Be Fearless

I am in the midst of a craft room re-boot so really shouldn't be crafting ... right? Ha!

Yesterday I watched one of the new video classes from Two Peas (this one) and was so inspired that I added a row of brads to the layout that I was making using this Elle's Studio sketch. It all came together to look something like this.

The sketch is designed to be used by those doing Project Life but as you know, I don't do that. But I liked the segmented nature of this and knew that I could use one of the uglier pieces of card stock I have just finished counting and organizing! The only papers showing are a couple pieces from a new (purchased before January 1st, with a 40% coupon and with Christmas money!) 6x6 MME pad, and an Elle's Studio journaling tag from my stash.

I like the recap feel to this layout. A couple smaller shots of our decor and then the highlights from the day - new stuffies, all the Day/Nielsen cousins together and the adults Christmas Dinner table. The kids are getting old enough that things are starting to feel almost civilized!

Here's a close up of the row of brads I added to the title block (above) and then (below) I added brads to the centre of some of the garland images on the journaling tag. Only one of those brads was from a Christmas collection. Man  it feels good to use a pile of stash items on a layout!! I think I am really going to like the new Scrap Your Stash series at Two Peas! 

A couple more detail shots for you.

And then my other crafty endeavour today ... a page in my 365 to 40 SMASH book!

I started following Krystal Norton's blog at the end of last year and today she had a new post all about being fearless. It really spoke to me and I just pulled out my SMASH book and got busy. 

I started with a base layer of gesso, then green acrylic paint slapped on fairly messily on purpose. I also pressed some of this packaging material we got from Disneyland into the wet paint to add texture but I think I may have covered it up with the flowers. Oh well. I know it's there!! I wanted images of wings but couldn't find them. These pictures of peonies I found in old magazines worked (I think peonies are such gorgeous, showy flowers - it's as if they don't care that they are overshadowing all other flowers in the garden!) 

I grabbed some letter stickers from my stash and spelled out my title. I still have a few supplies from The Upstart Crow at home, one of which is this gorgeous wing stamp that I am totally in love with. I stamped it then added the SOAR tag on top, smudging the stamp in the process so I stamped it again! I scribbled a bit of gold Gelato around the edges of both pages then once things were mostly dry, I did a bit of journaling.

The peony image was bigger on this page so a couple of tags, some Gelato and a phrase finished it.

It's nothing super awesome but it makes me happy to look at it!

While we are on the subject of my 365 to 40 SMASH book, here are a couple pages I forgot to share with you last month. In the chaos of attempting to do a December Daily, work close to 30 hours some weeks, keep track of my kids and all their Holiday activities .... it got lost in the shuffle! Better late than never, right?

Purely playing and experimenting!

Thanks for popping in today. Have a great weekend!

Marley is 8!

In fact, Marley has been 8 for a week now so I'm a bit behind in celebrating her. I did write a heartfelt Facebook status update on the day. That counts, right? LOL!

I have created two layouts so far to remember this birthday. The first one I want to show you is for a PageMaps contest. We were given this sketch

And here is my take on it.

I had a lot of fun with this, used papers from several different companies and some new ribbon that I received last week in the mail. A total surprise package! But more about that later.

Every year we measure the girls first thing in the morning on their birthday. We have been using the door jamb of what is now Paige and Christine's bedroom. I'll show you a close up of the door jamb below - someone (hmmm ... wonder who?) has "decorated" it with permanent ink. ... sigh. Kids! 

But I digress. I went back today and measured exactly how high up the wall her M8 mark is and you can see it above. 51.5" or 131cm for us supposedly metric Canadians. So tall!! Greg's overjoyed. She'll be able to ride ALL the rides at Disneyland in May.

A couple more close ups of the details.

The other layout I did was for the last day of LOAD212. I completely disregarded the prompt as I really wanted to get a jump on scrapping her birthday. Here it is.

And close ups of each page.

Since last year we went a bit over the top with her party (see here) we'd been telling her all year that this birthday would have to be low key. And it was. We had 10 of her friends over (including 2 boys! yikes!) to have pizza and watch a movie - Dolphin Tale - and then eat cupcakes. I really didn't do too much prep. Goody bags were simple - just white paper bags with their names stamped on them - and only a few items in them. There was no craft to organize or games for that matter. The birthday banner made for Paige last year (see here) got a new number on it and was hung in a new place but other than that, decorations were minimal (pretty much non-existent really!) But at the same time, we celebrated Marley in a way that made her feel special and allowed her to spend time with her friends. 

