Baby Scrapbook "Showers"

As you can tell, I wanted this page to be less about the pictures and more about the very sweet cards and advice I got at my boys' baby showers.  Here's a closer look at what I did:

Lots of pockets to fit my favorite cards and advice and two pockets for a little flip book of pictures.  The left side is from Nehemiah's baby showers and the right side is from Elijah's baby shower.

I made my own title by cutting out the letters from coordinating papers.

Here's a few shots of the picture book...I decorated each picture and adhered them together, then punched a hole and tied together with ribbon.

To see my pregnancy pages click here and here.  Or click the tab at the top entitled "Scrapbooking" and scroll through the pages I've been working on. :)

Garden Growing Websites

I have been wondering about the best times to plant vegetables and herbs and found a few resources I thought would be helpful to share.  Click here for a webpage that is really helpful for planning.  It has a few worksheets you can use in planning your garden with different shapes of gardens.  It also has a worksheet for a veggie planning guide so you can mark in dates that you want to start planting each plant and some other cool advice. My favorite website I found was www.almanac.com where you will find a ton of great advice with even in depth info on specific vegetables/herbs and a frost chart for your specific location (I think it's the US states and maybe Canada too).  They also have general gardening advice about pests (as you know--my snails have been driving me nuts...) and recipes and all sorts of stuff.  They even have a seed swap!  I also have found some great gardening advice on www.about.com where you can search for a more specific answer to a particular question you have instead of getting general advice (although they give that too!).  I hope someone else finds this helpful too.  I just spent a few good hours downloading and printing stuff!  I think as you plant and grow you learn new stuff and you just keep learning...

PDSS CLSC16 Challenge

This is my first sketch with the posh scrapbookers blog!  They give two weeks to finish a sketch and they have scrapbook and card sketches.  Pretty cool.  I hope to do the scrapbook sketch also, but since those take longer...haven't gotten to it yet!!  Here's a link to their sketches.

This card is really special for me...I am super excited for my brother-in-law who is graduating tomorrow.  He wasn't do super great his first few years in high school and was going to have to take another year to graduate, but he has really stepped up and this last year completed an extra 52 units on top of his normal classes and is graduating on time!!  Wow.

I also did these sketches this week: Friday Sketchers & Bloom With Happiness Card & my latest scrapbook page

Friday Sketchers #105 Sketch

WHEW! I made the deadline...Super excited about this card from Friday Sketchers.  I was trying to think of what "manly" stamp set I could use that would look awesome and be fitting for my Dad too and apparently I need MORE stamps!!  I decided to just go with the word "Dad"--pretty universal and I thought the papers went well with a manly theme.  I am also a little bored with a typical circle image and decided to switch it up and put brads for my circle!  Hope you like...

Other sketches this week include: a Graduation Card & Bloom With Happiness Card & here's my latest scrapbook page

Bloom With Happiness Card

This sketch comes from Taylored Expressions and I have also entered this card in Our Creative Corner's Summer Inspiration Challenge and Dutch Dare Card Challenges.  I go to so many weddings and wedding showers over the summer that I thought this was a perfect card for the theme and the flower mural was perfect with all of the flowers I used!  Here's a closer look at the details:

Workin' the brads...

And here's some Crystal Effects on the dress:

Breaded Baked Halibut

Thanks for your very sweet comments (Jane!).  So, another meal from the kitchen!  To make this breaded halibut:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Oil the pan you will be cooking your fish in.  Rub oil on the fish and place in dish.  Put about 1/4 cup of white wine in the dish, splashing over fish.  Rub Dijon mustard on fish.  Sprinkle with thyme, paprika, salt and pepper to taste.  Then cover with fine bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese.  Bake for approximately 15 minutes in the oven.  Serve immediately.  Comes out flaky and yummy...serve with rice and veggies.  I did some asparagus here and the timing is perfect to start the rice and then cook veggies while the fish bakes...they all get done at the same time so you have hot food!

