aaaaand....We're back!

Let's just forego the explanations an apologies that would normally accompany the first blog after a long absence.  Life happens and time's a wasting.

Suffice to say that today, I made playing with paper a bigger priority than anything or anyone else in my world. So let us begin.

May 1st, 2020. Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog presents us with Echo Park Carte Bella Oh Happy Day Collection.

Their papers:

My papers:

There is also a special paper:

And this is my near copy:

Then I rounded up the usual suspects. Die cuts, chip board, stickers, alphas, buttons, washi, brads, overlays, wood veneer, enamel dots, fabric trims, etc. and this is what I got:

 Flowers from Jen Hadfield, Home Made

 Flair, Chip board and stickers from MME, Market Street

 And lots of random delights

Now that was fun, wasn't it?

Time to go blow some dust off my tools.

Thanks for stopping by. Double thanks for comments.

Oughtober

Hello dear reader.

My last post was in May, as was my last layout.

And then summer was here.

But now it is not.

My fair weather hiatus is over.

So here I am.

I did keep up with reading the  Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog. Sometimes I even commented on it or one of the Design Team's posts.

I didn't follow through with my goal of creating a minimum of one layout per month. Missed June through September

So here is an attempt to regroup and refocus on what I "ought" to be doing.

First let me show you the inspiration for this month.

It is Prima Marketing's St. Tropez collection.

While surf and sea themes don't work well with my lifestyle, the sun faded and weatherworn textures and colours in the kit are close to home.

 Needing a fresh start of inspiration and to get organized for two retreats coming up, the first thing I did was take my oldest kit off the shelf. It was One Good Turn from Feb 2015 Pulled out the papers and embellies that would work with St. Tropez. The rest was refiled into the stash.

Then with visual referencing of the St. Tropez line and the last of One Good Turn I raided the cardstock.

Soft coral, aqua, and lemon. White, cream and navy.

Added papers that reflected St. Tropez.

Bo Bunnmy, Eire Wine Box. Pink Paislee, Daily Junque, map;.Theresa Collins, Memorabilia, snippits. A cloud in place of the tide and shore. Webster's pages, Your Life. Beautiful, a romantic vellum. WRMK Wildflower, Sketchbook for the floral. There is a blue and yellow stripe that I still want to add in, but it missed the photo.

 Chipboard Alphas

Stamps and Inks

Words

Frames and Overlays

Flowers

Die Cuts and title/journal cards

Gems, dew drops, photo corners, ribbon and twine

Washie Tape!

And that's not all! To ensure enough stuff and inspiration for two get-aways, I added some manufacturer's kits/collections:
Simple Stories Vintage bliss, with all its weathered wood and soft colour pallet.
Echo Park, For the Record 2, die cuts and alphas.
MME, Find your wings and fly, papers and die cuts. Works well with Vintage Bliss
CTMH Skylark Workshop on the go. This is where one of my stamps sets shown above, is from and if I hit a wall, I can always follow their "recipe sheets" to keep production going.

Also included a few page kits that I made some time back. These are great to turn to when I need to look at some different colours.

Now, I ought to get some recent photos organized and printed. A fresh start needs fresh stories.

And so we have Oughtober!

Thanks for stopping by. Double thanks for comments.

May Be Yes

May! May! Beautiful May! Your warm mornings bring us outside with a cup of coffee. The swallows flit about. One little fellow sits on the power line near us and sings to us. At least that's what we tell ourselves. If we had a universal interpreter, we would learn that in bird speak, he is actually telling us this is his territory and we should move along.

This May long weekend was the first truly fine weather of the month. Besides the morning coffee, we had a steak barbeque yesterday. And this morning, Robin and I planted the vegetable garden.

And now with my back, protesting that it is time to sit a spell, I am here to show and tell about my scrapping.

The kit this month, with Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog is Gossamer Blues March Main Kit.

