Christmas is On Its Way!

It's almost December; snow is falling; Christmas recitals and parties are filling up the calendar! I know that Christmas is on its way when I hear carols sung being by a choir, and last weekend the kids and I were lucky enough to hear my nephew Kristian sing two beautiful Christmas solos with the Peterborough Singers.
In the photo above, Kristian is singing Believe from Polar Express. At left he sang Good King Wenceslas in a page's costume. Kristian is very talented; he made the Top 16 on the 2011 season of the YTV show The Next Star and has been a finalist at the CNE's Rising Star for the past 3 years running.

You can hear more from Kristian on youtube here and here, or join his Facebook fan page here.

As December approaches I am once again preparing for my December Daily project - taking a photo each day in December. Looking back on my blog I realize that I didn't post a slide show of my 2010 daily photos, so I will put one together and post it soon.

If you have never taken on a daily photo challenge, I highly recommend it for December. Tomorrow is the day to start, so get your camera battery charged! :} Read more about the amazing Ali Edwards who originally coined the phrase December Daily here.

Still More Family Title Pages

When I had Sharon and Leanne over to scrap earlier this month, I worked on more title pages for my Library of Memories album system. If you're not familiar with Stacy Julian and her fantastic concept for keeping your photos and your layouts organized, look here - it's fantastic!


Once I created an album for each member of our immediate family, I wanted to also create sections for layouts which focused on more than one family member. So many pages are about activities or memories surrounding two of the siblings or Stephen and I. Here is a look at the page I created which will be the title page for the album about our twin daughters.




I want all of my LOM pages to have a consistent look. I've maintained a format for my LOM title pages which includes Chatterbox artsy.licious papers and embellishments, ribbon, a journaling box and one large focal point photo with five smaller, supporting photos.







The journaling boxes are all still empty now, but I plan on including some journaling on each of the title pages in the future. This is the title page for layouts of me with my husband Stephen.








And this page heads the album which is for photos of the three siblings together. I have so many photos that I absolutely love of these three that there has to be an album just for that!


So now I am finished the title pages for those family members who live in our household - at least the human family members! When I started LOM back in 2010, we didn't have any animal family members, so I didn't pre-create the titles for pages about our pets - and yes, I said pets, plural. Our kids brought home a kitten they found in a garbage dumpster last week, so how could I say no? But that is a post in itself, which will follow soon.


Thanks for checking in, and have a great week!

Home Sweet Home mini album

Last weekend I journaled the Home Sweet Home mini album I started so very long ago! I took this class at Scrapalicious with Layle Koncar ages ago, and it inspired me to take photos of our home at that time. Now I'm so glad I did, since we don't live there anymore and these memories are forever captured!
We loved our old house, and only moved away because we wanted a slower-paced, rural lifestyle, a pool and more space to for the kids to run and play. Thanks so much, Layle, for helping me ensure that we never forget our love for this wonderful home where we experienced so much of our kids' childhood.


I've created a slide show so that you can see most of the album. Enjoy!

Joining the Club!

I just had a most fantastic weekend!

On the heels of Stephen being away for the week, I thought I would need a break and invited my friend Leanne and my newly repatriated cousin Sharon over for the weekend to help with the kids and indulge in some scrappy goodness. It was an almost-sleepless, snack-filled, gourmet cooking, scrappy chat fest!
Sharon just moved back to Canada after spending 15 years in Northern Ireland, and while we've seen each other regularly in Montreal most summers, we've never had a girls' weekend together. I've always said that Sharon would LOVE to scrap, and that her artistic side would make her a natural!
I don't know many ladies who can be as proud of their first project EVER as Sharon can be of this layout! This page about Sharon and her hubby (also Stephen) on their way to see Lady Gaga is fantastic, don't you agree? Welcome to the scrapping world, Sharon! I know you'll take it by storm!

More on the pages and mini album I created this weekend coming up next.