Family Friday Update

One of my goals for this year is not only to blog more in general, but to blog more regularly about what our family is up to. I know that not everyone who visits my blog is looking for scrappy inspiration. There are a few family members who like to check in now and then to see what we're up to and for whom my creative sharings (while stunning and gorgeous and awesome :)) are not what they are looking for. So for them I am starting a new series called Family Friday Updates.

Just as the name suggests I will post purely family driven content every Friday. I hope!! LOL!

So, what have we been up to? It's the 11th of January today which means the girls have been back at school for a week now. They all seem to have settled back into the regular, non-holiday, routine just fine. Soccer, basketball, dance and gymnastics have also all started back up this week so our calendar is back to its usual craziness! Paige has a new student in her class, Marley's class has started learning to play the recorder (heaven help us!) and Christine ... well, she's just trucking along with everyone else. Preschool is going well and the younger sister of one of the boys in her class (someone Christine knows from her little ballet class in the Fall) is now enrolled too so Christine has another friend to meet and greet on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Greg is trying to get back into soccer shape after the Christmas indulgencies and a ham string injury that limited him a bit at the end of December. In typical Greg fashion he is mostly bull dozing his way through the recovery process. No mamby-pamby coddling for him! It's pain=gain all the way!

Yes, that's a little tongue in cheek but you get the gist!

I have been home more in the past two weeks than most of December. That may be an exaggeration but it really felt like I barely saw my kids or Greg all December as both stores were requesting more hours from me. Thank goodness for Greg's flex days and vacation days! With the new year The Upstart Crow is solidifying their class schedule and I will hopefully have something to advertise soon! My Pier1 store has a new Assistant Manager and Sales Leader as well as a new look so I've been doing after hours shifts to help move the store around. I am hopeful that when another Sales Leader position becomes available I will be successful in getting it. I was a bit late on the uptake for this last one - took too long making my decision! Won't make that mistake again. For now I can continue to work both jobs but I'm sure there will come a time when I will have to make a very hard decision.

To wrap up this post I thought I'd give you some pictures from late December and early January. Enjoy and I'll be back next Friday!

On Dec 18 we had our first skiff of snow here in Ladner. Christine insisted on going out to play in it after we'd dropped the older two off at school.

Next day we awoke to a more significant snow fall.

Walking to school. It was REALLY wet snow! Christine's snow suit was completely soaked by the time we got home!

This could have had something to do with why it was soaked!

That day was her preschool holiday party - they put on a little show for us. So cute!!

The sugar high she got was brought on by things like this ...

... and this!

Paige came home from school sporting a red nose, wee antlers (see them under her bangs?) ...

... and a  tail!

Dec 20 - Marley's choir performed at the airport.

That's Marley, third from the right, bottom row.

They were singing in the International Wing and at the end sang over the balcony so those arriving could enjoy them too.

Dec 22 - Graham/Campbell/Day gathering. Everyone was there this year which is always fun. We got another group shot which I haven't seen yet. Here is the "kids table" - 11 squished around the table and one in the high chair.

Christmas morning - checking out what Santa left.

She's barely taken this off! It's well made but even so the gems have fallen off and the tulle is getting ripped. Oh well, at least it's being well loved!

Another favourite gift - a Christine Sinclair jersey. (She actually came into Pier1 when I was working!! I was a little star struck but I don't think anyone else recognized her!! )

From Ammee - Paige is hooting like an owl, Marley is desperately trying NOT to be in the picture and Christine is just lapping it up! Typical!!

The Kids Table 2.0. This time with the Day/Nielsen cousins.

The kids were all so nicely contained that we had a fairly civilized adults table too!

The Day/Nielsen cousins - (from left) Paige, Christine, Kieran, Griffin, Zoe, Jasper and Marley.

On January 5th Marley participated in a soccer tournament with players from her team and the other Ladner girls team. That's her in blue streaking down the field. She does run fast but really my camera just wasn't liking the poor lighting!

Coach Greg (left) and Coach Ryan (centre) with some of the players waiting their turn to play. Marley is second from the right on the bench.

