Everyday Moments

I really like how simple this layout is, and how repeatable it can be. Change the paper and you have a totally different look. You can change the number of photos or the layout and you wouldn't know it was the same base idea. I made this one for my July paper pack club and like how it all came together.

I chose strips of paper and just created a background and then added photos and some embellishments. Because I used a paper pack, it was easy to find papers that would work well together. I had some embellishments from the same line and just added those and voila, it could easily be a layout you could create in 15 minutes!

Accept Yourself

I really hate journaling. And for the most part I feel like I suck at it, but I bought a book a year or two ago that changed my perspective and helped me get past it a bit. Sometimes, it's about looking at it from a different perspective. And I look at scrapbooking as a hobby, but more importantly as a gift to my kids. When they're older, they're going to be able to relive the memories and read my advice and hopes for them.

I really love how this layout turned out. The photos are of Nathalie wearing a dress that I sewed for Kayla when she was about a year. It's made from this yellow Winnie the Pooh fabric. I went through this very brief phase where I thought I'd sew clothes for Kayla. Unfortunately, I really sucked at it. Despite having a university education, I couldn't understand the instructions and frankly, sewing is an exact kind of hobby and I'm definitely not an exact kind of crafter, so I gave all my material to my mother in law who is quite good at that stuff.

In the past, I would have written about how cute she was in the dress I made for Kayla, but instead, I just made that one line and instead focused on my disastrous attempt at sewing. I emphasized that it was OK to not be good at things and that you just needed to learn to accept that and move on.

So, while I love how the layout came together and all of that, I mostly love how I journaled my experience to Nathalie.

Nathalie turns 3

Nathalie turned three on July 3 and we hosted a family BBQ on Canada Day to celebrate. And what kind of celebration would it be without a cake?? My awesome cousin came over again to help me create an Ariel cake. I've decided Ariel is going to be Nathalie's princess. She had mentioned Ariel a few times and so it became it.

I couldn't find an exact cake I loved, so we picked elements from several and in the end it turned out so awesome. I just love it. We both agreed it was our favorite!!

I bought the figures because I'm not crazy and there is no way I'm making them. The bonus was that she can play with them afterwards too. The sand was graham cracker crumbs and we wrote Nat with sea shells. Of course, Nathalie didn't seem overly excited about it, but that's partly her personality. It was fun and it came together rather quickly!!

Score, Fold, Create

I love the Annie's Attic books. I'm always quite impressed with them. Nice thick pages full of colourful pictures and great instructions. I have quite the collection!

They have a new book coming out: Score, Fold, Create. It has 28 projects that will help you learn to use your Scor Pal. It looks pretty cool. And at $15, it's pretty reasonable too.

Magnetic Die Storage

It's been the question for a long time - how do you store your thin dies? I have mine on magnetic sheets in a CD case and for the longest time, it's worked great. Now with bigger dies, they don't fit as well.

Art Bin has these cool storage cases with magnetic sheets. The bins come with 3 sheets and you can fit up to 21 sheets in each bin. Then when you are going anywhere, you just grab the case. Very cool!! And you won't lose them because they are enclosed.

The bin will be $16 and a 3 pack of extra sheets will be $8.

What's New? American Crafts Ribbon

I was excited to see that my distributor will now carry American Crafts products. They have some awesome stuff. One of the products I'm excited about is these ribbon packs. I really do like ribbon, but it's so expensive and I never seem to have the right colour. These packages contain 24 rolls and will only cost $15 which is a great deal!! They have lots of different types of ribbon (satin, grossgrain), and tons of different colour options. Here are the possibilities:

Amy Tangerine

 Dear Lizzy

Seasonal 1

Solid Satin Colour 2

 Solid Satin Colour 1

 Dot Grossgrain Colour Set 1

 Boutique

 Essentials

 Seasonal 2

What's New: Spellbinders Mbossabilities

I discovered Spellbinders Mbossabilities a couple of months ago and they're so cool!! It's like a 2 in 1 embossing folder. You can emboss one design, but if you flip it inside out, there is a different one. It will be great as it takes up less space and my embossing folder drawer is getting full!!

And at a $10 price tag, it's cheaper than the other two packs!

Here are some of the new designs:

Dainty Dots

Garden Lattice

Winter Wonders

Holiday Magic

Bricks and Bark

Kitchen Rubber

 Industrial

Framed Labels One

Ornamental Iron

Awesome Blossoms

 Venetian

Asian

Tweets & Twigs

Lovely Lattice

Retro Mod

Flora

I just got an email from a lovely customer that let me know the first two are actually $18 and measure 8.25x11.75"! I was just going by what I saw at my distributor's so thanks Sheryl for the heads up!!

What's New: Spellbinders Shapeabilities Expandable Patterns

Every time I think that Spellbinders can't come up with anything else new and cool, they do. They are releasing Shapeabilities Expandable Pattern Dies. Right now, they have four: two geometric patterns and two organic ones. These dies are gorgeous, and very versatile.

Check out this video where they talk about the dies.

And another where they demonstrate how they work.

Here are the four dies:

Lattice

Fancy Lattice

Butterfly Magic

Botanical Swirls

Price will be $25

What's New? Metallic Distress Stains

I just spent the past hour going through the What's New & Cool section of my distributor's website. CHA started this week and there looks like there is a lot of cool new stuff!!

I'm going to do a series of posts rather than try to do it all in one since I never seem to have enough time.

For now, Tim Holtz is releasing his Distress Stains in Antique Bronze, Brushed Pewter and Tarnished Brass.

I can't wait to try them!! And the best part is that they'll be the same price as the other stains!!! They should be available to order in August. If you are interested in any of them, let me know and I'll add you to my list so that you get the first set that comes in.

There really is an app for that ...

