Some scrappy things to share!

Renos are pretty much at a close around here, Mark took our daughter and niece swimming this afternoon and so I found myself with a few hours to play!  I decided to check out one of my favourite sketch sites for ideas to get me going, and found a perfect starting place.  Twisted Sketches posted this sketch, with the 'twist' of tiny- any way, anyhow!  I went looking for some photos to play with and came across some old 4x12 pictures from a disposable camera that we took with us on our first Mexico vacation.  Love the way 'Tiny Taste of Heaven' came together!!  Thanks to the Twisted Sisters for such great inspiration!  If you want to see any of the images larger, just click on them!

This layout uses Webster's Pages and Simple Stories paper and alpha stickers, some Prima and Zva Creatives bling, a 7 Gypsies paper clip, Pink Paislee wood shape and some Ranger Perfect Pearls spray (which doesn't show in the picture, but added a nice shimmer to the background paper).

The remaining layouts are from a crop I went to in February, but have never gotten around to photographing and posting.  So here they are now:

These are some pictures from one of our treks this Christmas in Mexico- repelling into a cenote!  I think I used MME paper and trims, Glitz designs ephemera, Jillybean Soup letter, and Zva bling.  Oh! And some super old Making Memories metal letters. 'Life is a verb'! Oh yeah!

 This layout uses K & Co papers, Harmonie, American Crafts and Prima letters, Heidi Swapp chipboard, fontwerks stickers, and a beautiful crocheted flower made by my friend Carla.  This layout was published in Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine in the summer 2011 issue. How cute was I?

 This layout uses Glitz Designs and The Girl's Paperie papers, Zva bling, Best Creations covered cork embellies, and letters from Basic Grey, Pink Paislee, Sassafrass, Heidi Swapp, Rose Moka and Girl's Paperie. This is one of my favourite layouts ev-ah!  Even had to do the trendy banner thing:0) Mark took this awesome picture of me!

And this layout uses Cosmo Cricket papers and chipboard, Basic Grey letters and bling, Magenta stickers, Prima Bling and trim, Glitz Designs ephemera.  When I got home from the crop Mark informed me that my aunt and uncle did not dance to Randy Travis' song, but rather an Anne Murray song.  Well, they could have danced to 'Forever and Ever' and because I believed it to be so, I got to use that rockin' ampersand from Basic Grey!

Thanks for looking!

A lesson and a few cats' lives!

To those of you with perfect children, I have a confession.  Mine is not perfect.  She negotiates everything.  She doesn't want to do her chores. She is perplexed by the subtleties of friendships and can be a force to reckon with.  She has many talents and lots of potential and has yet to find that thing that grabs her so passionately that she is driven to understand nuances and give more than surface effort to it. She rarely listens the first time she is told something and frequently will go ahead and do what she's been asked not to just for the experience of it all.  It is the last that brings us to 'the lesson'.

On Friday, she had the notion to tie a skipping rope around her cat.  Not sure why but I am guessing that she wanted to walk the cat.  This was not her first attempt at tying a rope to the cat.  She has been caught many times before and warned not to do this.  She has probably been hearing this rule for at least 4 years.  What can I say?  I give her bonus points for perseverance and determination...

Back to Friday.  Cat with skipping rope tied around it's middle.  Cat escapes and heads for the hills, presumably fearing for it's life.  A sweep of the neighbourhood turns up nothing.  

Saturday morning came, but the cat did not.  Avery doesn't mention the cat, yet seems off all day.  Edgy, clingy, unfocused.  A full day ensues, adventures happen, but not a word from her.  After supper I went out and searched farther afield for the cat, scouring the nearby golf course and adjoining streets with no luck.  Bedtime came and although she was obviously tired she had trouble settling down and getting to sleep.  After a series of requested cuddles and other delay tactics, she finally fell asleep- for about an hour.  She woke up confused, crying, and certain that she had not fallen asleep and that she wouldn't ever sleep again. We sat her down and asked what was going on.  She finally sobbed, "I guess I am feeling guilty."  We comforted her and then made a plan for what we could do to find the cat in the morning.  She went off to bed, this time to a better sleep.

