Away

I bought the 'Winter Trees' glimmer screens last week and I'm having fun playing with them.  I used green Maya Mist on kraft cardstock for this layout.  And some droplets of 'soot' glimmer mist.

I'm uploading my Victoria photos this evening so I will have a bunch to scrap tomorrow.

See Drew Ski

Double page layout for my sis.

I have no clue what a Loppett is, but that's what Tanis had on the journaling that she sent with these photos.  Hope it wasn't a typo.

The patterned papers and chipboard are Bo Bunny.  The red is Bazzill trims.
The colour scheme is from the Colour Room. It went perfectly with the photos.  I love the dash of red.

Froggy fun ~ a two page layout

This layout is created around a PageMaps sketch.

The patterned paper is a fun froggy print I picked up at Unforgettable Memories.

The Pine River was very low this year and this back channel where the kids usually swim was one big mudhole.  Breanna and Daniel were collecting little toads and making sand swamps for them.

It's starting to look a lot like Christmas...

Honeydew, strawberries, raspberries and green grapes.  Yummy!

Friends

I did a how-to on making the glittery circles at Unforgettable Memories.

Bad Turbo

This is the story of a very naughty cat. 
Rick emptied the pond a couple weeks ago and bought 11 gold fish inside for the winter.  There were in a covered fish tank that took Turbo no time at all to get into.  We found the biggest goldfish on the floor less than hour after they were bought inside.  We shooed Turbo away and put Mr. Fish back in the tank.  His scales were all askew but he swam off.  He didn't survive more than a couple days more.  Poor guy.

I found a new colour challenge blog.  I love these colours together.

Do you love Cosmo Cricket?

Then check out this Design Teams member blog for a chance at it.

There is lots of eye candy to check out while you are there.  Take a look around.

Prima product.

Check out Prima's website for a chance to win and lots of inspiration.  I just love all these colours.  Gorgeous!

Really puts me in that Halloween mood.

Busy, busy, busy

We've been busy around here.  Breanna and  I made a wreath the same night she made her SPA banner.
The base is cut from a shoe box and wrapped in Halloween patterned paper. 
I glued some orange chipboard letters together to make SPOOKY and tied it to the frame.
We punched loads of scalloped circles out of black vellum; 15 sheets of vellum worth.  Each of the circles was folded around the eraser end of a pencil and glue gunned in place.
I added a My Little Yellow Bicycle title in the lower right corner.
It is hanging by my front door.

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I've also been knitting while watching all the new shows on TV.  I finished another baby hat.  The pattern is a free one I found through Ravelry.  I made it for a coworker.

The yarn is a variegated bulky yarn. It's really a quick pattern.  Like a one show pattern.  I did have to learn how to do Kitchener stitch to sew the ends together.  I guess I didn't HAVE to; I could have just sewn it together like I normally do, but it's good to learn new things and next time it will go just as fast as whip stitching it together, but it will look better.

Here it is on Breanna's teddy.

Look what Breanna made

She wants to have a Halloween party and one of the fun activities will be doing scary make-up on each other.  So she designed and made this spa banner with some Halloween stuff I had down in my scrap room.
We cut out the triangles 8" long and 6" wide at the top.
She used a new border punch on some black cardstock and glued the strips along the edges of her triangles. 

Breanna punched scalloped circles out of black cardstock and backed it with a ruffled green ribbon she had picked out at Unforgettable Memories. She added the big Chip Chatter letters to the circle and glued it all down.

Breanna cut out some cute Halloween figures from another patterned paper to embellish her banner and then glued a length of green trim to the tops of the triangle pieces.

As a finishing touch she set an eyelet in the bottom of each triangle and strung some beads through them.

The banner is hanging over her door and looks fabulous. 

BIG fish and a colour challenge

I've been seeing a lot of layouts created around the Colour Room challenges lately so I thought I'd check it out. This was this weeks colour challenge.

And here's my layout using those colours.

2 page layout / NVS October challenge

While we were camping on the river back in August we had a weird wind come up and create this whirlpool on the river. It was very strange.  One minute all was calm and we were sitting on the bank relaxing and chatting.  The next minute we noticed some white water and a strong wind had come sprung up.  We sat up and paid attention and watched as the white water spun across the river towards us.  It probably took about 5 minutes to make it to our side of the river.  The wind skipped across the rocky beach, up the bank, raced through our campsite and out the other side.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Then everything was calm again.

