Hey look...I found my mojo...or are those winegums?

Yup, those are fresh, soft delicious wine gums dumped out onto my grubby craft mat but I don't care. I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE wine gums and these bad boys have been my studio companions over the past week. I'm actually really pleased with myself for making the giant bag last that long! I have a bit of a habit of popping them into my mouth one after the other until I realize that the sugar has made me really jittery and dehydrated. ..just a sec...gotta grab one...mmmm! Yum, my fave is definitely the black ones. I'll always share my wine gums but NEVER the black ones. I can eat them day or night (even in the morning, but don't tell my kids...we have a 'no candy before lunch' policy in our house!) Just figured it'd be fun to share my (not-so) secret winegum obsession with the whole world! LOL

Wheres your mojo at?

It's a tuesday full of stuff to do. A long list of boring office junk to deal with (gonna put March's receipts at the very bottom of the list again!) and a schwach of uber fun stuff to deal with. I am feelin' super scrappy so I think I'll do a bunch of fun creative page-making and then the boring errands. Usually I do it the other way around but those boring errands wipe me out and totally kill my mojo. I'm gonna outsmart that errand-brain-fry and do the cool stuff first!

I haven't even really used my camera for anything other than lame shooting just for work- YAWN! So maybe if the lighting today cooperates (it looks a smidge on the bright side today) I might bust out the camera for creative reasons. We'll see tho.


This is Noah being hard to photograph...somewhat elusive in that pre-tween fashion...


and Seth in the equally challenging to photograph goofball little kid phase. Should be some interesting scrap pages in the coming months!

Oh, and check out my Etsy store, I loaded a few new knitted things to it yesterday. They are soooooo nice! There's a preview on the sidebar if you scroll down a little...

Rock on, it's a great day!

Family Night

Every Friday night we (the fam) all do something together. Sometimes we watch a movie, sometimes we go to the Takhini Hotsprings and sometimes we play a game. This was game night last Friday. Noah DIED when he saw how silly he behaved in the above clip - of course we parents found it highly accurate of typical Noah behaviour and also thoroughly entertaining. Gotta love modern technology...it brings childhood torture to a whole new level! I can't wait for him to bring a girl home now...this beats embarrassing baby photos anyday!

Of course, poor Noah had his turn after Seth so whatever damage Sethy inflicted on the tower was Noah's problem! Sheesh, the kid never had a shot! LOL

Challenge 69 - Holy Smokes!

Okay, so I'm not exactly feelin' the love for Canada Post...there's just something very wrong with a salesperson trying to convince me that the shipping method that I want to use isn't a good idea...GRRR! I'll not go into all the details of the encounter (what I've already said should be enough!) but luckily, I managed to convince HER that my idea was indeed how my stuff would be shipped...sigh...so tiring!

So here we are at another Friday (where the hell does the time go?!) and it's challenge time YAY! I really loved working with this sketch. I'm a big one-photo scrapper so this was a no-brainer for me. It was fun to try and use a little bit of everything from this month's kit for the last page of the month. I (like everyone else) can hardly believe the month is almost over...there's so much stuff left in this kit!

Remember if you want a shot at winning this Couture Collection for yourself, all you have to do is create layouts from this month's challenges and upload them to our Flickr Group (be sure to label them according to which weekly challenge you used). You can use any products you want, just use the challenges as inspo! You have till the end of the month to get your pages uploaded to the Group Photo Pool so go on and get scrappy!

