Holidays: Our Family

The Holiday dinner we held with my cousin was a success.

Our two families can play poker, enjoy high spirits, get dramatic, discuss science, behave silly, share a musical vibe, and always appreciate each other.

I used a 9 inch square within a square layout design for the background and layered the smaller photos, journalling, and texts at the bottom below the 5x7 photo.

The title will be our family name at the top of the page in Crimson lettering.

The colours really stand out in real life!

Strike a Pose

We had SUCH a good time with my cousin and her family just before Christmas. These photos show the relaxed and happy personalities

of our kids. They range in age from 16 to 20. It is a really neat age to witness and be involved in. They are so funny, creative and free at this age.

The layout was fun to do. I started with a horizontal background of intricate and subtle designs, and added the vertical 9 inch paper with the circular design. The dark colour seemed to really ground the photos.

Home for the Holidays

page 2: features my children and me on Christmas morning. Poor Chloe had no makeup on! but she is a sweet pea. I love my Olympic mittens from Colton. They make a heart when you cross your arms. Chloe loved her pink powder puff from La Senza.

Journalling will be completed tomorrow!

For this layout I used one of Julia's tags with a nice bracket edge to spunk things up. The rest of the lines are straight up vertical so I added a circular rhinestone embellie to soften things up . Getting the 3 photos the same size was key to making this page work. i left a little white, the same width as the edge on the bracket die cut.

Home for the Holidays

I was elated to be catching up at Alexandra's last night with a great group of Brights Grove croppers, with all proceeds going to RayJon in Haiti and now I get to share the results with you!

First issue was the choice of background papers.

I had such dark photos, with a lot of red but very dim otherwise. (Time for a New Camera Soon)

Not very joyful looking when I laid the photos in front of me.

Julia had sent some black/red/white Christmas paper and punchout diecuts to go with it, with a very modern twist that inspired me to pare down the colour scheme. It worked wonders to bolden up the photos, since on brighter more Christmassy papers the photos were dying and looking yellowed.

Once I decided on using white daisy as my background paper, I had limitless possibilities with several crimson papers, and the cute accents from Julia.

This page features Colton after opening his iphone and his new winter coat, and his immediate reactions! I used 3 of the cute tags from Julia, splitting the green semi circle in half to "punctuate" the photo, and underlaying the small Joy tag on the lower right edge of the photo.There is also some black glitter paper to add sparkle! (thanks Jen!!)

THIS WAS FUN!

The Many Faces of You

Just a quick page from the ongoing 9 year project called the hockey album, on my son Colton James, who is getting very close to 17 years of age.

Since I focus so much scrapbooking on his hockey in uniform, I wanted to include a picture of him in his dress shirt and tie (with lucky Thanksgiving tie clip that I got him for getting a win. I used to get him little presents like mini sticks or pucks or pins for shutouts... now the presents are for wins ! lol.)

At 16 he makes good decisions, works hard at school and sports, and has a bright future ahead of him. He has a great sense of humour and helps me a LOT at our home. He will be missed when he goes to university.

I used CTMH base pages in black and added some background paper and journalling, and a few stickers. Pretty simple.

Hoppy Easter, Happy New Year, HAPPY BLOG ANNIVERSARY to me!

In thanks to my profession, I had time over the Christmas break to catch up on some unfinished layouts from 2009. I had started this layout up north in November at the chalet with Bernie and Peggy. I chose a fresh new palette of citrus leaf, sorbet, taffy, and juniper cardstock as the colours of Spring . I was thinking of mounting the title on little ovals to look like Easter Eggs and had the letters ready to adhere, and the photos were mounted in place. I left a large 7 x 5 space on the left for my main photo. The corner rounder was put to good use and I was pleased with the groupings of baby birds, bunnies, flowers, and children in the photo groupings. We had a simply phenomenal spring last year on Driftwood, as far as nature and baby creatures was concerned. The bunnies were hopping in and out of my front garden for weeks.

I knew the big Easter bunny picture of John and Jacqueline was somewhere in my studio and would turn up with a good look. Last week, dad brought over a huge bags of stamps and papers that my good friend Julia in BC sent along to me via Toronto, and lo and behold, inside that bag of assorted used stamps was an Easter set with 25 different adorable patterned eggs. Instant title! I located the main pic and the layout came together. I was inspired to create the large ribboned egg with ricrac and brads. I cut a white daisy paper flower in half to adorn the ends of the egg.

This decade brings my third year in blogging . I started this blog exactly 2 years ago... and enjoy sharing my thoughts and projects in this way. Thanks for looking!

and...

to all my readers, a very Healthy and Happy New Year!

Family Fun

This is the companion page to Fam Damily, posted yesterday.

The images are somewhat blurry but I wanted to show how the second page complements the die cut border used on the first one. I kept the background blue consistent on both pages and left it simple as a 10 inch square. More Emporium circles... I dont get tired of them do I?

and matching library cards for the journalling.

i am not the greatest photographer, so I apologize for the images... I dont mind too much about that personally. When I select a photo to scrapbook my main intent is to capture a memory not acheive photographic perfection.

