Taking it all in - a 12 X 12 scrapbook layout

Hi all and happy Friday.  I finished early today, the sun is shining and the temperatures are trying to climb slightly, ever soooo slightly LOL.  Hope you all had a lovely Easter and that the short work week was a welcome one.

I just wanted to pop in and share a layout I made last weekend, just after I completed my layout in response to Ellen's 300 subbie challenge (see previous post).  I actually used the same basic page structure - one which I am really liking lately :

I am loving also the corals lately (thanks to Nancy, aka Kitty scrapper LOL) but decided to add a pop of blue with the corals on this page.  I really like the outcome - a colour combo to repeat I think.  Here is a close-up of the top cluster :

There was a time when almost every page I made had butterflies on it, in one form or another - either stamped, die-cut, as a sticker, chipboard piece or wood veneer.  But, for some reason, I  moved away from using them lately.  It was fun to get that stamp set and the dies back out.  Now that I look at the cluster, it could use a little bling don't you think? LOL.

The supplies :

• The background is coral cardstock from the September 2013 Citrus Twist Kit as is the larger piece of patterned paper.  It is from the Hello Again collection by Carta Bella (Hello Chevron, more precisely).  For layering, I used the Dear Lizzy Daydreamer 6 X 6 pad from the March CT Project Life kit
• The washi is from my stash
• I used Pop Drops from  October Afternoon Daily Flash
• The alphas are October Afternoon Sticky Keys in Honey and  Amy Tangerine Thickers in Ocean
• Finally, I used Stampin' Up's Beautiful butterflies stamp set, Butterfly punches and the Sizzix Beautiful Wings Embosslits.

Well, there you have it.  All done for this page.  Getting close to Friday evening cocktail hour (it is 5 o'clock somewhere, is it not :) LOL ).  Have a great evening and I will be back tomorrow or Sunday morning with a layout in response to Sue's 500 subbie challenge (shiles728 on You Tube)

Layout in response to Ellen H. 's 300 You Tube subbies challenge

Happy Sunday all and Happy Easter to all those who celebrate it.  We had our family Easter brunch yesterday as most of us work tomorrow (Friday was the holiday here) and wanted a nice quiet day today.  It should actually be a lovely spring day (we may even hit the 10 degree C mark... oh my LOL) so some fresh air, followed by scrappy time are my order of business for the day.  Now, on to the subject at hand :

Another favourite You Tuber of mine is Ellen H. (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7dJT8XrBGCUKU0z7IgBxoQ ) and she just recently reached 300 subbies.  Congratulations Ellen !!! :).  She also has a blog (http://fresh-delight.blogspot.be/).  Ellen is one of the sweetest people I know and we have become fast friends through You Tube and Facebook.  She makes lovely layouts, cards and mini-albums.  So if for some reason, you have not yet discovered Ellen, head on over to her channel or her blog.

Her challenge is a fun one :

• Make a layout about yourself, or something you like ... something "you".  Tell her why it is "you".
• Use green and pink on the layout
• The second part of the challenge is to make a card (and send it to her if you want) and include the answers to 3 questions :  what is your favourite animal?, what is your biggest/craziest dream? and if you were a super hero, what powers would you have?

Here is my layout; supply list and comments follow (I will be making the card while watching a tennis final today, so it will be up on a separate blog post early in the week) :

The story :  From June 2005 to June 2006, I took a one-year sabbatical to "prepare" for my fifties.  I sold, gave away, or stored with loved ones, all my belongings; and with a 28 lb pack on my back, off I went to explore Europe.  I sometimes travelled with a friend, sometimes visited European friends and sometimes explored alone.  I have dual citizenship (Canadian and Irish) so was able to work a little here a there as well.  But I was still on a budget.  My fellow travellers were also on a budget so we would sometimes try something new to save money LOL.  This picture symbolises that ... I was actually cutting a friend's hair (how brave was he LOL)...  He is still my friend :) and if I may say so myself, the cut was not half bad.

The supplies :

• The background paper is Pink Paislee Colour Wash Shine and for layering I used some Alison Kreft for Webters pages and again two 6 X 6 pads :  Dear Lizzy Neopolitan and Carta Bella Hello Again
• I used a stamp from my Citrus Twist PL kit as well as a 3 X 4 card
• Doilies from Nancy (see previous post)
• Dear Lizzy thickers, as well as October Afternoon daily flash alphas
• Daily Flash Washi Tape and Mister Huey's mists in Custard and Tannenbaum

So there you have it !  Oh my, I do go on don't I?  If you made it this far, thanks so much for sticking with me.  I really love doing these challenges.  They make me think outside of my box and even scrap a little out of my comfort zone.

