"The best Christmas ever"

proclaimed my littlest, as I put him to bed tonight. He got really lucky, and scored a ton of cool toys this year- lots of Lego... Star Wars and Atlantis; Clone Commander Blaster gun, Nerf Dart tag, Lego Rock Band, an electric piano, and a ton of other stuff. Yes, he got spoiled. Last year, he got hockey stuff, books, and clothes, but not really any toys. I remember him being upset about that, and this year I decided to go all out with the toys, since soon I won't be able to do the toy thing. He's growing up, and won't be into that in a few short years, so I really enjoyed seeing him so excited. Isn't that what it's all about?

My eldest got the only thing he really wanted ( besides a cell phone) on his wish list- an IPod Touch. Man, even I don't have one of those, and  can I say that I was a little jealous of him for a few seconds when he opened it up? I'm excited for him b/c he's passionate about music, and I remember how excited I was years ago when i got a Walkman for Christmas one year, when music was my life. ( yes, I'm  THAT old. ;p)
 I got a much needed update to my old and dated PSE program from Bob. ( thanks hon!!)  I've just installed PSE 8, and can't wait to try it out- right now I'm waiting for it to copy all my 4,000 + photos.
 Other than gifts, our Christmas was cozy and fun, and very much focused on family. It was perfect. We stayed home for the first time ever as a family this year ( family dinner is tomorrow) and we all stayed in our pj's the whole day, lounging, playing, watching movies,  napping and eating lots of Christmas treats. Very relaxed, and much needed R&R. Just perfect. :)

Here's a few WIP pages from my DD. Keep in mind that I"m working out of order and off the cuff when I can get something done, so these are just very simple and basic pages that I may or may not add to later.
I can see the benefit of doing the album beforehand, as it's hard to decide where the pages will go and how they will fit if you're doing them like I am, one at a time. But I will make it work, and will post the entire thing once it's all assembled, so you can get a better idea of what it looks like once it's all put together. :)

Day 10 ( first page of spread is not done, but idea is there)

Day 16

 a very simple page with a full page photo and journaling about my thoughts for that day. Thinking heavily about my Mom and MIL that particular day and missing them alot.

Day 17

a page about my Flickr addiction, using a mosaic from my favourite photos file there. This page literally took me about 5 minute to put together, but I`m so liking how it turned out.

I have to leave you with a photo of the last day's Lego advent calendar figure. We were pretty sure Santa would make an appearance the last day, and here he is! The kids really adored this calendar. It truly was one of those times when you're happy to have doled out the $$ for something a little extravagent.Worth every penny for my Lego loving boys. :)

I'd like to wish all of my blogger buddies & readers a beautiful and peaceful Christmas- I hope your day was as perfect as mine has been. It has been wonderful to connect with all of you through the magic of the internet- thank you for your friendship, comments, and presence here.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

xoxox

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Houston, we have an entry!

 Day nine= DONE.  I'm psyched. :)

My printer is fixed, thanks to my husband who spent an hour reconfiguring things and re-installing the software the other day, after much whining from me. I'm so happy to be able to print at home again. I don't remember the last time I took photos in to be printed, but I really should do it on a monthly basis.

 We had our first big snowstorm of the year on Wednesday, which is the topic of my Day 9. I have photos for the previous days printed out now, and will work backwards I guess, when I have a chance to catch up, hopefully over Christmas. I'm not going to worry about it for the time being- I'm just so happy to finally have something done.

My 2 pages are extremely simple. In keeping with the mood of that day, I wanted it to be 'quiet', so I didn't add a lot of extras. Lots of white space on page 2. I like how it turned out, and will be sticking steadfast to my theory that less is more, for my taste anyways. :)

Here are a few close-ups:

I have some fun stuff for yesterday's entry to do tonight...We had the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games torch runner come through our little 'burb yesterday afternoon (exciting and emotional) and last night, my son performed in his first High School band concert from his Band Etude studies. A great full day to document. :)

 I realized after the fact that I should probably cover the inside of my album.  I've decided to use something subtle, a la Molly, and will go with a dark forest green Swiss Dot paper from Bazzill that matches the green words on my cover. Will be picking that up tomorrow at work. Speaking of which, I'm finding it difficult to do entries on the days I do work, and wondering how to solve that dilemma. I'm thinking about just doing a non-photo layout for these days, as it's tough to get decent photos at night. But with tree lights, that could work out okay. :)

Be back soon..

