Blog Hop Winner Plus Friday's This & That

Happy Friday everyone!  While many of you are doing your "TGIF" dance, I am making a road trip.... Ian's fall break is over so I am returning him to Atlanta today.  Classes start again on Monday and this will give him a couple of days to settle back in to life in his apartment.

I did remember that today is BLOG CANDY WINNER day.  Once again I would like to thank CUSTOM CROPS for sponsoring this month' s Bitten by the Bug 2 blog hop!!  I used Random.org to generate a random winner.

And the winner is: 

Jill (who) said...

Love the quote "Piles of Smiles"! So cute! Nice card!

Congratulations Jill, you will be hearing from Custom Crops soon!

 
Some of you may recall that several weeks ago I photographed my daughter in our backyard, using a side and corner of the house as backdrops/props for the photographs.  While I had Ian at home, he too agreed to a 10 minute backyard photo shoot.  Seriously, he only gave me 10 minutes!
 

I photographed Ian on the same side/corner of our house where Bethany was photographed.  Then we moved further into the backyard.

Ian brought out his Gretsch guitar (which he loves) and allowed me to grab a few more shots of him and his favorite toy!

I thought the photos turned out well for a 10 minute photo shoot!  I wonder how well we could have done if Ian had given me a half an hour??!!?

I hope you all have a great Friday!

Road Trip with a Side Stop

Everyday this week I have been telling you that "tomorrow" I will post the card that coordinates with the Cricut Father's Day grill decal.  And yet everyday I post something else.  Guess what?  Today is no different! 

I took a 7.5 hour road trip yesterday to pick up my younger son from College.  I have previously shared, but... Ian is a student at the Art Institute of Atlanta, where he is majoring in Sound Production.  Ian wants to go into film special effects.  AIA is on a quarter system in which Ian goes to school year around.  He gets four breaks per year - a week in the spring, a week in the fall, four weeks at Christmas and four weeks in the summer.  This is his four week break.

On our way home we decided to make a stop at the Dekalb Farmer's Market, just off of I-285.  I have heard of several farmer's markets in the greater Atlanta area and decided to begin checking them out.  DFM offers a large variety of foods from which to choose.  There are 10 or 12 departments, each featuring a broad range of product in their category.  We did not take time to shop the entire market, though we did visit the produce section (photo 1) and International foods (photo 2).

Photo 3 (above) shows just a small section of the seafood department - had I remembered a cooler we would have made several purchases there.

Photo 4 (above) shows only a tiny bit of large selection of pastries and baked good.  We did bring home cannoli and eclairs.

One of the areas my husband would have enjoyed had he been with us was the coffee selection.  There were coffees from several countries, in several varieties.  I brought him some Kona and a South American Organic coffee.

The cheese department looked fabulous - but again that three hour drive home made me think twice about purchasing cheese without a cooler.  Sigh.....

It surprised me, but there was also a large international beer and wine section.  I confess to purchasing two bottles of sparkling Italian wine - on special! 

The DFM offered Ian and I a pleasant way to spend an hour or so, but we decided that next time we want to find the real downtown market and spend even longer shopping!  If you have any suggestions for great markets in the greater Atlanta area, please let me know!!

Winter Wonderland using Spellbinders

I have news to share - I did not make the cut on round two of tryouts for the Spellbinders team.  I was disappointed, but I know that their team is highly competitive.  The good news is that I may now show my projects with you!

My entry for round one was this 12 x 12 inch layout.  I used two colored  sheets of cardstock topped with snowflake printed paper.  The snowflake print made a lovely, low-key background on which to build the layout elements.  The first element I added was a Stampin' Up stamp which reads "Winter Wonderland" stamped on my snowflake print.

I used my Grand Calibur with grand label one to cut the two layer matting and the main photo.  I used nesties label one to cut the mats and the smaller photo.  I also used snowflakes number one and cut red and blue embellishment snowflakes.  The snowflakes were topped with red buttons tied with white embroidery floss.

My page border was created using a Spellbinders lacey border cut four times.  I mitered the corners and topped the corners with snowflakes or tags.  The WINTER tag at the bottom left was created using label 14 and a stamp.  I penned in the date at the bottom of the label. 

I will admit that I was a disappointed at not making the cut, but really it was fun to try out.  And I was able to get this great photo scrapped!!

Remember that I have blog candy up for grabs in the previous post.  A winner will be drawn a Thursday.

Last of the Weekend Layouts

This is the last of layouts that I will be sharing from last weekend's crop at Lake Murray (thank you Sally & Beth)!! Let me see... We featured Aaron, then Bethany... So it must be time for Ian. I must tell you that my photo stash of Ian has declined significantly since he went away to college. I am going to have to speak to him about being IN the photos he takes and posts.

The photos in this layout were from January 2009 when the Carolina Panthers were in the playoffs. I was excited that I had a reason to use the Carolina-Like Panther cut that I designed a couple of years ago.  Sadly they were destroyed by the Cardinals.... and it rained… And the quarterback threw a zillion interceptions…. OUCH. My poor guys - there they were in the rain watching their team loose. My husband assured me that except for the game the guys enjoyed their trip to Charlotte. That is one of those "huh" statements. They only went to Charlotte for the game!!! Yes they did spend the night and have dinner, etc. But they went to see the game!!!

I think the look on Aaron’s and Ian’s faces in this photo says it all - they look so annoyed with the game. I will add that Ian was better trained as a scrapper child - I not only got photos, he also brought me his game ticket to go on his page. Alas, now I would be happy to just have photos!!

And finally I will share this layout of Doug and me on New Year’s Eve. Not my best layout design, but I loved the paper. Note that the dancing couples in the back ground match my dress and Doug’s sweater. … I really did not insist that he wear that color…. Honest. This was a great set of paper that I found at Scrap Your Trip. Thanks Julie.

High School Graduation.....

My youngest child graduated from high school this evening. What a milestone... for Ian and for his parents!!! In just a few weeks he will be off to college and I have to wonder at the lightening-speed passing of time!!! Tomorrow will be Ian's graduation party, a low key affair to celebrate his achievement with friends and family. Tonight we are all tired and happy.