Happy Fall!!!!

OK, so I am a few days late, but that has been the story of my life the last few weeks. :) But I love autumn... I love the smells, the colors, the weather, and the holidays! We've been watching the soybean field behind out house slowly turn a golden yellow and the stalks of corn fading to brown, so I know in a few weeks my sugar maple will once again look like it does here.

Today marks the one year closing date of our home, so it's officially been our home for a year now!!! WHOO HOO!!! We love it here!!! It seems like so long ago we sat in that office and signed the papers to our first real home. So much has changed... just like the seasons.

Bad Girls #3 Challenge.... Less is More

This weeks challenge at Bad Girls Top Designer is all about negative space. Hmmm... this was a TOUGH one for me.... I'm all about the embellies. I think I did an OK job with it... hopefully it's good enough to advance me to the next round! I'm not holding my breath on this one though.

In other news, Mr. Jack the puppy got himself nice and sick today. He decided to eat either a spider or a bee and it sent him into an allergic reaction. Hours later and lots of vet time, he's starting to feel better, although it must have stung/bit him in the throat so he's still having problems with swallowing. But, he should be fine with a little TLC. :)

One Busy Saturday!

What a fun day with the fam! We started out the morning with a trip to the highschool for Indian Fest. All of the HS clubs have stands to raise money and it's a fun time! Our fave stop is the Home Ec Club and their yummy breads. Oh, the garlic and cheese bread is our all time fave!

The afternoon brought a Girl Scout corn maze and hayride. The girls had a blast in the maze and Josh has a blast eating his weight in peanuts... the little goober! I was a little disappointed in the maze this year since the corn was only a foot tall in places, rather than a towering 8 feet, but the girls didn't seem to mind that at all.

Once we were on the hayride, Joshie took over the camera and caught this one of Dad being silly. Not to mention a few of Uncle Dave's nostrils up close and personal. :)

We ended the day with the homecoming parade. Emily got to march with the elementary band and throw candy. As the picture clearly shows, she had a great time!

Wouldn't You Like to Ride in a Beautiful Balloon?

So the other morning I was making breakfast for the kiddos and I hear a wooshing sound. I thought we had sprung a huge gas leak and needed to evacuate, but it stopped within seconds. So we all waited to hear it again and sure enough we did. That time I realized it was the propane tank on a hot air balloon! We ran outside to see it and it was hovering over our house so low you could probably jump up from the roof and touch the basket. We all stood there in awe staring straight up inside the balloon and then I realized I didn't have my camera. By the time the camera and memory stick were located, the balloon had started to drift away, but I wanted to share this sight with you. How peaceful. :)

A Brand New Day....without Scrap 'N Art

After much thought and debate, I have decided to resign my position at Scrap 'N Art eZine. My newly renewed term would have started with the January/February issue. My reasons for stepping down were mixed, but in essence I needed to reclaim some family time and remove some drama. When my soothing scrappy time becomes more of a dreaded event rather than a time to relax, I knew it was the right time to step down. It was a fun ride and I have enjoyed the ups and the downs of the rollercoaster that is SNA. As some of you might have heard, a new DT is scheduled to rock the January/February issue... I am sure they will bring lots of talents to each issue.... some of the new DT members are simply AMAZING!!!

Best wishes to the SNA family! I will miss the times in the tulip field when life was simple. :)

Movin' On to Challenge #2 at the Bad Girls Top Designer Challenge

I have been having so much fun over at the Bad Girls forum competing on Top Designer and was so thrilled to make the honor roll and move on to the next class. Here's my creation for Class #2 taught by Miss Emilie Ahern. How cool is that?!

The class was all about mixing patterned papers and I did just that...I even mixed paper companies!!! :)So I've got some Kaiser, some Tinkering Ink and some Sassafras Lass all happily playing together. :)I'm pretty happy with how it turned out... hopefully it's good enough to move to the next class!! You can check it out here at www.badgirlskits.com.

Havin' some Fun with the Bad Girls!

After reading about the Bad Girls Top Designer on Pub Calls, I decided to give it a whirl. Wow... is that prize pack ever amazing and totally drool worthy! You can check it out at www.badgirlskits.com. Our classes started this week with layering perspective and this was my entry. With all of the extreme talent posted in the gallery, I am just hoping for the chance to continue on!

In other news, our area had a September 11th Memorial Bike Run last night. The 37 mile run with well over 1200 bikes was amazing to watch. On a winters day, we could sit in our backyard and watch this amazing display of patriotism, but the corn is so high it blocked our view. We drove down the street and parked by a farmer's field filled with onlookers with handmade signs and oodles of flags. It was amazing to watch!

Scrapjacked!!!

I HAD to try a jack of Christina Clouse's (toomuchcoffeegirl) layout when I saw it roll around on Scrapjacked. It was just too cool... and I had the idea for mine in a heartbeat! I decided on doing mine on my two completely opposite kiddos. Thanks for such a fun jack!!!

bECOming Green Album Tinkering Ink

A few weeks ago, Tinkering Ink did their own version of my so loved Woot and did their own bag of scrap for $5. I couldn't resist and ended up ordering two. I was soooo excited to see I was the new proud owner of the bECOming Green ecofriendly line of papers! So I had a chance to play with my Tinkering Ink "Woot" goodies and wanted to share what I came up with. I used a Rusty Pickle acrylic album and had a blast playing with the bECOming Green Tinkering Ink papers. Enjoy!

Another Round of Paper Element and WOO HOO!! Scrap 'N Art New Issue!!!

Well I have completed all of my Paper Element for this month and my Scrap 'N Art work is all done so TODAY is my scrapping day... where I get to sit back and create for just me without worry over what to use. I have some Tinkering Ink calling my name so I think I will be tearing into that today!

Here is my schtuff for the Paper Element... I love the way the little butterfly plaque turned out...how sweet will this be hanging in my hallway?!?! So enjoy and have a GREAT Labor Day everyone!