feeling lucky? :)

Hey All!
Welcome to another American Crafts bloghop, and Happy St. Patty's Day to you as well! I hope you're wearing a bit of green today, and are feeling the 'luck of the Irish' - I've got a fun little giveaway down below, so be sure to leave a comment for a chance to win some goodies.

For my bloghop layout, I decided to use the beautiful new line, 'Hello Sunshine', so I could scrap this summer photo of my  adorable niece. I'm going to frame this layout and send it to her, so there's a bit more 'stuff' on here than I would normally use, but I LOVE how it turned out!  'Hello Sunshine' is perfect for girly pages, as well as Spring & summer photos- the colours & designs are really fresh & vibrant.  And I'm so happy that AC has started to do patterned papers in Kraft- I've been using these a ton lately, I love, love, love them, as well as those totally cute perforated borders that are on all the papers. I'm really enjoying these new lines, they're all awesome.

 I fussy cut the clouds out of the 'Dandy' paper, used one of them as a journaling spot for my subtitle, and adhered it with dimensional dots above my title. The strip of tiny hearts is one of border strips I was talking about above, cute huh? :)  I added the felt tree ('Daybreak' Details) in my title in place of the 'i' in 'Skip' as I wanted some green there to recall the green trees in my photo. Another bit of cuteness. :) Finally, I adhered a little scrap of ribbon I had on my table to add some blue to the middle, and used some previously punched loopy border strips to my photo edges to make it stand out... I don't own this punch, but I'm thinking I need to buy it. It's a new Martha, and  uh, again... totally cute. Finally, I added some of the 'Sunbeam' paper butterflies to fill in the space above my journaling, et voila!

Now, to continue on your bloghop journey, next up in line is the talented Michelle Lanning, who I'm sure has something totally gorgeous whipped up for you.

Thanks for coming by!  Don't forget to leave a comment for a chance to win these pretty 'Details' rosette flowers, and I'll pick a winner on Sunday evening. 

 

  I'm also doing some Spring cleaning, so you'll get a few other extra things tossed in there as well. ;)
Happy Hopping!

ETA: I'll leave this open until 8pm EST tonight, and draw a name shortly after. Thank you for all the wonderful comments!

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When life gets in the way of fun stuff.

So how was your Christmas? :)
I got totally blindsided this year. Everything seemed to be going along swimmingly until around mid-month, when I got a call telling me my Dad was going to have to be moved again, thanks to the lovely government system we have here. One week before Christmas! It was a major bummer for him, and for us too, as he's farther away and it's more difficult for us to get there. Lots of adjustment and adapting to do. After getting him settled in somewhat, things just turned into one big blur, and the DD got put on the back burner once again. I have all photos downloaded and journaling to go along with, but alas, time has been short and I haven't had time to work on it at all since then. If you're not averse to seeing Christmas stuff in February, I'll be posting it here as I get it done. It will be simple with a capitol 'S', but I'm determined to finish it, and for once have a completed album to look back on next year. I'm so tired of having unfinished projects laying around!


 One of my other Christmas projects these past few weeks was to make Noah the sock monkey he's been asking for for a few years now. I bought the original 'sock monkey' socks on e Bay in the fall, after not being able to find them anywhere here- I'm glad I did, because he turned out adorable, and quite like the monkeys you see all over now. The boy adores him, and says he was his favourite present, so that made me feel pretty great. I of course had to do a quick layout about the monkey, since I'm pretty proud he got done at all... sewing is definitely not one of my skills, and I now know why thimbles were invented, after pricking myself about 1,000 times during the process.

Wishing all of you a happy, healthy and peaceful 2011~

Happy New Year!

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Confession time

Don't fall off your chairs... but yes, I'm actually posting on the blog twice in one week.Shocking, isn't it!

I've had many people asking me these past months what the hell is happening with my blog, and why don't I post layouts anymore? ( Helen from Toronto, if you're reading this, you have to leave me a comment, got it? :D) I'm totally assuming here that someone is actually still reading here amongst the tumbleweeds, lol..

 So here's my confession.