Vanessa

Ronda
Jessi





Tania

Danielle



Christine

Sallie
And get a load of this...as always, Tania has an extra goodie for us this month the idea just popped into her head! The date card on the side rotates (how cute!) and inside it reads 'every day of the year'. Love it!

errands abound

Well, although Open Crop Night wasn't all I hoped it would be this week ( I was kinda by myself) but it's okay because I got tons done...my DT gals can expect their newest kits before the end of the week if Canada Post decides to play nice, I got a wee bit of scrappin' done and holy cow, my studio is TIDY! LOL

I can hardly believe that there's only a week and a half till the NSB Day crop! YIKES! I don't feel half as organized as I think I probably am...so much stuff has gotten done over the past few weeks and it seems like there's an insurmountable list of things yet to be done. Knowing that I get to go and do the big grocery shop today isn't exactly my idea of a good time and could be impacting my mojo just slightly. sigh

there is a little bit of Postal Lovin' waiting for me at the Post Office, I'm going to just insist that today be full of happy goodness. That's my plan of attack for the day. Fun mail & groceries. (that sounds so domestic! LOL) Maybe if I'm really lucky I'll get a chance to do a bit of scrappin' just for fun rather than for work/deadlines. Maybe.

Word UP Lotus Paperie Style!

Check it out...today if you go visit the scrap-a-licious gals over at One Little Word, you can see what amazing things they created with their Couture Collections! Yes, that's right, I'm a sponsor for OLW and their Word UP Challenge this week. I love how these guys rocked out such stellar pages!

Now, that means that if you are thinking about snapping up one of the few remaining kits, this is a really good time because they're disappearing FAST! And yesterday I was able to grab a quick photo of May's kit (but we're still waiting for the super cool vintage robot fabric to arrive) and those kits are available for immediate order (but don't worry, I won't ship them sans fabric!). The kit is listed in the sidebar and if you want both this month's Couture Collection and next month's, you can save yourself $14 and I'll ship 'em both in the same box (be sure to email me so we can set that up for you in the shopping cart)

Blast Off Couture Collection
$49.00 including shipping

Fun with mail

Well, that was fun! In a wild and crazy whirlwind of flying scrap supplies, I unwrapped, tagged & stocked the shelves with loads of wonderful goodies just waiting for all my new Whitehorse scrappin' friends! There are adhesives, inks, papers and other amazing products and those of you who are planning to attend open crop night tomorrow can get in a little early shopping before the crop on May 3rd.

Some of the products that arrived today are:



Not to mention two different Basic Grey paper packs, Pageframes albums in 6x6 and super cute tag albums, Basic Grey rub-ons, Hambley rub-ons & overlays (and more are on the way!), My Mind's Eye memory blocks kits, and so much more! There's no admission to tomorrow's crop night (there never is) so pack up your latest project and a little cash and prepare yourself to get creative, sip a little tea and shop your heart out! See you there!

FMI call 668-2296 or email lotuspaperie@shaw.ca
7-10 @ Lotus Paperie Studio K216 N Klondike Hwy.

going postal

but not in the traditional sense!! I have a few parcels to collect from the postal outlet today so that is priority one- gotta get May's Couture Collections assembled and shipped to my girls AND there's a few boxes from one of our sponsors for the National Scrapbooking Day crop that I've spent the last eight months planning at one of our local hotels, the High Country Inn. I love picking up mail, it always makes me happy. It's kinda like mini extensions of Birthday Week. And since we live so far out in the boonies, the postal folks don't like to actually deliver parcels larger than a loaf of bread so instead, they drive all the way out here to stick a piece of paper telling me that they're holding my parcel hostage into my mailbox. I think it's a little sinister, really. So that means that I have to go in to Shoppers Drug Mart and deal with some customer service-challenged Postal Gals (groan)and hope that she can find my packages! Doesn't that sound like fun to you! LOL

I'll be dropping in on another friend downtown who has been inflicted with the responsibility of my delivery point for couriers (because if Canada Post won't deliver to my door, why the hell would Fed Ex?!) and as a gesture of thanks (and in an effort to ensure that he remains willing to accept my deliveries) I baked a lovely, tender, gooey batch of uber yummy cinnamon buns. I think they'll be well received!

The rest of the day will be last minute scrapping of samples for the crop and sorting out the heap of freebies! If you live in the Whitehorse area, make sure you visit the Classes page for all the info on the crop & classes. Hope to see you there!

I heart fun mail!

Challenge 68

Where does the time go?! I think I was trapped in a timewarp that was tinted a very unsavory shade of green this week...there was a bug...a flu bug...eeew! It all started with Noah, then I got it and so did Seth. Ray got a headache and stiff joints (I'm a little bitter that he got off so easy) and we were all glad to see it pass.

