Pages

Shabby blogs background

Friday, May 27, 2011

5 on Friday - May 27th

Wow, typing that date really gave me a start! Are we really almost at the end on May already?! Sheesh! Where is 2011 going?

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!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Project 12 - April 2011

** This is my second post of the day. Scroll down to see the second half of my 5 on Friday list from last week.**

Ah, Project 12 ... I confess to forgetting about you a tiny bit!
Last year the deadline for entry submissions was the 20th of the month and this year it is the 28th. Somehow the later deadline translates in my brain to "you've got PILES of time to get it done, don't worry about doing it early?!" Then I find myself remembering - usually around the 20th - and I panic to get it organized, scrapped and submitted. Sigh.

So here we are. May 25th and I am finally getting around to submitting my layout for April. This is one of the ones I scrapped on Monday. Monday was a holiday here (Victoria Day - gotta love those long gone monarchs that allow us a day off work!) so I decided to pretty much ignore the family and get my scrap on!

This is the sketch we were given.


And this is my take on it.

I stuck pretty close to the sketch. I LOVED that it had so many pictures!! You know how hard I find it to narrow down which pictures I want to use!!
April around our house generally finds us in party mode for most of the month. Paige's birthday is right in the middle of April and depending on when it falls, her birthday is very closely after or very closely followed by Easter. This year Easter was a week after and we also managed to squeeze in her birthday party too so it was a busy second half of the month!
Anyway, here are close ups of each side of the layout.



And one of the butterfly detail. 
Supplies: kraft cardstock, Basic Grey (Olivia) patterned papers, MS punch around the page butterfly punch, butterflies are made of some Bella Blvd paper (the striped one), some Piggy Tales paper and some teal cardstock - all from my scraps drawer, the ribbon is from my stash, EKSuccess border punch, I can't remember who the bling is by but I found it at Micheal's and the alpha's are Making Memories Shimmer alpha's in black.

Thanks for tuning in. I've got some LOAD layouts to share with you on Friday. Right now I've got more pages to scrap and a very special project to start that I can't tell you about just yet. It's top secret!

Finishing my 5 on Friday!

Due to Blogger issues (and the fact that we were packing up to leave for a few days) I only got 2 of my 5 random things posted on Friday. Please indulge me in completing this list today.  (It's now Wednesday and I started this "completion" post on Sunday night!! Yikes!! Let's get it on!!)

I did add a supply list and a tiny comment to the Year of Days project I posted on Friday (check out that post here.)

3. Ballet Recital Sneaks

This all happened while Greg and I were away and I owe a HUGE thank you to my friend Trish for helping my girls get ready for their ballet photos. Of course picture day was the day we left for San Fran! The girls needed to be in their costumes with performance hair done for these pictures. It was a bit much to expect Grandma and Grandpa to do all this so Trish offered to take the girls in the morning and get them ready along with her girls. Here they are ...

Marley (on left) and Amanda are going to be Lilac Fairies in the upcoming production of Sleeping Beauty.

And Sarah and Paige (on right) are Little Beauties. They also have a white layered tulle skirt that goes under the pink skirt of the bodysuit.

We have been growing out Paige's hair all year but it's a painfully slow process. Poor kid has baby hair still! While Marley's has grown about 8 inches, her's has only grown about 2. Still, Trish managed to get it into a bun as required. They called it the TimBit! (If you're not Canadian there's a good chance you won't get that!! LOL)

4. LOAD Day 15

I am seriously behind in my LOAD challenge! I knew I'd get behind while we were away but thought I'd be able to get right back at it once we got back. Somehow that didn't happen ... hmmm
But I did do the following layout for Day 15's prompt.
We were to scraplift one of Stephanie Howell's layouts. I chose this one ... "Every Single Moment".


Here's my take on it.
I had a lot of fun with this. I think I am discovering that my style may lean towards having larger amounts of white space than I thought. I admit to poo-pooing those scrappers who "wasted" an entire 12x12 sheet of cardstock just to surround one 4x6 (or gasp! a 2x3) picture with tons of flowers and die cuts and other emphemera. My most humble apologies!!
I am still learning how to curb my enthusiasm for covering the paper with photos and, for the near future while I'm still trying to play catch up with the girls baby albums, I will likely lean towards multi photo layouts over large expanses of white space but ... time will tell.

