Saskatoon Update and Hanging Pictures

So... the big news..... Saskatoon moved for the first time!! Or the first time I really noticed, anyway. There's been some gurgling for about a week or two, but I wasn't sure. As I was driving, I felt big movement, like somersaults. Definitely Saskatoon, because none of my organs have done that before! How exciting!

And, I was busy again last night. Went to Costco and Wal Mart and stocked up on towels and bathroom things to tie together some loose ends in our bathrooms. Plus, I found a sleeper with firetrucks on it for the baby shower this weekend (for the Lake Louise Fire Chief's new addition). I've been looking for something with fire trucks on it and couldn't find anything and then I saw two of these sleepers. Just two left in the pile. Good shopping trip.

When I got home, I put out all my new purchases and hung a bunch of pictures and clocks all over the house that I've been procrastinating with. I even finished my kitchen feature spot.

If you want to do this, it's really quite simple. I gathered all of my black framed pictures and layed them out on the floor as I'd like to see them on the wall. Measured how big of a square I'd need if I left a bit of a border around the collage and then taped that onto my wall (use a level and a measuring tape, don't just guess).

Then I painted a square a shade darker than the wall (two of the walls in the kitchen are this darker shade):



and hung my photo collage (again, a level and a measuring tape come in handy):



I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Took a bit of time, but it works on that big wall.

And while I worked, Bailey slept....

Keeping busy

Sunshine again today, for a few hours at least.... hope it lasts.

Last night, I made a little baby book for some friends who are expecting in May and updated a make and take that I'd done at Education, Eh! to make a card for them.



I love this little giraffe stamp. Giraffes are the cutest when they're done up for babies. Best 75 cents I spent in the last few weeks! I chalked it a little to add some colour, but it's cute on it's own.





I think baby books are so much fun to make. This is probably a good thing, since I should get started on our wee one's book soon...

Just wanted to share a funny picture of Brad when we were at the farm last. He loves to play farmer, and I think we're all quite happy to have someone around who sees the work as a novelty. Perhaps, none more than my dad, who came in from the same day of work looking surprisinly clean, while Brad came in looking like this:



Hmmmm.... are you taking advantage of your son-in-law, dad?

Speaking of the farm, a few miles down the road from my parents house, my brother just demolished part of his house (on purpose). He knocked down the 'old' part of the house (it was an old Eaton's house) and is building on to the newer portion. I can't wait to see what it looks like. I know he'll do a great job on it. He's redone other houses before and they've turned out fantastic. Now, I just need him to finish up so he can build one for Brad and I :)

Mother Nature....what's wrong?

Spring... winter... spring... winter.... spring??

Hopefully, it's here to stay, but I still see negative temperatures in the forecast this week. What's wrong with Edmonton? At least in Lake Louise I could count on 10 months of winter. I didn't like it, but I knew how to dress. Here, I have no idea what season it is, even on a hourly basis! Right now, there are blue skies and the sun is shining so let's hope it stays that way.

Luckily, I spent most of my time indoors this weekend. I finished my taxes and my GST and I painted my bathroom. (Remind me not to paint any of the other bathrooms in the house. Just leave them be. Painting behind toilets and through cabinets and around moulding and caulking.... phew. It took me a long time.) Anyway, finished that up. And, because I was having so much fun, I decided to paint a feature spot on my kitchen wall. Will let you know how it turns out.... I'll just have to find a hammer so I can hang photos and it will be done. A few jobs checked off my list, anyway.

Sunday, I ran some errands and got a baby gift for a shower I'm going to this weekend, got some more clothes that fit (yes, the belly is growing), and found a few other little treats along the way.

Here are some more layouts that I've been working on. I have really been enjoying the organization I've got going on with my Europe photos. I spend an hour one night picking out papers that go with pictures and then I can grab a page layout 'kit' and go, without having to sort through the stacks of paper each time.

This is a volcano we toured off the coast of Santorini in Greece. I love the flowers on this layout. They're cut from an old Scenic Route paper that I really like.







