giveaway : My Memories Winner

Thanks to everyone who entered to win the free download of the My Memories digital scrapbooking program. Thanks to My Memories for sponsoring this giveaway.

And now... the winner is....

Sue, please email me at livedelightfully (at) yahoo [dot] com to redeem your prize. :)

inspiration/goodies : shades of summer finale

Hi everyone! Can you feel that? That subtle change in the seasons... fall is coming!!! I can feel it. The days are still hot, but not June and July hot. And once the sun goes down, it's very enjoyable outside. I love fall/autumn... whatever you want to call it, I use fall and autumn pretty interchangeably... either way, I adore this season. It just makes me so giddy inside! Football season is back, school is back in session, the air has a lovely crispness to it, the colors are gorgeous... I truly, madly, deeply (little musical reference there for those of you who catch it) love autumn. ♥

Today is the last day of my shades of summer series. But don't start frowning yet because next week will be the debut of my shades of autumn series. :) YAY! If you missed any of the previous features, you can check them out here. And now... here we go:

Welcome to shades of summer : f12:s11

For the finale, I wanted to go back to the beginning, where shades of summer started. It all started with a post by my bloggy friend Dionne, a most lovely of treasuries on Etsy and I couldn't stop thinking about and looking at this gorgeous photo of a carousel I found on Etsy. All of this came together in a most lovely way to create this post. I still love the color combination of aqua, coral pink, white and gold, so we're going back to the roots (so to speak) and bringing those colors back.

I found this fabulous photo which will provide the inspiration for this post since it goes back to my original carnival theme and it has the most wonderful combination of colors:

image source

Isn't it lovely? I am just crazy about bokeh right now.

And now for the goodies:

1. Flower Beads - $3.95

2. Chinese Thermo - $136

3. Wishbone Necklace - $26.50

4. Glass Coral Bowl - $58

5. Doilies - $4

6. Silk Clutch - $105

7. Charm Bracelet - $43

8. Shoe Clips - $18.99

9. Pillow - $23.40

Okay, that officially closes the season for me. Come back next week for the debut of shades of autumn. :)

♥

fashion : class of 1969

With all of the 'Back-to-School' hype still in full-swing, I wanted to share these photographs I found online from Life Magazine circa 1969. They were photographed by Arthur Shatz for a high school fashions piece featured in Life.

See the girl in the blue top and purple bottoms to the left? Now look behind her, I love the guy in the black leather jacket, white shirt, jeans and sneakers. Hiya Fonzie!

How cute?!?!

Ah yes... the Native American touch.

I don't understand why she has things tied to her arm and leg, but she's clearly very fashionable and trendy!

Very Jan Brady don't you think? But I love it!

This is my favorite photo! I love, love, love their outfits! And those TIGHTS!!! oh.emm.gee. haha. I'm not sure why their barefoot, but I guess that's what you did in 1969.

This one doesn't look much different than anything you might see today. Long maxi dress, strappy sandals, yep, not much different.

I love strolling down memory lane. But then again, I wasn't alive in 1969 so it's not really my memory lane to be strolled. But I'm sure it's someone's memory lane and it still reminds me of going through my Granny's old fabrics and her old photos of her and her kids. So I guess I do have a little bit of a path on this memory lane.

Happy Monday!

♥

Remember, my giveaway ends tonight at midnight... make sure you stop by and enter to win a free digital scrapbooking software from My Memories.

me : weekly loves

Hi ya'll! Welcome to another edition of Weekly Loves. ♥

I love these kids.

They left today... they've been so much fun and such a blessing to us. They taught us so much and I hope we taught them something along the way as well.

I haven't completely processed their leaving. I cried for a bit when they drove away. Little Boy waved and waved till he couldn't see us. I waved until I couldn't see them. Their little hands in the window was so sweet. Just thinking about it I'm tearing up again.

But every cloud has a silver lining and some have a silver and gold lining. I love that the kids are going to a good forever home and I love that once again, I'll have this guy all to myself. I've missed that. I'm excited for us to have a date soon. :)

image via Avalanche Journal

I love that tonight is the first game of the football season for our local high school. I love that my football-crazed husband is getting to be heavily involved in the football stuff. He'll be up in the press box with the offense coordinator helping analyze the defense, etc. His little football-lovin' heart is going pitter patter all the time.

