Happy New Year!

Wow!  Here we are on the last day of 2009 already! 

Here's a pictorial of some of the highlights!

We're going to have a fairly low key night tonight with the boys at home and some board games, some Wii and a cheese fondue I hope!

With any luck, I'll have a few minutes tomorrow to do a written review of the year as well and I look forward to what 2010 has in store for us. 

I'd like to wish everyone a happy and healthy New Year full of fun, friends and family!

Cheers,

I made the team!

Yes, I had posted earlier that I was applying for the design team for the Christmas Cards All Year Round Blog and I made the team!  You can check out the announcement HERE!  Congrats to everyone that I'll be working with!

Cheers,

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Picture by Photo Expert

Well, it's before 8am on Christmas morning and the tree is all done!  Kyle was up only a couple of minutes after 6am this morning and was ready to get going.  We had him climb in bed with us, but it only lasted a few minutes before we went to go wake up Nathan and check out what was under the tree.

We always do stockings first - just like we did when I was a kid!  And then it was on to the ton of presents under the tree!  This year, we did get the kids a little more than most years and that was partly because we could and partly because of their age.  We decided that maybe if we invested in a little that we could get something that would last them quite a while...

Yes, this is it - a Wii!  Kyle was over the moon and I'm not sure Nathan totally gets it, but he will once it's hooked up and he can play it.  I also got George...

so Daddy can play too! 

He'll just have to fight off the kids once the guitar comes out!

I got a new Canada zip up sweatshirt and awesome goodies from the Body Shop in both my fav, vanilla, as well as the Christmas cranberry!  I had also been asking for a new pillow and got that, so I'm thinking I should go have a nap and try it out! 

George is busy putting together an art easel that Nathan got from Nana and Grandpa and it has a surprising number of pieces!  hee hee  We sure know that it'll be well used in this house though with that crafty boy!

I'm doing the turkey sausages right now and the apple-raisin strata that George made last night is ready for the maple syrup to go on top!  Looking forward to a nice breakfast while the kids try out all their toys and then I need to get my candied sweet potatoes done for dinner tonight at my aunt and uncle's.  There are apparently going to be more than 30 of us for dinner tonight, so it should be fun!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Cheers,

PS  Got sidetracked!  It's now much later than when I started and we've had breakfast, made phone calls and we're watching the Disney Christmas parade!  Better go make my sweet potatoes!

A couple of Christmas cards!

Well, I managed to get a couple more cards done in the last few days here and they were done for a design team call at Christmas Cards All Year 'Round Challenge Blog.

The challenge was to create 2 cards using their blog header as inspiration!  I had so much fun with the round card I did recently that I tried another one with some different papers (Imaginisce for last season) and colours for the challenge!  I found an acrylic snowflake in my stash and blinged it up with some Glitter Ritz glitter too.  The scallops and circles were done with Spellbinders dies.

The new design team will be announced Friday, so I'll just have to wait and see...
Cheers,

Happy Happy Mail Day!

Nathan and I went out with Tracy and the kids this morning to do a little shopping and arrived home to a package on the doorstep!  I knew what it was immediately and can't wait to get a chance to play with them now...

How about that for happy mail??? 

12 brand new Sketch Copic markers that I was VERY lucky to win on Marianne Walker's blog - I Like Markers.  Now I can play some more and try and get better with some more colouring and more markers!  Yeah me!  An early Christmas present for sure, but let's not tell George that in case he thinks he's off the hook!

Hope you're having a fabulous Monday!

Cheers,

A Blog Hop Winner!

Sorry I've been MIA this week, but it's been a busy one and my mum has been around!  Just wanted to post my blog hop winner if nothing else!  So, without further ado....









The winner is.....









Jocelyn!!!
Congrats and e-mail me your info!

Cheers,

Welcome to the Challenge Masters Blog Hop!

Hello and welcome to the first ever Ch{all}enge Masters Holiday Blog Hop!! The      Ch{all}enge Masters Blog was your 1st stop and you are now at the 4th stop of the hop after visiting Dana!

