Me in a nutshell today: A thankful Canadian!

In the 'true north strong and free', its easy to get accustomed to the good life, the every-day, our weather, our expensive homes, our expensive vehicles, our well-paying jobs, our freedoms. Our freedoms. What does that really mean? How can you even begin to compare a nation filled with love, equality, free speech & democracy with that of a war-torn country in the midst of hundreds of slayings, over the inability to 'have a say', or speak ones mind? And why is it that our every-day, becomes the expected, deserved, even entitled to? It is luck, and God's will that we were born Canadian, that we have these privileges that so many take advantage of and expect- including myself.  Thousands of people have died in their quest to seek a life that we have been outright given.  It's a sad thought, to think of children left orphaned, because their parents were fighting for freedoms and a better future.  It's sad to think that people lose their lives, over the inability to give their opinion, or challenge the status quo.  Can you imagine waking up listening to guns fire outside your house, and not having this be an uncommon thing in your life? Think about that for just a minute. Think about not being able to walk to a store, or drive your vehicle through town in fear that you will be shot- and your family, anxiously awaiting your return, are left without.  I can honestly say, these are things I do not think about. I take my freedoms and my peaceful country for granted, because these are not my realities.  I wake up every day and do as I please, speak as I please, and on occasion, bitch about how hard 'it is'.  Time to wake up, and realize that no matter how bad, how ugly, and how hopeless life's curve balls can seem- we are so blessed, and so lucky for everything that we just expect in life.  I asked my husband last night if he ever thought there would be a day that the entire world would live in democracy? It seems so far out of reach, but God has His plan, and I really do hope that is part of it.  Today, I hurt for those who do not have what I do, for those losing their lives trying to achieve peace.  I hurt, because though I have thought about war and what it can do to a country's people many, many times, today is the first time it has truly hit me like a rock.  It's one of those thoughts that has always been a "glad its not me" situation. I can't lie, it still is, but the reality of other country's hardships has never been so daunting.  I thank my brother Adam for truly opening my eyes to Libya's struggle, though I'm sure he doesn't realize he had this effect;) I trust in God, and know that the future is set- whatever happens is meant to be, and has purpose. I have seen this in my own life, and trust it to the fullest.  Today, I know my brother will be home safe soon, and am thankful for his return.  This will not change that hundreds more will die in their struggle to achieve a country like that of which he is returning to.  I have never been so thankful to be a Canadian; July 1st will have a whole new meaning for me this year.

I pray for my brother's return to his family, and for those who have lost, and will lose trying for the good life.  

Cards! (and a can:)

Though scrapbooking is my first love, here are a few other projects I have done!

 This is the first can I made, in 2009! I haven't made many since, as they take up lots of space in my scrapbooking room, and I don't put anything in them! I thought the idea was really cool though, and have made a couple for my daughter's friends' b-day gifts. They are great to put small gifts in, and great for storage!

 These are a couple of the 'coloring' cards I have made.  I got the idea from a friend, and thought it would be great for all the birthday parties my girls go to. So I made quite a few of them, and they have been a hit!

 This is probably my favorite thank-you card I have done. I love the paper, and the embossed stamp looks good with the paper.

 This is a very simple birthday card/ tag/ card holder I made. I love how easy it was to make, and the many uses it has:)

This card was one I made for a card swap. I really like the sponging on the card to match the cardstock, and the simple addition of the rhinestones that I added to the middle of some of the flowers (hard to see in this pic).

 Here is another challenge page! Me and Ash were wanting to get a page done (quickly), so we could get to bed by 2:30 am.  So we gave ourselves 30 minutes to construct a page each, and the winner owed the other coffee in the morning; which was totally unfair on my behalf, as I wanted Timmies, and Ash wanted Starbucks! Good thing she lost...:) This is what I came up with in my 30 minutes.

I used this random mesh ribbon in the layout that I sprayed black with 'Tattered Angels' glimmer mist. I used this ribbon on a few other layouts for this album as well; its so fun to play with! I also used 'Cosmo Cricket' chipboard letters, black 'Thickers', 'Creative Memories' paper and paper flowers, a random pearl in the center of the flowers, and a 'Basic Grey' metal book clip to showcase our kissy-face pic:)

I love this picture of me and Adam. So I figured, why not look at it 4 times on one page!! I also liked the 4 different effects the photographer gave each picture, so to pick just one to scrapbook was not an option.  It is also the photo we sent in our thank-you cards.  I actually made this page in 15 minutes.  Ashley created a challenge for me to make a page in 15 minutes or less, to get me moving quicker, as I was not having a very productive day (too much gabbing and drinking instead)!  And this was the result.  All it took was some random ribbon, 'Stampin' Up' ribbon, 'DCWV' cardstock, 'Creative Memories' paper, 'Making Memories' rub-on and metal word, 'Bazzill Basics' paper flowers (the white one is sprayed a silvery-black with 'Tattered Angels' glimmer mist), and a random pearl! (Ok, that sounds like a lot...)

