Ginger's Life of Spice

In Memory of Wendy Konoza - Crop

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend there will be a special crop in memory of my friend Wendy. Saturday would mark her 36th birthday. For the past couple years we always went to Treasured Memories to celebrate and so why would this year be any different? I expect there will be some tears, but I wish for more laughter than anything as that is what Wendy would want. The crop will be held at Treasured Memories on Friday and Saturday where there will also be a silent auction for which the proceeds will be donated to "Wendy Konoza Memorial Award for Education" which you can read more about here. I have decided to donate one of my She Art creations.

I was hoping to make a special one just for this crop, but I ran out of time. If you are interested in checking out what will be available, please stop by the store, or you can make a donation to the Wendy Konoza Memorial Award for Education.

I am looking forward to being surrounded by Wendy's friends and family this weekend and for all of us to have an amazing scrappy time by celebrating her life.

Take care friends.

Cooking Class - Sorrentinos

2012-01-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

My sister Carmen had been planning this cooking class for a few months or so, and this past week I had thought I wouldn't attend with all the school work etc., but in the end Marvin encouraged me to go and have some fun. I'm happy I did! We had a great time with Chef Chris who taught us to make pasta and a few other things! There were eight of us, I forgot to ask the ladies if they would mind me posting photos of them on my blog - so just a few people shots.

This was our appetizer, Mushroom Crostini's with White Truffle oil (sorry - still trying to get use to the focus on my camera). I helped chop mushrooms and onions to make this dish.

I made one of those balls of dough you see in this picture, Chef Chris rolled out most of the dough for us, as he has way more experience with it than we do - don't get me wrong, we tried, but ours were more shaped like triangles than rectangles! Arlene cut up the pasta into strips to await the boiling water.

Pasta is almost ready.

Here is the pasta now being mixed with the garlic cream sauce. The smell was heavenly!

This is the "Medaglione di Pollo al Vino" - Chicken with mushrooms, Italian sausage and wine.
And to finish it all off, nothing gets more Italian than...

Something I learned from this experience - I spend way too much time preparing for a meal. We made a four course meal in 3.5 hours. Yes we made it together, but there was a whole lot of talking and explaining in between. Realistically I could make this spectacular meal in the same amount of time and I would also save some time with the pasta - although it is easy, I'm not so sure that I would make the homemade version all the time.

Now I am off to read and write!

Ciao Bellas!

Pass The Page - Blog Hop

2012-01-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to "Pass the Page" blog hop! When Julie initially posted this on her blog I knew I wanted to be a part of it.... the idea is that Julie started with a layout she created and sent a photo of it off to the next person and then they were to take whatever inspiration they got and then create their own layout. A photo was then sent to the next person on the list and so on. Each of us have only seen the layout of the person before us... that is until today!

As soon as I received this photo of Alison's beautiful "Winter Sun" layout, I got to work on my own page.

I loved the linear design of this layout and that is where I drew my inspiration. I used lots of straight line layers along with the torn edge at the bottom for a bit of variety. I detected Alison's use of a punch to create the edge on the paper, so I pulled out my notebook punch and did the edge on top. I also noticed how her photo shows us the beautiful colors of the leaves and she carry's that through with her embellishments. I in turn took the heart from the machiatto and used a heart punch for my embellishment. I also kept with the block style lettering she uses for her title.

Most of the papers I used were from a Scarlet Lime kit, I also used Basic Grey and October Afternoon papers. The alphabet is Basic Grey and the journaling card is something I made. If you are interested, you can download my vintage tags.

Thank you so much for stopping by and now you can move on to Jemma's blog to see what inspired her from my layout. There is a prize for those who comment on each blog. If you would like to start at the beginning please visit Julie over at Letting the Days Roll By.

I cannot wait to visit everyone's blog to see each transformation and interpretation!

Brrrr...

2012-01-17T20:43:00.000-07:00

You tell me... where would you rather be?

This is what popped on my screen at work this morning and I had to take a picture...

I know where my eyes are focused :)

I hope to do a comparison post of how my life was and now is. There are many similarities to be being a scrapbooker vs graduate student. Are you shocked? I was... I'll give you one example...

The length of time it took me to write up my weekly discussion assignment is close to the amount of time it takes me to get one layout done at crop night!

That will need to change. Seriously needs to change... if not... you will not see me for another 13.5 weeks!

Please come back on Friday as I am participating in a "Pass the Page" blog hop hosted by Julie! I look forward to sharing my layout with you and seeing what everyone else created!

In the meantime you might want to pull out your long-johns to help you stay warm!

Project Life | Week 1

2012-01-08T21:07:00.000-07:00

How is everyone? Are you getting into the swing of life now that the first week of January has passed. I feel like this past week has allowed us to plan for some changes, like eating healthy and taking lunches to work... getting out the gym bag and making a concerted effort to working out - which I managed to do three times this week! That is my goal to Move More and Eat Well as per Cathy's class. Well... actually she has asked us to pick one thing to work on for January and for me that will be exercise.

What about you are there any health related goals you are signing up for this January?

Okay... moving on... I finished my Week 1 of Project Life and thought I would share it tonight.

This is the cover page and I loved how it turned out. One thing I am trying to remember here is to keep it simple.

Not too many photos this week to share, but I like how this allows me to add little bits that I may not put on a scrapbook layout. I love the advertisement of the new Nello's restaurant (southside) and kept it for PL. We went on Friday night and it brought back so many memories of all the dinners we ate at Il Pasticcio when living downtown. I had the Saporito Chicken salad and some wonderful mussels.

And with that I am signing off dear friends! Have a great week :)

P.S. happy birthday Mom & Dad!!

Remember This Post...?

2012-01-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

Well I am a bit overdue on the deadline, but managed to complete my Pay It Forwards last week... you can see more from this post. I know I said the recipients would receive the PIF by the end of 2011, but what can I say? I procrastinated this project! I wasted so much time thinking I needed to make something spectacular that I ended up being scared to make anything! I will be sending them out in the next few days so I will only be able to share a sneakie peekie :)

Keep it real peeps!

Are You Doing Project Life?

2012-01-02T13:30:00.001-07:00

I have to admit this is something I've had floating around in my head since I did Week in The Life this summer. What solidified it was a conversation I had with my friend Amy. I mentioned I was not sure if I had time for this, and she pointed out it is not really a project, but perhaps a different way of scrapbooking. That made sense to me. I really have no idea what my schedule is going to be like once I start classes, but I don't want to stop documenting our life for what could be 3-4 years of school. Ali had a really great post this morning on her blog explaining her approach to PL. I know I will not manage daily photos, but I can take photos of what is happening during our week and that is how the stories will be told.

One would think if I had been thinking of this since the summer, I might have planned it out a bit better! I decided not to get a Project Life Kit, but would not hesitate next year - to make things more simple. I went to Treasured Memories last week with PL in mind and made my own kit and here is what I came up with.

These are some of the fun things I picked out. I am using the Crate Paper - Random Collection elements and papers. I also picked out some Jillibean soup - Sweet & Sour Soup papers. I love the buttons and ephemera I picked out as well. The Glitz alphabet letters and Jenni Bowlin Studio stickers will come in handy as well.

In the middle here, you can see I have cut all my papers into 4x6 so they are ready to go. I bought some Hambly overlays and have cut a few of those up as well. I already mentioned I am using Crate Paper & Jillibean Soup papers, but I also picked out some Glitz (most of the navy blue ones), and Graphic 45 - Tropical Travelogue Collection. I managed to pick up some of the Crate Paper journaling cards, but didn't think it would be enough. So I did purchase the Celementine journaling cards from Jessica Sprague.

Becky Higgins has all of her Project Life kits available in a digital format at Jessica Sprague. I created pdf files of the cards and can easily print them off throughout the year when I need more.

The only thing I will need more of are the page protectors. I did get some at TM last week and I have some left from WITL.

There you have it. What about you? Are you doing Project Life?

No More Lickin' - Storytelling Sunday

2011-12-31T21:23:00.000-07:00

Well, this marks the first Storytelling Sunday of the New Year and Sian is switching it up a bit. She is encouraging all storytellers to tell their story, whether it be with words or pictures...

This story is not a New Years related one, but the photo was taken today and so it is new and happening now :)

Edwin had his teeth cleaned and feels he needs to lick the area where he was shaved for the intravenous needle! He is obsessed with licking the area and has managed to remove more hair! Thus the inflatable collar.

And with that I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year! I am looking forward to 2012.

Christmas Album - final pages

2011-12-28T22:36:00.000-07:00

I have to say, this year doing December Daily/ Journal Your Christmas has been thoroughly enjoyable. Things that I found worked for me:

having the base of the album ready to go before Dec. was extremely helpful (thanks Nadine!!). For me this is an absolute MUST and I will be doing the same next year.
Organizing all my Christmas supplies and having them close at hand - my table was a disaster - but at least I knew where everything was!
I wasn't able to get at my pages every night, but I found I was not stressed. At the end of the evening I took a few minutes to keep a running list of each day and what I wanted to record. I did not always follow the JYC prompts, a lot of my documenting was on things that happened that day, which is more like the December Daily. For the days that I did not have anything happening, I looked at Shimelle's journaling and photos prompts to pull some ideas.
I also think it helped to know what to expect, after doing JYC last year.
Purchasing Ali's December Daily templates, December Monthly overlays and her Holiday Word Art made a difference in managing my time as well as keeping the design consistent. Although, I do like the look of the typed journaling, I still think writing things out takes less time. This is something I will consider next year.
This year I had my photo printer and that was extremely helpful and convenient.

With that I will share the final days of my album...

I love how chunky and textured the album turned out and that the pages are not all the same size. Here is a couple of shots of the finished album.

I know JYC goes on for another week or so, perhaps one year I will carry on past Dec. 26th, but for now I am happy with having it completed :)
Thanks for having a look :)

Christmas Album - Day 20 & 21

2011-12-28T22:08:00.000-07:00

Hello all of you :)

I did finish my album pages, but I have been so busy trying to complete a few other projects I had no time to take photos today and tomorrow I am back at work. Time has passed so quickly...

Here are the two pages...

I will be back on the weekend to share the rest of the album pages and hopefully a couple other fun things!

Take care sweets!

Christmas Album - Day 14-19

2011-12-26T23:50:00.000-07:00

Well the dinners are over and we are wanting to have things back to normal. I just might take the trees down today as they have been up for some time. Usually I like to leave them up for the first week of January, but with classes starting in less than two weeks, I would like to get things in order before then :)

I have more album pages to share with you...

I hope to have the final pages finished tonight to be able to share for tomorrow.
Take care friends :)

Christmas Album - Day 9-13

2011-12-26T12:58:00.000-07:00

Hello! I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas! I was out this morning to Treasured Memories purchasing some goodies from their Boxing Day Sale :) The gals were dressed up in lovely festive frocks and looked great!

We are off to another family gathering today which includes a large Turkey Dinner and gift exchange. In the meantime, I have almost completed my Christmas Album and am looking forward to some other projects in the coming weeks. So for the next few days I will share with you my album pages.

Take care everyone and have a wonderful day!

Twas the Night Before Christmas....

2011-12-24T17:29:00.000-07:00

It is the night before Christmas and we would like to wish you a very Merry one! From our home to yours.

Christmas Album Day 8

2011-12-18T21:52:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe it's been a week since my last post! It has been incredibly busy here and now that our family Christmas meal we hosted for Marvin's family has passed, wouldn't you know I'm starting to get a sore throat. I'm looking forward to a week that doesn't have me running around like a mad woman!

Google reader has gotten away on me and I am sorry I've not been by to read too many posts lately, but I imagine we are all trying to keep up with the season. I hope to have a more relaxing week where I can catch up.

I have managed to finish a few more pages of my Christmas album and plan to work on it this week in the evening. For now I will share my Dec. 8th pages...

Here is a picture I took this evening with my new camera. I've waited a long time for this baby and could not be happier!

What about you, have you received an early Christmas present?

I hope you are all keeping up with your Christmas Journals. I can't wait to share more pages with you. Have a wonderful week!

Christmas Album - Day 6 & 7

2011-12-11T20:44:00.001-07:00

Good Evening to all of you! I had an enjoyable afternoon playing in my art room working on my Christmas Album. I'm a bit behind, but I'm not too worried as I have ideas for my pages and that is making it easier this year.

I have a couple pages to share. The first is my "Tale of Two Christmases" for December 6th. I wrote the tale for Storytelling Sunday and did a joliprint of the post and included it in my album...

The second page I am sharing tonight is for December 7th, which had us create a list of the things that need to be done...

We have two more weeks friends! Actually I have less than 1 week because hubby's family is coming next Saturday... How is the preparation coming along in your home? I attempted to make a cake yesterday... one Marvin's mom made every Christmas... no one else wanted to attempt it so I did a trial run yesterday - I was actually counting on it turning out, but I was not satisfied and now it would seem it really was a trial run. Another attempt will happen Friday! Thanks to my mom for giving me tips on yeast!

