A couple of layouts, one 8.5X11 and one 12X12 - both some fun everyday moments

Happy Sunday to all and thanks for stopping by my little blogworld :).  Well, it looks like we may have finally turned the corner and Spring may have actually sprung.  It rained, and rained on Friday, it was crazy windy yesterday and today we have the sun and a forecast high of 15 deg C!!!!  Wow!  It looks like we may be in the teens all week - happy dance :) :) ...

How have you been?  What has been going on in your part of the world? Or in your scraproom?.  I started using my Scraptastic February Counting Stars kit and am having lots of fun with it.  In the latter part of March, I had a cardmaking binge.  I dug out my Copics, stamped away, coloured away and then made a few simple cards.  It is so relaxing.  I will get a blogpost up about that soon.  In the meantime, I wanted to pop in a share two layouts with you today :

An 8.5X11 layout about my winter attire LOL : 

I swear I looked like that every single morning, from early January to as late as last week.  I am so done with the look.  But I do love that big wrap around scarf my great-nieces gave me for Christmas.  Our winter did start late but then was brutally cold!!!  In fact, we broke records almost daily, had the dubious honour of being the coldest place on earth a couple of times during January and had the coldest winter in the last 123 years !!!!  So to finally feel a little sunshine and warmth (well it is all relative LOL) is bliss!!

The supplies:  Everything on this page came from the kit.  I am loving the acrylic shapes we are now getting as part of the kit, as well as the exclusive pattern papers.  I made those little arrow "thingies" from a branding strip.  The only thing from my stash is the flair button which is very old!  It was part of a pack from Studio Calico.  The enamel dots may be from my stash as well.

The second layout for today is a throwback to 2006, during my backpacking trip.  I am in Paris this time, relaxing and having a fun afternoon with friends :

Paris turned out to be a little bit of a hub for me during the trip since I have great friends there and had a couple of teaching assignments throughout the year.  This was my last visit, for a week of teaching, in February 2006.  

The supplies:  Most of the product on this page comes from the Counting Stars kit but there are a few bits that were left from the previous kits - the Heidi Swapp glitter heart, the vellum "favourite moments" piece, the "lovely" sticker which comes from Shimelle's first collection.  The heart enamel dots are from my stash and the numbered strip on the side of the photo is from a branding strip.

So there you have it for today!!!  

My friends and family have been asking me create a place where they can see all of my layouts in one spot.  I have created a facebook page just for that.  You can find it here : https://www.facebook.com/lifescrapsbymoira.

I have created several albums  - by Scraptastic kit, by category (cards, PL spreads, 8.5X11 layouts) and also by theme or subject.  I will be adding more subjects as I go - one for each country for instance, one for the furkiddies, the garden ....  I would love for you to stop on by and to "like" if you so feel inclined.

Have a lovely day my friends.  Talk to you soon!  Hugs xox

An 8.5 X 11 layout, a great you tube channel and a fun challenge !!

Happy Thursday scrappy friends!  We have a "heatwave" LOL ... the temperature is minus 10 deg C today but that brought a little snow, just enough to mess up the rush hour this morning but I have the day off so woot woot!

I made my second ever 8.5 X 11 layout and I must say I am really starting to like this format.  Once I got the proportions sorted, it became quite easy and I love the result. This size of layout, and this particular page,  are totally inspired by one of my favourite scrapbookers - Rory Vaillancourt.  She is on you tube as "Kateroar" and is also a member of the Scraptastic Design Team.  Rory is immensely talented and makes lovely layouts and great videos. Her voice is so soothing and relaxing as well LOL.  She is also quite active on our various facebook groups.  If you don't know her, head right on over to You Tube.  As a double bonus, she is hosting a challenge right now.  The requirements are super easy - be a subbie, make a layout and link to it in the comments section of her challenge video. The prize is totally awesome as well !!!

This layout is really a scraplift, not of a specific layout of Rory's but rather more generally of her style, design and some of the techniques she uses often.  I used a monochromatic colour scheme.  The banner under the photo was given texture by using my crimper (gosh I don't even know when I last used it!!) and then distressing, and inking the edges.  I used some vellum behind the photo and then some fun foam to pop both the vellum and the photo up.  All "Rory techniques" LOL.

