Merry Christmas to everyone!

I just wanted to drop a line and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I am sitting here waiting for the firefighters in town to bring Santa around the homes. The kids are very excited and have gone from counting down the days to counting down the hours..."When is Santa coming?" and "be good or Santa won't come." are all you hear in our house. I am also gearing up for a full day of cooking and baking tomorrow. I shouldn't linger on line too long as there is still things to do, so I will again wish my 13 followers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Tags. tags and more tags

I have been very busy this week and haven't had a moment to rest, so that is why the tags have not been posted. Well here they are! I haven't had a chance to make more than what I am posting - I am hoping to make more on Tuesday as my Monday is booked solid. Ohhhh the Christmas holidays....when do the kids go back to school??

Tag 1 and Tag 2

Here are the first 2 tags, sorry I didn't post them yesterday. I had running around to do in the morning and then on my way to get Landen from school I did a complete 360 and ended up in the ditch. All is well though and it was an experience I don't want to repeat any time soon.

The first tag is my recreation of Tim Holtz's tag #1 and since I didn't have everything he used I improvised. This is what I came up with.

The second tag is one I created on my own.

This is a shot of both the front and the back.

Products used: Tim Holtz distress ink - Broken China and Faded Jeans; Various Stampin' up and Close to my Heart Stamps; black, white, iridescent embossing powders; grungeboard; snowman die cut; icicle stickles.

Tim Holtz 12 tags of Christmas have inspired me

I have been patiently waiting for Tim Holtz's 12 tags of Christmas and this year he did not disappoint me. The were all amazing, and I will be posting my versions of the tags starting tomorrow and running until they are done. Since there isn't 12 days left before Christmas I will be posting 2 at a time. I hope you enjoy them!

Happy Holidays!

Another day another project!!

Good afternoon to all. I have been closed up in my office being creative for the last few days and I have decided to share my projects with you. Today's project was to create a set of bookmarks for the twilight series for a girlfriend. So this morning I played with design studio and my cricut and wipped off a set - but I didn't take a picture so I will have to make another set just to take pictures of them. But over the weekend I was also bitten by the creativity bug and I would like to show you that project.

I recently picked up the new holiday cricut cartridge Snowfriends and I made all 10 snow people. They are so freakin' cute. So here is a group shot of all my little snowpeople. I love this cartridge and I can't wait to play with it on design studio - I want to make a chain of snowmen holding hands for my mantle for Christmas, (I will post a picture when it is done). Are these snowpeople not the cutest. I am going to use a few for on a gift of snowman soup (hot chocolate) for the kids' teachers and I am not quite sure what to do with the rest - maybe ornaments for the tree??

Tune in tomorrow for another project. Have a great night!

Altered tin

Good afternoon on this blustery day. I have been watching a lot of demos on the Tim Holtz website lately and I decided to try out his alcohol inks. Do I picked up a tin and decided to distress it. I used a couple different colors of inks and a lot of stuff to "shabby" it up. I used some Heidi Swapp stickers and star chipboard shapes, a grungeboard skull and painted it with white distress crackle paint. I also used some glitz design glitzers, and some flowers. Here is the finished results. Enjoy.

They are on the mend - Thank goodness!

It has been a rough week, Reiley is being treated for H1N1 and now so is Landen. I have to say it has been a very stressful ordeal but thank God for Tamiflu(correct spelling). This stuff is amazing, Reiley got her first dose on Monday night and by tuesday morning the fever had broke, she was still coughing but not nearly as bad as she was. Well then Landen got sick Tuesday night with a fever, I kept him home on Wednesday and the fever got worse and worse and he had a cough too. I took him in to the doctor yesterday and he has H1N1 as well. So off to the pharmacy again. Landen got his first dose of Tamiflu last night and this morning he is doing much better, the fever broke and still a bit of coughing but again not as bad as before. WE are all going to be getting the vaccine as soon as it becomes available. I think Reiley is going to be well enough to go back to school on Monday and we will see how well Landen is doing on sunday and then make the decision on if he is going back on Monday as well.
The concern about H1N1 has somewhat been blown way out of proportion but I can see when the concern is - this has the potential to become a very serious illness. I hope that everyone can see that and will act accordingly if they or a member of their family gets sick. If you get sick - stay home. If you have to go to the hospital - wear a mask and cough into your arm. Most of all, start taking Vitamin C, Cold FX or whatever you need to boost your immunity now. You do not wanna catch this bug.

I am glad my kids are on the mend, it is hard being the nurse, the maid, the cook, the cleaning lady and the wife. It is true what they say - Mothers have the toughest job in the world, thank heaven for Mothers.

If it isn't one thing it is something else.

