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!

Home Sweet Home mini album peek

Ages ago I took a class at Scrapalicious from Layle Koncar in which we created her gorgeous Home Sweet Home mini album. Back then we were still living in our former house and had no idea we would be moving! Isn't life full of surprises? Well, I've finally filled all the pages of this album and just need to journal.

It's a sweet and nostalgic trip to create this album from my new perspective of no longer living in this house. It was definitely a wonderful home for us, and we do miss it, although I would change our current home for the world! I'll have more to post of this album once I have a chance to do some - yes, get this - hand-written journaling! Stay tuned!

We Are Family LOM Title Pages

Here are the Library of Memories title pages I created for each member of our family. I've left a journaling block on each page to add a personal note later. I used a similar format for each page, since I wanted a consistent look. The larger photo is 5 x 7 and the smaller are wallet prints. Here is Alicia's page. She was quick to point out to me that I'm not finished making title pages yet - I need to make one for Merlin! :-}


Vanessa's page is pink. I used Chatterbox's artsy.licious line for all of these layouts. I snapped quite a bit of it up so can make whatever additional title pages I decide I need in the future as I expand my Library of Memories.











I used Evan's title page the sneak peek in my last post. The large photo I used on this page is one of my favourite pictures of him ever.













I used a photo of me when we were on holidays in Jamaica a few years ago as the focal photo for my page. Hmmm, I feel like I am about due another tropical vacation any time now, don't you think? :-}










For Stephen's title page, the large photo is of him playing DJ at a New Year's Eve party a few years back. He's so totally in his element!

If you don't know what Stacy Julian's Library of Memories system is (and you have tens of thousands of photos on your hard drive - like me :-o ), take a peek here. I love the concept she has built around photo and scrapbook page organization.

I don't follow it to the letter, but I have used many of her processes to organize my pages and photos, making them so much easier to find. This class typically runs once a year at Big Picture Classes. I highly recommend it!

More Library of Memories Title Pages

To complement the four main category title pages I created for my Library of Memories last year, I've created individual title pages for each member of our family. These will be the first page in each of our albums. Here is a peek at Evan's. I have photos of each of the pages to post in the next few days.

I picked up a ton of artsy.licious paper when Scrapalicious had it on special at Scrapfest last year. I was thinking ahead to many more title pages I may have to make to organize my albums, since I do want all of the title page papers to come from the same collection.

BTW, if you're heading to Scrapfest this weekend, I'm totally jealous! Unfortunately we just have too much going on at this time of year, so I can't make it. If you're heading there, have a blast!

Oh, and if you're cropping, bring a crash helmet! :-}

Talk About a Sale!

Scrapalicious has been know for years to offer the very best in new, exciting scrapbook supplies and fantastic prices. Well, here's a new twist - what's for sale is Scrapalicious!

Yes, Mississauga's favourite scrapbook store is up for sale. Are you in the market? Then you better snap up this fantastic gem before it's gone! Check out some images below, and look here if you are interested in more details.

Wedding Wonders

I'm so excited that the Summer issue of Canadian Scrapbooker is hitting the newsstands. An article titled Wedding Wonders in this issue features the wedding album I created for Scrapalicious using a Fancy Pants mixed media book and the Basic Grey Wisteria collection. It's on page 67.


The album is also featured in full on Canadian Scrapbooker's website. Here's the link so you can take a look.








I had to pull all of the images of this album down when I submitted it for publication and I haven't re-posted them yet, but here's the slide show I put together when I finished the album.




Be sure to pick up your copy of this fantastic magazine soon. It's available at Scrapalicious. There are a ton of talented scrapbookers featured - at a glance I saw my awesome friends Connie, Sue and Jen (and possibly a few more once I read the whole thing!) Check it out!

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!

Prima Projects for Scrapalicious

I'm very happy with how my projects for Scrapalicious with Prima's Madeline collection have turned out so far. The first project I created was this image transfer canvas. I used gel medium to transfer a colour copy of this photo of Alicia directly onto the canvas. I like the aged and distressed look it created.

You can see in this close up, the image almost looks like it was painted onto the canvas! The green foliage is a Donna Downey for Prima foam stamp. The letters for BLOOM in the title are grungeboard inked with Staz-On. The full title is Bloom where you're Planted.

I brushed Perfect Pearls on the Maya Road crown, spritzed a white Prima crocheted flower with Glimmer Mist to match the project, and surrounded the canvas with matching ribbon. These fun little altered art projects make our house feel so happy!

Butterflies, which are so prominent in this collection, are so fun and feminine that I knew my first few projects had to be girly.

I created this page from a sketch challenge at Scrap That! I printed it off and intended to submit, but time got away from me and the deadline slipped past - typical of me lately! Isn't it a great sketch, though?



This page features Vanessa, both solo as well as in her roles of daughter, sister and twin. Beneath her name, the journaling says "beautiful, inside and out".

I have more creations coming with this kit, so stay tuned!

Scrapalicious Sneak Peek

I have projects almost ready to share with you from Prima's Madeline collection. This collection is gorgeous; perfect for feminine pages, vintage projects - anything pretty. Here is a peek at one of my creations about our sweet Vanessa.

I'll be posting more soon, so stay tuned! Have a great week!

March Break at Niagara Falls

I mentioned last time that I would have a peek at the Scrapalicious projects I'm working on. We took a family trip to Niagara Falls over March Break, and I thought Best Creation's Travel Forever would be the perfect collection for a travel mini-album. Here's a sneak peek at the cover, more to follow soon!

