Whirlwind Edmonton Trip

I had big plans to get a lot done this past weekend, but instead I took a last minute trip to Edmonton. My Mom had a stroke last Wednesday and had to be hospitalized, so by Thursday I was unexpectedly on a flight out west. In my haste I forgot to pack mittens and a hat, so fortunately it was only about -24 there!

By the time I landed late Thursday (the wee hours of Friday morning, actually) it was too late to go to the hospital, so we went over on Friday morning. Mom had finally been moved from the ER to a room. Although she still has a way to go, I was relieved that she looked healthier than I expected.

By lunch time Mom was given the OK to each pureed food. She didn't have the strength to feed herself so I had to feed her, but she was hungry and ate well. By Saturday she was sitting up and feeding herself, and on Sunday morning she was able to go out into the hall in a wheelchair.

My niece and nephews spend a lot of time at the hospital over the weekend, and kept their Grannie entertained with drawings and puppet shows featuring their many stuffed animals. Our kids sent hand-made cards and photos - it's sure good to have card-makers in the family! :-P

Mom still has a long way to go and will be in the hospital and undergoing physiotherapy for a while yet, but fortunately the prognosis looks good. I arrived home late Sunday night, just in time to get ready for the work week. If I missed seeing you while I was in Edmonton, I'm hoping my next trip will have more notice.

I'll keep you up to date on how Mom is doing, so please check back for that, as well as for the January pages that I haven't yet posted. Please keep my Mom in your thoughts and prayers. We are all praying for her to get stronger and be able to go home soon.

Adventures in Scrapbooking!

January 2012 was a fantastic month for scrapbooking and I've been meaning to post about the fantastic events I attended for a while now. Here I am with Sue, Jen and Lori at Crop & Create Markham. We spent a wonderful time cropping and laughing during the coldest weekend of the winter!
We even decided to stay and extra night and carouse a bit since we really didn't like the idea of packing up in the freezing cold - and it was well worth it! They kept the bar open for us and we laughed our heads off with Vicki, Kelly, Catherine, Leica, the event staff and so many other great ladies!
The first weekend in January my cousin Tessa was in town, so we met up with her family and my cousin Sharon's family for a shopping trip and then headed back to our house where all of the kids decided they wanted to scrapbook. A great - and very creative - time was had by all!

The weekend after Crop & Create my friend Linda had invited a group of wonderful ladies up to her cottage for the weekend. Linda is so sweet and a fantastic hostess - she included my cousin Sharon, who just moved back to Canada from Northern Ireland and who Linda had not yet met!

In the photo above, Linda and Sharon chat over the family's cottage history album. At left we have Sharon scrapping up a storm. We each created seven layouts over the weekend, which is fantastically productive, despite a little wine consumption! :-}


We wrapped up the weekend with a demo pocket album led by Leanne. It is absolutely adorable and Vera even managed to finish hers completely during the weekend - photos and all! I really need to unpack mine and get some photos into it. Thanks so much, Leanne!



Here are a few of us at breakfast on Sunday morning. It was a beautiful location for a fun filled weekend - right on Lake Huron and stunning as can be. Thanks so much, Linda for a fantastic time!



As you can see, January was an event-filled month! No wonder I've been so exhausted! :-} Up next - the layouts I created at the above events. Thanks for stopping by and stay tuned!

A Few Layout Peeks

OK, time to play catch up! I'm happy to say that I've maintained taking a photo a day for the month of January and up to today. Hooray! We've been on the go as usual lately and my laptop was causing problems over the past few weeks but I think that is solved now, so I should be pack to posting more regularly now! :-}
I have 10 pages and one two-page spread to post. At Crop & Create Markham I created three layouts in Becky Fleck's class and two 2-pagers with Kelly Goree. The following weekend at Linda's beautiful cottage I created seven layouts! Here is a peek at a few pages from the weekend at Linda's.

I also started a family quilt album in Sarah Hodgkinson's class, which I haven't finished but look forward to making into a family reunion album. One of the pages from Becky's class matched this album perfectly, so I made it the album cover. This week I hope to get everything photographed and posted, so please check back soon. Thanks for checking in and have a fantastic week!

Getting to Know You

I can't say they're best of friends yet, but they do seem to enjoy checking each other out! Merlin is almost a year old now, and he's tolerated the addition of our little Smokey quite well.

I've been having fun doing Project 365 this year. So far so good - I'll post more here whenever I can.

I still plan to post photos of my scrappy weekends in the next few days, so check back soon!

