It's Been Awhile...

Hi All! Sorry it's been awhile. I have been busy, busy, busy!

I just wanted to share with you today a couple of layouts I have been working on. I have actually had some time in the last week to do some scrappin'!

My husband got a sequence of pictures showing my son jumping off a bale and this paper from the BoBunny Detour line went perfectly!

I also used some Jillibean corrugated alphas and some Prima wooden buttons from the Craftsman line to give it a more outdoorsy look.

I love this next layout of my nephew being adventurous! He was trying so hard to get up on the bales so he could run around and chase after his cousin!

 The pattern paper I used for the background was from the Echo Park Homemade line. I was really lucking out when I was working on these pages to have found such perfect paper!

To finish off the layout I just raided my stash and used bits and pieces of leftover stickers and rub-ons that I had been "collecting"!

I was kicking my self for not grabbing some of the straw from the bales to use in my scrapbooking! What kind of scrapbooker am I! LOL

Again this next layout is of another of my cutie nephews! Oh to just be able to curl up in someones arms all cozy like that and have a nap! That would be the life!

The chipboard clouds I used in this layout are by Petaloo. I contemplated painting them but then decided that they would look best left raw. So all I did to them is ink the edges using my Tim Holtz Blending tool and some Pumice Stone Distress Ink. Then I took my Pumice Stone Distress Marker and stitched around the edge!

Now this last layout I wanted to make special. The picture is of my daughter on the day of her 13th birthday! Up, officially a teenager! (EEK!)

I used a paper from the Studio Calico Elementary line and gathered a bunch of scraps of a bunch of things to finish it off! I also used a Chicken Wire stencil from Crafters Workshop and Pumice Stone distress ink on the background. It was a little tricky because the stencil was so thin but the effect was worth the effort! I think using a misting spray would have been easier but I didn't have the right color.

Even though I look at others who do beautiful layouts with tons of layers and think they are absolutely stunning, I myself don't normally scrapbook that way. But every once in a while I come across a picture that is worth some extra attention!

Now just some extra info you may be interested in...

There are still spots left for Crop & Create in Saskatoon for those of you who have yet to sign up! Just send me an email at cayla.gaudet@gmail.com and I can forward the info to you or click HERE! I am so looking forward to going this year and having some good times with friends and hopefully getting some layouts done!!!! I hope to see you there too!

Also be sure to sign up at the store for our 2nd Annual Christmas Round Robin! We are taking registration now! Last year we sold out so be sure to give us a call or stop in soon!

Have a fantastic day!!

ANOTHER STEP IN MY TECHNOLOGICAL JOURNEY...

Happy Day After Thanksgiving!!

I hope you all had a fabulous long weekend and are stuffed full of good food! I for one can say that I am a few pounds heavier I am sure and now have a fridge full of leftovers! I am feeling very blessed to have such an amazing family and be surrounded by loving friends!

So I have taken another step in my technological journey and created a Facebook page for my blog! I have to say that if anyone asked me a year ago to do anything on the computer I would have run away screaming and you would have found me in a dark corner weeping and hugging myself! Lol! But I have overcome MOST of my computer fears and managed to do the impossible (in my opinion), so I am very proud of myself! And all with very limited help from my computer programmer husband! Yippeee!! (I even fixed my pretty blog issue after he looked at it and didn't fix it! Hehehe!)

But please go check out my Facebook page and click "LIKE" and follow me on my journey!

A Day To Visit!

Hi all! I finally have a day off and I thought I could be lazy and scrap all day but that hasn't exactly happened! Things never go the way we plan do they! 

But I did get to have a good visit with some house guests that came down unexpectedly and I got to have a fabulously long chat with my dear friend Ivana. I was going through "Ivana withdrawals" because she has been gone for the last 5 weeks getting married in Croatia and touring Europe (insert a jealous sigh here). And it was so nice to have a chance to catch up (a little bit) and to hear some of her adventures! I hate flying, so I always have to live vicariously through other people who do travel. Someday maybe I'll work up the nerve to fly over that great big ocean, but for now I will just keep my feet on the ground.

I also wanted to let all my crafty friends now that I heard there is still spots available for the fabulous Crop & Create Retreat here in Saskatoon! This year will be my first year attending and I am sooooooooooo excited! The event is hosted by the lovely Scrapbook & Cards Today magazine and it is sure to be a memorable time! I am eagerly counting down the days until I can go! The crop is taking place in the beautiful Delta Bessborough Hotel in the heart of Saskatoon and is right along the South Saskatchewan River. The view over the river right now is breathtaking with all the Autumn colors in full swing and with the hotel being right downtown, there is access to some fabulous shops and restaurants.

 There are going to be some fantastic teachers from some of the leading companies in the scrapbooking industries teaching a variety classes that you don't want to miss!! So click HERE and get all the info and I hope to see you there!!

