Celebrate

Hello!

This card was CASE'd from a card in a magazine. My friend Jenn gave me this paper because the flip side had music notes on it, and I used that side to make a Christmas card, which you will see later...

The sparkle brad on this card, is actually a Stampin' Up brad from the antique brad collection they sell. I stuck the rhinestones on it, not sure if they would look ok, but it turned out similar enough to the one on the card that I was CASE-ing, so I kept them on.

The ribbon on the original was this gorgeous black, shiny satin ribbon that was double the width-very elegant. Unfortunately, this was all I could find. But overall, I like how the card turned out.

This was a card that I made while at Jactopia. My friend Jacqui lives in a farmhouse, complete with barn and garage. The garage has three little kitten inhabitants who are absolutely adorable! As soon as you pull up in the driveway, they are right there, greeting you when you get out of the car, rubbing your legs and purring. They are sooo affectionate and adorable, they are irresistible. I don't have any pets because my girls have allergies, so I was holding on to one of the kittens every moment that I could. I told Jacqui that if one of the kitties jumped into my car, and I didn't realize until I had started driving away, that I would just have to continue on my way and take it home with me! ;) Jacqui said I could certainly take one or more! Oh the temptation! Unfortunately, I didn't discover any stow-aways in the car on the way home...I guess I'll have to go back to Jacqui's and try again! LOL

Have a great day, and if you have a pet, give it a hug for me! ;)

Donna

A Week Late...

...and a Snickers bar short?

Ok, so clearly, I have to get back into the routine of blogging, but last week went by super fast! Sorry this is a week late, but I am going to post again today, just to apologize. Will that make it alright? :)

So these are the little lunchbox love notes I made for my girls for Hallowe'en. I'd been trying to get my mojo back, so I thought making 3" x 3" cards would help kick start things. Turns out I was right about the kick start. I got that, but I didn't get creative past that! LOL Still working on that mojo thing...

Ok, so I'm off to find the next card to post.

See you soon!

Donna

Hello!

Hello! I am back! I would like to thank you for your patience with me. I hope to post lots of great stampin' projects and cards to reward your patience. :)

As you know, this past weekend, I was at Jactopia. It was a great weekend! Jenn, my friend from B.C. was there. It was so nice to finally get to see her again. We all miss her lots, so her visits are very special to us. And this year, she just happened to visit during Jactopia, so it was like old times!

It was nice to see everyone (Jacqui of course!, Vicki, Tami, Kim, Andrea, Sheila) and to be surrounded by so many wonderfully creative minds. I think some of that creativity was soaked up by me, so hopefully that was the cure for my lost mojo. I did manage to create some cards, but I didn't pack very well (I packed in a rush. Bad Donna.) so I wasn't able to do some things that I wanted to. But I did manage to make do and come up with a few cards that I can actually show to people. lol

Today's card is not one I created, but one that was given to me by Jenn. Isn't it gorgeous? I know, right? You can't see it from here, but the paper is shimmery, so it looks even better in real life.

Below is a close-up of the card, highlighting the cute pin (what do you call it? A hat pin?) that she placed in the knot of the ribbon. Jenn knows I love my sparkles! ;)

I didn't realize until I returned home and pulled it out of the clear envelope for the picture, that Jenn had written in it! I should always check, even if it's a card made by a card maker. Silly me. lol

I would love to post pictures of the weekend, but unfortunately, since I packed in a rush, I forgot my camera. I'm hoping that someone will send me pictures of the weekend so I can post them here.

On Monday, I will post a couple of Hallowe'en Lunchbox Love Notes that I made for my girls. After that I will start to post Christmas cards. I like to take my holidays one at a time. I wish the stores would do that too, don't you? I don't need to see Christmas lights and ornaments as I choose my Hallowe'en candy. lol Oops, did I say my Hallowe'en candy? I meant candy for the trick-or-treaters. Freudian slip there. Yes, I do get into it sometimes. That's why I usually give the candy to my mother-in-law until Hallowe'en. This year I didn't, and guess what happened? Yep. Gotta go get some more....lol I really have to stop buying candy that I like to eat.

Have a great weekend, and stay out of that Hallowe'en candy! ;)

Donna

Jactopia is almost here!! Jactopia is almost here!!

Ok, so I have been away for over a year, posting sparingly, eagerly awaiting the day when I would be free to stamp to my heart's content, and not worry about having to study or finish an assignment. But after school was done, I had my licensing exam to write, so I had to study for that.