Thanks so much Ellen for the fun challenge and congratulations on you 300 subbie milestone.

Layout in response to Kittyscrapper's 500 YT subbies challenge :)

Well, hello there and welcome!  There has been quite an influx of very talented scrappers making process videos on You Tube over the last few months. I am one happy scrapper :).

One of my favourites is Nancy Sinclair (kittyscrapper on You Tube).  She makes amazing layouts and is so very entertaining as well.  Actually, she often has me laughing while I watch.  So if for some reason, you have not discovered Nancy yet, head on over to her channel and be prepared for inspiration and fun :).

Nancy's challenge for her 500 subbie giveaway is :

• To make a layout (12 X 12 or 8.5 X 11)
• Use patterned paper as the background
• Include at least one embellishment cluster
• Use at least two stamps

Here is my layout; supply list and comments follow :

One of the things I love about Nancy's layouts are her titles - they are often smart, a little sarcastic and funny!  I tried to do that on this layout, as a little "cheers" to her.  As you can tell, I can't really hold a candle to Nancy's title LOL.  Oh well ... I think it's funny and it does reflect the photo.

The background PP is from Stampin' Up and the remainder are from two 6 X 6 pads - Dear Lizzy Neopolitan and Carta Bella Hello Again.

I included two clusters, one in the upper right portion and the other in the bottom left.

I used a few stamps :  The hearts are stamped with the Hearts-a-flutter set from SU (and then die cut), the camera is stamped from the same set, and then I used a stamp  from Simon says stamp for the arrows on the left side of the photo.

Another little cheer to Nancy is  the doily, which I sprayed with Mister Huey's Bonny Blue mist.  Doilies are fast becoming my new addiction :)

Finally, I used Studio Calico wood veneer, Simple Stories Homespun 2 X 2 insta die cuts, October afternoon Daily Flash, and Mini Market, alphas and Thickers.

There you have it!  Thanks for stopping by.
A big thank-you to Nancy for the opportunity and congratulations on the 500 mark! 

Making silly faces scrapbook layout !

Happy Sunday to all !  Spring has finally sprung (well, sort of ...).  We are getting lots of needed rain and at least it is helping melt the snow!!

I wanted to come on over here and share a layout I made just last week, but I also want to introduce you to a wonderful Facebook and YouTube scrappy friend of mine.  I received the most amazing RAK from Sue Hiles.  Sue makes lovely stuff and you should really head on over to her YouTube channel to discover her and her talent (shiles728 is her channel).  She does traditional scrapbooking, Project Life type layouts and even some mixed media!  And at the moment, she has a 300 subbie challenge going!  So really, head on over there.  Sue is also an Ahne and Zoe consultant and has a YouTube channel just for those projects (Susan creates with Ahne and Zoe).  When I said, an amazing RAK... well, just look :

How lucky am I ???

There is so much awesome goodnes in that package - I was speechless at Sue's kindness and thoughfulness. 

Here is the first layout I created using some of those goodies : 

The paper is from Simple Stories (Awesome and Harvest lane)
I used stickers from Simple Stories Urban Traveller (from my stash)
Wood veneer from Studio Calico
SU stamp set (Peachy Keen)
Mist from Mister Huey (I really need to get some of the Heidi Swapp everyone is talking about.  Although I like the Mister Huey, I find it really disappears into the page and dries to a slightly different colour because of that)
And of course, it would not be one of my layouts if there wasn't gems or enamel dots somewhere.

Have an amazing scrappy day everyone!  I'll be back soon :)

Well, hello there and welcome !!  It is the 22nd of March and we are in the midst of yet another winter snowstorm here in southern Quebec.  I have so had it with winter.  Oh, I had already mentioned that?  Yup, I have been over winter for awhile now.  I am staying in today and trying not to look out at the weather.  So I will watch a little tennis (it is the Sony Open in Miami, a Masters tournament and Canada's Milos Raonic is playing later this afternoon).  I will watch while crafting ...

