A Sassafras day

I went to June's house this afternoon for a little catching up time and some scrapbooking. I've been so busy with school we haven't been able to see each other much and now that I've got a few weeks of freedom I'm taking advantage of my spare time. I guess I was in a Sassafras kind of mood while packing up (mind you, I've been using it a lot lately....) I really am quite pleased with the results.The colour of these photos sucks. I don't know what to do - no flash equals crappy colour. Flash equals shiny photo. This first layout is Sass's new line Jungle Bungle. It's a good example of me buying something because it's cute. I'm happy I have a puppy who I can treat as my child and use paper's like this on. Otherwise this would surely sit in my stash for years. June bought a Slice die cutting machine and it arrived the other day. I tested it out on my title letters, photo corner and orange piece behind the date. It's a fun machine; a little freaky when it's cutting though. It kind of pulls and you need to make sure you've got a good grip on it. It's got some potential though.This second layout was fun to do. The original sheet of paper I wanted to use is the one behind the photo of mom and I. It also had the deer, the butterfly and the clouds above. I wasn't sure how I was going to put things on top of it, so I just chopped it up. The piece I'm talking about and the pink flowers below are from the same line.... I don't think I'd normally pair them together, but I figured if they thought it went then so would I. It's busier than I'm used to, but I like it. I'd like to point out how much I'm loving the decorative edge strips they give you on the Sassafras paper. I'm often making my own, punching scalloped edges. These are nice because they are already made, different shapes, and a bit larger.

I'm nearly running out of photos on hand to scrapbook. I'm going to have to take a trip to Shopper's to get some more developed soon.
I sort of rearranged some more stuff in my scrap room tonight. I took all my Thickers off my clipitup and moved them into this metal bin I have. I think I'm going to like it. It'll be easy to flip through. They were seriously taking up nearly half the bottom of the clipitup. I may have a bit of an addiction....

Another One!

Amazing what a person can do when she actually has some time one her hands. My 3rd layout of the week! And I already have another one on my desk. Can you believe it? What's even more amazing is that I'm cleaning my house today and not scrapbooking... Gotta go get that done so I can have some more fun.

Jouraling reads:
ADAM - laid-back and carefree
MOM - always proper looking her best
DAD - straight up guy (just like Grandpa)
ANG - chronic sloucher, trying to improve
RYAN - relaxed and casual

I realize mine isn't really about my personality, but it's so obvious to me in this picture. I've been told for years to stop slouching and I was actually trying to stand up straight in this photos... Guess I still need to work on that.

You & Me

Another layout from the family photo shoot is done. I completed this one at Crystal's place today. Originally she told me I had to do a 2pager. (Crystal is anti one page layout.) I struggled and whined and complained until she was like "oh just do your one page thing". She suggested that I cut the one phone in half. The bottom two photos were one picture originally. That kind of freaked me out, but I thought it would be cool so I did it.

I totally LOVE this layout. Everything about it is perfect. The colours contrast really well. The photos pop. The best piece was taking advantage of Crystal's Cricut. I really think I may need to purchase one. I love what it can do and how easily it can do it. The large white scalloped piece (it's kind of hard to see) and the clouds are cut with the Cricut. I like that you can cut the same shape in several sizes and very quickly. Something to consider....

The joys of parenthood

This is what Mackey did yesterday. I did not take a picture of what he did today because I was too angry. My T4 and Ryan's were destroyed as well as an entire MEC catalog. It was not a happy moment in my life. I hope that he outgrows this soon or I'm going to have to take him in for teeth removal. Even as I look at that photo I feel like I should be angrier than I am. He's just too cute and I love him so much. I know he's just a bored baby and I can't blame it all on him.

On the bright side of things, this layout is finally complete. I may add something to the stripey bit on the second page, but until then I'm calling it done. It took me a week to finish this layout. I'm not sure why.... I struggled with the one photo and poem thing... I needed to fill up space and I didn't know how. I ended up with a mix of paper layering, flowers, chipboard and rubons. I glittered the rubons with Stickles for extra effect. You can find the words to the poem here.

Last night I cleaned my scrap area. (Okay, by cleaned I mean tidied up. No dusting or vacuuming for this girl!) It's relieving to be able to see all three of my desks again. They were seriously covered. 3 desks! How messy can one person get? I put away a bunch of new paper and felt really inspired to use a bunch of it. It's killing me that I have to study. I should just get it over with so I can play around, but for some reason I prefer to whine and complain and leave it until the last minute.

