Hens' Den Bo Bunny Serenity Card

I love the Asian-inspired Serenity line by Bo Bunny, and the turquoise, red, and black color combination just pops!

To create this card, I took two sheets of turquoise paper with coordinating patterns from Bo Bunny Serenity's 6x6 Pad. I chose one for my base and trimmed the other paper 1/2 inch smaller than the base on each side, matting the smaller sheet with black cardstock to make it pop. I placed May Arts Satin/Grosgrain Teal Ribbon horizontally across the card, putting the top of the ribbon in the middle of the card. Then I layered May Arts Burgundy Sheer Rosettes Ribbon on top of the May Arts Satin/Grosgrain Teal Ribbon. For my finishing touch, I placed a Bo Bunny Serenity Trinket at one edge of ribbon, and added a sentiment.

April Newsletter

My April Newsletter project for the Hens' Den features Pink Paislee's Soiree line. I thought that the bright colors would go well with these pictures from the Dallas marathon that Jesse ran with Sarah and Tyche. The Teresa Collins Stars were great accents because all three of them are rock stars!

You can see the entire newsletter here:

Mom Visits Beautiful Southwest, Day 2 Balloon Ride

On day two we jumped right in with a sunrise balloon ride. If you've never been on one, I recommend it. The way Detroit is the Motor City, Albuquerque could be called Balloon Town.



After everything is sorted, you get stuffed in a small wicker basket and set aloft. Pre-flight we were quite happy:

And once aloft we were treated to spectacular views of the Rio Grande valley, with Albuquerque stretching out to the mountains:




At one point our pilot took us down to a few feet off of the river, and proceeded to fly us about 10 feet over the cars and trucks on Montano. We waved as they honked.


We were never alone in the sky. Balloon rides are big business here:

A balloon this size can sometimes be a handful. When landing one you are at the mercy of the wind, both for where and how fast you come down. Note the half dozen folks trying to keep our fellow riders from being dragged down the street. This was on a day that felt extremely calm as well.

We were unscathed and happy:

Mom Visits Beautiful Southwest, Day 1

Last weekend we hosted my mom for about three days. We took her to all the NM sites worth seeing within driving distance of Albuquerque. For any would-be visitors, that exactly filled our three days. Unless you are looking for abject boredom, no visit to Albuquerque should be any longer.

On the first day we went up to Santa Fe for lunch and a tour of Ghost Ranch that reviewed places where Georgia O'Keeffe painted many of her famous New Mexico landscapes.

Lunch was at the Pink Adobe, where about 100 years ago mom ate when she visited as a child.


Afterwards we made the drive out to Ghost Ranch and took the Georgia O'Keeffe bus tour across part of the 20,000 acre property. Here's a guest house she stayed in:


And this is mom and Krystle in front of Georgia's mountain, Cerro Pedernal:


Not all of O'Keeffe's work was abstract:


One of the Juniper trees she often painted:


If you squint, you can see us in the picture by the trees, holding up yet another picture...


After our tour we did some light hiking.



Here's Krystle with a kindred spirit, the Prickly Pear cactus:


"I'm pretty sure we need to go that way."


"On second thought..."


"...it's your fault we're lost!"

Hens' Den My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart Be Happy Layout

My Mind's Eye's new Follow Your Heart Be Happy line is one of my all time favorites! I used this soft, pretty collection to create this layout that features a picture of us taken on my 30th birthday.

This is how I created my layout:

1. I used My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart Be Happy Be You Paper as my background.

2. I cut out 13 hexagons from My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart Be Happy Honey Pink Paper and ink the edges, spacing the hexagons out on the paper to create a honeycomb effect.

3. I mat my 4x6 photograph with My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart Be Happy Follow Paper.

4. I created handmade flowers by cutting strips of My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart Be Happy Follow, Songbird, Joyful, and Be You Paper. The length and width of the strip determines the size of the flower -- I used strips of .5" to 1.5" wide and 10" to 12" long. I pleated the entire strip, taking care to create tiny even pleats. I adhered the ends of the strips together to create an accordion flower, finishing the flowers off by cutting out circles of My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart Be Happy Follow and Be You Paper to create flower centers.

