This is the Face

So I made this layout with some reservations.



First of all I'm not a 'watercolor' kind of gal but I wanted to participate in Amy Tan's challenge last week at Studio Calico. She made this cool cover of an embossed journal with watercolors. After watching the video I thought 'I can do that'.



Then I discovered this background paper by Sassafras when I opened my Boardwalk kit from July and thought, well, gee that looks like the perfect paper for this challenge.

Then I pulled out that picture of M with the face that he gets when something irritates him and thought- I could tell a story with that photo!

And that's how this layout came to be. Seriously.

It's pretty simple. I used a combo of washi tape, and paper pieces to anchor the title. A little watercolor action and a few brads, chipboard pieces and bits and pieces from my stash. It's simple but with a little layering of embellishments here and there.

I like to think I deserve a pat on the back for stepping out of my comfort zone on this one.

xoxo
K

Project Life: Week 3

I've got a week 3 of project life for you to start off this last week of January. But, before I talk 'project life' I have a few places you might want to visit.

On Friday I was featured as a guest blogger on 'The Paperie's' blog and gave a little tutorial on lettering on your layout. You can check it out here.

I was also featured as the 'inspiration du jour' on the Craft Gossip blog on Friday. They have all kinds of interesting information over there including some 'Project Life' freebies. Check them out!

Onto Project Life now. So I've been using this page planner to organize myself and it's been an excellent tool. I'm pretty sure it's by Marcy Penner but I'm not 100% sure.



Here's week 3:



It was another busy week. By the end of the week I am shocked by how much goes on in our daily lives.

And the first side:



This week we did the usual-ran, went to the gym, got groceries. We did eat lots of yummy foor this week though.

And the second side:



We also had a snow day, I watched the rest of the Steig Larsson series, bought a ridiculous knick knack for the living room and ate out with our friends.

This week I used some old digital elements to create my journaling. I like the way they turned out. I had the 3 by 4 pieces printed at the developer and just printed the 4 by 6 on my own printer at home. Truth me told I forgot to send it to the printer when I sent everything else and that's why I had to print it at home.



Week 4 is in the works. I'm actually a week behind but I'm hoping to 'catch up' this week.

Happy Monday!

xoxo
K

Happy Birthday Mom!

Yesterday I made a pretty big mess in my kitchen.





But, it was all worth it because in the end I got this.



A vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream frosting with a caramel swirl. That's some homemade chocolate sauce and caramel sauce drizzled on top.

And it was all for my mom.

Last weekend she celebrated her birthday but she wanted to wait and have dinner when my little brother came home for a visit from Whistler, BC. So, last night we had a bbq and I surprised her with a birthday cake! She even got some candles to blow out!





She's the best mom so at the very least she deserved dinner and a cake. It's the least I could do!

I also worked on a little 'happy mail' for a friend yesterday and made this...



I have a bf pen pal and we send each other fun little 'happy mail' packages. She'll be getting a sweet little V-day envelope with some fun prizes in it soon!

This card was made with a CHA challenge from Studio Calico in mind. Susan W.'s challenge was to use 4 punches on a card. So, I've got 2 hearts, 1 butterfly, and a boarder punch.

The best part about this card is that there are snowmen hiding inside it.



I used a Jillibean holiday paper from their Winter 2011 release and just used the other side which is all kraft and stuck two pieces together. I loved this paper and made my Christmas cards out of it last year. But, their paper is such good quality that it's great if you just turn it over and use the craft side.

And this is a little sneak of what's on my craft table right now. Trying something new...



we'll see how that goes.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend folks.

xoxo
K

P.S: Can you spot anything odd in my pictures today? Leave a comment if you can see something that doesn't belong! ;)

Saturday: Right Now

It's been a long week. I haven't done a 'right now' post in a while so here's a little bit of what's happening around here...



'Right Now'
listening: Pitchfork Top 100 is currently my playlist of choice for running.
reading: Prisoner of Tehran. So good.
eating: too many treats-I'm exercising a lot but I'm making up for those burned calories by what I'm putting in my mouth.
drinking: lots of dp
wearing: haven't worn 'em yet-but I'm anxiously waiting to don my new red skinny jeans!
feeling: a little deflated actually. I'm just feeling 'off'.
weather: it was -6 on my run today- enough said.
watching: 'Say Yes to the Dress' a guilty weekend pleasure.
waiting: for my time to come.
wanting: all the new CHA goodies
needing: a good nights sleep
enjoying: the weekend with my husband
wondering: what happened to my brain?! It seems like it's been on vacation lately.
working: on some project life layouts! They aren't finished yet but here's a sneak!





