layouts, mini album, reveals and more ...

Happy Sunday everyone! I hope you have been having a fabulous weekend! I have had a busy one - as usual.

Yesterday was National Digital Scrapbooking Day - most stores are celebrating it all weekend long so if you are a digi scrapper, go and check it out. I spent about $50 and had 161 downloads and probably have enough to keep me busy for at least a year! :) Most of the damage was done at Shabby Pickle, they have a huge dollar section which includes everything from alphas and complete digi kits. Pretty much all digi stores are having a sale - the norm seems to be 30% off however there are kits that are up to 90% off.

We just got back from Dean's basketball game and guess what ... they WON! Finally. By one point. This is their first win of the season so it was nice to be there, I almost stayed home this morning. We are headed out to my soccer game shortly but before we go, I need to update this - I am a few days behind and as a result, I have lots of pictures to post. Sorry for the long post!

First up, it's reveal day over at Creative Scrappers. Sketch 77 is up, along with the reveal of all the DT members. There are some pretty amazing layouts over there so go and check it out. This is the sketch and my layout:

i'll get you my pretty

Last night, my friend Debbie came over and we did a little scrapping. I picked up the MME Halloween papers earlier this week (who could resist?) and did a couple of layouts:

a disney tradition

For Abigail's first three Halloweens, she was Pooh, Piglet and then Tigger ... totally a mini tradition. This year it was Eoyore or bust .... lol ... we opted for a witch!

i buy too many treats

Basically, this is it - 58 kids, 340 chocolate bars, 100 Maynard candies, 1 box of candies and 1 bag of Rockets. Yes, I have a shopping problem. Oh well, Dean was happy with the extra treats.

And this week, I've been working on a mini. I got this idea from Katie Watson. She makes the best mini albums. Ever. If you are into minis, go and check her out, very inspirational stuff. She designs for Maya Road and her stuff is awesome.

If you are like me, you have a zillion recipes. These days you can get them anywhere - on the web, in magazines, free flyers, books and mine keep piling up ... but there are a few that I keep making again and again. So this album is my "tested and true" album. This is the recipe book. We have Dean's mom's recipe book and it's tattered and beaten but it's loved. The following recipe book is what I envision Abigail using or at least having when she gets older.







I completely lifted the cover off her, I loved it that much. It's what sold me on the recipe book in the first place.

I also made my own recipe cards - I will be offering them up as a freebie, I just don't have enough time to zip them and get them up at this moment. They are 4x6 in size. But here's a preview:




And finally one digital to share:

fairy street

Okay, with that I've left myself 10 minutes to find my soccer stuff, get changed, and get us out the door! ha ... that won't happen! :)

Thanks for stopping by
Jill

more halloween ...

I hope you aren't sick of Halloween cause I have a couple more layouts to share! :) Actually more than a couple but one is for a DT that I can't send out yet.

First up is some Pink Paislee ....

feeling a little witchy

I so love that photo. I think I might dye my hair black, haha! Anyway, the pps from Pink Paislee were fabulous for this layout and of course those letters .... they are my new fave at the moment. The journaling just talks about how I haven't dressed up in 15 years and how I think I might now be addicted cuz I LOVED being dressed up. I have already bought some accessories for next year!

And a digi to share:

a bootiful night

This was a freebie kit - if you are interested, you can get it here. The kit is Hocus Pocus by New Life Designs and it's so easy to work with. Everything on this page is from the freebie kit and there is even more stuff in the freebie kit.

This picture of Abigail worked perfectly - she was just getting over H1N1 and she was clearly so not into the whole Halloween thing. Her face tells it all "do we have to mom?" I don't know how many photos I tried to get her to pose for. sigh. Oh well, I have a few I can work with.

Have a great Tuesday! :)
Thanks for stopping by
Jill

scary witches ....

Yay, we went out for Halloween! Abigail hasn't had a fever since yesterday and she's been full of energy today so we both got dressed up. Yep, me too. I haven't been dressed up since I was 19 ... for those of you wondering, it's been 15 years!!!!!

I have to admit, I loved dressing up.


Don't I look like a scary witch? All done by myself (and proud of it!!!!). I've never done that before. I started experimenting at 2 o'clock this afternoon, haha.

This witch is also a nice witch:


And here is my mini witch (the poor thing really does look pooped):


And the two of us together.


Happy Haunting everyone!!! Hope you had a great night!
There will be lots of Halloween layouts coming up ... :)

Jill

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! I hope the weather is good in your neck of the woods. It's raining here today but it's supposed to clear up and get to 15, which would be great for the kids tonight.