I was looking for inspiration when I came across the Nerdy*Victorious*Girls website.  There challenge this month has lovely colours in it.  I just love the splash of yellow! This is the layout I designed around Octobers challenge.  Play along.  The prize this month is donated by BlueMoon Scrapbooking.

I just bought the paw print border punch at Unforgettable Memories.  I couldn't wait to use it. 

I've used glittery gold Bazzill buttons in the centers of my yellow flowers.

The patterned papers are all Fancy Pants.

Button hat for a coworkers baby

I knit up this baby hat last night for a coworkers shower.  The shower is today.  Nothing like leaving it to the last minute.

I used Patons Shetland Chunky in a variegated blue and brown colour.  The button was one I found in my scrapbooking stash. There is a crocheted loop in the top of the hat so it can be buttoned down for a different look.

I found the pattern through Ravelry.  It's a free one and can be found here. It took less time than the length of a movie to knit.



It's my birthday...

It was my birthday.  Last Saturday.  Rick was working so I invited my friends over.  Lilia coerced her husband/chauffeur into playing photographer when he dropped her off. She had us all posing for the camera.  First in the house.  I really think as birthday girl I should have got a position in the back and the littlest person should have been front and center. As I get older I'm learning all these tricks on how to look slimmer in photographs and sitting at the back is one of them. Talking while the camera is pointed at me is something I need to remember not to do.

Another trick I've learned to make myself look more normal is to keep my eyes open when the photographer is snapping away.  Melody hasn't reached that 'older' age yet, so she doesn't always look as good as the rest of us in photos.  (Maybe that's why she didn't get the front position. LOL)

Lilia made a gorgeous birthday cake.  Here it is posing with my beautiful girl, and Lilia's beautiful girl and my son who has a gleam in his eye. I think he's thinking about chocolate.

Daniel insisted he didn't touch the cake before we finished photographing it, but that little spot of chocolate under his bottom lip kinda gave him away.

as did this photo taken from the other side.  Bad boy, Daniel!

We ate far too much chocolate that evening.

After taking photos inside Lilia dragged us all outside and had us pose in front our new entryway.

Lilia, Me, Melody, and Wanda.

Now it's Wanda, Me, Melody and Lilia.

We were thinking it would be so fun if Mary could have been here with us so we found a tree and named it Mary and took a picture with us around her.

It was getting rather windy and cold by that time so we sent our photographer/chauffeur/Lilia's husband home till 2:30am when she recalled him to drive everyone home.

Melody and Mary gave me a motion detector garbage can.  I've been wanting one ever since I noticed Melodys at her home a couple years ago but they're not that easy to find.  And I got four gorgeous mugs with cherry blossoms painted on the sides.  Perfect for lattes.  Thanx, Mary :) They all chipped in and got me a GC for the salon I go to for my haircuts, though I don't think I'll use it for anything as mundane as a trim.  Maybe a pedicure or some other luxurious pampering.  And a Rotary lottery ticket.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed I win something good.

We played a fun game similar to Taboo, but electronic.  The kids had a great time guessing with us, though they wouldn't pick sides and yelled out their guesses indiscriminately. It got funner as the evening wore on. And louder.

I love birthdays.

Journey

Breanna flew all by herself for the first time this summer.  She flew from Grande Prairie to Edmonton to stay with a friend for a couple weeks.  Rick and I were both at the airport to pick her up.

This layout is at Unforgettable Memories on the wall.  I love how it turned out.  Papers are Bo Bunny and 7 Gypsies.  The turquoise rubons in the top corners are Hambly Screen Prints.  Those gorgeous jewelled brads are Karen Foster and of course I used Prima blooms as well.

15teen

Duncan is looking so grown up.  It just seems too fast. 

'All by myself' (humming to myself)

I had a fabulous day yesterday. I had a day ALL BY MYSELF (I can't get that song out of my head). Captain Pink was working, the kids were all in school. Dinner (bbq ribs) was already in the crockpot. It was just me and my scrapping supplies all day long. It's been a long time since I've had a day just by myself.
Housework can wait, right?
Right!

I got two layouts done.

And cleaned up my scraproom a little. I'm getting a new window for my room and while I think the guys installing it can do most of the installing from outside I'm assuming they will have to do some work from inside. It's been awhile since I could walk from the door to the window without climbing a few mountains of supplies so I did some sorting, and purging, and finding new hidey holes to stuff stuff that wasn't in the path from the door to the window. A couple more cleaning sessions and maybe I'll actually be able to scrap in my scraproom.

