PER-FECTO!

Hi everyone! Happy Saturday!

I have a few minutes here to sneak in a quick post while I wait for the kids to fall to sleep, then I'll be back visiting with the in-laws, so I thought I'd share Sketch #20 that Heather so creatively put together for us! You can find it at Heather's blog, Miracle's Momma's Designs, along with everyone else's interpretation of this beautiful sketch! If you have the time, you should definitely drop by and see what they've done!

Here is my interpretation of it:

The girls' favourite past time these days is pretending to be 'Super Bunny' (yes, the same super bunny from Max and Ruby). I have to admit, its pretty adorable when they scoot around the house, yelling (at the top of their lungs), 'super bunny--to the rescue!!' Makes my heart melt and giggles overflow at the same time! What makes it even better-- their super hero CAPES that their mama- in a rare stroke of sheer genius- fetched from her linen closet. It absolutely makes it more believable now!

I used my cricut to cut the 'blast' shapes, as well as the clouds and stars, then I used my cuttlebug to emboss the clouds for a little more interest and dimension. The stars, and banner on which the photos are matted are all made from scraps! And, if you look really hard, I punched out two small circle shapes, in which you'll find BUNNIES!! Yup, that's right, I was pretty stoked when I realized that particular scrap of patterned paper had little bunnies on them.

PERR-FECTO!!!

315* a fabulous day spent with a dear friend
316* new hair
317* no more whites
318* a phone call already about the trailer- and they're interested in the diesel, too!! (fingers, toes and eyes crossed that it sells sooooon!!)
319* my newly 'antiqued' bed frame (which will hopefully be done sometime tomorrow!)
320* the in-laws for helping me do it
321* dear husband taking care of the kids for me today
322* the sun
323* mama ducks and her ducklings
324* the Anthony Henday
325* star.bucks (and how its conveniently on my way out of the city!!)

LCOM

Just wanted to pop in real quick and invite you over to Lets Capture Our Memories, and meet the new Sketch team and Layout team!

You can find us here!

Our weekend is busy, busy, busy as usual!!

Will catch up again with everyone next week!

(And, for my sweet Canadian friends--Happy Canada Day! What are your plans for the holiday??)

Fly

I sincerely struggled with the layout I'm sharing with you today. I had a few ideas in the attic, but none of them really wanted to cooperate. After mulling it over at my desk for a couple of hours last night, I went to bed- still contemplating. I promised myself that I would find the time on Monday to google butterfly images and see what I could come up with. Hopefully everything else would just fall into place.

Fall into place is exactly what it did! It wasn't until later this afternoon that I had the chance to sit at the computer for a bit and search for images of butterflies. The one I chose you can find here: http://butterflywebsite.com/clipart/butterf17.gif

I printed it off at 125 or 150% resolution (I can't remember anymore- it was soooo long ago), cut it out and traced it onto the pieces of (scrap) patterned paper I wanted to use. I traced it a number of times, cut them out, and arranged them on my white card stock in a diagonal pattern across the page, surrounding the picture I wanted to use. I did.not.like.it. I just wasn't feeling it. (That was actually plan b-- plan a is what you see at the top of this post). So, I brushed them all off my card stock, then placed four of them above my photo. I immediately knew that was the direction I wanted to go in! (The only problem was I really wanted to stitch the trails the butterflies travelled on, but as you are aware, I am not confident in my stitching abilities. So, instead, I doodled them! Problem solved.)

I scrap lifted this idea from Kelly Klapstein. I do believe she calls this the 'morse code' technique. You can find it on her layout called "Fearless", which is on page 113 of the newest Canadian Scrapbooker magazine. I filled in the dots after I had the lines drawn on the page. I felt it helped 'complete' it a little better.

