Easter weekend

Nice long weekend coming up. It's Good Friday tomorrow and here in Canada that's a stat holiday and some companies and businesses take Easter Monday off too. Unfortunately for my dh he has to work both Friday and Saturday - but at least he gets paid overtime for it and does have Monday off so that's good.

The weather has been so nice here this week. It's about time spring showed up! I've been busy doing all the gardens and also managed to get my back hedge trimmed back. So the poor recycling guys will be earning their pay when they pick up all the garden clippings on Tuesday, lol.

I did manage to get some scrapping in this evening and got to play with the April LE kit from MCS which is so pretty. Full of Prima papers and flowers and who doesn't like Prima! These papers are from Prima's "Madeline" collection. This layout below is another photo of my Mum taken in 1946. I can see why my Dad wanted to marry her, I think she's a pretty good looking lady! I hope everyone has a great Easter weekend and TFL!

A few of the layouts I've been working on...

So I managed to get a couple more old photos  done for my Heritage album I'm working on for my kids. This first one is a photo I found that my Mum must have given to my Dad when he left to go back to Canada and she had to wait for all her paper work to go through before she could follow him. You can't see it in the photo but just at the bottom corner by the pink bow it says "To Smokey, All My Love, Olive". Smokey was my Dad's nickname he got in the Air Force and it stuck with him through life. The only people who called him John was his parents and brothers and sisters. You'll be able to see why he was given the nickname in the layout below of my Dad (on the left) and his buddy from the Air Force.

 These next few layouts were made with the March Limited Edition Kit from My Creative Scrapbook. It's funny as these papers from Websters would not have been papers that I would have picked out myself to buy but after seeing what the Design Team came up with I'm thinking a little differently now. You can have a lot of fun using these papers for different projects and having your titles do a little bit of a play on words - such as the first one saying "Preserving History" and you have all of these fruit preserves etc as your embellishments. This is a photo of myself at 13 months old - boy was that a looonnnggg time ago - you almost expect to see dinosaurs in the photos, LOL.

This next layout is my son and his Dad, using some more of these Websters papers - see you really can use these for so many different types of layouts. For this butterfly sticker from the kit I put it on clear acetate and then cut around it and folded it up and just used a pop dot down the center to stick it to the paper, so now you can have his wings popping off the paper. I started to do the little butterfly trail with just a fine tip pen but then I decided to stitch it instead - unfortunately you can still see a bit of my pen marks but what can you do, lol.

On the layout below I did a little bit of play on words for the title again. This is my Grandson (my son's boy) and my daughter at a hockey skills competition for the major league hockey players. I did a bit of fussy cutting from an identical piece of this Websters paper for the top right and bottom left of the paper and popped it up with foam pop dots to give a 3D look to it. Well thanks for stopping by and having a peek at my layouts. I'd love to hear any comments you have - good or bad.

Where did the month go?

Okay so I've obviously been slacking off on updating my blog. Well I did have my daughter and my grandchildren up visiting so that kept me busy for a few weeks. I've also been playing with my kits from MCS and I managed to get my birdhouse that I bought all decorated finally and I think it turned out quite cute - if I do say so myself, lol. Here are a couple of photos.

This one is a bit more close up so you can see my fairy, which I painted with stickles glitter and some of the fussy cut flowers at the back. I just love these Once Upon a Springtime line from Graphic 45!

Well I still have some other layout that I've done that I need to post here but first I need to get them off my camera. So TFL and I'll be back to post the others in a bit.

I Cherish This Time

Well I managed to get another layout done using the Feb LE Kit from MCS. It amazes me how many layouts you can do with each of these kits. For the photo in this layout I took it into my Paint Shop Pro program and did a soft focus effect on the photo. It looks really nice but for some reason in this photo of the layout it just seems to make it look like the photo is blurry - it isn't really blurry when you see it in person, lol.

