Birthday Parties...

are not my forte! My little princess will be seven years old next Thursday July 10 and I just can't seem to wrap my head around the idea that she will not stop growing! eek! :)

So I am now stressing out trying to plan a birthday party for 9 or 10 kids. And having a severe anxiety disorder at the best of times, I just feel like my head my explode. This is something I know that I can do...I've planned and pulled off a few parties in my life, but lately I've been having real hard time with it. My mom came over earlier and like the great mom she is, she took one look at me and asked "what's wrong". Nothing like a mom to be able to recognize things that would forever be a mystery to a man.

One of the things that are so frustrating to me when dealing with my bipolar disorder is that sometimes things that should be so easy, becomes nearly impossible even though I KNOW I can do it. I KNOW that my anxiety is totally inconsistant with the reality.

This is just one of the many reasons I scrap. Scrapping comes easy to me. And sometimes...it is the only thing in my life that comes easy.

Ok enough pity party!! My goal for tonight is to get some of the prep stuff started. I will be painting the base coat on at least one thing and then I'm going to do something a little scrappy...even if only a card or two.

So check back....I've be posting anything I managed to get done tonight.

Long day...

After spending 6 hours in the car today, along with about 3 hours at the Calgary Zoo, it turned out to be a really long day! Mercedes had a blast at the zoo though and I even managed to get a couple cute pics...I'll upload some tomorrow.

On Friday I did manage to get a trip to the scrapbook store, so it was nice to get some new supplies. Along with new pics and new supplies, I've also gotten 3 new scrappin magazines, and a book from the library about Scrapbooking with kids. Mercedes has already made me promise to do lots of scrappin with her over the summer, so I hope she can find some ideas she likes. She gets a little frustrated sometimes because she can't do it as good as me...I have to chuckle at that because I remember complaining to my mom that very same thing when I was little and couldn't draw. And just like my mother said to me, I now say to my daughter "if you keep practicing you will get to be just as good or even better than me!" And just like I did at that age, she finds that answer even more frustrating! lol Even funnier though is that she is already planning on how she will teach her children to be scrapbookers! lol Oh, to have your life planned at age 7! :)

But for the next 3 days I have the house all to myself so I'm hoping to spend most of it just relaxing, watching movies and scrapping. So stay tuned this week, I plan on having lots of new projects posted. I'll also be busy planning Mercedes birthday party for July 9 (she thinks it's the 10th, but she wants a surprise party so the ninth it is! :)

If you have any fun party games/activites for about 10 6-7 year old girls, please leave me a comment with some suggestions...planning children's parties is not my forte, so I will draw a name from anyone that leaves a comment here....the winning name will get a fun scrapbooking related RAK from me. :)

I think my mojo's back!!

I made a bunch more cards made this week, and I even managed to get a LO done! Tomorrow I'm going to the scrapbook store and hopefully give my paper stash a boost. Something about new paper always makes me want to scrap.

My daughter is going to spend a week at Grandma's house and my husband is going camping & fishing for 2 days, so I will have the house to myself for a couple days...WOOHOO!!! I have big plans for those days...eating whatever I want, sleeping whenever I want, scrapbooking wherever I want, and watching any movies or tv shows that I want!! I almost can't wait to kick em out the door! lol

Here's a small sampling of some of the cards I finished this week...I made over 20 cards with this general composition and colors, so was able to give some away, sell some and added a few to my personal stash.



I found out earlier this week that my daughter really doesn't know much about me, so I am starting an album for her using her baby pictures and recording some of the precious memories that I have from that time.

But first I made something for her now...a high school graduate!!! I feel so old! lol Here's a layout that I made for my daughter that just graduated. I attached ribbon to the top of the layout so she can hang it on her wall or she can remove the ribbon and put it in an album. I'm hoping to do a canvas for her with some of her pics in her grad dress, so I'll be looking for the perfect paper tomorrow at the scrapbook store.



So that's all for now...hopefully I'll be very creative over the next few days and have lots to post about!

Cards, cards and more cards...

I've been a little slack lately on keeping up with my blog, but I'm hoping to do better. I have been busy making lots of cards. Mercedes has 1 teacher and 4 teaching assistants, so I'm giving them all some handmade cards as an end of year gift. My mom is going to make me some little bags out of a sheer fabric, that the cards will fit in perfectly. I made some 3"x3" thank you cards to attach to each bag, and then I will give them all 5-7 cards with envelopes.

