October Class

I will be teaching my very first scrapbook class in October. I am so excited!
I'll be teaching how to make this adorable owl mini. It's full of new, yummy Bo Bunny papers.

I haven't filled in the journaling yet. I'm unsure if I am going to just write or put in a poem.

Look at the owl's tummy...It's soft and puffy.

Love the eyes! The eyelashes were fun to do.

I'll be teaching at First Choice Trophies and Scrapbooking. Yes, my little town is so small the scrapbook store is also a trophy spot. It's small, but the owner and her staff are super nice. I'm in there a few times a month.

I can't wait until October!!!

Until next time...

Fave time already?

Is it that time of the week already? Friday? Really? I spent most of yesterday thinking it was Wednesday. I'm not too sure if I'm ready for today to be Friday.

Let's move on to the Faves before I'm done my coffee and move away from the computer.

1. I'm starting to look at toys and mentally prepare myself for Christmas. This penguin bowling game is simply too cute! I adore it. Maybe Santa will bring one to Monkey.

2. I'm not too sure what this guy is suppost to be, but he's adorable. To me, he looks like a square-ish turd monster or something.

3. C is for Cooking, a Sesame Street cookbook. We borrowed this book from the library in July. We still have it. I keep renewing it. We've only tried one recipe out of it so far; chinese meatballs with sesame rice. We added ginger to the meatballs. They're great and the kids all like them.

4. My ballet flats. This are my favourite shoes. I'm sure I've had them here on my list before. But they deserve to be here again. They are the best shoes ever. Cute, comfy and go with most of my clothes.

5. Little construction boots. Along with overalls, every little boy needs a pair of construction boots. At least, that's what I think. Monkey will be getting another pair of these boots in the weeks to come. He's outgrown his current pair over the summer. I can't believe my baby is wearing toddler size 8 already!

My coffee is now done and I have a little monkey who wants to read a book.

Until next time...

Bo Bunny Love

Once upon a time, when I first discovered scrapbooking, I loved Bo Bunny. Back in October/ November 2007. I would buy anything Bo Bunny that crossed my path. After some sticker sneezes and a few what-the-heck's, I shyed away from Bo Bunny. I stayed far, far away.
But then, I walked into my local scrapbook store and saw the new releases from Bo Bunny staring me proudly in the face. Their look-at-me colours and designs had me at first glance. How beautiful are these?...

There are plenty more from Bo Bunny that I admire, but Blogger is not being kind today. I'm having trouble moving pictures around. But aside from that, aren't these pictures I was able to get up lovely? And there are beautiful stamps, flowers and rub-ons to go with each of their new lines.

Until next time...

Another Friday Morning

I missed Fave Fives last week. Life got in the way, but it was all good. I can't remember what the heck we did last Friday that kept me busy. Whatever it was, I was with the kids.

So I'm back this week. Is it really Friday? Are we sure about this Because it feels like Wednesday to me. This week has been so long and completely short all at the same time. I'm exhuasted from last week, the crazy weekend and a day at the beach. Even Monkey's feeling it. He's been going to bed at 8 most evenings (there was an execption; we didn't get home until 9:30-ish on Wednesday from our day at the beach) and he doesn't wait up until 10-ish the next morning. I am personally loving it. I get to play online and/or scrap since I get up much earlier.

My mojo took a mini vacation. The only scrapping I've done this past week was on Tuedays (Steve's card) and yesterday. And I only spent about an hour in total at my desk yesterday. Too tired. Hopefully today I'll get some scrapping. It's a rainy day so the possiblity is high. I just have to remember to run out to Food Basics to pick up peanut butter sometime today. We don't need it, but $1.99 for a 1kg jar! At that price it can sit in the cupboard for the week it'll take us to work through our current small jar. Peanut butter is such a staple in our household.

And now, on to the faves...