I love this Prima vine that came with the kit and trying to figure out what layout I could use it on and I thought it went perfect with this one. I have a real bad habit sometimes of having beautiful papers and embellishments that I think are so pretty I hate to use them or cut them up to add to layouts. Why I do this I have no idea as it seems so silly to have these things just sitting in my storage not being used when they could add so much to the layouts. I know, a little weird isn't it? LOL  

This photo is of my granddaughter and I when I went over to the mainland last summer to bring them back up to our place for their usual 3 week visit we have in the summer with them every year. We have a lot of fun when they are visiting, we usually go camping for a week out of that time and the other couple of weeks we spend going to the lake everyday or down to the ocean beach collecting sea treasures that wash up on shore or seeing how many little crabs the kids can catch. Of course they are always disappointed when I tell them they have to let them go before we go home, lol. Anyways, here's the layout. TFL and have a great weekend!

Another one for the Heritage album

I love the Feb LE kit from MCS so much so I did another layout for my heritage album using this paper. These are a couple of photos of my sisters and I when we were kids living in Alert Bay, BC. This paper was so pretty I really didn't want to cover it up very much so what I did was scanned the paper (only because I didn't have two sheets of this one) and then I did a bunch of fussy cutting of the two bottom corners and popped them up with foam for a 3D look, I also did the two fairies at the top of the page and the bird with the ribbon and popped them up with foam also. Then I took some pretty peach colored ribbon I had and sort of followed the ribbon on the paper. It still needed a little something else so I used some Stickles glitter to do all the fairies wings. We had these really pretty peach ribbon roses in the kit so I placed a few around the bottom of the layout and also used some of the pretty leaf ribbon around the bottom of the layout. I'm really quite pleased at how it turned out, what do you think? Thanks for stopping by and I hope you will leave some love!

What a great day yesterday!

Well the good news fairies must have been shining down on me yesterday. After getting my exciting email from the magazine in the morning I decided to go poking around our local thrift/antique shops in town. I was so happy I found this really cool bird cage (not antique, more of a decorative one) that I can alter and decorate. Also found some cool little things that I can use in one of those Tim Holtz configuration boxes that I want to do and also a really old camera from about 1940 or so to just have in my scrap room for decoration. I was so happy coming in the house with all my little treasures I found and walked into my kitchen and found this beautiful bouquet of roses from my DH. He must have popped in for a quick sandwich between deliveries. Such a nice surprise - I love things like this that are just for no reason, that are just because. Anyway thought I would show them off to you. 

Excited

Just got an email this morning that my latest layout (shown below) that I did on my Mum & Dad's photo is going to be published in the UK's "Scrapbook Magazine" in their "Letters" section. I feel very honored even if it is only the "Letters" page. I think they liked the story behind the layout of my Mum being an English War Bride. Wish my parents were here to see this!

Well I have tons of "real life" stuff to get done (that always interrupts my scrapping life, lol) but I wanted to pop in and share this with you. Have a great day!

Beginning of a new week

Another Monday almost over and March is half over - where does the time go? Well today I finally managed to get some scrappy play time with my Feb LE kit from MCS. This kit is beautiful with all of the Graphic 45 Once upon a Springtime collection - cute little fairies, flowers, tags and of course no kit would be complete with out some gorgeous Prima flowers

 The name of these papers went just perfect with this photo of my Mum and Dad when they were dating. My Dad was in the Canadian Airforce during the war and my Grandparents owned a pub in England which is where my Dad met my Mum which was in spring of 1946. They only dated for 3 months and my Dad was getting sent back to Canada and he proposed to my Mum and she said yes and they were married on June 3, 1946. My Dad left to go back to Canada and my Mum followed a month later. I've never seen 2 people more in love than the two of them, if my Mum hadn't passed away from cancer at age 61 they would have still been together. At least I know they are together now and that makes me happy. Oh dear, getting myself all teary eyed here, sorry. I really liked the way this layout turned out. TFL

Heritage album

Well I finally got back to doing a few layouts of old family photos for my heritage album that I am doing for my kids. I started this album about 4 years ago, not long after I got into scrapping. I can't believe how much my style has changed - gone from super boring ('cause I had no idea how to scrap) to scrapping some pretty cool looking layouts. I owe a lot of this improvement to all of the wonderful ladies at MCS and others with the layouts and tutorials they share on their blogs.