One day I will take a photo course and get a better camera... one day!

our Happy Fam Damily

This is the left side of a layout I did using the cocoa die cuts border from CTMH. My dad likes to take his grandkids golfing as part of my brother's yearly summer visit from faraway Ottawa.

This year they went to "Crabbies" in the Grove.

As a side note, I finally figured out how Brights Grove got its name as I was driving down Waterworks near Old Lakeshore today. I saw dozens of rotten apples in the gutter, fallen over ripe from overhead apple tree branches on folks front lawns and thought, those trees must have been planted a long time ago and survived the suburbanisation of Brights Grove. It must have been an orchard grove belonging to the Bright Family at one time. I think I will google it and see if I can find out if my theory is correct.

Back to the layout... more Emporium, cut around the circles to create scallops, Floral Tapestry Stickease for the lettering, more of my library card journal spots from Lasting Impressions, and some cute little buttercup brads. Not your typical golf green colours are they. But it works.

Adios Dominican

Awe.... It kind of makes me tear up just to see the 3 of us saying goodbye at the end of our trip... it may be a while before the 3 of us can splurge and do this again... I sure hope not! Chloe is off to college in the fall. I hope my kids remember this trip with fond memories !

I used a buttercup cardstock circle to envelope the photo with the clear overlay . I wanted a yellow sunset ... at the end of our book. I knew I would add some swirls . The adios tag was a last minute thought... backing it with circles from Emporium is brilliant because by cutting around the circles I got a scallop frame. I added some off white cardstock backing to show the details on the top of the overlay because Peggy told me they were lost on the yellow. Mind you , Peggy just had a cataract operation when she saw the plan for this layout ... lol that just occurred to me.

other ctmh elements: Moon Doggie tropical blue hibiscus print, cocoa diecut circles, oxford colour ready alphabet, journey journalling spots, chocolate rub ons (family, together, happy, smile)

the big 40 in TO

My lovely Sister in Law turned 40 and we celebrated in Toronto with family.

First, I had to show off the acrylix I used to stamp and cut out the title.

Again, I used chocolate base pages and this time Caprice co-ordinating papers from CTMH , as well as some floral die cuts, and brads. The 40 was outlined with blue gel pen, then mounted on yellow CS and then brown pattern paper, and finally a coat of liquid glass was applied to the stamped image. I sprinkled prisma glitter over the liquid glass.

I realise some people dont want to take the time to stamp and cut out alphas, neither do I usually! but my stickease alphas and my chipboard were all out of the letters I wanted.. isnt that always the way it is?

Shower Layout for Baby Ella

this is actually page two..

followed by page one with title :

A baby shower took place October for Kelly and Baby Ella ( Inside )

I got to see lots of family from Kelly's side that I hadn't seen in YEARS so it was fun. Chloe enjoyed herself as well. It was her first baby shower ever.

One of the easiest ways to create a layout is using our 12 X 12 base pages.

I bought a pack of chocolate ones last year because I knew they would be versatile.

(ctmh makes them in 12 tone on tone colour choices.) I then simply added some background paper from Life Delights ( just LOVE those swirls and butterflies and florals ) along with some Chipboard and Stickease in easy going creams , pinks, and blues from the same paper pack, and ... voila! A lovely layout.

I am all about using up whatever I have around at the moment. So many stashes ( as my friend Julia calls them ) waiting to be discovered and utilised. I really have no excuse to buy any supplies. I am tempted to purchase some new Emporium papers.... thats about it!! oh, and cardstock.... On my last order, I got some Tombo adhesive and some page protectors ...

now the trick will be to fill them with finished pages!!

Baby Ella

I don't usually post family pictures on this blog, unless they are in a scrapbook page, but this one is Special.

Isabella (Baby Ella for short) is hiding somewhere inside here...

She will be appearing in November (sooner if Kelly can arrange it).

I think Kelly looks great!

relatively speaking

George and Natalie are my aunt and uncle. They always offer a place to stay when we are in Toronto. I had some other photos 0f my brother and his wife taken during the same week in Toronto after Christmas during the Marlies tournament that I wanted to include, but I wasn't sure what background papers to use. I was pretty tired, at Lasting Impressions in Sarnia with Peggy and Cathy 9 pm on a Friday night, but I went out on a limb and simply revamped an old ctmh album retreat layout from Oct 2005 that was sitting unused , without photos, by adding some up to date accents and VOILA! I also got my white creamcoat paint and a sponge tool and painted the edges of the cocoa cardstock for added oomph.

So now I have scrapbooked all 10 of my album retreat layouts from the 2006 retreat in Utah, exept one (winter) . I might be able to work it in soon. And my 2007 album is done.

LOVE that white stickease lettering. (catchy title , yes?)

The papers are ctmh simple pleasures .