chillin'

Karen and Joe and Seth. Scenic Route Grafton paper pack and stickers. Aren't these fun?

Basic Grey Gallery

I've tried on numerous occasions to sign up for the Basic Grey gallery to submit some of my designs and it would never take my email address. This weekend I decided to try again but used a free yahoo email address instead of my regular one and it took. Yay! I submitted three pages and they accepted two of them. Yay, Yay! See them here. They both used the new Boxer line.

Wish I'd said this....

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.
-- Marlene Dietrich

Just love this....

Reset Button

He discovered his reset button early on & there were not many things that bothered him all the rest of his days just because of that. Brian Andreas, the storypeople and I especially love the comment Tom left on the site here. I think it is a really great idea. Of course, I will keep my reset button imaginary, for now.

Peaceful time

Did this one for the challenge at Use Your Stash. I used 5 pieces of patterned paper. They were all scraps from Basic Grey Boxer line and the three stickers are from that line, too.

Can you tell I am on vacation?

This is the second time I've posted twice in one day this week! LOL I've been scrapping away all week. I took this week off just to do that and just a couple other errands. I might clean my bathroom this week. I still have to think about that one. I needed to take the time to work on some new layouts using pictures that none of you have seen before because that is Memory Makers rule for this year's masters contest. I quit posting my photo a day into flicker just in case I wanted to use some of those. Here is one I did today that I know I won't use but it is a fun one so I want to share. I actually cut that square of Basic Grey and the matte around it for another layout but didn't like it so I went hunting for pictures to use it with. This is my darling husband. He is ever so cute but he is always tilting that head! Every time I point the camera at him, he smiles but he tilts his head. Sometimes, he tilts his head and closes one eye and gives me that popeye look. I need to scrap those sometime, too. Those little potty people are a quickutz die. I also pulled out some decorative scissors just for fun.

Love my mom

Seth sure does love his mom. He makes me smile with how crazy he is about her. It is so cute how he has started calling her "mom" instead of Mommy. I wonder what it is that makes kids decide what to call their parents. My girls still call me Mommy and they are certainly all grown up. I shared the link to this layout when it appeared on Creatively Yours but didn't actually post it here. Those flower stamps are very cool. I got them at GASC and bought a punch to go with them that fits them exactly. The border stamp at the top is Paper trunk. I love that is 12 inches long and I don't have to try to match it exactly to get it across the whole page.

Are you ready for some journaling?

Hobby Lobby, 50% off.....

He posed for me

This boy knows me well. He actually offered to let me take his picture if he could play in the front yard! Not one to pass up a photo op, we went into the front yard. Silly boy.

Turtle Pond

Believe it or not, this layout has been on my scrap table since before Christmas! I could never decide what to do with it. It originally was going to be two pages and I wanted to use that Scenic Route paper down the left side. That poor paper got cut up so many different times that all I could really do with it is to use strips. Finally, this week, I saw this Cuttlekid turtle die and thought it would be adorable on this page. After arranging and rearranging these pictures at least 100 times, I got rid of a couple, cut several down quite a bit, and pulled in some orange from Allison's purse. (Can you see those orange straps on her shoulder?) I think I am happy with it, now. Don't know why I obsess over things like this so much. Does that ever happen to you?

A new quote

I just found this one over at Simple Scrapbooks.

If I had my life to live over I'd like to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip.
~Nadine Stair

These are my people, a mini mini

Naturally, I wanted to have pictures of my family with me last weekend at my HS reunion but I wanted something to carry in my pocket because I did not want to carry a purse. My solution was this mini mini. I found a package of 12 badge holders at the Dollar Tree. I printed wallet sized photos and matted them on blue paper. I tucked each one into a sleeve and then decorated the actual sleeve, not the photo inside. I tied them together with a ribbon and I had a cute little scrapbook to carry around with me.

I'm having trouble uploading pictures of the inside pages. I will try again later.

New sketch up at Creatively Yours

I have a card posted there today. Go take a look and do one of your own.

Sisters in my heart

These are my sisters-in-law, Dianne and Georganna. I love them both dearly. I am so blessed that those pesky little brothers of mine had such good taste when they fell in love all those years ago and brought them into our family. My sisters did a good job of choosing mates, too. There is not an in law in our family I don't love dearly. As always, you can click on the photo to make it bigger and read the journaling.

I did this page for a challenge at Memorable Seasons. A small group of us put together kits of patterned paper, cardstock and embellishments from our stash that we sent to another person in our group. Mine came from Susie. This paper is from Michelle Miller Memories and it is a cotton fabric paper. It is very pretty but a little difficult to work with. It wouldn't tear in straight lines like I expected it to and my ATG would not stick to it. I used scrappy glue and a UHU glue stick. I've never had good luck with glue sticks holding for very long. Have any of you used fabric paper before? What did you adhere it with?

He bought a chocolate pie

I am the luckiest girl in the world. I have a man who will get up off the couch and go on a hunt for chocolate pie. Yesterday after dinner, we were sitting on the couch and I said out loud, "doesn't chocolate pie sound good?" I'm not even sure why I did. I am certainly not pregnant and it's been years since I had a craving but the thought just popped into my head. Curtis asked if I was serious and I said, "sure." He got up off the couch and said, "I'll be back!" I watched him walk out the door in disbelief. Who is this man? I wondered. After a while, he came back bearing pie. He had been to two different stores and then told me this story.

