Another combo revealed!!!

It's my fourth week being a Special Investigator over at CSI!!!!

This week we're working with this fabulous combo :

And here's my layout & some closeups!!!

This is my nephew Tyler. He is our family's resident expert on how to survive the Zombie Apocalypse. So when my sister sent me these pictures of him, along with the prompt to make an Etiquette guide, this fun page was created! I took the guide prompt pretty literally,  and created a small flyer with the help of a picture form the internet to tuck into my page. All the advice in the flyer was paraphrased from the book you see Tyler holding in one of the pictures.

You can find the book here :
http://www.amazon.ca/The-Zombie-Survival-Guide-Protection/dp/1400049628

Thanks for popping by today!!

Another week, Another Combo!

This week over at CSI we're working with a combo that I found somewhat difficult to use. I like the colour purple, but I'm not big on creating with it, and this combo had not one, but TWO different shades!

Here's the combo :

And here's my page.

This is my bestie Janice on her wedding day. Isn't she beautiful??

The inspiration words surprise and glow helped inspire this page. She really surprised me when she became a girly girl during her wedding day planning, as she's never really been one before. In the largest picture on the layout she has such a beautiful glow behind her, that it, along with the word, inspired the title of the page.

All photos used on this layout are by M.E. Photography.


Thanks for popping by to visit today!

Family History & CSI #45

This week over at CSI we are working with this gorgeous palette, which I felt was perfect for a heritage layout :

The journaling prompt to go visit this website inspired this whole layout actually. I chose prompt #13 "Write a story of one of your ancestors in connection to a famous event in history." Right away, I thought about how my Grandparents (both from the Netherlands) survived both World Wars. That got me wondering about their stories from that time. I never met my Grandfather, and my Grandmother passed away over 13 years ago, so I asked my Aunts and Uncles if they would be willing to share some of their stories with me. They were, but I didn't receive their stories until after I sent the picture to Debbi, so I'll be posting some revised shots here on my blog. Here's the shot of the layout that's in the gallery:

And here's some detail shots of the layout as it is now with the stories from my Aunt Tjaltje added in. 

I made a little booklet that is attached together by a brad so you can fan the pages to read them. It's really quite small (about 2.5 in x 4 in), but I didn't want the journaling to overwhelm the layout. I added an extra piece of paper over the back after I put the brad through, so that the prongs on the back of the brad wouldn't scratch the picture when you take it out of the envelope.

I was surprised to learn that during the war, my Grandparents hid a Jewish woman and later, her two nieces as well. My Aunt tells me that they, along with many other people during that time, believed that they were God's chosen people and that they needed help. So they helped. Simple, and very brave. I am so very proud of them. There are other stories there as well; about being cold in the winters, about having to miss school and how, because my Grandparents always had a huge garden, they fared better then some other families when it came to food.

And the whole layout again as it is now (this is a bad shot, as the light is stinky here today):

I am really hoping that I get a few more stories from some of my other Aunts and Uncles; if i do, they will be added onto the layout as well. If I get too many, I think I might add them in pockets on the back of the layout.

I feel that it's important to write down your family history. When I think of the stories that are already lost because Pake & Beppe are gone now, I get a little sad.

If you've never tried out CSI, I really encourage you to check it out!

Thanks for popping by today!

I'm a Special Investigator!!!!

I'm so excited to announce that I am one of CSI's Special Investigators this month!

My first case file is #44  - blue, yellow, orange, white & grey. I had such fun making this page!!

These are some pictures from Scrapfest Kitchener this past April. Thanks goes to my sister for lending me some of her pictures for this layout as well. The other person in the picture is Vicki Boutin, a Canadian scrapbooker that I admire. I purchased her book at Scrapfest, and she signed it for me.

EVIDENCE :
Flowers
Transparent element (hard to see, but there is a transparent sticker under my title block)
Something woven - I tried to "weave" my blue patterned paper into the grey card stock
Doily Pattern - my yellow patterned paper under the Doddlebug Frill

Testimony
I wrote a fan letter (folded & tucked into the bottom)

If you're feeling un-inspired or need a new challenge, why don't you stop by CSI? I'm sure you'll find a colour combo or journaling challenge that will inspire! 

Something Scrappy.....

to share today!! I've recently been playing over at CSI : Color, Stories, Inspiration. Every week Debbi gives us a colour combo, and journalling prompts as well as a list of elements to include on your LO. It's really given me a good push creatively, plus it's a really fun group of girls over there. If you've never checked it out, I think you should! Go now. Seriously.

This week the colour combo is this GORGEOUS pallette - and currently some of my very faves.

So here's what I made :

I saw a LO over on Pinterest that had these rolled strips of paper on it and I wanted to give it a try. I LOVE how it came out! I just used my trimmer the same way you would scissors and got paper strips to start curling that way. It made the rolling easier. This was a great way to use up a lot of my scraps. I even cheated once or twice by cutting a roll in half to make it look longer under my picture strip. The roll at the very end of the row on the right hand side is special - I made it at the last Scrapfest that I went to in April. The photos are from our 12.5 anniversary (2.5 years ago) by the super talented Stacy Hayward of Stacy's Creations Photography.

Here's some closeups of my page & also the special piece before I rolled it : 

Otherwise, summer vacation is in full swing here in our house - I have the next 9 weeks off to do whatever! We've got camping planned and a trip for me and hubby to Stratford again to see another Shakespeare play as well. I'm also thinking of taking the kiddos to Sudbury for a couple of days to check things out there for fun as well. We also have a family membership to the museums here, so they are on the list for visiting as well.

What do you do in the summertime?? 

Thanks for stopping by!

I'm still alive.....

Yep I am!


I can't believe that I haven't posted in the last 6 months. It's not like there hasn't been anything to talk about. I guess it's because I've been so creatively challenged recently that I just haven't felt like blogging either. I am happy to announce though, that I have been getting back into it!!


In April (which was a SUPER BUSY CRAZY SCATTERBRAINED MONTH for me) my sister and I travelled to Scrapfest Kitchener. We had a GREAT time, learned some new things while taking some classes and shopped 'til we dropped. So very inspiring, that I'm thinking that this might have to become an annual event.


Also in April, my bestie and her fiance finally tied the knot! So happy for them! And to make the event even more special, my "best from out West" also came. We haven't seen each other since 1990, even though we've kept in contact for all these years. 


I'm trying my hand at submitting again, even though so far, no luck.


I've been participating in the challenges over at this site : CSI. You should go over and check it out! Colour AND Journalling challenge together?? Yes, please!! Here's some of the pages that I've made for the challenges : 

I'm still working, but I am looking forward to summer vacation & 10 weeks off. Oh, how do I manage 10 summer weeks off you ask??? I drive a school bus. It's a lovely thing having the summer off with the kids. =D 


This summer we are camping with my sister and her family again. Last year we didn't go because my parents had their 40th anniversary, so we all spent a week in Niagara Falls instead. This has been an almost annual thing for the last 10 years or so, and we love it!! Every year we try to pick a provincial campground somewhere in between us, sice we live 8 hours apart. This is where we are going this year.


And that's about it for now! I would promise to update more frequently, but I'm not sure that I can keep it! I AM going to try though! 


Thanks for popping by!