Camping. Again.

Wait!!!

Before you run screaming - this isn't another camping-themed scrapbook page (though it may well materialize into one).

I'm going camping this weekend with my little (taller than me) sister who is driving in this week from B.C.

Of course, any time I use the "C" word, the Great Weather Maker says, "Camping?! LET THERE BE RAIN."

The Great Weather Maker is a jerk.

We are suitably equipped now for wet-weather camping after last summer, so we should be dandy fine, if cold and damp.

We've never been to Emily Provincial Park before. It's in Omemee. "Omemee Omemee"; gosh that's fun to say. I'll give a quick recap of my impressions of the park when we get back. That's one of the Ontario Parks website features I find sorely lacking: detailed descriptions of the campgrounds/camp sites. Heck, I'd even settle for a grainy jpeg of each site. Where's a summer co-op when you need one!?

All this to say: no paper playing for me for the next little while. Expect some activity next week.

DUDE

*whirlwhirlwhirl*

I've been whirling like a dervish these last 5 days, and I'm very much ready to get off this ride! Insanity. I haven't had time to make cards (hubby's bday was yesterday and even he didn't get a card. For SHAME.) let alone post any updates.

Here's a photo of the one card I did manage to create, for one of my son's very bestest friends who had a birthday party on the weekend:


Simple to the point of being embarrassing, but appropriate. Patterned paper is from the leftover Birthday Dude paper, and is layered on some SU! Basic Gray paper. It's all been cut out with the Silhouette.

Thanks to Wendy for the photo. I forgot to snap it before cramming it into an envelope on the way out the door. Woops.

More soon - I hope!

C

Baby Sam

Samuel Alexander Clark arrived (with some delay*) on Sunday, May 17th. I've yet to meet the little man, but when I do I have a card for him!


It's a little froo froo, but it's a baby card, so I think I can be forgiven. Here are some close ups. (You can click on any photo to see things bigger.)

Supplies:

• Whisper White cardstock
• Bordering Blue cardstock
• Open stock swiss dots paper (Michaels)
• All in the Family stamp set (baby)
• Alphabets and BABY stamps, Michael's $1.50 bin.
• Lace edge punch (SU!)
• Dazzlin' Diamonds and 2-way glue
• Blender pen and inks: Barely banana, Certainly Celery, Bordering Blue, Night of Navy.
• 5/8" organza ribbon (Michaels)
• 1/4" grosgrain ribbon (SU!)

*Sam's mum, Nicole, was the guest of honour at our pretty toes event.

Girly Purse

Hi!

I have a girly card to share today. I needed a dual purpose card/gift-card holder for a little girl's birthday. My daughter received a birthday invite last year that employed this idea, and I stole it and tweaked it a bit for my own purposes:


The shape of the card I cut out using my Silhouette. I probably spent as long drawing the darned thing on the computer as I would have if I just created it by hand, but now I have the template I can use over and over (if you're a Silhouette user and want the GSD file, let me know!)

When you lift the flap and open the purse, you can see the pocket I created inside by inserting some accordion-folded paper at the sides of the purse. It's just the right size for a gift card and the whole thing fits into a standard invitation-size envelope.

My daughter was able to create a small 3x2 card to slip inside the purse as well. Super cute!

Supplies

• Whisper White cardstock
• Michael's slab (name long since forgotten)
• SU! Rhinestone brad
• Got Flowers flower
• EK Success flower punches
• 2-way glue
• Dazzlin' diamonds glitter

Pumpkin Patch

I have a tendency to jump around chronologically with my scrapbooking, as the urge strikes to create various pages. This week I was working on pictures from the neighborhood trip to the pumpkin patch.

I didn't expect it, but my pictures told me to use purple, blue, green, and orange for the page colours. What a whacky colour combo. But, I just recently acquired the perfect paper from our Dollarama-paper-buying blitz. Stripes of purple, blue, green, orange and yellow? Perfect! I couldn't have planned it better if I had tried.


Thanks for looking!