I have my own little RAK to give away (to someone in the US/Canada). All you need to do to win is tell me one of your favourite Christmas traditions.  I'd love for you to become a follower to see more of you too, but it's not required to be a winner.  You do need to make sure you leave some way for me to contact you if you're a winner!  Leave your comment on this post to be entered to win. After you have visited all the blogs and made a post, be sure to go back to the Challenge Master's blog and post when you are finished. Thanks for hopping with us! Your next stop is Shana.

I have a little something to share with you - a card that's so easy even a preschooler can do it! LITERALLY!  I offered to teach the kids in my son's preschool class a card and this the one we did and this one was made by him (minus the stamping!).

Red paper is Coredinations embossed with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder and then sanded off.  The patterned paper and blue paper for the sentiment are American Crafts Merrymint line.  The sentiment stamp is Amuse.  The ink is Memento Rich Cocoa.  The gingerbread man was a die cut from the lss I work in.  The gems are KaiserCraft.  The eyes were just from the dollar store.

I'm really getting into the holiday spirit around here and love this time of year.  We always enjoy getting out for drives with the boys to see all the lights and we want to get to the Stanley Park Bright Lights train again this year!  One of our favourite activities!  What do you enjoy about this time of year?  Remember to leave me a comment to be entered for a RAK!

Be sure to go back and start at the beginning of the blog hop and comment on all the blogs to be entered for a grand prize of a $25 gift certificate to the online store of the winner's choice!  What a fabulous prize!

Cheers,

What a day yesterday!

Well, my day started with being tired after only getting a little more than 4 hours sleep, so I pretty much knew that thr day would become challenging at some point simply because I was tired.

The day itself wasn't really too bad.  The kids were up to their usual and we had a few fights and some spilled milk, etc, but all in all pretty much OK until about 2:35 when I was trying to get Nathan and Sophia to get their shoes and jackets on to go get Kyle.  They tried to tell me they were staying home!  NOT!  I told them I might have to send a letter to Santa explaining that they weren't listening and being good so that maybe he should reconsider bringing them presents, but even that didn't seem to work.  I finally had to get out my stern "don't mess with me" voice and that worked!

We came home and had the excitement of opening our advent calendars (from Nana and Grandpa) for the first day!  The boys were both very excited though I had to explain to Nathan that you only get to open one door a day until Christmas because he was asking for 2 pieces of chocolate.  I put them up on top of the microwave where I thought Nathan couldn't reach, but after dinner, George asked me why all the doors were open on Nathan's.  I told him they weren't because he'd only had one, but...

Apparently, it was still where he could reach it!  I was soooo not happy and even threatened to throw the rest of it away, but he has 8 more to open and he'll have to realize that he just won't get anything on all those other days when Kyle does!  I just don't even know how or when he managed to do it!  It's funny now though! 

I did manage to get a picture of Kyle with his calendar before he went to bed last night too!  He's quite excited about Christmas and can't make up his mind what to ask Santa for this year - he has a list! 

The other thing I did was run out with Nathan to get a little Secret Santa type package in the mail and when I was out, I decided to stop at Dairy Queen.  I had gotten an e-mail earlier in the day about the new Candy Cane Chill Blizzard and I'm a sucker now for anything candy cane flavoured it seems.  Never really used to like it until the last couple of years.  OMG!  It was soooo good!  Their ice cream with candy cane pieces and chocolate bits!  Yummo!  Think I'll have to stay away from there!

That about sums up the day!  This morning started off much better largely because I got a lot more sleep last night.  Matthew wasn't a happy camper this morning though and wailed while we walked home from Kyle's school and then while sitting in the van waiting for me to defrost the van.  Then, all the way up to preschool, he cried!  I know he was just tired - poor little munchkin!  He's napping and I'm relaxing while Nathan and Sophia are at school for a little longer!