Have a wonderful week everyone :)

Storytelling Sunday - Friday!

2011-12-09T19:18:00.001-07:00

I know... I know... a little late, but I have time now and hence today!

Sticking with the Christmas theme and... since it is the last Storytelling Sunday of the year I could not help but try to find some old Christmassy photos to share... which leads me to the Tale of My two Christmases. (Fits with JYC as well, therefore killing two birds with one stone!).

When we were children, we had two sets of grandparents whilst growing up. In order to determine which set we were discussing, we labelled them. "Town grandma & grandpa" lived in town (imagine that!) and "BC grandma & grandpa" lived... guess where? Well, they lived in BC, otherwise known as British Columbia. Actually, to be more specific they lived in Kamloops, but that did not sound as good as BC.

So what about the Christmas story? Well, every second Christmas we would spend with BC grandma & grandpa and so what that meant is... we were allowed to have an early Christmas.... The photo below shows us opening our gifts and celebrating Christmas at home a few days before travelling to Kamloops. I know this, otherwise we would be opening our gifts on Christmas Eve and it would be much darker and the tree would be bigger! The tree is this photo is just a little one... my mom would not have put up a big tree if we were not staying at home to enjoy it. Oh and by the way, I am the one on the left holding the viewfinder.

On the day of travel, my mom would wake us up at 3:30 AM so we could all be in the vehicle with our already packed bags and leave the yard by 4 AM! We had to make a good start to drive the 1000 + km across two provinces (not to mention two time zones) and be in Kamloops by 8 PM. Usually, us children would sleep for the first hour... then slowly but surely we would all awaken, then it was time to have some fun... We played all kinds of car games... like I spy with my little eye, my mom would by us little puzzle books, but I could not have anything to do with reading as I tended to get car sick. That's why I got to sit in the front. We would sing songs like "there's a hole in the bucket", or "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly" , "99 bottles of beer on the wall" (not the most child friendly song, but we focused on the countdown which is all that mattered). One Christmas we got to play with "Simon Says" which pretty much drove my dad mad and we had to stop so he could put it in the trunk at which point we started singing "99 bottles of Beer". There were many threats of the vehicle stopping for us to walk there... but we always managed to arrive and always by 8 PM... (18 hours later)...

We enjoyed our week long visits...and another Christmas celebration with family.

There you have it... a Tale of Two Christmases and the last Storytelling Sunday of this year... you can read more stories at Sian's From High in the Sky...

Have a wonderful weekend!

Christmas Album - Cookie Exchange Edition

2011-12-05T21:11:00.001-07:00

Some of you mentioned in your comments that Cookie Exchanges are something you would love to try. It is one of my favourite Christmas traditions. I have attended many in the past, but this has been the second one I planned and I find it thoroughly enjoyable. I have tried it with 6 people, but I have found 8 people to be the perfect amount of participants. Making 8 dozen cookies is not that difficult, but once you get up to 10 then that can become too many (too many dozens of cookies to make). If you wanted to invite more people you certainly could, perhaps then you could half the amount of baking. For instance, if you found 12 interested individuals, then maybe you have them make 6 dozen and everyone gets 1/2 dozen instead of one full dozen. Whatever you decide, it is fun and you also get to spend some time together with friends. Here are just a couple photos of what some of the cookies looked like.

A photo of the table with all the goodies on it...

I enjoyed documenting this day in my Christmas Album. I decided to purchase Ali's December Daily Layered Template for the photos on this page and I love how it turned out...

I also saved one of the tags added to the cookies I made and attached it to my journal page on the left.

I placed some journaling on the back of the photos, I wanted a record of what everyone brought. I also made a pocket so I could add more photos.

On the final page, I added the recipe for the Cardamom Butter Cookies I made.

I will admit, I did do some taste testing before placing them in the freezer... but Shhh.... don't tell anyone!

Have a great evening!

Christmas Album - December 1

2011-12-04T18:29:00.001-07:00

Today I managed to work on my Christmas album. I am doing a combination of JYC and December Daily. Life has been very busy, in fact I feel busier this year than most and I`m not certain why that is. I`m organized, and prepared for the next thing on the calendar, but that leaves very little time for blogging and crafting. It sure is putting me in the spirit of Christmas though!

Here is my Christmas Manifesto... I used the Authentique paper line for this addition to the base of my album. Most of you know I made the album at a class with Nadine and so now I get to add all the goodies, which I love!

Adding the manifesto on one side allowed me to add the photo for Day 1 on the other side.

The photo is of the mini quiches I made for the cookie exchange I hosted on Saturday. I made them on Thursday night and placed them in the freezer until Saturday morning. They were super easy and very tasty!

I will hopefully have more pages to share with you as the days go by, especially the cookie exchange from Saturday afternoon. We had lots of fun and the ladies were very creative with their packaging.

Plans for this week include Holiday coffee with some girlfriends I have not seen for awhile as well as the "Butterdome Craft Sale", more holiday baking, a Christmas Party and making cabbage rolls!

That is it for now my friends! Take care.

My November in Numbers

2011-11-29T21:41:00.001-07:00

Another month has passed us by... You can play along too... with your own Month in Numbers, a little something Julie over at Notes on Paper started some time ago.

Here is my November...

*65* cups of coffee - okay, but not all of them are this big!
*1* - visit to the Endodontist for a not as painful as I thought it would be root canal.

*51* Christmas cards created.
*2* new pairs of glasses purchased.

*11* Christmas cards mailed...

*3* pairs of wet socks after coaxing this fur-ball back into the house from attempted escape.

And there it is... my November in numbers...

Weekend In Review, Nov. 26

2011-11-27T21:48:00.001-07:00

Hello friends :) We are in the throws of holiday preparations and Christmas parties; therefore, not many blog posts this past week and I imagine it will be this way for the next few weeks given the season.

Rather than just sharing photos tonight, I managed to get a quick digi layout completed. I used a biograffiti template , withpapers and embellishments from Carina Gardner.

I am so thankful to have my December Daily/JYC album created as last year it was difficult for me to keep up. I look forward to this week and to record our December. Thanks Nadine for a great album!

I am going to try and make if for Julie's, Months in Numbers and for Sian's Storytelling Sunday. What about you, how is your schedule fairing?

Have a good week everyone!

Girl Canvas

2011-11-20T22:24:00.001-07:00

On Saturday I took a class with Lisa who continues to amaze me! She showed us how to use Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's stencils... I have a healthy stash of these goodies and I'm so happy I took Lisa's class because she always makes you feel confident in your ability... when it came to painting and blending the face, I was a bit skeptical, but Lisa made if very easy... I love how my girl turned out.

The stencils I used for this canvas were the following:

Well, I finally broke down and purchased PSE 10, mostly because hubby needs to do some offloading of the main computer and/or needs to add more memory to our hard drive and so it has become impossible to do anything on the main computer in PSE... so I downloaded it onto my little netbook! Now I never need to go into the office and I am just so thrilled to have the new and updated version. Having just given you a bit of info on the Pioneer Woman's actions, I cannot figure out yet how to download them into PSE 10 and so the photos above were edited the long handed version which I don't think I completed all the steps properly. It's kind of like using speed dial... if you use it... you forget the phone number when you don't have the speed dial!?! Anyone else have that problem?

Okay... well I'm hoping the -25C weather is just a figment of my imagination and that when I wake up tomorrow morning it will be like a sauna, well maybe not quite that hot but you know what I mean!

Oh, I manged to get the two Christmas trees up today... I know... it's a tad early, but now I'll have time to get the 8 dozen cookies started for my Cookie Exchange!

Alright, enough chitter chatter... bedtime!

Have a great week everyone :)

More Purple: Cards, Clothes & Books!

2011-11-17T21:10:00.001-07:00

One of the things I love about Christmas is the opportunity to use different colours for cards instead of the more traditional red & green. I will always incorporate purple into some of the cards I make. When I first saw these Tim Holtz stamps I knew exactly how I wanted to use them and opulence was key. I pulled out my embossing powders and used purple with bronze on kraft paper as well as red and bronze... I love how they turned out...

I love the simplicity of this next card using white on white with a splash of colour from the stamped images and string...

With Julie's Purple Phase I admit it has me noticing purple more often than not... It seems all the shops have a bit of purple whether it is Starbucks Espresso bean bags (I tried to get a photo but it just didn't work) or this pajama store I noticed on my lunch break.

The clothing stores definitely have more purple as I purchased this knit sweater and top combo of which I absolutely love. (Sorry for the dirty mirror! Really I did clean it, but must have missed a spot - or two!!)

And lastly, I received my course material for my January class. You guessed it. The book cover is none other than purple.

Thanks for stopping by. If you would like to see more purple posts, have a look here at Julie's blog.

Have a great Friday (tomorrow)!

December Daily or JYC

2011-11-16T21:49:00.001-07:00

For the last several weeks I have watched as a few of you have shared your plans for your December Daily or JYC albums.... I have to say Amy, Cheri and Alexa had me thinking I should do a digital album... what with all their organizing and pretty papers and wonderful templates, and in fact I was all ready to purchase some of Ali's digi products to add to add to this album, but I decided I did not need them. I'm really excited to have stuck with my decision to take Nadine's 25 Days of Christmas album!! This is what I will be making on Nov. 26th...

This album is right up my alley! It has fun patterns and room to add some embellishments and journaling cards. LOVE it!! If you are wanting to make the album, you can check out the classes at Treasured Memories...
Maybe I'll see you there?
Okay... It's really late and way past my bedtime!!
Have a good day tomorrow!

PSE Actions

2011-11-14T18:21:00.001-07:00

With yesterdays post many of you commented on the "atmosphere" of the photos. I told you how I felt they were not stellar, and Sian had questioned if I used any actions... and the answer is yes... I use the "Pioneer Woman's" Actions... they are a wonderful way to take your photos and give them the look that so many photographers use... now I am no photographer and I am not an expert in any of the terminology so this is more a post to show you in particular how you can make a not so good photo into something that is better, and the best part? Next to them being free... well it would have to be the one click to make the action work...

Here is a photo board so you can see the difference...

The first photo shows you how muted it was. Very washed out looking. The next photo I used the "define sharp" action. I use this one on almost every photo I post. It gives it a bit of a crisper look. Most of the time it's all a photo needs. However, then you see a huge difference in the third photo. I could have stopped there, but I really wanted that old 70's look. The "Seventies" action is my favourite.

There are a few other places you can go to buy actions for PSE or Photoshop... I think Florabella has some of the most drool worthy actions out there... now why have I not purchased any yet? I don't know... perhaps I need to give my head a shake! Any family reading this post? Christmas is coming (hint) (hint) :)

Ciao for now!

8 Seconds...

2011-11-13T21:59:00.001-07:00

My weekend has been crazy busy with very little time for anything scrapbooking related! So I thought I would share a few photos of what I was up to.

I have lived in this city for 24 years and have never gone to the CFR (Canadian Finals Rodeo). I have been to the Calgary Stampede and so when Marvin asked Thursday night if I would like to go to the CFR, I said, "sure why not"? Seeing some rodeo action sounded like a great thing to do on a Sunday afternoon! Now I have to warn you... my camera is not conducive to taking fast action shots... I did play with the settings and did the best I could... in fact... when I started to prepare for this post and looked at all the photos I took this weekend... none of them are stellar... but I'm okay with that.

Bareback bronc riding is exciting to watch, but I must admit... it is more fun to watch the bulls...

I cannot imagine doing this for a living... 8 seconds seems like a very long time to be on one of these things, however; they are very skilled at what they do and I commend them for trying.

I forgot to change the setting on the camera when Lloyd took this photo of Marvin and I... so it's a little extra fuzzy...

Some other photos to share from Saturday night... I spent most of the weekend preparing for our guests... we had a few friends over for appetizers...

That is my weekend in rewind :)

Have a wonderful week friends!

11-11-11

2011-11-11T00:07:00.001-07:00

Today I am joining Beverly over at Be Glorious for her 11-11-11 Blogging Event. She has asked if I would play along with the 11-11-11 theme. You can join in too... If you have 11 favourite photos, or 11 things you would like to accomplish/or have accomplished, or maybe you have 11 books you have read or would like to read and would like to share... She has set up a linky so feel free to participate.

I have done a bit of a twist on Beverly's theme... as you are aware I have been working on my Yesterday and Today class and it just happens the layout I was working on this week has... 11 Photos! Yes... it does and they are 11 Photos that express my perspective on my life right now... based on Ali's word prompts... There are 11 words in this layout and the idea is to document the things you would like to remember about yourself at this time in your life...

