Jamie Danford

Crop room GREATNESS! (*Edited with more pics)

You know, I have a LOT of scrappy friends out there... and a LOT of them have great scraprooms right? Well, it's official.  My friend Sue who happens to live in Elberton, Ga has officially outdone every scraproom I've EVER seen.  Are you ready?

Take a deep breath and enjoy the greatness...

 

See? I told you! 

GREATNESSSS!

And this isn't a store... it's her home scraproom. She can fit EIGHT people at a time, and everyone has their own lighting, trashcan and drink holder.

 I'm moving in with Sue... wanna come?

Back to my old tricks...

 

Yep, I'm back in my comfort zone... teaching scrapbooking classes for Cecile has brought back some great memories for me. If you haven't noticed I'm a bit of a ham... no? really?  Aw shucks...

I taught three classes over the weekend, and have another Tuesday night (still have spots open if you wanna come let Cecile know at Scrapbook Studio.) I'd almost forgotten how fun it is to get up in front of a room full of people and act like an idiot... ah, good times.

And check this out...

 

This is Miss Logan; she's 8 years old and she came to class with her Mom... She's already a pretty proficient scrapper so they both made pages and left smiling. See? My classes are not only fun and easy (sort of) they're a great time for mommy/kiddo bonding. 

So how 'bout it? I'd love to see YOU at a class!

Helloooooo dragonfly...

Here's the story... our neighbors have this sparkling pool of heaven....

 

..an oasis of deliciousness in an otherwise sweltering desert of Summer.

We love it and help ourselves to it quite often.

Well, there's a bonus...

They've got these extremely friendly dragonflies that love nothing  more than to light upon us... yes, they actually land on our fingers.

 

(Check out Big Dave's grubby finger... can someone say mani?)

Imagine how silly we look wandering around in the water with our erect fingers... wait, here let me show you...

 

Ridiculous right?

 

But then one lands on your finger and grips you with its creepy little dragonfly toes, and stares at you with its beady little eyes (or butt, we're really not sure what it is) and suddenly you feel a kinship with it.  A need to name it ('Scat') and beg for it to come back for another visit.

 

It even makes you grin a little...

 

...and try to teach it to play games like two finger hopscotch, which it never participates in because it's fickle and pissy, and in the end  you realize that it's a bug.

But until that moment, you and the dragonfly have had a dang good time, and that my folks is insect magic at its finest.

All hail the dragonfly... eater of mosquitoes and gripper of fingers... you my winged friend, are a rockstar.

Garden checkup...

What a rollercoaster... from the comedic genius of yesterday's Nubby Scissors Salon post to a complete bore for anyone who doesn't give two squirts about my garden. 

What? Grape Tomatoes don't get you goin'?

 

What if I told you I've got over a HUNDRED of them on one plant?  Ah, see now I've got your attention right? No? Aww, come on... it'll only last a minute (heard that before right?)

Back to the tomatoes...

 

As a novice gardener, I'm learning a lot from this year's 'experimental' garden... like, when it comes to maters you get what you pay for. I used seeds for almost everything in the garden except my peppers and my tomato plants, and when I was shopping at Home Depot, I bought the $2.99 size plants except for this one that I think cost $4.99. It was bigger and I believe it's called "Celebrity"... well now I know why. This bad boy has yet to let me down, almost everyday there's a newly ripened fruit waiting for me.  Nice!

Next year I'm definitely getting more of these.  I mean look how pretty they make my windowsill look right?
 
(Okay, so the Zinnias help too.)

Alrighty, speaking of giant tomato plants let's check out the giant sunflowers we've got goin' on...

 

Mammoth right?  I'm guessing this dude's going on 9 feet tall right now, and I may be about to sound like a huge dork here, but I now know from first hand experience that sunflower seeds like the kind you buy at the 7-Eleven really do come from sunflowers... no big mystery there huh?  Told you I'm a dork.  We've got a couple of sunflowers that have already bloomed and now they're forming the seeds... every evening when Big Dave and I go for our garden walk I snitch a seed from the flower and eat it... yummy and crunchy!  Big Dave says there won't be any seeds left to actually harvest if I keep this up. 

Is it just this particular variety? Or is it the hearty helping of compost I keep feeding them? Which, by the way a friend told me the other day that my compost pile looks 'well-loved'...

 

Does it? I think so too. :)

What else? Oh... I planted a new batch of Kentucky Wonder beans and some other Green Garden beans last week and they're springing to life and growing like crazy...