I love that I'll be in the stands, sitting next to a lovely lady who is becoming a great friend. I love that I'll be sitting next to someone who will talk to me and who wants me there.

I also love that I have the oh-so-important job of being the "Official Tweeter". Yep, that's my official title. I'll be tweeting the scores to the area newspaper. I'm practically entering celebrity status. Soon I'll have to "verify" my twitter account. ;)

I love this new digital scrapbooking software that I have and I also love that I get to giveaway the program for free to one of my lucky readers. To enter, go here.

And I love my blog. I really do. This isn't just a casual hobby of mine, I really do love this whole blogging thing and it's something that I think about a lot. :)

Okay... I need to finish cooking (for the Feed the Coaches dinner after the football game tonight) and then get ready to rumble... or something. :)

HAPPY FRIDAY!

♥

inspiration : thursday thoughtfuls

School started back for most of the schools in our area this Monday. Sometimes, I still wonder if I should be a teacher. When I started college I planned to be a high school English teacher and girls basketball/softball coach. Then I got bitten by the "city bug" and decided I couldn't be confined to small-town life. I wanted to make lots of money and be important and powerful, so I kept my English major and decided to go to law school after getting my Bachelor's degree. A few years later and I'm living in a small-town, working for an online high school. Should I be a teacher? I still don't know. Sometimes I think yes, other times I think definitely not.

Either way, I'm not sure, but some of these thoughtfuls are for the teachers out there. Thank you for what you do. Anyone can be an educator, but it takes a special kind of person to be a teacher.

image source

This is great!

image source

This would be great for the classroom.

image source unknown.

This is a good thought to share with students (and other teachers) as I know how gossip runs rampant at schools.

image source unknown.

Not necessarily just for teachers, this applies to everyone really. Be happy.

image source unknown.

And this really doesn't have much to do with teachers at all, but this happened to me last night. I was fairly tired when I went to bed, then when I laid down... nothing. I just laid there with all of these thoughts and ideas and ponderings running around in my head and it took me a long time to go to sleep. Figures. ;) haha.

Well, Happy Thursday Ya'll!

♥

It's Wednesday, You Should Smile

Life is crazy right now. School just started, we've only lived in our house for 2 weeks, the foster kiddos are leaving us this weekend, we're still trying to get the old place painted and cleaned up so we can put it on the market... lots of changes! But life is still good!

And I think, since it's Wednesday, we should just sit back and smile. Because life is crazy, but there's still lots of good in it. ;)

image source

haha... this makes me laugh so much!

image source unknown

And why have I not done this with our dog? Oh yeah... because she's like a 50 pound beast!

image source

When I'm old, I hope I'm still as fun and glamorous as these two ladies!

Happy Wednesday!

giveaway : My Memories Digital Scrapbooking

Hi ya'll! I'm so excited this morning because I have an awesome giveaway for you!

Do you like to scrapbook or have you ever wanted to try it out and see if you like it? Do you love to scrapbook but you just don't have any room for all that paper, or pictures or embellishments?

I love scrapbooking! I got into scrapbooking about 3 years ago when I made Joey and I each a scrapbook from birth to HS graduation. I had so much fun with it and immediately had plans for more scrapbooks but I just haven't been able to get all of my stuff together to get it done. Enter: My Memories Suite.

My Memories Suite is a software that allows you to do digital scrapbooking as well as make calendars, movies and more! It's a really awesome program and I've loved playing around with it so far and am looking forward to trying out even more things.

I photographed Joey's brother's family this summer and used those photos for my tutorial for you. Here's how easy it is to make beautiful (printable) scrapbook pages like this one:

Step 1 : Choose your template (or non-template)

You can choose a Designer Template, a Design Your Own Template, or you can browse and purchase more templates from online.

Step 1a: If you choose the Designer Template you have lots of designs to choose from!

Step 2: I decided to be adventurous and I chose Design Your Own. Then I picked my layout, which I selected square.

Step 3: Here you can choose your page template. For example, if you know you have 3 portrait orientation pictures and 1 landscape orientation picture, you can find a template that matches that and VOILA! easy, peasy. Or you can do what I did....

