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!

Love According to Twitter

Happy Valentine's Day! Celebrating the important loves in our lives is such a wonderful occasion for a holiday, and I hope you all enjoy your day and are able to spend it with someone special!

Here is a peek at the Valentine mini-album I made for my hubby using WRMK's beautiful Be My Valentine line, available at Scrapalicious. If you are last minute shopping for that special someone, this collection has a ton of quick and easy embellishments, so check it out and make something today!

I have taken pics of this album but still have to upload them, so stay tuned. If you're local, check this album out, along with four more layouts (which I'm also posting soon) at Scrapalicious.

Is it Too Late...?

Is it too late to say Happy New Year? Seriously, I can't believe I haven't posted for 2011 yet. We've had a very hectic (but good!) past few weeks and I haven't been able to find a moment in between to update my blog. In addition to a slide show of 2010's December Daily photos, I have so much to catch up on posting.

Let's see. . . as you can probably tell from the above photo, we were lucky enough to have a somewhat last-minute trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida this month. So yes, I have over 500 photos to go through and edit from that trip. One of my favourites is above. Contrast that with our first trip there three years ago here, and you can really notice how much the kids have grown!

Additionally, I have a mini album and four layouts with WRMK's Be My Valentine collection that I've created for Scrapalicious to show you. Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and this line is so perfect for it!

I've also selected my word of the year for 2011 (unveiling to follow!) and joined Ali Edwards in her One Little Word class at Big Picture Classes, and I am very excited about it; (in fact my friend Leanne and I will be working on our album for this class up in cottage country this weekend). Leanne and I are also taking another BPC class in February from the amazing Karen Grunberg of Creative Therapy. Her theme is embracing perfection, and while registration for this workshop is closed, Karen is offering another online class in February that looks fantastic - it's called Finding Your Way. I'm still thinking whether I can squeeze this one in; I would sure love to!

And for those of you close by, registration for Scrapfest opens Wednesday, February 2nd, (so be ready - helmets optional!); I'm looking forward to chatting with Lee Currie and a wonderful group of scrap-minded women in a Creative Conversation in a few weeks; Donna Downey is coming to The Art House in March (Sue, Lori and I will be there!); Tricia Ladouceur is coming to Scrapalicious in March too, and so very much much more! 2011 is going to be a fun-filled year!

Stay tuned for all of this and more, coming soon.

Oh, and a huge, belated but heartfelt Happy 2011 to you all. Cheers!

From Everyone at Our House...

Wishing you a blessed Christmas and a joyous, peaceful 2011.

Family Fun in the Snow

Sometimes a picture really is worth 1000 words!

Believe in the Magic

When Jen, Nancy and Sue were here a few weeks ago, we had an interesting conversation about patterned paper. I was surprised that I'm not the only one who still loves most of the patterned paper I own - Jen and Sue admitted to the same thing. Even papers that I bought four, five years ago still appeal to me.

I think it's because I buy papers not because they are the latest trend, but because I really like them. I still want to use them, and would buy them again today. Are you the same?

Our discussion brought this layout to mind. It's one of the first non-CM pages I created with some of the first patterned papers I bought in late 2005, at my first-ever crop at the wonderful, welcoming Scrapping Nook.

I so loved Daisy D's, who made the blue paper. Isn't it lovely? I would still buy it today, wouldn't you? I miss Daisy D's.

The burgundy script paper is 7 Gypsies and is timelessness makes it so appealing. The Christmas embellishment was by Li'l Davis, miss them too. It says "Christmas - believe in the magic". The paper behind the photo is Basic Grey Sublime, so classic. The frame and photo corner are Rusty Pickle, before the days of Ranger Crackle Paint. The title is a mix of Basic Grey's original font, Doodlebug white on white and those MM felt alpha stickers when they first came out. I still love all of these products.

Our girls were only two years old in this photo, and this was probably the first exchange they had with Santa that they can remember. The journaling talks about how very excited Alicia was when Santa reached out and touched her cheek. She held her cheek and said in amazement "He touched my cheek!" over and over. So sweet; it was such a timeless moment. Five Christmases later, I'm so glad I captured it.

I hope you're having a great week!

Documenting December

Often when I'm documenting December in pictures, the photos I take don't have anything to do with Christmas.

I'm so much more conscious of the simple, everyday moments the kids experience when I'm watching them with my camera in hand. In 2010, I hoped to take a photo every day, and while I won't have 365 daily pics at the end of the year, I will have captured so many details of our life, like Alicia's love for Bear.

Documenting our family's life via words here and works of art through scrapbooking helps me to believe that what I see through the lens today will be remembered joyfully in the future by so many people who are important to us - most of all, our kids. The mistakes I make in capturing (ahem, or rather, not quite capturing) one day's shot adds knowledge that allows me to capture the next shot with more accuracy and aliveness. I am still learning, but I'm a better photographer today because of so much practice.

