Sunday Special

Happy Mother's Day, again, to my fabulous moms!

Me and my ma, Maureen, hiking in Waterton:



And my mother-in-law, Gay, with me, before Brad and my wedding:



And a little shout out to all my nearly-mom, sister-in-law, Brandi, and all you other moms out there.

After a busy Saturday, I got a chance for some me time.... time to do some scrapbooking, look through some magazines, and have a relaxing Sunday.

I spent some time cutting out sayings and layouts and things that I liked from some promotional stuff we got at the Scrapbook Eh! Wholesale event and put them on this handy ring for future reference. This way, I don't have to store a huge stack of catalogues.


Hope all you mothers out there had a great day!!

Are you sick of retreat pics, yet?

In case you're not.... my mom sent some more...

Lucky, lucky Lindyl, who went home with a ton of prizes. This one was the super cute altered paint can full of spa goodies from Mountain Memories Scrapbooking:



Two hams, and absolute dolls, Katharina and Allison:



A shot of one of the lovely, yummy desserts:



Okay, I know, you've had enough. I'll lay off of them for awhile (unless I get some more good ones...)

Hope you all had a great weekend! Back to work tomorrow.

Productive Day at Home

What a day! I got tons of stuff done, which is good, because I've been neglecting some of the day to day stuff around here with all the commotion in our lives lately.

Who would've thought a good Saturday would be a day spent cleaning house, doing laundry, picking up, throwing out, sorting, and who can remember what else? Very productive.

So, here I am at 11 o'clock, signing in as I get ready to curl up with a good book.

Just thought I'd show you a few more picss from the retreat:

A class picture



A few shots of the ladies cropping away





Another partial group shot... I wish we would have gotten a complete shot.... next time!



And a little project I've been working on...









This was a project that I started with Leica Forrest at Scrapbook Eh! and finished up at home. The products are all Luxe and Scenic Route and the pics are some very rare shots of the Malacko cousins together. There are still a few missing, but I really like them, because that side of Brad's family rarely seem to get together.

That's all for now!

Wow, it's been eventful around here!

Hope you're all well and not covered in snow as we are here in the mountains!

We had power outages all night at home and all morning at work because we got tons of heavy, wet snow.

It's amazing how helpless everyone turns without power. No computers, no email, no work, basically.... we're reading and taking notes with a pen and paper? What?!

Oh well, powers back on and things are running smoothly, aside from the thundering 'mini avalanches' sliding off my roof.

So, "where have you been?" you may be wondering...

After the retreat, I switched into a new position at work. I'm now working on a new project writing text on Banff's culture and creating a website for the National Historic Sites in Alberta and BC. A very cool job, but unfortunately, I haven't gotten to dig into it much yet. I've been training my replacement, helping out all the new staff (because for some reason EVERYONE is changing positions) and generally rearranging chairs on the Titanic. Ha! Well, now that that's over, I can relax and enjoy my new job.

And, because my motto is never really work, work, work, I took a trip down to Great Falls with a bunch of girlfriends last weekend. Our second annual girls weekend in the States. We had so much fun! Seriously... cheap shopping? great friends? good food? What could be better?

We had tons of laughs and I literally had to buy a tupperware tub to get my purchases home in.... blush....

A highlight? Getting ID'd when buying a video game for my husband!! I'd even mentioned quite a few times about how I was looking for something for my hubby.... I don't know how old he thought we needed to be to get married up in Canada. Oh well, it was kind of nice to be asked if I was 17!!! If you're interested, I just switched to Loreal face cream and it's apparently working wonders :)

Okay, well, more to come this weekend... I have all kinds of updates and neat things to show you all, so check back in.

For now, I'll leave you with some photos of the beautiful ladies at the retreat compliments of Rose.

The retreat and my weekend away

Here's a group picture which includes most of our scrapbookers for the retreat, taken by the fabulous Allison Orthner.

If you want to see it again, check out the Canadian Scrapbooker fall edition.



