full day at Disneyland, we spent a leisurely morning at the hotel and then hit the road, making a few stops around the Los Angeles area before heading north to Sequoia.

Richard acutally lived in the Marina del Ray area for almost a year working on earthquake claims, so we were quite familiar with the area.  We had an early lunch at the Cheesecake Factory we frequented when he lived there.  We are definitely a nostalgic family and of course, who can resist cheesecake?

Next we took a short drive up the coast to admire the beaches and beach houses. It was a beautiful day for a drive.

In all that time that Richard was in the area though, we never made it to Grauman's Chinese Theatre.  So we made that the last stop before heading north.

Most of the famous people with cement hand or footprints, were not recognizable to Miles and Emily, but this set sure was, R2D2, C3P0 and Darth Vader!

On our way out we spotted this cupcake shop and I knew it was special treat not to be missed, especially for my cake loving crew.

Yum! On the left is Emily's, Cookie Dough, on the right is Cherry Crumb cake for me!

As we drove northward, Emily just couldn't get over how it looked like we were driving into the clouds.

After admiring the miles of abundant fields of various fruits and vegetables, we stopped a little fruit stand and picked up the most declicious, juicy, red strawberries and cherries.

A few hours after leaving LA we made it to the rim of the park.  It was definitely cooler.

 

We decided to go ahead and see a few sights and hike a few trails on the southern rim before getting to our lodge.   

Emily was determined to see how cold this water was and climbed down the embankment to touch it.  Waterfalls were everywhere as the snow was still melting in the park.

We have such a loving family....

hugging on trails in the middle of roads.  It's what we do. ha!

It really was so beautiful.  We took a very narrow drive up to a scenic overlook.  It was treacherous, especially when we came upon another car and had to pass them. Yikes! I was definitely too afraid to snap a photo!

But the views from the top and a long the way were worth it.

By the time we got to the elevation where the sequoias grow, around 5000 ft, the clouds had covered the mountain.  It was majestically eerie.

We gathered supplies at the general store and hoped the clouds would clear in the morning.

Until tomorrow...

Camp, planting, holiday and birthday

Emily and I had a great week at camp. Well, except for the first night, which was really tough. Emily and I couldn't get to sleep hours after lights out.  The snoring in our dorm was loud and downright unbearable for white noise loving girls like us.  Emily was so uncomfortable she decided that crawling into my twin bunk was better than being in hers! Um, not so much.  We were totally exhausted on Monday, but we made some changes to our sleeping arrangements that night and we were good for the rest of the week.

It was a week filled with great messages, lots of joyful worship, making new friends, and of course, fun and games. I know we both enjoyed being unplugged and growing in our faith.

The weekend was spent working on our backyard project. We are adding a bed and stones around the pergola.  It's going to look great, I'm sure, but it's been a slow and muddy mess. Hoping our new trees won't go into too much of a shock. Here's a peek at the progress.

We spent the day of the Fourth working in the yard. Well, all of us except Emily, who was at our friend's lake learning to water ski!

That night we cleaned up and had a barbeque with friends. Then we watched the city's fireworks from a nearby neighborhood and then shot off a few back at our friend's house.

A neighbor a street over had gone all out and we argued that we could have just stayed home and watched their fireworks!

The fifth was my birthday and I had a great day.  Got my haircut, a pedicure and went shopping, definitely the makings of a pampered day.  Later that evening I enjoyed a delicious dinner with the family at a local Italian restaurant.  :)

Now I have mountains, literally mountains, of laundry that need to be folded from the week at camp and my purposely neglecting them over the birthday/holiday.  Birthday's should never include folding laundry. ;)