I'll be back Monday to share! Have a great weekend!

xoxo
K

5 for Friday: CHA Edition

I'm sure that you are keeping up with all the sneaks for the upcoming CHA show. Well, I have a 5 for Friday to dedicate to the sneaks I'm loving! Click on any of the pics to be taken to the sites of the retailers and check out all of their fabulous new product!

1. Amy Tangerine's new Sketchbook line looks so amazing. If I had to chose one thing from it to buy I would get this:



That sketchbook looks awesome. I want it.

2. Of course, Studio Calico hit it out of the park again with their new lines as well. I want all of this.









3. Jillibean soup labels are my fav. I love these two from their new lines.



4. I also love the Dear Lizzy line that AC is debuting. Bonus is that some of it is going to be in this month's SC kit. Pumped about that. I hope this is included because I REALLY like these...



5. Crate Paper has some beautiful new lines coming out as well. I am especially in love with this washi tape:



and these fabric brads. I'm a sucker for their fabric brads. They just add such lovely dimension to a layout.



So there's a five for Friday post with a few things that I'm hoping to add to my stash in the next 6 months. The worst part is waiting for all of it to come out! :( I hate waiting.

Have a wonderful weekend. We have some fun plans this weekend so I'm looking forward to it!

xoxo
K

Simple Scrapping

Today I'm sharing my February layouts for Simple Scrapper. As a newbie on their design team, I've been very welcomed by the other design team members. I love a good sketch and these layouts were all made using the sketches in the premium membership at Simple Scrapper.

I love collages of photos. I like single page layouts but I like to include a lot of pictures. This sketch was an opportunity to use a whole bunch of iphone photos to tell my story.



I love the background paper here and have been hoarding it for ages. I love me a little Amy Tangerine. A fun little title using a variety of different letters made for a great focal point in the middle. But, my fav new thing is that little 'cheer' button from Ormolu. Love.



This layout is about Baby Liam's first Christmas parade. It was fun except for the fact that we nearly froze to death. But Liam enjoyed himself and that's what counts!

The layout below came together seamlessly. It was initially for two 4 by 6 photos but I crammed 9 little photos in there in place of one of them. A few simple embellishments hanging like ornaments and a simple title summed up the page nicely.



The pictures taken in this layout were taken on New Year's Eve. Allison & Paul wanted some family photos so I set up the camera and just started snapping. Babies are funny you know! You have to get a lot of outtakes before you get the perfect shot! But the outtakes are the funniest! Check out those outtakes-tey go from 'Oh I'm such a happy baby' to 'I've had just about enough of this' to ' Get me out of here!". Too funny!

The layout below was a little different than the original February sketches. This month's assignment where I had to use more pictures than the sketch indicated. Originally the sketch had four pictures-I managed to get 14 in there. If you are a Simple Scrapper Premium Member you can find this sketch in the April 2011 archives.



There's lots of misting here in a number of different colors. I used an old SC kit from over the summer that had the perfect colours for this layout. I love that simple title on the banner. Turns out I have a thing for banners lately!



We took a little trip to Florida in early September in between a wedding engagement and a bat mitzvah. We managed to squeeze some serious shopping, sight seeing and eating into those short few days and had a wonderful time in the warm weather!

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

xoxo
K

Have you ever...?

...started a layout and gotten mid-way through and realized it was just all wrong?

Yeah. So that's what happened to me recently when I started this layout.



I'm not a 'lay everything out and then adhere it' kind of gal. I usually just go with the flow and stick it if I like it and every so often that turns into disaster. Like this time. So this is where I got myself in a pickle.



Yeah, that stamping was the ultimate problem. I tried to trace it with a pen but it was useless. It just wasn't right.

So, I cut a new piece of paper and stuck it on over the top. I added a new title with some SC kraft stickers from the Classic Calico collection & used a few smaller stickers for 'public library'. I used this as an opportunity to create a pocket for a little library card that I had printed and wrote my journaling on that.



I think my favorite part is the book stamp that I heat embossed on the bottom of the page. A few embellishments and voila-a 'fixed' layout.

So, it just goes to show that sometimes disaster can be averted if you're a little creative!

xoxo
K

We Play to Win the Game

So in September we went to see the opener for the Jets vs. the Cowboys. It was our first NFL game and we had a blast. I spent the game watching the entertainment in the stands though rather than the game and eating lots of stadium snacks.