While I have been trying to get my scrapping world under control and have not made a kit for longer than I care to remember. This month, the blues and yellows called out as I pulled a few things together. The next thing you know, it's a full blown kit. Will I get to scrap much with it this month? Maybe yes, maybe no.

As May is so full of potential and possibilities, I am saying "May Be Yes"

The papers in the kit jump-started my mojo.

Gossamer Blue March papers

First some cardstock. The camera mis read the colours. The two on the left are actually blues.

Then a specialty paper. Made from a banana leaf and a patterend paper from Creative Memories.

Toss in a cut apart sheet. Notes & Things from Crate Paper

Then Alphas And post-it type notes in cute critters and speech balloons.

A few off cuts of paper for patterns and very old paper ribbon from Creative Memories. Very, very old.

Die cut, camera Epoxy doodle square. White brads. Dew drops.

Mostly used, sticker sheet from Creative Memories, and white foam Thickers. The script title "Magic" I have no idea how to use. And the epoxy dots from Simple Stories, So Fancy.

May Be Yes

How about some close ups?

To get going, I chose a picture, saturated with the colours of the kit. It is of Rebecca sitting outside the music room at her school, with her father. The stained glass wall behind them is jaw dropping and crowd stopping. In an effort to mimic the wonky design of it, I tried to let my layout run askew. Drawing on challenge #2 for the month, Mix It Up, I incorporated an overlay and a word tab along with the alphas in the title.

One lucky shot, here with you. Mom says, "Trying to get a decent photo of these two actually looking at the camera at the same time is virtually impossible. Like father, like daughter definitely rings true in that regards."

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Happy to have completed the minimum requirement I have set for myself of one layout per month. If more happen in the next 9 days, I will be back again to share with you.

Thanks for stopping by. Double thanks for comments.

April's Round up and Review

Hello friend. I want to tell you about my April. It was a wonderful month for me, as far as scrapping goes. There was a weekend crop and a day crop, in my home town, that I was able to participate in. The weekend one, coincided with a trade show that Lolly Pop Thrift Shop had a booth in, so I missed about 8 hours of paper play but that didn't hold me back. Seven layouts were in various states of completedness by Sunday afternoon. Then the next Saturday, I spent the afternoon with friends and as they pumped out cards, I worked on the partial pages and put together two more. Then last Sunday, I worked on setting up my studio at work. It is looking like this:

 Keep in mind, this move is all about minimizing my space used and product stored. Not sure where most things will end up, I have used painters tape to label drawers while I get things out of totes and boxes. As I recognize that something is higher or lower in importance to my style, I can switch the drawers up or down.  Hey! I can walk into the office now, instead of stepping over the stash.

 On the desk top. Totally Tiffany's Ditto tool caddy. Pampered Chef utensil stand for pens and such. Must haves: CTMH mat; CM personal trimmer; Westcot 12" Trimair, on the last shelf of the hutch.

 And just enough paper, kits, and cardstock to get started again. You can see I have one of my old CKC kits here. When it is done, I will bring another from home.

And how about some eye candy? Spring blossoms from Prima, I found at the weekend retreat.

Now that the space is ready to work in, (no complaints of poor lighting. All LED in this office!) today I was able to finish up all but one of the layouts from last month. But first, let's take a look at the April inspiration kit from  Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog.

Cocoa Daisy's February 2017 kit, Ashton Court

So bright and playful. Whimsical critters. Scripty words. Multi coloured alphas. What's not to love?

I have five layouts to show you that were drawn from this inspiration. Although my interpretation is more pinky than red. A couple of papers from Shimelle were my spring board and this is what happened:

 Girl you are amazing; Shine on you crazy diamond.

 At age 3 the favorite game to paly is "Make up a story about Piggy" Rebecca's stories go like this:
"Once upon a time, Piggy went to town. Then Piggy bought some groceries. Then Piggy went home. Then Piggy played outside. Then Piggy had a shower......THE END!!"
Emphatically declaring the end of the story is Rebecca's favourite part. After a round of giggles it's Grampa's turn to tell a piggy tale.

