Container Gardening

It seems as though Mother's Day has snuck up on me this year! By now I've usually at least thought about my planters, cleaned up the deck and outdoor furniture and am anxiously waiting for the warmth of summer to arrive.

So while I hope to get to some outdoor cleaning this weekend, I did browse the container ideas at Proven Winners, a site my Mom told me about where I found lots of awesome ideas. And the great thing is that for each container they tell you the pot size, the placement of the plants and of course the plants used.

I've posted some of my favourite containers and would love your help in narrowing down the choices, what are your favourites? In looking at all these pics again, I've decided to invest in some large urn planters, I love how they look and have done for a number of years!

Savannah

Walk With Me

All That Jazz

Blast Off

Blues Medley

Buttercup

Charismatic

Charming

Country Garden

Country Porch

Edwardian Tapestry

Grande Finale

Newport Cottage

Penny for your Thoughts

Purple Peacock

Razzle Dazzle

Reflections

Rubies

Sanibel Island

Sweetie

Vintage Vogue


Oh, and by the way, I'll put each person who tells me their favourites in a draw for something handmade by me.

Poetry By Brittany - One Last Shot

One last shot I've GOT to get.
I've got to get it in the net.

I start running and pick up speed.
One goal is all I need.

If I get the goal the game is five to four.
I can't wait to break the tied score.

The ball is muddy and wet.
I do not fear, I do not fret.

This game is so much fun.
I scored the point and WON!!

Surprise Flowers

Brittany surprised me with some flowers today!



And I cut a few tulips from the garden and was inspired by another blog to use an empty bottle with a fun design as the vase.

Starlight Insurance Gala

Last night Steve and I attended the Starlight Insurance Gala in support of the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation.

And while the event's underlying goal reminded me of how fortunate I am to have two healthy daughters, it was an enjoyable evening held at The Carlu, the renovated Art Deco style 7th floor of the College Park building originally built by the prominent Eaton family.

The theme of the evening was the Roaring Twenties and some guests came in full 20's regalia! The atomsphere was intimate with wonderful food and lots of wine!

AD-dicted

This weekend's dare at DCM is to use an advertisement to inspire a card creation.

So as I was browsing ads in this weekend's newspaper, I found this ad:


And here's the card it inspired:


What a fun dare!

National Scrapbook Day

I couldn't let National Scrapbook Day pass by without posting a few layouts, so here are some layouts that I started at CK Buffalo last year. Last weekend I finally added some photos and extra titling, they are now finished!

Tidbit Thursday - The Good and Bad Edition

Well, I'll start with the good news......I've been keeping up with my Curves workouts and am actually starting to develop bicep muscles! And tonight my fitness level was moved up, that's a good thing right?!



And this could be good or bad depending on how you view Chinese food. We ordered from a different restaurant tonight, one much closer to our home. They do not add any MSG and Brianne wanted Sesame Chicken. It was actually very good, flavourful without too much of a salty taste. I got a laugh out of one of their appetizer combos that is called the 'Pu Pu Platter'! We'll order from them again....but maybe not the platter!

Now for the bad.......Bad Girls that is! I've been drooling over the designs and kits at Bad Girls for a few months now and last month finally ordered one of their kits, Charm School Debutante. Here's the two layouts I've made so far with the kit:





This kit combines papers, colours and items I would not normally put together and I'm so happy with how these layouts turned out! I can't wait to create more!

Elegant Embossing

Here's a fun card I created using embossing as suggested at Papertake and following sketch 62 at CPS. I used Stickles on the bird stamped images which adds a nice bit of shine.

Scrapbook Diva Crop

I spent the past weekend at The Scrapbook Diva Crop put on by Karen of Go Scrapping. It was an excellent crop and I got lots of layouts done some of which I'll show in subsequent posts. Holly of Schnider Photography took lots of pictures of all the Divas which she'll be sharing soon. For a preview of one of the Divas click here.

I took a great class from Diva Darren who was filling in for his wife Sheri( she was sick and unable to make it) of In A Pinch Designs.



The make and take card from a couple of posts ago was sponsored by In A Pinch and they have some fun photos of the crop on their blog including one of my table.

And don't crop photos worldwide all look very similar? Tables and aisles filled with scrapbook totes and supplies!





It was a fun weekend!

Not Background Stamping

I thought I'd try background stamping as suggested by Allison. But I don't really have background stamps and I really didn't like how my try with the stamps I do have turned out. But I did like the stamped flower so kept it and created a new card.

I received An Award.......

I've been nominated for the 'Arte y Pico Blog Award' from Laura of My Little Orange Kitchen, thanks so much for the lovely comments on your blog too!

The Arte y Pico award does have some responsibilities that come with it, but feel free not to play along if you are not a blog award kind of blogger, even if I think you deserve one!

1. Pick 5 blogs that you feel are deserving of this award based on their
(a) creativity, (b) design,(c) interesting material, and (d) contribution to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2. For each award giver: Include the name of the author and a link to their blog, so they can be visited.
3. For each award recipient: Show the award with the name and link to the blogger from whom it was received.
4. For both giver and receiver: Show the link of the Arte y Pico. http://www.arteypico.blogspot.com/
5. Publish these rules.

So, thank you again Laura and also to Arte y Pico.

Now it's my turn to pass on the award to my 5 worthy blogs!

Well, I've been thinking about what blogs to award to all evening and I'm having difficulty picking 5, I'm inspired by so many!

I have been able to select two and the first is DannisDoodles, her cards are absolutely gorgeous!

The second is Lavender Hill Studio. Penny's creations are beautiful!

Cards!

I'm back from my weekend scrapbook retreat, always a fun event which I'll share more about in a later post, and I created a few cards inspired by different blog challenges.
The first card is inspired by Nancy at Scrap This. I created a layout with this paper and then made the card from the scraps.



Next I made a couple of cards inspired by Triple The Sketch which also used some distessing techniques(tearing and inking) inspired by DCM.





And finally a card offered as a make and take also features tearing.

A French Project

Here'a few pics of Brittany working on her french project tonight. Yes, she's really sewing up 'un poisson' for french class!

Bagpipes

I had forgotten I took these pictures until I downloaded some others tonight. Earlier this week, we were entertained by a woman taking a walk while playing the bagpipes. That's never happened in the 11 years we lived here but actually was quite nice to listen to. Maybe she'll walk by again!