Spring Blog Hop

Welcome to our Spring Blog Hop!  You will be seeing some beautiful projects along the way that should help you get  excited for spring.  :)

If you didn't arrive from Adele's blog, please go back to the start www.lovejoypaper.com 

(Amanda's blog) and go through the hop!

Spring has sprung and it's glorious!  Spring is my favourite season of all.  I love the newness of everything after a long winter.  The fresh smell in the air, the new babies in the animal world arriving, the tree budding out and the flowers blossoming - all of it just makes me happy.  Honestly, spring is what I miss most with living in a tropical climate.  Don't get me wrong; I love having fabulous winter weather, but not getting that fresh spring feeling makes me a little bit sad.

Spring flowers are some of the most beautiful.  I love their vibrant colours and the happiness they add to the landscape.  When I was young, my favourite flower was the wild crocus that we could find in the hills just outside my hometown.  They didn't last very long but they were so pretty - a little bit of beautiful purple poking through the brown grass.

Other favourites are tulips and daffodils.  Their beautiful colours simply make me smile.

When we lived in Chile, I loved the cherry blossoms when they came out in the spring and I tried to get photos every year.  They are just so beautiful and make my heart happy when I see them.  So, the layout I'm going to share with you is of some of my favourite photos of those blossoms.  I used the kit "French Summer" by Lynn Grieveson and I lifted this layout from a very talented scrapper, Beth.  Here's my layout:

And here's the LO from Beth that I scraplifted.  Isn't it pretty?

Since I've been talking about flowers, I thought I'd share a technique that I learned from my scrappy friend, Kirsten, over at Skrap 'n Chat.  She showed us how she made the cutest yarn flowers.  

First, you cut out a circle the size of the flower you want and choose the colour of yarn you want to work with.  I've actually done it with two colours and it turned out great too!

Then you put glue all over the circle.  Make sure you get to the very edge.

Start laying down the yarn along the outside edge of the circle and continue until you get to the centre and can't lay down any more.  Make sure not to have any gaps.  You can see a little blue showing through on the left side of my flower - maybe I should have used purple paper!

Finish it off by adding a button in the middle.  And voilà!  You have a beautiful flower!

Here's a layout I did earlier using a couple of these flowers.

I hope you enjoyed your stop here.  Next on the hop is Mandi.

Here is the order of the blog hop:

Amanda (starts here)

Adele

Dana  (You're here!)

Mandi

Heather

Melissa

Shanon

Amanda

Briana

Cassie

Becky

Kathy

Laurie

Dee-lish

Last night I started this layout of A enjoying his first solid food, avocado.  I chose these photos to do Laurie's weekly challenge over at Club CK - to do a layout about food.

To finish off the layout, I added some turquoise and lime green Stickles around the title circle and a bit on the journalling block.

I love all these buttons so I was very happy to be able to use them all on the same layout!

Lots of paper layouts

Last night, I finished up a few paper layouts that I had been working on for a while.  For some reason, I hate using my Cricut for letters or diecuts for each individual layout.  It just takes up too much room to do it in among all my scrappy stuff.  So, what I do is I do the layout and then I set aside the paper I want to use for the title and the diecuts if there are any and put a sticky note on it with the title and the kind of font I want to use (cursive, chunky, thin, etc).  It means that I have a small pile of layouts to do at one but it works for me.

I love how this layout turned out.  The colours are so fun and I'm happy with how the stamped stars look.  I'm not a very good stamper so often, my attempts don't turn out wonderfully but this time, I'm happy.  The stamps and inks are from CTMH.  I used Fette Egyptienne as a font for my title and the red paper is textured and it's from long ago. I added the stitching and the ribbons for borders.

On this layout, I used an old, old, old piece of patterned paper with some new baby stickers that I got from my friend, Diana.  I tried out my new border punch that I got from Jennifer Larson as a RAK.  So pretty.  And I cut out that kitty using my "Create a Critter" cart.

