Weekend Wrap-up

Have you seen the new Making Memories papers at Michael's yet? Well, if you haven't, you need to & FAST! I read about them on 2 Peas this morning & since my dh had to run to another store today, I asked him if he would stop by M's to see if they had them yet (since our M's always seems to be one of the last ones to get new stuff). He came home with not one, but 2 of the paper packs :) The first one (above & below) has shaped, flocked & glitter paper in it, 8 designs & 3 sheets of each design.
The line is called Chelsea's Place & it's just gorgeous! I think I need to make a trip back to M's tomorrow to see the embellishments that go along with it. Jim told me that they had a lot of different ones, but he had no clue which ones I would want. The specialty paper pack costs $12.99.
Here's a picture of the plain paper pack which costs $9.99.
And here is just a glimpse of a layout I started using the papers already :)

On Friday, we went to Kalloway's for Jim's birthday & then came home & watched the movie Good Luck Chuck with Dane Cook in it.....it was truly hilarious! Lots of nudity in it, though. Afterwards, we decided to go to the movies as well & went to see The Bucket List. Really good movie & definitely a tear-jerker. Needless to say, I lost it towards the end. But it really gets you thinking about your life! I highly recommend seeing it.

Then on Saturday, Jim & Cassie wanted to go see Cloverfield, but I wasn't excited about seeing it, so while they were at the movies, I went to Archivers :) I must have walked around that store for almost 2 hours, just checking things out, seeing if there were any must-haves that I just had to bring home. But I honestly couldn't find much of anything that I wanted/needed. Okay, what's wrong with me??? I never go into a scrapbook store without spending at least $50.00 or more! Well, Archivers only got $22.00 out of me! $22.00!!! Either I have way too much stuff already, or nothing is appealing to me anymore. Or maybe I just need to make a trip to a 'real' scrapbook store like Scrappy Chic or the Zone :) It's been a while since I've gone to either of them, so I see a trip coming up in the very near future :)

On the way home from Archiver's, I decided to check out the new Super Walmart that just opened on Wednesday. I wanted to go there after bowling this past Wednesday, but since that was their Grand Opening day, I decided to wait. Wow, talk about a HUGE store! Right before we left Virginia to move to Michigan, they had just opened a Super Walmart a few blocks away from where we lived....I didn't want to move because of that, lol. The closest Super Walmart to us (before this one just opened) was in Lapeer, which is about 25 miles north of us, so the only time I got to go there was whenever we had to take one of our cars up for an oil change since our dealership is also in Lapeer. But now I'm in shopping heaven :) Just think....now I can go to this Walmart every Wednesday if I want after bowling since it's on the way home. Not too sure how much Jim will like that idea, though, lol. Sorry, but I'm not a Walmart hater.....in fact, I LOVE Walmart! Heck, I even used to work at one years ago & loved my job :)

Well, it's getting late & I'm getting tired. Got a kinda busy week ahead of me, but I hope to finish the above layout in the next day or two. When I do, I'll post a picture of it. Have a great week :)

Benita

Happy Birthday, Babe!

Today, this wonderful, generous, handsome, loving man of mine is turning 43. Yeah, yeah, so he's still younger than me & he reminds me of that fact all the time, lol. But I just remind him that he's got more gray hair than I do & that usually shuts him up ;) Happy Birthday, Babe......love ya!!!
Cindy surprised us with one of her fabulous chocolate cakes for his birthday. She dropped it by this evening & I couldn't wait to cut into it :) YUM!!!
Now, onto the wonderful idea that my dh came up with for my scraproom. He knows that while I loved the idea of my Clip-It-Up, I hated how much space it took up on my desk.....it was just too big & bulky for me. So, he thought why not make a clip-it-up underneath my shelves & that's exactly what he did. He drilled holes into 6 of my shelf brackets & then we purchased a metal rod (the same diameter as the Clip-It-Up circle rods) & ran it through the holes in the brackets. I hope you can get the idea....here's some pictures of the finished product (click on each image to enlarge):

My alphabets.....can you tell I like American Crafts Thickers? :)
Embellishments, etc. Yep, I think I'm going to like this MUCH better!

I finally finished making the 15 memorial mini albums (shown above) that I was asked to make for a school for children that all suffer from life-threatening illnesses. It seems that sadly, they lose a few children each year & they wanted me to make these albums so that when one of them passes away, the teachers will add photos of the child & give the albums to the parents. I was truly honored to do these albums, even with as hard as it was to do them knowing why I was doing them!

