Quick Hello

Popping in to say a quick hello. Life is absolutely crazy. Just got home from a trip to Door County. 5 days on the lake. Three of them were downright cold; Two of the cold days it rained like crazy. We did get two nice sunny and warm days.

One day we had a storm roll through, and knock out the power. No power=no well pump=no running water. That was an adventure. In 21 summers up there, we've never lost power. Not sure what the cause was. Of course it was the day we had company. So we taught the kids how to play Spoons....and a bunch of other board games. Once we saw the electric company truck we decided they must have gotten in (its one way in and out-no alternate route) so we went out for dinner.

Thought I would pop in and share some of my favorite pictures. Not too many with people. Kinda weird not having my sister along.

Two nights of cooking on the outdoor cook stove

First time I've ever been able to get a night shot of the light house. Next year the tripod's coming.

Pouring rain one morning. Kinda a neat shot through the trees with the rain

Big lake freighter on Lake Michigan....love my big zoom lens

Round three of storms rolling in. Went out to take pictures....or continuously step in puddles and get wet shoes.

And looking the other way pink clouds....major storm clouds behind them though

 Do you remember the bluff beach from last year?  Turns out the ice shoves take down the rock scupltures each year. Ice shoves are incredibly powerful if you do not know that. They can move entire houses with the right wind.

This is last years round of sculptures- Rock Sculptures 2012

 So there are new rock sculptures each year. An architect is actually trying to build protection from the ice shoves. She has made some amazing new sculptures this year.

 The only thing that makes it every year is the teepee. This thing has been up since May of 2005....or at least that was the first time we visited.

Such a cool place. Happy to be home to my bed and warmer weather. I really should get moving on packing. I don't think it's going to happen tonight.

Moving day to my new place is tomorrow. Which is earlier than scheduled. I was able to take care of all the important stuff from my phone on vacay. Internet was not on the "must do" list. So I'll be offline for a bit.

Winter Girl Scout Camp

As you know, I am part of the Summer Camp over at Scrappin Peeps! This challenge was hosted by my friend Janet. Her challenge was based off the Girl Scout Song "Make new friend, but keep the old. One is silver and the other's gold." This song immediately inspired me.

I was in Girl Scouts for many years. They had two troop houses within two hours of town. We went many times to this specific camp. Unfortunately I found out that the council did not manage their money well, and they had to sell this specific camp/land. But.....the good news is that a crafter bought it and turned it into a craft house. 

 This challenge entailed using a song somewhere on the page along with the colors silver and gold. My silver is in the mists and the middles of the snowflakes. I did all my jounrnalling in gold. My song was the girl scout song, which is around the edge of the right page. The journalling on the left page is everyone's names. Figured I should do that while I still know everyone's names.

 I cut some random snowflakes on my cricut and then used them as mask. I made the mistake of using a little glue to hold them down temporarily. They did not want to pull up with all the moisture (it was a hot muggy week here which equals a terribly damp basement-but all my normal paper is in tight bins). Which lead to the bling covering up some rips.

This particular event took place back in 2000, which makes me pretty young. I scanned the originals and had them reprinted the other night. I'm on the hunt for a good photo scanner. This particular camp was a winter camp. We did the obstacle course on the first day. Which was a good thing, because we had snow overnight. I remember the mom's having to get over a big log on the obstacle course, which was pretty funny. My mom was talking about how the entire eating/living areas were constantly covered with craft stuff from all us girls.

Girl Scout camp is one of my fondest memories of growing up. I loved crafts, I loved hiking, I loved campfires. Really I still enjoy all this today. It was fun going down memory lane with some old pictures this week.

Moving day is in less than two weeks. This is a current shot of my craft room/apartment storage/classroom storage. Its a mess!

Summer Camp at Scrappin Peeps

It is summer camp week over at Scrappin Peeps! Nine other "peeps" and myself are hosting a series of scrapbook challenges that run from this past Monday through July 29th. You can play along with any or all of the challenges. I thought I would share my challenge over here, and the page I created to go with it.

Friendship Camp Challenge

“The Stories of our Friendship”

"A good friend will come bail you out of jail, but a true friend will be sitting next to you saying...'Damn, that was fun!'"

The friendship camp challenge is a challenge about telling YOUR favorite stories. Your pictures do not have to correlate to the story. Your journaling can be hidden if needed.

I would like you to devote this layout to a great close friend or two. I would like to see at least two pictures of you and this friend.  This page is all about YOU! This is one for your personal album.

