Goodbye Sarah

We said goodbye to our dear old and faithful friend, Sarah. Here's a picture I altered on Facebook's Picnic application. It was quick and easy. When I have time, and energy, I will do a proper layout to document our friends wonderful life. I miss her so much. It really is painful. And my three year old is having some trouble understanding it all. Thirteen years of walking, feeding, hugging, bathing, petting, scratching, massaging, and yes, sometimes scolding. That's a big empty spot. If it weren't for the endless energy of my toddler, I think I would be lost. Love you, Sarah.

happy b-day sis

My sister-in-law had a birthday yesterday. So I put together this card for her. I took some silly photos of my family and I poked them all into this layout that I got from M Originals. There's some really nice layout ideas there!

Poor Old Sarah

I got really into digital scrapbooking when Angie at ScrapScene hooked me up with Jessica Sprague's Photoshop Phriday tutorials. This layout is inspired by one of her tutorials. It shows our poor old dog receiving some Love (whether she wants it or not) from our three year old.

Stuffies

Here's my second installment in the scrapbooking 'club' over at overlooked . It was all about collections. I decided to showcase my daughters collections of stuffed animals and dolls.

The papers were all homemade, pulling colours from the photograph. The arrows and the letters spelling 'stuffies' were free downloads from Shabby Princess . The photographs are all my own.

Goodbye to friends

Our really great friends are moving far, far away and we are going to miss them terribly. I did up this page so our daughter could send a goodbye message to her first boyfriend.

More Craftiness

I think I've been influenced by my husbands clear infatuation with Wendy from "She's crafty" because I keep finding myself taking on more actual hands on crafting. It may also have something to do with the fact that I find myself at the cottage without my computer for days on end. Regardless, here's a little of my latest stuff...

I created a leaf stamp background inside the photo holder so it could hang as an artwork or as a photo frame. The canvas is covered in botanical papers that I tore into little tiny pieces then glued on randomly. There's a couple of leaf skeletons. One beside the frame and another in the bottom, left corner. The frame is a faux woodgrain covered chipboard that used to be the back of an old entertainment stand.

Getting crafty with my girl

I spent a few days at the cottage with my girl while my husband cleaned up smoke damage at home. If you want to read more about that, you can see our blog for Atlantic Grace . So, we spent some time getting crafty.

First on the agenda was a little leprachaun. We made a game out of it. C held the little puppet and I had to chase her and try to catch the four leaf clover from the puppets hat. If I caught it, I got to ask for a wish. Then we switched and she chased me. It was a lot of fun.

Another day found us making caterpillars out of egg cartons. I think she did remarkably well. She even bent the legs so they could walk better.

Finally, I found myself throwing together a little worry doll using flannel and polar fleece. It was quick and easy and a lot of fun to make. I think I will make more of them. Soon I'll be talked about in crafty magazines as the crazy lady who had to buy a bigger home just to have a room for her worry dolls. Nah, ain't gonna happen. I hate cleaning dust more than anything so I certainly don't need a room for dust collectors. If I can't give it away, I probably won't make it. But I think I can think of a few people who could use a worry doll.

Playful Kittens

What do you think of these cuties?

Pastel Papers for Easter

I made some more paper in pretty pastels that might be useful for easter or childrens pages.

I hope you like it. Let me know if it is of use to you.

Download here.

Mug Shot

I stumbled across this blog, http://www.thoselittlebigthings.blogspot.com/, that inspires creativity. So I thought I would participate. This is the result of the first challenge. Layout came from a template posted at gotsketch. Background paper and ribbon are both photos I got from Flickr and then altered. Background was a picture of coffee beans posted by Mr. Phelps. Ribbon was a picture of coffee beans posted by sean dreilinger. Coffee mug clipart from WPClipart. Title font 'chocolat bleu' from dafont. Journaling font 'lucida handwriting'. Journal stamp from Designer Digitals. All the other photos are my own precious mug. The coffee rings came from my morning coffee.

Pep Talks

I have to tell the whole world about this site.
What a hoot!!
Priceless Pep Talks From Peyton Manning

Darling!