Well, I wrote that exam on Tuesday, and now I am finally free!! I'm FREEEEEEEEEE!!! I will finally, fin-al-ly have time to get back to stamping again! Yay me!

To help me get my mojo going, my friend Jacqui, has chosen this weekend to host Jactopia (such good timing!). I can hardly wait for it to come for several reasons:

1. I get to stamp with my stampin' girls all day and all night! We will catch up, share some laughs, and inspire one another creatively, which I really, really, need right now! (both the laughs and the inspiration.)

2. It's an overnighter (or two), so there is lots of time to get a lot of stamping done!

3. I get to get my bake on! Woo hoooo! I want to do some baking for this thing. I haven't done much baking in the last year. Hellooooo chocolate! lol

4. Vicki will be here from Kingston! I didn't get to go to her place this spring because I had a huge assignment due shortly after, and as a result, I was a very pouty girl. I really hated school that weekend. As it turned out, I missed out on a little adventure that Jacqui and Kim had when they made a wrong turn and ended up on the wrong side of the tracks in T.O. LOL I'm sure I missed out on a lot more, but my friends were kind and didn't say just how much fun they had. I think they could hear the pout in my voice! lol

5. I am hoping I will get to see Tami again-it has been way too long. We have so much to catch up on, it's ridiculous. I can hardly wait to see her!

6. I get to spend time with Kim again-we've tried to get together to stamp but it just hasn't been working out. Finally, we will be stamping together! lol

7. Our hostess, Jacqui-truly one of the funniest, kindest people I know, and I can hardly wait to spend some serious stampin' time with her! (and laughing with her!)

8. Jenn will be here from B.C. !! Oh my gosh, I am so exicted to get to see her again! I hope her hubby is prepared for her to not come back-we may not let her go once we get her! lol I've missed her a lot and can hardly wait to see her again!

So there you have it-so much for me to look forward to, I can hardly stand the wait! But in just over 24 hours, I will be getting ready to go and see my girls! Have I told you yet how excited I am? ;)

So on Monday, this blog should have some fresh life breathed into it. I am looking forward to getting some stampin' done and to show you what I accomplished this weekend!

I hope you have a weekend as great as mine!

Donna

Have You Seen My Mojo?

Hello! I can't believe today is the last day of summer already...wow it went by fast, didn't it? My girls are not looking forward to going back to school at all. In fact, we aren't allowed to say the "S" word around here. I can't tell you how happy I am that I do not have to return to school tomorrow. (thank goodness!) One year was enough. Sooo glad that's over!

I have been having a hard time getting my stamping mojo back. Fortunately, I do better with a challenge, and one came along. My oldest daughter, Kaitlyn, was turning 12 a couple of weeks ago, and wanted tags for her goody bags. Since the theme for the birthday party was "Makeover Madness," we had to create something very girly. The paper for these was from a new block of designer paper I had purchased earlier in the summer, and I used SU's felt flowers and sparkle brads and ribbon. Kait helped me create these, which made for some nice bonding time. I'll turn her into a stamper yet!

Have a great week!

Donna

I'm Free!!!

Wow! I can't believe the day has finally arrived when I am finished with school! Just last week, it seemed like this day would never come, that it seemed so far away, even then. It has been a long, tough, and very stressful year. I am very happy that it's done, and excited for what lies ahead!

Yesterday, I took the girls and my mom out for lunch and a bit of shopping. It was such a great feeling to be able to spend an entire day with them and not have to worry about how much homework I had to do once I got home. I suspect it will take a while before I get used to not having homework or studying to do.

I found these beautiful flowers waiting for me when I got home. They are so gorgeous! I am truly fortunate to have a husband and girls who supported me during the time I was at school.

I also know how lucky I am to have stamping friends who have been patiently waiting for me to finish and to get back to stamping! I am so looking forward to seeing them again, and catching up on the past year! I can hardly wait!

I am not sure when I'll start stamping, but it will be soon. Hopefully my creative mojo will be ready to go too-I feel like I'm out of practice a bit, but with such creative geniuses as friends, I'm sure it won't be long before it's up and running!

And finally, thanks to you, too, for being patient, checking in on me, and waiting for the day I came back. Thank you so much! I hope the wait will be worth it, and that I'll soon have a lot of creative ideas for you to look at! I look forward to hearing from you and getting back into my stamping groove!

