A wee card

A wee card I made. Sorry for the blurry photo.

If there's anyone who still reads this blog, don't expect much content in the near future. I've allowed my demonstrator status with Stampin' Up! to lapse and have fallen hard off the crafting bandwagon. My time and energy at present is being devoted first and foremost to my family, and secondly to renovating a property we recently acquired.

I'll still post projects I create, but they've been few and far between.

Thanks for reading,
C

I made this!

We're gearing up for competitive dance season at my house. My dear daughter is in numerous routines, two of which require stiff round tutu's that must be transported flat. What a pain in the butt!

I devised this Tutu Tote to make carting the darned things a bit easier:

It works like a big clam. The tote opens to two storage areas.
Each half has a "crotch grabber", for lack of a more decorous name, that clamps onto the crotch of the body suit. Straps hold the tutu flat, and there's a pocket on the outside for shoes, tights, hair combs, etc. I put all sorts of handles on it, because I couldn't decide how I would end up carrying the thing. It was a pain in the butt to make it, but I'm glad I did.

It's a sad day

It's a sad day at my house. I learned this morning that my sister's beloved pup of thirteen years, Nibbie, passed away from cancer. Poor Nibs. Poor Mel.

Mel's on the west coast, so all I could think to do was send her a little something to remember Nibbie by.

This is for her. And for Nibbie.

OK. I lied, but only a little

 

There's really one final page to the Disney album. This is one that I wasn't going to share with you originally because, well, it sucked. I popped back into the file and changed some things around now that I have some mad digiscrapping skills (ha!). I like it. A lot better than I used to, at least. This template is all my own, the papers and embellies are mostly from AWP_Beach Holiday with some American Tradition Designs Road Trip paper.

I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done! I'm DONE!

Finally! The last of the Day 5 pages for the Disney album. This one features generic shots of Rowan's final day at Hollywood studios (which I've stupidly been calling Universal Studios because I'm a dolt).

Paper is a melange of A Work in Progress papers (About a Boy, Cherry Cheesecake), all of which have been colour tweaked to suit my purposes. The ACTION letters and hardware are from AWP - Cinnamon Toast. The #5 tag is from AWP - Great Outdoors.

I'm 99% sure the template is from Yin, but I can't find it now in my library to say exactly which one. *puzzle*

Creativity comes in all shapes and sizes

Sometimes, when I'm gushing with pride about my craftily creative daughter, I forget about the methodical genius of my son.

He surprised me in my office with his latest invention:

 

"It's a condiment blaster, for when you need to make a hamburger really quick. You just take off the Ketchup blaster and swap it with the mustard blaster."

I love it, and I love him. Especially because there's no relish in his blaster (bleh).

Day... augh... 5. Revenge of the revenge of the Sith.

 

♪ "This is the day that never ends.... yes it goes on and on my friends" ♫

Day 5, again. This time from Rowan's point of view. He returned to Hollywood Studios with his dad and participated in the Jedi training they have as an attraction there.

Layout is Yin (#47) but I've flipped all the layers so it's mirrored from the original. It fit my chronology better. Papers are A Work in Progress True Blue with gewgaws from AWP About a Boy and Blue Earth. Title font is "Star Vader" which was a free download from... somewhere.

Valentines!

I don't know about you, but I need a Disney break.

Last week my dear daughter and I sat down to make her Valentines cards for her class, because in this house, you make your Valentines*. How else can I justify all that paper in my craft room!?

* unless you're her older brother and cutesy valentines are for dorks. He has cruddy store-bought marvel comics valentines. Ptoo!

Here's my completely adorable (I can say this because I am thoroughly impartial and unbiased) daughter hard at work on her cards:

Seriously. How cute is this child?! Don't say I didn't warn you.

Inking up her stamp and checking for thorough coverage. She's a pro.

Working on the card for her teacher. It's special and bigger than the rest.

The finished project. A cute design! The hearts were cut with the Silhouette, run through the Xyron, and dunked in Martha Stewart "Garnet" red, fine glitter. This was layered on a square of white, a square of red, and a pink card. The Happy Valentine's Day sentiment is from Holidays and Wishes and is stamped in Real Red ink.