Here it is : 

The story behind this layout is very simple really.  The journaling says it all:  "My day is always brighter when I meet a kitty or puppy along the way!"

The supplies come entirely from the mega kit I put together using my January Scraptastic kit along with the leftovers from the October main and add-on, as well as the TLN kit.

I must say that I am really happy with this layout - it is one of my favourites so far this year.  

Thanks for the inspiration and motivation Rory.  And of course, a big thanks to all of you who take the time to read my blog, like and comment on my layouts whether it be here, on instagram (mooreilly), or on our various facebook groups.  I am so very lucky to be part of this fantastic community. 

Cheers!

12 X 12 Travel layout using Scraptastic kits and a little story :)

Happy Sunday to all!  I hope you are having, or had, an amazing day, or evening!  Hope that cover everyone LOL.  We are still in the deep-freeze in Quebec, Canada.  Our winter started quite late but it has been so so very cold since the first of the year.  We are setting records often and actually had the dubious honour of being the coldest place on earth on Thursday, January 8th!!!  The themometer seems to be stuck in the minus 20's C. I have become a master of layers, but the upside is that it is too cold to snow so we are having a very easy winter from that point of view.

I have gone back to making a few travel pages to try and stay warm LOL, so today we are revisiting Innsbruck, the capital of the Tyrol region in western Austria.  I visited  in the summer mind!  

I originally started this page with the intention of following a sketch for the weekend challenge over on the Victoria Marie Facebook Group.  But in the end, this page took on a life of its own and in no way, shape or form resembles the sketch I had chosen - absolutely nothing except for the double matting of the photo.  So back to the grindstone on that challenge !!!  But I really love how this page turned out; it is one of my favourites this month.

The product:  After finishing all my Christmas presents, I had used bits from the September, October and November Scraptastic kits but still had lots left over.  I made quite an attempt at killing the September one but then the January "This must be the Place" kit arrived and it was love at first sight.  Not wanting to leave October's kit behind (it is so beautiful), I created a mega-kit for this month - it consists of the remainder of the October Heart It races kit and add-on, the October TLN kit and January's kit and add-on)  I hope to get 20 or more layout from this mega kit and am loving it.  Those two months complement each so much that half the time I really don't know  what comes from which. Therefore, I have not really added much from my own stash.  In this case, all the supplies come from my mega kit with the just a couple of exceptions :

• The background paper is from Stampin' Up in Basic Grey with vanilla polka dots
• I used a few brads from my stash, as well as enamel dots and shapes.

I am getting a lot more comfortable using vellum and just love the effect on this page.

The story:  I visited Innsbruck and Igles fairly early on in the one-year sabbatical trip - in August of 2005.  It is so beautiful!  When we arrived, there was big convention in town so hardly a room to be found.  The tourist office eventually found us a lovely pensione, at quite an altitude and  at quite an uphill trek LOL.  This particular pensione was actually closed but the landlady (then in her late seventies, early eighties I think) still lived there with her daughter, grand-children, two dogs and three cats.  Every once in a while they would take in tourists, as long as it was for a week or more, and as long as it was not a group!.  Well, what a gem of a find.  The landlady was just so lovely as well.  She did not speak English, nor French and my German is more than atrocious but we still managed to communicate.  I spent a couple of evenings watching her sew and do the most lovely needle work I have every seen - embroidered table cloths, sheets and pillow cases that were stunning.  My room was amazingly comfortable and breakfast each morning a real treat.  There was also a lovely terrasse - the photo in the picture is the view I had sitting on that terrasse while sipping a glass of wine, or drinking coffee.  As the journaling says : "Priceless".  Unfortunately, that lovely lady would not allow her picture to be taken - she felt she was too old and no longer photo worth --- what a shame, as she was quite lovely.  It was obvious from the photos in the dining room that the pensione had once been THE place to be - there were photos of a much younger her and her husband in the pensione, or on the ski slopes,  with many celebrities, Olympic althletes and politicians.  One of the most beautiful two weeks of my trip (and such a getting into shape two weeks too LOL, lots of hiking which I loved).