I just got back from a great weekend away with the girls, and I'm still exhausted, but it was so much fun. Five girls, 3 days, and the American dollar on par.... Great Falls may never be the same again!

I'll try and get some pics up from the weekend as well as the retreat later tonight.

Scrapbook Savvy Mountain Retreat!!

What an absolutely FABULOUS weekend!

I may be biased, but I had the most amazing scrapbookers attend the first Scrapbook Savvy Mountain Retreat!

We had a blast.

Thought I'd share a few pictures of the weekend:

Our three big winners....

Angie won a beautiful prize pack from Scrapbooker's Ranch in Trochu (shown here with store owner, Cindy).



Rose won a fantastic prize package from the Scrap Hut which was full of Zutter products, including a bind-it-all!!!



And... Monica, was our grand prize winner, taking home an amazing prize package with a jam-packed kit from Just Cre8, a beautiful organizer from Best Craft Organizer, an awesome stamp prize package from Tin Box Creations, and a year subscription to Canadian Scrapbooker!!!



Plus, a few fun shots of the weekend:

A peak at the ladies hard at work in my acrylic album class. Great work ladies!


A partial shot of the most raucus, rowdy, absolutely wonderful foursome from Northern Alberta. Sorry Maggie, you seem to have gotten cut off...



Here's the missing Maggie, and Geri packing up. A cover shot for Vogue Scrapbooking if I ever saw one! Only one trolley full of scrapbooking goodies between the two of them, not bad.



The two sweetest sisters, Joanne and Susan. Can't wait to see new baby pictures, Susan!



I'll keep sharing more throughout the week, and if any of you lovely ladies who attended have more pictures, I'd love to see them!!

Classes at Mountain Memories

Wow folks, there is an AWESOME line up of classes at Mountain Memories this spring!!!!

If you're in the area, stop in to have a look and sign up. Here are a few pictures of the class demos:

Card-Making:


CD Case Album:


Father's Day Card:


Doodling Class:

Is she not the cutest thing? Look at those eyes!

A closer look at some of the great doodling...


And these aren't even all of them!

Seriously, stop in and check them out if you're in Canmore.

And... the retreat starts in less than 72 hours!!!

Oh wait.... there's more... hubby and I just booked a trip to Europe in September!
woot.woot.

More class sneak peaks for the retreat

Here are a few more behind the scenes looks at our great line up of classes for the retreat.

These instructors are fabulous, let me tell you. What a fantastic job, ladies!

Here's Aimee Grenier's class, Be True Album:



and Linnette Gabert's awesome altered paint can class. This would make a perfect mother's day gift. Fill it up with bath goodies, a manicure set, or chocolates and treats to make the perfect homemade gift:



Jackie Ludlage's Family Mantle decoration, with beautiful Melissa Frances paper:



and my canvas class, imagine that, it's Bo Bunny. I'm loving their new lines:



Hope you enjoy!

For all who are coming to the retreat, I have your goodie bags packed up and ready to go, and they're lookin' good. Can't wait to give all of these goodies away to you all. (Not only because I know you'll love what our fabulous sponsors donated, but it will also be nice to have my scrap room back...)

Can't wait to see you in Lake Louise!

Class Peak for the Spring Kick-Off

I have been so productive today! Nothing like a few deadlines to get your creative mojo kicked into high gear.

Here's a little peak at one of the classes I'm teaching this spring at Mountain Memories in Canmore.



Can't show it all, that's for Saturday.

It's a family paper bag album, using Bo Bunny's great Organic line and their We R Family cardstock stickers as well as the new Core-dinations line of cardstock.

Have you seen this stuff yet?? Very cool. The core of the cardstock is a different colour than the outside, so when you tear it, sand it, or distress it, the core colour shows through.

I got a super thick pad full of all the beautiful colours at Scrapbook Eh, and can't wait to play with them all.

After the class kick off, the retreat, and a little downtime, I'm going to dive into that bag of samples and play, play, play!!

