December at the Sisterhood!

Well I know that I've been lax in keeping you updated on things at the Sisterhood lately. Actually I didn't even tell you about the mini-crop we had!  It was a GREAT theme - "T'was the Month Before Christmas". There were games, challenges and lots of fun banter and chit chat.

However it's a new month. December has arrived with all its inherent Christmas themes. At the Sisterhood, we're only posting sketches this month for challenges. We'll also be "shutting down" the main chit chatting of the board around December 15 because everyone will likely be too busy to keep up much. Never fear however, we'll be around, just not posting our "regular" schedules. The DT needs a little time off too!

Here's my sketch challenge for December. From the lovely Kristine Davidson of Creative Scrappers, I chose  sketch #200.

Here is my take on the sketch.

What do you think? Let me know!!

Have a scrap-happy day!

I'm still alive! A Christmas project.

Hello all!

I just saw the date on my last blog post and am ashamed of myself for leaving it lay silent for so long! I know that some of you actually follow my bits and blobs of blogging and therefore I apologize for being so laissez-faire in blogging.

Actually I had decided to take the month of October off because I was BOUND AND DETERMINED to do all my Christmas projects so I could play and have fun through November and December. Alas... being who I am, I did not finish

That's not the only thing I did in October however. We had a new addition to the family! Yes! A baby bulldog of my very own. OK, he wasn't my own. He belongs to my cousin and I "babysat" him for a month while my cousin got settled in New Zealand. It was a busy month with two two-year-old dogs in the house!

I also had a visit from two of my most favourite people in the world! My grandkids came to visit us for a week at Thanksgiving when it was discovered I couldn't go there because MY PASSPORT HAD EXPIRED. Expired like two weeks prior to the trip! Argh...  Oh well, I got a great time with the grandkids out of it! So busy and so much fun. I was exhausted at the end of the month!

Murphy, shown here with his buddy Benny - right after Benny tried to chew his head off - hence the more "rugged" appearance of his fur - had a second knee surgery in November. He is on strict cage rest right now and not liking it one bit. I spend a lot of my day carrying him up and down the outside stairs for him to relieve himself and just get a breath of fresh air. He's on leash for at least two more months so this means I also get to enjoy the fresh air in the backyard.  Hmm..

Well anyway, enough about me! I am nearing the end of my "list" so thought I'd share a couple of things I did this past weekend with you.

First are these adorablesnowmen!Aren't they fun? My friend Marilyn came and helped me. Who would have believed that they were such fiddly little things! In case you don't recognize them, they are battery operated tea lights that when lit, all have glowing noses. I'm not sure if I'm going to give these little babies away or just put them on my tree or leave them for my grandkids to play with. At any rate, that's what I've done this weekend.

Know what? I'm going to save the other for another day. Today is finishing with the tree. Hubby and I started yesterday but got as far as the lights. We wanted to see them at night to make sure we had enough and it seems we do. Today we're decorating. He's being such a peach this year with decorating and all that encompasses that I hardy miss my kids help...  Well, that's not true at all... I miss them being around and those days when I just sat back and watched them go. Maybe next year we'll do the tree when the grandkids arrive. That should be fun.

So what's up with you?  I promise to write soon! 

Strike a Pose!

Another layout for the grad scrapboook. We had such a GREAT time that day taking photos and just laughing. I asked the girls to "strike a pose" but the wind was really interfering! Ahh.. gotta love the prairies for messing up your stylish poses!

I did this one as part of the LO tag at Scrapshotz this month. Jamie's layout was a bit tricky for me to follow with the photos I had but I think that I did OK... you can check out the reveal in the forum here. (I hope they're done before this layout gets posted! LOL)

Have a scrap happy day!

Happy Together

This was done to comply with one of the Sisterhood of Scrap's challenges this month. I started it at my monthly crop on the 8th, but didn't finish it until the 21!  It says what it needs to say and will make a welcome addition to the grad scrapbook.

If however YOU can see something I can do to make it better, drop me a line! I'm not entirely happy with it and would welcomeyour feedback...

Have a scrap happy day!

Too Hard?

