Happy Halloween...

And I totally missed this. Sheesh. Good thing DH mentioned this. I need to buy some candy before I get tricked. So my posts have absolutely nothing to do with Halloween. Surprise!

Continuing with photos and kits remaining from the crop - that photo was taken by Holli and the page for here. I have to admit I didn't use the original papers I chose for the crop because it was TH's paper with a map of the Pacific ocean and this shrimp boat is in the Atlantic. 

Like anyone else would know that.

 Its all about the deets however.

First off that's my flash in the photo. Too lazy to fix it. Love the photos - is it me or is this page missing something??? Other than something messy.  Sigh. I don't do messy well after its all together. I am so not a deadeye dick with the mists with a blank page, let alone blasting a completed one. That's just begging for trouble.  

Heard from family and friends - they have made it through the Sandy, although now the cleanup starts. Hugs and prayers to all. Stay safe.

Monster storm Monday.....

Was an attempt to take my mind off what was going on.  I was trying not to worry because every single family member was in harm's way. So....busy mind - busy hands helped while the news blared on in the background. I did have Joe (Bonamassa) singing in my ear and he always brings out the creativity. Annie girl wrapped in a towel was just too sweet not to do. This paper is total stash. Love it! This morning I found they had a little fence damage but came through basically unscathed. Waiting on word from other family.

Sooooo Ms. Ashli must have felt a drain on her super powers because this is a lift of hers somewhere along the line. I know you're thinking again. Me too. It was a fun page to do with a fun photo. The pix is Holli's and as soon as I saw it the title popped into my head. Which is really exciting because I have trouble with titles. I know this shocks you. I also threw some stash together but some of this is Pebbles. Holli's daughter Amber had to do a school project using recyclables. Recycable art - NOW I think of that title darnit. 

seewhatImean? Hmmm.....maybe I can work that in.

Crop til ya drop!

I went to another crop! Shocking I know. But since  I had aa lot of fun at the first one, I thought I'd do it again. This time with a plan. Bwahahaha!!! I know. MEEEE with a plan. (You can get up off the floor now).

So I printed photos and put kits together. *gasp*faint*thud*. Doesn't that shock you. However, the All American Boys - was a challenge. Of course I thought the challenge up. Holli and I were swapping pix. So in the midst of swapping, my challenge was to give Holli (and me) the photo and the kit of the person's choosing and then a page would ensue. So Holli printed the pix and kitted it and I made the page. Love it!

The next two were a total win-win. Kevin took the photos AND blogged about them. So when I downloaded them, I printed out the blog journaling                    and wa-la. PAGE(s)!

It so doesn't get any better than this. Except at the crop, when you complete a page you got the "cupcake". Which I am proud to say I had in my possession a number of times. Only won the prize once though. But in having the cupcake when a lady completed her page and hollered for it, gave me this globe that she had cut out. It sooooo fits perfectly with the page and journaling.

I love that in having fun, I was able to complete quite a few pages. 

I so enjoyed scrapping with Brooke, Suzanne and Holli. And speaking of Holli, she completed the pages below.

She did some for Jill and a couple for me.

I'm so thrilled she was inspired by Jill's pix.

I have some kitted of hers that I need to complete. I'm soooooo on it.

My second crop was way more fun than the first. Of course, I took a lot more stuff and it was so easy using the pages I kitted in advance. I had a couple of kits that didn't work out, however, I plan to scrap them while at home where there are more  supplies at hand that will boggle and confuse the mind. As if. Lmao................

Create Wish Play

This album is a result of a 30 day challenge called Learn Something Knew by Shimille. I stumbled on it because I was stalking Mz. Ashli over at the Purplemailbox, fascinated as she deconstructed a smash book. So I had a couple of Junkitz chipboard covers lying around and decided that I'd lift it. I really didn't want to be too obvious (as if that ever happened) so I named it something different. THEN I went back and re-read the post.

And being the copy cat that I am signed up for the class after a few hundred days of deliberation. And now I was coming from behind. And it was totally not what I'd thought it would be. Not like I had a firm idea of anything in particular - 

I was just surprised. 

I found a packet of 8x8 papers called the Daily Grind by Fancy Pants and felt that it fit the bill. I then used a swift approach and made all the pages and numbered them accordingly - employing the KISS method. 

I figured I would then go back, read the prompts and proceed to pile on. Fortunately, Mz. Ashli was way ahead and on one of her blogs was shop your stash. Whew! I needed to do that because obviously there was not going to be enough of that packet to go around.

So I know you're going to be surprised when I tell you that some pages are out of order - number wise. Well, I was reading a prompt and the lightbulb went off, looked back, got confused and realized - wrong day. 

Because I put together the bones first and never thinking that I'd screw it up, glued the numbers on. So okay, what was I thinking.

LMAO...because that's how I roll.  And it worked out more or less. Since it was only a couple of prompts I just rearranged the pages out of order. Ta-da problem solved. Although future generations my wonder about me.

