All in all, a good weekend!!

Well, I got home yesterday from about 40 hours of scrapbooking and I am wiped!! I had a great weekend and though I set an incredibly lofty goal to complete 45 pages, still managed to have a whole lot of fun and got done 31 in the end. Here's what I created.... :)

Lily's 1st Birthday Party:

I wanted to get back to stamping and keeping things simple on these pages. Besides the white cardstock I used very little paper and think that the simplicity of them is a welcome change from some of the very busy pages I have done.

I had a lot of fun playing with my new Slice (by Making Memories) this weekend. It is a bit finicky, but I really enjoy the end products! I cut out the words 'the' and 'gift' from the Spring cartridge and embellished this page with lots of brads, stamps and (of course) glitter! :)

This was my absolute favorite page of the weekend. It fell together in about 20 minutes and everytime I look at it, I love it more. I think I will put this one into my 12x12 frame that hangs in the livingroom!

I love glitter... And my Slice... And CTMH paper....

I did a lot of single page layouts this weekend (which is kind of unusual for me). I generally create 2 page spreads, but with our lake pics from summer, I decided to use one paper pack (the CTMH Moon Doggie Level 2 Paper) and think that these pages will all work together.

Here are a couple simple LOs with Ryan and Owen. Same color theme, but they turned out different.

As close as we get to a family pic is the camera on the counter set with the self timer. The first one cut off Ryan's head, so he had to slouch, but it works! :) I used lots of different products on this page, but think that the photo is still the focus....

This was the first page I did and I love how it turned out!

This is my least favorite page, but you can't win 'em all.....

What a big boy....I didn't know what to caption these pages as, but since Owen is holding a box of KD, it' his favorite foods page!

Simple. I cut all the flowers on my Slice and used rhinestones to make them pop.

BUSY! These pages were not doing it for me, so I kept adding more and more. In the end, I like them, but holy crap is there a lot to look at on them!!

I bought this paper at Prairie Chicks (in Hague - best store EVER!) on my way and had to use it! So instead of 2 little buddies, or 2 little birdies, it's 2 little burdies (the 'r' is silent)!

This was the only page I got done from Owen's b-day party... There will be many more to come!

Lots of Daddy pages - Loved these pics, loved the pages.... I used the CTMH Heartfelt Whimsy Die Cuts - check 'em out! They are so sweet!

Well, that's all! 31 pages over the weekend - not bad! It wasn't 45, but I am happy with the completed pages. Now, to unpack and get these pages into their albums... That may take a whole weekend!! Talk soon!

Ahhh..... Summer.....

I love summer.... The heat, the sun, the thunderstorms (that have actually been quite rare this year).... But one of my favorite things about summer are the extended hours of daylight. I love looking outside at 10:30pm and it is still somewhat light out....

The only drawback to the extended light is that the kids never really think that it is bedtime!! Which means they go to bed later and I get less and less time to 'play'! So, there really hasn't been a whole lot going on here! I squeeze in time when I can, but actually kin of look forward to fall when I will get to spend a bit more time in 'my room'. :) Especially now that it is more organized...

All it took was a whirlwind trip to Edmonton and Andrea and I had a blast! 7 hours at the West Ed, 4 hours on Whyte Ave, countless times getting lost (!!) and 7 hours at IKEA!! We were only gone for about 40 hours, so it was busy... But SO worth it!

SO, I saw this book at McNally Robinson called 'My Quotable Kid' and thought, what a fantastic idea... But not for $20 some dollars... So, with Andrea's urging, I made my own using a $1.50 notebook from Michael's and some of my favorite stamps and colors. Now every time that Owen or Lily say something adorable (which is often!), we write it down so we don't forget it... :)

Ahhhh... Tinkerin'! This paper is SO fun!! At the end of August, I will be holding 2 Tinkerin' scrapbooking workshops, so contact me today to signup! My tentative dates are Wednesday August 19th and Friday August 21st. Space is limited, so sign up now!

Using the July Stamp Of The Month, I random stamped my own background paper, inked it, colored it and glittered it... I was not a huge fan of this set, but am absolutely thrilled with how this turned out!

That's all for now! Talk to you soon!

--Jules

What have I been up to?

