Home from Washington DC!

I'll bet you were beginning to wonder about me!  LOL... maybe not.  Anyway, I went to Washington DC with my daughter's marching band for an extended Memorial Day weekend.  They marched in the National Memorial Day Parade in the heart of DC.  WOW ~ what an experience it was for all of us!  The trip was JAM PACKED with activities ...which left time for very little sleep!  I'm still trying to get back on track.

I thought I'd share a few pictures from our trip...

Day #1 included: A tour of the US Capitol Building; Lunch at Union Station and a performance of music and precision marching at the Marine Barracks Evening Parade.

The dome...inside

The Parade grounds with the Commandant's House in the background.

The US Marine Band

 The mascot of the US Marines

One Day #2, we drove to Baltimore, MD and visited Ft. McHenry.  We saw a fabulous presentation about the inspiration for writing the Star Spangled Banner.  Then we toured the fort and the band had the honor of helping raise the morning flag at the fort.  It was stunning to see the kids lined up around the enormous stars and stripes.

Some of the guys tried to see if the cannon would still work, but no luck.

Next up that day, we drove to downtown Baltimore and then hung out for a few hours at Harborplace ~ everyone would have loved to spend more time here.  We all loved it!

We boarded the buses and headed back to Washington DC to tour the monuments in the city.  The first stop was the World War II Memorial.  The girls found the Indiana section right away.

This was a stunning monument, but...

heartbreaking too...

We also stopped at the Korean War Memorial...

The Lincoln Memorial...

The Washington Monument...

The Vietnam War Memorial wall.  Since it was Memorial Day weekend, everything was packed with people.

The next stop on our busy day was Arlington National Cemetery.  It was quiet, peaceful, and much cooler with all the shade trees.

The changing of the guard at The Tomb of The Unknowns

The grave site of President Kennedy

After we left Arlington National Cemetery, we stopped briefly at Pentagon City Mall for a very quick dinner and then finished up touring more beautiful monuments ~ The Martin Luther King Jr. Monument, The FDR Memorial and finally The Jefferson Memorial at night.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Monument

My favorite picture from the trip!
These are my DC Chickas ~ Ashley, Sammie, Heather, Tori, Megan and Hailie!
I loved spending time with these amazing young ladies!

Megan and Heather hold up the Washington Monument! 

So that's just the first two days of our trip!  YES ~ just TWO days!!!!  I'll share the rest of our trip very soon.

CAS Birthday

Hope you're having a great long weekend!  Here's a super quick and easy birthday card using stickers and papers from Bo Bunny.

Happy Memorial Day!

Gourmet Rubber Stamps ~ Monthly DT Challenge

Hello ~ Hello!!!  Welcome to DT Challenge Day for Gourmet Rubber Stamps!  Today, it's all about the boys ~ so today I used a few images from the May Diners Set called Swingin' Spring.   I think this card will be a perfect card for my dad for Father's Day or his birthday.

I paired up these great images with some fun paper from My Mind's Eye called Dilly Dally.

With Father's Day fast approaching, I know you're gonna want to see some other great cards for guys, so hop along and take a look at what the DT girls came up with today...   

• Deb Felts
• Jeni Allen
• Kendra Wietstock - You're Here
• Kelli Palmer
• Taylor Usry
• Jennifer Ingle 
• Stepanie Lee

Supplies from i{heart}papers:
Stamps ~ Gourmet Rubber Stamps (Swingin' Spring)
Pattern Paper ~ My Minds Eye (Dilly Dally)
Ink ~ Palette
Twine ~ Divine Twine

couldn't be any easier birthday card...

I'm still here ~ just crazy busy with the end of the school year!  WOW ~ I can hardly catch my breath!  SO today I have a quick and dirty 5 minute birthday card to share.  The coordinating HB sticker and paper are both from Bo Bunny & super fun!

I'll see you tomorrow for the Gourmet Rubber Stamps monthly DT challenge!  Have a great day!

Star Student Care Package

Happy Monday!

With the school year ending soon, our older kids are crazy busy with important tests.  Last week my daughter, who is a freshman in high school, had the biggest test of her school career ~ AP World History.  If she scores well, it will be worth college credit.   We told her all year long that whatever happens is fine ~ but she put a lot of pressure on herself to do well.   She's been pretty stressed about this test, so I wanted to make up a little care package for her backpack the day of the test so she would feel some love and support from mom!

Here's the little gift bag.  I made the tag using the pre-made tag and letter stickers from the Elementary collection by Simple Stories.

and here's a close up of the tag

My daughter felt like she did well on the test ~ I think it had everything to do with my little care package {wink}.

Gourmet Rubber Stamps ~ Today's Weekly Recipe

Hey there crafty friends!  Today it's my turn to share the Weekly Recipe over on the GRS Blog.  I have a rather simple, but fun, layout that has endless possibilities!