This summer, one of Gabby's expressions was "too hawd"... things were always too hard for it seemed. She had so much of the "almost 3 years old" and wanting to do what she saw other kids doing, but still much of the "2 year old" that needs help.

Watching the neighbour boys and seeing how fun it was to use the slide to come down from their tree house, yet being afraid to go up on her own, it was just "too hard". One morning her mommy encouraged her to try... she took a lot of encouragement but found that it was not too hard after all!

So pleased with herself. :-)

Using the Friday font from Sept 21 and the Saying Saturday challenge from Sept 8, this layout came together quickly.

I hope you enjoy it! Have a scrap happy day!

This layout was done for the challenge Say What? September 1 at Sisterhood of Scrap. The quote to use is:

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

As you can see I'm using up old kits. This is all from the  Kaisercraft After Three kit I received from Scrapshotz several years ago. They have the BEST kit club! I'd still be getting them if my hoard.. uh I mean my stash.. yeah, my stash wasn't so big.

Hope you're all having a wonderful day!

A card!

Yes! I did it.. I actually made a card. I know, shocking isn't it? Stephanie challenged us over at Sisterhood of Scrap to use our coloured pencils this month. I decided to colour in this image and make a card since she also challenged us to use some plaid on our project!

I just hope that my son is ignoring my blog because he's getting this in the mail next week!

Hope you're all having a great day!

Backyard Bubbles

OK I'm going to step away from the September/Graduation layouts for a minute and share with you an adorable (if I do say so myself!) layout of my granddaughter blowing bubbles. It worked perfectly for Gail's August challenge at ScrapShotz.

Let me know what you think!  Have a scrap-happy day!

Hats off!

As you may have noted, our daughter graduated from college this past April. A couple of weeks ago, in preparation for the next leg of her life-journey, she decided to start scrapping all her memories from her Italian semester. I decided to scrap alongside her and do up her graduation scrapbook. The next several layouts are of graduation 2012!

We had a fabulously fun photo session of R and her two best friends after all the ceremonies were over. I hope you enjoy the results!

September at Sisterhood of Scrap meant a new month of challenges. Our Olympic adventure had come to an end and a new season began. Each of the DT were asked to provide a challenge to the membership - the theme appropriately enough is "Back to School"

My challenge:
The summer has passed us and left us all with unique memories and opportunities to scrap. You know the stereotypical writing assignment we all received in school answering the statement "What I did this summer", well we're doing that with a TWIST. I know that in our family we had some pretty big goings on so my challenge to you is to scrap a summer memory but make it BIG!


Big event, big photo, big embellishment, big journaling, big ??? whatever BIG means to you! I also challenge you to use ONLY cardstock! If you are up for a further challenge, let's see you work with ONLY cardstock. If you do, I'll put your name into a draw for a RAK from moi at the end of the month.

Enter as many times as you'd like for a chance to win a gift certificate from The Paper Passion.


That's right, folks! If you want to come over and play with us this month, we have a sponsor for our monthly prize! Of course there are the usual RAK and other "regular" contests, but do come and play with us for YOUR chance to win!

Have a scrap happy day!

Curveball! Another triathlon layout...

I was smug in the knowledge that by using Ali's sketch for the final Olympic challenge, I'd get two things done at the same time. Imagine my chagrin when Ali posted that she was putting off the final blog post of August for the next day - September 1!!

What was I going to do now? I'd almost finished. I *had* finished but couldn't post it yet! Nothing for it, but to do another triathlon challenge - and this time not think about it so much!

I'm really pleased at how this layout of my daughter and her two best friends turned out. You'll start seeing more graduation layouts of these three beautiful young women because I am working on the graduation scrapbook. I hope to have it done before she leaves for the next leg of her life-journey (which will probably be before this blog post is published!)

There's that Twig paper again. I also used a new embossing folder from Darice. Let me know what you think!

Opening Challenge for last!

Well our Olympic Crop was nearing the end, it was almost the 31st of August and I had one more challenge to do. I saved the Opening Challenge for the last!

I was actually working away at the scrapbook on the 1st of September when Gail from ScrapShotz posted this challenge a little early.... It was funny to me because as she was posting the challenge, I was working on this layout that worked perfectly.


