Monday, November 29, 2010

The snow finally found us

I guess that will teach me for laughing when everyone else got it, lol. Last week on Wednesday night it finally started snowing here. The only problem was though is that because it had been so cold (-6 Celsius) as soon as the snow hit the roads it just turned into a big sheet of ice, which was not good for anyone driving in it. It snowed all night so I thought when we woke up on Thursday morning we would have at least 4 or 5 inches but there wasn't that much in the morning, maybe an inch or so. It kept snowing all day so by dinner time there was about 4 inches. I didn't go out of the house all day. Even my DH came home from work just before noon because there was no way with the weather that it would be dangerous loading and unloading big machines to the job sites plus the city was closing a number of roads because they were to steep to try to drive up them safely. It worked great for me because I didn't have to shovel the driveway, my DH did it. Anyways about 7:30 in the evening the temperature really started to warm up and the snow turned to rain, so by Friday morning it was just a slushy mess on the roads and now it's all gone - thank goodness!

One thing about being stuck in the house I was able to make a few more Christmas cards which I've posted down below. Two of them feature my own mouse drawn hedgehog, One of them is ice skating, the other is looking up at the big star in the sky. The other two feature a couple of the cute fairies from Charmed Cards & and Crafts. I used a lot of puffy paint and stickles glitter on the cards and used foam to pop up the hedgehogs and fairies for that 3D look. I think they turned out quite cute. Thanks for stopping by and having a peek at my cards. Hope everyone has a great week!




Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Brrrrrr, I think winter is here...

So last Friday we got a bit of snow coming down and according to the weatherman we were suppose to get all this snow overnight. We woke up Saturday to no snow at all - yeah! Then last night there were all these snow and wind warnings for Vancouver Island. So we wake up this morning to no snow at all, just beautiful blue sunny skies but it was windy and very cold - about minus 2 Celsius. So while I'm making dinner I turn the news on and they are showing how the rest of Vancouver Island were having major snow and wind storm all day. Closing schools for today and tomorrow and a lot of businesses closing. Even just down the highway from us in Courtney, which is only like 45 klms from us had major amounts of snow. That was just to weird but I was happy we didn't get any of the storms the rest of the Island and the mainland were getting, It's suppose to be sunny here again tomorrow but very cold, about -6 Celsius and with the windchill factor it will bwe more like -18. I'm thinking that staying in bed under all of the covers with my matress heator on will be high on the agenda for me tomorrow, lol.

I did manage to get a quick card done today using some Bo Bunny papers from last year that I had. This one features my own little mouse drawn hedgehog. I used puffy paint on his hat trim and also around the whole card and popped the hedgehog up with foam for that 3D look. I think it turned out not to bad - what do you think? Well thanks for stopping by and having a peek at my work. I hope everyone has a great week and bundle up for the cold weather!

Friday, November 19, 2010

Happy to be home...

I was happy to be home and in my own cozy bed this past Monday. I like going to the mainland to see all the family but I sure don't miss the crazy, busy place Richmond has become. Every time I go there is a new building or old ones torn down, the people are always rushing around like there is a big race going on. 

The craft fair wasn't to bad, but sales were down from the past few years. After talking to a number of other crafters everyone agreed that things were much slower. People just are not spending money the way they use to. I guess everyone is on a tight budget what with so many people out of work etc.

I did mange to finish another layout tonight, finally. I had the slows or something. This was a layout for the "Big Sketch" contest going on over at My Creative Scrapbook. I even managed to use some more of my October LE Kit from MCS. This is a couple of photos that my son took of my grandchildren when he took them to downtown Vancouver for dinner at Kobe's. That is one of those Japanese restaurants were they cook your food up in front of you, I wish we had one of those here in Campbell River because their food is always so yummy! You can't really tell in this photo that well but I took a duplicate piece of the background paper and cut out the two bottom corners and then used foam to pop them up on the layout. The flowers I made myself and the "bling" at the bottom of the page was some clear ones I  had in my stash and I took some of my Rangers ink to color them to match the layout. I'm quite happy with the way the layout turned out. TFL and I hope everyone has had a great week!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

A few quick cards

A big thank you to all of our fallen soldiers, Veterans and those who continue to serve our country!

Just a few quick cards I finished last night.


I got my sister to send me a photo of one of her pictures she makes to sell in the craft fair. She calls these "Sea Sites".
 

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

The leaves just keep falling........

Okay so I know all the stupid leaves have to come off the trees but you would think they could do it all in one day. Last week I raked up all the leaves in the front yard from our cherry trees, which filled up at least two huge paper recycling bags. Then 2 days later I had to do it all over again. Then I decided to cut back our laurel hedge in the backyard, which I believe I mentioned the other day. So by the time I finished doing that and cutting up all the branches and raking up all those leaves I had 16 huge paper recycling bags for the recycling pick up yesterday. So of course it decided to be windy and raining again yesterday but we we woke up to beautiful blue skies this morning. And what else, more stupid leaves on the front lawn again. So off I go again this afternoon and raked up the rest of those leaves and then I had to pick out all the ones from the flower bed in front of the veranda - which is a pain in the butt because the people who owned the house before us have all those nice little white rocks in the garden. They look nice but it takes for ever to pick the leaves out of it because you can't rake it because of the rocks - grrrr. So now there are only a few leaves left on one of the trees, one more big wind and the rest should be down, thank goodness cause I'm beginning to really hate raking leaves - who invented trees with leaves that have to fall off every year any how, lol. 

