Experimenting, challenging myself and having fun!

After Friday's depressing post about my lack of mojo-ness, I decided to do something about it. I went crafty blog surfing and came across one of my favourites - Apron Strings. They are a Kit Club and are having a Birthday Party to celebrate 6 years in the biz. Way to go Apron Strings!! I don't go in for the kit thing. I have WAY too much "stash" to justify adding a new kit-load every month. Maybe one day but not until I seriously whittle down!! But if you're looking for a great monthly kit club you should definitely check them out.

Anyway, the Birthday Party is going to last all March long and be full of challenges and goodies. So I decided to play along. I've tried to play along several times since I found the Apron Strings blog but one thing or another has held me back. Not last night! There was nothing good on TV and the movie Greg had taped was not up my alley so I got creative!

The first post I came across was for Birthday Party Day #4 but as soon as I saw it was the second half of a challenge handed out the day before I quickly scrolled down so as not to ruin the surprise. In their Prep post you got to pick your cake ingredients and then bake with them once you knew what they were. I picked vanilla cake (white or kraft cardstock), strawberry filling (patterned paper with dots or circles), buttercream icing (buttons) with fresh fruit topping (paint). The paint really threw me! I've been wanting to get messy for awhile but ... well, I guess I was a little afraid of it, to be honest. But I dragged out my old guache from Interior Design school days and got messy.

Want to see it?

And here are some close ups.

I had so much fun with the paint and the colour scheme that I decided to use it again to tackle another of the Birthday Party challenges. This one was from Day #3 and the challenge was to make our journalling more than an afterthought. I painted a giant number 7 on my kraft cardstock and used that as my journalling block to write some thoughts down about Marley. See for yourself.

I splattered some paint around the 7 and the edges and then made the butterflies for a simple embellishment.

I tell you, I think I have found a new love! Look for more painting on my layouts in the future!!



It's Finished!!!

Just a quick post to say Yip, Yip, Yippeee!!! I finally finished Marley's baby album (actually there were so many pictures/layouts that I had to split it into 2 albums)! I will try and figure out how to make some sort of slideshow thingy and post that so you can see the completed albums.
Thanks for sharing in this process with me!!


Aug 27th - UPDATE: I did up a little video in Picasa for you to see Marley's albums. This has taken me all day today - in between other Mommy tasks, that is! I had to take some pictures of layouts I'd forgotten to photograph or wanted to rephotograph because of flash glare etc, and of the album covers. Then getting all the pictures into the correct order was a little time consuming. Phew! I'm very happy to be finished and free to move on to other projects. Paige is already pestering me to start HER album .... soon, honey ... soon! I'd like to tackle our trip to Hawaii first though. Stay tuned, as they say!! And enjoy the movie!

Sketchy Thursday - Bathing Beauty

Time for another Sketchy Thursday submission. I think I can just barely squeak this one in on time!!

Here is the sketch:

And here is my layout:

I'm not feeling too good right now so won't blab on and on about it. All I will say is that I am just a few layouts away from finishing Marley's Baby Scrapbook and am SO HAPPY about it! I've done a bunch of layouts since I last posted but decided not to post them because ... well, who cares about them besides me, really? I will put together a slideshow of the completed album and put that on my blog - assuming I can figure out how!!

Off to make dinner for the family and then go and lie down. Ugh!

Talk to you later!!

Sketchy Thursday - Parks and Bunnies

Sketchy Thursday challenged everyone to a double page layout (my personal favourite kind of layout!) and since I'm all PDS (Post Directed Studies) and stress free (sort of) I took on the challenge. Here is my two-page layout :

Yes, I'm still working on Marley's baby album ...

These pics were taken in Victoria when we took Marley there for a long weekend in November 2004. Greg's parents live near the University of Victoria which is completely over run by bunnies - the bane of most residents and the delight of my daughters!! Here Marley got her first taste of chasing the bunnies! There are also pictures of her at the play area at Beacon Hill Park. The ones of her in the train are just too cute!!

The sketch shows circles in the lower left and upper right which I didn't notice until I'd started putting everything together. So I decided to draw them in. I quite like the effect. I kept the embellishments simple this time and in fact used fewer than is shown in the sketch. But I felt the paper was so busy that I wanted to keep the rest of the layout pretty simple.

