I got my copy of Canadian Scrapbooker Basics Vol. 4 in the mail this week. I've been published with them a few times before, but I am REALLY happy about how my layout looks in this one ( it's on page 72). I am also surprised at how much information is in this special edition. Although it says it's geared towards beginner scrapbookers, there are lots of interesting ideas and layouts in there. I especially like that my buddy Claude also has 2 pages in this one! ( check them out on p 23 & p 52.)

This room ain't big enough for the 2 of us...

My scrapbook room-it's large enough to fit at least 4 of my scrapbook buddies, all our supplies, and a couple of loads of laundry at any given time. Somehow, It's just too small for me and my soon to be 11 month old son. Parker used to crawl in and out of my room from the playroom while I got a bit of stuff done. He'd play with the magnets on the fridge, eat paper scraps off the floor, shake up my bottles of glimmer mist for me- you know- really handy stuff! Now that he's standing and walking more and more, he's gotta go! Today he discovered the plastic drawers under my desk and decided he just had to have a certain rubber stamp out of one of them. I don't know how many times I closed the drawer and moved him only to find him right back at it. He's also developed a fondness for my paper bin...


I would normally just move stuff out of the way and try and coexist, but do you know how much that paper bin weighs !? Putting it up out of the way every time Parker decides he needs to scrapbook isn't exactly easy!

Dill-icious!

I never thought I'd do such a random page with such an odd title...but that's what you get when you take a challenge like the one from Scrap the Boys challenge blog this month.


I had to use a photo of my boy(s) with food, and try and use a cooking term in the title. "pickle" is definitely a noun, but it's also a verb, and a cooking term as much as "saute" or "whip" right?!

Almost forgot!

I forgot to post my recent page for Mixer #27 at the Mix it Up blog. The challenge is to be inspired by the following colour pallette:

( not hard is it!) Go check out the amazing pages done by the design team, and the great sketch provided once again by Juliana Michaels.
Here's what I came up with :

Scraps happen.

I love scraps and I hate them all at the same time. Part of me loves the freedom of not caring how scraps get used, compared to the stressed feeling I still face every time I cut into a pristine sheet of paper that I really like. But I also don't like the never ending nature of scraps. They are like loose ends that can never be tied up. The more I scrapbook, the more the pile of scraps grows, and I fear that I will never use up my scraps as efficiently as I seem to create them. This feeling led me to dig out my punches this week, and try and make a dent in my cardstock scraps. Ethan and I sat on the floor in my scrapbook room and punched to our hearts content. He was sooo happy when he actually was able to make one of the punches work all on his own ( a lot of effort for a 2 1/2 year old!) My thought was I'd keep all the shapes in a container for Ethan to use now that he's mastered the art of wasting -er I mean using my tape runner. Funny thing was that only after we punched most of the cardstock scraps into itty bitty pieces did I see the challenge this week on the practical scrappers blog...

This week the challenge is to use only scraps to create your layout ( aside from the base cardstock or pp.) Out came Ethan's container full of squares and circles!

In my opinion, it still needs Thickers or something, I'm just not used to such a flat page. It did take me in a different direction than usual though.

Oh yeah- this dirty little boy is now walking 4 or 5 feet at a time and is able to squat to pick up toys, return to standing and even remain upright while in a tug of war with his big brother. Next week he'll be keeping me running I'm sure!

Keep off the grass!

Last week end we went to a BBQ at a friend's place. I finally caved and let Parker play in the grass. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind either of the kids getting dirty, in fact I have been known to encourage it at times. I'm just afraid of all the weird stuff that Parker might eat. This is only the second time this summer that i've set him down in the grass, and it was hilarious both times. He didn't want any part of his skin to touch it, and kept lifting his feet and hands one after another. He got over it almost as quickly as I got over the guilt I felt for laughing at him.