 I love the picture of Adam with my nephew doing up his jacket!! How sweet... Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I thought these pictures were beautiful enough on their own, and required very simple scrapbooking to allow them to shine. 

 I used the following to make these layouts: 'Karen Foster' paper, 'Prima Marketing' rhinestone swirl, 'Bazzill Basics' paper flowers, 'Fancy Pants' ribbon, and 'e. Prima Marketing' pearls.

 These layouts are of the fantastic group of friends who shared our day with us. With such a large wedding party, I thought it would be difficult to get good photos (and unique photos), with all of us together. But, here they are! This staircase is in the home of dear friends (more like second parents and mentors) of ours, who leant their house to us for the afternoon to get some shots.  We are a rather gorgeous bunch, don't you think?

 The layouts were constructed using 'Karen Foster' and 'Creative Memories' paper, 'e. Prima Marketing' rhinestones and rhinestone swirls, 'Bazzill Basics' paper flowers, 'K & Company' adhesive ribbon words, and 'DCWV' adhesive ribbon.

 Mmmm, the drink of the weekend... Tang and Arbor Mist- hey don't knock it 'til you try it!! It was our (slightly redneck) take on a Mimosa. That's what retreats are for right? Creatvity, experimentation... this has it all:)

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I love the picture of me and my brother in this layout. It was a great moment with him on my wedding day, even though we have done countless duets in our lifetime. It was and is a reminder to me that the little things I share with him will never change, and as "blood" he will always be beside me on the days that count. It's funny that its the only picture I have of the two of us at the piano together too!  Then theres my husband, who can't play a tune to save his soul, lol, but he will listen and appreciate that I can! This layout was simply put together with 'Creative Memories' paper, ramdom buttons and brads, 'Stampin' Up' lace ribbon, thickers, and an old sheet of piano music I swiped from the piano stool!







 I "LOVE" this page! I bought the 'making memories' chipboard piece when I first started scrapbooking hard-core- so like 4 years ago! This just goes to show that it is worth saving some of the old stuff you think you'll "never use"... I think the page worked out well too; had I have used it 4 years ago, I never would have done this with the page, (nor was I married)!

So besides the 'making memories' chipboard LOVE piece, I also used 'Prima Marketing' paper flowers, 'Bazzill' paper flowers, 'Stampin' Up' brads, 'Creative Memories' paper, and ribbon by 'Kaiser Craft', 'American Crafts', and 'Stampin' Up'. I really like how simple this page was, and it took very little time to create.  A lot of the paper I used for my wedding album is from a 'Creative Memories' pack, and its elegance requires less embellishing!

Canmore Scrap Retreat

What a great weekend!! I got a fair bit accomplished in my wedding album, but even more importantly, had some great laughs, drinks (plenty of them),  a little more sleep than normal... The weather was amazing, though we were too busy scrapping and drinking to enjoy it much.  I am excited to end this weekend with some great layouts.  I am also excited to have officially e-mailed Scrapbooker's Paradise with some links to my work, in an attempt to be part of their Design Team. Wish me luck!!  
Me (R) & Ashley (L); enjoying dinner by the fire. The food, rooms, scrap area, and coffee were amazing (and we drank loads of the coffee!).  The Inn has a very cozy cabin-feel to it. It doesn't get much better than scrapbooking in the mountains with great company (yup, me- you were very lucky Ash)! 

Sandra showing us one of her layouts.. Lucky girl got her own room (separate livingroom in our room), and half a table to herself!!

Yikes! Our table by the end of day 2!  I suppose this is pretty typical of a scrapbooking day with the girls.  The other ladies at the retreat marvelled at how much "stuff" we had.  What can I say though, we needed all of it!

 These are some of my favorite layouts from my wedding album. They were created at the scrapbooking retreat this past weekend in Canmore. Me, Ash, and Sandra had a phenomenal time; getting up early, and late to bed.  I had fun scrapbooking my wedding album in all black and white, with some blue accents on select pages.  I feel like my creativity was pushed with limiting myself to only three colors to play with.  It was a lot of fun- a trip I'm looking forward to repeating in the future!

 I found some really great embellishments to help accent the black and white pages. I used 'Pink Paislee' artesan elements circles to frame the pictures on the first page of the layout. The paper was a combination of American Crafts (glitter), as well as Creative Memories. I used a small Stampin' Up tag that I further accented with 'Maya Road' flower rub-ons. I embossed the title "beautiful" with black 'Whispers' embossing powder. The ribbon on the page included Stampin' Up lace ribbon, and American Crafts flower ribbon. I finished the page with a few 'Hot off the Press' brads and some rug-hooking canvas that I painted black!