The title for this layout is super simple - her initials and her age.

I also included a copy of her birthday invitation.

Now for those family members that have hung in, here are some pictures from the day.

She was very serious about having her height measured!!

Remember the "decorations" I talked about? Yup. Here they are!

After the measuring it was time for gifts. Here she is opening the card I made. Inside was a Groupon for a horse back riding lesson. As you can see by her reaction below, she was pretty excited!

Aunt Moira, this one's for you. Marley loves her new book! Thank you!! It is a teeny bit advanced for her but we'll take it slowly.

Birthday pancakes!

After all the soccer games were over for the day (it was Sunday after all!) we headed over to Andrew's to celebrate with the Campbell cousins as well as the Nielsen cousins. It was also Jonina's Mom's birthday the following day so we had a joint cake.

Last but not least, here is a picture of my surprise prize. I participated in a card exchange for Valentine's Day with my ScrapHappy group (see the cards here) and won the prize. I had completely forgotten there was a prize involved and so hadn't checked the boards for awhile. Gotta love the surprise mail!!

I used the green velvet ribbon and the dark pink crochet trim on the top layout. LOVE IT!!

That's it. Thanks for stopping by!

Been too busy to post!

Sorry everyone, I've been neglecting this blog and visiting other people's blogs in favour of crafting my little butt off! What have I been crafting? Well, I'm still working on my Twelve layouts, as well, I had two Stampin' Up! group meeting this week in which we swap cards so I had to come up with two different designs and then make a total of 25 cards over 2 days. ('Cus you know I tend to do these things last minute!) What else ... LOAD has started (see blinkie in my side bar to find out what that is) and I am actually caught up. In fact, I'm sort of ahead of the game ... keep reading to have that one explained!

Here are quick pictures about my most recent layouts. For more detailed info please visit my Flickr Gallery. Thanks. Oh and to those of you who don't give a you-know-what about my scrapping ... I will endeavour to do better about taking regular life pictures and posting them too. I was looking through my January pictures and  was appalled at how few I had taken of life last month! Pathetic!!!

But I'm digressing ... back to the layout pictures ...

This was done using a sketch from Studio Calico (see below).

In my "to be sorted/scrapped" basket are a stack of team photos of both Marley and Paige (although, mostly Marley!) so this is me trying to get them scrapped!

This was also inspired by the Studio Calico sketch below but since this one actually used some Studio Calico products, this was the one I submitted to their Sunday Sketch challenge. (By the way, I just have to add that I actually WON a Studio Calico Sunday Sketch challenge for this layout. Yay me!) 

Aren't the apples so cute?

Next we have this one.

This one was a bit of a slog for me. I spent about 3 days fiddling with it but now I am pretty happy with it. Please check out the details on my Flickr Gallery - there are some subtle ones that you can't see from this picture. 

In Twelve Stacey encourages us to celebrate the every day things and I decided it was time for a layout about LC's blanket - Dee-tee. It's been such a part of her and we are slowly asking her to give it up. I wanted to have something for her to look back on when she's older so she can remember the love she had for her blanket.

Journalling reads: 

"Ah, Christine and her “Dee-tee” …

It’s a gorgeous cream coloured (when it’s clean!), satin backed, furry blanket. My dear friend Shalan gave it to her at birth and for the first few months it just sort of hung out in her crib. We started to encourage her to cuddle it at nap times and bed time – especially when we realized that she wasn’t going to take a soother. She’s the only one of our kids to suck her thumb! And oh, how she loves that thumb!!

When she started talking we realized she called her little blanket, her “dee-tee” and ever since, the name has stuck. She had to take Dee-tee everywhere! It’s been to Maui (and thrown up on – but that’s another story), to the PNE, to visit Santa, to the Fire Hall and to Granny Camp. Now she only gets Dee-tee at nap time and bed time. All other times of the day it lives above the fridge in the kitchen so there is no “sneaking a thumb suck” in the middle of the day."

And now for my LOAD212 layouts.

Day One's prompt was "You've got good taste" with the suggestion of scrapping a favourite restaurant, recipe or other food related memory. While going through my pictures I came across the Guinness is Good For You postcard (picked up in Ireland back in the late 90's)  and remembered the St. Patrick's Day feast I made last year. So, my totally simple, totally fast layout was done before I knew it. So fast in fact that I had time to scrap another very important food memory ...