Supplies:

• So Saffron 12x12
• Fresh Trinkets Seersucker 12x12
• Pumpkin Pie cardstock
• Brillian Blue cardstock
• Lovely Lilac cardstock
• Making Memories square brads
• Title: cut with my Silhouette
• assorted paper-pad papers
• Corner flourish of "Something for you" from Yummy stamp set

Butterfly Birthday

Apologies for the posting hiatus! It's been dreary and overcast for too long, which means my project photos get put on hold.

Here's a cute birthday card I made for my scrappin' friend, Marci:

The strié effect was accomplished by dropping ink onto a baby wipe and smearing it across the glossy cardstock. Because it takes a little longer for the ink to soak into the glossy card, you can blend it and play with it a little more. The sentiment is heat embossed using white embossing powder.

Thanks for looking!

Supplies:
Tangerine Tango reinker and cardstock
Summer Sun reinker
Versamark ink and White embossing powder
White glossy cardstock
Whisper White cardstock
Martha Stewart butterfly punch
Baby wipe
Making Memories orange mini brads
Its Your Birthday stamp set (ret.)

** welcome Samuel Alexander Clark!! **

Pretty toes!

Any mom out there who was still pregnant on their due date knows how maddening that situation is. Augh! So frustrating.

Way back when I was pregnant with Adina, a good girlfriend booked us in for pedicures on my due date. I'll never forget the terrified look on the aestheticians face when we told her! I think she thought I was going to go into labour in the chair. *laugh* But I'll also never forget how thoughtful it was to be pampered that little bit on an otherwise vexxing day.

I wanted to do the same thing for our friend Nicole. Monique got all the girls on board, found a salon that would fit all 6 of us in the chairs at the same time, and picked everyone up. What a blast!

And here's a picture of our pretty toes:

So pretty.

Birthday Dude

Hi there!

A belated Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. I have a scrappy page for you today. This is for my son's 8th birthday. He's a very boyish boy: cars, flames, sports, flames. Better yet: sports cars with flames. Yeah, baby!


The background is some 12x12 red discovered in the Michael's clearance aisle by my bargain-savvy pal Nicole. Thanks Nic! The patterned paper is a "Me and my BIG ideas" slab I picked up from Michael's. It has very boyish paper, which I needed to counterbalance my girlie froo-froo proclivities. I added a bit of basic grey and basic black SU! paper for mats and such. The screw-head brads I picked up a while back at paperwishes.ca (back when it still existed), and finally have found a use for them. The title is cut out of pumpkin pie SU! paper using my beloved silhouette. It was looking a bit flat and drab when I first mounted it, so I grabbed my chalks to tart it up a bit:
I used a bit of real red chalk and yo-yo yellow to add some highlights/shadows. I think it really makes the letters pop.

Thanks for dropping in!

-C

p.s. Did you hit Dollarama yet in search of that "Recess-by Carson Dellosa" paper? We've found all but 2 patterns. Woo! Wendy is a paper sleuth extraordinaire.

It's a GIRL thing

It's scrappy time once again, and finally, FINALLY, I'm done with the the 2008 camping pics... of Balsam Lake. Aheheh, *cough*. Right, so back to the pages at hand:

To treat myself after a super finish in a 5K run on Sunday (woo!) I headed to Winners with a gal pal and found this gorgeous slab of My Mind's Eye paper. It's rare that I find a slab for which I love every page therein. The subject of today's spread: our girly scrapbooking getaway last June.

[aside: don't think our husbands didn't cotton on to the self-perpetuating nature of scrapbooking your scrapbooking weekend. It's like holding a mirror up to a mirror!]

The colours are roughly Tempting Turquoise with a hint of a green that falls somewhere between Certainly Celery and Gable Green. I used my new SU! eyelet punch that I ordered by mistake (woops) to create the Chocolate Chip border. The title is cut out of Very Vanilla and Tempting Turquoise with my Silhouette. The rhinestone star has been lurking in my embellishments drawer for almost a year and a half. It was time to stick it on something.