In addition to making Valentines, last week was also "Happy Wednesday"; an occasion that, apparently, warrants flowers! Who knew?!

What does one do with an unexpected bouquet of vibrant flowers? Well, stuff them in a vase and then break out the camera, of course!

These have only confirmed my suspicions that I need (yes, need) both a macro lens and possibly a nice wide/ 50mm /F1.8 prime lens.
That's a pricey bouquet of flowers. (-;

Enjoy!

Day 5: Revenge of the Sith

OK, OK. You got me. Day 5 is still Magic Kingdom. I just got really sick of typing that as the title for my posts.

This is the last of the Adina-centric Day 5 posts. At least it had better be or I'm going to lose my mind; and believe you me, there is not much left to lose!

This page captures the general Day 5 stuff that wasn't character or Cinderella related. I still need to do Rowan's Day 5, so be warned: Day 5 is like the movie Groundhog Day. You'll just keep reliving it over and over and over.

So, on to the deets:
  Template: Mandagirl (sensing a trend?) Mass Production #1 and #2
  Kit: Shabby Princess Promise collection.
  Gew-gaws: Also SP Promise, with the exception of the #5 which is Digitreats Run ABC Numbers part 2. How's that for a mouthful.

I tweaked stuff again on this page... made the castle photo frame bigger (that page was originally 5 smaller pics surrounding a 2x2 landscape frame). The striped paper and corners have both been intensified. They were to "feh" in their original colours - feh - and I compressed the striped paper vertically to have more stripes appear in that frame.

Nearly done!

Day 5: again, Magic Kingdom... again

 

Do I love this page?

I do not.

In fact, this is the third manifestation of this particular layout. I thought the six panels across of the top of this Mandagirl template (#40) would be perfect for Adina's luncheon at Cinderella's castle, but the horizontal stripe layout proved to be my undoing. I went through three different colour combinations before I settled on this (A Work In Progress "Mon Amie", with some "Candy Dream" striped paper that was colour adjusted to match), and it still bugs me. I think I'm allergic to empty spaces. They give me a rash.

[itch itch, scratch]

You see? It's making me break out in hives!

It's pretty, but I'm not super pleased. I might come back to it and tweak it later.

Day 5: Magic Kingdom... again

 

Hey there! Day 5 is going to stretch on for a few days. We split up that day (Eric and Rowan went to a different park than I did with Adina), plus we saw so many Disney characters that day I just had to dedicate a page to it.

I did this page 4 days ago, and it has since fallen out of my head which papers and templates I've used. Template is Probably a MandaGirl... and the paper looks like it came from the digitreats Skip collection. Certainly the title did. I can't remember where the flourishy frames came from though. Curse my swiss-cheese brain!

More soon....

Day 4: Magic Kingdom

Another one DONE! This Disney album is ticking along marvelously, I must say.

The page annoys me a bit. It's a Mandagirl "vacation" template, which is great - lots of photos - but each 12x12 page is a separate PSD file, and the darned layers don't line up when you put the pages together! Grrr.

No really. Grrr.

I just know I'll be in there mucking with the alignment before I send things off to be printed. I also fudged the template slightly to alter the size/arrangement/rotation of some of the photo frames.

Paper is more freebies from SeeBees, but with some tweaks to darken the solid turquoise layer. The rickrack is from A Work In Progress as are the other bits of embellishments. Sorry, I forget which kit I stole the from. I really need to start leaving notes for myself. The knit paper in the title is from digitreats Skip knits.

Day 3: Epcot

Chug-chug-chug... I'm chugging right along on the Disney album. I'm not sure if I like the Spaceship Earth:paper pairing with this one. The page is already so busy with photos, adding bold/noisy paper seems like a step in the wrong direction. But, it's done. Yay!

Paper was free from SeeBee's, but I tweaked it a bit to get the purple to match the sphere. Template is a Yin template (#27) but I jammed a few more photo layers onto it. Fireworks are from Sugarplum Paperie and the "Day 3" letters are Shabby Princess Urban Kiwi.

