My little Artist

Rick's been using this photo for a bookmark for a few weeks now.  I took it back and scrapped it this week.

Two page layout using Imaginisce canvas stickers

One for my sisters vacation album.

She said they have a big, old, creaky bus that they could ride to neighbouring resorts.  The boys would keep an eye out for big lizards.  There was even a rumour that one of the passengers saw a crocodile from the bus. 



I dropped this layout at Unforgettable Memories yesterday.  My first time in the new store.  It is huge.  It will look amazing once they have it all organized and set up.

Another two page layout with BoBunny's Etc line

Every year the berries on our Rowantrees ripen and then the birds come.  They are gluttons.  They eat so many, so fast they end up getting drunk on them and flying into our windows.  Turbo spends his time sitting under the hedge in the front yard waiting for dinner to bounce off the living room window and land at his feet.

The papers are BoBunny's Etc line and Imaginisce's Bon Voyage line.
I love the blingy bird by Prima.

Another layout of Lake Louise.  The water is very green and very, very cold.

Papers and chipboard is from BoBunny's Etc line.

Birthday Girl

I took a ton of snapshots of Breanna's 13th birthday.  I finally got a few developed.
Her friend made her a big bag of sour lollipops which they all shared while sitting on the back deck.

A two page layout of Lake Louise.

We took loads of photos on our hike up to the Lake Louise teahouse.  I managed to get 10 of them on this two page layout.

The papers are Bo Bunny.

Special little boy

Doesn't it look like a good time?  Play when you want, visit when you want and nap whenever and wherever you want.  The perfect vacation.

The papers and stickers are from Cosmo Cricket's odds & ends line.

I misted, masked and stamped the background paper.

Sticker sneeze with Cosmo Cricket "Salt Air"

I used only stickers on this page.  No patterned papers, no flowers, brads, buttons ...

The background is stamped with a tropical collage stamp that I sprayed with Glimmer Mist.  The Mist makes a smudged watery image rather then the clear sharp image ink produces. I cleaned off my stamp along the top and bottom edge of my page which enhanced the grungy look.

Road Trip #2 ~ a two page layout

Another two page layout of our road trip to Canmore, Banff and Lake Louise.  I like using the 2x3 photos. I can get more on the page.

I used some ClubScrap papers I've had forever and some more of the BoBunny 'Welcome Home' line.

Bo Bunny 'Welcome Home' line

This layout is like an overview of our girlie roadtrip. 

We ate at some really neat restaurants.

We hiked 12 km to the Tea House at Lake Louise. And let me tell you, it is not a 'tea house' in the Lake Louise sense of the word.  Isn't Lake Louise like 5 stars and very posh? Don't movie stars and royalty visit?  I was expecting white table clothes and little cakes.  Tea in china cups and scones with fresh whipped cream and preserves.  Ice in my drink and wrapped in a white napkin for my sweaty brow after that hike.

Instead we got raspberry lemonade in plastic cups and a very bland quinoa salad.  The cheese sandwich was good; the bread was homemade and sliced thick, and the cheese was extra stinky. The tea house itself was more of a rustic cabin in the woods with no electricity; the stairs we climbed to reach our table on the second storey balcony, I'm sure, passed no safety inspections;  and there was no running water for a decent bathroom. None of us 4 are keen on outhouses. Especially the smelly kind. We didn't take any pictures of it :)

We posed in front of the sign of the place we were staying; almost got our photographer run over when Lilia insisted the best spot to take the picture was from the middle of the road.  Oops.  He was a good sport.

We took the Gondola up the Mt at Banff. Some of us are scared of heights and had to sit in the seats facing the mountain side going up and down.  So I got the scenic view both ways.  Just gorgeous!

We were silly and funny and had a really good time.

Glimmer Mist and Masks

Another page for Tan's album.  Geocaching last summer.  It looks like the kids found more than just the cache.  I used a butterfly diecut as a mask on the top right and bottom left then placed a butterfly sticker on top of the negative space.

Banff ~ a 2 page layout

On our second day in Canmore we got up early and drove to Banff.  It was a good thing we went early. When we came off the Mt there were lineups everywhere.  Mary and Lilia aren't comfortable with heights so they sat in the gondola facing the mountain.  Melody and I got the view going up and coming down.  When we got to the top of Sulphur Mt. we hiked the 1 km boardwalk to the Cosmic Ray Station. There were little ground squirrels looking for a free meal everywhere.