I'm really happy with the way this layout turned out. It was the beginning of the end for my ScrapShotz Twig kit, in the next few blog posts, you'll be seeing a lot of it!

Have a scrap-happy day!

Olympic Triathlon challenge (that turned into almost a real Olympic event!)

One of the last Olympic challenges I tackled was the Triathlon. It was hard because of the way it was worded. I wanted to do it right but it took almost all month to figure out just how I would go about getting photos to meet the challenge posted.  I had (what I thought was) a brilliant idea about how technology has changed in my lifetime. I remember wooden phones on the walls and black plastic rotary dial phones and party lines! This past Spring we had to purchase a new car (long story) and shortly thereafter purchased a new cell phone. I finally came into this decade but....

MY CELL PHONE TALKS TO MY CAR!! 

MY CAR TALKS BACK!!

Yes, this shocking state of affairs of the future, made me want to document this phenomenon.. So using the final sketch I had from Ali at Sketches: Creatively Yours, I completed this layout to match the trampoline layout I posted yesterday:

Here's the sketch:

I thought they made a great two-pager...

However... things didn't turn out as I'd planned...  Tune in tomorrow to find out what happened with this layout!



Olympic Trampoline

For some strange reason, this sketch for the Olympic trampoline challenge never really "struck" me. I think it's the fact that they want such small photos and such small journaling. As you know, my faithful blog readers, I am never short of words and do love my pictures!!

It took me a long time to get it done and as you can see, we're nearing the end of our Olympic challenges. What do you think of what I came up with? This photo shows my mother in law holding my eldest son in her arms looking out the window. To the right of her in the photo, you can see the old wooden phone that hung by the door for as long as they lived in that house. The phone was a working model and calls were made and received regularly, despite having a "new fangled black rotary phone" in the house!

This layout also fulfilled Jamie's challenge at ScrapShotz in August. It's always nice when challenges can be combined!

I hope you enjoyed today's post! Have a scrap-happy day and feel free to let me know what you think!

Olympic Wrestling

I knew I had until August 31 at midnight to finish all the challenges for Sisterhood of Scrap's London Olympic crop so kept working right till the last minute!

This photo of my sweet little Hugo was scrapped for the wrestling challenge at the site. Isn't he just a doll? I am using more bright colors this summer again because he's kind of a "bright color" kid! The Bo Bunny Ad Lib papers aren't easy to work with but they sure make an impact!

Let me know what you think! Have a scrap-happy day!

Has it really been this long??

I knew that I'd been procrastinating about putting up blog posts but when I look at the last date here, I can hardly believe that two weeks have gone by with no posts! I've been busy scrapping, but not posting... this room gets hot during the day and with our weather lately, it's been almost unbearable to be here very long. Today "fall" arrived with its cooler temps. I also woke up at the crack of middle-of-the-night so will grab a coffee and post a few before the day really begins.



Completed for the Sisterhood of Scrap Closing Ceremonies Challenge



Completed for Sisterhood of Scrap Volleyball Challenge

I was tasked by Tina at Tina's Scrapbooking to use some Vegas paper. Since I have no Vegas photos of my own, I "borrowed" some from a friend. It's interesting trying to scrap someone else's memories, that's for sure!

I hope you enjoyed these layouts. There will be more to come but in the meantime, have a scrap-happy day.

Sand through my fingers..

Just continuing doing challenges from the Olympic crop over at Sisterhood of Scrap, I decided to keep combining the challenges with those at Scrapshotz this month.

When I'd read the challenges at SSZ, I was struck by Rosie's example for her challenge. I wanted to copy it badly! I think it was the simple design and the strong lines around the triangles that really piqued my interest. So, I did what I said I'd do and I copied it!!

Using the Mountain Bike challenge from the Olympic crop, this is what I came up with.

I suppose this is another layout that would have worked with Jess's challenge (in Friday's post) given the fleeting nature of sand through our fingers, the triangles filtering up or down (depending on your personality type I guess ) and the fleeting nature of summer and childhood both.

Let me know what you think!!

Have a scrap happy day!

Summer...

