Another little project I've been working on...

I've told some of you that I've been working on a little project... and here it finally is! For the past couple years, I've tried to put a recipe binder for my friends who are getting married. It was something that someone did for me, and I am really glad I have a binder to store all the recipes I get from the internet or from friends, or where ever.
I use a binder that has those clear pockets on it so that I can decorate the front cover - just to make it a bit more fun.
I've been asked to give a bit more detail about the projects I put up on the blog, so here are a few of the details:
You'll recognize the paper from the little monkey card I posted a while back - from wild asparagus. I traced the flowers from a chipboard stencil I bought from the dollar store, and then used my Coluzzle circle cutter to cut the centers for the flowers. I also used my Coluzzle for the ring in the top corner. By the way... I think this is the best circle cutting system ever! I love how it has a whole bunch of sizes in one little template, as opposed to a punch where you only get one size.
I used my scalloped scissor for the blue strip, and used my paper piercing tool to make the little holes in it.
The word "recipe" (for both the front and the side) was printed onto cardstock on the computer - I typed each letter in a textbox, and made the background color of the boxes brown. I cut them down to size after printing them, and then I sanded each square just cause I like the texture it gave.
Hmmm... i don't really know what other details to give. I think the rest of the project is pretty self-explanatory.

Hope you have a good weekend! We're planning to do some yard work and have a youth event - we're looking forward to both!

He jumped!!!

Martin had the opportunity (thanks to the College & Career group) to go bungee jumping! The group had planned to spend a day at Wildplay Element Park - doing a high ropes adventure course called TreeGo. They also have bungee jumping and a King Swing there. Anyways, a few weeks ago, the group was talking about our plans, and some were talking about how they were going to jump. Martin said that he would jump, but he thought it was too expensive for the short thrill. Well, the group "jumped" on that (haha) and told him that they would pay for him to jump. And so he couldn't get out of it now! He went back and forth between being excited and nervous... but he did actually do it! I captured most of it on video. Unfortunately, when he actually left the platform, I was watching him instead of the camera, so it's not on the video... oh well, most of it is there.

I included a few other pictures too - we had such a fun day with this group. If you ever want a fun day trip with a group of friends or family, we highly recommend this! It's in Nanaimo, but they offer a free shuttle service to and from the ferry, so you can just walk on the ferry - just makes it a bit less expensive, so that's nice!

A quick little canoe ride

On Monday morning, we went to the Sumas River with one of Martin's co-workers and his wife. It was just a short little trip, but it was really nice! We dropped our canoes in at McDonald Park (at the end of No. 3 Road) and canoed along the river for about an hour. We went under the highway, and turned around at the little rest area along the highway between Chilliwack and Abbotsford. We'll probably do this one again some time... it's nice and close - and just a quiet area (except for the part near the highway) - which we love! It would be a great summer evening thing to do - we could just pack along a supper and stop for a picnic along the way. Anyone have access to a canoe and want to come along sometime?
We managed to avoid the heavy rain that came later in the day - we had a beautiful morning for canoeing... not too hot, not too cold! Being out there got us really excited about our canoe trip we're planning!

Sneak Preview...

Yea for spring!!! We're having such beautiful weather! And guess what that means at our house??? We finally get to plant our window boxes and flower beds. We are pretty excited about adding some color to our place again. Here's a sneak preview of what we'll be planting - hopefully I got enough for everything - our window boxes, hanging baskets, some of the flower beds... and if there are any left, we have a few planters that can be filled. We'll see how it goes. For today, I'll be focusing on the flower boxes, hanging baskets and one small part of my flower bed. The rest has to wait because we still have some tulips and daffodils around - and I won't have time to deal with those (I think it might be best to let them sit for a while anyways, even though they're looking kind of messy now). Anyways, that's all for today - I'm so excited to get out there and start planting!

Two in one...

Today I had a bit of time to do some cardmaking! A fun Saturday morning for me! One of the cards I had to make this morning was a baby card for a friend... and here it is! I've been meaning to participate in Taylor's "Cupcake Challenges" for a while now, but just don't usually get it done on time to enter it into the contest. I decided that today I would use the sketch for the baby card... two things at once... such efficiency! :) The patterned paper is by "wild


asparugus", and the monkey is just a clipart picture I printed from my computer.
Just a quick note about commenting on our blog... we love to receive comments - but I didn't realize that the default setting was that you had to have a google account to do so. I have changed that now, so you can comment as "anonymous" if you would rather not set up a google account.

It's gardening time!

We're pretty excited to be seeing this nice weather again... and are planning a bunch of work in our yard. The flower bed in the backyard is a project we started last year - we put just a few plants in there and bought a couple of trees. I can't remember the name of the one, but this one is a flowering plum tree - and we picked it because it gets nice little pink flowers in the spring.
On Saturday, while I was sleeping (I was between night shifts), Martin shoveled a layer of a blended topsoil over the whole flower bed, just to give the plants some extra nutrients and give us some nice soil to work with... so now it's all ready for planting! Eventually, we want the whole thing (it goes around the perimeter of the back yard, along our fence line) to be nice and full of all kinds of different perennials - some tall, lots of flowers... but it's a bit hard to know how to plan that all out.
Yesterday, a friend of mine lent me a book called "Mix-&-Match Gardening" - and it helps you plan out pretty much any kind of garden! I'm pretty excited to go through that and pick out some different plants. I'll update every so often to let you know how the garden is coming!
Another fun project I'm working on that I'll post sometime in late summer, or early fall, is wintering geraniums. This same friend also taught me how to save my geraniums over the winter, and how to go about getting them started again. I'm taking pictures of the different stages in the process, so that I can post a "tutorial" of sorts - in case you want to know how to save your geraniums! It's kind of fun, cause they get bigger and bigger every year!

From our kitchen window...

We don't have much of a view from our kitchen window, so last year Martin decided to put up one of these finch feeders. Now we regularly get to see these gold finches and pine siskins right by the window! They're kind of fun to watch - the gold finches eat upside down! We have big cedar trees right there, so they hang out in those quite often too. The gold finches actually look out of place... a tropical little bird in a cedar tree! Anyways, I thought for today that I would show you a couple of pictures of these little guys!