1. Okay, you knew this was coming, right? Peanut butter! Kraft smooth, please. Its the peanut butter of choice in our household. One thing both Steve and I cannot wrap our heads around is his two old kids fear of chunky peanut butter. Every single time one of us offers peanut butter to them, they ask if its chunky and then procced to flip out over how they don't like chunky...Before we even anwser their question! Either one of us get it. We always have smooth. We have never purchased chunky. So why the freak out every time? Daily sometimes! I just don't get it. And to the chunky peanut butter lovers out there...I have nothing against chunky. I would happily eat it too if smooth were unavailable.

2. Cosmo Cricket's The Boyfriend line. It is seriously such a cute line. I can't wait to have it in my greedy little hands.

3. This bedroom set. I seriously want it for Monkey's room. I have talked myself out of it for now since Monkey only has a toddler bed. I've been wanting to do up Monkey's room in those fun, bright orange, blue and green colours for a while now.

4. LUDVIG laptop work station from Ikea. I want this for my laptop. Right now, we don't have a spare wall to hang this, but maybe when we get a bigger place. We are looking right now for a house in the Kitchener-Waterloo area...So if you've got a 3-4 bedroom house for rent down there...Contact me!

5. This Ikea chair! I love, love, love it! I can totally see myself curling up in it with a book. Wouldn't it look lovely with some chartreuse throw pillows? The brown would go nicely with my living room set, but chartreuse pillows wouldn't. My living room set is like a army green colour. But my bedroom set is the same rich brown as the chair.

Can you tell I love Ikea? One of Steve and my first dates was at Ikea. I helped to decorate his apartment. We still have almost everything we picked out that day.

Well, I'm heading off to my scrap corner before Monkey gets up.

Until next time...

Birthday Cards

Monkey and I sat down yesterday to make some birthday cards for Steve. It was a lot of fun. And I feel like I'm making progress with card making.

Here's the front of Monkey's card. As a mommy...I'm very proud of him. He's starting to understand colouring in the lines. He seems to like colouring around pictures, rather than the pictures themselves.

I won't bother showing you the inside of the card. Monkey coloured it to the point of almost not being able to read the birthday wish. And he was so proud of himself. "Ook, Daddy, ook!"

Since I am not a card maker; and I really have no clue of where to start. I scraplifted my card. Just the design of it. And I think it turned out rather cute.

Today, Monkey and I might be heading out to the beach. Monkey's first time. Hope my camera batteries aren't too low.

Until next time...

Finally some time...

I'm back and feeling like myself from a crazy week.

We had the kids down for another week. I love it when they're here. I know I complain a lot more, but I do adore those kids. Monkey certainly loves the extra playmates.

My mother and I even took all the kids for a day trip down to Waterloo Park. We picniced, met some new duck and butterfly friends, glazed at animals (the web site said petting zoo...It is not a petting zoo when you can't touch the animals!) and played in the water activity area. My sister tagged along too. I think everyone had a good day. And we had some pretty tired kids by the end of the day.

This past weekend was chaos; and fun. We went to Stoney Creek on Saturday to visit family. 4 couples and five children make for a very busy household. The kids had a blast in Poppa and Grandma's pool. Even Monkey took to the water like a fish.

Sunday was a driving day. We drove to Belleville to drop the kids back home. We did some visiting while we were in the area before heading back home. Monkey was a great traveller. I was not.

I'm guessing from the lack of sleep over the weekend and all the traveling we did, I was not feeling too great yesterday. I feel a ton better today. Perfect timing too. Today is Steve's birthday. I have the cake in the oven right now. Monkey and I have a couple of surprises for Steve up our sleeves too. Nothing much; just enough to remind him we love him very much.

Because of all the activity and not feeling well yesterday, I didn't get around to posting this yesterday...

My last layout for this month went up on So Sketchy yesterday.

I love doing layouts of my sister. I tend to pull out all the pink I love but don't use on Monkey layouts. I know tons of people have no problem using tons of pink, lace, flowers and other frilly pretties on boy layouts. And they always look great! I just haven't found that free zone in my own creativity yet. Someday I'll get there....Maybe...

