Spiderman, spiderman...

My kids were playing with bugs outside today. Gross, I know. But I know for a fact that I did it as a kid so unfortunately, they come by this craziness quite naturally. Anyway, they caught an ant and stuck it into a seemingly abandoned spiderweb on our front steps. Within seconds, a spider, who'd been hiding under the railing, zipped down a thread of his web, wrapped up the ant and scampered back up. They did it a second time and I caught it on this picture. So weird...and fun...and strange all at the same time.

When the ants were both wrapped up for later, the spider high-tailed it out of there.
We all thought he was probably saying, "thanks for the snack," or "thanks for the room service," or something like that.

Thank goodness for the tree

We're having a major thunderstorm here right now.....I took these 2 pictures out the back garage door - our BBQ toppled over on the deck and our trampoline blown upside down into the tree. This tree is about 10 feet from our house so without the tree there, this would have blown right into the side of our house. Guess I'll have some clean up to do tomorrow - my plants on the deck are knocked over and my lawn furniture is against the neighbours trees...so far. Hopefully I'll be able to find it in the morning :)

ETA: a few more pictures once the rain stopped:

Some new layouts with SWR and the cupboard in use

I haven't posted much about this but I've been on the Scrap Within Reach design team for a few months now and just LOVE working with their papers. I love their girly papers, of course (who doesn't??) but I have to say - they have got to be one of the leaders out there with really nice boyish paper too.

Future Football Superstars
(my boys in their uniforms last summer)
all product: Scrap Within Reach

House of Boys
(my 4 nephews)
all product: Scrap Within Reach except Chipboard Cogs: Clear Scraps

Happiness is...
(a photo of my kids in our neighbour's pool a couple of years ago)
all product Scrap Within Reach except chipboard: Maya Road & misc. glass pebbles

and lastly, thanks to all of you who weighed in on how to arrange my new cupboard pieces. For now, I've gone with the original arrangement....vertical paper, one on top of the other. Hopefully the red Coke Crates are a temporary solution to these wide, short spaces. I'd love to find some nice bamboo or wicker baskets that will fit in here but we'll see how that goes. And, as soon as my DH finds our Router/wireless passwords...the top of this cupboard will be a new home for my Epson Artisan 810 printer which I'm loving more and more with each project I do!


OK, one more thing.
The MCC store I shop at occasionally has buttons in large jars. I guess, in the back where they sort clothing to see if it's sell-able or not, they often have to throw things out but they cut off the buttons first and then sell them in large jars. Of course, when I need them for a project, they're are never any there....so this week, even though I'm not desperate for buttons right now, I bought 5 jars of buttons (50 cents - a dollar/jar). When I got them home, I started in on a very labour-intensive job of sorting them by colour. I'm LOVING how they look in little jars but realizing this is a very large job that may require enlisting my soon-to-be-out-of-school children for. This is the start of the sorting process:...and this is the cookie sheet still full of all the ones left to be sorted.
I've found a few really nice treasures in here - some gorgeous glass buttons and a few shell buttons, a couple of wooden buttons with carvings on them and all kinds of cool metal buttons.

Happy Graduation Mica!

My baby girl graduated from Grade 6 today!
She's so excited and proud, and excited...did I mention excited?
Oh...and sad. She's worried about not seeing her friends much since in Jr. High they're in several different home rooms and mixed with the kids from several surrounding elementary schools. I think it will be much better than she's expecting but there's definitely an element of bittersweetness at this junction in her life.

I'm so proud of her! She's a lovely girl and I love watching her grow into the godly young woman God's making her!

This is her (right) with her teacher (left). They had an awesome year together and shared a secret special bond b/c they shared the same middle and last names :) Here she is getting her Grade 6 Diploma.

And, here she is getting an academic award for having an average of 90% or higher. That's my girl! Smarty pants :)

I love the home-made grad hat, don' t you? All the classes made them the day before - each class had their own colour of tassel. I think the scotch tape is an especially nice touch LOL.