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Bah humbug.

I've run into a major snafu with my Daily December album, wouldn't you know. My BRAND NEW printer won't print my pictures in anything but a lovely blue hue, ( yes, I have checked the ink!) which means I'm running behind on about 4 days of entries.  So I'm heading off to Costco in a bit to get some photos printed off, and if I have the energy left after getting the kiddos in bed, I'll try working on it tonight. I`ve been feeling under the weather lately, and kind of stressed out in general. Too much on my plate maybe.  I desperately need a deep shoulder massage, because I have one big massive knot that`s been giving me a literal pain in the neck the past few weeks, not to mention a headache. Not fun.

In lieu of album pages, I'll leave you with a layout I did for a very cool French magazine called 'Esprit Scrapbooking'. Beatrice (the editor) emailed me a few months back asking me to do an interview on the 'Clean and Simple' style, and when I got my copy in the mail on Monday, I was happily surprised to see that I had a 4 page spread in the magazine- definitely exciting! The entire magazine is really fantastic, and I feel honoured to be asked.

 Anyhoo, I'm a bit put off that I'm behind on my album already, and with everything else to do this month, it's very tempting right now to just let it go. But I'm determined to follow through this year- especially after seeing some really beautiful albums on blogs and online sites. Cheer me on, will ya? ;p
 See you Wednesday if all goes well!

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It's here....

We woke up to snow this morning and I had to go out and take some pictures. :) The first one is always so pretty & definitely helps put me in the Christmas frame of mind. ( click for a bigger view)

Still haven't taken photos of last year's DD album. I'm honestly not motivated to do it now, since I'm about to embark on this year's tomorrow, but I will at least take one or two shots of it,  and post them along with this year's as I go.

Here's a layout I made last week for the WCS 'Grateful' theme. My guys- I love them. :)

I used some of the new AC 'Letterbox' stuff on this one.

Happy Monday to all of you! If you're doing a December album, let me know, I'd love to see it.

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Good Things

Today’s word on the WCS blog is GOOD. I decided to put my version on my poor neglected blog, because after seeing Stacy’s post last night, I thought it was lovely, and should really stand on its own.

Here are 5 good things that I’m loving right now because of their simplicity and do-abilty ( is that a word?) as the hectic month of December draws near. Because who needs complicated in December, right?


1. My Daily December Album

I’m sure all of you reading this have heard of the Daily December album concept, made popular by Shimelle Laine and Ali Edwards. I made my first one last year, and although I enjoyed it, I think I tried to be a little too eclectic for my own good. This year, I’ve opted for something much more in keeping with my style. I covered an American Crafts Modern Album (8x8) with some October Afternoon word paper, and just added a simple title and a Bling Christmas tree from Basic Grey as my embellishment. I’m not a bling-y type person as a rule, but for Christmas, I do enjoy a bit of sparkle.  My inside pages aren’t done yet, but my plan is to make very simple pages with the photos and words as my main focus, with minimal embellishments. I know I said I’d share some of my album from last year, but I haven’t gotten around to taking photos yet. If any of you are interested in seeing it, let me know, and I’ll get my butt in gear to post them.

2. LEGO Advent Calendar

 I have two VERY Lego crazed boys, especially my youngest. He lives and breathes it. When I found this Advent calendar last week, I hesitated before plunking down the cash for it since I found it a bit commercial, and dare I say it, not really in keeping with the spiritual/religious aspect of Advent. But when I saw how HAPPY it made my kids, I decided to just go for it, and I’m glad I did. They’re so excited about it, and I think it’s going to be something really fun for them to look forward to everyday as we count down to Christmas. And you can’t deny the total cute-ness factor.