The team. I don't know much about soccer or the politics (and try to stay out of it!!) but from the little I saw, they played well. Some of  the other teams were more developed and had been together as teams for months but these girls gave it their all and had fun. That's really what counts in the end, right?

Okay, that's it for the inaugural installment! Have a great weekend!

A Practical Scrappers Frugal Finds Feature- Using Toothpicks

Today over at Practical Scrappers we are sharing ideas on how to use toothpicks on your projects. Please pop over there and check out all the other great ideas as we have a truly talented line up of designers and their ideas may surprise you.

This is what I came up with.

I am again using some really old photos but as I was searching for inspiration I realized I could use toothpicks to make my kite. I also used toothpicks to paint my "clouds" - a two-fer!

Here's a look at my process.

I started by laying out my main pieces - my paper and photos - and then roughly built a kite shape to see if it would work with the rest and to see where I wanted to apply my paint. 

This is my "paint brush". I grabbed a handful of toothpicks and then taped them together with a bit of washi tape - I can not believe how many uses that stuff has!!

I squirted out some white acrylic paint and got busy. It was a bit tricky figuring out the best way to apply it with the toothpicks. I wanted the texture of the toothpicks to come through but I also wanted enough coverage to get a sort of realistic cloud image. The added swirls were just for whimsy!

Here's a closer look at the swirly effect the toothpicks gave me.

While the paint was drying I got to work on figuring out how to make my kite. I started by gluing the toothpicks onto a piece of patterned paper in a kite shape. I didn't take pictures of the next steps but essentially I cut it out, used it as a template to cut out kite shapes from other patterns and then pieced those patterns onto the front of my kite. Once the glue was dry, I added bakers twine - both as a cute embellishment and also to hide the imperfections in my paper piecing!

This is my finished kite. It was more finicky than I first thought it would be (things seem simpler in my head, do you find that?) but I am really pleased with the final result!

I added a tail of more bakers twine and some washi tape flags.

 

Here's a closer look at the entire kite. To adhere it to the page I used two layers of pop dots (one wasn't enough to clear the toothpicks!)

Thanks for stopping by today. If you get inspired by my layout or any of the other projects you see on the Practical Scrappers site, be sure to leave a link in the comments either here or on the Frugal Finds post at Practical Scrappers so we can check it out.

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

Let's Get Sketchy - Monday Reveal

It's the first Monday in January so that can only mean one thing ... there's a new sketch up at Let's Get Sketchy! It's Team A's turn (my team) so here is my interpretation of this sketch.

Since my laptop is still at Future Shop waiting for me to sort out what to do about it, I've been rediscovering the older photos on Greg's computer. These are from July 2008 - look how tiny Marley and Paige are! This was the first year we started volunteering with the Tour de Delta - a weekend long road race series here in Delta. We hosted a couple of riders from Quebec, one of whom stayed after the Delta races were done. There are 3 different road race series in the Lower mainland in July and since he was racing the following weekend (in Whiterock I think) and was such a lovely house guest, we said it was okay for him to keep staying with us. The girls absolutely loved him - especially Paige! She attached herself to him like we'd never seen her do before. She was completed devastated when he left. Kept asking after him for weeks! Ah, young love! LOL!

Here are your close ups.

I am totally trying to stash bust so figured multiple photo mats and journaling tags were needed here! The bicycle paper may be a bit "themey" but this option was better than the pink Studio Calico paper I also found in my stash!

This sketch gave me tons of room to journal so I tried to tell as much of the story as I could. My pen started running out towards the end too! May be time for a new one - they were originally purchased for an Interior Design class so they're a good 5-6 years old now!

I decided to notch the end of the bike paper to add some interest. It was looking a bit boring until I did this! Oh, and isn't that little bike sticker so cute! A REALLY old Studio Calico (I think) one!

Next are a couple shots showing all the layers and how some things are popped up with foam adhesive. 

Well, thanks for stopping by today. In case you're interested (and you're probably not but it's my blog so I get to say what I want - BWAHAHAHA!!) I am now down one more piece of card stock and one piece of patterned paper. :) Oh, and I used 3 pieces from my scrap drawer and 6 things from my journaling tags bin. Ah, it feels so good!! :)

Happy Monday all!

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!