Open House

Just a quick reminder:

Saturday, October 4th,
from 2:00 - 5:00 pm

World Card Making Day Open House

* Make and Takes

* New Products to see and try

* Specials

*Door prizes

* Refreshments

All of the above for FREE!!!!

If you KNOW you are going to be here, please send me a quick email at stampinsars@hotmail.com
so I can have enough make and takes on hand.

And if you will only know that day, then just come on over!!

Please email me for directions if you've never been here before!

Bring a Friend! (or two!!)

See you Saturday!

Keep it Simple with Kissing!

The name of the feature is "K.I.S.S." (Keep it Simple Sister!) and the name of the technique is Kissing... but it is super simple! Simply ink up a background stamp (I used Canvas) and use that as your "ink pad" for a solid image stamp set - you "Kiss" the 2 stamps together... hence the name! It gives a nice soft look to the image which otherwise is quite bold. The colour combo here is Tangerine Tango and Old Olive. Tangerine Tango is the one new In Colour that I have not really used yet, (because I am slightly afraid of it!!) and so I pulled out the ink, paper and ribbon tonight and made the decision to make a Tangerine Tango card - it's not so scary after all!! And, isn't the name fun to say?!!

Scrappin' with Bold Brights

There is something about using Bold Brights and primary colours for Elementary school photos that just seems right. The playground is painted in these colours, classrooms are decorated in these colours, and kids just look good surrounded by these colours.

In this layout, the only stamping I did was with the "My ABCs" wheel, because I found some 3-d stickers that seemed to do all the work for me! I got Scott to write his name on the first day of school, and I will get him to do it on the last day as well... hopefully there will be some improvement!



I will just add some journaling and the page will be done... It's a bit on the busy side, but that is kind of how kindergarten children are... busy! So I think it fits in this layout, and it also lets me use a lot of pictures in one layout! I still have pics leftover from the first day of school that I didn't use, but those will go in our Family Album or a regular photo album.

We knew him as Doc Hudson

One of our favourite voices was silenced this weekend. Paul Newman died at 83 years old. He was the same age as my grandpa who died earlier this year. My kids love Doc Hudson and we coloured some pictures this morning from their favourite movie Cars. Doc Hudson was Paul Newman's last role.


Read the story HERE

The Wilton Rose

Tonight was the last night of my level one "Wilton Method Cake Decorating Course"... I loved it! We worked on perfecting the rose tonight. I think I did ok... It's just too bad that the icing tastes so yucky. But I think part of my problem is that I flavoured the icing tonight with the "Butter Flavour" and it is just raunchy. Steve had to hold his breath when I opened up the container to show him the cake... so, I am not going to be using that flavouring again... I should have stuck with vanilla. Next time. I am sure the kids will want a piece of it, so it won't go completely to waste. I don't think I can eat it. After messing about on it for so long, I hardly want to look at it anymore!!!

But I thought you might like to see it, so here you go :)




Leanne and Judi's cakes were fabulous tonight, and I want to show them as well.....

Judi's.. I love Judi's little sweet peas - she got them down perfectly!


And here's Leanne's... Once again, Leanne totally wins for the colour combo she chose. Love these colours, Leanne!

Terrific Techniques!

Here's a little card I just made... it measures 2 3/4" X 7 3/4 ". I used the Baby Wipe technique (see below picture for instructions). Then I embossed in black the images from Pocket Silhouettes (one of my new faves! And it's on sale until the end of September). This was a pretty quick little card to make, and I like the final product. When I make another one, I might try to get the swipes a little more consistent... and then again, I might not - nature is not always "consistent" otherwise why would people stare at clouds and take pictures of sunsets? If every single one was the same, then we'd only ever need to take one picture! So I think I'll leave my technique the way it is :)

The technique:

For a background paper: fold a baby wipe in half a couple times until you have an edge that is about 2 inches wide. Place drops of reinkers along this edge, alternating 2 coordinating colours. Swipe the baby wipe across Whisper White paper to create patterned paper.

For a multicoloured stamp pad: Place about 6-8 drops in 2 or 3 colours of coordinating reinker colours to make a pool large enough for the stamp of your choice. Solid stamps work best, but it is fun to experiment with many stamps, and different reinker colour combinations.


ps - this is the first time I have scanned a picture... usually I just take a digital pic of it, but Steve is out with the camera, so I had to learn how to use the scanner, or else wait until he came home - I didn't want to wait!!!

Family Scrapbook

Feature: Scrappin' Passion!

When I scrapbook for the kids and for Steve, it is in a 12X12 format. In these books there are major events in their lives (first day of school, birthdays, Father's Day, etc) or just a layout of some of my favourite pictures of them.

I also keep family yearbooks going, in an 8 1/2 X 11 size. In these ones, there are usually 2 double layouts per month, and sometimes an extra layout in December because we have our anniversary and Christmas both in that month.

