July kit layouts

I was so honored to be asked to be a guest designer for the Memory Workshop(www.memoryworkshop.ca) this month. Sandra puts together the most wonderful kits that are jam packed with great scrapbook supplies! I've been hooked since my first kit last October. This month's kit features a Canadian company called Harmonie which has beautiful products!Doing double page layouts is something that I stuggle with so I was stepping outside of my comfort zone.

My extremely talented cousin Adrienne Ulliac (of Photography by Adrienne) took these pictures when we got together for a smore cookout. Thanks for the pictures!

I'm quite partial to one photo layouts so this is more my style.

My funny little man all smuthered in strawberry smoothie.

Love these photos of my dh. I took these photos about 3 years ago when we took a quadding trip up to the Athabasca River.

So I faked it pretty good...

I'll let you in on a little secret...I don't like doing birthday parties. Don't get me wrong I love celebrating my kids' birthdays but to do a party well its not my cup of tea, or coffee for that matter. It doesn't matter how great you do for one party each year, you need to do it over again the following year. But I digress...I do it for my kids.
Abby's cake turned out awesome! My wonderful mil came to help with the making of the icing and she did the flowers and the writing for me. I totally could have done the writing, the flowers not so much. The rest was me :) We were thankful to have some nice weather, a bit windy but we worked with it. The kids had so much fun in the pool even though some got cold. I've blocked out faces of Abby's friends and picked pictures where their faces weren't showing, you all know why.

The next thing was cupcake decorating which they totally got into and was such an easy thing to do. Just a side note...doing this outside totally rocked!

The kids had some great cupcakes going. And you all know I'm going to scrapbook this ;)

Our food and decorations...

Working with the wind was interesting, decorations were tied down. Note the balloons going wonky? Our cat was totally *helpful* with the balloons, but once 2 popped she was out of there, lol!

We also did a pinata and I was totally surprised that it didn't last that long. In years past it took like 5 turns per kid to get those things to break but now that the kids are getting older we had to rein them in so that everyone got a turn.

Abby totally adored her cake, I can't get over how big she's getting

Blowing out the candles...

See? Told you I faked it ;)

better late than never

So its been quite some time since I've done a post about scrapbooking. But in all honesty I haven't had much time to do much scrapbooking! I'm going to have to devise a way to get some creative time into my days but coming September my days will be quite busy so I better enjoy the summer while I can :) I've been under a rock apparently and had never used kraft cardstock until I got some in my April Memory Workshop scrapbook kit, now I can't get enough of it! It just goes to show you that trying something new is so worthwhile. The above layout is done with Pebbles pattern paper, kraft cardstock, prima bling & whisper flowers, AC rubons, WRMK large eyelets and Fancy Pants biggest chipboard (friends word) with doodlebug flocking. The title reads "what's a little static between friends?"

The following layouts are done with the April kit from the Memory Workshop.

Large bracket stamps come from the CK kit of the month "not your ordinary foam stamps" set, as well as some Maya Road sheer journalling chips.

This is the first part of a two page layout (shocker I know) all done with the April kit.

Second page. I realize that I tend to put a bunch of pictures together creating a photo block but honestly it makes things so much easier for designing. And really it works for me.

The kits have been really helping me put mulitple pattern papers together without it looking over powering. I'm all about making things easier :)

In addition to the April kit I used some Pebbles chipboard and the Today stamp from the CK's kotm (everyday beauty set by Ali Edwards) have to say I wasn't thrilled with the papers from that kit but *loved* the Ali Edwards stamps!

Here are a couple of cards that I made from the kit. I used the square scallop nestablities with my cuttlebug. Really enjoying those things!

This was a fun stamp that I got from the Unity Stamp Co. that I heat embossed with white embossing powder.

This layout is made with Basic Grey Mararach papers (the 6x6 pad) , lyrical letter cricut cartridge, Fancy Pants sheer circles, October Afternoon journalling cards, MME's chipboard stickers and some Stampin' Up! brads.

Just love this layout even though it made me so sad. We've had the extreme pleasure of getting close to my cousin's family. Her kids are super sweet and all three of them get along so well with my three. Our youngest boys are actually only 16 days apart and its so cute to see them together. I've been watching the kids a lot for the last few weeks as my cousin and her family are moving away. This makes me so sad cause going over for green chai tea won't be so easy now. Thank goodness that in this day and age that travel and technology will help us stay close even though they will be 3 hours away. I'm just trying not to think about it too much.

Scrappy Sneeks

Some sneekies of the July kit from The Memory Workshop. Sandra puts together the most awesome kit and I was thrilled to be asked to be a guest designer this month! I had so much fun with this kit and I got a ton of layouts out of it! Be sure to check out www.memoryworkshop.ca to see their wonderful kits!