Have a great day! I know I will-it's homework-free! :)

Donna

4 More Days!!

I can't believe it, but there are only 4 more days, and then I'll be done school! 4!! Woo hoo! It will be nice to have no more homework at night-I'll be able to spend time with my girls, and my honey, and I might even be able to watch tv! I'll be living large! LOL
And, of course, I will be able to sit at my stamping table again! Oh yeah! My stamps have been calling me for a long, long time now. I can hardly wait to sit down and create something again. It will have to wait until after some quality family time, but I will be stamping again soon.
I'll be back soon!
Donna

I'm still here!

But I'm really wishing I were here (St. Thomas, BVI). Isn't it gorgeous! I love St. Thomas, and not just because of the awesome shopping there. Although, St. Thomas is where I fell in love with jewelry. Ah, a story for another day!

I was fortunate enough to be in St. Thomas this past March with my family. The girls were very excited to go on their first cruise! I was just happy to get away from school work. I didn't take anything with me, homework-wise. No regrets! It was a fantastic vacation, and I was glad to be able to completely relax. Unlike me these days...

This school thing is becoming more stressful.. We are currently at the end of our third term. This is our last week of class, and next week is supposed to be our exam week. However, since we have 8 finals to write, they've pushed some into this week. So this means we have 4 exams in three days this week, and 4 exams in two days next week. Yuh-huh. You read that right. Stinks to be us. This past week wasn't much better, we had two assignments and three tests in four days. If I didn't know any better, I'd say someone didn't like us... lol

Last weekend I finally got around to cleaning off my stampin table...and it's been sadly calling for me ever since! I would love nothing more than to sit at the table and stamp until I've made up for these past 9 months of not stamping. However, I can't. Not yet. Once this term is over, my friend Kim and I are supposed to get together and stamp, so I am hoping I can make it until then!

Then the next time I can stamp won't be until after July 8th. That's my last day of classes...I can hardly wait! It's only 8 weeks away, but we have a lot of learning, studying and examing to do before then. I'm at the point now where I wish I had the Click remote. Have you seen that movie? It has Adam Sandler in it, who plays this guy who has a remote that he can use for his life. So in one scene, his wife is angry with him for something, and lecturing him and he learns he can hit the mute button. And then he discovers the fast forward button, so he can fast forward through all the boring parts of his life. Well, I wish I could fast forward to July 8th! That would be nice...

Anyway, if you can hang in there for another 8 weeks, I'll be back a little more regularly at that point. I'll try to check in every now and then. Until July, if you happen to find one of those remotes, could you send it to me? My stampin' table is calling and I don't know how much longer I can ignore it.

Have a great week!

Donna

Mini Album Part 8

Hello!

Today we have, I think my favourite of all my pages-the tag page. I must have been struck with some creativity by this point. Either that or I had some tea (or chocolate, I'm not gonna lie) and my brain was awakened and came up with this little gem. On the left is a pocket in which you could put a picture, and another pocket in which you could put either a smaller picture or a little note with some journaling. On the right, of course, is a tag on which you could place a picture and there is just a little bit at the bottom where you could put a date or small phrase.

These pages are neat-the same thing for both pages turned on a different angle. Must have been some chocolate I had. Yup. I think so!

Here again, almost the same thing for both pages, just a slight variation. Not too bad for early, early in the morning, if I say so myself! LOL

Well I guess that's it for now.

Have a great day!

Donna

Mini Album Part 7

Hello! Hope your week is going well so far!

Here is another simple layout using the scrapbooking kit from the fundraiser kit that Stampin Up! had for the Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Simple, but I like it. I could have added some bling here, but thought maybe I shouldn't overdo it. ;)

Now these pages are super simple, but you have to think I did most of these pages in one night, staying up past sunrise to get this book done. So as you can see, the creative juices weren't flowing at this point. LOL But like I said in my last post, sometimes it has to be about the pictures, and not the pages!

These pages seem to indicate that maybe there was a little more creativity going on...the bottom of the left page used a couple of different border die-cut. The right has a little label for some journaling, but again, only one to use.

Normally I wouldn't use pumpkin, but I really liked how it worked for this kit. I do however, love to use olive, and it goes with everything, so it's very easy to work with.

Well, no funny anecdotes for today, so I'll end here. There are just 2 more days' worth of mini album, so I will have to hurry to take pictures of what I've worked on recently! Yikes! :)

Have a great day!

Donna

Mini Album Part 6

Hello and welcome back! I hope everyone had a great weekend! Maybe you even got to squeeze in a little stamping time?

