Challenge 61

So for those of you who know me well, you'll see the above picture and realize that yes, my intention is to actually post day-by-day how many shopping days remain until my birthday. And the truth of it is that I don't really think I'm getting gifts, nor do I really want them, I just love the celebration of birthdays and the idea of being queen for a day - or a week as the case may be!! My oldest son asked me "if you get birthday week, what do I get?" I replied dryly with " Every other day of the year!". I don't think he saw the humor in my reply though!

So it's Friday again which I can hardly believe and that means that we've got a new challenge and it's the last challenge of this month. To be fair, we'll give you all a chance to use this page to post photos to the Flickr Group to win the Couture Collection that's up for grabs and we'll start March's contest after the first challenge of the month launches. Be sure to include the week that your page is being submitted for in the file name and please remember to upload to our photo pool so that we can see your pages to vote for them. Winners will be announced in March.
*note- you do not need to make pages using the Couture Collection, you can use anything you want. Just scrap and have a good time.

Below, you can see that everyone really enjoyed this sketch and produced some really fantastic results. I want to see what YOU do with this one so please go and rock it out and upload to the Flickr Group!

Jessi

Ronda

Vanessa

Tania

Danielle

Christine
Sallie

New Etsy Shop

I finally decided to take the plunge and open my Etsy shop. It is currently only offering the Feb & March Couture Collections but is going to be a great place for you to get your hands on odds & sods of leftover products & complete kits from past months. I will also be listing a SCHWACK of other goodies as they are made so be sure to check back often. Oh, and take notice of my newest goodie on my sidebar -----> I've made the pledge to buy handmade and I'm asking that others do the same...not just for the holidays but for ANY gifting opportunity- especially those totally random 'today' presents (which, let's face it are pretty much the best ones...except maybe for birthday week. Which brings me to the end of the month. We'll be voting on a favorite page submitted to the flickr group so if you want a shot at winning the Couture Collection, you'll wanna get those pages uploaded by the end of tomorrow! Please remember to indicate which week's challenge your page is made for (sometimes it's tricky to tell). I am super excited to see what everyone makes.

Oh, and since tomorrow is the last day of February, Leap Year Day as a matter of fact, that means the newest Couture Collection goes LIVE! It also means that the official birthday countdown is ON! I love my birthday and celebrate it for an entire week. This year, as per the usual, I am putting together a 'gift a day' package for my pal, Karen McKinnon and she's putting one together for me. I can't wait! But also, in the spirit of Birthday Week, I'll be doing daily giveaways for those willing to participate in the cut-throat sport of gettin' free stuff! LOL

And I'm pleased to tell you that I decided to keep my hair long but it's a studio day and since I spend the day in my jammies, I'm not taking a picture today. Maybe tomorrow!

Word UP!

Hey everyone, it's Wednesday and over at One Little Word, the word of the week is up! Be sure to head on over to see what the Creative Team has made using this great word and get started on your own pages so you can win the fantastic freebies that are up this week. I might even get on it this time. I've got sooooooo many projects on the go but I've always got time for one more page.

I'm going to get a hair cut today. Not so sure how I'm getting it done though. Haven't decided between just a great trim & maintenance cut for my long-ish hair or if I should whack it off and get something cute and sassy. I kinda like being able to wear a ponytail but it seems that's the only way I wear it. Defeats the purpose, don't ya think? Maybe it'll be solved by getting a great long style. We'll see. My pal, Holly does my hair so I'll have to see what she thinks. I'm not very emotionally attached to my hair so decisions like this are not usually very hard. I'll post pics later today or tomorrow once I've gotten back from town. Wish me luck! LOL

Sometimes cleaning leads to fun!

Have you ever embarked on a cleaning mission only to find yourself sitting on the floor surrounded by old memories or unearthing long-forgotten art supplies that are immediately given favor over the intended cleaning project? Well today I was organizing a closet full of kitchen gadgets & appliances when I discovered a pasta maker. How excited was I? So excited that I channeled my excited energy into finishing my cleaning job and making pasta from scratch- just in time for dinner...check out how it went...

I started getting kinda warm doing all that manual labour in the sun like that so maybe next time I'll let my breadmaker's pasta setting do all the hard work...

I might even be adventurous and try cracked pepper in the dough or maybe spinach or oregano...

Rolling it out through the pasta maker is definitely the best part...it's super fun! It's like the ultimate play-doh experience! LOL

This stuff was quite possibly the yummiest pasta I've ever eaten...I'm a firm believer in making something if I can rather than buying it. That definitely applies to this particular food item.

