Projects, Floods and Fun!

My dad will probably be excited that the first thing you'll notice about this post is his big fish! This is one of the pages I did at the retreat this weekend. Only going to show three of them, because I have some special plans for the others, and making them public at this point would defeat the special plans. So, let me tantilize you with these three.

First, as I said, is my dad. He's at Lake Tahoe, and he caught one of those fish - the other was caught by my then six year old son. We were all impressed! Grandpa was more willing to actually hold the fish, so he got all the glory in the photos.

Next up is Jansse carrying a large box that contained a big surprise for him - a pitching machine. This page used some special (at least special to me) distressing techniques, so I've included a couple of up close photos so you can see some of the detail. I'm loving using my sewing machine on these pages, and I did that all over the place here. I actually "scraplifted" the sketch for this page from a beautiful scrapbooker named Nic Howard - she's on my list of artists at the top right if you want to see some of her beautiful work.


The journalling tells of how Jansse was not expecting a package, but when he realized this was for him he carried that big awkward box the entire 100 yards from the gate to the house all by himself. Everybody likes to get packages, but this one was so special long before he knew what was in it just because it was almost as big as he was. That was pretty cool to him. I'm so glad I was able to capture this little moment to remember his excitement!


While were' waiting for the next photo to line up,

let me share a bit about the weekend. It was very busy, and I am very tired after getting less than five hours sleep every night. You see, the retreat is at a hotel in town, but I'm too cheap to spend my money on accomodations, so I'd work until my eyes were blurry and then jump in my car and drive the half an hour home. Then I'd wake up early and head back to town for more fun. About that being cheap - I'd just rather spend my money on supplies for scrapbooking than on a hotel room where I wouldn't have my nice warm husband to cuddle up to.

So, here is the last of the pages I'm sharing at this time. Its from a camping trip we took this summer where the daughters of some friends of ours joined us - we were watching them for five days while their parents were out of town. What an experience for our little family of three to become a family of five, especially since little girls are very different than our rough and tumble little boy. I realized with girls it actually does matter to them if their clothes get wet in the creek - need to take lots of changes for camping! And, I'm embarrassed to admit that the first time they stayed with us it didn't even dawn on me that they needed to brush their hair in the mornings - you see, until recently Jansse's hair was so short that brushing was unnecessary. Not a chore I'm used to. Fortunately I realized the need before church on Sunday morning.

Anyway, here are a couple of detail shots of this page. I distressed the chipboard letters and stamped over them. I stitched around all the places I could, inked all the edges, and then got to add tons of flowers - girl pages can have many more flowers than boy pages, and that is very satisfying to this prima flower loving scrapper!

Oh! And girl pages can have bling! Love that bling!

So, at the retreat were friends I've made over the last couple of years of participating in this craft. I was able to sit with a wonderful group, and we laughed and talked, shared our hearts a bit, poked fun at each other in fun, and ate way to many chocolate calories. It was a great get away.

While I was gone, poor Andy did not have so much fun. I almost came home on Saturday afternoon because I new he was unhappy. He was already feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work he was facing in the office, and he wanted to use the weekend to catch up. However, on Saturday morning when I went down to throw a load of laundry in the washer before I left for more crafting, I noticed that my socks were getting wetter and wetter as I walked around the basement laundry room. At first I thought the washer had over flowed. Nope, a pin hole size leak in a water pipe running above the laundry room and under the kitchen was spraying a fine by consistent mist all over the wall board, and then running down the wall into the carpet. I had to rush off to teach a class on Saturday morning, so Andy was stuck with the chore of ripping out wall board, and evaluating the best course of action. For those of you who don't know, he's not generally a "fix it yourself" kind of guy, so I assumed he'd be calling a plumber. But he got an idea, was able to direct the water into a bucket so it wouldn't make the walls and carpet any wetter. Then, on Sunday, with a friend from church he fixed the pipe. He now knows how to sweat a coper pipe back together. GREAT JOB ANDY - and thank you David for the help!

So, I've bored you enough for now. Back in a day or two, hopefully with something interesting to report.