Back To School !

It's that time of the year when all parents are kicking up their heels because it's Back to School! This summer I did enjoy not rushing around in the morning, worrying about missing the bus, forgetting books and lunches and telling the girls, "No, you can't wear  THAT to school!" ha ha

But routine is good for us, too, and now I will have more of a routine time to blog and scrapbook.

Here is a layout I designed for the Create & Connect trade show in Vegas, and it's up on The Crafty Power blog. I used 4 of the 3D foam Designer Shapes:  wings, stars, heart, and rectangle/frame:

I have a simple tutorial on how I made those red stars....so click HERE to visit their blog and check it out.  The papers are FancyPants Designs and the stamps are Stampin' Up! and Graphic 45 (alphabet). The silver glitter is EK Success/Martha Stewart.

Confession:  The photo is from last year's first day of school.  Here is this year's pics from last week:

BabyOfTheFamily is in Grade 8

DramaQueen is in Grade 11

BoyGenius heads off to University

Oh well, two out of three isn't bad. Ha!  

New Double the Fun!

My new Double the Fun layout and sketch are up on the Canadian Scrapbooker website for your scrapbooking entertainment!  And yes....this is for the SPRING 2014 page call.  Yikes.

I took these pics of BabyOfTheFamily and her sweet friend "B" while they were making flower headbands for their friends, one weekend afternoon a couple of months ago.  These two girls together always have so much fun, and they are both really crafty, which makes me happy :)

The yellow background papers are DCWV, but everything else is from Webster's Pages (papers, stickers, twine, resin).

I just love the fresh patterns and colours of this Allison Kreft "Composition & Color" collection and already have plans for future layouts!

I hope you have a chance to design a double layout based on my sketch...and remember to submit it to Canadian Scrapbooker magazine!

Classes, Classes and More Classes!

With the end of August in sight, I will get back to writing more blog posts and bid a sad farewell to our lazy summer days.  But I am excited for September too because I have some wonderful classes coming up.

On September 10, I am teaching a "Summer Layout Workshop" at Treasured Memories...

If you would like to get those summer photos into albums, then join me and learn some fun stencil techniques as well!

Click HERE to register.

If you live in Alberta, you have probably heard of this fantastic event hosted by Canadian Scrapbooker magazine:  The Great Canadian Scrapbook Carnival...

I will be teaching a layout class in both Edmonton and Calgary called "Double the Fun"...

Using some fun new Fancy Pants Designs products, we will use one of my sketches and a few cool techniques to create 3 double or 6 single page layouts.  

Click HERE to learn more about the Carnival and register.  It's a really great time with lots of awesome classes!

In October, I will be teaching at ScrapFest in Oshawa. 

I'm SO excited to be invited to this event and cannot wait to meet up with all the Ontario scrappers there!

Along with "Double the Fun", I will have 2 other classes as well:

In my class "From  Simple To Sensational", we will create 2 double page layouts, learning how to embellish a basic design with lots of extra special elements.

The third class is a travel mini album, featuring the wonderful Simple Stories "Urban Traveler" collection:

Click HERE to register for my classes at ScrapFest.

Although September means an end to summer, I'm really looking forward to getting back into the classroom.  Hope to see you there!

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

This blog post title could only mean ONE thing:  Las Vegas!  

Here is a photographic recap of my fun trip to Sin City, where I attended the Create & Connect trade show with Canadian Scrapbooker magazine.  

It was my first trade show, and I was so excited to represent the magazine as their Social Media Correspondent.  

As well, I had loads of fun doing demo's in the Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L booth.

There was so much eye candy at the show and some of the booths had amazing displays.  One of my favourites was Sizzix...

Luckily, we had time for some sightseeing!  Our first stop was Hoover Dam.

The heights were dizzying!  It is an astonishing engineering feat. Wow.

From there, we drove into the desert looking for the Eldorado Canyon Mine Tour. 

This place was soooo cool!  Well, actually it was about 105 degrees, but you know what I mean.

Our tour guide was fantastic.  We saw some real rattlesnakes (in his fridge and freezer!)

He even showed us proof that there are aliens...

We walked around the ghost town...

...and toured inside the Techatticup Gold Mine.

This place is a popular set for movies and music videos etc.  Here is the site of a movie plane crash...

The fellow with the beard is Bobbie, one of the family members that owns this land and gold mine, and the man with the cowboy hat was our tour guide, telling us all about the gruesome history of the area.  Lots of violence when it comes to gold mining!

Back in the city, I spent 3 days at the trade show and my evenings on the strip...

The beautiful Paris hotel....it's not France, but the lights at night are gorgeous!

We ate in a restaurant in Paris...

We stopped in the Bellagio Hotel too....so beautiful inside and out!

Check out that glass ceiling!

And the hotel window displays were fabulous...

We went to 2 shows:  Penn & Teller and Jersey Boys...

They were both excellent!

On our last day, we had a free afternoon so we drove back into the desert to visit Red Rock Canyon...

Did you know there are wild burros in the area?  We were lucky enough to spot a couple and stopped by the roadside to take photos!

We also stopped for lunch at Bonnie Springs Ranch.

Rustic setting, but delicious food!

Love the metal divided plates!

The washrooms were "unique"...

Yep...looking like the Wild West now!

This is definitely a trip that will end up in a scrapbook !  But it was definitely ALL good and no bad...Good times, good friends and lots of laughter!

Fabulous FabScraps

If some of you are fans of Canadian Scrapbooker magazine and follow their blog, then you know I've been writing updates on the new releases from the Create & Connect trade show in Las Vegas that took place 2 weeks ago.  

Today on their blog I share this layout, plus some wonderful photos of the amazing displays in the FabScraps booth.

The design is based on Sue Sykes' August sketch for the Sketchy Challenge. 

I made a video to show how I designed this page, and you'll also see how I altered the chipboard title and created that cool circle element with a Crafters Workshop stencil.

It's all on the Canadian Scrapbooker blog, so click HERE to head over there now.