Special

Happy Fathers' Day to all the daddies out there! Hope you enjoy your holiday weekend!

In the spirit of Fathers' Day, I just wanted to leave you with a card to celebrate the occasion, and a couple layouts that I made:

The card

the locket

the play set

Each of these items are for or from someone special.

Who (or what) is special to you?

A New Day

Lately, somehow, I've gotten a bit behind uploading my projects to the blogger world and to my online galleries, so I thought I'd take the chance to do a bit of catching up!

(ahem...there was going to be another layout posted, but when I got it uploaded to my photo gallery, I noticed that some parts were incredibly hard to see, so a little more 'embellishing' will need to take place before I can share it!! Eek!!)


A layout to pay tribute to our sweet, dearly missed Sarah. When we moved back to Alberta, we knew that the best place for her to be would be at Kyle's mom and step-dads; she was old and didn't have the patience for two little ones crawling around and getting in her way. We figured she'd enjoy spending her 'retirement' with grandma and grandpa. And, we were right! She'd spend all her free time hanging out with grandpa, going wherever he went.

It wasn't long before her health started slowing her down. Walking around, running and just generally getting up from lying down was a chore, and it wasn't long before the vet suspected that cysts that she had growing over parts of her body were actually cancerous.  The decision was made to put her down, and put her out of her misery.

Kyle got the phone call that his loyal sidekick had died a week or so before Christmas.

We miss her but we're happy she's healthy again and in a better place!

This would be sketch #19 that Heather posted over at Miracle's Momma's Designs. This design was a lot of fun to play with and re-create. And, I just happened to have the most perfect pictures to use with this sketch!

Ta-da!! Maren (aka both girls) got into the peanut butter jar and had an absolute riot with it while I was out of the kitchen for a few minutes. Ohhhhh....there was peanut butter in her hair, all over her body, on the table, obviously on the floor...on the cupboards--everywhere imaginable!! What an awful mess to clean up! My word--if they were to get into anything, why couldn't it be something that could be vacuumed up??!

Ah, I'm not too terribly upset by it- in fact, I think its pretty funny now. They are darn quick though!!

Here's a couple close ups:

I thought the sentiment sticker (K& Co) worked perfectly here- when we talk about this a few years down the road, I can very easily imagine us saying, 'remember when...'

For a little bling, I thought using some tulle would be a nice touch- I tied it into a bow, though I've heard from some people that it looks like a flower, too. So, here is my pretty, tulle-y flower/bow!!

The patterned papers I used here were a lot of fun. I was trying to aim for a peanut butter/chocolate (though thankfully there was no chocolate involved- this time at least...I can think of one other time dear Maren got into chocolate when she shouldn't have!!) kind of theme. All the brown patterned papers here are from a K&Co designer pack, which I bought from Walmart. The green pieces of patterned paper are scraps and come from the my favourite things paper pack by Recollections (Michaels'). And, in case you're wondering, the brads are actually Stampin' Up.

Feel free to drop by Heather's blog and check out what the other girls on the design team came up with! And, you can save your copy of this sketch there too, if you'd like (both digi and traditional).

271* company this weekend
272* celebrating dads and the other special men in our lives
273* that my girls have a daddy
274* free dinner! (thanks mom)
275* blenders
276* breakfast smoothies
277* that the kids were all over it like mud on pigs
278* Sarah
279* that she's no longer in pain or sick
280* a new day

Change...

After some contemplating and deep thinking, the name for this humble little blog is going to change. Possibly even the blogger address. I've just been thinking of changing it to better suit the content of it, which is a little of everything, but mostly centres around (these days) scrapbooking.

So, when you see the changes, or notice that something is different, don't lose track of me! I'm still here--just using a new alias!

Back at the beginning of May was National Scrapbook Day. Did you know there is such a thing- and if you did, did you participate in the many events that were going on?

I played along at scrapbook.com- there were challenges right through the month, and except for the first one, I entered the other four challenges. My sweet friend Rebecca also had a challenge of her own: to create your project using your favourite colour combo. (You can find my entry for her challenge here).