I did this layout for Suzieq's March challenge at Skrap 'n Chat.  Her challenge was to do paper tearing.  I did it on the photo mat here.  I tore up a piece of patterned paper and then adhered it with liquid glue.  It gives a neat effect.  I also used a couple older stickers that I had.  I like to use up some of my older stash on my new layouts; I hate wasting anything!

I did this layout about K wanting to nurse her baby, just like Mommy nursed A.  She was such a sweet little mommy!  I lifted ideas from my fellow CKers for this layout.  Just like Ashley Horton did in her Bo Peep page, I used ric rac as a border for my page.  I love the look of it!  And like Cassie did on her "Three" page, I stitched lines of hearts.  I love the look of it and wanted to replicate it.

Ashley's layout:

You can go here to see this layout in her gallery (and all her other great layouts).  

Cassie's layout:

You can go here to visit her blog and see her other great work.

This layout was done for Suzieq's challenge for April to use a pennant or rosette flower.  I made a bigger one, per instructions on a blog, but it was far too big for my layout.  So, I did this one using a 1"x 12" strip of paper and scoring every 1/4".  I really like how it turned out.  The title ended up being much too big so I had to change up the design a bit.  (I was too lazy to recut the letters.)

And, there you go!  I should try to spread these out but I end up forgetting which ones I've posted and which I haven't so it's just easier this way.  :)

Life is Good

When A was born, we had to stay in the hospital for three days, a rule from the hospital.  So, there we had lots of time on our hands in the hospital room.  Here are some pics of K and D hanging out.  :)

The cardstock is from Close To My Heart and the patterned paper is from a DCWV stack (Summertime or something like that).  The cut out embellies are also from that stack.  I can't remember where I got the ribbon or eyelet.

Amoroso

I did this layout for our monthly colour challenge over at Club CK.  This month's colours are yellow, blue and black.  When I went through my pictures, I saw that K was wearing a blue and yellow dress so those were the pictures I decided to work with.  Though it's not a true blue but more of a teal, I think this came together quite well.

Most of the elements came from Julie Billingsley's "Bumble Blooms" digi kit but I got the stitching, black button and black cardstock from other kits.

Monday Minis

I got this idea from my friend Vanessa (check out her blog) and I think setting mini-goals is the perfect exercise for a Monday morning.  I used to set goals all the time but once I became a SAHM who was sleep deprived, my main focus was survival!  Now, though, I think it's time I get focused again and doing mini goals is the perfect way to do it.

Taking from Vanessa's list because I think it's awesome:

Nutrition:  We've been in birthday party mode the last few days, so eating has been whatever we can put together quickly.  This week, I want to plan out our meals again and eat well.  When I have my weekly menu, I stick to it and we eat so much better.
Exercise:  Since it's gotten so hot, I don't feel like exercising in the mornings.  So, my goal is to do my yoga every morning, no matter what.  If I can do that, I'm sure I'll feel like doing my walking routine too.
Relationships:  I want to make a point of having some special one-on-one time with each of my loved ones every week.  Whether it's snuggling with my hubby and watching a movie, going for "coffee" with my little sweet girl or doing some monster truck rumbling with my little man, it doesn't matter.  I want to make a conscious effort to include some of this more often.
Creativity:  My creativity is in the form of scrapbooking.  I used to do mosaics but they have taken a back-burner to scrapping for a while.  This week, I'd like to get at least one layout done for one of the many challenges that inspire me all the time at my favourite two scrappy hangouts.
Me-Time:  I signed up for three online classes back in January and haven't gotten started on any of them.  So, I want to sit down and start working on Digi in Deeper with Jessica Sprague.

Spring is in the Air

Erika's issue challenge for this week is to do a springy project.  It could be a layout or some other craft project.  Since I don't do much other than layouts, that's what I did.  When we were in Santiago, I took lots of photos of springtime flowers as I loved them.  These buttercup-like flowers were everywhere in the spring and I wanted to get some shots of them.  And well, the kids had clothes that went so well with the flowers so they had to get in the pictures too!  :)

The digi kit I used was "Spring Picnic" from the Scrapping Sisters (the papers and brads).  The tree is from Julie Billingsley's "Find Your Wings" kit and the flowers are from all over - Julie Billingsley, Just So Scrappy, Lliella Designs and Maelia.  I used a sketch from Allison Davis for this layout.

