Happy Fathers Day

I'm a day late, but I still need to show off my Father's Day Card. I will admit, I'm not much in the card making department .Cards stress me out. The only thing I can really do is alcohol inks, cuz they are super hard to screw up.

I will admit, I am a total Daddy's girl. We are great friends. We cook together, bike ride, and play ladder ball. He's always there to talk to me...and takes my side.

Guy cards are super hard for me, because I don't have many supplies. Thankfully my local scrapbook store-Creations Galore, lets us use their workroom stamps during the crops. We just have to bring the ink and cleaners. I was able to find the perfect stamp-a covered bridge. My dad is an engineer, so he loves that sort of stuff. I've seen random bridges all over the US.

I love the colors on this card. We love autumn, so this just seemed like the perfect card. I'm lucky to have a great LSS that lets us use their supplies!

Fall Favorites

If you haven't figured out my favorite place on earth, its Door County WI. Regardless of the season, I seem to find myself up there. Flowers in the spring, swimming and boating in the summer, biking and hiking in the fall, and skiing in the winter. I absolutely love to scrap fall pictures. I love the rich colors. I love the oranges and yellows. I fell in love with the Little Yellow Bicycle Hello Fall Line this year. It worked so well for my pictures.

These are the last two pages of fall. I've been waiting to use a score board so I can make the accordion flowers. They were in a package I won, also from the LYB line.

 The first page is on a bluff in Peninsula State Park. Its up on one of the top roads in the park. The views are spectacular in the fall. I always make sure to make my way up there in the fall. I fussy cut some of the busy paper, to pull out the big flowers that I loved so much!

This second page was taken around Egg Harbor and Fish Creek. We visited the fall festival during our trip and ate at the White Gull Inn. They always have the most beautiful flowers and seasonal displays. I really like the picture on the right page, with the Pukin' Pumpkins.

I've finished my fall pictures, and I'm onto Winter. Seems weird, since it is 90 out again this weekend.

Baby Its Cold Outside....Not

Nothing like scrapping Christmas pictures when it is 94 degrees outside. It was another hot and humid weekend. I wonder if this is just the start of a warm summer. I'm enjoying not mowing the lawn. My poor flowers need lots of watering. I've finished student teaching until September and now I'm back to work.

Since it was hot, I used it as a good excuse to scrap. My scrap area is in the basement, with no windows. So I don't feel guilty hiding down in my craft cave when it is too sticky to do anything else. And I just happened to be wrapping up fall and beginning on my Christmas pictures.

Making Christmas cookies is always one of my favorite activities. So much that I did it once with my parents and sister, and again with my cousin and her 5 kids. My sister and I love to have flour fights, eat the dough, and scrape the frosting pan. Cookies with 5 kids....well that's just a little crazy.

My entire Christmas season I am using the paper line Everyone Loves Christmas by Echo Park. I got this line last year, so it is retired now. But it works well for the multitude of un-matching outfits. I actually broke out some We R Memory Keepers Divided Page Protectors. They are like picture sleeves, but you can slip in journalling and other embellishments. I just get overwhelmed with how many pictures I accumulate at this time of the year.

I fussy cut out the ornaments, and jazzed them up with Stickles and i-Rock gems. I'm on a new kick for black background paper. Out with the kraft of fall and in with black.

I'm looking forward to a crop this weekend and my Local Scrapbook Store. I'm excited to meet a new group of scrappers. I will leave you with a picture of my other summer hobby-gardening. Thanks to my Grandma for the new lilies.

Fall Beauty

One of my favorite places in Marquette is Presque Isle Park. It was a few miles from my apartment, and a great bike ride. They have the most beautiful colors in the fall. I am really going to miss my rides out there. When my parents were in town for the weekend, we walked around one morning. I love the yellows, oranges, and reds of all the trees.

The patterned paper is from BoBunnys fall line. I love the richness of the colors. I fussy cut some of the extra circles, and mounted them on foam squares for some random dimension. The flower is from Bella Blvd and of course my favorite Thickers.

Almost Summer

The long weekend is winding down, and I am looking forward to summer. We just returned from a weekend away in Door County. We hiked, biked, swam, shopped, and enjoyed some family time. We watched a huge storm roll in off the Bay. I've got 7 more days of student teaching. Then its back to my summer job....and more scrappy time at night.

My sister and I hiking on the Eagle Trail in Door County. This was a spur of the moment hike. Hence the white shorts-which are now laying in the laundry room covered in OxiClean.

 Last weekend, in the middle of garden building and planting, I managed to squeeze in a few more pages of our trip to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. 

This first layout is made from Fancy Pant's End of Summer Paper. I fussy cut the dollie paper, both on the top, and the embellishment on the middle of the left page. I misted with turquoise and gold mists from smooch. The flowers were from petaloo. I love how the water looks turquoise in this area. The water was totally different colors based on the depth and the sun during the three hour trip.

This second page was on the boat ride back to the dock. I love how blue the water looks from this angle. The orange paper was ran through my cuttlebug, and then inked. Again, the paper line was from Fancy Pants. 

This last page is from Lakenenland Sculpture park, just west of Marquette. The paper is a line from WRMK, and I had fun cutting it up into the hexagons. This was my first trip to the park, and it was super fun.

I'm in for a busy week of student teaching. My 3rd graders have a play they are putting on twice tomorrow, my 5th graders have DARE graduation on Wednesday, Thursday we have an early release, and Friday is Field Day. I think it will be a great week. And I'm teaching an writing unit, on our school year memories.

Finally some scrappy time

I'm back in the business of scrapping. I'm learning to be more productive with my prep time, and lesson planning is becoming more efficient. I'm enjoying getting back to my creative self. I'm still trying to balance out my nights with prep for school, the online requirements of student teaching, exercise, and scrapping. But I am enjoying creating again. I definitely have been directing my creative energies differently, so my concentration is different.

Here's my new favorite:
From our boat tour of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

My friends from the education program. We had to take some pictures before everyone went their separate ways.

Our Labor Day Bonfire with my church group. I hand stitched on the bottom, and all the stars are made with alcohol inks.

We built a new raised vegetable garden today. I can't wait for things to start growing and our flower beds to start blooming. I enjoyed being out in the sun. It was a warm day, but it was nice to be productive.

Happy Mother's Day-2012

First, I would like to wish a Happy Mother's Day to everyone. I have enjoyed the weekend with my mom. We traveled up to Door County for the day yesterday. We enjoyed brunch at the famous White Gull Inn. We had their award winning Cherry Stuffed French Toast. It is so rich. They have the most beautiful tulips outside. We also biked, hiked, and shopped.

I'm in the full swing of my student teaching. I've started a separate blog (http://megsteachingadventures.blogspot.com/) to keep track of all my experiences. Teaching and planning has definitely taken over the majority of my free time. But I love what I am doing.

I wanted to share my card that I made for my mom. I used alcohol inks and some flowers to make this creation. The base stamp I was resisting with was from my friend Em.

Some other goods things I found out this week. I have passed the first half of my board testing for my teaching license. I will go for the other half in July. I had a 4.0 semester, which means I will be graduating Sum Cum Laude in December.