As I began working on this layout this afternoon, I began thinking that a butterfly quote would be a nice substitution for journalling- or at least, it would help enhance the theme a little more. Once again turning to my good old friend google, I typed in butterfly quotes, and this is what I came up with:

So you don't have to squint, this is what it says: "Beautiful and graceful, varied and enchanting, small but approachable, butterflies lead you to the sunny side of life. And everyone deserves a little sunshine." (Jeffrey Glassberg) How fitting for my Maren dearest! She is our little ray of sunshine, anyways! But, I know that in a few years' time, I may forget exactly what the story is behind the photo, so I added a bit more journalling to the top of my page:

Her cousins also had face painting at their birthday party, and I asked her if she wanted to get her face painted. Oh, she was all for it--until the air from the air brush started blowing. She had an honest to goodness, old fashioned freak out right then and there! Good thing I was holding her in my arms, and bless the artists' heart, she quickly airbrushed the butterfly onto her leg, and it was over and done with before she even knew what happened.

The funny thing is- she was so proud of it after she got it! She kept twisting around in our arms to have a look at her butterfly, and show us where it was. Its been a few weeks, but she still talks about butterflies. All.the.time. I have a stain on a tank top from painting, and she points to it and calls it my 'butterfly'. Yes, I think my sweet daughter is obsessed! Something that was so traumatic for such a short period of time, is now the one thing she's most fond of!

The bling in the centres of my butterflies was also scrap lifted, though at the moment I can't, for the life of me, remember where I saw it. I'll do some research and get back to y'all on it! I'm fairly certain its in the most recent Creating Keepsakes mag or PaperCrafts, but I'm going to have to go back and verify that. Don't let me forget! (No worries, I won't let myself forget. Sometimes I'm a bit anal).

And, second lastly- a message to my sweet daughter: to spread her wings and fly. Share that sunshiny nature with as many people as she can!

The inspiration for this layout came from sketch #138 over at Lets Capture These Sketches! Isn't it fantastic?!

And...speaking of Lets Capture These Sketches, I have some great news to share! I've been accepted onto their design team, and I'm ridiculously pumped about it! Keep an eye out for more sketches and layouts coming from this fantastic site!

Until next time...

Got Hobby?

Is there anything that you like to do (or your husband or kids or anyone that you know) that hasn't been able to enjoy (do, in other words) their hobby for a long time? When we moved back to Alberta, I packed up all my scrappy items and left them in hiding until I couldn't take it anymore. Then, I found a few items, broke them out of storage, and began to play a little (while we were still living in the trailer, yet, but mostly while we lived in the apartment- before the house came along. Then it all went into hiding again until everything was moved in, unpacked, and set up). Oh, it was like heaven on earth, when I was able to feel paper again, and play with it and manipulate it.

My dear, poor husband has gone without his hobby for far too long. Living in Saskatchewan wasn't really conducive to his hobby (drag racing) because the city we were nearest only held races three times over the summer- once in June, again in July and lastly in August. Apparently everyone down there travels (even to great distances) to get their fix. We just couldn't do that- especially not with newborn babies. For him, it really sucked. What sucked even more was leaving his little truck (which we affectionately call the 'little truck') in storage (at a buddy's).

Until tonight.

I think he feels like he's got a second chance at life; his 'baby' is back at home with him. Its unloaded off the car trailer, and sitting in the driveway. Once he's got the rest of the clutter in the garage moved out, he can put it inside, and tinker away at it to his hearts' content. He wants to put something new in it (but, I forget what it is because I'm too girl for stuff like that lol).

And...


We'll probably start heading out to the track regularly, now that the truck is back in his possession. We both sincerely missed it (I think its a fairly sexy sport, IMHO. Even though I know nothing about cars, I do like shiny things, and a lot of the vehicles that get raced are exactly that. Who knows, maybe one day I'll even start drag racing (though I'll have to work up the courage, first).

We can head to the track regularly here in Alberta, because racing begins in May and ends in September or October. Street Legals are Friday nights (that much I remember from our drag racing days when Kyle and I were still only dating), and bracket racing was the rest of the weekend, I think. Ha. I remember rainy days in the middle of July and August, that found me so cold, I was wearing mittens- and if I had one with me- probably a toque, too! (A hat, for all my American readers!!)
And, so, when you hear Kyle joking about me wearing mittens in the middle of summer (but flip flops in the middle of winter- go figure!!) thats what he's referring to!

EEk! I'm so excited for it! I can only imagine how he feels!