Circus Maximus, in Rome, where they used to hold the chariot races. Because you have to use your imagination a lot with this site, I included lots of text. I thought it was still a very cool place to see.



And the Coloseum, in Rome, as well. I used a few birthday presents on this. Brad picked out the coloseum sticker I used on this and the tag was one of the ones from my parents. Good taste, shoppers!



Just four more inches left in the stack of Europe photos... (okay, maybe not four, but there are lots of photos from this trip).

Thursday update

What a great sunshiney day it is up here!! Yesterday was grey and we had a five minute snow storm, today, the sun was so bright at 6 am that it woke me up. Crazy weather, but I'm pulling for spring, so I didn't even mind the brightness.

I've been keeping myself busy this week. Monday I started a new yoga class, Tuesday, I met a friend for supper and a movie, last night I got groceries and baked some banana bread and some bagels (or something that was supposed to be a bagel...didn't quite turn out), and cleaned the house top to bottom. In between, I worked (sigh), went on a bunch of touring walks with the dog and fixed my mac (after much trial and error).

The movie I saw was 'Sunshine Cleaning,' which is pretty good. Much like Little Miss Sunshine, if you saw it. Same producers, I believe. Kinda funny and heartwarming.

Still no pictures of my layouts from the weekend, but I've got a few more farm pictures. A cute picture of Bear and Bailey last weekend:



Revenge for all the puppy hijinx he pulled on every dog he came across:



And Bailey enjoying a slough:





There is some water around out there...

FUNdraiser Retreat

What a fun weekend! The kids cancer fundraiser retreat was really fun. We had so many great ladies out crafting, it was great. A good portion of them stayed at my mom and dad's, too, so we got to take the day's fun home with us and laugh and talk all night.

I'll take some photos of the layouts I got done at the retreat and post them later this week. The real star's are the ladies who got a ton done! Rhonda did three little mini books and Sharon got done 32 layouts for her cruise in June (that's right, she's scrapbooking in advance!!)

They're planning another one in the fall, so if you missed out on this one, be ready for the next!

We also got to visit Curtis and Brandi and Jada and meet mom and dad's new puppy, Bear.

This is Jada's first introduction to Bear.



Curtis is building a new house near my parent's farm and it's really moving along fast. They're building onto an older farm house in a really great, established yard and they've knocked down all kinds of out buildings and cleaned up the whole farm yard and tore up a bunch of flooring.... I can't wait until they get all moved in and settled out there. It will be so nice to have my parents and them so close.
One-stop visiting!!

Mom and I went out hunting for crocuses, but there weren't too many out. Here are a few pictures.







I had my first yoga class last night up here in Edmonton, and it went pretty well. A bit of chanting and a few poses that I couldn't do because my belly got in the way, but otherwise, it was good. I'm looking forward to next Monday's class.

Either a girl or a shy boy....

We had our ultrasound yesterday, which was really cool, but unfortunately, Baby Malacko wasn't really cooperating. Saskatoon (our baby's name, while we wait to hear whether we can use he or she) was facing backwards, so we got a really neat view of the spine, but couldn't see the face and couldn't see if Baby is a boy or girl. Still saskatoon...

Oh well, as I said, still very neat to see a tiny little heart beating away and little hands and feet, arms and legs, and a big baby head. I have to go back in three weeks and try again because they couldn't get some of the measurements they needed, but so far, baby looks healthy.

We spent Easter weekend in Lethbridge visiting family and I finally got some photos of newbie Kale, our nephew. I even got some babysitting time with him all to myself. Lucky auntie!





Seriously, how cute is that?

And, in case you're babied out, here's a pet picture for you. Bailey and his favourite toy:





A torn up soccer ball that used to belong to Brad is his favourite toy to play with, lately. Not interested in intact balls or even the bones in the backyard, he will run to get this deflated ball as soon as the door bell rings in case whoever coming in may want to play.

More layouts and a Pre-Baby Book

Happy Early Easter!!!

I have a few more layouts to show from my super productive weekend of scrapping before we head out for a long Easter weekend. I love long weekends, especially when it's supposed to be warm and you get two extra days off!