I loved Karen Grunberg's recent guest post on Shutter Sisters, entitled The Daily Practice. In it, she speaks about the value of daily photography practice. Take a moment and read it; it rings so true to me.

This is my third year of making daily December photos happen, and so far, so good - I'm 7 for 7! I love the feeling of daily photography as a habit. Hopefully 2011 will be the year that I make Project 365 a reality!

The View from Here

One thing I love about taking daily photos is how it forces you to really notice your surroundings. I drive down this road almost every day and have to admit, I often don't absorb how striking and unique the badlands are. Yesterday the sky looked so big and bright, the snow so brilliant as the sun's rays bounced off the hills. I just had to stop and grab my camera!
Speaking of brilliance, I was lucky enough to hang with my talented cousin Allison this weekend at her One of A Kind booth. Allison hates getting her photo taken, and I can't understand why - even exhausted on the final day of this show, doesn't she look amazing? Her soaps are wonderful; the smell in her booth is simply divine!

It seems like - along with a horrible sense of direction - we cousins definitely also inherited our grandmother's sense of creativity. See a page about our grandmother here.

In addition to Christmas shopping - the show rocked; I shopped 'til I dropped - I finished off another layout for Scrapalicious with WRMK's Be My Valentine line this weekend, and hope to have more to post later in the week. Yes, I had a very productive weekend.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend too! What did you do? Feel free to leave a comment; I love to hear from you. Thanks for stopping by!

Last December in Daily Photos

In writing my last post, I realized that while I did post a Christmas overview last year, I never did go back and post the slide show I mentioned creating with the daily photos I took. Since we're already in a Christmas mood at our house now, I guess there's no better time than the present for a peek at last Christmas.
Of course, I took far more than one photo a day last December. It's only December 2nd, and I've already taken more than one photo a day this year! So the slide show below summarizes our holiday season, but there are many more fun photos which will be (eventually) documented in our family's scrapbooks.

If you're not already in the holiday spirit, I hope that these images get you there! Click on any slide to view the show in a bigger window.

Deck the Halls

December is here and it's starting to feel like Christmas at our house. We've decorated the tree, hung the garland and started receiving Christmas cards already. I'm looking forward to documenting our December once again this year. Did you take a photo today? Christmas is definitely on its way!

If you are looking for ways to record your family's every day activities and celebrations this year, visit Ali Edwards' blog to see her wonderful December Daily album tradition, and Shimelle's website for her Journal Your Christmas class, as well as a great Christmas printable. Both are beautiful ways to remember this wonderful season with your family.

Scrapalicious Fun

I just finished off a fantastic weekend with Sue, Jen, Nancy and my little family at our house. The ladies came to stay, scrap into the wee hours of the morning (while I slept! :-P) and attend Sue's awesome photography workshop at Scrapalicious. Here's Sue giving us some in-depth shooting pointers.
It's impossible not to have a good time with these ladies! We continued the antics that we began at Scrapfest last spring, but this time there was no helmet (blinged-out or otherwise) required for me! We all managed to get a respectable amount of scrapping done, drink a respectable amount of Bailey's and have a blast!

And to add to the awesomeness of the weekend, on Sunday after the gals left, our family managed to get our Christmas tree up, too! Just in time too, as I will be doing Our December in Daily Photos again this year.

Talk about a productive weekend! Here's hoping that Lee, Lori, Ann and Virginia can make it next time! Scrappy weekends are so much fun! :-}

Smitten!

I was so smitten with the new Be My Valentine collection from We R Memory Keepers that - after receiving it for my Scrapalicious DT kit - I took it straight home and started to play! I didn't even remember to take a teaser photo of the kit so that you can see it! So instead, here's a little peek at my first layout.

Isn't this collection adorable? It's brand new and Scrapalicious has it all! See more goodness here.

There will be more to follow soon, so be sure to check back!

New Layouts for Scrapalicious

Seven - count 'em - here are seven new pages I created for Scrapalicious with the gorgeous Lost & Found collection from My Mind's Eye! I've previously gone on and on about how much I love this versatile line, so I won't repeat myself. Scroll through the images here and you can see how this collection covers all the bases. First, a very girly Sisters Forever page. The journaling says "kindred spirits, guardian angels, best friends forever."


I love the scalloped die-cut paper and the glittered title block here. I have so many photos of our twins sharing that special bond that only twins have, so I created a multi-photo page inspired by the pretty title block.





Stephen and I enjoyed so many breathtaking views when we were in Whistler in 2007, and I can't believe this is the first time I've scrapped these photos. We were lucky enough to enjoy an airshow from the top of Whistler mountain. It was amazing! Journaling here says "Nothing compares to a private airshow at the top of Whistler mountain. As the planes soared by they took our breath away!"




I used a few of my absolute favourite shots from the airshow on this layout. You can see the original slideshow I created after our Whistler trip here.





