Technology Vs. Life...and something FREE

If you checked in with us this past friday, you noticed that Chrissy's page had been lost in cyberspace. Boooo to technology! She HAD emailed it to me but you know how it goes...when you are heading out of town, emails never arrive at their destination and there's not much you can do till you get back home. And home she is! Here's Chrissy's fantastic page for the current challenge:

Now, if you remember my post earlier this month when I introduced our lovely Guest Designer, Kim she mentioned some of her favorite products & techniques. We also shared her top three favorite layouts of all time for you to scraplift. What you get to do is link up to the original post HERE with your scraplifted pages(just copy & paste the URL for your page and post it in the comments section to be eligible) and you will be the proud owner of this great collection of one of Kim's favorite products...THICKERS!! You need to link up to the original post by the last day of the month to have your name entered in the contest. Winners will be announced in the first week of July.

A whirlwind!

Wow, the weekend's over and another crazy work week is underway. This farmin' gig is a busy thing! We're selling sod like crazy and I haven't set foot into the studio in DAYS!! I'm going to head out to the studio to pack a few orders (we LOVE Etsy!) and maybe even photograph the new finished knitted goodies. Don't even ask me if I've had time to scrap!

There's some new stock in the studio that I can't wait to play with...take a look!
I've got Tim Holtz Ink, Grunge Board & Metal numbers as well as Maya Road chipboard books, eyelets, piercers & mats....great goodies, to say the least!

Oh, and on my list of stuff to photograph is July's kit. You won't believe how much stuff is in this kit! You better make sure your Paypal has a few extra bucks in it for that kit because you don't wanna miss out!

I'm off to make a dent in my 'to-do' list. Have a rockin' day! XO

Challenge 76

You know how when you're a kid, it seems as though things like Christmas and summer holidays take FOREVER to come? I think as you get older, time speeds up. We start our school year much earlier here than anywhere else I've ever lived and so therefore, our school year ends earlier too. Noah started school in August and is out for holidays already! (We're on day 3 acutually). I'm a little in shock that it's mid-june...where does the time go?

This week's challenge was super tricky for me. It was, quite literally, a challenge. I was a little stumped by the 'plain'-ness of the inspo-piece and had to leave my layout for a few days and come back to it. After a little reflection (and major studio rearranging - post rainstorm& water damage to magazines) I got an idea that made my page feel more 'done' than it had been previously. I feel pretty good about it now. I love working with large prints (but only sometimes because the layout options can become somewhat limiting) just for a change.

If you are inspired by this piece and wish to upload your work to our Flickr Group photo pool, we'd love to see what you can do with it! If you aren't already a flickr member, you'll have to join and add the LP Group to your list of groups but once you've done that you're all set to start adding your work. Why would you want to do this, you may ask? Well, for starters you could be the next lucky winner of the monthly contest where we choose one favorite from all the non-design team pages loaded to the group. What do you win?? Well, you win that month's Couture Collection! You are not required to use Couture Collections to make your pages but you're totally welcome to if you happen to own them! You can enter all month long and you can enter as often as you wish. Just make sure you indicate which weekly challenge your pages are created for so we don't miss you in our voting process.

Check out what our Uber talented design team created for you to enjoy this week!
side note: WalMart prints 81/2x 12" photos....super fun to scrap with!

Vanessa

Gillian

Jessi

Ronda

Tania

Chrissy
layout lost in cyberspace...check back for an update!

Kim

A very full week! Oh, and a winner too!

Phew! What a week...and it's only Wednesday! Let's start at the beginning of today. My dad has come to work with us on the farm for the summer (he's from Vancouver Island) and it has been so great. I've loved having him here and I know the kids are over the moon with having Papa here for the summer. We're trying to encourage him to move here permanently (I think it's working!) and he came into the house this morning - he's staying in one of our travel trailers on the property- for the daily "good morning" and cuppa coffee. He says to me "Go on the computer there and look up this Paul Simon song". I did and it was all I could do to not get totally teary.



If you're finished listening to the words and are ready to read on, I'll share some fun news. We-the DT- voted on the pages submitted to Flickr for May and had a tricky time picking a favorite layout. We all agreed on a designer but were pretty divided on which page should win. We settled on this one by Allison Curry:


and these are some of the other pages that were loaded to our flickr photo pool for the month of May. If you want a shot at winning one of our monthly Couture Collections, just upload your pages made from our weekly challenges and you could be the next winner!

And last night I taught my first class in my new classroom location in Downtown Whitehorse. Can I tell you how deluxe this place is?! The chairs are the best feature, hands down...ours is a town full of government officials so all the boardrooms in town are designed to suit them. Lucky for us! The place was spacious and comfy but next time we'll have to plan for some music but other than that it was fantastic!

We had an amazing time and if you want to see what we were working on, go on over to the Classes Blog to see for yourself and make sure you check back often so that you can join us for the next one!

OOH! And one final thing, we were in the paper! As you may or may not know, Ray and I took over his parents' sod farm and this has led to some frustrating rumors in our community. Folks are led to believe that we're sold out or closed for business or that our prices have nearly tripled. As I'm sure you can imagine, those rumors are not doing our business any favors! So we got this story printed in the Whitehorse Daily Star. A proud moment for sure!!

To Skagway and Back

First I gotta warn ya, this is a pretty photo-heavy post! Our overnight trip to Skagway was soooooooo nice! We left the farm in the morning (fighting with a car battery that would NOT hold a charge of any kind...no turning off the engine whatsoever!) and drove to Skagway. We hit the Red Onion for a beer after my ritual visit the local yarn shop to buy a skein of gorgeous yarn (you'll see the new scarf for my Etsy shop soon!). We checked into our hotel which was small but comfy and did some serious window shopping and gift buying for the kids (wooden train whistles, bubble blower guns & giant marble sets). We had dinner at the Bonanza Bar & Grill on the main street but I didn't actually pull out the camera till today. We got up and moseyed through town pretty early (around 8:30) and went for breaky at a little greasy-spoon diner called the Sweet Tooth Cafe and strolled about just enjoying having no agenda of any kind! Here's a look at the main street in the morning. Note the large cruise ship in the background. It was one of three!








Here's my beau, Ray with the same blissful look on his face that I have been wearing all day - the one that says..."Aaahhh..."
Get a load of this machine! It is a snow blower and it's steam powered. A beast of a thing, really.
We found a neat shop that had a museum tucked in the back that neither of us had visited before and there was this unbelievable display of tradebeads - read the story below to get a sense of their value!
And this little guy prompted us to stop and take a load of photos (about a hundred by my count!) He was just young, maybe a spring baby from last year and no kidding, he was only about 6' away from me. I did NOT at any time exit the vehicle though, he's a wild animal and I didn't want to do anything that would put either of us in harm's way. Remember if you ever see wildlife on your travels, please don't feed them or get out of your car. It's stupid and extremely dangerous. Bears can kill you if you piss them off! (there, I've stepped down from my soapbox now!) It was super cool nonetheless.
It was such a relaxing trip and I can't wait to go again. If you have never visited Alaska, you really ought to do it sometime. It's beautiful. A typical coastal town but lovely. We decided to leave just before lunchtime because A) we weren't hungry and B) none of the restaurants had a single square inch of space for us to even step inside so we decided to make our way back homeward. We were greeted with this just outside of town. In case you can't tell, that's snow. That's six inches of snow. In June! Can you say "WTF?!?!" Luckily, there's none at the farm but it's cold and yucky. I want to go back to my holiday spot! :( Oh well, it was good while it lasted.