VBS 2013 Kingdom Chronicles

It's VBS week at our church and the place looks great.  Kids are coming and the Gospel is being taught every morning this week.  My kids are both old enough to be ineligible to participate but they can help!!  I love this new season of their lives.  Johnson is helping his dad and I to run "Sir Gavin's Games".  Hannah is helping to teach the primary class with 4 other teenagers and an adult supervisor.  I think I have that right but the groupings are different for VBS than our regular Sunday School.  I admit it confuses me.

The classes are broken down as:
1. 2-3 year olds
2. pre-primary which is 4, 5, and 6 year olds (This is a huge class!)
3. primary which are kids that just finished 1st and 2nd grade
4. middlers which are kids that just finished 3nd and 4th grade
5. juniors which are kids that just finished 5th and 6th grade

I will get room pictures as examples of how to decorate with a medieval knight decoration theme.  I will try not to get pictures with people in them so I don't have to get permission to use them.  I will post more tomorrow.

<^..^> Lori

Stampin'Up! paper trimmer

My Fiskars paper trimmer is really good.  But lately I notice that it is cutting a little off.  I think the wire guide has become loose with normal wear.  I have used it a lot since I got it a few years ago.  I was going to replace it with the same style but crafting tools change all the time so I decided to research cutters again.  Stampin'Up! has a great trimmer out with all the features of my Fiskars that I like...having a wider cutting surface without opening the arm is my favorite feature.  But SU has a wider cutting guide as well.  You can keep a cutting blade and a scoring blade in at all times and not have to switch them out.  I think that is a cool feature.  Plus they added a storage container on the back to hold extra blades, etc.  Here is a video link showing its features from Dawn Griffith's blog.  I have ordered one!  I cannot wait to try it out.

<^..^> Lori

Lovely flowers are blooming in the yard

I have a few varieties of peonies in the yard that are so pretty this time of the year.  You can see the pink pewter nettles are blooming next to this peonie.

I didn't plan those peonies.  They have been in the yard for many, many years.  Our house is 113 years old.  The original owner planted those peonies.

Here are some flowers blooming that I did plant with one exception which is the climbing rose.  It was planted by the people we bought the house from so I think they were planted between 1994 and 1997.

My secret sister from church gave me the lovely basket of pink impatiens I have hanging over some chives, sage, and mint.  Those last 3 plants all bloom in purple.  I tend to lump same colors together.  It is so unintentional and irritating to me.  I want a variety of colors but over the years the plants die out and I end up left with all the same colors in the same areas.  I could plant more flowers but I am trying not to spend a lot of money on the yard.  Maybe next year or I will find someone that wants to do a trade on plants.  

Clematis on a trellis.

 I don't know the real name of this ground cover but my friend that gave me the start called it Bishop's weed.

Blaze is the name of this climbing rose.

 Yellow coreopsis I planted a few years ago is starting to spread.  Behind it is white candy tuff which is trying hard to take over.  It choked out my lovely purple phlox.

I missed getting pictures of the lilacs this year.  They were so fragrant.  There were not as many blooms as in past years but they were pretty.

<^..^> Lori

Wedding or Anniversary cards with CTMH For Always Paper Packet

I could use these as wedding or anniversary cards.  I added Prima flowers and some stickers to CTMH For Always Paper Packet.  The black has a lovely lace doily pattern in it, very pretty.  Of course, I used my We Are Memories corner chomper to give the cards some corner styling.  I use those chompers on nearly every card because they are heavy duty to cut through more than one layer of card stock and give my cards such a nice professional touch.

<^..^> Lori

Graduation cards

We had two graduates in our family this year.  Johnson graduated from 8th grade and Hannah graduated from high school.  Now I have two freshman, one in college and the other in high school.

We had nine graduates at our church.  The first Sunday of June we celebrate this with cake and ice cream, nuts and mints after the evening service.  Since we had two graduating, we decided to purchase Michael's subs for the event.  Another graduate's family, brought chips so we had a real feast after church.  

I didn't take pictures of the graduation cards that I made, my fault.  But I have some new cards I made to restock my supply for next year that I do have pictures to share.

The colored ones are really out of my comfort zone but I found some really cute stickers at Wal-Mart and wanted to use them.  The Congrats stamp is PTI Think Big Favorites #5.  The Hats off stamp is PTI For the Graduate.  The colored paper is SU!

This is one of the cards that I made for my kids.

<^..^> Lori

You can have your cake but you cannot eat it

Jim and I made a cake together tonight.  It is for a wedding shower I am going to this Saturday.  We didn't even have to bake it!  I saw pictures of towel cakes on Pinterest and followed a link to this cake video by Thom's Crafts and Treats.  I had to give it a try.

I think it turned out really nice.  Jim asked me how I was going to get it to the shower.  I think it should travel okay.  The layers are not joined so I can take it apart and reassemble it at the shower.
Jim was essential in rolling the towels.  I said it was all the Boy Scout training on rolling sleeping bags that helped.

The woman in the video I watched has lots of diaper cake videos that look really cool.  I have made a diaper cake for a baby shower but the ones I saw were really elaborate.  I may try one the next time I get a shower invitation.

I purchased some items from Target in addition to the towels because the bride to be was registered there.  I decided to put them in the wooden bowl she had on her wish list.  Here is a picture of the finished product.  I am not 100% happy with it but it will do because I have taken it apart and redone it a dozen or so times.  I know what I want but I cannot seem to make it arrange that way.  LOL.  I found some alphabet stamps at Michaels $1.00 bins which were marked down to $.50.  I was excited to find the right letters!  Hurray!

I used left over cake flowers and colored napkins to brighten it all up.  Ok, I am happy with it when I look at the picture, very cheery.

One more item to give her...I originally bought the items with a lovely lime green plastic tote.   My plan was to wrap some of the smaller items in tissue and leave the rest unwrapped.  Did I mention that her colors are grey, yellow, and lime green?  Anyway, I bought a lovely grey wide ribbon to tie around the green tote.  It would have been fine but then I saw the cake towel on Pinterest and all my plans had to change.  :)  Of course, I will still give her the green tote because she will need it to load up her shower gifts to take home.  I hope she will be pleased with it.

Here is my third revision of this post.  I finished the card to go with the gifts.  I used one of the cards from my post of the other day and finished it off with a decorated chevron grey bag.

<^..^> Lori

Apple iPad 2 iOS 6.x; another upgrade came out

Well, I think my iPad 2 is back to functioning now where it was before 9/20/12 when iOS 6 came out.  Netflix even works again.  I think everyone was scrambling behind the scenes to fix issues with iOS 6 at Apple and the applications that run on Apple platform.

I got a message that an upgrade was out again yesterday on my iPad 2.  I read the details and it seemed okay.  I took the upgrade with some hesitation after all I have been through since iOS 6 came out.  Hey, everything is still working!  Hurray!  I am so grateful that the upgrade was reasonable painless.  I wonder if they fixed the problems caused by World Clock?  I don't plan to open that application because it seemed to cause me all kinds of grief after going to iOS 6.

I still love my iPad 2.  I saw the Apple Mini is out.  I will check it out but I don't have plans to buy it.  Although my kids would be happy to inherit my iPad 2 if I should decide to take the plunge.  :)

<^..^> Lori