Challenge 60 - Introducing Kal Barteski

Imagine my surprise when my son Noah says to me after school yesterday that there's no school today! I guess that's part of the fun of moving somewhere new and learning when all the statutory holidays are. Today is Heritage Day in the Yukon and yup, there's no school! Our area celebrates Rendezvous in an effort to battle cabin fever which has been known to occur in my house during unbearably long cold spells (it's as icky as it sounds, trust me!) Most communities have these kinds of celebrations in the summer time with events like the "build, bail & sail contest" or Snow to Surf races- both of those are from my hometown, Comox Valley but not here, no siree...we do things a little differently. Let's start with the Wife Packin' Contest...which is a real and very serious sport, believe it or not! We'll be racing in it next year but observing this time. There's other uncommon competitions like the hairy leg contest (a ladies only event- eew!) and the beard growing contest (don't know about you, but a wild and outta control beard just don't do it for me) and the Sour Toe Cocktail...where (according to my husband) you are served an alcoholic beverage with a genuine human toe preserved in formaldehyde and if you can catch the toe in your teeth, you get a certificate- big whoop, a certificate...you won't catch me in THAT contest. EEW!! (if you don't believe me...go here, this s**t's REAL!)

So down to business, this week's challenge is my most favorite so far. I came across this UBER talented artist through a reading club that I joined at the beginning of the year. She's young, she's a mama and she's Canadian (three of my favorite things!) She's a published author and the most entertaining blogger I've ever come across.Her name is Kal Barteski (who, this morning is a way earlier blogger than me!) and she has kindly allowed us the opportunity to borrow some of her artwork for our challenges and you can expect to see some more of it in the coming weeks. Today's image is so much fun because it can be- and has been- interpreted in so many amazing ways. I'm excited to see what you guys can come up with using this piece as inspiration.

Vanessa

Jessi

Ronda

Tania

Christine

Sallie
Danielle

Sneaky Peeky

Here it is again, sneak-peek time!! This Couture Collection is SURE to get you all excited and inspired. There are so many crazy goodies in this one and a schwack of paper, let me tell ya! My birthday is in March so I decided to make sure this Collection was super beefy and loaded with fun bits & pieces. I can't tell you exactly what's inside this one but if you don't want to wait until March to order it, you can actually have a look to the right and see that there's an advance ordering option for the coming Collection. If you haven't ordered this month's kit and you'd like to get them both in one shipment (and save a few bucks on shipping) send me a quick email and we'll get y'all set up for truckloads of great scrappin'.

Weekend Goodness

I just can't help myself when it comes to my kids. They totally live with the paparazzi! It's a curse but hopefully when they grow up, they'll appreciate it. My youngest son, Seth inherited those dynamite eyelashes from his daddy...they are truly as long as they look. And truth be told, I think this little guy loves to 'work it' for the camera. I did, however, manage to edit out the banana-face, tongue sticking out photos...they were a little icky. This boy has such gorgeous eyes...Love them all!!

Take a little time to be creative today, maybe even get scrappy!

For my sweetie

This super cute little felt book is what my sweetie, Ray got for Valentines Day yesterday. I got the idea from Ali Edwards who posted the instructions & template on her blog. My printer was out of color ink so I printed the template in black ink. After I had cut it all down to size, I used my Versamark pen and some cranberry red embossing powder to colorize the "I love you" printed inside each page. I didn't photograph the sentiments inside because it was super personal and ultra-mooshy so you just have to use your imagination this time!! Below are a few more pics of the book. It is super cute and you might want to download the PDF's for next year!

Challenge 59

Happy Friday!! I don't know about you but my Valentines Day yesterday was awesome! Who wouldn't love waking up to the smell of bacon and having Eggs Benny delivered to you in bed?!?! That's just about the best way that I can think of to start the day. So today we are getting down to business with another challenge. I love this sketch. It is super versatile and you can see by all the pages below how many ways it can be interpreted with your unique materials & style.

Remember, if you want to have a shot at winning a free Couture Collection, just scrap a page (or more if you like) from this challenge, upload it to our Flickr Group and you might be the lucky winner of this month's vote! Please be sure that when you upload to the group that your page title includes the challenge it was created for so we know who to vote for at the end of the month. Also, you don't have to scrap with the Couture Collection but if you have one already, you can use those products.

Ronda

Tania

Vanessa
(Shannon, this page is what you call PAYBACK!!)

Jessi
Danielle

Christine
Sallie

And here are some super cute Valentine's cards that Jessi made. I love them!! I think my favorite is the bottom one, but then, I'm going thru a bit of a 'wings' phase right now.

