longwood gardens

Last weekend Jeff and I went to Delaware and Pennsylvania to see his brother Rob and his wife Jolene. It was wonderful to see family out here and spend some time with them. One of the things we did was go to Longwood Gardens. It was so amazing! I kept finding myself telling Jeff, "I want one of these someday!" Just exquisite. Our time was quite limited, but I did manage to snap some pictures of what was growing there.

Oh, these beautiful mums! I think I could take pictures of the purple ones forever.

A Bird of Paradise, Jeff's favorite flower.

I loved the water lily gardens. I kept telling Jeff that I just wanted to float away on one of those big lily pads - they were huge!

Flowers weren't the only thing they had at Longwood. This wall was incredible! So green, and the fresh vegetation smell was lovely. It was one of the things I told Jeff I want in our house someday. :)

paperie goodness

Ah - I love paper! I've told you about my love of paper things before, but now I'm going to do some more showing of why I love it.

First are envelopes I am making from some vintage magazines I got from my dad. I think there is something special about snail mail, especially when it comes in a beautiful envelope. I'll need to make some labels to write the addresses on to ensure they make it to the inteded recipient.

Staying on the handwritten correspondence theme, here are some fun little flower notecards. When I got them for Christmas last year they were just plain, solid colors, so I dressed them up with my Paper Source Cottage Bloom stamp to make them extra special.

Who knew a plain old Staples clipboard could look so good? All you need for this project is some pretty paper and Mod Podge to stick it on with. Isn't the little bird paper fun? It's Snow and Graham wrapping paper.

I don't know about you, but I continually find myself drawn to animals and critters - birds, butterflies, squirrels, etc. I made this little guy and don't really have anything in mind for him, but I still think he's cute.

Finally, another little critter. I wish I could take credit for designing "Skip," but all I can claim is the purchasing, downloading, printing, cutting, and pasting. Mibo has some clever, clever paper animals. I got a bunch of the PDFs on a special deal a few months back and absolutely adore them! They're fun to give as gifts, and also fun to keep. :)

Isn't it amazing how much you can do with paper? What are some of your favorite paper projects?

last minute crafts

Soo...I figure it's time to post some crafty craftiness from me. :) Those who know me well know I am a procrastinator. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that I had put off a couple of projects prior to our move out to Maryland, so I was rushing to get them done at the last minute before we moved back east.

Exhibit A: a lovely apron for one of my girls camp young women who graduated in (ahem) May. In my defense, I had gone shopping earlier for fabric for this apron, but I didn't find something that just fit. Something that is very important to me when working on a special project is that I find fabric that "fits" the person I'm making it for. Lucky for me, just before we moved I found the perfect fabrics for Kayla's apron in her favorite colors - purple and green. I had to go to two separate stores to get them, but the extra effort was so worth it - she loved it!

I also made her a little wallet with the extra fabric. I still think these wallets are fantastic! I use mine all the time.

While I was writing about finding fabric that "fits," I remembered the bag I made for the beatuiful and talented Beth back in, um, March or April, for her birthday. Again, that was another project where I did a little shopping around to find the right fabric, in addition to some procratination on my end. But, again, the recipeint was thrilled with the final product. She wanted a bag to carry her kids' library books in and I think this fit the ticket!

And don't forget the horribly-photographed-but-cute-in-person interior pocket.

Finally, this is something I made for a girl in my ward who won a handmade bag from me at our Relief Society service auction in...um...yeah I don't even remember what month it was in. :P But the important thing is that I finished it before I left! She requested a beach bag and this is what I came up with.

Okay, this is fun! Let's see if I can get myself to post some more of my projects from the past few months. :)

"i got a whole lot of happy" (birthday)*

Happy, happy birthday to Jeffrey! Today is his 28th birthday. This is a particularly happy one for Jeff in light of the San Francisco Giants winning the NLCS just minutes before midnight last night to make it to the World Series! Jeff loves baseball and has fond memories of watching the World Series on his birthday, so what a gift it is this year that he gets to watch his favorite team fight for the title! As a present, he got to go to Game 1 of the NLCS between the Phillies and Giants last Saturday, but I'll post more on that later.

Lots of candles - while shopping for them I realized we had reached a milestone because one package of candles will no longer cut it. 2 packages it is!

It may look like it, but no, the cake itself was not actually on fire. :)

We also realized that the 28th candle is the straw that broke the camel's back, as it took Jeff 2 tries to get all the candles. He had a good laugh about it. :) These pictures aren't completely in focus, but I love them anyway.

Happy birthday, Jeff! I am so glad you were born!

*NOTE: To explain the title of this post, go here to read about the quote from Juan Uribe, one of the Giants players. Love it! :)