Friday already???

Wow, what an amazing week. For the last two weeks prior to this past week, my childcare provider was out of town for a family emergency. I obviously had no childcare as a result and I tell ya, over this past week since she's been home and my youngest son, Seth has been back at daycare I have gotten SO MUCH WORK DONE!!! I am so very very VERY grateful for my amazing childcare provider. I taught several classes both in my home studio and at Valley Computers and the Florence Filberg Center. My studio is super clean and I just love creating in a clean and organized space. That being said, it just occurred to me at 9:00pm that it's FRIDAY!!! that means I have to post a challenge...woops, minor oversight on my part. Amidst all the paper craft projects that I've been working on, I'm also knitting a few different projects and truth be told, my spare time has gone to those things more than to scrapping. I have just finished my page for last Friday's sketch. I'll post it once I get the photos off my camera.

This week's sketch is a two page layout and I encourage you to be thoughtful about the photos you use and make an effort to journal a little more than usual. Feel free to journal on the computer if you have a lot to say and are unsure about squeezing it all on the page. I have changed the settings for posting so please be generous with your comments and even just send a quick one-liner to say that you were here. I'd love to know what you think and I'm certain that others who view the blog would like to know your thoughts as well.

Have a great time scrapping and I hope you have a marvelous weekend.
Cheers
V

Holy slideshow, Batman!

Check this out, isn't this the coolest feature. I think it's great. Tell me your thoughts on it!

Challenge 16 (Tub Time)

Ahh....now I've got my cardreader working again. This is my page for last week's challenge. I'd love to see what you did with this one. Maybe if I get into the studio today, I'll have a page to post for this week. Gotta love those polka dots!!!

Knitting Themed Cards

Have a look at these rockin' cards I just made for Uptown Yarns, a fantastic yarn store owned by a lovely woman, Jen Gladwin. I am very excited to get them into the store. I have made 50 so far, hopefully they sell well for her. Sorry about the glare on the cards, that's from the plastic sleeves that they are stored in. There are more but if you want to see them, you better just go to the store and check them out in person.

V

Challenge 17

Here's the sketch for this week. I am very excited about making this page as I just bought a bunch of new papers when I was at Scrapbook Central on Wednesday night. New papers always inspire me to make pages. Be sure to include the elements featured in this sketch; the photo anchors, the ribbons, the flowers, the machine stitching...you know the drill, make your page and post a comment with a link to your beautiful artwork! I'd love to see what you're making.

Blogging Just Got Easier

It was recently brought to my attention that leaving comments on the blog has been a serious pain in the ass, so I hunted around in the settings and made some changes that should make it much easier for anybody to leave a comment. I am not positive of how these changes have impacted your ability to post comments. So, if some of you would kindly post some experimental comments, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks a mil
Vanessa

get a load of this deal...

For those of you who read my blog that aren't in the know, I am a consultant for Close to my Heart (CTMH). Although this month is almost over, I wanted to just post this unbelievable deal. For the month of April, you can join my team of consultants for half the price of what the Consultant Kit usually costs. If you have ever thought about becoming a consultant, this is the perfect time. The value of the goodies that come in the consultant kit are worth over $500 and the cost of the kit for this month is only $110!!! Can you believe that?!?!

If you do any amount of scrapbooking, this is a worthwhile investment and the things that comes in your kit are the coolest! You get truckloads of supplies for scrapbooking and/or cardmaking and everything to make your hobby a business ( a great way to subsidize the nasty scrap-habit!) Plus, you receive the activation fee for your own personal MyCTMH website where your customers can shop online and you can offer features such as your class schedule and an artwork gallery. This is a fantastic opportunity and in the 2 1/2 years that I have been with CTMH, I have never seen them offer anything quite like this.

If you have any questions or want more information, please use the 'contact' feature on the right-hand side of the blog. Feel free to email me with your questions and I'll reply to every email!

