Confessions of a Twenty Something Artist

Sneak Peaks!

2012-02-25T09:30:00.000-03:30

I've been working on some layouts for Simple Scrapper this past week and have a few sneaks of some things I've been working on!

Just a few layouts and some teasers for you on this fine Saturday!

I'll have a little tutorial on that little 'LOVE' tag next week.

I'll be back tomorrow with a post on how I've been painting my furniture pieces.

xoxo
K

5 for Friday

2012-02-24T06:30:00.002-03:30

1. So Liz Katchner recently had the coolest thing up on her blog. It was kind of an animated slideshow and I loved it. Now, I'm sure she used some sort of very cool Photoshop or other program to do it but this past week I discovered a great *free* site called Photopeach. It makes slideshows that you can embed in your blog. So I wanted to try one out.

I had a bunch of photos we took simultaneously on my DSLR when we were trying to get a great shot of our friends on New Year's so I figured that might be a fun way to start. Here's what came out.

Please Note that we are a little crazy. Don't be offended by any of the foolishness- it was all in good fun.

cool huh? Yeah, so I still have to figure out how to turn the music off when the slideshow is over...other than that, it's pretty cool.

2. I haven't made a mini album in ages. I noticed this awesome tutorial for a little 4 by 4 mini album on the October afternoon site this week by Marcy and thought that it was a great opportunity to do a mini and drag out my dusty sewing machine as well!

3. My husband pretty much rocks. He bought me this sick iphone case for Valentine's. It's the Burberry plaid which I L.O.V.E. He also added a little post it on the plastic box, wrapped so delicately in a shopping bag, that said"Happy Valentine's. xoxo. M'. Then he said 'that's all the card your getting'. Honestly, he's such a romantic.

4. Been watching this new show 'Smash'. It's AWESOME. Like I need another t.v. show to be addicted to! Check it out below...

5. I'm getting really excited about the March Studio Calico kit. Gerelyn had some seriously awesome sneaks on her blog. I really like the ones that she used with the Jenni Bowlin tab punch. It's awesome.

If you are interested in the painting furniture tutorial I'll have it on my blog on Sunday. Be sure to check back here then!

Have a wonderful weekend!

xoxo
K

Hello!

2012-02-23T06:30:00.000-03:30

Hello little card that I'm going to send to someone special.

Hello newly upholstered & painted chair.

Hello nearly completed dresser.

Hello new television show obsession-even if it is about zombies. Who ever thought that would be something on my 'like' list.

Photo Cred: AMC The Walking Dead

Hello friend for sharing secrets. ;)

Hello lovely. Can't wait to play with you.

Hello to getting back out on the road this week.

Just a glimpse of daily life around here.

xoxo
K

P.S: If you have left any comments regarding the painting process I've been using with my new furniture pieces rest assured I am not ignoring you. I'm going to do a whole post about it by the end of the weekend so stay tuned!

Baby Embossing

2012-02-22T06:30:00.000-03:30

I made this layout at my LSS crop last weekend but it's taken me this long to get the journaling down on the page. This format isn't traditionally very 'me' but I like that there's a big story and two strips of pictures. If I had my time back I might have changed the title but at this point in the page it was close to midnight and frankly my eyes were crossing from looking at it for so long!

This layout was done using the Studio Calico Brooklyn Flea kit. The journaling reads:

In December Allison & Liam came over for some covert operations. Allison wanted to create some hand and feet prints of Liam’s little fingers and toes for some holiday gifts for her family members and literally needed an extra set of hands to make that happen. In stepped Auntie Krista. Initially we tried to do it with white paint on red cardstock but it just wasn’t the sharp image either of us had imagined. So, in a genius moment of realization it dawned on me that I could emboss the little guys hands and feet. So, out came the Versamark pad and the white embossing power. I’ll admit that he wasn’t so into it at first but after a half dozen hand prints it didn’t seem to bother him any more. But I think Allison was more amused by my excitement than Liam’s. She laughed at me the whole time as I was so excited to see the hand and feet print come into sharp focus with the embossing gun. We framed up with whole mess and Allison gave them out as Christmas gifts. They’re about the darn cutest things ever- well next to Liam
that is.

But I think this is my favorite part of the layout.

I found this sentiment on a page of Tiny Type by Cosmo Cricket and just loved it. It fit my page perfectly.

xoxo
K

I Want to Ride my Bicycle

2012-02-21T06:30:00.000-03:30

I'm yearning for Spring to arrive and thus the theme of this layout. I printed some summer photos recently and I'm just now getting to scrapbook them.

This layout was made using the Studio Calico Brooklyn Flea kit. There's still some left in the shop if you're interested in purchasing one.

It was a great kit but by far my favorite item were the Ormolu tags. Here I turned them into the '1', '2', & '3' in my layout.

I LOVE these tags and the company that makes them pretty much rocks. They are 'green' which means they use recycled paper to create their products. They have some really great stuff on their site and their prices aren't crazy either!

For M's birthday we all pitched in and gave him a road bike. He had been wanting one for some time now and the price was right in the end of summer sales and so he was given one awesome birthday present! Now I need one so we can go on bike rides together like we did in Ottawa.

xoxo
K

Monday Musings

2012-02-20T09:59:00.002-03:30

It's been a quiet weekend around the blog. I've been busy teaching some scrapbooking classes and watching the Westminister Dog Show. I know, I know. I'm a big nerd for watching the dog show on t.v. but let's face it-it's hilarious and I just love puppy dogs.

On Friday night I had a blast at my local crop-chatting, laughing and having snacks. I even got some scrapbooking done.

Here's a layout I made that's kind of fitting for this month of Valentine's.

I love chocolate. We have a local chocolate maker here in town and they have some yummy treats that they produce in their factory. In October, we visited their store downtown to try a few of their 'Newfoundland-themed' truffles. They were YUMMY.

I think my favorite part of this layout is the letters that I cut out of a piece of October Afternoon paper for the title. I think that it makes the layout more fun and playful while still fitting the pics and really standing out to tell the story of the page.

A little Mr. Huey misting with White was also done here and a few buttons were added. The final touch was the date stamp at the top with my Smash rolling stamp.

I'm pretty excited about that rolling stamp because in this month's Studio Calico kit there is a special rolling stamp that American Crafts is making just for the kit. It's going to be awesome and I can't wait to use it on my projects.

Have a wonderful Monday. I hope that wherever you are that today brings you lots of goodness.

xoxo
K

5 For Friday

2012-02-17T06:30:00.000-03:30

1. I've been redoing furniture like it's going out of style. Here's the latest redo- a bedside table that started out in the 80's and took a turn for the cottage casual.

before:

After:

And next to the bed.

Kind of looks like it's smiling. I guess it's happy with it's transformation.

2. I've been lurking on Merrik's blog for ages and yesterday she posted the coolest re-do of a thrifty find. I love it and might need to try it!

3. Check out this cool tutorial on the SC blog. I'm def going to try this with some stamps I have!

4. I'm heading to my LSS tonight for a crop. There's still space left if you're local! Check out 'The Paperie' for details. I have to get some scrapping done-I'm still not finished week 5 or 6 of project life. My 'life' keeps getting in the way lol.

5. I'm thinking of revamping the blog-give it a fresh color update at the very least. Maybe a new header. Any thoughts or suggestions?!

Have a great weekend. I'll have some more layouts to share next week as well as week 5 & 6 of project life!

xoxo
K

Thursday Randomness

2012-02-16T06:30:00.000-03:30

So I've been working on project life. I will admit that I am two weeks behind right now. I'm trying to catch up to week 5 & 6 before week 7 is done! That's only a few days away...here's the progress...

I got a wonderful Valentine's surprise from one of my favorite people in the mail early this week.

Isn't he a darling!

Also, yesterday I was featured on the Jillibean Soup blog in their weekly Soup Spotting feature. I was honored to be asked and among a group of very talented ladies!

Tomorrow is Friday. TGIF I say.

xoxo
K

Florida Fun!

2012-02-15T06:30:00.000-03:30

The weather here has been ridiculous. Just a few weeks ago we had three snow storms in one week. This past weekend we had more rain than I've seen in a long time cutting the snow in half. It's been windy and rainy and just overall miserable lately.

So right now I wish that I were in a warmer, dryer climate-like maybe Florida.

In the Fall we managed to squeeze a few days in Florida into our travel schedule. We had a blast and went to two different waterparks in the four short days we were there.

In this layout I tried to mimic the blue skies and clouds that punctuated our days in the parks with the punched clouds and the pattern paper. I also used the Prima mistables canvas ribbon and the sassafras pattern paper strip to create 'waves' below my photos like the water at the park.

Florida was awesome. I wish I was on vacation right now in Florida and enjoying a little water park action.

What's the weather like where you are? Are you buried in snow or enjoying wearing your flats in the sunshine?!

xoxo
K

Happy Valentine's Day!

2012-02-14T06:30:00.001-03:30

Whether it's your friends, family or your significant other that you are sharing this day with I wish you all the love and happiness in the world.

I'm not a big mush for Valentine's Day. I like it but I don't go crazy. I do have a Valentine's Concert at school today that I am looking forward to. The kids have worked so hard and it will be awesome to see all their hard work pay off! I also made some mini Red Velvet cupcakes, compliments of Taffety, for the staff.

But love isn't all about the mush-it's about the things that you do together with your family, friends and partners. And so I share with you this layout.

In October M & I ran a 10K race together on Thanksgiving day. Sidenote: We're Canadian so our Thanksgiving is in October. And it was one of our best races yet. Running has become something that we do together and that we share. The year before we got married we started running and trained for a 10K race for race weekend in Ottawa. We joked that it was our 'team building' for the wedding but really it has been a 'team' experience. It's something we love to do together!
So a little early morning race and then a breakfast sandwich & coffee started our Thanksgiving off with a bang.

I stuck the journaling into a little pocket behind the main picture, used a little misting and more American Crafts chalkboard labels with some white ink and little stamps. The Teal letters needed to be outlined to make them pop and a little filing of the edges with my Basic Grey file gave this group of photos a little dimension.

I'm currently working on a few projects- trying to catch up on Project life because I am two weeks behind! Ahhh! And I've been working on our bedroom furniture-painting it that is. I'll be back with an update soon on how that's going as well as a new bedroom project I'm going to tackle this coming weekend!

Have a wonderful V-day!

xoxo
K

Babies & Mustaches

2012-02-13T06:30:00.000-03:30

It's Monday and I've got a little man in a mustache for you to feast your eyes on ladies.

This year for Christmas I made Liam some pretty sweet baby pacifier mustaches. There's nothing quite as cute as a baby who has a mustache-it's actually hysterical. The best part is that he has this hat the makes him look like a little old man so the mustache was just the icing on the cake!

For this layout I wanted to try out my new ampersand mask from Studio Calico so I incorporated it into my title. I also used a chalkboard label by American Crafts but honestly had no idea how to write on it. So I took to it with some stamps and white Stampin' Up ink. I've had that ink pad for years but it's still just as juicy as the day I bought it. It's truly awesome.

The mustaches were super easy to make-just a little brown foam and glue dots-I didn't use a glue gun because I wanted his Mom to be able to boil the pacifiers before he actually used them!

Happy Monday!

xoxo
K

Date Night at Piatto

2012-02-12T07:00:00.000-03:30

So funny story-a few weeks ago I was so excited about going out to a pizza and wine tasting at Piatto-a great restaurant here in town. Well, turns out I had the date wrong and on Friday night we discovered our tickets were for Wednesday-as in 2 days before that. To make a long story short after a confusing phone call the manager was nice enough to put us on the list for the next wine tasting and so this past Wednesday we headed to Piatto for a little date night.

It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.

We started with little mini beat & goat cheese salads and mini Caprese salads.

Then we had Caesar salads & tried a few wines.

This was my favorite-a French Chablis.

