Birthday Blessings

Hello everyone.  I had planned to share an Easter card with you today, but I had such a lovely birthday yesterday that I thought I would tell you about my day instead.

I was greeted with this amazing floral arrangement when I walked into the living room this morning!  Doug went to our favorite florist and had them put together the arrangement for him.  I promise you that the photos do not do justice to the flowers.  When I saw them I actually gasped.  My poor photography is not gasp worthy!!

My friends Kathy and Susan had me over to Susan's house for a lovely, lovely luncheon. Susan set a lovely table with white, pink and gold china, lace tablecloth, fabric napkins, fresh camellias, etc.  Susan prepared a ham and cheese quiche, spinach salad, and rolls. The food was delicious! Not to be out done, because she wasn't (!), Kathy made a fabulous strawberry trifle!!  Most importantly, I had a wonderful time with Susan and Kathy. I have said it before and I am sure I will say it again, I have the most wonderful friends!!

In the afternoon Doug and I went out to visit a new store that opened in Aiken - Fresh Market.  It is a grocery-type store with wonderful produce and fresh meats.  The store carries a nice selection of coffees and organic shelf items.  They have rotisserie cooked meats and great prepared foods.  And their bakery is to die for!!!  While there I decided that instead of going out to dinner as we had planned I wanted to pick up dinner and take it home.

After much debate I decided on sesame garlic split chicken breasts, freshly made twice baked potatoes, and spinach salad.  The Fresh Market tossed in some fabulous yeast rolls and I added a loaf of Olive bread.  Along with the rest of Kathy's strawberry trifle, this made for a fabulous birthday dinner.

And because it was my birthday, I dug through my dishes and decided that we should dine on my pink Portuguese Bordallo Pinheiro dinnerware.  I added silver, French glassware, and toile napkins in shades of pink. Doug and I invited Bethany's beau, John, to join us for dinner. All four of us truly enjoyed the dinner and dessert and I told John that he was going to have to suck-it-up on the "girly" table as it was my choice for my birthday.  He agreed that this dinner should be all about me.  Smart man!!!

I finished the evening sharing Bethany's life in scrapbooks with John - who actually asked to see them.  Bethany was a bit embarrassed but John had the sweetest smile the entire time he was looking at her scrapbooks.  Have I mentioned that Doug and I like John??

I had a truly wonderful birthday.  I enjoyed hearing from my children, extended family, and so many friends.  It was a lovely day.

Getting Back to Normal - Almost....

Hello everyone!  I hope you have all enjoyed a lovely Christmas - we certainly have at our house.  Today is our first steps back toward normal life.  Aaron and Crissie have returned home and Ian is looking at the calendar to determine his date to return to Atlanta.   Bethany is excited to start teaching second grade full-time after the new year... and Doug and I are ready for life to settle down again.  Personally I am ready to spend a little less time in the kitchen, though we have had some wonderful meals over the last week.

Yesterday we had our two final salutes to the Christmas season.  The "kids" and I spent some time frosting our cutout sugar cookies and the gateau bon bons (though we had eaten half of the bon bons unfrosted).  For those of you who are new to the blog since last Christmas, my children take Christmas cookies to a whole new level and do not know how to do a traditional frosted cookie. 

If the cookies in the photo above look boringly normal that is because I frosted them!  My cookies were, for the most part, very traditional looking.  Of course they drew rolling of the eyes a disappointed glances from my offspring!!  LOL

The cookies below are a better example of my kids' cookies.  The cookies in this photo were frosted by my future daughter-in-law, Crissie.  I thought she did a nice job on her Hulk figure, the "traditional" snowman, her Jesus angle, and her fun fish and trees.

Here is a peek at my creative three:  Bethany, Aaron, and Ian (yes, Ian grew a beard since Thanksgiving!). 

Below are a few of Aaron's cookies:  Spiderman badge, pirate snowman, angry tree, and hangman cane.  He also had a great Ninja Turtle that was not photographed.

In the photo below Crissie is working hard while Bethany is hardly working! 

After our cookie afternoon, we had a wonderful dinner - Doug grilled out for us!  After dinner we were joined by our friends the Garlands' for sodas, Christmas cookies, and card games!  So now we are going to get back to normal... Or at least our household version of normal!

Thanks for stopping by today.  I will be back soon with another post.

Weekend of Family Fun

Hello everyone!  Today I have no project to share with you - just news of the weekend and a public service announcement:  Bitten By The Bug 2 is on holiday break this week so there will not be a weekly challenge.  I think the design team is recovering from too much weekend fun - I know I am.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.  I had an absolutely fabulous weekend - a quiet Thanksgiving day with Doug and Bethany (and Duncan the wonder dog!), which lead to a fun Friday.  Ian as well as Aaron & Crissie (and their two dogs!!) came home on Friday.  Aaron & Crissie spent Wednesday, Thursday, and part of Friday with Crissie's mom, then we had them until Sunday late afternoon.  Friday night we played card games late into the night while teasing one another and having a great time.

Saturday brought Ferrando's pizza for lunch, an afternoon photo shoot for Aaron and Crissie, and bowling.  Saturday evening was spent with finger foods, football, music, an outdoor fire, and more fun card games.... And of course lots more teasing.

The couple photos featured here are Crissie's favorite of the 20 or so photos I took of she and Aaron.  In my usual style, I just followed them around the yard with my camera.  I really like the photo at the top of the page, and the others too, including the floating heads above!

