Some Scrapbooked Layouts!

Thought I'd share some layouts I put together while  at  Memories Manor in August.

I'm still working through photos from our 2011 Baltic trip.

These are mix, the first from Catherine Palace:

The next  from Schwerin, Germany:

And the last in Denmark:

Thanks for stopping by!

Rosettes

I was at a charity crop yesterday and decided to create a couple of cards that fit this week's challenge over at Daring Cardmakers.

Daring Cardmakers was one of the first blogs I participated in back when I first started blogging and I'm glad they are still going.

And it's been long time since I've played along with any card challenges with the exception of Little Red Wagon.

Anyway here's my cards created using the Tim Holtz rosette die and London Market paper by Pink Paislee:

Thanks for stopping by!

Early September Blooms

I'm back today with some early September blooms.

Morning Glory is gorgeous!

Begonias add lots of colour.

Shrub rose is in full bloom.

Standard hydrangea tree is loaded!

Fuschia continues to put on a nice show.

Dragon wing begonias also continue to thrive.

Back soon, thanks for stopping by

Little Red Wagon #204 - Back In Time

This week's Little Red Wagon challenge is 'back in time'.

Jayne wants us to create something with a retro or vintage feel.

I went with a vintage feel using soft colours, lace, ribbon and pearls to create this birthday card:

So dig into those wagons for those retro or vintage'y' items and link  up your creation over at Little Red Wagon.

We love to see what you create!

Early August Garden

I've been remiss in sharing garden pics this year, so here's what was blooming in the garden in early August.

Mini-rose.

Nasturiam.

Fire and Ice hydrangea.

Planters are full!

Million bells - love the mix of colours

The front planter - interesting to see how it's changed in a month(you'll see in a future post)

And a variety of daylilies.

Black-eyed Susans.

Echinacea- not doing as well as I hoped.

More garden blooms to come soon, the garden changed a lot in the month of August!

Garden Party Menu

Finally here is my much delayed post with highlights of some of the foods I served at my garden party. I don't have as many photos of the food and drinks as I would like as I left the photography to my husband

First up, my husband purchased these wonderful cupcakes from a local cake shop called The Cakebox.This photo shows only a small selection of them.

My Mom made these traditional sandwiches and a yummy cucumber sandwich too!

I made several drinks including a mint lemonade, white wine sangria, red wine sangria and a sparkling strawberry lemonade.

I tried one of the hottest recipes out there right now, a fruit salsa with baked cinnamon pita chips.  This was absolutely amazing and would encourage you to try it.  There are lots of recipes out there all of which I am sure are yummy but I followed the recipe at AllRecipes here.

I also made Cupcake Bites, sample photo below from Bakerella and recipe  featured here, and although they are a bit time consuming to they always go over extremely well.

Next I dipped rice crispies to create rice crispie pops, this was completely copied from this Pinterest photo below.

And as featured at Iowa girl, I made  these Caprese Bites.  If you like tomatoes,  you'll love these.

The menu also featured veggies/dip, chocolate chip cookies(my sister's specialty), strawberry salsa, and yummy scones made by my Mom  served with cream/jam.

It was such fun to try new recipes and remake old favourites!

Little Red Wagon #203 - Black, White/Cream and Kraft

Hello everyone!

It's my turn to set this week's challenge over at Litle Red Wagon.

I chose a colour challenge to use only black, white/cream and kraft.

I made this card for my father's birthday a couple of week's ago, I thought the colour scheme was appropriate for a masculine card(not to mention the age!).

We'd love it if you would dig into those wagons and play along with us and link you project at Little Red Wagon.

We love to see what you create.

Little Red Wagon # 202 - Frame It!

Time for another Little Red Wagon challenge and this week Regan wants to see a polaroid-like frame on your project.

I used a couple of new Papertrey Ink dies to create this clean and simple card:

So please link up over at Little Red Wagon, we love to see what you create!

Thanks for stopping by!

25 Reasons

Today is our 25th Wedding Anniversary.

Steve and I celebrated earlier this year with a cruise so we have not planned anything special for today.

But I had to do something to mark the occasion so I filled a jar with 25 reasons why I love him.

I think he'll like it!

Friends!!

As mentioned in a prior post, here are some of the friends who helped me celebrate my 50th birthday.

Dana, Doreen and Agnes.

Nancy and Dita.

Pat and Kathryn.

Linda, Julie and Joan.

Doreen, Dana and Agnes with Charlene as well.

Brenda along with several other friends.

Ann and  my daughter Brianne.

Avril and Deanna.

Deanna and Avril along with Anna.

Me and Dita.

And daughter Brittany.

My Mom and sister were there as well but the photos of them didn't quite turn out so well.

I felt very blessed to have so many friends join me in my celebration!