I wanted to tell you about a fun Facebook group that I belong to, called Will Craft for Supplies.  The premise is that we put money in our piggy bank (virtually or really) for each completed project and that becomes our scrappy supply budget.  Gets us using our stuff.  But the group is so much more than that.  We post our layouts and encourage one another, find awesome inspiration in each others' projects, have fun little challenges and do the occasional swap (we did a really great Secret Santa swap for Christmas).  But we also have a really fun monthly Day in the Life.  On the 25th of each month, we take photos all day, documenting our everyday and post them either on IG or on the FB group, or both.  Keeping the same date every month makes for great variety - sometimes it falls on a weekend, sometime a weekday or even on Christmas LOL. We then prepare a project - either a PL type spread, or a page or two.  Here is a look at my 12 X 12 PL style spread for January - it is really a cross between a montage, collage, and PL page  :

What a fun album I will have at the end of the year - a great glimpse of my year.  If you are a crafter, why not hop over the the group and join us.  If you want to see a Day in the Life in action, check out #wcfsditl over on Instagram.  Have a great Saturday 

Well, hello there and welcome ! Oh my, you say!!! Yup, a whole year has passed. So much for keeping up with a blog. What a total and epic FAIL LOL. Oh well, let's just try again. I really would like to keep up with a blog because it is such a great place to keep friends, family and others who may be interested in what I do, up to date. My facebook page is too varied in terms of friends for me to constantly post either my scrappy pages, my cards, or books that I have read, or  my rants about tennis and the Olympics.

The winter here in southern Quebec has been particularly brutal this year. We have had February type cold since early December. The upside of that is more scrappy time, reading time and movie time. It was also an Olympic year and although the only sport I really care for and keep up with is tennis, I Loooove the Olympics - get totally into them, yell, scream, nail bite and all the rest!!! Canadian althletes did us proud!!! While watching the Olympics, I got a fair amount of scrapbooking done too. Here are a couple of layouts I did recently :

I took Shimelle Laine's (shimelle.com) class Return to the collection and made this layout based on the first prompt and video of the class.  It is a page design I tend to go back to often although I usually put the photos on the left-hand side.  I am developing a new addiction:  doilies.  And just recently I won a lovely little RAK from Nancy Sinclair (Kitty Scrapper on YT; she makes amazing process videos) that contained a great selection of doilies in neutral colours, from white to cream, to grey and black.  Now I want doilies in all sorts of colours (sigh **)

So there you have it for this first Sunday in March.  Let's see if I can be a little more constant this year; well, let's start with this month LOL.  Thanks so much for stopping by.

Well hello there and welcome !  I am trying to get into a rythm for posting.  I am off on Thursdays and weekends so will try to post regularly on Thursdays and Saturdays.  But I got lucky today and was able to work only a half day, so here I am.  I will start today's post by telling you about the cozy mystery I am currently reading, then go on to chatting about the tennis Davis Cup and I'll round it off with some more scrapbooking talk.

I am a mystery buff when it comes to reading.  My favourite genre is the cozy mystery (no blood and gore for me thanks :)).  I have discovered a great new series by Lucy Arlington.  I have had the first installment, Buried in a Book, in my to-be-read (TBR) pile for quite a while now and only picked it up on the weekend.  What a great discovery.  It is set in a Literary Agency and although I have no experience with such agencies, it sounds very realistic to me.  The characters are enchanting and the plot intriguing.  I am about a third of the way through and am enjoying it tremendously.  Try it out if you enjoy cozies.  You won't be disappointed.

Well now, I am a proud Canadian indeed this week.  The Canadian Davis Cup tennis team, lead by our now top 15 player, Milos Raonic, made it to the quarter finals this weekend by winning against Spain.  A truly historical moment for Canadian tennis.  Of course, we all expected Milos to win his match but then Frank Dancevic played the game of his still young career on Friday afternoon.  It was lovely to watch.  Milos came back to win his game on Sunday and there you have it.  Canada in the quarters against Italy !!!  So that means that we actually have a chance to make it to the semis, particularly since the matches will be played in Canada ... the home advantage and all that.  I'll keep you posted.

With the weather outside so frightful (LOL)... I have had a lot of indoor time, and therefore scrappy time.  Yay !  I guess there is a silver lining to winter after all !!  Like many after the holidays, my budget for fun stuff is a little limited so I have been stash busting.  I thought I would introduce you to Chopin, my sweet-tempered and lovable cat, by way of a layout I did as part of my JYC album (Journal Your Christmas, over at www.shimelle.com).  The picture itself is not the greatest but I wanted to tell the story and include my cat in my album as he is such a part of my life :)