Then there was the pizza-three different kinds. I can't recall what each of them were but they were delicious.

I think my favorite was the one with the mushrooms and caramelized onions. Delicious.

Red wine isn't my thing but I drank it and pretended to enjoy it. It went down smooth with the pizza.

And then there were the mini desserts- a lemon tart & a flourless chocolate cake.

The atmosphere was fabulous and the company, my handsome husband, was the BEST.

I would def do another wine & pizza tasting again! It was a great way to spend a date night together!

xoxo
K

Redo: Bedside Table

2012-02-11T06:30:00.001-03:30

So this past week I discovered painting furniture.

I thought I would experiment with M's old bedside table. It's a little Walmart special from his days as a child and it served as the perfect subject for my experiment.

So down to the basement it came and after picking my my new orbital sander and some supplies I got to work.

But, I decided that it was better to work amidst the snow in the driveway instead of the basement. So I dragged it outdoors and sanded her down.

And then I primed it with a primer spray paint. Next time I'll use paint can primer I think. There were a number of drips with the spray paint and I had to work to sand those out once that coat dried.

Two coats of 'cloud white' paint and a new piece of hardware and we have this.

A before and after: check that business out!

Stay tuned because this isn't the last furniture re-do for me. In fact this is my next piece.

I'll be back with more!

xoxo
K

P.S: if you are a local Newfoundlander check out 'The Paperie' today from 10-5 for cupcakes by Sweet Love Bake Shop and some crafty discounts!

Five for Friday

2012-02-10T06:30:00.000-03:30

1. I'm not a card girl-don't usually make them- but I'm trying to fix that! Cards are a great way to use up scraps and try something new on a smaller canvas.

This one's a Valentine's card that was sent to a friend.

And here's a few more- a birthday card and a Valentine's card.

A little stamping and embossing for the 'Happy Birthday' card and some misting and masking for the Valentine's card.

2. I've become a spray painting maven! So early last week I watched The Nate Berkus show. One of the bits was on thrifting and giving total makeovers to free or cheapie pieces. That got me interested so I perused the internets and found this lovely lady who spray paints and paints nearly everything! So, I made a pit stop at a local thrift store this week and bought my supplies & got to work. Frankly, the power of some spray paint is utterly amazing. So take a look at this...

When it was all said and done i wished that I'd taken a before so you could see how ugly that cookie jar was-straight out the the 80's my friends, and not in a good way. Those frames were just plain black but didn't suit my new scrapbooking room.

And that project got me thinking about painting some furniture. And I was smart enough to take a before picture and a few pics of the progress! Here's a sneak of a my latest project...

Yeah, I worked in the driveway in the cold amidst the piles of snow.

3. My thrifty discoveries led to to a little neighborhood adventure yesterday and I discovered Power's Salvage Shop. Seriously?! It was awesome. There were collections of what some would consider junk but I thought it was fantastic.

4. I've discovered 'The Chew'. It's awesome. This week I learned to make Chicken Kiev. Well let me rephrase that-I watched them make Chicken Kiev. I wasn't getting enough Clinton Kelly in my 'What Not to Wear' quota anyway. ;)

5. My local scrapbooking shop, The Paperie, is having a little Valentine's celebration, 'Gourmet Cupcakes & Sweet Cards', tomorrow morning. I can't wait to try some cupcakes from 'Sweet Love Bake Shop' & make a cute V-day card.

Have a great weekend! Tomorrow I'll be posting some more pics of M's bedside table & a few other spray painted treasures!

xoxo
K

And I was LIke Baby

2012-02-09T06:30:00.001-03:30

I have more baby pics to share today!

This layout was inspired by last weeks challenge at Studio Calico.

Challenge: Use a quote or lyrics.

And this is what I came up with.

You just gotta love the Biebs. He might be young and have that ridiculous hair but he can sing a catchy tune. These lyrics fit these sweet pictures of my man Liam. This is another layout that combined teal + red. I think I was on a kick this week!

I did a little misting with Mr. Huey Dewey & HollyBerry. A few brads and a little badge from Ormolu with an old Tim Holtz ticket topped it off. 'I love and adore you'-says it all, no journaling necessary.

xoxo
K

I Made a Mess

2012-02-08T06:30:00.001-03:30

This month at Simple Scrapper our March Assignment was to use a journaling card in place of a picture. So, using a sketch template from February 2011 in the Premium Members Archive, I came up with this layout.

I used a combination of elements from Studio Calico's Boardwalk kit and bits and pieces from my stash in an effort to get rid of some of my stash of scraps. I like the teal & red color combo here-it's something I wouldn't normally try. I arranged my photos into a grid with some pattern paper and tied the twine around it to mimic the bakers twine you find on cake boxes. A few strips of washi tape and a little fiskars boarder punch helped anchor the journaling block and the photo grid.

For my journaling I used a combination of Basic Grey letter stickers and little stamps. I also made a washi covered cardstock heart which was punched using a fiskars 'heart' punch. A simple title with the focus on 'mess' completed the project.

xoxo
K

CHA Challenges

2012-02-07T06:30:00.000-03:30

I participated in some Studio Calico CHA challenges over on their message board this past week. I've been trying to expand my scrapbooking repertoire and challenges are a great way of doing that.

Another great way to do that is to find inspiration. For this layout I found some inspiration in this piece from this layout on Pinterest. I loved the way that Waleska used the numbers to write her journaling and used that as my jumping off point for this layout.

So, in this layout I had two challenges:
1. use circular elements-circle pic+ polka dots+ buttons (CHA challenges)
2. number my journaling

This is what I came up with.

I stamped my journaling on a few pieces of washi tape, anchored with pattern paper. I included tons of buttons and brads, both intermingled with the pictures and also at the button as a larger embellishment. I also tried to mimic the 'circle' element with my title as well. This layout might use circular elements but it's also very linear-which I like!

My subject is hysterical. These pics were taken one evening when I dropped into Allison and Paul's to drop off some cookies. Liam was trying a sippy cup for the first time and his face was hilarious. The pure confusion really made me believe that he was having a conversation with us-if only in his head. It was too funny and deserved to be recorded!

I miss my sweet little boy. I can't wait to see him in April!

xoxo
K

Mojo Monday

2012-02-06T06:30:00.000-03:30

This weekend I had a chance to sit down and participate in The Paperie's Mojo Monday challenge. Each Monday they post a challenge on their blog and their facebook page and you have the week to get your pages or cards completed. This week's challenge was a sketch from pagemaps. I love a good sketch so I just had to play along. You can see the sketch here.

Here's my take:

I cracked open a new SC kit, Brooklyn Flea, for this layout but I used a bunch of different things from my stash to add to it as well. The red plaid paper seemed to work just perfectly with Liam's red stripes shirt. The yellow mat in the photos made for a perfect accent color with a little washi tape and pattern paper. I tried to make my title 'jump' off the page by layering some of the letters on top of one another to mimic the action in the photos. I also wanted to indicate how old Liam was but wanted to try something a little different than just a little label. So I added that number strip from a Studio Calico + Sassafras collaboration from an older kit. Then I traced the '4' putting a little circular element around it and added little red Jillibean letters for 'month'.

The journaling reads: Oh Baby Liam! You just love your jolly jumper. Stick that thing in a doorway and you will jump forever! Your dad says you're prepping for your b-ball career!

This kid just loves to jump!

xoxo
K

Dear ipad

2012-02-04T07:00:00.000-03:30

Dear ipad,

I think I'm in love. You are awesome. You make tweeting, facebook, blogging, pinterest and checking my email so much more fun and simple. I had no idea how you would change my life when you came into it. Thank you for coming to live with me and providing me with a link to the world outside my door. You rock!

So last weekend we got an ipad.

It's been life changing for me. I LOVE it and I'm not really sure what I did without it. Her name is Ivy.

On Thursday Ivy & I went on a little adventure together to lunch at a cafe downtown. She's even a great friend so you don't have to have lunch all by yourself. ;)

xoxo
K

5 For Friday

2012-02-03T06:30:00.000-03:30

1. Do you tweet? Read this recently from a class on Simple Scrappers-it's genius. I am not a great tweeter and I needed to brush up on the lingo as I'm trying to be better at tweeting myself more regularly. Check it out here and here too.

2.I finally found a place where you can print your instagram photos and have them shipped internationally! Check out Printsagram. It's awesome. You can do much more than just print your photos-you can even have stickers and mini-books made. LOVE.

3. I've discovered a new blog by Elise Blaha. Boy is she cute-stinkin' cute. After noticing her a million times in twitter feeds this week from CHA I finally looked her up and boy, is she pretty rad. She's got some great goals and ideas and she's honest and I just like her style. You know how sometimes you read a blog or a post and think 'Man, we could totally be friends in real life!'?! Yeah, that's how I felt after discovering her blog.

4. It snowed AGAIN yesterday- that's the second winter storm of the week- and we're in for another monster storm tomorrow according to the weather forecast.

I'm not sure how much more snow I can take and it's only February. There are have 5 snow days since we started back at school January 3rd. What is that?! I don't remember being that lucky as a kid!

5. I got a haircut yesterday. It's been a while since I actually enjoyed the process of getting my haircut. A new friend of mine cut it and she did a great job! It's also been a while since I had bangs as well-so I went for it and got a little 'swoosh'. I love it. It looks super cute in a pony too. Check it out!

Excuse the turtleneck-it's my 'house uniform'.

On today's agenda-pick up pictures and snacks for the impending snowstorm. Let's hope the grocery store isn't to crazy!!! Have a great weekend.

xoxo
K

Project Life: Week 4

2012-02-02T06:30:00.000-03:30

I've caught up! I know that's not the point of this project but I'm pleased that we're four weeks in and I'm still on top of it. I'm not good at going back and finishing things so it's best I just stay ahead of it all!

So today I want to share a little bit about my process when I work on my project life. It's simple and makes the tedious parts a little quicker for me.

*So I always start with my photos and my page planner by Marcy Penner. I know I've said it before but this has been a wonderful organizational tool.

*I take my photos from iphoto and put the ones I want to use into a new folder on my desktop. From there I add my notes to my page planner based on those photos.

*Then I open anything I need to change into Photoshop Elements and crop my photos to fit the page protector slots. Then I send them all to the printer.

*Once I have my pictures in hand I trim anything that needs to be trimmed.

*Then I use my We R Memory keepers corner chomper 1/2" rounder on the corners of the larger photos. I leave small hipstagram photos as they are because I usually print them at 2.5" by 2.5".

*From there I slide things into the slots. I embellish one page at a time, taking it slot by slot.

*I usually write my journaling last which I then print out on my home printer. I like to use orange peel cardstock by Bazzil. I've also been using some 4 by 6 digital journaling blocks that I bought ages ago from Designer Digitals by Ali Edwards.

Then I'm usually done! My whole process usually takes a total of 2-3 hours from start to finish, minus the time it takes to send the photos to the developer and get them back. I find the most tedious part is cropping any of the photos in PSE. I'm getting better at that though!

So, here's this week 4 of Project Life.

This week I included an insert. We had two big events this week-an early morning brunch on Sunday and a dinner mix-up on Friday night that deserved some attention!

I had a leftover 3 slot page protector that I had from an insert I used a few weeks ago. So I slid all the bits and pieces into the slots and then I just punched holes right through the photos to use the page protector. It worked and I didn't have to waste the rest of the page protector.

Here's a closeup of the first page.

Just another ordinary week-reading, routines, celebrating Chinese New Year with some General Tao's chicken, gym and some comfort food.

The other half...

A right now post from my blog, a new chair for our living room, M played roller hockey with the boys, I felt weird all week and my family came for some birthday celebrations! I also had some comments on a layout in the SC gallery that I was pretty excited about! ;)

This is my favourite part of my project life album this week. I wanted to use a free printable from the Photo-A-Day class for the 'right now' slot. Just a simple hipstagram photo taken for the Polaroid. I used the journaling from my post on Saturday for the 'hello life' journaling block. I love that this captures a moment in time for me. It'll be fun to look back on later.