I've also started making a bunch of thank you cards for my grandma. I know that she wants to thank everyone that contributed to the album I made her, and she just can't afford to make 20 long distance calls, so I'm making a whole stack of cards for my brother to take out to her next week. I'm doing them as a surprise cause I know if I told her she would tell me not to make them, or to let her pay for them, but I'm just so grateful to have these opportunities to do things for her. She is the most generous person I know and it's nice to be able to be generous to her.

I haven't done any layouts for the last week or two, but I do have lots of pics to work on when I'm in the mood again. My oldest daughter graduated from high school so I want to do something special with some of her pics, and Brad managed to get a bunch of really good shots of Mercedes at her track meet last week, so I'm anxious to work on some of those pics too. I haven't bought any new paper for a couple months though, so I'm feeling the need to infuse my supplies with some new product...hopefully I can make it to the scrapbook store next week!

That's about it with me, but I'll try not to wait another 10 days before I post again.

Here are some of the cards I've made...

Slow week...

Not too much going on this week, but I did manage to get 3 layouts made! I'm not sure what is going on with me lately, but I just seem to have lost my mojo...hopefully I'll find it again this week!

No big projects planned, but I do need to get some Father's Day cards made, and I'm trying to think of some great gifts for my daughter's teachers...if anyone has some great ideas, I'd love to hear about them...just post them in the comments section. That's all for now, but I'll try to post more often this week...especially if I get anything accomplished! lol ;)

A great day...

Today was one of the best days I've had in a long time. My brother and I went out to visit my grandma on the farm today...the farm that I grew up on. It's about a 90 minute drive, but we made good time and arrived just after noon...we left just after 10 pm and I still can't believe how fast those 10 hours went by!

The main reason for our visit was so I could give my Grandma the album that I have spent the last 3 months working on. She cried when she opened it, and told me that it is one of the best gifts she has ever been given! Considering that she is 84 years old I took that as a big compliment! She didn't want to waste any of our time together reading everything, so we just kinda flipped through it, but then she started to cry again thanking me for all the work I did. I told her it was her birthday gift from her family...all of us! I had pics & journaling from all 18 of her grandchildren, along with pics & journaling of her 3 daughters and pictures of most of her 44 great grandchildren. But it wasn't giving her the album that made it such a great day, it was just sitting there and talking with her as the hours flew by. In fact by the time I got home my voice was almost gone from talking so much! lol

I was lucky enough to spend the first 14 years of my life living in the same yard as my grandma & grandpa, and I usually went to my grandma's house every single day. I had forgotten how much I missed that! Just talking about anything and everything...the past, the farm, my kids...just life in general. I just love my grandma so much and I am so glad that I went out today and got to spend so much time with her. Going to the farm is always like going back home...I'm immediately flooded with memories as soon as I see the windmill in the distance and they are for the most part really good memories. I even came home with the recipe for my favorite cookies that my grandma always makes at Christmas time. All and all it was a very good day!

Here's my grandma holding the 36 page scrapbook that I made her.

Another Friday night...

another scrapbook page!

It's been raining here for 3 or 4 days now and I'm ready for the sun to come out again! Today was a pretty lazy day. Mercedes had her choir field trip today and she had a blast going bowling, swimming and out to eat...she was just talking a mile a minute when she came home and the scrapbooker in me was wishing that I had gone along just to take pictures! And like the scrapbooker's daughter in her, she told me that I should have come along to take pictures! lol It still feels weird for her to be doing things without one of us with her, but I guess that is what growing up means...for her and us.

I did get a page done today. I did it for a challenge at http://www.scrapcentral.ca/ ... the challenges there always get me scrappin, and today I was most grateful for it. I can't put into words what it is that makes me feel better when I create, but it works every time. The challenge was to use a title that could also be the journaling. I didn't have anything in mind originally just went searching for some good quotes and I came upon this word art at http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/ and I immediately thought of this picture of Mercedes with one of her Webkinz... I love it when a layout just seems to come together.

IT'S DONE, IT'S DONE, IT'S DONE!!!!!