Tomorrow is Remembrance Day, which is a stat holiday here in BC - so there will be a parade tomorrow morning to pay our respects to all of those who have died serving our country and all of those who still do serve this great country of Canada and of course our US neighbors to the south as well as veterans everywhere. In the early afternoon we head to the Legion where everyone gathers to raise our glasses to the Vets and enjoy the music.

We usually stay there most of the afternoon but tomorrow I am flying down to the mainland (Vancouver - actually Richmond is where I will be) to visit my kids and grandchildren and on Saturday I am helping my sister out at the craft fair I spoke about a few days ago. I am going to be selling my cards that I have been making so I hope to get a few more done this evening to take with me as well as a couple of my pre-made scrapbook pages and my digital scrapbook kits.

I did mange to make another quick card last night, using my Tim Holtz Santa stamp which I've posted below. Well I better get going if I want to get any cards done tonight. Thanks for stopping by and I hope everyone has a great rest of the week and please don't forget to pay your respects to all of the veterans tomorrow.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Card being published

Very excited again. I just got an e,mail from Scrapbook news and Review to say they are publishing one of my cards in their December issue. Wow, two  months in a row getting published is so cool! When I was looking around their online magazine last week when the new issue came out with my 3 scrap pages in it I noticed they has a call for cards based on a sketch they posted so I decided to send one in and they actually picked it. I have posted a copy of it below - I will have to take it down from my blog while the December issue is out and then I can put it back up on the blog.

I've also done a couple of  more cards which I've posted below. One is with one of the cute fairyies from Charmed Cards & Crafts - I just love their pixies/fairies, they're so cute. The other one I used one of my Tim Holtz stamps from his "Mini Holidays" collection. I love the vintage Santa for cards and doing his "12 Tags of Christmas" tags. Thanks for looking and I hope everyone is having a great weekend!





Thursday, November 4, 2010

Busy few days this week

The weather here in Campbell River has been so nice the past few days, sunny and about 16 degrees (that's 62 F, for those of you in the US). I got out and raked up all the leaves in the front yard from our cherry trees. Then I got all industrious and mowed the backyard which sucked up all the leaves back there, I'm pretty sure that's the last mowing in for this year that we'll get. Made my DH all happy as he's been working 12 hour days all week. so would not have been able to get it done. 

Then since I was on such  roll I started cutting back our laurel hedge in the back yard, which pretty much added another 5 feet to the side of the yard it runs down. I managed to finish off the whole thing yesterday so I was quite pleased with myself. Of course my poor back is paying for it now - this old thing really sucks, lol.

In between all of this I managed to get a few more cards done. Trying to stock up before I go down to the mainland next week to help my sister out in her craft fair she is going in on Nov 13th. My sister makes these beautiful beach/ocean pictures in shadow box frames. When ever she comes up or if I'm at the beach with my grandchildren we collect up shells, seaweed and any other little treasures from the beach and she mounts them all in these shadow boxes. They are so pretty and they sell pretty fast at the craft fairs. I will have to get her to send me a photo of a few of them and I can post them for everyone to see.

Anyway back to my cards. This first one I just finished today and I'm so pleased at how pretty it turned out. I must thank Paulien from MCS for this idea on using the puffy paint on the outer edges of the cards, it looks so pretty and adds such dimension to the cards, especially when you're doing Christmas cards. So thank you Paulien and I hope you don't mind me scrap lifting your idea - or is that card lifting, lol.You can visit Paulien's blog and see more of her beautiful work here:
This paper is from the Christmas Magic line from Fancy Pants last year. I distressed the edges and then cut out a couple of the ornaments and popped them up with foam and then completed them by adding a bow to each and then the gold ribbon hanging down to the bow.
These next two cards are made with this cute little fairy/pixie from "Charmed Cards and Crafts". Isn't she adorable?I made two cards with her, I printed out duplicates of her and colored in her wings, dress and boot trim and headband with stickles glitter and then popped her up with foam for the 3D look.



These next three cards I made with some of my own graphics that I drew in my  PSP program, this pretty poinsettia and ice skating snowman. On the pointsettia I duplicated the graphic and then outlined all the leaves with stickles glitter and used red stickles on the end of little shoots and popped it up with foam. For the snowman I used puffy paint on his hat and gloves trim and also popped him up with foam. These graphics are ones that I sell in my Digital scrapbook kits from my website here: Scrappers Heaven


I hope you enjoyed looking at my cards, I know I had fun making them. Have a great rest of the week everyone!