2009 Top Ten layouts

Number 1. This was a layout that came together really quickly with bits and pieces I had lying around. Love it when that happens! The photos were taken by Daniel a few years ago, and are of Duncan on his little motorbike. He still loves anything with a motor ~ the faster the better.

Number 2. Breanna and I travel down to Victoria to visit Grandma and Grandad every year. Kona walks are a daily routine while there. I used sprays and bling and lots of little extras that I have in various containers on my scraproom shelves. I should raid them more often. They make for interesting layouts.

Number 3. This was a Prima sketch that I loved. I used Cosmo Cricket papers and a few Prima embellishments. Rick is such a great Dad.

Number 4. Not my normal style ~ this page is very linear ~ but I love the pretty colours with my photos. I did a 'how-to' for the Unforgettable Memories blog on creating the stickle scroll.

Number 5. Breanna has fun with her hair and I have fun with my scrapbooking supplies.

Number 6. Daniel living on river time. We enjoy the outdoors up here.

Number 7. We had a pet hedgehog for the summer. Quill. He wasn't the cuddliest pet but he was interesting. I had to get the Quickutz hedgehog just for this page. I even pulled out my sewing machine.

Number 8. I love this funky photo of Breanna in the basement of our new entryway (before it was built). I think the page totally reflects the photo in it's funkiness.

Number 9. My cute little girl and her cute little cousin on the river this past summer. Fun memories.

Number 10. My sister sent me up some great Halloween pictures of her little one. I had fun with clear embossing powder and paint on this page.

So those are my favourite layouts from the past year.
I'm looking forward to a New Year of creating pages and safekeeping our family memories. Starting tomorrow. Rick is working days Friday, Saturday and Sunday so I think I will take over the dining room table and make a mess.

Time Capsule ornaments

I wish I'd started making these when the kids were babies. What a fun idea. The kids can take these with them when they leave home.

I used glass balls and found the little opening on the top rather small to shove photos and rolled paper into. I had to use a couple of shish kebob sticks to poke things around and unroll the photo so you could see it. I'll have to keep an eye out for plastic ornaments that pop open along a central seam. That way the kids could read the notes without breaking the ornament.
I wrote the notes on the back of 1/2" strips of Christmas patterned paper. Another way to use up the scraps.
The year is rub-ons applied to the outside of the glass ball.

I wrote things like favourite Christmas present of 2009 ~ Turbo the kitten/Renovated home with a new 10' square entry room/November broke foot and had cast on till the week before Christmas...

favourite Xbox game: Call of Duty/July - visited Grandma and Granddad in Victoria. Paintballing. Visited Gabriola and Aunt Daphne. Skimboarding/Snowboarded in Vernon over Spring break. Stayed with Grandma and Papa...

There is a dozen strips of paper in each ornament. I will have to jot possible entries in my date book for next Christmas's ornament so we don't have to think so hard at the end of the year. Any suggestions for time capsule topics?

I made a siggie for myself.

Just want to see if it worked.
You can make yours here.

Can you believe Christmas is tomorrow? It seems only yesterday we were rolling our eyes at how early the stores were getting their Christmas stuff in and complaining about how tired we already were of listening to Christmas music. And the day after tomorrow it will all be over for another year. I'm sad :(

I've been racking my brain trying to come up with a creative idea to spread some Christmas cheer at work. Something that didn't take a lot of time as I'm pretty much out of that particular commodity. I finally decided on these little goodie bags so last night I whipped up another batch of almond roca and made the prototype for my mini card. And at 6AM this morning, after seeing Rick off to work, I started production.

I started off with the mini cards. I was going to do three Ho's stacked on top of each other(Ho Ho Ho), but once I started cutting and glueing I realized how much fiddly work that was going to be and I only had an hour before I had to leave for work. My sons science book was on the table and a light bulb went off.

My husband thinks I'm too clever for my own good and no one will 'get it'. I work with biologists. I think they'll get it.

I wrapped several pieces of my yummy almond roca inside snowflake cellophane and tied it all together with some green ribbon.


I'm sure everyone will 'get it'.

It's a gingerbread chalet

Breanna wanted to make a gingerbread house like the ones she used to make with Grandma. I decided not to take the easy way out and buy a kit. I might rethink that decision next year. I decided we were making one from scratch. The recipe and directions I found on the Canadian Living website and we started baking. Starting from scratch is not for the impatient among us. Breanna was very annoyed that the dough had to be refrigerated for so long and so often, before rolling out and after rolling out and before baking...
I cut out the big chalet pieces and put them in the oven, while Breanna and a friend cut out all the accessories.