Anyway here are a couple of the new layouts I did for this album and then one of my daughter for a layout challenge at MCS for March. The first layout are photos of my Dad ranging from age 4 to 20 and the second layout is a photo of my Granny (my Dad's Mum). I hope you like them, I'd love to hear your comments!  
 

Prima's new product Pick for March

Wow, have you been over to Prima's blog this month yet? You really do need to see these beautiful new Prima goodies, they are gorgeous! Prima's Product Picks for March are filled with lots of lucky leprechaun greens! Who knew green could look so GOOD!

Just look at these gorgeous NEW products:

• Butterflies
• Arco Iris Flowers
• Deshire Flowers
• Lovely Leaves
• Delightful Day Flowers
• Raffia Flowers
• Champagne Roses
• Crystal and Lace borders
• Trinkets
• Cabachon Flowers
• Lace
• and DeSoie Flowers

You can find the Prima Blog here, just click on this link: Prima Blog
Prima is also having a give away on their blog so check it out!

Here's a peek at these goodies.

 

I have got a couple of new layouts done which I will post later. Thanks for stopping by!

Finally some play time...

It's so nice to work in an organized scrap room for  change. I finally  managed to get some scrappy time and get two new layouts down which seemed to go a lot easier knowing where things are in my room. I'm still using product from my November Limited Edition kit from MCS and still have lots of goodies left to use for other layouts. 

This first layout was done using Basic Grey's Curio line of papers. I did a lot of distressing on all the layers - I really like Basic Grey papers for this, they just always seem perfect for the distressed look when doing a layout. These are my grandchildren and they had been at a friend's birthday party where they had face painting before they went for this ride - which explains why they have stuff all over their faces, so it's not some strange disease they have, lol.

This next one is a photo of my daughter when we were up at Mount Washington, here on Vancouver Island, for Christmas back in December of 2007. As soon as I saw this photo I knew it would be perfect for these Bo Bunny "Snowy Serenade" papers  I had from last year. Bo Bunny has a new line for this year called "Midnight Frost" that is along these same lines with the blue colors - I just love these papers, they are so great for winter layouts.TFL and I hope everyone is having a great week!

Scrap Room all finished...

Wow, it seems like forever since I've actually scrapped any pictures as we've been working on installing new laminate flooring and painting etc. I so happy it's finally all done so I can actually get back to scrapping. I love the new color and flooring. I got a great deal from Michael's on two 6 cube shelving units at 40% off. I also used some Cricut Vinyl for the first time to do sayings and words on the walls and I must say I really like that stuff and will be using it a lot more often. Anyways here are a few photos of what the room looks like now. TFL

Been MIA for a bit...

Got a phone call from my daughter last week, she wasn't feeling well and wanted me to come over to the mainland for her. So I'm still here, I haven't been doing much for her, I think it was just a "I'm sick and want my Mum" thing. It's always nice to know your babies still need you, even if they are grown up (well she's still only 19 but a grownup just the same).

Unfortunately last Saturday morning my DH phoned and he had just received a phone call from one of our friends here on the mainland about another of his very good friends had passed away that morning. Such sad news, as this friend was one of my DH's best friends since elementary school. He had been fighting cancer for the past 2 years and we all thought he was doing really well but apparently he had learned just before Christmas that the cancer had returned and they only gave him a few more months. No one new about this and so we were all quite shaken when we heard he had passed away. Apparently he was taken into emergency during the middle of the night as he was having problems breathing and passed away by 9:30 am.

This man was one of the nicest and most fun loving people you could ever meet. His family was the most important thing to him and he loved his music. He and his wife married very young and have two beautiful grown children in their early 20's. Dave was only 45 and I just can't even imagine what his wife Barb and the kids are going through right now. When things like this happen it sure does make you realize what is important in your life. My DH is flying in on Friday morning so we can go to the service for our friend and then we will drive home together.

I can never understand why it is that there are so many terrible people in this world and nothing bad ever happens to them. Then there is this beautiful, loving person that everyone admires and loves and would never do anything even remotely bad and has everything to live for and they are taken from us far to soon. I've decided it is because God wants to surround himself with nice, caring, loving people not the horrible ones. So I believe that saying that "Only the Good die Young". So thank you for listening to me and to our friend....