TWO More Sleeps!!

2 more sleeps, 2 more sleeps! I feel like a kid going to Disneyland, but I'm a mom going on a scrapbooking retreat instead! Actually, my excitement matches that of when I was young and DID go to Disneyland! Me and my two very close girlfriends are on our way to Canmore this weekend for hours, upon hours, upon hours of sweet, sweet scrapbooking. This trip has been in the plans for a few months now, and it couldn't come sooner.  I have only been on one other scrapbook retreat, on which I completed my son's baby album, as well as a few other pages for my 2010 album.  I came home very surprised with what could be accomplished in a weekend dedicated solely to scrapbooking.  SO this weekend, I will be focusing on starting (and completing) my wedding album.  I am excited for this for so many reasons; scrapbooking me and my husband, which doesn't happen often- most of the pages I do are of the kids. Also, our wedding was almost 3 years ago, and never thought I'd get to doing our wedding album, as so many projects compile themselves throughout the year(s). In addition, this weekend is completely KIDS-FREE!! All the moms out there understand the significance of this!  C is now just about 5 months old, and is still breast-feeding, so I have been pumping and freezing milk for over 3 months now.  It will be my first weekend away from him, and first weekend without the kids in just about 2 years. I am really looking forward to adult conversations, a good glass of wine (and by good, I mean large), no cooking, no cleaning, and re-living the wonderful memories of the day I married my best friend, and soul mate. Stay tuned, for samples of the work I do over the weekend! In the meantime- CHEERS!

 This is one page of a 2-page spread.  Not too sure why the other one is not up here also... Anyways, this is such as sweet picture of A- yes, she is always this sweet! No really though, I am constantly told that she is "soooo cute", and take pride in the fact that I could actually reproduce a sweet child:) Definately doesn't get it from me!  As a result of her sweetness, she doesn't get in very much trouble- so she too may be a bit of a handfull one day, when she realizes her sweetness can work wonders to her advantage. 

This layout (and the one that goes with it!), was made using paper from the 'Me and My Big Ideas- cardstock pack'. This paper was a fantastic deal- I got a PACK of paper in Scrapbooker Paradise's 70% off rack, so it only cost me, like $8! And the paper is really pretty- lots of fuzzy paper, shiny, glittery paper... So I matted the pic on some square pieces of this paper.  This page is also a good example of something I do a lot in scrapbooking, though I don't think I have any more examples on my blog- creating embellishments with the paper.  The leaves 'vine', was cut out, as well as the swirly embellishment under the pic.  I used a Stampin' Up corner punch to add some detail to the corner of the pic, and 4 various white flowers were layered to create one big, pretty flower! I used Stampin' Up's build-a-brad to make the brad in the center of the flower, a 'K&Company' "happy" adhesive chipboard word, and some 'e. prima marketing' self-adhesive pearls and crystals to finish off the page.  If you follow my blog, you will hear me say this a lot- Darn my kids are cute!!

  So this layout doesn't showcase my best scrapbooking (in my defense, it's an older layout), but it is so relevant to what life is like now with M, and what life will be like in a few years.  I couldn't give up such a great opportunity to discuss it (or her), with you!  She is a bright, beautiful, sassy young girl. The hands-on-the-hip says it all!!  She has a bit too much of  "that" twinkle in her eye- you know, the one where you know she's up to something.  I have a feeling its not going anywhere either; me and Adam are going to have our hands full! Unfortunately, I've been told she gets it from me- guess its true when they say "the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree". Lets just hope when this apple falls from the tree, it falls softly- few bruises, and hopefully with no worms. Hmm, that could be a whole new thought to ponder!! I hope when M comes home with her biker boyfriend and sleeves of tattoos, her dad and I can remember our childhoods, where she's coming from, and go easy on her (and her biker boyfriend).

I created this layout 4 years ago (she was a sassy little 4-year old here!) I can't believe I would do such a tedious task, but each word is made from INDIVIDUAL rub-on letters. So, I'm sure you can imagine how long it would take to make the journalling on this page! The rub-ons were on vellum, and the black letters are 'Heidi Swapp' chipboard letters.  Speaking of- why can I not find Heidi Swapp stuff around anywhere anymore? I love(d) her embellishments, but they seem hard to come by these days. I have many more new loves, but if I find her stuff anywhere, you can be sure I will be stockpiling!