Ahhh yes, and after I make the transition into my new job....

That's right, changes everywhere. This is a 'real' job, not a scrappy one. Still with Parks, but I'm taking a one year assignment to write the text for a new website they're creating. Should be really fun. I'm excited for the change of pace and the opportunity to get back to writing.

Another change, and a little congrats shout out to my hubby, Brad, who just passed his corporal's exam!! woot! woot! He had to wait forever for the scores to be posted, so it was a relief to finally hear. I knew he would do well, but he was on the fence. Now he can stop fretting.

As for the rest of our 'family'..... Bailey got a hair cut awhile ago....

Before



After



Left the playoff beard...

That's about all that's new with him. He doesn't change jobs much. Eat. Sleep. Run. Bounce. Sniff. Scratch. Pee. Repeat.

Hope to see you Saturday!

Mountain Memories Scrapbooking Spring Class Kick-Off!

Everyone who's in Canmore this weekend, come check out the Mountain Memories Scrapbooking Spring Class Kick-Off!

There is a lot going on at Mountain Memories Scrapbooking on Saturday, April 19th and you won't want to miss a thing!

I'm teaching four classes this spring, so all of my projects, as well as the other very talented instructor's projects will be on display all day. Feel free to come down and peruse the great line up of classes and take this opportunity to sign up for some of your favourites.

The celebrations don't stop there! There are a ton of other reasons to stop in and say hello this Saturday:

· Stop by our "Make and Take" table and try your hand at cardmaking
· Enter our Draw for a Mother's Day Spa Gift "Bucket"
· Check out our new products by Basic Grey, Hero Arts, My Mind's Eye, Heidi Swapp, Petaloo, Bo Bunny and more
· Enjoy refreshments while you shop

And a great tip: look for a 15% off coupon in the Rocky Mountain Outlook this week to make the day even better!

Hope to see you there!

If you can't make it Saturday, call Linnette at 403.678.6887 to sign up for the classes you like and guarantee your spot.

Mountain Memories Scrapbooking
www.mtnmemories.ca
#109, 712 Bow Valley Trail
Canmore, Alberta

Scrapbook Eh! Wholesale Event

What a fabulous weekend!

I must tell you about the Scrapbook Eh! Wholesale Event I went to Friday with my mom. This show was AMAZING!

I saw some friends who I only get to see once a year or so at these things, met a ton of fellow scrappers, and was inspired by some of the industries greatest!

Stacy Julian, founding editor of Simple Scrapbooks magazine and author of Big Picture Scrapbooking, The folks from Fiskars, the fabulous Leica Forrest for Luxe Designs, Making Memories, Hot Off The Press and Layle, from the Scenic Route Paper Co were al there to help inspire, motivate, and challenge us. I found them all so refreshing and informative. I especially enjoyed Stacy Julian's approach to scrapbooking.

What else did this fabulous event entail?

So much more, I can't even begin to tell you, you really must experience it for yourself.

I got to play with the Making Memories Slice, a great new portable cutting tool, see demonstrations on the new programs coming out for the Cricut, got a behind the scenes look at some great new products, and the giveaways.... the giveaways were impressive to say the least.

Seriously, my mom and I both came home with almost more than we can carry. It was like that IKEA commercial, we were yelling, "Start the car! Start the car!" as we ran out of the conference with bags of loot!

And, the rest of the weekend didn't let me down either. I got to spend 2 days with my mom in the city, visited my grandarents and a bunch of family, went skiing, had friends over for a board game night, BBQ'd in the sunshine here in Lake Louise, and had a relaxing morning of movies with my hubby.

I do love to see the sunshine.

Hope you're all doing great, and I'll try and show you some of the goodies we got and the make' n takes we did on Friday!

Scrapbook Savvy Mountain Retreat Class Peak

Hi there,

I thought I'd give you a little peak at what's going on at the retreat!

Check out the website for information on the retreat, it's coming so fast!

We'd love to have you come for the whole weekend, or just for the day. A class pass is available for Saturday so you can take in the classes and the vendors!