My Grandma's album is totally, completely FINISHED!!! I am sooooooo happy to have it done...I actually stopped and did a little dance when I put the last page into the album! lol I still don't quite believe that it's actually completed...I've been working on it since February!! Now I just have to wait for at least a week before I give it to her. Her birthday is not until the beginning of June and I'm not sure I can wait that long! lol I am going to call my aunt though and see if maybe they have something planned in the city and if so then I'll just give it to her there, otherwise we'll take a drive out to the farm, visit for the day, then go to my best friends house which is conveniently 1/2 way between my Grandma's farm and where we live, so I always stop for a stay so that I have a chance to visit with both of them on the same trip.

So this was the last family page. The left page is my brother and then for the right page I just used an assortment of photos of us with our families.

This is the very last page and my grandma loves quotes so I decided to use some to finish the album. That pic is one of my favorites of my grandma but I'm hoping no one will noticed that I've already used it! lol It is in color on the other layout though! lol
I haven't taken a picture yet but for the front 4"x6" window on the cover of the album, I just put "Her children rise up and call her blessed" - Proverbs 31:28

All and all I am extremely happy with how this album turned out! And now that it's all done I can get back to doing stuff just for fun!!

I had dh take these pics the other day cause I'm trying to include myself more in my layout's even when I don't like the pics. And although I don't like the pictures of myself, I do love what they are about. My little princess is the cuddliest kid I've ever met. She's almost 7 and still has many snuggles throughout the day.

I had a blast doing this Layout. All the paper is Fancy Pants that came in the May mini kit at http://www.Scrapcentral.ca The title is American Craft thickers that I lightly inked, and the stamp is from Autumn Leaves used with Stazon brown ink. Everything else is pretty much just alot of stuff cut out from the patterned paper.

All and all this has been a very productive week!!

It's almost done!!!!

Well I stayed up all night, but I managed to get 4 more pages done for my Grandma's album...that means that I only have 3 pages left!!!!!! I'm so excited!!! Of course I'm also very tired, but I was in the zone so I just had to roll with it. Dh is heading out to go fishing for a couple hours so when he comes back I'll hit the hay for a few zzzzz's. I'm just so freaking happy that this is so close to being done!! The final total will be 36 pages...there have been years when I don't think I scrapped that much, let alone just for one project! Totally worth it for my Grandma though...if anyone in the world deserves it, it's definately her!

Here are the LO's I got done last night/this morning.


As soon as I have this all finished and put away, then I'm gonna do a bunch of fun stuff...like one picture scrappin, or lumpy and bumpy, and more canvases, and of course I'll be doing some cards...they are one of my favorite things to make...love that instant gratification!

Friday night...

and absolutely nothing exciting planned...again! lol Sorry I haven't posted much this week, just had a few bad days...the joys of bipolar disorder. I think they are gone again for now...at least until their next unappreciated visit! :b

I did manage to get 4 more pages done for my grandma's album, and I am currently printing the pictures for the next 2 pages, and then I **think** I will only need to do 5 more pages! Woohoo! You have no idea how glad I will be to have this finished. I estimate that I have put in over a hundred hours and they were all totally worth it for my grandma, but suffice it to say I will not be volunteering for anything like this again anytime soon! lol

Here are the LO's I did on Wed & Thurs...it was kinda hard for me cause I don't do very many masculine pages...and there is a difference in doing a LO for a boy and one for a man, but I'm happy with how they turned out.

In this LO I used some of the embellishments I made and have been promising to post instructions to here. I will do it, I just need to get a couple more pics and then just sit down and type out the instructions...they are alot of fun though. The hinges & the butterfly were all made out of plastic packaging.
Well, my pictures have finished printing, and it's almost midnight which is when I do most of my best work, so hopefully tomorrow I'll have a couple more LO's to show off.

Happy Mother's Day

Well today was rather quiet, actually most of the weekend was quiet. I've been having problems with insomnia again and although I desperately wanted to work on my grandma's album I just couldn't seem to get myself in production mode. Finally tonight I decided to just make a couple cards just to get the mojo flowing again.

