Tag Archives: crate paper

Soft & Fuzzy Birthday Card: PPC#76

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This week at Scrapbooker’s Paradise we are going all soft and fuzzy on you! We challenge you to create a soft & fuzzy project this week and link up to the blog by Thursday noon.

I love pretty things, and so I paired soft colours with a little fuzzy die cut felt. I used a Sizzix On The Edge die to create the fancy edge – I used both the positive and negative cuts and covered the seam with a ribbon.

I love these shades of pink-red-peach and the gentle layers. The paper is from Creative Imaginations, rub-on is an old Pink Paislee product, and the resin flowers are from Crate Paper, as is the sentiment sticker. I know! I didn’t stamp at all on this project!

So now off you go to the Scrapbooker’s Paradise blog and see how the rest of the team interpreted the challenge. And have a great weekend! I’m picking up my girls from camp today and how I’ve missed them!

 

PPC# 72: Summer Colours plus a little Skeet Shooting

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Isn’t summer nice? I love in an area in which it never gets overwhelmingly hot, so we relish every summery day. Now I’m waiting for my strawberries to ripen and my peonies to bloom. I love the colours of summer too, and work with them whenever I can.

I took Allison’s sketch for Playing in Paradise #72 and made a pretty, summery birthday card.

When choosing summer colours, I always think of popsicles. That lovely chipboard rose is from Crate Paper’s Pretty Party collection, as is the sentiment sticker and the pearly button. It’s a beautiful collection and I’m trying to use it every time I craft, while hoarding it at the same time.

I’m also trying to be a little more simple in my paper crafting – looking at this card, it was so hard not to add an extra layer or two, but I resisted. If the design is good, simple will work as well (or better) than elaborate.

Visit the Scrapbooker’s Paradise blog today and check out the design team’s project, and we’d love to have you play along! The prizes are always great, plus challenge winners get to guest design with us for a future challenge, which is an awesome perk!

I also wanted to share these photos from Father’s Day. I had suggested to Wade that for his Father’s Day gift we go to the drag races in Fort St. John – he loves that sort of thing – but he had other plans. Which was good ’cause the day turned out really rainy, off and on, and I have the feeling they might have been rained out. Instead we drove out to my grandparents’ house in the country, and he did a little skeet shooting. My Father’s Day gift to him was throwing the skeets for him to shoot – something my arm was still feeling three days later! He’s a pretty good shot.

He didn’t like this shot cause he said he wasn’t aiming, but it was the only one of us together. Hazards of having your seven-year-old take the photos.I liked throwing the skeets once I learned that after the throw, I still had time to cover my ears. Yes, I am lame.Wade figures I threw nearly fifty skeets. And then the rain rolled in and I had an excuse not to try shooting the shotgun myself. Did I mention that I’m lame?

Have a great weekend!

Your Smile…

Happy Friday! I  told someone yesterday that I was already living in Friday mode – that I wouldn’t get anything else accomplished this week because of it. Which is not strictly true because I can hear the washing machine running right now!  But I did sleep in this morning and as I was getting dressed and venting to my husband about how sleeping in ruins my entire day, I realized I was trying to fasten a second bra over the one I had already put on!

Even though I was living for Friday on Thrusday, I managed to put together a couple cute card kits, hoping to clear out the last of my Ippity stamps by adding some great paper and card blanks to the mix for the cost of the stamp set. I’ll have some kits posted in my Etsy store later today, so if you’ve been putting off buying some of these sets, you know you have a good excuse now! And since I’m in Canada, cost for shipping in North America is one flat rate!

This is one of the card kit cards – each kit includes a sample card (or two) to inspire the buyer. The paper is from Neighbourhood by Crate Paper. I’m linking up with Friends with Flair so if you leave a comment, you could win free stamps! Visit the Unity blog to visit the rest of the Friends with Flair entries.

In my last post about avoiding venting, I got several comments encouraging me to keep talking! So you are okay with me not being strictly professional? You don’t know what you’re in for!

ElisabethB tells me she wants to hear more about my homeschooling adventures – well, this week was a good one. Homeschooling is interesting because while it has really grown as an option over the last few years, the reasons for doing it are as varied as the people who homeschool. And we can be an interesting bunch! I started considering homeschooling out of a desire to protect my children from negative influences and teachings that run contrary to our values until they are at an age to be able to evaluate what they see and hear, and today I teach less out of a fear of the “evil unknown” than an overwhelming excitement that in homeschooling, I can give my children a great education built upon a love of learning!

I try very hard not to overachieve when planning our homeschool day. I love books and learning (I was home educated myself) and it is very tempting to try to pack in a year’s worth of education into a day, or to plan a ton of extra-curricular activities, or to put together a Language Arts curriculum that includes creative writing, Latin, poetry and grammar on a daily basis. Last week I realized that if my third grader cries every time I ask her to write a paragraph-long book report, perhaps she would become more comfortable with writing by copying the blurb off the back of the book jacket, and I don’t have to push her to come up with original sentences – yet. Now we both feel more relaxed about writing, and the hour she spent writing “clews” for a treasure hunt can be counted as Language Arts, though they were done outside of school hours – another thing I love about homeschooling!

Like I’ve said many times – choosing to teach my children at home is a sacrifice. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought, “If my kids were at school right now, I could be working out/crafting more/taking an art class.” It is because my husband and I believe it is best for our family that I do this, and it is something we evaluate on a regular basis. I wouldn’t quit just because some days are really hard and I feel like I’m failing, or because it would make my life easier. Seeing the way my kids are thriving makes it worth it.

Sympathy Beauty

I’m really loving the colours and styles of Crate Paper right now. This paper is from their Portrait collection, and the chipboard from Farmhouse and don’t they go well together? The sentiment is stamped on wood paper and I gotta get more of that stuff – it’s beautiful and die cuts wonderfully.

Today I’m heading to my sister’s house, about 45 minutes away, to teach a scrapbooking class. My husband is coming along which is a treat – he’s going to do some building for my brother-in-law – and I’m looking forward to taking a drive with him. We can drive for twelve hours sometimes without exchanging more than a few sentences, but that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy each other’s company. I’ve learned that silent time can still be quality time – though I don’t practice that technique when I’m hanging out with girlfriends! :)