Quilt

My mother has been making this quilt for me for four years. She showed it to me the other day and I was so impressed by the amount of work she has put into it. So, I took some pictures and put this layout together. The stitching seemed to take forever so I can see just how much work my mom has put into it. The journalling is under the hinged pictures. The scrapbooked quilt on the bottom corner was done with scraps.

Acrylic Baby Book

So I quickly finished an acrylic baby book for Rhea, Mike and Ty. What I like about it is that I could put pictures etc, under and on top of the plastic. You can't really tell how it looks from these pictures; but I enjoyed making it and I hope they like it. Mike's mom picked it up tonight so they could use it as a brag book of sorts until they get more photos

New Happy Family

I met Ty today. When I arrived at the hospital, all three Wheelers were asleep. Just as I was about to drop off the gifts and leave I spotted Ty in the corner. When I tried to sneak a peek, Rhea woke up. We had a nice visit. They are all a bit tired and ready to venture out on their new life. Ty slept most of the time I was there. He only peeked out at us for a minute and made a few squealy noises. He is quite the cutie with blonde hair. He looks like Rhea's dad. I'm just glad everyone is doing so well. I am sure you will see more of them up on the blog soon.

Ty Has Arrived

After about 25 hours of labor, Ty William Wheeler has safely arrived. Rhea sounded tired but happy and chipper this morning at 7am when she called. He is 7 lbs and 2 ozs (not sure of the length yet). Both Mom and baby are doing well. I will go up this afternoon to visit and take some pictures ( am currently deleting stuff from my camera to make room for baby). Been shopping for gifts already. I will keep you updated.

Rhea's Having Her Baby

Seriously, Mike phoned me from the hospital today around 6:30pm and told me that Rhea's water broke about 4am. She had just started having contractions finally in the afternoon so they were off and running. By the time I talked to her, she was handing the phone to Mike during contractions so she could breathe it off. So, I'm hoping to visit her and her new bundle tomorrow. If I do, I'll try to get some pictures up here asap.

Busier Than Ever

Is anyone else wondering when life will slow down a bit? Even when the flowers finally get brave enough to pop their heads out and check to see if Spring finally remembered to arrive, will we be able to stop to smell them? Have we done this to ourselves? I feel that I am always trying to keep up to the pack -- never-mind knowing what the pack is even doing. Then, when I have two minutes to rub together when I am not cleaning, helping with homework, working, cooking, grocery shopping, driving someone somewhere, working, washing, laundry; I feel guilty for doing something like scrapbooking, reading or updating my blog. I read just before I go to bed (for two reasons: 1. So my son will read and 2. To help me unwind from a frazzling day). I keep hearing of people going to scrapbooking retreats and holidays: when and where do you find the time and money to be able to do this? Let me in on your secrets.

Trophy Deer

This is my brother Ken. This past fall he shot a record mule deer. Of course I didn't hear about it until about a month ago. He sent me a few pictures and tried to explain the scoring of deer which is difficult at best. Apparently the world record score is 217. Ken's scored 193 -- enough to earn him a place in one or two record books. I thought this was worthy of recording in our family scrapbook . Being that it is a page about hunting, I thought it best to not be too busy. We had just gotten the new lines of Basic Grey so I used one that would help camouflage his orange hunting outfit. The journalling pull-out was so that I could keep it to a one-page layout and I thought the antlers would be a great way to pull it out. I used the leafless tree diecut at the store for the antlers and cut them out of grungeboard. The guys that come into the store appreciate it.

Best Friends - Family

This is my brother-in-law Jim. He was explaining cars and car parts to Lucas after hours of play wrestling. Lucas kept asking when we could go back so he could play with Jim and Jim asked if he could keep Lucas for awhile. They got along great. This was one of the only moments that I could get a picture of them because they were always moving so fast, everything was just a blur. So when we got home from Edmonton and all of the new lines of paper were in, I quickly threw together this page. I must tell you, throwing together pages is all we have had a chance to do at JSI. There is so much new product to put out, we spend all of our shifts making room and pricing and putting out product. There is something for everyone. Heidi Grace and FancyPants lines for girls and Cosmo Cricket and FancyPants for boys. Everyone seems to be finding something they have been looking for.