So there you have, you have made it to the end of another of my long and winding blog posts - thanks so much !!  I will be back soon to report on how I made out with my goals for January.  Until then stay warm, or cool, as the case may be!  Cheers xo

11th and final layout with the Scraptastic August Boys of Summer Kit :) :)

Good morning and happy Saturday to you all!  I hope you are having a great day so far!!  I have a fair amount on my plate today - making bread (well OK, the machine makes it but still ... LOL), making chili,  getting some December Documented stuff done, planning out the layouts than I will make to give as Christmas gifts (more about that in another post); and tonight is my work Christmas party!

So I thought I would quickly pop in and post my last layout with the Boys of Summer kit. Remember when I posted the first layout and I was a little afraid that I would have trouble with this kit since it was so "little boy" specific?... Well, I guess I got over that LOL.  I am so happy that I really got a lot out of this kit and was able to adapt many of the die-cuts.

Without further ado: 

See what I mean about adapting the die-cuts!!!  If you are thinking "that die-cut has nothing whatsoever to do with that page" ... you are right LOL.  But I decided to use it simply because the critter is making the same goofy face I am on the photo and his arms are spread out like mine!  Reason enough I say, plus the colours match!

The supplies:  I was really down to scraps for this layout.  The background cardstock is from my stash as I did not have a single piece of 12X12, cardstock or paper, left.  

• The burlap stickers were left over from the Either Way kit, as were a couple of the other stickers
• I am not sure if the hello wood veneer was from this kit or a left over from another, but the spread you wings was from my stash
• The little gold circular pieces were left over from those totally yummy gold thickers we got with the Either Way kit
• I used Glimmer Mist on the corners

The story:  There is no real story to this one. It is an everyday photo from my year-long backpacking trip to Europe.  I spent two weeks in Sevilla, Spain in November of 2005 and loved every minute of it.  I have shared quite a few pages from this portion of the trip already.  On this photo, I simply wanted to show the size of the tree.  If you know me a little, you know I am a nature lover and yes I admit, somewhat of a tree-hugger ;).  This tree was not in a park or anything;  just there along a wide-alley walkway, in the center of town.  The only other place I have seen trees this size was in the California Redwoods area!!!

So there you have it, just a quick visit from me today... For once, I am sparing you from my usual ramblings LOL, but never fear, it is a short respite.  I will be back, ramblings and all shortly; maybe even tomorrow if I can get my DD act together.  

Thanks for stopping by as always and have a wonderful scrap-filled day.  Hugs xo

A couple more layouts with the July Scraptastic Kit ... some travel, some cookin' :) :)

Happy Sunday to all !  It is a rainy one here so far.  But that's ok, the temperatures are back up to seasonal and I had a day indoors planned anyway - chores, cooking, scrapping and a little tennis watching.  And, lot of kitty cuddles :) :)

Hope you are having a great Sunday, doing what you like best and doing it with those you love most!!!  Have a couple of chuckles while you are at it !

Here are the 7th and 8th layouts I made with the July Either Way Kit.  I actually have 10 layouts completed and still have quite a bit of the kit and add-on left.  It may be a record breaking month - I think I might get 14 or 15 layouts.  Woot woot!!

For, the first layout, we are back to a travel theme.  Let me take you back to Amsterdam for a stroll along "Canal Street" ... 

The supplies:  Everything on this layout comes from the kit, or add-on, with very few exceptions :

• The "hello" die-cut comes from the Simple Stories 6 X 6 Good Day Sunshine paper pad.
• I used Dear Lizzy Foam thickers for the word "canal" in the title, and MME stickers for the word Amsterdam.  I used October Afternoon's Daily Flash for the year - 2005
• the airplane puffy stickers was the very last in the set from Amy Tangerine.

This layout came together quite quickly for me.  It is the first time I put a title sideways on a layout and I quite like the outcome.  The inspiration for this came from nicolejones911 - she does it quite a lot and I always love the way it looks on her layouts.

The story:  There really isn't any great big story with this one.  It is meant to convey how I love wandering the canal streets of Amsterdam.  It is such a pretty city.  And, to me, Amsterdam is a city to stroll - not walk, not run, not rush - but wander, and stroll, on foot or on a bicycle :)

Now let's wander back to this summer :

I thought I was quite clever with this title LOL :).

