Close, but no cigar

Ever wonder where the saying, "Close, but no cigar" comes from?  I did too, and I found out  at this website: phrases.org  Here's what they say...it's pretty interesting really. 

Origin

The phrase, and its variant 'nice try, but no cigar', are of US origin and date from the mid-20th century. Fairground stalls gave out cigars as prizes, and this is the most likely source, although there's no definitive evidence to prove that.

You may be asking yourself right now, "Why is she thinking about cigars?"  Good question and here's your answer.  The other day I asked my sweet little German mom, you remember, her, right? 
Just incase, check out this cute face and you'll agree she's the cutiest little 78 year old German you've seen in a long time. 
In the dictionary, the picture next to the word cute is this picture:

She used to not smile this big, but recently had her teeth straighten and OMG, she grins like the cheshire cat now!  Sweet little moma! 

Anyway, I asked my sweet little mom to put aside a few cigar boxes she's had stored away since dad had a cigar habit back in 1975.

"Please mom, put a few boxes out for my next visit." said sweet Georgie (**grin*)
"OK, will do!" says equally cute, but much wiser, momma.

By the way, my  mom smoked cigars too for awhile. Maybe it was so she could stand the smell on him.  eeewww yuck--cigar smoke smell.......


I go a visiting the other day and look what she had put aside for me...

Not too many, just a few boxes....AND of courses Sookie had to investigate.  If you wonder what that is in front of the boxes that's Sookie's toy.  It's a monkey tied to a string,the string was my addition,  most cats don't fetch, so throwing and retrieving would be up to the thrower, of course.  I did that one too many times until a light bulb went off and I decided to add a string to the monkey.  Viola, now it's like fishing for Sookie cat.  Cast out the monkey. Retrieve the kitten. 

This isn't a good enough picture of all the boxes my mom loaded me up with....
Here's another.

old school organization.  if it worked for her, it'll work for me!

My mother loaded me up with about 30 cigars boxes.  Is your second question, what she gonna do with all those boxes??  Confession time,

I haven't put ONE picture in a photo album or scrapbook since 1990 something.  Whoopsy! All this blog hopping has inspired me to make use of my artistic ability and start making some scrapbooks from all these pictures.  The beginning...

It was a whole lotta pictures to divide up into decades.  At one point I felt like I was being watched......

get it, felt like I was being watched....look at all those guys staring at me.

he's just a little creepy

Seems like every time I sit down to tell ya'll something, I share a little bit about my family.  Maybe it's interesting, I have 37 followers now!  Ya'll tell your friends, there's this crazy lady from Nashville TN, all she ever talks about is her cat, her little brown eyed girl(whatever that means), her silly chocoholic, diabetic hubby and her mother that saves everything! 

You're still reading, so I guess I'll keep typing....

Check out this little bit of history from the cigar boxes:

It's one of us girl's childhood writing.  Wonder who's it is?  Who got to use this box after momma finished with it?  Let's see a little closer view:

Oh, it was Patsy's box!  How do you like the "Keep Out!" warning on the box.  Pretty good, huh!  Patsy is number three in the line up of 6, she was a few years older than my twin and I.  Poor thing probably never had any privacy with two little inquisitive toddlers around.  I bet we kept our little grimey fingers out of her cigar box and all her priceless possessions

Craftelicious Giveaway

Hello All!
My new friend, Marie at Craftelicious Blog is hosting a blog giveaway because of her new blog design.  You can try for a chance to win, or not, cause I want to win!!  Check out her lovely new blog design too.  It's sweet!

Weee! Tee Pee!

Last night I stayed up late to work on a Tee Pee card.  Have you ever seen one?  Well, keep reading and you'll see one.  It was SOOO much fun!  I created this card for this challenge: Bella Creations Viola Ink Group where I had to feature ink and a fairy.  Fun!!  Along with this group challenge I also included a challenge from the July Unique Challenge, Bella Creations Unique Challenge .

fairy on a tee pee card

up close of the stick pin

Fibers from my new friend in Ireland! Flowers from a RAK I won!

Roses are Red....