The 11 words are... Live... Am... See... Work... Go... Dream... Think... Play... Eat... Love... and Make.

You can see more 11-11-11 posts here...

Have a wonderful day.

10 Things, November Edition

2011-11-10T00:30:00.000-07:00

This is the November edition of 10 Things, brought to you by Shimelle...

When I started the Mail Art Exchange based on "the Good Mail Day" book, I had no idea if people would be interested... I have since seen and received many pieces of good mail and thought I would share with you what some of these creative bloggers have sent as happy mail...

1. Alexa - over at Trimming the Sails.

I love how much care and detail Alexa used with this beautiful doodled/hand drawn design envelope. How talented... well, I guess I'm not really surprised... she does create lots of interesting graphics so why would this be anything short of spectacular... she also included some post cards and a newsletter of where she comes from... it fit the theme of "earth" quite well.

2. Joanne from Sugar and Scraps

When I opened this pretty envelope from Joanne, I was not expecting what I found inside, I jumped a bit and then burst out laughing! It scared me to see this photo of a witch... but with Halloween around the corner from when I received it... it fit the mood! Joanne is currently taking on the "52 Weeks of Mail" and I feel honoured to have received this card from her!

3. Ruth from Chatty Crafty Arty Pig

Another creative use of the theme Earth. I love the hand drawn airplane and clouds and who doesn't need a blow up globe beach ball?? LOVE it!

4. Melissa over at Daily Life: Bits & Pieces

I was really enthralled with Melissa's version of the "Earth" theme. She used a magazine paper to make an envelope which not only fit the recycle aspect of the theme, but the pictures were of an outdoor table setting! Very innovative!

5. Helena of Helena's Creative Maven

Helena is a Photoshop Elements wizard! Really... if you want to see some very cool photo editing techniques you will want to have a look at her blog! For the Mail Art Exchange, she found a brush of the "Earth" and printed it on envelopes with the "Happy Mail Day" greeting! On her card she used a starburst photo to create the interesting print. Lots of fun!

6. Amy at Over at Our Place

Amy took a photo of the beautiful landscape of her country Australia and added a thoughtful quote. The colours of the photo match the paper she used on the envelope to give you the feel of the colour of the "Earth" in her part of the world. The card she made, also a photo, was made to look like a painting. I think her interpretation of the theme "Earth" is fantastic!

7. Jacky at Scrappyjacky

How pretty is that paper made envelope... I love the colour combinations and Jacky has a real knack for mixing pattern paper, just look at the memory folder she made! Not only is she a master scrapper but she makes some of the most beautiful and creative cards I have seen!

8. Beverly at Be Glorious

Beverly made a beautifully coloured envelope in which she sent these wonderfully handmade cards. Beverly has recently opened her own Etsy shop which you can see more of her fun creations here.

9. Rinda of Gallo Organico

This is a piece of art Rinda created and sent it as a postcard. I love this collage of photos she took and the colours really are spectacular.

10. Denise over at Chocolate Mousie

Denise made me this pretty envelope of flowers in which she carried the theme over to her card and then to my pleasant surprise she included some colourful flowers of which I have used most of them.

There you have it... my 10 pieces of Mail Art received... all from the Mail Art Exchange group.

You can see more Ten Things post over at Shimelle's.

My October in Numbers

2011-11-07T21:28:00.000-07:00

Julie Kirk has posted her month in numbers and is inviting you to join her. I think this is a great way to review items from our month with a different perspective and wanted to play along.

*5* The number of layouts I created.
*10* Blog posts written.
*1* The number of acrobats I saw handing out lip gloss.

*2* The number of weeks vacation we booked for Jamaica.
*2* The number of times I visited the dentist/endodontist regarding my sore tooth.
*22* The number of "treaters" we had visiting our abode on Halloween.
*1* Night experiencing 80's flashback and singing along with Joan Jett - she sounds just like she did when I was 13.
*4* Times I crossed this street...

to have one of these... (chicken shawarma).

There you have it... my month in numbers.

Have a great day everyone.

Yesterday & Today - Week 9

2011-11-06T13:18:00.000-07:00

I love how Ali Edwards gets us to think of the everyday and how important it is to document it. In the 9th week of Yesterday and Today she asks us to document a day in our life, it's much like a "Week in the Life", but I enjoyed taking one day and just observing and noting what I did. So here is my layout...

I mentioned previously that I want to create an album from this class, but I have a bit of a concern, so if anyone has had an album printed in the past perhaps you can help me. I am wondering how you know if the font size you use will be legible when it goes for printing? The font on this layout is a bit small. I know you can just read it if you click on the photo, but is there something I should do to ensure the size is not too small. I would hate to have this printed as a book and not be able to read it.

Thanks so much and have a wonderful day!

Motivating My Inner Passion

2011-11-02T22:16:00.000-06:00

On Tuesday I went to a conference. The speaker in the afternoon was an inspiration; the topic - "Awaken the Passion Inside". Her name is Tammy Robertson... she was fabulous... quite funny... and brought home some very good messages... Anyway, one thing she mentioned was to have some items at work that will make you laugh; to help you remember to not take life too seriously.... I told you a few weeks ago how my co-worker Alison and I have decided to check out a new shop in the neighbourhood each week while on our lunch hour. Our first stop was the tea shop, then the following week we went to the chocolate shop (I did not get any photos of that one as the chocolates were gone before I could get my camera out!), and so this week we went to the "Tin Box". They have all kinds of cool little gadgets, kitchen accessories, hats, purses... you get the idea...

I was curious when I saw this book... as you know I do love cats...

Upon opening it... I began to laugh... and the laughing did not stop ...

Perhaps you have seen Maru on You Tube... he is quite famous and now has a book!

The book will sit on my desk and when I need a good chuckle... well I will just leaf through this...

Have a fantastic evening!

Printable Vintage Tags

2011-10-28T23:21:00.001-06:00

Do you ever wish you had a tag for journaling that was just so? Perhaps it's horizontal but you need it to be vertical or vice versa? I will always try to make do with what I have, but I thought I would try something different.... I decided to make a few journaling tags of my own and I wanted to share them with you... These are a set of vintage style tags, the brushes I used were from classes I took with Jessica Sprague and some were from a company called ScrapArtist which is no longer in business... Anyway you can download them from the link below and print them off...

Google Docs - Vintage Tags

This being the first time I have done this... I did try the link several times prior to posting... so please do let me know if it does not work....

Have a great weekend everyone!

You are my sunshine...

2011-10-27T21:24:00.003-06:00

A few weeks ago Nadine over at The Beautiful Ordinary told me I won a prize from her 30 Day Challenge of daily creating... This is what she gave me! Now how did she know I LOVE Glitz??!!

I knew immediately what photo I wanted to pair with these gorgeous papers... I took this picture of Miss Sophie this summer, and in the past it has been difficult getting any decent photos of her, but this one I just love!

She is such a little troublemaker and I'm certain being mischievous is her M.O... but I love her to bits!

Notice I managed to get a bit of purple in this layout? You can check out more purple phase posts over at Julie's blog...

Thanks Nadine for giving me some inspiring goodies! If you would like to sign up for a class with Nadine or any of the other Treasured Memories gals... check out the classes here... I might have signed up for a couple :)

Cheers!

Purple you say???

2011-10-23T16:44:00.002-06:00

How many of you like the colour purple? (no I'm not talking of the film!) Julie Kirk over at Notes on Paper is dedicating blog posts to the colour purple over the Autumn months... You can read her introduction to purple here... and you can see her purple phase pinboard here... I thought I would take some time and reflect on my own thoughts of purple and in doing this I went back into my archives to see just where did purple begin...

The layout below is one I did last year for the Textuality class at BPC... In the photo my grandmother is wearing lilac... when I was working on this layout at the weekend crop I was at, I remember telling my friend Wendy... my grandma loved wearing lilac or purple and that these were not colours I had an affinity to... first mistake! That night when I returned home I was looking at what I might wear to the crop the next day... low and behold... I found my lilac hoodie... since then... I have intentionally incorporated purple, magenta, aubergine and other various shades of the colour purple into my wardrobe! Thanks Grandma :)

A card I made this year that was sent off to Jacky... This was made using Ranger Inks.... Magenta and Turquoise... one of my most favourite colour combos!

Here is another example of using purple in a project I worked on this past summer... A canvas made from Christy Tomlinson's Creative Colour class which I absolutely loved! You can read more on this post here

Here is the layout I finished last night... I bought some of the Prima Moulin Rouge papers the other day at Treasured Memories and felt they worked well with the purple my mom is wearing...

There you have it... a few ways to incorporate purple into your projects... If you would like to see more purple coloured layouts or crafts I have created, click on my "purple" label...

Thank you to Julie for her inspiration and posts on purple!

Just in case you wanted to learn a bit more about purple, I googled "the meaning of purple" and came up with a list of sites... I found this one interesting.... And with that... I am off to make dinner... Enjoy your evening.

Then & Now... Yesterday & Today Week 7

2011-10-21T20:53:00.001-06:00

This week I made another digi layout... I have decided since I started the class with digital layouts, I will finish it this way and eventually I plan to create a coffee table album... At least that's what they call it from where I plan to order it. What this means is the album will be 12 x 12 and it will look much like a picture book, the pages will not be printed separately like they would in a scrapbook album. I like the idea so I'm going with it! I hope to have this completed before Christmas and I will have to go back and re-create at least one double page spread. I might have to add a few extra layouts as the book requires 20 pages... it shouldn't be too difficult!

This page is about my career...

Template is Ali Edwards, Flower paper - Crystal Wilkerson, Graph paper - from designer digitals Haiti Kit.

Have a great weekend!

Thirty... Forty... Yesterday & Today

2011-10-16T00:43:00.001-06:00

This is my layout for week 6.... I thought I would use Ali's digital double page template to keep things easy... I sometimes wonder why I do things the way I do... I'm really enjoying the lessons for this class, but I find when I take classes that have digital components to them it's hard for me to focus on keeping all the layouts consistent in design... and part of that is because I love digi, but I also love hybrid and traditional scrapbooking. Does anyone else do this? Please don't tell me I'm the only one! Anyway, I never seem to end up with a physical album that I can hold in my hands. I suppose I will have to make a point of having these printed off... What do you do? Do you always have your digital layouts printed off?

That's enough rambling... Here we go... Week 6, Yesterday & Today... I decided to do a comparison layout of 2 points in time and how things were different...

All of the elements on the layout are from Ali's class, the brushes are from House of Three, and some are unknown. The photos have had actions applied by Pioneer Woman.

Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend!

You Should Know...

2011-10-13T22:59:00.001-06:00

I thought rather than starting any new classes this Fall I would try to finish one or two that I did very little with. In January I started Ali Edwards' Yesterday & Today through BPC and only made it through a few weeks. I'm going to try to finish it!

In Week 5, Ali had us create a layout without a photo. The lesson was to create a list of things you would like others to know or remember you for. I really like this lesson and think it could be used for others... I would love it if my mom and dad could write out something like this... It would be simple enough :)

Ali gave so many wonderful templates and word art in this class... it truly was worth the money spent and I regret not spending the time on it back then, but I suppose doing it now will allow me more time to reflect on the lessons.

This is a 6 x 12 page. The journaling was completed on a word template we received in class and then I printed it off on an 8.5 x 11 piece of white cardstock. I cut it down to 6 x 9.5 and then cut a piece of patterned paper and sewed it on to make it 6 x 12. I love how it turned out.

Tomorrow is already Friday... Yeah! Have a good one peeps!

LSNED - Finale

2011-10-11T22:04:00.001-06:00

I finalized my LSNED journal and created the front and back covers of which I will share today.

This was my first year doing Learn Something New Everyday... I enjoyed it and feel I have learned more than my share of lessons... I hope to try this again next year... I love how my album turned out and I know I will love to page through it from time to time.

Have a good evening everyone :)

10 Things - October Edition

2011-10-10T11:07:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure about you, but I had plenty of Turkey, stuffing AND cranberry sauce yesterday so much so that I didn't even have the pumpkin cheesecake! Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Canadians... and for those of you doing it all over today... don't forget to wear your stretchy pants!

Today is the 10th of October which means it's Shimelle's 10 Things on the tenth of the month... I already mentioned Thanksgiving... Each year I say the usual things I am thankful for... like family... friends etc., but this year I thought I would share 10 everyday things I am thankful for.

1. Coffee! Now for those coffee lovers out there... you understand right? It is very difficult to make it through a day of work without it... I know because I tried that one day last week (long story)... I was pretty much unable to function.

2. A lovely glass of wine on the patio.

3. Trees... I love trees... they make me smile everyday...

4. The changes in the seasons...I love these changes and everyday the little changes that happen to let us know the next season is coming.

