It's still Dec 29th

... and I finished a layout.
This one is for the New Years crop at Scrapcentral.ca
The challenge was to reflect on something from the past year.

The journaling reads: "A year ago we partied in the New Years at Mary's. Then she moved. I wondered if we'd make the effort to keep in touch, stay friends. We have. I'm so glad"
The papers and felt frame are part of my prize package from Inspired Blueprints. The product is from BlueyeDezines, an Australian scrapbooking manufacturer. They have loads of fun felt products!

Still no layouts

So I thought I'd tell you about Breanna's Christmas present to her brothers. She put a lot of time, thought and effort into this gift. I'm not sure it was truely appreciated.
The 'anger management' doll has already seen some abuse. She hand sewed it out of white polar fleece using her own pattern.
The booklet includes such topics as '10 ways to make your parents proud' and 'Top 5 ways to make your siblings happy'. The cutest page was 'How to get on Santa's good boy list...'

Sorry, Mum, I didn't get any scrapbooking done, but I did take a few pictures today. Some of us at Scrapcentral.ca are going to work on taking photos EVERY day for 2009 so I thought I'd get some practice in taking pictures of the everyday stuff.

Breanna loves to bake so I got her a cookie press for Christmas. We tried it out yesterday with no success. I'm not sure if the recipe was faulty or if Breanna measured ingredients wrong, but the dough was way too dry and wouldn't hold together even after I tried to resurrect it with an extra helping of melted butter.
Then today we tried one of the recipes from the booklet that came with the cookie press. It still wouldn't work so I phoned the lady that sold me the thing and asked for some advice. Apparently the dough is supposed to be really sticky so again we added more melted butter and it worked. Here's Breanna finally getting some shapes out of the press.

Rick bought the kids a hockey table for Christmas.

It's been a big hit, though we have some sore losers in this family. Is it any wonder when we have winners like this...

Christmas packaging.

Scrapbooks has some fun ideas for decorating Christmas presents. I printed out this pattern for a mini box and Breanna and I made a few up. They are perfect for little gifts and they can also double as tree ornaments. The one's pictured here are for teacher gifts. We'll make some more out of Christmas paper for our tree.

More Christmas stuff...

I popped into the store yesterday (Unforgettable Memories) to drop off a couple more layouts using the new Reminisce Christmas line and Lynette commented on my circle layout. She figured she would never be able to do a layout with so much whitespace, BUT she said, everyone was commenting on it, and liking it. In fact, one woman bought all the product needed to make one of her own. I love that someone likes my layout enough to want to have one like it in their own album.

Also yesterday I dropped by the Post Office to drop off a couple parcels and pick up one. It was't a Xmas parcel like I was expecting. Instead it was a package from Inspired Blueprints. They are a new scrapbooking sketch site and I won their very first ever monthly prize last month. The package came all the way from Australia and had some really great product in it. Lots of felt trim and frames, gorgeous papers and 4 rubon sheets. I can't wait to dig in to it all and build a couple layouts.


Today I got a couple more parcels out (have the cousins taken care of) and Breanna, Duncan and I decorated the stairway. On one side I have all my 'manly' ornaments hanging in the garland. These are all fishing and/or outdoorsy themed... Hmmmm. I can see a gingerbread ornament one of the kids added while I wasn't looking.
On the other side I have my '12 days of Christmas' disney balls, though we're missing a couple that have broken over the last few years. Eventually I will have enough fishing ornaments to do all the stairs in one theme.

Christmas Elf

This little elf (and 5 of his friends) decorated our tree growing up. Mum passed them on to me a couple years ago because I mentioned how much I loved them.

I found this great tutorial on making Origami stars. Breanna and I used Xmas patterned paper and made quite a few of them this evening. They are quick and easy and look so pretty as ornaments. The one pictured here is made with five 4 1/2" squares.


After cutting my 4 1/2" squares I had 3" strips of my patterned paper left so we made some smaller stars from the 3" squares. I think we may use a few of them in the different sizes to create a wreath.

It's Saturday and I'm working full time at the moment so today is my day to sleep in. When I got up I found my children keeping themselves busy. Rick had already left to spend a few hours baiting Fisher traps in remote spots. They went in by helicopter today. He loves being outdoors, hiking hills and spotting wildlife. Today was a balmy -5*

Duncan had his eyes glued to the computer screen playing on World of Warcraft.

Daniel was also on a computer. The baby one Rick bought home for me a couple weeks ago.

Breanna was busy working on her crocheting. She wanted to learn to crochet a few nights ago so I started her off with silver thread and seed beads. Aunty Louise had showed us how to make pretty jewellery a couple summers ago and Breanna got right to work. Two of the bracelets she crocheted went to kindergarteners as rewards for good behaviour during her lunch hour duty. Now she is busy crocheting a scarf for her teacher.

Breanna's fish spends most of his time lying motionless at the bottom of his tank/nightlight, but as soon as I sit down beside him with my morning latte he perks up.

We've started decorating for Christmas... I'm working on a layout of my elf.

We've started baking too...
I've done a half dozen trays of almond roca already.
Breanna and I have tried three different Ginger Snap recipes so far. The Epicure Spice recipe was 'okay'. The recipe on the blackstrap molasses carton was horrible. The 3rd recipe Breanna found through a Google search was the best. We also baked some Cranberry orange chocolate biscotte from Epicure.

When he got home Duncan insisted on being measured. He's pretty sure he's growing and he may be right; only an inch to go and he'll be the same height as me. Poor Daniel isn't growing nearly as fast as he'd like, but he was a little taller then last time he was measured.