Papers and stickers and some of the chipboard are Bobunny (I see my leafy branch has come loose and is floating on the left hand side there.  Oops).
Chipboard is My Little Yellow Bicycle.

Road Trip ~ a two page layout

And here we are.  On the road.  Lilia took that gorgeous picture of the mountains on our first morning heading to Lake Louise. She took the photos of us also, including herself.



I was the chauffeur ~ it was my truck.  Mary was the event coordinator who told us where to go and how to get there.  Lilia was the professional photographer and Mel... she was the entertainment.   A fun time was had by all.

Papers are Bo Bunny and Imaginisce.  Buttons are Bo Bunny 'Family' line.

Burried

My two little cuties when they were just a few months old.  Rick thought this would be a good photo op.  Daniel, in the back, doesn't look convinced.  Maybe he's got bugs in his diaper ;)

I used Imaginisce's Happy Camper line for this layout.  Those cute little diecuts and the striped paper.

D & W on Vacay ~ Cosmo Crickets 'salt air'

A fun layout of my nephews looking cool in Mexico.  I think Wade looks too cute with his sunglasses.  And if he's not wearing them he carries them carefully folded up in his little hands.

The papers are all from Cosmo Crickets 'salt air' line.  I made the rosettes using strips from the Border sheet.  I keep seeing them everywhere so I thought I'd give them a try. 

Tanis needs some hot pink flip flops like the Jolees stickers to go with her hot pink shorts.

Tropical Vacation

Isn't this background paper pretty.  It caught my eye immediately.

I matted the photo with vellum and twisted a length of ribbon randomly with some pretty white flowers.
The Palm Tree is by Jolee's.

Bird Watching

Bird watching is one of Turbos favourite things to do.  Whenever Rick hauls out the ladder to fill the birdfeeders (which is every couple of days, those greedy birds) Turbo is right there following him up the ladder.  I'm worried Rick is going to trip on him one day and fall. 

I even used some stamps on this layout.  The red cardstock has leaves stamped on it. The butterflies are also stamps.  The rest of the brown images are rubons.

This layout is up in Unforgettable Memories at the moment.

Making Memories Great Escape layout

This was one of those 1/2 hour layouts.  Mostly because the MM hibiscus foil from the Great Escape collection was perfect and didn't need a lot of extra embellishments.  The little flags are from the same collection.

I had some Prima flowers that matched the foiling.  I used one page out of the spiral journaling Just Chillin' MM book under the photos and a strip of the blue varnished postmark paper from the Passport Collection. 

I added a MM rub-on and some MM travel tags and called it done :)

Day is Done

Some more photos from Tan's Mexican vacation.  I called it Day is Done because obviously these are evening photos. 

I used one of my large Glimmer Screens and Pink & Gold Glimmer Mist on my black background.  The edges of the layout are painted with a white paint dauber and then I stamped a text stamp on it.  It looks really neat close up.

River Nymphs.

As soon as I spotted this Karen Foster reed paper I thought of this photo.  Breanna and I friend swimming in a reedy back channel on the Peace River.  Tikanii enjoyed all the warm water too.

I cut the doily in half and used some metal tape to create a banner at the top. 
The transparency under the photo is 7 gypsies.
MM tag and MME tag.
K&Co butterflies.
And, of course, a few Prima blooms.

A tropical 2 page layout

I played at the Colour Room again.  I thought this colour combo would be perfect for Tanis' pictures of the iguana at their resort.

The two pages aren't quite lined up properly.  The 'resort' sticker and 'scary' are supposed to be straight across.

The papers are Karen Foster and Bella Blvd with a Bazzill Cardstock base. I sprayed Frost Glimmer Mist over some paper doily masks for my background. And some grey magic mesh for texture. A Prima crochet doily, flowers and leaves.  MM journal pages and a wood frame.

I played at the Color Room again

Last weeks palette was perfect for these beach photos from my sisters Mexican holiday.  I couldn't get the right side to lighten up to match the left side, but you get the idea.

And the palette.  I used the sketch flipped on it's side and stretched over a two pager.

Staying Cool for the Color Room scrapbook challenge

My sister sent me photos of their last holiday in Mexico to scrap.  Here's the first of them all playing in the resort pool.  No journaling because I need to get her to do that part.

I hope she likes it.  The first holiday album I did for her had much cleaner lines.  But that was almost 3 years ago and I'm really enjoying playing with my masks and spray inks.  I used a Heidi Swapp hibiscus mask for this layout.  Sprayed it with pink Glimmer mist.  Then I found an old package of HS hibiscus rubons so I layered them on top of the misting.  They must have been past their 'use by' date because they didn't go on very easily.

