Palouse Falls State Park and a Freebie!!

I ended up creating a second page to show more of the park and a complete photo of the falls since you really can’t get an idea of what the park really looks like from the one photo that I used in the first layout. I tell you the more I see of this kit the more I love it.

In fact the more I think about it the more it reminds me of the colors that Melissa Daniels and Neverland Scraps used on their “End of Summer” Collab Kit a few years back. I’ve posted a preview image from the kit to the right so you can get an idea of what I’m talking about.  I’m pretty sure that they have retired this kit but it has one of my favorite ribbon borders of all time. I know that the colors are a bit more muted in the older kit but both kits are based on combinations of  pink, green and orange withe a neutral color thrown in to help balance everthing.

Back to the April Designer’s Challenge Kit that’s emerging from Hummiesworld.com and I almost completely forgot to mention one other designer that needs to be credited. I utilized a “tear” that Shannon Fahrnsbach designed for her “On the Edge” kit.  Of course it is an item that she designed years ago when she was over at Divine Digital and I think I actually got it as a freebie when I popped in on one of the chat’s on National Scrapbooking Day a couple years ago. To be totally honest I don’t think she’s even designing anymore because I can’t find her stuff anywhere and her blog hasn’t been updated since mid 2008.

I decided to utilize the right page of the layout to focus on the amazing views at the state park. Apparently there is tent camping permitted there and there even is a trail down to the river and base of the falls. But since we were there just before sunset (park closes at dusk) we didn’t get a chance to explore the park. You literally drive 2 miles down a gravel road to get to the 105 acre park itself. There isn’t much at the park other than the falls and the lookout. So it’s more of a day use park than anything.

One of the things I had started doing (before being distracted by  a couple of Facebook applications) was create quickpages to give away as freebies. I found that I enjoyed doing “One Kit” Creative Team calls and that many of the designers were more than happy to allow me to create a quickpage for them and post it on my blog and I would let them include it in a mini-kit or add-on to a kit. One of the fun things about Hummie’s Designer Challenges is that anyone can participate in them in anyway. She realizes that some can design individual items and that some design quickpages and such. So anyone can participate in a way that works best for them. Since I like creating quickpages I decided to utilize various items that were contributed to it as of this week and create a quickpage out of the first layout I created with the kit. I hope you enjoy it and if you really like it go get the rest of the kit by CLICKING HERE to download it.

Quickpage DOWNLOAD LINK here

Flinging Myself Back Into Scrapping This Spring

After a bit of deliberation this past week I decided that I was spending way to much time on Facebook. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy seeing what friends and family are up to, reconnecting with old friends and getting to know distant cousins allover again or for the very first time. But I can sum up the time consuming portion of it in two words – Facebook Apps ! Two apps in particular, a virtual farming  and a virtual fish tank. I got rid of the fish tank last month and by Thursday night I came to the conclusion that the farming was being done more for the benefit of others not for me. I was not getting any digiscrapping outside completing the challenges for ADSR 5. So I went ahead and eliminated the distraction of virtual farming.

So first thing this morning while waiting for my hubby to wake up. I decided to check my email and read a blog update from Hummiesworld. Hummie mentioned that this months Designer Challenge was being hosted by Christine Smith and mentioned that there were some beautiful items that people were designing and  contributing to the challenge. The color swatch was actually the  first thing to catch my eye and seemed to be just the thing to get my scrapping mojo back!

Christine started it off with a wonderful contribution and the ball just started rolling from there. I quickly popped in, downloaded the files. I can’t wait to see what else is going to be contributed to this free kit because new items are being added almost daily!!

Here is the first page I created with the kit!

As for the garage remodel…we took the day off. Tomorrow we are going to wrap the front and get ready to shingle it next weekend.

Garage Remodel – Day 2

Well the morning started out beautiful but we knew that there was going to be a chance of scattered rain showers. So Michael put the “EZ-Up” which would give us a dry work area if and when it decided to rain. While I ran to the store to pick up coffee for Michael he decided to remove the form and get the sill plate cut and the holes drilled into it for anchoring the sill plate later. Somehow while testing the bolts one of them popped out of the concrete. So we had to make a trip to Lowe’s for some anchoring cement. Needless to say, we will not be tightening the bolts until the concrete cures for at least a week.

We spent the better part of Saturday working on the framing and making sure that the door was level. I made a final run to Lowe’s for a new doorknob/deadbolt, new trim and sealant. Technically the sidewindows don’t match but at first glance you can’t tell. We hope that once it’s retrimmed and painted so that the right side and left side match you won’t be able to tell at all. We decided that we really like the  windows on each side instead of going with a more traditional rectangle window and door combination. It allows some light in the room even with the door being shut yet they are small enough that you can’t easily see into them from the outside. Now we are on the hunt for new shingles that match the old ones. This could prove to be pricey from what research I’ve done online. It may be one of those items that we will buy a bundle of them here and there til they are all done. We are going to put some Tyvek wrap under the shingles so that’s on the shopping list for next weekend.

