Extreme Youth Room Makeover

So what kinds of projects did Jana and I do while she was visiting? (so glad you asked) Well, we started the week working on a new duvet cover for her bed. Months ago, she'd spied one that she really loved--but being a designer style, it was waaaayyyy out her price range. After searching in vain for a suitable fabric in Atlanta, we happened upon the perfect one at my local Joann's!
After lots and lots of doodling and measuring and calculating and doodling some more, we finally cut into the fabric and started sewing.
Jana ironed while I sewed and despite a last minute trip to the store to purchase 12 more inches of gold fabric (yes we really did mis-measure after all that), the end-product looked great. As soon as she gets home and stretches it out on her bed, she'll post a picture.
*****The picture is now posted over at Dancing Commas.

Next up was the decorating project up at Callie's church. Our main focus was to be the senior high Sunday School classroom, which was filled with four very old hand-me-down couches and lots of "stuff". We found our basic color palette in a strip of wall that was painted teal and a couple of eggplant-colored floor pillows.
Jana and I shopped for fabric and then set to work sewing. (Emmi could always be found sitting on the fabric as I sewed)
While browsing for a coffee table, Jana and I happened upon a great alternative---these inexpensive parson's tables in great colors at Target. (This looks really pink, but they are more of a eggplant color) We made a quick call to Callie to check with her and then loaded 2 purple and 2 teal ones into our cart.
We made muslin curtains to hide storage shelves, turned youth group t-shirts into pillows and cut colorful fleece throws to snuggle up in. Jana had the wonderful idea of using a fabric drape behind the altar area and that turned out to be my favorite part of the room!
After moving out a couple of the couches, rearranging the remaining ones the end product looked pretty great!

There are still slip-covers to be bought and a few other finishing touches, but I think the kids will be excited by the changes. We bought supplies for the Middle School classroom, too, so I'll work on that next.

Round Robin-By the Water

This Round Robin challenge is "By The Water" and here's my interpretation. After browsing here, be sure to check out the amazing entries by the other Robins ---here's a list of their links.

My most recent water photos are from my visit to Houmas House Plantation, in Darrow, LA:

Goldfish in one of the fountains The Oriental Garden Spanish moss (one of Louisiana's trademarks) hanging in trees near a pond

Cupcake Craving

I've been enjoying a week of time off from work and time spent with Jana and Callie. In between a couple of sewing projects (more on those a little later),

lunch downtown with the girls, romps in the yard with Emmi and remodeling projects at Callie's church, Jana and I got a craving for cupcakes. After waiting a couple of days hoping the craving would leave us, we finally succumbed yesterday afternoon and enjoyed these. Yumm!!!!

Flea Market Style

Months ago, the first issue of Flea Market Style magazine came out. I bought it and read it from cover to cover. When I saw Valine a few weeks later, I gave her my copy (after I was sure that I'd be able to find another for myself) and she loved it as much as I did. I love following their blog, too and getting to know the people behind the scenes. Right now, they are offering a giveaway--a beautiful necklace from Heather Bullard.

(all of her things are so beautiful)

To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment mentioning your favorite article from the magazine. Now the whole magazine is wonderful, but with my past blog posts like this and this and even this (there are more, but I won't list them all), I knew without a doubt that my favorite article was the one about the Canton, TX Trade Days. I must admit that I'd never heard of the "legend" they mention in the article, but Valine and I intend to look her up the next time we're there!

Houmas Critters

As Valine and I wandered around the gardens at Houmas House we snapped pictures of flowers, fountains and buildings. As we looked back over my roll that evening, we realized that there were quite a few critters in the pictures. Some I took pictures of intentionally,

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but others were hidden at the time and only revealed as we looked back over the pictures.
----see the tiny frog on the lily pad?

----and how about this dragonfly?

A Week In The Life

Back in April, I participated in the Week In the Life scrapbook project that Ali Edwards hosted. It turned out to be the very busiest week of the entire school year, so I found that I wasn't able to completely record things as I'd hoped to do. But, nevertheless, I decided to put it all together into a scrapbook this past weekend.
Valine also participated in the challenge and worked on her scrapbook this weekend, too.
(obviously Strudel liked the book alot!!)

Since we don't see each other that often, this was the first chance we'd had to "compare notes" and compare how and what we recorded. Here are a few of Valine's layouts:

I love how she took pictures of the bags she took to school each day---purses, book bags, etc. --since they really tell a story about what she's doing each day. And, Valine took a photo of a headline depicting news of the Gulf Oil Spill, never dreaming that it would become such a disaster news event.
Here are a few pages from my scrapbook:

We are both so glad that we did this challenge and plan to do it again later this year---perhaps a different season since that one was in the spring. Having completed one book, I have some ideas about how to better document things that happen and things to collect. We're thinking of doing the next one sometime in October---Wanna' want to join us?

Cajun Croppin'

I just got back from Memory Mania's scrapbook retreat. It was so much fun, with great friends to crop with, eat with and laugh with!
I was able to completely finish my Week In The Life book that I began back in April (more on that later), as well as one about my vacation to Nantucket. The theme this year was Cajun Croppin' and Catha made an awesome table decoration for us, complete with tiny scrappers in retreat t-shirts!
Catha got the award for completing the most layouts---she did TONS of prep work in order to get ready. Valine and I were not far behind, with almost 40 layouts each.
Not too shabby for only a few days of preparation!

Escape with My Best Friend

Since my trip to Mexico was canceled, I made the last minute decision to join Valine and friends for the summer Camp Crop-A-Lot. I came down a couple of days early just to relax and visit and was greeted with a bed tray full of goodies.
Yesterday, after breakfast on the patio
she took me to Houmas House Plantation
where we wandered the grounds (in the intense heat, I might add) and then ate lunch. Houmas House was once the largest sugar plantation in the South. Today the grounds are filled with flowers, live oak trees and fish ponds. It was a wonderful day!!! Here are a few highlights.

Book for Dan

I just completed a book of our trip for Dan. I love making books on Blurb.com---so easy and such a professional looking result. I'm trying out their new "widget" so that you, too can see my book! (****well, for some reason it seems to only be showing one page or the other, but rarely both at the same time---who knows. )

Boston and Nantucket, MA June 27 - July 3, 2010 | Make Your Own Book

***(Well, not sure that this things is working correctly, but maybe I'll get it figured out.)

Gator Bites

Later this week, I am looking forward to driving down to Baton Rouge for the semi-annual Camp Crop-A-Lot . (If you're one of my table partners, and want to be surprised with my treat, don't read any further.)

One of our traditions is to bring some sort of goodie-bag or treat for each of the scrapbookers sharing our table. At the last retreat, I made clips, pens and scarves for each person and Valine made the "oops" pockets (which are really handy to have!!).
Since the decision to come to the retreat this summer is kind of a last minute decision, I haven't even thought about what I'd bring, so I asked my very creative daughter for some ideas. The theme this time is "Cajun Croppin".

Jana sent me several links to ideas, including this one from Family Fun.
So cute, but my Dollar Tree didn't have the right kind of scrub sponges----the ones they had were a very odd color of turquoise. But, they did have some cute little green lidded bowls. So, I adapted the design to make these:A little strange-looking, but hopefully they can tell that they're supposed to be alligators.
I'm planning to make some yummy trail mix to fill them!