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.