And now here is a layout that I completed a few weeks ago and I have meaning to get it on my blog! It is a page I scrap-lifted from the above mentioned Scrapbook & Cards Today magazine. As I had said in a previous post, I was going to do a better job at giving credit to the appropriate source.

I found this layout on page 28 in a later issue of the magazine (Winter 2008, Issue 12). It was such a cute layout and I thought it would be a good way for me to get out of my comfort zone. I really like things to be linear and straight, so I have a really hard time with angles and slanty things. 

But here I did it and it really looks cute! Or maybe it just my nephew that is cute!!

I used a line of paper from Bella BLVD called Sunshine & Happines. I also used some Authentique "Fresh" element stickers, Maya Road Pom Pom trim and Kaiser Craft Pearls.

The little hearts on the pattern paper were perfect to cut out and use foam dimensional adhesive to pop them up a bit!

Because the word stickers didn't have every word that I needed to do my journaling, I improvised and hand wrote some of the words in. I have always liked the way that mixed font titles and journaling look, so I was good with the way it all turned out!

But I have to run and do the thousand other things on my list! 

Have a great day!

Busy, Busy, Busy ....

Hello there! I am trying to get motivated to go finish the many different things I have started (cleaning the toaster oven, the laundry, getting dressed, feeding my son who is home from school sick, finishing the birthday invites for my daughters birthday party this weekend, yada yada yada...) but I am lacking the "want to" today! So for the moment I will just type out a post for you all!

I had a fabulous weekend at work, with part two of the THINK PINK crop on Saturday. We did a approximate count of the money we raised and it is looking close to $4000! Way to go!! And a huge thank you to all you generous people and business who donated prizes, and another huge thank you to all who bought raffle tickets for all the great prizes!

For any who have been on my blog lately you may have noticed that my fancy, pretty background was gone. I am not to sure what happened (due to my lack of computer know how!) and it took some fooling around (well mainly guess work), but I was able to fix it up and have it looking pretty again! Yyyyaaayyyyy! 

And now for something else that is pretty!

This is a card I made for my dear friend Ivana who is off gallivanting in Europe after having her beautiful wedding in Croatia! (We miss you Ivana and can't wait to see you and some pictures!!)

I used some of the 6x6 papers from AUTHENTIQUE, which are just perfect for making cards or mini albums! The line of paper is called FREE BIRD and comes in numerous little coordinating groupings.

I have a cute punch from FISKARS that makes the beautiful scalloped hearts, which I then traced with my fine-tipped sharpie, inked the edges and crumpled for texture. I then adhered them so they were sticking out of the cute little paper bag from CANVAS CORP. I also inked up a doily and stamped a piece and cut it out for the background to give the card a more girly, shabby look.

And to finish it off, I stamped a sentiment to cut out and adhere to the front. I also tied a bow using some jute and stuck a hat pin through the knot and secured it to the card.

And now for those of you who did the TWINE FLOWER make 'n take at the crop, here is a link to the online tutorial. One of the steps on the tutorial is drawing lines on your chipboard circles. We skipped this step when we did the make 'n take but feel free to give it a try for a more precise placement of your pins. It will still work without doing this step though! I am going to post some pics soon of the projects I did using these super cute flowers soon!

Now I have to go feed my kid! I am pretty sure he will start complaining if I put this off much longer! Enjoy your day!

BACK TO ROUTINE!

Well summer officially come to an end in my household as I sent my kidlets off to school this morning! I can't say that I am happy to see the summer end but I am quite looking forward to getting back into a routine and having some time to myself! Running errands and checking off items on my "To Do" list just weren't a priority. It really is just to much hassle to try to do battle with my kids to cooperate while I tried to get the to do stuff done! So it all gets put aside for the time being. But now I have no excuse, so I better get some of it done! :D

First up on my list is to publish a post on my blog! Yup, you are all a priority for my first day to myself! :D This post won't be super long, cause like I said, I need to get some chores checked off!

One thing I wanted to mention first off is about the "THINK PINK" crop that the store will be having this coming Saturday and the following Saturday! I am super excited to be able to actually get a chance to play for the first crop and then I will work the second crop. If there are any of my scrappy peeps in Saskatoon that are still thinking of coming, there are three spots available for this Saturday's crop and I hope you will come join in. It is going to be a great time!! The event for the one day costs $50 and includes supper, lootbag, muffins in the morning, snacks throughout the day, make 'n takes, raffle table, button guess and loads of fun! All proceeds will go to the C95 Radio Marathon for Breast Cancer Research, a very worthwhile charity!