Oh, I am so excited to make this posting.  Kristen at Twinkle twinkle like a star  is hosting the Summer of Color party and this week the color is RED.  LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.

I just returned from visiting my little brown eyed girl, ya'll remember her, right?

She lives in Ohio and while I was there we went to this location:

If you are ever in Columbus, you NEED to go to this park. Oh my, this garden is a beautiful place to visit!  Just a little story, my little German mother has always had a green thumb and loves flowers.  She passed on her love  to her children.  I don't have a green thumb, but really enjoy a beautiful garden.

mom's birthday 2011

Isn't she lovely?  That's my pop next to her, they've been married for over 50 years. 

When we were little children my mother had gardens all over our yard, including this beautiful climbing rose bush. Below you can share in the joy of  my two older sisters posing next to a beautiful bush.  Don't you dig their vintage clothing?(not vintage at the time...) I'm sooo in love with the hounds tooth, my big sister, Margie is wearing.  So fashion conscious! 

Anyway, my twinnie and I visited the beautiful rose garden in Columbus.  Here's my twinnie peeking out from one of the bushes!

Jaymie stopping to smell the roses!

In honor of the summer of color, red week, here are some of the beauties that we found....

tip toe through the tulips..eer, I mean roses



I believe this one was named "George Burns"

1967 5 little girls, one in the tummy.

When we were little girls, our mother would take us to the local rose garden after Sunday church. I loved this field trip, the gardens were lovely!  The rule was we could pick up all the petals we found on the ground, but could not touch the flowers.  I can remember running through the garden and looking for all the petals on the ground.  I treasured them and can remember all the different colors in my little chubby hands:  yellow, white, pink and red.

Aww, the heady smell of the roses!

As we walked through this garden, my twin and I relived those wonderful memories with our mom.  Including the petals on the ground.

a little gazebo

A little Asian inspired soap opera

This summer I've had such a fun time experimenting and learning new techniques, not to mention visiting other blog sites and seeing all the talented people in the world.  Kristen at Twinkle, Twinkle like a star is hosting a summer of color challenge....omg, such fun. 

I was excited for red this week, because I've had this idea percolating in my head, just waiting for a chance to try it.  I ran across these at the local Goodwill store (thrift) and had to have them.  Does anyone have any idea what they are? 

No matter, I'm going to have fun with them.  These are the kinds of images that I'm squirreling away for just the right moment. 

Ya'll know what I mean, you have those items in your stash too!  I almost sent a few of these images to my Mystery envelope swap hosted by the Altered Paper blog, but I just couldn't let go of these delights just yet.

Anyone know what this is?  I don't?!





They look like cards, but they are really small. 



The pictures seem so melodramatic, as if they are depicting soap opera themes.   Soooo, that's what I created.  Don't laugh, ya'll.  I just wanted to break outta the mold and have some fun.

This is my first time making an ATC, and how fun they were!  I don't feel that these are complete just yet.  I'd love to add some more details.  Have you ever visited this blog,  Artfully Musing by Laura Carson ?  Laura is so inspiring with her masterful ways at layering, working in mixed medias and her tutorials are fabulous. 

These are the individual ATCs.  I thought it would be funny to put "western" names on the Asian faces and then add soap opera themed comments. 

I'm chuckling as I post these.  They were fun and out of my box.
We can't end a post without a peek at Sookie Horn, which, by the way, if you're a True Blood follower, on HBO, then you'll know that the character Sookie was just revealed to be a fairy!  Now, we have a fairy cat...yay!

Rainy day cards

This summer has been so much fun for me!  I've started blogging and doing more creative things in my little space.  I've found some wonderful social networking sites like bella creations and the flying unicorn .  My busy time at work starts in the next few weeks, and I'm already hating the idea of being out of touch with the blogs I follow and challenges.  I promised myself to set aside time every week to create and make something beautiful.  Ya'll have to come visit me often in the next few months and remind me to come and play. 

I'll be out of pocket for a few days, but wanted to make sure and get my entries into a few different challenges.  The Flying Unicorn has two challenges I entered.  One is the summer fun splash, featuring water and the color blue.  The other is called....wait for it...

