Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Weird Weather

So we've had every type of weather you could think of today. From beautiful sunny skies, to clouds, to hail, to rain and back to sun again. I swear all this global warming is changing all the climactic (I hope that's the right spelling, lol) zones around. Oh well, not much we can do about it.

I can't believe it's Easter this weekend. A good opportunity to take more pics to scrapbook - like I need an excuse, lol. It's also my grand daughters 11th birthday on Easter Sunday. I can't wait to get over to the mainland and celebrate her birthday and also my daughters 19th Birthday on April 8th - wow, where did the years go?

Well I better get off to bed, hope everyone had a good day!

Monday, March 29, 2010

Monday already?

I don't know where the weekend went to, it just sped by. Well yesterday was kind of a right off as my MS was dragging me down, so I ended up sleeping most of the day. Today was a little bit better, not much energy but at least I didn't sleep the whole day away.

Who doesn't like a give away? Do you like the Jenny Bowlin line of scrapbooking products? Well then you need to pop on over to Scrapbooking Supplies R Us' Blog and get in on this fun offer - check it out here: http://www.scrapbookingsuppliesrus.com/blog/article/view/?article_id=10197

Have a good week everyone!

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Birthday Card

Thanks to one of the members at My Creative Scrapbook I finally found the inspiration for making a birthday card for my daughters birthday next month. I have seen a number of these cards on the internet but thought they looked quite difficult to make so never attempted to make one. After seeing Julia's pretty card I decided to go on a hunt through the internet to find the instructions on making them. I finally came across Bonnie Szwalkiewicz's tutorial on Split Coast Stampers website, which, after watching her video didn't look as hard as I thought they were to make. If you'd like to try this out for yourself you can find the tutorial here: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/trishuttercard/

So here is my card, TFL!


Friday, March 26, 2010

Tissue Flowers

I'm sure most of you have seen a tutorial or two on making flowers similar to the one below. Most of the ones I've seen have used scrapbook paper, which works good but sometimes I find that scrap paper is a little bit to thick to give you a more fluffy (if that's the right word to use, lol) flower. So I decided to try it out using tissue paper. The type you use for gift wrapping. I just went to the local dollar store and picked up some of this pink tissue to work with, it kind of reminded me of the type of flowers we use to make from Kleenex tissue to decorate our bikes for Sports Day in elementary school. So this is just a short little tutorial on how I made mine (and not meant to copy anyone else's tutorial).



So basically your first step is to take your tissue and cut a wavy circle, any size you'd like, depending on whether you want a big or small flower. There are about 20 sheets/layers of tissue in mine.



Now you can take your hole punch and punch a hole through the middle of all your layers and then use a brad to adhere them all together. Once that's done just start pulling up the layers one at a time and crumpling them up to the center.


Just keep doing this until you have all the layers crumpled then you can start to pull them apart until you have your flower the shape you'd like. That's it, so easy and they look really pretty. I think my next ones I make will have a few less layers just so they are not quite so high for placing on my scrap pages.

Sweet Boy

I got finished quicker than expected so decided I'd post this now rather than wait until tomorrow. I came across this old pic of my son when he was 13 months old in April 1981. Our old cat would never get to close to him as he always ended up pulling her tail or something. But she would always come and lay with anyone who was sick. My poor son had such a bad flu, his little cheeks were so red because he had a fever. So true to her nature she went and laid down beside him on the couch. I just love this picture.

TGIF!

Well what a beautiful day it turned out to be today. Nice and sunny and mild - I'm liking it! I've got the sliding glass door out to the sundeck in my office open while I work on my latest project. I love spring time!

Yesterday I started playing with some of my Ranger Inks and Distress Ink pads. I love Tim Holtz and all of his great ideas when scrapping so I'm trying to learn a few things. I found out the Distress ink pads are great for re-coloring chipboard letters. The blue ones I had for my project were not quite the right shade of blue so I used the Denim Distress Ink on them and now they match up great. I also used it on some white lace that I had that I wanted to add to the page and that turned out great too. I think I'll be using these inks a lot more now.

I'm off to try and finish up this page now, I'll post it when I get done. Have a great Friday everyone!

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Clean up

I decided I better do some cleaning in my scrap room today before I totally lost everything under the mounds of papers left over from my last few layouts. I can at least see the desk now, so that's good. I'm trying to get into the card making mood right now. It's my daughters 19th birthday in a couple of weeks so I want to make her a really special card but just haven't found the right papers yet. I think I'll have to go on a paper hunt tomorrow as my own stock isn't quite doing it for me, lol.

Well I hope everyone is having a great day - only 2 more until the weekend!

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Spring Challenge

We had a challenge at My Creative Scrapbook to do some Spring pages showing lots of nice bright spring colors. Well I must say there are some beautiful layouts posted so far. I did one with a picture that I took of some of crocuses that popped their heads out in February, a few weeks ahead of time. I love it when they show up as that means Spring is just around the corner. It's so nice to have it still light out right now at7 pm. I'm not much of a winter person - I always figure if it's dark I should be in bed sleeping. So I get way more things done in spring and summer, lol. So here is my attempt at the challenge. TFL

Monday, March 22, 2010

The Big "30"

I just finished scrapping this page for my son's 30th birthday on March 11th. I can't believe that little guy on the tricycle is suddenly 30 - where the heck did all the years go. I'm sure that I just turned 29 on my last birthday, lol. I tried out Gabi's new flower tutorial on this layout. They don't look quite as nice as hers but I still like them. Hope you all have a great week!