3. Homemade bread

My pal Linda has been singing the praises of no-knead bread and posting yummy looking photos (like this one above) of her various no knead loaves on Twitter this past week, so I’ve decided to give it a try. She swears it takes only 30 minutes and that the results are as good as a French boulangerie’s. Here’s the recipe she recommends. Bread is one of my favourite things in the world, so what’s another ten pounds just before Christmas?


4.Handmade Christmas cards

I made 30 of these cards ( sold in sets of 5, with envelopes) for my son’s Cub Scout troop to sell at his School Fair last weekend, along with another 20 of various designs. I’m happy to say that they all sold, and the Scout troop made over 100$. I wish I had started earlier and made more. I was lucky to have the help of a friend who came over one evening to stamp and cut while I embossed and assembled. They turned out lovely, and I now want to make a variation of it for my own Christmas cards. I’m realistic that this isn’t quite so do-able due to time restraints, so please don’t quote me on this one. ;)


5. Internet Christmas Shopping

It suits my hermit lifestyle, and I love that I can shop in my pyjamas with coffee in hand. Or a glass of wine, if it happens to be past 10 pm.  I love ‘live’ Christmas shopping, but the internet is fantastic for getting the job done on my own time- can’t beat that!



Have a great Monday. Hoping I can make it back here this week! :)



xo

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Pssst...

What a blur my life has been the past week! CRAZY busy. Seriously, there aren't enough hours in the day. I'll be back here tomorrow to show you a little of last year's (ummm, unfinished)  December Daily, as I gear up to actually get this year's prepared. ;) I'm bound and determined to finish it on time this year.

 I'm guest blogging with the amazing Stacy Julian at Write.Click. Scrapbook. this week and next,
in celebration of American Thanksgiving, so make sure to come and visit us there. It's going to be a fun and inspiring 2 weeks!

xox

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Some Canuck humour for ya...

This gave me a great laugh this morning... hilarious, no? ;p

I'll be back soon I hope.. I have school fair volunteer duties ( baking, wrapping, and cardmaking) to do this week along with all the other daily stuff, so I may be MIA for a while longer. Why does life accelerate to 200 MPH in November??

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drop shadow tutorial

Thanks for all the comments on my last post, mucho appreciated. :) Di, the papers on that layout are from Jillibean Soup, and the title is done with the new 'nutmeg' Thickers from AC.

I get a lot of people emailing me, asking me how I do the drop shadow effect on my layouts. If you're like me, and scrap mainly on white cardstock, your layouts will look much better defined if you add this simple trick. There's really only a few steps to it, and I think it makes a world of difference. I'm sure there's a better and faster way to do it, but I'm going to attempt to describe how I do it on my ancient Photoshop Elements program. I have version 5.5, but last May I downloaded PSE 7 trial version for the yearbook I did, and the same actions are there, just maybe not in the exact place. I really need to upgrade soon. I liked PSE 7 and found it really easy to use, so I may go that route and just upgrade online.

First, here's my original scanned layout. You can see how it looks blah and is totally floating on the white screen.

I'll omit the steps where I fix up the colours, sharpen & crop it, etc. I do that first, and then once I'm satisfied with how everything looks, I do the drop shadow last.

1. With your layout open on the screen, go to file \ new\ blank file. Open a document that is an inch or more bigger than your layout ( in this case, I made my blank file 12 x 9.5, and at 200dpi, since that's what my layout scanned at).

Once you have your blank file created, go to layer\new layer to create a new layer for your layout.

drag your layout onto the opened canvas.

Next, with the layout layer highlighted, go to your artwork and effects pallette on the right of the screen. Choose 'layer styles', and you should see a variety of drop shadow effects. Click on the one you like best, and then just drag it over to your layout and drop it on. You need to make sure you have this layer highlighted, or else it isn't going to work.