The story of the dress:
She has had her eye on this dress at the thrift store for several months - mostly because she liked the satiny feel of it and she though it would swish nicely when she ran in it...she'd been asking me for months to buy it for her so she could run around in the grass with it. It was pretty highly priced and because all she wanted to do was play in it, I didn't think it was a wise investment. BUT, a couple of weeks ago, we went to the MCC and it was still there and she was still so enamored with it that I gave in and let her try it on. Well, shoot...if it didn't fit her perfectly and look amazing on her. She said that all she wanted it for was grad (1/2 hour) and then to play in this summer. We noticed, while we were trying it on, a few fraying parts that looked OK now but won't after too much more wear so we asked the cashier if the price looked appropriate for the dress's condition and she looked shocked that it was priced so high and took the price down to 1/3 of the original price. Sold. It's not that I won't buy her new clothes but I know my daughter and dresses....they'll end up being on her to climb trees and play hide & seek in the dark or something so this now, was a wise investment for us. She was thrilled and has been twirling and swirling around the house for the whole week waiting for Grad. She even picked out a nice spaghetti strap tank for underneath because she's very modest. I am so proud of her!!

And now for something completely different:
This is me (on the right), leading a calf around by a rope. Our staff wind-up was last night and we ran an Amazing Race course that was set up by a couple of our staff members. This was the first of many challenges and it involved donning these lovely white coveralls at a local dairy farm, rubber boots (which we were warned ahead of time we would need on the race) and leading a calf around a set of grain bins and tying it back up. My farm upbringing came in really handy here as a lot of the staff were frightened by the prospect of touching cows or getting muddy. I, on the other hand was just glad that this was a task I picked and I didn't get stuck finding licorice candy in a plate full of mustard, ketchup, mayo, BBQ sauce and relish (without my hands). Gross. I'll take cow poop anyday.

Other tasks included: donning a hula skirt & lei and getting cars driving by to honk at you, sling-shotting waterballoons down Abe's Hill to a target, counting washers in a bucket at the local John Deer Dealer, taking pictures of complete strangers wearing a clown wig, and unscrambling a few clues to get where we needed to go. We got majorly stuck on one unscrambling clue and so we came in dead last, fair and square. Oh well...good fun was had by all I'm sure. Supper and Pina Coladas never tasted so good :)

Start of Summer Scavenger Hunt - and playing with acrylic

Clear Scraps is having a Start of Summer Scavenger Hunt!! Start here to get your questions and find the clues in the design team members' blogs. There's a Clear Scraps prize package up for grabs!!

I finally decided on a set-up for my cupboard...I"ll have to take a picture of it in action in my room later this week. Thanks for all your advice.

I'm back to creating now that everything's set up again. June & July stuff for SNR and Clear Scraps stuff for CHA - it's a flurry here :) I've also just placed a huge order for Glue Arts adhesive - my Pro's been out of refills for some time now and it's sitting here calling my name so as soon as it's refilled, I'm in business!

For now, another ATC because I've fallen head over heels in love with this size. Lovely Cosmo Cricket paper and a few pearls to create an "Haute Couture" ATC as the challenge was.

And some crazy bright painting that I was playing around with. This paint is on a sheet of acrylic from Clear Scraps. I used bubble wrap to paint orange dots on the insides of 2 of the quarters and yellow dots on the insides of the other 2 quarters. Then, when those were dry, I went back and did a solid paint over top - yellow over the orange dots and vice versa. It kinda looks like they're bleeding into one another like this. The colours were fun to work with but now I'm stumped as to what to put on such a bright background :) Any ideas? I think it needs some black to ground it a little.

She's so me :) and Things That Make My Day

Mica cleaned up at the Track & Field meet today. She's been so excited about this for weeks already and hoping to do her very best and beat her practice records. Today she did that, and more. 2 First places - Shotput and Softball throw- as well as some seconds, a few thirds and a 4th. I think she got ribbons in 8 of the 10 events she participated in. She's exhausted and thoroughly pleased with herself. She even broke her previous record and set a new Girls Shotput record for the school.

I say, "she's so me" because I totally remember cleaning up at my Grade 6 Track meet. Of course, in my defense, I was a foot taller than everyone, including the boys. Oh well....it was awkward but it paid off at Track & Field time :)

Also...."she's so me" because after school, despite how tired she was, she practically begged to go shopping...at the MCC store. Aaaahh...that's my girl: Loves a good bargain, loves the treasure hunt! She found a couple of really cute skirts to play around in this summer and there's this dress that she's been eyeing for a long time at the MCC store but it was $15. I'm not really willing to pay that for a play dress despite the fact that she loves it. But today we decided to try it on and just see if it even fit. It did. Perfectly. D'oh. Then we also noticed that it was not in the best shape anymore - satin that's fraying a little at the seams and pilling in lots of spots. So, we questioned the price for the quality and they sold it to us for $5. Done. She's happy as a clam. In fact, I should probably have checked tonight to make sure she's not wearing it to bed LOL.

