And the rain came down, down, down

For the last few days the Winnie the Pooh song "and the rain came down, down, down" has been humming through my head.  It has rained a phenomenal amount at my house.  I think last Thursday alone we had almost 12 inches.  That day made national news.  We have had drought conditions and fires this last year but it seems like this is now completely turned and we are flooded!  I'm not complaining.  I LOVE the rain.  I do feel bad for those who got flooded though.

Our new home sits kinda close to a small meandering creek.  Very rarely does the water level even move!  At the time we chose our lot we decided that even though the lots that back to the retention ponds are lovely (with all that green space and the "no one behind us" feature) there may at some time be enough water to fill them.  I just did not want to worry about that!  Boy am I happy about that choice!

These are pics of the said retention ponds.  I was standing at the top in what would have been our backyard.  As you can see they are full!  I can't even begin to tell you how deep they are....maybe 15 feet.  They are huge though.  What you can't see in this pic is that the little sleepy creek is just behind that line of trees.  By Friday morning the water had risen more and that sleepy little creek had become one with our ponds!  The trees looked like they were growing from water!  All around us roads were closed due to high water.  Water that was 12 inches deep and sometimes deeper.  And the rain continued.

The kids and I had a great time looking at all the water in the ponds.  Oh, and the bullfrogs.  Tons and tons of bullfrogs.  Our neighborhood pool became the bullfrog spa retreat!  They were swimming, lounging, and singing away!  It has taken several days for the water to recede.  Thankfully I think most of the flooding in other areas has also gone down but the clean up is left.

So, what is one to do when it rains all day for several days?  I have read 2 books (wonderful!!!), watched numerous movies, and crafted!  Last week I won a blog hop from Clear Scraps and received a wonderful packet full of Clear Scrap albums, cards, inks from Tsukineko, stamps from Stampendous (it was a co-blog hop with Stampendous), and a bunch of other treasures from Stampendous.  So, I pulled out some stuff and this is what I made:

I must have Christmas on my mind.  I had some of the Bo Bunny Snowfall collection left from last Christmas.  And I won the mixable 8 x 8 album from Clear Scraps.  This was sooooo much fun.  I love working with acrylic and this little album had 3 pages of it!  I wanted to be able to see the next pages through the acrylic so I keep it simple.  I used opaque white ink and stamped snowflakes all over the cover, added some sparkle, trimmed the edge with sparkle, and let it all dry.  Then I added a vellum mini envelope and tags, and of course embellished it all.  

I am also showing you my "clothesline" tags.  I made tags of all sizes and attached them to the page to crete a clothesline look.  There is a ton of pic and journaling space here.  And lastly, I added an envelope that I embellished.  I cut the flap off and made a new one of some scrap material I had.  Love the soft look of it.  I like to put envelopes in my albums so I can through extra pics in.  The back cover is acrylic so I adhered the glittered paper to the back.  Made a nice effect of seeing the glitter from the top.

This was so much fun to make.  I love the colors of this paper and the album is a great size.  Check out the Stampendous blog.  There are some great inspiration pieces there.  And if you haven't seen the new Clear Scrap stuff go to their website.  The new clear cards are adorable!

Well, children are getting up; wanting to eat.  It's that whole summer thing again!  I'll leave with this:  what do you like to do when it rains?  Let me know.........