I'm enjoying project life. I'm finding that all those random pictures and funny stories that I wouldn't normally scrapbook are making it into this album. I LOVE that. I feel like more memories are being chronicled in this small project.

Are you working on project life? How are you finding it? What's your process?

xoxo
K

Happy Anniversary!

2012-02-01T06:30:00.000-03:30

When we got married M informed me that he refused to participate in anniversaries other than our wedding anniversary. According to him, all other anniversaries i.e dating anniversaries, etc. were obsolete.

Well, that's kind of sad for him.

Today I'm going to celebrate our 10 year anniversary whether he likes it or not. 10 years ago we agreed to 'go steady'. Yeah, that's nerdy but it is what it is.

But, I know that I'm one lucky girl.

Pictures by Jeremy clay Photography

He is an awesome husband. We have a lot of fun together. We've traveled and had some great adventures together. We've been through school, done the long distance thing many times and moved away and back again together. We've watched our friends get married and have babies, learn to run together and bought a house.

I can honestly say it's been a great 10 years and I can't wait to see what the next 10 bring!

This layout came together with a few pics from our best friend's wedding. The photographer was Jeremy and he did a wonderful job on their pictures.

Here's a few close up shots.

I have all these pins lying around and so I made a little flag out of one of them. I 'love' the way it looks on the layout!

Happy anniversary M!

xoxo
K

This is the Face

2012-01-31T06:30:00.000-03:30

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

2012-01-30T06:30:00.000-03:30

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!

2012-01-29T07:00:00.000-03:30

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

2012-01-28T07:00:00.000-03:30

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

2012-01-27T06:30:00.003-03:30

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

2012-01-26T06:30:00.000-03:30

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...?

2012-01-25T06:30:00.000-03:30

...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

2012-01-24T06:30:00.000-03:30

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

2012-01-23T06:30:00.000-03:30

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

2012-01-20T06:30:00.000-03:30

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

2012-01-19T06:30:00.000-03:30

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

2012-01-18T06:30:00.000-03:30

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

Sneaky Sneaky

2012-01-17T06:30:00.000-03:30

I've been working on a few new layouts but alas it's dark outside and the photos just aren't happening. So, you'll have to wait with bated breath and be satisfied with a few sneaks!

Stay tuned for the full layouts. I'll be working on project life this evening so I'll have an update on that later this week.

xoxo
K

The Paperie: January Kit

2012-01-16T06:30:00.000-03:30

The Paperie revealed their January kits this past weekend. I'm not sure they even have any left but wanted to show you what I created with this kit.

The kit was a challenge for me. I'm not a big Tim Holtz fan, simply because I'm not into the grungy dark look that his products induce. But, this kit had a lot of 'Tim Holtz-like' products. So I did the best I could and while it was a challenge, I am pleased with what I was able to make out of it.

This mini-album used the package of Fancy Pants holiday embellishments that were in the kit. I used a Pioneer Woman photo shop action to make the pics more vintage to suit the style of the album. Other than that I kept it pretty simple.

This layout came together pretty quickly too. A little Perfect Pearl mist, included in the kit, gave me a little sparkle in the background. I punched a few stars out of the glassine paper that I had embossed and created a row for my picture on sit on. I used the Accucut machine to make letters which I then traced with a blue AC pen. I love the way the title looks!

This layout was super simple. Three little blocks- a title, a pic and subtitle/journaling. I jazzed up the letters a little with some more Perfect Pearls mist. I love that glitter paper. It's so fun and fancy! It was my fav part of the kit.

xoxo
K

Five for Friday

2012-01-13T06:30:00.000-03:30

1. I've recently finished reading these three books and they were all wonderful, easy reads.

One Day

The Girl Who Chased the Moon

The Next Always

2. 'Over at 'A Cup of Joe' Joanna Goddard is focusing on travel this week with some great tips! I found this cute article on packing a plane picnic and thought that these ideas were genius. It made me want to travel RIGHT this minute. This article on what to wear on your feet when you travel was also inspiring!

3. I made these deserts for our first dinner party this past Sunday. They're 's'mores in a Jar'. Here's the how to because it's super simple:

Don't they look scrumptious! They were gobbled up by our guests.

4. I had a wonderful date night with my good friend B last night. We saw 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo'. It was actually pretty good. Not as accurate as the sub-titled Swedish version. I recommend reading the books above all else. They were all amazing-just get past the first 50 pages of the first one and don't worry about remembering any of the Swedish names. That was what I was told when I decided to read them a couple years ago. Both suggestions got me through to the good stuff.

Warning: This movie isn't for the light of heart. It's pretty graphic so beware if you plan on seeing either version.

5. I've got some great news. I was offered a spot on the design team over at Simple Scrapper. If you aren't a member you can get a free membership over there with access to tons of articles, classes and sketches. I LOVE a good sketch. Look for some layouts based on their sketches coming in February.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Mine will be filled with re-decorating ideas I suspect.

xoxo
K

Project Life: Week 1 on Wednesday

2012-01-11T06:30:00.000-03:30

So I've finished my first week of Project Life.

It came together fairly quickly but there's a few things I did learn in the process of working out the first week's layout.

1. Look at the slots and plan ahead with the pictures. I had one too many 4 by 6's this week and I would have liked to do more 3 by 4 inserts as written pieces rather than photos. That being said, it was a hectic week around here so there was A LOT happening.

2. I think I have to check my camera settings. It seems a lot of my photos are too 'warm'-maybe the lighting is off.

3. I have to figure out a way to take some better pictures of the layout in the page protectors. If you know of any good shooting techniques or anyone with any good articles on this please leave a comment below with some information for me! I beg of you!

4. I almost need a little bucket to toss stuff into during the week. This week I just stuck a few things on the shelf with the book but I think a little container would be better.

So, I'm going to designate a little buckets for bits and pieces. I'm going to leave the album open and out on a shelf to plan as I go this week. That might help my process. Either way, I will say I liked seeing our life in a 'week at a glance'.

Now, a few things about the album.

On this page I added our New Year's Eve activities and our New Year's Day festivities-my Nanny's 80th birthday. I also added our running in there! My New Year's resolution letter from this post, is in the bottom pocket.

On this page, I included lots of hipstagram photos and details about the week.Our best friends left to go back home to Ottawa with baby Liam. We miss them already. I added my facebook status to the black and white picture in photoshop. I also eradicated Christmas, had dinner with my family discovered a new restaurant and worked on a new kit assignment for 'The Paperie'.

It was a hectic week. I'll be back next Wednesday with Week 2.

In the meantime, here's a few peeks of The Paperie's new January kit which will be debuting this coming weekend at the store. There's some interesting material in there that I had to use that was an opportunity to really stretch my scrapbooking brain. It was challenging but FUN!

I'll be posting full pictures this coming weekend!

xoxo
K

The boys the boys.

2012-01-10T06:30:00.001-03:30

M has some awesome friends. More wedding pics today using the same SC kit from yesterday.

This layout is so different from yesterday's layout. Very neutral in keeping with the photos. I love that it's simple but elegant-very wedding like! It just shows how you can create two totally different things out of one kit!

This layout has no journaling. The title and subtitle were enough for me. I think the pictures tell the story themselves. It's just a bunch of quirky guys who love one another, have a lot of fun together and support each other. How can you not love them?

xoxo
K

A Layout: YOU & I

2012-01-09T06:30:00.002-03:30

So I hauled out an old book-52 More Scrapbook Challenges by L. Katchner. I've been a long time lover of her style and techniques. I'm even more excited that she has another line debuting at CHA the end of this month. Can't wait to see what she came up with with American Crafts.

So I tried out one of the challenges. I picked:

Use Song lyrics or a title in your layout

My take:

Hence the title: 'You & I' -a popular song by Lady Gaga.

These pics were sitting around waiting to be scrapped from our best friends' wedding in September. I could have used them with all the wedding photos I had printed and just included them in the wedding layout but I wanted to tell a different story. So, I took a few of the candid shots of M & I that really captured us-in the moment, no posing, just real life stuff. I love these pictures. They really show us as a couple. We have so much fun. We laugh a lot. And yeah, we actually are that good at dancing too. ;)

I used a Studio Calico kit that came out in the Fall. I'll admit that I'm a little backed up with SC kits at the moment but I'm hoping to plow through a few with some old photos later on this month. For this layout though I used the leaves from the Amy Tangerine AC line and loved them.

I was surprised with this kit actually because initially the colors weren't my thing but I love how the layout came together so nicely with the kit. As always SC hit another one out of the park.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you are having a great Monday!

xoxo
K

5 For Friday

2012-01-06T06:30:00.000-03:30

1. I'm totally excited for this! Amy Tan is doing a Studio Calico class about how to use those main kits wisely! Stretch Your Kit looks like an awesome class. Might have to give myself this one for Valentine's day!

2. I am totally obsessed with how Kelly Purkey created her title page for Project life. I am def going to scraplift this one!

3. I found a great site for anyone out there doing a 365 photo approach to the year or a project life album. Check out 'Capture your 365' for lots of interesting tidbits, motivation and inspiration. Check out this print out and you can even sign up to recieve a daily reminder.

4. Love this cute little velum envelope tutorial on the Crate Paper blog this week.

5. I eradicated Christmas. It's gone. Terminated for another year.

Bonus: We really miss these guys! Hope you're enjoying Florida. :(

Remember This...

2012-01-05T06:30:00.000-03:30

I made this layout using the December kit from 'The Paperie'. The combination of yellow, red and green really worked with Liam's outfit and the Starbuck's cup in the second row.

This layout came together fairly quickly. I knew I wanted to include a lot of hipstamatic photos and lining them up just felt right. I anchored them all with some fabric tape. Isn't it lovely? I love anything polka dot! I left the last little picture at the bottom of the page as a focal point.

The strips draw your eye across the page but the final thing you look at is that sweet hobo hat and the baby nestled softly in it. I love that 'old man hat' on him. Too cute.

I stuck my journaling on a little card and punched a hole in the 12 by 12 so that you could see the little word 'love' and pull out the journaling from there.

This is my first layout of 2012 and not only am I smitten with the cast of characters that this page is about but I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

xoxo
K

Sneak Peek!

2012-01-04T06:45:00.000-03:30

Just a little something I'm working on. I'll be sure to take full pictures tomorrow.

I used the December Kit from my local scrapbokoing store 'The Paperie'. Unfortunately, they are all sold out of the kits but there will be another one coming this month. Stay tuned for those sneaks and layouts because it's my turn to produce some layouts as a design team member.

You can check out what a few of our design team members did with this kit here.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the full layout. It's my first layout of 2012.

xoxo
K

What a great idea!

2012-01-03T06:30:00.000-03:30

So have you checked out this weeks challenge at Studio Calico?

Kind of obsessed with it. It was a great idea. And what a cute way to start the new year. A little personal pep talk to start the year off right. I'm sure looking back on that letter in the wee hours of 2013 will be very cool.

So, I decided to do my own and tuck it safely into my project life album.

Hopefully I'll remember it's there next January 1st! Ha!

xoxo
K

Project Life: Opening Page

2012-01-02T07:00:00.000-03:30

I'm all ready to go.

I'm using a red, leather American Crafts 3 ring binder. I imagine I'll need more than one for this project. A challenge for me is going to be using less dimensional items. I love a little dimension but this project may not be the one for lots and lots of 3d embellishments.

I used a freebie from Cathy Z. for the insert in the front of the album.

The cover page is done. I stuck with neutral colors with a pop of red for good measure.

And there it is in the album. I'm all ready to go.

Wish me luck!

xoxo
K

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T07:00:00.000-03:30

Happy New Year to you and your family!

Warning: this post is heavy with photos.