Nachos

Lucas had the largest plate of food and most expensive meal . . . even the waitress laughed. He picked the jalapenos off and wouldn't use the sour cream. But nachos and coke was the meal of the week for him. Can you tell I love the new line of boys paper ... "bicycle something"? Even with getting a pile of new stock in the store on friday, I got some pages done and up on my blog. Must get some sleep, these weeks get so busy that I can't even check my blog most days. Glad to get something new on here. New Basic Grey should be in soon which I'm sure will inspire all of us.

OMG

Lucas agreed to let me publish this page if I journalled in lime green. Janet, this one's for you! New paper and new stickers. To let you in on the why . . . we have had this horse in our family for awhile and it turns up in the weirdest places and scares the heck out of us. The day Lucas rode it in his boxers, was the day mom took out her camera. Lucas's sense of humor took over from there and "OMG" (Oh my God!). This picture is my desktop for my computer. It puts me in a good mood for the day.

Laughter

Faith and Cal have always had the same sense of humor. I love, love, love this picture. This BZOO paper worked out so well with it because it brings out their blue eyes and smiles. It took nothing but the picture and title to do this page.

1st Drive

I had to get these photographs. Remember driving a vehicle for the first time on city streets? Well, it was fun to go out with Jade and this new BZoo paper worked perfect for it. I cut the top of the little pocket out and put in her temporary learners licence. I found some old chipboard letters and the number one and included them. Then I added a metal "learn" embellishment that was in my stash, some journalling and a bit of some of our new funky holey ribbon.

Jade - Grade 10

All of my children's school pictures turned out really great this year. I still haven't gotten Faith's but continue to ask for it. I used up some older paper for Jade's picture, used the new die cut and a glue pad with acrylic stamps and some wonderful superfine glitter. Pretty, isn't she?

TXT QT

We got this "Text Messaging" paper in at JSI and since I had these photos of Jade with her old phone, it was very easy to get it all together. The "lined notebook" paper and the "texted paper" are reverse sides of a two-sided pattern paper. I even got to use the new bigger crop-a-dile to put on the letters. Cute and quick.

Massage Gone Terribly Wrong

Faith, Mike and I were over at Cal's for supper one night. Faith and Mike stayed for awhile chatting. I don't remember if Faith wanted the massage or Faith. I think they both wanted one which was the problem. They wrestled and giggled and Faith screamed (like she does) and then kicked until they were both out of breath. No one got a massage . . . but everyone was happy being together. Ralna gave me some new paper and I found some matching ribbon in the store. Circles seem to be in my scrapbooking style now and the title was again done on the Cricut. The flowers matched so well, I just went with them. Some of my favorite colors for two of my favorite people.

First Time Skiing

New, new paper, new acrylic stamps . . . fun, fun, fun. The acrylic stamp is the same as the wave in the patterned paper, so I used it on the chipboard letters and then glossy accented it. I did the tab on the top of the journalling block . . . but it wasn't dry before I left work. The tab has glitter on the stamp which I applied glue to. Cool fun, cool beans, however you want to say it. I had fun and so did Lucas and I at Table Mountain his first time on skis. These photos are priceless, forever captured and kept for him. I hope he enjoys skiing in the future as much as I enjoy creating the memories.

Snowboarder

Some new pictures taken during the school break. Jade trying out snowboarding for the first time. I used cardstock for the background, some Tim Holtz ink to "carve" the paper, then some Perfect Pearls to make my "snow" glitter. My journalling is in small statements about the day attached with brads. I love that I have these memories of the kids "firsts" eventhough they are getting older. Wait for the "first" pictures of Jade driving.

Prince Charming

I keep finding these adorable pictures of my children. When we got this froggy paper in, I knew I had to do the page. The green and burgundy frog paper are two-sided, the title was done on the Cri-cut and I glossy accented the froggy eyeballs. Just a fun page.

Rockstar

I had to use some rockstar paper. I used a gel pen that stays glossy to go over the doodles I really liked. Added concert tickets and it's a done deal. Love the pictures of Mellencamp. They ROCK!!

Untitled - Man I Must Have Been Tired

I have had this page unfinished in the backroom for months. I added some buttons today and some diamond glaze yesterday; the leather curly thing last week and the rest of the page was done in the summer. Now, after uploading it, I see that I have forgotten a title. Oh boy! This week's time off will be welcome. My mom looks so happy to have Sky leading her on her horse this past summer. Actually, we all had so much fun. My mother loves horses and Sky loved taking all of us for a ride on Niko. Niki is gone now; so it is so nice to have these photos.