Simplifying Stamp Organization

I'm celebrating my 2012 One Little Word, which is simplify, in a different way every month in 2012. For January I'm focusing on simplifying all of my documentation.

My intent this month is to simplify my workflow in all areas of my life: my office daytimer and filing, the home organizing systems for everything from our taxes to permission slips and homework, as well as my memory keeping activities - from photo printing to journaling more on my pages.

One related project I took on at home over the holidays was simplifying the way I organize and store of all of my stamps. Pictured here are a few of the many wood mount stamps I have, along with my clear acrylic, red rubber, etc, etc... I've created an inventory list of these, sorted by category, making it so much easier to find what's there.

I'm no where near done, but at least it's started, and I have a system to help me locate that particular stamp I want for a particular project. It's already made me feel more organized and helped me to re-discover stamps I own that I had almost forgotten about! In the long run, this will definitely help get more memories documented more quickly.

Speaking of forgotten - yes, as part of my documentation goals, I still want to get my postal address list updated and get my Christmas cards into the mail. So if you were wondering - no, I didn't forget you!

I will update more details of what I simplify throughout the rest of 2012.

I also have details to post about the fun I've had on the past two weekends - I was lucky enough to have been scrapbooking during both of them, and I have plenty of pages to photograph and get posted. Stay tuned! :-}

Cropping and Creating

I'm packed and ready to head out for a weekend of scrappy fun with Sue, Lori and Jen at Crop and Create this weekend, and I'm so excited! I haven't been to a crop far tooooo long! I'm also looking forward to seeing Virginia there, and if you're also on your way later today, let me know and we can visit too!

I'll admit, it was a bit of a late night last night getting organized - but look at how light I managed to pack! Yay me! I've never packed this light for a crop before. I'm hoping it's a bi-product of my OLW this year - Simplify, which, by the way, is also Virginia's word this year - don't great minds think alike? :-}

When you consider that a big part of what you are looking at in this photo is my camera bag, iPod speaker and laptop, there's really not all that much there! I packed three projects, quite a few photos, and I'm taking three classes while I'm there, so I managed to keep myself focused on only what I'm sure I'll need. Hopefully I'll come home with everything I brought finished!

Oh, and in case you were wondering - no, Merlin isn't cropping with us! He's staying home, and was just hanging out with me while I finished packing :-}

So check back next week and hopefully I will have some project to share. Have a great weekend!

December Daily 2011 Peek

This year I decided to journal right on the image for my December Daily photos. I was inspired by my friend Lee and the gorgeous December Daily photos and albums she has been putting together in the past few years. Here's a hint at what the finished photos look like.

The photo above says Welcome Home and the text is Nothing says Welcome Home like a wreath on the front door. This was this year's Christmas wreath. The title for this photo is Time for Relaxing and the text says Boxing Day was made for chilling with your family in your Christmas PJs and enjoying your gifts.

I'm well on my way to having all my December photos selected, edited and the text written, and I hope to have a slide show put together before the end of the week. Take a peek back soon for a look at the rest of our December.

Thanks for visiting and have a great week!

Welcome 2012

Wishing you a wonderful and Happy New Year!

We are all excited about 2012 at our house, and looking forward to the many wonderful blessings the year will bring. We have had a fun-filled Christmas break so far, and are lucky enough to have another full week off ahead of us all. Over the holidays we all learned to ski - Stephen only needed a refresher since he skied in high school and during the years that followed - but the rest of us couldn't stand up on skis at the start of the week.
We've had a fantastic time, though, and are all progressing well. We will all get in more skiing next week before heading back to school and work.

The photos in this post are of the 2012 calendar I mentioned in a previous post. I made this for Stephen as part of his Christmas present. He was thrilled when he opened it and we all enjoyed looking back over photos of last year together.

I've put together a slide show below of the entire calendar. Enjoy! I created this using the 2012 Calendar Kit from My Mind's Eye. It's a bit larger than the Basic Grey calendar I previously used (which I couldn't manage to get my hands on this year). I found this one at Home Sense, and they may still be in stock there if you are in need of a 2012 calendar (or an extra scrappy project!) :-}

I am hoping to get a fair bit more crafting done in 2012 than I managed to fit in last year, so I look forward to having more projects to share with you in the coming year.

I also plan to post my December Daily photos in the next little while, so be on the lookout for a peek at our Christmas season.

Wishing you a year filled with joy, health and blessings! Thanks so much for making this little blog a part of your day!