I'm looking forward to adding you to my team!
Vanessa

Open Crop night @ Scrapbook Central

I have to tell you about this fabulous gem of a scrap store between Courtenay and Campbell River. It's located inside the store found behind the Mini Golf at Miracle Beach. In a few weeks, they are moving into a small cabin at the same location which will allow them to have even more stuff. I went to their open crop last night. It is from 6-11 but I didn't get outta there till almost midnight! The night itself was surprisingly productive and let me tell you about the laughing!!! We had a ridiculous amount of fun. Of course, being outside my studio, I didn't exactly have everything I wanted right on hand to finish the pages so today's goal is to finish up the bits for the five pages I started and if all goes well (and my card reader cooperates) then I'll get a few pics posted.

If you are in that area, you have GOT to get into that store. The paper selection is fantastic and there are way too many cool embellies.

Challenge 16

Have a look at this sketch. This is our challenge page for the week. Notice the journaling around the dotted circle. You might want to try the new Heidi Swapp Bling for your circle or you could compose it of brads...it's up to you. Watch for my page from this sketch and as always...have fun!

Enjoy your weekend
V

I love shopping days!

I am a little shell-shocked when I think about how tomorrow is Seth's 3rd birthday. It totally snuck up on me! Today, I took him to Toys R Us...I can barely describe to you how he handled THAT experience! It was so much fun showing him cool toys and stuffing them into the cart. We filled up the sandbox with sand today and after school, he and Noah had a great time digging and filling up sifters and buckets.

I just got my own birthday gift from Ray yesterday. It had to be ordered in, but it arrived in a most timely fashion. I got a 2.8 60mm micro lens and I LOVE it. I only tried it out once since unpacking it yesterday but I know it will be such a fine piece of equipment. And I thought I was having a hard time staying caught up on my scrapping before the cool lens arrived!

Stay tuned for new pages with photos of life's average stuff up close and personal!

V

Selah's Album

This is the opening page for my friend, Karen's daughter's (Selah) album. These photos were their Holiday card for 2006. I love this new Heidi Swapp alpha mask!!! It's my current favorite tool. It's such a treat to scrap with professional photos! I love this page.

note: the page is much straighter and stark white IRL.

Chillin' with my Peeps!

I found this wicked photo that seemed painfully appropriate for easter. It's my current desktop.

Enjoy
Vanessa

Karen's Birthday Week

So yesterday was my pal, Karen's birthday. I tried really hard to help her count down to her birthday by celebrating "birthday week". That meant that she received little gifties every day for the week preceding her actual birthday. Yesterdays gift was this lovely creation made with a fantastic snapshot taken by a friend of ours, Sue Pyper (our graphic designer) and I am pretty sure that Karen liked it. She even threatened to put it on the wall in her studio! Such a fun project!

Challenge 15 ( Sweet Bliss)

Wow, that was fast! After wasting about an hour and a half playing around on Limewire, I finally got into the shower and down to business in the studio! This is a great photo that I grabbed of Ray on Hornby Island. I think we took about 1000 photos on that trip...I think I'll be scrapping them forever! Now it's your turn...post pages guys!!

challenge 15

Holy Cow! How did it get to be Friday again so darned fast!!! Man, I hardly got any scrapping done this week. I spent four days this week at the dentist and I gotta tell ya, that's a sure-fire way to kill a girl's mojo for the week! So, sadly I don't have my pages done from last Friday's sketch but I do have this one for you today. You can see that there are a lot of decorative elements to this page. Feel free to amp it up or tone it down to best suit your style and your photo. But whatever you do, just have a good time. I'm going to get my day rockin' and try my best to get these pages up for y'all so if all goes according to plan, there will be pages up later...

Isabella Pearl

I just finished this beautiful wall piece for a friend of mine. This is her little girl quite a while ago now, she's 16 months old but it has been a very slow process finishing this up. So, I'm really proud of the end result and am also very happy to have it completed and ready for delivery! I just had to share...this was a labor of love!

Vanessa