RAGBRAI 2011

This week was great, I got to check off one of the items from my bucket list! I rode RAGBRAI for one day this week from Boone to Altoona. It was so much fun and now I'm hooked! I so want to go again next year, not sure if I'll be ready for a full week, but definitely a couple days!! A big shout-out to Kyle's Bikes in Ankeny for letting us borrow his daughter's bike for me and his own bike for my hubby!! I will be working on purchasing my own road bike from Kyle's to get myself prepared and in shape for next year. I'm happy that I have a bike trainer that I can use indoors for the winter time to keep me going! I will definitely be using it this year!!

We went with some really good friends of ours and shared some great laughs! What great memories to cherish!

I stopped by the local scrapbook shop to see what types of paper and embellishments are out there to scrap my pictures from the ride. Not a whole lot, so if anyone knows of where I can get some cute bike stuff, let me know!

Here's some of the pics from the ride!

Group Photo: Kevin, Chris, Debby, Aric, Me & Jeff

First Town we Stopped in Alleman:

Riders coming through Alleman:

Pit Stop on the Road-side

As we were leaving one of the towns a train stopped us!

We got trains!

Chris and I at the White Oak Vineyard taking a rest and having a bite to eat!

In Altoona, end of the ride, Debby doing the Air Guitar!

Dancing it up!

Great times!!

Summer, Summer, Summertime!

I feel like I say this every time, but WOW time sure has flown by! I can't believe summertime is here already! I just enjoyed my first full vacation week of the year from my real job (I say that as I refer to my crafting job as my dreamer job)! I'm so happy the first school year is over though for my kindergartner who is soon to be a first grader! I do have to say though summertime has been a little emotional for her, she's not really sure what to do with herself since everything has been a routine for the last 10 months of her life! I tell her live a little, be a kid, go play, don't worry about what day of the week it is honey, when you're 24 graduated from college, you're going to have to worry about Monday through Friday, but right now, just worry about being a kid for pete's sake!

Summer for us right now means plenty of pool-time, ice cream, walks to the park, bike rides, library time and lots of extra family time! I'm loving it!

Unfortunately it doesn't leave much time for anything else, especially my dreamer job, crafting... but there's always September right? One of these days I'll get back on the focused truck and get some memory creating done, but right now I'm going to enjoy my ice cream and I would like you to enjoy some too!

A Dinner Party

I had a dinner party last weekend, it was lots of fun to decorate and prepare for. It was an italian themed dinner and the table looked like this...



I created menu's in Italian, place cards for each person and I scattered pictures of moments we've shared in the past with this group of friends. I loved how it turned out! And that's why they call me Martha. Ha!

Odds & Ends Photos & Cosmo Cricket Mini Book

Happy Hump Day!
Here are some other photo's I meant to post earlier from Valentine's Day:

Grandma Rosie gave us a really cool ice cream cupcake mold so we made some fun Valentine's Day Cupcakes!

Here's Ali enjoying them! YUM YUM!

I ran short on time to get the girls Valentine's day gifts ahead of time, so instead I came up with these cute little felt heart necklaces at the last minute and gave them to the girls in the morning on Valentine's Day. I also made them a hair clip to match! They loved them and so did I!

I wanted to share a mini book that I did for a friend of mine. I used up the rest of a Cosmo Cricket class packet that I had from Scrapfest. I think it turned out adorable!! I almost kept if for myself!!

Photos from Back to Front- Sorry photo challenged this evening! AND the lighting isn't very good.

Wow, 2 posts in one week! I'm on a roll!

Have a nice rest of the week!

Almost Spring Break, Whew!

Thank goodness it's March! I feel like the first part of the year has flown by but yet we're still in winter~ blech and double blech!!! Since spring break starts for the kiddos this Friday I feel like we've got to be close to some warmer weather ( I say this mind you as it is again snowing outside!). We are heading to Minnesota for a little getaway this weekend, I'm not sure why I'm torturing myself going north instead of south. BUT, I've promised my girls time and time again that I would take them to the place the mommy visits every September for Scrapfest and have yet to do it. So, after this weekend I can hopefully say we've been there, done that with the kiddos and I no longer have to feel guilty on my weekend getaway! ;0)

I've been busy crafting, to see you'll have to check out The Petal Girls blog to find out what exactly that is!

On March 20th, I'll be attending a crop at Archiver's and I'm hoping to get caught up on some much needed scrapping!

Going anywhere fun for spring break? I hope it's wonderful whatever you do!

Toodles!

Blizzard

And I'm not talking about the kind you get at DQ! Gotta love Iowa weather! Hopefully tomorrow the Groundhog will help with clearing up all of this cold weather! School has already been called off for tomorrow! Thank goodness I won't have to get a cranky daughter out of bed!