Day 2: Animal Kingdom

Happy Groundhog Day!

In honour of the furry little critter, Here's another 2-page spread from the digital Disney album I'm working on. This one is for the day we spent at Animal Kingdom.

Paper and embellies are from Digitreats Run ABC (except the d-a-y letters which are A Work In Progress Rustic Walk and the stitching which is Shabby Princess Happy Go Lucky - I think.). Layout is MandaGirl layout #13. But here's the thing. I think I actually prefer the pages reversed:

What do you think?

Day 1: Hollywood Studios

I'm plowing through my Disney pages, and I like it! I still haven't gotten around to doing my cruise album from 2008. I'm such a procrastinator. I'm happy at least one of the trips is getting done. I might have to switch to digital for the Cruise to get it out of the way too.

Anywho. Here's a 2-page spread of "Day 1", which we spent at Hollywood Studios. Paper is from A Work In Progress (Berrylicious) and the template is from Yin Designs templates (#87).

Birthday Boy

Voila! Another digital scrapbooking page. This one saved my butt as I wasn't prepared with any photos/paper to cart to our weekly scrappy night this past week. Papers are shabby princess (happy go lucky) and the template is by Yin.

I had to tweak the "Rustic" alpha of the "nine" because the N's had freakishly long stems, and the title looked like: "hihe". That wouldn't do. Also, I belatedly discovered a secret cache of Eric's trip photos that were overlooked, so the page will probably be modified yet again.

Disney hotel

Here's my latest digitally scrapbooked page. It took me a couple of hours one night to put it together and it would've taken a lot less time had my laptop not been brutally slow chugging away on all the big files! Stupid craptop.

The template is a Mandagirl template (#20) and the papers are from a free Carrie Stephens kit called "Spontaneous Delight". I think some of the embellishments are from an A Work In Progress kit called "About a Boy"

Another digiscrap page

I've decided that our family photos from Disney are going to be captured in a digital album. Here's the title page for the book:

The papers are from a free kit I found online at SeeBee's Freebies.

Back to school, 2008

Here's the last of my recently pounded out scrapbook pages for 2008 (and no, I'm not done the year yet).

Again I was too lazy to extricate the finished pages from the album before photographing. I have a good excuse though; the album is so overfull right now it's almost impossible to get pages in and out of the sleeves without damaging them. Once they're in, they stay in. I need to get some post extenders to give myself a little more room to manoeuver.

Again, all the shapes have been cut out using the Silhouette. Papers are from... Michaels (red and blue) and Dollarama (patterns).

Birthday gurrrrl

OK. Now I'm just getting lazy; I didn't even bother to pull this spread out of my album before photographing it! Tsk. Tsk. This is another group of photos from my 2008 cache; Adina's 6th birthday (the actual day-of, rather than the bowling party which happened weeks later).

Papers are from a My Mind's Eye slab wish is just beyond pretty. Shapes all cut with my silhouette, except the corner vines which are from my cuttlebug.

Run for the Cure

Run for the Cure pages are always so garish, simply due to the abundance of pink. Feh. Shapes cut with the silhouette. Paper from some Walmart slab I've had lying around forever.

Why are there no pictures of me actually running? Because I ran alone and my spectators didn't arrive until after I had finished the race. Woot.

Another one. DONE.

Desperately hacking away at the 2008 pages

I realized late in 2009 that there wasn't a chance in heck that I was going to get my 2008 pages done before a new year rolled around unless I lowered my standards and started pounding out pages at a prodigious rate.

The next few posts will share some of my latest projects. They're not great, but they're DONE.

I can assure you I had not intended for Adina's birthday bowling page to be orange, but I was scrapping on the road for this one and realized the only coloured 12x12 paper I had brought with me were two sheets of orange. (sigh). All the goodies have been cut out using my Silhouette. I used the fiskars circle cutter to cut the photos into circles. The patterned paper is Moxxie paper which I picked up at the Scrapbook Emporium.