Busy week

It's been a busy week in our household.  The kids and I went up to Montego Bay to pick up my mom from the airport.  We stayed there overnight and we had fun at the pool and hanging out with Gramma.  Then Wednesday, my little guy had his first taste of preschool.  We just went for an hour so he could see what it was all about and then went again for half the morning on Friday.  He's going to go again next week for the whole morning to see how he does on his own.  Thursday was spent running around getting things ready for my little girl's birthday party.

Friday was also baking day so things would be ready for the big day.  We also had dance practice and tutoring so it was busy.  Saturday was the pool party and it was lots of fun!  It was great to have Gramma here for her birthday, the first time since Little Miss was born.

So, needless to say, not much scrapping happened this week!  I did do this layout for the Chinese Whispers game over at Club CK.  I did this based off a layout sent to me by my friend Carolyn.  Since I've done all the monthly collages for 2010, I thought I'd start doing random pictures from the year.  This was when DD learned how to blow bubbles with gum - it was just too cute!  I used Jessica Sprague's Strawberry Lemonade digi kit.

Who knew how much my life would change?

Erika's issue challenge for this week (over at Club CK) was to do a layout on a life change.  I knew immediately what I'd do.  When I chose to leave my job and home and move to Kuwait, I had no idea what was in store for me.  But it was the best decision I've made and I've never looked back.  I used Julie Billingsley's "Find Your Wings" digi kit.

I realize that you can't see the journalling so here it is:

When I decided to go to Kuwait in August  2000, I had no idea how my life was going to change. I went because I wasn’t happy with my teaching job in Saskatoon and I knew I needed a change, either profession or something drastically different within the teaching field.  Going to Kuwait was pretty drastic! I never dreamed that I’d go to the Middle East, but here I was. I went through the normal adjustment period of a first-timer living  overseas but the friendships I made and the travel opportunities were so much more important than the bumps in my transition. I went to Kuwait thinking that I’d go for a year and then return to Saskatoon. Little did I know that I’d meet my soulmate there or that my life was heading along a new path.  Meeting Derwin was the best thing about moving to Kuwait and I know that this was all meant to be. Otherwise, how could a girl from small-town SK meet a boy from small-town MB and fall in love while living in Kuwait? This was the first event in many that made me realize that God does indeed have a plan for all of us. Perhaps we don’t understand why things are happening but we have to just have faith in God’s plan. Our time in Kuwait was the door-opener to international teaching for us and we are so happy that we continued on that path. Living in other countries has taught us so much about the world and about ourselves. We’ve learned about different religions, lived in different cultures and even learned different languages. I’ve become so much more flexible and can go with the flow now. I’ve learned to let go and realize that I don’t have control over everything. I have such a greater understanding and  appreciation of different cultures now and I feel that I’m a better teacher and person because of it. Was it easy? Not at all. Was it worth it? Definitely. Change is rarely easy but we learn so much from trying experiences  and I have grown so much also. I’m so glad I took the chance of a new experience because look what I’ve gotten out of it!

Hidden Treasure

I did this layout a while ago for one of Erika's issue challenges about scrapping the often overlooked things.  This one is about the jewellery I got before leaving Chile.  I really wanted to get stones mined there and I wanted unique pieces.  I found this beautiful bracelet made with la Piedra Cruz (the Cross Stone) and this two-sided lapis lazuli pendant and I'm so happy with them.  

I used Julie Billingsley's "Prairie Fields" kit for this LO and I did a scraplift of Jennifer Larson's "Tea Time".  I loved it so much!

2010 is done!!

Wow, I can't believe it!  I'm somewhat up-to-date in a scrappy project.  For my entire scrappy life, I've always been behind (though I'm not worried about it).  I always seem to work on projects from "before", though in December, I did keep up with a December Daily.