"At Tom Thumb, the checker asked if I had a reward card. I said no. She countered with the suggestion that I apply for one since I would save money on the purchase. I replied to just ring it up and take my money. The pie is a gift for my honey and I don't want to give her a cheap pie!" He said she gave him a crazy look but took his money and he brought me the pie. I ate a piece right away. Of course, now I have to eat pie every day for a week so it won't go bad. The sacrifices we make for love....

30 yr High School Reunion

I went to my reunion this weekend. I have a couple of friends from high school that I could not talk into going because they said there was not really anyone they wanted to see. I was looking forward to it, not because there was anyone in particular I wanted to see but because I wanted to reconnect with my past. My high school days were pretty ordinary. I was not part of the "in" crowd. I was a speech and drama dork and on the honor roll. However, I made friends pretty easily and felt comfortable with just about anyone I had the occasion to talk to. There were lots of people I went to school with from elementary all the way to graduation. In fact, there were a handful of us who started first grade together. Seeing everyone again on an mature adult level was pure joy. I was thrilled that most everyone who walked up to me knew who I was right away. I got many comments about how I looked exactly the same. Don't know how truthful that really was but it did get repeated often. I have to admit that I had to look at quite a few name tags, myself. 90% of the time, though, after I realized who it was and got a good look at their face, I could see them again just like they used to be 30 years ago. Of course, once they started talking, it was really cool how fun it was. There were a few women who were now blonde instead of having the dark hair I remembered and only a handful who had gained a bit of weight. The vast majority of the women, in my opinion, looked absolutely amazing. The men, however, looked old. That surprised me. It really did. I expected gray hair. After all, we are all pushing 50 but I did not expect them to look like the grandfathers most of them are. All in all, though. I had so much fun. After many had a few drinks in them, they hit the dance floor to what most of you now call classic rock but what were the songs I grew up with. I just watched and laughed. Oh, to be young again and dance like that. With my back, I just can't anymore. I'm glad I went. Didn't get many pictures cause they kept the lights low. I got this picture of the banner and here is one of Curtis and me before we left.

Got your new CK, yet?

Take a look on page 112! Woohoo!

Baby Shower for Lauren

My little group of 6 scrapping friends came to my house today to give a baby shower for Lauren. This is her first baby. It is going to be a little girl and her name will be Mary. Lauren and David have decorated their nursery pink and brown so you will notice a pink and brown theme to these pictures. Linda make the cake topper. Isn't it adorable?

Tonight is my 30 yr high school reunion. I've got a new outfit and I'm looking forward to seeing some people I haven't seen in a long time. I haven't decided if I'm going to take a camera or not. Don't know if I want to keep up with it.

Fun new layout

Featuring my niece, Mary. I used Making Memories papers and felt flowers from O'scrap. I also broke out the stickles.

Brand New Sketch Blog

A brand new sketch blog has begun. It is called Creatively Yours. Noella put out a call asking for designers and she asked me to interpret one of her sketches. She has posted it here. I did sketch #7. Head on over and check her out. I have added her to my blog roll so you can link directly from here.

Be Still My Heart

Shh, don't tell Curtis

But here is his Father's Day Card from me....

I am seriously in love with this Basic Grey Boxer paper. It is elegant and manly at the same time. I got some of the Euphoria paper at GASC this weekend. The people in the booth said it wasn't even shipping until Monday. It is some beautiful stuff. I'm thinking I will put it away and use it for Karen's wedding pages. Speaking of Karen's wedding. Would you like a sneak peek at the bridesmaid's dresses? Here it is. The color is Victorian Lilac. If you click on the color square to the right, it will change for you. I picked up Allison's this past week. We are going to have the skirt shortened to tea length. The lady behind the counter asked if I wanted to try it on! LOL Do I look like a bridesmaid? haha

Never too old

Here is a third layout I did this weekend using pics from Karen's birthday in February. I think I have used most of them now. LOL My stitching program did not want to line these up correctly so I had to save them separately. I don't usually have problems stitching a two pager like this. Weird.

Fun weekend planned

Today I will be at the Great American Scrapbook Convention. I have cash and I plan to spend it! $75 of that cash came courtesy of CK Media. I got the check yesterday which means the July issue has been issued. I am so excited!

I am also working on layouts for the on line crop at Scrapbook Playground. I got two done last night. Come on over and play with us. Tell them Detta sent you. Both of these layouts have pictures taken at Karen's birthday in February. The black and white one was done using stamps. It almost looks like the paper came that way, doesn't it?

And the winners are

Liz Ness and Ida!

I wrote down each person's name in order as I got each email telling me I had a comment on my blog. I then used the random number generator to choose the two winners. The first number was 5 (Liz). The second number was 10. (Ida) I have Liz's address but I need Ida's. Please email me at dettaowens@texasearch.com.

Grandma in Shining Armor rides in...