Here are a few peaks at the class projects:

A peak at the clear, acrylic friendship album class taught by myself, featuring Cosmo Cricket and Bo Bunny.





This is a great Melissa Frances class taught by Canadian Scrapbooker's co-founder, Jackie Ludlage.



Aimee Grenier's fabulous family recipe book class:



They are all going to be so much fun. Wait until you see these projects up close!

Older and wiser...

There's been a bit of a gap in the posts here, sorry about that. Busy week.

I celebrated my 25th birthday on Monday! A quarter of a century.... sounds soooo old, but so far, I really like 25. I think it will be a good year.

I took the day off work and Brad and I went into Calgary and spent the day shopping, touring around, and just having fun. We also met my grandparents for a birthday lunch, which was great.

Sounds really simple, but it was nice to do things that we never seem to have the time to do.

Sipping a french vanilla cappuccino and browsing through stores at my leisure? A discount at a great local scrapbooking store? A 50% off coupon for Micheals? Birthday money to spend? A Chapters gift certificate? A DQ Oreo Blizzzard? Plus, I got to spend time with some of the people I love most.

Very good day indeed.

Plus, I celebrated again last night and went out for supper and a delicious dessert with a few girlfriends. So fun! I have had a good birthday week, and it continues with a potluck tonight and another supper with friends tomorrow night. What a busy, fun week.

The best part of birthdays is all of the little messages you get from people. Phone calls, emails, facebook wishes, birthday cards... it's really nice to know that people are out there who care that you have a good day. Each one is a little happy spot in the day.

So thanks to everyone who helped make my birthday week so great!

Now, I MUST get some scrapping done!

Ciao.

Digital Creations

I've slowly been accumulating quite a variety of digital elements thanks to great, free digi kits available on sites like Two Peas in a Bucket, Creating Keepsakes, Shabby Princess, and polka dot potato.

I love playing with these when the traditional juices aren't flowing. Kinda helps out my scrappin' mojo sometimes, plus it's a handy way to procrastinate when you're on the computer.

Here's my latest creation:



I used elements from a bunch of different kits. Polka Dot Potato has a huge digital kit on their site that you can download for free and it's full of goodies. The flower cut out (which I actually cut out from a piece of paper in the kit, only to discover, that it was a seperate element as well), papers, note paper, and metal brads and photo corners came from this kit. The leaf brush is a Melanie (brushes.nenuphar.net) photoshop brush, the frame and text overlay are Rhonna Farrer designs, and the corrugated corner is a Veronica Ponce creation. Thank you all for creating these beautiful pieces.

If you have any questions about digital scrapbooking or any of the techniques I use on anything I post here, let me know. I'd love to answer questions, or help out if I can.

I like playing with photos and layers and all of the goodies in Photoshop and it's an easy way to get crafty without getting messy... No ink on my fingers, glitter stuck to everything in the house for days, embossing powder spilled on the table, no mess of any kind. Very satisfying.

Canvases

I haven't been able to do anything crafty for almost a week now, so I finally had to sit down and do something fast to get my scrappy juices flowing again. I've been getting so many ideas lately, I really should get down to work more often and do some of them! Now that the rush of Easter and traveling and company and so on is over, I can get scrappin'!

This is a canvas my mom and dad brought me back from Costa Rica. Just a small one, really cute, and literally a blank canvas for me to create on. I decided to try out painting on canvases because I've only ever scrapbooked them with paper.



I may add to it... not quite sure whether I'm done or not, but I thought it was kinda cute and I thought you may like a little peak. Hopefully, this week will bring some more projects.

Spring is here?

Brrrrr!!! It was cold this morning! Not very spring-y. It was -21 C when I was scraping my windows before work! That just makes the first day back after a long weekend more difficult. Oh well, only a short week ahead!

Hope you all had a fantastic Easter!

We had such a nice, relaxing weekend. It was great to have the time off together, to see so many family and friends, and just get away.