Well, after halloween there should be a constant sugar high floating around my house - instead I have a son who is active and a sick daughter. The kids were great for trick or treating on Saturday and they didn't eat a lot of candy (which was nice), Sunday was nice and quiet, we had a birthday party in the afternoon and then Reiley developed a high fever on Sunday night. I gave her some Tylenol and off to bed she went. The next morning the fever was still high so I kept her home from school, by dinner time yesterday she was complaining that she had trouble breathing so my DH said I should take her to the hospital. After an hour of waiting in the triage line we were seen by a nurse. Finally after 3 hours of waiting the diagnosis was H1N1 - well sort of. The doctor didn't want to do a culture swab because when he had H1N1 he had the same symptoms. So they gave Reiley the dose of Tamaflu and off we went to the drug store to get the full prescription of the tamaflu. Today the fever has broke but she still has a cough, so we will be keeping her home for a week like the Dr. suggested. As soon as she is well and the vaccine is available again we will all be getting the shot - I was hesitant at first but I don't think the cons of the vaccine outweigh the pros.

And since I have a sick little one I will be staying home as well, no scrapbooking saturday and I will be limiting my time at my meeting tonight, going through parent teacher interviews quickly tomorrow. I will try and scrapbook the halloween pictures this week and get them posted asap.

Have a good week.

A couple of things today

First things first - I was blog surfing and I came across a great giveaway from Prima, so of course I had to enter. Everyone who knows me, knows I am a flower-a-holic. I have to put flowers on everything, so when I saw Prima's new products I knew I had to have them, and what better way then to try and win them. Here is a quick peek of what they look like.Are they not amazing?? I love the new colors and flowers. There are ideas now popping into my head on what I could do with these amazing products.

Second, I have been very creative this week, I recently picked up a Graphic 45 paper pack to work on the vintage album I am doing for my Grandparents, and I stumbled on a project where you redo a lamp shade with paper and buttons. So I gave it a whirl and I am loving the result. Here are a couple of shots of the finished shade. I used the Graphic 45 Domestic Godess paper, I painted the paper with a glossy sealer and then adorned it with buttons.

I haven't quite decided what I will do with the lamp base yet but I am thinking I will paint it, maybe with a crackle finish.

And the other project I made with the scraps from the lamp shade was a fip recipe book. I thought it would be a great idea to add recipes that my Grandma taught me and ones my Mom taught me and maybe some of my favourite recipes. I haven't decided if I am going to keep it or give it to my Mom as a Christmas present. I sure hope she didn't bookmark my Blog otherwise it won't be a surprise. Here is a couple of pictures of the book minus the recipes.

Now I just need to type out all the recipes and put them in the book - one Christmas present down.

Croppin' Weekend.

I am so excited, there is a weekend crop in my town and I am going. My bags are packed, I'm ready to go....leaving on a jet plane. OOPS sorry I got a little off track there. We start cropping tonight at 6pm and runs till whenever and then again tomorrow from 9 am till 4 pm. I have so much stuff I wanna get done, I packed both wheely bags, a carry bag and my cricut. My daughter Reiley is joining us this time with her own scrapbooking stuff. There is going to be generations of my family at this crop, my Mom, my sister, my daughter and myself. Kinda exciting that we have found something that we can all do together. So I am off, I have to head into town to get pictures developed and pick up donations for a silent auction. Have a great weekend everyone.

A Challenge - ok a contest!

Wow 2 posts in one day - I must be behind on my blogging or what. This is a challenge for my 13 followers, as some of you may know my Grandma passed away in July and before she passed away I was planning an album about my Grandparents and when they first met during the WWII and their wedding and just a album dedicated to them, it was meant to be a gift for their anniversary on the 29th of September. Sadly my grandma passed away before I could get the album finished, I also got a hold of a lot more pictures since her passing. Needless to say the book is a huge undertaking and I have only gotten some pages done.

Now for the challenge - I have a layout that is lacking something, I will post a picture of it and I want you guys to post ideas on what I can add to finish it off. Here is the layout.
I have used 7Gypsies paper, journaling tags and transparencies, and I have also used CTMH "make it count" stamps. I would like to stay with the same vintage theme and I would like you guys to tell me what I can add to finish this layout off. I will be picking up some blog candy as a prize to the winner. Thanks guys I am looking to you now - my the best idea win!

Finally I am working on my wedding pictures.

Well after 8 years of marriage and a year and a half of scrapbooking I have started to work on my wedding pictures. I used the Cosmo Cricket wedding line "Everafter" after I fell in love with it when I was working on an album dedicated to my Grandparents. I love the colors of this line and the vintage feel to the paper. Here is a few of the layouts I have done.

And yes for those of you that noticed - I was very pregnant when we got married, Reiley came 2 weeks later.

