Hi Everybody!

I'm working on the invitations for Brie's best friend Cassie's wedding. Brie and Cassie have been bff's since October, 1998, 5th grade for them! Cassie's wedding to Brent will be October 9th in New Orleans. I'm about half finished with them and will send them with Brie when she travels to New Orleans on July 13th to visit Cassie for a few days.

Here's a peek of the invitation for you!!

This is a gate-fold card in CTMH's chocolate & blush & patterned paper called More to Adore.

This one has been fun to create! I love the color combination and the gate-fold style is fun too.

I'll post some more card-making work in a few days.

Also, make some wonderful memories with your family and friends! With all the losses our country has had in the past week, you should make lots of memories while you can. And cherish them for as long as you can.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!

Cyndi

Back to the Real World!

We arrived back to the real world on June 14th after spending 7 wonderful funfilled days on the Carnival Conquest cruise ship. This was our first cruise and it was the most glorious vacation ever! We spent a day in Montego Bay Jamaica and a day in Grand Cayman.

In Jamaica we spent the day on the beach on an excursion. We swam, we ate jerk chicken and rice with peas (it's really red beans & rice but the Jamaicans call it rice with peas), drank a little Red Stripe and played lots of beach games too.

In Grand Cayman, Kelly chose the excursion we did. She wants to be a Marine Biologist one day so we went to the Cayman Sea Turtle Farm. She snorkeled with the turtles, held a few of them and enjoyed the lagoon swimming too. The farm raises the sea turtles for release into the sea. They release about 10,000 per year. We also saw the most gorgeous Blue Iguana too! He was just hanging out munching on a shrub letting us take his picture! He was about 4 feet long from nose to tip of his tail.

Our day in Cozumel was cancelled due to the swine flu. So we spent an extra day at sea. The ship had a karaoke night every night at 7 and on 3 of the nights "auditioned" cruise guests for 10 different singing stars: Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Elton John, Gloria Estephan, Ricky Martin, Brittany Spears, Garth Brooks, Frank Sinatra, Madonna & Elvis. Well, they auditioned for Elvis on the night we had been in Jamaica for the day. Remember, we drank a little Red Stripe? Bart felt sorry for Vitalli (karaoke DJ) because no one had signed up to audition for ELVIS; and yes, you guessed it!! Bart auditioned! AND, he was Elvis in the grand finale show on the last night of the cruise!! He did great! And we have wonderful memories of our first cruise!! This will make a GREAT scrapbook for future generations!!

Until next time...

WELCOME!

HELLO! Thanks for stopping in at my blogspot! This is a "work in progress" and will be for a few weeks. My family will be leaving on Sunday for a very much needed and long-awaited cruise to Jamaica. So please be patient with me while my page is under construction.

I plan to use my blog for a couple things. One as a place to post my cardmaking creations and scrapbook layouts. And secondly, to journal my ho-hum every day life and the wonders of my family for all of our extended family and friends who live away from us. Our family & friends are scattered in several places across the US: Mississippi, Alabama, New Orleans, Atlanta, Dallas, Arizona, Miami. Give me some time to think about it and there's probably several other states that we have friends and family.

Bart & I have two daughters. Brie is 21 and just finished her second year of college here in Houston. She has decided to go into the nursing profession and will start classes towards her degree this fall. She will be starting a new summer "job" when we get back home from our trip. She was hired this morning as a nanny for a 9 year old girl here in Tomball.

Our daughter Kelly is 11 and is a Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do. She just finished 5th grade. Kelly loves TKD but is ready to try a new sport for a while and has decided to try volleyball this summer. Kelly is also going to start playing the bassoon in her 6th grade band in the fall.

Bart travels quite a bit with his job with Halliburton. He has travelled to Africa, Brazil, Italy, France and Trinidad, and will be going back to Africa this month after our vacation. He is an avid softball player and we both are HUGE NASCAR FANS. We go to the race in Talladega Alabama twice each year and Dale Jr. is our driver. We love Tony Stewart too.

Me? I am a stay-at-home mom who is never home!! I'm the president of PTO at Kelly's school, will be a member of the Band Booster Club. I play bunco once a month; I teach Sunday School in our youth department at church. I am an independent consultant for Close To My Heart, a leader in stamping and scrapbooking supplies. I LOVE PAPER CRAFTING!!! I am addicted to paper!!! Have you ever smelled new packs of scrapbooking paper?! It's the most glorious smell besides the smell of a newborn baby's skin. Those two rank up there at the top of the list of most wonderful smells!

Seriously, I create invitations for anyone and everyone. I finished a wedding of 300 invitations in January, I've done several birthday party invitations, baby shower invitations and birth announcements in the past few months. I am in the process of making the invitations for Brie's best friend's wedding. And will be designing the invitations for a bride here in Houston soon.

I hope you'll come back every now and again to see what my family is up to and what new creations I have come up with. I'll get pictures posted soon of lots of different things. I'll post a family photo from our trip as soon as we get back home, too!

Have a great weekend and check back soon!!
Cyndi