Well that's all for now. We are off to Point Roberts to watch a 4th of July Parade! Happy Birthday USA!

Supplies: cardstock from DCWV Neutrals stack; all patterned paper from MME glittered paper stack; white photo matte is from BG basics white; journalling lines is a Studio Calico stamp and I used chocolate brown ink from Craft Smart; ribbon is Celebrate It from Michael's and the alphas are Recollections in bittersweet.

Got MY Groove On!

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!

Okay, now that's out of the way I can show you my latest completed pages. It's amazing what you can accomplish when the whole country's on holiday, the weather outside is frightful (read; early spring-like cold and rain. where, oh where is SUMMER?!?!), and you don't have any stressful classes keeping you from your scrap table. So far in my PDS (Post Directed Studies) state I have completed 3 layouts! Wowee!

This first one is for the latest Design Dollies Colour Challenge - dark green, light green, kraft and pink. Such a cute combo, how could I refuse?! I've been itching to try another Dollies challenge again so I'm really glad I was able to.

I am still completing pages for Marley's baby album (she's now "graduated" from Kindergarten ... do you think I'll mange to finish her album before she graduates Elementary School?!) All my kids were born with a full head of dark, dark hair so first haircuts came pretty early in their lives. Marley was a trooper and even let me cut her bangs somewhat straight!!

Materials used: kraft paper - Jiilibean Soup - Split Pea; dark green paper - Jillibean Soup Liced Bacon; light green paper - from my stash; pink butterfly paper - SEI - Chocolate Cherie; flower and button embellishment - from my stash; green metallic alphas - Thickers by American Crafts in Tinsel.

This next page was started before I started my Directed Studies and was for a challenge but since I had to set it aside before I totally finished it, I now can't remember which challenge it was for or what products I used. Sorry. You'll just have to enjoy it for what it is!! I DO love this colour combination though, don't you?

Marley started walking at about 11.5 months but before that she was ALWAYS moving. Once she started to crawl I couldn't get her to stay in one place! Here she is at about 8 months old cruising on the furniture.

Well, thanks again for stopping by to check out my humble blog. We are off to a Canada Day BBQ - let's hope the rain stays away! Happy Long Weekend Everyone!

Too Sweet For Treats

Just a quick post to get my latest scrapping creation submitted before the deadline. I'll come back after dinner and add details. It's for Sketchy Thursday's latest sketch which I instantly fell in love with and can see myself using over and over! This was Marley's first Hallowe'en party with her baby group. It was quite the experience!! Enjoy!

I'm back - Happy Canada Day!! I don't normally add which materials I used but I think it's something I'm going to start doing so ....

Paper: yellow & green - Jillibean Soup chicken broth & sliced bacon; black - from Recollections Hallow'en pad

Pumkin candy bowl sticker - Jolee's by You dimensional stickers.

Cordouroy flowers - MyHouse Corduroy Craft Fair by American Crafts

White Alphas - Recollections (they weren't really showing up too well so I added the black marker with my Copic marker.)

Journalling sticker - Remarks journalling stickers book by American Crafts (Journalling Veggies in Chestnut & Leaf)

Happy National Scrapbook Day!

First off ... I've been featured on Ideas for Scrapbookers!!! Check it out! Mine is the 3rd layout down.


http://ideasforscrapbookers.blogspot.com/2010/04/happy-national-scrapbook-day.html

Pam had sent out a call for submissions so I thought "what the heck! Could be fun!" She responded immediately to say she'd use it and wanted more info. If I'd known she was going to put everything I'd said about the layout on her sight, I probably would have kept it a bit shorter! LOL! You've probably figured out by now that I have a problem keeping things short and sweet. :)
Anyway, I'm pretty pleased. Yay me!

I also have a new layout to show you. Here is Turkey Day - another page for Marley's baby album. I've only got 4 more months to scrap and then I'm done her 1st year. Only 5 more to go after that, right? LOL! Oh yeah, and then there are two other kids to focus on!! Gak!

The sketch I used is Sketchy Thursday's sketch from last week. I wanted to have this finished in time to submit it but ... ah, life with 3 kids! The sketch shows some paint splatter work in the upper right corner and I have not ventured into the misting/splattering world yet so I figured a little paper ripping could work instead. I think it DOES work, don't you? Also, the addition of the banner adds more fun interest to that corner.