Need to try and get myself a blouse tonight for George's work Christmas party this weekend.  Really looking forward to it as we've booked a night at the hotel the party is at and Grandma and Opa are going to watch the boys!  Should be fun for all of us!

I'm also hoping this is going to be the journaling/pictures for a December daily album if I can get my butt in gear!

Better run for now!  Hope everyone's having a good day!  I'm enjoying the lovely sunny, but cold, day!

Cheers,

Challenge Masters Blog Hop!

We hope you'll play along with us!

Many of the Design Masters are offering RAKs at each stop and if you visit all of the stops, you'll have a chance at winning the grand prize which I'll tell you more about a little later in the week! 

Hope you come and join us at Challenge Masters!

Cheers,

The End of November?! Really!?!

OK, so I started out with a plan to blog more regularly this month (as with many months lately) and I didn't do very well with this since it's been almost a month since I updated!  Yikes!  Where does the time go?

Anyway, I'm going to do a little monthly update at a result and I'm actually going to start with something from today since I obviously haven't posted anything new creatively in quite a while...

This is a card I did for the Challenge Masters Card challenge for November and I managed to do it here on the last day of the month with some scraps I had leftover from classes I've been teaching this month.  It's the first round card I've ever done (part of the challenge) and I can see more of them in my future now! 

I used my Spellbinders for the scalloped and regular circles, Imaginisce patterned snowflake paper, an Amuse sentiment stamp, a Marvy punch for the scalloped rectangle for the sentiment, Memento black ink, the FaLaLa Slice card and Slice machine for the snowflake, Brilliance Sky Blue ink for the distressing, Glitter Ritz Cool Highlight glitter and a Quickie Glue pen to add the bling.

As for the rest of the month...

 - I've had a cold for 3 weeks that I think is finally just about gone

 - the boys both had colds as well as Nathan is just working on getting rid of his second cold

 - Kyle started Hip Hop dance classes and is loving them

 - George has been involved in getting ready to be an Olympic volunteer for both the Olympics and the Paralympics.

 - I taught Christmas cards at preschool one day

 - I've been teaching tons of classes this month

 - managed to get quite a bit of Christmas shopping done in recent days

 - Nathan had a preschool trip to the library

 - we had a staff meeting and crop at work

 - I've had preschool and PAC meetings and they were 2 days in a row of course!

 - George finally got his crown done on a tooth that's been bothering him for a bit

 - Nathan has Special Person's night at preschool where the kids get to invite someone special that doesn't normally get to see them there, so he took Daddy!

I'm sure there's been much more, but I missed some of it when I was feeling really crappy!  lol  I'm hoping that's it for a while for bugs for us, but we'll see.  Looking forward to December and more fabulous holiday memories!  Nice now that we've cut way back on the gift giving thing and work more on spending time doing things with family and friends.

Now, before I finish, I should post a few Halloween pictures too since I didn't even manage to do that!  Nathan was Spongebob and Kyle was Darth Vadar or "Dark Vadar" as he calls him sometimes.  Everything in our house is currently about Star Wars it seems!  We've finally hit the phase I knew was coming!  Mum came over for a bit too and she was all dressed as a pirate!  Fun!

OK, think I'll sign off there for now, but also hoping to work on a December Daily album again this year inspired by Ali Edwards, so we'll see what happens!  Need to get on the ball with that!  Maybe I'll post tomorrow again with some of the things that we're looking forward to in December!  Crazy that we're here again at the last month of the year already!

Cheers,

Exciting News!

