A few cards for Nikki Sivils

A couple of weeks ago I was reading Nikki Sivil's blog and read a very heartbreaking post about Nikki's friend and former general manager Lanie who was just diagnosed with metastatic melanoma.  Lanie is only in her early thirties and has 20 tumors throughout her body.  In order to keep Lanie's spirits up, Nikki plans to send her a card every single day and wants to make sure Lanie and her family have enough thank you cards to have on hand to send out.  To this end, Nikki was asking blog readers to send in a few cards to help out.  I found a couple of spare cards in my stash, and made a few more to send along.  I'm sure they would appreciate any others they get, so if you have a few spare cards or time to make some, please send them along to Nikki.

This card uses Echo Park patterned paper, stickers and some Scrapbook Adhesives dimensional adhesive to pop things up.  The thank you stamp is by Stampin Up, from the Itty Bitty Banners set (a very useful stamp set)!

This one used an old K and Co tag shaped card base, some Coredinations cardstock and Bo Bunny patterned paper and buttons from the Ad Lib collection.  The stamp is again from Stampin Up, another very cute and useful set called 'Just my Type'. 

Another simple card using Just my Type stamps, and I backed it with a little doily that I made using a Sizzlits die sold by Stampin Up.  Nothing fancy, but a quick little card to let somebody know that you are thinking about them. 

I happened to be in Cincinnati for a conference, so mailed my cards from there.  My Canadian friends will laugh to hear that sending five cards with envelopes in a large padded envelope cost just over two bucks using the US postal service, and would be delivered to Nikki in Missouri in three days.  If I had mailed this package from Canada, I was likely looking at $15 or so in postage, with a delivery date of two to three weeks.

October Sketchy Challenge

Although I have never been a big sketch user, I have found that I just tremendously enjoy doing the monthly Sketchy Challenge at Canadian Scrapbooker.  The sketches are lovely and easy for my brain to follow, and so much faster than dreaming up the entire page design from scratch!  If you haven't, go check it out and try it.  Post your version in the gallery so we can all see!

This month's sketch is by Sue Sykes - it was a pleasure to work with. Since I am contrary by nature, I flipped it over in my mind before I started, but basically followed Sue's design.

I had an old photo laying around that I had been meaning to scrapbook. The picture was not the best, but brought back many memories, especially since quite a few people in it are no longer alive.  I am about six years old in it, and I cannot remember this group of people being all together ever again, since it included all my dad's family and my mom's family that were in Canada.

I used primarily Karen Foster Designs to put together this layout - they have some lovely ancestry and family tree themed products such as the 'Honoring the Past' scrapbook kit.  I used a couple sheets of the paper and some stickers, added a bit of Karen Foster ribbon and scrapper's floss, a scrap of cardboard and a length of lace trim I had rescued from a thrift store.  Happy to have the photo out of the shoebox and all the people properly identified, and I will use several sheets of the Karen Foster family tree paper to outline my family history for my kids.

Karen Foster Honoring the Past Scrapbook kit

Inspired by Wine

During the fall of 2010, I was lucky enough to spend a few days in Nova Scota touring some of the local wineries.  Absolutely gorgeous and among other things, it inspired the idea for an article about wine related scrapbook layouts and papercrafts.  There are not a lot of wine themed scrapbook products around, but I found a few and they are featured in the fall 2012 edition of Canadian Scrapbooker.  The acrylic stamps from Crafty Secrets are amazingly versatile - there is so much one can do with these!  Invitations, journals, cards, wine glass charms, wine labels, coasters, and so on.....  Or, if you're handy, like my friend Kim Gowdy, you could sew a wine bag and stamp on the fabric to create a beautiful gift bag.

And then I found this stamp set by Technique Tuesday at an online store, so I had to buy it.  :-)

I saw this wooden floral frame at Michaels, so why not turn it into a wine themed wall hanging?  I hot glued wine corks around the ring, and then printed out a cute wine saying on a piece of cardstock with my printer.  I used the Crafty Secrets and Technique Tuesday stamps, Letraset markers and some purple chalk to decorate the paper up and glued it on the back of the ring.  It makes me smile.  It did not take very long to make and this, or something similar, would make a cute hostess gift for a wine and cheese party or something similar.

 Then I made a zillion coasters using a Spellbinders square die, the WeRMemoryKeepers corner chomper, Canadian Scrapbooker superstock cardstock and the Crafty Secrets stamps.  I coloured in the images quickly with the Letraset pens and then sprayed the squares with Goosebumps spray by Tsukineko.  It gave the coasters a cool pebbly surface and will protect the paper so that the coasters can be reused many times.