One thing I did last night was take my revolution out of it's case. I don't use it nearly enough and I think that may be why. I hope that this will remind me it's there so I can use it more often. I love what I can do with it, and really have no clue why I ignore it so much.... Keep an eye out for layouts with die cut pieces.

White Priviledge (aka I will stop complaining and get to my homework eventually)

Today in my class there was quite the debate about race. I really had an issue with it. We've had to do these presentations on First Nations educational issues. We all (other than my teacher) brought up the point that the issues were related to all students, not just First Nations (parental involvement, drop out rates, Fetal Alcohol etc). Anyhow, we did our projects. One girl in my class is partly Cree and she brought up today how much emphasis there is on First Nations stuff and the racism of it all. My teacher basically said that since this girl looks white it's not a big deal and she doesn't experience it. I mentioned that I would prefer to see a project based around First Nations cultural pros. Meaning, take something good in their culture and present it to the class in a way that we can integrate it in our classrooms for all to benefit. She kind of brushed me off.

Later in the day we did this thing on culture and then she handed out an article called "White Privilege". She asked us to write down things that we were privileged for simply because we were white. There were 2 of us who said right off the bat that we didn't think we were privileged because we were white. Our teacher was like "oh think of something." Others started to mumble that they agreed. She looked at me and the other girl who weren't writing and was like "Why aren't you writing anything down." I said "I don't feel I'm privileged because of my race. I can say I am because I'm a female, or because I'm educated but not because I'm white". She was totally pissed and told me that I was "naive" for thinking that.

I chose to keep my mouth shut and flipped through the article she gave us. Here's a list of privileges this lady gives. My thoughts are in brackets.

- I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them (Is that not being a good parent? If I know someone isn't going to like my child I'm not going to leave my child with them. If I'm black and I know a daycare is racist, I'm not going to sign my child up for that daycare.... Not to mention just because my kids are white doesn't mean the world will love them. They could be horrible brats. Who knows?)
- I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time (It's a privilege to be around other white people? To me, it's a privilege to be around people who are responsible, intelligent and hardworking. Skin color has nothing to do with that)
- I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person's voice in a group in which s/he is the only member of his/her race. (That's just rude. You're the only Chinese person here and I'm white so I don't have to listen to you?)
- I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race. (Maybe I'm out of the loop on stereotypes, but what race is made fun of for always being late?)


She's got 47 of these privileges. Perhaps my problem with this issue lays in that I see myself as Maltese not "white". I don't even know what "white" means. I felt the entire time that she was insinuating that I needed to feel guilty for who I am. And I'm proud of who I am. And I've had a lot of struggles in my life and worked hard to be where I am. Okay, my family was never poor. But I was teased for the way I look. I just don't get what bearing any of this has on education. My "white" students are going to be luckier and not come to class with any baggage because they are privileged? If that's what she was getting at then I'm going to say she is the naive one. I'm going to do homework now. Thanks for reading.

Best Buds

This was posted on the Cosmo Cricket blog. How darn cute.

Grandma's House

Last night I changed the sheets on my bed. It's one of my favorite feelings to crawl into fresh sheets. I have two sets that I like to rotate out. There are others, but these two are my favorites. The one set is 400 thread count and I always feel so fancy when I first crawl into them, like I'm at a really expensive hotel or something. The second set is flannel. That's what I put on the bed last night. Whenever I crawl into them I'm reminded of Grandma's house. Either Grandma, actually. Both of them ALWAYS had flannel sheets. I remember Grandma Alice being a big advocate of the flannel bedding. She's so funny. I remember her one time holding a set and telling me how much better they are than regular bedding because they keep you so much warmer. This photo is me and my mom. I guess I learned early to be a fan of the bed and that hasn't gone away. I felt like this today when I woke up. So comfortable and didn't want to move.

P.S. I should mention that I somehow fixed my computer. I have no clue what I did, but it appears to be working fine again.

Busted

My computer has a virus. I am not sure what it is or how to get rid of it. But it is f-ed up royally. I'm on Adam's right now until I can figure out what is happening to mine, but won't be posting much.

Procrastination Central

I do not want to do any smelly homework. I'm not sure why I'm in this mood. I'm just blah still about school. I always get like this for a few days near the end. I finished my layout though!

