Another Scraptacular Item!

This frame duo is the class project I worked on at Scraptacular earlier this year and I finally finished it up yesterday and today! Glad I had some pictures to put on it!!!! It's two 8x8 canvases but one is done up backwards so it makes a shadowbox! LOVE IT! Was decorated with Penny Lane papers from My Mind's Eye. I know the picture is small, but I'd imagine if you click on it, it will enlarge for a closer look!

Hello Hello Hello!

Hello everyone!!

I have not fallen off the face of the Earth as it may have appeared! I just looked back and saw that I haven't posted since March 28th so it's been 6 months!! Yowch! In all honesty though, not a whole lot has happened in those six months other than that we went camping a bit through the summer in our new trailer and my belly kept growing LOL

On August 28 at 5:49pm we welcomed Griffin Bentlee Ashmore into our family. He weighed 7 lbs 12 oz and was 21.25 inches long.

He's fit himself into our family unit perfectly and Trevin just loves being a big brother. He's always concerned if Griffin is crying or not in his sight. He's continually asking "Where's baby?" or "Uh oh, baby!"

Scrapbooking for me hasn't been too eventful over the past 6 months either. I organized my space after returning from Scraptacular, got unmotivated, FarmTown took over my evenings and it turned into a junk room space pretty much for the last while. I've finally gotten it cleaned up again in the past couple months but have totally forgotten what I have for supplies! Not good! LOL So, needless to say, I need to take an hour or two and sit down, look at all my stamp sets again, at everything on my clip it up and see what the heck is in all the drawers! I did make a few simple thank you cards recently and it was weird just getting out my ink pads and stamps again. Almost felt foreign! EEK! So, can't have that happen again any time soon! haha Yesterday I also made that Griffin name frame from above with his birth stats. Trevin has a picture with that information too in his bedroom, so I decided I'd better get the ball rolling and get working on some Griffin projects too! It's bad enough I don't have the camera out as much!

In August I shared that I had actually made a project and couldn't share it at that time because I'd already put Griffin's name on it and he hadn't been born yet. This was the project. Simple, but pretty I think. I just love ultrasound pics!

My sister took this picture last night at the baby shower she had for us. I loved it and am so grateful for it. I am just appalled and disappointed though that people tell you they are coming to a function/get together (whatever it may be) and then they don't bother to show up. We had more than a few like that at a couple parties I've been involved with recently and it's so sad and hard not to take it personally. I remember one time my mom saying that she and my dad had decided to throw a New Year's Get Together and invited all these people they knew (each of whom said they were attending) and come the day, only one couple came around 10pm that night after they'd been at another function. My mom was devastated, especially after planning, and prepping food and the getting the house ready. I have this funny feeling that part of that is why I don't enjoy or even want to have functions at my house, just in case no one comes! LOL

So in a nutshell, we've just been settling in with baby here at home and I've been working (doing my Avon business) and things are going well. I'm not all too excited about winter coming early this year though. How blech! I don't even have winter boots for Trevin yet! So I can't even take him out in the yard to play in the snow while there's a small amount on the ground LOL I guess it's time to make the best of it!

Scraptacular Stuff...FINALLY!

All right, here's my pathetic amount of projects I worked on (minus the couple layouts I had already started that were super old and minus the home decor project I did because technically I haven't finished it yet. Must get pictures for it! So I'll post that when I'm done.)

This is the mini star chipboard album that was a challenge. The challenge was to cover each star with something, whether it be paper, embellishments etc, and this is what I did. I haven't included pictures of all the pages, but you get the gist of what I was getting at. Also, I may go back later and embellish some more, but I just wanted to get it done and not waste my whole Saturday on it when I had other projects to work on :)

Other pages include:

Trevor Linden (my hockey hero)

Jonathan Knight (my celebrity crush)

McDonalds (fave fast food)

Ferrero Rocher (yummy chocolates)

Rooster (I love chickens)

Louis Vuitton Speedy 25 handbag (I own one!!!)