I am not only working on finishing up the LONDON 2012 challenges, but wanted to do some of the great ones from ScrapShotz this month. Jess over at SSZ posted a fabulous challenge earlier this summer that has been at the back of my mind ever since I read it. She wanted us to use this as inspiration:

I just LOVED the quote and well.. just everything about it. When I saw these photos on my desk, I knew what I wanted to do...

I used Jess's challenge, along with the Aug 5 sketch from Sisterhood of Scrap and the LONDON 2012 Weightlifting challenge!

What do you think??  I think she looks so free and summery and well.. just perfect for this challenge! This is probably one of my favourite layouts done this summer. I hope you like it too!

Have a scrap-happy day!

Companion Page

I decided that it was only fitting to do the companion page to the layout I showed you yesterday. For this challenge, I used the August 7th - Synchronized Swimming challenge from the crop. The challenge was to  do either a duet team or a team of eight. So you must use 2 of something or 8 of something in a row or all in the same spot/shape. You must also use music notes on your layout and something blue.

I managed to use 8 photos, blue journaling and the little teapot and bling, and put some music notes on the little "song" I found online.

The song reads:

LITTLE WIGGLE WORM SONG

(Sung to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot"

I'm a little wiggle worm,

watch me go!

I can wiggle fast,

or very very slow.

I wiggle all around,

then back I go.

Down into the ground,

to the home I know.

  The journaling around the edge (and leading from the last page) (I put it on after I finished this page):

July 2012: One day, Papa found a large night crawler in the front garden. He always likes to show his finds to Gabby and Hugo. He quickly called them and what followed after was a very pleasant time on the front steps - touching and exploring! Gabby and Mommy showed Hugo many fun things about the poor little worm including how to hold him, how long he was and whoops! How easily he came apart! Gabby lost no time in trying this phenomenon for herself. It wasn't long before there were many little "worms". She's daddy's girl for sure!

 

I'm interested to hear what you think of this layout and story!

 

have a scrap-happy day!

THE MEDALS!

It was my turn to do another challenge for the crop at Sisterhood of Scrap. If you've watched very much of my scrapping over the years you know I love metal in its many shapes and forms! It was only appropriate therefore for me to do the MEDAL challenge!

This is my GOLD MEDAL example (using 7 different "styles" of metal (brad, photo corner, butterfly, stick pin, framed thingy, bookplate, buckle) and six different colours - pewter, bronze, copper, blue, green, silver).

Leave me a note and let me know what you think? I love this photo of her holding that big nightcrawler!

Have a scrap-happy day!

Games are over but the Layouts live on!

Well the LONDON games are over both in England and at Sisterhood of Scrap. Unlike the Olympic athletes however, we have until the end of the month to load our challenges.

This summer a family member gifted us all his precious Thomas wooden train set. The kids both LOVED them - Thomas is one of the only "cartoons" that Gabby is allowed to watch. She just loved being able to sing the song and use the magnets to put the trains in a long stretch.

Hugo just wanted to see how the wheels work.

I had this layout done on a red background but at the last minute, took it apart and put it on the black. Much more pleasing to my eye! I slapped the "f" in friends down but am not sure red is the best choice there. Oh well.. it makes for a memory and I know the kids love Thomas no matter how wonky Nana makes their layout!

This was done for Stephanie's August 6  rowing challenge at Sisterhood of Scrap. You can see all the details of the challenge here.

I hope you have a scrap-happy day!

RAK WINNER!!