In our household, we are having a sort of H1N1 Halloween. On Tuesday night, Abigail coughed and immediately I was concerned. Yep, totally from all the media attention on H1N1. Her fever climbed steadily all week and she was diagnosed with a "significant case" of H1N1 on Friday (technically Thursday night by Telehealth Ontario). She is currently on Tamiflu (the antibiotic) and her fever has come down but talk about a stressful week. It remains to be seen whether we will go trick or treating tonight.

Because of this turn of events, I have had very little energy, time or motivation to do scrapping. I was far too worried about Abigail. But on Friday night I threw together some quick digis, which is better than nothing! :)

One of the things I did was participate in a challenge, hosted by Sue Cummings over at oscraps. I did 3 layouts for this:

take time

This layout reads:
Take time:
to tell someone you love them each day
to give someone special a big hug each day
to play a game or read a book
to sit together and do absolutely nothing
to snuggle with your little one when you put them down for the night
to love them and have them know it
to not let life pass you by too quickly
to live and love
Each and every day

With everything that's happened this week, and all the media hype from H1N1, this week has really made me think about quality time spent with Abigail. There have been close to 100 pediatric deaths with this flu, and I think 22 last week alone (in the States) and a few in Canada as well, two very close to home.

Credits: Sue Cummings - freebie everyday kit, oscraps
Frame cluster: freebie, at this moment I forget who but it's available on ikeagoddess
font: jailbird jenna, freebie

h1n1

So, this quick page was given out by Sue as a freebie. It was meant to journal 10 blessings. Well this week, the biggest thing that has stuck with me is how blessed I am to have received such quick medical attention so I journaled about that instead. I think it's important to document things like this.

Credits: Sue Cummings QP Font: 28 days later

each and every day

This is a quickie I did last night. It was fairly easy to do - I did some photo editing (hard colour) and it's amazing what it did to the photograph! I love it! I really love this photo of Dean - totally in his element. Couldn't be more perfect.

Credits: Sue Cummings - freebie everyday kit, oscraps

And in the spirit of Halloween:

Lions, Tiggers and Bears .... oh my!!!!

Credits: Lily Designs QP Font: Burton's Nightmare

And last but not least, my favourite:

it's a beautiful world

I am totally loving these types of digital layouts and the best part of this was it only took me about 20 minutes to do this. This kit is from Natasha Nast and it's a freebie! Leave me a comment if you want a link to it. Again, I did some photo editing - hard colour (it basically blends some of the background into your photo)

Credits:
Natasha Nast, Beautiful World freebie kit

Well, I better get a move on it. There is so much I need to do today. I need to go and pick up a pumpkin, pick up some more candy, get the rest of Abigail's costume (just in case) and decorate the house. Oops .. I am late. Dean just came home and I was supposed to be ready to go! Apparently we are decorating first and foremost! I am off to help! I will get photos later - we typically put a lot of stuff up ... :)

Happy Halloween!!
Jill

falling for them ...

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the absenteeism from my blog!! I've been meaning to blog all week but the truth is, I didn't have much scrap-related to share. I've been doing lots of scrap stuff but it is DT work and cannot be shared at this time.

That said, I was able to *quickly* throw this layout together. Seriously - I had 1/2 hour yesterday morning and 1/2 hour last night to scrap. From a weekend where I had considered going away ALL weekend to scrap and only being able to get 1 measly hour out of it kind of sucks.

Here it is:

they make my heart melt

Products are Cosmo Cricket's Nutmeg line. Yum. Seriously. Go buy some. :)

Yes, I am falling for them - they make my heart melt. So adorable together. And when I say "they", I mean Dean, Abigail and of course Nutmeg. :D And if you want to get technical, I am also falling for what is below.

I also did another digital layout. I admit it - I am falling quickly in love with these realistic kits!!

This is Abigail at just over a year. We were at a water park but I extracted her from the picture and created this little scene. Again, this was 100% inspired by the design team over at After 5 Designs. This kit is made by Lily Designs and is called "Autumn by the Bay". At the time of this post, if you purchase this kit, you also get "A Boy is a Boy" for free.

I've spotted a couple of other amazing digital kits. Check them out:
The Whispering Sea by Jofia Designs
Hocus Pocus by New Life Designs. This is SERIOUSLY one amazing kit!
And I cannot forget to add this sweet little kit, which I purchased on Saturday:
Road to Wonderland by Natasha Nast

To my paper peeps, no, I am not giving up paper! For some odd reason, I get an urge to digi scrap in the fall ... I think it's because I have more time (less soccer, sports). It lasts until early spring when my schedule gets busy again ... paper is the one constant! ;)

I was pleasantly surprised to find some photos on my "old" camera this morning. I went through them and smiled. I had a series of pictures of Abigail acting like a ham, making fake smiles at me:

She's so sweet. I miss her today.

