Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween everyone! Did you little ghosts and goblins score a lot of loot tonight? Mine sure did! We filled an entire Walmart reusable shopping bag- to the brim- with goodies! My word- they still have goodies left over from last year! All this sweet goodness will last us the next couple of years, I think. Did you stay warm while your little gaffers ran from door to door? We nearly froze- the wind is bitter!! We've all got wind burnt cheeks! I'll have pictures up here one of these days. It'll probably (most likely) have to wait until next week.

As promised, here is one of two DT assignments that were due recently. The other will be posted in the next day or so. Hopefully it'll be posted before the weekend, which is shaping up to be another whirlwind adventure for this gal. Only this time, it'll be solely for dear husband and I. Its my birthday, and he's treating me to a weekend for ourselves. I'm so happy that he heard what I said when I would love- just once- to have a birthday that wasn't all about hunting. I have the best man in the universe!

Don't you just love the simplicity of this design?! I sure do- it came together so quickly and effortlessly- Heather did a remarkable job on the sketch behind this layout. She's such a talented lady! You can find the sketch by going to her blog, Miracles Momma Designs. But, you won't find it there tonight. Check back in a few days, and you'll certainly find it there! I'm getting this up early because I'm certain I won't have the time until next week to jump back onto the computer. There's no better time like the present!

Smokin'!

Hi everyone!

What a fantastic weekend! Oh.my.word. Seriously, I had such a blast! It went all to quickly, unfortunately. But, doesn't it always!? In addition to having my hair done, and then having my boudoir photo session on Saturday, I also had the chance to (just barely) buy the girls some new winter coats, boots, running shoes and dress shoes. I wanted to hit Costco for their winter attire, but they had nothing out yet! What???! I was astonished. Walmart didn't have anything, either. Luckily, we found two (of three or four) coats in their size, and that.was.it. I still need to buy snow pants for the kids. I find it incredible that the supervisors at Walmart under ordered at this time of year. Another brownie point in my little black book for lovely Walmart! LOL

Here's a little preview of what my girlfriend and I looked like after we were all made up. Here's what we looked like before:

Dramatic difference, huh? I can't help but continually stare at the picture of us...I SO need to learn how to do my make up that way! We were smoking!!!!

Since I didn't have the time to, and since I hadn't uploaded the camera before this last weekend, I thought I'd take the time now to share with you some close ups of the last layout I completed.

Later on this week, I'll have a couple more DT assignments/reveals to share with you. I can hardly wait to get them posted!

In the mean time, I'll share a card with you that I made for our nieces' 3rd birthday two weekends ago:

This was super simple to make, and I think the final result is super duper cute! I used my Cricut to cut the cupcake card, using the Wildcard cartridge; I cut the cupcake liner out of blue/turquoise card stock, and the icing from white card stock. The candle and flame (as well as the birthday sentiment) were made using scraps. Everything is adhered to a kraft card stock background. For some sparkle and bling, I added clear rhinestones (to mimic sprinkles, naturally), and I used MS glitter in Crystal Fine for the sentiment.

Enjoy the rest of your evening, everyone!

Till next time,

~a

Lipstick

Phew! I just checked Lets' Capture These Sketches' blog to make sure the reveal post was up, and thankfully it WAS! I was worried that I'd be posting this layout a little too early. The girls and I are heading into Edmonton for another whirlwind weekend adventure- I have a hair appointment today, and then a {tasteful} boudoir photo shoot as part of Kyle's Christmas present tomorrow. The bad/devilish side of me has wanted to do one of these for eons, and I've finally worked up the courage to go and do it! Thankfully, they don't have to be super risqué or x-rated. They are actually fairly...tame, for a lack of a better word. They are as sexy as you want them to be. I'm pretty stoked about it!

After my photo shoot, my girlfriend and I are hitting up the town, since we're both going to be dolled up for our photo shoots (she's having lifestyle photos done). Its going to be a blast!

So, back to sketch #155. I had so.much.fun. working with this sketch! You can find the sketch over at the LCTS blog site here. I twisted and turned the sketch to fit my layout and the amount of pictures I had. And...about those pictures. To begin with, I didn't have any more pictures than the one of my lipstick (which has sentimental value, by the way--its the lipstick my make up artist gave me while she got me ready on my wedding day!!) I wanted to include a couple pictures of my girls with their lipstick on to help illustrate the story better. Since I'm fairly certain I had nothing with them wearing my actual lipstick, I chose a couple of pictures just of each of them- for all I know, they could have been wearing lipstick in those pictures! (The pics were taken the same day, I think).