I've been seeing a lot of banners on layouts all over the blogosphere and decided to try one out myself. When picking the paper for this layout I knew I wanted to use a blue and yellow theme (Marley's travel high chair stands out so much in the pictures I thought I'd just use it as my colour inspiration.) When I went digging through my stash I found the Studio Calico Homefront line that I'd won AGES ago but not found an appropriate use for yet and the scalloppy (is that a word?) paper worked perfectly to create a banner. I also love how the wood grain alphas really pop against the yellow striped paper.

Well, there you are. Hoped you like it.
I'd better head into the shower now and try and recover my "it's going to be a fun day" vibes. Between waking up to a dirty kitchen, baby's that show EVERY sign of being tired but refuse to nap, and 6 year olds who are clearing suffering from PMS, my good mood went racing out the window pretty darn early this morning. That's quite an accomplishment seeing as I'm not a morning person to begin with!!! I hope to get some scrapping in today but as Greg is at a golf tourney for most of the day, it will depend on how much I can distract the other three!! Wish me luck.

Hope you all manage to get your scrap on today!

Helping My Mojo!

** April 30th: I finally have edited this post. All added text is in blue. Sorry for the delay!**

I've been working on 3 layouts (for Marley's baby album) of our trip to the UK in September of 2004. It's been a slow process! I used a PageMaps sketch for the first page and then just adapted it (kind of) and used the same papers for the next two pages. The last layout has been sitting unfinished on the dining room table for about a week or so (just got it done a little bit ago) so Paige decided to help me out. I'd been playing with adding button embellishments to it so she took it to the next level!!

Picking JUST the right button ...

... and thinking about where to place it!

Pretty pleased with her composition!

She was so proud of herself that I hated to wreck her hard work! Then again, having buttons all over my journalling wasn't the best idea. LOL!

SO without further ado, my 3 layouts:

As mentioned above, I followed a sketch for the first layout (from the January 2009 PageMaps collection) but not for the other two. I made the decision to keep them looking cohesive with the same Basic Grey papers, simple blue cardstock and similar floral embellishments. Here are the closeup/detail shots.

Our fist stop was to visit my guardians (my dear Aunt May and Uncle Alasdair) in Southampton. We managed to fit in a lot in just a few days!! Oh, and even though wee cousin Lucy was kept away from Marley, she ended up catching her Chicken Pox anyway!! Kids!

On a personal note (and totally NOT scrapbook related), Aunt May has been battling hard lately and I am very worried about her. Staring at her picture as I was creating this layout made me feel closer to her. I wish I WAS closer to her! The miles are many but my heart doesn't know them!! Be well, Aunt May.

From Southampton we went to visit another Aunt and Uncle (I have LOTS in Britain!!) who lived at the time in a little village called St. Neots. The added bonus (besides getting to visit Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Arthur) was the fact that St. Neots was really close to the village where I grew up - Bar Hill. So we popped in to show Greg and Marley my old house (looking SO small!) and then went to explore nearby Cambridge.

 

From St. Neot's we went to London to stay with cousins. Marley got her first taste of jealousy when my cousin's little girl kept going to Greg! LOL!

And our last stop was in Glasgow - where all my family originally hails from! This was mostly a time to see family but we did sneak in a day in the city. We tried to go through to Edinburgh one day (I lived there for a couple years after univeristy) but that was right about the time Marley started to feel the effects of the on coming Chicken Pox and voiced her dissatisfaction quite loudly! So the trip was abandoned!

 

I will try and come back to add commentary about the pics but right now I have a raving lunatic in my lap (i.e an extremely unhappy 13 month old!) Thanks for checking out my pages. Hope to get back to this soon!!

Well, thanks again for checking back. Oh, and the "raving lunatic" is also on the mend. She been teething or something this past week and has had the worst poops and diaper rash imaginable. Plus she'd taken to only sleeping with Mommy and Daddy! NEVER a good arrangement for the Mommy and Daddy!! But (fingers crossed) I think we turned a corner last night and are on the mend. No sign of more teeth though so I'm sure a repeat or two are in our future! Great!!

