a bunch of randomness

So its been a while due to a whole lotta stuff and blogging always take a back seat. Sorry! This weekend I was pretty bummed about not being able to join a scrapbooking group to attend a great 3 day retreat that was close to my place. Totally sucked! But I've already made arrangements with my dh to watch the kids so that I could join my sister and my aunties/cousins for a the annual Girls' Shopping weekend. And really I felt guilty about asking him for a second weekend. Sometimes a girl's gotta choose! But I was lucky to be able to participate in an online crop at Scrap Shotz so I still got my scrap on!

 These are some of the cards and layouts that I made for various challenges. Sometimes its great to step outside your comfort zone and play a bit.

 This tractor layout was very outside of my zone. I'm not a big angler or someone who uses green a lot. Weird though, my biggest paper stash is green (both pattern paper and cardstock) so it must appeal to me somewhere deep down lol!

 These layouts were done with the Scrapshotz November kit featuring SEI moonrise papers and embellishments.

 Except this card, it was done with last year's Bo-Bunny pattern paper scraps.

 I also used a sketch from the new Becky Fleck's pagemaps 2 idea book. Its a great resource and worth the purchase price.

 Saturday morning also included some bribing. I got some quick photos of my kids and 2, count them 2 family photos taken. Not 2 good ones, 2 in total. Thank goodness one turned out great!

 My Owen has become a little monkey lately, demanding and *so* active! He always wants to see what's on the camera  but never wants to stay still. I'm happy to get what I get with his photos!

 My Abby, the poser. She was the most willing, except for her clothes. She was ticked at having to wear a shirt under her dress because it was cold. Bribery is fabulous.

 Ethan, who hates getting is photo taken almost as much as his dad. He's always colder than anyone else, more tired than anyone else and more done than anyone else. You should see him when he's sick (rolling eyes here!)

 the only photo I got! Thank goodness!

 My card challenge for the crop.

This layout was done for a layout race that I participated in. I just grabbed some of my Echo Park scraps and threw it together.

The new family addition. I got the go ahead from Ron to get myself a new camera, well new to me. I bought this bad boy off of ebay (barely used) for $500 less than the retail price. I'm thrilled to say its great and I'm looking forward to learning all the ins and outs of it. Ron's thrilled because he gets my other dslr.

like I need another hobby!

So since mid September I've been visiting my Grandma on Monday nights and learning how to sew a quilt. I've wanted to learn for awhile and though I have basic sewing skills I've never attempted anything more than hemming pants or making hand puppets out of felt for the kids. I mean I took the home ec classes at school and my mom is an excellent seamstress but really sewing didn't tell me much. But I really wanted to spend time with my Grandma and learn her craft.

I'm shocked at how well things are turning out! This is the quilt so far. I'll be adding a couple more strips of denim and cotton along the top and bottom just to lengthen it but basically its almost done.

 Learning from my Grandma is really cool because she's so pro at doing these quilts that she doesn't press seams or pin anything! I, on the other hand, really need to pin because the fabric slips a lot for me.

 Totally laughing at this photo! I had just finished my last panel for the night when I ran out of thread on the top spool! Honest I didn't mess up!

My zig zagging stitch, which I think is the most fun for me. Don't ask me why ;) So now I've got this quilting bug that I want to go buy cool fabrics and create with them! Cause you all know I have so much free time lol!

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.

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!.