Eensy, wensy, teenie, weenie, yellow polka dotted bikini. 

Thank goodness we didn't have to send in a picture of ourselves in a bikini.  We've already had a discussion about my girlish figure and my love of sweets.  And as much as my cute hubby would like, I will NOT be modeling an eensy, weensy, teenie, weenie, yellow polka dotted bikini!    Instead, we only had to include  polka dots in our work...whew!  So, here you go: 

Thanks to Maggi at Lotsa Scrap  for the yummy Charlie Chaplin images(at least that's what I call him).  I won a RAK from her blog a little while back and have been chomping at the bit to fit this fella into something.  Perfect challenge for the dapper gentleman!

Here are a couple of up close images.

These aren't perfect, but it doesn't matter, right?  It's therapeutic, I'm sure you would all agree!

The rest of the set included a couple of cute children's images. 

Remember when you were a child and you could play in the rain without worries?  Mussing your hair, messing your clothes and who cared if your socks were wet.  It all added to the wonderful carefree experience of jumping in the puddles. 

Since this Flying Unicorn challenge asked me to incorporate water and the color blue....I wanted to tie in the rain theme with the gents above and found this freaking adorable graphics at Graphics Fairy Blogspot

I adore this card.....



notice the splashes...this came from a stamp set with a WHALE and his spout .  perfect here!



I am so proud of how I handled the puddles the children are jumping in.  I used a Tim Holtz distressed stamp circles and used the Stayz on Ink.  I added some silver stickles to the circles to represent water. 



How about this little girl card....oh my...is she adorable!? She's supposed to look as if she got caught in a little "pop up" summer shower--very popular her in Tennessee.  These kinda showers come around, just long enough to make everything hot and sticky! 

I want you to take a moment and enjoy the little umbrella.  This is a beach umbrella stamp, I turned it upside down and colored it in with a sharpie. I'm so proud of my resourcefullness. 




I added layers of the simple flower to try and add dimension...Look at my polka dotted clouds!  Got those from a RAK from the Flying Unicorn!

I'm in love with these cards....Now...who should I give them to? 

Before I end this post, I want to share with you my sister's polka dotted dog.  Noah, he's scared of storms and gets really frantic at times.  Here he is smiling at the camera, after one of his frantic moments. Poor old man dog!

Summer of Color....BROWN

Hello All,
Kristin at twinkle twinkle like a star blog is hosting the SUMMER of COLOR challenge, this week we are creating with brown as the color.  Humm....
I've been feeling rather nostalgic lately.
My parents are getting older,
I'M getting older, 
my little BROWN eyed girl is getting older..she turns 25 in a few weeks.

I ran across this picture of my little BROWN eyed girl and had to post it.  Good thing she doesn't follow this blog...it will ruin her street cred.... Heeeeyyyy, maybe I'll make my entire BROWN entry about my little BROWN  eyed girl....
Once upon a time a beautiful queen(me) had a beautiful little princess(little brown eyed girl). 

queen, ex-king, and princess 1987

The princess had her loyal subjects,



Cousin is actually Aaron.



Towers to climb:

The queen mother and king father were always there to support her and show her the royal ways:



the little brown eyed princess with her crown


The little brown eyed princess grew and grew and it seemed like over night she was a young woman....



Here she is with the queen mother

 Even though the queen wanted her little BROWN eyed princess to stay young, alas...she did grow....

Sometimes the paparizzi caught her in compromising positions.....





Cut her hair to raise funds for cancer research, what a good princess!

if the picture is on facebook, then it's fair game here.  Maybe this will teach her not to put this on FB?

Butt, (aahahahaa, pun is intended here..) after awhile she calmed down a bit and became a more retrospective young princess...

The queen gave her some great advice along the way

And taught her how to allude the press.



And, now she lives happily ever after....

THE END..

Oh, my brown work for the challenge...silly me.  Like I started to say before I got side tracked....I was feeling a little nostalgic lately and decided to make a little mini album.  Here's the first page in it.