Once that's done, flatten the layers ( Layer\ flatten image), and crop your image if necessary.

The last step is saving for web, and you're done!

Here's what my final version looks like:

I used a different drop shadow on this than what I showed here, but the steps are the same. Much better!

Clear as mud, right? Let me know if this helps you and if you're unsure of any of the steps, just email me and I'll try to help. There's also a free action you can download and install if you're still having problems, but I prefer to do it this way.

Good luck!

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Long weekend plans..

 It's (Canadian) Thanksgiving here this weekend, so I'm going to be busy, busy with the kids off tomorrow and Monday. I'm hoping to go apple picking tomorrow with them if it doesn't rain. And I'm cooking a ginormous traditional turkey dinner for us which we'll have on Monday, since I have to work over the weekend. I love cooking Thanksgiving dinner, and usually go all out with way too much food. This year it's  the usual turkey, cranberries, mashed potatoes, mashed turnips, & brocolli/cauliflower casserole for the main course,  with homemade pumpkin pie and a cheesecake of some sort for dessert. Here's to another 5 pounds gained... my mouth is watering just typing it out! And the weather is decidedly fall-ish and perfect. The leaves are coming down at a rapid pace now, and I need to get out and take some photos before they're gone.

I've been busy with assignments, but here's one I can show you of my 4th Grader. He had some issues last year, which made us think we needed to hold him back, but so far this year, he's doing fantastic, and I'm so happy and relieved that I needed to do a layout about it.

Have a wonderful holiday weekend, and if it isn't one where you live, hope it's great all the same!

xox

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Introducing..

my new baby. She's sleek, and Danish to boot. :) The real thing. Check out the stainless legs!


 Beautiful, isn't she?  I love her. (and I'm not sure why she's a she and not a he... but it's like that.)

I think I've already mentioned here or on FB how I've been obsessed with checking Craigslist every 5 minutes or so for the last month and a half, right? It paid off!  I spotted this one evening early last week, and I assumed it would be sold already when I emailed the guy, but I got lucky. Drove out to very east end Montreal the other night and met a very lovely guy who is as credenza obsessed as I am, go figure. We struck a nice deal, and he delivered this to me the next night, free of charge, and even lovingly helped me set it up properly. I am so lucky to always come into contact with really nice people. I'm a trusting sort, and my instinct very rarely lets me down, thankfully.
The top is haphazardly decorated with an old lamp, photo, my ipod, and Stonehenge puzzle of Bobby's. Wish I had a better decorator gene. Suggestions? And I'm on the lookout for a big abstract canvas to hang above. I have an idea of what it should look like, so maybe I'll paint one myself, if I can't find what I'm looking for... a good way to put the Fine Arts BA to use, lol..

I'm off to finish up some assignments, and tomorrow, working for the weekend. Enjoy the cool fall weather-  I think snow is around the corner. It is chilly out there!

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Leaving well enough alone.

I made this layout back in July or so, and after much fussing and frustration with it, put it aside in the  'to be finished at a much later date' pile. I guess it looked better in my head, and I couldn't quite translate what I wanted onto paper. So it sat there for 2 months, untouched.

Then a few weeks ago, I saw Moon's awesome layout here on the American Craft blog, loved what she did with all the stickers and rub-ons, and decided to try it on my layout, since she'd used the same Teen line on her's. I ripped off the green/teal background on my layout, stuck down the stickers and rub-ons, and it now looks like this:

 I'm thinking I should have really left well enough alone. Way too busy for my taste, and none of the cool factor that Moon's page has. Scraplifting just doesn't work for me that well, I guess. ;p But my son, god love him, adores this page, sticker sneeze and all, and that's what counts, right? What the heck, I may even go all out and add a few more stickers to really fill up that page. ;p
 Definitely NOT one of my favourites.

Have a wonderful Monday- it's Indian summer here today and I'm heading outside to take full advantage of this beautiful day. :)

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Cards for Kate & a challenge to you...

