Folding House Decor Project

I found this amazing idea on the My Mind's Eye blog - designed by Tiffani Smith. Hers was a Hallowe'en themed album, but I changed it up a bit to feature pictures from a recent trip to Springridge Farm near our home. The kids love it there and have asked to go back twice this week! I thought maybe this display of their photos would be enough to remind them of their visit, keep their memories full and maybe we can put off another visit until closer to Christmas!



The house shapes are cut out of cardstock and are fastend together by a 2 inch wide length of card glued across the back, adding stability.

4 Christmas Cards

Before I post these new cards, I want to give full recognition to their designer, AVRIL TANNER.

Avril ran a class last week at The Scrapping Bug in Kitchener guiding us through the creation of these cards. We used paper from American Crafts and lots of Glitter! My daughter was a huge fan of the sparkly ones!!

3 One -page Layouts...

Life has been busy lately, but I have found an hour each evening after the kids go to bed to sit down and scrap! Here are three recent layouts:

My mom, Nana, has introduced a new exciting thing to my children- the TEA PARTY! Now every time we visit Exeter they hope for some warm, milky tea, cookies and finger sandwiches, all served in an itty bitty tea set.


Here is Princess Afton- dressed in my high heels and her poodle costume. Yep! It was last year's Hallowe'en get-up , but now it is a regular plaything whenever Afton feels like she needs to be a "Posh Puppy!" (Love this paper line form Imaginisce!)


I am trying the scrap more day-to-day things- so here is my newest layout doing just that - capturing a moment at Tim Hortons. Mmmm... double double for me, coffee regular for Kevin and sprinkle donuts for the big kids. This picture also captures Camden's first taste of a Timbit!

Cards & Cookies

Camden had a nice long nap today and the two big kids were happy to watch a Hallowe'en movie on YTV. That gave 2 hours (yes! 2 hours!) to do some scrapping! So... I really feel like my card-making needs some work. So....I pulled out a couple of card magazines and did some scrap-lifting. This cute Santa card was the result:



Now that I felt braver, I made this card, based on a cute Carters nightgown my daughter owns.



Now onto the cookies- these were so EASY and looked really impressive. Afton was my sous-chef and even she said "Mommy. This isn't hard!"

Start with 2 batches of sugar cookie dough. Divide each batch into 2 parts and dye the dough (food dye works better than food colouring- the colour is more intense). I made my 4 parts red, orange, yellow and brown. Refridgerate.



After the dough has chilled (it rolls better when the dough is cold), cut the dough into small chunks. Take several chunks of each colour of dough and stick them together into one big blob. When you roll this blob out, you will get a mosaic/marbeling effect. Cut the dough with leaf cookie cutters, trying to place the cutters so that you have many colours within the shape. Bake and enjoy!

Getting Crafty With it!

We've had so many cold, rainy days lately so the kids and I have been bsuy crafting up a storm. I try to do as many of these types of activities as I can with my little guys. Crafting memories are some of the best from my childhood! (Thanks Mommy!)

We made these a few days ago. Thanks to my good friend, Martha Stewart, who posted the template on her blog. These masks were meant to be part of a Hallowe'en party invitiation, but we preferred to use them as disguises!

Bryn and Itraced them onto scrapbooking paper, then cut them out and Afton joined in with the decorating. Even Kevin wore his mask proudly (for a few minutes!)








My friend Julie emailed me the link for the instructions for this darling joke mini-book. I quickly made 2 up the other night while watching "Ghost Whisperer." Appropriate, don't you think? The kids LOVE them and have almost all the jokes memorized - even with some joke infection!

http://52sketches52weeks.ning.com/forum/topics/tutorialthe-mini-mini-book

Another Flat??

This is a shout out to my man, who once again, changed a tire on my car today. We went to leave for school this morning and one of my 4 brand new tires was flat! Can you believe it? Brand new last week, brand new flat this week. And once again, Kevin braved the cold and changed it in the rain. Thanks, Kevin!

3 Layouts - A B & C

I hope these pictures work out- I was having trouble making them the right size.

Here is a layout about Afton on the phone. She is just talking Nana's ear off, but all I can picture is her as a teenager talking to her girlfriends (or her boyfriend!). Love this colour combo right now- poor Afton has worn a lot of it lately!!



Bryn- our water boy! Here he is getting soaked at the splash pad this summer.



And Camden- this page celebrates the milestones of his 7th month. Love this paper pack from Making Memories!

Family Portraits

I love taking the family to get our protraits done. Some would say I get our pictures taken too often. I disagree. I love a good posed picture where someone ELSE is clicking the camera and I get to take part!!

We had these pics taken recently - our first ones as a family of FIVE!







This is my first attempt at putting pictures into a blog post. I hope this works!!

Here I Go!!

I have been reading lots of other blogs lately - blogs by scrapbookers, decorators, mothers, teachers and knitters. I love how I am getting to know these women. So many of them are so similar to me. I read their words and I constantly think - "Wow- I could do that!" or " I am so glad she is going through the same thing I am!" or "I love her creativity. She is such an inspiration!" I got to thinking, maybe other women would want to hear my simple story, or read about my darling kids, or see pictures of my artsy pursuits??



Well, even if no strangers log into this blog - maybe my family will look it up just to see what our family has been doing lately. I will **try** to keep it up to date.


So onward and upward - my first REAL blog post coming soon!