The music Gods are shining on me.

First Ray in April, now Ben in May. Be still, my heart!


Ben Harper.. ah, I LOVE him. I'm so excited to finally get to see him. All the other times he's been here, I haven't been able to go for one reason or another, but I'm definitely not missing out this time around. And the new album coming out in May is making me very happy. :)

Tickets ( for those around here interested) go on sale tomorrow at noon, and I'll have my mouse ready to click 'buy' when the clock strikes 12.

Now, my life would be very complete if Billie Joe & company decide to visit our fair city to tour when their new album finally comes out.. I'm keeping my fingers crossed tight for that. A hat trick concert event would be cool. :) Yeah, I have hockey on the brain too. Our Habs have finally gotten a bit of the lead out, and they're struggling to get in the finals. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one too.


Nothing much scrappy to share this week- I've been too busy to even think about it, but I did make this cute-sy Easter card last week, to try out my adorable new bunny stamp. :)




Have a great weekend all.. Lots going on here, but backyard poop scooping is tops on the agenda, ugh... and I'll hopefully be ready by the weekend for that give-away I mentioned earlier , if all goes according to plan. :)


eta: A huge thanks for all the comments, advice, and general empathy regarding my photo issues in the last post.. I will let you know how I do with organizing the huge mess that is my photo library.
xox

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the dog ate my homework,or something like that..

Remember when you were in school and you needed to come up with a really good excuse about why you didn't have your homework ready to hand in? Well, that's how I feel about this blog post today.

I really wanted to have that colour layout done and ready to post this morning, but the Gods were against me. Unlike other more organized people I know who scrapbook, I do not print out my photos on a monthly basis, and this time it's gone and bit me in the ass, because when I went to print out my photo for the layout, I discovered I had no more printer ink left to print out my photo. Crap! Now, if I were the organized type, I would have had a nice little pile of photos to browse through for just such a disaster/emergency, but I'm not, and I don't. The reason I don't have photos at the ready ( and haven't gotten anything printed out in a long while) is b/c there's a glitch somewhere on my computer that won't let me upload my photos online to Costco or where-ever else I've tried. It's very frustrating, but have I done anything about it? Nooooo. I get through the whole process of choosing them, because it takes forever to find the files and upload, I'm finally ready to hit the 'send' button, and it tells me they cannot process my order because of an error. Then I yell & curse at the computer for a few seconds, sit there frustrated, get distracted with another website, and finally just get up, walk away and forget about it. ( thanks to that ADD brain of mine- scary.) I know you'll just tell me to take a burned copy of the pics in myself, but I'm lazy like that. I can't seem to get it done, because I need to edit the pics beforehand, and so on.. a vicious circle.

So here I find myself with thousands upon thousands of photos on my hard drive, and nothing printed out. It's not an organized way to scrapbook, and something I'd promised myself I'd work on this year. This was one of my resolutions in the New year after losing a year's worth + of photos when my external hard drive crashed last summer. So,do NOT take it from me folks. Back up your pics, please. Externals aren't supposed to crash, but mine just made a weird noise one day, and that was the end of that. I really need to look at my folders at the end of every month, and make a point of taking them in to be printed. Warts and all. I'd be very curious to know how you all deal with the problems of having so many photos? Do you get them all printed or print at home? I need a better solution. Help!


In lieu of the darned orange/teal layout, I made this very fast( seriously 10 minute) page with a photo of my boys that I adore. I had an extra one kicking around, and it's been scrapped before on a page I did here 3 years ago when I was asked to be a GGG at 2 peas. I had this photo printed out big and framed for my boys' room, and I have never tired of it. It makes me smile everytime I see it. it captures them so well.