First of all- look at that sexy man!! Now, look at my husband, lol, just kidding honey, I meant you... So, me and Adam went to this concert together last year.  We felt so unbelievably old there! We were undoubtedly the oldest people there who were not chaperoning younger kids.  So we jumped around with all the middle-school-aged kids (ok, not quite), and had a really fun night! My husband is such a trooper for coming with me- definitely one of my favorite bands.  I first stamped the background cardstock I used with the stars, and used some glittery paper out of my 'DCWV- The Glitter Stack' cardstock pack. I added to the bling on the paper with some more bling, with the border rhinestone adhesive strips. A little bit of black lace ribbon, some 'thicker' letters, and a touch of journalling finished off the layout. What a great date night this was with my sexy husband:)

 This layout is one of very few single-page layouts. I tend to gravitate to double-page layouts, as I like the symmetry between them; the connection it gives them.  I am an "organized" scrapbooker, if I can dub myself as one, or if there is such a thing!!  I absolutely love the eccetric-type scrapbooking, however unfortunately, its just not really my style.  So, my single-page layout was created with pictures from Wilderness Village- our first camping trip of the season last year.  It was pretty darn chilly out there, so we spent a lot of time in the trailer, which I am perfectly fine with, as long as I'm camping!  Good thing we brought lots of coloring and
stuff for the kids to do. Anyways, I did some very simple embellishing on this page, with a random metal heart trinket, fancy paperclip, and 'office depot' (lol) punch tag, and a stamp to add a smidge of journalling to the page.  I really like when one item or embellishment does enough for a page that you don't have to add too much to it, for it to feel "done". That was how I felt with the tag, as I wanted the different element it brought to the page to draw the eye to it. Notice that baby bump (ok, small mountain)? Wow, that feels like forever ago that I was pregnant!!

 I took these pictures of the kids when we went to Nana & Papa's wedding, the first weekend of Sept.'10.  C was only 2 weeks old! We stayed in a fantastic hotel in Fairmont, with warm pools, a gorgeous view, and a ground-level room that walked out to this! The patio took you out to this nice little garden-esque area, so I took advantage of the scenery and snapped some shots of the kids before the wedding when they were all dolled up. It was a fabulous 4-day vacation; one we are looking forward to repeating this fall!

 To create the title 'Picture Perfect', I used pink 'thickers' and clear/white stickers over top. I used 'Quick Quotes' ribbon, and random buttons. The cardboard-looking tag is a cute addition, that I picked up at a great little scrapbooking store in Calgary.  I'm not sure of the brand-name on the paper- but loved both the flowers paper, which I have other coordinating papers for, as well as the simple brown and white paper used as the backdrop for the layout. 

 The girls were, and still are I suppose, elated to have a little baby brother! M is my big helper, while A likes to smother him. With kisses, and hugs that is. The smothering minus hugs & kisses will come in a few years... These layouts were also done on the scrapbooking retreat I went to last September. 

So, I packed for this retreat thinking I would not need very much in the way of embellishments (as my son was with me, and I thought I wouldn't get much done!) So, I started running low on embellishments I hadn't used on other layouts.  I improvised and used a piece of cardboard, that I tore up, to add some fun to the pages.  I then was out my piece of cardboard that I stamp over- oops! But I like how the pages turned out, so guess it was worth it!  

 I also used a few pieces of ribbon, some random buttons, brads, and the 'Happy Everything' tag by '7 Gypsies'.  I matted the pics on torn paper, and used a 'K&Company' rub-on to give the tag some color. My kids sure are easy to scrapbook- they are so precious and cute! (Well, a bit dishevelled here, but I had just given birth the day before, so its dad's fault!!)

 

 Oh my sweet little boy!  He is such a blessing for me and my husband.  We had about given up on trying to have our 3rd baby, when I found out I was pregnant with him!  God works in such amazing ways...  I went to my first scrapbooking retreat in September 2010- I focused my time on making C a baby album. I actually had little Mr. with me, and he was an absolute angel the entire weekend! I bought some matchy-matchy stuff to do a few of the pages. I used the 'teresa collins; chic bebe boy' collection- including the paper, ribbon, square journalling cut-out, transparency, and some of the letters. I added a bit of bling and used some random letters to complete the layouts.  I really liked playing with the transparency, something that I'd like to experiment with a bit more for future layouts.

 Some old layouts I did- I think these are from 2007! But, I like the pictures- especially my eye-ball and Adam's chin!! The clips have paper pieces adhered to them, with writing, and then are heat embossed. I crumpled the paper that the pics are matted on also- something I haven't done in a while, but it gives a really neat look to the page.  These are very simple pages, which is just what I wanted for them- the simplicity allows the pics to shine through! Which means you can pay attention to how good-looking my husband is (and my eye-ball).