Happy National Scrapbook Day!

Can you believe it's May already? As this year flies by, I can't believe it's not still February! Do you ever feel completely behind on everything? I'm behind on mailing RAKs - they've been boxed and in my car for what seems like weeks, and I haven't been to the post office yet. I have so much to blog about, but no time to write. I'm behind on posting my Scrapfest projects, too. Here's one with lots of embellies - clear, cork, die cut and felt!
I love every single product on this page - the lace cardstock, the shimmer cardstock, the die cut title block, the butterfly wings that I trimmed in half and blinged up with rhinestones. All of this artsy.licious product is packaged at excellent prices at Scrapalicious, so if you can, get there and check it out.
As a mom, this is my first year dealing with dance costumes, putting the girls hair up in ballet buns and putting make up on them. After the time it took for me to master mascara and eyeliner on my own, putting it on a 7 year old is a whole other thing! It's such fun, though, and the girls enjoy it so much.

It's wonderful to watch them learn and grow into their own, sweet little beings. That's what this layout is all about.

Are you scrapping this NSD? I'm looking forward to spending time with Jen, Sue and Lori this weekend chatting, drinking tea with Bailey's and perhaps a few margaritas, taking photos and hopefully squeezing in a little productive scrapbooking!

Whatever you're up to this NSD, I hope it makes you smile. Wishing you peace, tons of creative energy and a wonderful National Scrapbook Day weekend!

Thoughtful People

This is my friend Jennifer of Life - Be Scrappy. We first met at a scrappy site online about five years ago, were on Just Cre8's DT together, and have cropped and road-tripped together a few times too. I was pleased when Jen recently featured my home on her blog, although a little surprised it was my powder room toilet that prompted an admiration post! :-P

Jen sat with me on Saturday night at Scrapfest, and she was bummed last week when I wrote a Scrapfest post and only mentioned the two gals I booked my crop table with. (shhh - I sort of pre-wrote part of that post before Scrapfest - sorry Jen!) Anyway, I thought I would make it up by showing off one of Jen's most stunning, prize-winning projects.

The album that Jen is holding above is one of the most stunning pieces of art that I've seen. Jen entered it in a Coca-Cola employee contest related to the Open Happiness campaign just before the Olympics and not only did she win, I'm sure she amazed the judges at how gorgeous this album is. If you haven't seen it in person, look here for some photos of it. Although you really need to see this in person (and hear the jingle playing in the background) to truly appreciate it, the photos give you an idea of the degree of detail and hours of work it took to make this album so beautiful. Jen won herself and her hubby a trip out to BC to see the Olympics, lucky gal! Well deserved.

In addition to being an incredibly talented scrapper, Jen is also so sweet and thoughtful. Jen received one of the first of the Peace canvases I gave away in my 29 Gifts project back in February, and she then dropped by my office in the middle of the afternoon with these flowers to thank me. Thanks so much, Jen!
On the topic of thoughtful people, my hubby, who you may have seen in a similar photo on a recent post, was just featured by Scrapscene. See the post here. Stephen seems a bit indifferent about his 5 minutes of fame, although I think he's pleased it was just a link and not the photo that made the news!


I have more Scrapfest projects for Scrapalicious to post later in the week, so see you then!

Denim Display Album for Scrapalicious

One of my favourite projects for the Scrapalicious booth at Scrapfest is this denim display book from Chatterbox. The album has denim covers, comes in a canvas bag, and a display stand is also available. I loved the idea of mucking up the covers with lots of paint, crackle paint and embellishments from the recent Chatterbox releases. I also used Rock Candy on the cork scallop trim at the top, which made it look a bit like worn leather.
I decided to create an engagement album for this couple that I shot engagement photos for a few years back. I left all of the journaling spots blank so that they can fill in their own sentiments and thoughts on each page. I'm not sure how soon I'll have an opportunity to give this to them, but I like it a lot and hope they will too. I thought a grungy, distressed style went well with the casual attire they wore for the shoot.
Since this album flips upward, I left most of the B sides blank, but I wanted to do something fun with them. I covered each back with alabaster artsy.licious lacquered paper, and sprayed each with a different colour of Maya Mist, then aged each page with ink and paint.
The pages are a wonderful, versatile size (approx. 5.5" square), and work really well with multiple, wallet-sized photos, a 4 x 6 photo, or a square photo. If you are local, drop by Scrapalicious and take a look. The photos really don't do this album justice. The photo at left is also one of my favourite pictures from that shoot. It was Thanksgiving Monday, the leaves had just turned beautifully, and the air was so very positive and optimistic.


You can view the album in its entirety in the slide presentation below. Click on the window to view at full size.

You can also see posts about this engagement shoot, the wedding photos I took at their beach wedding (where I was not the official wedding photographer), as well as a wedding mini-album I made for them in previous posts.

A page I made with a wedding photo was also published in Canadian Scrapbooker magazine. You can read about it here.

I'll be posting more from the Scrapalicious booth at Scrapfest soon, so check back.

artsy.licious Title Pages for Scrapalicious

I had a fantastic time at Scrapfest this year!

It was the first time I stayed overnight and cropped. I also took a class from Cathie Allen, so it was really a packed couple of days. I think Sue, Nancy and I had more fun than humanly possible! And if you are a scrapper and you haven't heard yet about my huge wipe-out during the scavenger hunt, I'd be surprised! :-) The Scrapalicious booth was hopping all weekend with great make 'n takes and these beautiful artsy.licious papers.