On a personal note, I've gotten back into running ... it's been awhile! I ran 7km on Saturday and then played a game of soccer on Sunday and Dean dropped me off 6.5 km from home and I ran home. My quads and hips were not thanking me after that. I was and am pretty sore, even though I stretched. I even dragged my treadmill out and ran on it on Thursday night. Abigail loves it and was running up a storm (it was going pretty slow!) - she's such a daredevil, she lets herself slide off the back of it. I don't even like doing that and I'm 30 years older than her. Actually, that's likely my problem! lol.
It brings back memories though when she was about a year old. I always left the key on the treadmill - heck she was barely one (if one at all). How could she possibly reach it and then figure out how to put the key in and turn it on? Well ... one day we were playing and I got up to go upstairs to flip something in the oven and I left her in the back room. When I was upstairs, I heard this dreadful cry - I knew something was wrong so I high-tailed it downstairs and she HAD figured out how to get the key, insert it and turn it on. Well, she technically just hit the 10 button (yes, 10 miles an hour) and it threw her back to the wall and squished her between the wall and the treadmill, while it was running. Unbelievably, she wasn't hurt although her t-shirt was torn up from the tread. I pretty much packed up the treadmill and haven't used it since - about 2.5 years. I have run outside but haven't used the treadmill. We were even going to sell it at one point. Maybe we still will. :)

Well, that's enough of my rambling for today. Despite the fact that it's Monday, I hope you are having a fabulous day!!

L8r!
Jill

i'm in love.

Yep, I am.

For the past several months, I've ooh'ed and aah'ed over almost every layout that mru (real name unknown) has posted to the gallery over at scrapbook.com. I've gone to look at the kits that she uses but have been too intimidated or too cheap or ... something.

Well, today at lunch, I bit the bullet. I tried to digi scrap but was getting no inspiration. So I surfed over to mru's gallery and ... I went and bought one of the kits she recently used and yep, I should have done it months ago. Because I fell in love. Not instantly because I was hoping to scraplift one of mru's pages however I didn't get all the elements that she used (harumph!) so I got inspired from another designer. It was a bit of a road bump with some new Photoshop techniques and stuff but I did it!

This is what I came up with.

she collects clams

If you hate it, don't tell me because I will cry. :) Just kidding. I'm just not sure of the title placement.

Credits:
Autumn by the bay by Lily Designs (they currently have a deal if you buy this, you get a boy kit for free)

That's all I have for today - just wanted to share that.
Hope you are having a great Tuesday!

Jill

trying some new things ...

Hey there!

I hope your weekend was great! We had a pretty busy weekend, as usual! We went hiking in Gatineau Park (and got lots of great pics), had basketball (Dean's team lost 107-46, eeek!), soccer, cleaned the house and went to a crop at my friend Debbie's house last night! ;)

Last night we got home and I rushed, rushed to get ready for Debbie's. I am always super prepared for crops - have tons of photos printed, sketches, idea book, etc. This time - nada, nothing. Anyway, I printed some photos and packed really quick and I actually got four things done!! And I am pretty happy with what I got done.

All of these layouts were done by sketches that can be found on Guylaine's site. She popped over to my blog earlier this week and I returned the visit and was very happy to see some really great sketches!! So I put them to use! Using sketches for me is typically a challenge so I was very happy when these pages popped together so quickly:

the 'ol jalopy

I love this layout - it's of my dd and her little friend on the 'ol jalopy at the park where our home field is for soccer. The girls will play forever on it. It's so funny, definitely their favourite park toy!

I just have to share how I made the circles. It's the circle tool by Creative Memories and let me tell you - there will be no more tracing and hand-cutting circles for me! This tool rocks!!!!! I always wondered how people made such awesome circles and this is how .... seriously if you don't have one of these babies, you need to get one .... it's that good!

Here is the sketch I used:


Then I ventured into the world of 12x6. I've been wanting to try this size for such a long time but it always takes me awhile to get around to it. So I tried it and guess what? I loved it!!!!

The first:

future bmx'er

Abigail doing tricks on daddy's bike. She is really a little daredevil. She stands on one foot and holds onto the brake cable. She sticks her foot out behind her. Then she gets on her trike and hops the bike, it's quite funny.

Based on this sketch:


I like the previous one so much, I did another 12x6.

sunny days

A layout of dd running on the beach last summer. Using Cosmo Cricket's Snorkel line which I am seriously in love with.

Based on this sketch:


If you've never tried 12x6, I encourage you to do so. It's a fantastic way to use up some of your scraps. Plus, I found that they came together pretty quickly.

And finally, one card to share that was made for Tina's DT

Merry Xmas

Well, Abigail is sitting on my lap and trying very hard to prevent me from typing this post! Just pulled some apple crisp out of the oven and have to go and play kitchen or polly pockets or something! :)

Thanks for popping by!
Jill