Garage Remodel- Day 1

Well, we’ve been talking about having to do some major improvements to both of the garages on our property. We have a small 10×20 flat roofed garage next to the house and another double car sized one (aka the shop) on the back half of the lot.  When we bought our home 11 years ago (this month) we knew that the little garage roof leaked and that the shop roof was going to need some work along the line since the roofing on it was old.  We hung a tarp inside the little garage as a “temporary measure” about 7 years ago to help keep some of the stuff we stored in there dry. Neither car fit in the garage so we never parked cars in it.
Needless to say we put it off, then two winters ago the shop roof started leaking. Last summer we bought most of the roofing supplies with the goal of getting it started before winter. Well we procrastinated and didn’t get it done. I purchased the rest of the roofing supplies this spring since we could no longer delay this major project. For the past year Mike and I have been debating which project to tackle first. My thoughts were to build the new peaked roof on the little garage as “practice” for re-roofing the shop and we could do the entire project in one weekend. Mike felt that we needed to do the shoring up and roofing on the shop first since he could then work on remodeling the interior of it. In the end fate decided last weekend which project would take priority when the garage door partially fell off last weekend. So this weekend we started the remodel with a trip to Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore and the Metropolitan Development Council’s ReModel stores. We figured we could get a better deal with salvaged materials and in the process help support a worthy cause. We found a beautiful window for $39 and a new entry door with side windows for $69.

When we got home we removed the old garage door itself then the shingles. While removing the shingles along the old header we found an ant nest between the shingles and old tar paper. Hmm…this may be part of the reason we have had a constant battle with “little ants” every summer. In the photo below you can see the tarp that protects the lawnmower and bikes. The pallet of shingles are also stored in the garage.

Once we got the obviously rotten wood out we realized that we were going to have to do a little more deconstruction to get all the old wood out. So far we have accomplished alot before 2pm in the afternoon!!

On to” foundation” pouring part of the afternoon. Due to the funky angles of the “drainage” in this area water tended to leak under the old door. We don’t want this to happen since we aren’t going to use this as a garage anymore but either a big storage building or maybe a rec room. Xtina even joked that it could be her room so she could come and go whenever she wants. To avoid any drainage issues we decided to pour a concrete sill/foundation that was about 1 -2″  tall across the front. Mike decided that a couple of 2x4s clamped on either side of the existing foundation would work perfect as a form. Mike mixed the cement and poured it while I compressed it and smoothed it off. We decided that a board would probably work just as good for tamping down the concrete better than the $20 trowel that they tried to sell us. In the end I used a brick and it worked wonderfully. So at the end of day we were able to accomplish everything on our list and would be ready to start framing in the morning.

ADSR 5 Inspires A Quickpage

Well ADSR 5 is down to the last week and it flew by this year. I just realized that we were only a week away from it being all over. Scrap Orchard was the host of challenge #10 and after completing it I realized that the layout would make a great freebie quickpage.

So after completing the original layout I decided to create a quickpage version to share with everyone. Many thanks go to Sweet Digi Scraps  for her wonderful Berry Ice Mini Kit which I used to create the quickpage.  If you like her stuff you can find more info about her on her blog: www.sweetdigiscraps.blogspot.com.

Download Link is HERE

My Crazy Life

Well, I have been real busy lately and haven’t had a chance to update my blog in what seems like forever. In fact I was shocked to see that it’s been almost a month. That always seems to happen this time of the year though. Hockey season is starting to wind down, new semester at school for the kids, mid-winter/pre-spring yard work, the kids birthdays and Mike and I have birthdays coming up. Toss in a cold and the Winter Olympics and life tends to get a little crazy. Oh and I must not forget that the Amazing DigiScrapping Race is going on too. So here is the run down on what’s been up.

Hockey: The kids had a tournament in Bremerton over the holiday weekend and they played some of their best games ever. Our house tournaments get pretty competitive here because the Canadian teams love coming down. They are way more skilled than the American kids so they pretty much dominate our tournaments. The kids love playing against them, they know that winning will be hard but they love being able to affect the Canadian’s standings by not allowing them to run up the score too much. There were 6 American teams and 6 Canadian ones in this tournament and the Canadians won every game until Sunday morning when they finally play each other.  Our final game ended up being against one of the Seattle Jr. teams that we played and tied with during our regular season and it came down to a shootout to determine the winner alas they beat us in the shootout. The kids have two more games to go before playoffs. We are currently placed right in the middle of our division for playoffs so it could be one of our best playoffs in years. Both teams that are above us in our division we’ve either beat or tied with this season and the two teams below us we have beat both times we’ve played them.