(The little album bit worked out good because I had the pictures already printed out in wallet size because I needed them for a class I thought I'd signed up for at Scraptacular LAST year and it turns out I hadn't LOL)

Oh! I must mention that someone at the crop did their little album in black and red and it was dedicated to Twilight and I tell you, it was GORGEOUS!!!!! Like seriously, if I was a thief, she never would have seen her project again. LOL It was positively beeeee-ooooootiful! I kind of wish I'd been ball-sy enough to ask if I could snap some pics of it.

And now, onto layouts...

You had me at Hello

(movie title challenge)

Trevin & Beth last summer

(he was so smitten with her)

'Nuff said...LOL

(yes I realize that the 'H' is crooked in the pic,

it wasn't that sticky and moved when I tried to take the pic)

In the pool with Daddy last summer

Trevin from last summer

Inspired by SJ from SJ - Little Musings

(I just LOVE her blog and scrappy creations!)

So there you have it, some of my stuff. Hope those of you who were waiting anxiously and tapping fingers are happy! LOL

Not too much going on around here. I did convince Zane to take a trip to Edmonton yesterday and it was fun! I think we've found the RV we'll end up getting but I won't post about it until the deal actually happens LOL We also hit IKEA and Motherhood Maternity. I really wanted a few different tops for this time around. The Brick was our first stop this morning and we left there with a new couch for the basement (ours sucks haha) as well as a new bed and flatscreen tv. I'm pretty psyched!! Talk about spoiled!!! Now hopefully my hubby is true to his word in that he may paint downstairs during Easter weekend :) Then all we'll need to do is fix the 'carpet issue' which I won't go in to on here and our basement will finally be 'normal'. To sum things up, the people who lived here before us had some WEIRD decorating ideas.

Well, Flames are on again and I'm thinking of maybe working on some more projects while hubby is attached to the tube. I really want to make a mini album of my NKOTB concert pics and I finally found a chipboard album to use that might work...AND I finally have some papers where I have multiple papers that match (thank you Stampin' Up LOL) At least I'm hoping those papers will work. I think they'll be cute though because they have cherries on them, and some have skulls and they're in cool colors. Guess we'll see!!!

Thanks for checking in!

I'm alive!! No worries! LOL

I see that there's been some concern over my 'lack thereof' presence on here by a few people so I'm checking in quickly to say hello and say that I really have no excuse other than that I'm so freakin' tired all the time. This baby is wearing me out already and I'm only 14 weeks! But on a high note, I'm starting to feel movement already and that's just crazy! I was 18 weeks when I noticed with Trevin so this is definitely a nice change!

So it was girlie weekend last weekend and I went to Scraptacular in Cold Lake with my sister and friend Nicole. It was such a good time!! Tiring, but worth it!!! The theme this year was Movie Premiere/Hollywood, so were were asked to dress for the Red Carpet on Friday night. It was cool because as we loaded our stuff in, there was a red carpet laid down on the floor and a lady was there snapping pictures, kind of like the paparazzi. I just thought it was kind of sad that she took the pictures while we still had our coats on and were hauling in all our bags etc. But fun none the less!

We scrapped until 1am each night and were done in the afternoon on Sunday. I didn't get as much done as I wanted to, but was so happy for finishing a small chipboard album with pictures of things I like in it. The canvas class we took was awesome too, but I didn't finish my project yet because I don't have appropriate pictures yet. So I'm going to be playing shutterbug here to try to get something that will work in it. Andrea Beaumont is awesome though! She comes up with some beautiful items! She's the one who taught the canvas class I took last year too.

Unfortunately it snowed all weekend so it made for some questionable roads for Sunday's drive home, so we all decided to spend another night and just get some sleep because we were so tired! It was good to sleep in and then take our time driving home.

The view from my table when we first got there. There were 85 croppers in total!

Door prize table (WOWZERS!)

ANOTHER door prize table!

Me the first night with a layout I was working on

Nicole is a Happy Scrapper!

My sis is just a little bit excited about starting her canvas project!

