Dress-up Fun!

My kids all had fun making masks and dressing up this morning. I love the imagination of kids!!

Mother/Daughter class

Mother - Daughter Class

THIS Saturday, May 23rd

2:00 - 4:30

$25 for the 2 of you!

May is a month to celebrate mothers, and special women in your life. And my class is a great place to do the celebrating! Whether it is your own mother, aunt, sister, daughter or grandmother. Or maybe you want to come with a special friend to celebrate YOU as a mother! Whoever the special lady is, come and spend an afternoon together stamping at my Mother/Daughter class this Saturday, May 23rd from 2:00 - 4:30. This will be a great time of stamping, visiting and tea... and where all those things are present with a group of ladies, laughter isn't far behind!

Please email me with your questions about the class, or to sign up - please put "Mother/Daughter class" in the subject line. stampinsars(AT)hotmail.com

All about Stampin' Up!

Stampin' Up! is on You TUBE..... check it out!

On this same link, you will find other helpful videos on how to use

Stampin' Up! products, (like the 3-tier cake pop-up die!)

CLICK HERE!!

Copy Cat

Am I a follower? Sometimes... and sometimes I'm a leader. But when somebody comes up with a good idea, then why reinvent the wheel?

I know you've seen them... those "picture a day" and "365 photos" blogs. The ones where people post a picture a day, but nothing else. I'm going to be a Copy Cat and do one, too. I love taking pictures, and sometimes I can't come up with a great explanation of a photo, but if I am going to post about it, I feel the pressure to have a creative paragraph about it, too. Well, on my "Worth 1000 Words" blog, you will find no paragraphs. No words beyond the title. The picture is worth the words (well, at least to me it is!)

I suppose I could just add my wordless images to this (Stampinsars) blog, but I choose not to.

So, if you feel like following my picture-a-day attempt... please head over to "Worth 1000 Words." Let me know what you think!

Vancouver Children's Festival

For the long weekend, (Victoria Day) our friends Tricia and Justin came over with their little guy, Hunter. We went into Vancouver for the Children's Festival. We were quite impressed with all the work that went into this Festival. And we plan to go again next year.

Here are a few pics... I took over 150 pictures, so I won't show them all... just the highlights!

Us in Space:

The face painters were amazing... my kids all asked for Pirate ships. Elise got two! Scott got one and a spider in a web, and Todd chose a pirate for his other cheek.



This was such a cute idea for the preschoolers... a little fence that they could "paint" with water. Hunter and Elise had so much fun doing this (as you can see, the kids also enjoyed giving the floor a coat of paint!)

The giant sandbox... we started and ended our day in this.

Inside the Preschool Pavillion... loads of toys and fun for the little ones. Elise and Hunter spent quite awhile in there, while the older boys were outside doing sports.


Relay races that the boys loved.


Todd playing a game inside one of the tents.

Elise's highlight was when she got to share the stage with Children's performer Chris Hamilton. She loved it! He kind of chuckled when she was holding the guitar. He said, "Are you sure you want to hold it like that?" She said, "Yep, dis is how I pway da guitar!"


E kind of surprised me with how she wanted to meet all the mascots. She gave this big Port of Vancouver seagull a huge hug!

And this banana caught her eye from across the grounds and she had to go give him a high five too! He was handing out packets of spf 50 sunscreen, which came in very handy before the day was through.

The boys had fun playing with this hockey man. He was great with kids and let them run through his legs... I was a bit worried that they would knock him right off his feet, but Steve told me to relax!

Elise enjoyed her sky-high view on top of Daddy's shoulders... made it easier to talk to the "tall girl!"

Then the kids made kites, out of just paper... and they WORK!!! I will show kite flying pics in another post. We spent Sunday afternoon flying them at a park near our house.

Flowers for me....

These are the beautiful blue flowers that I got from Steve and the kids (picked out by Elise) for Mother's Day! Plus, the kids took me to DQ for ice cream the night before and I got a wonderful breakfast in bed on Mother's Day morning before we all got ready to head out to church, where the moms all got spoiled with more flowers!