311* the little truck
312* more quality time spent at the race track!
313* that he has his hobby back- and just waiting for him to jump into it!
314* how happy he must feel

**

I've got another layout to share from the girls' cousins birthday party tonight.

I used Sketch 13 over at Got Sketch? for this layout. (You can find the original here).

Here's a few pictures of the details:

I've had this button in my button stash for quite some time. I don't quite know why I haven't used it before- I've got a few that look like this, in a variety of colours; but, I think it scared me. I was never sure how to use it, and so avoided it. I took the plunge on this layout, and I adore how it looks. Its a lot of fun, I think! I added some black rhinestone bling and a little bit of parcel string to glam it up a bit. The patterned paper is scraps, and its SU.

Once again, my new favourite way to create titles! I'm liking that doing my title work this way has helped me bring out the stamps, and use them a little bit more. I LOVE that this hobby is all about learning and re-learning and manipulating and putting spins on old things to make them new.

More stamping here, using an SU easter stamp- first in More Mustard on the yellow card stock, and again in Whisper White on the blue patterned paper. I also used my Martha Stewart scallop border punch on the blue strip of paper.

The journalling spot was cut in half (the other half will probably appear in another project down the road!) and adhered to the bottom left corner of my layout. I stamped with Close to Cocoa ink (SU) and fussy cut the shape out. My printing is written with a brown journalling pen (Recollections).

Enjoy! Hope you had a great start to a new week!

~a

Cheers

Good evening! Where has the day gone?! The weather has been gloriously beautiful today- although muggy. The weather is supposed to be gorgeous right through next week, and I suspect that all the thunderstorms that have by-passed us this past week will probably dump on us this week. At least, I hope! Some cooler weather would be almost a good thing :)

I have another layout to share with you. Today, its a two pager! The next few layouts are going to contain a number of pictures. I've finally made it to the point in the month where we celebrated with the girls' twin cousins on their first birthday. If you recall, a ton of pictures were taken that day, so a few layouts are going to be dedicated to that day! I'm waiting on permission from my cousin, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to post the layouts I make with her kids in them. But, if this is the only layout you see of that day (possibly one more), then its because I don't have permission to post pics of her kids on the net! Just a little forewarning!!

The inspiration behind this particular layout comes from the incredibly talented Kelly Klapstein. She created this layout for a new segment in the Canadian Scrapbooker magazine called 'Double the Fun'. We were encouraged to play along and try this sketch out for ourselves- with the possibility (I think) of being published along with her. After thinking on it for quite some time, I decided to try it out. I must say, I just LOVE how it turned out!

All the accent patterned papers are from the same sheet(s) of 12x12 paper. I cut out the mushroom portion of the paper to make the border along the top of the page, and the lined/stitched portion for the bottom of the page. The flourishes were also part of that paper, so I fussy cut it out, then cut it in half and adhered it to the bottom right corners of each page. The banner was also created using the same paper- the parts of the paper that hung off my 8.5x11' card stock base got transformed into that- its double sided paper, so both sides were effectively used. Its incredible how much usage a single sheet (well, two, really, so that I could take advantage of the all the mushrooms and lines) of paper can give you!

For a little bit of drama, I outlined the flourishes, banner and photos in black pen, then decided to make the only horizontal photo a focal photo, by drawing two lines around it, and adding the buttons and ribbon (I wanted to highlight the fact that it was the only picture with both girls in it on this layout). I guess the journalling helps draw the eye to it, as well! (And, speaking of how well things worked- how about the flourishes underneath the only two pictures with water?? In my mind, they kind of mimic water...perfect, or what?!)

Here's a few close ups:

Oh, I forgot to mention that I stamped in a few places on my layout with SU's whisper white ink, using an Easter stamp (of all things) for a bit of a subtle 'something else'.