But no-one was home to complain about me taking over the dining room table so I packed my stuff upstairs and got to work.

I tried and tried to get a good photo of this layout.  I really love how it turned out.  I used my Glimmer Screens and 3 colours of Glimmer Mist to create the background.  The patterned papers are Bella Blvd. and K & Co.  The tree is a Jolee's sticker.  The title and random rub-ons are Crate Paper. I also used some cork paper and burlap for the great texture.

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And then I made this layout in a completely different style.  I left it lying on the table most of the day trying to figure out how to 'mess it up', but finally decided to leave it as is.  I don't HAVE TO use ink or spray or distress the edges.  I CAN create a layout with clean paper and clean lines.

The papers are scraps left over from my last couple of layouts.  They were mostly long, thin strips so I put them along the side.  I wanted to use my border punch as they've been gathering dust for the last few scrapping sessions so I didn't tear the papers. The one torn piece is the short rectangle across the bottom and even that's not very messy.

I used one of my Fancy Pants diecuts for the journaling and found some 'lifejacket orange' flowers to drop randomly on the page.

Does it look too neat?

Explore

I was playing around with my camera while taking a rest break during Paddle for the Peace. From lying down on the sandy beach I got some neat shots of Daniel and the boats through the weeds.  The different perspective looks really neat..

I used lots of scraps on this layout.  Bella Blvd., part of a cork sheet, a couple of Fancy Pants diecuts.  The butterflys are punched out of packaging. The big weed is a Hambly Screen Print ~ it came on the same sheet as the weeds on the Bear Layout below.

Discover Yourself

I love this photo of Daniel floating down the Peace River.  It looks so calm and peaceful. This was taken back in July during 'Paddle for the Peace'.

The big red butterfly is Jenni Bowlin.  They come in different colours.  I may have to pick up another one or two.

Eight bears

I scrapped about our trip up the river one afternoon in August. The one where we saw eight bears.

The eight  is a big Tim Holtz grunge number, sprayed with green Maya Mist and swiped with brown ink around the edges.

The patterned paper is Harmonie, as are the wood cutouts.  Basic Grey lace rubons, Chatterbox buttons, Hambly acrylic 'weeds', Fancy Pants diecut and a Prima leaf.

Inky pages

I used my Glimmer Screen mask for the top left corner.  After I sprayed over the mask I flipped the Glimmer Screen over and used it as a stamp on the bottom right corner.

Duncan was pretty happy with his 'Skull Candy' earphones.  Apparently they are the coolest things.

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This is Duncan at Pillar Lake playing around in a kayak.

Don't rock the boat, Duncan, or you'll be swimming with the BIG leeches. :)

Just add Water

We took a lot of photos at Pillar Lake. 

Of all the fun we had. 

I grouped a bunch of them (9) on this page.

Then asked Rick what I should I call my layout.

'Just Add Water'

It seemed appropriate.

All the photos feature us on the lake.

Fun! 

The patterned paper is K & Co. Basic Grey Rubons. Bella Blvd cutouts. Jenni Bowlin buttons. And Bo Bunny brads. I love the leaf ribbon.  Unforgettable Memories has it in several colours.

Connect 4

We got this travel version of Connect 4 at Christmas from Hugh and Elena.  Breanna is always challenging us to games.  It is so fun!  The kids brought it with us when we went to Pillar Lake in July and it sat on the camp table all weekend.  I think everyone there played a few games over the two days.

I haven't used Mulberry paper on a layout in forever, but I was cruising around different artsy blogs and love how some of the artists paint diluted inks or paints in soft swathes across their pages and I thought 'hmmmm, that looks kinda like mulberry paper. I think I should try that'. So I did.

I splattered different colours of ink on the background and used all kinds of bits and pieces from my stash.  Rub-ons, Prima leaves, Bella Blvd cutouts, Tim Holtz grunge number, Jenni Bowlin buttons...

A two page layout of our trip to Pillar Lake

We spent two days at Pillar Lake with Papa, Grandma, Uncle Ken and a couple of his care workers.  Pillar Lake is an hour out of Vernon, just past Falklands.  It was a pretty little lake but none of us was swimming in it after spotting a HUGE leach lurking around our dock.

We had 3 cabins between us; ours is shown up in the trees in the far left photo.  The dock was shared by our cabin and Uncle Ken's cabin.  Duncan had talked Papa into renting an aluminum boat and a kayak by the time we got there.  The following day we had to return the aluminum boat so we got a canoe instead. 

