Hi Friends!

Hello, Y'all!
Boy, I have missed checking up on my blogging friends and sharing the dailies with y'all. I really don't have too much ready to share just yet except that Kimberli is doing much better and my Dad's 89th birthday is tomorrow!
Just before I left for Virginia, to check on Dad, Kimberli told me she had 3 boxes of 'stuff' she wanted me to take. Those three boxes are stuffed with family memories from my Mom and Dad! I've started going through them and am sad to say that some of the photos cannot be saved-Dad put them in those 'sticky' albums with the acetate sheets over the photos. What a true mess! If it wasn't for scrapbooking, I wouldn't have known what caused the problem and might have left everything in those albums from hell. I have some spray on neutralizer that I'm going to use on what's left as soon as I get caught up around here. Here are a couple of priceless photos I want to share; the first one is my Dad's brother, aunt, and sister coming back from the fields in a tobacco sled around 1936!
Don't you just love the hats and how nonchalant the girls look at having a ride in the sled? I wonder if they worked the tobacco looking so cute? I did some tobacco working when I was young, and I can assure you that I never looked like that when the day was done!

The next one is my Grandmother as a young lady, shoes in hand, and her sister-in-law strolling back from somewhere on the farm in Dinwiddie, Virginia.

I can hardly contain my excitement going through these boxes. I hope to finish the task and begin to document all these treasures by scanning into my computer for safe keeping. One day I hope to do a 'Heritage Album' with all of these wonderful shots. Isn't it amazing that someone thought to document the workings of the farm with film back in the 1930's? My cousins, Kent and Deanie, have been sharing their photos with me too and Deanie is working on a family tree with photos! Can't wait to see the finished love tribute.

Well, that's all the time I have for sharing today, friends. I hope to be back soon with something else to offer all you loyal friends.

Take very good care of yourselves!

Love,
Liv

PS: I haven't forgotten about the 8th Grade dance photos, I just haven't had the time to prepare them for posting.

Update 3

Just a quick note to let you know that I'm back from visiting with my Dad. Kimberli went back into the hospital last night with ultra high sugar levels (over 900), vomiting, and difficulty breathing. Her heart seems okay at the moment but they have her in intensive care to keep a close watch.

I appreciate the thoughts and prayers. When life gets back to some semblance of normal, I will catch up with all of you.

Thanks again!
Liv

Dads, Daughters, and Grands-Oh My!

Drama Y'all! Always seems to be haunting me. Things seem to calm down for a few hours and then they get all stirred up again. I'm really wiped out from all of it that we've had to endure this week.

Dad is back in the nursing home and is doing better than we were led to believe. Kimberly has stopped vomiting for today and hopefully will be much better by Tuesday for Joshua's surgery. If all goes well, we are planning a trip to Richmond, VA to see what can be done about making my father's life a more pleasant experience. My granddaughter, Tabitha, will be turning 14 this Friday and my granddaughter, Suzy (ever the spoiler) is in trouble again. Selective memory in teens is, indeed, a world wide disease! Seems she 'forgot' that she had been forbidden to ever use a tanning booth and tried to get her Grandmother Gillam to take her! She's going to be grounded (again) for sure!

Doesn't she look like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth! LOL!

Kim tried to speak with my father to wish him a happy father's day this morning but he is refusing to talk again. I sent him this cyber card in the hopes that the early photo of me and my brother will cheer him:

Papers: Retro Diva-Tuscany; Template: Trish H Designs; Font is Century 725 Adobe

This is the birthday card I made for Tabitha. For some reason, I couldn't find a newborn photo of her? Old age, again!

Papers: Christina Renee-Necessities #10; JessicaBolton pastiche;Adrienne Richardson -LoveActually -Sunshine Group; Tracey Sims-Altered States; Alpha Flergs-Onyx Dance w/Flergs Glitter; Template -altered/Jphillips, all at Scrapbook Graphics

Things are so jumbled around here that I used templates to make both of these cards which made it easy to scrap quickly. I printed out Tabba's and emailed Dad's.

Well, since Kim is doing better, I'm going to go to my friend, Ginni's, house and celebrate Father's Day with them. Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend. And, again, thank you so much for keeping me and my family in your prayers!

Tootles!