All the paper is Fancy Pants and I love the colors. The one with the crown is my favorite but it was nice just to lose myself for a few minutes in being creative. I knew that I just needed to play so I also made a couple other embellishments similar to the crown on the card. Sometimes it's fun just to play...no set project in mind, just play...and I needed that tonight. I'm so grateful that I have a hobby (or obsession may be the better word) ;) that I find so rewarding and that helps me from getting too stressed out by life in general. I honestly don't know what I'd be doing if I wasn't a scrapper. Hopefully tomorrow I can get back on the album bandwagon and get that puppy finished...my grandma's birthday is in less than a month and I still have at least 10 pages left.

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day and I'll be back with new pages very soon. :)

It's finally done...the cleaning is OVER....

Finally after four days and a very sore back, I finally have my scrap space back, better than ever. And somehow my 6 year old daughter managed to talk me into making her space a little bigger too! lol My dh should watch out before we take over the entire house! lol



Here's a few little pics that I managed to get over the last few days. This first one is obviously a before shot. This is the shelf that is on my left side when I'm sitting at my desk.

Here's the after pic...I got my dh to hang the shelves up on the wall so that I could have that extra work space which pretty much doubles what I had before.

This is a pretty good before shot....the previous pic is the shelf on the right side of this pic. My daughter's desk is the little one set up next to mine...she keeps taking up more and more room whenever she can! lol

Here's an after pic. It's amazing we both have desk tops!! lol

Here's another before shot, but I think you get the idea...it was all a really big mess!

And here's one more look at those nice neat shelves. Now that it's all cleaned and organized I have this sudden urge to go do something really messy!! lol I'll try to refrain from the mess, but I do plan on making something fun tonight....even if it's just a card.
I've had this wire shelf for ages and just never had anything to do with it. Well my mom came upon all these little glass bottles and they fit perfectly on the shelf and they are awesome for brads, beads, and all sorts of other fun stuff. Plus I see it all now so I should use it more!

Well if you made it through this whole little spiel, thanks, and my only word of advice is...if you get the urge to totally re-organize your stuff, immediately reach for chocolate, grab a magazine or movie and try to get that crazy idea outta your head as soon as possible!! lol

Wow, comments and everything ;)

I've sure been enjoying checking out the other blogs that have been posted at http://canadianscrapbookerscarnival.blogspot.com/ and it seems I've been getting some new traffic here as well! Well, one great thing is that it's making me much more conscientious about blogging more regularly.

I have finally, ALMOST finished my big purge, sort, re-organize of my scrap area. I filled 2 pizza boxes full of stuff to give to my daughter...I'm saving it for those days when I get a package in the mail and she doesn't...now I can give her something too, although I don't particulary think that a 6 year old should expect as many packages as her scrap-addicted mom gets! lol

As soon as I get the finishing details done then I will post some before/after pics. And then it's back to work on the album for my grandma. I have just under a month left so I won't be working on much else until this is finished.

Maybe when I take a break later I'll post some more of the projects I've done in the last few months. And I will definately be posting a new technique I discovered soon too...just as soon as I have the time to sit down and take the right pics and type the instructions.

So Happy Friday Night girls....I'll be scrapping and if you do some scrappin too, put the link to your blog in the comments section and I'll be happy to come by and see what you were up to too!!

Anniversary card

My husband celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary on Monday. We had both agreed to keep things really low-key, but we are planning to go out to a nice dinner next time we are in the city. My sweetie got me new rechargable batteries for my dig camera...YAY!! So this is the card I made him using the new embellishments I started making on the weekend. I'll put up some pics and explain the technique next time I have a little more time to spend here. I have been *trying* to clean & re-organize and I had forgotten what a big job that is!! I found a bunch of stuff that I had bought for Rak's...I'll definately be sending some of those out. Hopefully I can get it all done tomorrow night, and then I'll show before & after pics.

National Scrapbooking Day

I was involved in an online crop at http://www.scrapcentral.ca and although I didn't get nearly as much done as I had wanted to, but I did learn a couple new techniques.


First you wet a piece of cardstock. The pat dry with paper towels. Place mouse pad upside down on floor. Place damp cardstock on top of mouse pad. Without inking stamp place it on top of the cardstock and then step on it. I found that 10 seconds was a good amount of time to be standing on the stamp. Carefully remove the stamp and lift your paper...you should now have an 'dry embossed' image of your stamp. Allow paper to dry comepletely and then cut out and use as an embellishment. For the large heart I used Coredinations Cardstock and then lightly sanded it after it had dried. For the other two I stamped them with versa-mark after they were dry and then brushed pearl-ex over them to had some color.
This is the card I made using the stepped on stamp technique. I did rub the heart lightly with some red ink, just to bring up the pattern a little more and to make my cardstock match my patterned paper (Fancy Pants Designs)

These are the cutest and easiest little cards to make. My 6 year old daughter made the 2 on the left and I did the 1 on the right. I used the Basic Grey cupcake collection for mine and then use Stickles for the sprinkles on the "icing".

