The Paper Mixing Bowl December 2012 Recipe and Some Exciting News!

Hello everyone! Sorry it has been so long but it has been a very hectic month. I apologize for the late post and for the even later November Recipe post. I was a little overwhelmed this month with a big change for us...we are moving! In the matter of a few weeks we bought a home then listed and sold ours. It sounds simple but boy was it chaotic! We weren't quite ready to list our house, just had a few things to paint like the entire main floor and upper hallway, plus declutter the entire place. But we found a place we loved that had the potential for me to eventually run my business out of so we put in an offer and the next thing I knew I was up everynight till 1am painting and cleaning so we could list and sell our house as well. It is all still very surreal! I can't believe that in less than 2 months I will be packing up our family and all of our memories and moving into a whole new chapter of our life. Exciting but scary and overwhelming all at the same time! But enough about the big move, here's what you came here to see.

The Recipe:

And here's my take:

This picture is actually taken on my daughter's birthday which falls right before Christmas. My husband and I were out at his work Christmas party and my sister, brother-in-law and godparents were babysitting for the evening. This picture was taken of my godfather reading Arabella her bedtime story. This photo is quite special to me as it was taken shortly before we found out that he had cancer. Thankfully, after a rough few months, he is now cancer free, but this photo will always be one I cherish.

The background paper is by My Mind's Eye and I used several Cuttlebug dies to create the snowflakes.

I created the journalling card by cutting the shape of a tag, then punching a whole in the top. I stamped the bottom and distressed the edges, then added a few more snowflakes. The other tags I hand stamped with ornaments from the gel-a-tins collection. 

Thanks for stopping by! I hope to add several more layouts including the November Paper Mixing bowl Recipe over the next few days as I have time to upload them. I hope you all have a happy Sunday!



Little Miracle

My sister asked me if I could make a baby layout as a gift for her friend who recently had a little baby girl. She wanted it to match the nursery which had a lot of nature elements especially birds and was painted in a soft lavender colour with brown accents. This is what I came up with:

I used a piece of cardboard (actually from a Pampers box...how fitting!) covered in burlap for the background. The branches I cut by hand from brown cardstock and the leaves are actually a flower die for the Cuttlebug that I trimmed up to make leaves. I originally had the title in a white cloud at the top right corner of the page but I just wasn't loving it. Then I thought it would be cute to hang a banner from the bottom tree branch. The word "little" I printed off from my laptop and then used a single hole punch to carefully punch out each letter, gluing them altogether to create a caterpillar body.  For the face I used a Cuttlebug die for a butterfly which I then trimmed the body and wings off of leaving the cute little head. All of the birds I cut freehand and then used a snowflake Cuttlebug die for the feet and the wings of a bumblebee die for their beaks.

My sister had given me the lyrics to Lee Ann Womack's "I hope you dance" which she wanted me to incorporate into the page. I printed them off on kraft cardstock, cut each into a strip, inked the edges and finished it off with a button at the end of each line. I love how the little thread bows turned out on the first and last button. Also, if you look closely in the leaves below you will notice that a "caterpillar" ate a few of the leaves. The paper moved when I was cutting this group of leaves with the flower die and it got cut up by an adjacent flower but I thought it looked like little nibble lines. This is the leaf that inspired me to add a few caterpillars to the page.

My sister loved it and ended up framing it with a white frame. Here's the final product before it was wrapped!



Thanks for stopping by!



Rustic Wedding Layout

I'm back and so soon! Here is the layout I made as a gift for my friend's wedding. She and her hubby live in Banff and LOVE the outdoors. Her wedding was an outdoor affair that took place in Golden B.C. on the riverbank of the Kicking Horse River (FYI the location was STUNNING! Most beautiful wedding I've ever been to AND they didn't even need a decorator ;)

For the background, I went to my local scrapbook store and knew that I wanted something with a woodgrain. I found this paper that was perfect by Echo Park and featured wood planks.  On top of the paper I added a square of burlap accented with a few lace doilies for a bit of romantic whimsy.

