The ebb and flow

For those that know me know that I love scrapbooking. The process of adding stories to my photos and adding bits of papers and embellishments to my pages brings me great joy. I've been doing this since my oldest was a year old and there have been times in my life that I've gone on creative benders, if you will, and cranked out page after page for different albums that I had in my bookshelf. Then there have been times where I think to myself, "does this even matter?" 

Part of this is putting too much pressure on myself. Always expecting a profound story for every photo. The thought that I need to have tons of journalling or brand new designs for every layout. This is totally me. I look back at my old layouts and I love how they look. I love how I felt when I was creating them. I loved the finished project. I found supplies I loved and had to have. It feels like lately that I need to be critiquing everything I buy. Did I get my money's worth? Am I supporting an empire or a small business, should I care? Shame on me if I don't care. So much of this comes from too much exposure to negativity. I really try to be someone who looks for the good in everything but its been hard to find of late...even on my scrapbooking message boards. This has turned into me now not scrapbooking very much...I've been reading and really not very into it. Other things have come up that I've chosen to do instead of scrapbooking like I used to. I run. I spend way too much time on social media. I try and spend more time with my husband. 

I'm totally thinking that this is just one of those ebb and flow things and I will get back to it when the time is right. Personally I'm thinking that the less time I'm around the negative influences the better off I'll be. And maybe, just maybe I'll feel like being creative again. 

carving out a bit of time

Does is seem like every year life gets busier and faster paced than the year prior? It sure seems like that to me. I had all these big plans over the summer to do so many fun things, spend more time just relaxing with my kids, spend time in my scrapbooking room, exercise and take care of myself, watch movies that I'd like to see. Well not much of that got done and whether I like it or not that's the way it is. What I did miss and would like to fix is the fact that I didn't have much alone time, specifically time away from everything. Still trying to figure out how to fit that in but I'm coming up short. Running allowed me that quiet but since I've been running on my treadmill it still seems like there are always people around, c'est la vie right?

Now with full time work, family time, extra curricular activities for the kids and my scrapbooking classes the balancing act is in full swing. Still learning to balance it all, not succeeding on some fronts, but doing well on others. My running has been slowed down due to a potential hip injury. I say potential because I'm hoping my doctor and I caught it before it became a full blown injury that would have stopped my running all together, instead of taking only a few days break.

So like all of you, I can't do it all and I don't every claim that I can...personally crafting time has been severely limited so my postings won't be regular. But I will leave you with a layout that I've done semi recently.

A night at the Oscars online crop

All weekend I've been over at Scrap Shotz participating in the online crop that Sandy has put on. Its been so much fun working on the challenges put forth by the desgin team, of which I'm in my last month as a guest designer. Here are some of the projects that I made.

 Loving this layout about Owen and his cute baby talk that is slowly fading away as he gets older.

 This one is a favorite too! Abby has done the same thing but with eggs, butter and flour when she was the same age.

 This was a cutie make and take calendar put forth by Ruby from SSZ. So easy to do and great to have on my scrapbooking desk.

 This card was one of the easiest to make and I love how great it looks.

Thanks for stopping by!

Get ready for a long one...

Wow so for all my good intentions I've been a horrible blogger. Life has been sort of busy in some areas and not in others. I admit that I've been down in the dumps for the past month or so and it had to do with lots of reasons. Some being the crappy weather, cause when you don't want to examine you or yourself too closely its a good standby to blame the weather, ha! Course with the crappy weather I don't see my dh much and its hard on all of us.

Thankfully I've had great friends, some pretty great kids (most of the time) and some semi regular craft time that's been keeping me going. For a while I was thinking that I picked the wrong word for 2011. My word restore seemed to totally be non-exsistant for what I wanted it to represent. My weight stalled, work stuff was not what I wanted and I was just blech.