Poor Karen. She called on Monday to tell me she had decided to find a different day care for Seth. She has not been happy with them for the last several weeks. There are a number of reasons why. One of them is that he is an older 4 yr old still in a Jr Pre-K class. He is larger and more mature than every child in the class. They would not move him up to the regular pre-K program because he will not be starting kindergarten this year since his birthday is Sept 11 and past the cut off date. Their reasoning is that the other kids will move on to kindergarten and he will be left behind. Karen does not think it is a valid argument and neither do I. He is bored in the class he is in and needs to be doing more advanced work. Because of his boredom, he was getting into trouble quite often. They have accused him of using ugly language and being disrespectful. If he is using ugly language, he learned it from the other children because he has not heard it from any of us. The teachers, of course, tell Karen they have never heard any of the other children use it. They have started telling him he is a bad boy. I was livid. You tell a child that their actions are inappropriate or that they need to use nice words. You steer them to an activity to take their mind of what they were doing before. You never tell a child they are bad. They will begin to believe it. In addition, apparently one or more of the children told Seth that when his mommy gets married, his new Daddy will spank him all the time because he is bad. Poor baby was extremely upset about that one. Karen and Joe sat him down and assured him that Joe would not spank him all the time and that he is not a bad boy.

My sister in law agreed to start watching him on Monday but could not start any earlier because of a previous commitment. She said she would watch him as long as Karen needed to find a better place for him. I thought it was a good plan. However, on Wednesday morning, Karen called in tears and told me about another incident that apparently happened on Tuesday involving another child and Seth. She has no more sick days or personal time left since she had her gall bladder surgery a couple of months ago and couldn’t leave work without losing pay. I left work immediately and went to get him. He was thrilled to see me and very excited about leaving. This actually made me sad because I always had a difficult time getting him to leave on previous visits because he was having so much fun. I have had him with me yesterday and today and we have had a great time. He has been respectful of me. He has been a normal 4 year old little boy. We went to the park. We went shopping. We saw Horton hears a Hoo. We baked cookies. We played Memory. We have colored more pictures than I have colored in many, many years. I am exhausted. LOL I have told him all through that he is such a good boy and that I am proud of his manners and proud that he has been so helpful and proud that he is such a special little boy.

Updates

My sister met with a specialist yesterday and she has 4 small tumors on her liver. The doctor does not believe they are malignant because past blood tests have not shown any markers indicating that. He has ordered more blood tests to double check, though. If they are clear, he plans to do another MRI in 6 months and every 6 months for 3 years to see if there is any growth. If they increase at all, they will do a biopsy. These were found because she has been having some chest pain and they were running lots of tests. She does have some arterial disease which can be controlled with medication. Thanks for all the prayers that have been offered on her behalf. We feel a little better about things now.

I will pick my two winner at 3 pm.

This sweet boy is growing too fast

Prayers, please

I found out yesterday that my sister is dealing with a medical crisis that has given me some pause and a reason to step back and reflect on the blessing she has been in my life. Please keep her in your prayers as we begin the search for what it is and what needs to be done.

a project to share

This is what I did for my crafty combo in the HOF contest. It started as a bare wooden tray. I painted it with several coats of spring green acrylic paint. I cut Daisy D patterned papers into squares, inked the edges and mod podged them to the bottom of the tray. I used a Making Memories foam stamp with blue ink to put that image on both of the long sides of the tray. The words are MM rub ons. They say Find peace and love. Find is my word for this year. Then I brushed several coats of glossy mod podge over the whole thing to make it shiny. I put the tray in a chair so you can see the size of it.

Don't forget about my RAK. Read about it here.

A great new quote

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.

— Lin Yutang

Isn't this so true? Some days you just have to kick back and enjoy just being alive. The house can be cleaned another day. The errands can wait. Little babies don't stay little long enough and relationships don't stay strong if they are not nurtured. Take some time for yourself, too. You are worth it.

Happy Sunday

So far my weekend has been busy. I got all my pictures uploaded to Flickr for my project 365. I got about 3 weeks behind and I will try not to do that again. I scrapped a couple of pages yesterday that I won't share cause I am going to send them to this call at Simple Scrapbooks. I really like that Simple plan sketch and did both of my pages using it. You should try, too. You have until June 8 for this one.

I went to a graduation party yesterday for the son of an old friend. Susan and I were best friends from the fifth grade through Jr High and remained close through high school and beyond. She was the maid of honor at my wedding and I was in her hers, too. She was there when Karen and Allison was born. I was there when she adopted Daniel and when a little girl was born the next year and another little girl the next. Whew! What a time that was. Then, as often happens, life happened and we grew apart. We have stayed in contact, sometimes running into each other at kid functions but I had not seen her in 3 or 4 years. It was so great seeing her. We stood there and talked until all of the other guests had left. I realized how much I have missed having a girlfriend to talk to. I resolve to cultivate relationships with those outside of my family more. I feel bad for not being a good friend. I have been blessed with so much and I need to share my happiness and spread it around some more.

As promised, here is a picture of the RAKs I will be giving away on Friday, June 6. Just leave me a comment on any post and I will add you to the list.