This is the first time in recent years that we have visited Niagara Falls and not stayed at Great Wolf Lodge. The kids love it there, but we tend to spend our entire time at the resort and don't venture out to show the kids the falls. So we did it differently this time, and stayed close to the falls.

Despite what an absolute breathtaking wonder the falls are - we take them for granted, living so close, don't you think? - there is only so much time the kids want to spend looking at them. We decided to take in a magic show at the Greg Frewin theatre. Definitely worth doing if you get the chance.

We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and after the show we went up on stage and had our photo taken with one of the tigers. The kids were a bit nervous. Notice that there seems to be a common lean in my direction and away from the tiger?! Regardless, we had fun up on the stage and the kids couldn't wait to see our photo. (In case you were wondering, yes, there is a barrier between us and the tiger!)

Along with the above, we had dinner at a restaurant with singing servers, which was also a lot of fun. The hotel's pool didn't compare to the water slides at Great Wolf Lodge, but we still spend hours in the pool and had a great time.

Thanks to my friend Lee's recommendation, I read Brene Brown's book The Gift of Imperfection pretty much non-stop during the trip. I found it completely insightful. Use the link above to take a look. Brene's work is such perfect inspiration for the art journaling that I've been doing lately. You can also follow her blog here.

Speaking of memorable times, are you heading to Scrapfest this weekend? I hope to see many familiar faces there. I decided just to visit and shop; I'm not cropping this time, so there is no need for my blinged-up helmet! :-} I hope to see you there! Don't forget to drop by the Scrapalicious booth to say HI to everyone and check out the latest and greatest product!

The Latest from Scrapalicious

I can't wait to get creating with my latest DT kit from Scrapalicious. Along with a cool 7Gypsies accordion album, I have a wealth of brand new supplies from Prima's gorgeous Madeline collection, Best Creations latest Travel Forever collection and embellies from Imaginisce, Maya Road and MME.

I'm in the process of planning a travel album from one of our recent trips, along with some pretty ballet pages with the Madeline papers. Between work, school, hockey, piano, dance and Cubs, the kids keep me on the run pretty much 24/7, and I'm not left with lots of creative time lately - but I hope to make the most of the extra time I'll get at home since some activities are cancelled over March Break.

So stay tuned for some creations to come, and have a wonderful March Break!

Love According to Twitter Mini Album

I made this Twitter mini-album as a present to my sweet husband for Valentine's Day this year. The album itself is 7Gypsies, and all of the remaining supplies are from WRMK's Be My Valentine collection. The title Twitter came in an embellishment pack and I couldn't resist making it the topic of this album.

I included the character count for all of my journaling, keeping everything under 140 characters, Twitter style! Although it wasn't a surprise - my hubby saw the album in it's vary stages of completion - he loved the finished product.


Each of the journaled pages are embellished with a little bird and hearts cut from the Be My Valentine papers. I had fun tracking down and sorting out all of the photos of Stephen doing all of his favourite things. Here he is playing DJ at a friend's party.





I included photos of him with the kids.











I included photos of just the two of us.








Every 2-page spread is made up of a full-page photo and a smaller photo with journaling. This particular set of pages showcases our very first photo as a family of 5, alongside a similar photo taken 5 years later. I think this is my favourite page.


The back cover uses the title chipboard Valentine from the same pack of embellies as the front cover title. I think it finishes off the album nicely. The WRMK Be My Valentine line was so cute to work with. I think it's the perfect way to capture those Valentine's Day sentiments for your sweetheart!

If you are local, you can drop by Scrapalicious and take a peek at the album for yourself. Hope to see you there!

A Day for Lovebirds!

I'm so excited to finally reveal the Valentine's Day creations I've made for Scrapalicious. These four layouts, all from WRMK's Be My Valentine collection, are all very different from one another and they were all so much fun to create. On this lovely die-cut page I used a combination of die cut and chipboard word title. The Prima gems help highlight the love bird theme. There's no one else I'd rather be out on a limb with than my hubby!


Here is a close up of the birdies on a branch, along with a zoom of a couple of photos of me with my handsome man! :-}







With the word Adore as one of my chipboard titles, I couldn't help but do a page about our three children. I loved the photos from this shoot, and thought they were well suited to the Adore theme.











The little chipboard tag says "Love stays in bloom all year round". I love it!










To outline the heart on this layout of sweet Vanessa I used the new WRMK Sew Easy tool. I had a lot of fun using the remaining scraps from making my mini-album into a quilt to mat this layout. And the title Smitten suits how I feel about Vanessa to a T!








In this close-up photo you can see the gorgeous self-adhesive felt and the stunning stitched cardstock background that are part of the Be My Valentine collection.





This stitched cardstock was originally white. I misted it with a number of Glimmer Mists to create a watercolour washed-like background for all of these little index size prints. This layout was inspired by a layout by Karen Grunburg in which I loved her use of index prints and I had a ton left over from last fall's Donna Downey class, so I used them here. I used Stickles to add visibility to the title.


Here's a close up of my journaling. It says "We may not have the perfect marriage, a perfect house or perfect kids. What we have is better. We have perfect love." What a perfect sentiment for this Valentine's Day post. I'll be back soon with my Twitter mini-album, so be sure to check back.


Have a wonderful Valentine's Day!