This card was made very quickly with Karen Foster designs patterned paper and stickers. I just sewed around the perimeter and popped up the stickers under a scrap of cheesecloth to dress it up a little bit.  Check out Canadian Scrapbooker magazine to see all of the wine related layouts we made with this Karen Foster paper!

The Rainbow Bridge

The last issue of Canadian Scrapbooker had a call for sympathy cards, and since there was a dog death in my family, I was inspired to make pet sympathy cards.  The first version of the card is featured on Jackie's blog and is the first one shown below.  Then I got on a roll and made a couple of more versions using different supplies - once I started looking for clouds, rainbows and grass, I found all sorts of stuff.  Here they are if you want to peek.  Not sure which one I like best, they are all the same but a bit different, kwim? 

 

Magenta chipboard rainbow and Studio Calico chipboard clouds

 

Kaisercraft wooden rainbow and MemoryBox dies for grass and wee flowers

 

 

And here's the famous Rainbow Bridge poem:

 

The Rainbow Bridge

Author unknown, inspired by a Norse legend

By the edge of a woods, at the foot of a hill,

Is a lush, green meadow where time stands still.

Where the friends of man and woman do run,

When their time on earth is over and done.

For here, between this world and the next,

Is a place where each beloved creature finds rest.

On this golden land, they wait and they play,

Till the Rainbow Bridge they cross over one day.

No more do they suffer, in pain or in sadness,

For here they are whole, their lives filled with gladness.

Their limbs are restored, their health renewed,

Their bodies have healed, with strength imbued.

They romp through the grass, without even a care,

Until one day they start, and sniff at the air.

All ears prick forward, eyes dart front and back,

Then all of a sudden, one breaks from the pack.

For just at that instant, their eyes have met;

Together again, both person and pet.

So they run to each other, these friends from long past,

The time of their parting is over at last.

The sadness they felt while they were apart,

Has turned into joy once more in each heart.

They embrace with a love that will last forever,

And then, side-by-side, they cross over… together.

 

Win DCWV Paper Stacks!!!

Make sure you check out Jackie's blog every single Wednesday for "Why Not Win Wednesdays".  There is always fantastic stuff up for grabs simply by leaving a comment.  This week's prize is a great big one, for three different winners! 

And who wouldn't want to win all these DCWV paper stacks.  I can't even decide on which one of these I like the best, but a girl sure can make a lot of cards and scrapbook pages with this amount of beautiful paper.  Or just think about what an amazing gift this would be for your favourite crafter or elementary school teacher.  Go enter!!!!!!

Barley Tabbouleh

or "tabblooey" as my youngest calls it......    Made this the other night, and it was delicious.  I don't always have bulgur around, which is the traditional wheat grain used in this dish, but barley works too!  And I usually have some pearl barley tucked away for soups and things. 

Most of the tabbouleh was eaten, but I grabbed a snapshot of what was left.  This recipe is very versatile, so add more of the stuff you like and leave out what you don't.  Except parsley.  It wouldn't be a very good tabbouleh without at least some parsley.

 

Barley Tabbouleh

 

2/3 cup barley

2 to 3 cups parsley, finely chopped

8 green onions, finely minced

2 Roma tomatoes, diced

1/2 English cucumber, diced

1 red pepper, diced

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

 

Dressing

4 to 6 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

4 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp. salt

freshly ground pepper

clove minced garlic

 

Bring 2 cups of water to boil, add barley and cook at low heat for about 40 minutes or until tender and all the water is absorbed.  Let cool.  Add vegetables.  Whisk together dressing ingredients and add to barley mixture.

 

September Already?

summer is going out with a whimper........    a cold, windy, rainy long weekend.  Just as well, I guess, because being trapped in the house lets me catch up on things that get ignored all summer - closet cleaning, cookie baking and the like.  Might even find time to scrapbook today.  Nice to have a down day after all the craziness of the last few weeks.

We had a short vacation in Radium Hot Springs last week - love this place.  We rented a lovely condo through VRBO and therefore had all the comforts of home while we relaxed and explored the area.  We would often start and end each day with a soak and swim in the hot springs pools, especially loving being practically the only people there at 9:00 a.m. 

One day was spent in Panorama Mountain Resort, where we had never been before.  What a beautiful place.  We bought the 'family fun 'pass' and went up to the top of a mountain on a chair lift to hike around, tried out the climbing wall and inflatable obstacle course and did 18 holes of miniature golf.

 

 

There was a terrific playground a couple of blocks from our condo.  I've never seen anything like it, but I think there should be one on every corner!  Outdoor exercise equipment!  It was a lot of fun for kids and grown ups alike.

We spent a day whitewater rafting on the Kootenay River.  This was absolutely wonderful.  Although initially we had only signed up for a half day expedition, we enjoyed ourselves so much we stayed on for the afternoon.  Our guide Ian was terrific, very experienced with a lot of interesting tidbits of information about the river and the area.  We look forward to rafting with this company again when the boys are 12 years old, 90 lbs and allowed to go on the Kicking Horse river which has class 3 and 4 rapids. 
 