But back to the layout ... I stuck to the original quite closely at first. I liked the line up of 3 pictures with the embellishments tucked in on either side. Stephanie also placed her title words among the pictures and that was where I departed the sketch so to speak. Once I'd placed my title where I did I tried journalling in the same spot that she had but it didn't seem to work so I moved it to the right hand side.
But then the left hand side looked too plain (still a novice at this embracing the white space stuff!) I had some extra punched out butterflies so I thought I'd see how they look if I misted over them. I LOVE it!!! And then I added a couple smaller butterflies and traced around a couple and then added some bling.

Supplies: Cardstock (Bazzil I think), striped paper - American Crafts, doiles - Martha Stewart, butterfly punch - MS Punch All Over the Page, border punch - EKSuccess Open Scallop, alphas - AC Thickers, mist - Walnut Ink in Java.

5 ... I think it's a little late in the week to be thinking of a 5! Sorry.

Okay Blogland. That's all for now. I have been scrapping up a storm trying to get caught up on my LOAD challenges and Project 12 and OLW and .... Oh, I also signed up for 28 Days of Sketches through Big Picture Classes which I have yet to do even a single layout for so .... I think I may have bitten off more that I could chew in 3 months let alone one!! Today the girls have their first rehearsal for their upcoming ballet recital and I have someone coming to the preschool to check out some of our items for sale. Thankfully it's a short day for Marley so we have some time this afternoon to prep.

Speaking of Marley, I'd better go get her from school.
See you soon!

Friday, May 20, 2011

5 on Friday - May 20th

I can't believe it's Friday again already. Greg and I have been back for a week, yet it feels like longer! The time away from the kids was wonderful. I missed them like crazy, and it was very strange to be apart from them on Mother's Day, but the feeling of renewed parenting energy I had when I first got back (which is all too quickly being replaced by parenting fatigue ... sigh) was worth every moment away.

1. To finish up our trip journal here are a couple pictures of our last night and our arrival into Vancouver.

We arranged to have dinner with my friend Bonnie and her husband Darryl. It was a fun way to spend our last evening on board!
Here are Greg and I. 

The next morning I got up before 6:00AM so I could take picures of our arrival. Here are some of the best (IMHO!!)

This is us entering Burrard Inlet. How gorgeous is that view?!
We truly live in the most beautiful city in the whole world! 
Approaching the Lions Gate Bridge. On the right is Stanley Park. On the left, North Vancouver.

Going under the bridge.

Downtown Vancouver. After leaving the industrial wastelands of Long Beach in LA - coming into Vancouver's cruise ship terminal I was full of pride for how beautiful it is.

Oh, and here are 2 of the 3 other cruise ships docking that morning. It was a WEE bit busy in the terminal!

Only Marley and LC would put on and pose in the outfits I bought for them in Chinatown in San Francisco. Paige was being ... well ... Paige!

2. True Scrap

 In April I took part in an online Scrapbook Retreat called True Scrap put on by Lain Ehman of Layout a Day fame. One of the virtual make and takes was a mini album using mini calendar cards. I didn't have the exact cards but decided to have a go at making my own. It worked and here is what I made - I decided to make it for my Mother-in-Law as a birthday/Mother's Day present.














Supplies used: cardstock from my stash (sorry can't remember the manufacturer now), Sassafrass Lass patterned papers from their Nerdy Bird and Cherry Delicious 8x8 paper pads, Sassafrass Lass layered blossoms, buttons from my stash, tags cut out on my Cricut, various border bunches and shape punches, ribbons and inks.

Okay, sorry to do this to you but we have to hit the road. We are heading to Vernon for a wedding and I will have to finish the commentary on this post when we come back. Have a great weekend everyone!

We are back from Vernon and I decided that the pictures didn't really need to have commentary added but I did add a supply list (such as it is). Oh, and the hand prints on the back are my girls'. The red one is Marley's, the purple one is Paige's and the yellow one is LC's. Thanks!