sample time again!

The orders from CHA are arriving at a fast and furious pace and I'm doing my best to keep up with some samples for the store. Today I played with My Mind's Eye, 'good day sunshine'. There are boy and girl collections and I love the colours in both of them as they are a bit muted with a distressed feel.

Surfboards, guitars and beach huts all in great 'boy' colours. The diecut sheets have so many little bits and pieces that really add a lot to your layouts.

So pretty, so girly. All the pattern papers are so beautiful it was hard to pick only a few to work with. I hand cut the letters/numbers from one of the pattern papers.

I saw some more boxes arrive just before I was leaving today which means more goodies to play with next week!

no more snow....please?

You can tell everyone is sick of winter because the weather is all we seem to talk about lately. Between 'snowmageddon' that didn't happen on the predicted day and this weekend's expected double digit temps I think as Canadians we are obsessed with weather.

I am, I check out the weather network every day.

As much as I am looking forward to spring I am NOT looking forward to the slushy, mushy, dirty, gross process of the snow melting. The boys' snowsuits come home soaked and it's not much fun to play out in.

They did have a great time this past Saturday after the insta-blizzard ended and I, of course, snapped a few shots of them. The snow was so white, fluffy and pristine.

Holden's smiling in there somewhere

Wyatt in a huge hole he dug out

Ah, there's his smile

The snowbanks are so tall

I love how our big pine tree looks with a dusting of snow

I do have to say that I enjoy the winter for outdoor play. I can peel off their snowsuits and they are nice and clean underneath ulike the summer when they are mud-covered!

Let's hope the groundhog was right!

a little california on a snowy day

I'm baaaaaaaaaack. Actually I've been back for 5 days and they've been busy ones so I'm just now doing a little Cali post. One word describes my trip...AWESOME. From the first star sighting (Gwen Stefani at the airport in TO) to the beaches, the whole CHA experience to navigating L.A.'s crazy highways (thank goodness I brought my GPS!) I had a great time. Oh and I got to wear flip flops on a beach in January, I am truly a lucky girl.

Here are just a few of the 1250 pics I took, you can find more here

The sign is really huge and I'm such a geek cause I was SO excited to see it.

On the steps of the Kodak Theatre where the Oscars and American Idol are filmed.

We went for a tour of stars' homes through Beverly Hills, this is Simon Cowell's house.

Love how the fireman took their lunch break in Venice Beach.

The start of the show. We were serenaded by bagpipers, so cool. Candy Spelling cut the ribbon.

Here are a few shots of sample layouts/projects from the show. There was so much inspiration provided by some seriously talented scrapbookers!

Maya road tray.

They introduced some new trim and chipboard and they had a great make n take

Prima. Their samples were insane. So many flowers and bling...wow.

Jillibean, a personal fave, did not disappoint!

I love, love this line from Cosmo Cricket and really adored this layout.

All in all a fantastic experience! Big thanks to Carolyn and Joanne for making this happen. I CANNOT wait to get my hands on all of these new products. Won't have to wait too long, many of them start shipping over the next few weeks!

Online Crop

Two Scrapbook Friends is hosting an awesome superbowl themed online crop this weekend through the forum. NO, you do not have to be a fan of football to play!! Can't think of a better way to spend a cold, wintry weekend than in my scrapbook room!
Hope you'll join in for some great challenges and of course PRIZES!!

Check it out here

design team reveal!!

Even though I'm away in California I wanted to be sure that I posted my layouts for this month's design team. I had lots of fun working with some super cute papers from We R Memory Keepers.

We R has come out with lots of stitched papers that are great for those of us who are sewing-challenged. When the papers are stitched by machines there can be a little bit of creasing but that will flatten out, no worries.

I added some bling and the brown heart paper. Gotta have bling for little Anastasia!

I have seen this idea done before on circles and other shapes and thought it would be fun to try. I cut out the heart first then cut random pieces of patterned paper to stick around it.

For the banner I cut out each triangle leaving a bit at the top to fold over the string then pop-dotted each one. I hand cut the birds to hold the ends in their mouths.

This layout is an ode to all the moms whose kids fight and argue constantly and wishing they could just get along!

I added the chipboard hearts that I covered in paper and some chalk. Here's a closeup of the journalling (if you click the pic it's even closer up) so you get the idea.

*tip: I cut out my letters on the Cricut 3 times and glued them together. It's an easy way to get some depth without cutting up teeny tiny pop dots.

Here's my card. Love those little heart stick pins!

There are some sweet Valentines papers in store now.

Thanks for taking a peek and don't forget to check out what the other ladies did over at the TSF gallery