STEPHANIE is the winner of my latest RAK opportunity here at the blog. Congratulations, Stephanie!

~~~~~~~~~~

Sorry I haven't been around this week. Lots going on around here. Hopefully I can start posting again tomorrow. Thanks for your patience. :)

Have a scrap-happy day!

S: CY sketch 24-12 and OLYMPICS!

OK so I had a perfectly great sketch from S:CY this week. Have I told you much about them? Do you kow that there is a WEEKLY sketch both layouts and cards that are offered FREE OF CHARGE?? Ali and Ann really do a wonderful job of creating sketches that work for any style and any scrapper. I hope you check them out.. they're friendly and fabulous! 

So I took that fabulous sketch and was able to combine with an Archery challenge from the Olympic Crop... What do you think??

Isn't it fun?? This is my daughter's  birthday "party" complete with Tiramasu (she spent a semester in Italy recently) and of course Gabby couldn't be left out of the candle blowing!

Can you guess from the candle placement how old she turned? I'll give you till Monday to figure it out and email me to have your name put in for a RAK from moi!  If you bring a new follower to my blog, I'll put in their name AND your name when they guess. Sound like fun?

 I have been desperately trying to use this busy paper for over a year now but I think I finally found where it works!  It's the super fun BoBunny AdLib line and at first glance just looks FUN but then you realize how busy all the patterns are and you just ....  Love, love, love this page. I hope you do too!

That's it for now! Have a scrap-happy day and I hope to hear from you soon!

London is so much fun!

Well with all my challenges out of the way, I figured it was time to try someone else's challenge. On July 28, Helen posted an archery challenge. You can check it out here.  I like how this layout of Easter photos turned out. I also LOVED using my feathers! I've been saving them up but didn't know how to use them. Thank you Helen!!

It was a lot of fun using so many old things from my stash! When I to list them under "supplies", there are many unknowns! Feels good. :-)

With this layout, I also managed to squeeze in under the wire as far as the July Sketch Sundays go. Now that's an accomplishment!

Have a scrap happy day and thanks for checking in!

Again in LONDON 2012

In case you haven't been following, Sisterhood of Scrap's LONDON 2012 Olympic Crop is going on from July 27 to August 3. Challenges, inspiration, games and prizes are all up for grabs!

July 31 was my final challenge for this crop. I drew Rhythmic Gymnastics as my sport for the day. You can check out the particulars of the challenge here but remembering that it's one of only two strictly female sports at the Olympics should give you a good hint as to the nature of the challenge. :-)

Here's my example for the crop:

Gabby loves to get her nails done. In between getting messy with art, getting dirty in the sandbox, playing rough with the dog, she still loves her girl time with momma...  This is the day she changed her orange nail polish for the hot pink she'd picked out all by herself....  She has such fun with it - a well-rounded little girl to be sure!

Thanks for checking in today. Let me know what you think!

Have a scrap-happy day!

Still in LONDON 2012

Our LONDON 2012 crop over at Sisterhood of Scrap is going to be running from July 27-August 12 with a challenge a day so feel free to jump right in! Lots of games, prizes and inspiration!

Yesterday I posted a challenge celebrating the Equestrian events at the Olympics. I grew up with horses and the smell of horses today is still one of my favourite smells! I love the majesty and power of the great beasts. You can check out the particulars of my challenge here  (again I'm offering RAK candy to anyone who participates according to the rules... just sayin')

Here's my example from the challenge - not the most majestic of beasts but warm and furry all the same. :-)

No, he's not "best in show" but he is entertaining!  Once you've met him, you rarely forget him.

Have a scrap-happy day!

LONDON 2012

Over at Sisterhood of Scrap, we're celebrating the London 2012 Olympics! Come on over and play!

I was asked to provide a challenge for July 29 and I chose the discipline of swimming. Here's my challenge and my layout.

Hugely popular around the world as a leisure activity and a competitive sport, Swimming has featured at every modern Olympic Games. Speed, strength and stamina will be key for athletes in the competition which features no fewer than 34 medal events.
You can read more about swimming as an Olympic sport here.
Your challenge for this Olympic event is simple. You need to make a layout (or three cards) featuring these four things:

1. water
2. people
3. the colour blue
4. bling
As a special bonus, if you use one of July's Sunday sketches, BEFORE JULY 31, I will put your name in a draw for a special RAK from moi. This offer ends July 31! Here is my example, based on the July 1 sketch:

 
 
I offer the same deal to you, my faithful blog readers! Come on over to the Sisterhood and see what's going on, just do my challenge using one of the July sketches and I'll do a separate RAK if you mention you came from my blog!
 