2011 was a great year for us. It was a big year for us with the move to NL and the purchase of a new house, not to mention an increased amount of running, a new godson and new jobs. But, here we are.

Just a few of my fav pics of 2011...

Boston-sitting where JFK proposed to Jackie O.

Not-so crazy bachelorette party.

New baby #1: the Big O.

Hanging in the old neighborhood.

Running: half marathon #2.

Moving.

B-day.

Camp. Might be my last full summer with D for while.

Adventures at home in NL with M.

Our best friend's were married.

Baby #2: New godson-so adorable.

Florida 4-day vacation.

First football game-'we play to win the game'.

First bar mitzvah. Beautiful girl.

Turkey Day running

Baby Liam is in NEWFOUNDLAND.

Christening.

Cause he's an old man in that hat.

Santa Claus parade.

new house

Renovations

Baby visits to the new house.

Xmas Party

Our first Christmas tree that we spend our first Christmas together with.

Making Christmas presents in the craft room

Hanging out of Christmas Eve

Squeezing in a few more coffee dates before it's time to go abck to O-town.

Hope your year was as prosperous as ours has been. Here's to a fabulous 2012! I'm looking forward to it.

xoxo
K

Project Life: Getting ready for the new year

2011-12-31T07:01:00.000-03:30

So I mentioned a while ago that I was prepared to take on 'Project Life'. Project Life and I didn't have such a good relationship.

This blog post form May 2011 may explain it all:

Dear Project Life,

This weekend I tried to reconnect with you. You see, I've been very busy and that makes it difficult to keep up with you. I've also had trouble getting the appropriate tools i.e page protectors, in order to participate in your project the way I would like. That being said, I discovered this past weekend that our relationship is a stressful one. It leaves me frustrated and angry with myself. And that's just not what scrapbooking should be about. So, I want you to know that while your relationship with MaryAnn and Ali and even Cathy Z. may have worked out-it's not you, it's me. I'm sorry but I have to end it. Maybe I'll find a different solution to chronicle my daily life but you're just not it. I thought I could let you down easy but I have to tell it like it is. I hope I haven't hurt your feelings. Thank you for all the lovely projects that you inspire in others. I appreciate all your work but it's just not for me. Goodbye Project Life.

Bowing gracefully out,
Krista Wells

I blame it all on Amazon who wouldn't ship the Becky Higgins page protectors to me. But, this year I have a stack of those page protectors and a new shiny red American Crafts album to begin chronicling Project life 2012.

So here's the plan...

*I'd like to include a project 12 layout each month. Essentially a round up of the month using some of my leftover or favorite photos.
*I'd like to use Sunday/Monday nights to complete my week's layout & post some time early in the week on my blog. Ali posts on Tuesdays. I would like to do that once a week. I'm hoping that will keep me honest.
*I'll be using my Selphy to print some photos and I'm sure I'll upload others.
*I'm still going to scrapbook regular layouts but I'm not sure if they'll be in my Project Life binder or not. I tried that in my early attempts last year and it just didn't work out.
* I'm still working on my 'one little word' for 2012 but I'm sure that the album will centre around that.

I've begun gathering a little bucket of Project Life items that I know I will use for this year-long project. Yesterday I organized some of my scraps and cut them down to fit into the small pockets of the page protectors.

I gathered a bunch of journaling blocks and put all of those little tools in a basket together so they are easy to reach. I still need a few more organization tools. I like this one from pinterest.

I'm also thinking, actually I'm almost 100% on this, about taking the 'photo-a-day' class from Studio Calico. I think it might give me the motivation I need to keep up with this project. I'll be focusing heavily on Lisa's post for inspiration and as a guide as I begin this monumental task of documenting our year!!!

My goal is to have the opening page ready for the 1st of January. I'm looking forward to this project and hope to sustain it this year! I'll be keeping up with Mary Ann, Ali and others who love and post about project life each year.

xoxo
K

December Daily: A Recap Part 3

2011-12-31T07:00:00.000-03:30

Another installment of December Daily. The last one in fact.

Dec. 21:

I ran errands pretty much all day. It was an ordinary day and in a quiet moment at Second Cup I ordered a White Peppermint Hot Chocolate and sat to cross a few things off my list. I even tucked the list into the red envelope as a little reminder of what was on the agenda this Christmas.

Dec. 22:

A morning spent making baby handprints-I embossed them for Allison. An afternoon spent baking and an evening of wrapping presents for friends and family. Thought I might include a few Polaroids on this one.

Dec. 23:

I created a collage in photoshop for this double page layout. I numbered each of the photos and then made a little list with some stamps on the opposite page.

Dec. 24:

Christmas eve brought a lot of activity. We went to see our Christmas movie and snuck a photo in Santa's chair on my camera timer. We went to Christmas Eve mass with our friends and family. We even started a new tradition of chili and gift giving at our new house on Christmas Eve.

Dec. 25:

The big day-Santa left M a letter! I had to. It was too cute. We opened gifts in our new house and had three meals-brunch, lunch and dinner. It was a great day with our families.

The last page was just a little something simple to close out the album with the year.

And that's it. December Daily is closed for another year. Up next, Project Life.

xoxo
K

December Daily: A Recap Part 2

2011-12-30T07:00:00.002-03:30

Yesterday I featured December 6th to the 13th here on the blog. Here's December 14-20.

Dec. 14:

THIS is my favorite page from my December Daily. I LOVE it. Inspired by something I saw on pinterest, I masked the 'right now' title and used a hipstamatic photo I took of myself. The writing on the right is part of a blog post I wrote about this time in December. I love the way the whole thing came together.

Dec. 15:

Our friends from away had started arriving home for the holidays at this point and a few dropped by to hang out and catch up. I made them some chocolate chip cookies to enjoy.

Dec. 16:

M's Christmas party. It was a fun night with snacks, people watching and loud, terrible music. Got a great shot of us from the party's photographer Sam Russel. He's awesome. Love the way this 'the story' page turned out as well.

Dec. 17:

Finally getting the house decorated. Usually I am one of those people who is chomping at the bit to get the house decorated for Christmas mid-November. But, with the moving it just wasn't possible obviously. So it had to wait for a Saturday afternoon instead.

Dec. 18:

I had to babysit on the 18th. I may be a little biased, but my godson is the cutest child in the world. Don't try to argue because it's futile. He's the most well-behaved baby and darn is that face cute.

Dec. 19:

So, M's work had a cookie contest on Dec. 19 and after some tweeting Karl Wells, a local food critic, came in to judge. My cookies WON! He said they 'danced a jig in his mouth'. It was a very exciting moment for me.

Dec. 20:

My Aunt & Uncle received some bad news this month which brought them and their daughters, my cousins, back to Newfoundland for a little while. To distract the girls, my dad and I took them on a movie date to see 'Chipwreaked'. It was hilarious but what was even funnier were the giant chipmunk characters outside the theatre. Of course, the girls wanted to pose and I had a camera on hand!

Stay tuned. One more recap tomorrow.

xoxo
K

December Daily: A Recap

2011-12-29T11:04:00.002-03:30

So I finished my December Daily yesterday. After some deliberation and discussion with M, I decided to keep it simple and only go through the first 25 days of December. Usually I go right up to the 31st in an effort to include all of our 'home activities' in the album. But, this year we lived at 'home' and thus our activities weren't all that necessary to record in my eyes. So, I left it at 25 and started prepping for Project Life instead. More about that later. I did however have to change my opening page from 31 to 25 but I just punched a circle and stuck it on right over top of the 31 that was there.

So this is the first installment of pages. I only posted up to Dec. 5th on the blog so far and you can find that here and here. Moving into a new house at Christmas time is crazy. I wouldn't recommend it but it all worked out just fine and here we are.

This is pages 6 through 12.

Dec. 6:

Mailed out all our cards at the post office. Had a little boy help me put them in the mail slot. I'm pretty sure it made his day!

Dec. 7:

Many pictures of my mom decorating the house for the holidays. It was so nice to be home to help this year.

Dec. 8:

Baking, baking and more baking. This was the first of many baking expeditions I went on this month in an effort to meet all the holiday orders for Taffety.

I used a little strip of photos set into my big picture to give a few more shots from the day but I wanted the focus to be on all those boxes of cookies.

Dec. 9:

A little tradition at my family home. Left the kraft page on the right a little bare. I like it that way though.

Dec. 10:

A big day! Moving Day! Got a few small shots for the collage and two big photos-one of me in the mirror with the U-Haul in the background and the opposite side is the bottle of champagne we shared that was bought on our wedding night 2 and a half years ago. It was a delicious way to celebrate our new home that evening.

Dec. 11:

Family gathering for my Aunt Shawna who was home with her girls for the first time in a while.

Dec. 12:

A night out at my local scrapbooking store to celebrate the holidays with their customers.

A little collage of photos with the page protector as well.

Dec. 13:

An ordinary day by December standards. It was freezing outside. I taught. I auto-budded with someone in the parking lot of school. I started to organize my scrapbooking room.

I've started working on the gathering and preparing process for Project Life this week. I'll have a progress report on the blog soon.

xoxo
K

One LIttle Word 2011: Move

2011-12-28T07:00:00.001-03:30

I've been thinking a lot about my Word for 2011 lately. Being that 2011 is nearly over I thought it might be fitting to reflect on 2011's word 'MOVE'. This year it was more fitting than ever. We met our goals of 'moving' in so many ways.

In my original post I focused on moving my body, moving to a new city and maybe even into a new home and moving on from camp. Seems as the last 12 months flew by we've managed to meet all of those goals.

M & I got fit and ran our half-marathon in 25 minutes less than we did in 2010. We learned to eat better and we focused on fitness goals. M ran his butt off-literally-and even came in 3rd in the Army Race in his age category here in St. John's.

May 2011

October 2011
Early in the year we made a commitment to work on getting home to St. John's. And we did. After working out the logistics, M came home in June and I followed him from camp in August. While we admit that the transition has been difficult at times and we miss our friends terribly, there have been a lot of positive things happening since me moved home. M got a great job and we bought out first home towards the end of the year just in time for the Christmas Holidays.

June 2011

June 2011

September 2011

August 2011

November 2011

In September I took my last few Master's in Ed. courses and managed to work on a huge project to tell my story of camp. It was a great way to chronicle the last 10 summers of my life and I summed it up with my 'goodbye' letter which I sent in to the director in late November. While this wasn't the last summer I will ever spend at camp, it was the last consecutive one for a little while. This coming summer I'll be here in Newfoundland. I'm taking a break and I'm almost at peace with my decision. I'll probably make a visit to NY to see everyone at some point during the summer
though-just to get my fix.

June 2011

August 2011

August 2011

November 2011

So, all in all, it's been a good year. Goals were met and my 'little word' was a success. I'm still working on my 2012 word. But I know it will come to me. Here's to a successful 2011!

xoxo
K

Merry Merry!

2011-12-27T07:00:00.002-03:30

Christmas. It's all over for another year and it lived up to all the hype this year.

Christmas eve was wonderful. We trimmed a tree, saw our Christmas Eve movie "The Muppets" in theaters, got a sneaky photo in Santa's chair post-movie with M's family and went to church with our friends, the cutest godson in the world and my parents.

Our friends came over to our house for some chili a little 'Elf' watching and opening gifts. We ended the night with new pj's ( a family tradition I couldn't let go from my own Christmas Eves as a kid) and it was just perfect.

I totally made him baby mustache pacifiers!

We awoke in our new house and opened our presents together for the first time on December 25th. It was so nice to have our own place to escape to during all the eating and mayhem of Christmas Day. M didn't miss a beat this Christmas and bought me a new lens for my camera and wow is it ever amazing! It takes some pretty awesome pics. He also gave me a snuggie-which, let's face it, may seem lame-but it's awesome! He got a ukelele and has been following me around the house serenading me.

We enjoyed meals with family and friends a little visiting.

And no Christmas day is complete without a little nap. Turkey naps are the best kind.

Hope you had a wonderful holiday. Happy Holidays to all of you!

xoxo
K

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T08:15:00.003-03:30

From our family to yours we wish you a Merry Christmas. May your year be filled with joy, love and laughter. Best wishes for 2012!

Photo Taken by Sam Russel

xoxo
K

What's on your table?

2011-12-23T07:26:00.003-03:30

So this month has been a wash for this blogger but here we are and it's already December 23. You'll be happy to know that I have almost kept up with my December Daily. I'm in a rush-as usual so I'll just give oyu a glimpse of what's lying on my scrap tale right now...

That's it. Gotta go run errands and bring M to work.

xoxo
K

Scrappy Sunday

2011-12-19T08:00:00.000-03:30

We moved. I've got a new scrap space. I'm no longer in a scrap cave in the basement. Now, I'm in a beautiful blue room-I'm sharing it with my husband. It's our 'office'.

I'm trying to sort out the room and get organized. Here's a picture of the before. I'll be back with some after pictures this week.

I've also been working on my December Daily. Getting some pictures of that ready too. Stay tuned.

xoxo
K

Right now...

2011-12-14T06:30:00.000-03:30

listening: 'Countdown' by Beyonce & Christmas tunes.
eating: clementines-they smell like Christmas.
drinking: tried Skinny Girl Margaritas one the weekend. Love.
wearing: tall boots with jeans
feeling: a little behind on my decorating
weather: really getting chilly here in NL
watching: catching up on 'The Mentalist'
waiting: for the phone to ring...always
wanting: the Christmas Holidays to come
needing: to get out for a run
thinking: about whether I have enough ornaments for our new tree
enjoying: our new house
wondering: what I'm going to wear to a holiday party this weekend

xoxo
K

P.S: That's not my house in the pic. It' my parents house. I wish I were that organized!

December Daily & An update

2011-12-08T06:30:00.000-03:30

So I've been a bad blogger. But, it's for good reason. We're moving into our house this weekend and there's been a lot of action around here. (Name the Christmas movie that quote came from ;)!)

So M learned to be a plumber. He's a real man now.

He and my Dad have been plugging away putting trim and molding in our bathrooms among other things. Manly activities.

Then I got a new mailbox! So cute. M put it up for me. Again, M being a 'man'.

And I had a little visitor yesterday. My favorite-of the baby variety!

But at the end of my day of touching up paint and waiting for security people to arrive among other things-I set up a few things in the corner of the dining room with all of the boxes.

And I did a few December Daily pages.

December 3:

I did my first full page picture.

My best friend's sister is having a baby and I'm so excited for her. Her baby shower was on Saturday. I used a tag for a little embellishment and added some pics of her and her mom and all of us on the phone with my bf who is in Ottawa and had to missed the shower.

December 4:

I left the pocket page plain here because my pattern paper was pretty busy. Just a little embellishment there.

My mom started decorating the house on Sunday evening. It's the first time in 4 years I've been around to help her get the house ready. It was nice to slip back into old traditions. I used a Polaroid to matte my photos and found the perfect chipboard embellishment.

December 5:

I spent the entire day on Monday doing things around the house but I blasted some serious holiday tunes while I did it and thus the theme of Monday's page.

I used the whole page for the title of my favorite Christmas song- "Merry Christmas Happy Holidays" by N'Sync.

Yeah. I know. But, I love it. We go way back. So I stamped all the journaling. It took a while but I love the way it turned out. I even found some music paper for the bottom.

So I have stories for Tuesday and Wednesday but obviously the pages aren't quite done yet. Who knows when that will happen?!

It's almost Friday.

xoxo
K

P.S: that quote is from 'Home Alone'. You know the part when Harry is at the McAllister's house as the cop and speaking to Kate, the mother. He's says 'there's a lot of action around here'. It's my favorite movie.

December Daily: 01 & 02

2011-12-05T09:30:00.000-03:30

So we've had a busy week. We bought a house last week and are planning on moving into it this coming Saturday. Oh yeah, and it's Christmas time. We must be nuts.

But, last night I carved out a few hours to put together my December 1st and 2nd pages for my December Daily. They obviously focus around our renovations and labour we are putting in at the new house. I suspect that there might be a lot of that this coming week. It seems to be all-consuming.

Just a little background info on my album. I put together an opening page with last year's freebie on Ali's site. I just covered the date at the bottom of the page. I made a little boo-boo on the front number and colored it red but it didn't match and I had to reprint the number '31' and use pop dots of cover the problem.

On the other side I taped a calendar to the outside of the page protector and added a little stamp from an Ali Edwards set from eons ago. I plan to add little details to the calendar as the month goes on.

Here's the first page.

I printed off a large hipstagram picture of our house with the
'sold' sign on it after photoshopping it black and white. A few little photos and some journaling were added to the larger photo. Then I embossed a little Maya Road house and found a cute little embellishment that said 'home for the holidays'.

It seemed fitting as this is our new home.

December 2nd's layout was supposed to be a double page layout but it didn't work out because the pictures I had didn't lend themselves to this structure. So, I just added a little Jillibean star, another embossed house and a little brad to the first page. On the second page I took out the pattern paper and used it as my matte with Ali's designer digital 'December Daily pages'.

I added 'a good day' because it certainly was productive-we painted two bedrooms and the bathrooms basically.

A little banner on it added a nice touch and some handwritten journaling at the bottom. We decked the halls in a different kind of way on Friday.

Hopefully I'll get 03 & 04 done in the next few days. I'm not worried about 'keeping up' right now. It's enough to keep life on track with the new house, work and the holidays fast approaching.

xoxo
K

Happy December!

2011-12-01T00:01:00.000-03:30

And so the chaos begins. The December Daily (DD) chaos that is. I can't believe that it's already December.

I decided that this year I would make a little list of resolutions for myself before beginning my December Daily. You see, last year I really struggled with the album itself. I made my album before Ali posted hers and about 7 days into December I decided I didn't like the format I made and couldn't look at it any longer. So, I redid my book. That of course sent me off track with the documenting part. So, I literally did not finish the book until this past November. I only did 25 days instead of my usual 31. The list goes on. Needless to say it was not the process that I enjoy usually in December.

So, going on 5 years of DD's this year I have a few mental reminders and resolutions for myself for DD 2011.

1. Just go with it. Don't worry about if it fits the colors in the photo. Don't worry about if it's a double page layout and there's only a small story. Just go with it.

2. But don't be afraid to change it to fit the story. I'm the worst at this. I have a hard time moving things and changing them around but I'm giving myself permission this year to do this.

3. Tell one story everyday. This is not a 'week in the life' project. You don't have to document every detail because let's face it-most of those will end up on scrapbook pages anyway.

4. Try really really hard to do the page on the day of the story. With the craziness that is my life right now-including a full move of my scrap cave to our new house-I know that this might be a tough resolution but I'm going for it anyways.

5. Write stuff down. I'm awesome at taking pics with my instaz, iphone and DSLR but I'm not so good with the tiny details of a story. I want to make a habit of jotting that good stuff down when it happens in my notebook.

6. Use different media. Get out the instax, iphone, hipstamatic, etc. and play with it.

7. Have fun with it. Remember that this is supposed to be fun-not stressful. If it becomes that take a step away from it and just wait until the right moment returns to get back to it.

Here's to a rockin' December Daily. Are you documenting? I'd love for you to link you're progress to me here in the blog comments.

xoxo
K

Exciting News!

2011-11-30T06:30:00.000-03:30

This isn't scrapbooking related at all-other than the fact that I'm sure every moment of this big adventure will eventually be scrapbooked!

So, we bought a house! Our first house. We are now proud homeowners. I'm pumped. I get to paint and do house stuff. Can you tell that I'm excited?! My December Daily is gonna have some seriously new traditions in it! I can't wait!

Stay tuned for more pics!

xoxo
K

December Daily

2011-11-28T09:00:00.000-03:30

Hi all! Hope you enjoyed your weekend. I have some pictures to share of my December Daily so far. Today I'm sharing the cover with you.

Just a little note about December Daily ideas-I had a big post on Friday with a whole list of resources I've found and am probably going to use in my December Daily kit. Check those out here!

So this year I bought the Studio Calico December Daily kit. It has been a great starting off point for my album. I also sorted through a lot of my stash early this month to have everything in one place when I started the album.

It's still a work in progress but I'm able to share my cover today. I knew I wanted to mist it with red and white and cover the front with some sort of layered collage of 'stuff'. There's lots of red and white and a hint of green.

I was inspired by a number of things I saw on pinterest and am trying to incorporate all the things that I added to my 'December Daily' board.

I also loved something I saw for the spine of the album. I added a piece of divine twine and a few little pieces, a 'peace' key and a little circle tag with a sticker on it, hanging on the spine. I love that look so incorporated that into the album as well as a little embossing at the bottom of the cardstock with the trees from one of our Christmas cards. A few little word stickers finished it off with a 'merry christmas'.

On the back I wanted to try using some stickers as masks and so I found some old stickers and then misted over them with the limited edition Holly Berry Mr. Huey from the Studio Calico kit. I added a little label and a little bling and called it quits there.

I did a little masking with the '2011' on the cover as well. I also love this plate. I've had it forever but hauled it out because I love the look of cream and red together. I love the way it turned out.

I'll be back tomorrow with the inserts I did.

xoxo
K

5 For Friday: December Daily Edition

2011-11-25T06:30:00.001-03:30

Yesterday was a great day to start celebrating the holiday season. It was Thanksgiving for many of you. I had a snow day yesterday which also meant that I got to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade-something else to be thankful for! I also finished ALL my Christmas cards. Here's a peak.

So today's post is holiday themed. Enjoy!

So I've found a a number of resources for my December Daily this year and I wanted to share them with you. There's wayyyy more than 5 so pardon the title of today's post!

Here's a few links you might want to check out for your December Daily album.

1. Creativity prompts have these cool journaling cards

2. Check out these labels that I found on Just Something I Made

3. Might need to get Ali's word art to do this-so cool!

4. Found some cute tags here & here

5. Maggie Holmes is doing a December Daily class that I'm considering taking.

6. Ali had a great post this week that you might want to check out for things to include in your album.

7. I also love this. It would make a great page for your December Daily if you re-sized it.

8. You might want to check out this thread for some cool ideas for pictures and thoughts as well.

9. Ella publishing has a new classes dedicated to Christmas lists.

10. Check out this full page print as well.

Lastly here's a sneak of my December Daily album and it's contents.

The binder itself is finished but I have lots of work to do to complete the inner pages before next Thursday!

Happy Holiday weekend.

xoxo
K

P.S: One month from today is Christmas Day. Guess I should pick up a couple gifts huh?!

Turkey & Camp

2011-11-24T06:30:00.003-03:30

In honor of all my American friends I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! Turkey day happens in October here in Canada but you people in the south have some mean sales during Thanksgiving and we Canadians LOVE that!

So, the real question is-what black Friday sales are you waiting around for?!

In honor of all you Americans I have a few more camp pages from my summer in NYC to share with you today!

These are the double page spreads I've made for the Summer 2011 camp album. Another simple concept here-title, maybe a few words and pictures. Killing more Studio Calico kits here as well.

This one's my favorite. I just love the way it turned out with the drops of mist and the stamps from Amy Tan's line at American Crafts.

For these pages I just did two 4 by 6 pictures together on one page. I like the way these turned out as well, despite their fuzziness in the pics.

My goal is to have this album completed sometime soon-maybe by the end of the year. We shall see!

xoxo
K

P.S: did you manage to stay up late enough to grab anything from Studio Calico in their Black Friday sale?!

Adding to my camp Mini Album

2011-11-23T07:00:00.000-03:30

There's something nice about smaller layouts. I've been slowly but surely working through my stack of camp photos for my Summer 2011 camp album. The album is 6 by 8 and has easy little slip covers to hold the layouts. It's originally an actual photo album but it was a super cheap deal so I've turned it into a scrapbook mini-album with a little extra something on the outside!