So there were these guys sitting in the nosebleeds with us who kept yelling 'we play to win the game'. It was amazing. They were so into the game-yelling for the cowboys which was dangerous because it was a Jets game in New Jersey. It was probably the most entertaining sports event I've ever been to.



I stuck to a simple format for this layout. I was trying to kill an SC kit left over from the summer months so I used up lots of scraps and bits and pieces of embellishments for this layout. I left my journaling simple but played up my title with flag-like pieces.



I used a little piece of AC washi tape to house my date which I stamped using an awesome Lawn Fawn 'September' stamp and a '2011' SC stamp. A few little brads and it was complete.



So to all you football fans who watched the games this weekend- remember 'we play to win the game'.

xoxo
K

Have Fun

Just a quick layout using up some supplies from 'The Paperie' December kit and a few embellishments I pulled out from my stash.



I wanted to play a little with some mist and used the SC Mr. Huey in white for the masking of the letters. I used My Little Shoebox chipboard alphabet for the masks. I wasn't entirely pleased with how the misting turned out. It wasn't dark enough for my liking so I traced the edges with an American Crafts 01 pen. I never really trace perfectly but prefer the look of the 'sketched' lines. It's different but I like it.



Beyond that I just added a few tiny embellishments, a little stamping with some Lawn Fawn stamps and this layout was done.

M & I do have a lot of fun. I made M a deal in November-if we went to see 'A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas' then I was allowed to start decorating for the holidays. Anyone who knows us knows that M is very firm on his 'no decorating before Dec. 1' rule and so I was surprised when he agreed. However, that meant I had to go see 'Harold & Kumar'. The movie was ridiculous. I'm not usually a big fan of their adventures but it was a Christmas movie and so I went for it. It was a good date night, laughing and rolling our eyes in the movie theater together. I made M take the 3D glasses and caught a snapshot with my phone on our way out of the mall. These little life moments are ones that I want to remember.

xoxo
K

Project Life: Week 2

Just a note: Five for Friday is being replaced by Project Life: Week 2 this week.

This week I used a page planner which helped a lot in the planning process and made it easier to print my photos. I knew where everything was going to go and thus could print things in the right sizes ahead of time instead of working with what I got back from the developer.



Here's this week's layout:



This week I inserted an extra page protector for our renovation pictures!





Here's a close up of page 1:



I saw 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' which was fabulous! Hit the gym a bunch of times (and snuck a photo with my iphone). We had a snow day which = shoveling and we had our first dinner party with M's family!

Here's a close up of page 2:



It was freezing late this week-like Ottawa cold. Studio Calico came which is always something to document. We did some serious renovations in the laundry room and the living room. And we got happy mail-a 'save the date' from my great friend Emilie for her wedding in September in NYC. I'm pumped.

Something that I forgot last week was a spot for the date so this week I made sure to include it.



And that's another week!

xoxo
K

Note to Self

So M & I decided to do a few short runs to get back into the swing of things before we started our 'real' running training in 2012. So, on December 30th we went for our first run in over a month. Our intentions were good but our planning was not.



The journaling reads:

So in late December we decided to do a few warm up runs to get ready and geared up for running regularly in January! So, on our first tun from the new house we decided to run down Lemarchant rd. and stop at COFFEE MATTERS for a coffee and to visit J. The run felt good, legs pumping and the cold on our faces. It felt good to be out. Until I made the mistake of drinking a hot chocolate mid-run on our visit to COFFEE MATTERS. Then I 'cat puked' just off George St. on our way home. It made it an amusing run. Oops!

So, if you are ever on a run, don't make it a habit of drinking hot chocolate midway through said run. You may end up puking on the sidewalk by the end of your run and not because you ran long and hard...

xoxo
K

11.11.11

2011 has passed us by but I am still scraping photos from last year.

This layout is based on our photos from November 11, 2011 taken at 11:11. We were on one of our many walks in downtown St. John's just farting around. It was also a holiday here as it was Remembrance Day. We passed the parade and the service being held at the Memorial that morning. It was a chilly morning but a nice day for a walk. Of course, these photos were taken with my iphone and a little app I love dearly called hipstamatic.



I used a few different colors of mist to jazz up the blue background. Then I anchored my photo with a few strips from an old October Afternoon paper. Then I added lots of little embellishments around the photos but kept the journaling simple with a little label tag from Jillibean Soup. I LOVE those labels. My title 'Where were you?' is answered in the journaling label. I also added the date, separated by a few brads, below the title.



xoxo
K