Views from the Palouse

Just a few shots of the amazing landscape we have on the Palouse. I love the contrast between the golden wheat, the blue sky and the green grass - we really do live in a beautiful part of the country!

(I took these pictures on the way up to the Hiawatha bike trail.)

Biking the Hiawatha Trail

We took off Monday for the Hiawatha bike trail with my Mom and Dad. It is a 15 mile bike ride down an old railroad bed with a 2000 foot elevation change! We did NOT ride back up, but took the shuttle back to the top. It was a wonderful day and I would do it again! Just need my butt bones to heal!

A Day on the Snake

Some of the rapids we went up!

Dave & Karen

My Mom & Dad

Ryan & Grandma taking a dip!

Ryan just HAD to get into the waterfall!

We spent the day on the Snake River on a Snake Dancer Excursionn jet boat. It was a great boat trip up the Snake River - the weather was beautiful, the ride was exhilarating and the water was so refreshing. We stopped to go swimming and got to play in a waterfall. It was a wonderful trip and a great way to spend time with my parents!

Altered Art & Gyros!

My Shadow Box! So much fun!!

My Mom's Shadow Box for her Motor home.
Love these colors!

My Mom and I spent the day at the Moscow store altering a clock and shadow boxes with this amazing new paper we just got in from Graphic 45. I have wanted to decorate one of these shadow boxes from Creative Imaginations for a long time, but finally got around to doing it today with my Mom.


After work we went out to dinner to Mikey's Gyros. I LOVE their hummus and pitas. So yummy! And, we had to have their famous strawberry lemonade - just the best!

Fun in the Sun

We had a picnic at Laird Park today. Ryan brought two of his friends. They had such a good time swimming and goofing off!

Kids Rendezvous in the Park

I was up at 8am this morning going to East City Park for the Kids Rendezvous in the Park. Shawna and my Mom came along and helped the kids make bookmarks. When we were done, I headed home and slept for 3 hours! Guess I was a bit tired!

Grunge Class!

Shawna, Julie, Heidi, Teri, Janie, Christy, Tina,
Kathy, Crystal & Laura

Julie, me and Heidi

The two "trouble makers" - Christy & Tina!

Had a great time last night teaching with Shawna a grunge board class. We had 9 fun and creative gals in our class. Everyone got down and dirty with the grunge, crackle and paints! We would have made Tim Holtz proud!

Got Grunge?

Shawna and I have a class coming up this week using Grungeboard; so I spent today working on my two samples. My time tag and heart with wings tag were very much inspired by a class I took with Tim Holtz a couple of months ago. Shawna designed the flower tag and a really cute key chain tag not shown. We are going to play with crackle paint, distress inks, glimmer mist, metallic paint, stamps and more!

I Love Otto's Produce!

As promised, Shawna and I took a photo field trip at Otto's Produce. The colors and smells of the flowers and fruit was amazing!

Cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning!

Tina & Julie at the Crop!

I started cleaning and organizing my office/scrapbook room at the store Friday night during the crop. I also finally started to organize my photos and putting them into the Pioneer "3 up" photo albums I bought per Stacy Julian's suggestion. I was really surprised to find out that I am more "caught" up then I thought. I have scrapped all of 2002, 2003 and 2004 - so any double or left over photos I had from those years were put into a Cropper Hopper photo box to be used for "themed" layouts or mini books I may feel inspired to create in the future. I also threw away a lot of "stuff!" It felt good to get this process started. I did not do an scrapbooking, BUT my buddy Shawna made me the cutest page of our dog Charlie when he was a puppy. It turned out great and I can't wait to put it in my "all about us; our pets" album!

My organizing in process!

Since my parents are coming on Tuesday, I had to get going on cleaning our house and yard. I just about passed out in the shower from all of the cleaner fumes and the scrubbing. I hate our water here in Moscow, it is so full of minerals. Turns the shower walls orange! I spent an hour in the shower and it still is not as clean as I would like!

The boys worked on the outside - making a couple of trips to the dump and cleaning up the backyard. I am embarrassed to say that we still had our Christmas tree in the back corner of the yard! We don't have a truck, just the Toyota Sequoia so they had to work hard to get all the crap to fit in the back.

I hired Katrina, Shawna's daughter, to come over and help me on the inside. She is such a hard worker! We got the dining room and kitchen cleaned and all of the cabinets organized. She already cleans once a week for London and I hired her to come back and help me clean twice a month! She did an amazing job - so much better than the house cleaners I have hired in the past.


Today I plan to get more flowers from Otto's' Produce. They have the most beautiful baskets and pots at really great prices. I got a huge hanging basket for $21.00! I LOVE Otto's. If you have never been, you need to go. As a treat I picked up a pint of blueberries and a pint of blackberries with two pints of Ferdinand's ice cream. Oh was that good! I'm going to take Shawna there today with our cameras to take some photos of all the fruit and flowers. (it will make a great layout for my "places we go" album.


I'm off to make a grocery list and pick Shawna up -

TGIF! Crop Night!

I am so glad it is Friday! I just found out that my Mom and Dad will be here next Tuesday. They decided to come early, so that is great! I now have to get my house clean this weekend. Yuck...


I had a wonderful class last night at the Pullman store - 13 gals decided to join me; so I had Shawna stick around and help me teach the class. It was one of my "Sketch it!" card classes - here are the cards we made:



We have a crop tonight at the Moscow store and I plan to organize my photos into the "library of memories" format. I can't wait for my albums to arrive - so I can put the rest of my layouts away. They are stacked up all over my office.

Half way through the week!

Can't believe this week is half over. Boy, time flies when you work too much! Anyway, I got my samples done for my next "Sketch it!" class for the Moscow store. I really love this concept. We use card sketches or blue-prints and make 2-3 cards from each sketch. You can change the stamps, paper, colors, orientation and get a totally different card each time you use the sketch, BUT you don't have to come up with the design each time! Every month the gals that take this class get 2 new sketches and we make 5-6 cards with the sketches to re-inforce the concept. Here are a few my designs for the August class in Moscow. I used some new Hero Art stamps we have for sale at the stores.

On some sad news for my family, I found out yesterday that one of my cousins passed away from a heart attack. She was only 5 years older than I am! She was also the older sister of my cousin, Thomas, who passed away a few months ago. I don't know how my Aunt is going to handle this, I know if I lost a child I would not be able to go on living. It is so sad. Hug and kiss your kids, call your parents and tell them you love them and give your husband or partner a call "just because!" Life is so fragile, don't take another minute of it for granted.

Work, Create, Play!

Here is my first canvas - keeping it in the store as a sample for now.

My second canvas - I plan to put this one in my bathroom at home.

I got to play along with the gals in my "At the Beach" collage canvas class last night at the Moscow store. It was so fun! I was so inspired by Julie and Therese. They are both free spirits who are not afraid to create!

I was also able to finish the samples for another upcoming card class using a clear stamp set from Paper Inspirations, called Garden Fruits. It is a great set - and I had fun working with it. My "chores" for today are to get the rest of my class samples done for the July and August schedule.