SO Proud!

A couple of years ago my son earned his Eagle Scout award.  He was 13 years old.  After a scout becomes an Eagle, he has the opportunity to continue earning merit badges to earn the bronze, gold and silver palm awards, in that order.  He must complete five merit badges to earn one palm.  Logan decided he wanted to earn each palm to advance further in scouting than any of his four older brothers.  Last night he received his final palm, the silver.  I cannot even tell you how proud I am of him.  We got home from his Court of Honor and he took this picture with his phone.  I think it is one of the most beautiful pictures for scouting that I have ever seen!  He is not a professional photographer, not even an amateur one!  He DID earn the photography merit badge!  It is amazing!

Yes, I am biased.  Yes, I am his mother.  Yes, I am very proud!  I would include pictures of his Court of Honor and him receiving his reward, but as I was extremely rushed before hand, I arrived without my camera!  My DIL shot photos and will be sending them to me, but I could not wait to post Logan's photo...and to dote on my youngest son!

I believe this will now complete our journey in scouting.  Our oldest son is 35, our youngest 15.  So 27 years of being involved in scouting, with my husband being the Scout Master for 10 years and I was a Cub Master for 3 years.  It has been a very long, but tremendously rewarding, journey with all five boys becoming Eagle Scouts.

Thank you for stopping by and taking a look!  Have a wonderful day and remember the Scout Motto...
"Be Prepared"!

My Tiger Lilies!

In the 23 years that we have lived in this house, I have always loved my Tiger Lilies.  This year they were extra beautiful for some reason, which I find odd because we are in a major drought.  I walk a substantial distance a few times a week and have noticed that other people's Tiger Lilies are all pale orange and some are yellow.  Mine are a vibrant orange, which I think makes them all the more beautiful!

Now, I am not a photographer (have I mentioned that before?).  I need to get that established right away.  However, in looking at my Tiger Lilies from my front porch, it was so beautiful the way the sun was shining on part of them and the rest were in the shade, so I attempted to capture that in photos.  Obviously I need to learn a bit about photography!  However, by taking these pictures this way, I will always be able to recall in my mind just how beautiful they actually were.

I have this last one as my wallpaper on my laptop.  It is so pretty!

As always, thank you for stopping by and having a look.  I know everyone is so busy, so I really appreciate the time spent by you on my blog.  Thanks again and have a wonderful day!

Tri-fold Stencil Edge Butterfly Card

This was from homework that was assigned on the Make-the-Cut forum a while back and I am just getting around to doing it!  I know, I am slow!  However, the assignment was to make a stencil edge card.  I put a little bit of a different twist on it and made a tri-fold card also.  Since it is near the Fourth of July, I decided to make it red, white and blue.  What butterflies have to do with the Fourth of July, I do not know!  I just thought it was a neat idea!  LOL!

I found the butterfly stencils by doing a Google search for......you got it, butterfly stencils!  :)  I chose three that I liked, brought them into MTC and traced them.  Then I followed a wonderful tutorial by Julie from the MTC Forum and found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MTC_Tuts/files/03_Intermediate_Lessons/.  You have to be a member to view this tutorial, but it is free to join.  She is an amazing lady that teaches us so many wonderful things!  Next, I made my file with the MTC program and cut it all out with the help of Shadow, my Black Cat Lynx.  What I would do without her I do not know!  She makes my crafting life SO MUCH easier and I just have so much fun!

It was a lot of fun learning how to do the stencil cards and I think I will be making many more of these as they can be funny or they can be stunning!  They can be used for any occasion and will be a hit no matter what you put on them!  Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful week!

Happy July!

It is that time of year to turn our hearts, even more so, to our amazing country and our celebratory birthday!  I just wanted to show my decor for my home during this holiday.

I love my stars and stripes curtains.  For the window over my sink I just have the stars curtains.  It makes the entire room very festive!

My shelf is a work in progress to this day.  I am never quite satisfied with what I have.  The baskets on the right side are heart-shaped and have red and blue weaving on them, but I am still looking to replace them.  I just have not found that "perfect" something that I want.  I would like you all to notice the beautiful white star tray that I received from my very dear and good friend, Carolee, or Klee to those of you who visit the Make-the-Cut Forum.  She cut all the design out of vinyl.  Isn't it just adorable?!  Thank you again Carolee!  It's perfect for my shelf!  I was going to put it on my hutch with my other star plates, but it was too large.  I like it better here anyway!  :)  The pictures under the shelf are ones that I made.  For the one on the left I used red ribbon on white cardstock to make the stripes.  Printed on the white stripes is the 13th Article of Faith from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I used a small patch of blue starred cloth for the corner and put a red cloth heart in the center of that.    Blue mat, frame and voila!  The one on the right is a cross-stitch that I did with the first verse of the Star Spangled Banner.

Also I would like to call attention to this darling star-shaped candy dish.  Carolee also gifted this to me with the cute star spangled mints!  The dish was much fuller when I received it but my son has been enjoying the mints!  LOL!

Lastly, my hutch.  There is just something about the great colors of red, white and blue that just brings me such joy!  My heart swells within me when I think of our wonderful country and of ALL the sacrifice that has gone in to making it so great. I have four brothers that have served in the military over the years, three of which went to Viet Nam.   I sincerely hope that our country can continue to be great and not get run into the ground!  Happy July 4th everyone!

For those of us here in Utah, Happy 24th also!  It is a state holiday here so I get to continue to use my decor all month long!

Thank you so much for stopping by and taking a look at what I have to offer today.  I hope your entire week is a wonderful one!

Father's Day Card

This is the card I made for my husband and father of our children for Father's Day!  I feel pretty comfortable putting it on my blog because I am pretty sure that he doesn't visit here too often!  Like once every new moon or there about!  :)

I always have tried to make something really fancy for him, and this year I just wanted it to be simple but to the point!  I just made a tie from basic shapes in MTC, cut it out, printed the inside sentiment, used glitter vinyl to make the "tie tack", added some blingy bling around it, cut the "D" for Dad out of cardstock and glued it in place.

Not a lot of work, but very effective if you ask me!  Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek at what I do from time to time.  Have a wonderful week!

Mushrooms!

My husband is always busy in his wood shop, turning and creating something beautiful.  I just wanted to share his latest project that he just decided to make on a whim!  He made wooden mushrooms!

Isn't that clever!?  The REALLY clever thing about them is that not only are they cute, they are also little containers that can hide small prized possessions of great personal importance!

Wouldn't these be cute for granddaughters?  Hmmm.........

I won't even begin to attempt to explain how he made these.  All I know is that he turned them on his lathe...somehow.  I just love how he left the bark on the bottom of the first mushroom.

I hope you enjoy my husband's creations as much as I do.  He has made SO MANY pretty creations with wood.  I sometimes think I will just stop crafting and let him take over and fill our house with beautiful wood!    As always, thank you so much for stopping by and I hope you all have a terrific upcoming week!

Be"leaf"

Here is a card I made for a friend.  It is a tent card.  I got the idea for the tent card from a challenge on the MTC forum.  There are many tutorials on the web that can be found to make these cards also.  Mine is very simple.  I just found an image of a leaf that I liked, brought it into MTC, traced and cut it out of the yellow cardstock.  Then I cut the same-sized leaf out of the patterned paper and taped that to the yellow cardstock.  Then I cut a smaller image of the same leaf out of the brown cardstock and taped that to the back of the yellow cardstock.  Next I cut I very small leaf out of orange vellum and hung it from a brad at the top of the leaf.  I attached two orange sparkly brads at the top corners.  The font I used was Chopin Script.  As always, thanks so much for looking and have a wonderful week!