summertime

I have played hard this month! We had a really cool June, so when the sun finally came out in July I went crazy! I don't think I've spent a full day inside for a month. Seattle is a wonderful place to live but I was feeling a little vitamin-D deficient, ha ha. :)

Here's some pictures of some of the adventures I've been on. We started with a trip to Utah to visit friends and family, and while we were there, we went to my favorite ski resort, Snowbird. This is a photo of my family at the top (behind me is my favorite run, Little Cloud Bowl.)



This is a picture of me and my daughter riding up the lift to go on the Alpine Slide (my husband took it from below.)



We went up in the canyons for breakfast one morning and made orange muffins. If you don't know what orange muffins are then you HAVE to try them because they are the best camping food ever! What you do is scoop out the inside of an orange and fill it up with blueberry muffin mix. Wrap it in tin foil and then stick it down inside a HOT fire for about 30 minutes. The muffin inside has an orangepeel/campfire flavor that is soooo good! My kids had a blast making these.



Back to Seattle... I've been spending many days at the lake and hiking in the mountains. Here is a photo I took on a recent hike up Little Si which is about 15 minutes away from my house.



I've said it before and I'll say it again... there is nowhere more beautiful than Seattle in the summertime. We took our kids on a ferry ride over to Bainbridge island and here are two shots I took from the boat... one of Mount Rainier and the other of the Seattle skyline (and my kids.)





I will not be slowing down in August as I have two camping trips planned, Seafair weekend (the BEST weekend in Seattle all year) and a trip to Hawaii with my husband! I have a scrapbooking retreat planned with my girlfriends on Whidbey Island in September and I'll have lots of great photos and memories ready to play with.

I hope you are enjoying your summer!


More exiting news... Meridith and I are currently designing two new Little Bits stamp sets for release in September, and my LSS has asked me to join their design team, so I will be posting LOTS of projects in the upcoming months! Stay tuned!

design team challenge

Our Lizzie Anne Design Team Challenge this month is to use an everyday item on our card... something that would not normally be slated as a papercrafting item. I chose this star birthday candle that was left over from my daughters birthday party. The cupcake stamp has sentimental value for me...it was my first time *ever* drawing a cupcake. It's still my favorite cupcake stamp to date, but alas, it has been around for a long time and thus it's time for it to retire so we can draw new cupcake stamps. This stamp -- "Hey Cupcake" -- is 50% off until they are all gone so get it while you can! The cool Happy Birthday sentiment is from the new August Monthly Mix set!

I have a funny story to share about this card. I was trying to figure out how to stick the candle on the card...the wax was too slippery for my double-sided tape and I didn't have any glue. Then it hit me... I should just melt the backside a bit and stick it on the paper! Note: I already had the stick and the cupcake taped to the bottom of the card, so I was trying to lift the wax star off my card a bit to get a match underneath it. I'm sure you know where this is going. While doing this, the wick on the candle actually caught fire and I nearly burned my whole card down. ha ha ha! (Note that the wick looks used, that's why!) I managed to blow it out just in time. My son came down the stairs and asked me "Mom what's that burning smell?" Oh, it's just me papercrafting dear! :)

Make sure to visit the LAD Blog today and see what the rest of the design team members did for this month's challenge!

enjoy life

I have so been looking forward today because we are revealing the August Mix set and I get to show you one of my favorite cards EVER! I made it with the photo-realistic ice cream cone. Isn't it fun and summery? August is all about ice cream. I really love this month's mix set...so many fun images in there. It's called "Turn Toward the Sun." Go check it out!






This is another card I made for Ethan's teacher... I gave it to her with her end-of-year gift. (Yes I had access to this set a long time ago. ;) This tree is so fun. The set comes with different little images you can put inside... a cherry, lemon, apple, and flower. It's a build-a-tree! Isn't that a fun idea? The teacher sentiment is also in the August Mix.

Make sure to visit the Design Team's blogs today to see more August Mix previews!