*Denotes Team Leader:

Book of Me – *Misty Miller - Jessica Shurts - Lisa Tottle
Book of We – *Janet Ball - Karen Watson
Book of Him – *Robin Lachnit - Sharon Scheydt-Rittler
Kitchen Keepsakes – *Suzanne Blickenstaff
Scraplift – *Elizabeth Rosemond - Tammy Folk
Journaling Prompt – *Colleen Heidrich – Ashley Hamman
Blog Challenges – *Stacy Rodriquez
Going Green – *Amy Bender - Karen Lefebver
Recipe – *Suzann Jones – Melisa Kreamer
Color – *Kristi Beisel – Jennifer Campbell - Sharon Bertolino
Cards – *Jamilie Rader – Sheri Fink – Samantha Strachan
Sketches – *Audrey Yeager – Robin Novak
Technique – *Dana Tatar - Kim Score
Ad/Art - *Jennifer Bliss – Shana Dilldine
Photography – *Renee Smith
Altered Items - *Danielle Hayes

Yes, the exciting news is that I've made the team at Challenge Masters and I'm excited about it!  There are monthly challenges for all the topics you see above and starting in December there will be new challenges posted weekly. 

To get things kicked off this month though, all of the teams posted their challenges on the first, so you NEED to go check out this master challenge thread HERE and you can see all of the challenges together!

I'm creating and posting the journaling prompt challenges and you can check out my challenge HERE!

OK ladies, here it is! I'm so excited to be able to bring you our very first journaling challenge!


We're going to start with something that I hope won't be too hard for anyone since I know journaling can be challenging at times. So, speaking of "time", that's exactly your challenge is going to be - related to time. The nice thing is that this topic can take you so many places and can be serious or light.


There are basically only 2 criteria for this challenge (other than the standard ones set by the blog) and that is that your layout must have some journaling (though there won't be a set amount) and that the word "time" be somewhere on your layout - title, journaling, quote, etc.


I hope lots of you can play and I can't wait to see all the creative directions this will go!

Come on over and check things out and hope to have you play with us!

Cheers,

The class schedule is now out for the classes I'm teaching in November and December (that I posted here), so check the schedule out HERE if you're local!! 

I'd love to see you in class and let me know if you have any questions!

Cheers,

Ch{all}enge Masters New Site!

Ch{all}enge Masters is very excited to bring you a challenge blog that will encompass many different types of challenges each month!! Here are the categories for challenges each & every month:

Book of Me
Book of We
Book of Him
Kitchen Keepsakes
Scraplift
Journaling Prompt
Blog Challenges
Going Green
Recipe
Color
Cards
Sketches
Technique
Ad/Art
Photography

They are looking for several designers for each category! So, when applying, please let them know which category you would be interested in designing for & if you would be interested in that category's Team Leader position. Team Leaders will be responsible for creating their categories challenge & one example layout. Each Design Team Member will be required to create at least one layout per month.

To apply please send a link to your blog and/or main gallery to: tysgram@tampabay.rr.com . Also, please send a jpg of 1 {only 1 please!} layout that best represents your style along with your full name & email address. Submissions will be accepted until October 22nd, 2009. Team will be announced no later than October 26th, 2009.

Right now there is no compensation for designing for Ch{all}enge Masters except the bragging rights ;-) plus to share, inspire & scrap!!!

Come and check it out HERE!

Cheers,

Some Recent Creations...

OK, so I really don't like having my picture taken and I rarely scrap myself, but did this one for a challenge and really like the end result.  I love it when I can just play and not think about all the details and then not only enjoy creating more, but generally like the end result better!

I did this one as part of a sketch class at work with the permission of the fabulous sketch artist:  Debbie Gaydos.  These pictures of the boys seemed so easy to scrap!

And lastly, a card I whipped up with a bunch of goodies I've had for ages!  Love it when you can grab some stash and pull something together.  The papers are October Afternoon and I love most of the stuff!  The die cut label shape was done with the Noteworthy card on the MM Slice machine.

Well, think that's about it for today.  It's pouring rain here, so we'll have a little wet walk to school this morning, but I have a few extra minutes here because Sophia and Matthew aren't here quite yet - soon though!  Not much else going on other that work tonight really and I'm going to enjoy my day with the kids!

Cheers,

WeScrap Challenge Cards

Have been doing some of the fabulous card challenges at WeScrap and thought I'd post a few!  I love the way the one above came out and the best part is that it was done with odds and ends that were on my table!