Okay, enough of that! It's Friday again and we have a challenge but sadly my page is absent due to the sickness :( Our challenge image is actually a Starbucks greeting card. I thought it was a great composition and I just knew it would trigger some more amazing creativity in our gals...

And of course, as always there is our Flickr Group where you can upload a copy of your page created from our weekly challenges. You will have a chance to win one of the current Couture Collections but you are not required to create your pages from the Collections...although, if you have one, we'd love to see what you create with yours!

Jessi

Ronda
Christine

Tania

I love this mini album...what a great way to use up this kit, goodness knows there's enough stuff to do it!

Sallie

My baby's FOUR!

As a victim of Martha Stewart's Cupcake Week last week, I was compelled to make a batch for Seth's 4th birthday party instead of a conventional birthday cake but really, how good could they have possibly been without a little almost-four-year-old helper doing all that important mixing?! Seth had such fun making cupcakes with me and I must admit, I had a whole lotta fun myself.


And today was the big ol' party and Seth was given a Gameboy from Noah (a hand-me-down) and a 'Cars' game to play. It was all I could do to peel him away to toss him in the tub before bed! He also got a Leap Pad and two stories and another electronic portable game console (handy for the car) from Auntie Leslie & Uncle Len and Hannah & Madison.

These are my...er, I mean Seth's cupcakes. They were suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuper yummy!

Ray must have been enjoying himself because he was full of first class hamminess for the camera! But, I think that the photo below is my absolute favorite from the entire day. What a gorgeous man! To quote Seth as he was opening his remote control airplane from Grandma & Grandpa, "Lucky me!"



What a fantatic day. I can't believe Seth is four! Where has the time gone? Wow, what a ride. Glad the terrible threes are OVER! LOL

Challenge 67

Wow, Just when I thought all was lost this month with the long reaching ripple-effect of slow-to-arrive Couture Collections to our Design Team, the gals got their stuff and rocked out the five-star pages below! Way to go everyone! This week's sketch is clearly one that can be interpreted many different ways as you can see. It puts the focus on one main photo with lots of room for journaling.

If you want to try your hand at this week's challenge, please remember to upload a copy to our Flickr Group so that you can have an opportunity to win a Couture Collection. All you do is load the image to your gallery on Flickr and once that's done, go to the 'Organizr' and upload it to our group (it's all drag &drop!) just be sure to mention which week your page is for in your title so you are included in the voting process for the month. You are not required to create your pages using the Couture Collections but we love it when you do!

And if you haven't already, don't forget about the Open Call for Design Team applications! Go HERE to find out more about being a Lotus Paperie Designer

Ronda

Vanessa

up close

Jessi

Sallie

Danielle
Tania

Christine

Oh, and on a side-note, the Bison feast was unbelievable. We sat at a table with Noah's teacher and her family and shared no end of belly laughs. After an amazing dinner with our choice of burgers, sausage or steak and tables upon tables of potluck dishes the group was shown a slide show of the Bison hunt. It was pretty standard slide-show stuff, you know kids goofing off and unflattering photos of teachers bundled up in every possible layer of warm clothing but the piece de resitance was the video that followed where you could see the 'field dressing' (that's the graphic part where they skin, gut & quarter the meat) and some of the kids' accounts of the experience. The Bison were brought back by snow machine (AKA skidoo) to the location where it was being prepared and one of the kids was describing his job which was to make sure that the intestines didn't fall out the arse of the Bison from his group's kill while being hauled back . He mentions with nonchalance that he had to shove his arm up the beast's rectum to keep its guts inside. When asked how he felt about that, he replied with perfect comic timing, " it was quite warm...but I just kept telling myself, ' this is the worst puppet show ever!' " Well, that had to be the damned funniest account of the glamorous side of Bison hunting I'd ever heard. What a way to end the night! Hahahahaha

Yum...sushi!

