Happy New Year!!! {top 9 of '09}

It's just about time to leave 2009 and step into 2010. Looking back on what I scrapped in '09 and choosing 9 of my favourite layouts was a lot of fun. I tend to like my newest completed work the best so I really wanted to choose all 9 layouts from my work in the past month. I tried to refrain from doing that though. Here are a 9 of my favourites, in no particular order. I hope you have a healthy and safe New Year and here's to lots of scrapping in 2010!


2009 was the year that I finally dabbled in digital scrapbooking and making my own sketch. I am really glad that I finally took the plunge and learned to do both of these things. It gave me a great sense of accomplishment and helped me to learn photoshop just a little bit more.

My Creative Scrapbook - December's Creative Kit

WOW! That was my reaction when I received this kit!! I just loved working with My Creative Scrapbook's Creative kit. Because of time constraints (no thanks to the post office!) I only managed three layouts but I am not done yet... I fully plan on digging it back out and playing with it some more when I can squeeze in the time.

Peek: Larissa's santa hat was a wee bit too big and she thought it was just hilarious to play peek-a-boo during our little photo shoot. That is fine by me...keeps her interested and smiling :)

I fussy cut out these ornaments, trimmed them in cinnamon Stickles and used pop dots to give them some dimension.

The naughty look: Doesn't that title just say it all ;)



Merry & Bright: I used dug out my Cricut, dusted it off and used to make the snowflake on this layout :)


As of my last post it was quite green here.... well green no more! Today is the second day of a winter storm. We have plenty of the white stuff now and I'm sure we will until at least mid-April. It's time to bundle up my wee one and start snapping some snowy white pictures while we ice skate, sled and make snowmen.

Christmas greetings

I have a beautiful kit to share with you and some belated updates. Usually when I'm behind on updating it's because of a work situation. A few weeks ago I started a full time permanent job. It's quite an adjustment period since I have been home with Larissa for almost two years (except a couple short term jobs). For the past few weeks I have not felt like doing anything remotely scrappy whether online or otherwise. I'm coming around though! Last night I polished off 4 layouts and 3 altered items. I can't show you what I made last night just yet but I can show you the My Creative Scrapbook December Limited Edition kit. Oh how I LOOOOOVE this kit...it's so beautiful and ethereal...the perfect winter kit.


Wishing, dreaming, waiting: This is a photo from last Christmas. This look on her face just reminds me of how hard it is to wait patiently for Christmas when you are a child. I used a large part of a bottle of gold Stickles on this layout alone.






Dear Santa: This is Larissa's Santa letter for this year. She's not quite old enough to write one herself so I did the writing for her while she dictated. I did have her write the 'Dear Santa' and sign her name at the bottom. She also addressed the envelope herself. Before we left to the Christmas parade (where letter carriers pick up the letters) I made sure to scan them so I could keep a copy just for this purpose.

Season of White: This is one of last year's photos as well. Normally, we have a quite a pile of snow by this time but right now it sill quite green around here. This photo was taken shortly after an ice storm last March... if you look closely you can see the ice on the evergreen trees behind Larissa. I absolutely adore the soft colour palette of this kit...the ivory and gold is a beautiful combo.


I hope everyone had a peaceful Christmas surrounded by friends and family.

Christmasy Goodness with MCS - Main Kit

I am so excited to show off the My Creative Scrapbook's main kit for December... talk about Christmas cheer. This kit is AMAZING!! Check out what my fellow design team members created with this kit :) The paper in this kit is really fun to work with ... a shiny, smooth finish and the paper is really thick. I don't think I've ever worked with paper quite like it. (Little Yellow Bicycle)


Delight (2008): I love the look on Larissa's face when she was opening this present :) Too bad I didn't have my new camera in time for Christmas last year... I had to use my dad's little point and shoot so sadly a lot of my photos aren't very good quality.



Merry Christmas: Just a couple of fun Christmas layouts with using pictures from our recent photo shoot. This is Larissa and her little cousin Jaedyn.

Her First Carve....

Well, I called this layout "Her First Carve" (I added the word Her after I photographed it). Carving pumpkins is something that we had been meaning to do in previous years but when DH was potato farming that time of year was just a little too hectic. Now that he's retired from farm duties we have more fun time in the fall so this was the year. I thought Larissa would just love carving a jack-o-lantern. She was so excited to get started but...but....ewwwwww.. there was no way should would touch that" gross icky pumpkin" as she so eloquently put it. The base of the layout (die cut) is Making Memories and the orange lace carstock is by K&Company. The little strip of crossword puzzle paper is by October Afternoon.

Mistletoe & Co.