This is a sunset in Greece.



And the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. Sorry this photo is so washed out looking... fast photography at its worst.

I have to spend next week getting ready for an all-day crop I'm going to on Saturday. It's the one I mentioned previously, that's happening near my hometown. There are still spots left if anyone's interested. It helps support Kids Cancer Research!!!

Hopefully, I'll get tons done there, too. I really need to make a dent in my existing pile of 'need to scrapbook' photos. I'm still scrapbooking our wedding (three and a half years later) and all of our ten thousand Europe photos. When Baby Malacko arrives, I have a feeling they'll end up in shoeboxes in favour of cute giraffes and pastel-laden baby layouts.

And, because I've got baby on my mind lately, and I got a Bind-It-All for Christmas that I've been dying to use, I thought I'd make a pre-baby mini book. Just something to record our preparations, doctor's visits, what's going on in our lives and in the world right now, and whatever else comes up. Any great suggestions of things I should capture?

Education, Eh! and Collages

We had a great weekend at Education, Eh! in Calgary! Came home with tons of free stuff, lots of ideas and some fun make n' takes. Plus, the people are always so great. We got to see Allison Orthner, Katharina Doyle, Leice Forrest, Vicki Boutin, and so many more! So great to see you all, ladies.

Here are the ladies of Scrapbook Savvy and Digital Diva:



I wish I had some photos of us in the warehouse.... that was a good time. Imagine that, I was distracted, surrounded by shelves and shelves of scrapbooking goodies. I was too busy drooling to take photos. There should be a box of goodies arriving soon, which I can not wait for.

I told you about a free program called Shape Collage a few posts ago. It's pretty neat. I played with it and made these two collages super quickly.



You can blame this mishapen heart on my poor drawing abilities...



The only thing is my computer is getting full and slow, so I may have to remove it and just use the sample when I want to make more of these. Wouldn't they be great to use on a layout or as a title page for a book?

As for our daily life, we had lots of visitors this weekend. Brad's sister and some of her friends as well as his old troop mate were all down at various times for a vist, which is always nice. Then, after everyone's gone and things are kinda cleaned up, we had our first run in with our sump pump last night... Had to call a plumber at 9 pm as our basement was slowly getting soggy. Luckily, they came quickly and no real damage was done, just a little dent in the pocket book. Ahhh, the joys of being a home owner.

That's today's update on our lives.

My super scrappy weekend

I had such a great weekend at home! Since Friday, I got 8 layouts done, one blessings box, and played with the Shape Collage program I linked you to last week!

Plus, yesterday was my birthday, so I took the day off work and did some shopping, ran some errands and had a 'me' day. Quite nice! Brad gave me the Twilight movie for my birthday so we went out and got pizza from this place in town I've been wanting to check out, came home, and watched a movie. Not quite like my 18th birthday, but I loved it! Brad even got me a Dairy Queen ice cream cake/log. mmmmmm.... pizza, ice cream and vampires. Heaven~

Here are a few of my layouts. I used my new templates for the Bazzill InStitchz that my mom got me for my birthday on all of them. I love it! It's so great to punch a neat pattern and then stitch it up while you're watching TV or doing something mindless.

Here's what the templates look like (sorry about the bad photo). Really simple, but quite ingenius.





I still need to add journaling to this one. Will get on it.



I used my glimmer mist from tattered angels on this layout. I used the negatives from some old punched out leaves and punched a few smaller ones and layed them all over the paper to create the background pattern. Just orange cardstock that I wasn't sure I'd ever use, some glimmer mist and a few punched out scraps.



Quite fun! You can see the glimmer mist much easier in this one than on the Paris layout I posted earlier.



and, another of my favourite spot in Italy.... Cinque Terre. Sigh.

I'm off tonight for Education, Eh! in Calgary, which should be fun. 7 Gypsies, Bazzill, BasicGray, Melissa Frances and BoBunny will all be there, to name a few. I'll catch you all up on what I learned when I get back!