Step 4: I chose no page template. The way I figure is using the templates is the easiest way to go. So, if I can easily make a page without using any templates, then surely it would be even easier to use a template! Right?!?

Step 5: This is when it gets really fun. On the right are all the various things you can do and add to your page. Photos, text, embellishments and more! First I picked a background paper. There are TONS and TONS to choose from!

Step 6: Then I added my photos and positioned them where I wanted them. You can also do some basic editing (rotating, changing sizes, etc) once you've added your photos.

Step 7: Embellishments. This is the fun part. There are SOOO many choices! I decided I wanted to go for a classy/elegant kind of look so I chose some charcoal satin bows. You can increase the size of you embellishments, change the rotation, all of that, it's so easy!

Step 8: I added some small paper (the bluish-gray rectangle) and text. And VOILA! I'm done. It's so easy!

Step 10: After you're finished you can figure out what to do with it. You can save it as a picture, print it to put in a book, make a calendar and more! In fact, if you make an album (I just made one page) you can have a different picture for each calendar page. There are so many cool things to do!

Here's another page I made: 

Now... aren't you wanting to do this too?! If so, you're in luck!

My Memories is giving away a free My Memories Suite download to one of my lucky readers! This is the full version that I have that I used to make my lovely pages!

{How to Enter}

Required:

1. Go to My Memories and choose your favorite digital paper pack or layout and post a link to your favorite in a comment. - 2 entries

You MUST do this to be entered in the giveaway.

To Receive Additional Entries:

1. Follow my blog (leave a comment that you are a follower) - 1 entry

2. "Like" my Facebook Page (leave a comment that you are a fan) - 1 entry

3. Post on Facebook about the Giveaway (leave a link to your post in a comment below) - 1 entry

4. Tweet about the giveaway (leave a link to your tweet in a comment below) - 1 entry

5. Blog about the giveaway (leave a link to your post in a comment below) - 1 entry

6. Follow any of My Memories' sites for an extra entry: Blog- http://blog.mymemories.com/

Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/mymemoriessuite

Twitter- http://twitter.com/#!/mymemoriessuite - 1 entry

You do NOT have to leave a seperate comment for each entry. Feel free to combine as many entries into 1 comment as you wish. The only entry you are required to complete is the first one - to go to My Memories website and pick your favorite and post it as a comment. The rest of the entries are optional.

{Giveaway Ends}

Monday, August 29th at Midnight. The winner will be announced Tuesday, August 30th.

{Something Extra}

Even if you don't win the giveaway, here's a little something extra for you:

STMMMS63868

If you go to My Memories, you can enter the Coupon Code above and receive $10 off your purchase of the My Memories Suite software download AND a $10 off discount of your purchase at the MyMemories.com store. That's a $20 value! Awesome!

{Having Trouble?}
If you have any trouble posting comments to my blog, feel free to post your entries on my Facebook page: Live Delightfully. (Please note, double posting on both my blog and FB page will not give you extra entries, it's just for those people who have trouble commenting on one or the other.)

Good luck!

♥

me : weekly loves

Hi all! Welcome to my very first edition of Weekly Loves. I love having a weekly post where I think about some things in my life that I love. It's good to have reminders the positive things in our life. I tried doing the WILW posts, but I couldn't be tied down to a day... which brings me to my own version called "Weekly Loves" where you can do it any day of the week.

I love the show Bachelor Pad. I know, this will probably make me lose points with some of you, but it's true. haha! I really love The Bachelor and The Bachelorette shows and when Bachelor Pad came out last year I just thought to myself, 'Well here goes ABC, trying to get as much smut out of these people as they possibly can.' Which is basically true and also makes for fantastic television. It's definitely my guilty pleasure... along with People's Court, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dancing with the Stars.

