A Crazy Life

This month, I was toying with the idea of applying to be on a design team. One of my favourite companies, Twiddleybitz, is looking for a new design team. I emailed them and expressed interest and got the list of everything that needed to be submitted. Alas, my quest was thwarted by my crazy life. The demands of my busy four year old, my baby who seems to be either sick, going through a growth spurt or just plain cranky, the ever growing demands around the house and trying to get some sleep in the meantime have all kept me from getting even a single project done for the submission. The deadline is the 31st and I don't forsee any of these demands letting up soon. Plus, my LOM starts swimming lessons for two weeks tomorrow.

I really shouldn't have toyed with the idea anyway. Goodness knows that the demands on my time will not be getting any smaller anytime soon. I'd probably just get stressed about meeting deadlines anyway! I can't even meet ones set by challenges on some of my favourite blogs! With that in mind, I thought I would share two layouts I did a few months before baby was born (the last "creating" scrapbooking I did). These layouts were both inspired by a sketch challenge on a blog but neither was done in time to enter into the challenge.

My Mind's Eye Sketch Challenge- most of the product is MME, from the "Miss Caroline" lines, except for the Tim Holtz pin in the tag and the Prima wooden clock.

Little Yellow Bicycle Sketch Challenge- all of this product is from the "Hello Fall" line except for the rub-ons which are Crate Paper "Sweet Branch" rub-ons. I also used the Tim Holtz accordion flower die that has two sizes.

My Scrap Space

Sorry for my lack of postings as of late but life has gotten in the way. We now have become a family of four! Our little girl decided to join the party on June 8th. Life has been busy these past few weeks with her and I was busy trying to just get through the end of the pregnancy before then. Will share some pics of her later.

I promised friends I would share photos of my scrap space. I have a little bit of an organizing fixation that many of my friends have expressed wonder at. I seriously should consider starting a business getting other crafters organized! So, here is a look at my space as it is right now in my basement.

View from the entrance to the basement- scrap space, family room and toy room beyond.

Large storage unit: Expedit from IKEA (this is the largest one you can get)

Close-up of a few shelves in the storage center

Rolling cart with Cricut, Big Shot and dies, punches and sewing machine.

This is a fun shadow box frame I received as a gift one Christmas. It houses my tags that I made when I attended a Tim Holtz class. I really like having this crafty element on the wall. It hangs above my rolling cart.

Crafting table with smaller storage pieces. The craft table has adjustable legs and is usually set so I can stand at it or use a tall bar stool. It was set to regular table height in this pic because I was clumsy and sore during my pregnancy and didn't do well standing/getting up on tall stools!

Two small storage centers. The one on the left has mostly stamping supplies (from my Stampin' Up! days) while the one on the right holds pages I have started, need to finish or have ideas for. To the left of the storage units is my bag with inks in it that hangs from a hook on the wall.

My bookcase from the middle up holds some scrap supplies as well. Idea books, some embellishments, sprays, Stickles, stickers are housed here.

I LOVE this basket I found at Home Sense. It sits on my craft table. The ribbon in the bottom is all on old fashioned clothes pins. This is my dainty ribbons that I don't want to get wrecked in my ribbon bag. The top basket has small left over pieces of ribbon.

So, that is my space in a nut shell. I am really happy with it now. It was a definite work in progress and was disjointed for awhile in our new home as some of my craft supplies were upstairs and some were downstairs. With the new addition, everything got moved downstairs to give her the third bedroom upstairs. It was a great step for me. Now we can all be downstairs doing our own thing and I can get a bit of crafting done! 

Stay tuned for a few of my more recent layouts to be shared soon!!

Update & Great Find

Yes, I am still around. I haven't been up to much of anything lately due to my crazy pregnancy. Luckily, the all day sickness has calmed down a bit now so that I can at least function sometimes. Of course, this happens just in time for all the other wonderful side effects of pregnancy to kick in. Boy, this pregnancy is kicking my butt! It will all be worth it in the end when our little lady joins the family. Here are a couple of pics from her ultrasound last week.

For the past few months, the only scrapbooking I have done has been for a seemingly never ending project album my sister and I have been working on. It is finally getting close to being complete. The deadline is April as the recipient has a birthday that month. I will definitely be glad when this one is done. It's been in the works for four years now (I know, a long time). I'll share some of it and the full story once we have it completed.

On another note, I wanted to share a great find that I made this past weekend. I love checking out what the variety of craft/scrapbooking stores have to offer. I was at Michael's picking up some flowers to make into floral headbands for photo props (especially for our little arrival) when I stumbled upon these.

I fell head over heals and grabbed all the ones I wanted- two packs of different metal key trinkets, metal gears, metal bottle caps, metal key holes, metal clocks and metal clock hands. The company (Bead Landing) who makes them calls them Found Objects. There was a lot of other ones too (3D metal bird cage, fancy metal safety pins etc.). I thought I would share since I'm sure a lot of you scrappers would love to get your hands on these. I think they are about $5.99 a pack but they are on 30% OFF this week. Head over to Michaels to grab the ones you are drooling over quick. I already hit two Michaels to get all the ones I wanted!

Bo Bunny Challenge Layout

I recently saw the following sketch posted on the Bo Bunny blog as a sketch challenge and knew I had the right papers and photo to complete the challenge.

I chose not to include the die-cut as the base of my photo because the die-cut from the Bo Bunny  Cambridge line was cream and I really wanted a green background as my Grandpa was in the Canadian Armed Forces especially since the photo is black and white. 