The Wall Hanging

Hey Y’all! I’m sure you’ve been wondering where I have been and what I've been doing for the past few days. First of all, this past weekend we had continual power outages that would last for 1 to two hours and were driving us batty! Every time I thought it was back on for good, I would go to all the clocks, DVD recorders, televisions, VCR recorders, and appliances and reset them. Sounds easy but not when you have as many as we do and some of them are so temperamental it takes forever to reprogram them. And, of course, as soon as I had made my rounds, boom! Off it would go again. We were really concerned about our frozen foods since the deep freeze is in the garage and the temperature outdoors was 100 or more. I guess I was so caught up in not being able to use the computer that, luckily, I didn’t seem to feel the loss of the air conditioning. Then I lost my Internet connection for over 36 hours! Withdrawal pains galore! Yesterday, Kimberli and the children came down and we spent the day together. So, dear friends, I wasn’t on the Internet or working on my designing or digital layouts for 3 (almost 4) days! I did, however, finally complete the wall hanging for my bedroom. I’ve titled it ‘My Girls’ and it includes my daughters, grand daughters, and my cat!


Please excuse the poor photography and bent project! I had this hanging outside up against one of the living room windows so I could get a good shot, but I'm no photographer as you can see! The colors are taken from the Waverly fabric that I made the bed dressings and window treatments out of (Laura Ashley). I used some fab vintage sheet music and flower cutouts that Vicki sent me and one of the tassels that Rose sent me. It’s like they were conspiring together so I could finish the project!


I put so many elements to this you wouldn’t believe and I didn’t do all that I was going to do. I wanted to add some white ball fringe that I had pounced with the four main colors of pink, green, teal, and lavender; but decided it would be a little too much. I designed and printed out some cardstock to make the pleated rosette and one of the layers of the flower.


I used some lace left over from Kimberli’s wedding gown and some vintage buttons a close friend of mine gave me many years ago that I had been holding on to for the perfect project.


Aren't these little frames from K & Company adorable!? I thought they were perfect for my 'bell pull' center! As you can see, I also dug out the old edgers and used them a lot.

The clear plastic that the photos are mounted on is from the Dollar Tree! It was an 11” x 14” poster style photo frame. I did a lot of distressing with chalks and inks and a little zigzag stitching and a lot of bling! The centers of the white flowers on the green paper are tiny little pink rhinestones.


The little pink hearts on Suzy's frame are also rhinestones. That little yellow photo corner you see is one of about 10 that I have that my mother purchased at the G C Murphy Company back in the 1940s, it was originally white but I inked it.


I’m really looking forward to finishing up my little bedroom corner and enjoying my new finds and this hanging. There are a lamp and a shelf that still have to be finished before I can complete the area.

I uploaded the photos from Suzy’s eighth grade dance outfit and her cute little date. They are close friends and both seemed to enjoy themselves. Suzy is just too cute. Wait until you see her with her ‘Marilyn Monroe’ hair style! I’ll work on the photos and get them posted soon.

I finally heard from my darling grand daughter, Tabitha, last night. It’s been ages since she has contacted me and I was very relieved to hear from her. She will be 14 on Friday!

Okay, I need to get myself motivated to get up from this computer and finish all the projects I have in the works! Besides the layouts I haven’t done, and Suzy’s photos, and Tabitha’s birthday card, I still need to work on my designing and painting skills with the tutorials that came with my Photoshop Creative magazines. They are so super and I can’t wait to try some of the tools and tricks they talk about. Each mag is accompanied by a CD that has all the stock photos, brushes, pallets, shapes, etc. that you need to follow along!

So all you guys down under keep warm and those of you near the equator try to keep cool and those of you in the Midwest keep your heads above water and your storm shelters nearby! I wish you sunshine in the United Kingdom and the much needed rains in the southern United States and Australia.

Hugs everyone!

PS: Here is my list of products used on the hanging:

Papers: Mustard Moon, Scribble Scrabble, Daisy D’s, Crate Paper, Miss Elizabeth’s, and my designed and printed out papers; Pearl Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels; Ribbon by Heidi Swapp, Nicole, Wrights, & Bucilla; Rick Rack and some Lace by Wrights; Other Lace by Sew Perfect; Tiny frames and buttons by K & Company; Bling by Heidi Swapp & Dollar Tree; Chalks and Eyelets by Oriental Trading Company; Inks by Color Box Chalks; Rubons by Fancy Pants; Flocked S and Foam Embellishments by Miss Elizabeth’s; Foamies by Darice; Acrylics by Liquitex and Making Memories; Lavender Tassel from Rose Long’s stash; Felt Petals, Cardstock Bird and Flowers, and Vintage Sheet Music from Vicki Chrisman’s stash; Antique Buttons from Linda Kaufelt; Sculpy Flower by me; Allover Lace Backing from Kim’s wedding gown; not shown: Lovely Pink Satin Ribbon to hang by from the Ribbon Warehouse in South Carolina.

Sizzling Hot!

Oh, My, Goodness! It has been so hot here that the birds are sitting still with their mouths open! The air is stagnant with the heat. Friday afternoon around 5:30, I noticed the Yahoo! weather alert said it was 95 degrees in Charlotte. I went to check my electronic thermometer, that is located on the east side of my house and therefore in the shade for 4 hours by this time, it registered 101.9! Today wasn't any better. Can you possibly imagine how our military in Iraq must feel; how in the world do they survive in this heat with all the accouterments of there uniforms? My heart goes out to them, especially when I complain about how long it takes the car to cool off after it has been sitting in a parking lot while I shop.

