Use it Challenge #12!

On Friday, Joanne posted a card that she made for a challenge blog called Use It! I have been watching this blog too and just never found the time to participate. I loved the card that she made and it motivated me to take the challenge too.

I went to the blog and they had a new challenge up. So here it is.....

1) Use some old chipboard
Go ahead and feel free to mix & match manufacturers.

2) Use buttons
-one of my very favorite embellishments.

3) Tear some paper.
Patterned paper or cardstock.

4) Optional: Stitch.
Machine or hand stitch, it's up to you.

5) Have fun!!
This is essential.

I used Maya Road chipboard trees, a button in the center of the flower in the top right corner (one of my favourite embellishments too), I ripped the top edge of the pattern paper, and did some faux stitching as a border on the card. I used Tattered Angel's Glimmer Mist on the trunk of the tree. This is one of my new favourite products. All you need is a few sprays and it transforms raw chipboard like magic. The rub on is from Melissa Frances.

I especially enjoyed making the card....so that is challenge #5 too. I can't wait for next week to see what the next challenge is. Why don't you play along?

Recent Creations

When I was away last weekend I did a little scrapbooking with my friends. It was so nice to sit down and work away on my own pages. This is what I did.....

Days of Summer: I used product from the new Summer Soiree line from Fancy Pants. I saw a similar layout done on the Fancy Pants blog. I wanted to try using one of the transparencies and they had filled in the sun with buttons. I mixed in a few dew drops and was very pleased with the results.



Sweet: This is my favourite layout from my weekend away. The papers are from the new Breaking Free line from My Minds Eye. I added chipboard stars and sprayed them with Glimmer Mist, buttons, dew drops, ribbon and some rub-ons from Prima.



Future Heartbreaker: This was a total scraplift from the Pink Paislee blog. I loved this layout just the way it was, so I didn't change a thing. All the products are from Pink Paislee and I especially love the chipboard letters. I had to overlap them in order to fit the word 'heartbreaker' accross the top of my page and I really like the effect. I added black Stickles to highlight the black on the large flowers.



I Delight In You: This was the layout that I created from Karan's sketch that she posted in our forum and we highlighted on our store blog. I love sketches and I love this layout. Papers are a combination of Prima and Basic Grey. More chipboard letters from Pink Pailsee, stickers from Rose Moka, bling and diecut flourishes.



Make A Wish: This is a birthday card I created for Carly....she is my daughters best friend. She turns 17 tomorrow and I wanted to make her a special card. I added a little Stickles to make it sparkle. Happy Birthday Carly!



Spending time with my 2 dear friends was the real reason for our weekend getaway. We all share the same passion for scrapbooking and that allowed us to spend some time on our favourite hobby too. I feel so lucky to have such great friends and a hobby to share. I can't wait until the next time we get together.

Spring Has Sprung!

I love spring! It is the season that everything is new again. The snow melts and we look forward to warmer days.

Every year we have birds nesting around our house. The last couple of years we have been the hosts to a few families of chickadees and this year we are hosting 2 families of robins.

I love having the birds around. We have many feeders in various places. Our kitten runs from window to window to observe their every move.

We have 2 large mulberry trees on opposite sides of our front yard. There are nests in both of them. We have noticed that the mother is leaving the next quite frequently so we figured that the eggs must have hatched. I know from other years, that the babies do not stay in the nest for very long, so I had to get out there and see if I could get a photo or two.

Our mulberries are about 9 years old, so they are very thick with branches. It was very hard to get my camera close enough to take a good photo. There are 3 babies in this nest and 3 in the other one.

As you can imagine, the mom & dad were not happy about me standing on a ladder with my camera shoved into the tree! They were sitting on the rooftop next to our house. I was a little nervous, but they didn't dive at me.

Girls Weekend!

I am so excited!!! Tomorrow afternoon I am heading out of town for the weekend. It is a total girls weekend. It has been such a busy couple of months and I haven't been able to do any scrapbooking for myself. I guess I shouldn't say that because I have done a few things. It feels like I do so much for the store and I really want to just do things for my own books.