Our friends Keri & Melissa who we met the first year. Because we stayed the extra night we were able to have dinner with them and it was great! I think they each did around 30 pages during the weekend...really puts me to shame! LOL

Well I'm off to unload my stuff and hopefully get some pictures taken of the layouts etc that I did manage to do while we were there. Unfortunately, the vendor show took up a LOT of time because all I wanted to do was shop (and I wasn't alone in this venture either haha). Off to put the third tier on my clip it up!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day has never really been a big deal to me in the past and that definitely hasn't changed this year either LOL I guess maybe I think that it should be Valentine's Day 365 days a year, rather than just 1 day that we single out to show our "love" for someone in our life. I spent the day with Trevin, as Zane was working. We shared eggs and toast for breakfast and then just hung out together until he decided to have a short nap before lunch. Then we headed over to my folks, who fed us lunch and then I left my boy behind.

Yup, I went home and hung out while a furnace/duct cleaning company came and did some much needed cleaning! I would guess it hadn't been done since the house was built in 1996. I've neglected cleaning this past week because I knew they were going to be blowing some dust around and now I'm actually kind of excited to clean! (Yeah, that's strange for me! LOL) It'll be nice to see if things get as dusty now as they were before. It was getting ridiculous how much dust would appear in a week!

Zane treated us to Pizza Delight for supper from Whitecourt and it was yummy! I just love their cheese sticks! I'd have to say they're the best cheesy sticks I've had in awhile! And after Trevin went to bed, we've been hanging out. He watched his beloved Flames play Phoenix and I decided to buckle down and get creative and this is what I came up with... (and it got me using up those pesky super small glue dots I've been wanting to get rid of for awhile now! heehee)

I got the idea for a button heart from a layout I saw in the one scrappy store I was in in Grande Prairie yesterday. My boy just makes my heart melt when he's sleeping. I wish I'd written on the photo how old he was in the picture...it was definitely a while ago now. By the flower it looks like there is a blank spot, but it's actually a clear button with white coloring on it. I'm not sure if this thing will let you enlarge the picture or not. I'm not talented enough to scan my layout 1/2 and 1/2 type thing and then stitch it, so how the heck do I take a straight picture??? Any suggestions?

So yeah, as I was saying, I headed to GP yesterday and hung out with my best pal Ang (we've known eachother since junior high!) and it was nice to see her. I'm so very happy that she and her family live only a couple of hours away now, instead of 8!! I also got our DVD player installed in our Yukon while I was there and wow, it's awesome! I have no idea how you're supposed to drive safely when it's on though...the dang thing blocks practically the whole back window when it's down! Guess that's what I get for choosing the 12 inch screen...Wasn't thinking that it would be as wide as a LAYOUT when it's down haha

YUMMMMY!

WOW! Would you check out all this scrappy stuff!! Over at Gauche Alchemy they are giving away all of these goodies..and yes, for free! All you have to do is leave a comment on their page and if you want, link your blog back to theirs for another chance to win!! How easy is that??

Can you believe that there were so many goodies that they're layered on top of eachother! And some didn't even fit on the table for the camera shot! CRAZY!

And for more excitement, their February kit will be revealed on Monday, February the 9th! Can't wait to see it!!

Yay! I got productive!!!

So, the Flames were on last night and my hubby was watching and I was super bored of the computer, so I thought I'd see if I could find some 'inner oomph' and get scrappy!

I managed to get a layout done believe it or not!!! It was simple, but I like how it turned out! And I personally love this picture of Trevin from last summer. Paper is UrbanLily. It's hard to see, but I added some crystal effects type glue on the pink flowers so that they're shiny and I also added a couple of diamond blingie things to their centres. I paper pierced the swirls of the vines and I like how it looks too!

This next project was something I worked on at ScrappyNite a couple of weeks back. I really wanted to work on the ATC's for the celeb swap I'm in, but there hasn't been a cutoff date yet for signups, so I'd have no clue how many to make! I've had this Elsie paper for awhile and wasn't sure how to use it, so I figured I'd use it to make an Art Journal so to speak. I think what I'm going to go is put random sketches etc in it for inspiration because I really struggle sometimes when it comes to putting a layout together.

