Wednesday, October 31, 2007

No little trick or treaters....

So, I'm sitting here trying to be happy with my mug of tea and keep myself away from the big bowl of candy..... unfortunately, it's 8:40 pm and I still have yet to get a single trick or treater!!!

I'm going to eat myself into a diabetic coma. I guess I should have known, there really aren't many kids here and they tend to go to Banff where they can hit more houses.

Yikes!

I think I'm going to go reverse trick or treating and pawn some off on my neighbours....

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Projects from CSC4K

I told you all about the amazing instructors and how much fun I had at Canada's Scrapbooking Crop for the kids, but here are a few photos of the great things I learned and the fabulous projects we made.



I love this calendar. Leica Forrest's class is a great class to have at 8 am. Such an excellent instructor. I still need to put my clips on and make the calendar page, but it looks pretty good so far. I love the canvases from Canvas Concepts. Can't wait to hang it on the wall and see everyone's reactions!





Love the family recipe box that we made. Not sure whether to keep it or give it away as an Xmas gift.....
We'll see how attached I get to it in the meantime.





The wonderful Ronee Parsons taught us this class. I'm using my 'book of day to day' as a journal and a birthday reminder book. I'm loving it!





My Rusty Pickle, Family Accordian Album. Looks so pretty all put together, and it was remarkably fast to do.





My freestyle envelope album. What a neat project. We had to throw away our trimmers and just create without straight lines and boundaries. Quite a challenge for me to do actually. I love my trimmer.

On another note, we went to Calgary and hit the zoo yesterday. What a great place to spend a day. The best part, it was Boo at the Zoo, so there were a ton of cuties out in their Halloween costumes. Too much fun. Also, I got to IKEA and got some more shelves and things for my scrap room. Will post pics once they're installed.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Pics of the undecorated but organized scrap space....

I promised pictures of the newly organized scrap room and here they are...

Looking at them, I've decided I need to jazz up the walls. Boring. Unfortunately, I can't paint because we're renting. I'll see what else I can do. Another project!!

My creating table, cricut corner and ribbon (paper towel) dispenser:



My computer and printer area, plus a little storage space (which got cut off):



A closer look at my inspiration bulletin board. The plan is to really make the room inspiring, so there will be more than a bulletin board soon.



Some of my little projects A little more inspiration to keep me creating fresh new things.



Once I have it all finished, I'll put more pics up here.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Revamped Scrap Space

So, I've finally had a weekend at home to get things done and have some down time. Quite enjoyable!!

My whole house desperately needs to be fall cleaned, but I put it off for the most part, did a surface cleaning Friday because we were having company for supper, and then spent Saturday hanging out with my hubby and working on my retreat, but Sunday, I dedicated the day (or most of it) to overhauling my scrapbook room. I know, the whole house needs it, but where do I start, my little personal craft space :)

I managed to get everything stored away and tidied up and then I really got at it. I brought a new desk in (one from uni that was just sitting in the basement) and rearranged some furniture so that my scrapbooking space was layed out in an ideal manner to really get something done. I now have my sewing machine and cricut all set up on their own stands and ready to go so I don't have to constantly take them out and then put them away all the time. I also have a lot of designated table space to lay out my projects and still managed to keep my favourite tools within reach so I can just reach out and grab them.

This was a bit challenging, because my scrapbook room is actually our spare bedroom/office/scrapbook room. So, now everything is fit in and looking good, but tonight I will be decorating. I need something a little more inspiring and colourful than what we've got up there currently (Don't tell my husband, it's all his stuff).


I will try and finish it up tonight and then I'll post some pics. I will also have photos of the CSC4K projects that we did in Edmonton.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Canada's Scrapbooking Crop for the Kids

What a great weekend!!

Sorry it took so long to post about it, but I spent the weekend in Edmonton with my mom at Canada's Scrapbooking Crop for the Kids, and what a great event!

We had so much fun running loose all over West Edmonton Mall meeting great people, learning new things, and enjoying the atmosphere (and all for a great cause).

To start it all off, kudos to Trisha Ladouceur, who organized it all, great job!! There were thousands of volunteers, I swear. And the best instructors, who I must tell you all about.