This is Larissa last December just before we took her to see the Santa at the mall. She had drew him a picture and a card (her present to him). Almost everything here is from the Pink Paislee Mistletoe & Co line with healthy dose of Kaisercraft pearls and a little strip of Little Yellow Bicycle poinsettia glitter lace cardstock.


These little stars are made with Mistletoe & Co. stamps.

I put a little pearl in each star on the die cut and then used white floss to stitch around the border.

Colours Enchanted

Here is another fall layout I did using some more Pink Paislee goodies. I also did this one at the crop a few weeks back (I was quite productive that day!) Most Pink Paislee paper is from their Amber Road Collection but the die cut along the right of the photo is a older piece.

Fall Beauty

This is a layout that I did at a crop a couple weeks back. It's a little bit of everything... background paper is Pink Paislee (Amber Road Collection), the little die cut and metal 'fall' are Making Memories, the cutouts are from Sassafras paper, shimmer leaves are Scrapworks and there are few more manufacturers tossed in there. This is a photo from a recent fall photoshoot with Missy.

This "Fall" is a metal word by Making Memories :)

More Holiday Work

I've been digging into my Pink Paislee stash this past week. They have an upcoming DT call plus my Guest Design with them is coming up very shortly. I have been waiting a year for it to arrive! Here's a little "Holiday Wish" that I created using their Tinsel Town and Pop Fashion lines. I have to add the the 'wishes' as journaling when Larissa tells me her list :)

The Christmas Countdown has begun

Only one month to go until the big day! Christmas is my favourite time of year. I have lots of layouts, especially Christmas themed that I will be posting over the next week so stay tuned. For now, here is what I created with the LCOM December kit.

Our Joy: I had a couple of pre-Christmas photoshoots lately with Larissa so I could make lots of Christmas layouts. This Little Yellow Bicyle paper is really unique. The finish on it is slightly shiny and the paper is really thick.

I used glitter gold embossing powder on these Christmas bells.



Countdown: The little tiny Prima crystals on this layouts are my new favourite scrappy embellishment!



This little mini Christmas tree is made by Maya Road and comes in the kit. There is an extra sheet of plain chipboard in the package so I used it to cut out one more layer..the back layer with the trunk. I thought the album looked more finished with this layer.

After I made this album I couldn't find it anywhere..then I caught a glimpse of it in Larissa's toy wagon that she was pulling around. She never takes anything from my scrap room or craft supplies so I asked her why she had it. "well you made it for me didn't you.....it's mine right" :) Indeed I did make it for her so I had to explain that if she put it in with her toys it would get wrecked so it's new home in the basket with the rest of the mini albums.

Whoooo loves you?

Whoooo loves you? This is a layout done with BoBunny and October Afternoon papers. I made this layout at a recent crop. This is Larissa and one her favourite babies, Belle the pink horse.
There is lots of hand stitching on this one :)

The Santa House

It's hard to believe that Christmas is a mere 37 days away! I love Christmas. I am so excited about it. I have been working furiously in my craft room making cards, layouts, mini books, tags, jars, bulbs and much more. I will share some of my projects over the coming days. I also did a Christmas photoshoot with Larissa yesterday to prepare for the FOUR Christmas related scrapbook kits that will be arriving in my mailbox this week.

For now, here is a layout that I did quite a while back but never posted. This is Larissa with the Santa Claus from the mall. Last year was the first time we took her to see him. She was always terribly afraid of Mr. Claus before that. She referred to the mall as the Santa house for months after the visit..hence the title :)

The reindeer (Basic Grey) was naked chipboard. I painted it black and used black Martha Stewart glitter.

*little tip: use Ranger Glossy Accents to adhere your glitter. When it is dry, apply another light coat over the top to seal in your glitter so it doesn't get all over your pages.

little bits and pieces

Good Monday morning everyone. I have a few little things to share with you today. I would have scrapbook layouts to post except it's dark and deary here...not good photographing light at all.

Here is a card that I made for my SIL.



And a card I made for my new niece Anna. She is two weeks old today.



And here are some vintage-y jars that I made and sold at an auction for charity. The supplies for these jars are from the October limited edition kit from My Creative Scrapbook.

Now it's my turn to go plum crazy

Do not adjust your monitors! Yes, I have created yet another purple layout. I have to give 100% of the credit for this layout to the very talented Tracey Taylor!

This is what Tracey had to say about this sheet of Glitz Design Plum Crazy paper: "What a perfect name for a paper line, don't you think?? I was instantly drawn to this piece of paper the moment I saw it."