I love Ames Brown. He was a contestant on Ashley H's season (which was annoying if you ask me) and I loved him then and loved him even more on Bachelor Pad. He and Jackie (from Brad's season) had an immediate connection and it was clear the two were falling for each other. And when Jackie was voted off this week, I felt so bad for Ames. He was clearly trying to process and control his emotions while he told her good bye. I felt for the guy and for Jackie. Ames started walking back to the crowd and had this bewildered look on his face (which I think we can all agree is 100% twitterpation), AND THEN..... he turned around and ran back to catch Jackie's limo. In true Ames-style, he suavely asked her if she had room for one more and joined her in the limo, giving up his chance to win $250,000 for a chance at love. Oh... how gushy! Definitely the sweetest thing I have ever seen on any of the Bachelor-esque shows. It makes my heart flutter just thinking about it.

[As a side note, in related news, I finally got Dish Network at our new house so you can be looking forward to a Bachelor Pad Breakdown post coming Monday night/Tuesday. :)]

I love my new house!!! I really, really love it!!! Sorry... no pics for you yet, that'll come later. But it's a great house, and it's really the small things that make you love a place and one of the small things I love is that our bedroom stays dark. I could sleep in the middle of the day in that room because it stays so dark in there. LOVE that! Oh and our house faces an open field... love, love, LOVE that too! :)

I love this nail polish. It's gold glitter and it's fabulous! I used some that my MIL had and now I have to find some of my own because I love this! It's pretty much perfect for anytime of the year but think of how glam my nails will be at Christmas!

I love Josh Groban's music. It's been keeping me company pretty much all week while I've been working and situating my office. His music is just wonderful and this picture of him isn't too hard to look at either. ;)

image source

I love this quote. Somedays you just have to make up your mind to be happy about things, regardless of what crummy situation you might be in. At least it's not worse...

Besides, have you ever seen a bird with a french fry? They are incredibly happy!

Any fellow bloggers feel free to join in the fun and link up! :)

inspiration : thursday thoughtfuls

Hi ya'll! I've been really looking forward to this week's Thursday Thoughtfuls. I think it's my favorite feature... but then I start to work on one of my other features and then that one becomes my favorite... I don't know. But I do love Thursday Thoughtfuls. It makes my heart happy and I hope it does the same for you. :)

image source unknown. I know it was "pinned" from Etsy, but I couldn't find the shop for it. please comment if you know so I can give proper credit.

What a beautiful quote! I hope I'm part of the "others" that make a place beautiful. I believe my Granny was one of them, and I hope I am too.

image source

Oh this quote just speaks loads. I have dreams. And sometimes, those dreams seem ridiculous and farfetched, but I still have dreams. It's hard enough convincing yourself that your dreams can become reality without trying to convince people who don't want to see you succeed. I'm following my dreams and keeping away from the "small people".

image source

So true. There was a dark time in my life that I turned my back on a lot of things I had previously believed in. But I eventually changed my mind again. I made a decision, I got a second chance again and again. It was never easy, but second chances never are.

image source

Amen. I try to see the beauty in everything and everyone.

image source unknown. please comment if you know so I can give proper credit.

Wow. This quote has volumes of my life story behind it. For example, if you had told me 5 years ago that I would meet a man, marry him in 3 months, not finish college, be working for an online high school, be living in TEXAS for goodness sake, be a preacher's wife... I would have thought you were crazy! 5 years ago I was planning to be a lawyer. I had been studying for the LSAT for 2 years. I had dreams of being a successful attorney and working my way all the way up to judge, even Supreme Court!!! I was going to have a wealthy life, money would never be a worry, I was going to marry a successful business man, oh the list goes on and on and on. My life was planned out. Or so I thought...

And now look at me... my life is more perfect than even I could have planned. I'm happy, but even more I'm joyful! I have a wealthy life, although I do worry about money from time to time. But not in the sense that I will make myself sick with worry, nope, just a casual worry like "Oh I need to watch what I spend this week so we can make the house payment next week" sort of thing. I love my life. My dreams have changed completely, but they are dreams that are more me than the old dreams were. Oh the changes that can happen from meeting some guy at a Bible Study 5 years ago. Sometimes I tell Joey that he ruined my life... in the best way possible. ♥ Love that guy!

So you see, I didn't end up where I intended to go, but I ended up exactly where I needed to be.

.

.

.

.

It's fun for me to look back on my old dreams, my old thoughts and compare them to my dreams and thoughts now. What about you? How have your dreams changed from 5 years ago to now?