Many of you probably already read Jennifer McGuire's blog and know about this card drive for Kate, but for those who don't, you can read about it here. I can't imagine the grief and stress this family must be going through having to deal with something so terrifying. Imagine if it were your son or daughter. I can't.

I think this idea of sending cards of encouragement, good wishes and positive thoughts is fantastic, and I'm sure their spirits will be uplifted when they start receiving them. Please consider taking a few minutes out of your day to make a card for Kate or her family. Also, if you have anything you'd like to donate as a prize, ( scrap related or other) then feel free to email Jennifer- I'm sure anything will be appreciated! There are some sweet prizes being given out, as an added incentive to send in those cards. :)

Here are a few cards I've made for Kate-  are they cutesy & girly enough? I hope she likes them!

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Credenza love

I haven't been very bloggy lately. I'm sorry.


Since the kids went back to school, ( so far, so good!) I've been happily enjoying my days off alone, and slowly but surely making a dent in the clutter that has invaded my house over the past year. I'm happy to say that I'm winning the battle so far. But when I'm not cleaning and sorting, I've been obsessively checking Craigslist every hour or so for one of these beautiful babies, and dreaming of the day that I find an original one in perfect condition, for under 35$ or less. Hahaha! So far no luck, but I'm patient. How I wish that the one pictured above was a photo of my living room...

You're probably wondering why I'm looking for another credenza after I posted I got this one for free back in the spring. I'm sad to say that it met an unfortunate end in my backyard, due to the copious amounts of rain we had back in June. I had covered it with a tarp, but one particularly gusty and rainy day, it blew off. I didn't notice it until a few days later, and by then the rain had sunk in, (I'm talking non-stop, huricane-like rain) warped it pretty badly, and the (yucky) veneer sides were coming unglued. I wasn't too sad though, since this wasn't a really good piece of furniture. I have my heart set on a real Danish teak credenza, and I'll keep looking for it until I find just the right one. In the meantime, I've made myself this Flickr mosaic to drool over. They're all so lovely that I can't decide which one I love best...kind of like having several children, who you love equally, even though they're all different and unique.





1. Untitled, 2. Jens Risom Credenza, 3. trendy, 4. Credenza, 5. Vintage Union Furniture MCM Credenza, 6. Jens Risom credenza!, 7. Stow Davis Credenza, 8. credenza, 9. Credenza in the morning, 10. cameras on credenza, 11. Untitled, 12. kent coffey dresser + mannequins

I'll be back soon with a challenge and a little give-away to make up for my absence... :)

thanks for reading!
xox

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a new era

begins for my 'baby' today. And I'm still in denial about it!

My first born starts his first day of high school this morning ( Grade 7 in Quebec= high school) and I think I'm more nervous about it than he is. We're very lucky that the school he's attending is the next street over from us, so I don't have to worry about him travelling on a city bus alone, or taking the train into the city like some of his friends will be doing. The thought of that makes me shudder, being the hovering type that I am. I know a mom who is a probably a wreck tonight b/c her son will be taking the train downtown everyday, and my sympathies are with her. I'd be a total basket case in her place. I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't really given my kids a lot of 'freedom' to roam on their own up until now. I don't know if I'll ever stop being such a mother hen- does it ever go away? Anyway, if Bobby is anxious about school, he hasn't let on too much... the only thing that I've noticed in the past week or so is that he's hugging me more than usual, and calling me 'Mommy', which he only does when he's feeling insecure, lol. I'm sure he's going to LOVE being a big wig highschooler, but it's still back to being a little fish in a big sea all over again. And my little guy starts Grade 4 today, a slightly bigger fish in his smaller sea, so he's happy. I'll be looking forward to 3:30 today for a full report.


I wanted to say a huge thank you to all of you for your kind words about my ring in my post a few weeks back. I appreciated the sympathy and your comments dearly ! I'd love to be able to report that I found the diamond, but unfortunately, no such luck- I'm still wearing a diamond-less ring on my finger that looks quite ridiculous, but I haven't got the heart to go get the ring cut off just yet. I'm unable to get it off with soap or cream, so it's staying put for a while. I'm still holding out hope that I might find it.