5. My art room and everything in it... it's my happy space :)

6. My new little "net book"... Marvin bought me this a couple months ago and I LOVE it! It means I don't have to sit in the office at the computer in the evening... I can sit on the couch with the animals surrounding me, or I can use it in the kitchen for looking up recipes... it has a webcam so I can use Skype and I can have it in my art room to look up things like Shimelle's prompts... plus there is no more arguing who gets the iPad :)

7. Music... I love listening to music... all kinds... today I am listening to...

8. My Blackberry for keeping me organized and more specifically "Be Reader" which helps me keep up on blog reading!

9. Tea... Here is my current selection... at work we have many little shops in the surrounding neighbourhood and many I've not been in before. So each week we will be visiting a new shop... On Wednesday it was "Acquired Tea"... I love the coconut and with just a bit of cream... yum! yum!!

10. Statutory Holidays... Need I say more?

You can read more 10 Things from other bloggers... just head on over to Shimelle's and click on the linky's.

Remember the good times....

2011-10-08T18:19:00.000-06:00

This week has been nothing short of difficult and today even harder... This is the day I said goodbye to one of my good friends... We were scrapbooking buddies and every time we would meet up there were always two things I looked for... what color was her hair.... and what new coach bag was she carrying today? Often Brenda, Wendy and I would go to Treasured Memories and catch up on each others life... there was much laughter... you know the kind... the deep belly laugh that takes your breath away... usually this kind of laughter would come on its own, but would always be precipitated by a trip to Tim Hortons for Ice Caps (cappuccinos).

This week... each time I would walk into my art room I stared at my things not feeling very inspired... I looked at a few photos and layouts, and even went back to the posts here on my blog to read the ones that I wrote about our times together... Today I listened to her eulogy told by her sisters... there were stories that made me smile and stories that made me cry... those stories helped... they gave me comfort.... I thought I would share a layout that I made of Wendy and me at a National Scrapbook weekend crop... Now you need to know that she was one of the most colorful people I know and very creative at putting together a costume on such short notice... the story is that we were going to be getting our photos taken on the Red Carpet as it was a Gala Event... well we had nothing to wear... so Wendy decided we needed to create a bodice and well why not just put it all together with some ribbon and then make some bedazzled crowns and of course we needed purses and she called us the "Dimensional Divas". Needless to say... it was quite funny and she was very excited! See for yourself...

I am so very happy to have these memories... they are good ones to have.

On our way home from the funeral today... Brenda and I made a detour... we stopped at Tim's and yes you guessed right... we bought ourselves one of these....

Cheers my friend! You will be missed but never forgotten :)

Tom Cat Howl - Storytelling Sunday

2011-10-02T13:26:00.000-06:00

Note: This may be a bit of a sad tale, but it does have a happy ending :)

Growing up on a farm taught me all kinds of lessons. As a young child I loved to play with the animals, mostly the kittens... and lord knows there were lots of them. Every Spring and Fall a new batch would be born and most never survived due to many various dangers. One of them being the Tom Cat.

It was not unusual to have the window to the bedroom open during the Spring in the night hours. On one such night I recall hearing a high pitch scream... I did not know what to make of it, but it continued for about an hour, or for what seemed like an hour to a young child. I soon fell back to sleep thankful the noise had stopped.

The next morning when I woke up I went outside to visit with the kitties and to give them their breakfast. What I saw horrified me to this day. All my kittens were mutilated and laying by the dog house with the momma cat meowing beside them. I ran inside the house to tell my parents what I saw. My dad came outside and said it was likely a Tom Cat... that made no sense to me back then... I did not know what a Tom Cat was... Why would another cat kill kittens?

Well as you can imagine I was fairly distraught... Everyone told me not to worry, there would be more kittens.... they were right.... but this time I would be prepared.

The next time I heard the "Tom Cat" howling... I walked down the stairs to my parents bedroom... "Dad?" I whispered... "are you awake?", "What's wrong?" he asked. I told him I could hear the Tom Cat. He got up out of bed and we both went outside. There were the kittens in the dog house... they were all okay. Dad said we could go back inside now, but I wouldn't go for that. I told him I wanted to take them inside with me. So we found a large box and placed a towel inside it. All of the kittens were brought into the house and placed on the floor beside my bed. I never heard a Tom Cat howl after that... and that my friends is how I learned one way to keep my kittens from danger.

I hope you enjoyed today's story by way of Sian's Storytelling Sunday. If you would like to read more of the stories, please click on the link. You can also participate by linking up to Sian's "linky" at the end of her post.

More LSNED

2011-09-29T20:22:00.000-06:00

Two more pages... These two like yesterday's are very different from what I've been cooking up in the past... mostly because I got the Fall bug in my now so I turned to my Fall colored papers...

I also took a photo of what my book looks like up to now :)

I have not made a front page to this album!
Have a great evening everyone :)

Autumn Foilage and LSNED

2011-09-28T22:43:00.000-06:00

I feel like all I've been blogging about is LSNED... and that's because I'm still trying to keep up :) Today though I thought I would share a couple photos I took from my office window... I love this view of our beautiful tree lined streets and our vast river valley. You may not know this but Edmonton has the largest urban parkland in North America. We have over 150 km of trails in our river valley and about 7400 hectares of parkland. To put this into perspective... it is about 21 times the size of Central Park. I am still hoping to get out there and take some photos, but I fear our window of opportunity to take Autumn pictures with the leaves still on the trees is a bit precarious.

Now... onto more LSNED pages! I have caught up to Sept. 22, but I am only going to share the 18-20.

I hope your Thursday is full of fun... as I know we are all gearing up for the weekend!

LSNED 16 & 17

2011-09-25T18:33:00.000-06:00

Two more pages done! I'm on a roll now :)

One of my favourite things about this class... I love going into my old stash of papers and finding new life. Maybe that's today's lesson! "What was once old can still be used". Works for me :)

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend... Are we really back to work tomorrow? Darn... I was just starting to have some fun... OK... I just looked at the calendar and it is only 2 weeks before Thanksgiving!! I can't believe it... anyone else feel like time is at warp speed these days?

Have a great evening friends!

LSNED

2011-09-24T19:30:00.001-06:00

I am still managing to get my LSNED pages done albeit a bit slowly... today I managed to get several more finished...

Tonight we are having a BBQ. The weather is still quite nice and warm about 23C... So I best get the plates ready :)

Updates and LSNED11

2011-09-18T16:29:00.000-06:00

I thought perhaps this would be a quiet weekend but as it turns out there has not been much rest what with all the cleaning and visiting with friends, cooking and catching up on blog reading :)

I have been writing my lessons for LSNED down in my notebook, but it's still hard to get at my art table...

I did receive some news this week after thinking long and hard about a decision that has been eating at me for some time.... a lesson has been learned... "never say Never". I received my undergraduate degree some 14 years ago and said I would never go back to get my masters , but it appears that has changed and I registered for my first class in January as a non-program student which in short allows me to take a class towards my degree (in Nursing with a teaching focus)... which I will start the application process for in the coming weeks. This was a really hard decision for me as I know how much work it will entail... but in the end it will be worth it. I plan to continue working full time while taking classes through distance learning... so I am giving myself 5 years and if I finish earlier, well then that's just a bonus. I know some of you out there have done this... do you have any advice to give? I am looking for any wisdom you would like to share :)

What about you? Have you ever said you will never do something and then change your tune?

Here is my LSNED page I managed to work on yesterday...

We celebrated my FIL's birthday last weekend... my SIL Carol made a beautiful chiffon coffee cake for Harry... My MIL Ingrid did set that bar high in the cake making department... Carol did a great job and Ingrid would have been proud!

Thanks for stopping by!

LSNED 10

2011-09-13T22:07:00.000-06:00

Things have been a bit busy here... we are doing some smaller renos which involve removing drywall from our kitchen ceiling... so there is dust and plastic wrapping along with poor little animals that must remain in the basement not knowing what is happening... luckily they have several hours in the evening in which they get to play and have fun!

Here is another page for my LSNED...

Most of the items here are from an old Scarlet Lime kit... the "do your best" is from a Treasured Memories mini kit....

On the way out of town on Sunday, we came across these...

Have a great evening!

LSNED 8 & 9

2011-09-11T08:50:00.000-06:00

Thank you everyone for your well wishes. Some of you have asked what happened... lets just say it involved a cracked sidewalk, high heels and a cup of coffee :) I think you can visualize that!

Here are two more of my LSNED pages :)

A lesson well learned :)

Friday I had a chance to meet some of our Canadian Military... although I have never set foot on the Edmonton Garrison I had a wonderful time and even met a couple female officers who enjoy scrapbooking. I did manage to get some photos but feel strange placing them on my blog as it was during work time and work related... you will just have to trust me it was fun!

We are off to visit with Marvin's family as it is his father's 75th... have a wonderful Sunday!

LSNED 6 & 7

2011-09-10T11:47:00.000-06:00

Well it is Saturday and we have had a beautiful above average temperature week! It has hit 30 degrees a couple times... and I love it... strange though how the trees continue to change colour... it's like they don't forget do they?

It has been a bit of a crazy week... I continue to make my LSNED pages for Shimelle's class...

September 6th was all about the drive to work... oh boy can you ever tell school is in session!

Wednesday I discovered what I already suspected... that I had sprained my foot... and so it has been a bit difficult to stand at my art table these days.... but, I LOVE physiotherapists and think they are a god send during these times when it's obvious no amount of home therapy on it's own will make a difference...

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

LSNED 5

2011-09-06T21:07:00.000-06:00

Okay... I'm pretty tired but managed to get my page done... Amy... this one is for you as it only took me 10 minutes! A record I should think :)

Really I was counting on these 7 Gypsies journaling pages to help me out on nights like this... they don't require a lot of effort as they have such beautiful graphics on them already... nothing you'd like to hide.

Sticker from Bo Bunny, butterfly from K& Co.., journaling block from Studio Calico, stamps from Tim Holtz., journal card insert 7 Gypsies.

And that my friends is all the energy I have for tonight :)

Happy Hump Day tomorrow!

LSNED 4

2011-09-05T21:28:00.000-06:00

For yesterday, rather than reading Shimelle's prompt I decided to just go with whatever came up as far as a lesson for my LSNED class...

Continuing with the Art Journal theme from yesterday I decided to pull out my stamps and quickly came up with this... One thing I am also doing is keeping a notebook for the class and I'm writing out more specifically what has happened each day to get me to my lesson... it seems to be working well for me.

I used Stampers Anonymous, and Tim Holtz stamps, papers from Glitz and Bo Bunny, Tattered Angels mask with Ranger distress ink pads. The butterfly is unknown.

ok... so the weekend is done... sure hope the creative juices will keep flowing :)

Take care peeps!

Pie Booth - A Layout

2011-09-05T14:24:00.000-06:00

What a great long weekend this has been... Happy Labor Day to those of you celebrating it!

Although this is the signal for back to school and the last long weekend before the switch to Fall, our meteorologists have indicated we are to have Summer like weather this week with temperatures reaching the high 20's. Lovely!

I was inspired by Lisa's video from making one of her WITL layouts... she always has such great little techniques to share... I decided to make this quick layout loosely based on hers... the video might be long, but she is very entertaining and so it goes by quickly.

The layout I made is from the road trip of this past July1st... As a kid I remember the Canada Day Sports Day down at the lake vividly... one of those feel good moments was having a piece of pie... these women sure know how to bake...

Supplies: Papers: Websters, Scenic Route, Embellishments; Heidi Swapp, K & Co., Websters & Echo Park.

My mom happened to be in charge of the booth and so it was great to get these photos of her.

I hope to get my next LSNED page completed today, but I'm taking a bit of a break to do some reading!

Have a fabulous day everyone!

LSNED Day 3

2011-09-04T21:18:00.001-06:00

Well I cannot believe I am managing to keep up with this! Tomorrow is a holiday so I plan to work on some more layouts and fun stuff :)

Yesterday's prompt for Shimelle's LSNED class had me laughing a bit because she wanted us to think of our feet and what lessons can we learn from them...

This was the first thing that came to mind....

I cut out those flowers from Basic Grey paper... love the art journal feel to this line...

I added a bit of doodling... this little page was fun... less details then the last couple days and so therefore took less time to complete :)

Where are all of you at with your pages? Was this prompt an easy one or are you still giving it a ponder?