Is there an award for letter saves? "piggy" is all 5! Upside down d. Altered j. Two 6s turned over. And an altered x.

Next, another tale about Piggy and what happened when he got left behind. This one comes from gleaning facebook posts. Lately they have been showing what you posted last  year, or two or three years ago. I love it. If the story grabs my heart when I see it again, there's a good reason to get it into an album.

 Don't forget Piggy Love. April 21 2013 Naughty Piggy stayed an extra night at Gramma's. Rebecca had to call and help tuck him in.

Then I pulled together photos of Robin enjoying Rebecca (my granddaughter) and his granddaughter's. Putting together photos from different events is new to me. Think I did ok?

Thank Heaven for Grampa's girls. Rebecca (you are a diamond) Brooklyn (have vision for you life darling girl) and Sydney (shine your light, amazing girl!) Don't you just love that game of peek-a-boo going on in the bottom corner?

Then the last bits of the Shimelle paper was used up on this one. The photo comes from a Throwback Thursday post one of my daughters made. In it, Rebecca's mother, Nadine is standing next to her older sister. I bet you would have thought it was Rebecca, if I hadn't told you that.  Again....facebook is a treasure trove for story ideas.

A typical Sunday road trip takes us from Edmonton to the Borody farm in Richmond Park. Dinner is almost always chicken in dilled cream sauce. On the way home we stop at the Semrok farm in Perryvale for coffee. On this sunny day in August, Baba (Vera Borody) and the girls made a bouquet of sweet peas and marigolds for Oma (Irma Semrok) We love the Flower Girls.

On the scripty cards, I want to add "to" to tie them together as a thought. This is my day to make things happen. Also, I love the bit of paper with the repeated teeny, tiny type face word "Beautiful" that is on top left corner of the photo.

Number 6, also pulled from the inspiration kit but makes a departure with some graphic black and white paper to ground the elements. I checked in with Facebook again and found this photo of Rebecca greeting Cohen after a week apart. How excited she must be.The energy in her body language says it all.  Cohen who saw the joy in her face, and will remember it each time he sees this layout in his album. A reminder of just how much he is loved by his sister even if she claims otherwise, as they get older.

The photo is matted on paper that has multi coloured triangles much like the one in the inspiration kit. My favorite bit is how the colours on the die cut "HECK YES!" reflects what Rebecca is wearing.

Welcome back Cohen. Love this. Did Rebecca miss you? Heck Yes! Edmonton International Airport August 2016 with Codie and Lebron Jendruk

The last three layouts were made with page kits I made at a crop a couple of years ago. I had a handful of papers with me, and I kept sorting through a smattering of photos, trying to ignite an idea. With an obvious case of scrappers block, I changed my approach to opposite of what I usually do and started matching the papers to the photos. Tucked each photo with it's papers and any bits and bobs that I felt might go well with them, into separate Ziploc bags. I completed and shared some before, but here are the last three that were started on that day.

 Cloud Spotting

The sky is perfect blue. The clouds are perfect too. And here I am with you. -A.A.Milne

Michael has moved my 10,000+ photo collection to "The Cloud" So they are there......somewhere...

It's all about reflection and refraction of light. May there be just enough clouds in your life to make for a beautiful sunset.

 Shine

Any day spent with you is my favourite day. -A.A. Milne

Another glorious winter sunrise, looking east/southeast, on the deck. This view of the east side, crest of the Tawatinaw Valley has been a touchstone landmark for me for over 50 years. I never tire of it.

And finally, a casual portrait shot taken during the Christmas season of 2013. The filler card, says it all.

What a wonderful thought it is. Some of the best days of our lives haven't happened yet. Happy day at Athabasca Native Friendship Center.

And now it is time to say good bye to April's inspiration kit and get working with the next one. Why don't you join me in the fun?

Thanks for stopping by. Double thanks for comments.