a layout from our weekend crop...

i finished 8 layouts during our shortened yearly fall weekend crop and as always, a lot of fun was had by all, along with a lot of eating, kidding each other, drinking and a little bit of scrapping thrown in for good measure! the only thing we did not get to do as usual, was take a walk to take some fall foliage photos, because it was pouring rain most of saturday, grrr...

here is the first layout i made friday night. these are just a few of the photos i took of the grandkids on thanksgiving day trying to get my christmas card shot.

a layout for the a.c. blog challenge...

yeah, i'm finally getting back to doing one! it didn't turn out exactly how i had planned, but it's done and i'm happy i have an entry for this week.

other than the cardstock which is bazzill, everything else, patterned paper, thickers, rub-ons and plastic flower and brad are all by american crafts!

saturday sadness...

today i went to the funeral of an old and dear friend. when i was growing up in dorval, her family lived across the street from us so we have been friends for at least 50 years. she would have been 51 years old in december, but will not see it. one of her brothers and her husband made fantastic eulogies holding back tears the whole time. we laughed and we cried and she had a great send off because it was a full house. she had m.s. and was in a wheel chair for the last couple of years, but that did not stop her, she was a dynamo. she was very involved with the m.s. society and had actually organized their golf tournament this summer, so there were many people at her funeral today.

as sad as the occasion was i was very happy to see her 2 brothers, one of which i have not seen in probably 33 years and the younger one i see every time i go out west to see my sisters since he lives in vancouver. i was very happy also to spend some time with the younger one's wife and i also met back up with their cousin who when she would visit them back in the day, i would chum around with. it brought back a lot of good memories!

sorry for the sadness, so i will leave you with a layout i did awhile ago of my bleeding hearts, but i just never got around to uploading before.

happy thanksgiving!

there are things we should have been doing this weekend, like closing the swimming pool and getting all the outdoor furniture put away, but we were glued to the tv watching the 'president's cup' instead. golf is the only sport i enjoy watching on tv and it was disappointing that the international team didn't give the u.s. team more of a run for their money, but we watched anyway!

tomorrow is thanksgiving and the whole family will hopefully be here (justin was sick today), so the house will be smelling delicious. happy thanksgiving everyone!

i leave you with a layout that i did quite awhile ago. i know it's a funny subject for a layout but when i saw those colorful cans in the water fountain, i knew i would make one about the best photo i took at the jazz festival.

it's been awhile...

so here i am not having too much to say but i had a very nice weekend even though the weather was lousy again!

saturday julie and i went to scrapbook centrale for another one of their sales to pick up some much needed cardstock. since we are both making travel albums a lot is being used quickly.

yesterday lisa called and had a day full of activities and asked if i would join her and the girls. first we went for elki's swimming lessons where she is doing very well, then downtown to a craft sale on st. viateur and man of man it was packed where we had a polish lunch and even though i was tempted by a few jewelry pieces i resisted. to top off the afternoon, we went to the children's 'purple pop party' at the metropolis where the kids had a lot of fun with drawing, playing with big purple balls, lots of music and dance and elki got some purple streaks in her banks which made her very happy.



i leave you with this layout i did before our cruise of elki at st. lambert days the night of her daddy's concert with her magic star! tfl :)

the friday file...

here is a layout i did last tuesday morning at 3:15 a.m. we had just arrived home from our cruise monday night and it would have been 9:15 a.m. if we had still been in venice, thus...the early hour.

since dom's first solo album is very turquoise oriented (check out his nice guitar) i just had to go with that color and of course it happens to be my birthstone and a favorite color of mine. tfl! :)

a.c. blog challenge!

here is my layout for the a.c. blog challenge for this week to use 2 a.c. elements on a page!



supplies:
cs: bazzill, colorbox & provo
pp, button and brads: american crafts
letter stickers: basic grey, doodlebug and heidi grace
pen: sakura

tfl! :)

friday photos!

here are a few of my favs from the first places that we visited on our cruise.

this first one is park guell in barcelona and it was our favorite spot in that city, well worth climbing that hill, eh reg!!! ;)



next stop monte carlo, where we visited the 'oceanographic museum and aquarium', wonderful, wonderful!



now onto pisa and yes we did the goofy holding up the building shot but this is my fav!



this palace in florence was where we ate lunch just like royalty!!!



and last but definitely not least here is st. peter's and words cannot describe the feeling of standing in that huge square, tv just does not do it justice!!!



more to come in the next few days. :)

i'm back!!!