In the corner of the burlap, I added their names on a small banner of Kraft paper and then overlapped it with wooden letters of their first initials that I had inked the edges of with brown ink. The title I cut out with the help of my sister-in-law (thanks!) on her Silhouette. I loved the look of the negative so I incorporated this as well for both the title and the date. Originally, the bride Christy had wanted to walk down the aisle to the song "I think I wanna marry you" however this later changed to "Somewhere over the rainbow" (which didn't help me hold back the tears). But I thought it was very fitting of Christy and her hubby Pierre and a fun title.

I used earthy shades of browns accented with whites to create handmade flowers and a few die cut butterflies embellished with a little bit of bling (every wedding has to have a little bling!). The journalling at the bottom is a poem featured on Sex and the City (a favourite amongst my girlfriends) that the main character Carrie Bradshaw had written for a wedding.

I used two different tutorials that I found on pinterest to create a burlap flower with button detail (above) and a burlap rosette (below). The burlap flowers added so much more dimension to the page and accent the paper flowers beautifully!

That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by! I hope to post some pictures from our trip to Banff when I get a chance. First I have to sift through them all and narrow it down (between my hubby and I we took well over 1000 photos....yikes!). I am thinking that due to the shear volume of pictures, scrapbooking them will be out of the question...I will have to investigate a few photo book options.

The Paper Mixing Bowl: Challenge #8

I am finally back with a layout for the Paper Mixing Bowl. My apologies for skipping over layouts 6 and 7...layout 6 is still waiting to be finished and layout 7 I have yet to get around to posting. I have been a bit busy with company, layouts for wedding gifts and trips to Banff!!! (More on this another post)

This month's recipe is a festive Pumpkin Pie:
 

Here's my take on the recipe:

 

SOURCES:  Patterned Paper:  BasicGrey – Motifica>Clay. Cardstock: Miscellaneous scrap pieces. Fonts:  Pea Katrina, Artistamp Medium Embellishments: Coffee Filter, Wood splinters.

Originally I bought a paper for the background from Echo Park that featured a wood grain background (you will see it in the layout I did for a friend's wedding which I will post soon). However, I came across a piece of paper by Basic Grey that I purchased years ago that was perfect for it. Not only does it feature the main ingredient pumpkin (orange) but it also has black lines that look just like cat scratches on it.

The cobweb I made out of a coffee filter from my cupboard which I cut up in the same way you would make a paper snowflake. I used this as the backdrop to a picture of Arabella dipping her hands into the belly of the pumpkin. So much fun!



My favourite thing about this layout is the wood accents I used. These are actual splinters of wood from an old picnic table from our cottage. A lot of history in that wood...we used to eat at it when we were kids! So I saved a few slivers of it with the hope that they would make it onto one of my scrapbook pages, and alas, they were perfect for this one! I used the thickest piece to carve my title into and also used a black marker to add some depth to the carvings so the letters stood out better. For the journalling, I did my version of a potion combined with the old VISA commercial from TV and described a list of all the things we used to carve our pumpkin.



The pumpkins I cut from an old scrap of metallic cardstock I had lying around. I then scored the pumpkin sections and used a metal distresser to scratch in some texture. This was followed up by distressing the edges and then adding some ink and black chalk to create dimension. I loved how they turned out!



The last feature I did were a few handcut bats which I glued on with foam dots to make them pop.
 

Thanks for stopping by! And stay tuned...I hope to post the rustic wedding layout I made for one of my Bestie's Christy.

Love is in the air

This past weekend I attended the wedding of a friend of mine. For her wedding gift, I decided to create her a wedding layout and frame it in a shadow box for one of her favourite wedding photos. I based the colour scheme on her wedding colours and her centerpiece which was a bouquet of hydrangea. I scoured her Pinterest page and picked several of her favourite quotes on love. I also knew that she was having a puzzle themed wedding, so I tried to incorporate this as well.

The patterned paper I used for the puzzle pieces I created by repeating a love quote in Microsoft Word and then printing it off. I then handcut (what a PAIN!) each puzzle piece. Thankfully there were only 5! 

The flowers were meant to be hydrangea like her wedding flower. I cut each flower out using the Cuttlebug Flowers die and then curled the tips of the petals under with a toothpick. I then glued a little rhinestone flower in the middle and hot glued the flowers down to the page. I used cardstock from Bazzil and Stardream Metallic collections as well as vellum. The butterflies were also cut from the Cuttlebug using the Nature and Texture Borders die. I loved the dimension of everything and I also loved how perfectly it matched her actual wedding!

