A scrapbooking retreat....

Last month, I attend a scrapbooking retreat at the Timber House near Brighton.  I haven't been doing much the last year or so and I was hoping it would jump start me back into being creative.  It was a beautiful location.

Surprisingly, I did not get down to the beach until Sunday.  I arrived in the dark on Friday night (not really that late since the sun sets at 4:30 pm at this time of the year) and I worked until Sunday morning.  I basically took breaks to eat, sleep and do a bit of visiting.  Overall, it was a very productive weekend and was just the kick in the pants that I needed to get started again.

I worked mainly on layouts and playing with some multimedia techniques.

I have one more layout at I started but is not yet complete.  I figure I will get to it during my Christmas holidays.

Today, I am concentrating on designing and doing up my Christmas cards.  I am enjoying making them again but I forgot how long it takes.

Have a good Sunday.

Time for A Change

I haven't had a chance to do much crafting in the last few months.  The new job, although very interesting, is also very time consuming.  The learning curve is huge but that is to be expected with a new job.  I am hoping that as I get more of a handle on the job that I will carve out some time to dig back into crafting again.

I figured that a good place to start digging back in was to refresh my blog.  It was feeling a little dated and cluttered.  With Spring coming soon, a clean, fresh look was needed.  I have also been decluttering my drives and filing my photos away.  One of the gems that I found buried with in layers of folders are some old card sketches that I did back in 2011 and 2012.  I figured I would repost a few here.

Have a good Sunday.

Happy Halloween!

I have spent the last week making costumes.  Yesterday, my darling daughter wanted something like she would wear to dance.  I wanted something that covered her a bit more.  It all started with the hat she wanted to wear and we went from there.

Today, she wanted to out as CleoCATra.  We have spent the last week putting this together from an old table cloth and lots of materials from the Dollarstore.

My son couldn't seem to decide what he wanted...just that he wanted to wear a mask.  I don't like them wearing masks when they are out at night.  I found a half mask that I thought would work and would not obstruct his view.  Out of that mask came the idea of making a voodoo priest.  Thankfully, he liked the idea.

All in all, I like these better than the store bought ones.

Happy Halloween.

Art Journaling

After a very busy summer with the kiddos, I only have a few art journal pages to show for any remotely creative activities.  Most of the summer was spent exploring, lazing in the sun and just enjoying ourselves.

I currently have two art journals on the go.  One is a larger A4 format book and a smaller mixed media sketch book.  The first three are from the sketch book and the two pager was done in the A4 book.  In the art journals, I try to use up any scraps that I have left over from scrapbooking and I have a lot of left over scraps from over the years.  I just can't seem to throw anything away.

I also received my Foldio2 which I backed on Kickstarter.  It is a foldable light box that uses LED lights.  I really like it because I can fold it down quickly and easily.  It takes up very little storage space.  The only drawback is that it is a bit too small for photographing 12x12 layouts.  I have managed to gerry rig a solution to make it tall enough but it is wonderful for small objects.

It comes with various back drops but I find that I tend to use the white one the most.


For all the Canadians, Happy Thanksgiving.  Our turkey is in the oven and it smells wonderful.

It Has Been A While

I started a new job last fall and after being home for 6 months, it was a big adjustment.  Learning a new job, a new organization and working with new people is both stimulating and tiring.  It has been a period of adjustment for everyone.  I am afraid that my crafting has suffered because of it.

Other than the occasional art journal page, I really haven't done much in the last 6 months.  I keep thinking that I will start a layout, a card or a window box frame arrangement then end up doing an art journal page.  They are addictive.

Things are starting to settle in and I am hoping to post here more often....Stay tuned and Happy Thursday.