Happy Canada Day

It was pouring rain around parade time here yesterday, and the boys are getting older and less interested, so we skipped the local Canada Day festivities.  Instead, we waited for the rain to stop and headed out to Elk Island National Park.  National Parks have free admission on Canada Day.  Who knew?  The rain held off and we hiked along a trail for an hour or so.  Lovely.  Not too hot, not very many mosquitoes.  It's been a long time since I was at this park.

Somebody was parasailing (is that the right word for this activity) on Astotin Lake.  It looked very cool and with the wind, boy, could he move!  Hope everybody had a very happy Canada Day!!!

Kitchen Renos

My house is getting on four decades old and I finally made the decision to update my kitchen.  Wow, there is a lot of stuff to learn about options for new counter tops and cupboards, sinks and cabinets.  It's almost overwhelming and I am working my way through the process of figuring things out.    I discovered that I can have my kitchen cabinets refinished instead of replaced for a fraction of the cost.  And this makes me happy because besides saving $$, I don't have to throw out solid wood cabinets because they are a little beat up on the outside.  I discovered that laminate is about half of the cost of granite, but it can look very much like granite because of the patterns and finishes that are available these days.  I discovered that you can go to the websites of the laminate manufacturers and they will send you samples in your choice of size and finish directly to your house.  For example, I went to the Formica web page, selected five samples and was stunned to have them delivered by UPS to my house two days later.  Impressive customer service!  I also ordered a good handful of 8x10 samples from WilsonArt, but have not yet received them.  But it is so much easier to make a decision about what your countertop should look like with a large sample than one of those itty bitty 2x3" chips you find at most retailers.

I have no doors or drawers in my kitchen right now since they went off to the refinishers a couple of days ago.  Yikes.  It's an adjustment!  It might be another month or two to get everything done, but soon I can say..........Good bye pinkish arborite that stains if it even imagines cherry kool-aid or raspberry jam on it's surface.  Good bye ugly pink back splash tile.  Hello beautiful 'new' cabinets.  Wish me luck.

Odds and Ends

How did it get to be the end of June already?  The kids have only a couple of days left of school and then we're into summer holidays! Haven't posted for a while but I like to think that things will be somewhat calm for a few weeks and I can catch up.  (um, sure, since I just started renovating my kitchen, but that's another post) 

First of all - for my scrapbooking friends - make sure you check out the Sketchy Challenge and brand new web page and gallery on the Canadian Scrapbooker website here.  You can see the sketch, join in the challenge, upload your layouts and leave comments for others - I love it!!   And everyone can play along - if you use a Canadian product on your layout, you will also can potentially be published in a future issue of Canadian Scrapbooker magazine whether you live in Australia, Canada, the United States or Zimbabwe. 

Also, if you are in the market for a great little photo printer/digital frame or Sony photo paper, check out this link here for an exclusive discount for Canadian Scrapbooker readers.  These portable photo printers are so handy and this one looks amazing.

I have been doing blog posts for "Tuesday with the Team" on Jackie Ludlage's blog. Lots of fun.  Here's one of the cards I did with Stampin Up A-Maze-Ing stamp set and plastic maze for a blog post there last week.  The texture on the cardstock is from dry embossing with one of the new M-Bossabilities folders from Spellbinders.  These are just terrific, they make a project look so fancy so quickly.  Go look at Jackie's blog to see some of the other projects with mazes.

And a couple of weeks before that, I featured Bazzill Basics DynoMite patterned paper line.  Oh, how I love the colours and patterns in this set.  Here's one of the projects I did with some of the tissue tape and a journalling card:

A little spring storm

Of course, last weekend it was warm and sunny, and my darling husband did all kinds of spring like chores out in the yard - take the bikes out of the shed, put up the trampoline, hang up the laundry on the clothesline, and change my snow tires.  Ha!  We shouldn't have rubbed it in Mother Nature's nose, because she swung back with a vengeance and gave us at least 25 cm of wet snow yesterday as a reminder we do live in Edmonton.  And it is only April.   The school buses were cancelled and I didn't dare take my low to the ground Mazda with summer tires out of the garage so the boys had a snow day.  The irony for you bird-loving folks, is that the red-winged blackbirds showed up yesterday right in the middle of the blizzard.  Normally, when I see and hear them in the yard, I know it's spring.  They have such a unique bird song and even in the middle of the snowstorm, it sounded like you were in the middle of a summer slough.  Sigh.

these are the female red-winged blackbirds hanging on a bird feed cone.  They are kinda ugly compared to their handsome male counterparts.



fortunately, I had lots of snow shovelling help

these are common redpolls.  Only see these guys in the winter.



a junco, a little fella that passes through for just a few days in the spring and in the fall.   They are ground feeders, picking seeds off of the ground, so I was sprinking bits of sunflower seeds on top of the snow so they had something to eat.