Swedish Meatballs

This meal turned out so yummy!  I just used the directions on the McCormick's Swedish Meatball package and put it on some wide egg noodles.  Easy, but--oh man--delicious!  The sides are another easy addition.  For the apple/banana fruit salad recipe click here.  For the bread, I just took some sandwich bread, spread butter and sprinkled Parmesan cheese on top and then broiled till brown.

This week in the Garden..

As you can see many of the flowers I planted are springing to life and flooding the fountain with something other than water!  I am so excited and every day am seeing new sprouts--can't wait for blooms.  

My Forget-Me-Nots are started to plump up and some are really thriving with the heat we are getting.  However, sadly, some are browning a bit on the tips from the heat, and a couple of the little guys have totally fried up.  I was hoping to get a few more seedlings in the ground where there is a bit of bareness, but the stores have already moved onto Fall plantings! :(

Here is my oh so sad herb/veggie garden...The parsley on the left is coming in a bit, but not much and the lettuce that was growing in on the right is starting to fry in our heat.  I planted it just way too late in the Spring. Also, no signs of coming back on my oregano or basil and no sign of growth from the peppers or eggplant.  It might have been too late for them also and I know the soil in this pot is very fickle...eventually I will figure out what he likes..

An Ivy update: the new sprouting branch is so long! In case you didn't see him when he was first starting to sprout click here.  There's a picture down towards the end..probably about a 3-4 inch growth!  (He was my first baby)

Other gardening news: I am still finding tons of snails every day eating up my little flowers!  I noticed today that they like to hide in the hole of my fountain that would be the drain hole.  Little stinkers!!  :)  I also put some organic feed down for the seedlings and some quick start growth stuff I got from our local nursery. I hope it helps with the sun and my little pests...

Baby Scrapbook-- 2nd Pregnancy!

So here's my second completed page in my baby scrapbook!  I just love these papers I got from one of those big paper books and the dimensionals are something I think I picked up while still pregnant anticipating making a baby scrapbook page! :)

In my first pregnancy I was taking a picture of my belly every other week...I got too busy to do it with the second one so I looked through my pictures and found a bunch of me in pictures while pregnant and did a little time collage from those! 

I always think that I will have too much space with my journal and then end up running out of room because I want to talk so much!  I love writing journals sometimes (especially because it can be so easy just writing it by hand!) and I think it works well here, but I hope in a few of these pages I can get some cute fonts and type up some cool journals too.  Then I can fit more!

Of course, I needed to add pictures of little Elijah inside my belly too so I made flaps for my ultrasound pictures and added some little details and journaling in the flaps too.  The ribbon worked really well with the papers and I tied it all together by sponging brown ink on the edges of everything.

If you'd like to see my first pregnancy scrapbook page click here!

Friday Sketchers #104

This sketch comes from Friday Sketchers.  It's my favorite one of the three sketches I did this week.  It was my first time doing the sketches/challenges.  I hope to do more of them and I can already see improvement to my card making!  Thanks to all of you for the encouragement and ideas! :)

TESC115 Sketch

Made this sketch from Taylored Expressions blog.  I liked all of the details they added to their sketch.  Also, it was bittersweet being able to use this set from Stampin' Up--I really like the wording.

Banana & Apple Side Dish

This is such a super easy and inexpensive side dish to any meal.  To feed about four, cut up two bananas and two apples and throw them in a bowl.  Then in a separate very small bowl mix about 2 tablespoons of sour cream and about the same amount of light brown sugar.  Mix together until white color turns cream, adding more brown sugar if needed.  Toss with fruit.  If you are feeding more people, just add more fruit and sauce.  You can also do half as much for two or so people!  This is really good to bring to a holiday meal or party because it's so cheap and feeds a lot.  People just love this---I actually stole the recipe from a friend who stole it from her mother-in-law and she probably got it from someone else--it's so good you just want to pass it on!  Hope you enjoy!

Laura's Sketch 53

This sketch was really hard for me--I kept wanting to add things or not put the top part of the sketch on.  It's not my favorite card, but I guess you have those every now and again!  

Click here for: Original Posting/Card Challenge Website. (From 2 Sketches 4 You)