 A picture of her bouquet:

Thanks for stopping by!

Our weekend in pictures

This past weekend was truely fantastic! I had a fabulous date night with my husband AND we celebrated Derrick's 35th birthday! For our date night, we attended the wedding of a friend of mine. I just love weddings! There's something about seeing the love between two people, listening to the promise they share with each other and reminscing about your own wedding day. I've always found them very romantic so what better way to celebrate a date afternoon/night!

The next morning, while Derrick slept in for his birthday, Arabella and I went to work creating a masterpiece. Most of it got thrown out, but I did save a red handprint and added a yellow beak, feet and some googley eyes to make a mini card for Dadda from Arabella. Happy Bird-day Dadda!!!

One of the many reasons I love this man...such an incredible father! I just love how Arabella lights up around him.

In the afternoon, we headed out to the park for a bit where Arabella enjoyed blowing the seeds on every single dandelion she could find.

Then it was off for a hike. Unfortunately it was dinner time for the mosquitoes so our excursion was very short-lived. The one family photo I quickly snapped ended up having one extra person...errrr...insect in it. Notice the little black dot on Arabella's nose. Yep, definately a mosquito and she got bit before I had a chance to notice it. Poor lil munchkin!

 On our drive home she was full of beans. Here's a few or my favourites!

Instead of birthday cake, Derrick requested cupcakes. Usually I just use a boxed cake mix for my cupcakes, but when I went to bake them I realized that I had  forgotten to pick up a box of this from the store. The only solution was to make them from scratch! I went online in search of an easy recipe that would work with the ingredients I had at home. I ended up using a recipe for vanilla cupcakes from Glorious Treats. I then added my own spin on them by adding cream cheese icing, crumbled golden grahams cereal, chocolate chips that I zapped in the magic bullet and a drizzle of caramel. I called them Rocky Road cupcakes and they were divine!!!

And here is what Derrick and Arabella thought of them! She could barely wait to dip her finger right in and sample them. I made a miniature one for her but she was way more interested in testing out the other cupcakes on the plate.

If I have a chance, I plan on posting pictures of the wedding gift I made so check back soon. Right now, it's off to clean the house before Arabella wakes up. Wish me luck!

One afternoon...

One of my favourite things to do with Arabella is go for an afternoon walk through the Huron Natural Park.  She loves looking for wildlife and I love the peace and beauty that nature brings. Here's one of our walks captured in pictures:

It's hard to believe that fall is already upon us. Not that I really mind...it is my favourite season of the year! 

A weekend at the Cottage

This past weekend was the last long weekend of the summer and the first weekend I spent up at my new cottage.

Our Cottage

There's a long story behind how I am blessed to share this little piece of heaven on Perry Lake with my brother and sister. It is a bittersweet one, just as my very first stay there was. My Uncle Stan passed away last year and left his house to my brother, sister and I. After the initial shock of this inheritance, I began to really think about what this meant.

At first, I felt extremely grateful. A large chunk of my childhood memories revolve around the summers we spent at camp so this inheritance brought back many nostalgic memories. My parent's owned the adjacent property to my Uncle's house and we had a trailer that we spent most of the summer at. It was right on the water, so every night I was lulled to sleep by the chirping of hundreds of crickets and the deep throaty croak of the bullfrogs in the swamp.  My favourite part of the day was waking up in the morning to the haunting song of the pair of loons that nested across the bay, then crawling out of bed and running through the dew laden grass to watch the mist rising off the water. My grandparents lived 3 houses down the road from Stan's place and during my childhood they owned over 100 acres of the surrounding property along the road. My grandfather actually planted the pine trees across the road that towered a few hundred feet in the sky. We used to spend many afternoons exploring the sandpit looking for used shot gun shells or pulling apart milk weed to watch the seeds dance through the sky. Then it was off to Grandma and Grandpa's for homemade biscuits and the most delicious homemade jams I will ever taste. So the one aspect of this inheritance, was a chance for my daughter to experience a handfull of the memories that I cherish so dearly.