That was her big treasure.
Mine on the other hand was cheaper but I'm going to have way more fun with mine!!

This bowl - 25 cents. It's a gorgeous deep blue-teal. I sometimes pick stuff like this up for my friend Maria, but sorry friend...this one's mine :)


And a baggie filled with trims. It was hard to see what was all in the bag when I bought it but for $1 - it's hard to pass up. When I opened it up at home...this is about 1/2 of what was all in there:
A few things that make my day:
1. The buttons in the bowl in the picture above - they're a gift from a friend I made last summer. Her name is Kelley. We met a CHA - I did a little work for her at the Moxxie booth and we chatted a little. Then over the last fall/winter, we've met online at 2peas on the For Sale/For Trade forum as we're both purging our stashes. She bought something from me, and I bought something from her...we've joked about just swapping stashes and being done with it :) Anyway, a few weeks ago, I purchased a lot of envelopes and card bases from her in a huge rainbow of colours and some Kraft paper. They came yesterday in a USPS box STUFFED full of stuff - the stuff I bought, and also some trims, flowers, vellum, extra paper, brads, stencil and 2 big bags of gorgeous buttons. I know it's just "stuff" but the fact that someone who hardly knows me at all would go the extra mile (or 2) like that for me was very touching, this week in particular.

2. Cosmo Cricket. I know I talk about them a lot on my scrapbooking blog but for those of you who don't know - Cosmo Cricket is one of my favourite scrapbooking companies....not only because their stuff is beautiful and usable and just my kinda thing...but also because they too, are a company that goes the extra mile. I had a box coming from them with some Design Team product in it and when it came this afternoon....it was above and beyond what they'd said they'd send. When I think about companies doing this is just makes me wanna shout their praises. It was unnecessary....but a blessing for me and it made my day.

3. Glue Arts. Wow - Kudos to 2 of my favourite scrapping companies in one post today. I just placed an order for some refills for my adhesives and I have to say - Glue Arts has The Best Customer Service Ever. Last summer at CHA, Karen gave me a bag full of goodies to play with - and this week, while trying to place my order and figuring out discounts, and shipping to Canada, Jennie has been an angel!

I love Justin Bieber

I may be a little weirded out by how he looks like an 8-year-old, and sounds like one too...or by how I can't get his song out of my head thanks to all the kids at school that hum it under their breath while they're working....but I love Justin Bieber.

He's the one person who can convince my long-haired-hippie son to get a haircut!!!!!!!

Check this out:

Compare to a few months ago - this picture I took of Cale
after a supersaucer crash on our snow hill.

Bike Gang on our street

Last night my kids had a buddy over biking in the parking lot behind our house. When I went out to call them in for night, I was a little alarmed...what had originally seemed like a big empty parking lot for them to play in, now sounded like a Biker's convention. I wondered what in the world all the racket was and how they were still playing back there with such traffic. But, coming around the corner of the house to actually view the parking lot - all I saw was the boys and their bikes...not motorcycles, no cars...just the boys and their bikes. The sound, as it turned out, was coming from them.

Remember in the 70's when all boys put hockey cards between the frame and spokes of their bikes to get that cool flippityflippityflippity sound when they drove? Well, my boys just took that to a whole new level. Last night they discovered that if you shove a disposable water bottle in there, with the bottom of the water bottle hitting the spokes, you get this CRAZY loud Harley sound. It was so funny - I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.

Of course, this morning before Trev left for work, he had to see what it was all about so Cale went out in his pajamas and gave his Dad a demonstration. Trev immediately whipped out his phone, took a quick video and by this morning it was already talked about on the radio and the video is up on steinbachonline.com I think Trev might have some mixed feelings....extreme pride for his boys and possibly a little regret that his Wayne Gretsky Rookie cards didn't make the same great racket back in the 70's.





Check out the video here on steinbachonline.com