Catching up - Easter, Hailstorms and another Layout

Easter was a week ago but I've been negligent getting new pictures posted. Oops! We had a fairly quiet LONG weekend - Marley and Greg both had the Friday and the Monday off school/work. Greg and I tried to have one of those long weekends of our youth I think. You remember the ones? Where you sleep in, then you laze around in your pyjamas til noon? Doesn't have quite the same effect when your kids STILL get up at 7:00 and "lazing around" involves getting up from the couch every 5 minutes to stop the baby from putting yet another sticker into her mouth or getting the 10 billionth "snack" for the bottomless pits (mostly Paige right now - I think she's going through a growth spurt)!! Ah well, we parents take what we can get, right?!

Anyway, back to Easter events ... Greg's sister Christine and family came over for dinner on the Saturday.  The "Easter Bunny" made a surprise early visit and hid some eggs in the family room while the cousins were playing upstairs.

On the hunt ...

... "hey guys, there's some behind the curtains too!"

Showing off the haul.

LC "helped" the Easter Bunny hide the eggs so of course she "found" some eggs too. She also tried to stuff the entire contents of one egg into her mouth! Where COULD she have picked up that trait? Greg? Anyone? Here she is with 4 Cadbury Mini Eggs plus a couple Skittles in her mouth. Looks pretty pleased with herself, doesn't she?

While I was happily snapping away 'cus she looked so darn cute (the rascal!) Greg was saying how unsafe it was. Party pooper! Finally I listened, stopped taking pictures and made her spit everything out. Somehow she was still in a good mood even though I confiscated the eggs! Oh, and about her t-shirt ... we saw these in Hawaii and knew it was perfect for our little "Trouble". (It says, Here Comes Trouble.)

Easter Sunday was another low key day. The girls found their chocolate bunnies on the breakfast table but were VERY disappointed to discover that he had not hidden a second bunch of eggs around the house. Hmm ... may have to rethink things for next year! But seriously, how many egg hunts am I ...er, the Easter Bunny ... supposed to do in one weekend?! Marley kept harping on about it and even went to the extremes of searching under the couches and cushions (found a lost chocolate egg and thought she'd struck gold too) but eventually Greg managed to convince them that the EB was a bit stupid and when he saw the eggs in their baskets already he figured he'd already been there so didn't hide any more eggs. Doh! When did Easter become about gimme, gimme, gimme?!?!?

But I digress. That is a whole other rant!

Monday afternoon we headed out to Abbotsford for lunch and play time with Ammee, Poppa, Uncle Paul, Aunt Joni and cousins. Of course, our bottomless pits sat at the counter. Easy access to the food!!

Greg and LC. (I think I need to trim her bangs again!)

Marley and Uncle Paul atop the climbing wall at the park.

All three girls on the swings. They live to swing!!! (Especially when Uncle Paul is handing out under-ducks.)

Paige and Miles on the teeter totter - I think Uncle Paul is doing most of the teetering and tottering!

That was our Easter. Pretty relaxing really. Good visits with family - that's what it's all about, right?

This post has the word "hailstorms" in the title - wonder why? Because this past Thursday the craziest weather system blew through here. It's been particularly stormy lately (April has definitely come "in like a Lion" this year!) so I wasn't totally surprised to be woken up by thundering rain on Thursday morning. My only thought was that my stroller workout class was probably going to be cancelled! But as I was listening to the rain it reach epic noise proportions and I realized it wasn't actually rain anymore. Hailstones ranging in size from baby peas to chickpeas were bouncing off the window. The girls would have slept through it but Greg woke them up to see it! Poor kids!! Here is a picture of our patio table after the first hailstorm (there were several over the course of the morning).

Showing the range in size and the thick blanket of hailstones that the girls briefly thought was snow.

A close up. Crazy, eh?

Last but not least, my latest layout for Marley's baby album. I realize this post is getting WAY too long so I'll be brief.

I based it on this PagesMaps sketch by Becky Fleck although I didn't get it off her site. Not that I can remember which site I DID find it on though. As you can tell I flipped it around a bit to suit my pictures.

That's it folks! You made it! Phew!!
Thanks for checking out my little blog. The sun is shining and the garden is calling us to de-winter it. My tulips and daffodils are well up but still protected by a blanket of leaves. Time to clean things up!
Happy weekend everyone!!