By the time we were finished baking all the pieces it was late. And I had my cookie exchange that evening with my girlfriends. So while we where drinking our Bailey lattes and chatting, Breanna put it all together by herself. It turned out awesome!

Those are skiis and a snowboard leaning up against the front of the chalet. At the back she has a whole forest of decorated trees with beers skulking around amongst them.

What we learned last evening.

For the last few years I have written up a short Christmas letter noting all the events of the past year in a 'what we learned' format. I got lots of comments on the first year I did it, so I've kept it up. It's lots of fun remembering the experiences of the past few months.

Last night we learned that Turbo, our new kitty, can swim. At least across the fish tank.
He spends a lot of time leaning over the fish tank. I love the look on the yellow fishes face. It almost looks like he's saying 'help me' in fishy talk with his mouth open in a big 'O' as he stares straight at me.
I was already in bed so didn't get to see Turbo take his first swim, but the sound effects were quite entertaining. There was a big splash followed by the excited exclamations of the children as they rushed to his rescue. Breanna immediately wrapped him in a towel and cuddled him till he dried off. I'm not sure what he disliked more; getting wet or being trapped in a big fluffy towel for an hour.

Here's this years Christmas letter...

Waving Hello… from the Hopkins House!

Read on if you want to know what the Hopkins learnt in 2009; some of it good, some of it not so good, but everything an ‘experience’.
Throughout this past year we have all learned so much ... Those pesky pine beetles can take out 3 big pine trees in the blink of an eye making the backyard look much barer; waking up on an angle when you’re camped on the river means you’ve parked over a beaver dam and the water dropped a couple feet while you were sleeping; the helicopter can’t get there fast enough when you’re miles from civilization camped on Williston Lake suffering from your first, and hopefully last, kidney stone; while we hope no one else suffers like Rick, I enjoyed our unexpected trip to Vancouver; our home is too small for seven 14-yr-olds (by the time you read this our boys will be 15 and the party will be at the ski hill not in our rumpus room); you would think adding 100 square feet of floor space to the front entry of our home would make a huge difference, but the pile of shoes just expands to fit the space; Rick learned a new skill when he did the rockwork facing on our home (it looks amazing); the Rocky Mountain Wine festival is a fun event to attend with friends and relatives ~ though Calgary is rather a long drive for an evening out; Seattle + scrapbooking = ‘one fun ladies weekend’ for Breanna, Grandma Lewall and myself; ice makes the playground slide slipperier and faster than usual (we’re hoping Breanna has her cast off before Christmas).
Our family is growing up; Duncan & Daniel are in Grade 10 this year; Breanna is 11 years old and in late French Immersion at Ecole Central; Rick has put his boats away for the year (dreaming of next year) and I am working full time till at least (hoping no longer) next July. Please try to find the time to come visit us way up here in the North. We'd love that. In the mean time, drop us a line or give us a call, if you get the chance.
Have a Merry, Merry Xmas and we hope to see some or all of you in the New Year!
The Hopkins Family

More Christmas Ornaments

I thought this was a neat idea on Photojojo's website.
So I tried it. This is a photo of a Toucan I took in Costa Rica.
I decided I didn't like the photo idea much. Maybe if I had some colourful pictures of my garden last summer...

I found some opaque, Christmas patterned vellum in my stash and tried that. I love how the pinky tones glow when it's hanging on the tree. The bow and bells are from an old corsage I pulled apart.


Next I tried some scraps from my last layout. It's a double sided Cosmo Cricket patterned paper. I randomly glued on some Prima flowers with pearl centers to decorate.


This last one is my favourite, though it doesn't photograph particularly well.What looks like black is actually clear acetate and the grey is black flocking. The sheet is made by Prima. I added some liquid applique to look like snow on top. The berries and leaves are from a Christmas thing I pulled apart.

Still working on Christmas cards

I thought I was done with cards last week, but of course I discovered I needed a few more. So out came my ribbon and bling and Christmas papers once again.

Big 'B', little 'b', what begins with 'B'?

I bought this big 'B' by Making Memories for Breanna's bedroom door. We glued peppermint candies all over it and I used a length of green wired ribbon to hang it. It's decorated with some Making Memories poinsetta and leaves.

Breanna told her brothers she was going to lick it everytime she went by so they wouldn't be tempted to steal her candies.

Paint and glass ball ornaments

Breanna and I have been making these pretty glass ball ornaments. They are so easy. Just pour in the paint; two or three different colours, and roll the ball around so the entire inside is covered.

Breanna had fun playing with nontraditional Christmas colours like pink and blue.

This one she made for her teacher.

This one is for her good friend.

And this one was for her class Secret Santa.

It's so easy even Daddy can do it.