The Case of the Disappearing Cat Food - Storytelling Sunday

2011-09-04T17:44:00.000-06:00

I'm sorry I was not able to get some things together for a new story. I posted this almost 2 years ago... I thought I would share it with you on Storytelling Sunday as I'm pretty sure most of you have not seen it :)

I have to tell this story... We feed the cats their food on the cat tree in the spare room. We put it up there so Edwin will not eat it, however, we do have a couch in the room and he will stand on top of it and eat the food if we don't put the gate across the doorway. For a few months now I have been suspicious that he is able to get under the gate (I have a space of about 6 inches below, so the cats can easily get under it instead of jumping over). So, I tested him. I have done this twice. I stand on one side of the gate and call him, he tries to wiggle under and is whining the whole time, but obviously he is not able to do it...! The other day, I was heading out to work, and as I got into my car, I realized I had forgotten my cell phone. When I went back into the house, Edwin did not come to the door... "strange", I thought. I looked around the corner up the stairs, and sure as heck... there he was, on the OTHER side of the gate!! Boy was he shocked to see me! What a good little actor he is tricking me to think he can't get under the gate! No wonder he isn't losing any weight (he is suppose to be on a diet)... and no wonder the cats are always looking for food!

Storytelling Sunday is brought to you by way of Sian's, From High In The Sky . You can join in or stop by and read some other wonderful stories :)

Have a great Sunday evening.

LSNED Day 2

2011-09-03T22:30:00.000-06:00

Hello! How is everyone doing with LSNED? I worked on Day 2 today and I actually finished Day 3 as well, but you will have to wait for that tomorrow :)

I am also partaking in Nadine's 30 Days of Creativity Challenge... she explains the details further in this post... May I suggest if you are doing LOAD or LSNED you might want to send her an e-mail with a photo of your work... She has prizes, and who doesn't want a prize??

Anyway, so back to LSNED... Here is the lesson I learned for Friday....

I love the striped MME paper which I sprayed a bit of Glimmer Mist on to give it a more vintage feel. The flowered paper is from GCD. The journaling tag is an old 7 Gypsies.

I tore the paper and used some embroidery floss to sew cross stitches. The little chipboard piece here is from the Authentique line.

I love the sticker packages the companies create to match the paper lines. The "Take Note" sticker is from Bo Bunny!

Well there you have it! Day 2... See you tomorrow for Day 3.

LSNED Day 1

2011-09-02T21:18:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was my first day of Learn Something New Everyday... a class by Shimelle. Today I made my first page from yesterdays reflections... This theme came up more than once throughout my day...

I had a 7 Gypsies journaling pages package in my birthday gift so this was the perfect choice for this class. My booklet will be 5 x 7 and I can add some of my own paper pages for interest. I plan to work on the cover tomorrow and I decided not to pull any papers or embellishments together... I am just going to play it by ear and play with whatever moves me.

I look forward to working on tomorrow's page...

Have a great evening :)

Happy Days & LSNED

2011-09-01T22:40:00.002-06:00

I am taking Nadine`s 30 Days of Creativity Challenge as well as starting Shimelle`s LSNED! I managed to finish this layout I created from our BBQ last weekend for the August Birthday`s.

I used Glitz`s Afternoon Muse line and created a little journal book that I attached to the layout so I could include more photos and some journaling.

I used my sizzix to cut out the butterflies and then used the cut out portion of the paper as a mask to create the butterflies on the book. I used Rangers distress pads. Also, I added an eyelet along with embroidery floss to keep the book closed.

Inside I added photos of all the birthday girls & boy with their celebratory age. It`s a great addition and easy to do.

As for Learn Something New Everyday... I did pay attention to the lessons of my day and will share that with you tomorrow :)

Take care!

iPhone Lust

2011-08-30T21:37:00.000-06:00

Some of you know I own a Blackberry... but before I even purchased it I lusted after the iPhone... that is more than 2 years ago... my carrier at the time did not have the iPhone, but within 6 months of my purchase... they got the iPhone 4 and I thought it would be simple enough to return my phone and upgrade etc... etc... at least that`s what the lady told me I could do! So now... I have 9 more months to wait, unless of course I want to pay to get out of my contract... but of course now the iPhone 5 will be out before long... so I`m holding out...until then... well... I live vicariously through my hubby's iPhone... I made sure he added the Hipstamatic app immediately upon purchase...

These may not be the best photos exhibiting the qualities of this fun app... but I still think it's way more fun than ANY Blackberry app... EVER!

Keep it cool peeps :)

Hey... BTW... if you haven't signed up for the Mail Art Exchange you have until this Sunday!! Check out this post.... just sayin'...

Also... Don't forget....Storytelling Sunday... this Sunday... at "From High In The Sky"...

l8tr

Weekend Ramblings...

2011-08-27T10:33:00.000-06:00

Do you ever have a hard time naming your posts? Just wondering...

This morning I made a couple sympathy cards... one for a family friend and another for my cousin who recently lost her dog...

All supplies Stampin Up - except for the ribbon which I got in a kit from Treasured Memories.

I got a new hairdresser earlier this year and I absolutely LOVE her! Yesterday she gave me a new hair colour! It's kind of purplish red... it's pretty bright in the light but red fades fast, so I'm sure it will tone down... Do you always have a plan when you see your hair dresser? I used to look through hair magazines and take the photo of the cut I wanted and then ask if they could make me look like that... I haven't done that for a long time...

Today we are having a family BBQ to celebrate all the August birthdays! My job is to make a salad... which I better get my butt to the grocery store for my ingredients... I put a request in to my aunt to make Banana Cream Pie... she loves to bring the dessert... Marvin is hoping she will make her Skor Bars again as he couldn't get enough of them the last time we got together...

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Trip to the Fort!

2011-08-24T12:40:00.002-06:00

It had been quite some time since I had been to Fort Edmonton Park, but Marvin wanted to go and have lunch at the Selkirk Hotel as we had heard good things about it.

After our lunch we walked around for just a bit and came across this lovely young girl. She works at the park and the staff are encouraged to talk with the visitors... this layout is a piece of our conversation...

Supplies: Bo Bunny & Glitz Papers, Stamps, buttons & Ribbon - MME, Sticker letters - BG, Scrabble piece - Treasured Memories, Journaling sticker - Glitz, Glimmer Mist - Tattered Angels, Paint - Claudine Hellmuth, crochet flower - unknown.

When I pulled out these photos I knew exactly what I was going to use for it. I love these new papers from Bo Bunny, they were part of my birthday gift from hubby! I used glimmer mist and paint for the background AND these....

I LOVE these stamps from MME!

Are there any new products that you are loving up from the new collections?

Wherever you are I hope you are having a fun and creative day!

A Great Loss For All Canadians

2011-08-22T19:56:00.001-06:00

You may not have agreed with his politics... but you cannot deny that he was a great leader. His letter to all Canadians is a testament that he was here to make a difference. To spend his final hours writing a letter to all of us and to those who are suffering from cancer with a message to never give up hope even though his own fight has ended.

"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world." The Honourable Jack Layton, leader of the New Democrat Party of Canada, and Official Leader of the Opposition.

I suggest if you are Canadian you read his inspiring words. You can read his letter here.

Disclaimer: Please note this post is no reflection of my own political views, but shows that I am sad to see someone who was so energetic and passionate, someone who loved this country and believed in making a better Canada, pass on.

Shimelle - Starting Point Challenge

2011-08-21T11:48:00.000-06:00

I have another layout I completed for Shimelle's Challenges... this is the Starting Point Challenge

Yesterday was my birthday, and I had a great day! I will share more of that on a different post, but I did want to make a layout from my evening crop at Treasured Memories. Shimelle's challenge was to start a layout with the base created as she had and then to add your own flair... I made this late last night, and so in essence it is pretty much scrap-lifted from Shimelle's original layout... I did have fun making it!

Papers are from Glitz, Echo Park, Basic Grey, and Crate Paper. Journaling card & circles from Mary Anne's printables and letter stickers are Crate Paper.

By my calculations it is almost 7 PM in England and so if you are still interested in partaking in Shimelle's challenges at a chance to win some prizes you have about 5 hours to do just that :)

I hope your weekend has been a fabulous one, and now I really should spend some time outside as the weather men are telling us it could be the warmest day of the year!!

Shimelle Stickery Challenge

2011-08-20T17:10:00.000-06:00

This is Shimelle's Stickery Challenge. I have had this American Craft kit for about a year now and thought it went perfectly with this layout. In this challenge Shimelle had us using stickers from a couple of different lines. I used American Crafts and Hambly. I love stickers. They add another dimension to scrapbooking and these ones were lots of fun!

Everything is American Craft except for the cluster of stickers on the right. Those are Hambly.

The journaling on this one reads:
On our return to Edmonton, we stopped in Saskatoon to hook up with Tyler and her friend Jess at the Bessborough. Before we hopped back in the vehicle I spied the ice cream Bus Stop and was thrilled they had "Tiger" ice cream!!

Shimelle Challenge - Printables

2011-08-20T16:33:00.000-06:00

I thought I would try to get in a couple of Shimelle's Challenges from last weekend... you can still participate as the prizes will be drawn Sunday at Midnight. This one is called the Printable Challenge... I loved the printable PDF's from Mary Anne... over at Scrappy Inky Mess. I decided to go with a card... very simple...

Mary Anne also provides some printable journaling cards which are great for your layouts and if you check out her website, she has lots of other printables you can download :)

Randoms & Accomplishments!

2011-08-19T10:53:00.002-06:00

I have been busy this past week tying up a few things before heading back to work next week... sigh... 4 weeks is wonderful... but I'm a bit nervous as I go back to work for one week before starting a new job... the new job is temporary which I am quite happy with as it allows me to try something completely different... really a win-win for me and for that I am excited...

I thought I would share something from Treasured Memories that I cannot wait to use... These gals are so smart for putting these together... I picked out two (of which one I decided to give away), they were not even on the shelf yet and KC let me take ... but every time I walked past the display I drooled and wanted more... Check this out!

Little bits of ephemera... be still my heart... but beware... the kits do have some odd names...

Another little purchase I made were these little Bo Bunny stamps that are perfect for Mail Art...

I have been seriously busy making these...

Then I also sent off this...

I am currently not registered in any classes... STOP THE PRESSES!!... I know, crazy isn't it? I think I need a mental break though... really with everything I did the past four weeks I'm shocked I'm even still standing... (okay well, right now I'm sitting :)

I thought I would look back to see what I have accomplished in the last 4 weeks:

I posted 21 24 times
I did WITL... AND completed the album!!
I made 20 hybrid invites and posted a tutorial
I participated in Storytelling Sunday
I completed 2 of the 4 weeks of "Explore", a class with Shimelle
I made ~~one~~ three layouts here, here, and here
I watched 3 of the 5 days of videos for "Creative Color" class with Christy Tomlinson, and made one canvas
I made 13 cards (see above) plus one - here
I managed to clean up my blog a bit and post another Mail Art Exchange
AND... I finally read 200 more pages of my "Pillars of the Earth" book see #8 from this post! Now I cannot put it down... thanks to my niece who told me there are a few dry spots and you just need to get through them... so thanks Torrie for the encouragement!
Not to mention all the fun family time I've had, I also managed to get in a crop night at Treasured Memories (hopefully I can make a layout about that soon), as well as spending some quality time outside enjoying summer!!

And now... I'm off to do housework... there never seems to be an end to that... vacation or not :)

I hope your weekend is wonderful!

Announcement: Mail Art Exchange No. 2

2011-08-14T21:44:00.000-06:00

Update - Mail Art Exchange Now CLOSED.

Hello Everyone!

I know in my previous post I said I would not be announcing the Exchange until September, but I had put more thought into things and realized it's better to announce it now! So here we are...

You will notice I have a page now dedicated to the Mail Art Exchange... Please have a look at it. It will give you background information and explain how things work with the exchange.

I am so excited to share that this will be a theme based exchange! Our theme is:

Earth

When I think of Earth , my thoughts go to nature and hiking, I think of green trees and rolling hills, oceans and blue skies. I think of the sun shining down and beautiful moonlit nights.

I also think of things like Greenpeace, recycling and saving our planet.

We are approaching Fall here in the Northern Hemisphere and so with this change comes falling leaves, cooler weather and warm, earthy toned colours like Autumn yellow, Olive Green and brown... these were the colours picked by Lisa, who won my recent giveaway...

Some creative ideas:

use maps of the earth
use the colours associated with your part of the earth
incorporate different textures, for example wood-grains or leaf motifs
animals from nature that make you think of the earth, like birds or polar bears (or whichever animal from your part of the world that makes you think of nature and the earth); use stamps, draw or find pictures
finding products you can recycle much like the tutorial I gave here
photos, magazine cutouts with your interpretation of the theme; use them in a collage if you like
use a Fall coloured palette with patterned paper, paints or inks.
create a digital version of the theme and print it out on an envelope, or print onto paper and glue it to an envelope

This should help you get started with your piece of mail... Remember, the theme is broad, so if there is something I have not mentioned here that's okay, just go with it :) You are certainly welcome to e-mail me (ginbin70@ hotmail.com) if you feel you need to talk it through, or if you are still a bit uncertain.

This Mail Art Exchange is open to anyone, the more the merrier! If you would like to sign up for the exchange, please read this Mail Art Exchange for how it works and what you need to do.