The photo second from the right is the naturally formed pillar that the lake is named after.  It pokes up above the tree line in the bushes above the lake. The boys did some fishing, but didn't have any luck.

On the 'field notes' card I've jotted down info on the huge snake we saw beside the path down to the dock.  Green with yellow stripes and a red design. It was bigger than any garter snake I'd ever seen, but after researching it we discovered that was what it was.

More camping photos

Here's one of Duncan putting us around Pillar Lake in a little aluminum boat we had rented from the resort we stayed at. 

Two 2 page layouts

Sunday was a quiet day at home.  I made a big mess on my dining room table and turned out two layouts; both of them two pagers.
The first one is of Turbo stalking the goldfish in the pond.  He has gone swimming a couple times when he's leaned too far over.  I know he'd love to catch one, but unlike the mice and birds in the yard so far our goldfish are safe.

This second layout is Tikanii and Turbo playing.  They are so funny the way they attack each other in fun.

Both of these layouts will be at Unforgettable Memories later this week.

Camping and a layout

Thursday afternoon we packed up and went camping in the rain.  Of course, by the time we found our campsite on an island halfway between Lynx Creek and the Halfway the sun had come out.  It is never miserable on the river.  It was almost 7pm by the time we got camp set up so we had some dinner, sat around the campfire for a while and then headed to bed when it got dark just after 10.

The next morning Rick boated me back to his truck.  We had forgotten Tikanii's pills :(  Rick was going to be back at the boat launch at 1pm to pick up me and Dunc's friends' parents who were going to bring dinner out for us and spend some time boating/fishing with the boys.  So I had a few hours to fill once I'd put together the list of forgotten items.  I managed to scrap a page of Paddle for the Peace last month.  I used this months Prima sketch though the papers are Bella Blvd.

While I was enjoying some quiet time the boys and Rick were fishing.  They caught a HUGE bull trout and took a picture before throwing it back. The boys were pretty excited.

We camped out Friday night and came home late Saturday evening.  I love being on the river, but it's sure nice to be clean and in my own bed at night. 

Playing hookie and a 2 page layout

It was so gorgeous today. Too nice to be sitting in an office ~ even if it does have a window. So when Rick phoned me at work to say he was gasing up the boat I said 'what for me!' I took the afternoon off and then went back and said I was taking the rest of the week for vacation time. Yippee.  5 days off!

We went up the river with Duncan and a friend of his.  It was hot and sunny and oh, so much more pleasant than sitting in a cubicle in front of a computer. We saw 8 bears.  Yes, you read that right; EIGHT.  I've never seen more than two in one day so that was amazing.  They were everywhere.  Three of them we saw in the middle of the afternoon as we were heading upriver. One was trying to swim across when we came along.  Duncan's friend got this photo as we were going by.

And here's another layout I finished last weekend.  Daniel took the photos of me during Paddle for the Peace last month. That's Rick coming up behind me in the river boat.  He thinks it's soooo funny to get people wet :( 

Breanna and her friend were sitting on the bow enjoying the ride.

The patterned papers are all MME which is Unforgettable Memories feature manufacturer this month.

Tikanii and Turbo looking for a meal

Another layout from this past weekend.  These two are always looking to be fed. 

The background paper is Fancy Pants 'family' line. The matting pp is MME.

Some Prima blooms and black jewels, and 7Gypsies brads embellish my page.

The rest of the embellishments are bits and pieces from my stash.

It rained this weekend

and I'm minus 2 kids.  Only Duncan is home with me.  Breanna flew to Edmonton all by herself to visit a friend and Daniel is visiting Grandma and Grandad in Victoria.  Rick worked so I made a mess of my dining room table and scrapbooked. 
Last time Breanna and I were in Victoria we visited Ted Harrison's studio/shop.  Her teacher had done an Art unit on Ted Harrison's style of painting. Unfortunately he wasn't in at the time of our visit. Here she is standing outside his shop.

The paper is by Harmonie.
I used loads of Prima ~ blooms, bling and that printed burlap which adds great texture.
The arrow under the title and the journal spot are by Little Yellow Bicycle.

Ooblik

A quick layout using the scraps on my desk. Harmonie pp, MM notes, BG chipboard alpha and Crate Paper chipboard decorations. 

I sprayed green shimmer mist over my bird mask on the bottom of the patterned paper.