Teacher Appreciation Week

I know I am a little behind on this post, because "Teacher Appreciation Week" happened a couple weeks ago, already. But, I still wanted to share what Scott and I put together for his teacher. She is such a great lady, and has been a perfect teacher for Scott all year. He is learning so much and loves going to school. I am so grateful for that because it would make it that much harder to say goodbye to him everyday if I knew he didn't like what he was going to.

This picture is from the very first day we met Scott's teacher - last August, during the week before school started. The frame is about 4 inches square and is just one of those little wooden frames that you can get at a local craft or dollar store. I covered it in Urban Oasis designer paper and used Flower Fusion flowers and some brads to embellish it.

And here is the card Scott made for Ms C. He used rubons on the front as well as a Jumbo wheel to decorate the paper. He loves stamping, and is happy for any excuse to make a card with me!

A Blog to Follow

Do you have favourite and inspiring blogs that you love to follow? Favourite recipes, stamping sites, friend updates?? Well, I have a lot of blogs on my sidebar, and probably 100 more in my "favourites" on my computer, but I find that I don't get to look at the ones on my computer as much as I look at the ones actually listed on my blog.

I just added one that I want to remember to check more often... Stampin' Pretty. Check her out for inspiration, and when you need a little help getting your mojo going... she's got the push you need with her "Mojo Monday" posts!

I'd love to know what your favourite blogs to visit are... I might find a few new faves of my own from you!!!

Family Photos

Back at Easter, we had a family photo shoot done while we were in Victoria. This summer will be my parents' 40th wedding anniversary, so my sister thought family pics would be a great way to celebrate. I agree! The photographer's name is Katrina Esselink, and she is very passionate about photography and eventually would love to get into this as a career. Check out her blog HERE.

I just thought I'd share a few pics with you....

My Mom and Dad

The "Original Five!"
The "kids!"


Louise and her crew...

My brother Angus... with his niece and all his nephews!

Me and mine...


Mom and dad with all their "Grands"

All of us!




I am blessed to be a part of this family!

12 X 12 pages

"I love it when a plan comes together!"

(ever watch the A-Team growing up? I was a big fan!)

Anyway, here are 3 double 12X12 layouts that came together fairly quickly... and for the top 2 examples, it was because the pictures were of such photogenic people!!

First, this is a layout I made last week of my sister Louise, and her family... I love Fall, and so this was a fun page to make. Plus her family looks so great in the Fall colours.

And here's what Louise's boys look like more recently... (Please tell me when these were taken, Louise! I need to add that on there). Louise shot these pics in her backyard, and then changed the pics to sepia before printing them. What cooperative subjects, eh?!

And, finally, this is a layout that we were given in our package at the Memory Weavers Scrapathon in April. But since I usually deal with double layouts, rather than a single layout, I saved mine to do at home, and added some chocolate chip paper into the mix, and the result is under the original.

The original (they gave us a picture of what it should look like when completed)

And.... my take on it as a double layout:

Surprise!!!

On Tuesday, I went with a friend out to Chilliwack to meet up with a bunch of gals to celebrate our friend Cindy's birthday! And she was surprised! Good job, Rhonda on pulling off the surprise! LOVED that little restaurant and everything about it... atmosphere, great friends, great food (I even tried to duplicate the sandwiches today when I had my friend Alexa over for her birthday!) The dessert was amazing, too.

So, here are a few pics... the place was called Apeldoorn's and it was just quaint!


I loved that a bunch of the tables in there were made from old sewing machine tables!

Mine were good, but this one was amazing, and I think the secret may have been the swiss cheeze!

All the girls, and a token male... baby Andrew!
l-r... Madelyn, Jill, Cindy, Rhonda, Andrea, me!

Some fun with Picasa.... all the different tea cups were so pretty!

The birthday girl!

And since the day before Cindy's birthday is MY birthday.... Andrea surprised ME with a beautiful rose plant, too! Thanks so much Andrea!