A while back, in January or so, I thought long and hard about shutting down this blog. I was exhausted from the holidays, feeling burnt out, and at the same time, feeling a huge sense of  excitement about starting the 365 project on Flickr. I wasn't at all into blogging, mainly because I had so much other stuff going on in my life, and couldn't find any left over energy to post. I had nothing to say. Call it the winter blahs, I don't know. But what I really wanted to say was that I was becoming a little bit jaded about the whole scrapbooking world in general. If I can be completely honest here (and I will be, because it's my blog, and I can say what I want, lol) all the tweeting, status updates, horn tooting, and Facebook fan pages really got under my skin, and I decided to distance myself from it all for a while, and just do what was making me feel good, which was taking photos. I'm a fairly humble person, and I don't feel comfortable crowing about everything I do. It's just the way I am. So I stopped reading blogs all together, ( even Cathy Z got the boot)  kicked my Facebook habit, did some mental housecleaning, and pared down my online consumption/web surfing to a reasonable amount of time /day.
With the exception of Flickr, which I became addicted to in about 5 minutes after starting the 365. Ha.
Uh, yeah...
Anyway, I took a brief, but much needed break from scrapbooking & blogging, and now that spring is here, and the birds are singing, I actually feel like I want to do both again.
(That statement elicited a huge sigh of relief from the hubby, who was freaking out over the thought that all the paper I've amassed over the past 5 years would eventually have to be used as fire starter for our charcoal BBQ.)

So to ease back into it, here's a page I did this week that combines my 2 loves... scrapbooking and photography. It's sort of a lift of an old page I did a while back, and while there is nothing innovative or trendy about it, I really like it. It's simple, it's who I am, and it makes me very happy to be able to combine the 2.
As always, this page was done mostly with my one true product love, American Crafts. My deep affection for them is undying. :) That cool negative ribbon is from Tim Holtz... I knew I'd need that.
Have a great Thursday... I'm off in search of some Easter goodies for Sunday. They're calling for 23C+ weather this weekend, how awesome is that?

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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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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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Layout day

Put your sunglasses on for this one.. it's bright.
I think it's even brighter irl, but I took this photo last night, and was too lazy to re-do it this morning. Used some of the Teen line from AC on this.. it's surprisingly versatile for boys, even though there's a lot of pink in it. I don't mind pink on boy pages, but it has to be vibrant, and this is pretty vibrant, don't you think? ;p I'm going to be bold and say I'm going to try and post a layout here every Monday.. I seem to get stuff done only on the weekends, and it may push me to scrap more if I have to produce here. ;p So hold me to it, will ya?



Have a great Monday!

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Valentine's giveaway & more..

I just finished up doing some cards for the American Crafts blog , and the theme for February was of course, Valentine's Day. My hubby and I don't really celebrate it, save for a card ( mine is made, his bought, although sometimes he does try his hand at scrapping one) and maybe dinner made by him ( he is a chef, after all) and a good bottle of wine. I love to make cards, and using this line of Valentine themed stuff was really fun. :) So please check it out if you have a second, there's some super cute stuff posted there, if you need a jumpstart for making your own!

I'll have some more Valentine's stuff to share here in the next while, as I do enjoy making cute crafty things for the kids.

Anyhoo, I have some yummy American Crafts goodies to give away today, because seriously folks, I just can't use all of it. So I'm sharing the love. :) Nice, no?

I'm willing to ship it to anywhere in the world, but I can't promise you that it will make it there in time for the 14th! Just leave me a comment here, and tell me what gift you would love to receive from you beloved this year- fantasy or real. My 'fantasy' gift , if I could choose one, would be my own laptop, ( it gets very tiring having to fight for computer time between 4 people, let me tell ya) and not just any laptop, but a MacBook Air. That's my kind of candy. Actually, it's a toss up between that and a dishwasher.. ;p Not sure if I've mentioned it here before or not, but I don't own one, and I know I'm probably the last person on earth who doesn't. I dream about it, I really do.

Here's a few things I've been doing the past while. I haven't been scrapping all that much but more than usual, so it's a start, right? This is a layout I did for a 2Peas challenge to lift a layout from a past issue of Simple Scrapbooks. It's actually a lift of Elizabeth Dillow, from her awesome book, 'the Scrapbooker's Almanac'. If you don't have this book, you need it. It's lovely.

My layout totally pales in comparison to her beautiful page ,and I'm not too thrilled with the outcome, but I'm moving on and calling it done. I'm going to re-do this challenge with something from the magazine, and hope I'll be more satisfied with the results.

A few cards, done for AC...

and a simple layout about the dog, who I don't scrap about very often, but I couldn't resist this woe-is-me face...

Don't forget to leave a comment if you'd like some AC goodness. I'll pick a winner sometime next week. Good luck!

PS.- Stupid blogger. I keep trying to edit the post to make it look less 'scrunched up' and nothing... anyone know how to fix that?? And the fact that you have to scroll forever to leave a comment? Sorry! It drives me nutso.

eta: thank you Ruth! I never knew what that 'compose' button was for. ;p

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