Here's a layout I did this weekend about my eldest. I was so happy to get a photo of him laughing the other day- a rare occurance, b/c for some insane reason, he's decided he hates his smile and never shows his teeth when I take his photo. Crazy pre-teen hang-ups. :( Call me biased, but I think he's absolutely gorgeous.

Are you loving the star and striped papers on this one? I'm a stripe fanatic, and I totally swooned & squealed when I saw this paper, no lie. My friend Ursula can attest to my insanity. ;p It's part of the new American Crafts collection- this particular line is called 'Junior', and it is utterly fantastic. If you've been hankering for a great BOY line, then you'll want every piece of this, believe me. You can't see it here, but the stars are glazed ( as are many of the other papers) and the quality is fabulous. I'm in love. :) You'll probably be seeing this paper on all of my layouts for the next 6 months or so...









have a fantastic Monday everyone. :)

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End of summer excitement

This weekend we'll be busy with lots of this:








It's baseball playoff time, and both our boys will be playing several games over the course of the weekend. And if that weren't enough fun, I've got a very special friend and her family visiting us for the weekend, so we'll be busy in between games doing the tourist thing downtown, and sampling some fine Montreal cuisine like poutine and smoked meat sandwiches. ;)
I feel a diet will definitely be in my future next week...

Have a great weekend, and I will be back with an update soon!

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Late to the party...

...but I made it in before midnight for my very talented friend Mary's 30th( oh how I wish!) birthday surprise. I was happy that my name was at the end of the line so I didn't break the chain. ;p
I know that you're a dog person Mary, so I hope you won't mind that I used a pic of my drooling canine for your bday card, hehehe!
Sorry for the rotten pic.. I hadn't taken a photo of this before I left for work this morning, but I promise it looks better irl. :) Hope you had a wonderful day, my dear young thing!

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signs.

Sometime last Friday, the diamond in my engagement ring fell out. Needless to say, when I realized it later that evening, I was devastated. I panicked, and called Bob (who was out with friends) sobbing like an idiot. I can't begin to tell you how AWFUL it felt to lose something that has so much meaning to me, even if it's just a little chunk of rock. Yes, I know it's replaceable. In the grand scheme of things, it's really not a big deal, but it hurt all the same. I've combed the house, and so far haven't found it- I kinda have doubts that I ever will. I was all over the place that day, doing errands, cleaning the basement, at my Dad's, on a bike ride through the woods with my kids.. you get the picture. It could have fallen out at any of these places, and I honestly don't remember the last time I actually noticed it was still intact.

Anyway, the point of my little story is this.. That same day, I was in the basement cleaning, and came upon the photo in the layout above. It had somehow fallen out of the plastic box, and God knows how long it had been on the floor, face down and kinda stuck. It's the only copy I have of this photo, and the first thing that came into my mind when I looked at it was that I needed to scrap it ASAP, even in it's sorry state. And then, reminiscing and daydreaming while sitting there, I had the thought that I wasn't yet engaged when it was taken. Weird.

That thought right there, I'm pretty sure, should have been a sign for me to look at my ring at that exact moment. And I didn't.

Next time around, I'm going to try and be aware of those little signs we often ignore, no matter how subtle they are...

eta: If you looked at this post a few hours ago, ( and shame on you for not leaving me a comment! ;p) you probably noticed that I changed my layout a tad- I added that red bracket border, b/c I felt there was something missing. I'm much happier with it now. :)

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A Friday layout

Don't hate me, but this week I got to play with the new American Crafts papers. Oh my.

They're AMAZING this time around. I got absolutely giddy when I saw them.