Anyhoo; check out the adorable sketch by the talented Allison Cope here. Did you notice the cute little girl on the cupcake on my layout? That's a stamp (which I stamped and embossed many times over on different papers and then pieces together). You can have a chance of winning some adorable stamps too just by sending your creations inspired by the sketches to Ally.

I love working with Ally's sketches. She's super talented. I was a follower of So Sketchy long before I managed to get on the design team. If you're a fan of So Sketchy too, why not try out for a guest designer spot? Ally's got a call out right now. Check out how to apply right here.

Before you go running over to So Sketchy, I have a couple of pictures to share with you.

Here are all three of the kids, playing around the water's edge, checking out the ducks. I think this was when I sent Monkey down to tell the kids we were leaving. Monkey came back alone. The other two decided to take off farther down the water's edge. Instead of getting mad, I just packed everything up, loaded up the van and made like I was going to just leave them there. Wish I got a picture of them running! Hope it taught them a lesson.

I love, love, love this shot of Steve's oldest boy. He was finished eating his lunch and settled down to watch the ducks swim. The scenery was just too beautiful to pass up capturing. This boy is super active. He cannot sit still for the life of him. He's also a noisey guy. Always screaming; for good or bad. And there he sat, very quietly. Every time I look at this picture (over the past 5 days!) I'm reminded of how sweet he really is. Under all that energy and noise is a complete sweetheart who just needs to be reminded he's loved...And given tons of space to just burn up that extra energy.

Until next time...

Woof!

As soon as I saw the adorable Junebug paper, I knew what I wanted to do with them. And thanks to Ally, of So Sketchy, my page came to life.

I have no idea how the heck I, the doodle challenged, managed to do the title. I liked the font from one of the papers (the one with the dogs), so I winged it to copy it large enough for the title. I paired the Basic Grey up with some Cosmo Cricket, Sassafras Lass and lots of doodling.

Check out the fun sketch here. I hope you give it a try. It was a lot of fun to play with.

Until next time...

Layout Tuesday

Just a few layouts to share...Lots of Cosmo Cricket. I finally bought some Early Bird papers a couple of weeks ago. Now I'm wondering what took me so long to do so? I seriously love these papers!
I had a blast making this layout! I knew what I wanted to do as soon as I saw "button, button." I really enjoy making silly layouts.

I have major baby fever right now. Anything baby just makes me so fuzzy warm inside. And since now is not a good time to try for baby #2, I've been digging into my baby picture stash of Monkey.

I am still not too happy with this layout. I was playing with white space. But I love the picture of Monkey. And how cute is that little toaster?

This layout didn't turn out like how I imagined it, but I like it anyway. I've been wanting to scrap these pictures forever.

Oh, how I love Sass' latest line, Me Likey! I've had it for a couple of weeks now. I figure if I didn't break it out soon, I was going to end up hoarding it. I pulled out my felties and Sass brads, but didn't use any of them. I'm still hoarding them. The little dots making the circle are ting dabs of puffy 3-D paint. I thought it would stand out more. Lesson learned.

Until next time...

Fave Thursday

I am going here tomorrow...

The plan is to leave early so we can be there around open (10am). It's an hour and a half roughly from where I live. My mother is driving. My sister is coming too. We'll see how close to 10 we'll get there. Those two like to take their time in the morning. Then again...So does Monkey.

Monkey has been talking non-stop about farm animals lately. He wants to see them up close. He wants to visit a farm. We're in the middle of farm country and I can't find a petting zoo anywhere! The closest one is at Waterloo Park in the city. So after some web surfing last night, I found Story Book Gardens; located in London. They have a petting zoo. As well as wild animals and waterfront animals. Goats, turkeys, lynx, ducks, seals and more. Plus there's lots of little activities to keep little ones busy. I already have my camera good to go with extra batteries and a clear memory card.

So since I won't be around tomorrow, I thought I would do my faves today.

Here we go:

1. Tiger Balm. It's stinky, but oh so loverly on aches! My mother came by with a jar of the stuff on Tuesday. I rubbed it on and within seconds a wonderful warm sensation came over me. It was like using a heat pad with the pad. I don't like the stink too much, but love the relief this stuff has to offer.