I have to say that was pretty much my exact OPPOSITE reaction when I saw this piece of paper. I do believe that I may have mumbled something to the effect of 'looks like something that was in a 10 cent clearance bin and I still would have left it there' LOL..all in good fun of course. Well, after some banter I marched up to the LCOM store (we were at a crop) and bought this piece of paper! And yes, I paid regular price..didn't even wait for it to go on in the clearance bin ;)

The next part of the story goes like this:

well well well... we all know about my purple issue... Tracey twisted my arm and made me buy that paper Ok, so maybe it wasn't quite like that.... but I totally felt I needed to do a plum crazy layout as a challenge to myself. I bought the paper at the crop. Today, posed Larissa in the kitchen and took her photo ... edited and printed in several sizes, went looking for the paper... CAN'T FIND IT ANYWHERE! It's very rare that I lose something scrappy. I have searched and searched and searched and it's nowhere to be found!!

So I figure only two possible things could have happened 1) I slept-walk during the night and burned paper out of fear from the plum craziness of it all or 2) Cindy totally swiped it.... she was sitting right next to me and and I swear that she was eyeing it up for herself.

I hope I solve the mystery soon!! I have this very large photo of Larissa that took forever and I wanna put it on a chair!!

After posting of the disappearance of my plum crazy paper, I had a flood of messages assuring me that I would not go without and threatening to send me more paper.

Well yesterday the story progressed: I was looking at scrappy stuff upstairs with one of my sisters. I have a dresser on the landing that has scrappy D-rings and other scrappy stuff kinda piled up. I accidentally knocked it over and *BOOM * CRASH * SMASH* Albums and pages went flying down my stairs! We gasped and went running. Sitting there all pretty on the stairs amongst the wreckage was MY PURPLE PAPER!!!! It once was lost but now it's found so I gotta run...got me some purple scrapping to do!!

Last night I sat down and here is the layout that I made. I have to say that I am extremely pleased with how this layout turned out. It's refreshing and different...of course, that is because I have completely scraplifted Tracey on this. It amazes me that she is could look at this paper and come up with such a creative and amazing layout. Thank you Tracey!


Journaling reads: Once upon a time there was a beautiful little princess and one of her favourite things was having a...tea party.

If you are wondering who makes that amazing pearl bracket, that is a Zva Creative product. Here's a link to the Plum Crazy paper if you want to pick up a sheet for yourself!

November kit work

Here are my creations from the LCOM November Kit. We are opening some membership spots for December so if you want to get in on the kits, now is the time to sign up.

Everyday Princess: This is my little everyday princess. You have probably noticed that I have done a lot of princess layouts and that would be because there is a princess in my house everyday. If I want to take photos of Larissa I have to accept the princess attire. I don't mind at all ... it's so stinkin cute.


Junk Mail: Does your child love junk mail? Mine does! She thinks that everything that Mommy & Daddy discard is for her. She takes it very personal and can get quite upset when there is a lack of junk mail. Her favourites have little maps or coupons on it. She'll read her junk mail from her car seat and direct us what way to go to get to our destination LOL.



Happy Birthday Daddy (38): DH's birthday was recently. He was leaving for a work trip on his birthday so we made cupcakes instead of cake. We didn't want to have a whole cake kicking around when he was going to be gone for a week (shocker but I really don't like chocolate cake...GASP) . I printed a photo of just the cupcake and cut it out to use as an embellishment. I used pop dots to give it a bit of dimension and put the '38' stickers on the flame of the candle. I used a crafter's Workshop template to get the die cut shape of this layout. It was an add-on to the November kit.

Tip: The letter stickers that I used for this layout were green. I wanted black so I used a sharpie marker to colour them while they were still on the backing and then voila - black letters stickers.

Off to Afghanistan....

The tiniest scrapbook that I have ever made is on it's way to to my brother who is currently deployed in Afghanistan. He can't really carry much with him for personal effects so this had to be very tiny and durable. I used a little tiny round tin that I once purchased at Staples. It used to have some really cute round paper clips in it but now those paper clips find their home in a ziploc baggie. I normally would have embellished this tin on the outside but I chose to leave it plain considering the possible abuse it could suffer being drug around by a soldier. I purposely made the pages absolutely flat which is a huge challenge for me. I also avoided binding the little coaster pages in any way so that if he had a favourite page or two, it could moved into his wallet or pocket.

(click on the photos to enlarge)





I just love this saying: Home is where your story begins. I will have to mentally file that one away and use it on a future layout :)



I have pictures of Richard's girlfriend, siblings, parents, the nieces and nephews, our old childhood home, family dogs and even a hilarious Halloween photo where Richard and my sister are dressed up as 'trailer trash'








I want to thank everyone who has shown their support for my brother by offering prayers, cards and even sending little packages of food and other little items to make him more comfortable. I anxiously await his safe return to Canada.