Today's 2 Peas question was: What are you scrapping plans for the weekend? As much as I would love to try to get some scrapping done this weekend, I think I might just take a break for a few days & finish cleaning up the rest of my room after doing those mini albums & rearranging my clip-it-up. I also might do some scrapbook shopping as it's been a while.

Tonight, we'll be going out to dinner for Jim's birthday to his favorite restaurant, Kalloway's & then maybe go to a movie afterwards.

Have a great weekend :) Benita

A Helpful Husband & Lots Of Thanks

First off, I'd just like to say Thank-you to everyone that reads my blog & has kept my Mom in their prayers. She didn't have to have the gallbladder surgery (yet), so they discharged her from the hospital & she's now back at the nursing home. As of right now, the surgery has been put on 'stand-by', but we still don't know for sure why. I guess she's still not strong enough to have the surgery. So right now, we're just waiting to see what happens, taking one day at a time.

Also, thank-you as well for all the compliments on my scraproom.....I never expected to get this many compliments on it! I don't see it as a fabulous room like some others I have seen out there, but I'm happy with it :) I would love to put cabinets up on the walls, but since we're renting, that's just not possible, so shelving was the way to go for me. And besides, I like having everything out in the open (especially my Primas :) ) because that way, I can find what I need & it also looks so pretty :)

The 2 pictures above are of my wonderful dh helping me finish the 15 mini albums that I made. He was trying to put rhinestones on the Primas for me, but we found out that his fingers are just too big to work with something so small. Gotta love a man for trying to help, though :) He did help me with sanding all the edges of the pages & I also taught him how to use a Xyron. I may just make a scrapbooker out of him yet ;)
On his way home from work yesterday, he stopped & picked me up this beautiful bouquet of flowers. He said they were because he was so proud of me for doing these mini albums & he thought I needed a pick-me-up since they took longer to do than I expected them to. Plus, he said it's his early birthday gift to me as his birthday is this Friday :) Damn, I love that man!!!

That's all for now.....have to get ready for bowling soon. I promise I won't wait this long to update again. Plus I'll have something new to update soon.....an idea that my dh came up with for my scraproom :)

Benita

A Week Later

Wow, I just realized that it's been a week since I last updated my blog. No reason why I haven't done it sooner, other than I just haven't had much to blog about. Plus I've been extremely busy working on 15 mini albums that I'm making for a good cause (more on that later).

The other day, I did manage to take a break from the books & do a layout (above). I am SO happy with the way this layout turned out! I think it's my favorite one to date :) I used the Making Memories Noteworthy line along with pink Stickles, eyelets (yep, I still use them :), Heidi Swapp flower, Basic Grey clip which I attached an epoxy sticker to the center & some ribbons from Target's $ spot. I printed out the journaling on the sheet that came inside the package of glitter stickers which matches the Noteworthy line. The layout looks so much better in person......my scanner is currently broken, so I have to take pictures of all of my layouts right now. But trust me, everything is straight IRL.

Tonight, Jim & I went to Dave's 50th Birthday Party (Cindy's husband) & had a blast! She made the most delicious dark chocolate cake.....it was absolutely the best cake I have ever had! I told her that she has to give me the recipe so I can make it for Jim's birthday in 2 weeks :) We just got home a little while ago, which explains why I'm still up at 2:00 am. And I figured I might as well update my blog now since I'm wide awake.

Remember when I posted last week that the temps were supposed to reach 50 degrees? Well, it ended up getting even warmed than that.....we hit a new record of 64 degrees the other day! Plus, at one point, we were under a tornado watch & had some really bad thunderstorms. And now, all the snow that we got on New Year's Day is just a faded memory. But at least I can scrap that memory since I took a lot of pictures of it :) It was so nice though, to take my Charger out of the garage & I even opened the sunroof.....in JANUARY! But now, reality is back & it's cold again. And snow is in the forecast for the next couple of days....I don't think they're calling for much accumulation, though. Ah well.....I guess I can't complain.....afterall, it IS still Winter! But when you get a taste of Spring like that, it truly makes you want it even more!

Guess I better get to bed....back to working on the albums tomorrow.

Have a great Sunday!

From Zero To 50.....