The closing date for signing up is Sunday, September 4th at 1200 noon (MDT).

The Mail Art Exchange posting deadline will be Monday, September 26th.

Thank you to everyone who has signed up these last few days.... I look forward to seeing your "Earth" themed Mail Art!

Ginger

Mail Art Exchange

2011-08-12T06:00:00.006-06:00

Hello Everyone! We are gearing up for another Mail Art Exchange which will be announced in another couple weeks. So to get everyone in the spirit I thought I would show you a little step by step on something I made recently.

One of the things I heard from several people was that they were not sure if they should participate because they are not very "artsy"... I'm here to tell you that it's okay :) You don't have to be at all! In fact I'm going to show you just how easy it is.

First, I want you to walk through your house and look for things (not scrapbooking related) that you might like to glue to an envelope... sounds silly doesn't it? But, it's easy to find things... look I'll show you what I came up with...

Clockwise from top left... I found a Bath & Body Works pamphlet in my purse that was given to me the other day while shopping, a left over map, my grocery bill which happens to have advertisements on the back of it, some leftover Avery stickers, a claim ticket from duty free, and my favourite... a label that was attached to the jam jar I bought a few weeks ago. Other things you might find interesting... Tea packaging... fruit stickers... drycleaning/parking vouchers.

Okay... so here is my first take at this... If you do not have glue, that is the one thing you will need... I just used Elmers which I bought in the school supply aisle at the local drugstore. I started by placing things on the envelope in a way I thought might be pleasing... It really doesn't matter... I actually didn't really even think about how I wanted this to look, there was NO planning whatsoever :)

Just keep adding things...

Don't forget about the back of the envelope :) This bill was a long one so I was able to wrap it around the entire envelope.

Here is the front... I have pretty much decided at this point that I have glued enough things down. Now I left enough room at the top to add the stamp... the best part about all this is the reaction you might get from the person at the post office! If anything... you should do this just to see if you manage to get a reaction, then you could report back to us :)

Here is something I thought of after taking the initial photo with all the supplies... Hubby printed this off for me (a news article from our Journal)... I thought why let it go to waste and decided to recycle it to the back of the envelope!

Okay so if we stopped here would you be happy? Certainly you could stop here and send this one off and the recipient would think you are amazing!!

But, if you wanted to add just a little bit more because you can... you might try some doodles... Nothing fancy mind you... all you need is a pen...

There... my doodles are on and are by no means perfect! Do I care? Nope... Do I have a theme here? Nope... I like the randomness of this good mail piece... I know exactly where this one is headed and I'm pretty sure she will like it:)

Recently Melissa posted on the Good Mail Day book and how she felt intimidated by some of the mail art sent by others... I was happy to see she found a style that suited her... you can read her post here.

You can also read more about Good Mail Day and Mail Art Exchange by clicking on these headings under my labels section on the left side of my blog.

So if you would like to participate in the next "Mail Art Exchange" then just e-mail me at ginbin70@hotmail.com and I will add your name to our list... In September I will announce when the Mail Art Exchange will be and I have picked a theme so look for that as well!

Thank you for stopping by!

Ginger

Giveaway Winner!!

2011-08-11T19:00:00.004-06:00

Lisa!!! You are the winner! I have your address and you can expect that coming to you in the post!

Thank you to everyone for your comments, I enjoyed reading them...

Tomorrow I will be sharing with you a Mail Art piece I created with items from around my house and none of them are scrapbooking related! Stay tuned :)

"Explore"

2011-08-11T14:14:00.000-06:00

I started Shimelle's class "Explore" a few weeks ago and did not get very far, so my goal this week was to review the first weeks material and go from there. Shimelle had several prompts for each day and has us thinking about a variety of things....

One of the prompts was to look at things in a positive way and discuss what is perfect in your life right now... I choose to do a layout about my current vacation and why it is perfect...

Earlier in the week, we were to create some embellishments with maps, and the idea was to create these embellishments without knowing what they would be used for. You can see my map circle embelishments on the layout...

Here are a few close ups of my Explore Paybook and how it is coming along so far...

Many of the prompts involve journaling, you can do as much as you like or as little as you want, but I have put most of my journaling on a tag and placed it behind something in the playbook...

I enjoyed this first week of prompts and looking more closely at where life is at right now... it has forced me to open my eyes to a few things...

I have briefly looked ahead at some of the prompts for the second week and I'm hoping to start working on those soon... Shimelle incorporated prompts that would go with a WITL so I will look back at some of the photos I took for WITL and see how I might incorporate them into "Explore"....

What about you, have any of you been working on the Explore Class? How are you finding the class?

I will be back a little later tonight to draw the winner for my 300th + Blog Post and Giveaway, so if you have not entered, you still have some time. You can see the post here...

Ginger

Summer Scavenger Hunt!

2011-08-09T13:21:00.000-06:00

Rinda, over at Gallo Organico has a list posted on her blog of a scavenger hunt for some summer photos. Here are just a few of what I have managed to capture over these last couple months.

Okay, so #14 may not be the real deal, but then I haven't seen any real ones EVER (certainly on my list of wanna sees though!!) and #21, well... that's what's hanging on my wall in my dining room :). Come to think of it #19 might be a bit of a stretch as well... but I did not feel like pointing my camera at the real deal under the bump out window outside.

What about you... how are your scavenger photos coming? I've certainly seen many on your blogs!

Digital Card Tutorial - Part III

2011-08-09T12:07:00.000-06:00

Hello again! In this tutorial I will be sharing the final touches on how I made this card...

You can see Digital Tutorial Part I, here and Part II here...

In Part II we ended off with completing the insert... One thing I did not mention in Part II was to save that file in its PSD format. This means you want to save it with all the layers open, not merged. That allows you to come back to it in the PSD format and make changes to the card if you like. Go to File and click on Save As...

I have a file created for all my PSD's...

What I did next was open a new file, 8.5 x 11in size. Then I took my insert and dragged it onto that file. That is my first layer.

Instead of copying and pasting, there is a keyboard shortcut to do this with a PC. Hover your mouse on the invite and click your "alt" key, you will then see a double arrow. While still pressing the alt key, click on your mouse and drag. You will then have a second copy of the item and can place it where you like. Repeat this two more times.

Here is my version. Once you have completed copying, then you can save the file in its PSD format if you like before merging the layers.

Merge the layers by clicking on the background, then while holding the shift key click the top layer, then right click and merge the layers. Now we can print it off. Cut them out and place the insert inside. Add pearls or other embellishment to give it some dimension.

This is the final version with the insert.

Thank you for joining me in this series! I hope I have given you some inspiration with hybrid cards. I see so many people out there making their Christmas Cards, I am considering making mine hybrid and perhaps this is a perfect option for you too!

Enjoy your day!

Ginger

Creative Color Canvas

2011-08-08T12:55:00.000-06:00

Hello Everyone! Thank you so much for all your lovely comments from yesterday's Storytelling Sunday... I did not mention this but the post was about my grandpa and although I have not had much time to work on my "Explore" class with Shimelle, I thought it would be fun to share his adventure from what I remember and know of his story.

Today I would like to share the canvas I have created from watching the videos in Christy's Creative Color class... This class has been VERY inspirational in that it is getting me to see colour in a different way...

First we start with looking at some photos of various things you might find inspiring, such as different magazines etc. I decided to go to Pinterest and found this combination of colours that I would never normally use or mix together....

Then I found some papers and material I had that would work to create a canvas...

Here is my canvas....

I used various paints, and different papers from my stash that I don't know where they are from anymore. The large piece of chipboard is from some left over Riff Raff I still have, the butterflies are from ArtChix studio and the large purple Prima flower is one I've had for some time. I used Tim Holtz and Stampin Up stamps and a roller alphabet stamp from Scarlet Lime.

Here are a couple close ups....

Thanks for stopping by.... tomorrow I will share Part III of my digital Card Tutorial... You can see Part 1 here... and Part II here...

If you have not seen my 300th + post giveaway... check it out here and comment by the evening of August 11th. All you Mail Art Exchanger's will not want to miss it!

Have a fabulous day!

Ginger

The Story of a True Pioneer

2011-08-07T10:09:00.000-06:00

Karl, the eldest of eight children left his family at 22 years of age to seek the adventure of his life. He boarded the Thuringia, and left Hamburg, Germany on February 29th, 1928.

You can see him standing in the front row, in the middle.

Once they sailed past the English Channel they came across rough seas and storms for several days, where the force of the waves pushed in the outside deck rail. They slept wearing their life jackets and needless to say the passengers were ill, however the story is told that Karl never missed a meal.

They arrived in Halifax harbour on March 11th, where it was recorded by Immigration Canada Karl had $6.00 in his pocket. The plan was for him to travel by train to Saskatchewan where he would meet up with others he knew and start work as a hired hand. "They" told him he would not be travelling on the same train as the others, and it was not clear if he would ever make it to his destination. Once the train stopped in Manitoba, Karl jumped off it and found his friends on another train bound for Humboldt. He paid his fare and was now assured he would make it to his new home.

After two years he saved enough money to purchase his own land... it was bush and needed to be cleared. He did this by hand with an axe and a grub hoe. It was hard labour, but he was what they call a "Pioneer", a settler... and settle he did.

Parts of this story was taken from the Middle Lake "The Vintage Years" book, Copyright 1982.

This story was brought to you by way of Sian's Storytelling Sunday. You can read more stories there, or even join in and link up. Thank you for stopping by!

300th+ Blog Post/Mail Art Exchange Giveaway!!

2011-08-05T14:23:00.001-06:00

I am several posts over but what the heck, better late than never right?!! There have been quite a few Blogoversary's in the past few weeks out here in Bloggerland and not that I am celebrating my Blog Anniversary, I am however celebrating my 300th + post.

Thank you to you my readers who keep coming back to this small corner of cyberspace! When I was planning this I thought what could I do to acknowledge this event? Ta Da....

This is a bit of a tie into the Mail Art Exchange group... but you don't have to be a part of the group to enter this giveaway! I thought these envelopes were a perfect size for mailing your Mail Art, and those Martha Stewart butterfly stamps are sure to look lovely on any package you send. For good measure, I added another stamp and... what else but a pen that is great for doodling! I have to admit, I almost cracked open those Martha stamps last night whilst creating my project for Christy's Creative Color class! I held back, though it was extremely difficult!!

Update: Winner has been picked!

Alright, to ensure your name is added to the giveaway pot... I would like to hear about what colour combination inspires you to create? Is there a new combination of colours you use that you never thought in your life you would like? In the Northern Hemisphere we are approaching Fall... Okay... don't get mad at me for bringing it up... yeeshk, we all know the world turns around and around, and summer is bound to end... :) having said that... are there any new colour combinations for Fall that sound interesting to you? Southern Hemisphere peeps... what about you? Any interests?

Okay?

On another note... Get ready for another Mail Art Exchange! I will be posting more information in September... so if you are interested in being added to our mailing list, please e-mail me at ginbin70@hotmail.com.

If you are interested in the draw, please leave a comment by August 11th, and I will post the winner that evening (that would be around 7 PM MDT)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Ginger

Digital Card Tutorial - Part II

2011-08-04T15:11:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I shared Part I to this post, you can see it here. Today I plan to show you how I made the insert for the card by using brushes. I don't think I mentioned this yesterday, but if you click on the photo you will see a much larger version.

Now I want to say that there are many ways to do things in PSE, so perhaps there is a simpler way, but this is how I chose to make mine. I made the inserts so that I would have 4 to one page. I did not feel like messing around with printing the insert on the other side of the already printed front... I'm sure there is a way to do that.

My card size was 4.25 x 5.5, so 2 cards per 8.5 x11 page. Start with opening a new file in PSE with the following measurements: 4 x 5.25, this will be your background.

Next, open up your kit and pick your paper. I used this kit from Jessica Sprague.

Click on your paper when it opens in PSE and drag it onto the white background. If you pick a patterned paper and want the pattern to be smaller click on the corners of the paper image and pull them inwards. By using the corners it will not distort the image of the pattern.

Once you have completed that, go to your layers palette on the right side and open a new layer for your text.

This photo shows where the new layer button is. Remember, you want the new layer above layer 1, so click on layer 1 then press the new layer button.

Here you can see the new layer, and I have already clicked on my Text tool that is why you see the "T" on that layer.

Okay, so here you can see three things. First I clicked on the text tool, then I went to the top to pick the font I wanted.. I usually adjust my font size once I start typing. Then I picked the colour of font... for this insert I used a charcoal grey.

On this photo you can see I created my text box area.

Start typing...

Once you have finished typing your invite, then create a new layer as now we will be adding some brushes. You will notice in the photograph below the font is different (I used Porcelain - you can download it for free at dafont )... this is the original version of my insert and I have smudged out the name of the person this invite is about.

