Coming Soon...

I'm looking forward to the upcoming release of Canadian Scrapbooker's winter edition. Here's a peek at a layout you'll see in the Leave Your Legacy article within that issue. Leave Your Legacy is a new series of articles in the magazine, written by my awesome friend Sue Sykes.

When I was lucky enough to travel to New York last August to see the incomparable Brene Brown, her thoughts about living life to the fullest, without a sense of foreboding, really struck a chord with me. Her new book, titled Daring Greatly, was part of the inspiration for my Leave Your Legacy layout coming out in this issue. For more inspiration, look for this magazine at your local Chapters, LSS or in your mailbox soon!

I'll post the full layout once the magazine is available.

Fun at Scrapfest Oshawa!

It's taken me a few weeks but I've finally found a moment to post about how much fun Scrapfest Oshawa was! Even though I had to work Friday and didn't arrive until after dinner, we still made the most of the entire weekend. Here's a peek at our crop table - notice its proximity to the food! :-}

It was my first time at the Oshawa event, which is smaller than the Kitchener Scrapfest in the spring that I've been going to for years, but it wasn't small on fun! A few tables behind us and to the left was Scrapalicious gals' Mary, Clare and Suzanne's table. We managed to visit quite a bit!

It feels like ages since I've had a chance to see Virginia, and it was nice to spend a few minutes chatting while she was at the Scrapbook & Cards Today booth. Virginia also taught two classes during the weekend making her time quite limited so I'm glad we had a chance to catch up.

One of our first (and recurrent, it turned out!) stops was the make & take table at The Workshop. Their Christmas ornaments were beautiful, and will make fantastic teachers' gifts. Can't wait to give them out.

I took Christy Riopel's misting class and had a fantastic time. Christy is always a blast, and this class was so well put together. We all finished our mini-albums and each looked uniquely amazing. I can't post a pic of mine here as I plan to give it to my hubby as a gift, so photos of it will come later.

It was so fantastic to see Amanda who came all the way from Saskatoon to laugh and scrap with us for the weekend. Her brilliant take on the Trick or Treat theme for the layout contest took first prize. It was a stunning layout, with brilliant journaling a la typical Amanda fashion!

It was wonderful to finally stay at the gorgeous Chez Jen Bed and Breakfast! :-} Now I know why everyone comments on how beautiful Jen's home is! Thanks, Jen! We had a wonderful brunch the next morning, and - lucky us - Kelly Panacci dropped in to dine with us. So much fun!

I think the best part of the trip (for me anyway) was our meal at Lone Star, where our waitress Ellie May was very entertaining (ask Sue about her charming squeezable pen!), the drinks were incredible and my food (unlike some of the others) was delectable! This is a classic photo of us toasting the weekend.

There's nothing like great friends to make a scrappy weekend complete. Cheers to this awesome group, until we meet up to scrap again: Leanne, her sister Kim, my cousin Sharon, Sue, Amanda, Jen and everyone else who made the weekend so fantastic!


Oh, and ask anyone at the table about our great "Peking Lo". It's a timeless classic! :-}

A Few More Layout Peeks

I hope all of my Canadian family and friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend filled with colourful falling leaves, fragrant food, fall fairs and the love of family and friends. It was my plan to photograph layouts for uploading this weekend but it didn't happen, so I will have to get to it this week. So all I have are more peeks to share.

These glimpses are of more pages I created up at Uncle Danny's in August. The first is about Vanessa and how long she has wanted to inherit Evan's old yellow bike. It's been truly ridden into the ground and she has a shiny new bike of her own, but something about growing into her big brother's bike is a milestone for her.

The second layout is about Stephen's love for our pup, Merlin. He didn't want to get a dog, and only relented because I formed a persuasive enough argument about how great it would be for the kids. Now he is completely smitten!

I hope to spend a bit of time in my scrapbook room this week so should manage to get the layouts fully photographed and uploaded by then. After all - it's Scrapfest Oshawa this weekend! Woo hoo - I am so excited! Amanda is here from Saskatchewan and staying with Sue this week so that she can travel with her to the crop. Also coming are Jen, Leanne and her sister Kim, and my cousin Sharon. We are going to rock that crop, aren't we, ladies! I'm so looking forward to it.

Have a great week! Stay tuned and I'll post some layouts soon!

A Weekend of Scrapbooking

We didn't have a lot of time to get packed for the weekend we spent at Stephen's Uncle Danny's lakeside retreat back in August, so I decided to limit the scrap supplies I brought to one small shoulder tote and whatever I could pack in it! Wow - I think it was really a case of less is more...

I scrapped seven pages that weekend, with fewer supplies on hand than I've had in a very long time! I brought one patterned paper collection - American Crafts Letterbox, as well as a few puffy title alphas from AC and Making Memories, some journaling tiny alphas, a bit of cardstock, a few packs of embellishments and - of course my Smash tape.

I did as much as I could to create shortcuts, including a few sketches and ideas for scraplifting. I made a few pages about my New York trip and a few on other topics as well. I clicked these preview shots but still need to photograph each page for posting - stay tuned and I'll reveal all of the pages sometime soon.

Smashing New York

I've been intrigued by the idea of Smash albums ever since I first saw one, but didn't think I had a good excuse for purchasing one - that is until my New York trip. What a perfect thing to Smash about! I took this book on the trip and scrapped at he airport waiting for my flight home.

I decided to cover both the front and back covers of the book, and had fun finally using the gorgeous ribbon I've been coveting the collaborative release of it from Pink Paisley and House of 3. Love it! I just love the puffy AC Thickers too! This is the front cover of my New York album.

I think my favourite item in this entire release is the awesome Smash tape! It's so bright, colourful and spunky! I think I could use it on almost anything! Isn't it fun?

Here is a peek at the first page with its delightful strip of my beloved Smash tape. I will have more of this album to post - soon, I hope - so stay tuned. I also scrapped the weekend away while we were at Uncle Danny's back in August, so I will have a peek at some of those layouts coming up too.


Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great week! :-}