Hit on Kitchener Ranger, Ben Fanelli!

Here is a photo of the team praying.....on the ice.....while their teammate was being attended to by the medics. I have never seen anything like this before.


This is the video of the hit. It is a nasty one, so you might not want to view it.

Say a Prayer......

..........for Ben Fanelli! Tonight at the Ranger game this 16 year old player took a very hard hit from behind and was flown to Hamilton General Hospital.

I watched in shock as this young man was slammed into the boards and his helmut flew from his head as he crashed to the ice. He didn't move for what seemed like a very long time and a pool of blood formed around his head. When he did regain consciousness he was in obvious pain.

My thoughts are with Ben, his family and his teammates. Please keep them in your thoughts and pray that he will recover quickly.

Sketchabilities Reveal!

It is the end of October and that means that it is reveal time over at Sketchabilities! The sketch this month was another amazing design by Karan and I loved working with it.

Because it was October, I decided to do a Halloween layout and use the Product Challenge kit from Two Scrapbook Friends!

I added the chipboard elements from the Basic Grey Eerie line. I love them. I also added black Stickles to the spider web paper along the right side. It looks really cool, but the scan did not pick up all the details. I will have it on display at the store if you want to check it out in person!

My son is the clown on the left side of the photo. These are all his friends that he went out with last year. There is quite a gang of them.

Too Good To Be True?

Yesterday I tried a new chicken recipe. I was a little hesitant because it seemed way to easy. Very rarely do I cook something new that my entire family loves. We will definitely be making this again and again.


Two Step Chicken (with picante sauce)

4 chicken breasts
1 1/2 cups of picante (or salsa)
3 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon mustard

Place chicken in a 2 quart backing dish. Mix Picante sauce (or salsa), sugar and mustard. Pour mixture over chicken.

Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 45 minutes, or until chicken is done.

Enjoy!

Playing With Copics......Again!

At the pizza crop on Friday night over at Two Scrapbook Friends, I played with my Copic markers again. I had made one of these images before, but I did it again with different colours and made a card.

I have been practicing how to tie better bows. I love the look of them on cards. This is the one I created for this card. I didn't even have to take it apart once! My friend, Deanna, suggested that I add a button and some twine..........I love it!

I actually stamped the image twice and cut out the 'Merry Christmas' and popped it up with foam adhesive. I love this effect.

Copic markers should be in the store by the end of next week! We are so excited to be adding this to our store. The stamp I used is from Stamping Bella and we have a small supply of these amazing stamps in our store now. There will be more arriving next week.

Thanks for looking!

I'm Here For You!

Well, I think I have found my new addiction! I tried to resist it, I said there was no way.....but I just can't stand it anymore............I love Copic markers and stamping and making cards.

This sweet little owl was created last week when I got together with a few 'super creative' friends. I had the opportunity to learn some of the tricks to using Copic markers. I was a slow learner, but eventually I caught on. I just created the image when I was hanging with my friends and tonight I put together the card.

I now understand what it is like to create a card and not want to give it away. I think I will set it on my scrapbook desk so that I can stare at it for awhile. Thanks for looking!

A Bit of R&R!

This past weekend Joanne and I headed out of town for a little rest and relaxation....doing what we love to do. We booked ourselves for a weekend scrapbook retreat at the Carriage Hills Resort in Horseshoe Valley! It was wonderful. We got to spend time with each other as well as get some much needed scrapbooking done!

Here are some images of the little villages that surround the resort. Our room was very comfortable and cozy.




For me, it was a little work and a little pleasure. I needed to get some samples made up for the store and our upcoming retreat, but I also wanted to make up a few things myself too.

This is a set of Christmas cards that I bought last year and I didn't get around to making up. I added a few extra details and they turned out great!




I created a 2-page Christmas layout for an upcoming workshop at the store.

I enjoyed a couple of make n takes.


One of my favourite things was playing with Joanne's Copic markers. Last week we had the opportunity to get together with a few friends and we got a quick lesson using these amazing tools. Joanne had a few of her own so we played with them a bit on the weekend. At first I had trouble with the shading, but I am starting to catch on. In order to do it properly, we should have had a few more colours to play with, but we made do!


I was very proud of the Christmas tree card. It turned out rather well. I didn't have all the papers and things I would have liked, but I made do with what I had. It was one of the last things I did before we packed up. I had added some Stickles to the ornaments on the tree and ended up smudging them.......oh well!