Bad news is working from home with kids tomorrow will allow momma to get nothing done! Think I'm going to have to utilize a PTO day! If so I'll be making up some more felt petal necklaces and adding them to my etsy shop! Yippee!!

Hope you are staying warm on this frightful night!

Scrap it Swanky Sister~

Bonus!

It's been a really long time since I've actually scrapped some pages. What's even worse is it's been a really long time since I've printed any pictures and that makes me nervous. It means that I am even further behind on scrapping my kiddos pics! Makes me sick every time I think about it, but I just have to do what I can to get ahead! SO, tonight I went onto Shutterfly, I had 200 free prints from the pampers rewards from forever ago. (my last daughter has been out of diapers for a year and a half if that tells you how long ago!) I ordered my free prints and the shipping was going to be $18, BUT if you spend $25 you get free shipping (Code: SHIP25), so I ordered up a couple of their photobooks that were on sale for $13.00 and I spent $26.00 total, but I got 200 free prints and 10 free valentine's day cards along with the 2 books that I actually paid for! What a deal! I love free stuff and it seems Shutterfly has been giving a lot lately!!

Hope you have some bargains come your way this week!

Enjoy!

Birthday Party Wrap Up!

Today was my daughter's birthday party! I can't believe that she's 6 already, I love seeing the little lady she's turning into but I hate the fact that time is going so fast! I mentioned before that she had a Hannah Montana themed birthday. We had it at our local gymnastics place where my younger daughter goes to preschool~ Triad. The girls had a fabulous time. They played Hannah Montana songs the entire time, so they were dancing away and the next minute doing cartwheels and the balance beam! Too cute!! The girls that helped us today were amazing at keeping everyone entertained~ what a fun place!

Here's some pics of the girls playing:









Here's some pics of the cake and decorations:

The cake was from Target~ it was delish!

Balloons!

Cheetah plates and napkins

Centerpieces: 12 x 12 piece of polka dot glittered scrapbook paper~ Star glass dish from the dollar store with m&m's and jelly belly's, stars I cut out off glitter scrapbook paper and little photos I printed off of Hannah Montana and a little decorative star centerpiece from the dollar store as well. I love inexpensive decorations!

Goodies~ Pop Star Survival Package

Well, it's been a fun time planning and now all the hard work was definitely worth it! A happy birthday girl and I think her friends had fun too!

Coming up this week, office clean up and organization. Got a new piece of furniture on craigslist this weekend (love craigslist!) and now it's time to organize my workspace again!

Should be fun~ have a great week!!

Happy Place

I like to keep my unhappy news off of my blog. I've been dealing with unhappiness for the last 2 months and yesterday it finally came to an end. I'm back to my happy place, my positive, my rainbows and butterflies, my dove chocolate place (just threw that in there because I ate a whole bag of those darn things yesterday, not kidding). So I've been in a funk, but now not so much. Enough said.

I'm also excited that my other little craftiness I have going on over at The Petal Girls has gained some further exposure in the last week. My craftiness may finally be paying off! ;0)

In other news, I had to make 2 more of these tonight because my fantabulous friend looked so good in the one I made the other day, I had to give it to her!! This weekend I'm going to make them in all kinds of colors!! Can't wait!! Kind of addicted to them, who knew felt would make such a fashion statement!

So glad I'm back to my happy place!

In Party Planning Mode...

My daughter turned 6 last week and her birthday party is this weekend! I'm officially in party planning mode. My daughter is addicted to disney and of course super addicted to Hannah Montana. Not sure how I let it happen, but it is a pretty cute show, just never thought we'd be at this stage for a really long time! So, I've got a Hannah Montana Cake, Hannah Montana Balloons, Hannah Montana Invites, Hannah Montana Party Favors and now I'm in the middle of making Hannah Montana table Centerpieces and Hannah Montana Thank you's to put in the Goodie Bags.

Since Hannah Montana is a rock star, I had to find grape rock candy~ I loved rock candy as a little girl (or any candy for that matter). I may have went a little over the top with the goodie bags including laffy taffy sticks, candy necklaces, cotton candy and ring pops! But hey you only turn 6 once right? No wonder my daughter already has a cavity! (topic for another day!)

I printed off some Hannah Montana coloring pages to include in the goodie bags along with some stickers and gel pens to accessorize. I found some adorable little valentine goodie containers at the target dollar spot that are perfect to house all of the goodies (maybe not big enough) but definitely cute enough! I'll post a pic of the final goodie bag once I have them completed.

I love to plan a party! Just hoping that we can get through this party without a snowstorm! ;0)

Wish me luck! ;0)