301* that Maren finally told me (numerous times today) that she loves me (which I never doubted, but its always nice to hear)
302* all four of us had the opportunity to really play this afternoon
303* and how good it felt
304* the slushy/treat dear husband is bringing home for us
305* cuddles with Gregory
306* someone came and had a look at the trailer (here's to hoping they buy it!!)
307* how excited Maren was over their tickle trunk full of toys
308* that their trunk full of toys finally made it into the house!
(and thus begins my nightmare---I'm seriously going to have to go through their toys and donate all the ones they no longer need/play with--they're no longer babies and don't need baby toys!!!)
309* that their (my) storage trunk made it into the house
(now I can put all the clothes that I want to hang on to into their 'trousseau', or whatever you want to call it)
310* that dear husband (and J) made an even bigger dent in the garage clean-up tonight. yay!!

Here's to a great day, and looking forward to doing it all again tomorrow! Cheers!!

TMI

Happy Friday!

I have another layout to share today:

Maren is fond of reminding me that its spring time (though now every time she tells me its spring, I've begun to gently remind her that it is now summer). I personally think she must love this time of year- because its always when she is looking out the window (and sees that the sun is shining) or playing outside.

I'm glad she loves the warm weather, the sunshine, and the ability to play outside as much as she wants.  Because, before we all know it, we'll be settled in for another winter! (Excuse my language...at this time of year, the 'w' word is about as bad as some four letter words).

292* spring time
293* that she loves it so much
294* summer time
295* that she loves it just as much!!
296* for the new security system
297* the *amazing* deal we got on it
298* razors
299* shaved pits (LOL--I know)
300* that I have enough time to actually get that done while showering!!

I want to share some close ups with you, but they are incredibly yellow looking, so I'm going to wait for a better day to take some pics. Hopefully this will suffice!

Enjoy your weekend!

Duh!

Hi everyone! Hope you're having a terrific day so far!

I just wanted to share a layout with you today, and some close ups:

I get a kick out of the kids 'helping' us out around the house. For the most part, its ridiculously cute- when they actually do what you've asked them to. Other times it can be aggravating, because its obvious they don't want to do it, but they must because it either came from some place they shouldn't have taken it, or it just plain needs to be picked up (as in their toys). And, when I say 'they must', it usually means that mama or daddy picks it up in the end. :)

They'll help us carry the groceries from the door into the kitchen (if they deem whichever item they're carrying not 'too heavy'. Last night, I asked Maren to carry a bag with pork chops in it to the kitchen, and she promptly dropped it back on the floor, saying it was too heavy. Ok, if you say so!! (LOL) (Though, she has no problem carrying a 4 litre jug of milk to the kitchen when daddy asks her to do it).

So, when I asked Maren if she wanted to help me with the laundry, she quickly, and wholeheartedly answered, 'yes!' My first reaction was, 'oh cool', and when I discovered how she had helped mommy put the laundry away, I just had to chuckle. She put the folded laundry back into the laundry basket. Still folded! Instinct told me that what she had done wasn't really putting the laundry away, and I was about to tell her that, when I decided to bite my tongue. To her, that was putting the laundry away. How many millions of times has she seen me put the entire load back into the laundry basket, intending to put all the items away at a later time? She was absolutely right, so I congratulated her on it! (I was particularly impressed that everything, for the most part, was still folded!)

I've been wanting to create my own background for a layout for a while. A really long while. I don't really think many of my stamps are very conducive to making pretty backdrops- mostly because they're too small and not elaborate enough, but I've picked up a few in the very recent past that will work beautifully for backgrounds such as this one:

I took the vintage post card stamp I bought from Michaels, and used it to stamp the image in varying directions. I also pressed fairly lightly, to give it an even more vintage, worn look. To finish it off, I inked the edges with a sponge dauber. (I used SU's Close to Cocoa ink).

W.O.W.!!! I think it looks horrendous  fantastic, and I can hardly wait to use this again on another project! Its my new favourite thing!!

I should mention here, that the inspiration for this entire layout came from a design I found in a special issue of scrapbooks etc.- sbe page planner. Unfortunately, I don't know the year of publication, or if there's more than one publication of this particular type of special issue. You can find the original of this layout on page 29 of that particular issue. (Ha, good luck trying to find it! I know its pretty vague). Sorry!