But what do I do with all the fun little family trips we take? My family lives in Victoria, so we are often on the island visiting. And in the summer there are other trips to scrap about, like camping, etc. I will put a page of these pics in our family album, and certain moments of holidays get added into each of the kids' books, but that's not enough pages! I needed a place to put several layouts of each trip, without feeling the pressure of space in a book... I think I found the perfect solution:

An 8 1/2 X 8 1/2 chipboard album from Stampin' Up! It is my new favourite size to scrapbook in!!

I covered it in Designer Paper and used my "Summer Home" Scrappin' Kit to decorate it. I am using this scrappin' kit throughout the book as well, and have completed a few pages already.

Crazy for Cupcakes!!!

Tonight was the third of four classes in my Level one "Wilton Method of Cake Decorating" course at our local Michaels store. I had so much fun tonight. First of all, Judi and Leanne and their families joined us for dinner before the class. Then the girls went off to our class, and the guys stayed back here (with all the kids!! Seven kids in total) and just hung out for a couple hours!

The class was so fun, and it was "cupcake night" so I had a great time decorating mine. The instructor is really great, too, and she makes the steps easy to understand and is very thorough at demonstrating each technique. The kids will have a wonderful surprise in the morning when they wake up to these guys..... (but they'll have to wait until snack time to eat them :)

And these flower ones were Steve's favourites of the ones I made....

Then, to practice my "shells" I did these 2 white ones below... and the blue one is just using up leftover icing...

And just another shot of the tops of the cupcakes:

I am looking forward to taking level 2 at some point... don't know if it will be later this fall, or if the 3 of us might take the next level together in the new year. This has been something on my "to do" list for awhile now, so I am so glad that Leanne and Judi asked me if I wanted to take the course with them... it just came up in conversation one day, and about a week later Leanne called and said, "Meet us at Michaels in an hour, we're signing up!" So there you have it... you just gotta DO IT!!!! Thanks ladies... it's so fun hanging out with you each week!

Just like mommy!!!!

I guess this is a good reason to not let Elise be in the bathroom while I am putting on my makeup..... she tried it the other day.... The kids were all colouring with markers at the table and she said, "I put felt pen on my eyes..." Well, don't you think that brought me running! I realized that she had watched me "draw" on my eyes earlier that day... nice! Monkey see... Monkey do!!!

NSR.... but still artsy!!

A couple weeks ago, I joined a Level one Wilton cake decorating class with my friends Leanne and Judi. In the second class, we had to decorate a cake.... oh the pressure! Here's my cake... and while it tasted pretty good, and the icing was very yummy (I used a store bought chocolate for the flat icing, and I made up the buttercream recipe for the decoration part, it's not the fanciest cake in the world... but I know that by the end of Level 3 I'm going to rock!!!!!

One of a kind

I received this card in the mail from my friend Sue this week. I had to share it with you because it's so adorable. Don't you love how she's used the little buttons on the flowers. This is also one of my favourite colour combinations. Thanks so much, Sue!

24 Hour Shopping!!!!

Stampin' Up! made a very exciting launch this week... ONLINE ORDERING!

That means 24/7, anytime you want!!!

Click HERE to start shopping!!!!!!

A Look at our Sunday...

I mentioned in my last post that there would be some pictures to share from the weekend birthday festivities.... I wasn't expecting to have to share THESE pictures, but this was what we spent a good chunk of Sunday doing..... not so fun!

This is my little trooper at the 4 1/2 hour waiting mark in the Emergency waiting room (we were there for just about 5 hours altogether). While we were at a joint Family birthday party for Steve, Kevin and Dawnelle, on Sunday afternoon, Scott fell off some playground equipment and put a huge gash in his forehead.

Out of habit he smiled, but we told him that wasn't necessary....

This was a more appropriate expression for the occasion!

Beautiful new hospital.... but they have MANY MANY kinks to work out...

This was the 4th room we were taken to before the Dr. actually fixed him up.

The Dr. glued Scott's wound together...

Nurse Nancy was a gem, and made Scott laugh. I wish the receptionists had been as nice as her and Dr. M... The admitting nurses need to take some PR courses, and need to learn how to deal with people if this is going to be their chosen line of work. Seriously, they were bags. But Dr. M and Nurse Nancy made up for their incompetence.

In true scrapbooking form, I documented the whole event in pictures. Of course, we don't have any pictures from the scene of the accident.... that would have been gross.

Happy Birthday Steve!

Steve turns 35 today, and we have been celebrating all day... I am sure there will be a few pics to post tomorrow!

Here's the card I made him... he is the best chef I know, so this little (big :) guy from the "Voila!" stamp set was perfect for his card!

Just like her brothers

Elise tries so hard to be just like the guys... so far it's ok, but there will come a day when we are going to have to say, "no shoes, no shirts, no way!!!!!!!!"

Snail Mail :)

First day of school!

Yesterday:
Check out Steve's blog for pics from our Family Fun Day yesterday!!

TODAY - First day of kindergarten..... We survived! Scott loved his classroom, and couldn't wait to try out all the centres!!