I am going to be with two very special friends. One I see every day, but spend very little time with and the other lives too far away to see as often as I would like. I made them each a very special card to kick off our weekend. I know they will both love them and it makes me very happy to give them.

I guess this means that I started scrapbooking a bit early. I really enjoyed making them. I used scraps from a kit that I put together for the store. I also had a stamp set I really wanted to try.
They are basically the same on the front.

I found a really cute 'purse' stamp and I knew it would be perfect for both of them. I used my watercolour pencils to add colour, which I hadn't done for a very long time. The inside is stamped with the words Fun!, Girls, Friends......it is perfect. I hope they don't check my blog or it will spoil the surprise.

I can't wait to give them away.

Long Weekend Tradition

Every year on the long weekend in May we head out to our favourite flower store to pick out some blooms for our gardens. I used to be the gardener in our family, but my hubby has taken that over. He loves being outside and he is happy to do any of the outdoor chores.

Here are some of the new additions to our garden.

We also turned on the heater to warm up the water in our pool. We are usually swimming before the long weekend, but the weather just didn't stay warm enough. It is still a bit chilly for me, but the kids are enjoying it.


Here is a photo of our youngest son, Matt. He is the conservative one. He is quite happy swimming around with his goggles on. He spends hours diving for sinker toys that drop to the bottom of the pool.



And then there is our crazy son, Jason! He is not happy unless he is doing flips off the diving board. I swear he takes years off my life and turns my hair gray.

Amanda was away at a cottage for the weekend, so we didn't get any photos of her. She also loves the pool and I am sure there will be lots of photos to come.

It felt so good to be outside on Monday. We didn't come in the house much at all. This is how we spend most of our weekends. Gotta love summer.

Fresh, Clean Laundry

Today was my day off. I usually do the laundry so it is done for the weekend. Now that the weather is getting nicer, I am able to hang it outside to dry.

When I started today, I thought to myself there was no way I would be hanging anything outside. It was pouring and it looked like there was no end in sight. By noon, the sun was shining and there was a nice brisk wind......great for drying clothes.

As I stood in my backyard with the sunshine warming my back, I didn't even mind that I was doing laundry. That is one of the great things about hanging it outside. Another great perk is the way it smells when you bring it off the line. No fabric softener can achieve the smell of the great outdoors.

Although my clothes were probably dry in about 10 minutes, they remained on the line for several hours. Everything is neatly folded and ready to put away. As I sit here typing on the computer, I can smell the fresh scent from the basket, just a few feet away.

Love My Crockpot

I love my crockpot, but I don't use it very often. I have sort of gotten away from it a bit.

My neighbour has published 2 crockpot cookbooks and she is now working on her third. As neighbours, we love when she is working on a new book. She does a lot of recipe testing.....so much that she can't eat it all herself.

We will often get calls asking if we would like a meal. Our only job is to give her feedback. It's tough, but we suck it up for her.


On Tuesday evening we enjoyed Pulled Pork Tacos. They were delicious. I delivered my crockpot to my neighbour the night before and she called me by 9am to come and pick it up and receive my instructions. Everything was prepared. All I had to do was plug it in.

When I arrived home from work, our house smelled amazing. I had to set the table and we were ready to eat.

I wonder what we will be testing next week? Don't you wish you lived on our street?

May Product Challenge

Due to the recent popularity of our challenges on the forum, we decided to run a product challenge at the store.

Karan made up this kit ,which you can purchase for only $3.99. The rules are that you must use at least a small piece of everything provided in the kit. You can add anything you like from your own stash. It has to be submitted by midnight on May 31st. You can upload it to our gallery or drop it off in person to the store.

Since I did so well with the challenges on the forum, I thought I would give this a try too. Here is the layout I created.

The only thing I added was a piece of red ribbon and some rubons from my stash. This photo was taken on Mother's Day! I did a photo shoot in my mom's backyard. It is hard to get photos of everyone together......so I took advantage of the opportunity.