My baby girl is 7!!!

My baby girl at almost 1 year old. Time seemed to have slipped through my fingers and now you're 7. All grown up (or so she thinks!) she asked to get her ears pierced for her birthday. So we went and did a salon trip, haircut and everything. She surprised me by picking blue earrings. And did really well once she got over the shock of the first earring.

My Abby. My only girl. The one who can find anything in the house, lover of all things sweet, the one that asks me to let her know where the chocolate is in the house "just in case", my rough 'n' tumble girl that can take down her older brother any time she wants, the one that is scared of hogzilla, her daddy's shadow who always wants to play "the hunter & the deer" with her daddy and she's the deer. The one who adores pink and loves to wear dresses but will muck out in the bird pens and wants to help in the garden. My sweet little complicated girl who is concerned about who her husband will be already (you're only 7!), who knows that daddy needs to approve of any boy she brings home and who knows that any boy better treat her as good as daddy treats mommy.

Happy Birthday my little Sweet Pea!

Happy Father's Day!

Its been pretty hectic around here between school finishing up, garage sales and scrapbooking opportunities (will post later) the old blog has been neglected. A couple of days ago I was stuck without power for a few hours and after deciding that my only other non-power option was to fold laundry I headed outside to take some pictures after our very nice, very needed rain. So the little man napped and mommy got to endulge in one of her favorite things, taking pictures of flowers.

These irises are pretty special. Not only are they Ron's favorite but they also came from his late grandma's flower garden. He got them when he moved away from home and we couldn't bear to leave them with the new owners of our old house so we moved them with us :)

One of the few plants in my arsenol that liked the cooler weather and just thrived. Most of my plants are of the full sun variety. I'm also pretty partial to succulants.

We got blessed with the most beautiful full rainbow last night. Pretty impressive.

So to honor my wonderful husband's request, there will be no pictures of him on my blog today. Happy Father's Day Sweetie!

You know its been a cold spring when...

Even the marigolds are wearing earmuffs ;) I came outside one morning and found that Abby had fitted one of my marigolds with a pair of her Littlest Pet Shop earmuffs.

June Scrapbook Class preview

Ok this is for all you ladies that signed up to take my class on June 19th @ 7pm. We are featuring the fabulous September 2008 kit from The Memory Workshop (www.thememoryworkshop.ca) We worked with one of Sandra's kits before and it totally rocked! So we're doing it again :) The following layouts are ones that we will do during the class as well as 2 cards. I decided to put them up so that you could all get some ideas for what kind of pictures to bring. Don't worry an email will be going out as well :)

I'll be sending out the email later this week along with a list of the stuff you'll need to bring like your basic tool kit and your photos. I'm so excited for this class! Get ready to have a fabulous time :)

Owen's Birthday

So I guess he didn't like our singing? Just sharing one for now. Be back later with a longer birthday post :)

Owen's Dedication

This past weekend we had Owen's baby dedication at New Life Victory Church. I was just thrilled that my entire family was able to make it, plus most of Ron's was able to be there too. Owen was so good, thankfully.

Course after it was all done he started to run a fever...he actually cut a tooth.

Ron and I with Owen, my parents and Ron's mom.

felt gift bags

Just thought that I'd post some pictures of the too cute gift bags that I made out of felt this week. Totally inspired (re:ripped off) http://www.elizabethkartchner.blogspot.com/ idea. Thanks!!! This blue and brown one was my first using Heidi Swapp felt butterflies.

The green one is going in a gift basket for a draw that my family is having this weekend at our family reunion. The flowers are bazzill bling and a couple of MM felt flowers with buttons. My sewing machine got all pmsy on me after this one so my mom needs to look at it before I can do more :)

been away...

gearing up for Maylong weekend, Owen's baby dedication and his birthday which is coming up next Friday! Eek! Haven't had much time for anything creative though I did come up with a cute felt gift bag inspired by Elizabeth from CK (SOY 07) also I got to teach an awesome group of ladies some scrapbooking layouts using the kits from the Memory Workshop. It was too much fun and I promise to post some pictures soon. Be back after the weekend :)

Latest creations...

So lately its been a bit hard to get into the creative mood when the sun is shining and the outside air is calling. To get me back into the mood I spent some time re-reading Cathy Zielske's book Clean & Simple: The Sequel. This is the result. Surprise! A layout about me long overdue. Sorry for the bad photo of my messy hair...it was meant to be a slice of my life layout. Papers are from Bazzill, WRMK and Daisy D's rubons

This photo may look a little familar :) I just had to print it out and scrapbook it. Papers are from Kaiser Craft and the font is Lyrical Letters from my Cricut. Journalling tags are from Maya Road and October Afternoon. If you'd like to see the layouts larger just click on them :)