Just a glimpse of the Christmas Eve festivities in Lake Louise:











And a final Christmas gift (yep on Christmas Eve) for a friend who just lost his cat:



Merry Christmas Everyone!

The Malackos

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

New Layouts

Christmas is so close! I can't wait! We have a few big weeks ahead of us, trying to visit all of the family, paint a new house and get moved, but it should be fun!

We had Brad's brother and sister-in-law out for the weekend and had lots of fun playing board games, watching movies and catching up.

Today, it's work, then cleaning up, wrapping presents and maybe a little down time before the Christmas rush!

I told you I'd put up some more pictures of layouts, so here are some of my more recent layouts:

This one is of Brad and I in Venice.



and another for the Brad book:



And now, just a few more days of work and then.... Christmas! Happy Holidays!

Lucky, lucky us

So, as if a new house and a big move weren't exciting enough, we have been soooo super lucky lately. I told you all about my great course win from Big Picture Scrapbooking, thanks to Mr. Tim Holtz, well since then, we also found out that we won not one, but two prizes from the Lifestyles Home Lottery!

No, we didn't win a dream home, but we won a Whirlpool steam washer and dryer. Super nice, ours are even a nice sage green (called 'Aspen') and are like top of the line! You can check them out here and here.

... and three Panasonic cordless phones, you can check out here!

What luck we've had, right? Good things come in threes, right? Or is that just bad things? Either way, we're doing pretty good at the moment, now so we don't curse ourselves with bad luck, I'll have to throw some salt over my shoulder or enter a room backwards or something.... I'll work it out.

In the meantime, I've picked out some paint colours for the new place. We're heading up the weekend before everything arrives to put our own touch on the house and so far, I think these are the colours I like:



The background page with all the colours is just to show you the medium brown that I like as well.... Oxford Twill. I love the names of these paint colours. I would like that to be my new job, paint colour namer. Seriously, I half chose these colours for their names. I'm not lying: Calm Sea, Tinder Box, Enchanted Forest and Cocoa Mousse. Great names, right?! I may do some last minute changes depending on what other paint chips I find in the weeks before Paint Day, but so far, that's what I'm leaning towards.

Scrapbooking Weekends

I'm not sure why I'm spending my weekends scrapbooking when I have so many things I should be doing, but lately, I've gotten quite a bit of crafty time in between the work weeks.

When my parents came out a few weekends ago, my mom and I got some scrapbooking in. I started some Christmas cards... I only made a few quick ones, but I have big plans to mail them out soon!



Then, last weekend, we had no plans (wait, you're moving in a few weeks and your house is not clean, your Christmas shopping isn't done, and you've been sick all week) so I spent a good chunk of it scrapbooking.

I started by printing a few of my digi layouts and adding some 3-D elements to them. Kinda fun, but I need to get some 12x12 photo paper so that they print out at a better quality. I was just using white cardstock, and the pictures weren't very high quality.

Here are a few of my new hybrid layouts:





A few flowers, stickers, rub-ons and a vellum word and they're much more fun! I really like playing with digital, but nothing beats a really textured, 3-D layout in my books.

Plus, I got some work done on a few trip layouts and another Brad book layout... a Brad birthday book, alas, it is almost Christmas, and it will not be done. Actually, we're not really exchanging gifts this year, besides giving each other a new house and probably a few home goodies in the new year! Ayway, I'll show them later in the week.

Hope you're all enjoying the freezin' cold!!

Christmas Goodies

Today is all about baking, so I figured I'd start off with a little recipe.

I got this test off of a few friend's blogs, so I thought I'd try it myself.

Here's the recipe For Kelly:

3 parts Laughter
2 parts Sensitivity
1 part Silliness

Splash of Ingenuity

Shake vigorously

Find out your recipe here

Kinda cute, although I noticed that everytime you try it you get something else....hmmmm, maybe not so telling.

So, I'm getting over a cold, all the excitement and rush of buying a home kinda knocked me out of commission, but a few nights of Neo-Citran induced comas and I'm almost good as new. Feeling better, I finally got around to the Christmas baking I've been putting off and I have to show you my new favourite thing.



I got this icing gun awhile ago and have just been too busy to test it out, but it works so well!

Pampered Chef makes these little decorating guns, which are technically called Easy Accent Decorators, but I like making up my own names. They are so simple to use and super easy to clean, in fact, they almost clean themselves! Plus, they come with 6 different decorating tips, so you can make all kinds of cute things!



I made some cupcakes for a Christmas party last night and people thought I bought them at our local bakery! I just tricked them by combining my mom's recipes, and this cool icing gun!


Sorry, if you click on the picture, you get to see all six... I just grabbed these off the web and for some reason, blogger is cutting them off.

Yummy! Now, I'm off to do some scrapbooking, Christmas decorating, baking and present wrapping!

We found a place!

We're one step closer to moving now. After a whirlwind trip to Edmonton, we found a house, made an offer, and have all ready had the home inspection. Whew.

Wanna see some pictures of our new place?? Keep in mind the furniture doesn't come with it, and we'll do some painting to put our stamp on it, but it looks pretty good, right??















Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, hardwood floors and vaulted ceilings... pretty nice, eh? Lucky us that we stumbled into the market when we did.

So now we just arrange the movers and switch the phones and internet and all the fun stuff and we should be in by the middle of January! Hurray!

Good Weekend and off to Edmonton

We just got finished a great weekend, and we're off again.

My parents came out for a few days and we had a great visit. Watched a few World Cup races, played some cards, watched Brad play hockey, and mom and I even got some scrapbooking in!

Now, we're heading up to Edmonton to search for a house. This is the big weekend. We're hoping to make the decision in the next five days. Wish us luck!

Here are a few of the scrappy things I've been working on.

More Europe layouts:

The Pantheon:



Notice the passport page I used for my journaling? I cut it out of Brad's old passport. I kinda like it, too. There may be a lot of them throughout our Europe book.

and the pics under the flap (just too many pictures to scrapbook from this trip!)



St. Peter's Basilica:



which I see I stuck together in the wrong order, oops...

see the cool digital frames on the two focal pictures? I love them. They were a free download, too. Gotta love freebies!

And another for the Brad book:



Can you pick him out in the dirty coveralls? He's right in the middle, holding a sweater. That makes a total of four pages in his album.... slowly getting it ready for Christmas.... or maybe his birthday, we'll see how fast we move.

When I report back, we may be one step closer to being homeowners!

Addiction....

I've long since accepted that I have an addictive personality. Not really bad addictions, no alcohol or gambling problems, no need to shop or spend all our money, but anything that I can get myself all tangled up in, let's say, a plot line or a character, that's another story. I can easily lose myself in a story, a song, a tv series, anything that captures my imagination and piques my interest. I'm not sure exactly what the linch pin is for me, but I can pick out a few examples from my past, quite easily.

Mr. Big's song, 'To Be With You,' junior high, repeat button pushed on my stereo for weeks (I don't think my brother can stomach the song anymore)

The TV series, Roswell, high school, minor problem with the lead characters never getting together and staying together

Grey's Anatomy, first season, why do people insist on talking when my show is on?

And, I've just found my newest addiction...

You probably remember my post last week about Twilight. How much I enjoyed it and how I couldn't put it down. Well, a few days later, I went to Calgary for a meeting and had a few minutes to spare. I told myself, "I'll run into a store quick and if it's there it's a sign." Thankfully, upon entering my third store, I found the second book, New Moon. Sometimes you have to look hard to find signs!



I also went and saw Twilight in Banff with some friends. I really liked it, except it was a little hard to keep the tension built as all of the girls in the theatre kept giggling like crazy whenever Edward (Rob Pattinson) came on... I guess that's the price you pay for reading teen books :)

So, now I've read the second book (again, one night after work, I cracked it and couldn't put it down until I was done). So, I feel like I'm ahead of the game a little. I don't want to stumble upon any spoilers before I get through the series, so I have to keep my addiction in check. I'm hoping I can wait for Christmas for the other two.... I should probably stay away from any kind of store though, in case I run into another 'sign.'

If you're interested, Stephenie Meyer's website is kind of interesting as well. A look at how she wrote the books and where her ideas came from. Just a little tip from an addict.

Lucky, lucky me

I am so lucky! I just found out I won a year long scrapbooking course from Tim Holtz's blog! Seriously, I can't wait for the new year to start this.

Here's the blog post, in case you want to see how this came about.

And some info on the course that is offered through Big Picture Scrapbooking.

Anyone want to take it with me? It looks really great and everyone needs a shot of inspiration and creativity in their life. And from reading the teacher's blogs I'm going to receive a hefty jolt of inspiration.

Thanks to Tim and teachers Kolette and Jason Hall for offering up this fantastic prize!!

All I had to do was write why I wanted to go and include my favourite quote. Amazingly, I'm a quote lover and was just working on a little rolodex revamp project to showcase some of my favourites when this opportunity came up so I literally had some of my favourites at my fingertips.

Here's a quick look at the project I was working on, which I made for a Just Cre8 Challenge:

















Speaking of neat ways to showcase quotes, did anyone see the quote forest in Canadian Scrapbooker?? They don't have a picture up on the web, but it's in the winter issue and it's really cool. I love it. I'm all ready thinking of a neat way to recreate it for our new place....Hmmmm, all ready decorating the house I've yet to find....

I think I'll take my luck and turn in for the day. Hope you're all having a good week.

Snowy Days Spent Reading

I always get so caught up in the joy of sunshine and green grass and bare feet in the summer that I spend those months cursing the return of snowy, cold winters. Then we have the first glimpse of snowy weather in the mountains and I remember how relaxing winter is after the hectic pace of summer. Such a nice trade off.

I've been taking advantage of the snowfall to read a few good books, lately. This is the perfect time of year for curling up under a homemade quilt with a cup of tea, a good book, and some background music. Ahhhh....

So, lately, I've been reading some Jodi Picoult books. Have you read her books before? She's such a great writer. I almost find myself appreciating her writing style over the story sometimes, but that's not to say her stories aren't good. They really deal with some big issues that make you think about life and question your opinions. Lately, I've read, Nineteen Minutes, about a school shooting, Change of Heart, about a woman whose daughter's killer wants to donate his heart to her remaining daughter (I know), and The Song of the Humpback Whale, about a mother and daughter falling in love at the same time.

