Scrapalicious Designs

A fly on the wall at our house on a Saturday morning would find it hard to believe that our girls love dance. While they have a wonderful time once they are there, getting them out of bed, fed and in the car en route to the studio on a Saturday morning can be a real chore! They want to stay in bed, play video games, swing, watch TV - literally anything ahead of heading to dance class! They really do have a love for it, though, and even enjoy practicing.

On the above layout I stamped the heart directly onto the photo using paint. Journaling says "The greatest treasures are those invisible to the eye but found by the heart". I love the girls' ballet studio, and while I take pics of them during jazz, I find the colours in that room aren't as pretty.

The lovely, mellow gold paint in the ballet studio is probably why I scrap more ballet photos than jazz, tap or acro. Here, the girls were rehearsing for their ballet exams. I love the formality of ballet - the strict rules about hair buns and properly rolled socks, the little flowing skirts; the precision of the hand and foot positions. I thought these sweet photos went well with the pretty Prima papers and florals here. I spritzed the banner and used baker's twine to string it up.

Despite the femininity of most of the Prima Madeline papers, I thought that this one went particularly well with masculine photos. Here, Evan is warming up after a swim, wrapped snugly in a towel and basking in the hear of the sun. Looking back at this photo, I realize that he hasn't changed much, other than the addition of glasses and longer hair! I love the wood grain look of these Thickers, and you'll notice I got a ton of use from them.

If you're local, these pages are on display now at Scrapalicious, where this product is all available. Stop by and say hello!

Do you have plans for the long weekend? I'm hoping that the weather will be better than it's been lately, how about you? We've been inundated with rain this spring, so hopefully Mother Nature allows us some sunshine over the next three days.

I'm planning on getting some scrapping done this weekend too. Believe it or not, I don't think I'm finished with the ballet layouts! And now that I'm hopelessly addicted to Skype, hopefully some Skypebooking is in order. :-}

ETA: I almost forgot to mention, I used a sketch from Jana Eubank's sketch blog for the Reach High layout. You can see her sketch blog here - take a peek for lots of inspiration!

Have a wonderful long weekend! Cheers!

Always Hopping...

I've been so swamped lately, I've had NO time to blog! Between family birthdays, wedding showers, 50th birthday parties, kids activities and skypebooking - my latest scrappy venture - so much has happened that I haven't blogged yet! So I'll start with a peek at my latest Scrapalicious designs.

I totally love the new Maya Road zipper ribbons. Creating the above zipper ribbon flower was so easy! The zipper ribbon was a great match to the Prima Madeline papers I received from Scrapalicious, but that doesn't mean that the papers are limited to girl pages - as shown at left.


Donna Downey's foam stamps are fantastic for paint and I couldn't resist picking up three when they arrived at Scrapalicious. I know they're selling fast, so I'm not sure what's left but if you can, snap some up. I love the heart I used here, but the foliage ones rock too!


Last year we hosted our girls' birthday party in June. This year I did it a bit earlier. (OK, I'll admit it - their birthday was in February - but at least I beat last year!) Wow - a kitchen full of 8 year old girls is really LOUD, but everyone had a great time, which is what matters most!

I can't believe a month has passed since I started 12 of 12! Marking it on the calendar worked really well (and a reminder from Lee helped, too!) and I remembered to photograph our day this month. Here's a peek at my morning. One of these months I'll post all 12, but I'm not there yet!


With a long weekend coming up, I'm planning on getting the Scrapalicious pages I mentioned above posted, so stay tuned for that. Have a wonderful Victoria Day weekend. Hopefully we'll (finally) see some sunny weather!

Sky's The Limit!

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to spend an evening with amazing Canadian artist Amy Sky. Amy was singing at an concert event benefiting
Interim Place, which is the very worthwhile charity that we've been supporting at work since 2006. It was a fantastic performance!

But guess what was the icing on the cake for me - the official photographer for the function, a wonderful and talented man named John Goldstein was kind enough to take me under his wing and let me take some shots of the concert from right beside him backstage.

It was a fantastic learning opportunity. In the shot to the left, I spent some time adjusting ISO and shutter speed to try to partially illuminate the audience. John was very helpful. Having much experience shooting in the dark, he carried a tiny flashlight to help him see camera settings in the dark!

Brilliant - I've now stowed one in my camera bag! It was a fantastic night - I enjoyed some wonderful music, supported a great cause and definitely had a fun photography experience. Thanks, John!

If you're not familiar with Amy Sky, see her youtube channel here. To learn more about the wonderful work of Interim Place, click here.