steph's stuff

Surviving 17 days without internet

• 17 days of vacation
• 4 days spent driving 1200 miles to Maine and 1200 miles home
• 13 days of rain
• 7 days spent visiting with cousins
• 3 days spent in Acadia National Park
• 1,000 photos taken
• 280 hours spent complaining about all the rain
• 5 days spent eating seafood chowder
• 8 days spent inside playing board games and cards
• 1 day spent coughing when the cabin's fireplace smoked us out
• 3 space heaters needed to keep us warm enough
• 6 quilts used to huddle underneath constantly
• 14 books read (just by me)
• 4 perfect days of sun
• 17 days without internet
• 1 very happy me to be home!!!!! (more photos and stories to follow tomorrow)

Um...tomorrow is going to be here quickly

 

About the only thing I have done for our trip is what you see in this photo. I bought the kids a portable DVD player for the van and have it set up. Aside from prying Andrew out of the van and promising that he can watch Star Wars the whole way to Maine, I have nothing else done. Today is the frantic rush to do laundry, pack, get the animals ready, get the keys to the person coming to the house, arranging for mail and newspaper pick up, do laundry, pack, go grocery shopping and run errands, return library books, do laundry and pack, do laundry and pack, and do more laundry and pack.

Back later with lots of pics from Wendy's visit. :)

I'm lovin' it!

 

I've been working with Creative Memories for almost a year now and still can't believe my good fortune. I seriously love working with CM and it's one of the best jobs I've ever had in the scrapbooking industry. And, as many of you know, scrapbooking companies work about 6 months ahead of time a lot of the time and it's soooooo hard sometimes to wait to show off some of the new products. But some of my favorites have now been released so I whipped up this layout last night to give you a peek at four of my favorite products.

Creative Memories products on this layout include paper from the Surfer Girl Addition, Paper Flowers (Delightful), Paper Ribbon (Delightful), and foam squares. Other supplies include Bazzill cardstock, Making Memories journaling tags, chipboard and Word Fetti and some bling from Basic Grey.

 

I cannot tell you how much I love these paper flowers!!! There is so much detail on every flower and they are not fragile! One of my pet peeves with other paper flowers is that they are easily torn - I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally ripped a petal while trying to move it or just unstick it from another flower. These are sturdy. And, just so pretty! My favorite is the little yellow one - yummy! Oh, and foam squares that stick to anything!!! I love a good adhesive but more than anything, I really like knowing this adhesive is safe. It's not going to fall off or yellow over time.

 

See that pretty strip of pink ribbon partially underneath the journaling tag? That is ribbon. PAPER ribbon!!! And the best thing about it, besides how pretty it is? It doesn't unravel when you cut it because it's textured paper! I'm not good with ribbon - it drives me nuts - hard to adhere, hard to stay adhered once I get it down and cutting it always leaves loose threads or fibers. Well, no more. This ribbon is awesome!!!

You can also see a close-up of the paper in this photo. The colors are rich and vibrant and it's all a bit distressed - just lovely.

And there is still so much more to come - CM is coming out with some gorgeous papers this summer and I can't wait to show you! I'm going to try and bring you some new product a couple of times/month, so add me to your Google Reader or other feedburner if you want to see the new stuff as it hits the shelves. (There is a subscribe button on the top right side of my blog. It's that easy.)

And, ahem, if you don't know a Creative Memories consultant, you might want to get one. An easy way to find one is to go the CM Consultant Finder. :)

What was I thinking?

 

I've just been dilly-dallying along for the past few days. Thoroughly enjoyed Father's Day, doing some laundry, doing lots of sewing, going to the pool, and doing a bit of gardening. And, last night, it hit me.

Dude, we're going on vacation in 3 days. THREE days!!!! And I had nothing done. Still don't. Because I'm blogging about it first. :p

I have three days to get a family of five ready and packed for a drive across the country and I have done NOTHING. No, wait. I've quilted. But that's not really very helpful. I have a feeling my kids would like some underwear for the trip instead of just a quilt, don't you?

So, I have to go now. I'm sure I'll need a break at some point and will be back here chatting away, though. LOL!

Oh, and that photo is from the drive to our cabin. When I hit this point in the road, I know I am home. After this, there's only about 10 minutes left in the drive and we all start jumping up and down in the car. :)

See the fog rolling off of the island? Gorgeous!!!

Jumping through hoops

 

Tom's new hobby. Dog training. :) Better him than me, I say! Sawyer can now roll over on command, sit, stay, down, down with treats on his paws!!!!! and stay there with the treats until Tom comes back into the room, jump through the hoop, go to bed, fetch and drop it and I'm sure there's more. Dog training is going very, very well. Although the crazy-energy is still there. We just try to exhaust Sawyer as much as we can and we still have to watch him around the kids because he still nips. ARGH!!! No one seems to be able to break him of that, unfortunately. It's the bain of my existence. :p

Back later with more pics and a Father's Day recap. Right now, I'm still too tired to even type. I told Tom that he was in complete control of the day and, wow, did he work us out!