I've come to the realization that I'm not blessed to be one of those people who can ignore her food choices and still slide by. I was bitter, its not fair that I have to watch every.single.morsel of food that graces my lips for fear of jumping up another size or 2. After about 2 weeks full of woes is mes I've gotten a new mindset. Yup it sucks but I can't change that. So a daily food journal came into play, more water was added to my diet and daily (well 5x/week) exercise has started me down that slow road, again. I'm not going to lie, its a daily, hourly and sometimes minutely struggle to make the good food choices but I'm trying.

My work has gotten a great boost with adding 2 new families to my dayhome. And adding girls has been a great joy! They add a new dynamic to our dayhome and that has been great. Life is busy here but wonderful!

As for my crafting, I've been doing some teaching for Stampin' Up! and creating for Scrapshotz as a guest designer. I've been enjoying both and I've been finding great joy and peace in both. That time I spend creating is so refreshing for me as a mom that I'm better able to cope with things beyond my control.

This was our class for Stampin' Up! that was so much fun. It was great to see some regular students and some new ones, always awesome to find new crafting friends. Can't wait for the next class! I've had a request for a card night so that will be in the works shortly.

The following are layouts and a mini album that was created for Scrap Shotz. I got to use the very new line from Little Yellow Bicycle called Twig. So up my alley! I had a blast creating these layouts and everything went together so easily!

Family Canvas

I've been holding on to 2 of these giant canvases for the last few years just waiting for the right photos. I orginally was planning on use one for each of the kids but then we had Owen and well plans change. So I decided to finally get working on this project. I was very happy with our family photo this year so I printed it out 8.5" by 11" and began. I did run into some problems because it was just a large piece, I never buy more than one sheet of pattern paper at all. And for those that know, local scrapbooking stores are almost non-exsistant. So I actually changed my plan half way through my project.

I'm so much of a complete one project before I move on to the next kind of person that I tend to be a fairly quick scrapbooker. This project has been marinating on my desk and in my brain for a week! Its been very challenging for me! The colors I used match with my home decor (minus the fisher price classic toy colors) of chocolate brown, pumpkin pie orange, so saffron yellow, and cherry cobbler with a hint of cream. I had to have things sort of match with my yellow walls, which I hate but am not able to repaint at this point.  But I'm super happy with how it turned out!

So much going on

Wow crazy long time since I last posted. I always grumble in my head about those people who only update their blogs once in a while and here I'm doing the same. I'm sorry! The last few months have been so different for me in so many aspects that blogging hasn't been a priority. My children have gotten older and their problems and school lives have gotten much more demanding. Anyone who says having a baby is hard work hasn't had a junior high student yet, lol!

Things with my dayhome business have been very different as well. Last year at this time I was full to the brim with children and it was crazy and great all at the same time. This year, well, its been quiet. I'm learning to be thankful for the quiet but in reality its a bit concerning for me. I started my business because I love kids and I really wanted to be home with Owen. With only having 1 full time child and one less than full time child, I really need some extra kids :) so if anyone knows of anyone needing great childcare please feel free to give them my name 8)

Also I have decided to take my love of scrapbooking, cardmaking and crafts in general down a different avenue. I've offically signed up to be a Stampin' Up! demonstrater. As many of you can tell from my previous posts I'm a huge Stampin' Up! fan and I love to teach and share new ideas so this was a no brainer for me. For those in the Plamondon area please don't think that I'm undermining my fabulous sister-in-law Rhonda who was the previous demo. She had decided about a month ago to step down as a demo and has passed the stamping torch to me :)

So in January there will be another scrapbooking/cardmaking class where people can sign up for a kit and learn some fun new techniques. I'll keep you all posted with more details. I now have a website for all my Stampin' Up! creations and online ordering for those who aren't in the local area. Please feel free to check it out and leave me some feedback. The address is http://www.stamphappyrebecca.stampinup.net/  here you can sign up for my newsletter and recieve special promotions via email.

Big news post I know! But I'll leave you with some of my latest creations!

Canadian Scrapbooker!