The Junior Team I work with finished league play this weekend. They didn’t make the playoffs this year. It came down to the very last game of the season. We literally had to win just one game in order to make it to the playoffs. If we had made it we would have had to play the first place team and they have beat us almost every game we’ve played against them the past two years.

School: Christina started college in January. She is pursuing a degree in Criminal Justice with a focus on Law Enforcement.  She is enjoying it and getting ready to pick her classes for the next quarter. Alex switched from a traditional high school to an online high school. He is doing really well, it has eliminated the “distraction factor”. We spoke with his counselor and his adviser this past week and they are actually impressed with the amount of time he is spending and quality of work he is doing.  He has set a goal to get caught up on his core classes and would like to go back to Foss for his Senior Year.

House/Yard: We have had some crazy weather this year. Most of the plants think it’s early spring because it’s been so mild. We had frost a couple times in November but mainly rain. In fact it’s been in the 50′s the past two weeks. Today I mowed the lawn, cleaned all the recycling out of the garage and have everything ready for overseeding the side yard that we planted with grass in October. This is the year that we are going to do the garage roofs. The little one needs a pitched roof (currently has a leaky flat roof) and the big one needs completely roofed. It’s leaking like a sieve and I’m beginning to think that we may have to rip off the entire roof, build new trusses and put in a new window. I’m having a hard time not tearing into the project right now and have to constantly remind myself that spring tends to be very rainy and it’s only mid-February.

Girl Boeheme and Hemi

Talk about a match made in heaven. The minute I saw this kit designed by Aimee Harrison of girlboh’eme studio’s I knew exactly what photo I wanted to use.  The background paper coordinated perfect with the background colors of the photo.

The hardest part was deciding whether or not to use two photos of her that we took that day.

The alpha has a subtle verdigris look and you can buy it with the full kit or separately.

Back to Scrapping!!

I have finally gotten my laptop back and everything reinstalled so I can start digiscrapping again. It has been a long 6 weeks, thank goodness I was able to get it all done before Season 5 of the Amazing Digiscrapping Race (ADSR5). Alas getting my laptop repaired involved replacing the hard drive. Not thinking when it came time to swap out the hard drive I totally spaced off backing up ACDSee. Which if anyone who has used it knows that I have a ton of tagging to do. You would think that if you take into consideration I have completely retagging/reorganized my digital scrapbooking stuff twice in the past three years that I would remember to run a backup of the database. It just means that I can tweak my “organizing style” and clear out stuff that I’ve never used.

So the first layout I worked on was one using Rebecca Labbe’s Urban Chaos kit which I downloaded mid-November as part of a Creative Team Assignment over at Divine Digital. The Alpha is from her Urban Decay Alpha Set. You get three different alphas in the set.

I’ve got two more assignments in the wings that I’ll try to complete tonight or tomorrow. Of course between working on the CT assignments I’ll be tagging and sorting through over 71 Gigs of digital scrapbooking kits.

Happy New Year!!!

It’s that time of the year where most of us sit down and figure out what we want to change in our life. I’ve decided that I need to lose the weight I regained over the past year. January of 2009 found me at 147 lbs for the first time in 20 years. I was given the okay to increase my calories up to 1700-2000 a day and the weight started creeping back on. By the time Christmas rolled around I was weighing in around 170 lbs and by New Years Day I topped out at 177 lbs. since then I’ve lost 3 lbs and have re-designated 1300-1400 as my target caloric intake.

I’ve got a built-in support network which is making it easier. Both of my good friends Sam and Christine are wanting to lose weight and two of my co-workers have decided the same thing. So we are all checking in with each other and helping each other keep on the right track. Sam, Christine and I have even considered creating a blog to check in with on a daily basis. Using a Facebook group crossed my mind but then I decided that I didn’t want my postings to our “private group” to show up on my own Facebook page. I figure those people who happen to be my friends on Facebook that went to elementary school with me really don’t want to read about my weight.  So instead I think I’ll blog about it here and there on this blog because I’ve already warned everyone here that my blog is about whatever my musings happen to be at the time I’m updating it.

Oh the joys of being a parent to a teenager!!!

You love them to death but sometimes you just want to strangle them. How many times do I have to tell my darling son that the bathroom is MINE from 6:45am-7:30am!!! It doesn’t matter if I am not in there every morning or not or if I’m even in there. Besides if he is catching the bus to school he is supposed to be gone by 6:30am anyways. Nothing frustrates me more than him coming flying down the stairs at 7am hollering about how he needs to get in there or he is going to be late and that it’s MY fault.  Um…I don’t think so…what part of you are the one who overslept not I does he not understand? Gosh…I just can’t wait for Christmas vacation to start Monday when I can get up and use the bathroom for as long as I want every morning for the next two weeks and not be stressed out about him missing his first period class because “I made him late by not letting him in there”. Maybe I’ll let him know that once he goes to work and brings in enough money to pay the mortgage I will just quit my job so he can shave, shower, wash his hair anytime he wants. LOL!!