The bird stamps come from a certain SU stamp set that I don't know the name of. I actually never thought to add the name of the collection to the outside of the box until I bought a box full of goodies from a girl off Kijiji that no longer wanted/needed as much scrapping stuff. She had put them on the outside of her stamp boxes, and I had an 'aha!' moment when I saw it. So now, if and when I ever buy anymore SU stamps, I will remember to do that!!

The birds are pretty, though, aren't they? I love the green against the brown background. I just love neutrals period. I think they're fast becoming my most favourite colour to work with. Colour scares me a little, though when I do work with bright colours, I am sometimes pleasantly surprised (such as with the one I am currently working on. That may be tomorrow's post!!)

Creating the title was a lot of fun. Every once in a while, I get into this mindset that using my cricut after the kids have gone to bed is a bad idea. I worry that the noise it makes will wake them up- especially since I'm working in the room right next to theirs!! Even with the door closed, I worry about it. You know how it goes- when you try and be as quiet as possible, thats when you inevitably end up being noisier than usual. So, when I'm in silent mode, I try and come up with creative ways to get things done without my cricut. And, I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with the outcome! I'll be doing this in the future more often now, too!

I took SU's whisper white ink, and stamped with alpha stamps on black patterned paper. Then, I just fussy cut around them to create this fun and whimsical title! Easy peasy!

And lastly, the journalling block. I stamped it onto kraft card stock with SU's Close to Cocoa ink, then fussy cut around the lines, creating my journalling block. Then, I took a sponge dauber and lightly dragged it across the front to help age it just a tad more. Voila!

A lot of the elements on this page were created using scraps. How many of you make it a priority to use up your scraps? Do you use them for specific projects, like mini albums, cards or off the page type projects? Or, do you use them in any way that tickles your fancy? And, how small is too small to keep? Do you keep every tiny piece of paper, or do you keep nothing smaller than a certain size?

I'd love to hear how you use up your scraps!

Until next time, enjoy your Thursday!

Battle Won

This moment, right now, marks a personal huge victory for me, in the battle known as 'Alison vs. the scanner'.

Until today, the beast kept winning, but I finally outsmarted it!

Thanks to a little help from Google and HP technical support. LOL

I will now be able to scan pictures of my layouts directly to my iPhoto library, instead of using my camera to do it! No more crooked, terrible looking shots! Ahh I am sooo pumped!!

And, since I've gotten behind in sharing layouts again, here's a couple that I re-loaded to the computer via the scanner!!: (holy cow, and they upload to blogger a whole lot faster, too!)

This layout was all about highlighting the locket my grandma gave me, and the journalling. This necklace means the universe to me, and if I were to ever lose it, I would be pretty devastated. The inspiration behind it came from a special issue of sbe (lets get scrapbooking), pg. 66. I don't know the year it was published.

I wanted to pick up the pink in Maren's shirt and head band for this layout, and I thought grey would compliment it nicely! The inspiration behind this layout is from the February 2011 issue of sbe, pg. 66. The original layout is by Mary MacAskill and she entitled it, 'three'.

Rather than going with a real retro layout with peace symbols, I thought hearts would work well instead. (What better way to depict love than with hearts??!) I thought the large heart at the bottom looked a little flat after everything was adhered, so I took some bubble wrap and very carefully stamped the heart in a few places for some visual interest. (I also 'blotted' it on a piece of scrap paper so that the ink wouldn't be so heavy on my layout. I wanted it to have a softer, hardly there kind of look. I think I achieved it!!)

Its a little hard to tell in the photo, but the chippy 'love' I used a sponge dauber to 'paint' the word, and then used my finger tip to brush some black ink over top. LOVE how that looks, too! (The red ink I used is SU's Cherry Cobbler, and the black ink is SU's Basic Black).

For the hearts in the column next to the photo, I used my cuttle bug and embossed the hearts with the baby's breath embossing folder.

I used a black archival type pen to create faux stitching around the outer edge of the pink patterned paper, and around the large grey heart, and a Martha Stewart border punch for the piece of pink patterned paper strip overlaying the large grey heart. (The silver ribbon and sticker letters are miscellaneous. I don't know where they came from!!) The sentiment sticker is K&Co.