The weather was so beautiful and the leaves in full colour, we couldn't help but go outside and explore. Joanne and I took a little break on Saturday afternoon and went on a little tour!

Joanne spotted signs for this cute little antique store so we stopped in for a peek! They had some very neat things and it turned out to be a great photo shoot!




We took a few photos of the scenery and ourselves.....we don't get very many of them.

I even squeezed in a small hike. I didn't really have on my hiking shoes, but it was just beautiful. I could have walked for hours.

The weekend did have to come to an end and we headed back to Waterloo. I was happy to make it home in time to attend our belated Thanksgiving dinner with my hubby's side of the family. I missed my kids and I think they were happy to have me back.

This is a photo of me, surrounded by all my favourite people (the only one missing is my hubby.....he was outside enjoying the sunshine).

Scrabble Anyone?

A couple of nights ago my kids decided we should play some games. This is not something that we do often, so our game selection is not the greatest. We played a couple or rounds of UNO and then they decided to play Junior Scrabble. This is a game that they have out grown, but it was still a hoot!

With this game, the words are already made up for you. You can play 2 letters at a time and if you complete a word then you get a piece of 'pie'. The person with the most pie wins.

While waiting for others to play their turn, Jake and Jason would try to see what words they could spell with the letters they had. Here is what they came up with...









Amanda and I found this very amusing and they suggested I should take some photos of the creative words and phases they were making. I am sure none of them were in the dictionary, but we did have a few laughs!

The Fun Theory!

I found this on a friends Facebook and I thought it was sort of interesting. Maybe that is why I like scrapbooking so much......it is fun!

New Feature & New Recipe!

So, Karan showed me a new trick with my blog and I wanted to share it with you. If you look down the right side of the blog you will see a couple of new sections. One of them is called 'My Recipes'. Below this heading are links that will take you directly to the posts on my blog where I list the recipe. Isn't that great?! I thought it was.

I have another recipe to add. It is called Hamburger Soup. My mom passed this one along to me. She mentioned that she was going to be making it on Sunday, so I thought I would give it a try too. It was delicious.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 lbs of lean ground beef
• 1 onion, diced (I only used 1/2 an onion)
  
• 28 oz tomatoes (I used 2 19 oz cans of stewed tomatoes and I pureed them)
  
• 2 cups of water
• 3 cans of beef consomme, undiluted
  
• 1 can of tomato soup, undiluted
  
• 4 carrots
• celery
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• parsley (I used dehydrated parsley flakes)
  
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1/2 cup of barley (I forgot to buy this, so I didn't add it)
  

In a frying pan, cook the ground beef and the onion. Drain off all fat. In the meantime, add all other ingredients to a large pot. Add the meat mixture. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours.

*this recipe would work well in a crockpot too. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Sneak Peeks For Retreat Class

Our Two Scrapbook Friends retreat is only 1 month away and we will be sending out an email this week with all sorts of information and details about what you can expect. This year we will be offering 3 amazing workshops in addition to all the other fun activities we have planned. Details and registration information will also be coming out this week.

I will be teaching 2 classes that will get you thinking of Christmas. I completed one of my projects so I thought I would share a few sneak peeks to entice you. Be sure to watch for the upcoming email and register for this workshop. Seating is limited.

My Sketchabilities Reveal

Yesterday was Sketchabilities reveal and it was featuring my first layout. I have had it done since the beginning of September and it was killing me that I couldn't share it with anyone.

Here is the wonderful sketch that Karan created......

And here is my take......

Here are the details.......

• The pattern papers are from Basic Grey, Scenic Route and Prima.
• The brads are from my stash and I am not sure of the manufacturer.
• The flowers are from Prima Marketing.
• The tickets are from Tim Holtz.
• The chipboard is from Maya Road.
• The dragonfly is from Scrap FX.
• My flourish was created using a stamp from Hampton Arts and then I added cinnamon Stickles.
• I also used cinnamon and lime green Stickles on the dragonfly.
• My title was created using the Storybook cartridge for the Cricut.
• The cardstock is from Prism and Worldwin.
• The border punch is from Fiskars.
• I used Glimmer Mist from Tattered Angels.....tattered leather.
• I used vintage photo distress ink from Ranger.

I encourage you to visit the Sketchabilities blog and see what the other members of the Design Team created.