It's Card Kit Time!!!

I can't belive that it's almost Thanksgiving! When I saw this great kit from Terri, I had Christmas on my mind!

Look at all those papers!!! At first glance, I see "rustic Christmas," and here is what I came up with:

I was originally going to design a "Santa Girl," but changed my mind and decided to go with a cute roly-poly santa. I cut the santa's belt from a couple of clouds from the kit, and layered the mesh behind the santa for texture.

I used modeling paste to add even more texture, and I LOVE all the sparkly cabochons in this kit! I used them ALL in my projects:

The canvas was all I had planned, but as I was waiting for the Mod Podge and modeling paste to dry, I started cutting more paper and made a couple of cards.

I lifted this first card from Mara. I ADORED her card when I saw it and was wondering where I could get some burlap. Luckily, Terri sent a piece of burlap in just the right size for this card:

For this card, I played with the cute stamped images from Terri:

The bird cage had some extra swirls around the bottom that looked messy with the bling swirl, so I mixed some acrylic paint to match the background and carefully painted the swirl out. You can't even tell!

I also glued a circle of PP behind the clear button. It makes a cute embellishment.

I thought I was done, but Terri also sent us a cute stamp set that I wanted to ink up. I also made a thank-you take just because it's Thanksgiving:

The cute Christmas tree stamp came with some red and green bling. I love how the black stamping came out against the embossed foil.

And lastly, Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!!

Thanks for stopping by! Now go see the what the other ladies have created with this kit:

Hostess Terri - Mara, Joni
Hostess Diane, Mary, Beth

Altered Capri Sun Boxes

It's been a couple of week since my last post. There have been no races, no trips, and no crafting for a while now. Well, I have had a busy crafting weekend!

My sister-in-law helps organize a Christmas boutique at her kids' elementary school. They sell inexpensive items for kids to buy for their parents, siblings and friends. I think this is a fabulous idea, so when she asked me to help, I agreed.

She got four Capri Sun boxes, cut them into a type of organizer, and covered them with contact paper. She gave them to me, and I worked with my sizable scrapbook stash to decorate.

She asked to make a couple masculine and a couple feminine. Here is what I came up with:

This first box is the "All Star" box:

Then we have the "Soccer" box:

This is the "Diva" box:

Lastly, we have the "Hippie Chick" box:

I left lots of room on the labels, so that the kids could write on them. I hope they sell well.

Come back on Tuesday for our monthly Card Kit Club reveal!

Zombie Run!!!

A Zombie 5K? Who would do a Zombie 5K? My zombie obsessed daughter, Chris, and me! It's a mud run and there were two types of participants... zombies and humans.

We were registered as humans. We parked about a mile from the registration area, walked to registration in the rain, waited in the registration lines for almost an hour, and finally lined up in the "appetizer" corral for our start. There were also "main course" and "dessert" corrals. The corrals are in the black enclosed area behind us. Our corral was the first to start, when they opened our door we took off like rats into zombie infested lands.

Here is how the race works... the humans each have 3 flags on a velcro belt. The zombies try to steal the flags. If we make it to the end with any flags remaining, we are human. With no flags, we finish as zombies.

There are other obstacles along with the zombies... a 1 mile uphill climb...

On the course (so we don't have pictures) there were mud pits, mud hills, dead ends, and two zombie infested mazes. There was also a slide into a pool of mud. Can you see Cheryl at the top of this picture ready to slide down? If you look closely you can see me climbing up the scaffolding on the back.

There were walls to climb over...

... and other obstacles to crawl under...

Cheryl is the only one who finished alive. She had one flag left. Chris and I ended up zombies. I was so close! The finish line was right in front of me when a zombie ran up behind me and took my last flag.

Cheryl finished human in 43:46, 3/87 in age group, 26/456 overall.
I finished a zombie in 43:45, 2/32 in age group, 24/456 overall.
Chris was also a zombie in 46:38, 4/20 in age group, 49/456 overall.

