It has been one of those months around here.  I have made countless cards and invitations, none of which I photographed.  My projects seemed to go nowhere – and looking back at my last posts, they really have gone nowhere.  In my last post, I showed you this layout of my daughter, which I absolutely love.

Since then, I have painted the plain wood frame and

decorated it with die-cut (Spellbinders) butterflies and dragonflies.  After die cutting the images, I coated the small butterflies and the dragonflies with Stampin’ Up Glossy Accents, let them dry and affixed them to the frame, also using Glossy Accents.     I don’t necessarily recommend Glossy Accents for this purpose and would love to know of a strong glue that is good for this purpose.  I am quite happy with how the result looks, if not the durability of the glued on dies.

I have also been working on my 5″x8″ magnetic box.  Last time I showed just the mini album that the box holds, but I have covered most of the outside of the box and some of the inside.  I haven’t had a chance to decorate most of the inside of the box, but that is the next thing on my list.  I also am Looking forward to finishing off the front of the box with some flowers or metal embellishments.

 Finally, on Mothers Day,  my present from Steve and the kids was an art journal, which is really a place to play with my Dyelusions, stencils and stamps.  It is really fun!  I have done one page.  On the opposing page, I have created my Dyelusions base but have not yet stamped or stenciled that side.

Next time, I hope to have more completed work to show you!  It means that I have had much more time to scrapbook.

I went to a retreat this past weekend up at Camp Stillwood at Cultus Lake.  It was a very beautiful setting but as it was pouring rain, I felt no need at all to hike and explore the camp and surrounding areas.  So I did nothing but scrapbook!  Scrapbook retreats are pretty close to heaven in my world – I have some of my good friends there, food is made for me and I can scrapbook or even read all day.  Some of my layouts are as follows: 

This double page layout is done on Bo Bunny’s Apple Cider paper – just a gorgeous fall collection of paper.  The following layout also is using Bo Bunny’s Apple Cider.  I really enjoyed the stunning fall colours of this line.

I haven’t got a clue which paper line this is, but I have used it for every single one of Brendan’s hockey pictures.  I think very little needs to be done to embellish these papers; they are effective with very few additions.

I absolutely love this layout of my daughter.   The photo is her spring school photograph.  The paper is Graphic 45’s Secret Garden

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I also love this layout of my younger daughter in her spring photo.  The paper is Graphic 45’s A Ladies Diary, with slightly more muted tones.  The papers are beautiful!

This is my son in his spring photo.  Like the other two, I turned again to Graphic 45 for inspiration, but avoided all the girly flowers and stuff.  I used Graphic 45’s Olde Curiosity Shoppe which is  a great paper line, very whimsical, especially the flying pigs!

I also did two one page layouts of Brendan’s fall school photo – actually, I did three, one for me and one for each set of grandparents, but I didn’t really like the third one as much.  In the first layout, I used Bo Bunny’s Weekend Market, which is a terrific paper line, especially for masculine layouts.  On the second layout, I used Graphic 45″s Kraft Recollections, which I find much more subtle than some of G45’s lines.   It also underlines a point I wanted to make – dream of Paris – dream of travel, adventures, excitement – dream as big as you can go.

On this kitty layout, I tried to keep my embellishments simple because the Stampin’ Up Tea for Two paper is quite busy but very pretty.

I hope you have enjoyed these layouts.

I have been scrapbooking a lot lately.  First, I was preparing for the Graphic 45 Design Team Audition and when I completed the projects for that, I was left with a million ideas that I didn’t have time to scrapbook.  That lead to a ‘Spring’ banner for my mantel made with Graphic 45 Secret Garden paper and a layout of my daughter Amy as a mouse in the Nutcracker Ballet using … wait for it…Graphic 45″s Nutcracker Sweet!  You couldn’t see that one coming, could you?