Cricut Giveaway

Help me celebrate Cricut's 100th cartridge—Winter Woodland! That’s right, they reached 100 cartridges. As a thank you they are giving away 100 cartridges over the next five weeks (20 per week), and I wanna win - so here is a link to the cartridge.

http://www.cricut.com/shopping/ProductDetails.aspx?id=361&s=1&sc=2

It looks like a super cute one - and I love cricut so I want it for my very own. Thanks for helping me win.

Here are those cards I have promised to post, there is quite a few so I will make them small.

I made these two for Halloween with my new Martha Stweart "Drippy Goo" Punch - I love it!

These ones were just various occation cards.

These ones I made for Thanksgiving - I picked up a fall themed paper pack from Michael's and a Thanksgiving theme stamp pack. I love the fall colors.

Sorry everyone, I have been so busy that my blog has fallen to the backburner. School has now started and Landen is in kindergarden half days and Reiley is in grade 3 all day. I am getting a lot done in the mornings before I pick up Landen but I haven't taken any pictures of the stuff I have done. That will be tomorrow's project. The long weekend was great, we got away to BC for the weekend. We started in Radium, went to the hot springs and then off to Revelstoke where we visited the Enchanted Forest. We went to "D" Dutchman Dairy in Sicamous and then back to the hotel in Revelstoke for a swim. We came home yesterday and yes it is nice to holiday but it is nice to be home and sleeping in my own bed. I did a few cards last week and tomorrow I will take pics of them and post them, still have too much to do today. So on that note, have a great day everyone and come back tomorrow to see some new cards.

Finally finished - I told a friend I would do the invitations for her wedding and after a mistake on the vellum, needing to re-print, they are finally done. She didn't want anything too fancy so I used hunter green cardstock, ivory cardstock, vellum and green ribbon. I embossed the ivory cardstock with the cuttlebug swirls embossing folder and then printed the wedding info on the vellum and joined it to the cardstock with a ribbon. Here is a picture (I took out all the info that is why there is white blocks in the picture)

Good morning everyone - and by everyone I mean my 9 followers. LOL I love the fact that I have people following my blog. I was playing with my cricut yesterday and the wild card cartridge - LOVE IT. But to make a great cartridge better I was playing with design studio as well. I think for those of us who have the baby bug or the create, design studio is a must have. I was playing around with cards yesterday and made two of the wedding cake (three tier cake) cards. One is for some friends who are getting married at the end of the month and the other is for my daughter's 8th birthday which is also at the end of the month. I think they both turned out great.

Materials Used: white and blue cardstock, Waterfall stickles, Frosted Lace Stickles, Prima flowers, Cloud 9 stickers, HOTP stamps, Heidi Swapp bling.

Wow, this is so nice

I recieved my first award, Julie from Julie's Crafty Spot was nice enough to give me my first Blog award.

I also recieved another from Brenda at Brenda's Joy.

After the week I had, my Grandma passing and the funeral - it was nice to see that there are some great gals out there who are supportive of someone they don't know.

THANKS A BUNCH LADIES!!

I have spent a bit checking and deciding who to pass these awards to - here are the five blogs that are helping me get my creative juices flowing. Thanks ladies.

1. http://somewhereovertherainbowunicornsdream.blogspot.com

2. http://amandamuirhead.blogspot.com

3. http://brendasjoy.blogspot.com

4. http://scrapyourlife.blogspot.com

5. http://staybeautiful.tigergirl.blogspot.com

You all deserve both awards. Enjoy them and keep pumping out beautiful things to look at.

In Loving memory

I am posting this LO in loving memory of my Grandmother, sadly she passed away on Sunday July 26th and it look me almost all week to finish. It isn't a busy LO, I didn't want to take away from the beautiful picture. I can't imagine my life without her in it, and this week as been very hard to deal with. I wanted to do this LO to have at the funeral reception and then to incorporate into the album I am doing based on my Grandparents. Here is the LO.

I miss you so much!

GRRR what a bad day

I need to vent. I was driving home yesterday from the doctor in hwy 817 coming from Strathmore when a rock from a gravel truck smashed my window. There was glass flying all over the inside of the cab, on the dashboard and all over the front seat. After collecting my thoughts and anger I swung around and chased the gravel truck north on hwy 817 (back towards Strathmore) and tried to get him to pull over. His trailer and pup were overloaded with gravel, he didn't have it tarped and he was spilling gravel all over the road - I finally got him stopped where he proceeded to yell and swear at me and another lady who's window was also hit by the same gravel stopped as well. Well the driver told me that in Wheatland county drivers were not required to tarp their loads. He took off down the gravel road to his shop yard. The other driver and myself called the RCMP and spoke to them and decided to confront the owner of the company. Of course he wasn't there - but would be back after 2 pm. I drove home in a fit of rage, phone my DH who also became anger at what I had told him. I then got on the phone to the county, to my MLA, questioned DOT about legislation, spoke to the RCMP again. And when DH came home we headed back to the business along with the other driver and spoke to the owner - he did write us both a cheque to replace the window. I am making it now my mission to get the legislation changed in the province so that all truck drivers must tarp their loads before heading down the hwy. It is currently a mandate on the traffic safety code and on traffic safety in Alberta and also a nation code of standard but it isn't enforced. I am waiting on a call from my MLA and will also be contacting my county rep. Someone could have been seriously hurt by the negligence of this driver - I don't wanna see that happen.

