First day home

I had a wonderful time this past weekend. As I mentioned before I was heading to our family cabin for a mommy time weekend. Firstly I ended up leaving a bit later than I had intended. But by the time I got there, unloaded all my stuff, put away groceries and started a fire in the woodstove I happened to look out the cabin window to this. So I grabbed my camera and headed out to the shoreline and got some amazing photos! I've personally never seen a sunset quite like this with the blues and yellows. This photo is straight out of my camera, manual settings.

I went to the cabin for some rest and relaxation but I brought my scrapbooking stuff plus a book I was wanting to read. It was great to also have a friend come over for a drink Friday evening.

I had planned a bit of my packing a week or so before. I was thrilled to get a hold of 2 new lines from Echo Park, one of my new favorite paper companies. I got their paper packs and added cardstock and embellishments to match so packing was super easy. Just add photos and I was all set. This layout was done for a design team challenge from ScrapShotz and it was to use a quote on your layout. I rarely ever do quotes but this one fit. With the renos to our house the quote was oh so perfect!

This layout was done with the new Bo-Bunny papers and embellishments, so simple but it conveys the story I want. And that's why I scrapbook.

Same papers, Bo-Bunny but they worked with the outdoor twisting that Owen loves to do.

This one was also done for a challenge, using felt on a layout. It may seem weird to use flowers on a *boy* layout but it fits with the journalling. Part of it reads " I know school hasn't always been sunshine and roses for you..."

Look! I did a 2 page layout without being told to, ha! I just had so many great shots of Owen's first trip to the lake that they had to be scrapped. This was also done for a challenge, putting a list on it!

More Echo Park papers! I so love this company! Its pretty bad when you buy the paper once and then see it in the store again and seriously contimplate buying again!

Every time we change Owen's diaper we always call him a "Soggy Bottom Boy" and I finally had a chance to scrapbook it. Bad mommy here, I forgot to pack a swimmer diaper. So sorry buddy!

My Abby adores being outside and the lake was no exception. I think she would have eaten her lunch in the water if I'd have let her! These papers were also from Echo park but the backside of the double sided paper.

This one still makes me laugh! Abby and Ethan are typical siblings...they fight. Ron finally got fed up with them and the new punishment is to hold hands and sit on the couch for an entire hour! I grabbed my camera of course and boy was Abby mad that I was taking a picture! She kept trying to get away from Ethan who hung on, because that was the rule. He's such a rule follower ;)

This was one of the photos that I tried to take when I was redo my profile picture for facebook. Its totally not in focus becasue taking photos of yourself is very difficult (at least for me) Its funny because I still see myself as fat but by looks of this photo I'm not sporting *that* much muffin top. Still needing to work on a bunch of stuff.

I think this is one of my most favorites from this past weekend. The photo is my typical Abby. She's been going through the typical 8 year old girl thing, from feeling misunderstood to crying over a glass of spilt milk to laughing and playing with her little brother. We've been butting heads more often lately too, we're just so much alike. I keep praying everyday that God shows me how to be a better mom to her.

Whew! Are you all tired of going through all the photos? Sorry! I also created 5 different cards this weekend but I can't show them as they are for a class coming up and I gave some away already! Thanks for stopping by and letting me share my work!

just a couple more hours and I'm outta here!

My fabulous dh offered to watch the kids for a whole weekend so that I could go away by myself to our families' cabin for my birthday. I loved the idea but opted to wait for September when I'd *really* need it. So this weekend is it! I've got way more stuff packed than I could possibly need but I'm going for comfort! I'll be back in a couple of days! Hope I don't freeze!

September Memory Workshop Kit

I was super thrilled to be asked to guest design the September kit for the Memory Workshop! Then I got the kit in the mail and was thrilled all over again! The SEI papers were so gorgeous that photos just don't do it justice.

Me and 2 page layouts don't usually get along just because I find I struggle to create unity between such a large area and the simple fact that I'm better with squares than rectangles. However I had some awesome photos of my daughter and my niece from our recent trip to the Calgary Zoo. I'm so thankful that these cousins are best friends no matter how often they see each other. I totally had fun with the coordinations cardstock and the beautiful canvas texture flowers.

This might be one of my favorite 2 pagers that I've done. The pattern paper that frames the entire layout was actually created with only 1/2 a sheet of pattern paper. I just cut them all the same size and made a "frame" I love the fact that photos of the butterflies allowed me to go a little crazy with my butterfly punch and sizzlets butterfly die :)

I love these photos of my wonderful mother in law and sister in law. Truely wonderful people, talented too!

As soon as I saw the chipboard word "mother" I thought of these great photos of my sister and her kids.

This has got to be my go-to photo placement. Two photos butted up together to create one unified photo. It just simplifies the whole design process for me. I figure why fix it if its not broke?

And because Sandra puts together a huge kit, I had leftovers that I created 3 cards with. To be honest I had enough to really create one more layout but my attention span being what it is, I was done ;)

Scrapshotz card crew

I was super excited to be a part of the Scrapshotz card crew for the next 3 months. Scrapshotz is my go to online scrapbooking store and my message board home since Scrapper's Haven closed. This week was my week to put up the card challenge!

So the challenge was to add some dimension to your card by adding dimension to your stamped image. Come and play along!

I borrowed my sil rose stamp set because surprisingly I didn't have a flower stamp that would work with this challenge. We laughed because this was the very first Stampin' Up! stamp she bought about 11 years ago! I stamped the image 2 times on different cardstock pieces. Then I colored in one completely with my new Bick Mark Its! (poor woman's copics) then I colored in the roses on the second stamped image, cut them out and used foam pop dots to put them on the same spot as the original stamp. The card was then finished off with purely pomegranite papers and ribbons from SU!.