Now for the next two photos:

As Doug and I were wearing down on Saturday night, the younger generation was ready to go find Karaoke or other fun in downtown Aiken.  As they started to leave, Bethany and Aaron compared hats.  Bethany then realized she had a second furry hat that Crissie could borrow.  Now why Crissie would want to borrow this hat is beyond me - clearly not a fashion statement that I appreciated.... Though they assured me that they were a hit in downtown Aiken!

As they were departing Ian came in wearing his Cubs hat.  He earned extra points for a normal hat!!  But the hat assortment required documenting!!  Anyway, now you understand why I have no project to share with you today... Too much family fun!!

Count Your Blessings Gratitude Challenge with BBTB2

Hello everyone.  Happy Bitten by the Bug 2 Monday - and happy Thanksgiving week here in the States.  This week's BBTB2 challenge is perfect for this week - Gratitude.  The assignment was to craft a project about something for which you are grateful, or in some way features gratitude.

For me this was such an easy assignment.  As most of you have gathered, I adore my family.  I am thankful for them every single day.  My husband (of 31 years this week!) is a wonderful warm and loving man with whom I feel blessed to be sharing my life.  My adult children are each so unique in personality and so unique in their expressions of love.  I am so blessed to have had these three children!  And I am so grateful for my future daughter-in-law (though I do not think of her as "future" but as my d-i-l).  Crissie is smart, funny, kind-hearted, and most of all, she adores my son!  How could I not be grateful for Aaron's brilliant choice in a life mate?   And even though Crissie is missing from the family photo above, she is very much a part of our family.

I mixed several elements and ideas in creating this layout.  I began with a family photo - one I hope to replace with a Thanksgiving FULL family photo later this week - and I built around the idea of Gratitude.  I began by selecting background and matting cardstock.  Once I had gathered all of my cardstock layers,using the Thanksgiving cartridge, I cut the phrase Count your Blessings in dark brown cardstock.  I set that aside.

I used the small phrase "A Grateful Heart" and stamped the edges of the orange matting.  I added ribbon to the corner of the photo and to the upper right corner of the layout. 

Two cartridges were used to create my floral displays - Art Philosophy (still my favorite cartridge) and Something To Remember - A Cricut Circle cartridge.  I cut two leaf arcs from Something to Remember and positioned them at opposite corners of the photo.  Using Art Philosophy, six flowers were cut in three different sizes. 

Thank you for stopping by Busy with the Cricky today.  I hope you will join us in the weekly challenge at Bitten by the Bug 2.  Please add your photo into the Mr. Linky space under this week's post!

Wedding Gift and Card with Silhouette Cameo

Hello everyone!  A couple of weekends ago my family attended the wedding of family friends - The wedding of Dane and Megan.  Dane has been friends with my older son since 3rd grade!  I took the traditional gifting method and shopped from Dane and Megan's Williams Sonoma registry.  However, for my son Aaron, I created another vinyl home decor project!

I used an 11x11 square matte platter and black vinyl.  With my Silhouette Cameo I cut the split W and their names - Dane & Megan - as well their wedding date.  I felt horrid because I forgot to include the plate stand that I had purchased for the platter.

I also used my Cameo to create a wedding card.  I welded a wedding dress, tux jacket and a rectangle together to create this very pretty card.  After sizing and welding the pieces together, I cut the base card in white cardstock.  I then trimmed away the excess wedding dress (the bottom of the dress). 

Next I cut the dinner jacket, shirt & tie, and the wedding dress again.  I also cut the wedding dress highlights in vellum.  I used an embossing folder on the wedding dress before adding the vellum highlights.  I finished the dress with liquid pearl accents at the neckline and small dots of stickles in the embossed flowers.  On the tux, I used gray liquid pearls on the buttons. 

On the inside of the card where the back is visible over the top of the dress, I stamped Congratulations Mr. & Mrs.  I also added a small flourish stamp in the lower right inside of the card.   I really liked this elegant wedding card and hope to make it again.

Thanks for stopping by Busy with the Cricky today and viewing my wedding gift/wedding card projects. I will be back tomorrow with another new project to share!

Photo Shoot For My Daughter

Hello everyone!  I do have projects to share with you, but today instead of paper crafting, I am sharing my daughter, Bethany.  Bethany and I had a photo shoot in our yard yesterday afternoon in an attempt to get photos for personalized graduation announcements.  

Bethany will be graduating from the University of South Carolina, Aiken with a BA in Early Childhood Education on December 12.  Last month she shared the traditional Josten's college graduation announcements with her dad and I.  She hated them.  Bethany wanted something much more creative, fun, personal.  She wanted for the announcements to reflect her personality.

She has a friend who is a professional photographer, but in another state.  Bethany was having difficulty finding a weekend to visit the friend.... She is a bit busy now that she is student teaching!!  So she decided to settle for a mom photo shoot!

She wore two different outfits for our photo shoot, but in all of our favorite photographs she is in her casual outfit.  I think I just like these colors on her better!

I went to various on-line announcement sites yesterday afternoon/evening researching graduation announcements.  I ended up taking a few photos of Bethany's favorite works of art in her bedroom and mixed those photos with selected shots from our photo shoot and created fun, creative, personalized graduation announcements and thank you cards!! 

Thanks for stopping by today and reading my graduation announcement post!  I will be back with real paper crafting tomorrow and Friday!!!