Plus... I got to open up a few birthday presents early!! I got some really neat scrapbooking loot: metal page borders from 7 Gypsies and bling from IOD, great new papers and ribbons and stamps and loopy brads and flowers and all kinds of goodies! I'll have to make some layouts and show you what I got.

So, my big plans were to take some photos over the weekend... unfortunately, my batteries were dead. Grrr. And, they're not a standard size, like double A or anything, so I couldn't even swap some new ones in. Big grrrr...

So, I borrowed my mom's camera and took a few, but I have to wait for her to email them to me. I'll tell you though, I missed sooo many photo opportunites. Of course, that's all I was thinking of because I didn't have a camera on hand. The calves were flouncing past me in the field, my little cousins had a great Easter egg hunt and decorated some really cute eggs, there was a beautiful, full, harvest moon, and we had tons of family over.

Alas, this will teach me a lesson. Keep your camera handy and the batteries charged!

Thankful

To celebrate Easter, I have a Thanksgiving layout for you : )

Timing is everything.

I always have fall papers and elements around as I'm slowly working on our wedding album (we got married Oct. 8... 2005) so I really can't help but use them even if they are a bit innapropriate seasonally.

Here's a layout with photos of myself and my parents. I didn't have my camera with me that day (of course) but it was such a perfect fall day. We were surrounded by beautiful, yellow, crunchy leaves and the sky was just a perfect blue. Next time, I will have my camera ready. Thankfully, someone else had a camera and I got pictures from them.



Some neat things I did on this layout:

I used two fake leaves on this layout that were actually part of our wedding decorations. They look just like real ones, but won't crumble. See them behind the big brown circle element? This is why I keep everything. I always find uses for things.

To make the journaling lines, I painted one side of an old CD case and used it as a 'line' stamp. I just used a cream coloured acryllic paint to do this. Cheaper than buying a stamp, and I like how it turned out.

Now, my challenge to myself is to take photos over Easter. For some reason, I haven't been taking many pictures lately. So, after the weekend, I'll have more pics to post.

Happy Easter!

Get your game on!

Just seems to be a fun time of year, doesn't it? St. Patricks Day is kind of a lighthearted, skippy leprechauns in green tights kind of holiday, spring is in the air, and with Easter around the corner, there are all kinds of decorated eggs and candy...mmmmmm, Mini Eggs... How fun!

As I'm in the mood for games, and my mojo needs a little boost, I've been playing along with some of the games at Just Cre8, a great little Canadian kit club who will be sponsoring the retreat. It's their birthday celebration all week and they have some awesome challenges, prizes, and classes going on over there.

If you have time to play, head on over and see what Sue has in store for you.

This is a quick layout I did for their sketch challenge. I may go back and add to it... I think it needs something more, but it's fun and whimsical which I like.



Notice Brad and I pointing out our winning (at the time) board game piece? We never seem to do all that well at Canadian Trivia... a Mountie and a Parks employee, and we still can't win. Sad really. That's all right, we'll just beat them all at Scotland Yard or Clue!

And, a quick layout to give you a glimpse into my childhood. It was a happy one, if you can't tell by the scrunchy-faced grin :)

Ha! I just thought it was a cute picture for my 'book of me' scrapbook. I want to get my mom to write some journaling for me, though, because I don't even know what beach this was at or how old I was... Luckily, I think she can help me fill in the blanks.



Hope you all have big plans for Easter. We're heading to my parents farm for a little R and R and some visiting. Can't wait! The best part is that it's calving season, and they've all ready had a few so hopefully, when I come back I'll have some pics of the newbies frolicking around in the field to show you all.

Living in a National Park has a lot of perks, but unfortunately, there is a down side.... Lately, things seem to be falling apart in our house and nobody wants to come out here to fix things.

Our internet has been spotty, our toilets are tempermental, and I can't get anyone to cut my dog's hair, or mine, for that matter. Bailey is starting to look a little like a Rasta Dog... time for a trim.