Here are a few of the single page layouts that's I've finished. The nice part about this size is that they're super quick with a few photos and embellishments to jazz it all up. Also, making these little pages has helped me kill a few kits as well. That's just a bonus!

I kept it simple-a title explaining things and pictures. That's enough for me!

Happy Hump Day!

xoxo
K

30 before 30-knocking one off the list

2011-11-23T06:30:00.002-03:30

I made a list in May of my '30 before 30' and on it I included a 'What I Wore Wednesday' post! I've always wanted to participate in Lindsey's 'What I Wore Wednesday' series and last week I kept the camera close by and took pics almost every time I got dressed. It was difficult to remember to take the pics but I did enjoy it none the less. It did force me to look more like a human being during the day and less like I was in my 'house uniform'. That's what M calls the knit socks & leggings look I sport regularly when we're in the house. So, here's my 'what I wore Wednesday' business.

So we'll start with a few work outfits-I'm a teacher so dresses, tights and flats work for day to day with the kiddos.

I wore this to run some errands on a weekday afternoon. I love this scarf. It was a gift from NYC.

I wore this for a weekend afternoon of errands and an evening dinner with friends. These are my favorite boots ever-they are 4 years old and I had to get them re-soled this year. That's how much I love them.

And just because-this is what I usually wear. This is my 'house uniform'.

I'm off to cross this off my '30 before 30' list. Have a great day and check out some of the other posts at 'The Pleated Poppy'.

xoxo
K

Tuesday Sharing

2011-11-22T06:30:00.001-03:30

I've got another mini-album to share with you today.

This one is inspired by the American Crafts Amy Tangerine line. I used a Jillibean file folder cut in half for the cover and back. Then I misted with some Studio Calico Mr. Huey's and added lots of embellishments from a past Studio Calico kit.

The theme of this album was our food adventures in NYC. If you are a 'foodie' you might recognize the title as a play on words for the television show 'Man vs. Food'. We love food and NYC is a great place to have some yummy adventures. We packed a lot into one day and honestly at the end of the night, a.k.a 8:30, I fell asleep due to a serious food coma. But, it was worth every calorie.

This is the opening page and 'The Story' behind the food frenzy.

I cut my cardstock/pattern paper to the same size as the album and doubled up pages to make them a little thicker and sturdier. I kept the titles of each of the pages simple with a misted Maya Road frame, pattern paper and tiny letter stickers from Authentique.

And another adventure is scrapbooked.

xoxo
K

Monday Mini

2011-11-21T06:30:00.000-03:30

I had a little Maya Road mini-album I had been hoarding for a while and found the perfect use for it recently. I made a little mini-album for our summer adventures. I love these AC letters and I used the Polaroid to frame the photo of the two of us I made M take while we were swimming at Lamanche Provincial Park.

Due to my summer at camp I had to make up for lost time when I got home in August. We packed a lot into August/September month and did lots of swimming, walking and ice cream eating. We even ran a little bit to even out the eating! ;)

This is the opening page. Sorry the photo's a little fuzzy.

We bought a charcoal grill for $14 and used it numerous times. It made some mean s'mores too!

Some ice cream adventures & a trip to a provincial park for a picnic and swimming at the water fall.

We had a few adventures swimming and walking through the Manuals River area as well.

It was a great summer. Camp was great, if not exhausting, but then I got to come home and enjoy time with my husband. All in all that's not a bad deal!

xoxo
K

5 For Friday

2011-11-18T06:30:00.000-03:30

1. I need to make these socks. Seriously-too cute.

2. Big Pictures classes has their self-paced workshops for 50% off this week until November 20th. I was thinking about taking this one by Kelly Purkey or this one by Amy Tangerine.

3. This tutorial by October Afternoon is kind of cool.

4. Becky Higgins announced her new Creative Team this week for Project Life. I admit it-I'm hooked. There's so much inspiration and ways to do it that I'm going to take the leap and go for it this year. But, I'm starting it on November 29th. It's a special date-but I'll reveal why a little later on in the month.

5. My December Daily kit came yesterday. To say I'm in love is an understatement. It's getting me in the mood for Christmas. Hopefully I'll have a chance to dig in and create something this weekend but it's gonna be a busy one. I'm popping in to see the girls at The Paperie tonight and we're heading to the cabin on Saturday morning to spend the whole weekend with our friends and my beautiful godson, Liam. I'm pumped for some serious baby snuggles.

Here's a few more layouts to round out the week. One about Halloween & one with some old pictures from May when M & I ran the Ottawa Half Marathon for the second time.

Next week I'll be sharing two some mini-albums I've been working on. Have a wonderful weekend.

xoxo
K

Because sometimes I think less is more when it comes to journaling...

2011-11-17T06:30:00.001-03:30

Is that bad?

I've noticed lately that I leave the journaling out when I scrapbook. This past weekend at the retreat I didn't have a computer and unless it's a mini-album or I'm tucking the journaling in somewhere I just don't like the look of my writing on my layouts. Anyone else out there with the same problem?! It's a pain sometimes.

So, here's a few layouts that I don't think require any journaling at all. I'm pretty sure you can get the gist just by looking at the pictures.

First up-my birthday. I'm only getting around to scrapbooking these photos now. It was in May. But I still love the pics. M took the photo of me and I had a homemade ice cream and cupcakes party which included Tequila Lime cupcakes, Red Velvet cupcakes, Boston cream cupcakes, & Black Cherry cupcakes. I made mint Oreo ice cream, cake batter ice cream and a plain old vanilla to round out the mix. The food was gobbled up pretty quickly so I'm glad I got pictures before everyone showed up!I did end up adding the small journaling block and figured that it was okay to journal on my own birthday page because in a million years I'll look back at it and remember my handwriting. It's not much but it's something right?!

This one's a large photo-8 by 10. I love it. It's funny and cute and a jumping photo is always a good idea-even when some people look totally foolish. This page is another minimalist page. Simple and sweet.No journaling-just a self explanatory title and the date in the top left corner. And the mist droplets, oh the mist droplets. Love those.

Tomorrow's Friday. Have any great plans for the weekend?!

xoxo
K

Hipstagram Layouts

2011-11-16T09:30:00.000-03:30

We're mid-week. That means we're halfway to Friday and that's good news.

Today's layouts are inspired by hipstagram. I love the hipstagram app on my iphone. In fact, I love my phone. I answered a lot of questions about developing the photos on the weekend at the retreat I attended. Here's my process.

Usually I open a 4 by 6 file in photoshop. Then I open 6 hipstagram photos. Then I drag each one over to the 4 by 6 file and position them so that there are 6 on a page. I save it and send them to the printers the same as I would a regular 4 by 6. Then I just trim them when I get home. It works and they come out just lovely.

First up is this layout about fall running. I love a fall run. I love the leaves and the crisp air. This paper seemed perfect for this topic. The journaling is tucked in behind the photo matte. It's simple but perfect with all it's Fall colors.

This one is about our Saturday routine which usually includes a walk downtown together and friends. I splattered some mists onto this one which is a new technique I seem to like a lot based on my recent layouts. It's a little 'Maggie Holmes style' but I love the results.

Happy Wednesday!

xoxo
K

Cupcakes & Christenings

2011-11-15T06:30:00.001-03:30

Here are a few layouts that I made this past weekend.

This one chronicles my love of cupcakes.

Anyone who knows me well enough-or has been reading this blog for some time-knows I have a serious love of cupcakes. These pics are from a tasting adventure that M & I had in June before leaving Ottawa. In an effort to taste what was available in town we bought cupcakes from Cupcake Lounge & The Flour Shoppe. Let the taste testing begin! But, I think my favorite part of this layout is the title:

"A well balanced diet is a CUPCAKE in each hand"

Genius. The quote was found on a cupcake wrapper from lunch with the girls at the retreat I attended this weekend. It was perfect for some Saturday afternoon inspiration!

Then there's this very simple layout.

A few weeks ago my godson had his christening. It was an exciting day for his proud parents and God parents. These are just a few pics I wanted to scrapbook from that day. I love the chevron paper and the droplets of mist. This layout came together so easily it was truly effortless.

xoxo
K

Monday Musings

2011-11-14T16:08:00.004-03:30

Hello Monday.

This past weekend I went to a scrapbooking retreat with about 70 other women. It was AWESOME in a word. I made some new friends and got to know some friends even better. I had a blast sitting with Sara, Raelynn and Peggy. There was knowledge and gossip shared and lots of laughing. The Paperie debuted their new kit club and I was a proud design team member as I stood proudly by my projects as the kits sold out in seconds! They were a hit! Of course, amidst all this I did manage to scrapbook-and boy did I scrapbook.

I'm still taking pictures and getting things uploaded to the computer so you'll have to wait until tomorrow for a layout or two but here's a sneak at my current scrap space.

I know I know-I scrapbooked all weekend so how could I have continued when I got home last night?! Well, the husband wasn't home and let's face facts-even if he was, I'm addicted and can't help myself.

This week is shaping up to be a busy one. Studio Calico is on it's way into my hot little hands and with it, my December Daily kit, which I am so excited for. In addition, I have tons of layouts/minis to share so stay tuned.

Hope your week is off to a great start!

xoxo
K

Sunday Snaps

2011-11-13T08:35:00.000-03:30

Thought I would post a little Sunday Snap today.

This guy is one of my favorite little men to hang out with. He's just too hip in that hat huh?!

Too cute.

xoxo
K

I've got News!

2011-11-12T06:30:00.000-03:30

I don't usually post on Saturday but this is a special occasion.

In October I was asked to be part of a new design team for my local scrapbooking store, The Paperie. I was so excited that it wasn't enough to respond to the email but I had to call and express my delight over the phone.

The first kit is being revealed today at our local scrapbooking retreat weekend and it's filled with a ton of Amy Tangerine American Crafts products-paper, stamps and washi tape. It was an awesome kit to work with and if you are a local scrapbooker you should check it out at The Paperie.

I managed to bang out a little mini, 4 layouts and 2 cards. Here are the pics:

I'm off to the scrapbooking retreat. I hope wherever you are you're getting some scrapbooking done this weekend!

xoxo
K

5 For Friday

2011-11-11T06:30:00.000-03:30

1. There's been a lot of action in the scrapbooking community this week about Project life. Write.Click.Scrapbook. had a piece on it this week. I saw Amy Tan, Paislee Press, Ali Edwards, & Jenni Hufford had posts about their project life not to mention Lisa T. had an awesome post on her whole process. So, that being said it got me thinking- Project Life 2012? Or maybe sooner? It's something I'm thinking about. Are oyu a project-lifer? Any tips for the beginner?

2. Here's a couple layouts that appeared on my M.Ed project blog this week for you to check out. The first one's inspired by a beautiful layout by Susan Weinroth that you can find here. The second is the opening page for the project. It's inspired by a course I took through Big Picture Classes with Ali Edwards a while ago.

3. I'm pretty pumped about this list that came out on Amazon this week.

4. I'm heading to a scrapbook retreat with some friends at a beautiful golf course just out of town this weekend. Two days of blissful scrapbooking. If only I didn't have to pack so much to go! Stay tuned next week for some new layouts!

5. If you've been following my blog posts this week I've been pretty excited about a little opportunity that came my way recently. I'll be sharing my news and and some projects tomorrow if you aren't too busy to pop back and check it out!

Have a wonderful weekend!

xoxo
K

Sneaks!

2011-11-10T06:30:00.000-03:30

So I'm working on something special. I have a little surprise to share this coming Saturday but here's a few sneaks of what I'm working on to keep you guessing!

xoxo
K

M. Ed: A 'Summery' of Camp

2011-11-09T06:30:00.001-03:30

*Copied from my Project Blog: A 'Summery' of Camp.

