Pictures from my camera and birthday party LOs

Just for fun, I thought I would show you what I found on my camera this evening ;) At Trinitycrop last week we started a card exchange- make 10 (or in my case 12 LOL) cards and then swap with 9 other people for their cards. Now, I have a dozen handmade cards to pick from when I need one. For August, we did a mix of several different kinds of cards; I chose to make a blank one. Next month we are doing birthday and blank cards, and then in October and November we decided to do Christmas cards. Anyway, I snapped a picture of the cards I made for the exchange last Friday before I put them away for safekeeping until the crop. I printed the black papers (by Weeds and Wildflowers at scrapartist) and then added the flowers, ribbons, staples, brads and wire curlies to them. A few of those supplies I had bought near the end of my major paper scrapping era and they were still in their original, unopened packaging. Oh, and I added a bit of glitter glue to the petals of the flowers too- gotta have some bling LOL!
Here's Ms. Sarah showing off her color matching skills while helping unload the dishwasher.
and here's what I found in my mailbox Thursday afternoon- the altered album from Corina Nielsen that I won on her blog contest. I love getting actual mail every now and then! I was surprised to open the box and find the album all wrapped up in pink paper with that pretty bow and a hand-written card along with it to boot. Wow- what a beautiful gift! Brenna could hardly stand waiting for me to take a picture so that we could unwrap it to see what was inside LOL
The whole album is beautiful! I started my BOM a couple of years ago in pink and brown colors, and I think I am going to use this for myself. Maybe I'll make it a my favorite things album? You can see the inside pages of the album on Corina's blog, if you like.
Thank you, Corina! The album is gorgeous and it was such a sweet gesture for you to give your hard work away!

and the last photos on my camera were from the balloon festival tonight. We ventured down to Memorial park only to find people leaving already. They weren't allowing the balloons up tonight for the glow, probably because the wind was too strong. The balloon crews had their burners out though and were firing them off. There was supposed to be a showing of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on a giant, inflatable screen, but I'm guessing that was cancelled too. We decided not to venture any closer and just turned around and came home. Maybe tomorrow night will be better.

I finally finished up these two pages that I started at TrinityCrop last week with pictures from the HMS birthday party.

journaling: Beth & Carissa had been planning a High School Musical party for almost a year. When Disney Channel started advertising the date for HSM2, we realized that it was going to be on the same weekend that we were planning their party. So, a slumber party was, of course, the only choice since the movie didn’t start until 9PM! The girls had lots of fun listening to Beth and Carissa’s new music, singing along, and freeze dancing. The presents were opened and cake eaten just in time for the start of the movie. Everyone enjoyed the movie, the dancing was incredible, the songs lots of fun to sing along with, & a good, clean, story.
credits: Birthday Collection by the Lily-Pad designers; fonts: FG Gabriella