Hmmm. I think ours are prettier. Next time we'll have to tell him not to shake it up.

An early Christmas present

Breanna told her Daddy she wanted a kitty for Christmas. That's all she wanted. And she'd clean the litter box and take care of it all by herself.
So yesterday Rick took her down to the SPCA and this is the kitty she picked out.
She named him Turbo because she says he's turbo-charged. I was a little worried about the mayhem I would be coming home to after work last night, but he was fairly mellow by the time I met him. I think the three kids had pretty much tuckered him out by that time.


Tikanni was very interested in Turbo. He sniffed, the kitty glared. They eventually became aquainted with no teeth or claws involved.

The fish kept their distance.

He's two months old so already litter trained!!!
And he didn't keep us up all night which was unexpected. I only got woken once at 2am when he ran across my night table, pillows and my head. Rick needs to build him a ladder now so he can climb into Breanna's loft bed.

Fall layout

I did this layout last month. Bad blogger...

The pictures are of Breanna and Breann a couple of falls ago. The papers, frames, felt embellishments, etc are all Little Yellow Bicycle. I tried spraying over the leaf shapes, but it didn't show up very well so I used some gold rub to really make the edges of the leaves pop.

I know, I know, it's been more than a month since I posted. This working full time is for someone else ~ not me. I feel like I have no time to do the creative things I enjoy so much. But Breanna and I are going to get creative tonight. I picked up some supplies last night and I have another list to pick up at my LSS on the way home from work this evening and then we're taking over the dining room table and we are creating, all night long. I wonder if the family will expect dinner first?

Lots of my list items are Prima. They are so great for way more than just scrapbooking projects. Check out some of their new stuff below...


Brand New Prima Product Picks!
We have a brand new selection of gorgeous products for you today... and a chance to win some of them!

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This month's Prima Picks include a lot of our festive flowers and vines from our Holiday Lights line. These look fabulous on so many projects for the holidays! Let's see what else is featured in our "Pick" today:


Holiday Lights Ornaments-534103

Lustered Leaves in gold-533069 and clear-533052

Jewel Box Butterflies in white gold-532376

Holiday Lights birds in silver-533625 and gold-533618
Holiday Lights brights Poinsettia mix-533861
Holiday Lights Glitter Spray Silver-533823
Holiday Lights Glitter Spray Bronze-533876

Flutter Vines Apple-533663
Holiday Lights Poinsettia-533915

Raja Centers in Red- 535124
Holiday Lights Poinsettias in silver-533878 and gold-533885

Clear Stamps-Joy-531270 and Believe-531218


Check out Prima's blog for some beautiful samples showing how their DT used these products.

Kit layout

I made this layout for Unforgettable Memories.
Lynette will have kits ready shortly. The papers and embellishments are all by Quick Quotes

More Halloween photos

My nephew Wade. Isn't he a cutie?

I used a resist technique with bubble wrap and UTEE, but because the paper was glossy the paint on top rubbed off the pp better than off the UTEE. That's okay ~ I love how it turned out. I dribbled paint along the top of the page for more eerie green Halloweeny effect.
Isn't that Basic Grey bling Spider wonderful? Felt shapes and chipboard words are Littly Yellow Bicycle and the title is Making Memories.

The inside of our new entry room.

Our new entry way decprated for Halloween.
Daniel's pumpkin carving project.

More Halloween

It's that time of year and Halloween are the papers Lynette at Unforgettable Memories has given me to work with.
The papers are Bobunny exceept for the orange and black diamond at the very top of the page. That's Little Yellow Bicycle.
I inked and distressed everything. And sprayed the background with 'soot' Glimmer Mist.
I love the Prima felt scrolls sticking out from under the top torn papers. I embellished it with Kaiser jewels.

Halloween layouts

My sister sent me some Halloween photos from past years so I've been scrapping them. I love how this page turned out. I sprayed with green Maya Mist and my own orange mini mister, over the big scrolly Tim Holtz mask.
I matted my photos on white cardstock. The edges are distressed and inked. And I used my new 'swiss cheese holey' punch right on the photos. Then I set a few orange eyelets into the medium sized holes; it's been ages since I used eyelets.
The photos are grounded with a couple of strips of Little Yellow Bicycle pp and a piece of MM green dotty tape.
Next I layered the 'One Spooky Night' transparency. It's 12 x 12 with bats up one side, grey scrolls & diamonds, and ric rac around the edges.
On top of that I placed a couple of sticker tiles, some Prima flowers with star bling centers and lengths of MM's orange star trim. I wanted something more so I tore some thin(1/2 ") strips of black paper, folded them in half to cover the white backs and then folded them in scrolls around the star trim.