Ha!  How did it get to be April already?  I kind of got out of the blogging habit (so easy to do when distracted by other things in life!) but will start up again now that the university term is drawing to a close and I can go back to one daytime job.  I was also prodded out of blogging semi-retirement by Jackie Ludlage, who asked me to do a guest blogging post for the Canadian Scrapbooker blog.  Sometimes a kick start is all you need!  LOL

You can see all the details at the CS blog here, but I used Core'dinations cardstock, Spellbinders embossing templates and Sookwang tape to make this Easter layout and card.  Fast and if you have the tools, quite frugal.  It inspired me to head to the dollar store and stock up on some more colours of Easter 'grass' to make more cards, because my kids thought they were the greatest thing since sliced bread.  I don't normally make or give Easter cards, but they are the perfect way to say thank you to a teacher, babysitter or someone else special to just let them you know you are thinking about them.

February Sketch

So, here's the sketch for the Sketchy Challenge at Canadian Scrapbooker magazine for the month of February designed by the very talented Jill Sarginson.  It's great fun to play along and an incentive to get something scrapped!  And if you submit your work you could get published in an upcoming magazine.  Details here if it's new to you.

Although inspired by the sketch, my layout looks kind of different, but hey!  It's all good.  Inspiration is inspiration and I don't usually cut my photos into shapes.  I started with some gorgeous paper by Robin's Nest that had glittery black swirls on it, and decorated it right up with a couple colours of Colorbox Smooch Ink.  Love that stuff!  And love that I am able to adjust the Robin's Nest paper to whatever colour scheme I feel like.  The lime green makes me happy.

Cardstock is by BoBunny, letter stickers are Basic Grey and the heart punches are by Stampin Up  (one of my favourite punches, because you get three sizes and styles of heart with each punch).  And I added a row of Robin's Nest dew drops along the bottom for some extra fun.  I find the Beacon 3 in 1 adhesive works perfectly for this because it is clear and holds stuff really strongly.

Where did January go?

I find it hard to believe I haven't blogged in a month.  Sheesh.  Been busy!  Starting teaching again at the University of Alberta in January, a fourth year class in Waste Management and Utilization.  I really love doing this, it is a lot of fun sharing info and enthusiasm with my students, but it does take time.  Thirty-two terrific students this year and some amazing guest speakers talking about everything from radioactive waste to landfills.

 My 'regular' job is crazy busy.  I am just finishing producing a professional video about fertilizer - everything you ever wanted to know in 20 minutes about what fertilizer does, how it is made and why we need it - and it should be on you-tube in a couple of months, so I will link it here in case you are interested.  I think it's terrific,  but I'm kind of a weird science and gardening geek.  ;-)

The kids are playing indoor soccer, which is wonderful, except that means running to soccer games or practice 3 or 4 days a week.  And I decided a couple of months ago that since I was at an indoor soccer facility that also had fitness equipment that often I should get a membership.  Often I can work on an elliptical and watch a soccer game at the same time.  But sometimes I can't multi-task, but still feel better after I walk a few miles, so I take some of my leisure time to get on a treadmill or walking track.

And I keep scrapbooking, mostly working on a few articles and projects for Canadian Scrapbooker magazine.  Just got back from the CHA trade show in Anaheim.  Always so much fun and so inspiring to see all the new products! I have a few photos, but even after two full days on the show floor, didn't manage to see every booth.  There's some great stuff coming out this spring.  I especially love the lines from Webster's Pages and the new patterned paper lines from Bazzill Basics.  And Jenni Bowlin had some wonderful products........  and I covet every colour of the new Smooch Sparkle from Colorbox........  and Spellbinders had very coolio embossing folders.  Love them!  Darn, can't remember everything, but you get the idea.  :-)

It was beautiful and sunny in Anaheim.........  but I spent the entire day inside this building, and it was dark when I got out.  Oh well.  Palm trees were still nice in the evening.

A great wine themed stamp set from Technique Tuesday!

The Diecuts with a View booth is always incredibly astounding with their intricate paper creations.  It must take a large group of people a year to create their displays.  This year it was a tropical Avatar type tree, birds and peacocks, fishes, etc. all made from paper that had been cut, shaped, trimmed and decorated. Amazing.

One of my favourite booths was by Canvas Corp.  So beautiful!!!

New patterened paper from Bazzill.  Perfect for my boys!

Me at the Jenni Bowlin booth.   I covet their Wren Collection paper line, as well as some of their new stamps and perforated kraft papers