From wonderful to wild

 

This will be my last post about weather. I promise. We've only had about 4-5 days of full sun since Memorial Day weekend. And three of those days WERE Memorial Day weekend. Sheesh. It just hasn't felt like summer at all.

Yesterday, we had sunny skies by 9am after a scary overnight storm. Our neighbors lost one of their trees and we had limbs down all over our yard. So, the sunny skies were a relief, as well as cause for joy.

We were also excited because, even though I wrote yesterday that we weren't going to swimming lessons, the sky suddenly cleared and we happily went off to swimming lessons. And it was a wonderful decision! It was the last day of this session and test day. If the kids pass this level, they get to move onto the next level in July. (And look at Andrew go! I just love that photo above. My baby is actually swimming. Not just dog-paddling, but really swimming. Freestyle and the back stroke. But, that's another story for another day. 'Cause Libby passed into Level IV!!)

Three hours later, I noticed how dark the sky was and immediately checked the local radar only to find that we were under a tornado watch. Just %$&^#$% lovely!!!

And then when I saw this above our house, I ran to get the camera.

 

Yep, that would be a teeny-tiny funnel cloud up very high in the sky. It was ever-so-slowly rotating. We were never in any danger and it was very high up but it was eerie to watch. Within 10 minutes, it was gone.

I'm hoping for a much calmer day today. This roller coaster of weather is getting on my nerves.

"Indoors, Indoooors, Innnndoooooors"*

 

*10 points for whoever can name the TV show that my title is from and which character said it! Not that you can use the 10 points for anything, but you still get them. ;)  And the layout is made with the June Studio Calico kit.

The title is, unfortunately, very appropriate. We are indoors. We have been indoors. And we will be indoors. The weather just sucks. So badly that we took the kids up to my brother-in-law's house in Michigan last week to use his indoor pool. It just doesn't feel like summer. It feels like March. Cold and rainy. Yuck. But, yes, it's great for quilting and craftiness time. ;)

And, let me tell you, our swimming coach is a swimming freak. He's been putting the kids in the pool everyday in this freezing weather. I couldn't stand it. They were blue, for God's sake! So, we've just started skipping. I'm not going to make them miserable. We skipped yesterday and it's pouring down rain and thunderstorms this morning so we're not going today, either, even though it's the last day. We'll just take them again in August when, I hope, we'll actually have summer weather.

The good news is that I just finished a huge deadline for Designer Digitals and that was my last deadline before vacation next week, so I can now focus on getting ready for Maine. Although, guess what the weather is like there? Yep, freezing and raining. And it's forecasted to continue. But, I'd rather be in Maine in the cold and rain than here, so we'll make do. If the rain holds off, we can at least have bonfires on the beach like we did last year. :)

Have a good day!

I wish she was here

 

Libby and I laid out the blocks for the second quilt yesterday. If you look closely, you can see a bluish-green floral quilt peeking out underneath the edges of the blocks. It's a quilt that my grandmother made.

As I've been working on these quilts, I've thought about my grandmother a lot. She used to quilt and it was always so neat to walk into her house to find the furniture pushed to the side in the living room because she had her portable tables set up with a new quilt in progress on them.

And, when she died 4 years ago, my mom gave me my grandmother's rotary cutter and a few other basic quilting tools. I don't know why mom gave those to me. I had never expressed any interest in sewing or quilting. But I have remembered those tools for 4 years and the minute I thought of doing this Quilt A Long, I thought, "Oh, I could use her tools," and that was it. I was going to do it.

Unfortunately, when I pulled them out, they're not in the greatest shape so I haven't used them. But they sit beside me on the dining room table as I sew and I think about my grandmother as I work. I have so many quilting questions that I need the answers to and, at times, I have to take a break because the memories are so overwhelming. Because I'm always brought back to the realization that she's not here. I would give anything to have her here to teach me how to do this.

Will summer ever arrive?

 

I now interrupt this crafty nerdiness blog for this question: Will summer ever arrive?

Swimming lessons consist of the kids turning blue and shivering so violently that they vibrate the water in the entire pool.

My mornings involve unpacking yet even more of the winter clothes that I packed away because the kids need long pants and sweaters.

The afternoons consist of board games, lots of Lincoln Logs, Wii tournaments, and story writing because it's too cold and rainy to play outside.

It's been great for crafty nerdiness. ;) But, seriously. Seriously. Will summer ever arrive?

Sewing + Paper = Wow

 

I am only about 10 years behind the rest of the scrapping world with this one, but I actually sewed on a scrapbook page. And, in my defense, I'm not a trendy person to begin with. I know my style and I pretty much stick to it. But, holy stitching, batman! I think I'm in love.

The supplies for this layout are all from the June kit from Studio Calico. I am seriously in love with their kits now.