By this time, I was really starting to worry about the cat, hoping that she had freed herself from the rope and was sulking somewhere near.  But more than that, I was worried for Avery.  While I was glad to see her dealing with her mistake honestly and truly working to make things right I was afraid that the lesson would go too far.  I didn't want a serious injury or even Nina's death on her conscience either.  Although we've explained all the reasons tying up a cat is a bad idea, her limited life experience prevents her from truly understanding the consequences. My heart hurt.

Sunday morning Avery started on a poster as soon as she got out of bed.  Before posting them around the neighbourhood, we planned to do some more walking around looking for Nina and hoping to find an abandoned skipping rope.  We walked for a couple of hours along the far side of the golf course where there is less development and more mice.  No luck.  Returned home for water and to regroup, more worried than ever.  After a rest, we headed back out to search the area I covered the night before.  Maybe this time...

We got to the end of our street when we heard a frightened yowl and quickly located the source as a large, dense pine tree.  There we found Nina! The rope was wrapped around the lower branches and she was trapped.  We unraveled her and brought her home.  She promptly fell asleep- a deep intense sleep even for a cat.  She was exhausted!!  I don't know if she was trapped in the tree for all this time, but we walked past it several times and she said nothing.  If she hadn't spoken up, we would never have spotted her there, the branches were so thick.

After several hours of sleep, Nina stirred and moved all the way to my lap.  She purred her love and gratitude for an hour and I dared not budge, sitting there in a quiet and rapidly darkening room.  When Avery went to bed, Nina joined her, laying across her legs and purring her forgiveness.  Avery beamed, quivering under the sheets.  "I am shivering with delight!", said she. Nina spent the whole night curled up by Avery's side.  When she woke, she ate and drank and is now perched in a window sill, peacefully surveying the yard.

So.  A lesson learned.  A few lives removed from Nina's collection.  Heartache and celebration.   As my clever and astute friend Kathy put it, "If we could, every one of us would spare our children from all pain. And we would have kids with no compassion, no caring, and no understanding."

My child is a work in progress... and perfect to me.

Registration is Open!

Are you in?

See you there!

Summer... so far!

You know, I would never complain about the holidays that teachers get.  Two months in the summer is amazing.  And even more amazing is the fact that this year I get to holiday along with Mark and Avery!!!  This is the first time that we are all off for the entire summer.  The uncertainty of my position in the fall aside, I am absolutely loving it!!!!  So in a way I feel a bit timid in saying: it is all slipping away too fast!  We are at the halfway mark and I don't know if there is enough time to get it all done!!!!  Last summer we embarked on a crazy reno train that saw a total overhaul of our house.  Kitchen, bathrooms, flooring, fireplace, painting... everything!  In the end there was not enough time and we have been without baseboards and backsplashes for the past year.  Soooo... the great renovation of 2010 has been carried forward to 2011.  Starting with tiling in the bathrooms and kitchens.  We still need to grout and find mirrors:

We took a little break from all that fun and headed out to Kelowna for a week.  We started off with a family reunion.  We enjoyed perfect weather that weekend and had a great time reconnecting with the Beutler branch of Mark's family.  

We took in some winery tours.  The small family owned wineries rocked!  The crowds were somewhere else, the staff at the tasting bars were actually enjoying themselves and the wine was delicious.  Of course we brought home a few bottles of our favourites.

Avery was naturally not all that interested in the wine, but she did love taking photos!  We have reams of her pictures and it was fascinating to see what captured her attention.

 She totally was playing director for this photo:

After the weekend, the weather was not Kelowna's best, but that didn't deter Avery from splashing about.  We were not brave enough to join her in the water, but we did enjoy a lovely bike ride along Lake Okanagan.

We went to downtown Kelowna for a walkabout, which included ice cream at Moolick's and wandering through an art gallery.  One man's laundry pile is another man's art:

The cooler weather was perfect for bike rides and we had a lovely time biking along Mission creek to Mission park where we stopped for a while.

And an evening stroll along the water's edge.  It was so calm and beautiful.