And then I decided on some that I was really overthinking things. Like TOTALLY.

And you can kinda figure out where in the book I figured that one out.

Fortunately or not, I skipped around. Since I was behind anyway, I gravitated to the prompts that I could do without a lot of thinking and left the hard ones for last. Which in looking back was really, really a dumb idea. 

Shimelle does this every year and because you paid for this session - you get the rest of the years she does this challenge FREE. Good thing there's a whole year in between I can recharge for because some of the prompts got me.

Hipstamatic and Iphoto fun...with some repeats

Always fun to whip out the phone and snap some. Trouble with instamatic I forget which one is my favorite lens. Obvious not this one since it muted all the beautiful colors. 

So down the road a bit switched to reagular iphone. Could use a nip of contrats but omymy love the trees.

This looks just as fun in hipsto as it did If you look in the post below. Actually I may like this one better. 

Thought the angle of the tree branch was fun although not much color happening.

Here's a hipsto pix of another one I shot with the camera (see below again). Love the lighting.

And the wooden structure that made me swoon  looks awesome with this filter. 

Can you really get enough of the trees. 

OOOOOO and this barnboard wood. Sigh.

And my rotten favorite eldest son. This is what will be on my phone when he calls. He's more of a texter. Figures.

Beaver Brook Association - Maple Barn

Is a beautiful place. Its a nonprofit that leases land to wanna-be farmers and growers that  plant and tend. Pumpkins were everywhere. And the stone fences are everywhere along the sides of roads. They are historically protected. 

Their rustic-ness makes me swoon.

I walked around for hours taking it all in and of course capturing amazing images on my SD card. And beautiful trees turning everywhere you look.

A wonderful walk through that has all kinds of textures and foliage.

Down by some old farm equipment grew this which is probably a weed but who cares. Its pretty. And yes, white is a color.

There's a wonderful path that had lots of color and foliage in which I carefully strolled down. I have this penchant for face planting and didn't want to get up close and personal with the dead leaves. 

Well this is part of the path without the color but it looked so cool and foresty.

Caught this on the return up the path. Love the red leaves against the brown tree trunk.

An original structure now used as an office is right by the side of the country road. And doesn't it make you swoon.

Found more red. Love red. Its my favorite color  but you wouldn't know it because I mostly wear green. Which is opposite red on the color wheel. 

So I guess I'm close. 

More loveliness and managed to capture it while the sun was still out and shining through.

And red and fences.......ooooooo

The weather does change abruptly and in turning this corner. BAM. A picturesque, just begging for a post card, church steeple.

 Swooned again right after taking this shot.

And then there was this barn smothered in the warmth of the sun surrounded by all the gorgeous color. Shot this one on the fly right out the car window. Break out the smelling salts.

We started off the day with bunch ball

And boy did that bring back memories. Both my boys played soccer. Nick was especially good.

And it appears that Cavin is following in his footstepts. Two Goals. That boy rocked the field. Keep an eye on the number 6.

And he's really very humble and nonchalant about it.

And because he's a team player, I was actually amazed that these lil kidlets played in their zone, rather than bunching up altogether.

It was a beautiful day that made me wish I didn't wimp out and wear a short sleeve shirt. 

Of course on the sidelines, snacks and drinks are important and Miss Amelia was helping with the distribution.

Of course she had to mangle and test the product.

There was a lot of hanging around going on by players waiting on their turn on the field.

The costumes were purchased in a last minute flurry, and each character agreed upon in advance.

I was informed that there was much negotiation and bribing, but an accord was eventually agreed upon between the boys. All costumes were duly noted and remarked upon as we traversed the multitude that converged on the pumpkin festival. It appeared that the Avengers were sorely lacking and very popular. As were adorable octopuses. The kidlets had fun in acknowledging their role in the good guys win and rock the world in the scheme of things. And the crowd treated them as such.

Baby sister was a different story. Mom decided that she didn't have enough stress going on and making an octopus outfit would seal the deal. Grammy is proud to say that her stitching and glue gunning techniques were called into play and helped save the day. Sadly, gorilla glue would've suited better as Miss Amelia managed to UNDU all the buttons despite grammy's stunning and amazing glue gunning techniques.

So the Keene Pumpkin festival was going on. And it was decided that attending would be fun and costumes appropriate. Which was the cause of the pressure in the making and acquiring of said costumes.

It appears that this is a major festival and fundraiser for the teachers in Keene.

And for each pumpkin that was carved a dollar was donated.

Said amount is given to the Keene schoolboard.  As we traversed through the masses, there was a total of 29K+ pumpkins, resulting in a grand amount of 29k + being donated. There were some really cool and unique pumpkins.

And here we have some posers. It took a few snaps to get this one where all costumed kidlets actually LOOKED at the camera without attitudes. Patience grasshopper.