....in 3.5 days! The temps in Michigan, that is. Just 2 days ago, it was -1 degree for a low. Now, they're predicting that we're supposed to get into the 40's this weekend & possible hit 50 or higher on Monday. Then later in the week, back down into the 30's again. Geez.....it's no wonder people are always sick around here! On top of all that, it's supposed to rain the next several days, so this 13 1/2" of snow we have will turn into a mushy, slushy, messy mess! One good thing, the 2 days that the temps were extremely cold, the sun came out & I managed to capture some pictures of it :) Trust me, when the sun shines in Michigan in the Winter, you cherish it as much as you can because it doesn't shine for long!

Here's my front yard.....thought I might as well get some more snow pictures before it's all gone.

Our back yard.....look at that blue sky!
We were also blessed with a gorgeous sunset, something else we don't get very often in the Winter.
View from our bedroom window.
I also managed to do some scrapping the other day & did the layout above of my granddaughter. I didn't have any black Bazzill with the holes punched out, so I made my own :) The swirls are made from Tim Holtz Grungeboard (LOVE that stuff!) & the Quickutz swirl die. The die wouldn't cut all the way through the Grungeboard, so I ended up having to cut it out.

This weekend, nothing much is going on....just the usual laundry & stuff. Hoping to get some more scrapbooking in as well as I started printing out some of my Christmas & snow pics. On a side note, I've already lost 2.2 lbs. since the 1st of the year :) I definitely needed that motivation this morning when I got on the scale!

Have a great weekend & stay dry,
Benita

Happy New WHITE Year!

Here is what we woke up to this morning.....13 1/2" inches of white stuff! It started snowing last night around 9:00p.m., but they were saying that we were only supposed to get between 4-8 inches. HA!!! Surprise, surprise! I guess they didn't get nearly this much near Detroit.....only a couple of inches down there. All the neighbors were out this morning shoveling & snow blowing & probably thought I was nuts for taking pictures. But do you think I cared? :)

Here's one of my wreaths that's around the garage light. I was planning on taking them down today, but I think I'll wait now cause they're just so pretty with the snow on them :)
When we opened the sliding glass door this morning, this is what we were up against. We had to let the dogs go out the front door to use the bathroom as they never would have made it through this!
I took this picture of our backyard through the sliding glass door & I love the way you can see the droplets on the door!
Another view of our backyard/deck.
Our front porch. You can even see that my other wreath got snow on it & it's hanging on the light under the porch.
Jim hard at work :) Take notice to who's car is in the garage ;) MINE!

One of the bushes in our front yard. Somewhere under there are some Christmas lights :)

Yesterday, Cindy & I went to Hobby Lobby as planned & I bought 2 Figgy Pudding paper packs (50% off) along with a really cool 'retro' looking silver 4 1/2' Christmas tree. It was originally $49.99, but I got it for $17.00! Couldn't pass that deal up! I won't be taking a picture of it until next year, though as it's already put away in a storage box.

It's supposed to get windy today & even colder tomorrow & Thursday with highs only in the low 20's, but then this coming Saturday, they're saying that the temps are supposed to be around 50 & it's supposed to rain, so all of this gorgeous white stuff will be gone by then :( But I'm sure this won't be the last we see of snow this year.

Last night, Jim, Cassie & I decided to go see a movie. At first, I thought we were nuts.....who goes to see a movie on New Year's Eve, especially when the movie doesn't end until 12:15a.m.? Well, apparently, we're not the only nuts people in the world as there were 6 other people seeing the same movie as us.....National Treasure, Book Of Secrets. Really good movie, although I think the first one was a little better. But I love Nicholas Cage, so I'll watch anything with him in it ;) As we were leaving the theater, I yelled "Happy New Year" to all the workers there :) I think they thought I was drunk or something, but I didn't have even one drink all night. And besides, if you know me, I'm not much of a drinker anyway.....I was just in a really good mood last night :)

It took us about 45 minutes to get home when it usually only takes about 15 or less. The roads were just starting to get covered & you couldn't even see any of the lines! So I just drove slowly & took a longer route that I thought would be cleared better (wrong!).

Today, we'll be taking down the real Christmas tree (we already took down my angel tree last night) & cleaning this mess.....I mean house! I love Christmas, but I'll be so glad to get my house back in order!

Also today, I start my new eating habits. I refuse to call it a diet because diets never work! No more ice cream at night, cut back on the portions I eat, drink even more water than I do now & cut back on Pizza (although that one's going to be really hard!). I could eat Pizza everyday of the week if my husband & daughter would let me ;) I'm hoping that when we get our income tax refund this year, we'll be able to buy an Elliptical or something. I loved my treadmill & really miss exercising!

I hope you all had a very safe & Happy New Year!

Benita