Getting my Mojo Back

 The last time that I wrote, I swore that I was going to post more often. Well, that didn't exactly happen... But, I'm back again, and hopefully I'll be a little bit better at updating this. I think what happens is I upload my photos to Facebook, and that kind of takes the place of this. Anyway, after a few months teaching at Clipper Street, I decided to move back across the river to Photo Express. I'm still not working regularly but I have three classes running at PE in September. I'll be great to be back with my regular customers. Here's a picture of one of my layouts from a class that I'll be teaching  later on in the month (Fall Frenzy Sept 26).


 I'm working on my classes for October. It seems funny to be working on Christmas stuff when it's 30 degrees outside, but that's just the way it goes!

Happy Birthday Carole!

  It's been waaaaaaaaay to long since I have updated this. Not much point in having a blog if you never post to it! Anyway, today is April Fools Day, although in our family we refer to it as Carole's birthday since that's slightly more important to us! I'm not usually one to play pranks, but today I wrote on my Facebook status that we were moving to Regina! I actually fooled a few people until they realized the date which was kind of funny. Back to Carole's birthday, I needed to make a card. I usually have lots of them around, thanks to being on PE's design team for three years, but I didn't have anything "birthday". Anyway, I had some scraps left over from the gorgeous new line from My Mind's Eye called Stella and Rose so I decided to use those. I was able to put this together fairly quickly and I quite like the monochromatic result. 

Cardstock: Coredinations, and Bazzill; Patterned Paper: My Mind's Eye; Brad: My Mind's Eye;
Ribbon: Who knows?; Embossing Folder: Lifestyle; Dies: Sizzix, and Spellbinders

Happy Valentines Day




Valentines Day was really fun this year. Now that the girls are in school, they finally have the chance to exchange Valentines. We made two different styles. One was a set of pencils from Micheals with foam toppers, and the other was a die-cut puppy with a kit kat for a tongue. Of course, along with passing out Valentines, came the Valentine party. The school has gone on a huge health kick and heaven forbid you bring a cupcake for a party. I was getting bored of nothing but fruit for the class parties so I looked around for something that I could make that would not get me in trouble but would still be fun. I came up with brownies made with beet puree. I remember having something like this many years ago and thinking it was good, so I found a recipe on the internet. Sure enough, the result was more than passable. I nibbled on the scraps and found that most of the time, I couldn't taste anything unusual. I cut the brownies into heart shapes and sent them off to school. I'm guessing that they went over well, because nothing came home with me. Here's some pictures that I took of everything.


More Sneak Peeks

  As promised yesterday, here are some more pictures of the cards that we are going to be making in my Crazy Love class. I still have some more to design, but I wanted to get these three posted today.



New Classes Coming Soon!

  Ok, I'm going to do some shameless self promotion here. I finally have some new classes scheduled for February at Photo Express. Here's the first one:


  This class is called Crazy Love Cards (the name of the paper line is Crazy Love) It features papers from Bo Bunny and it runs on Friday Feb. 11th from 7-9pm. The cost is $25. I'm still in the process of designing this class. I have two more cards done and I'll post them later on so that you can see them too.

  The second one is called All My Love Layout and it runs on Sat Feb 12 from 1-3pm. Ths cost for this one is $22 and you get lots of full sheets of paper, as well as a large sheet of stickers. You'll have enough leftover bits that you should be able to make some cute baby cards for your stash.

I had to keep this picture a little bit smaller because it was a lower resolution image that I grabbed off the Photo Express website. If you're interested in taking either of these classes, you can register in store, on line at http://www.photoexpressions.ca/ , or by phone: 604 463-3654. Kits are available for both of these classes. Have a great day!

A Cosmo Christmas


Aha! I just figured out how to make pictures larger! Now you don't have to squint to see everything! The pictures on this layout are a few years old, but the paper is from last year. I really enjoyed the non-traditional colours from this line. This was one of our all to brief snow days. We had a wonderful time out at the local gold course playing with the girls.