Sunday, March 21, 2010

Another cute flower tutorial

Well we all had a lot of fun at the birthday party yesterday. And just what I thought the Dads had so much fun getting to be little boys again, lol. The weather co-operated so the bonfire into the evening was fun for everyone!

Gabi has done it again, she's got a tutorial for another cute and easy handmade flower. You can check it out on her blog here: http://gabriellepollacco.blogspot.com/

I'm off to try these out and I hope you do to. Gabi is so talented!

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Well it's a ice sunny day today, which works out great as friends of ours are having a birthday party for their 11 year old and they are going to be playing lazzer tag. I don't know if any of you have done this before but the kids have a great time. And since our friends have a huge green space behind their home they get to do it in the forest rather than in a building. It's going to be the kids against the Dads. All the young boys have spent the last week or two building forts and bunkers to hide in so they can beat the Dads. Honestly I think the adults have more fun than the kids at this - it lets them be little boys again for a couple of hours - and we all know how men are, lol!

After they are having a big bonfire and hot dog roast etc. so all us wives will show up for that after the game. It will be fun. Have a great Saturday everyone!

Friday, March 19, 2010

Friday Flower Frenzy

Good morning all. Well I was surfing the net again last night and found another cute tutorial on making some quick and easy flowers from Carrie Postma. They're called "Loopy" flowers. You must have a peek at these, they're very cute. I think I'll be trying these out today, another good way to use up scrap bits! You can find them on Carrie's blog here: http://papertrunk.blogspot.com/

Well I did manage to get my couple of pictures from our 2005 Cancun trip scrapped last night and I'm quite pleased with the results. You just have to ignore the bright spot on the one picture, that's just from my flash and not actually on the picture. I hope everyone as a super Friday!


Thursday, March 18, 2010

Going Green

Good Morning bloggers! These days everyone is trying to think of different ways of recycling, going green and trying to save this wonderful planet we all live on. I know when I am buying different things, not necessarily scrapbooking items, you end up with all sorts of packaging that might be good for other things but you just don't know what those things might be. Well today while surfing the net I came across American Crafts blog and they had a great idea for re-using some of the packaging. This idea was for re-using clam shell packaging from chipboard. This is such a great idea, you really must check this out, here is the link: http://americancrafts.typepad.com/studio/2010/03/a-green-idea.html

It's another beautiful sunny day today and I am feeling a lot better than I have in the past few days so I hope to actually accomplish a few things. Last night my DH and I were going through some pictures we had taken while we were in Cancun about 5 years ago (before I ever knew anything about scrapbooking). We came across a couple of great shots taken of us while we were out snorkeling with a group of people. Amazingly enough I don't look to bad in the pictures (I'm not very photogenic) so that's my project for the day to scrapbook these pictures. I will post them once I'm finished so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can do them justice.

Have a great day everyone!


Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Slow Mode

So I'm not to sure what is going on right now with my MS but it is really acting up. Pretty much my whole day consisted of sleeping. Which would be okay on a rainy icky day but the weather was gorgeous and sunny today and I pretty much missed the whole thing. Let's see I got up, feed my silly cats (you have to do that first or they nag me the whole time I'm trying to get showered and dressed, lol). Had my shower got ready for my day, did a couple of errands and that was it. There was just no strength or energy to do anything. I decided I better get dinner made otherwise you never know what time we'd eat, lol. I finally gave in by 1:30 and went to bed for a nap. Well my quick nap turned into a 5 hour long sleep. So I've now checked my email, check my auctions on eBay, posted here on my blog and I'm ready to go back to bed.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. I hope everyone has a great day!

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Addicted

Okay so I am now officially addicted to making paper roses! I spent most of last night going through all my left over paper pieces making roses out of them. I don't know, but if you're anything like me I hate to throw bits of papers away that are left over from scrapping a page. So now I have a great way to use them all up, I'm recycling and saving the earth! How cool is that, lol!

It's a very dreary, rainy day here in Campbell River today so it's a good reason to stay inside and scrapbook (like I need an excuse, lol). I think I may have to go lay down for a bit though as my MS is really acting up today and making me very fatigued and weak. I try to ignore it most of the time but sometimes you just have to give in and rest. I hope everyone has a great day!

Monday, March 15, 2010

Paper Roses

I'm sure many of you have seen a tutorial on making pretty paper roses with a six petal punch. The first time I saw this was on Tim Holtz blog. Now that I have joined My Creative Scrapbook one of the very talented ladies there, Gabrielle, has posted a step by step tutorial on how to make these. These are so easy and amazing how cute they are when your ll done. You can find Gabrielle's tutorial here:
http://mycreativescrapbook.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=1743&st=0
I believe she also has it on her blog which I have a link to in "My Favs" on the side panel here on my blog.