I'm excited to share that we got a new vehicle finally! We got a 2009 Yukon SLT 4WD and I personally love it! It has light titanium interior (a.k.a. light grey LOL) and I think it's so cool! Lots of neat little gadgets! Now to find a trailer that works for us that this thing can pull LOL

I will share that getting her home was awful! Right when we finished the paperwork in Grande Prairie a storm came up and it was ridiculously windy and raining sleet stuff! Then it started to snow as well and was getting colder. I was following Zane on the highway and freaking out the whole way! But can you blame me? This was the first time I'd driven on the highway as the driver since the accident and of course, I was terrified that the highway was going to by icy! The wind didn't help either, cuz it kept making things feel like the back wheels were slipping or swaying. I made Zane stop in Valleyview for a break and I cried just to get out my anxiety and he reassured me that the highway wasn't frozen and we'd take our time and be fine. I followed and we were fine, but I was still super scared, considering we passed a couple people in the ditch. I just wanted to get home to our boy, who was staying with Zane's folks for the day while we were gone.

So needless to say, when it comes to travel, I totally want to take off somewhere, but I'm so leary of the weather all the time now! And it's so hard to see people I know going here and there all the time. And yet, they come home okay with no problems and then I feel silly for worrying. But who knows, maybe things could have been so different on the way home that day in December...must move on and I'm glad that at least I had to drive in yucky weather so I could start to get over my phobia.

I was tagged!

And yeah, I'm going to be a spoil sport and not tag anyone because in all truthfulness, I'm pretty sure the people that I'll tag have already done this LOL

I was supposed to pick the 6th picture folder and then the 6th picture inside of it, BUT in my 6th folder there was only 2 pictures, therefore I chose the 7th folder and the 6th picture...so here's the pic...

These are my friends Amber (L) and Kim (R) at Christmas Chaos here in Fox Creek. It's where local businesses can go for the weekend and advertise their goods. Kim was doing Word to the Wall at the time and this was her table with some of her goods. Always one for a laugh or antics, you may notice the obscene gesture she's making. And Amber, well she's cute as always :) My table for Avon was beside them. It was a busy and fun weekend in November 2008!

Cuter than a button!

http://tovadarling.blogspot.com/2009/01/cuter-than-button.html - You definitely have to check out this blog! The gal makes jewelry pendants out of buttons! She's obsessed from what I read and some of her goods are pretty cool! I personally really like Pendants 2 & 3 from her choices of the prize! If you want to win one, all you have to do is leave her a comment and voila, you're entered! But if you want more chances, link her blog to yours (like I'm doing now) and then leave her ANOTHER comment letting her know that you did so :) Make sense? Clear as mud? Better be! LOL Now go, GO and enter already! What are you waiting for???

A couple of projects

Just thought I would pop in to share a couple of projects I've worked on recently...Ok, I'm lying, only one of them (the first one) is the one I did recently, and it was night before last LOL The second layout I did sometime last fall and was just too lazy to take a picture of it (I know! How pathetic!!!)

Still lovin' the Cosmo Cricket papers that I got earlier last year. I had a hard time finding the right papers for these pics of Trevin from last June when he was 9 months old (where has my baby gone????) I think these papers worked. I'm so un-mojo'd lately though and I still am doubting my abilities for some reason. I look at everything I've worked on and nothing seems completed to me. Oh well, I'll probably always be that way. Just like if I got skinny, I'd probably still think that I was fat LOL

This other layout I decided to skip a title. Just couldn't decide on something appropriate and the rub on quote I used basically summed up what I was trying to say anyway.

~You don't choose your family, they are God's gift to you, as you are to them~

We're heading off to Grande Prairie tomorrow, possibly overnight too! It'll be nice to hit Costco and to see my friend who moved up that way recently. It's so nice that we're closer now and I can't wait until nicer weather because I'm sure she and I will be visiting lots! I also can't wait to go camping with her family this summer! We're going to do some vehicle snooping while were in the city as well. Not 100% positive on what we're getting, but I'm really leaning towards an SUV like the Yukon. Sure it won't pull our beast of a trailer but we'll figure out something LOL

Anyhoo, I'm off and running again, gotta get a few things packed because kiddo is having a sleepover at his grandma's and she wants his snowpants!

Already a week into the New Year!

Starting to feel better now. Had a sinus cold/infection through the last week of Christmas and the rest of the family had it too. Lucky us!! Thankfully it has pretty much passed and we're all getting back to normal. It's amazing how many people were sick over the Holidays! I'm so thankful as well that we didn't get the stomach flu that so many seemed to have! I probably just jinxed us by writing that (knock on wood LOL)!

