Labor Day...Good Bye Summer!

Happy Labor Day! Now that Jimmy and I are retired and no longer have children going off to school, Labor Day is a bit different at our house. It is still the day that seems to signal that summer is over and fall will soon be here. I'm sipping my coffee and enjoying a quiet morning. We will be going over to my dad's today at Russellville Park to set up a new monthly schedule to help him. We will also be starting our babysitting this week with little Otto as his mommy returns to the work force. So, I guess we aren't really done working!

It's been a busy summer and a fun summer. If you follow my blog, you have seen our adventures.
I just wanted to share a few items from summer as it finishes up now.

My friend Lynda and I haven't had as many times to get together this summer. We pass this friendship ball back and forth when we do meet. It was my turn before the 4th of July, so I had a fun month to gather goodies and tuck into this little ball. It's a challenge but a fun one! We add a verse or friendship quote that has meaning to us both.

The summer Afternoon Tea Across America card exchange had a SUMMER CELEBRATION theme.
We have ladies from Canada and France, so they could share their holidays with us in America. It was fun to see all the creative things people come up with to send along via snail mail.  A sample of tea and little paper "tuck ins" are all part of the game. I love the exchanges! Enjoy a few pictures of mine!

I like to keep my cards in scrapbooks so I can enjoy the goodies and look back over them. Part of the fun is choosing scrapbook paper!

If you read my BLOGLAND TOUR post, I mentioned that this was one of the projects I had to finish this summer! It's done. I keep the pages pretty simple, as the cards and tuck ins are so neat. It's not hard to make the pages and it goes together quickly.

Enjoy your Labor Day as we say good bye to summer and say hello to FALL! I am ready. 

Scrapbooking My ATAA Card Exchanges

Oh what a dreary, rainy day here in the Pacific Northwest! My flower beds are flooded again. I just can't plant anything for awhile yet as this weather usually finds us in March! So, I decided to make a cup of tea and finish my St. Pat's scrapbook. You may remember that I got some very nice scrapbooks on clearance in January. I love keeping scrapbooks for my card exchanges. I have participated in three of them now with my wonderful tea group-ATAA- Afternoon Tea Across America.

The Victorians loved scrapbooking. Woman and children kept them and enjoyed saving all kinds of paper goodies. I have never been lucky enough to find a vintage one that I could afford, but I have purchased lots of ephemera from them at various sales over my many years of collecting. I just love to keep paper things and find it very fun to make simple pages to keep my cards and other paper goodies.

I chose this book for my St Pat's cards. I may use it for my spring ATAA card exchanges coming up.
Enjoy my pages and a little look at the cards and sweet tuck ins I received.

These are the card that I made for the St Patrick's card exchange this year. I like to make my cards when I have time or get inspired!

I didn't share my Valentine scrapbook earlier, so here it is! Being a quilter, I love the patchwork look of this album. I was able to slip one of my card on the front of this sweet book. Perfect!

One of the  pages had an envelop and worked just great for the recipes I received. I can easily take them out when I want to use them.

This is the beautiful title page of our ATAA page on Facebook. It belongs to our moderator, LaDonna Lateadah, who takes just lovely pictures, so I want to give her the credit! If you'd like to join our group, please contact LaDonna and she will sign you up.

LaDonna's beautiful photo!

A very big thank you to all who joined our last two exchanges! It really is so much fun. Our next one is for Easter. In an exchange, you send a card, a tea bag and some little flat tuck ins. I have all my treats for the Easter exchange, so I need to get them ready to mail.  We will be doing a very interesting and more challenging one in May....Queen Victoria Day! I have a few ideas, but haven't quite finished up on that one.

I do believe I see a bit of sunshine!!!