Our Saturday morning started off with a Family Calendar class taught by the amazing Leica Forrest (pronounced Lisa). What a riot! She is so funny and open and lively, it was great to start out the morning with her and the calendars look amazing. I'll post pictures of all the great projects we did this weekend soon, I promise, but in the mean time, here's a photo of Leica, my mom and myself (unfortunately, it's blurry). A Saskatoon girl, gotta love that! Check out her blog for more great tips and cool layouts here.



And she even arranged for us to go bowling after the class!!





My mom and I both nearly had a bowling related injury as we rolled down the alley after the ball, those suckers are heavier than I remembered!!

Our next class was on the Ship in West Ed, that's right, the actual ship! How cool is that! The best part of being on the ship is the ultra talented and beyond nice, Ronee Parsons, a 2007 Memory Makers Master. She taught us how to make a neat little mini album that my mom and I decided to use as a journal/birthday reminder book. I can't wait to start journaling.

Here's a pic of me with Ronee, who found out while in Edmonton that her first book just went on pre-sale at Amazon. How exciting. I can't wait to get my hands on a copy! Check out her blog which includes a link to her book here.




My wonderful mom on the ship. I'm so glad we went together. She's first and foremost a quilter, and does amazing things with material, but I corrupted her and now her quilting room has a scrapbooking corner. What a great way to spend some time together.



Next, we had a class with Michelle Van Etten, who taught us how to make the coolest recipe boxes. She is so full of energy and fun, she made the fast-paced class really enjoyable. This crazy lady was heading off to Germany the day after this conference to teach some more classes. What a jet-setter!

Again, Michelle with us and her recipe box.



Next (I told you we were busy) we had a great Family Accordian Album with Lance Anderson from Rusty Pickle. He was really funny and so excited because he got to see an Oilers game the night before "right on the glass." He had all kinds of stories to tell about scrapbooking courses and how his company saved his butt when he forgot his wife's birthday and just ran outside and grabbed stuff to make a card for her. How handy is that?

Here's a pic of him and I.



Unfortunately, I forgot to get a picture of our last instructor, Jayme Loge, from Scrapbooking Fanatics, but she taught an excellent class called Freestyle Envelope Album. She was really funny and encouraged us to throw away the trimmers and just explore our creativity. It was a great class and I love my little envelope album, a great Xmas gift idea....

Well, that's probably enough talking for now. I'll post more pictures of the products later.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

New reasons to love your cricut....

I love my Cricut.

I love cutting out all kinds of little add-ons for whatever project I'm working on out of exactly the paper I want. No more worrying about matching layouts to stickers or embellishments, thanks to the Cricut, I can make my own. It's so great to have something so portable and handy right in your scrapbooking room.

Now, there are a bunch of new reasons to love your Cricut....

They've just announced a bunch of new products at CHA, and I can't wait to get my hands on them:

Cricut Colours, pens that you can easily slip into your Cricut in place of the knife, which allow you to draw designs without cutting them.

Cricut Expressions , a new machine that can now cut up to 12 x 24" projects.

new Cricut cartridges , are coming out all the time so that you can add new fonts or images to your stash.

and the most exciting news is the introduction of new Cricut software that lets you design on your computer and then print or cut your designs out just by hooking up with a USB port!!

Just a few more reasons to love your Cricut.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Wedding layouts

I'm really starting to enjoy working on our wedding pictures.
What once seemed intimidating is bringing back a flood of beautiful memories. What a wonderful day!
Here are a few of the layouts I've been working on:


If you can't read the journaling, I found a card my mom and dad received from my mom's great aunt on their wedding day, and the poem written inside seemed perfect for this photo. I always love to have little pieces of the past in my life.



I don't know why, but I love these pictures of us. We look so carefree and happy. And why shouldn't we be? Surrounded by friends and family, sharing our wedding vows... See why I love scrapbooking these pics?


And the fall colours... we really did get married at the perfect time of year.

















Our first dance and the lyrics to our song, 'Safe and Sound' by Hawksley Workman.



Well, that's all I've got for right now. May check back in later. Now that it's getting cooler in the evenings and darker earlier, I'm getting a lot more scrappin' time in. Woohoo!!