If you can't make it to the crop there is still a chance to help support this great cause! The raffle table and button guess will be available to anyone who comes into the store. I am not sure how much the tickets will be for the raffle prizes but I do know there are some GREAT prizes (that are not all just scrapbook related!) from companies such as Pampered Chef, Tupperware, Stampin Up, Close to My Heart, Lia Sophia and TONS more!!!!! So come check it out!
(Don't bother with entering your name into the Pampered Chef prizes, cause I am already going to win those ones!! LOL)

Now for just a couple pics of what I have been upto creatively this summer!

This layout was created using a mish mash of a companies such as My Minds Eye, Basic Grey and Simple Stories. I then I just added miscellaneous buttons, jute string, a journaling tag and sticker to finish it off.

 

I tore and sanded some of the edges to give it a roughed up, worn out look like the background wood paper.

I loved how this page turned out! This color green is not a color I would normally use but of course you've got to when scrappin about your fave football team!

There was another 12x12 pattern paper that actually said Roughriders, but since I didn't have enough pictures to do a two-page layout, I improvised! I created the rest of the title by taking some white letter stickers and tracing around them. I also traced the "Saskatchewan" letters with the same black marker to make everything look more uniform and stand out.

Here is another fall page using a new line from Simple Stories called Harvest Lane. I love this line! In fact, I love all of simple stories papers!

Thanks for takin a look today! See you again!

COMPUTER CHALLENGED!!!!

There is nothing more frustrating then creating a document that's three pages long, that also includes pictures, just to hit the wrong button and erase it all!!! That would be me though! Completely computer challenged!

So I have given up on getting what I was supposed to having completed along time ago and decided to get a post done instead!

I have had a few people lately ask me what the best marker/pen is for doing journaling or what I use when I make the fine borders around pages or other elements. Although there are some really great markers out there designed specifically for the papercrafter, I absolutely love Sharpies!! They come in a ton of awesome colors and they last a really long time! I have a black ultra fine-tip sharpie that I have been using for almost a year and it still hasn't shown any signs of quitting on me! And I can write on almost any type surface and the ones I have purchased are acid free (check packaging to be sure)!!! So the next time you need a journaling pen, check out the Sharpie!

Now I want to share a layout with you that I completed with a mini line by Echo Park called Sunshine. I have to say that lately, all the lines that Echo Park has put out have been awesome! And well worth checking out!

One of the 12x12 pattern papers from this line was just a sheet full of different types of borders and journaling cards which I cut up and used for embellishments. (Palm tree, surf boards, banner border at the top, fish, etc.)

I wish I could say that the down pointing arrows on the page were created in a quick and easy way... but unfortunately I can't. So I have given you step by step instruction on how I created them. If there is an easier way, I would love to hear about it!!!

1. First I lined my ruler up along the left edge of a 12" long strip of pattern paper (but you can easily customize your arrows to any paper size) and drew a line along the right side of the ruler. 

2. Next I lined my ruler up along the right side of the line I had just drawn and traced another line along the right side of the ruler. (For simplicity I just used the width of my ruler as a measuring guide, but you could mark out different measurement to get different widths and sizes for your arrows.)

3. I then turned my ruler and drew some horizontal lines, again using my ruler width for a measuring guide.

4. Next you want to draw some diagonal lines going from corner to center in both columns. (It is hard to see my diagonal lines on the right because they are going in the same direction as the stripes on the pattern paper.)

 5. You then want to trim along the furthest vertical line to get rid of the extra paper you won't be needing.

6. Then cut along each diagonal line to create your arrow pieces.

And here is a card I created using my arrow points! And if you look closely, you will notice that my fave Sharpie pen has made an appearance!!!

This is a fun way to add direction or movement to a project and I hope you will give it a try!!!

FUNDRAISING SUCCESS!

Good Morning!

Well it's Monday morning and my kids have returned after two weeks of silence and clean! I have to say it's a bit of a shock to my system! I mean I missed them and all, but having a clean house for longer then 24 hours was nice!!

Well this past weekend was a huge success for our fundraiser for the Saskatchewan Burn Fund! With over 30 ladies joining us at the store, it was a crazy & fun time!! I want to thank you all for coming and helping us support this great cause! Here are just a couple pics of the event!

A huge thank you to some very generous people and businesses for donating some great prizes!

A croproom full of fun!

A very sweet, funny and entertaining lady!! Thank you Lana for coming!

Jennifer cracking the whip!! Making sure everyone stays in line!!! LOL

Of course the husbands would stick around to make sure us wives behaved ourselves infront of the Firefighters!!! LOL!

Lana with the Firefighter that is featured on the cover of the calendar!!! 

My nephew got to sit up in the fire truck! He was so happy there and did not want to get out!! 

The Firefighters doing a "Fire Demo" with MY BBQ!

The Staff!! (Jennifer, Me and Laura)

Thanks once again to everyone for coming!! With your support we were able to raise almost $2000!!!!! Way to go!!