Amy Tangerine

During January, One Little Word did a major giveaway to their loyal wordsters and in that giveaway of oodles of prizes was the January Couture Collection. The winner of that prize was Amy Tangerine, an extremely talented scrapbooker who also happens to be a T-shirt designer too. Clearly, this gal's got the creative gene! She received her Collection and I guess she got right down to creating with it because this morning I was greeted with a very friendly note in my inbox with a link to her page at SIS TV. I absolutely LOVE seeing what everyone makes with their Couture Collections and hope to see more of all y'all's work in the future. So here's some eye candy for today.

I'm on the quest for creative Valentines goodies for my 9 year old son today...I was GONNA make fortune cookies but they were NOT working out so I had to admit defeat in the cookie dep't. today. So it might end up being mini take-out boxes filled with candy (ACK, did I just say I was gonna give them candy?? I must be losing my mind) We'll see how much time I have and how far I get with all that icky work stuff. Happy Hump-day!! On your mark...get set... GO!

What a DEAL!!

I don't exactly know why the retail gods were smiling on me yesterday, but they were! The town I live in is fairly small and rather isolated. We have no major department stores like Holt Renfrew, Macy's or Target. We have WalMart. That's it. We DO have lots of small retailers who sell skater clothes and high-school aged clothing. Not so much for the average mom who has a sense of style. I'm really a big fan of sales & not spending top dollar on fashion items (I used to be, but that was pre-kids). Now, I save the big spending for things like my winter boots that are rated for -40 and down-filled jacket liners that cost $300 or super hi-tech snow pants...you know, survival gear.

When it comes to my mon-uniform, I tend to stick to Reitman's jeans because they fit my booty and they sell petites so I don't have to hem them; and cool T-shirts from wherever they are on sale (my favorite is Jacob Annexe because they are long but have shape to fit my waist and again with the booty). For a very long time I pursued a dream to be a fashion designer. I did spend time creating custom wedding gowns & graduation gowns when I was younger. As a side effect of being involved in that industry, I became very familiar with the leading designers. Several were very exciting to watch and several have really become pillars of the industry.

So back to my small town and utter lack of good clothing shopping...I was making a grocery run and decided to visit Liquidation World, a great kind of never-know-what-you're-gonna-find kind of store. They sell stuff from all over the place.Things from foodstuffs to bed linens (and even the beds themselves!) Seth had managed to pour the entire contents of his sippy cup all over his pants in the car and being that it was -40, having wet pants was a really bad thing so we popped in to Liquidation World to grab a pair of cheap pants for him and that's when I saw IT! It was sitting very inconspicuously on the rack, blending in with all the other jackets and pajama tops that were missing their bottoms, all helter-skelter like these kinds of stores can be. I saw that IT was made of heavy weight cotton velvet with heavy distressed steel buttons, heavy gauge cotton satin lining, immaculately crafted welt pockets and seaming that if you knew what you were looking at, would make you drool. I was in love with IT, a great tan jacket. I was curious to see if the label had been cut out or not and it was fully intact. So was the original price tag...
This is NOT what I paid for it, but I was afraid to know what it WAS gonna cost. I almost didn't ask (it had no price tag for the clearance store on it) but when I asked the price, I almost passed out. It was $10. That's it. Can you believe it?!?! Score of scores, a Marc Jacobs cotton velvet coat for $10. Brand new, no flaws, label inside the jacket- NOT A FAKE!!! Unbelievable. So needless to say, I go to Liquidation World every single time I'm in town!! I hope everyone has great shopping Karma today!! Happy Saturday!

Challenge 58

It's Friday again and that means it's time for yet another challenge. These non-sketch ones are my favorite, I think. This great diaper bag idea was sent to me by Tania and I have to agree with what she saw as inspiration in this item. There is so much texture and great design elements that the possibilities are endless. It was especially handy that the color scheme for this bag was bang-on with our Couture Collection for this month! So here's how we rocked it this time...

edited: We had a minor file mix up and the wrong project was posted for Danielle's contribution. Have a look below to see what she REALLY made with this week's challenge image.


Oh, and if you're interested in this bag or others from their collection, go to Keeta Collection to browse their website.

As always, you are all welcome to participate in our Flickr group where you can post your pages created from the inspiration in our challenges (be sure to include the challenge number in your image title or in the description) and have a shot at winning one of our Couture Collections. You don't have to use the Couture Collections (but we'd love it if you did!) and you can submit as many times as you like. Pages need to be uploaded to the photo pool on Flickr by the last day of the month and one winner will be chosen from all the submissions.

Jessi

Vanessa

Tania
This box is gorgeous! Tania made it (and the little dolls too) for her daughter, Emma, so she had a special way to let her worries go. So clever and sooooo pretty.

Ronda

Christine

Danielle
Sallie

And as always, Tania has whipped up a few extras for us just in time for some Valentines Day crafting. Make sure you carve out a little time for that this weekend... Only six days left to get 'em all made!