It looks like a wild mess in here doesn't it?  It's because I'm trying to be 100% organic... chemical free, so I'm not using any sort of week killer (except my precious paws.) With all the rain we've been getting it's making the grass and weeds that grown in my walkways go berzerk.  I assure you however, I have it under complete control... I think.

Next stop on the tour is our little watermelon nursery...

 

Isn't she sweet? A wee baby melon... awwwwww. The problem with these babies is that they need a LOT of water (hence the name I guess) but if we water too much it makes our cucumbers turn yellow...

 

So we've decided (okay, it's Big Dave's term) to have 'zones' next year.  Didn't think about it when laying out the plan for what goes where, but next year we'll do better... and bigger... and raised beds.  I can't wait!!

Okay, there ya have it... the status of our Dhuland garden as of this exact moment in time.

I don't know about a green thumb, but I definitely have a few green toes...

Har har!

Nubby Scissors Salon strikes again!

Since I had such success cutting Miss Priss' cute little head of hair, I decided it was time to branch out and explore the world of dog grooming. Sure I had to bribe Ruby with a piece of cheese (several pieces actually) but she finally succumbed to my advances and let me snip away at her bushy pantaloons.  They've gotten so knotted and matty, something had to be done.

Well, the results are... um... well, they're results.  Let's just leave it at that. Her butt fur is gone and she can scratch her itchies with her teeth rather than dragging her honkus across my floor. 

And to be quite honest, she looks kind of like Kate Gosselin...

 

See the similarity? Uh huh... I did that on purpose.

Fun and Woe... the deadly combination of spirits and dishwashing liquid...

Let's start with some background information shall we?

Our friend Julie invited everyone on our kickball team over to her house on Wilmington Island Saturday night for an end of season Low Country boil. (YUM!) Since it was going to be like a hundred degrees outside, my beloved husband thought, "hey why don't we act like those young sexy twenty somethings on that Smirnoff Ice commercial and get a giant slip n slide to play on."

I was like, "oh heck no... ain't no way this uncoordinated chick is gonna throw myself down and slide thirty feet on my C cups through a Joy soap filled booby trap of death... ain't gonna do it."

With that statement firmly announced to all, and cemented squarely in my mind, we went to Julie's.

The food was out of this world, but of course how can you go wrong with Low Country boil right?

 

Check out the aluminum foil table cloths... oh yeah we're classy like that. In fact, aluminum foil also makes a lovely cover for dirty chairs... but you've gotta watch out when you stand up b/c it likes to stick to sweaty thighs...

 

Aren't we a cute little team? Of course we were missing several people... they sure missed out on some good grubbin'.

 

(What the heck are Big Dave and Jen doin' down there at the end of the table? My husband's such a ho!)

Speaking of ho's... let's turn our attention to the aformentioned slip n slide (get it? hose? water? ha.)

Remember, I was NOT going to participate. But the guys were more than happy to jump right in...

 

Crazy fools...

 

 

 

And then Julie got into the action which broke the ranks of girl power...

 

Go Julie!

 

Bolstered by Julie's valiant efforts (and two large Hurricanes) I decided I might actually take a stab at it... I mean they were laughing, and sliding, and wiping the Joy dishwashing liquid all over their bodies. 

It started to look like fun... maybe those twenty somethings on the Smirnoff Ice commercial know what they're talking about!

Yes... I would give it a shot. 

 

My C cups led me down the path of victory after all!

Not really...

 

...truth is, Teddy pulled me down the slide because I lacked the necessary momentum to project myself properly. (I think it was my self preservation instinct kicking in... it just seems so wrong to hurl oneself onto a soapy piece of plastic.)

Unfortunately my self preservation instincts were numbed a bit by the pretty blue juice in my cup, and the next thing I knew I was up and at it again.

This is where it gets bad.

It started off so nicely, a perfect approach...

  

Then the dive... (this is where it all goes wrong)

See that stiff right arm? In about half a second all 145 of my pounds are about to land on it...

 

I managed to slide about a foot before realizing there was a shooting pain in my arm, and blue stars blinking behind my eyeballs...

 

Uh oh... I got up, did a three legged crawl off the tarp and made it over to the freshly cut grass (hence the clippings all over me...)

 

Ooooooooouuuuuch...

 

Thank goodness Kristine had the presence of mind to stand over me and take photos... how she kept the camera still while giggling madly I'll never know.