The banner along the bottom of my focal photo is actually supposed to be stacked pictures (in the sketch), but once again, I didn't have enough pictures to support that. So, I improvised, turning the photo cluster into a banner, and turning the centre square into an embellishment. To resemble thread or string that the banner is adhered to, I used pearl rhinestones instead of actual ribbon, and I love how it looks! Really kind of girly, flirty and flattering.

I used a few bits of scraps on my layout- the blue polka dotted paper is scraps, and the title work and silver circle peeking out from the side of the picture are also from scraps. The half circle is a pull tab for my hidden journalling. The rest of the paper is Recollections and basic card stock (in kraft and black). The green patterned paper is K&Co. Lastly, the brown banner at the bottom, sporting the 'bribery can be flattering' sentiment is MS.

As always, if you use the sketch, I'd love to know, so I can drop by your blog or website and have a little look see!

Till next time,

~a

Blow

Hello! How is everyone doing? Life seems to have picked up once again, and I haven't had the chance to sit down in the scrap room to get any playing done in a while. Tonight is the first night in a week (or longer, maybe!!) since I've been in here! The kids are all snuggled up in bed, and I'm unwinding with some much missed scrappy time. Kyle's got to be up early again in the morning, so he's gearing up to hit the sack, too.

After much deliberation, we decided to bring Neruda in to the vet to have her de-clawed. My kids were typically her favourite targets, though every once in a while, she'd try and take a swipe at Kyle, too. We've also been noticing that some of the carpet on the stairs has been pulled away from the wall, and we suspect it was her that did it.

I brought kitty to the vet yesterday, and picked her up today, and in the meantime, Gregory got his vaccinations, too. Its a good thing we brought her- turns out Neruda had ear mites (eew!!), which was taken care of when they updated her vaccinations. I don't think its been shared with Gregory- kitty and Gregory don't have much to do with each other. She hates him with a passion.

Neruda's been pretty mellow today- not venturing too far from her pet carrier for too long. She did cuddle with me on the couch for a solid half an hour this afternoon, but once I moved, she went straight back to her pet carrier.

In other news, I have my (late) newest DT assignment for LCTS. This is for sketch #154, but I changed it up some. Instead of having strips of paper laying horizontally underneath the photo (which, there should also be two photos), I turned them vertically. I like how it looks so much better on my 8.5x11 layout. The circle embellishments were cut from scrap patterned paper I had kicking around (which, I find helps reinforce the 'blow' theme), and the title work was coloured with chalk ink (I used wooden letters from Walmart). I think I've used the 'o' elsewhere, so I used another circle from the patterned paper I previously mentioned for that particular letter.

Its fairly simple, but I love it.

The story behind the pic: Addison was the trend setter here, and made it a cool thing to blow your nose. It wasn't long before Maren jumped on that band wagon too, and before I knew it, they were asking for kleenex all the time. Or, if I didn't catch them soon enough, they'd have wads of it pulled out of the box, and strewn all over the floor. LOL In the picture, I had stuffed a wad of it back into the box.

The cool thing is- when Addison asks to blow her nose, she *really* blows her nose! I don't know many kids that catch on to the whole nose blowing thing that quickly!

Well...now that I've procrastinated some...its time to start the next DT assignment!

Have a great night, everyone!

~a

Skip

So, I completely missed a LCTS sketch a few weeks back. My bad!

Here is my take on sketch #152. As per my current 'kick', all the papers used are scraps. The chipboard Joy sentiment is K&Co, and I've had it in my stash for eons. It's pretty Christmas-y, but I like that its versatile enough to use on a layout that's far from Christmas! The netting is from packaging.

The girls always throw a fit when their daddy leaves the house- whether its for a 'yucky smoke' as we call it, or to run out to the garage for something, or to run an errand, mow the lawn...the list is ever-expanding. I will often tell them to go look in the window, because they'll be able to see their daddy if he's doing something outside. In this case, they were able to watch him for a while, as he was mowing the front lawn for us. It made their afternoon!

Great Shots

I got so many good shots of the kids the day we hung out in the garage cleaning up over the summer! Here, Maren is helping her daddy sweep the floor. I love that little tongue hanging out of her mouth!

The latest sketch (#26) is up over at Heathers blog; you should go and check it out! Seriously, the design team is fantabulous! The designs they come up with are incredibly creative, and Heather's sketches are beyond amazing! They are a lot of fun to work with.

As always, if you decide to use Heather's sketch, please let me know. I'd love to see how it inspires you!