5. I arranged my accordion flowers beneath my photograph and added Petaloo Darjeeling Hydrangea Cream & Green Flowers between them.

Here is a closeup:

Pagosa Again

Last weekend we were able to make a brief trip up to Pagosa Springs to meet up with Jesse's family who was there for Isaac's spring break. It was incredibly warm, so we decided to go hiking. All of the snow was melting so we hiked through a bunch of ice and mud to get to this lookout point:

Evidence that Jesse's wide-stance-straight-on-no-smile pose is genetic:

We made fun of Jesse's dad, who took us through a bunch of non-trails through bushes in an attempt to get us to the elusive second lookout point. We never made it there, but we did come across this cool carved bench:

This is me trying to get the boys to pose as though they actually like each other:


Such beautiful weather!

Hens' Den Pink Paislee Soiree Layout

This month I got to work with Pink Paislee's Soiree line. The bright colors and party theme were perfect for this baby shower layout. Four of our friends had babies last year so that meant a lot of parties!

In this layout I used Pink Paislee Soiree's Music and Diamond double-sided pattered papers as my background. Then I cut out circles, tags, and pendents with Pink Paislee Soiree's Collage, Diamond, Floral, Music, Trellis, and Words double-sided patterned papers, layering them with my photos and mementos. To create a dimensional banner, I cut out circles from Pink Paislee Soiree's Floral double-sided patterned paper, and folded each circle in half. I wanted to make the layout pop so I matted everything with Bazzill Basic's midnight cardstock. Then I added Pink Paislee Soiree's Dimensional Stickers. I misted Maya Road's Organza Primrose with a teal mist to coordinate with the papers. Then I created a handmade flower with Maya Road's White Satin Pleated Ribbon. I cut out a circle the size of my desired flower and covered the circle with double-sided tape. I took the ribbon and placed one edge in the middle of the circle, wrapping the ribbon around the center until I got to the edge of my circle. I cut off the end and viola -- a lovely flower. Finally, I added these flowers to my layout along with Teresa Collins' Blingage Ty's Stars to create an embellishment cluster.

March Crafting

I have a couple more projects to share with you this month. This layout is of last Christmas with my family using My Mind's Eye's sketch and Lost & Found Christmas and Lush lines.

I also created this card using My Mind's Eye's card sketch and Lost & Found 2 Sunshine and Lush lines.

March Newsletter

The Hens' Den has their newsletter up! Check out all of the new products and projects:

My "Bloom and Grow" layout of our garden last summer featuring Basic Grey's Picadilly line is published in the newsletter.

BIOS Update

Before this year, I had never heard of BIOS and had no idea what it was. I also routinely accepted all updates that looked legit that popped up on my computer. Now I have a new rule: do not install BIOS updates. I still don't know exactly what BIOS is, but it seems to be the essence of a computer, so don't mess with it!

A few weeks ago, I got a Toshiba notification that there were updates available so I just clicked install without thinking much of it. The BIOS update that Toshiba notified me of was complicated and at one point it seemed to freeze up. Not knowing what else to do, I shut down my computer and went to bed. When I tried to turn on my computer the next day, nothing happened. The only thing that seemed to be working were the indicator lights on the front of the screen. After some troubleshooting with tech support, we got the computer fan to turn on as well, but that was it. Ultimately, I had to send my computer in.

I poked around the internet and learned that BIOS updates are prone to problems and are only advisable if you are a computer wiz or if your computer doesn't work anyway and the update is supposed to address the problem. If the BIOS update fails, your computer becomes an expensive paperweight.

Luckily, my computer was still under warranty so this was all free, but other internet posters were not so lucky. I just got my computer back, and it is working fine. According to the repair summary, they were able to complete a "crisis BIOS recovery" back to the prior BIOS version. Ah, technology!