Oh well, with no internet, hopefully I'll spend more time getting things done :)

Here are a few layouts from the MAK weekend (scanned with my wonderful new scanner) :



I don't know if you can see it here, but I incorporated a little tulle that we used to decorate at our wedding into this layout. You may see it behind the flower and on the tag. Also, I used some Ranger crackle paint, which I love and the Kaiser pearls, which are perfect for wedding layouts (or any kind of dressy occasion).



I really love the colours in this one. I am definitely a fall colours person.

I've been trying to incorporate my handwriting, because I think that just makes it more special, but I think I need to take a handwriting class...I just can not keep it neat.

Oh well, so my future generations know I am not a neat writer.

Hopefully, I'll have a few more layouts for you to check out later this weekend.

MAK weekend

What a great weekend! The sun was shining, I had some great company, and I got a bit of scrappin' done!

For those of you who don't know me well, you've never heard of MAK. Well, 'MAK 3' was the password that my cousins and I had to get into our tree fort at my grandparents place when we were little. You had to say those special words before we would roll down our little rope ladder and let you in. Not very inlusive were we.... but to tell you the truth, it wasn't actually all that 'secret.' :)

My cousins, Meagan and Ange (plus Kelly, makes MAK, get it? Pretty creative, I know...) and I are all very close in age and have always been really great friends.
Since, the treefort is long gone, and we've all moved, but still remain close friends, we converted our secret password into the name of our get together weekends. Hence, MAK weekend.

The girls packed up a TON of stuff and came out on Friday for a weekend of scrapping, skiing, snacking, and visiting and we had a blast! I really love these little get togethers.

I wish I could say I got a ton of scrapping done, but I really didn't. For me, it was one of those days where you move the same sticker around for 40 minutes and never stick it into place. But, it was still fun and Meagan and Ange both got a ton of pages done, so I would call it a success.

I'll have to post some pics later this week.

Hope you're enjoying the sunshine!

Christmas present

I know it's March, and here I am chatting about Christmas. Well, I don't know if this makes it better, but I'm talking about the Christmas that just past, not the one coming up in 9 months. I know I'm late, but it's taken me awhile to discover the true joy of what I got from my hubby 3 months ago...

The background to this story is that my husband really likes to get Christmas lists from me. Very specific Christmas lists. Not just what I would like, but specific brand names and colours, and where he can find it (meaning what store, what shelf, etc.) I, on the other hand, don't really like making these lists. I hate asking for things and I honestly feel like I have enough all ready.

So....

I guess we've learned to work with each other and I actually had thought of something that I wanted. A scanner. A very simple one. Just something that I could use to scan in layouts I make or old pictures I want to keep or whatever I may find that I think should be saved electronically.

Brad jumped all over this. Not only had I given him an idea, it was a gadget. I was giving him permission to go gadget shopping.

I didn't really realize what I'd done until I opened my gift at Christmas and saw the biggest scanner I've ever seen. What I opened was a Microtek ScanMaker 9800XL.

Yes, it's as big as it sounds.

While I loved the idea and was very grateful, I really thought it was more than I needed. I was just looking for a simple scanner, and this behemoth wouldn't even fit on my desk.

Unfortunately, before I could return it, Brad had ripped open the box to get a closer look.... there went the return option.

So, jump ahead a few months, the house is all unpacked and set up, life is returning to the routine we had established before our house fire, things are good. Then I look over at the enormous scanner perched precariously on my desk. I haven't even set it up. Sure, maybe it's more than I need, but it's not going to get any smaller now is it?

So, I set everything up and had an inaugural scanning ceremony, and guess what? I love it! I've been scanning everything I can get my hands on.

I don't know if I needed a scanner this big, but I guess that's what Christmas is all about, getting something you wouldn't buy yourself.

So, moral of the story, I guess I should just be quiet and be grateful. Brad had fun shopping for it and I really do find it quite handy.

So, here it is, my awesomely huge and extremely handy Christmas present: