Tuesday, August 30, 2011

1953 vs 2011

My grandmother has recently been cleaning out boxes and she came across a bunch of old photos.  She even found an old photo album that my Great-Grandmother started.  My grandfather played professional hockey so they were on the road a lot.  Its not like the current league where they sign a long term contract and a no trade clause.  In the 1950's you basically signed your life over to the team.  There were only 6 teams back then so to even make the team was huge.  Now, anyone can make it.

My grandfather is from Edmonton.  He was signed by Toronto.  In 1949, Toronto sent him to Los Angeles for training camp.  He ended up playing down here for a couple of years before they called him back up to the Toronto area.  Flying was almost unheard of at that time unless you had a lot of money.  Since they were making the trip up for almost 9 months, they drove so they could take a lot of their stuff with them.

My grandmother said that each time, they would take a different route to get up to Ontario so they have a TON of photos.  Most pictures they can't tell where they are or what the picture is of.  They didn't write much down in those days.

But this one album has a bunch of pictures from 1953-1954 when my mom was born.  They travelled up to Sioux St. Marie for the season right after she was born and went through Canada.  They stopped to see my grandfathers family in Edmonton on the way.  Funny enough, they stopped at the Calgary Stampede and a few other places.  Looking through these photos, I spotted two immediately.

 My grandmother holding my mom at Lake Louise. 1954
Nick and I at Lake Louise. 2011

 Stampede - Earlton Gate 1954
Stampede - Earlton Gate 2011

Sunday, August 28, 2011

More Rocket Age

This is the last bit of Rocket Age for now but with a boy I'm sure I'll use more of it down the line.  I still have some Disneyland/Buzz Lightyear photos to scrap......

A couple of cards....






And one more layout.......





Friday, August 26, 2011

Shop Hop Make n Takes

So remember that Shop Hop I went on?  Each store was giving you things for shopping with them.  If you spent a minimum of $10 you got a 6x6 layout in the theme of their destination.  If you spent $20, you got the layout AND a really cute bottle cap - again, in the theme of the destination.

Since we were all taking pictures, I thought it would be handy to have the layouts - even though some of them just aren't my style.  It was a cute and easy way to document the journey.

Some stores offered a matching page for $2.50.  If they offered it, I got it.  I started printing my pictures out on the little Selphy.  I love that I can print 4 wallets on one sheet.  They're the perfect size for these 6x6 pages.












You can see I added my bottle caps to each page.  They gave us a chain to add them too but in all honesty, I'm never going to wear a bottle cap necklace with 14 bottle cap charms hanging from it.....  So on to the pages they went.  I really like how they're turning out and I have the perfect 6x6 album to store them all in.  I'm about 1/3rd of the way done.  Will post more soon.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Back to School

We are in the final days of Summer vacation here.  (Yay!)

No really, its been a fun summer but I really am looking forward to schedules again.  Running my own business might seem like the ideal job but it takes a LOT of scheduling and if even one thing goes wrong, or the schedule changes.....you've got issues.

Orders don't get out.  Product doesn't get entered.  Paperwork isn't done.

So here's to To Do Lists, Schedules, a full 5 day work week (he's been going 3 days a week for 6 hours a day.  I need more time than that......)

But I'm also looking forward to sending him off to school so I can take some pictures.  I found this gem on Pinterest.  She puts out some of the best photo lists!



So if you have a kid going back to school soon, check out this list!


Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Frames

I might have about 20 of these $1 frames from Michaels just laying around waiting to be used.  For $1 you get a nice wood frame, the perfect canvas for anything.  I ended up not using any real products on the frame this time because of the look I was going for.

I wanted beachy.  Summery.

I've seen the Tim Holtz Crackle Paints before but since I'm not into art mediums, I just pass them by.  I use mists on occasion and maybe some Zing from American Crafts but thats extreme for me.

Crackle Paint just wasn't something I wanted to try.  Until I got bored and wanted to try something else.  While on the shop hop, I was at a store that sold pretty much everything Tim Holtz had ever made.  Including every color of the Crackle Paint.

This is what it looks like on the wooden frame when its dry.

And with the help of Nick, we glued on the shells.  I used a hot glue gun so they stuck.  One of these has to travel back to Calgary with my dad so I wanted to make sure they were stuck down.  Nick picked the shell and where he wanted it to go and I put the glue down.  It was our art project for the day.


The second frame is for my grandparents.  Nicks Great-Grandparents.

Monday, August 22, 2011

I'm just a crafting fool!

The first one was completed using bits and pieces from my Studio Calico kit.  I really do need to use these more often.  

 7 Gypsies papers, Glitz tags, Sassafras Starters papers, AC Thickers, Maya Road mists and Studio Calico white mist.
 Sassafras Lass Starters paper, October Afternoon Mini Market stickers, title cut with my new Silhouette.



I have a new toy.  A couple of years ago, I bought a Cricut and I owned it for approx. 4.5 days before I sent it back.  I didn't like it.  It was difficult to figure out, bulky and just a bunch of other things that made it undesirable to me.  I'd also owned the hand held Quickutz thing where you had to slip one die in,  squeeze it, slide the die out, slide the next one in, squeeze.....  You get the picture.  I wanted something that I could cut more things than alphabets AND I wanted it to be easy.  Cheap and easy.  So after a lot of investigating, I went with the Slice.  It had been out for almost a year when I got mine so the 'kinks' had been worked out.  In the 2+ years I've had mine, I NEVER had an issue with it.

I just recently upgraded to the Elite and I love it even more.  But I still wanted more from my diecut system.  Everyone started talking about the Silhouette.  To me, it was another Cricut and I wasn't about to go there again.  I finally broke down.  I got a deal I couldn't refuse.  Okay, I won it.   Whatever, its sitting here in my office just begging me to use it.

I've downloaded a ton of cuts already from the online store.  I love that I can purchase the one image I need and not a $40-60 cartridge.  I bought the subscription so I saved even more.  My first cut was the title 'pumpkin patch' and the pumpkins.  Just a quick test to see how it works.  I.  Love. It.  My poor Slice may take a back seat for a while until I get this out of my system.  I even purchased some designs from Kerri Bradford.  I've been drooling over her designs for a while and her blog has been bookmarked for a while.  In fact, she was the one who was pushing me over the edge to get the Silhouette.

You'll be seeing a lot more ideas using my Silhouette in the coming weeks including Halloween invites for our party!

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Back to crafting.....

With all of the inspiration from the Shop Hop and just *making* time to scrapbook, I've been able to get a few things done.  I've mentioned before that sometimes, owning a scrapbook store takes away your desire to actually scrapbook.  When I'm getting 20-30 orders filled every day AND trying to entertain a 4 year old, you get burnt out.

So I take some time to recharge every once in a while.  So thats why the craft related posts are so spread out.  With Summer nearing an end and *someone* going back to school 5 days a week, this should be a little easier on everyone schedule wise.   And the million or so pictures I took this summer will finally make their way into mini albums and pages.  I have 3 months of backlogged Studio Calico kits that haven't been touched - I keep mine for 3 months before I break them up and add them to my ever growing stash.  Anything I don't want gets donated or stuffed in a box for garage sales, presents for scrappy friends etc.

So here is just a sampling of what I've been working on.....

A mini using the Destination line from Simple Stories.  This was a class kit from one of the local stores we hit up.  THIS kit is the reason I finally decided to start carrying Simple Stories.  I had to see for myself what it was all about.  Now I can't get enough of it.




















Mini albums are simple to make with these lines.  There are so many 12x12 papers and page elements built in to the 12x12 sheets that the books build themselves.  Then you embellish them.  I'm working on that Summer {not so} mini with the 100 Days of Summer line now that is turning out to everything I wanted it to be and more.

I've also been trying to keep up with my card making.




Using up some scraps I had from the October Afternoon Rocket Age line.  I have more to share later!