Not Spring Yet

The weather has been decent this month and the snow has slowly been melting.  My neighbor reported seeing a robin on Saturday, always a good sign.

This morning, it was back to somewhat wintery conditions - -10C and fresh snow and ice, but the landscape was so beautiful!!! Couldn't resist grabbing my camera and being a little late for work as I snapped a few photos around the yard. Just wanted to share a few - hopefully this white stuff will soon be a distant memory!

This photo looks somewhat like one I've posted before, but I can't resist taking more! 

This little fella popped into (and rapidly out of) the tree I was photographing.  How I love the little chickadees.

Eight Years Old

Hard to believe that time goes so quickly!  I seem to be able to remember every detail of the day Marty arrived, especially how stinking cold it was.  It was in that -20C range, not counting the wind chill.   I checked out of the hospital about six hours after he was born (the hospital was very full and I wanted to get home to my own bed!) and heaped so many blankets and afghans on that new baby to protect him from the elements!  This year is definitely an improvement over March 2002, with a balmy forecast of +13C.

We had a rockin' birthday party for Marty this past weekend.  He wanted to go watersliding, so we organized a gathering for 15 of his closest friends (he's a very social fella) at the Ramada Waterpark in Edmonton (this is the old Riviera Hotel for those of you that go back a while).  There are two big waterslides, a hot tub and a small swimming pool, as well as an area with tables and chairs for eating cake and pizza!  Everybody had so much fun, they could hardly tear themselves away.  We actually left before some of our guests, but I figured 3 1/2 hours of water sliding was enough.  I went down the slides a few times, but my stamina is not that of an eight year old.  And I needed a nap after the big event. ;-)

A Couple of Projects

that I made last week using Jillibean Soup papers.  Doesn't that frog just make you smile?    I discovered that when I go to a weekend crop, I am most productive if I focus on working on projects with a paper line from one manufacturer, rather than trying to bring a cross section of every piece of patterned paper I own!    I had particular fun with a sheet of patterned paper from the Jillibean Lentil Soup collection with gorgeous sunflowers on it - they just lent themselves so well to being cut out, popped up and decorated with Robin's Nest dewdrops!

Quick layout with the same papers and techniques I used with the card.  I took this picture quite a few years ago with my first ever digital camera.  The wren in my garden is the sweetest singer and keeps a close eye on me when I am in the garden.

This card uses some yellow dotted paper from the Jillibean soup staples collection, and Coredinations cardstock that I embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder.

Go check out this blog

Jackie Ludlage, editor of Canadian Scrapbooker magazine, has entered the blogging world!  Take a peek here!  It's a fun read and will let you get to know Jackie a bit better as well as offering an inside look at putting together a magazine!

New Sister Layout

I did this one quite a long time ago (2006?) but because my sister is on my mind, it seemed appropriate.  It's one of my favourite layouts.  Bits of Melissa Frances papers, some Prima flowers, a sewing machine.....

More Layouts

A couple more layouts from the spring issue of CS magazine.  I love the way this purple one turned out.  I don't often scrapbook in purple, probably comes with having two boys.   I had a lot of fun looking for purple things to photograph, and although I didn't include the picture in this layout, I took one of purple Smarties too.  I discovered there aren't really very many purple Smarties in a box.  The kids and I had fun sorting and eating them though.  LOL  Papers here are by Kaisercraft.  I used my Slice to make the title and slipped a purple paint sample card into the mix.

These photos are taken at the Edmonton Valley Zoo (which has a lot of nursery rhyme themed decor) with some of the kids in our karate club.  Papers and stamps are by Stampin Up, they worked perfectly here!  Especially love that 'to do' list stamp.

Spring 2010 Issue of Canadian Scrapbooker

It's out!  I think most subscribers and scrapbook stores will have it by now, and it will slowly make it's way onto magazine racks at other stores.  Make sure you pick up a copy.  It's another gorgeous issue. So many ideas!   I just love the cover - the layout by Debby Visser is offset beautifully by the colors and design on the rest of the page.

I had two articles in this issue - one on using vintage images and one with some ideas about using kid's stuff in your projects. Here's a couple of my favourite layouts:

This layout features paper by gcd studios - I love the combination of colors and patterns that come in their paper pad collections.  The outside black part of the page is actually just cardstock; I traced a piece of the gcd studios die cut paper onto black cardstock and just cut it out with scissors.  The flowers are some of that Floam stuff that many of our kids have in their stash.  I molded it to fit some Fancy Pants chipboard shapes and glued it on with Elmer's white glue.  The moth is a Magenta rubber stamp stamped onto a piece of Crayola model magic clay and dried overnight.

This layout was a lot of fun to build!  I took an old Spirograph set I picked up at the Salvation Army and my EK Success fine tipped markers and hand some fun.  Half way through, my youngest son came to see what I was doing, so I introduced him to Spirograph.  It held his interest for a little while before he went looking for something electronic to play with.

Check out the New Webisode!

It's on the Canadian Scrapbooker home page and features using the Colorbox foam styluses, a very handy tool for scrapbookers and stampers.  When I'm learning a new technique, I love actually seeing a video of somebody doing it - seems much easier to learn this way.  Check it out and let me know what you think.  There will be more videos coming in the future.  :-)