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This project was made so much easier by one my favourite scrappy tools!! These Marvy Uchida circle punches are worth every penny. I would love to get my hands on a set of scallop ones in the near future. Something else to be added to my never ending wish list!

November's Limited Edition Kit @ MCS

Oh la la!! My Creative Scrapbook sure keeps me up to date with the newest goodies...and lots of them!! This is what I created with the November Limited Edition Kit.


5: Another photos of my sister's wedding last summer...just us sisters.



I Love This Girl: I had lots of fun with glimmer mist again on this layout. I didn't have much luck getting the layout to flatten out after my heavy application of Glimmer Mist. I'm going to give Maya Mist a try instead because my scrappy pals have told me that it's more concentrated so you don't need nearly as much. Less spray means less page warping. The Maya Mist doesn't have the shimmer that the Glimmer mist does but I'm willing to give that up for flat pages :)



And yet another altered jar (yes my house is covered in these)

oh la la!! Another kit to share!

WOOHOO!! It's reveal day at My Creative Scrapbook. I have an awesome MCS main kit to share with you. I just love the mix of soft blues & pinks in this kit featuring Teresa Collins chipboard, transparencies and pattern paper. Here's a peek at the kit contents and also the design team gallery.


His Girl: Larissa was cuddling with Daddy while we waiting for my brother's wedding reception. It was so sweet...she leaned into him and whispered "I'm your girl Daddy...I'm your favourite" Indeed she is :)
To create this pink accent inside the die cut and ribbon, I simply ripped up little tiny strips of pink Bazzill cardstock and glued them in and slightly under the ribbon. I wrinkled them to create this effect. I wanted the texture to contrast the softness and lacy look of the ribbon and the die cut.


Good times: This is DH and Larissa as they headed down the dock for Larissa's first fishing trip on labour day. There will be many more layouts based on photos from this day!

Girlfriends: This layout about my dear Texan friend whom I miss dearly even though I am dreadfully inept at emailing!

Journaling reads: Since Margie & I live so far apart, when we finally get together we need to squeeze all the giggles, laughter and silliness possible into the short amount of time we have together. We snapped this awful self portrait (well she looks great but me...oh my!) during Margie's August '09 visit to the Island

I used the Tim Holtz crown and swirls masks that came in this kit. First I used Tattered Angels glimmer mist over them and then I moved them slightly and used an inked sponge for a stronger effect. I also used my circle punches to make cardstock circle masks over the layout.




As my altered project I made yet another decorative jar. I know it's not the most creative project to make but I really enjoy them and giving them to friends and family.

My Kissy Girl

So here is my wee kissy girl :) I took Larissa down the road from our house to a dirt road that is little used and was just draped with gorgeous fall foliage. We had a little mini photoshoot and coming on the end she was getting bored. She gave me this kissy face which made me burst out laughing. She was so pleased with having made me laugh that I got several minutes of various kissy faces. I wanted to use fun and playful elements for this page. At the recent Let's Capture Our Memories crop I got to sit next to a bunch of awesome gals...we had a hoot! Miss Cindy kept throwing goodies my way...she gave me the awesome ribbon and pattern paper (bird/swirl paper - Carolee's Creations) in this layout. I bought the die cut paper (WRMK) and the Crate Paper (Season Collection) chipboard there and it all just seemed to be made for each other. This layout came together really fast and I enjoyed whipping it up. I really like it because I've felt like I've been a bit of slump lately and that all my work looks the same. This felt fresh, fun and a little different for me.

Here are a few close-ups. Oh oh oh...I almost forgot. I also got these puffy AC Thickers at the retreat. It was my first time getting my hands on puffy alphas and I really enjoyed them....love the glossy texture they brings to the page.

I did journal on this page but it's a little hard to see in these photos. It was just inside the hand stitching around the circle. It's not always really noticeable but there is almost always journaling on my pages. When I look back at my older albums, it's always the journaling that I cherish the most so now I always try to find a place to squeeze some writing in.

A new blog to share!

I'm not at home today so no new work to show you. I'm actually at my sister's place taking care of her little ones because she is in the hospital having a baby girl today. I can't wait to meet baby Anna in a couple of days. Sadly our local hospital has new regulations and only 2 designated visitors so her hubby and our Mom will be there. The rest of us will have to wait to see baby!

So without any new scrap work , I have a great new blog to share. Luzma is a very talented scrapbooker who produces a huge amount of high quality work. I am so excited that she has started a new blog! Here is the link so you can bookmark it and I have also added it to the side of my blog for future reference.