Well, onwards ...
1. Kelowna/Vernon weekend trip
Last weekend we headed into the interior for a wedding celebration in Vernon. It was for Josh - my sister-in-law's brother. He got married in England at the end of April (right about the time of another big-ish wedding you may have heard about, LOL) but we couldn't swing that. Andrew (my brother in case you didn't know) took his family and I was looking at some pictures from the trip today on Facebook. Made me really miss my family overseas!
But I digress ... here are some pictures from the weekend.
We were a bit early for the party so we let the girls play on the playground nearby - under strict instructions NOT to get dirty!! Of course, the swings were the first thing to attract their attention.
That's Lake Okanagan in the backgound.
And just to prove there really was a party going on ... here they are tucking into the yummy food!
Next day we went to a parade! Waiting for it to start was fairly excrutiating!
And nerve wrecking as we kept seeing these ominous black clouds gathering.
His shirt wasn't chosen with the weather in mind but it worked!
Marley got to give the YMCA mascot a high five.
Then Ogopogo made an appearance. LC loved saying Ogopogo!!
The parade ended with a couple of wrecked race cars (Hit to Pass type cars) revving their engines to the point of making clouds of smoke and sending bits of rubber flying. Paige was totally freaked out by them and had one of her fits. Poor kid is super sensitive to sight and sound. I'm starting to think we may need to see someone about it.
2. Scrapping on the road
My friend Roxy talked about how she'd put together kits to take with her so she'd still be able to keep up with her scrapping responsibilities during her recent move. I thought this was a great idea and since I forgot to make a card for the wedding before we left, I decided to take the supplies I'd need and do one once we got to Kelowna.
Here's my kit.
I forgot to take a picture of the finished card (doh!) but I will definitely do this sort of thing again. Thanks Roxy!!
3. LOAD Catch up
I've been trying to get caught up on my LOAD challenges but it is slow going! On Monday I got several layouts finished (it was a stat holiday so Greg was around and willing to let me ignore him and the girls for much of the day!) Here they are - as you can see, I'm all over the place as far as the daily challenges!
Day 6 - Alignment
We were learning about how a page will look more professional, more "pulled together" if you make sure all your margins are equal. To demonstrate we were to take before and after pictures showing how common margins helped bring the page together.
This is my original "before' picture.
But as I was getting ready to adhere stuff I decided to play around with it some more and see if I could make it any better. Here is my second "before" picture.
I liked this arrangement way better so got busy.
First I misted all the letters with Glimmer Mist in Pearl (not that you can see it in this picture!) and then put Martha Stewart glitter in Onyx on the flowers. Since I had to wait for all that to dry I decided to have some fun with my guache and added some paint drops onto the burgandy cardstock.
Once everything was dry I started sticking it all down and then added my journalling on little strips of white cardstock.
Supplies: Burgandy cardstock is probably Bazzil, the black, white and pink are just scraps; patterned paper is Heidi Grace - A Little Birds Table; I cut out the title and the flowers on my Cricut using the George Basics cartridge; bling is from Me & My Big Ideas.
Day 7 - Scraplifting
We were to pick a layout that we liked and scraplift it being sure to give the original creator the credit. Well, here is my inspiration - the May layout on my PageMaps calendar. It was done by Kimber McGray.
And this is my version.
Supplies: patterned paper - DCWV paper pack Nana's Nursery Baby Girl; cream cardstock - Bazzil basics; green carstock from stash; border punch - MS Bubble Bath Punch around the page set; red tape from De Serres; word stickers - K&Co Small Wonders Girl words; alphas - Basic Grey.
Day 23 - Journalling. Scrap a story that is hard to tell.
I debated on whether or not to post this one as it is very personal but ... in the vein of full disclosure, here it is.
Journalling reads: I initially deleted this picture as soon as I downloaded it from my camera. Could a more unflattering picture of me exist?! But then I recovered it and now I want to remember this moment always. This is the last time I will look like this! This is the last time I will be ashamed of a picture of me! From now on I will honour myself!
'Nuff said!
Supplies: 81/2" x 11" cardstock from Michaels; Bella Blvd patterned papers (stripes and clouds); AC patterned paper (pink wood grain); blue wave (cut out on my cricut ages ago) and the scrap of blue carsdtock with the border punch were both found in my scraps drawer; alphas are Basic Grey.
Day 8 - Colour. Ground a layout in time using colour.
For me, what says 2011 is kraft cardstock. And the colour combo of brown and pink is very current too.
I placed these little jewels there to disguise the adhesive I used on the vellum. I love these little vellum quotes but figuring out the best way to attach them causes me grief!
Supplies: Kraft cardstock is just Michael's basics; pink cardstock is from my stash - I think it's Bazzils Tropicals; die cut (cut in half) is Best Creation Inc die cut paper in Bunny Love; candle border strip (which I fussy cut), cupcake, vellum word strip and title piece are from the Celebrate bundle by American Traditional Designs (found at Homesense); butterfly was cut out using my MS punch all over the page butterfly punch; gems are from MAMBI; and the curly border strip is from Echo Park's Life is good.
I'm finding that this LOAD challenge is really great for pushing yourself to think in ways you normally wouldn't and also to scrap a ton of pictures. As you can tell, I've been making progress on Paige's baby albums with some of these layouts but I am also choosing to scrap more current pictures. I don't have an album yet for the more current layouts - they are all sitting in a storage container waiting ... for I'm not sure what. Me to be finished with the baby albums I guess. I'm way too much of a chronological scrapper!! Gotta relax and start creating albums for these.
4. Ballet, ballet and more ballet!
Marley and Paige's ballet recital is fast approaching. On Wednesday they had their "technical rehearsal" which as far as I could tell was just to give them all a chance to see the auditorium and figure out where they'd all be standing during their number. Tomorrow is their Dress Rehearsal which means full costume, performance hair and makeup. Yes, I said makeup. But don't worry, I am not turning this into an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras! They will get a little bit of lip gloss and that's about it. I plan to get away with as little makeup on them for as long as I can!!
5. Ladner May Days
Our annual Ladner May Days takes place this weekend. (Great, something else to fit into what is becoming an unbelievably packed weekend!) Tonight is Loony/Toony night at the fair. IF the weather holds up (a really big if these days!) we will take the girls for some cheap(er) rides tonight. Tomorrow, after the dance dress rehearsal, Paige has been invited to participate in the Grand Opening of the new Delta Gymnastics facility (along with her gymnastics class) and then on Sunday (after swimming and before a birthday party) we are planning to take in the parade. The preschool opted to not be in the parade this year. As we are shutting down we just didn't have the heart to do it. It's so sad. But, on the upside, I actually get to watch the parade for the first time in about 5 years! Assuming it's not pouring rain!!
Okay, this has taken me far longer than I'd planned and I've got many, many loads of laundry calling my name. Thanks for stopping by again!