Smile

A doodled page (white Gel pen) with a bit of patterned paper. Janys laughed at me because I finished this page in an hour or so. Cute, fun and therapeutic (with all of the doodling).

Marshmallow Fight

Again Basic Grey wins the paper challenge. I used some old scraps for the circles, embossed the title with white puffy powder, doodled with black marker and used up some old cardstock stickers. These are the pages that keep the memories alive. Cal found some marshmallows weeks after the war was over. What a hoot!

John Mellencamp

What can I say? Another concert, another few pages. We didn't have very good seats for this concert; but I did have to take some pictures. And boy, did we enjoy the concert. John Cougar Mellencamp and Tom Cochrane with Red Rider . . . ya baby!

Sunshine Valentine Book

I used our die cut machine to make this book. Then I used whatever I could find that was black, red, white and a bit of pink. I had fun and put a lot of meaninful words into this book using Cal's favorite colors. It took me almost three weeks to make this book mainly because all of the journalling and some of the doodling I did by hand. It was fun though. Again, as you can see, I used a lot of stuff I had in my stash. Fun, fun, fun . . .

Together

This was Jade's Valentine's Day gift to Nathan. He had been asking for some pictures of her and this seemed to be the way to do it. It is a Maya Road's chipboard album covered in Basic Grey 6" x 6" paper with cute embellishments. Jade did the journalling which mades the project all that much more special.

Mullingar

The house my mother grew up in is the white one in the foreground. It was moved from the top of a hill to their in-law's homestead after they moved on. My cousin sent this picture to my mother about a month ago. She has all of these memories about the house. I want to get them down on paper to accompany this page. It is one of those photographs which holds enormous sentimental value. I used quite a bit of old stash on this page. I like the pretty ribbon and embossing combined with the embossed binder twine on the bottom. While those times were a bit rough -- my grandmother always managed to keep her elegance present somehow.

Saskatoon at -43 Degrees c

I mentioned on one of my earlier blogs that our weather has turned downright ugly. So, after checking the Weather Network (which my children and I do often) and seeing that it is -29 with an extreme windchill warning of -43 c, I decided to take a picture out of the livingroom window. The wind has blown snow into every vacant crevice, covered sidewalks, clung to the sides of parked cars, causing drifts a few feet deep. People are getting stuck everywhere. To make matters worse, there is ice under the snow, causing very dangerous winter driving conditions. In other words, we should shut down the city until the snow subsides, the winds diminish and the temperature returns to somewhat safe levels. Brrrrrrr! And to those who left this morning to warmer temperatures . . . I wish I were on that plane with you! Enjoy, we will hold down the fort for you!

Remember . . . I Love You

One of those cute pictures that just has to be scrapbooked alone because back then . . . I wasn't a scrapbooker . . . and apparently wasn't a great photographer either. There is only one shot of Jade on this grasshopper. She was being so sweet and looked so cute with her lopsided pigtails. I used some old and some new product on this page and had a lot of fun with it.

I Love My New Cell

I believe this line of paper is My Mind's Eye. I traced a chipboard heart, used a diecut "I", used our new die to make the corner and the bottom patterned paper, some ribbon, the circle from the diecut machine, old "MY" embellishments, old "NEW" tag embellishments, some chalk and sandpaper to soften the whole page. Quick, easy, fun and I used up some old stuff I had laying around.

Two More Pages of Cars . . . A Beautiful Rainbow

Call me crazy. It is the middle of winter . . . the weather station said that tonight (with the windchill) the temperature will be around -42 c. These car pictures made me feel both warm inside and depressed that I couldn't be out driving something gorgeous in the hot summer sun. Simple and to the point -- just the way I like car pages to be.

Cadillac

This page has been sitting in the back room for quite some time. I didn't know what was missing, then yesterday, I simply rounded the two corners, matted it on a lighter color and I was satisfied with it. Again, nothing spectacular; but what I want to see is the cars. Old stickers, newer paper -- Basic Grey. It is amazing that this line really works for almost all of the car colors that were at Cruise Night.

Last Cruise of 2007

Some old, some new. The car is old, the paper is fairly new. The tag is old, the page is new. Simple, as is with the car pages I did this weekend.