When I received a stunning DT kit of Chatterbox papers and embellishments, I looked at the brown, red, blue and green and realized how beautifully they would match the American Crafts albums that I just bought for my Library of Memories. I couldn't resist making my album title pages using these papers in a monochromatic way. Starting from the top, I used brown for my Things We Do album.

For each page, I selected a meaningful photo for the focal photo. On the Things page, the photo depicts my hubby and kids playing cards with my cousins' kids in our favourite Montreal hangout - Tim Horton's. The blue Places We Go page highlights places, both near and far, that are meaningful to us. The large photo is taken from Whistler mountain during an airshow. See the three planes in the upper right of the photo?! (Much easier in person!)

Our home, the place we go most often, is pictured right below the title. For the green People We Love, the photo is of Stephen's grandmother's 85th birthday, which we celebrated in our former backyard with most of Stephen's family. And the red We are Family album will house pages with photos of all 5 of us. Since I am usually behind the camera, I was surprised that I was able to find enough family of 5 photos to fill this page! :-}


The upper right photos is the first "family of 5" photo we ever took. It was taken at Easter, right after the girls were born, and is the first of hopefully very many more of all of us together.

If you didn't have a chance to get to Scrapfest, stop by Scrapalicious and see these beautiful papers. The artsy.licious line includes stunning flocked, embossed, glittered and many other beautiful papers, either individually or in multipacks.

I will have more of the Scrapfest projects I created for Scrapalicious to post soon.

RAK Haul!

For those of you still waiting for RAKs from me, here's a peek at the haul you will be sharing. Stamp sets, punches, ribbon, ink and all kinds of embellishments! I have the goodies separated and boxed and just need to get out to the post office to get them off to you. Thanks for your patience as I get everything together.

Scrapalicious sneak peeks for Scrapfest

If you're at Scrapfest this weekend, come by the Scrapalicious booth and see the beautiful artsy.licious lines from Chatterbox. These lace, embossed, flocked and glittered papers are truly gorgeous! For my denim album, I Maya Mist-ed ivory glossy embossed papers various colours and just love the result!
There are soooo many embellishments to choose from. Ranging from transparent, cork, chipboard, paper, brads, frames and mattes, felt, borders, journaling boxes, titles - you name it, it's available from Chatterbox. I love the butterfly wings I created for my daughters here by halving a butterfly.
Chatterbox's mini-albums come in a variety of colours and have embossed pages to match the cover. I had a ton of fun creating an album of our top ten favourite photos. It was a quick and easy album to make, as the embossed pages look decorative all on their own. This would make an awesome grandparent's brag book!
Scrapalicious is also featuring beautiful textured papers by Shizen Designs. The green floral paper here is truly beautiful. I want more of it so I can get into some hand-cutting! :-} The couple in the photo released butterflies at their wedding, so I thought the butterfly embellies worked well.

All together, I created two mini-albums, 7 pages and a canvas for Scrapfest, and I'll post them all sometime soon. I still have a few more pages roughed out that I'm hoping to finish at the crop this weekend.

If you're heading to Scrapfest, I hope we'll have a chance to visit. Either way, have a great weekend and I hope you manage to fit in some scrapping! Cheers!

LOM Category Drawers and More!

Whew! So much to say, so little time!

This is always such a busy time of year for our family. The school routine and activities keep us hopping all week, weekends have been beautiful for getting outside, at the office we're non-stop right now - and I'm up late packing for Scrapfest this weekend (yahoo!) and getting RAKs ready to be mailed.

In the midst of everything, I've been managing to stay reasonably caught up (believe it or not!) in my LOM class. I found awesome 6-up albums at Wal-Mart for my Storage Binders, and the above photo is a peek at my category drawers. These drawer units were a cast off after many years of use at the office, and since they are index card sized, they're perfect for storing 4 x 6 photos. I just covered the well-worn fronts with patterned paper. The drawer in the photo is my Us/People drawer. Since I only have 2 drawers, I've put Us/People together and Places/Things together. I feel so organized! :-}

I've been taking quite a few Project 365 photos - maybe not one every day, but at least 7 every week - however they are not even uploaded from my camera yet. I'm hoping I'll have a chance to post some soon. I found another sweet photo connection to an old photo of the girls, so I'm hoping to get that posted next. I also got a lovely shot of all 3 kids on Easter Sunday at their Grandma and Grandpa's.

I've been so busy, I've barely had time to be excited about Scrapfest! I'm really looking forward to seeing so many of my scrapping friends there. If you're going, drop me a line and we'll try to meet up. I'll be cropping with Sue and Nancy, and hopefully being reasonably productive, and not just socializing, right Sue? :-} I'm also in Cathie Allen's Faux Leather Album class on Saturday afternoon, so if you are too, let me know. It's such a beautiful project. You can join me, Janice, Patti and Elia in having the rowdiest table! :-}

I'm also planning a quick trip to Edmonton for my Mom's 85th birthday (85 - can you believe it!) in mid-May. So Edmonton friends, touch base and we'll make the most of my short visit. Of course, a trip to Treasured Memories (if you want to meet me there, let me know!), a meal at Earls and a visit to my beloved Olive Garden (non-existent out here) are definitely in the plans!

I'll be checking in again once Scrapfest is over. I can start posting the projects I've been keeping under wraps until the show. I can't wait! Stay tuned. :-}