My only problem I had was I didn't have a 6 petal punch so I ended up making a template for one but it tends to take up time as you have to trace it out, cut it etc before you can even start making the roses. So today I went off in search of a tutorial for making these using 5 petals, as I have a cricut machine and a "George" cartridge which has 5 petal flowers. I was so happy to find actually a few video tutorials on "You Tube" for this so I thought I'd share the links here to them. The one nice thing about using the cricut to cut these is you can make them all different sizes. I've posted a picture below of the ones I have made. The small ones were made using my six petal template. The larger ones are using my cricut machine. The first one I tried I cut at 2½", then I decided to do the others at 2", which I liked a little better for what I wanted them for. Have fun playing!

Here are a couple of links for you to these tutorials (there are many more though).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edApDLVUWSw&NR=1&feature=fvwp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcCBOA10mq8&feature=related


Sunday, March 14, 2010

Rainy Day

What to do on a rainy day...hmmm...Scrapbook? Gee I never do that, lol. I hope everyone is having a nice weekend. I've just been web surfing looking for new scrap page inspirations. Boy there are so many awesome scrapbookers out there. I feel like such a novice at this hobby. But that's okay, we have to start somewhere and one day I hope to be even half as good as some of these awesome scrappers!

I've just discovered a new line of scrapbook papers called Websters Pages. You can see their blog here: http://websterspages.typepad.com I'm sure a lot of you have already heard of them but they are new to me. They have some of the most beautiful papers. I will have to check my local scrap stores to see if they carry any of their line of papers.

Well I'm off to play with my scrap pages now, have an awesome day!

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Twice in one day!

Whoa, give me an award - this is my second post in one day! This afternoon I decided to try a kind of Shabby/Chic look for this scrap page. This is my son and grandson taking a little afternoon nap while I was down visiting in November 2009. I thought they just looked so cute together sleeping.

New Page Set

I worked on this page set last night and am quite pleased at how it turned out. I just put it up for auction on eBay so hopefully others will like it as much as I do, lol. If any one has any suggestions for any of my pages or cards to make them look nicer please post a comment. I'm always willing to hear constructive criticisms. :-)



Friday, March 12, 2010

Back

Okay so I am so proud of myself. Two days in a row I've actually posted on my blog. Will wonders never cease, lol! I was just about to go and work on my newest scrap page and I thought "No, first I'm going to post on my blog". So here I am (she says as patting her own back)!

I can't believe it. Two weeks ago while the Olympics were on we had such beautiful sunny mild weather (not that it helped for some of the games that were held on Cyprus Mountain, but it sure impressed all the Olympic visitors). Then on Wednesday morning we woke to about 1/2 an inch of snow here in Campbell River. Unlike the east coast we're not use to that here in BC. So this morning my DH is going down Island making a delivery and he phones me to let me know it's snowing where he is going and it is already snowing about 15 miles from us so it must be heading North up our way. Well sure enough, about 11:00 am it starts snowing like crazy (Aaaccckk!). So off I went to do all my errands before it got to bad. Well thank goodness it stopped finally and now it's raining out so it didn't stick. I must say I am not impressed with Mother Nature's joke.

Now I'm off to do some scrapping. I'm making a Princess 2 page set to sell on eBay so I will take a pic of it when I'm finished to show off here. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Thursday, March 11, 2010

New Inspiration

Okay I have got to be the worst blogger on the net....for some reason I can't get into this coming in everyday and at least saying "Hi". I've joined a new scrapbooking group called My Creative Scrapbook (www.mycreativescrapbook.com), and all of the members are just awesome scrappers. I'm going to learn so much from them. All of the members have blogs so I'm hoping all of their energy and blogging rubs off on me (she says keeping her fingers crossed). If you haven't run across this group on the net before you must check them out. The main website is a Scrapbook Kit Club that you can join and each month you are sent an awesome new kit to use for scrapping. In their own words: We invite you to join our monthly scrapbook kit club and experience the possibilities our coordinated kits offer. With plenty of innovative materials and ideas to jump start your imagination, preserving your memories will be effortless and enjoyable.
Now you don't have to join the kit club to take part in this group. I haven't joined the kit club yet but hope to in the near future when my finances allow it. The groups message boards are awesome. You can post all of your scrap pages, cards etc in the gallery and get feedback from everyone on them, which I think is a great learning tool. Each month they have a sketch challenge and at the end of the month the layouts are voted on by the Administrators of the site and you never know, you may be the winner that month. They also have a "Sketch of the week" where the Administrators go through all of the posts for the week and one is picked as the winner for that week. They have a "Tips & Technique" section, which I love. You can learn so much from all of these talented ladies!

Today I posted my first layout in the groups gallery, which was my take on the March Sketch Challenge. I used a beautiful set of papers from Bo Bunny called "Snowy Serenade", which I just love, as well as different Prima flowers that I had. Hopefully I will be showing off some awesome new layouts here as I learn from this talented group. Thanks for stopping by and having a peek!