And, once again, all the papers here are scraps (and incredibly ancient), except for the green card stock base. The ribbon isn't a scrap either- it came from a bargain basket over at DeSerres. Seriously, I love that store! I could definitely go crazy there...

Another layout will be coming up in the next few days...until then, take care!

~a

Hop Scotch

Hi everyone!

Have I mentioned before the 'sidewalk that leads to nowhere' that was located in our backyard? I say 'was', because its now been torn out. Or, most of it. When we put the shed in the backyard (yes, we bought a shed and had it delivered a couple of weeks ago), Kyle used the sidewalk blocks to level it. Now, we have to re-seed it before the snow flies, so next spring we'll have new grass growing in!

Before the fence was put up, the original owners used the backdoor as their main entrance- which, if you think about it, is a real nuisance, considering you're entering right into the kitchen/dining room. But, that's just me. To other people, its no big deal. There was no grass in the backyard either, so they parked back there- hence the sidewalk.

After it was further developed and closed in, the sidewalk just plain didn't make sense. Why leave the sidewalk when it leads smack dab into the middle of your backyard fence? Silly, if you ask me, but it lead to tons of hours of fun for the girls. They loved taking their sidewalk chalk out into the backyard and play with it. The first thing they always asked for was hop scotch (after I showed them what it was all about one afternoon). Having that sidewalk was a bonus for me, too- I didn't have to worry about my little toddlers playing out in the driveway or along our street, where it is quiet, but local traffic is a constant worry for me.

At first, I didn't really want to cover up as much of this picture as I did, but in the end, I wound up really liking it. I wanted to mimic the numbers in the hop scotch in the picture, so I used my Cricut to cut out the numbers. (I searched high and low for sticker numbers that weren't minuscule or monstrously huge, and apparently I have none! Cricut to the rescue!!) I thought the floral background worked well to highlight the outdoors- even though there were scant flowers growing in my backyard. One day I will remedy that!! (At a time in the kids' life where it isn't fun picking all the heads off the flowers anymore, or playing in the dirt...)

For the title work, I traced out wood veneer letters that I found at Walmart (because the package contains only one of every letter in the alphabet) onto foam and cut them out. To cover up the pencil lines, I used a sponge dauber and inked the outer edges of the letters with SU's Cherry Cobbler ink.

All the papers used on this layout (minus the kraft base) are from my scrap stash- including the papers I used to cut the numbers with.

In a lot of ways, the season change is welcome, but in some ways, I'm sad to see summer leave us already. The kids sure have enjoyed the changes the weather has brought- they loved playing in the snow, and just the other day Maren asked when it was going to snow again. I cringed a little at the thought of cold weather and the white, fluffy stuff, but told her it was coming soon enough. Halloween has me excited enough as it is; don't get me started on Christmas! I'm really looking forward to Christmas this year. Its going to be so much more meaningful for the kids! Eeek! I can hardly wait to put up the tree and decorate!

What are you looking forward to at this time of year?

~a

Fascinate{d}

I love this shot of Addison. It was kind of a fluke, really, but a happy fluke. I get all giddy inside when stuff like this happens!

We were out in the garage helping Kyle clean up and sort through the loads of junk and garbage we've got kicking around, and after a while, the kids discovered daddy had some of his old toys kicking around the garage. They also discovered there were some neato things in there- such as sand paper- which is what Addison is holding in this photo.

Everything on this layout is from scraps- in one way or another. The orange and gold flower sticker is actually a 12 inch border strip (K&Co) that I cut into four strips (all varying lengths), to get more mileage from. The white netting is packaging from toys that I bought from Walmart for the kids' prizes (for their weekly chore charts). You'll see it popping up on a few different projects in the near future!

The flower I am especially fond of. It came from a cheapo flower arrangement that my MIL bought the kids for their bedroom when they were first born. Truthfully, I was never keen on them (there were three), but now they seem to have grown on me a little. Now that the kids (aka Addison) tore them all to  shreds (except for one). I kept some of the flowers from one of them, and plan to incorporate them into my layouts. Here, you can see one of them- I used a black rhinestone for the centre of the flower.

For the title work, I threw together some sticker letters (I don't know where they came from- my sister gave them to me!), but the green banner is MS. The phrase sticker in the top right corner is K&Co.

All this was done for sketch #153 over at Lets Capture These Sketches. If you get the chance, head over there, and see what the design team has come up with. If you choose to use the sketch, let me know- I'd love to see how it inspires you!

~a

Pumpkin Lanterns

Hi everyone!