I did a single page layout, but there is lots of product to do a double layout, if you prefer to do that.


Here are a couple of detail shots. I have uploaded my layout to our gallery as well. If you haven't picked up your kit yet, I think there we a couple left when I was there on Wednesday. Try it! It is a lot of fun.

A Perfect Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's day. The weather wasn't quite as nice as I had hoped, but I did spend the entire day with my family. My kids set aside the entire day to spend with me.....that is big for them. No friends, no X-box, no computer......see what I mean. This was a real sacrifice for my boys, and it was the best gift. They also gave me 2 of the most perfect cards.

Amanda was up to something, and I knew she was making it. I wasn't allowed in her room all week (I was sort of scared to see what was happening in there, she is a bit of a mess-maker), but the wait was well worth it.

She made me an 'I love you' jar. It was filled with handmade cards that tell me all the reasons why she loves me. Each card was hand written, inked and marked with an 'XO', done in purple Stickles. I love it. It is so sweet.

I am very thankful for my 3 children. They may not tell me every day that they love me, but I know they do. This is the first Mother's day that they have done something on their own to show me how much.

Online Scrap With a Friend

Last night I was in the mood for a little scrapbooking. I was just getting myself organized when Patti (from Alberta) caught me online. We decided to scrap together. I had never done this before, but I was up for the challenge.

She provided this sketch.....

I really enjoy scrapbooking from a sketch. It gives me the starting point and then the creativity just seems to flow.

Here is Patti's take on the sketch. She is so creative. I have to admit that I am a little intimidated by her. She is on a few different design teams and has a real flair for using embellishments.


So, here is my take on the sketch. I love how this page turned out. All of the papers are from the new Delight line from Fancy Pants. I used a border stamp and Vintage Photo Distress ink to do the doodle lines around the page.

One of my favourite parts on the layout (aside from the photos of my son) are the trees. I learned this technique from a friend. She had used it on a card, so I thought I would try it out. They are layered circles out of cardstock and pattern papers. I used a mister and sprayed the papers with water, crumpled them up and then opened them again to dry. It adds great dimension . I was very impressed with the results.

I used the Alphalicious font for the Cricut for my title along with another circle element for the dot on the letter 'i'.

Thanks to Patti for a great night of scrapbooking. I hope to do it again soon!

Snips & Snails and Puppy Dog Tails.....

I had the opportunity to visit my friend Sue again. She owns Moonstone Kennel and she is a very good friend of mine. It is always great to visit with her and visit with her puppies. She has quite a few litters and we were able to meet and greet lots of them. Most of these were sold, but there were still a few available.

Amanda has always wanted to have a dog, so this is a great way for her to get her puppy fix. She just loves visiting them. They seem to really love her too!

It is just a sea of puppies.....running, jumping, playing, sleeping! You just don't know what to look at first. Some are fat, some not so fat. Some are dark and some are light. They are all cute! I don't know how people pick which one they want.

The puppies love to play with each other. They wrestle each other and bite each others tails. It is all fun until one puppy yelps!

We spent a lot of time tying up our shoes. The puppies would find our shoe laces and tug until they were undone.

How sweet is her face. This is one of my favourite photos from the day. I love the expression on her face and how her face is in focus, but the grass is not. This was not expert photography, just luck.

Amanda brought her friend along and he was having a great time with the puppies. It looks like they are having a great conversation and the puppy is smiling! I love it.

This time I made sure that Amanda took a couple of photos of me. I never seem to make it in the photos with the puppies.

Matt joined us for the puppy visit too. It always amazes me how gentle my rough and tough boys are around these dogs. It is nice to see.

Ok, here is another favourite of mine. I took this photo of Matt holding one of the puppies and you can see one of his back paws! How cute is that.....another lucky shot!

Here is Amanda with her favourite puppy. It is moments like this that I wish we had got a dog for her.

What a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Thanks to Sue for letting us visit again. She was very busy with appointments but it was nice to see her, even for a short time. We will have to come on a day where she will have more time to chat.