Okay. Now on to the brushes. Below, you will see at the lower left I picked my "brush tool", then at the top left click on the little "arrow" pointing downward, and it will bring up your brushes. If you click on the "double arrow" to the right you will bring up another drop down menu. Click on "Load Brushes".

I chose some Rhonna Farrer brushes from House of Three... There are many great sites to purchase brushes, Jessica Sprague and Oscraps a couple places I go to, but if you googled photoshop brushes you will come up with a few choices.

Double click to select the brushes you want to load and then click on the one you like. Make sure you have the new layer picked in your layers palette and ensure you have the right colour picked. I went ahead with the same colour I used for the text.

Just start adding the brushes where ever you like... if you don't like where you placed it then press the undo button and start over. Here you will see how you can change the angle of the brush. At the top of the screen, click on the brush... then click and move the angle.

Almost done! Here is what my brushes look like... Too dark right? well we can fix that. Look below. I changed the opacity of the brush, make sure your brush layer is highlighted.

This is the final version of the insert.

Stay tuned for Part III on how I printed and assembled the card.

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial!

I hope your day is full of creativeness!

Ginger

Design Process for WITL

2011-08-03T16:32:00.002-06:00

I took a break from the computer on Monday to give myself some time to think how I wanted to approach the scrapbooking portion of WITL. For someone who has never done this before it was a bit challenging as I wasn't sure how things were going to work and what I would end up doing. I would suggest if you do plan to do this, Ali Edwards has so many great posts dedicated to this project and it is really helpful to read these before starting... I say that because I actually started scrapping on Sunday night because I couldn't help myself, I was so excited to start, but found yesterday I was not happy with my approach.

I showed you in this post the page protectors I bought for this project. Below are all of the digital products I used. Click on the photo and it will take you directly to the site.

From my purchases the other day, I had bought some of the Echo Park, ~~Vintage~~ ~~Rose~~ Victoria Gardens papers and decided to use them.

Here is what the first page looks like for Tuesday...

I used the overlays for the photo, you could use it for journaling as well, but I decided to do my journaling for the day in Word. I created a text box in Word and typed it all out. I also added the boxed "Make a Date Brushes" which I did in PSE and then saved it as a jpg to my files and inserted it in Word as a picture...

I set the printer to legal sized paper and cut a 12x12 piece of cardstock to size and then printed it. I was very happy with the results.

Here are a few more pages...

Having all of my photos printed has helped in the process for deciding placement. As you can see I have placed my photos in the protectors where I think they should go... I don't think I will be working on this anymore this week. I have completed the journaling and printed everything off. I am planning to work on it exclusively at my next crop night coming up soon... it will keep me focused and give me something to work on.

And so that is what I have been working on these last few days! Yeeshk! I hope to catch up on some blog reading!

Take care my friends and have a great day!

Ginger

Simple Invites, Digital Card Tutorial - Part 1

2011-08-03T15:50:00.000-06:00

Some of you are already aware of the invitations I needed to make for Marvin last week... I thought I would share with you how quick and easy it was to make these.

Here is what my card looked like...

A sneak close up of the inside...

First off, I knew right away I would make a hybrid card. I did not come across too many digital templates for cards and yes I could have easily made my own in PSE but because it was a hectic week last week I just wanted someone else to do that for me! The first place I went to was Jessica Sprague and I found these...

Then I found this kit I have been coveting for some time... perfect reason to purchase no?

I found the card template I liked and opened it up in PSE... Now I use PSE 7 on a PC which the principals I should think are still very much the same in PSE 8 & 9.

This is the card template I picked, however the template was not set up for me, usually when you purchase templates they are already layered for you... this one was not... just a minor inconvenience... so you can see all the different elements on the card above, the designer separated those out so I need to open them all up and place them on the card myself. I will show you below.

You can see all the elements open now in my bin area at the bottom of the screen.

Here I clicked on that brown rectangular shape and dragged it down to the bin area, onto the solid green piece (you can see the solid green shape in the photo above). So now I have the front of the card (brown) layered onto the larger green shape which is the card base.
I continue to click on each separate piece and drag it down onto my card.

Now, I did not use all the elements from the card kit as I wanted to keep it simple, and the birdie and leaf elements just did not fit the theme.

Once I had my card "assembled" I opened up my paper kit and picked the papers I wanted to use for the card.

You add the paper by selecting the element you want to add the paper to. You will see on the right side in the layers palette I have selected the layer I want to add the paper to.

Here, I have already dragged my patterned paper onto the card, with still having that layer selected I will now click on "Ctrl G" for a PC, sorry I don't know what the command is for a Mac.

My card is now ready. I have added all my layers, but I must merge those layers so I can move the card onto an 8.5x11 page. Before you do this though you will want to save your card as a PSD file. This will allow you to keep the layers open and you can come back to the card anytime and make adjustments. If you do make adjustments but you want to keep the old version, then just save it as a new PSD file.

So click on the top layer and then press your shift button and click on the last layer... all the layers should be highlighted now and then right click on your mouse and you will see a drop down. Pick merge layers.

There... now your document is ready to be moved, now all the layers on the right are gone.

Go to your file menu and open a new blank file 8.5x11. Drag your card onto the document twice and place it accordingly. Merge the layers and there you are... Ready to print it off.

Stay tuned for Part 2 coming soon!

What about you? Have you ever tried making a digital card? Or do you prefer the hands on method? How do you manage to come up with a design on short notice for a large order of cards?

Have a wonderful day!

Sunday, WITL

2011-08-01T11:59:00.000-06:00

Here it is... the final day! The week has gone by quickly... yesterday I mostly spent preparing for today.

Although we did clean up a big chunk of the dinner party, this is what the kitchen looked like after the night before!

Treasured Memories had a special event on Sunday so I had made a list of things I wanted, but I hardly stuck to it at all...

This is Chantel and KC with Chantel's beautiful and cute little girl Scarlett... These sisters own Treasured Memories and are two of the sweetest people I know, always so friendly and interested when you visit...

My stash! Yummy....

The view above...

Starting the process of deciding which photos and what size to print...

An evening snack... for those of you who live in the Edmonton area... you must check out "Everything Cheese"...they are a bit pricey... but let me tell you... the quality is outstanding... If you are looking for something special you cannot go wrong with their suggestions... see yesterday's post for a photo I took inside the shop...

So that is it... one week... done and documented... I look forward to telling my stories, I will share with you my pages as I go through this week... until then... have a wonderful holiday Monday for those of you who are taking in the Civic Stat...

Ginger

Saturday, WITL

2011-07-31T16:06:00.000-06:00

Saturday was a busy day preparing for our dinner... here is how the day went...

Thoughts so far:

I am amazed at this project... It's been fun... eyeopening in some cases... I'm also happy with the stories I can document from it... but I'm feeling a bit down in that the week will be completed after today, not quite sure how to explain it... I'm starting to think perhaps there is something to doing "Project Life"... I found taking the photos easy, but now I'm also feeling a bit panicky that tomorrow I will be starting to do the scrapbooking part of this week as I haven't really organized that yet... who knows maybe the next week will be fine. I will start to look at photos from Monday and print them off. I might not do any editing of the photos as I just do not have the time.

What about you? How are you feeling now that the week is almost complete and for some of you it is completed? Do you feel like you would like to do more?

Have a great evening!

Ginger

Friday, WITL

2011-07-30T09:39:00.000-06:00

Here are some photos from Friday... this is more usual to what my days are like...

I couldn't bring myself to stand in front of my dentist's office to take a picture of the sign...

Have a wonderful Saturday!

Ginger

Thursday, WITL

2011-07-28T21:51:00.000-06:00

Thursday's photos... The battery on my camera was beeping as I was uploading these ones so that tells you how many photos I ended up with!

We had another wonderful day; walking around the Devonian Botanical Gardens... I did try my self timer with me on the couch when I came home but, I couldn't bring myself to post it! At least I know the timer works :) I did manage to get in some crafty time this evening, albeit a bit pressured as hubby told me two days ago he required 20 invitations for a retirement party at work by Friday! I did enjoy it nonetheless. I will share my process on another post.

Hope your Thursday was a great one! And how is your WITL coming along? If you are not partaking in WITL is there any crafty goodness you are up too? I would love to hear about it :)

Ginger

Wednesday, WITL

2011-07-28T08:22:00.000-06:00

Wednesday was a great day...

Some observations: I have less photos from today, I want to take less "posed" photos and I've noticed on Ali's blog and others regarding taking photos... setting the timer on the camera... I hope to try this in the next couple days...

Have a wonderful day and I hope you enjoy your view wherever you may be!

Tuesday, WITL

2011-07-27T07:29:00.000-06:00

Tuesday in WITL was full of rain and baking... My mom is well known for her poppy roll and that was our focus for the day... here are a few snapshots of how are day was spent...

Marvin heading off to work...

We picked up a few groceries...

Grinding the poppy's...

After all this hard work I needed a nap!

The nap was short as we needed to start preparing for dinner...

We decided to have someone come and look at the yard so we can decide how we would like to carry on with it...

Some observations... My mom is a very organized woman in the kitchen... before I was even finished something she already had the dishes in the sink and cleaned... Also, when we were at the grocery store I discovered some things about my mom that make me the way I am :)

Something I have been including with my WITL is the news headlines and what our discussion was...

There it is... another day...

Ginger

Monday, WITL

2011-07-25T23:37:00.000-06:00

I took lots of photos today! This is the first time I've done WITL, and I had lots of fun documenting and thankful for everyone not minding all the my photo taking :) Here are a few unedited ones I thought I would share.

First things first... Business needs to get done...

Breakfast time... love how I managed to get bokeh in this photo...

Some final preparation in getting ready for my parents stay...

I picked up mom and dad at Carmen's home...

We had a good laugh when my mom hopped in the vehicle and couldn't reach the floor with her feet, nor put the seatbelt on... I helped her out!

We had a lovely lunch outside on the patio... the weather was beautiful...

Much needed lawnmowing... done by yours truly...

Preparing the salad dressing for the salmon salad... All these photos and I forgot to take one of the prepared meal!

Dessert...

We finished the night off by watching "The Tourist" with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie.

Of course there is no routine this week with me being on vacation and my parents visiting... Today was lots of fun... Until tomorrow!

How is your WITL coming?

Week In The Life

2011-07-23T14:24:00.000-06:00

I have decided to participate in Ali's a "Week In The Life". I just ran out to Treasured Memories to get my book and page protectors, I was hoping to get the We Are Memory Keepers page protectors, but really I am happy that I actually got anything for leaving this so late!

Here is what I picked up... a 12x12 American Crafts D-ring binder and some page protectors...

Messy desk eh? There are still a couple things I will purchase... and as for paper... I'm winging it!

I leave you with a photo of Miss Sophie...

Have a great day!!

Did I mention I'm on VACATION???!!! Whoop!

"Crikey!! Good On Ya, Mate"

2011-07-23T13:57:00.000-06:00

I know at least one person who is happy about today's stage at the Tour de France! Amy??!! We have bantered a bit back and forth regarding the tour and so I am happy to say that Cadel Evans will be the first Aussie to ride into Paris tomorrow wearing the yellow jersey! That's right, he will be standing on the podium in front of the Champs de Elysse... A job well done!!

As for Andy... well he is 2nd again and this time his brother Frank will join him on the podium in 3rd place. That's okay! There is always next year!! Right?! You betcha!

"No Guts... No Glory"

2011-07-21T21:45:00.000-06:00

He said it... and it's what I was waiting for!... I was sitting on the edge of my seat watching as Schleck broke ahead of the peleton with close to 60 km to the end... he won the stage... even if you're not a fan you have to admit it was pretty impressive... he is now only 15 seconds behind this man....

Photos courtesy denverpost.com

Thomas Voeckler... he deserves to to keep that yellow jersey for this stage... they say he is not a favourite to win... but I'm not sure... he's worn it now for over a week...

Two more stages before Paris.... lots can still happen... but I'm hoping for a Schleck 1... 2...

Are you watching? Do you have your favourites to win?

Explore!

2011-07-18T21:30:00.000-06:00

Shimelle's class Explore started today! I wasn't certain what the class would be about when I signed up and after reading today's prompt I was excited to get started...

The first thing we were to do was make our "Playbook"... I had so much fun picking out the papers for my book... all scraps from years past. I decided to go with Kraft paper to allow for creative stamping and painting if the spirit moves me... Here is my paper selection... all cut into 4x6....

We were to look for some photos to add to the book, I have a couple I might add, but I took some pictures on the weekend which will fit well, they just need to be printed. Also... I made my book cover... again... just love the colours and had so much fun creating... in fact this is the most no pressure creative fun I've had in weeks!!

Everything came from my stash and it's all old stuff!