Dave, I feel privileged that I got to know you and am able to call you my friend. You will forever be remembered for your fun loving spirit and your love for your family and your love of music. I know you are up there now watching the greatest concert ever with those rock legends who have passed before you. You are a wonderful person and this world is a better place for having you in it and you will be loved and missed by everyone who has known you! R.I.P. Dave, we love you!!  

Happy Valentines Day!

Wow I can't believe it's Valentines Day already. I hope everyone got spoilt by their significant other. I know I did by my DH. Not only is it Valentines Day but it's also our anniversary - so my gift was brand new laminate flooring in my scrap room. I'm sure everyone is thinking "Well that's not very romantic." but to me it's the best present he could have given me. I spent most of last week clearing out all of my stuff in my scrap room and tearing out old carpeting. On Saturday my hubby and a couple of friends put all the laminate in - it looks soooo nice, I just love it! So yesterday (Sunday) I started painting my room and finished it off today. The only thing I have left to do is paint all the trim and get that put back on, then I can start moving all my stuff back in and getting it organized. Right now I have my computer desk and computer back in the room but it's sitting in the middle of the room so I could get around it to paint the walls. I can't wait until it's all done. I'll take pictures and post them when it's all finished.

I just realized that it's already past midnight so this post will show as Feb 15th instead of Feb 14th - so I'm a few minutes late with my Valentine wishes to everyone. I hope everyone has a great week! 

Pretty layouts....

What do you think of my new blog layout? I think it's so pretty and I have to thank Ingrid of Cute Blog Layouts for this beautiful design. If you're a blogger you really do have to pop on over to her blog and check out all of her pretty layouts. You can find her blog here:Cute Blog Layouts

I've been having a crazy week for some reason. Well not really crazy, I just seem to have been running around a lot but didn't really get anything done. I think I've just been still trying to organize my scrap room and now we are thinking we might pull out the carpet and put laminate flooring down. I think that would be a lot better since I always seem to be dropping things on the floor like glue and stuff which really does not do a lot for carpeting. So I've just been going around to different places checking out pricing etc.

I did actually manage to get a layout done in between all of this running around. These are photo's of my DH that I took when we went to the Gun/Firing range when we were in Las Vegas. I really do not like guns but I told him I would come and take photo's. What is it with men and guns, I guess they really are still just little boys at heart. Oh well as long as they are not in my house then I'm fine with that. I've been trying to use up papers that I have had around for awhile, these papers I think I've had at least a couple of years. I always have a problem doing masculine layouts but this one didn't turn out to bad. TFL and have a great weekend!

The Titanic

Got to do another layout in my nice newly organized scrap room. This is the Titanic exhibit we saw in Las Vegas. We were not allowed to take photo's in the exhibit so I printed these off from the web. The photo of the big huge piece is part of Titanic's hull. This thing was huge, I can't remember the exact weight that this piece was but it was something like 20 tons. They give you a boarding pass each as you go in with a real passengers name on it and a little story of how they came to be on the Titanic. It was so weird going through and seeing all the photos of the people and their stories and pieces of their jewelry, clothing, luggage, and different pieces of the ship, like things from the ballroom, dinner sets - it almost sent shivers up your back. At the end of the exhibit they have plaques with all the peoples names on it, split into Passengers, Staff and Crew, one plaque was survivors and the other was people who died and you can see if the person from your boarding pass survived or not. My DH & I were very happy to find that our two people had survived. TFL

Re-arranging my scrap space....

I was very pleased with myself today. I was poking around one of our local thrift stores yesterday and found a great corner desk for my scrapbook room for only $26. It doesn't have any drawers or shelves but that's okay because it's high enough to put some of my stack-able drawers under it. So of course now I had to re-arrange things in my scrap room. So while doing that I have to clean at the same time (I tell you dust can show up in the weirdest places, lol). It's amazing how much crap you collect in a short time. You know, little notes to yourself, little scraps of paper you'll probably never use - some things that you don't even know what the heck they are or even how they got into the room. 