In your journaling, I would like to see these items addressed:

How long you have known this friend

Where you met this friend

A favorite memory/story with this friend

Some type of highlight or highlights of your friendship

And somewhere on your page one quote about friendship

This challenge is not about the stuff, this challenge is all about the stories and memories. Write from your heart. Pictures can be old or new; from the same day or a collage of events. Friends can be childhood friends, adult friends, or friend’s you’ve known forever. 

Here is my corresponding page-

I did this page about my friend Katie, who grew up across the street from me. I've scanned some old pictures to put on this page. 

Paper is from My Minds Eye- one of the Jen Allison's lines. I want to get to Archivers and get another set. I splattered a little Color Shine with a paint brush.

My individual stories are on the little tags in the pocket. Too many stories to journal on one page. I'm a big fan of pockets.

This quote on the right really stood out to me. We've got some crazy adventures throughout the years. Snow forts, Halloween, Door County Pontooning, and more.

I toned down the lime green flower with a little bit of Tim Holtz Antique Linen Ink

 

Summer Cooking

My weekend on the lake

 It's officially summer here. It was 98 when I left work today and our garden is growing like crazy. I've not had much time from scrapping lately. I've been out of town more weekends than I've been in town. I've been working 40 hrs a week and doing a lot of projects on the side for my new place. So far I have:

Reupholstered my hope chest
Stripped and re-stained my coffee table
Re-stained two side tables
Working on re-staining my kitchen table

And did too much shopping, the countdown is officially on for the move!

 I did want to pop in and share a new recipe I've fallen in love with. We have green beans growing like crazy right now, so I needed something besides just steaming them. This is not my original recipe-I give full credit to Gina at Gina's Skinny Recipes. But I am from Wisconsin, so I altered it a little bit:

12oz fresh green beans, washed and ends snapped off
2 tsp olive oil
1/4 tsp garlic powder
Fresh ground sea salt and black pepper to taste
Parmesan Cheese (however much you like)

Mix the cleaned and dried green beans with all the ingredients in a bowl. Spread on a greased baking sheet and cook for 10 minutes at 425 degrees. After 10 minutes take them out, sprinkle with a nice layer of Parmesan cheese (I like sargento's) and cook for 5 more minutes. Do not use the powdered cheese in a can. We've had these 3 times in the last 6 days, since our beans became ready to harvest.

And one more picture of the true lake life-

More Birthday Party Pages and some birds

 I've finally put the finishing touches on Miss E's birthday book. I should be able to give it to her this coming weekend. I put a lot of love into this book. It's not my normal calm books. This is just more glitter, mist, pink, and animal prints.

I had such a great time making this for her, as did I attending the party. Her friends were all quite the little divas.

For the first page I resorted to my new favorite technique of misting on the same colored cardstock. Both the masks were Mister Hueys.

 The second layout has a full 12x12 Heidi Swapp mask behind. I am absolutely in love with these masks. They are super fun and can add that perfect "pop" to a plain piece of cardstock. For all the clear stickers I had, I first put them onto white cardstock. They just didn't turn out as well with the black cardstock. I used a ton of foam pop dots to add more dimension. Needless to say I found myself at Michaels buying 1 1/2 inch post expander. Last time I will EVER use a post bound album. I've been strict to We R Memory Keepers Faux Leather D-Ring Albums for the last 3 years, and I love them.

And now for a few random favorite pics I shot on the 4th.

 The orioles at my relatives house were super cute and really colorful. I had my zoom lens in my camera bag, and I was able to get some close ups of them. This little guy was all around-in the bird bath, eating, and just checking out our party.

The bald eagle was also flying around all day. Nothing more perfect for the 4th of July.

And this is my latest project-

I'm in the process of stripping, sanding, and re-varnishing 5 different pieces of furniture for my new place. Thankfully my dad is really good at this, and it helping out a lot.

Happy 4th of July

One of my favorite things my village does is puts out flags along one of the main streets each year. They already have beautiful flowers but this is just the perfect touch. So I decided to take a little drive this morning and see them. Granted I can sit at this stop light for a decent 10 minutes on an average morning to get onto the highway. Nope -Green lights all the way through today. So I got a couple of snaps with the iPhone. I will try again later when some else is driving with my dSLR.

But I still wanted to share my pics with you-

 The other night was dark skies to the east of us for quite a long time. As we were leaving for a bike ride, we noticed a full rainbow. Too bad I don't have the lens that shoots real wide. At one point during our ride we had a double rainbow.

And my pink lilies from Grandma have finally bloomed!

Switching to Bloglovin

Since Google Reader is offically retired I've moved over to Blog Lovin to follow all my favorite blogs!

Blog Lovin

I will be back tomorrow with a little Fourth of July post. I first just need to snap the pictures in the morning. The flags in our subdivision only come out three times a year, and I'm determined to get some good shots after missing Memorial Day.