Some Cosmo Cricket Layouts




I'm really, really, hoping that I have a shot at Cosmo Cricket's design team. I'm a huge fan of their stuff, and getting on a design team for them would definitely be an item off the bucket list. Thanks to those of you who nominated me! Fingers crossed! I have some other layouts using newer paper lines that I need to get photgraphed and posted here. They won't be scanned, so I'm not sure how well they'll turn out. Right now though, I HAVE to get to bed. 6:45 is going to come far too quickly....

Finally Four, and Other Layouts





My Bucket List and Other Layouts






These are all Toonie Projects that I have designed in the last year for Photo Express. Most of them don't have photos because my manager prefered them to be blank so that they would appeal to a wider audience.
  What do you think of the new look? I'm loving it! It was a free template that I found on line. Fortunately it was fairly easy to download and install since I'm completely computer illiterate.
  Anyway, the main reason that I decided to start this blog in the first place was to have a place that I could post the latest things that I have been working on. I'm going to be posting quite a bit of older stuff in the next day or two because that's what I have pictures of. This first layout is one that I did last lear using papers from Basic Greys Lemonade Line. We had a bumper crop of cherries on our backyard tree and the girls helped us pick them. Emily in particular loved the taste of the fruit. Many more made it into her tummy than the bucket! This basic layout sketch has become one of my favourites. I use it, or a variation thereof all the time.

Many Changes

  You know, life is never dull. Just when you think everything is falling into place, it all gets turned upsidedown again! My next post was supposed to be one where I talked about my new job at Clipper Street. Well, life got in the way, and I didn't write about it when I planned to. Meanwhile I worked a few shifts, but discovered that it just wasn't going to work out well for either of us. My availability is just too limited with the kids being in half-day kindergarten, and the stress of trying to rush across the bridge was already getting to me. Plus, I just missed PE. Whether I ever make it back behind the counter there, I don't know, but I'm holding out hope. In the meantime, I'm going to be doing some teaching. In February, I'll be offering two classes at PE. Then in March and April I'll be over at Clipper doing some layout classes. After that, I don't know where I'll be teaching. It all depends on if I'm back to work or not. As great as it would be, I'm pretty sure that I can't teach at both places. So now I'm back to trying to out my trust in God that He has a plan for all of this. I really wish it was a little bit more clear though!

Big Excitement!

  Well, I had planned on starting this off talking about the fun time we had today with our friends, the Walden's, but a few minutes ago, Emily ran into the kitchen hollering at the top of her lungs. Her tooth, which had been wiggly for about a month, had finally fallen out. It was an especially big deal, because it was her first. Now we have the excitement of waiting for the Tooth Fairy to come. We are borrowing a tradition from Tanya and have put the tooth into a glass of water. This way, the girls can see what colour dress the Tooth Fairy was wearing (because of course, her sleeve will get wet when she retrieves the tooth, and the colour will run). Emma was a little freaked out by the blood (minimal) and would only look at the photo that I had taken of Emily's mouth, and not the real thing.
  Anyway, so there was this little event called New Years Eve last night. We're not big into celebrating it. Chris had a gig at a party with his band, so it was just the girls at home for the night. We had a little party of our own, with ice cream (and sprinkles!), and sparkling apple cider (in champagne flutes just for fun!). We watched Wipeout on TV (the kids are crazy for that show) and then watched the ball in New York over the internet. The kids were in bed by ten our time and I spent the rest of the evening scrap booking. I'm happy to say that I'm finally getting my mojo back. I've had all this time off, but I've barely touched my scrap booking stuff. I just haven't felt like doing anything lately.
  This afternoon we got together with the Walden's and took all of our kids on the Christmas Train at Bear Creek Park. There's still a fair bit of snow over there, so it was quite the winter wonderland. After the ride, the kids played in the playground for about an hour until their toes were frozen. Then we made our way over the McDonald's and had lunch. It was a great family day.
  At home, I spent the rest of the afternoon baking like mad for our pastors retirement lunch tomorrow. So it's been a full day. I was going to scrap a bit, but I think that will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm wiped!