I love it. I am happy to have finally used the Imaginise pearls and white rubons. I have those damn rubons in every colour and have barely used any. The snowflakes came out great. The blue one is coloured in Copic Marker and then again with Distress Stickles. This was my first time trying out the new Distress Stickles. It was weird. The crystals are bigger so the nozzle hole is bigger. It was really hard to not squirt out A LOT of stickles. It came out nice though. It's sparkly, but not overly crazy. I like the look. I had mentioned that I had copied this layout from one I found on twopeas. You can find the inspiration layout here. I chose this because I had the same Studio Calico kit. I really wish I still had those great Sassafras letters, but those are the ones Mack ate. Sniff sniff. I still miss those letters. You can totally see the commonalities between the two layouts, but I love how different they are. I don't know the lady who the orignal came from, but I know from mine you can definately tell "my style". Funny how no matter how hard you try to be different you are always still you.

I've plans to use that photo of me Jen Louie took of me on the chair (see this post) for my next layout. I'm going to use the "I am from" poem I posted a few days ago with it. I think it'll make for a great page. I try to do one just about me every year at least with some meaningful journaling. I'm going to use the colour version of the photo and I think some left over pieces of Basic Grey from last year. A layout about me must have Basic Grey to be complete wouldn't you say?

Blagh. Pfft.

2 more weeks of school. Just 2 more weeks. And then one month off. Yay to me. Why do people always decide to make a huge pile of work due at the end of the semester? Right when I'm bored and ready to give up anyhow? It's just not fair.

Enough whining. I've just finished a bunch of homework and should be doing laundry. But instead I'm going to try and finish the layout I showed a bit of yesterday. Hopefully I'll be back on in a bit to post.

Work in progress.

I've been slowly working on a layout the last few days. I can't take credit for it. I'm totally lifting it from a layout I saw on 2peas. The lady who posted had used a Studio Calico kit that I had so I thought why not do the same? Mine has some definite differences but the basic concept is hers. When the layout is done I'll post a link to her page as well. It seems that blue, pink and green are working very well for these photos Jen took. I kind of like the idea that they will all look kind of similar. I think I may end up just doing an album full of these photos. There's just so many good ones!

Here's a few photos of my puppies. I love how Mack looks in the bottom one. It's totally him. And poor old grumpy Steve. Steve has really morphed into this grumpy dog at night time. It's like he's dealt with a puppy all day and he just can't take it any longer. Too funny.

I am from...

I had to write this poem for school. I'm still not sure why. At first I thought it was lame, but now I kinda like it.

I am from a home where everything matches,

roosters,

antiques,

and boats.

I am from squirrels, birds and big trees,

restored cars and gas pumps,

the Canadian flag and a riding lawn mower.

I am from handmade wooden signs,

good neighbors,

kids, bikes, and gardens.

I am from my family,

Ray and Debbie,

and three grandparents.

I am from pull up your socks,

it could be worse,

and try your hardest.

I am from macaroni,

Pastizzi,

and cheese pie.

I am from me,

the places I have been,

and the people I love.

New Pink Phone!

The tradition of pink phones continues. Granted I'm only on number two. So maybe, a tradition of pink phones begins would be more accurate. My phone kept randomly turning off and I was getting annoyed so I traded it in for this one. It has flowers! The girl behind the counter was telling me all about picture messaging, full keyboard, blah blah blah. I was like "does it make calls and not turn itself off? okay, i want it". I seriously don't care at all about all that technical garbage. It's tiny and square. Kind of weird but so far I like it.

I haven't been up to much lately. A lot of homework. The boys finished the room downstairs. It looks excellent! I'm really happy with the colours I chose. The back wall is really bold and ties into the rest of the house without being the same. I was getting bored of all the greens and browns. I think I may do a lighter variation for the mud room one day. (And when I say I, I mean Ryan and Adam). The basement feels so warm and homey now. Too bad the big tv is upstairs and the nice room is down. Oh well.

I'm supposed to be doing homework, but I'm not. It's boring. Stupid brain based learning. It's so intuitive and blah. That's enough complaints for one day. I'm going to watch tv.