Now I can actually see my scrap table and I'm able to have my sewing machine up on the table all ready to use, instead of having to drag it up off the floor and set it all up. I even have room for if I want to have a friend over to scrap with. I still have lots of things to go through on one side of my room that has my bookshelf and drawers right now. Once I get it all cleaned up and things thrown away that I don't need anymore I'd like to get the room all painted a nice bright blue color and paint my bookshelf white. I did see this great 9 cube shelving unit at Walmart the other day that was only $49 that I'd like to get for more storage. I think I need another ribbon holder as I seem to have collected a lot of ribbon. The ribbon holder I have now my brother-in-law made me after I was telling him about one I'd seen on the internet and it works great. Also I think some peg board painted white would be good for hanging my scissors and tools on. Anyway, here are a couple of photo's I took of my room. TFL and I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Happy Wednesday!

I hope everyone has been having a good week so far. I wasn't doing to bad until this dumb sinus cold showed up. I swear if I blow my nose anymore it's going to fall off of my face, lol. My poor right eye was watering so bad yesterday and during the night that I woke up this morning with one puffy eye - that just made me  look ever so attractive this morning. Oh well, life goes on, it's a cold you just have to deal with it, lol.

This morning I had fun going on a Bo Bunny blog hop. The designers had some awesome work that they shared with everyone. Bo Bunny has some great paper lines and the ladies showed it off with all of their great layouts and albums. I love going on blog hops, you meet some great people and they all give you such great inspiration. You can probably still get in on the hop and there are some great prizes so just "hop" on over to the Bo Bunny Blog! 

I got a couple more layouts done in between blog hopping. This first one was done using the great December Limited Edition kit from MCS. This is a photo of my DH and his daughter when she was up visiting before Christmas for her birthday. I just love this LE kit, so many beautiful papers and Prima flowers and vines - and who doesn't love Prima!

This next  one is for the January Sketch Challenge at MCS. These were some photo's we took at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum  in Las Vegas. Some of these figures were so real looking it was kind of creepy, lol. The papers are from the November LE kit from MCS. I took a white paper doily and inked it with some Rangers ink and threaded some mint green ribbon through it and then cut another 5½" circle from one of the other papers and put that into the center of the doily. The title is actually a business card from the museum. The little green pearls are some from my stash that I got from the Dollar Store. I'd love to hear your comments on my layouts if you pass through. Thanks for looking!

 

Been busy painting

Well I've been busy the last few days painting the front foyer in our house. We bought this house 5 years ago and all of the colors were pretty neutral. We painted our ensuite just before Christmas in a beautiful deep wine color. It just looked so nice I wanted to spend all my time in there. I decided the rest of the house looked so boring that I needed to do some more painting. I picked out this nice dark sort of navy blue color and wow, what a difference it made. It just looks so warm and inviting now and really sets off the oak stair case. I've posted a couple of pictures below.

I think I'm going to work on my craft room next. Maybe I can actually get it organized enough that I can find everything, lol.

Before I started doing the painting I did finally manage to finish off a layout that I started before we went to Las Vegas. I used some more goodies from the Dec LE Kit from MCS - and I still have lots left. This is a photo of these little snowmen that I've had for about 22 years. My son's school was selling them as a fundraiser and I thought their little faces were so cute I just had to buy them. Every year when I pull them out of the Christmas decorations to display they make me smile. I think because it reminds me of when my son was little - I still can't believe he's going to be 31 in March. When did I get so old, lol. Anyway here's the layout I did. TFL!

 

I'm so excited!!

I had to come back in here and post this fabulous news! Bo Bunny has put out their new collection which you just have to see - It is so beautiful! Check it out on their blog here: http://bobunny.blogspot.com/2011/01/introducing-our-new-paper-lines.html
The most exciting thing about this line is it was named after my friend from MCS, Gabrielle Pollacco! I'm sure that most of you know Gabrielle and her beautiful scrapbooking style and once you see this line you will see everything Gabrielle in it. I just can't tell you how excited I am for her and this totally awesome honor of having this paper line named after her. You can find more info on how this came about on Gabi's blog that you can find here:
http://gabriellepollacco.blogspot.com/

Gabi I am so, so happy for you!!