Joy

It is time for me to work on Rhea and Mike's Wedding Album. I worked on this page yesterday. I want the layouts to be simple and elegant . . . but worthy of wedding photographs. Rhea looks so happy in this picture that I journalled with a verse from the Bible: "A twinkle in the eye means joy in the heart." It is from Proverbs. I used some new dies with some older paper, some acrylic stamps, ribbon and an old sticker (the metal heart). The JOY was a royal pain in that "Lovely Laura" thought it should twinkle because of the verse. Well, so I added some glitter to the black paint. Laura told me to seal it . . . it dried looking like dandruff. Then I added some of her glitter spray paint . . . not much help. So, I ended up putting Glossy Accents on it and covered the whole thing with black micro beads. What a headache. Fortunately, I like the outcome.

ORCHID

Nathan bought Jade this Orchid "just because". It is a plant, not a cut flower that has continued to bloom. It is so pretty. So, when Faith had to do some "stills" in her photography class, we set it up for a photo shoot. I used some newer S.E.I paper, cardstock, page pebbles, random flowers and crushed velvet ribbon. The title was "raw chipboard" which I used an acrylic dauber on and sprinkled glitter on when it was still wet. Simple . . . but pretty!

Silly

I used some Basic Grey paper and some scraps from my "scrap stash" for this page. The title was made from a scrap of paper which I had previously journalled on but didn't use. The silly, silly, silly paper on the left side is vellum. The pencils were just cut out of the BG paper. This is one of Jade's favorite pictures of her and Nathan the "amblee-ants" man. What a crazy couple of kids to hang around with. Their "funfullness" is contagious . . . and "yes" that is a ponytail in Nathan's hair.

I tried and tried and tried! I could not upload any pictures to my blog tonight. I did two new layouts my last two nights at the store. The scrapbooking therapy helped again. I have been attempting using old paper and scraps and have been having some fun matching patterns. Hope to get these pages up as soon as the blog allows me to. Hope everyone is well -- it seems the flu season has hit like a hurricane. Keep warm, Sharon

tobaggan DIEFENBAKER

I did this today at work. We went tobogganing on Saturday Nite and I got the page done right away. FUN FUN FUN!

Pink Christmas

I used up some old stuff and some new dies on this page. I put the bling on one by one for the pink circle and journalled around the edge. There is some stickles on the corner die and and some doodling. It was a fun page to do and worked for a Christmas page for Jade. She is definately not a red and green person -- the patterned paper worked perfectly and I had been wanting to use it for awhile.

Dream the Dream

Yet another attempt at using up some old product: ribbon, rub-ons, flowers, brads and patterned paper. I have found more pictures of my babies growing up and am really enjoying doing a layout here and there of them when they were super young. This is Jade . . . she loved her Belle sleeping bag.

I Am Thankful for My Beautiful Daughters

I found this page in the store today and wasn't sure if I had put it on my blog. So, it is a bit late but up now. It isn't too often that you see all of us girls in dresses. I used a bit of everything on this page. I have so much product, that I have decided to try to use it all up. That is really hard though with new product arriving in the store.

Shopping

Okay, so it's 2008 . . . HAPPY NEW YEAR! Another year ahead of us. Out with the old, in with the new. So, along with that saying, I am going to attempt to do something new with my layouts. Ralna has inspired me as of late, so I may be scraplifting some of her ideas to get me on my way to the new age of scrapbooking. Things have changed over the past nine years. I went from a cardstockaholic matting pictures a few hundred times and using lettering templates cut out by hand and matted at least three times c/w a few BearyPatch cut-outs to a vellum and mulberry girl within a few short years. Then the collage years set in. Lo and behold patterned paper became the rage and clutter was "in". . . the more the merrier. Metal, fibres, buttons, flowers, chipboard, diecuts, stickers, pebbles, bling, paint, ink, heat embossing, dry embossing, chalk, altering, brads, eyelets, ribbon, stickles, mist, distressing, sanding, gel pens, ZIG, Heidi, Rebecca, Tim, Elsie . . . whew . . . I have missed a million things, but you get the idea right? I can't help but wonder what is in store for us this year. I hope to see you all throughout 2008. I will try to keep blogging and scrapbooking . . . after all, it is my therapy and everyone needs therapy.