Thought I might share some of my completed double page layouts here on the blog. These are some of my favorites.

Note: I apologize that some of the pics are fussy within the pages but I had to blur the faces of the children for privacy's sake.

Let's talk a little bit about design as we go through them.

So right off the bat I will tell you that I STRUGGLED with the 8 1/2 by 11 size of this album. That page size was difficult and challenging to work with. Initially, I chose it because I never use that size and thought it might be fun to try something different. Turns out 8 1/2 by 11 is a LOT smaller than the 12 by 12. And it's a long rectangle which made it much more difficult to work with. I don't think it deterred me form using 8 1/2 by 11 because it is a nice size to add some variety to a scrapbook 12 by 12 album and I know lots of people love it and use it exclusively. But, it was a learning experience for me that's for sure.

I used a lot of sketches to spark my creativity here and used this project as an opportunity to try out some different designs-linear vs. a little crazy. I LOVE how some of them turned out.

This is very simple and linear-there weren't a lot of photos to work with for this layout either so I kept it streamlined and simple.

This one is FUN. love the color combo and again more streamlined.

I like the banner on this one. This one came from a sketch.

Simple again. A lot of pastel colors-not something I usually do but I enjoy it.

This one's wayyyyy out of my comfort zone but I LOVE how it turned out. I especially like the layers of embellishments on the left.

And this is the last one in the album and I love it. Went for a collage look and I've been saving that American Crafts paper for ages, deciding how I would use it. I LOVE this layout!!!Lots of bits & lots of pics.

So that's how the project is shaping up. If you are interested in checking it out you can visit the blog link at the top of the post.

Best thing about this project is that it's forcing me to use up a serious amount of my stash. It's also killing two birds with one stone-I get school credit for it & I get to work on a project I was going to do anyways.

Krista

Christmas anyone?

2011-11-08T06:30:00.000-03:30

This past weekend I started digging out my Christmas scrapbooking stuff. My shipment from Studio Calico should be here early next week and with it will be my December Daily kit. I also discovered something awesome while out browsing in a few clothing stores this past weekend-holiday washi tape. I was in my glee. 5 whole rolls of it. So CUTE!

So, of course I went home and dug out the rest of my holiday stash! Turns out I have a TON of Christmas product left over from the last few years. I can't wait to include all of it with the kit contents, which look awesome! I mean look at all this stuff...

I did discover last year's December daily amidst the pile. I wasn't very good at keeping up with it last year. I actually dismantled it and re-made it as a 6*8 album in the early part of December because I didn't like what I had done. So, the album that was supposed to make it to New Year's eve only made it to Christmas Day. It's fine. I'm totally fine with it. I actually had to finish the cover so I finished it right then and there and it's now a completed project. This year I have a great little printer which I plan to have out and use for doing each day as they happen. More on that in another post though.

Spurned on by the Christmas product, I let my Christmas spirit soar and decided to use some of my stash to create Christmas cards. I know, I know. I'm probably nuts to start making them this early but the thought of getting them done is something that just weighs on my mind every year and I just wanted to get them done and out of the way.

Usually I just stick with one card but this year, in an effort to get rid of some stuff I used three different colors-not traditional Christmas colors either. There was lots of embossing and mass production but I managed to bang out 88 cards on Sunday afternoon/evening. I think that's a pretty good day's work if you ask me.

So, the Christmas spirit is gaining momentum-at least in my scrapbooking room. We'll have to wait until December until I can go full-blown Christmas Crazy!

xoxo
K

5 For Friday

2011-11-04T06:30:00.000-02:30

I've been a bad blogger this week. It's November and it came with a vengeance. We've been busy and you'll find out why very soon! There's been a lot of good stuff going on this week and I can't wait to share but not just yet!

In the meantime, you'll have to survive on this weeks 5 for Friday:

1. Halloween was awesome. We take Halloween seriously around these parts! Check out this photo!

2. I stopped by my local shop yesterday and picked up some of the awesome new Studio Calico and American Crafts goodies they got in. I also picked up a sweet little set of Hero Arts Christmas stamps-I love that they are versatile with the houses and the tree. Christmas cards-here I come!

3. I've been slaving over this project all week. I'll have more details and pics on my blog later this weekend! I did meet with my professor and she liked what she saw so far!

4. I have to do some bragging here. My husband ran a 10km this past Sunday.He came in third in his age category. AND he got a metal. Great job M! You rock!

5. I'm working on something very special that I can't wait to share with you. Here's a sneak peek of what I'll be working with.

Have a great weekend!

xoxo
K

I remember...

2011-10-29T07:00:00.001-02:30

when I read books, like actual novels not articles about education...
when I had a job to go to every day...
when I wished for a weekday off, now I'd give anything to work a regular school day...
when Sunday afternoons were for action movies and scrapbooking in the living room...
when I had someone to chat with about my shows a.k.a 'Gossip Girl' & 'The Good Wife'...
when I got a regular paycheck...
when I could make a mess in my kitchen and not care if and when it got cleaned up...

The grass is always greener on the other side huh? It's been a frustrating week. Hoping for better next week.

xoxo
K

5 For Friday

2011-10-28T06:30:00.000-02:30

1. Check this business out! That's me in #62.

2. I had a fudge disaster yesterday. I tried to make Scottish tablet and it did not go well. It all went south when I managed to knock the candy thermometer into the sugar/butter mixture while it was boiling. Like I said, disaster. I'm trying take 2 today.

3. I have been working on a number of camp projects. I'm trying to chronicle this past summer in this album I posted a while ago.

They are all 6 by 8. I like the way it's shaping up so far. Here's a little sneak peek. I'll have more next week!

4. Studio Calico released their November kits today. I snagged the December Daily kit. I do have a few extras to add to it but I figured that getting the kit eliminates all the work. I can just stick withe a simple formula with the kit. It will also be fun to see what others do with their DD kits.

5. We had a BUSY weekend coming up. Multiple Halloween parties means we get to debut our Halloween costume for 2011. It's a good one! ;) Also, we have an 85th birthday party and a baby christening. Seriously?! We're covering it all this weekend!

Hope you have a great one!

xoxo
K

We Have Great Friends

2011-10-26T10:25:00.002-02:30

Leaving Ottawa was difficult. The city was lovely but our friends are probably what we miss the most. Any city is great if you have great friends to share it with.

These pictures were taken at Pam's birthday party in June. It was one of the last parties we went to with all of our friends.

I used a small grouping of hipstagram photos again and some washi tape at the top and bottom to anchor the pictures.

xoxo
K

Goodbye Gilmour

2011-10-25T06:30:00.000-02:30

Our first home was a great one. We lived on Gilmour St. in Ottawa for a long time-4 years. It was a great home on the second floor of a two-apartment house. It was large and had great natural lighting. I made many a scrapbooking page in that living room! I loved living there-with access to everything downtown and our friends nearby.

Now, as we look for a new home, I couldn't help but reminisce about our first home on Gilmour and so, on Friday night I dug out some more hipstamatic photos and made this layout chronicling our move from that apartment home to Newfoundland.

I had a really hard time using this sassafras paper. It just wasn't working for me. Then I had this idea to group a bunch of little photos together and it seemed to come together seamlessly. A few drops of mist/paint on the page gave it a little more dimension and made for the perfect background to tell this story with the faded photos. I made the title vertical and did the same with the journaling. I used a cute piece of paper from Studio Calico to number each of the pics and just anchored the picture section with some leftover strips of pattern paper and Crate Paper boarder stickers and a few buttons.

It was a great place to start our adventures together. Now, let's find the next one...

xoxo
K

Monday Musings

2011-10-24T06:30:00.000-02:30

It's Monday.

We had a great weekend. I had a wonderful time at my crop night at The Paperie on Friday night and managed to get a number of layouts accomplished. I even killed two Studio Calico kits in the process!

Here's one of the layout's I made Friday night.

This is a layout about the Whalesbone restaurant in Ottawa. We had lunch there in June before we moved back home. It was delicious- fish & chips and lobster benedict with homemade ice cream sundae for desert! Seriously yummy. I used little hipstagram photos and a Studio Calico kit with a bit of divine twine for the title banner!

I went out with a few of the girls after the crop for some late night snacks at Boston Pizza. It was delicious and the company was even better. We chatted, especially about the retreat, and I'm even more excited for a weekend retreat coming up in a few weeks.

Saturday we puttered around and yesterday we ran a 5km race-another personal best for me and M. I need to give a shout out to my friend Katie as well. She ran a 10km race in Ottawa and had her own personal best this weekend! Great work Katie! Check out her blog because she is truly an inspiration!

We also babysat yesterday afternoon. Our best friend's are here for three months from Ottawa and we are so excited to see Baby Liam. He's my Godson and he's getting christened this coming Sunday! We're pretty excited.

So, the week has started. This time next week October will be ending and we will almost be in NOVEMBER! Whaaaaa?

Enjoy your last week of October folks! November is coming!

xoxo
K

It's Here

2011-10-22T08:30:00.000-02:30

Fall that is...

Running is more blissful when there's leaves on the ground to prance around in!

I LOVE fall.

xoxo
K

5 For Friday

2011-10-21T06:30:00.001-02:30

It's Friday again. I swear it comes faster every week.

1. I've been fooling around with some actions that I downloaded from Pioneer Woman. It took me forever to get them into Photoshop elements 8.0 but I think it will be worth it. Here's a before/after with one shot that I've been enhancing.

Before...

After...

2. I've been baking- a lot. I've also been tasting a lot which leads me to #3.

3. I've been running-a lot. M & I are running a 5K race on Sunday morning. We signed up on a whim but it's a good way to get part of our long run out of the way. We'll probably keep going after the race for another 5-7 km for sure.

4. I've been working a little side project this week that I'll be excited to share some time next week. There's a little scrapboking involved. That's all the hints you're getting!

5. I want to try this for a layout soon. The combo of the labels and the typing is so cool. I need to figure out how to do this.

Bonus: My BF is here and brought her baby who just happens to be my Godson. Yeah I'm gonna steal him and keep him! I can't wait to see them this afternoon.

Bonus Bonus: I'm scrapbooking tonight at The Paperie and I can't wait to see some new friends and just focus on a little paper crafting for the evening!

xoxo
K

Right Now...

2011-10-20T09:04:00.001-02:30

listening: "American Honey" by Lady Antebellum & the new Jay-Z/Kanye album. I know it's a weird mix but I have an eclectic taste in music.
eating: treats-lots of taste testing of treats
drinking: not enough water...need to fix that.
wearing: tried to not wear sweats on my days off-successful for one day: wore a blazer, jeans and a t-shirt. Today I'm wearing sweats again. At least their clean today. Maybe this coming week I'll try 'What I Word Wednesday'.
feeling: excited anticipation for things to come
weather: calm before the storm-beautiful for an early a.m run though
watching: trying to catch up on 'Hart of Dixie' and 'The Good Wife'
waiting: for the cable guy to come and fix the T.V.
wanting: more time in the run of a day-who doesn't want more of that!
needing: to make more digital pages for my school project
thinking: about my to-do list
enjoying: running in the crisp fall air
wondering: what I'll scrapbook tomorrow night at my local crop at The Paperie

xoxo
K

Christmas in October

2011-10-18T06:30:00.000-02:30

So I've been noticing an alarming trend in the "blogisphere" and the internet in general this past week.

There are an alarming number of advertisements for Christmas-related activities going on in the scrapbooking world. Seriously, I'm pretty sure I've counted 4 so far. It's not even Halloween yet! It's like when you go to Costco in September to pick up a few odds and ends for those last minute school supplies and discover that there are trees and wreaths and wrapping paper in the 'seasonal' isle. What?! Now, that being said I'm a pretty die-hard Christmas fan so I'm secretly along for the ride. Don't tell my husband.

So far I've noticed that there's a Holiday Card Bootcamp starting on November 7th by Jennifer McGuire & Kristina Werner & friends. Find info about that one here.