Cheryl wants to run this again. I hope she can find a friend to run with because even though Chris and I had fun, we are DONE with zombies, hahaha!

Time to clean off! (And Chris really really needs it!)

I hope everyone had a good weekend!

Going Home...

It's our last day in North Carolina. In the week we've been here, the trees at Uncle George's house have started turning color.

We hung around the house this morning... Feeding the chickens...

And gathering EGGS... uh, well, EGG, and I got to do the gathering!

We reminisced with Colonel George...

He has been all over the world and says that there is no other place that he would want to live than right there in North Carolina.

Time to say good-bye to Joann and Mitzi...

And to Uncle George...

Good-bye, Uncle George! We LOVE you!!!

On the Hunt for Fall Color - North NC

We are on the road again, heading straight into the heart of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park all the way to Tennessee!

Brrr... it's chilly up in those mountains!

We pulled over to take a walk through all the natural beauty. As I was picking up pretty leaves, I found a cell phone! It belonged to a couple visiting from Florida. When we got home, I dropped it in the mail to them. I hope that they got it...

Anyway, back to the trip... We drove all the way up to the highest peak. Clingman's Dome. It was so high up, it was above the color line. No leaves left here except on the pine trees...

We've have a really quiet week traffic and tourist-wise, but today the tourists were out in FORCE! Clingman's Dome was packed! Thank goodness for Uncle George's handicap placard. When we reached Gatlinburg, Tennessee, streets were packed with cars, sidewalks were packed with people, traffic was terrible! There was no way we could stop, so we turned around and headed back to North Carolina.

Now here's a pretty little spot...

What are we doing here Uncle George?

We are picking out a new rock for Uncle George's rock garden. Uncle George has rocks from around the world! Here is what it was like picking a rock for the rock garden...

Uncle George: Find one between an ostrich egg and a football.

Jim: Here's one.

Me: Not that one... the brown one!

Jim: Which brown one?

Me: That brown one!

Jim: How am I supposed to reach that? (rolling eyes)

Me: But it's special! (pout)

Doesn't it look great? See, I told you it was special!

That's it for our drive through the Great Smoky Mountains... Tomorrow it's time to head home.

On the Hunt for Fall Color - East NC

Today is misty rainy, and Jim and I are headed East. Not all the way East to Jim's brother's house, but just as far as Ashville, NC. Our plan was to see the Biltmore House. This is as far as we got... the gate house:

It costs $59 per person just to get into the grounds. THEN it costs $10 more per person to get into the Biltmore House itself. I kid you not, $70 to take a self-guided tour of a house! We passed on the outrageously expensive house tour and asked Garmina to find us another nearby attraction.

She took us to Jumping Off Rock in Hendersonville. It has historical significance because a Cherokee woman jumped off the rock to her death when she heard that her lover died in battle. Kind of morbid, but what a gorgeous place! We took a hiking trail through the woods. Look at these photos! I think the color pops even more because the day was overcast.

We took the Blue Ridge Parkway back, stopping off at the Blue Ridge Folk Art Center. It is supposed to be THE place for authentic Appalachian Arts and Crafts. We didn't buy anything...

But, time to head back to Otto to go out to dinner with Uncle George. He took us to the Blue Ridge Roadhouse in Franklin. Very cute decor and great food!

Have a great day, everyone! Tomorrow we head North through the Great Smoky Mountains into Tennessee.

On the Hunt for Fall Color - South West NC

Uncle George took us on a tour through south-west North Carolina. Our first stop was Wayah Bald tower. At 5342' in elevation, it used to be a lookout tower. Now it's a place for fabulous views!

We also took a tour of the beautiful waterfalls in the area. Bridal Veil Falls (you can drive under), Dry Falls (you can walk under), and Cullasaja Falls (you can see from the highway).

We also stopped at the Blue Canyon Overlook. This was another place with great views and lots of Fall color!

Tomorrow we head East in search of more Fall color!