I'm feeling really 'out of it' tonight. Don't know what the problem is but the zest for life I have been feeling for the last couple of months seems to be leaking out. Maybe it's the heat. Or maybe I feeling ashamed of myself for complaining when I am so much better off than 2/3 of the rest of the worlds population. Ever since that humongous earth quake in China I have been so very conscience of how fortunate I am to be living in the United States!

Well this post has been a bummer, but I promise to do better real soon! I think I will be receiving some photos of Kim's daughter Suzy's eighth grade dance. After all the money that was spent on that child we are sure to have some fab photos, right?

Tootles!

A Random Act of Kindness?

I must, once again, share with you the outstanding generosity of our cyber friends. This one in particular, Rose, really went much further than a RAK! Rose posted a question on her blog, Simply Rose 1,about an item she was working on and promised a RAK to whoever answered it correctly. I now believe that Ms. Rose purposely asked the question, somehow knowing that I would answer correctly therefore securing the RAK! There is no way this was just a random gift. Rose put much time and thought into what she gifted me with! She knew I had been coveting the Crafty Secrets Birds and Botanicals note pad, and all things ‘Vicki C.’ She had previously sent me the link to where I could buy the note pad but I declined as soon as I saw I would have to pay more postage than the cost of the pad! Then she turns around, buys the pad and pays the postage to the UK only to send it back across the Atlantic to me along with other scrapbooking items. And look at the little gift tag she attached! Isn't it precious? She is so unbelievably generous that I feel guilty just thinking of all the fun I’m going to have at her expense! There were also yards and yards of yummy laces, tassel trim, tassels, buttons, and beautiful golden cutouts. She chose all these things with sisterly love and if that wasn’t enough . . . she actually went out and got me this adorable and special little flip flop charm (she knows me)! Oh, Rose! She has to be the most generous person in the UK! (I really do use a lot of exclamation points, don’t I?) In order to honor her, gift I must study and design some awesomely beautiful item to do it justice. Dear Rose, please know that though it will take me a long time, I will make the most of your gifts. And thank you from the bottom of my heart!

I have a bunch of emails to answer and blogs to hop so I must be going for now. I have been absolutely remiss at my correspondence since Kimberli took ill, and owe many thank yous! Guys, I promise I will answer each and every email you sent me, it might take me a while but I won't forget a single one of you, PROMISE! Keep in touch and don't forget the Freebies that are posted prior to today's post!

Tootles!

Add On!

Hey Y'all!

Just a quick post to let you know everything is somewhat calm around here, I finished a layout, and a Freebie Add-On. The layout is made with my Fairy Lands kit and features my daughter, Kimberli, when she was about 7 months old. The photo is a scan of an index print as the original was given to my mother thirty odd years ago! She was such a little cutie and you can tell even though it's a poor shot. You know, she will be 39 in August but she is still that little baby to me.

"Fairy Dreamland"

Journaling: Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess named Kimberli. When Kimberli slept, the fairies would gather her to their hearts and keep her safe while she was in Dreamland. Kimberli did not sleep very much her first year as she had colic. February 1970

You can get the add on HERE. The layout features most of the add on elements. Hope you enjoy it!

Remember to keep the American Soldiers, the Chinese earthquake victims, and each other on your Prayer List!

Tootles!

Praise!

Hey y'all! The power of prayer is awesome! After five days of thinking the very worst because of Ultra Sounds, Xrays, Blood Work, and EKGs that all came back positive for a heart attack you will not believe what has happened! Kim was sent home tonight without any meds or instructions on how to cope with the heart attack! They (?) said there is now no sign of an attack. Can you believe this?! I must admit that my first reaction is to think they used the wrong drugs to perform the stress tests, but I have to believe that God fixed Kim's heart. There just cannot be any other explanation. I will not succumb to negative thinking.

Thank you, thank you, and thank you again from the bottom of my heart for all the prayers! I guess you've figured out how happy I am by now! Let's all get back to our normal pace.

Love you all!
Liv

Grambie's May Kit

Hey Y'all,
Just dropped in for a second to upload a kit I made for the May Color Challenge at Stone Accent Studios. I made this kit with love and it is dedicated to "Grambie" a SASSY Member who has been ill for so long but always takes the time to go to the galleries and leave bunches of love for everyone. Bless you Grambie! Hope you love this kit and that it takes you away to a sweet fairy land!

You can go HERE to down load this kit. Please let me know what you think of it! Freebie to all!
Love,
Liv