My boss came home from CHA with a big pile, and I begged her to let me take it home to make some store samples. Right now, I'm working on a few Christmas ones, but here's one I made ( about my friend Linda) yesterday with the 'Blue Skies' line, which I'm totally in love with. I mixed this up with some new Thickers and rub-ons from the Christmas line since she didn't have the matching stuff, but I think this goes just fine, don't you? That's the beauty of AC, it pretty much looks good with anything. :)

Have a fabulous weekend, all!

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A Monday challenge..

I posted a challenge over on the WCS Flickr discussion board on the weekend to dig into your stash of rub-ons. If you're like me, then you probably have a tonne of unopened ones sitting around and drying up in the package, am I right?
So start rooting through your stuff, and get a quick page scrapped! Post your layouts in the Flickr gallery, or else link me up here. Can't wait to see what you do!
Here's mine... I am happy to report that I used almost an entire package of these adorable Fancy Pants rub-ons on this page, and nothing else. ( and uh..yes, it's the same photo from the layout below.;p I had printed off 2, one with text, and ended up not using it).

Happy Monday!

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Pssst...

There's a sweet little Studio Calico give-away today at Write.Click.Scrapbook , where yours truly had a chance to work with one of their kits for the first time ever. I can say that I was more than a little intimidated by this kit, being the very simple scrapper that I am, but I'm happy with the way my pages turned out. And I haven't been to the Studio Calico site yet to see what the DT girls did with this kit (again, the intimidation factor) but I'm sure they've worked it pretty awesomely. So head on over to theWCS site, and leave a comment for a chance to win some funky stuff. It will challenge you, I guarantee it!

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Hello...

So, yeah... it's been more than a month since I posted anything here. A huge thank you to everyone who emailed me, concerned about my health and well being, since I seemed to pretty much drop off the face of the earth these past weeks! I had family visiting in June and July, ( a rare occurence, since they all lve in far off places) and was kept very busy entertaining, cooking, chauffeuring, and sight-seeing. It was great fun, if not exhausting, so once my brother and his kids left last week, we hotfooted it up north that same day for a week of much needed R&R. I did absolutely nothing but snooze, eat, drink, read, and repeated that formula pretty much every day- no internet, no tv. Absolutely 100% unplugged, and I survived. The kids and hubs fished, fished and fished, and caught nothing to speak of. ;p Our weather was not so great, with lots of rain and cold- so cold that we had to turn on the heat a few nights, in MID -JULY folks. It got warmer towards the middle of the week, so I did manage to do a bit of dock sitting and just look out at the beautiful lake. I wish everyone could experience that kind of medicine when they're as burnt out as I was.


This will be a photo heavy post, because I've taken a million and one photos in the past month, so here goes...


'Ovechkin' and 'Brodeur' fishing. It was all about the fishing. The big one eluded them though.



canoeing on the lake while Mom hovered on the dock, stressed that they'd tip over. They didn't.

Paddleboating on a semi-sunny day.


My attempt at a sunless 'sunset' shot. The clouds never quite went away all week.




Two of my 3 obsessed fisherman.

I have many more Lake photos that I won't bore you with. Or maybe I will, once I get them uploaded and sorted through. ;)

I love this shot I took of Bobby playing baseball one night a few weeks back. I took it through the chainlink fence with my 85 mm lens, and miraculously, you can't see the fence at all. This lens is such a beauty. I kiss it often.

This is my brother's daughter, who I haven't seen since she was a wee baby. To say I was obsessed with taking her photo would be a bit of an understatement.. She's such a beauty, and all I could think about were the girly layouts I could do... :p

And my adorable nephew... he's 3, and all boy- could eat this kid up with a spoon!

Last but not least, a shot of my fashion concious pre-teen... he's getting huge. Feet are bigger than mine now, size 10's. Geez.

Here's a few layouts I did recently, which you may or may not have seen on the WCS site. The first was done for the July colour theme, and the 2nd was a sketch/ad inspiration from my dear friend & scrapper extraordinaire Linda.

Have I redeemed myself? Here's hoping I can make it back here before another month passes... ;p

Thanks for reading!

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