On Saturday, I then went to a local scrapbooking and quilting Trade Show at the Tradex in Abbotsford.  Watching some masters at work (Cathie Allan, from Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine and Leanne Payne from Cherry Lane Scrapbook Shoppe in Mission) gave me the desire to play with my Dylusions spray and with my rubber stamps.  I played a bit and then I created the following card:

It was terrific fun and the card is very different from my normal card.   I love it!

Thank you, Graphic 45, for taking the time to view my projects.  As a confirmed G45er, I am delighted to show you some of my work using Graphic 45.

Large Tag Album:

This mini-album was created using the G45 large tag album and the Secret Garden paper collection, stickers and chipboard.  I also used several G45 Staples, such as the drawer pull, metal keys and keyholes and ribbon.  I also used ribbon from Bazzill, May Arts and Stampin’ Up and flowers from Prima Marketing and Petaloo.  This project was so much fun to complete!

Painter’s Tray

This project is a painter’s tray from Tim Holtz.  I have covered it in Secret Garden paper, stickers and chipboard.  The metal elements are G45 Staples and the ribbon is from May Arts and Stampin’ Up.  This would make a great class to teach as it comes together quite quickly but still looks great.

Cards:

I have said that cards are not one of my strengths but I did love making these French Country and Ladies Diary cards.  The sentiments are from The Place in Time Alphabet stickers.  I just love working with the French Country collection.

Page Layouts:

The bread and butter of every scrapbooker.  I have included layouts using some older G45 lines, such as Christmas Emporium, Steampunk Debutante, Curtain Call, On the Boardwalk (done in 2010 in 8×8 format), Domestic Goddess and Tropical Travelogue.  I loved scrapping my 2010 Hawaii pictures with Tropical Travelogue as the paper was such an incredible match for the photos.

Place in Time 12×12 Calendar

This was the first scrapbooking project I finished this year.  I received the 12×12 Easel Album and the Place in Time Collection, including stickers and chipboard, for Christmas this year.  I barely could wait until the next day to begin playing!

G45 5×8 Magnetic Box:

This is my very favourite project.  I covered and decorated the magnetic box in papers, stickers and chipboard from the French Country collection.  I then made a four page accordian album using the same Collection, several different G45 staples and ribbons and flowers from Prima and Stampin’ Up.  These papers have such beautiful saturated hues and jewel tones that they were a joy to work with.

The very first time I ever won a layout contest was the first time I went to a weekend scrapbooking retreat.  The retreat was at Harrison Hot Springs, a resort town about an hour and a half east of Vancouver, B.C.  There were about 60 women there, from all over B.C.  When they announced the layout competition, I remembered thinking that there was no point in entering because I couldn’t possibly win with so much incredible talent around me.  However, I wanted my sister-in-law to enter her layout so I said that I would enter mine if she entered her layout.  You can imagine my shock when I actually won.  I also decided to post this layout because I did the layout in 2007 and I wanted to show the progression of my scrapbooking style.   In 2007, my style was very linear and clean, with lots of photos and only a select few embellishments.  Today, this layout looks a little plain to me, although I still like it.  My style is much more layered now, much more vintage, much more shabby chic with lots of ink and distressed edges.  I still do those clean lines, just not as often.  And now, my clean lines are almost always tilted.

This is a recent layout that I completed for a page design contest at Cherry Lane Scrapbook Shoppe.  I decided, after seeing how wonderful this photo was, that I didn’t want to confine myself just to the contents of the kit, so I bought a little more of the Authentique papers and the accompanying stickers.

I really love how the layout came together – I love the vintage look of the paper and stickers. I love the way the green pops all the neutral colours in the layout.  I love this layout!

The journalling is small and hard to read.  It is a poem I wrote for my daughter, Amy.

She dreams of hard edges and soft landings
of the sound of blade cutting the ice
She dreams of twirls and spins
and jumps that soar through icy air
She dreams of audiences and applause
podiums and medals
My baby’s castles in the air
are ice castles