The baby blue vellum I wet, scrunched up, then laid flat to dry. I edged it with light blue stickles and then sprinkled a little dark blue glitter on top of that.

The patterned paper is Karen Foster.

The colour combination was from this weeks #56 Color Room pallette.

Bathroom renos 2

Dad even had Daniel helping out with the power tools.  Here he is putting down the subfloor prior to the lino going down.

And the vanity is in. Along with the medicine cabinets and my lights.  I wasn't sure if Rick would like them, but he does.  The bell shaped shades are mosaic tile with a row of green jewels around the bottom edge.  I chose the vanity faucets to match the lines of my lights.

We picked a green lino floor to pick up the green in my lights.  Unfortunately the lino doesn't look green on my floor.  I took a scrap piece down to Braun's Flooring to let them know they had given us the wrong lino.  As soon as I walked in to their warehouse where we had seen the lino, the piece in my hand turned green.   They have weird lighting that doesn't give a true reading of their floorings colour.  Grrrr!
We had asked for a sample to take home and view before we bought, but they wouldn't give us one.
Oh well.  It's installed now and while I'm dissapointed it isn't the colour I wanted it looks all right with the walls. 
But we'll be shopping elsewhere when it comes to the kitchen renos.

Check out the wainscotting I wanted.  I think it looks awesome.  And I found a toilet paper holder that matches my bathroom perfectly.  It's chrome with a white ceramic knob at the top and a white ceramic weighted stand (which is shaped like a toilet plunger but it's not. LOL)

Now to get the plumbing for the tub figured out and some finishing work done and my bathroom is complete.

Explore ~ a two page layout

For the first time in a month I had a chance to scrap some photos. These are from a couple summers ago on a visit to Grandma and Grandad's in Victoria.

We're still renovating. Rick has been so busy he forgot to take down the ladder after filling the birdfeeders. 

Guess who discovered the perfect spot to watch the birds from?

This photo was taken a couple days ago.  All that snow you can see is gone and what is left in piles by the driveway is almost gone too.  I noticed a few green shoots in my front garden yesterday.  Spring is finally on it's way!

Bathroom renos

I haven't been doing a lot of scrapbooking lately because we've been busy redoing our upstairs bathroom.  Right from scratch.  Rick gutted the room including pulling down the ceiling and replacing the 40 year old insulation. I should have taken pictures then, but didn't.
Here it is after the gyprock(sp?) had been put back up, taped and mudded.  Rick has already put a couple of coats of a grey/tan colour on the walls.

Our medicine cabinets are going to be set into the walls so the mirror will lie flat or almost flat with the walls.

Rick put down some of the plywood base floor so we could at least have the second toilet in use.  Five people trying to get ready in the morning with only one bathroom is not fun.

There used to be a 3' x 3' approx. closet in this corner. When we emptied it we filled a couple of garbage bags with junk that had made it's way to the back of the deep shelves and hadn't seen the light of day for years.  Rick tore the closet completely out.  The small jutted in piece left houses the chimney from the furnace, but where he's left the hole was just wasted space.  I want him to build me a narrower shelving unit there for the towels and bath stuff. We're debating on wether or not to make a door for it or leave it open.

The ceiling is 'brocade' with a semigloss white paint.

We installed a ceiling fan and heatlamp while we were at it.  I just hope our wiring can handle the extra load.  Breanna's hairdryer blows our breaker most mornings.

So for now we have a tub in our living room, medicine cabinets in the hallway, and faucets in the bedroom. Hopefully they'll all be in the bathroom where they belong shortly.

Vista Internet Security 2011

Grrr.  One of my boys kindly downloaded a neat little program on to our desktop computer.  It's called Vista Internet Security 2011 and it's a VIRUS!
Don't download it.
It's nasty. 
It stops you from going on the internet so you can't find a fix, it deletes your antivirus program so you have no protection, and it keeps popping up and up and up and up. 
So I went on my laptop and googled for a fix.  None of the first few fixes I found worked but I did get rid of it.  I booted into Safe Mode and ignoring the Vista Internet Security 2011 pop ups I went straight to Run and typed rstrui.exe, and then pressed ENTER. 
rstrui.exe is the System Restore command.  I don't know a lot about how it works or how to set it up.  Luckily there was one restore point that was created before this little program was downloaded.  I clicked on it and now our computer is back to normal and we are all a little smarter about what buttons to push when strange requests appear on our screen. Aren't we, DUNCAN!