As usual, life has been pretty busy around here. Last weekend was Thanksgiving, and I had the privilege of cooking my first ever Thanksgiving dinners (times two!!) It was a success! Kyle and I both tackled the turkey together; it was delicious! I also tried out a few new recipes- homemade dinner rolls (which will also be served at Christmas when the family-entire step family and my entire immediate family- comes out) and a yummy way to cook carrots. Both are new family favourites!

The carrots were so amazing, I just have to share the recipe:

Balsamic Glazed Carrots

10 carrots peeled, quartered lengthwise
1/4 cup Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing
3 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 Tbsp. butter (though I prefer margarine)
1 Tbsp. finely chopped fresh parsley

1) cook carrots in boiling water in large saucepan on medium heat 4 to 6 minutes or until crisp-tender. Meanwhile, cook dressing, sugar and butter in small saucepan on low heat 3 to 5 minutes or until thickened, stirring occasionally.
2) drain carrots; return to saucepan. Add sauce, stir. Cook 2 to 3 minutes or until carrots are heated through and evenly coated with sauce.
3) sprinkle with parsley

Thanks to Kraft Canada for that delicious recipe! When looking for delicious, simple, new recipes to try out, Kraft Canada is my go-to source. What's yours?

Anyways, it was Sooo (yes--with a capital S--it was that great!!) incredibly delicious!!

There are also a lot of pictures to share over the last little while- Thanksgiving, our first snowfall (and the kids excitement over it- Addison kept saying that the sky was dripping--how cute is that??!), pumpkins (and things affectionately known as pumpkin lanterns--LOL), northern lights and a few other highlights of our humble days. That'll be coming in another post!!

In the meantime, I have another layout to share with everyone. This one is another that I did on my own- without the help of sketches and DT assignments! Ahh I love that my brain is starting to clear up enough that I can churn out some of my own designs, rather than relying on someone else's ideas. Though, don't get me wrong, I LOVE using sketches, too! I love that they take the guesswork (or most of it) out of making up your design.

Way back in July, we spent one afternoon in the garage with Kyle, just hanging out and {kind of} helping him try and organize his 'man cave' a little better. That is, until the kids got distracted with the toys he played with during his childhood. I think he's pretty proud- his girls like trucks. I think they like anything that moves and looks interesting. One day they'll turn into girly girls; at least, one of them is bound to be- their mama is, so one of them has to be, too. I said so.

Speaking of I said you so's, the girls were pretty excited about going to play outside in the snow yesterday. They were even more excited about the hot chocolate I promised I'd make them once they came inside. All I heard the entire time I mixed it and heated it in the microwave was 'you're amazing, mommy!'

So...I have it on good authority that I'm pretty amazing!

That makes a mommy feel pretty good- even if it was over something as simple as a cup of hot chocolate!

~a

Re-Connect

I did some of my own scrapping last night! Woohoo! No sketches, dt assignments on this one, just my regular old brain power. And, I have to say I'm quite proud of the finished product!

I mentioned in my last post, that I had printed out a couple of pictures for my last dt assignment, but at the last minute, two others screamed at me to be used. This is one of the pictures that was originally going to be scrapped. The other isn't very clear, so I opted not to use it at all (at this time).

In the picture, Maren is playing in her tunnel- they love it when mommy and daddy drape a blanket between the couches in the living room, and they can crawl in and out of it at will. Up until everything was secured to the white card stock, that was the direction this layout was going to take. Then, I got to thinking about my relationship with Maren, and the recent re-'connection' we've made- and how relieved and incredibly happy I am that positive changes are occurring between us.

All the paper on this layout is scraps (none of which I remember where they came from- its been so long), though the little strawberry came off a barrette that the girls got as babies. One of them tore it apart, and I've been hanging on to it for quite some time- for the very purpose of being used on a layout, somewhere, some time.

My Spirit{ed} Child

These pictures just screamed at me to be used when I sat down to complete my layout for the LCTS latest sketch (#151). You can find the sketch here.

I originally had other pictures picked out, and after I got them printed, I looked through the rest of the album that they came from, and decided that these pictures of Addison playing in the living room curtains needed to be scrapped instead.

The chipboard 'spirit' piece defines Addison to a tee. She's head strong, and knows what she wants and doesn't want- and when she wants it (or not), and nothing else will persuade her to think or believe otherwise. Learning how to raise her and discipline her has me stumped, but thankfully I've come across some resources lately that will hopefully help out with that!

Having said that, she's also our fun-loving clown in the family. She sure knows how to make us laugh- and she sure knows how to have fun! She isn't shy- she's a bigger social butterfly than her daddy and I combined!

To sum up, I just wanted to capture the essence of Addison in this layout. I think this defines her perfectly!!