My little Mother's Day project

For Mother's Day I decided to make my mom an ATC Card Holder with pictures from our trip to Ireland in March. So for the last couple of weeks I've been printing tiny pictures, cutting out tiny pictures and decorating tiny ATC cards with Ireland memorabilia and of course, tiny pictures. ha.

I thought this would be a great way to get a lot of pictures together, so she could keep it on her desk at work and be able to stroll down memory lane whenever she wanted. I knew if I made a scrapbook of our trip it would turn into 3 huge scrapbooks because I took over a thousand photos, and she wouldn't look at them as often as she would the ATC holder. It was a lot of fun to work on, I just wish I had started earlier so I could have really done it up right.

So without further ado, here's one of my Mom's mother's day presents:








I will add more photos tonight. I'm off to work! Have a great day!

I've been flocked

So the other day I was driving home and as I turned onto my street (also known as Freak Street), something caught my eye. My heart skipped a beat and I immediately began repeating to myself, "Please don't let that be my house, please don't let that be my house..."

As I pulled up the mantra changed to one single exclamation:

"Oh snap! It's my house." LOL

There in my front yard, right smack in the middle of Freak Street were about 2 dozen pink flamingos! Ay Yi Yi! I was flocked.

My across the street neighbor, Jay, was standing in his driveway marvelling at the impact of such "fuschia-ness" I'm sure. He was immobile. Mesmerized by the beauty. Then he was suddenly capable of speech again.

"Quite a surprise to come home to!" He said, hopefully.

"Oh this? It's no surprise, it's my new yard art! I thought I needed some color in my yard, and who has time to plant flowers!" I responded cheerfully, proud of myself for recovering so quickly from the shock.

"Just make sure it STAYS IN YOUR YARD!" he retorted, with a smirk. Crap, he was onto me. I guess the color hadn't fully returned to my face after all.

And to the benevolent bestowers of this gift? All I have to say is, "sleep with one eye open "O" Family. One eye open........."

Dorks with Pets

So Chelsea Grace LOVES the outdoors, but being the mean pet owner that I am, I don't usually let her outside. She's strictly an indoor cat. I do allow her in the screen room occasionally to watch the birds in the backyard; and the one rare snowstorm we had offered her the opportunity to take a few steps in the snow before I whisked her back into the warmth of the house. And she's ok with that...most of the time.

Every once in awhile she will catch a glimpse of freedom and bolt out the front door if I happen to have my hands full. Luckily she never gets too far before I catch her. I have always felt a little guilty for not letting her outside, but not guilty enough.

Here's where the dork part comes in. Chelsea Grace got a stroller for Christmas so that she can go outside. ha! I figure we can both be happy with this arrangement. She gets to be outside, and I get to know she's safe. Win win, right? I decided to ease her into the transition. First the stroller sat in the living room. She happily jumped up into it several times a day to nap or watch tv. Then I would zip her up in it and walk her up and down the hall. She wasn't terribly crazy about that, but who can blame her. My hallway is pretty boring.

Finally, last week, it was showtime! The moment we had all been waiting for. I got off work a little early, so it was still daylight; and the weather was nice; almost springlike. I came in, grabbed Chelsea Grace and plopped her in the stroller. Zip zip and she was safely in! Took her outside and we walked up and down the street. She meowed the whole way, I think she was scared to death. ha! I finally convinced her we weren't going to the V-E-T's office and let her just sit in the stroller in the front yard and watch all the comings and goings.

Guess what? She LIKES it! We've gone for a couple more walks and now she just sits and watches everything as we stroll along, like it's the most natural thing in the world. The neighbors, on the other hand, think I'm a tad odd. ha. Little do they know. I'm a LOT odd! But I live on freak street anyway, so who are they to judge?

Beautiful song

WOW. This is my new "favorite, second only to O, Holy Night" Christmas song. There is a bit of talking at the beginning, but if you are patient, I promise you'll be blessed.

::thank you Jeanne for the tutorial!::

Freaking out a little

I just completed a HUGE Christmas card order. Well, huge to me....624 cards to one person. Last Thursday I got a phone call from someone asking to see examples of the cards we offer. After asking a few questions, I found out this is a client that Meredith photographed the day after Thanksgiving. She mentioned to them that I do custom cards, so they gave me a call. This family lives in Alabama, so I haven't met them, but I have talked to the wife/mother on the phone and through email over the past week. After I got the design approved by them, they told me how many cards they wanted. ::gulp:: That made me a little nervous. I called Meredith to thank her for the referral, and made the comment that I don't think I have known 624 people in my ENTIRE LIFE! She told me to google the people and that would explain everything.

Oh how I wish I hadn't done that.

I won't tell you the two words I said, but they start with "holy" and end with "crap". ;o)

To quote Meredith, let's just say, "Yes sir Senator. Anything you say." ::gulp again::

I don't know whether to be thrilled or throw up, lol.

Things that make you go hmmmmmmm

Number one: Why have my neighbors left their rugs hanging on my fence for 3 months now? The first day or two they were there, I thought, "Hmmm they must be doing some deep cleaning in their house." Now I just wonder why they didn't just throw the darn things away! They have been rained on and faded from a summer of hot sun. Hmmmmmmmm. And no I'm not asking them because this is the house where the crazy burglar lives!

Number two: How did this Target bag get way up high into a tree in my back yard? I know it's not MY Target bag. I wonder how far it traveled to get there, I wonder what fabulous items it held when it left Target, I wonder if this person was shopping there the same time I was one day.

And I wonder how to get it down....

Number three: How do you lose a saucepan, when you are the only person living in your house? This one really has me puzzled, and more than a little perturbed.

Very Cool

Remember that tree picture I posted a while ago? Well I got it printed on canvas and made a gallery wrap out of it. It looks so pretty in my den!

But that's not the cool part!

A friend of mine saw the photo and asked where I got it. I told her I took the picture, and she liked it so much she asked if I minded if she used it as the starting point for a design for a wall quilt hanging she was making her husband. It was just the shape she was looking for. I told her of course I didn't mind! And that picture above is exactly what she made! Isn't it beautiful? She's so talented. It doesn't show well in this photograph, but she added beads to parts of the branches, (click on the photo to see it larger) and it's just stunning in person!

(that's the cool part!) :o)