Sketchy in Summer

Summer is here! Part of me is celebrating, part of me really needs to get out of the house. But instead I've been playing with sketches again, finishing up a few page ideas from the back of my mind. Here are my takes on Sketches 108 thru 110 from Creative Scrappers

Sketch #108


Sketch #109


Sketch #110


What is it about summer that makes me wanna use sketches and scrap Christmas layouts? Not a clue. Anyway I did something surprising...I actually went out and found that rumoured LSS across town and guess what, it was actually open!!! Even though it had been over a year since I last had a really good browse thru a LSS, I was a good girl and stayed almost entirely within the 50% off boxes...that's how long it's been, that the stuff in the clearance bin was actually newer than most of my current stash! Of course I stocked up on adhesive too...can't get enough. Found some awesome double-sided tape that's working beautifully. The ladies were very nice and sweet and we had a great time debating Glimmer Mist...they still didn't totally convince me it's as great as they claim. I did try a few of their suggestions and it did work slightly better but I still think chipboard is the only thing it makes prettier than it messes up. Anyway thanks for looking, gotta run! Sweet dreams~

LSS...how do I miss thee?

Made this page lastnight for Mission 0019 at Mission To Create.


Some of the concepts were a longshot for me...especially the embossed paper, since I have none. So instead I tried an improvised attempt at "faux embossing", which also happens to be a challenge at Skrap N' Chat this month. It's easier to show than explain.


If this were 3 years ago, I could have just ran out and picked up all the stuff for the challenge with no need to improvise. I really miss the LSS. All 5 I used to shop at have gone under, and the last one I heard of is way on the other end of town and has inconvenient store hours. If you'd driven more than 30 minutes out of your way to find a scrapbook store boarded up as many times as I have, you'd understand why I can't get motivated to make the trip to this alleged LSS.

Yes, there are oodles of online shops that boast fabulous deals, which I'm sure are awesome for most. It's just not for me. First of all, I'm a sensory shopper. I don't get inspired by looking at packages of paper on a computer screen, in fact some of the exact paper collections I've been indifferent to when posted online, I've gone crazy over in the store. I have no idea what I want until I see it in real life, let alone how well the colours will really work with my photos. Second of all, inspiration comes suddenly for me. I need instant pictures and instant supplies--waiting for postal delivery just won't do. Third of all, nice scrapbook supplies are not cheap. No matter what the deal, I can't justify paying even more on top for shipping.

Yet would having a local scrapbooking store make me a better scrapper? Some of my best pages came from 2005-2006 when I didn't have the considerable scrap stash I have today, when I didn't spend 30 minutes deciding what alphas to use, but how to make pretty letters out of origami paper and poster paint. So while I do miss eyeballing pretty papers and lovely letters, learning to make do with what you have is much better for the creativity (and the credit card!)

Scrap to Basics

All riiiight!!! My Worldly page was showcased on Scrap Yourself!!! It's so nice to have my scrap mojo back again.

It's midnight, the house is dark and quiet, and I'm highly caffeinated. If I don't get sleepy soon I may have to start another layout....

For now here's a new page I did about my favourite boy.



Made this lastnight. The 3D picture was the challenging part and for the rest I just picked the most glowingly bright scraps from my stash and had at'er with a Sharpie and some nail scissors. Mannnnn was this one fun! I love bright colours against black. Thanks for looking!

Hello mojo!

I don't know exactly where it came from, but there has been a flash flood of scrappy inspiration around here the last few days. Maybe after hauling through those mega-pages from my last post, and then doing that one Creative Scrappers sketch (which I also incorporated into a Skrap N' Chat challenge, as I am prone to do), I finally got the hankering to just scrap a few pretty pages. First of all here's one I finally did for a travel challenge at Scrap Yourself. This was fun to make, though the journalling technique was challenging...I wrote it out on Notepad first, then copied most of it backwards one word at a time so I could fit it on the page right. I even talked my son into biking with me to Wal-Mart this evening so we could pick up the pics while DH was out with the car!



So we have these family friends with 3 sweet kids, the oldest of which has known Antonio since they were babies, and I've used them as scrap subjects before, and felt it was high time for some recent pages:




And there's plenty more in the works. I'm soaking a picture for an experimental technique which hopefully I'll get to work on tomorrow after work, and another few in the ideas stage, with pictures printed and ready to scrap! Now why is it that the most inspiration hits when you have the least time? When creativity flows you have to act on it! Good thing I'm a fast scrapper!

getting sketchy again

Here's a quick page I did today with Creative Scrappers' Sketch 107:



I always forget how much I love the look of sewing and painted edges in my pages. I guess it's a time thing. There's just not enough of it for scrapping these days!

This page has, however, broken my recent multi-pix streak. Seems all I wanna scrap in the last few months has been pages like this...



...and this...



...and this...



Even my one-pagers have been pretty loaded...



Every once in a while my scrapping style will re-gravitate towards using as many pictures as I can cram in there. It's why I originally started using 12 X 12 and I'm constantly on a mission to scrap beautifully using lotsapix. It's easy to create something dazzling with one photo, but come on, sometimes there are 100, and you can only narrow it down so much. Some events just can't be illustrated with a single picture. Yes, you can do multiple pages of one event. I did 26 pages of our vacation to Italy. But even among those, only 3 were single photo layouts. Most had 5 or more per page. It's just how I roll!

That said, it's been a challenge making every page perfect with so many pix to choose from. But then again, why does every page have to be perfect? Why does every page need to be better than the last? Of course we always give it our best shot, but sometimes, it's really more about the pictures and the story than the design and decoration. Gotta keep it fun!