Other stuff...
If you have a few seconds to spare today, please go and check out the newly revamped American Crafts blog . The fabulously sweet & perky Kelly Purkey is the hostess with the most-est there, and honestly, the blog is rocking with new layouts and ideas. I'm lovin' it. Have I mentioned that I LOVE AC? LOVE!! It's just the coolest scrappy stuff out there, in my books.
This week is Craft Fair week, and yours truly should have a layout up there today. ;p There's also some fun challenges happening, and one going on right now where you can win a Thickers prize pack for just doing a layout with Thickers. Easy-peasy right, since you'd use them anyways?


And I had totally forgotten that my blog-iversary has come and gone ( the test post doesn't really count, right?) so I'll be having a give-away soon in honour of that. Check back here in the next few days- I have lotsa goodies to celebrate 1 year of quasi blogging... ;p

Happy Monday to you all!





xoxo

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Welcome Spring...

I'm so glad you're finally here. :)

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In honour of St. Patty's day ( and because I've got nothin' else)

I give you this, a green layout. I know, not quite the orange/teal layout I promised, but a layout nonetheless! This is in the latest issue of Simple, and it's a layout I kinda like b/c it's all true. I'm a recycling fanatic, and proud of it.

I forgot I had to work Sunday, which put a big damper on my plans to finish today's layout. And today, although I did have the day off of work, I was busy taking my Dad to and from an appointment where he had his Parkinson's evaluated. He's still very mobile despite numerous bothersome side effects, and I hope that he stays that way for a long while. This is a sneaky and strange disease, one minute he can be fantastic and the next, not able to walk very well.One thing he isn't is shaky, like you'd think. But being 'unbalanced', for lack of a better term, is his biggest obstacle. He bangs into stuff alot. ;p The evaluation was to see how his coordination, strength and muscle tone were, and I'm happy to say he did pretty well. He's determined to stay on top of it, and that's half the battle,I'm sure of it.

I hope to be back by Friday with the color combo layout, if all goes according to plan- keep your fingers crossed that my work week isn't too exhausting and I still want to scrapbook after selling paper and glue all the day long... ;p
xox

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a Friday the 13th funny, and some random schtuff.

So you guys all know by now that I work in a scrapbook store, right? One of my jobs there is to receive all the merchandise that comes into the store, which means having to deal with the UPS and Fed-Ex guys who deliver them, and I've come to know them since I see them on a daily basis. So this morning, I see a Fed-Ex truck pull up in front of my house to deliver a package, and I'm thinking it's probably one of my layouts being returned to me. Now, since I'm sitting here in ugly mismatched pj's and glasses ( I wear contacts most of the time), haven't showered, and generally look like something the cat just dragged in, I hesitate to answer the door. But then I have a thought that he won't leave the package, and that I'll end up having to go pick it up somewhere, so I run downstairs to open the front door, only to be confronted by the SAME FED-EX GUY who delivers the boxes at work. Jeez. Talk about embarrassing.


He was peeking into the little window in the door, and I guess I surprised him, because he seemed flustered and felt the need to apologize. Or else he was so taken aback by seeing me at the door looking like crap that he just didn't know what to say. Needless to say, I was so mortified that I wanted to just slam the door in his face and run back upstairs. I signed for the box after mumbling something about it being my day off and apologizing for my horrendous appearance, and then hastily shut the door. UGH. Can you say awkward? And what are the odds it would be the same guy?! I'm dreading seeing this dude at work next week and hoping he won't be gauche enough to crack jokes about how I look so, um... different at home. ;p


I'm scrapping a page for my Monday post that is using this gorgeous colour combo:







It's called 'Grecian Resort' and I found it on the Color blog listed on my sidebar. If you haven't checked it out, it's a great resource for beautiful colour combos and inspiration. This one has been on my table for a while now, and I'm so fed up with living in Iceland that I needed some summery colours to help get me through the next few weeks, as it doesn't seem to be warming up here anytime soon. Feel free to use it if you're inspired by it. :)





Isn't this room just fantastic? I loved this site and the magazine. Always such beautiful rooms and ideas for when I win the big bucks on the 649 ( That's our lotto here) and can finally put an addition on the back of my tiny house. I just love the feel of this room with all the light, and that giant blackboard. I was so sad to hear that they're ceasing publication thsi month. That now make 2 of my favourite magazines that are gone because of this crappy economy. It sucks. :(







ER. Have you been watching it this year? I've watched since the beginning but lost interest when all the original cast left a few years ago (I was so upset when they killed off Mark Green), and only started watching it again last year. It's been fantastic this season,and last night's episode with all the old cast (Clooney!) just made it awesome. So sad to see it go.