I love my iPhone. It took me awhile to decide to get one, but now I use it for so many things. I laugh at the Apple commercials where they say, "there's an app for that," but they really aren't kidding.

Yesterday, I got an email from a friend telling me that there is now a Tim Holtz App. You can use it to keep track of what Tim Products you want and which ones you have, as well as access his blog and videos. It does look very cool and I'll definitely be downloading it.

But don't take my word for it, check it out yourself.

Baskets and Boxes, oh my!!

I love baskets. Seriously love any type of container. It's a good thing we don't have one of those Container Stores near me or I would have to work just afford everything I'd want. I love when things are organized and feel anxiety and stress when they aren't. Of course, with three kids, I've had to let a lot of that go, but I still get a thrill when I organize something and it works out. I know this isn't really craft related, but since I like the organizational part and it's kind of creative to me, I thought I'd share anyway. I went in search of baskets to redo my linen closet which was a giant mess.

Normally, I just go buy a ton of stuff, use what works and take back the rest, but I actually measured this time and ended up finding some cool metal baskets at HomeSense. I wanted more, but could only find 3. I thought I'd need more, so I got a couple of these yellow boxes too. Normally, they wouldn't be something I would buy since I didn't totally love the colour, but for some reason, I just thought they'd go well with the metal baskets.

A before shot of my disaster of a closet.

I love how the metal baskets helped to contain the mess. I can't fold those fitted sheets the same and so every pile ends up a different size. I just categorized the baskets according to Queen (our sheets) and Kids sheets. I made labels with Chalkstock (I love that stuff) and cut it out with the Spellbinders Labels die and my Big Shot. I used my 1/8" hole punch and punched a couple of holes and then hung them with these clips I found in my beading stuff. I love when I can use my craft stash stuff for something other than crafting!

 

 

My yellow boxes worked perfectly to contain some table linens and extra stuff that was nice to be hidden away.

A final after shot. I still need to deal with a bunch of stuff at the top, but that will be another day. And I could probably get rid of the pile of baby blankets since the youngest is now 3, but I haven't quite gotten there yet. When I need the space, I will. Until then, I seem to have enough space for everything!

Disco Cake

I enjoy decorating cakes. When they interest me anyway. I would never want to do it full time. I find it stressful a bit because I don't totally know what I'm doing and I always make lots of mistakes, but it's still fun and I enjoy the creative side of it. Thankfully, my awesome cousin is generally around to help me. She's taken some of the Wilton classes (I'm planning on taking them this fall and winter).

I was talking to a friend of mine who was planning her daughter's birthday party (her daughter is friends with Kayla). She was having trouble finding a cake that fit with her theme and I volunteered to give it a try. It was a disco theme, so Debbie and I thought we could make a disco ball on top of a cake. In the end, it turned out pretty cool and everyone loved it!!

At the party, I had a couple of the moms try to convince me to make cakes for their kids, but I just kept declining. I like doing it when I have an idea and it's something that interests me, but it's not something I want to do that often!

We did a purple round cake as a base and put the disco ball on top. Then we used my Cricut to cut out some silhouettes of girls with attitude that seemed to fit with the theme.

Escape

I need to escape. It's been a tough week. I found out a couple of days ago that the teacher Kayla was supposed to have next year passed away last week. She was 36 and to say it was a shock is a gross understatement. It makes me want to grab Glenn and the kids and just run away somewhere. I know that doesn't fix anything and all the work and stuff that overwhelms us daily will still be here when we returned, but it's a nice thought, right?

I'd love to go back to Paris. I love it there. So much history. It's funny because Kayla has never really asked to go to Disneyland, but she's asked several times to go to Paris. I do hope I can take her one day.

Until then, I'll just have to escape through crafting.

Splotted Distress

Just a quick post today. I've actually been scrapbooking quite a bit and so haven't had time to blog. There's irony for you, huh?? But I'm motivated and have gotten quite a few layouts done, so I'm happy!!!

This is one of my favorite techniques right now. Simply create a background using Distress Inks (I did it with my Ink Blending Tool) and then flick water. I always love how it turns out!

Slip Sliding Away

I am perpetually behind it seems. I never seem to be caught up with work and for sure am not caught up with my scrapbooking. It would be so easy to just give up and say whatever, except that I enjoy it and love the finished product. I think I like my paper pack club because then at least I'm "forced" to scrapbook generally at least once a month. But it's good because it gets me back into the groove!!

I was so busy in June that I didn't do my paper pack club and so I sat down this week to get going on at least doing it for July. I had done one layout a week or two ago but still wanted to do another two. I had to tell myself the other night that I would stop work at 8:30 and scrapbook and I did. I didn't finish my layout, but I started it. It was almost done other than the title and I even knew what I wanted for the title, but I couldn't make it work. I went back last night and figured it out and I even managed to do another layout. My awesome friend, Colleen, came over and we scrapbooked together and even though it was only a short time, we both got up afterwards and felt accomplished. I haven't taken the photo of that layout yet, but I will share it soon!!

In the meantime, here is one I did a couple of months ago. It's an easy layout and by changing the colours and papers, you could do this one several times over and have each one look different.

Distress Markers Organization

Anyone who knows me, knows that I can tend to lean towards the Type A, anal retentive side. As such, it was driving me nuts that I always pulled off the wrong cap of my Distress Markers.

Yes, I know that there are little symbols and words to indicate which is the pen end and which is the brush end, but I still pulled off the wrong cap almost every time!

Then, the lightbulb light up and I knew how I could solve it. I cut strips of Ranger's Sticky Back Canvas (I love that stuff) and coloured on each strip and then adhered the strip at the brush tip end. It turned out to be a double whammy since now I have the exact colour of marker and I know which end is the brush tip.

It was a very good day.