... my Mum's shortbread recipe. This one took a bit longer but not much.

All in all, Day One was a huge success!

Onto Day Two and the prompt of "Favourite Photo".

During my sort of the aforementioned basket, I'd come across this picture of me and Marley from 2004. It has always been one of my favourite pictures of myself so I knew it would be perfect for this prompt. The layout took awhile though and I've realized I've forgotten a title. But it's done for now ... a title can be added later, right?

Why do I love this picture? I'll be honest, it's because I love how young and thin and happy I look. 

Life with one kid was SO easy!!! (comparatively!)

 I was running, I had been playing Ultimate. I had a great haircut. 

Sigh.

Anyway, there you have it . I have to put the kids to bed and then I will try and get some pictures up on my other blog showing off my cards but no promises!

Talk to you later.

Layout for Get Picky

I'm determined to enter at least one (preferably more) scrapbook challenges each week. Today I have a layout to show you that I did using a sketch from Get Picky.
Here's the sketch and my take on it.

I'm still working my way through my basket o' memories (see this picture) and these pictures seemed perfect for this sketch. I replaced the 3rd photo in the sketch with a journaling block.

I don't normally embellish my journaling blocks but this one was crying out for a couple touches so ... voila! 

And finding a piece of ribbon with the words "ma ma" on it was serendipitous to say the  least!

Close up of the title. I added the subtitle because I really wanted to high light that milestone in Paige's history.

This was a fun embellishment to make. I'd punched out 3 circles from a piece of transparent paper I found in my scrap drawer intending to use them as the sketch showed but felt this corner of the layout needed something ... more ... if you know what I mean. So I took a Jillibean Soup journaling spot and added the circles to it. Then it needed something in the centre so I started playing with another piece of the same ribbon from the journaling block and made this little rose bud type thing. Then I knew I needed to add one of my Twelve embellishments for Family Stories and found this orange flower in my tin. It all started coming together! Once the rose bud was glued on it looked a little lonely so I cut out some leaves and added them. 

There you have it. Thanks for stopping by!

Latest Twelve works

I'm not going to bombard you with a ton of angles of these layouts or even my thought/design processes, if you want that please visit my Flickr gallery. Quickly, here are the last two layouts I've completed this month. If you're keeping track, I'm up to 8 so far. Woo hoo!! Only 4 more to go to reach my Twelve goal of ... wait for it ... 12!!

Okay, this one is of Paige's first taste of "solid" food.

Wasn't she just so cute! Sigh.

This is for my Family Stories category.

The second layout is this one from Thanksgiving of 2006.

I realize that the colours look more Hallowe'en than Thanksgiving but I admit to fighting with it a bit. Anyway, this is for my Holidays category.

And now for some shots of life lately ...

Greg. Poor Greg. 

This was taken on Wednesday after he came home from work because he realized he was NOT as better as he thought he was! He had come down with a flu bug the Friday before and missed most of the week because of it. I think he is finally feeling human again but it's been a long slow recovery. I thought I was coming down with it this past Friday too but for whatever reason (maybe it was the 4 hour nap I took in the afternoon) I woke up Saturday feeling fine. Go figure! 

It's really a good thing ... you all know that Mom's just don't GET sick days!! 

Thursday was Paige's skating lesson day. She complained before leaving, fought me as I put on her skates and then spent most of the lesson skating on her own while the teacher focused on skaters worse than her. Sigh!

Love the tongue though!

Oh yeah, she also spent a huge amount of time on her butt on the ice! I swear she was a better skater last year when it was completely new to her! At least she's smiling!!

Marley and LC were very vocal cheer (or is that jeer) leaders.

Last night we got to hang out with the old Ultimate crowd. It's so nice and familiar and easy to get together with these people. We've known them for (in my case) 10 - 12 years (okay, except my brother!), we've all gotten married relatively close together and had our kids at approximately the same time so even if we don't see each other for months, conversations seem to start up where they left off. 

Of course, even though I took my camera, it sat unused in the diaper bag while I visited. Sometimes you have to get busy MAKING the memories rather than RECORDING them! Right?

Here is a sneak peak of what is new on my Stampin' Up! blog - it's a card for my niece who turns 3 tomorrow! Click the link above to see it in more detail.

Okay, thanks for stopping by. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.