2. Oreo Ice Cream Sandwiches. Once you've gone Oreo, there's no turning back! These are super delish! We bought some last week. They were on sale at Zehrs; two boxes for $4.99. Yummy!

3. Fresh Green Beans from the garden. Not my garden. I don't have one. I have such a black thumb, I'd kill it in a second. But my mom has a good green thumb. She had planned on her garden being bigger this year, but thanks to the cancer, its smaller. Yesterday I got a big basket of green beans. They were gone before we went to bed last night. And they were wonderful.

4. Fresh Raspberries. Since I'm on the garden thing. Mom also has a couple of large raspberry bushes. A basket of raspberries don't last long here either. We like to pick and eat right off the bushes too. With a gentle reminder not to eat the any at the bottom of the bush. There's always a chance Hercules might have peed on them. Hercules, by the way, loves raspberries too. He'll do anything for one!

5. Tara's Blog. Tara offers great challenges throughout the month. Do her challenges and you get a chance to win some wonderful giveaways. This month's giveaway is a 7 Gypsies Binderie! I almost don't want to share her blog with you because then you might start doing her challenges and get ballots for the prize and win. The smaller amount of entries...The greater my chance of winning is. The greedy side of me doesn't want to share this gem of a blog with you. But since Tara is so awesome, I am sharing.

Tomorrow, over at weScrap, there is going to be a HUGE announcement made. I am so excited about this. It's great news!

Until next time...

Quickie Post

Just a quick post today. I'm still pretty sore and supposed to be resting. My mother brought me some Tiger Balm and a muscle relaxer this afternoon. She also took Monkey for the rest of the day so I can rest.
I just wanted to share a link.
Creative Mini Albums is featuring one of my mini's today. Check it out!
Until next time...

I'd Rather be Scrapping

Yesterday I have myself an owie. I think I pulled a muscle in my neck or shoulder. I'm in a lot of pain. I can't sit, stand or lay down for long periods of time. Extra strength Tylenol is not helping at all either.
I keep trying to move around and stretch. It hurts like heck, but I don't want to stiffen up as well. I have a layout not even half way completed just begging me to come back to my desk and play. I also have two other layouts that need to be done soon. But it kills me to sit in that hard, unsupportive chair. I chringe just thinking about the pain I'd feel as I reach for my trimmer. I tried to scrap yesterday, but it was just too painful.
Maybe I should go see a doctor to get something stronger than extra strength Tylenol. Maybe that will get me upright long enough to crank out the layouts.
Until next time...

Good morning, August!

Wow! August is here already? Where did July go?

Steve likes to tease me about the amount of pictures I take. Most months, I upload anywhere from 200-450 pictures. That's not counting the pictures I deem unworthy of uploading. There's a ton of those too. I usely just blow off Steve's good natured teasing with a smile, thinking to myself, there's other people who must take more than me. July blew by with only 100 pictures getting uploaded...And that's including the pictures from yesterday. I must have taken a subconscience vacation from my camera.

With August comes all new sketches from So Sketchy. The first sketch, which was so fun to play with, went up today. Here's my layout:

I've had a roll of masking tape sitting on my desk for a couple of months now. I finally decided to use it. I love this picture of Monkey. It was taken at his Poppa and Grandma's house in Stoney Creek.

Check out the sketch here.

Did you know if you do the sketches and email them in to Ally you could win a prize? This month, So Sketchy has a sponsor. Little Paper Shop has some fabulous stamps. You'll see what the design team has done with their stamps this month. Do some sketches for a chance to win some super cute stamps yourself!

And I'm going to leave you with one more layout.

I have a case of serious Baby Fever. I've been going through Monkey's baby pictures...Scraping up all the ones I haven't yet. Or re-scrapping my favourites. This picture is Monkey in the hospital. I can't remember if it was the day he was born, or the day afterwards. I miss my little baby. I love my giantic toddler, but he doesn't cuddle the same anymore. He's too big now. At least, I get hugs and kisses now.

Until next time...