 

I don't think any of those twenty somethings in the commercial had this happen. Maybe it's because it's been seven years since I was a twenty something? Yes... that must be it.  I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that it was TELEVISION and complete FICTION.

 It's been two days and I still don't have full range of motion in my right arm.  My elbow feels like there's jelly in it, and I can't raise it up to my head (which makes feeding myself, picking my teeth and cleaning my ears quite difficult.) I guess I'll give it a couple  more days and go to the Doc if it doesn't feel better.

So now my tale of woe has been told.  Am I an idiot? Um, yes. Oh my gosh though we laughed so hard that night... I'm thinkin' it was worth it. Will I ever slip n slide again? HECK NO!

(Well, unless they're serving Hurricanes...)

Who's yer Daddy???

Dear God, if I haven't said it lately let me take a moment to say thank You for giving me this silly, thoughtful, beautiful boy for a husband.  I can't imagine how any man in this world could be a better daddy.

 

I think Miss Priss shares my sentiments.  Happy Father's Day Big Dave!

The hunt for Miley...

Cyrus that is. And if you don't have a child in the teen and under age group you may have no idea of who I'm talking about. However, at the moment Savannah, Ga has Miley fever because she's shooting her latest movie down at Tybee Island.  So yesterday we bee dee bopped down to the beach, but instead of going to the beach at our condo we went to the south end where her main set is set up. 

Of course we didn't see her, oh no that would be way too wonderful... instead we saw this...

 

Sid says you can walk down this road and see the trailers and stuff set up, but we couldn't find a place to park. So we chickened out and went to the beach, where we found this...

 

What is it? Well if you look behind the girls you will see that they've got a fairground set up right by the Tybee Pier/Pavillion...on the southern side of it.  They'll be filming parts of the movie here... cool eh? (There isn't usually a fair here.)  So I told the girls to jump in front of it to get a pic so when the movie comes out they can say they were right there. I guess that's about as close to a claim to fame as they're gonna get lol.

We've heard that Miley's supposed to be making an appearance at a certain place tonight, but I don't know if I'm gonna try to go back down since it's rainy.  Plus there are tons of rumors about her being at one place then the other, and that she's got six 'look alikes' living on the island to throw people off her trail.  Oh the drama! (Lovin' every minute of it.)

I think I'll just stay home and clean my house. After three nights of sleepovers in a row the place looks like a nuclear bomb went off. This post apocalyptic scene happens to be my living room...

(Look there's a mutant on the pullout bed eating a Krispy Kreme doughnut.)

Yup, I better put on my haz-mat suit and get busy!

Love this idea!

Check out Laura Vegas' blog and get an eyeball full of inspiration for a pain-free vacation album! (Nancy if you're lookin' at this...this one's for YOU!) 

I think I'm gonna follow her lead and use this format for my 'House' album... you know like the before and after pics etc... There are some pics I plan to actually scrap so I'll include them in this album too.  This way I'm still getting the scrapfactor, but not having to scrap every single pic. 

Such a great idea!!

For now however, I'm off to the beach...

Show and tell...

Well, I've got two more to share today... I know, for a fifteen hour crop I didn't get much done, but it's been so long since I've been to a big crop I kinda got carried away and talked too much. (No, me?)

So this one's a total blatant scraplift from Davinie...

 

The big red flowers are cut from a paper by Pink Paislee's 'Fascinating' line, the striped background is also from that line (You can get 'em at Cecile's store.) The lovely lady in the layout is my Mommy... she really is a free spirit these days.  Man, I hope I can enjoy my retirement as much as she's enjoying hers.  (Of course that would mean actually getting a job to retire from...sigh.)

And the last of my layouts is this crazy two page spread using papers from Fancy Pants (right?)

 

May I just say how much I L*O*V*E these papers?  Sure, they were tricky to use, and I had to whip up the 'cloud' on the second page from scratch, but I adore how it turned out. Hey Lynn, remember these ledger papers you gave me a hundred years ago? I'm still usin' em!

Okie dokie, I'm gonna go lube up with some green goop (Banana Boat aloe vera gel) and hope my crispy fried skin will calm down so I can get some sleep. We spent the day at Splash in the Boro and had a total blast.  I'd definitely recommend going on a Monday if you're gonna go... we got there at  noon and even got a front parking place and lounge chairs for all of us. No crowds = a perfect day.

 Needless to say, not only am I a beet... I'm really beat (a little English major humor there) nighty night!