A quick card I made for my niece's 5th birthday

A quick LO using Basic Grey's Boxer line. These pictures were all taken by my daughter Mercedes (6years old)

I made these little name blocks for my niece to put in her room.
And even though I didn't get as many layouts made as I was hoping too, I did get a lot of cleaning and re-organizing of all my scrapbook supplies, fonts and photos. All & All a productive weekend!

Shout out to SheetLoad

Here's a link to a preview of the May issue of Sheetload, check it out here :)May Issue
To learn even more go check out their blog here Sheetload Blog

I'm just loving that site and I've already made so many cards, so quickly! Great way to get a lot of cards made in the shortest possible time. If you do go check them out, and make something, I'd love to hear about it...or better yet see it!

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel...

Got two more pages done tonight for my grandma's album...I'm pretty sure I can finish it in 8 more pages...and since I still have a month to finish I'm gonna take a bit of a break this weekend and do some stuff for me! I have a few new packs of Basic Grey paper, picked up some coredinations cardstock today and hopefully tomorrow I'll get some Fancy Pants paper in the mail, so I should be all set to celebrate National Scrapbooking Day. I'll be participating in the online crop at ScrapCentral and hopefully getting lots accomplished and having lots of fun!

More pages for my grandma's album & some cards

I took a couple days off from grandma's album just to give myself a break. It's hard for me to do so many Lo's that are so similar, but I think the end is almost in sight!! I'm hoping to only have to do 30 pages and I've already done 23, so I'll be glad when this project is finished. I made the cards on the night I "took off" cause I just wanted to play and have some fun with my new Basic Grey Cupcake paper pack.Basic Grey Cupcake paper

I was also excited to see my name in the first edition of Canadian Scrapbooker's Blog carnival. Check it out at Canadian Scrapbookers Carnival

It's almost been a month...

since I last posted! I really do need to be more consistent with my posts. The last month I have been very busy working on the album for my grandma. I now have 21 pages done and I'm hoping that I only will have to make about 9 more pages. Her birthday is the beginning of June so I need to have it all done by then. I think I'll plan a trip out to the farm to give it to her.

We spent a week up in Edmonton while Mercedes was on Spring Break and all the family was glad to see us. We also spent a couple afternoons with Jackie & Leif. I got some cute pics of Mercedes and Leif and Mercedes took a bunch of pics of just Leif, so I have lots of pics to scrap when I'm not working on my grandma's album. I'm trying to get the album done before I work on my own stuff, but every so often I have to do something for myself just to keep from getting to bored doing the album...I'm not used to doing so many LO's with basically the same paper, fonts and composition. I did do a LO about Mercedes & Leif last night and I used a sketch from http://sketches-r-us.blogspot.com/ Love all the sketches there. The one I used was the Thurs. Jan 10/08 sketch. :)

Here are some of the LO's for my grandma's album too...

Proud Mommy day...

This morning was the very first time that Mercedes performed with the Junior Choir. They sang 2 songs in the Music Festival and she looked so dang cute in that little choir gown. I was just loving my zoom lens today! So here's a few of the pics I got this morning...

Here they are waiting to get their gowns...

Walking onto the stage...this was one of those pics that made me really appreciate the zoom lens!
I just thought this pic was so cute with her little silhouette...plus it's proof that she is not the very smallest one...she's only the second smallest! lol
Here they are singing their little hearts out!
The Cardston Elementary Junior choir
I was really happy with the pics I got today. I was smart and got their early so not only did we have pretty good seats but I also had time to play around with some of the settings on my camera. I think I've finally got the white balance and exposure pretty much mastered...but I do still have to do some editing with brightness/contrast in photoshop. But for now I'm happy that I manually set it so that I did not need my flash, and the exposure was still fast enough that I had very few blurry pics considering the fact that I was really shaky.