Took all the Christmas decorations etc down on the 2nd and it's amazing how empty the house appears after (even though it looks like it did the other 11 months of the year LOL). Was so happy this year that we bought a few new items for our home though to help with decorating, like garland to wrap around the banisters and that awesome 5 foot stuffed snowman for the living room! He fit in so nicely!!!

Isn't he the cutest???? I just want to give him a cuddle! A lady in the store where I bought him said that he'd be the best boyfriend to have because he'd melt in the spring LOL He's easy to store as well, because his legs unattach from his body! This year was great too because we had a big tree up again and the kitties weren't too much of a bother like they usually are. Kaspyr managed to get in it a few times, but a few shots of the water gun and she was off like a rocket haha

We were spoiled as always! I got the new Blackberry Storm Smartphone and I'm so excited about it! In all truthfullness, it's probably more than what I need considering that my cell phone rings once in a blue moon, BUT I've decided to make it my Avon phone (business expense then haha) and I've already changed my stamps to reflect this number for when I put my information on my brochures. So hopefully I'll get a few more calls on it now! LOL I won't share all the details of my phone, but it's pretty cool (Even though it took me forever to figure out how to get a ringtone on the damn thing! That's how I spent ScrapNite with the ladies...yup, a chance to scrap and I ended up spending 2 1/2 hours trying to figure out how to get a ringtone LOL)

As far as new projects go, I'm thinking I've lost my mojo a bit...I've sat down a few times to work on a project or two and I look at my stash and it's almost like I've forgotten what to do with it! I even have a layout on my table right now, partially started, but I have no clue what picture to use, or how to finish it! I really wish my creativity would creep back, because I have SO many pictures I want to scrap!

Sign up was today for Scraptacular 3 in Cold Lake and we're going again! I've decided this year to only take 1 class and I'm going to really crack down and work on some things this time! I'm going to sit down here at home and pick which papers I'd like to use for certain pictures etc and get items together for it that I think might work with the layout. Then I won't spend 20 mins each time trying to search for papers etc while I'm there. I found the past couple years I didn't get much done because I was always stuck (so to speak) on what to do. And they always have challenges etc too, and you only get an hour to complete them, so that eats up part of your day if you participate in those occasionally!

Wasn't too impressed that our water heater decided to finally crap out yesterday. We knew it was going to happen sooner or later, but...well you know how it goes. So we have some wet carpet downstairs, but nothing terribly serious and my hubby headed out yesterday and bought one that is even bigger than the one we have now! So yay! We can shower and take our time without worrying about running out of hot water!!! Zane's folks came over last night and his dad helped him install it. They finally gave up just before midnight because they'd lost an important o-ring somehow, therefore they couldn't finish the job. They're going to work on it after work today. So I have cold water, but no hot water today. Thank goodness I have electricity to boil some water LOL

If you've read my previous blog comments you'll see there's a recipe from Glenda for Apricot Chicken and we tried it night before last. YUMMMO! I would definitely suggest giving this recipe a try! Zane turned up his nose and made a face when I told him what I was going to be cooking but after supper he told me that it was really good. And he isn't a free-giver of compliments type person, therefore, he meant it! LOL

I'm so looking forward to some nicer weather to head this way! We have basically been in the minus 20C (or worse) range since the first week of December. Sure, there have been a couple days where the temperature came closer to zero but that doesn't make up for the fact that it got to minus 3 degrees Celsius one day and by the next morning it was minus 25 degrees. CRAPPY! We tried to take Trevin out in the snow a couple times when it was somewhat warmer, but the first time didn't go so well because our neighbor showed up with a backhoe to clean off his driveway and sidewalks. It had also gotten windy so it was colder than it had been at lunchtime. Trevin was too impressed and didn't want to have Daddy let him go. He kept starting to cry whenever Zane tried!

The next day went a bit better though. He seemed to enjoy sitting on the snowbank and spreading snow around with his mitt and smearing the snow onto his snowpants. I tried to get some nice pictures of him, but I just have no freakin' clue what I'm doing I think because when I look at the pictures afterwards, they just suck LOL I'll share a few of the better ones...

He wasn't too impressed when Daddy tried to lay him back to make a snow angel (well at least the wing part LOL)