I used a Tim Holtz embossing folder to create the checked pattern on the yellow and red papers. I distressed all of the edges of the papers and inked all the edges with Vintage Photo Distress ink.

It is hard to see in these photos but I also painted Tarnished Brass Distress Stickles on the lions and eagles on all the creasts as well as the wings and star on the cut out above the photo. I painted Black Soot Distress Stickles on the black portions of the crests. I also painted Aged Mahogony Distress Stickles along the red edge of the cream and red die-cut behind the photo. Ichose to paint the Stickles on as I just wanted to add a hint of extra texture to the elements.

Besides the technique items, pretty much everything else on the page is from the Bo Bunny Cambridge line. The only item I added that was not is the trinket pin pictured above which is from Tim Holtz.

I love the way this layout turned out. This photo has always been one of my favourites from the collection of photos my Grandma kept. It shows my Grandpa's personality and his love for his family (the boy standing is my Dad and the baby Grandpa is holding is my Uncle). This is definitely one I will always treasure.

A Layout with Authentique

It has been so nice to sit down and create something of my own! Granted, I created this layout for a challenge at Scrap-A-Lot (the scrapbook store I work at), but it will be all mine, mine, mine when the store is finished with it. I really need to focus on doing my own stuff more often. Between the work I do for the store (designing, working at the store and for the store at home), doing my own work for Heartland Studio, looking after my home, pets, DH and my LOM (Little Old Man), there just doesn't seem to be a lot of time left (as I'm sure you all understand completely). I definitely need to make scrapping for me a priority too since it makes me so happy (and my albums are feeling neglected).

So, here is the layout I completed for our recent challenge to use Authentique product for a layout. I love this new line of product in every shape and colour. I haven't done a lot on my own with this type of product (cutesy has been my mainstay for a while now) but I have been more and more attracted to anything with a vintage twist. I think part of that comes from working on my family genealogy. I am in a happy place when I look at this layout. I love everything about it. The photo was just taken last weekend while we were all dressed up for a wedding. The title "measure your life in love" has been on my title list for a long time. It is a lyric from my favourite musical "Rent".

Here is a few detail views of the layout. I did a lot of paper rolling on the measuring tape pieces. I love the look of it as well as the little embellishment clusters all over the page.

The chipboard hinges are from Twiddleybitz. I inked them with black craft ink and then sprayed them with Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls Mist. The metal clock and the decorative button were also sprayed with the mist.

The Saga

The saga of my basement continues. Lots of you know that we had some isues awhile back during the first big rain week when water came in through the windows in the basement. After reinforcing the windows and pulling up the carpet in K's play area as well as pulling back the carpet under the other two windows to replace the underpad, we thought we had it pretty well licked. Apparently not.

The last big rain week showed us that we still had a leak on the large side wall of the basement. After doing some investigating, it turns out we have a crack in the foundation. The basement is entirely finished so finding the crack was no small feet. The crack is small but the water seeps in slowly, goes down the wall and pools at the bottom. Not cool. A good stroke of luck for us is that our neighbour's Dad is a general contractor who has fixed these types of issues before. We are hoping to talk with him sometime this week to get his opinion and get things going on fixing the issue.

In the meantime, the basement is a complete shambles. The carpet is still pulled back along two walls, furniture and stuff is in piles everywhere and the cats have taken it upon themselves to make things even worse by continually "marking" the basement carpet. We are thinking now that we may replace the flooring down there entirely and put in the laminate that we put in K's playroom (or something along those lines). Easier clean up would be great and I can't take the smell down there! No matter what I try, it doesn't go away.

Now with the warm weather, I am definitely missing the coolness of the basement and my space to work on scrapbooking. K is missing his playroom and his run around space and A is missing having his man cave (both his tv area and his office space- most of K's toys etc. are in his office). We did manage to clear out some of the toys this evening as the floor in K's playroom is done and I was able to access some of my scrap supplies (insert "Hallelujah" chorus here). That's right! I got some scrapping done tonight (upstairs of course) so I should have something to post tomorrow. Just have to put some finishing touches on my page.

At Last!

I'm back in the blogging world (and blogger is giving me a hard time)! It has taken some doing since I am so grumpy about having my site look exactly as I want it. But I think I am pretty close.

I've come back to blogging as many of my friends in scrapbooking are getting into it. I love seeing everyone else's work and being able to share this way since we don't always get time to see one another. I also really missed archiving the daily happenings in our life. I have a super bad memory, so a blog becomes my way of keeping things straight and writing things down. I just never get around to actually putting pen to paper and I spend so much time on the computer that this is a no brainer.

I hope you all will join me in this adventure and enjoy my crazy rambling stories. Since I am still in the process of getting some new scrap pages done (and my other recent work is hidden behind crazy kids clutter in the basement due to a little bit of basement flooding), I thought I would share a few of my old pages that I have images of on my computer. These are all pre-mamahood and might be a little rough around the edges but that is what I love about scrapbooking- it's a journey and a learning experience.

One of me as a little one. I've only done a few pages about myself growing up. I would like to do an album about myself but considering I haven't even scrapped my wedding yet, we'll see if it happens.

Me & my DH. Not a lot to this page but the sentiment is there. Going to be doing another page with this photo again in the future since I don't really scrap this size (originally did this layout for a challenge).

Above is furbaby #2 as a kitten: Jack.

Below is furbaby #3making sure he doesn't get left behind during his second move (poor baby has moved 3 times): Fife.