Well, the kiddo's are still sleeping, so I'm going to reward myself with some actual scrapbooking! (Then I can use the scanner again. Yay!!)

See you all again real soon!

291* that I outsmarted the printer/scanner

Good Times

Hi, good morning!! So, I have to say, posting all these pictures worked out quite well! I was able to separate everything into the two days- yesterday holds just Saturday's pictures, and todays post holds only Sundays pictures. ANd, I can't take credit for taking all (or many) of today's pictures. My sister holds the honours for that!

What Addison calls swinging! (If it works for her, then by all means!!)

Mama and Addison (she's playing with my 'neck-necks' in this pic) :)

here we are looking at the 'stars' in the sky

Addison

'Ohhhh' (in Maren's words). Giving mama a hug

The expression on Addisons' face is priceless! I love it!!

I love Maren's little folded up hands. So cute!!

The expression on Maren's face makes me crack up every time I see it! Ha! I don't know what she was doing here, or what auntie told her, but OH.MY.WORD!!! hee...

Oma being goofy

Maren peeking through the window of their play house

Oi. I've barely gotten this typed out and my poor hands are already falling asleep. I've been wearing my wrist braces the last couple of nights to see if it will help reduce the tendency to fall asleep, and although its been helping overnight, I've been noticing that my hands are falling asleep when I do certain things when they're NOT on. I really hope I don't need to wear them constantly, like I did when I was pregnant. (Carpal tunnel). I'm not complaining. I'm just a bit surprised that sometimes it doesn't take much for them to start going numb!!

So--off to do something else, then! Its a dreary and rainy day this morning. Maybe I'll just crawl back into bed until the kids wake up!

Til next time- take care, and have fun!!

281* good times with family
282* that more of the garage got cleaned up and sorted through
283* that his physio treatment worked after only one appointment (at least, he's noticed a dramatic difference already)
284* happy sounds (like the sounds rain makes when its falling)
285* not having to cook dinner on Sunday (other than throwing together a salad and a cake for dessert)
286* that my hands going numb isn't constant
287* the relief my wrist braces have provided
288* that my hands do fall asleep (it just reminds me I have hands that still work and function)
289* that my BIL is such a willing and tremendous 'helper'
290* the discovery of breakfast smoothies!! (mm) (since we found the blender in the garage)

FUN

Oh my word, we survived another busy weekend! Phew!

Father's day was an absolute riot. My family (sister, BIL, mom and dad) spent the weekend with us, and thankfully it was beautiful! We took the kids to the park Saturday night (after my sister and BIL arrived), and Sunday afternoon, we played in the yard until supper was ready. I promised dad that he wouldn't have to help us do any work around the house this visit- and that promise was kept! Ha!

I hope you don't tire of my picture posts. I love sharing them; in fact, I can't get enough of them!

So, without further adieu, here are my faves!!:

Addison

auntie trying out the twisty slide

auntie pushing Maren in the swing

uncle and Addison

I love the look of concentration, uncertainty, determination in Maren's face! She did awesome climbing up the half-monkey bars

Addison coming down the slide, I think

daddy trying out the twisty slide. ROFLOL.....thank goodness we didn't have to call 911 or anything!!

Addison holding auntie and uncle's hands

auntie and uncle helping Addison down the slide. (She loves it, but is afraid of going down without help)

auntie and Maren

auntie

Addison

Addison pushing their stroller

"SUPER BUNNY--TO THE RESCUE!!!"

love, love, love

love, love, love even more!!!

So, this wound up being quite a long post. And, there's still more to share, so I think I'll just split it into two, possibly three posts. (I took over 240 pictures!!) over the last three days, so please bear with me!!

I'm by no means a photographer, and I really don't consider myself a good one although I do try hard, so I get pretty excited when I come up with ones that I find are 'exceptional'. I would like to take a photography class. I just started thinking about it this weekend! Maybe!! Anyways, I can hardly wait to edit these last two a bit more...of all the pictures I took, these two are my absolute.faves. 


Hope you had a great weekend. See you again real soon!