...and so it goes

OK...so I never made it to the end of the week as far as the blogging thing went. I sorta figured I wouldn't, but the week started with such optimism...I'm actually surprised at how far I got with this Week In The Life project. Missed blogdays aside, I've actually finished all the daily pages for the album. The layout design is pretty much taken right from the example on Ali E's product suggestions page, as the actual finished pages weren't yet available for reference when I started printing out pix. I changed the colours and papers, and computer-printed all my journalling on to cards (I knew my own handwriting would never be able to fit everything I wanted in there). Long story short....



Sunny Sunday




Monday Mall Day




Toe-chilling Tuesday




Wednesday. I was a bit anxious today as I always am when I pick up a night shift with less than a day's notice, so other than groceries not a lot got done today.




Thursday. A full day, but fun in hindsight. Worked the night again.




Friday. I spent much of this day panicking over a camera malfunction...that's why most of Friday's pictures were taken with my low-resolution camera phone.




...and finally Saturday comes full-circle with breakfast at Ikea and a night shift at the end.


Thanks so much for looking. And thank you Kirsten and the girls at Skrap N' Chat for drawing my attention to this project, and thank you Ali Edwards for a great idea and cool design inspiration. Sweet dreams~

Day 3

Seems I've forgotten how to rotate pictures on Blogger, so I tried uploading them to Photobucket first. Not sure if it saved me any time. This daily blogging is something I haven't done since 2004 when we lived in Korea and it was my primary form of entertainment and communication. Anyway, here's Tuesday....

For some reason I can't force myself to sleep in past 6:45, so I get up with the guys and watch French cartoons with Tones.
The guys' morning tickle session
The weather has taken a turn for the worse today, so no bike ride for the guys. Tones heads out to catch the school bus instead.
Please tell me those aren't snowflakes I'm seeing.
In the absence of any plumbing knowledge whatsoever, here's my "green" solution to the leaky bath tap.
Definitely a good morning for a hot bubble bath.
Nutella on toast for breakfast again.
Tuesday=waterday
A quick stop in at the bank and Wal-mart before my noon appointment
Appointment done. Now, to stop by home and pack up my m-i-l for her flight home....
Pick up Tones from school. Now we just gotta get Don from work, and it's off to Montreal airport.
Antonio's mismatched gloves. He often wears mismatched socks too. It's just not a big deal to him either way. I love my boy.
Ew. It is snow.
Seeing Don's mum off at the airport
Eeeeeeeek! Wet feet! Wet feet! This is crazy! There was no snow in Ottawa when we left, and Don was in shorts yesterday!
A rest stop in Tim's on the way home warms the heart and the toes.
Well, we're out of pepperoni, the cream cheese is expired, and no nuts allowed in school. I search the pantry for some canned ham for Antonio's sandwich as Don puts together the rest of his lunch.
We've got mail! Don ordered a book from Amazon.com, and a little gift for Antonio earning his half yellow/half white belt in Judo. Bedtime!
This night winds down as many have these past few days with the Jays.
Sweet dreams!

Day 2: Monday the 26th

Monday was actually a pretty sweet day for me. A lot more eventful than usual.


Waiting for the kettle for my morning cup of tea. Nutella on toast for breakfast today...mmmm nutella...whoever invented this was a genius...finally an excuse to eat chocolate for breakfast!


My morning computer break. Today I'm uploading pictures of New York from my m-i-l's camera, trying to keep track of my daily notes for this project on a Notepad document, and searching the boards at Skrap N' Chat for the link to the Storytelling Frames thingy, also featured on Ali E's site in a guest post from Elizabeth Kartchner. I'd like to try to do a storytelling wall for Antonio's room this summer. Need frames first.


Can't ask for a nicer day than this in April


Gettin' my one decent pair o' shoes on for going shopping with m-i-l. She wants to look for clothes and a friend's birthday gift, and I need to restock at the bulk store.


Picking up my psyllium husk in Bulk Barn


Saw this awesome deal on picture frames in Black's. They have a bit of space between the glass and the photo area and look perfect for the Storytelling frames I was pondering earlier today!


While waiting for my m-i-l in the dress store, 2 different people asked me about my frames. I directed them to Black's.


Home again. Checked the messages and ended up picking up a night shift for Thursday and another 7-11 evening on Sunday.


Preparing to reheat a cup of tea while I keep an eye on the Habitant soup me & my m-i-l are having for lunch. We originally planned to eat lunch while we were out, then we got talking teppanyaki, and maybe waiting and going with the guys at dinnertime since she's going home tomorrow and all.


I was going to say "here's where I fold Don's laundry," until I realized it's as much my laundry as it is his, and whoever starts it doesn't make it their load to finish. Hmmm, life lessons learned! (I never said I housework was my strongpoint!)


Don and Tones arrive home. Tones will soon come in quite distraight, not because of anything at school, but because he's suddenly remembered that in the big MegaBloks bin he donated to the Salvation Army months ago, he left a red Matchbox truck he'd gotten from treasure box at church. This boy has easily over 1,000 Matchbox cars and he can account for ALL of them. His dad actually promises him that if he finishes his homework and violin practise quickly enough, we can stop by the SA to check if it's still there and buy the truck back if necessary. Yes, perhaps a bit extreme, but when you only have one child, and he looks at you with those teary puppydog eyes....



(note: we did check the SA and it wasn't there. At least there was closure.)


When we parked at the teppanyaki place Don noticed the odometer was all 1's. Cool!


Don: "Hey look--it's us not flying to France!"


One of those moments....


Monday = sweepnight


Tonesy is way too involved in inventing a Canadian $1,000,000 dollar bill with a car on the back, to even notice that I'm trying to brush his teeth.


Blue Jays just scored another run. They eventually lost but it was a 13-12 game so at least it was entertaining to watch.