Have a scrap-happy day!

Sketch 23-12 and Kiddies are gone..

Well from the sounds of things, everyone arrived home safe and sound last night. It was bittersweet saying goodbye to my little compadres yesterday morning but all good things must come to an end I guess. One of the nicest things that happened yesterday morning was that when I said, "Who loves ya, Baby?" Gabby replied (with enthusiasm), "Nana!"...  yeah, we'll miss them!

Over at Sketches: Creatively Yours today, we're featuring sketch #23-12. Ali writes:


Well, hello there!! ;) So happy to see you again!


Here we are, already time for a new fun, free weekly Sketch!


This 12x12" layout sketch was created with some of my summer 2011 pictures in mind. It features a horizontal embellishment, "bracketed" journaling and a set of 3 photos in varying sizes.The sketch shows the photos matted, but you can do your LO with or without mats. Remember, scrapbook sketches are just a "jumping off" point! Use them to create something you love that reflects YOU and YOUR tastes.

I thought I'd include her write up because I've had some friends who look at my blog wonder how I interpret the sketch the way I do. Well, it's just that I use the sketch as a jumping off point and make it work for me. It's not something I follow directly, but take elements of it to inspire my own creativity. I hope that explains it somewhat!

Anyway, here's sketch #23-12:

and here's what I did with it!

Gabby has been banans for bandaids this past summer, so I wanted a layout that depicted her passion for the plaster.
 
I hope you'll take a peek at what the rest of the team did with  here! for such a simple sketch, it has a lot of interpretations this week!
 
Enjoy and have a scrap-happy day!

London Olympics!

Logged into Sisterhood of Scrap today and saw this! Carla (site owner) had this to say:

Cheerio! We're coming to you from "across the pond" -- Olympic Park in London -- where we're taking in the Games of the XXX Olympiad. Get geared up for a 2-week marathon of scrapping! Our opening ceremonies begin on July 27th, with the closing on August 12th. During the days of the Olympics, join us for exciting challenges, games, inspiration and FUN! We don't have gold medals to give out, but you can be sure there'll be PRIZES!



Let the games begin!


I hope you'll come over and check us out!

Someone who understands

We all want that person in our life who understands, even when they don't really say anything. Just their warm (and in this case, furry) presence is all that's needed to make a day special.

Murphy is such a good pup. He puts up with alot of  "abuse" from the toddlers, but loves every minute of it. He's never gotten grouchy or temperamental with them. He rarely barks and loves to give kisses (he and Hugo are the same height!)....  He's the perfect little pal for Gabby. She takes him places and snuggles with him and loves him to bits. Caught this "moment" on a Very Good Day.

This layout was completed for a challenge at Sisterhood of Scrap's Summer School. It was a daily layout challenge in which we were given some "homework" every day and added it to our layout, not knowing what the final page would look like.

You can find the directions here.  You'll also see the other gals layouts here.

Now I know there are some lurkers here (Colleen) who don't comment but come and look. I'd love to see you over at the Sisterhood giving some of these challenges a try! If you only want to lurk there too, that's fine, I hope you'll show me at least what you've done.

I've joined a challenge at ScrapShotz and have challenged myself to post on my blog 27 times over the summer. I think that this is #10...  I'm super pleased! Wish me luck and don't forget to encourage me by leaving a comment. I LOVE hearing from you!!

Have a scrap happy day!

Heat Wave!

Yes indeedy, we're officially having a heat wave. It's been super hot the last little while and keeping the kids busy but cool has been a challenge. Thankfully we have wonderful friends who take care of us. Johanne (or JoJo as the kids call her) invited us to her pool. The kids found it cold (who can believe they were complaining about being cold when it was so blistering hot?!?).. but everyone almost warmed up to it eventually.

Here's a fun little memory of the day. I did it for a challenge at Sisterhood of Scrap Summer School. Stephanie challenged us to "doodle" on our layouts. I usually do some sort of doodling - outlining letters or whatnot - so this wasn't too hard. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think!

Oh... Hugo made a great friend of JoJo.. one day I'll show you the photos of how they "hung out" together! Priceless!

Stay cool and have a scrap happy day!

LO TAG!

Of course summer school wouldn't be complete without a good old-fashioned game of tag, would it? I started a thread at Sisterhood of Scrap's Summer School and found a few fun friends to play with!  I started both teams off with this layout of Gabby watering the peonies in Papa's garden.. she also watered Papa but that just goes without saying. :-)

I used a sketch #212 from Creative Scrappers for this layout. Isn't it awesome? I loved it and hope you do too!

Have a scrap happy day!