It was a necessity, I told you! We hadn't visited this restaurant yet but I can promise you this...we'll be back again really soon. The food was stellar, the service was prompt and pleasant (always a winning combination) and to top it off, Seth was all over it like a dirty shirt! Who knew he'd be so into Japanese food!?!?! He was feelin' the love for the camera too! LOL
Ray's and my lunches were super good and HUGE! I couldn't finish all of mine and I think next time I'll get more sushi. The food was delish and if you are a Whitehorse resident or visitor, definitely hit this place.

I'm not a big sashimi fan but Ray thought he'd died and gone to sushi heaven! LOL


Of course, I did do almost all my other errands (including the post office) so it was a pretty good day.

Tonight at Noah's school is the annual Bison feast. The grade six & seven classes go on a Bison hunt as part of their curriculum (all you anti-hunters, please keep your opinions to yourselves. I understand that some of you disagree with hunting but i kinda don't care! sorry if that offends anyone) So as part of their Bison hunting experience, we're going to go and eat it ! Yum again! I'm bringing my pumpkin bread pudding because it's a potluck so it will be a pretty fantastic dinner I suspect. The dinners at school always take place in the gym and the lights are gross and make a nasty yellowish orange cast on the photos so there prolly won't be any from that. Too much photoshopping to make it worth looking at. So I'll be busy today baking & knitting up a storm and getting ready for the National Scrapbooking Day crop in May (if you haven't registered, you've gotta...it's gonna be a truckload of fun!) Enjoy your Thursday!

ugh...the hump

It's a classic Wednesday hump-slump-shlumpadump-lump. Neither the beginning nor the end of the week and I'm trying to rock out some feel good about running errands mojo but I'm just not feelin' it. For me, a trip to town to run errands literally takes all day and a good half hour of driving at mach 3 (okay, maybe more like 100km/h) just to GET to town. It's a hit-the-post-office-and-the-dollar-store-and-maybe-wal-mart-and-try-to-squeeze-in-some-sushi kinda day, actually, the post office and sushi are critical but the others might get squeezed right outta the plan but we'll see...I'm gonna strap on my big fat camera and play paparazzi a little and might even blog something fun, exciting and Yukon-ish later today (remember, that's a MAYBE!)

Now, let's go and get stuff done Jedi style!

Left Hangin'

Okay...I admit it, I totally left all of you, my faithful blog readers hangin' over what was left of Birthday week and the fabulous treasures inside my marvelous box from my lovely pal, Karen. And after some gentle - and not so gentle - reminders (thanks Allison) I have recovered from the Birthday week related blog burnout. Shocking to admit, but there it is...the cold, hard truth about my failure to deliver. I hope you can forgive me for being such a big fat slacker.

So to honor my darling pal Karen's creativity in her Birthday week selections for me this year...here's the rest of what I got...


Now, I have an almost-debilitating sweet-tooth (when I get a craving, dude, watch out!) so Karen sent this little treat. It was a rice-krispie square egg covered with peanut butter and chocolate and it was hollow but not empty...no, it was crammed with Jelly Belly jellybeans (yum!) that were glued in place with more chocolate!

And this was a bit of a dirty trick. I think Karen really enjoyed pulling this little prank although, I have to admit that I love this glasses case. The one I was using for my sunglasses was a strictly utilitarian (read:ugly) case and this one is far, far cuter.

This was easily one of my favorites from Birthday week. I have been needing a kitchen timer and just hadn't picked one up yet. This was a very well selected gift for sure...and if you know me and my penchant for hoarding cool yet useful kitchen gadgets then you wouldn't be even a little surprised by my excitement over my new zester. It is so cool! It grates ginger like nobody's business, I used it for an Indian dish I made last week and all I can say is "DUDE!"

This was the final gift in the package which, I later learned from Karen, was a huge gamble. Sure, buying someone else shoes without them there to try them on is a bit risky but I like a little risk!

So there ya have it. Now it's Karen's birthday week...go on over to her blog and see what I gave her...don't forget to wish her a happy birthday (it was on the 5th)