After dinner Duncan and Rick played backgammon. Rick plays for foot rubs; Duncan plays for more computer time. Duncan won 3 out of 4 games this time round.

circles

Prima's November Sketch

Here's my version of the Prima Sketch...
I've been cleaning out my scrap room and organizing all my papers. Found this great piece of embossed leaf vellum so I used it for the background. Then a piece of woodgrain paper I bought years ago ~ but it's back 'in' :) The yellow patterned papers are Doodlebug.
I love, love, love the Maya Rd trees. I just picked up a tin of them on my last shopping trip to the store. Or was it the trip before?
I inked most of my chipboard roughly with 'artprint' brown and then rubbed 'pinecone' brown ink on top. The blue ink is a Chalk ink and I used a little bling for my birds eye (him and a few friends came in the tin with the Maya Rd trees).

1977

I blogged about these photos a couple months ago. The journaling is taken from that post. Creatively Just Me blog has a challenge on scrapping your teen years so that got me going on actually doing a page with these photos.
The flowers were white. I sprayed them with 'Frost' Glimmer Mist. And added a pretty frosted Imaginisce brad to the center. The title is Tim Holtz Grunge numbers with 'Pinecone' ink rubbed into them to bring out the embossed swirls.

Moddish blog

Check it out. I had fun checking out all the different links. Fun shopping. So creative!

I'm finished

31 layouts in the month of October.

October is almost over.

And I'm still working on my 'layout a day' challenge. Here's a couple more.
A couple photos from Whistler this past summer.
And some real oldies. Remember these polar fleece hats I used to sell? Here's Daniel modeling one for me. What a cutie!

3 more layouts

I worked and still managed to finish off a few more pages. This first one I scraplifted from Tracy at LifetimeMoments.com. She had this neat idea to cut out circles to reveal another pp beneath.

I stamped my corners on this layout with gold ink. And sprayed glimmer mist on my two flowers so IRL this page is quite shimmery. Teh photos are of all 5 of us last summer(2007) before Mary moved.


And lastly some photos of all three kids with Grandma Lewall. I titled the page Treat x2 because the kids got to visit with Grandma and order a treat at Starbucks. Both things they don't get to do very often.

Oct 16

These are photos from our Thanksgiving weekend girls trip two weeks ago. Lilia brought this yummy Caballino Martini recipe she got on her trip to Victoria a couple months ago. Her and Melody made it by the pitcher full. I was the photographer that evening.

Happy

ME

The Recipe For Heather Hopkins

3 parts Superiority 2 parts Savvy 1 part Devilry Splash of Brilliance Sip slowly on the beach

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

The Recipe For Heather Lewall

3 parts Panache 2 parts Beauty 1 part Moxie Splash of Passion Finish off with a little umbrella and straw

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

Guess I was more fun and less smart before I got married. LOL

Oct 22 and

I'm really using up some old stuff in my stash. That's a good thing. Here's a photo Daniel took a LONG time ago. You can see how excited everyone is to have their picture taken. Only Breanna smiled for the camera.
Here's Dunc this past summer. The journaling reads "Duncan would't do a somersault so maybe we should have titled this layout "Cluck" "Cluck". Daniel thought it was funny :)

Oct 21 and ...

I chopped my chipboard frame in half and used it to embellish the top and bottom of the photo strip.


My boy showing a little attitude.

My layout came 3rd!

Here's the latest SEI newsletter. How exciting to be featured in it.

 This month's featured collection is -

From now until October 31st, this line is marked 25% off! See above image for some card ideas we did with this line. All papers and embellishments came from our Windsor Collection. To see what products were used and other project ideas, visit our gallery!


CONTEST
We would love to see what you do with Windsor. Send us any layouts or project ideas you have done or would like to do with this line to contest@shopsei.com by November 14th. We will pick our top 3 favorites, display them in our gallery, and give them a gift certificate to use at shopsei.com. Plus, our #1 favorite will be displayed for a week at the front of our gallery! Winners will be announced in next month's tidbits on November 21st.


Poppy Contest Winners

We had so many ideas entered this month it was very hard choosing. We hope you all will enter our Windsor contest!

Oct 20

The second sketch from Inspired Blueprints. I enjoyed doing this one.
I used glimmer mist on the black cardstock. First I sprayed all over with Slate glimmer mist. Then I used a couple of the Bazzill decorative edged cardstock strips to mask off waves along the bottom. I sprayed again with Blue glimmer mist, just on the bottom third of the cardstock over my masks.

3 more days in October

These photos are Breanna's last Tap Recital all dressed in sequins.
Daniel golfing in Whistler this past summer, with Grandad. I used my little deer cutout and a chipboard scroll as a mask on the right handside and sprayed it all with 'Old Linen' Glimmer Mist. It's very pretty IRL though subtle.
Some photos of me on my 3rd birthday. The layout is a Prima Sketch from their blog.

Oct 10

Breanna looks adorable with her short hair and self applied barrette; Her dress and petticoat with yellow gumboots; her funny face from the fizzy coke and the nose full of bubbles.
I used Heidi Swapp leaf masks with slate glimmer mist for the design on the left side. I wasn't sure about the hearts, but Breanna insisted they stay :)

Oct 9

I fell behind in my 'layout a day' for October when I took off to Calgary with my girlfriends. But I got some great photos, had a great time and now I'm determined to catch up. Check out all the fun challenges at Lifetime Moments Scraptoberfest