Part of today's activities was to take a self portrait with our camera and add it to the book... I took the photo but will print it off tomorrow...

I actually really like my photo...

I haven't completed the "note to myself" journaling... but plan to do that before bedtime...

I'm pretty impressed... from the time I walked into my art room to the time I have finished writing my blog post it only took 1.5 hours! There you have it... most of today's prompt completed and I'm so looking forward to what tomorrow will bring.

What about you? When is the last time you took a photo of yourself?

A Layout to Share...

2011-07-16T12:51:00.000-06:00

Hello friends... I have been taking some time to rest my arm and shoulder as it is acting up again and so therefore less time on the computer is best... I would like to share a layout I finished this week... it took some time as I wasn't feeling the love with the papers I used... but now I think it has come together... This one is about our recent visit with my parents...

I like the mix of colours here...

I hope all of you are managing to get in some scrappy or crafty time... I look forward to my vacation coming in one week... I will have one full month off.. time that is much needed... I won't be going away... I love to vacation at home... I find it rejuvenating and I have lots of things in mind both crafty and organizational type stuff... plus I will have time for classes... Like this one with Shimelle... I'm still contemplating Christy's new one called Creative Color (only a week long, but looks like it's packed full of fun)....

What about you? Do you have any crafty classes coming up?

10 on the 10th

2011-07-10T10:32:00.000-06:00

Here are 10 things I am loving right now...

1. Loving SUMMER... The weather for the most part has been gorgeous and I cannot help but enjoy all the lushness surrounding our city. Here is a photo taken outside a window of where I went to work almost daily for 6 months... I loved that view...

2. My Garden.... It is growing and doing so well... It's amazing the difference it's made in me enjoying our backyard... This photo was taken 3 weeks ago and with all the rain things have grown even more.

3. Le Tour de France... I have managed to keep up with the first week and I'm looking forward to more...

4. Finding Photo Freedom. Although I have not kept up with class as much as I would have liked I am still making progress and happy to have some organization of my photos.

5. City and Colour... I cannot get enough of this album... when I hear the first track... the sound of Dallas Green's voice against the steel guitar makes my heart melt... its pureness is something I will not tire from.

6. Shiseido Skin Care Line... Who knew at 40 years one could get adult acne? This is a beautiful line that is great if you are looking for an oil free product...

7. Summer Fruit... I love the fruit summer brings... Peaches, cherries, nectarines and Saskatoon's... here is a photo of some nectarines... oh my :)

photo courtesy San Francisco Farmers Market

8. Woody's Sasparilla. My new favourite drink...

9. Somerset Studio. Who doesn't love Somerset Studio? Their magazines are full of inspiration... Every now and then I will purchase one and last month it was "The Art of Paper and Mixed Media". I haven't even made it through half the magazine and with every turn of the page I love what I see :)

10. Scrapbooking Goodies!! Friday night I went to crop night at Treasured Memories and I thought I would show you a snapshot of what I came home with... They had a sale on Hambly :)

So there you have it... 10 on the 10th is brought to you by Shimelle... If you would like to join in or read the other posts check it out here...

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Ginger

10 Things Update (June Edition)

2011-07-09T14:43:00.000-06:00

On June 10th I made a list of goals for Shimelle's "Ten Things". I thought I would give you an update on how I've managed :)

10 "Scrappy, Crafty and Inspiring" Things I would like to complete by July 10th...

1. ~~I love Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesdays and although I have played with her textures I have not done a TT. I plan to participate in "one" TT before July 10th.~~ I managed to complete this one! You can see my photo here

2. ~~I feel like I hardly make any layouts anymore! My goal is to finish 2 scrap pages before the next "10 Things".~~ I actually completed 4 layouts!! One was hybrid and one was digital. Also, I did make 3 cards!

3. "Finding Photo Freedom" over at BPC started one week ago... and it has already opened my eyes to organizing my photos... both digital and printed. I'm LOVING it! I will spend 45 minutes 3-4X/week working on my digital workflow :) I was managing to keep up with class until my computer crashed :) I hope to get back into the swing of things soon :)

4. ~~Attend a crop night with my friends at my local scrapbook store... Treasured Memories... P.S. They now have an Online Store!~~ Whew... I did get this one in Friday night... it was close though.. !

5. Continue to tweak my blog... I want to add another "page"... more specifically for the "Mail Art Exchange"
(see labels). I've started this one, just not finished!

6. ~~I JUST signed up for Pinterest... and I want to start setting up my pinboards so I need to set some limits! **Must limit time on Pinterest to 1 hour/week** (Is that realistic??)~~ Okay at first I thought I was going to have a real problem here! But I did manage to limit my time although it's hard :)

~~7. Find one new and inspiring blog & share it here.~~ I'm going to cross this one off, because I have a post in mind for next week!

8. OK... I started reading "The Pillars of the Earth", by Ken Follett, maybe 5 months ago... I am on page 304 of 973!!... I need to take more time to read this book! I love it... I'm just not giving it priority... I will have 100 pages read by July 10th. I'm afraid I failed miserably at this one :( I did open the book and I'm almost embarrassed to say I read 1 page, and then I fell asleep! Clearly, I am not much of a reader these days and I wish I could say I was.

9. ~~Make ONE Collage page based on Claudine's "Composition for Collage" class at BPC~~. Although I did not make a collage from Claudine's class... I did make a She Art!

10. Plan something BIG for my 300th Blog post! This is partially completed!

"A Good Catch"

2011-07-09T10:01:00.000-06:00

Last weekend while we were looking through boxes of pictures my niece Torrie was camping and fishing... she texted us to say she had Caught a Fish! She would send a photo... It was great to see her happy with her catch and it inspired this page...

I had lots of fun last night hooking up with my friends at our LSS, Treasured Memories... They have a new look with fresh paint and some changes to the crop nights which are fabulous!! Thanks so much ladies, dinner was great and I love the make and take idea!! As you can see I managed to finish ONE layout! That's because I really was too busy shopping :)

We are have another rainy day... wonderful for the grass, but yeesh! I would like the +27C weather back please and thank you!!

Well I must go and clean my house... What about you? What are your plans for the weekend?

Textured Tuesday

2011-07-07T20:31:00.000-06:00

Well I thought I would give Kim Klassen's Textured Tuesday challenge a go... Her challenge for this week was your interpretation of the No. 3...

Here is a photo from my recent trip last weekend... we made a stop in Saskatoon and took this photo outside of the Bessborough... If you don't know already... it's 3 sisters... (you wouldn't be wrong if you thought 3 ice cream cones!)

I used Kim's Chamomile texture along with her Magic2 from the Magic Pac... As well the mask is from Kim's collections as well (I think it was a freebie)... If you sign up for Kim's texture newsletter, you will receive an email each week with free textures... you can sign up here

Happy Thursday Evening!

"Water Overfloweth"... Storytelling Sunday...

2011-07-04T20:11:00.000-06:00

I returned late yesterday from visiting my parents and we had so much fun! My two sisters, Arlene and Carmen and Carmen's friend Sandy all made the trek to my home province of Saskatchewan. Our visit with my parents was wonderful and I cannot wait to share the treasures discovered in the weeks to come... But until then I will share a story from the weekend.

One of the things my dad was waiting for, was to take us on a tour of the flooded farmland in the area. We started the journey with the three of us girls in the backseat and mom and dad in the front... just like when we were kids...we were laughing and giggling... "Where's your microphone Dad?", "Your giving us a tour... aren't there any refreshments?"... more giggling and much ribbing... "Oh you kids... stop it!" The three of us chattering away in the backseat, then noticing dad talking and "starting the tour"... "SHhhh"... elbows in the ribs, whispering "the tour has started!"... Uncontrollable giggling... then... "I gotta go to the bathroom!!" We were not even 20 minutes into the drive and this is what it was like all afternoon...

When we came to the obvious overflown water... my attention was peaked... I realized dad had already started driving towards where the water was running across the road... "STOP!!, Stop the truck!!, my mom saying "well your not going to try and drive through it", my voice more loudly "STOP!!" seatbelt undone.. and me frantically trying to get out of the vehicle... mom now saying, "well now you have to back up".... "NO, I am not going to be in this vehicle with it backing up!!" I said, laughing and hyperventilating = (big fear: Vehicle driving into large deep body of water!)

Dad stopped the vehicle but did not understand what all the fuss was about...

Here we are all laughing... my mom was trying to take a photo of me (near the water I might add) and she kept saying "I can't see you Ginger.... I CAN'T see you! Okay mom, it's not like I'm hard to miss... (apparently she couldn't see me in the view finder because of the sun :)

Dad, backing the vehicle up (notice none of us are in the truck)....

Can't see anyone wanting to purchase this underwater farmland...

We were allowed our refreshments upon arriving safe and sound at home!

Today's story is brought to you by way of Sian's Storytelling Sunday (a day late, but you have all week to join in :) You can read more stories here

Have a great sunshiny evening!

Playing with "She Art"

2011-07-02T00:01:00.005-06:00

While the computer was fried... I took some time to create another She Art Girl... I had lots of fun with this one... All the other girls were created with a square canvas and this time I used a 6 x 12 inch canvas which allowed me to be a bit more free creatively... I did not want to do a "picture" background like the girl you see here...

In this first photo you can see I have already begun to cover the background of papers I had glued onto the canvas. I used paints and stencils along with bubble wrap and stamps to layer and create more dimension on the canvas.

This second photo shows the form of the girl I cut out from a book, as well as the dress.

I then started painting in the hair and adding shadows to her dress, giving her more life.

This is the final creation. You can see more stamps, paint (using punchanella) and rubons were used.

She is my favourite one so far...

Happy "144th" Birthday!

2011-07-01T00:01:00.012-06:00

"Happy Canada Day" to all my fellow Canadians!

I'm spending the weekend with my parents in Saskatchewan. There will be no fireworks but I will be sure to have a piece of home made pie, and partake in the events unchanged from my youth! I'm sure to have a few photos to share.

Take Care!

Aussie Girls Challenge (A Bit Late :)

2011-06-29T20:22:00.000-06:00

On the weekend I had spent more than enough time preparing my layout for last weeks Simple Aussie Girls Challenge and just as I was about to start my post the computer crashed! That was Saturday and so now I'm up and running!

Here is my take on the sketch you can see at Simple Aussie Girls (there is also a download for the template if you wish to do it digitally). I enjoyed what others had posted and wanted to give a go of it...

(Digital papers printed from Jessica Sprague 4 Ever Kit - from Jessica Sprague & Carina Gardner)

Creatively speaking, as most of you are aware I typically use lots of dimensional details in my pages... but I found for this page the creativeness was in the formatting and writing of the journaling. I went back to "Textuality", one of my favourite classes at BPC to review how to do just that. Originally I wanted to do this as a digital page, but then I decided to do the journaling and word art in Word and print it off, thus the hybrid layout you see here.

Thanks for the challenge ladies and I look forward to seeing and trying more!

Do you ever use Word or some other software for processing your journaling?

Have a great night!

How's Your Day?

2011-06-24T13:13:00.000-06:00

Happy Friday!

Correction Needed and an Apology!

2011-06-23T16:54:00.000-06:00

I have to say I'm mortified that in my previous post I made an error in my description of Alexa's work. The digital papers she is so generously giving away as a free download are her OWN creation. They are NOT photocopies of fabrics... I won't explain how I came to my earlier description except that I obviously need to read things more carefully!! It became clear to me when she asked politely if she could clarify something...

Alexa, I am so sorry, and thanks for setting me straight!

Technology Advances (Updated June 23rd)

2011-06-22T17:14:00.001-06:00

Here is a layout I finished using Alexa's free mini kit which you can download here for the template and here for the digital papers! If you would like to see how Alexa created a fabric copy of her ~~the~~ digital designs ~~papers~~ ~~from~~ ~~photocopied fabric~~... then check out her tutorial. Also, she has a freebie pdf that has some cute tags... just download and print! These papers and the pdf would make an amazing hybrid page. Just remember to read the terms of reference if you download :)

Here is my version of her mini kit...

What do you think? Are there any advancements in technology that you find useful? What are they?

Have a wonderful evening, or day, where ever you may be!

Happy Father's Day!

2011-06-19T10:49:00.000-06:00

I would like to wish my dad a big Happy Father's Day! I hope your having a good day dad!

Today we are having Marvin's family over for a Father's Day gathering and so I have just completed a card for him... I have had this stamp set for some time and just never used it yet so this one is for Harry!

We are also celebrating Marvin's brother Wes' birthday today, and so I made another birthday card! That is 3 men's cards in 1 week! Challenging as it was, they all came together and each different than the next :)

It has been raining here for about 5 days now... I was hoping we would be able to have a nice outdoor gathering but the weather is not cooperating! Oh well... I'm sure we will cope... Have a fabulous day wherever you may be!