Giveaway at scrappin everyday life

If you like giveaways, go check out Stacy's blog! she's celebrating her 1 year "bloggiversary" http://scrappineverydaylife.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-about-giveaway.html

I forgot to mention...

Did I forget to mention that this little darling decided to take his first steps on Wednesday afternoon? Yep- right in the middle of our family room ( this photo is not our family room- this was yesterday on our back patio as I tried to photograph some layouts quickly :)). He teetered for a second, took a step then sat down. He got right up and did it again 2 more times in a row. Unfortunately we ran around so much yesterday he didn't have much chance to try it again. I figured he'd literally follow in his brother's footsteps and start walking around the 12 month range. Had to figure he'd be trying to "beat" Ethan and start at 10 1/2 months!
I'll have the point and shoot ready to catch some video today if he decides to do it again!

Challenged again!

Thank goodness for good friends to get you out of a rut! Not only is my friend Claude good at getting me started with a good challenge, she's also encouraging me to use up some of my plentiful stash. The challenge today comes from a blog site called Practical Scrappers. The site aims to issue challenges to help us all use up some of the valuable stuff we've already got. This week's challenge is to use up some of those stickers!

Here's my concoction: I also managed to use some new brads, a new diecut( which I honestly never thought I'd find a use for!) and those pebbles I've been trying to use since I bought them months ago!
Have you finished yours yet Claude?! ;)

I tried!

You see there was a challenge over at the My Mind's Eye blog to use a given page maps sketch, and use at least 80% MME products to complete a page. Sounds simple right? I thought so too, especially because I just picked up a bunch of papers and die cuts last week from the new collections. Weeeell, it seems the pictures I chose didn't work with most of my product, so I don't think I met the requirements for 80% MME product. :(

I struggled with this one, especially after my pal Noemi gave me some magic mesh to use, and Claude says " If you can't use your screw head brads on this one...where will you ever?!" I ended up trying desperately to keep this one looking current, and not something out of a 2006 Creating Keepsakes magazine. a little digging through my paper, through the tool box, and even into the embossing powders made this one fun to do...OK so maybe it is in keeping with 2006 style!

Warning: The items you are about to see are seriously cute!

If you haven't seen the new My Mind's Eye Christmas line, and you don't want to buy any more Christmas/Winter scrapbooking supplies, you had better stop reading now...
and oh yeah... Mom, close your eyes!:)

Last year my buddy Claude and I stocked up on a whole bunch of these Creative Imaginations luggage tags from the liquidation section of our LSS.




Then Friday night, I bought some awesome MME products. I was kinda beating myself up about it, as I don't really need more Halloween or Christmas paper ( ok ANY paper for that matter!). I decided this morning I had to make myself feel better and put some of it to use.
just look at these chipboard stickers!!




It was really hard to choose which one to use. Somewhere along the way I lost a Snowman, nowhere to be found. Remind me to check Ethan's pockets when he gets up from nap. :)


Here's the resulting mini album- it'll hold up to 10 2"x3" photos

.

I couldn't use the opening for a photo, because thankfully we don't have any winter photos yet for this year. ( as I write this it's 30 degrees celcius in the shade!) I made a little shaker box out of the back cover and put some more of the cute chipboard shapes and some "snow" inside.





Now I've gotta go come up with something to use up some of the Halloween stuff :).

Settling in nicely

It wasn't instant love I must admit, but after a few long hours fiddling with the settings and trying on different templates, I have found blogging peace here at Blogger! One day, I hope to master HTML, and really understand how all these things come into being, but for now, I'm happy to leave the template creation to the experts, and concentrate on my own creative endeavours. Speaking of creative endeavours...Hubby is out for the evening and the kids are sound asleep ( keep your fingers crossed for me!) I will now attempt to make my way through some of the clutter in my scraproom ( damn laundry!) and try and get to gluing!

Have a great night!
Erin

Moving day

Welcome! I've moved from Wordpress to Blogger!
Hopefully everything else will only get better from here on in!

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