I'm doing a travel album about both of these trips so this is just a small taste of what we really did in January, since we travelled ALL MONTH LONG!  Yep, two different trips and it was awesome!  We spent three weeks driving along the Andes, starting in Argentina and then we crossed back into Chile.  Then, at the end of the month, we flew to the Atacama Desert and stayed there for a few days.  For the first time, I tried Cathy Zielske's other journalling format and really enjoyed it for this month, as I'll be going into detail in the travel album, so all I needed was a synopsis.

Colour Challenge and Spring Blog Hop

Every month, Toree posts a colour challenge over at Club CK.  I love colour challenges as that's what I find so inspiring about scrapbooking.  Other than my photos, colours are what drive my pages so colour challenges are great for me.  Toree randomly chooses three colours that have to be the dominant colours in our layouts.  This month was brown, orange and purple.

This layout was made with scraps.  Yep, everything but the background paper, the two brads and the hemp floss for the banner!

And I'm going to be part of a spring blog hop coming up soon.  Hope you'll stop by to check out all the projects that we have lined up!

I have three paper layouts to share that I've done in the past week.  I've just been too lazy to download one picture at a time.  *blush*

I bought this themed paper by Amanda Blu but I wanted to jazz up the layout a bit.  So I added some buttons, brads, rub-on animals and some hemp thread as a border.

This layout was for Lisa's challenge over at Skrap 'n Chat.  She asked us to scrapbook about a change in your life - past, present or future.  So, I decided to scrap about becoming a mommy of two.  The papers come from two different DCWV stacks.  I chalked the two flowers and added a sparkly brad.  I used an old fibre to make a border around the horizontal block.

I used beads as a border around my title block and I like how it adds some dimension to the page.

I added the three buttons and then a flourish that I cut out with my Cricut.  It wasn't enough so I added some Stickles to it and am happy with how it turned out.

This layout is also for a challenge over at Skrap 'n Chat.  In honour of the Oscars, April asked us to do a layout that had to do with a movie - either about a movie itself or using a title of a movie.  She also asked us to use gold or yellow on the page.  I came up with this one with Aidan in his little outfit.  I'm not sure if it's a dragon or a bug outfit but he looks like our little love bug in it!  I stitched around the side block and then inked most edges.

Swan River Races

This week there are two challenges going on over at Club CK that I wanted to do.  I decided to combine both the weekly challenge and the issue challenge into one layout.  Gloria's weekly challenge is to do a scraplift of an expert's page so I chose this page from Rebecca Cooper.

I love the design of her page and the soft colours she used.  So pretty!  You can check her blog out here.  She's also a contributor to Write.Click.Scrapbook, which is where I discovered her during her last feature week there.  I was going to do just a one-pager but I just had to use more photos so I stretched it into a 2-pager.

Erika's issue challenge this week was to use a banner on your page.  I love the look of them but just don't use them often.  I decided that a banner would look really cute with this layout so I added one also.  So here it is:

I used Echo Park's "Life is Good" digi kit - I am sooooooo happy that EP has gone digi (over at Jessica Sprague's site).  I have almost all of their digi stuff; it's just so cute!  I also used the string and staples from Pattie Knox's "Do It Yourself Party Pennants", the sanded overlay is from Katie Pertiet, the scallop border template is from Julie Billingsley and the title font is Annoying Kettle.

Proud moment

For the second time since I joined last year, I have been chosen as one of the highlighted members of Club CK.  Funny how both of the layouts that have been highlighted have been about me!  :)

Here's the link if you're interested:

Club CK's highlights for March 21st

February 2010 - done!

Yep, I'm on a roll!  I am feeling anxious about getting 2010 done, at least with our monthly pages, and getting started on 2011.  So, I worked on February today and I hope to get January done in the next couple days.  Then I'll get a start on other unfinished projects.

 For this journalling page, I included the journalling as I wanted to share about the earthquake that happened on February 27th in Chile.