Lucky for us, cherries ripened the day before we were to head home, so we got to harvest our own cherries from Grandma and Grandpa's tree.  We made a backyard party of the day:

On our way back to Alberta we stopped for a few adventures and had fun posting pictures on facebook along the way titled "where in the world are we now?"  Just to change things up we took a new route home through the Icefield's parkway and the cowboy trail:

We have spent the last few weeks at home with Avery in swim lessons and us busy putting up baseboards and capping on the stairs.  You know, baseboards are a slow-moving pain to install but they sure do make a difference!  The stairs are starting to look like real stairs again!!  And I have to say how proud we are of Avery.  Although she loves swimming and playing in the water, she very much wants it to be on her own terms.  She does not like putting her face in the water, freaks out when she can't feel the bottom and is very tense about floating etc and so usually needs a few takes to make it through a level.  Something blossomed this time around, and she made it through on one try.  Her excitement over her progress made my heart sing. Summer is abundant here.  Life is a happy hum!

What's B E T T E R than a long weekend?

The Tuesday after, of course!  I've been waiting for registration day oh-so-patiently (not!) and on Tuesday 9 am MST it will be here!!!!

Registration for what?  The Great Canadian Scrapbook Carnivals of course! We are so excited about our new venues, great classes and packed marketplace!!!!  What could be better than all your favourite scrappy things in one place???  Calgary's carnival is September 23-24, 2011 and Edmonton's is October 1-2, 2011. Have your registration finger ready, because the crops sell out within the hour, and many of the classes do as well.  The place you need to go for more info and to register is right here: The Great Canadian Scrapbook Carnival

Brought to you by:

And on a final note:

What could make a long weekend better? Knowing that there is a scrappy sale going on!  My favourite online store, Scrapbooking Fanatics, is making room for the incoming goodness from CHA and is doing it with style!

Here is what the sale is about:

Check out the following discounts!

20% on adhesive

30% on albums, mini albums & magazines

25% on all* other items!!

*sales exclude previously discounted items, special orders and die cut machines

The sale will be from July 29, 2011 until midnight, August 2, 2011.

When shopping online, discounts will be taken after check out. You will be notified of your adjusted total.Items shown on the website are not guaranteed to be in stock & available.

I bring you good news, no? Have a safe and happy long weekend everyone!

Happiness for EVERY Wednesday!

This lovely prize pack from Graphic 45 and Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine could be yours!!!  Just head on over to Canadian Scrapbooker's facebook page, scroll down to the post announcing this prize package and add your comment... it's that easy!  You have until this Friday to enter. Hooray for "WHY NOT WIN WEDNESDAY"!!!!!

HOW can she be 8?????

Turning 8 and finished with second grade.... hard for this Mom to wrap her head around.  Funny how the passage of time unravels your memory.  All the day-to-day Avery-ness evolves so slowly that it seems hard to remember her any other way than how she is right now.  I catch my breath sometimes and wonder 'When did that happen?' 'When did that change?'  I miss reading bedtime stories to her; she wants to read them to herself.  I embarrass her when I forget myself and use nicknames from further back in her childhood, like "Baby Bear".  She will tolerate "Bear", for now.  She is a perplexing mix of noise and shyness, especially when she first meets someone.  She loves to put on a show, but is uncomfortable with being the centre of attention unexpectedly.  She feels things very deeply, but rarely says a word about what troubles her.  When she finally does, it comes racing out willy nilly.  Sometimes she wants help to deal with her troubles, sometimes she just wants to be heard and it is always a trick for this momma to figure out in an instant which one it is this time. She is deeply loyal and has a hard time when friendships change.  She is bright, but likes to rush through her work and sacrifice attention to detail and neatness for speed.  She is amazing. 

Her face and body have changed so much this past year with the introduction of glasses, ever changing gaps and she has become taller, leaner and elbowier.  I love that she loves how she is changing, that awkward phases just mean she is growing up. I habitually find little photos and videos like this on the computer and they always make me smile!  There are dozens of them; she plays with different effects, conscripts all her friends into her productions and has some very lovely ongoing stories.

What a difference a year makes!  This is Avery on her 7th birthday:

And this is Avery now:

I will shed a tear on Wednesday when she is officially 8.  It all goes too fast.