Here is a few pics of my windows.

Hello and happy Tuesday everyone. Sorry I haven't posted in a while - we took a mini vacation. My DH and I and our kids went to a family reunion on my husband's side. It was nice to meet a side of the family we never had - it was beautiful weather, we only got rain on saturday night. My only gripe was that the mosquitoes were on the war path - we were eaten alive all weekend. We stayed at my sister in law's condo in Radium on sunday night, went to the hot springs, vegged out in the hot tub at the condo and then on Monday we went into Invermere and checked out a LSS called Scrappy Do's. It was a great little store and I will post what I bought a bit later today - it isn't much just some paper, it is MME paper and I love MME and the line is called Breaking Free - I have never sceen it before. Had to have it.

Good afternoon everyone - It has been pouring rain here today, the power has blinked on and off several times and it has been too awful out to do anything but scrapbook, so I have been a bit creative today.

I used Versamark and stamped then heat embossed in clear all the butterflies on plain white cardstock, I used the peeled paint and broken china distress ink all over the page. I used Heidi Swapp cherish and moment stamps and Heidi Swapp letters. I am very happy with the way the LO turned out.

I was cruising around the cricut.com message board and I have discovered that The Cuttlebug Spot is having a contest - "The Journey to 1,000"! They are trying to reach 1,000 followers by the end of July and need your help. To enter all you have to do is go to their site, sign up as follower and complete a few easy steps and you could win a $1,000 gift certificate to Custom Crops (www.CustomCrops.com)! GO NOW and check it out at www.TheCuttlebugSpot.com , I wonder what I would buy for a $1000.00 ........wow there is a lot I could buy.

I just finished the LO with the rodeo tickets. I enjoyed making this page, it isn't filled with embellishments - let's face it neither is a rodeo. I wanted to try a technique that I saw on Tim Holtz's web page. I crumpled a piece of ivory card stock and then used the aged mahogany distress ink all over it, I then lightly sprayed with water and then took an old iron and iron the page. Because I inked after I crumpled when I ironed the paper it kept the look of the wrinkles. I then used tea dye all over to the ivory card stock. On the journaling spot I did the same but I used Jumbo Java versamagic chalk ink first on the wrinkled card stock then ironed again, after which I used the tea dye again for the antiqued look. Here it is:

Product used: CTMH paper and stickers (sasparilla) Distress ink - Tea Dye & Aged Mahogany, Versa magic Chalk Ink - Jumbo Java, Stampin'up stamp, Making memories square copper brads.

Good morning everyone, it has been a quiet few days around here - I have tonsilitis (sp??) so I haven't been talking much. Haven't done any scrapbooking lately, just haven't been feeling up to it but today I will be doing something about that. Hubby and I went to the rodeo at the Stampede grounds on tuesday and I didn't bring my camera - too much to haul around and too many people, I didn't want to get robbed. But I think I might scrapbook the ticket stubbs - we shall see how that turns out. Reiley is off to a friends house this morning so Landen and I are on our own today - but he said cause Mommy is sick he is going to be a good boy. I am off to get kids fedf and dropped off and back home to scrapbook, I will post later as to what I have done. Have a great day!

Well folks, I have sad news - I have had to take a leave of absence from working. It makes me sad that I won't see Jodie and Joyce everyday and I am sitting at home trying to think of things to do - other than clean, but right now my family needs me at home and here is where I will be for awhile. Hopefully in September I can return to work.

On to a happier note - summer is here and I get to spend it with my kids, so that is nice. I also have some more time to be creative and scrapbook so there should be some good things coming out of the scrapbook room in the days to come. Stampede has hit the big city and I have yet to decide if I want to draw inspiration from this - we usually stay away from the greatest outdoor show on earth due the the crowds and the expense it causes but today Hank (my dear husband) called and said he won rodeo tickets from work for Tuesday. YEEHAW!! So I think due to this new development I will post the LO's I did for the kids last year. Both my children entered the muttin' bustin at the Strathmore Heritage Days rodeo - Reiley placed 2nd and Landen...well Landen got a wild sheep (so he says) and sadly he got bucked off (or fell off). Either way I am very proud of both of them and we will see if Landen will be competing again this year.

Here are Reiley's LO's:

Here are Landen's LO's

I used Close to my heart stickers and paper, Stampin' up stamps , I cut out the little cowboy and cowgirl with the Paperdoll dress up cartridge and I used some Debbie Mumm paper, and parts of a Moxie kit.