I'm going to have to research the System Restore function a little more and make sure there are a few safe points to restore to for the next time. 
If there is one. 
Cross my fingers there's not.

I spy with my little eye...

my handsome dude, Daniel posing at the Sidney Aquarium.

48 years

I love the way Mum matted the photo and put it on a card.  I can flip it up and read what she wrote whenever. This will be a special layout in my album.

The color room had the perfect colour combo for this layout last week. Pinks and black.

I picked up the papers at Unforgettable Memories.

Love to Fish ~ Two page layout

I picked up the Karen Foster fishing line the last time I was at Unforgettable Memories. It is so perfect for these photos of Duncan trying to get a nibble. I used the word paper for my title, the fishermens ruler and as a base for my photos.

I also used one of my many, rarely used stamps on this layout.  I stamped bullrushes on green vellum and layered them on top of other elements on my page.  I love that the pieces are a little see-thru.

The bird on a branch is one of the woodcuts by Kaiser.  I painted it brown then used crackle medium to give it some texture.

Boy on a Beach ~ a two page layout

I knew I was going to cut out the Karen Foster wave paper as soon as I laid eyes on it.  And it was the perfect colours for these photos of Duncan and Kona on the beach in Victoria last summer.

I did this layout at Unforgettable Memory's scrap retreat this weekend.  I took along a couple of stamps because I have so many and I never use them.  I used both on this layout.  The boat image was stamped on some light yellow pp and then cut out.  The snail and text stamp I put directly on my background paper in the upper right corner and under my journaling spot.  Just a little extra texture.

I've had the fish beads forever.  I strung them on black twine and let them play in the waves.

Winter is for the birds 12x12 layout.

I'm sure Breanna was having fun on this day, but it looks cold out and her poor little lips are chapped. It must have been really cold out this day because Breanna has her ear band on and a winter coat.  It seems like it has to be below -20 before my kids get their winter gear on.  They are still going to school in just hoodies. I'm sure their busdriver must think I'm a bad mother to let my kids go outside underdressed, but I figure they're old enough now to dress themselves.

I used BoBunny's Midnight Frost line.

Top Dog

Harmonie papers and ribbon.
Echo Park background pp and Letter stickers.

I made the rolled flowers using the Harmonie patterned paper.

Legislative Building in Victoria.

I used mostly Harmonie 'Bella Bohemia' papers on this layout.  The black paper is by Echo Park.

One of those 1/2 hour layouts that just come together so quickly.

Sudoku

Bo Bunny Midnight Frost layout.

The journaling is all about our Sudoku races that Dad, Mum and I have when I'm down visiting.

A two page layout of Butchart Gardens

Mum and Dad took us to see the 12 Days of Christmas at Butchart Gardens when we were visiting in December.  I took a ton of photos; some with the flasth on and some with the flash off.  These were all taken with the flash off.

I spraysed yellow ink using a doily as a mask on my shiny black cardstock.

The colour combo ~ purple, yellow, turquoise and chipboard was the challenge at The Color Room a couple weeks back.

I used some Hambly turquoise rubons on the purple mulberry paper.

A taste of winter

Another one for my sisters album.

 Mostly BoBunny.  I did a bit of sewing on this one; around the edges and around the snowflake bling centers. 

Grandma's gingerbread people ~ a two page layout

I used this weeks palette at the colour room for this layout. 

I wanted to put the recipe on here somewhere.  Maybe I'll just write it on the back.

Puppy Love ~ a two page layout

This layout ended up being a real collage of stuff.  I've had it on my desk for a couple weeks now and everytime I'd go down I'd find a new piece to add to it. 

The papers are Basic Grey and Crate Paper.
I sprayed Glimmer Mist Chalk blue on the journaling shipping tags so they weren't so yellow and coordinated better with everything.  Thejournaling is about how my niece just loves Grandma and Grandad's pup, Kona, and always wants to be holding his leash while out walking.

Uniquely You

I love the style of this Norwegian scrapper and check out her blog often. She makes the neatest fantasy scenes around cutout photos of her kids.  Many of her added images she finds on the internet.  So interesting!

Here's my attempt at her gorgeous style.

I created the background scene using Glimmer Mist, Shimmer Mist and my tree Glimmer Screens.  The clouds are handcut.  I used some Mulberry paper for the sun rays.

The photos I chose to cut out are of Breanna goofing off on a Kona walk while we were in Victoria last month.  She was sitting on a concrete structure left over from the was at McCauley Dog Park.  I had fun making the swing with corrugated paper and twine.