And finally, a card I made for my good friend Melissa a little while back to welcome her sweet new baby boy Jackson. I love this AC baby line, and even though I don't have babies of my own anymore, I'm very tempted to use it to do an album for my boys, but that would be a huge undertaking, and not something I have time for right now. Someday!







Have a great weekend, and I'll be back Monday to share my orange layout.

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call me weird, but I DO like Mondays...

mostly due to having Mondays off, I'm sure. I love being able to send the kids on their not-so- merry way to school, and enjoying that calm quiet in the house after the morning craziness of trying to get them out the door on time. Our start time here is 8:10 am, so it's always the mad dash for us 'non-morning' type people.

We had some beautiful spring-like weather this weekend and it was so wonderful to feel a warm breeze on my cheek and even ditch the winter jacket one afternoon while taking the dog for a walk. Spring is definitely my most favourite season, and I'm looking forward to it's arrival with great anticipation and joy. I think most of my Canadian friends will agree with me that it feels OH so good for the soul after our very long snowy winter, and I can't wait for the snow to be gone and to finally see my spring flowers start to come up.

So here's a kind of 'goodbye winter' layout I did the other day. We took a hike through a nearby nature trail last week during March break, and I was lucky to get this portrait of the dudes on our walk. I love the intense look on both their faces, although I would have preferred to see less nostril action on Bobby.. ;p

This started off totally different in my head and got messier as I went along. The sticker title is not straight ( oh yeah, i'm totally ok with that.) and the snowflake placement kinda bugs me, but I'm calling it a day and moving on. I embossed the chipboard snowflakes ( in silver glitter no less) with some of the new embossing powder that AC sent me, and it's loads of fun for someone who has never embossed anything, especially for a layout. How's that for technique-y, eh? ;p

I even got Bob & the boys in on the action, and they embossed an entire Cub car for the upcoming Cub Scout jamboree, which turned out pretty cool, I'll get a pic taken today to show you.

eta: here's the green glitter Greedo-mobile. Not bad huh? Who knew my hubby would be happy I bought an embossing gun? He also loves my Cropodile and it sits in his tool kit, not mine. ;p






I hope you enjoy your Monday as much as I will, and that you take advantage of that extra delicious hour of daylight. I'll be on the lookout for my first robin of the season.... :)

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Monday flew by me...

Sorry 'bout that!

I broke my promise to post at least every Monday, but I've got a good excuse.. my kids are on March/Spring break this week, and yesterday was busy busy... It was also kinda hard to wrestle time on the computer, so I just gave in and went with it.

I'm watching Idol right now ( first time this season- I thought I'd better jump in now or forget it) and am posting this between commercials... although I gotta say I'm having a rather hard time staying awake through all the mediocre performances. Not sure I'll watch every week.


I was asked a while back by Janet to be the guest designer on her site, Colour Combos Galore.
If you haven't visited this site yet, take a sec to check it out and be inspired by all the amazing colour schemes she's come up with. Very inspiring stuff if you're ever stuck in a rut. I chose 2 colours (the blue and yellow) and she came up with the rest. Her & the DT did a fantastic job with this combo! Here's my version, inspired by my total Ray Lamontagne obsession:




and the colour combo:




the lightest colour is a pale icy blue, which shows up gray on my layout, but I could not for the life of me get it to photograph properly.

If you're inspired by this combo and decide to try it out, please send me a link to your layout- I'd love to see what you've done. :)




Enjoy the week.. I'm looking forward to the time change next weekend, and longer days. :) Spring is finally in sight!

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