Now look closely at the band across the middle of the page. It's photos of all of the spreads we completed that weekend (minus the output of the two digi-scrappers in the group). Fun!

Thanks for dropping by,
C

The last of the 2008 camping... I think

Another scrapbooking spread for you today. I'm not super crazy about this one. It wasn't coming together nicely, and I ended up just sticking it down and calling it done because I didn't want to think about it anymore. But, it'll do.


The paper is all SU! from the Summer Picnic Designer Series Paper pack. I had to swap out the Olive from the kit because, well, I didn't have enough. But it's still SU!, just not Summer Picnic.
All the shapes and letters were cut out using my silhouette, and the trippy meshy ribbon stuff is from the 'rama.

By the way, I don't know if you've stopped into Dollarama lately, but there's a bargoon to be had on some quality scrapbooking paper! For a buck they're selling packs of 12x12 paper (25 identical sheets) from the discontinued "Recess at Carson Dellosa" paper line. If you're resourceful and have a few Dollaramas nearby, you can get a decent selection of paper at a cheap, cheap rate. Each store seems to carry about two to three different designs, so you need to hit multiple stores if you want to locate the coordinating papers. And they're out there - we've found 25 different patters so far and are dividing them up amongst scrappy friends. I love bargoons!

Go now! I'll be here when you get back. (-;

A couple of terrific specials

Stampin' Up! May specials are good ones. Check this out (click to open):The deals are three-fold, and all are in honour of Scrapbooking Month. May is scrapbooking month? Who knew?!

1. Buy three packs of Designer Series paper—including Specialty Designer Series paper — or 12" x 12" textured card stock and get one FREE! You can mix and match, they don't have the be three packs of the same paper.
2. Buy the new Jumble Alphabet stamp set—a sneak peek from the upcoming 2009-2010 Idea Book & Catalogue—at 20% off!
   
3. Become a demonstrator for only $99 with the limited-time, scrapbooking Starter Kit! This is a amazing deal if you want to enjoy a demonstrator's discount on your purchases for the next 6 months - and you don't have to sell a thing if you don't want to (but you do, because then you earn free goodies for yourself.) The $99 covers the cost of the scrapbooking supplies - see the following table - and you get all of your business materials at no extra cost (catalogs, order forms, yada yada). Here's what the kit includes:

Item Code	Description	Retail Value
113510	Schoolbook Serif Alphabet stamp set*	$50.95
113059	Simply Scrappin' Petal Party	$23.95
108697	Earth Elements Assorted textured card stock (12" x 12")	$13.95
105240	Whisper White Craft Stampin' Pad	$8.95

Please note: Each of the products listed above may be substituted for like items. Please see the Scrapbooking Starter Kit Order Form for details.

Contact me if any of this tickles your fancy! I plan to stock up on paper, myself. Because being buried alive under an avalanche of paper in my craft room is the ONLY way to go.

Lovely butterflies

Today I'm sharing a card that I made for Mother's Day and a few Birthdays that are coming up.

Somehow (read: I'm a dolt), I ended up with too much "Walk In the Park" bulk-order (demo's only) paper. I decided to use it to make these 6 identical cards.

Everything shown is Stampin' Up! with the exception of the butterfly die cut (silhouette) and the Swiss Dots embossed background. Sure, I could've used the SU! Swiss Dots embossing plate, but you know what? I like my 'bug plate better!

*gasp* "Blashpemy!"

Thanks for stopping by.

Supplies:
Whisper White card stock
Baja Breeze card stock
White 1/4" grosgrain ribbon
Walk In The Park designer series paper
Silhouette die cut butterfly
Dazzlin' Diamonds glitter
Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing plate.

Stamp-A-Stack photos

Hey there!

Here are a few photos from our fun stamping day last Sunday. (Apologies in advance to anyone who is displeased with their likeness *ahem* *cough*)

Click on the slideshow to go to my Picasa album and view the photos up close.



Thanks for dropping by!