Well, I am back with a few more pictures from the mini album. The first pages above have a little star theme going on...I don't know what you would do with the star page...you could either cut a picture out in a star shape, or even in a small circle to put in the centre of the star and then do a bit of journaling all aroud the star...I guess it's up to a person's imagination. I didn't really have a plan in mind, I just liked the star.

You know when someone says "Ew yuck!" and you turn to look? Well my husband is watching a movie right now (The girl who kicked the hornet's nest) and that is exactly what he just said. Instinctively I looked. Silly me. I just caught a glance of brain surgery-they removed a piece of skull with a hole in it to remove a bullet from the brain. Ew yuck. Why or why did I have to look?? LOL

The pages above are basic, but I loved decorating the center of the paisleys with the bling (I'm all about the sparkle, as you know!). Nothing too fancy, but that's ok, because sometimes it has to be about the picture, not the page, right? At least that's what I keep telling myself, anyway. Works for me! lol

The one page where I brought in a colour (red) not in the kit. I didn't have any buttons to match the other colours, and this page was just begging for another button, so red it was! Another set of pages to highlight the picture! ;)

That's about all for today. Just keep in mind the moral of today's post-if someone says "Ew yuck!" Don't, for the love of your sanity, look in that same direction! It might really be gross!! LOL

See ya soon!

Donna

The Last of the Mini Album!

Here it is! The last few pages of the mini album! So after you've read this post, you will all go out and make albums of your own, right? I've inspired you, right? No? ;)

So as you can see in the pages above, I was starting to really like turning the layout a little for the second page. Easy on the brain, nice to look at.

These pages used up, not the border die-cuts, but the bit in between them. Yuh huh! What was in between them! Neat, eh? I liked the look of the orange and blue, so I stuck it on these pages the same way I did the strips of paper with the buttons that I showed you a couple of posts ago. We paper people are pretty good at making sure we don't waste too much, aren't we?

This is the last page in the book! I used up all my scraps of paper to make sure I had the four triangles behind the blue guy. This page kind of ties it all together--colour-wise that is. Nothing fancy on this page, just a larger piece to mat that perfect, end-of-the-book picture!

This last picture shows the front cover and the back cover. I don't think I've shown both together. I love the design SU made for this. It looks-creative, and interesting.

Well, that is it! No more pages from the mini album to show you, so now I can get back to showing you some cards! Stay tuned!

Have a great day!

Mini Album Part 5

Hello!

Welcome back! I think I've finally figured out how to publish posts in advance, so I'll be able to publish without having to log on to do it! Nice!

Ok, so this instalment of mini album pages, has some interesting pages in it. I like this first one because the two pages are very different, not two halves of one design. I think that sometimes even when you're working on 12"x12" pages, sometimes just starting with one and working on it individually, rather than trying to tackle two at once, is a great way to go when you're creativity isn't flowing. In this case, the frame was only going to fit the one page, and I didn't want to try to make a second one for the other page, only to have it look like I tried, but missed.

This one was one of the simpler ones, with just the cute die-cut word tag added for interest. Simple, but it works!

Here is another example of not wanting to do the same thing for both pages. This way, if you use two pictures in two different styles it will still work. And you can use the page that works best with the colours in the photo. Of course, if you use black and white photos, they all work best!

I didn't mention it yet, but I gave this album to my mom for Christmas. I'm happy to report she seemed to really like it!

That's all for now, but I'll be back soon!

Have a great day!

Donna

Mini Album Part 4

Hello!

Since this is my first post of the 2011, I just want to say Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great holiday filled with family, happiness, and love.

I had a nice Christmas and New Year's, but it went by way too fast. Before I knew it, it was time to head back to school.

I did have a chance to do a bit of stamping in the last few weeks, but before I get to those (I still have to take the pictures), I thought I'd continue with what I started, the mini album.

The layout pictured above was fairly simple, I cut out two squares, and then cut a piece of the die-cut adhesive border from the kit to put on the sides of the squares.

This layout was essentially the same, just with an extra layer, and different colours. And the border was placed at the bottom so it was a little different from the layout before.

This layout was just one of those creative sparks. I don't know where I got this idea from, if it was something I'd seen or if it was just really late, and I was feeling a little creative, but I cut the circle/star die-cut in half for this one. It doesn't loan itself well for a larger, rectangular picture. Maybe something smaller with a bit of journaling either above or below it.

So that's all for today, but I will be typing up the future entries for the rest of the album, so that you will have something to see when you come back later this week. And I will have to work on the more recent cards I put together for when this album is done.

Have a great week!

Donna