This title block was so elegant, I felt I had to use it for one of the most significant milestones my hubby and I just celebrated - our 12th wedding anniversary. The title here is "A Love Simply Perfect in Every Way" and "Twelve years of marriage, three wonderful kids and still so much in love!" is what the journaling says on this page.





These glitter alpha stickers are just gorgeous and the font is so elegant too. Speaking of elegant, the black & white photo of Stephen on the right was taken on our wedding day. Doesn't he look handsome?



Our sweet little Alicia tot has been home with the flu the past few days, poor thing. She's usually such a lively little imp, just like in these photos! I just know she'll make the most of every opportunity she gets in life. Journaling here says" You're so full of spunk, Alicia. Reach for the sky; I know you'll get there!" You can see a close up of this page on my previous post, here.


I love how this line can be used for boy pages, even with the glitter and flourishes. All of the papers are so fantastic; I literally used every scrap of paper I had in my kit. Journaling here talks about how blessed Evan is to have such a fantastic foundation of cousins and friends, and how wonderful it is that he stays in touch with his long time friends despite our move and the new friends he's making here.



Here's a close up of the title block on this page.








Crepe paper ribbon is so hot right now, and when I saw the ribbon in this collection, it immediately made me thing of splashes of water. Isn't it fun? This page talks about how much our kids love to splash in a pool. I sure have a lot of great photos of them enjoying hot weather plunges. The bottom right photo of Evan being tossed into the pool by his Grandpa is a perennial favourite! :-}




Here's a close up of the title placed over the crepe paper ribbon. The alphas are Maya Road chipboard letters coloured with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist.


I've wanted to create a page about scrapbooking for quite a while now; even more so now that I have my own space to create in! The title here says "Scrapbooking brings me Peace". I chose the word Peace as my 2010 One Little Word, inspired by Ali Edwards, and it has definitely proven to be the perfect choice for me. Peace has been a predominant theme for me in 2010, not just in scrapbooking, but in my life. Read about my Peace project here.
Journaling reads "memories captured, great friends, laughter, sharing, creative expression, peace. Scrapbooking brings me these gifts and more. This is why I scrapbook". This page really expresses how I feel about this amazing hobby. The photos include peeks at my scraproom, as well as some of the wonderful people I share this hobby with.

Phew! That was a long post, so thanks for sticking with me. I'm so pleased with all of these pages. I'm looking forward to doing more scrapping next weekend with Sue and Jennifer. Woo hoo! Time to get cleaning my scraproom (it sure needs it after all of these!) and planning my next few projects.

Where should I start? Check back soon and I'll let you know.

Scrapalicious Sneak Peek

I've loved working with Lost and Found by My Mind's Eye for Scrapalicious this month. Here's a little peek at what I've created with this gorgeous line. This layout is timely - Stephen and I were married twelve years ago today and he still rocks my world! Happy 12th wedding anniversary to us.
There is so much to this collection - gorgeous glitter alphas, beautiful glittered, die-cut and embossed papers, glittered title blocks, fantastic stamps, glittered and crepe paper ribbons, brads and buttons - the list goes on and on. I'll have photos of these pages and more for posting in the next few days.

Our Rhine Cruise Slide Show

When we decided to go on a Rhine river cruise, I wasn't sure what to expect. It was the first time in Europe for both of us. For me, it was my first cruise. Stephen and I are both beach vacationers, but the opportunity to get our first glimpse of Europe with a great group of people was too much to pass up!

While it would be tough to select a favourite experience on the trip, if I had to shortlist a few most memorable highlights, I would definitely select Amsterdam (at night in the photo above), with it's history, architecture, canals and culture; followed by the Alsace region of France, with its beautiful countryside and - of course - wine!

Travelling with a fantastic group of colleagues and business associates was a huge part of the great experience. We had the wonderful surprise of finding that our long-time friends Brian and Pilar from Vancouver were on the trip with us! It was also wonderful to spend more time with Shane, to see Andy again and meet everyone from the CityTV offices nationally.
I took over 500 photos during our trip, and still haven't finished going editing all of them, but here is a glimpse at my favourites. You can click on any slide to view the show at full screen.

Enjoy!

Turning Back Time...

It's time to turn the clocks back this weekend! Wow, 2010 is flying - I wish I could slow it down. Back in time I mentioned the gorgeous My Mind's Eye's Lost & Found line. I'm finally posting a peek of it for you! See more here. To me, it's their most beautiful release since the original Wild Asparagus.
I'm finishing up some layouts this weekend using this beautiful collection, and am looking forward to posting them for you. I love the way MME creates such diverse releases. There is literally something for everyone here - girl or boy pages, lovers of collage or clean, graphic pages - anything's possible!

Have a fantastic (and hopefully scrappy, if you are so inclined) weekend! Check back soon for some new Scrapalicious creations.