I finally finished a new scrap layout! Here's my darling movie star girl in all her puckered up glory. The flower paper and the heart embellishment came from Scrap Girls. They have incredible freebies. Jessica Sprague was my inspiration for the blending methods. She has great tutorials on how to use Photoshop. I created a layer full of the word 'darling' in various sizes then blended it with the flower paper then again with the photo. The title font is Broadway and the rest of the words are done in MASexy, which is a font that I got from dafont.com. I applied ebossing and drop shadows to all the text. The stamped frame around the photo came from a wonderful blog called living dreams. I had done a bunch more with this layout, including more photos from the 'session' and more papers and frame stamps. But I have a tendency to overdo. So I went back a few steps, deleted a few layers, and went with this. I'm pleased with the result. (Of course I saved the busier version!!! I put a lot of work into it and couldn't just throw it out!!)

Tribal Tattoos

I stumbled across this really cool website called TribalShapes.com . All of their stuff is free and most of it would be really easy to use for brushes in Photoshop. These pictures are just a couple of samples. The spotted heart is meant to be an armband tattoo. The Kanji one is shown using three different fonts and means 'admiration and devotion'. If you do any digital scrapbooking, you gotta check this site out.

Hubby's Card

Here's my honey's card. I used one of my Readers Digest vintage images, some dollar store brads and chipboard, dollar store stamps and rub-ons, and some paper and cardstock I got at Loomis and Tooles ages ago.
Inside, more dollar store paper. The little heart shaped envelope was a template I downloaded from Mirkwood Designs free templates. Got the pretty quote from my favorite site, Quote Garden.
Then I created a little fan-fold heart notebook out of more dollar store paper. Inside, I wrote my little love letter to my dearest. Note that I did not include a picute of that. Some things still remain sacred. That folded note got tucked neatly into the heart envelope. I'm so pleased with my little spurt of traditional scrapping. I may have to do it again soon!

New Scrapper

I'm such a proud mamma. My little girl spent the evening stamping, cropping, glueing, scrapping. The end result was a Valentine for Daddy. I love how all the little letter hearts get piled up in a 3D effect.

Gradient Paper - Free

I was inspired to create by an ad in a magazine for Chanel.

I created the gradient paper and a quickpage. You can download them for free.



Download here

Nanny's Birthday

Here's a birthday card I made for my daughter to send to my Mom today. My daughter was practicing being a pirate. Apparently finger action goes along with the "Arrrrgghhh". Every picture shows her little fingers pointed out.

This was done with a quick page and some letters from Shabby Princess. The font for the greeting was 'Adolescence'.

Digital Christmas

After all that handmade goodness, I craved some digital creativity. Here's the Christmas card insert I did.

Here's the ones that didn't make the cut this year.

Handmade Christmas Cards IV

Here's my latest installment of Christmas cards. My friend, Angie, who inspired me toward tactile creations, just had her baby girl. Somehow, she's still managing to keep things running over at Scrapscene. I am amazed.
The paper for this first card all came from a giant pack I picked up at Winners. I went with a whole circle thing here. Background paper with small circles. Brown paper for tree had circles of colour on it. I added circular brads for additional tree decor. Then fianlly, a gold star. The star and the brads came from Dollarama. Oh, almost forgot, I inked the edges of the tree and the card with my gold Color Box stamp.

For this second card, I didn't put any background paper on my cardstock. I left the shiny embossing showing (these were my leftover wedding invitations). I cut a tree from shiny pink textured paper and glued it to the card. I cut varying lengths of ribbon from 5 different black ribbons and glued them over the tree as branches. I angled the ribbon to avoid the wedding cake look (see previous post). Finally, I added a bright red brad to the top of the tree. All supplies came from Dollarama. I think it looks girly with a modern appeal. I know exactly who I will send this one to.
For the third card, the background paper came from my giant pack from Michaels craft store. I thought it looked a bit like windy swirly snow. The tree shape I cut from shiny psychadelic blue paper that I got from Dollarama. The pretty ribbon also came from Dollarama. You have to be very careful with the ribbon. It's tricky to glue it on quickly, before the shiny bits of beadwork come loose or fall off the ribbon. Then, of course, the gold star, also from Dollarama. This is one of my personal favorites.

Free Digital Paper - Boardwalk

Took some pictures of the boardwalk in Shediac, New Brunswick while we were on vacation last year. Here's a couple pages I made from one photo. Feel free to use them. I'd love to hear from you if you do.
Download Here.