I've used this sketch in two different ways on my blog today using the great Clothesline Greetings Appetizer Set.   First up is a fun little baby card.   I dug out this cute paper from October Afternoon to paper piece my images.  I added some extra color with my Copic Markers (R85, BG11, YG95, E35).   The fun clothespins are from Canvas Corp and they come in tons of colors as does this great bakers twine from Divine Twine.  I added some cute little letter block beads for the baby sentiment ~ just to change things up a bit.

For my next sample, I used the same layout and set but get my card a totally different look and feel.   For this card I paper pieced the images from the other stamp in the set using some fun paper from Fancy Pants.    I also added some Glossy Accents to the clothes pins and flowers for some texture.  Then I added a banner along the bottom for the sentiment.

Play along on the challenge today and post your creations to the GRS Facebook page so we can enjoy your creation as well.

Strawberry Sweet

SERIOUSLY YUMMY!  That's what I think of this new set called Strawberry Sweet from Gourmet Rubber Stamps & this set {along with many other GRS sets} is now available at i{heart}papers!  OMW ~ this strawberry image just makes my mouth water for some juicy strawberry goodness & I'm super happy with how my card turned out today!  I was inspired by a card I pinned on my inspiration board on Pinterest  that was created by Kelly Rose and I just had to do something similar with this pretty set.

I began by stamping the image three times on kraft cardstock using white pigment ink and then embossing with white embossing powder.  Then I colored my images with Copic markers ~ they just pop right off the card don't they?   The Copic colors I used were  ~ Strawberries: R22, 24, 27; Leaves: YG91, 93, 95, 97; Blooms: R20, 21, 32, Y17.

OK ~ I now need to go have some of the big juicy strawberries that I have in my fridge ~ YUM!

It's time for some delicious new Appetizers!

Welcome to a new week and since it's the 15th, it's time to share two new Appetizer sets from Gourmet Rubber Stamps.  The names are Strawberry Sweet {which I'll have a sample for you soon}, and Happy Independence.  

For my card I used the new 6x6 paper pad from Authentique called Glory & ink from Palette ~ both from i{heart}papers.  I thought with Memorial Day coming up, it would be nice to make a Thank You card to honor those who serve our country.

I thought I'd share an idea I picked up from Pinterest on how to make the perfect banner with a square punch.  So here are a few pictures ...

Boom ~ done!  Easy Peasy huh?

Now it's time to hop around and see what lovely creations the other Gourmet Girls came up with... I know you'll love their creations.  You can see the full sets on the GRS Blog & i{heart}papers.

• Deb Felts
• Jeni Allen
• Kendra Wietstock - You're Here
• Kelli Palmer
• Taylor Usry
• Jennifer Ingle 
• Stepanie Lee

Happy Mother's Day

Have a wonderful Mother's Day!

Alaska Project... End of Book #1

Whew...what a week!!!  It has been a crazy busy week & I just didn't have time to play along on the OCL Challenge that is starting today.  BUT...go take a look at the fun challenge today over on the OCL Blog.   I'm hoping to get a project done this weekend for the challenge so I can play too.

So for today, I wanted to show you the final pages of Book #1 (of 2) for our Alaska Pre-Cruise vacation.  Today's pages show our adventures on the tour boat in Resurrection Bay (in Seward, Alaska).  I have to say, {and you'll see by the photos}... the day was PERFECT!  Gorgeous blue sky, sunshine and wildlife sightings like CRAZY!  This day ranked as one of our TOP 3 favorites in Alaska {maybe even from both trips}.

We boarded a tour boat early in the morning and we were delighted that our group of about 15 people was the only group that day ~ WOOHOOO!  It was like a private tour!  We could get up and go anywhere on the boat without worrying we might be in the way of someone else.  It was rather cool on deck; however, the views were SPECTACULAR!  The captain of our boat, handed out Wildlife Guides so we could identify animals while on the trip.  I wanted to be able to look at it again, so I made a photo pocket to keep it tucked in for our album.  I also purchased a few postcards of the area we visited for my album.

Another exciting thing about today was that we saw our ship for the first time since our arrival to Alaska ~ M.S. Radiance of the Seas.  We would board her later that day...

I didn't do much to this page because I wanted to include the fabulous shots of the kids and of the sea otters.     NOTE:  these pictures weren't taken with any zoom features on our cameras.  YES, the otters were THAT CLOSE!  They just swam along side for quite some time ~ it was great!

I'm sure you can see why I said this was "our favorite day so far"!!!

We saw many bald eagles & some were even nesting (top center), humpback whale, and sea lions ...lots and lots of sea lions.  We also saw a dozen Dall sheep {with babies} and puffins ~ oh so sweet. 

Not only did we have great views of the wildlife, but the scenery was AMAZING!

Everything was just CRYSTAL CLEAR that day!

Once again for my pages, I used the Destinations Kit from Simple Stories & stamps from Unity, Technique Tuesday & Hero Arts.