Merry Christmas

From our home to yours, wishing you and your family a happy
and blessed Christmas and all the best for 2012.

Christmas Crafting

When Sue stopped by to scrap with me a few weeks ago I managed to finish a Christmas present for my hubby. I love creating the calendars that we use in our home each year. This year I used the My Mind's Eye 2012 Calendar kit. Since Stephen reads my blog I can only give a little peak!

Creating Christmas gifts is a good excuse to squeeze in a little bit of scrapbooking time around the holidays! :-}

This calendar took approximately 2 hours focused time (not including chatting, giggling and watching Crazy, Stupid Love time) to put together and it was easy to find in the craft section of my local HomeSense. Above is the December page. I found with this calendar I did add titles to many of the pages using my own stash, though.

If you are looking for a last-minute gift idea and have tons of photos kicking around, this is good choice. I'll post photos of the rest of the calendar once hubby unwraps it Christmas morning!

Slow Down for a Moment

We interrupt your regularly scheduled holiday hectic-ness for a little fireside puppy love! Love is what this season is all about, after all! Aren't they cute?

OK, you may now return to your regularly scheduled Christmas shopping, baking and general craziness.

Christmas Readiness

It's now less than ten days until Christmas and all is amazingly calm and bright at our house! The past few years I haven't sent out Christmas cards, and I'm still behind on that this year (although I'm intent on getting them in the mail before December ends!) Other than that, I'm feeling quite ready for Christmas!

We decided (OK, maybe I decided!) to try something different in our living room this year - we moved the tree over closer to the window. It was formerly beside the fireplace, in the left in this photo where the poinsettia now is. What do you think? I think this flows much better, and hey - it photographs nicely too! :-}

Are you ready for Christmas? If not, don't panic, there's still a whole weekend ahead of you! Enjoy it, and best of luck with your Christmas to-do list!

A peek at last year's December photos

Here I am once again - I'm taking daily December photos and realize I haven't yet posted the December slide show from last Christmas! I posted 2009's daily images a year late, too! For 2011 I'm hoping to do a bit better, and will assemble 2011's December daily photos in a more timely manner!


The nice thing about my procrastination, though (other than how similar it makes me to my husband!) - looking at last year's Christmas slide show totally gets me into the Christmas spirit! :-} I hope it does for you too!



We've had a wonderful December so far. This weekend we finished shopping for everyone in our home and prepared the box of gifts for shipping to Edmonton. We also built the frame for our ice rink and started to flood it, then squeezed in some family time by the fire.


As a special treat for me, I managed to sneak in a dinner out with some fantastic cousins; I also scrapbooked into the wee hours with Sue - finishing a final Christmas gift in the process. I hope you had a productive and fun weekend too, and I wish you a fantastic and productive creating and capturing Christmas memories.

(The images above are also from 2010's December daily photos)

Here's the slide show of Our December 2010 in Daily Photos

Never a Dull Moment...

Seeing as our life is not already busy enough . . . yes, we have adopted a kitten! How could we resist? This little guy and his five siblings were abandoned in a garbage dumpster outside our kids' school a few weeks ago. The kids chose him and named him Smokey before I even agreed to bringing him home!

So far he seems none the worse for wear and he has acclimatized well to his new home. The vet checked him out and he appears to be in good health and has doubled his weight in the past two weeks - a good sign. Merlin is very loving towards the kitten, but seeing as he doesn't seem to know his own strength, we have to keep meetings somewhat controlled for now.

Above, Stephen encourages Smokey as Merlin approaches. Hopefully they'll be best of friends soon enough!

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.

Ooh la la la....

Have you heard the commercials? "It's better in the Bahamas!" Well, Stephen and I were able to experience that first hand this past week. Yes, we are each wearing a tan as our Halloween costumes today after just returning from a week in the sun. Here we are at our resort on Great Exuma island.

We took a day trip along the Exuma arparchipelago, a group of 365 tiny islands in the southern Bahamas. I have never seen water so blue. It feels like you can see forever. The weather was fantastic and our tour guide was full of knowledge about the history of the Bahamas.


We stopped at the island apparently owned by actor Nicolas Cage, where we fed grapes to iguanas who were very excited to see us. In the photo at left, this little guy is eating right out of my hand. It was a fabulous day.



We traveled with the same fantastic group that we went to the Rhine with last year, and our evenings were full of great functions, laughter, warmth and wine. The resort was stunning at night. We're home now, just in time for trick or treating! More on Halloween to follow soon.