Together

I started this layout the other day. I was inspired by Cosmo Cricket's blog (you can go there by clicking the cosmo logo on the right). Julie posted a challenge to create a page using all green Cosmo papers. My newest Cosmo hadn't arrived yet and I was looking at the stuff from my 2peas order. I realised how much teal I had. I thought I'd give teal a try. I wanted to make a 100% teal page at first, but it was too blah. I decided it was okay to add black and white to the mix because they aren't really colours, they're tones or whatever. That was my reasoning anyhow. I LOVE how this page turned out. It's so simple and eyecatching. I did two things on here I wouldn't normally do. The white patterend paper is cardstock - I stamped it to make my own pattern. I also doodled borders around most of the paper pieces. I had a really hard time trying to make things tie together and the doodled border really made it all cohesive. Again, the photo was taken by Jen Louie.

Remote that controls the world...

Our new tv came yesterday!! I came home and both guys were zoned out on the couch staring forward at it. They were watching King of the Hill, and I don't think either of them even likes that show. I guess everything looks better on a new, bigger tv.
I woke up this morning, sat on the couch and turned on the tv. I like to watch the news for a little bit. Or, I tried to turn on the tv. I got the screen on, but the sound was playing the movie in the dvd player. Okay, crap. This thing is tricky. I randomly pressed buttons for a good 5 minutes. I'm sure I've screwed something up that Ryan had painstakenly set. Well, don't make the tv so damn confusing to work. I had to go wake him up to come help me get to the news. He was like, just press this button, then this one, and then this one. Yeah........ I can do that. He's not allowed to go back to camp ever because I won't be able to use the stupid tv.

A scrapbooker's dream

While procrastinating on my homework I picked up this little roll of ribbon from KI Memories. It came in my 2peas order I wrote about the other day. I noticed that on the bottom were the words "self-adhesive". Self adhesive ribbon? I nearly had to get up and dance. Self adhesive ribbon? No more super tape? Good god, this is the best invention the world has ever come up with.

60% in two weeks

Working on an assignment last night I realized that 60% of one course mark is due within two weeks. It's crazy! I should have been on top of it, and I should have gotten something out of the way earlier, but I didn't. And stupid me, last night, I printed off 12 pages and then realized I hadn't even answered one question. More than 12 pages of work? Come on people, this program isn't that serious.My house is smelly. The basement is nearly complete. Adam's got all the mudding done. The back wall he didn't quite fix the horrible taping job the people before did, but it looks WAY better. You can see in the dark wall to the left what I'm talking about. The other walls look seamless. It's a million times better down there. I'll post some more pictures once they have the trim up. Last night the boys were like "What did you get us into" like it was all my fault. My brother is the one who instigated this huge project. I can't get over how much warmer and newer it feels down there. I wish we had enough money to replace the carpet right now as well, because that old blue stuff looks REALLY ugly with the nice brown walls. I'm not sure if the colours are 100% accurate in this photo. Can't wait until it's complete and I can remove the couch from my laundry room. It's getting a little hectic down there.

New supplies!

My 2peas order arrived the other day! It was extremely exciting. I had just purged a bunch of paper and given it to Stacee who I work with. I felt all good about that and then the very next day, new arrived to fill the spaces I had created. Yay!The first item I am excited about is Distress Stickles. I picked up three colours. Distress Stickles apparently are just like Stickles, but with thicker granules and less sparkle. I think they will be great for me, because so many of my pages are earthy. I think that the Distress Stickles and I will get along nicely. I'll let you know when I finally use them.I also got a gold sheet, olive sheet, and teal sheet, of the Creative Imaginations glitter paper. I was expecting it to arrive looking like the Doodlebug glitter paper, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was like it was glazed or something. All the glitter is sealed in. I think they will be a lot of fun for diecut pieces and punched borders. Oooh, I'm imagining gold scalloped borders and now I want to scrapbook immediately!SEI came out with a new line called Bridgeport. Normally I'm 50/50 on if I like their stuff. Some is too frilly for me. This line is the perfect mix of colours for spring. I can't wait to use it! SEI always does such neat embossing and foiling on their papers. This photo does not do it justice.
Lastly, I picked up a bunch of the My Minds Eye diecuts. I can never life without those! I don't buy a lot of their paper. I find it to be repetitive, although I must say they stepped it up quite a bit this time around.
This blog post was just interruppted a good hour by my two lovely doggies. I went to let them in from outside and saw blood all over the deck! There then was blood all over my kitchen floor while I tried to figure out who was bleeding. I guess Steve ripped one of his nails while they were out there. I had to make yet another sock bandaid. Then Mack needed a bath because he wouldn't leave us alone and Steve's blood was all over him. Good times on a Sunday morning. I still love them both :)