However, as is life, the years have brought many changes. My grandfather sold off his property years ago, my grandparents passed away in recent years and their house was also sold. So my Uncle's house is truely the last physical piece that I can hold onto of my family and my childhood memories. The flip side of the coin however, was the financial and emotional burden.  I won't go into the details, but in order for us to make this house a cottage, we were all going to have to invest a lot of time, hardwork and heart into it. Over the first year, every weekend we spent working there made the inheritance feel unbearable and almost suffocating. I think a lot of these emotions had to do with the grief of dealing with my Uncle's passing. But there was also a great deal of sadness...as we delved deeper into the cleaning and repairs of his house I began to see Stan for more than who I knew him as. I guess you really get to know a person once you are riffeling through a house filled with their memories.

So all of that leads us to my first weekend at the cottage. I was nervous to spend the weekend there, first because my Uncle passed away in the house and second because my 20 month old daughter does not sleep well away from home. I wasn't sure what to expect...when we arrived, it was peaceful and beautiful. Arabella immediately took to it and loved running around the expansive lawn. She ate a late dinner and went straight to sleep which is unheard of for an overnight stay. But once she was sleeping and it was quiet, it felt sad. Sad because of all the reasons that had lead up to me standing in that kitchen. So I did the only thing I could think of, I poured a glass of wine and we toasted to Stan. The rest of the weekend was amazing! Creating new memories with Arabella, reminscing about the old ones and embracing the present. It was a truely magical experience and now I am so grateful to have been left such a blessing in our lives. Maybe one day, Arabella will bring her children to see the trees that her Great Grandfather planted...

A little reminder

It's been a while since my last post but life has been extra hectic lately. This one will be quick. I just finished watching the movie New Year's Eve and a specific quote from the movie stood out to me. In reference to the ball being stuck half way up the drop, Hilary Swank's character quoted:

"It's suspended there to remind us before we pop the champagne and celebrate the new year, to stop and reflect on the year that has gone by. To remember both our triumphs and our missteps, our promises made and broken. The times we opened ourselves up to great adventures or closed ourselves down for fear of getting hurt cause that's what new years is all about- getting another chance. A chance to forgive, to do better, to do more, to give more, to love more. And stop worrying about what if and start embracing what will be."

The last line of this quote really stood out for me, especially today...and I wanted to write this somewhere so that I could look back on it and be reminded...

"Stop worrying about what if and start embracing what will be"

The Paper Mixing Bowl: Challenge #5

This month's recipe is always a crowd pleaser, scrumptious Strawberry Shortcake! I just LOVE strawberries!

Here's my take on the recipe:

SOURCES:  Cardstock: Bo Bunny - Double Dot, Bazzil Basics Paper. Patterned Paper: American Crafts-Heatwave>Maverick Mango, My Little Shoebox-All A Flutter>Wings and Things. Lettering: Pink paislee – Expressions Wood Shop>Sawdust. Embellishments: American Crafts - Dear Lizzy>Neopolitan Mason Jar Clear Stamp, Paper Clips from local Dollar Store.

The main ingredient was red for strawberries so I incorporated this colour as the backdrop to my photo and bordered it with the polka dot and stripe contrasting paper patterns. 

I created a banner by cutting a piece of yellow cardstock into small triangles, then running each of them through a paper crimper. I attached them to a piece of twine using a few adorable star paper clips that I've had lying around from the local Dollar store.

I purchased an adorable stamp by Dear Lizzy of a mason jar, and it came with a cute little stamp that defines both summer and sun. I used this to stamp the bottom corner of my picture so it has almost a magazine article sort of feel.

For my journaling, I used a little yellow flag which tucks away perfectly behind my double matted photo. On it I journalled a short blip about Arabella's first trip to the Pinery Provincial Park. Every year since I was little, my family has gone camping at the Pinery. It is by far my favourite summer tradition and this photo captured one of Arabella's first trips to the beautiful sandy beaches! If you have never gone there, I highly recommend it!

I embellished the bottom of my page with a scrap of gorgeous pink ribbon that I've had lying around in my supplies for a while. On top of the ribbon I added my title "Beach Bum" using wooden letters from pink paislee's Expressions Wood Shop collection that I inked with brown along the edges and miniature scrabble letters.

I also added an adorable die cut sunshine to the corner of the page to capture that summer beach vibe.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Canada Day everyone!!!