Yesterday, I read Twilight.



Have you read this yet? I literally read it yesterday. It took me one day and I had to finish it. It's kind of addictive really. I'm dying to get the other three books in the series. I started it on my lunch break and I couldn't concentrate all afternoon. I could see it peaking out of my purse and almost had to put it in the car to stop the temptation!

The funny thing is, it's made for teenagers.... Yep, like the Harry Potter series (which I also enjoyed). So, even thought I talked to alot of people who loved it, I kind of feel like it's a guilty pleasure. Like, maybe I'm not that much of a grown-up myself.

Now, can I wait until Christmas, or do I buy myself the whole Twilight series tonight after work?? Hmmmm....what would a grown up do?

Edmonton and Challenge #3

We had a great weekend in Edmonton, touring around some interesting neighborhoods and checking out a few houses. Plus, we saw Eagle Eye, which was pretty good, but makes me want to throw out my cell phone... We also had a few meals out and did some shopping at West Edmonton Mall. Pretty great weekend. Just nice to spend some time together and it's so exciting to be moving!

Also, here's last week's Just Cre8 Challenge:



The challenge was to use an ad as inspiration for a layout. This is the ad that I chose (we were given three options, and this one gave me the dream idea):



And here are a few close ups of my layout:







This has been interesting. I don't think I'm making the best layouts I've ever made necessarily, but it's making me step outside of my usual scrapping box, which is fun. The deadline is what kills me... They give us the challenges on Saturday and they have to be uploaded by Wednesday. Which means if I'm gone for the weekend and have supper plans Monday night and work all week (like this time) I get to start and finish my challenge Tuesday night....

Maybe it's good to get my mind working faster on layouts. I have a million Europe pics to scrap so I need to step it up a bit :)

Digital fun!

Hi there,

Just a quick update on last weeks challenge for Just Cre8. The challenge was to use a rhebus puzzle in your layout....
Rhebus puzzle??

That's what I thought, but we've all done them. There are two kinds, one where you use pictures in the plaec of words or pieces of words ie. picture of a key next to the words 'to my heart.'

The second kind is a word puzzle, like if you wrote Seasons four times, it could mean four seasons....

Get it?

I used 1 in a million..... m1llion. Get it?

Anyhow, I used a ton of pictures of my hubby skiing (I even made a little photo book on the page, behind the journey tag). I think I used about 15 pictures. Such a great way to use those photos where you have a little tiny person and tons of background ie. snow and sky

Anyway, here's the layout:



And, otherwise, I've been ignoring my piles and piles of scrapbooking fodder to play with some digital stuff. Whenever I get in a scrapping slump I like tostep away from paper and play with pixels.

I made a quick calendar (I made a calendar out of canvases awhile ago, so I made new monthly calendars to clip in). Here's an example.



And a quick layout I made. Another Europe picture.



I made both of these with free digital kits I downloaded. You can find free stuff at Creating Keepsakes or Memory Makers or Shabby Princess or with a quick google search.

Halloween Rundown

I love Halloween! What a great holiday. I think it's even better as an adult.... you can have more fun with it and you don't have to layer a snowsuit under your costume to have fun.

Here are a few pictures of the party:





It's not the best picture of my costume, but, do you know who I am?

All kinds of babies, adoption papers, big hair....you can't see my tattoo here....but I had a big one on my shoulder....

I'm Angelina Jolie! I know, the resemblances are shocking.


And the details:



A table full of horrific goodies: vomit dip, tongue and cheek crackers, worms in dirt pudding, witch's fingernails, Adam's Ribs, etc.

And our tribute to Lake Louise:



What a fun pumpkin, eh?! We had a bit of trouble carving this as we didn't have the proper tools, but it turned out all right.

And one quick question. Someone left me a post the other day welcoming me to Edmonton (thanks) and gave me info on a house and some scrapbooking stores.... was t you? I'm so sorry, I should probably know who left the message, but you didn't leave a name, so I'm a little baffled.

Leave another comment or drop me an email if it was you.

Thanks!

Scrapbooking, Baby Jada, and BIG news

I've been scrapbooking more lately than I have all summer. I spend so much more time on crafty things in the winter. I can't wait for the cooler weather and all the cozy, crafty time inside.

This is a little make n' take that I taught at the Mountain Memories Scrapbooking retreat last weekend. A quick card showcasing the new Bazzill Stitch It templates and thread.



Here are some pictures from our weekend with Jada:



Brandi and Katelyn at the shower



Proud papa



What a sweetheart. That lamb came all the way from Britain, too. She's worldly all ready.

So, here's the BIG news.....

We're moving to Edmonton!!!

Honest to Blog.

Brad got a promotion and we're in the process of figuring out where to look at houses, when we'll move, if we can get season's passes to the waterslides, and where exactly to go from here, but there you go. Our big news.

If you have any ideas for us: nice communities, good restaurants, great scrapbooking stores, etc. let me know!