The supplies:  Again, everything came from the kit, with just a couple of items from my stash add-on:

• The doily is from my stash and I used Tattered Angel's glimmer mist, in Italian Sunset to colour it.  The colour is a little more peach, than the coral in the papers and embellishments but I still like the effect since the photo has lots of golden, peach, orange and reddish tones.
• I used my one inch circle punch to punch out the viewfinders from the Good Day Sunshine 6 X 6 paper pad
• The the subtitle uses MME word and alpha stickers.

The story:  This page will go in my summer garden/vacation album and is meant to record part of my vacation routine.  I just love stir-frying - it is so fast, healthy, yummy and it's the fastest clean-up around :) :).  It became an integral part of my vacation routine:  a long walk followed by garden work in the morning, garden salad for lunch, lazy afternoon under a tree, harvesting, reading, or scrapping.  And then a lovely stir fry for supper, again using garden fresh veggies.  I would add shrimp, or scallops, or tofu, or beans and voila ... Clean-up took all of 5 minutes and then I could settle in for an evening of You Tube or tennis watching, as well as puppy and kitty cuddles!!!  Bliss

So there you have - you have made to the end again!  Thanks so much.  Hugs xoxo

Got my head in the clouds - 12 X 12 layout with the July Scraptastic Kit

Happy Thursday everyone !!!  It is a rainy one here and the weather has turned slightly cooler .... autumn is around the corner but so far September has been lovely so I won't complain :).  I am off on Thursdays, as well as weekends.  I try and get most of the chores, and errands, out of the way on Thursdays to free up more fun time on the weekends.  Sometimes it works; but sometimes I play a little hooky on Thursdays too.  Some scrapping time is so good for the soul is it not ?

I have really been enjoying the July Either Way kit from Scraptastic.  The colour scheme is right up my alley and the papers are just beautiful,  It is a varied and versatile kit!  I have also been playing along with some of the challenges over on the Scraptastic blog and the layout I want to share with you today was made in response to a challenge to use a monochromatic colour scheme.

When I saw the cloud paper in the kit, I knew immediately which photos I wanted to scrap!  I am really quite proud of this layout, if I may say so myself heehee !

It is quite a simple page design as I wanted the cloud paper to stand out, it is central to the theme and subject of this layout.

The supplies:   All of the paper and cardstock are from the kit, as is the wood veneer.  My original intention was to use markers to colour the continents on the wood veneer but in the end I inked up the entire piece.  I wish I had stuck to my original idea... but, oh well, I still like it :)

• The camera stickers, the bow, the vellum flower piece and the tags are from previous Scraptstic kits (although the tags may be from this one; I can't quite remember).
• The aqua chipboard hearts and stars are from the Studio Calico essentials line
• The washi tape is from my stash and i actually think it is from a RAK I got last year from Lisa and Sandra (Maggie Mylow and Oh Snap Gonzo on You Tube)
• The foam Thickers are from Dear Lizzy and the alpha stickers are from the October Afternoon Daily Flash collection (I really love the Daily Flash alphas - they are my favourites right now).
• The enamel dots, flair and puffy sticker are from my stash.  The latter is from Amy Tangerine and was the last on the sheet.... yay for using up entire sheets, or sets of embellishments !!!

The story:  these photos were taken on the flight back home after my one-year backpacking trip (there are several posts and layouts about this trip and several more to come :)).  I felt that the mood of the photos matched the cloud paper and the monochromatic colour scheme.  It was a bittersweet day, one filled with mixed emotions.  On the one hand, I was happy to be reuniting with friends and family after a year apart, but on the other hand I was sad to be leaving many new friends behind.  I so loved that trip and the lifestyle it allowed me to have for a whole year.  A year as a nomad, with all my belongings on my back.  I worked when the budget required it (I am fortunate to have my Irish citizenship and well as my Canadian one) or when something interesting came along. I visited 21 countries in that year.  I saw some amazing things and places, met some fantastic local people everywhere I went, but also made great friends amongst fellow travelers.  I discovered so many interesting foods, music, culture, art, history, nature, flora,  animals ..... I could go on and on.  I could write a book.  I could, and probably will, fill many scrapbooking albums as well as many journals.  I cherish all of the memories, good and bad (there were few of those), funny, hilarious and life enriching.  All of that made for a very full heart and a lot of thinking on the  flight home.  I felt those two photos depicted that very well.