This was a challenge I did with stamps from the fabulous crop sponsor we have - MyStampBOX!  I want to thank Bettina von Gross for being so wonderful and sending stamps to the WeScrap girls to work with!

This was another card for a challenge posted by me!  This was another one that just used up some scraps and that fabulous sticker from October Afternoon!

Well, better go get some things done here and Matthew will be up shortly I'm sure.  A lot going on around here today and the kids need to be picked up from preschool in a bit!

Have a fabulous one and remember to stop and enjoy the little things!

Cheers,

Sneaks for Upcoming Classes

OK, so the November Schedule isn't quite out yet, but here are some sneaks for those of you that are local! You can keep your eye out for the schedule coming soon!

Eskimo Kisses (Basic Grey) Cards NEW!

These fabulous cards use the new Eskimo Kisses holiday collection!! There's patterned paper, die-cuts, printed and scored cardstock, rub-ons, printed chipboard, and envelopes to create 8 unique cards. Come and join us in creating these darling holiday greeting cards. You need to see these in person!

Bo Bunny Recipe Book NEW!

Feast your eyes on this 9 x 9” recipe book featuring BoBunny's Kitchen Spice collection. Recipe collections remind us of good times with good food made by good cooks. Each section divider of the recipe book serves up spots for favorite recipes and their creators. The beautifully decorated pages make this recipe book a treat to look at and a collection to cherish. What a wonderful gift though when you're done, you might not be able to give it away!

2010 Desk Calendar NEW!

This is a wonderful gift that you can come and make in an evening with a few supplies and the Bind-It-All machine! Once you see how easy these are, you'll be wanting to make these gifts for everyone as well as one for yourself!

Frosty Phrases Christmas Cards NEW!

This set of cards will be done with a fantastic sheet of rub-on phrases and images that match the new Polar Expressions line from Imaginisce. Small, adorable prints with a touch of glitter make these perfect for cardmaking. There will be 8 different cards in this class and you'll have extra rub-ons for making more at home!

** See the Christmas tag class for matching tags!

Polar Expressions Cards NEW!

Come and join us in making a set of cards using the new Imaginisce Polar Expressions line and the matching stamps! We'll be creating a darling set of cards using some fun techniques and the paper already has that fabulous touch of glitter. There are a total of 10 cards in this class with 5 designs!

** See the Christmas tag class for matching tags!

Christmas Tag Class NEW!

Create a set of 16 tags (4 designs X 4) that'll be the perfect touch on those Christmas gifts this season! If you're taking one the Frosty Phrases or Polar Expressions card classes you'll have matching tags for your cards as well!

Christmas Quick and Easy II NEW!

We're going to use the same idea as we do for our Quick and Easy cards, but use it for Christmas this time so that you can get ahead of the game! We'll be taking some patterned papers and matching cardstock to create a set of 6 Christmas cards. Also included in the class is a great set of Inkadinkado penguin acrylic sentiment stamps that you'll use in class and take home with you! All Supplies Included.

 

Spooktacular Halloween NEW!

We'll be scaring up some fun as we work on this technique based double page layout. Just a few of the great techniques here are stamping and embossing, piercing, creating your own embellishments, and distressing. We'll also be playing with glitter, die cuts, punches, the Slice Machine, and so much more! Layout design and sketches will also be discussed since this layout is based on a sketch from the fabulous Jana Eubank (www.frommyfeatherednest.blogspot.com). Come and get ready to carve out some memories! All Supplies Included.

I'm teaching a class this week that has a couple of spots left as well, so call and join us if you can! 

 

Spread Your Wings

 

Come and create 8 fabulous new cards with an adorable new line of paper from Three Bugs in a Rug called Spread Your Wings. This class is another card class to give you some ideas on how to use those fabulous tag sheets to create an amazing set of fun and easy general sentiment cards. Pop in and take a look at all of them!

All Supplies Included.

 

Call the store TODAY to register!

604 530-2917

 

Hope to see you in class soon!

Cheers,