I'm so excited to finally be able to say I'm offically published! My first ever layout published in a scrapbook magazine! I'm on page 40 of the Winter 2010 addition of the Canadian Scrapbooker. And the icing on the cake? It's one of my favorite layouts about my boys <3

some at home scrapping

I'm not always able to go out scrapbooking but that's why I'm so happy to have a space to call my own. With this past weekend being an extra long one I was able to get some stuff accomplished as well as have some fun play time.

I so needed to scrapbook about my new coffee pot. I've had the worse run of coffee machines lately, with having 3 others die on me! Those who know me know I love my coffee so I decided to try a new kind out. I'm totally loving it!

This layout was done with Stampin' Up! Designer Series paper (Elegant Soiree), Ali Edward's stamps from Tech. Tuesday.

 I have a box set aside for new stuff that I get so that I can use some of the new fun scrapbooking purchases that I've made. But lately I haven't been digging into it due to getting monthly scrapbooking kits. These are papers that I got late in August from We R Memory Keepers. They worked so well with these photos of Abby.

 Some more oldies from the "new box" Jilliebean Soup papers paired with my go to favorite, crumb cake (kraft) paper from Stampin' Up! Owen loves to walk now that he has his monkey backpack/leash thing. I don't worry about him running off on me in the stores. Last time I tried him walking without the monkey I had to chase him around the local grocery store!

 LOVE this photo! My sweet man washing my floors! Wink wink! Layout was done with Crate papers.

 These next two layouts were done with Scrapshotz November kit featuring SEI moonrise papers.

 The only thing I added was some red chipboard hearts to Ethan's layout. I love the pop of color!

 This layout came from the "new box" too, but these papers were boughten so long ago that I forgot when! I do know that they are Basic Grey's Max & Whiskers papers.

I was able to get all these layouts done in 2 days despite having to feed my family and take care of other stuff. I used Becky Fleck's page maps 2 for all my jumping points for my scrapbooking this weekend. I love how it helps simplify the creative process without stifling it! I highly recommend it!

a long overdue post

I seriously tried to update my blog before but blogger had other ideas. I haven't had a whole lot of time to do a lot of crafty stuff do to other commitments but I tried! I was thrilled to get the new Scrap Shotz monthly kit for October featuring Fancy Pants Happy Together paper and embellishments. I have to say that the combination of white, brown, blue and what I'm calling Baja Breeze (like Stampin' Up!'s colors) knocked me off my feet! But I didn't have any of the right color of photos for the papers. So I threw most of them into black and white.

 I had to use one of my new punches from EK Success, its this huge honking big scallop with circles cut out. Fabulous for scrapbooking pages but I doubt that I'll use it for cards lol!

 My favorite photo of Owen lately!

 Just for those who can't read Owen's shirt it says "my mom is outta your league" guess who bought that ;)

Trying out a transperancy card. This transperancy has very cool flocking on the outside that just begs to be touched!

 These cards were done for a challenge that I put up for the Scrap Shotz card crew. The idea was to take an inspriation piece and built a card around it. I had fun finding pieces from Pier1 online and Pottery Barn which has a ton of eye candy for the home decorating people. Or people like me who can't decorate my house at all and need tons of help from sweet sister in laws! Thanks Nicki! Course if I could go shopping without 3 children and have an unlimited budget I'm sure I could come up with something lol!

 These cards were the subjects of the Christmas Card class that Rhonda (my sil and SU! Rep) taught locally. Not pictured is the cute little gift box and the Christmas tags that were made as well. It was totally awesome because we had total newbies and some seasoned stampers who all loved the class. Everyone learned something new and had fun! My fun was added by the few Bailey's and coffee that I consumed ;)

 This card was also done for a challenge at ScrapShotz, the challenge was to use white and kraft on a card. I love how it turned out and to be honest I love anything kraft :)

 Just an extra layout from the Fancy Pants Happy Together kit.

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 ;)