So there you have it !  Thanks so much for joining me today, as always.  I appreciate your lovely comments, likes and shares.  The scrapping community is such a great one and I value each and every one of you my friends.  Hugs xoxo

I will be back soon !  Until then, be well!

First layout with the Either Way Scraptastic Kit (July 2014) - 12 X 12 travel related

Happy Thursday to all !  I hope you are having a fun and amazing day !  It is one of those cloudy, heavy, blah days here - feels like rain but so far, it has held off.  I am off on Thursdays and usually get a lot of the chores out of the way so that that my weekends are not all cleaning, cooking, washing etc....  but more garden fun, scrappy fun, tennis fun, photo fun and any other fun I can drum up!  How about you ?  How is your week shaping up?

I have broken into my July kit.  I must say that I was a little intimidated with this one at first... for just a bit.  The papers are so beautiful; the colour scheme is really right up my alley.  And with the touch of gold throughout, the kit felt a little regal. As I was sorting through my photos, I kept thinking they were not up to the standard of the kit LOL.  I felt I needed THE photo, just the perfect shot, the important photo .... you know the one that records that all important moment.  But truth be told, I don't actually have many of those photos (or those moments!!).  So, I just took the plunge and started.  And, I am sooooo loving this kit; truly!

My first layout is a scraplift of a layout by Tracy Banks (mercytiara on You Tube and a member of the Scraptastic Design Team).  She made her layout for the Bingo challenge during the 4th anniversary celebrations.  She mentioned that the L shape was one of her go-to designs and I just loved her layout.  So, to lessen the "awe" factor of this kit, I went with a scraplift of her lovely layout.  And I am so pleased with the outcome, This design will definitely become one of my go-to's as well.  I also find that I am enjoying scrapping 4X4 photos a lot recently.

My layout :

Since this is my first layout with this kit, there is very little from my own add-on, or from my stash.  Everything is from the kit except for :

• The October afternoon Mini Market alphas in mint and cream for part of the title
• The woodgrain photo mat and scalloped circle in the top RH cluster are from the 6X6 Simple Stories Good Day Sunshine paper pad
• The cork stars are from a previous kit (the May kit maybe?)

The scraplift is pretty much integral except that I journaled to the right of the photo as opposed to the top part of the L,  where Tracy had added speech bubbles for her journaling. 

The story:  This is one of those really great travel stories - well actually a story of how kind people can be.  In Feb. 2006, I was into the eighth month of my backpacking trip and was travelling with a friend in Porgugal.  We had spent a fantastic week in Porto and were on the train going back Lisbon.  We arrived at the Fatima station, and since my friend's uncle is a priest, he asked if we could get off there and visit for a bit, take photos for his uncle and go onto to Lisbon the next day.  So on the spur of the moment, we got off the train!!  Well, little did we know, the Fatima train station is 30+ km from the town of Fatima.  So there we were, in a station, in the middle of nowhere - there was a restaurant, a bar, a tourist office and a very long line of taxis just waiting to charge 50 euros or more to take unsuspecting tourists to the town LOL.  Well my friend, who is a little "hot blooded" was ranting, raving and using quite colourful language (in Canadian French).  I was laughing, which wasn't helping matters.  All of a sudden, we heard a French (from France) accent say "Eh les canadiens!!  Etes-vous perdus" (Hey are you Canadians lost?); hence the title of my layout.  This gentleman (Luis) had just returned from a work trip and was on the same train as us.  His wife (Marie-France)  was picking him up and they lived in a nearby town called Tomar.  To make a long story short, they took us to lunch, took us sightseeing in Tomar and absolutely insisted that we stay with them until we could go on our way the next day.  We went to the market, I cooked dinner, my friend bought some wine and we had a more than lovely evening.  They told us about a lovely fishing village called Nazare, so the next morning instead of getting back on the train for Lisbon, Luis and Marie-France took us to the bus station and we boarded the bus for Nazare where we spent another absolutely lovely week !!!

There is just a little bit of journaling on the front of the layout - I journaled the whole story on the back :)

Hmmm you know what?  The photo itself may be just one of my newfound friends, not the "life-changing, worthy" one I was searching for when I first looked at this kit; but boy the story sure is!

Thanks for joining me today and I'll be back on the weekend with the second layout!  Hugs xoxo