I won!! And, it took some time to receive the prize package in the mail, but good things come to those that wait, right?? Here it is:

What a great looking prize package, right? The beautiful tag that you see was made by Rebecca, too. Its gorgeous! The misting and spraying, combined with the material is just beautiful. I've wanted to invest in sprays and mists for a while, and that just deepens that desire ten-fold! One day...one day...

I had to share this- or at least thought I should before I share the next project that I completed, because some of the beautiful Prima flowers that were included in the prize pack have now found a home on this layout! This is for the monthly sketch challenge that I am a part of over at scrapbook.com. This entry will be for week 2.

Change is good! Inevitable, as in the case of this at-one-time flower bed in my backyard. It was so overgrown with grass and weeds, and was such an eye sore (in my eyes), that pulling it out was the only option. There were enough rocks lining it, that one entire side of the house is now lined with them (from the foot of the deck to the edge of the house). I wanted the flowerbed that was located where the rocks are now, to be pulled out, too. There was nothing growing in it, other than weeds. I think there were a couple rose bushes at one time there, because I dug a few up, but they were beyond help. We have plans to make more changes, one day in the future, so this will suffice for now!

And, on a happy note, the 'pit' as I lovingly dubbed it, now has grass growing in! I'm pretty excited about it- the 'pit' soon will no longer be a 'pit'!!!

265* new grass
266* a generous gift from mom
267* changed passwords
268* the credit card company reversing the fraudulent charges to my account
269* that the rivers haven't overflowed yet
270* winning fabulous prizes!

Go Get 'Em!

Interested in another chance to win some fabulous goodies?!

I thought so!!

(Who isn't, right?!)

Just head on over to Erin's blog, my scrap cabin, leave a comment for her, become a new follower (if you're not already), and for more chances to win, check her out on Facebook and twitter and give her an honourable mention on your own blog! Easy peasy, and the more ways to give her props, the better your chances are of winning!

Good luck!

Something Smells Fishy

I posted this little guy late last night, as a teaser for what this post is going to be all about. I have a picture of Addison (that you can find here) that I  wanted  had to scrap. When I began planning this page out, it was just natural to begin with a fish. The entire layout I will eventually share with you is based around this little fishy!

I googled images of fish, and I came across children's site.net. (Its actually a really neat site with a ton of things all geared towards children. I found the image of this fish under the tab, 'Coloring Animals'. Really neat site. You should check it out! I then used the fish as a template to create my own (after briefly contemplating whether I should just colour him in). The printed side of this little guy is on the under side of the one that's in this picture. He was facing the wrong way (for the way I wanted to use him, so it naturally made sense to just flip him over!) I printed the fish at 80% resolution to get him to the size I wanted him. 

The next step was to create an environment that a fish would normally be found in. That would incorporate water. But, how was I going to create it? I don't have a wave border punch, so I had to get creative. This is what I did:

I made my own waves! The inspiration behind this can be found on this layout

Thank goodness for google!

After I got my entire lo put together, I began thinking that the waves looked kind of funny starting in the middle of the page with nothing to anchor it. So, as I was lying in bed mulling it over, I asked myself what else would be found in an aquatic environment.

Seaweed. Naturally!!

I found some seaweed clip art, that I blew up to 150% resolution, fussy cut it, and adhered it to the lo. So, now it looks like this:

Are you ready to see the whole project now???

This layout I am so proud of!!

To create the bubbles, I used my 0.5" creative memories circle punch, then took clear rhinestones and arranged them in an irregular pattern around and in-between the punched circles.

Fabulous Giveaway-Whoo!

I will  be back later on with a post that has more substance, but I just wanted to share quickly about a super great giveaway that's happening at this blog! (Just my Scrapping World).

There are five...F.I.V.E. boxes full of goodies- from alphas, to paper to embellishments! Definitely go check it out!

And, if you want to win (or improve your chances of winning), become a follower, if you're not already (I did!!), then add a link to your blog post (you must first post the great news in your blog).

Simple!

Good luck!! You won't be disappointed!!

Teaser

Its late, and the page that I want to link to this post isn't cooperating, so I'm going to tease you instead (bwahahaha).

How cute is this little guy?!

More information on him later.

I can hardly wait to show you what I did with him!!