Then there's a Big Picture class that's being advertised called '12 Days of Christmas' which I'm pretty excited for. I'm not usually good at following online classes but I'm going to give this one a shot I think-if it doesn't work out I can always do that layouts after the fact anyways.

Rhonna Designs has all kinds of Christmas digital kits and cards and business here.

And then there's all the chaos surrounding the December Daily album. This year it appears that Ali Edwards-the Dec. Daily Guru-worked in conjunction with Studio Calico to develop a killer kit which includes access to a forum with some sort of access to Ali. I'm pretty excited about that album! I'm saving my pennies and thinking about that kit.

This weekend I was inspired to do some Fall cleaning and organize my scrapbooking cave. I came up with a ton of Christmas-related products that I've added to a little pile for my December Daily. It may be nowhere near Christmas time but I suppose it's time to start thinking about those crafty projects!

xoxo
K

A Start to the 'Summery'

2011-10-17T06:30:00.000-02:30

So I've been working diligently towards my M. Ed. project all week and I've completed a whole section of pages for it. I'll be posting shortly on my project blog with a few more details but thought I would share the first and last year's layouts here on the blog.

Each layout is similar and shares a hand-stitched tag with the number of the year on it. I kept the formula simple so I could bang out 10 of them. Here's the stack-all completed.

Here's summer #1:

and here's summer #10:

As I said, I stuck to a formula adding the tag to the side of the picture. I used a little area above the photo for a little embellishing, repeating the number each time with a little Scenic Route label sticker.

Layout #1:

Layout #2:

Then I added two pattern papers and a long strip of washi tape below the photo section. In most cases I also did a little embellishing on the tag as well.

Layout #1:

Layout #2:

I'm pleased with how they all turned out. That's stage 1 complete.

This week I'll be working on my digital layouts which means I'll be focusing more on the story, and therefore the journaling, for each summer. I anticipate a lot of tears for that stage! Good ones of course.

Check out my project blog tomorrow if you are interested in more details into the process of these layouts and my approach to stage 2: digital layouts and telling your story.

xoxo
K

Saturday Goodness

2011-10-15T06:30:00.002-02:30

Friday's rock and not just because it's Friday which means a whole weekend off but yesterday's Friday totally rocked because:

*I got a whole lot of shutterfly goodness organized!

*And then UPS came and delivered my Studio Calico box and oh there was some wonderful business in there! Here's a few pics...

Main Kit.

Add-on Kit-the one with the numbers.

Grab Bag. Let me just say this was amazing-I squealed a little when I opened it. The stamps, oh the stamps!

Extras: new paper, foam for my inker thing, Amy Tangerine tapes and 3 new embossing powders.

*My layout from the other day that I entered into the 'pink' challenge for my local scrapbooking store was added to their blog post yesterday morning! Check it out here!

I am pumped to scrapbook this weekend. Happy weekend folks!

xoxo
K

5 for Friday

2011-10-14T06:30:00.001-02:30

1. I found this cute little quiz online. It tells you which 'font' you are based on a few questions. Check it out. It's pretty cute.

2. This came in the mail on Wednesday. I think I might quit working and just bake for a living. Oh and I'll have to continue running to counterbalance the effects of the baking. I'm pretty excited about that Bobby Flay book as well. M & I have a serious food crush on Bobby Flay.

So, yesterday in an effort to figure out just how delicious it's recipes were-I conducted a simple experiment and baked the oh-so-simple classic, chocolate chip cookies. Now, M & I have a high expectation of chocolate chip cookies being that we've visited Lanvin in NYC a few times and have gone into 'chocolate chip cookie comas'. I highly recommend a visit if you are in the big apple. But, these cookies-they stood up to those expectations and more. They were gooey and puffy and delicious!

3. I saw a cool tutorial on the Crate Paper blog that gave me some neat ideas for creating frames out of a die cut machine and cardboard boxes. Recycling + scrapbooking= wonderful creations!

4. I'm participating in a banana bread bake off for M's work week after next. I'll be perfecting my recipe until then. I'm thinking chocolate chips are a must. Stay tuned for the results.

5. Courtesy of You Tube I am pretty pumped to see this movie:

Have a great weekend!

xoxo
K

Sleeping Beauty?!

2011-10-12T06:30:00.000-02:30

Yes, she is. That's my best friend Nicole.

You may recall that in April I posted the details of her bachelorette party. To say it was funny is an understatement. She fell asleep at 9:30 after multiple drinks and didn't make it to the end of her party! Despite that, she had a wonderful time (while she was awake) and she had a beautiful wedding in September to another of our best friend's, Mike.

It's taken forever for me to get around to completing this layout but I was inspired by October's pink color challenge at my local scrapbooking store.

This month's mojo challenge at The Paperie is to use pink in honor of Brest Cancer awareness month. You'll notice that I used multiple shades of pink on my layout!

Happy Wednesday! Halfway to the weekend!

xoxo
K

Weekend in Photos

2011-10-11T10:30:00.000-02:30

It was a busy weekend.

We had a delicious meal with some new friends on Friday night at a local Mexican restaurant called Zapatas.

Then we headed to another friends house to hang out around their fire pit in the backyard. It was a chilly night but we had a great time laughing and chatting together.

Saturday we went for a walk downtown. I brought along my camera to take some photos of our adventure.

Jelly bean houses

Fred's Record Shop

We stopped and had brunch at Casbah. It was delicious. M had pancakes and I had banana bread French toast with berry compote and fresh whipped cream.

We did a little browsing in a few stores.

We stopped by the Christina Parker Gallery to check out some work of a new friend of ours. You can see some of his work here. He really does some fabulous work.

Then we stopped for a coffee and hot chocolate at a local coffee shop and tried to buy some bread from the bakery but they were all sold out!

We dug out a recipe from Mario Batalli's book to make some homemade pizza for dinner and settled in for a good night's sleep.

On Sunday morning we ran a 10km race called the Turkey Tea Ten. We both got personal bests. It was a great race!

Then we headed downtown for coffee and breakfast sandwiches and some croissants.

We had Turkey dinner with 23 of our family and friends on Sunday afternoon but amidst all the excitement and chatting I forgot to take pictures. But I did catch a shot of M digging out some leftovers yesterday for a late lunch.

It was a great weekend and I was sad to get back to regularly scheduled programming this morning.

xoxo
K

5 for Friday

2011-10-07T10:00:00.000-02:30

1. I had a project due for my M. Ed course this week that I enjoyed doing. You can catch up more on the process here on my project blog but here's a picture of the final product.

2. This landed on the doorstep yesterday. I spent some time drooling over it last night. I think I would marry J. Crew and live out my days in it's wool coats and cashmere sweaters if I could. M understands this as he loves J. Crew also.

3. I'm pretty excited for this movie to come out this weekend.

4. Tonight I'm having a dinner date with some new friends at an awesome Mexican place! I'm pumped! I haven't had Mexican food for ages!

5. I got some AWESOME news this week that I can't wait to share with you!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend! We are celebrating Thanksgiving here in the north (a.k.a Canada). I have a family dinner of about 20 people at my house on Sunday! Fun times! Happy Turkey day to those who celebrate! Happy weekend to the rest of you!

xoxo
K

2011 Kelp Market

2011-10-05T06:30:00.000-02:30

Back in June we headed to a food festival called the Kelp Market when we still lived in Ottawa and it was a yummy experience. I had so many photos of all the food and our friends selling their delicious wares that I needed lots of space to showcase them all. I made this layout after seeing a similar one in a magazine article. You could say I scraplifted it!

I pulled all kinds of pattern papers I had lying around to make the squares and added a few embellishments from my stash here and there. It felt good to use up some product! I have these little stamps that I've been using a lot lately as well. They cost $1.50 for the pack of tiny letter stamps. I have no idea who they're by either but I love them. That's how all the journaling was done. I love the way they look!

I liked how this one turned out. I'll admit that it's busier than my usual layouts but I enjoy it nonetheless.

Here's a few close ups...

Happy hump day! Only two more to go and then it's a long weekend here in Canada! Thanksgiving is this coming Sunday and in honour of the lovely day we get a holiday on Monday!

xoxo
K

So...

2011-10-04T06:30:00.000-02:30

... I had no idea how to approach the layout I started last weekend. I loved the way it looked but spent forever trying to figure out what to do with it.

Here's the result of all that time spent staring at the page.

I used black and white photos because everything I tried in color just wasn't working-it was too overwhelming. Then I had to make a kind of canvas to go on the page. I tried something simple with an easy but 'fun' font for the title that kind of represents the feel of summer camp. I left the journaling to just one line.

And a few close ups...

xoxo
K

Happy Birthday M!

2011-10-03T06:30:00.002-02:30

Today is M's birthday! He turns 28 today and 27 was a pretty good year-we moved home, ran another half marathon, played and performed in two bands, last one job and got another, worked on fitness and ran the Tely 10. He pretty much rocks.

This is the card I made him.

And he got a road bike and Season 3 of The Mentalist. That's a gift we'll both enjoy!

Last night we celebrated with the family. I made a birthday cake by request with red velvet and chocolate blackout cake with cream cheese frosting. It was colossal. I could barely put the lid on it to get it over to his house. The kid loves him some cake!

Happy birthday buddy! YOU are my favorite 28 year old.

xoxo
K

Oops...5 for Friday on Saturday

2011-10-01T06:30:00.000-02:30

So I'm not sure how, but I bi-passed Friday this week. Oops. So you're getting my '5 for Friday' on Saturday instead!

1. It's October. I love October. Birthdays, Thanksgiving, Halloween and a baby christening. That's what I have to look forward to this month. I'm mighty excited!

2. This weekend I'll be baking a great big cake. Someone's birthday is on Monday! The birthday boy has requested red velvet & chocolate blackout layer cake with cream cheese icing. Guess who's gonna be busy on Sunday morning?!

3. Studio Calico's kits went on sale this week. I got the main kit Field House, add-on #2 Greenhouse, and a few embossing powders. I'm trying to build up my stash. It currently contains 3 colors. I also managed to snag a grab bag for $5 and, from what I've heard, they are AWESOME.

4. I need a skinny belt. I know that that's a random thought but I've noticed a lot of skinny belts and beautiful sweater/cardigan/boot combos on pinterest this week.

5. I would like a Fugifilm pivi. Just sayin'. They are super cool. I saw Amy Tan had one at the Archiver's Convention at the Mall of America and now I desperately want to make Polaroids out of my camera pics!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend! I'll be back Monday with a new layout I've been working on this week.

xoxo
K

Right now

2011-09-29T12:54:00.002-02:30

Right now... I'm working on this.
Right now... this is laying on my scrapbook table.

Right now... I'm nursing a running injury. That's bad because I have a race in 2.5 weeks.
Right now... I'm reading a lot of school material.
Right now... I'm glued to my phone-just waiting for it to ring.
Right now... I'm wondering why we think the grass is always greener on the other side?
Right now... I'm enjoying have some free time even thought it makes me nervous.
Right now... I'm eating less and trying to move more.
Right now... I'm watching all the new shows and loving 'Revenge', 'New Girl' and 'Up All Night'.

xoxo
K

a card + something new

2011-09-28T07:00:00.002-02:30

So this is a little card that I made for the Studio Calico sketch this week. I never make cards. But I had to say a little 'thank you' to a family member of mine hence the 'thank you' card.

In other news, as some of you may know I've been working on my M. Ed for a while now. I'm currently doing my last two courses and one of them is an arts-based course. I get to make a scrapbook to tell a story about something meaningful in my life. In conjunction with the project itself I have to produce a portfolio and I chose to do mine in the form of a blog. So, if you're interested, I'll be posting periodically about my process and the inspiration behind my project here at a new blog: A 'Summery' of Camp. I hope you'll come and check it out!

Happy hump day!

xoxo
K