Hello again! Here are some of my recent creations:

Using the Bella Level 2 Paper and some metal embellishments and stitching, I was able to put this page together in under an hour!

Oh, how time flies... These pages were from Owen's 2nd birthday party (I figured that I had better get them done before his 3rd birthday)! I was able to make good use of the CTMH Flip Flap Memory Protectors and add a number of extra pics to my pages.

So, I don't think that the little girl stamp from the "Miracle" stamp set could have coordinated better with these pages! If I didn't know better, I would have thought that the pics of Lily were taken just to use that set (but they weren't)!!

Anyways, that's all for now. As per usual, I am on the hunt for anyone who may be interested in holding a workshop or home gathering of their own. If you know of anyone who may be interested, please forward their info to me (or vice versa). I would really appreciate it!

Happy summer everyone! :)

--Jules

Thank-You for your Support!

A huge thank-you to all of you who took the time to vote for my layout on the ScrapbookandShare.com website this past week. I am so honored that my pages were nominated as one of the top 5 Finalists in the category for Most Inspiring! I submitted these pages just because and apparently my story touched more people than I imagined it would, so thank-you! Here they are for anyone who missed it (or wants to see it again). :)

Category: Most Inspiring

Finalist #1
I Am...I just got my Tickled Pink kit a couple days ago and couldn't wait to make the pages, so as soon as the kids were asleep, to my room I went and here it is! Though it may not be the most original (since I actually followed the outline fairly closely), these pages actually choke me up a bit. I have been suffering with postpartum depression for about 8 months now and it was really hard for me to put into words what I am feeling and who I am (not to mention that my energy and creative juices have been sapped and most days, I quit before I even start). These words that I stamped around the pictures (passionate, talented, beautiful, etc.) are all things that I knew and believed before this depression hit me, but I now look at them with doubt and pray that some day I will really know that they are true again.

In the meantime, I really loved how these pages turned out and hope to look back at them and remember how I felt today... Grateful that I have people who are helping me through this time and will love me no matter what. And grateful that I am all of these things - a woman, a daughter, wife, mother, friend.

-Julie S., Langham, SK

Grow...

Here's a page that I made this morning.  My inspiration was a new stamp set called "Treetops" that I really love.  I plan to do a coordinating page with our hospital pics of Lily using that set. :) I used the Sweet Pea Level 2 Kit & Stickease, a few Just Blooms Big Pinks, LOTS of buttons and a few metal embellishments. I cut the tree trunk out of Chocolate cardstock (no template - I just winged it!). I love how it turned out!

Finally, an update!!

Hello there!  Finally, here are some of the new pages/projects I have been working on! Also, please feel free to check out my CTMH website:

julescreations.myctmh.com/

I have more artwork and great resources posted here as well!

I love how these pages turned out - I had done the same thing when I was pregnant with Owen and now with Lily too!  I used the Tickled Pink paper and some K&Co embellishments - they matched perfectly!!

These pages where done using the exact same paper, just using the the opposite side of the paper to show the versatility of CTMH's B&T's!  

These pages are from the Notebook Level 2 Workshop on the Go. The Workshop was originally done using the Hollyhock side of the paper, but I chose to use the Heavenly Blue side so that it would coordinate better with our winter pics. 

This was one of the layouts that we created at Regional Celebration using the Daydream paper pack. There are a lot of fun accents on these pages that really don't show that well in pictures, but are stunning in real life!

These pages were so simple and only took about an hour to put together, but turned out fantastic!  I love the 8x12 pics from Costco and had a lot of fun doing some stitching of flourishes on these pages, along with the Simple Stitches stamp set.

These are 2 of the layouts from the Back Country workshop which I will be holding June 11th and June 13th, 2009. If you want to make these fun pages yourself in under 4 hours, contact me now to reserve your spot!

These pages are using the Laid Back Level 2 kit from Summer 2006. I still love this paper! Check out my stitching:

Using Emporium Level 2 and Creative Basics Collection. These pages are quite interactive - there are 2 tabs that pull out to reveal journalling. 

Using Animal Cookies Level 1 Paper Pack & Stickease:

Using Animal Cookies Level 2 - this is one of the Workshop on the Go layouts:

I hope that you enjoyed looking at my newest creations!  I had a lot of fun making them and can't wait to make more! :)

--Julie