Japanese temple layout

Here is a quick layout I made using 2 pieces of cocoa card stock from close to my heart. I used the couch potato paper from Bella blvd. (brown check pattern), root beer barrels from October afternoon (light brown spot pattern as well as the embellishment circles), 2 patterns from sassafras lass girl's best friend (diamond pattern) the other pattern i can't locate the name on but it's old an they don't make it anymore. I also used some cocoa ribbon and juniper buttons from close to my heart. The alphas are from thickers. (I'm not sure of the names)

As you can see the layout is fairly simple. I used all 4x6 photos and then just trimmed some of them down to give a better feel to the page. The sketch wanted to use all 2.5x2.5 pictures for the collage piece on the right. My pictures didn't suit this very well, so I instead took one of my bigger images and cut it into 4 blocks to add more Interest.

I had quite a bit of scrap paper left over. And I didn't want it to just sit in my scrap pile for another year, so I decided to make a couple of cards. I just used some ivory card bases from American crafts Christmas cards stack. I used my close to my heart art phillophosy cartridge. I cut out the image square 3 at 2" in colonial white cards stock and then again at 2-1/4" in the black. I put that on one of the "b" sides of the patterned paper cut at 2-1/4". After I assembles all of the paper to the sizes I liked, I hot glued some I am roses pink roses. I also used some prima swirls to accent the swirl stamps. The stamps are from hero arts "thinking of you" and Hampton arts "family". These are really old stamp sets that I had in my stash.

I hope you enjoyed and don't forget to leave a comment.

Oh Canada 2 page layout

Hello everyone!  I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday.  Our Christmas was full of family and fun.  In a matter of a week, it went from only our family of 4 to 11 people.  It might sound a little bit of a hassle with short notice, but actually I was quite happy.  I find the more people you have around to help celebrate the Christmas season, the more memorable it becomes. 

The unfortunate part of holidays, is that at some point they have to come to an end.  My husband had to go back to work today.  I fortunately have the rest of the week off.  I wasn't sure I was going to do with my time off, but I soon came to the conclusion that I should first of all, clean my scrapbooking room.  And secondly, that I should catch up on my albums.  Today was the first day of that. 

I will be recording videos of all of the layouts that I will be doing.  I'm hoping by doing this it will not only help me get caught up on my albums, but also inspire you to create your own pages.


I'm not sure why, but the first part of the video won't come up on my blog.  You can go over to my You Tube Channel and watch it here.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NtQ1o1iudU&context=C3c31548ADOEgsToPDskINLoNqSxMPH_NgCEG-zz9d

Below is the second part of the video, showing the embellishments that I used.  Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think. 

I hope everyone has a Happy and Safe New Year!

Christmas Joy

I know I keep saying that it's been a while since I last posted a blog.  It's funny how time is gone so quickly.  Last year we were so busy with hockey and swimming that I never had the time to scrapbook.  I also had health issues last year that prevented me from going downstairs to my scrapbooking room.  (I was also just too tired to even want to.) 

Then we move on to this year and both of my kids have decided not to pursue their sport activities.  In a way, I was sad that I wouldn't be able to see my friends at the rink or the pool, but also happy because I could focus on my recovery and I would be able to get back into the swing on scrapbooking.  Boy, I was sadly mistaken on this part.

Since the beginning of September our weekends have been full of other activities.  We built a new fence and started a new deck (phase 3 will be finished next year.)  We finished my daughter's new bedroom in the basement (thanks to Ikea.)  This was all in the months of September and October. 

For the month of November, our whole family was focused on hunting season.  I know what you all are thinking.....those poor defenseless deer.  Well, we are not trophy hunters, we use this meat to help feed our family over the winter months.  It is also an excellent way for us to spend family time together.  To me there is no better way for me to get to know my kids and husband better that being in a secluded area for 5-6 hours.  The funny conversation, the enlightening events, and the joy on their faces of getting that deer.

As soon as hunting was over, it was time to focus on my crafting projects for Christmas.  I have so many on the go and the list seems to be getting longer and there are less and less days till Christmas.  I don't want to say what the projects are, as I don't want any of the recipients to find out what they are.

There has also been the Christmas shopping and the Christmas baking.  I'm not sure which I love more.  It has been so long since I baked and after starting some of the Christmas baking last week, I started to finally feel like I'm getting into the Christmas spirit.  Last weekend was Pumpkin Bars, Peppermint Nanimo Bars and Lemon Cupcakes.  Thanks to all the help from my kids and my husband for helping.  It was a blast having them in the kitchen to help. 

So here is what I'm hoping will happen in the new year.  I'm hoping to have all of the pictures of the projects that I made for family members.  I would also like to start getting back into my weekly or even semi-monthly blog postings.  I have never done one before, but I would like to do a Ustream video.  I have so many albums I have to finish that I would be a great way to incorporate sketches, techniques, and ideas into the pages. 

I hope you are all as excited as I am to start 2012.  See you in the new year.