bet you didn't even know i was gone did ya!!! well we went on a 2 week mediterrean cruise and it was fantastic. it was a lot of work preparing all the itinerary for it because we decided to do most of our own touring instead of the easy way of booking an excursion with the cruise line which were ripoffs if you ask me.

my 2 sisters from vancouver were taking this cruise and we decided after much coaxing from them to join them as an early celebration of my 60th birthday!!!

we started out in barcelona, spain and we arrived a day early to see a little bit of the city before getting on the ship, and i'm glad we did. we took a hop on, hop off bus and that is a great way to see the sites when you only have a short time in a city. we did both the green and orange line, but we were so zonked by the end of it that we didn't get off the bus too much. our favorite part was 'park guel' which was designed by gaudi and there is a fantastic view of the city from there, he had such a great imagination.

after boarding the ship, our stops were monte carlo, livorno (pisa/florence), civitiveccia (rome), naples, mykonos, istanbul, kusadasi, athens and last but not least, venice where we stayed an extra night before flying home on tuesday.

i still have my sea legs and i've had an upset stomach ever since and i think it's coming off the gravol that i was taking for the prevention of sea sickness! oh well no pain, no gain as they say! ;)

i took 2,122 photos, so i think i'll be busy for a long time checking all of them before i will be able to scrap any of them. once i have looked at some i'll post them to give you a taste of europe's best in my eyes!

i'll be checking in on what i have missed on my favorite blogs, so be patient!

sunday, sunday!

another week has come and gone and the summer is dwindling down, who am i kidding, WHAT SUMMER!!! since we had such terrible weather, maybe we will have a nice indian summer to make up for it, eh! :)

here is a layout i did last night about justin and his abs!!! i know there is no lighthouse in gaspé but that cute little button goes with the sea and it went very nicely with my cardstock and trim! ;)

two layouts for today!

i made these two layouts 3 weeks ago just after we celebrated laura's birthday, about the fact that her and donald have the same sign, but not the same birthstone and lisa and dom have the same birthstone, but not the same sign. and as you can see i was into the flowers that day and black and white!!!

they look like they are not happy, but in actual fact they were listening intently to some story that reg was telling and i like to take shots like that.

good weekend!

we didn't get the rain they predicted for the weekend, so i'd say it turned out pretty good. laura came to pick up justin friday afternoon and we went into st. lambert for st. lambert days and to mind the girls while dom had an interview on a radio station that was there, which only took about 15 mins. then we came home for some yummy sushi.

saturday i went on a very successful shopping spree and then last night we went back to st. lambert for dom's outdoor concert and today lisa, dom and the girls came over to swim. i predicted that elki would learn to swim without her wings this year on a recent layout (which i have not uploaded here yet) and she did it today!!! she was even jumping into the pool without them, but of course we were there to catch her.

i didn't get to scrap, but here is one i did a few weeks ago which i find fun!

freedom friday!

as much as i love my grandson, a week is almost too much for me to take!!! because he is an only child, he never wants to be alone and it's me he wants all the time, never his grandfather. of course his grandfather has played golf 3 days this week so he hasn't exactly been here. justin had his moments too of missing his parents and all the exercise he is getting swimming lengths in the pool with me ;) makes him so tired at night that he gets sad because he is not with them! so this afternoon his mom is coming to get him and we will go to the movies as a treat for him and tomorrow we'll be back to our quiet house again! :)

here is a layout i did last week before justin arrived and of course i don't get to do any scrapping when he is here either, so i'll be glad to have some time for that again!

this weeks's a.c. blog challenge

was to use remarks stickers on a layout, so here is mine using all those new cute little critter & flower stickers. as a matter of fact this is pretty much an all american crafts layout! :)


supplies:
cardstock: american crafts & bazzill
pp, thickers and stickers: american crafts
pen: staedtler fineliner
brads: american traditions & karen foster

tfl!

summer has finally arrived!

we waited all of july for this to happen and it's finally here, yeah!!! i love the heat! today will certainly be a lazy day spent mostly cooling off in the pool. i must rest up, since justin is coming to spend the week tomorrow. camp has finished for the summer and he only starts school the week after next, so he will be spending his last week here. why do summer camps finish one week too early, does everyone have this same problem that works? what a crazy system!

anyway here is a layout i did of zoe singing happy birthday to elki after everyone had left the party. of course, we didn't actually understand the words except 'aki', she even plays the orchestra leader!

hope everyone has a great weekend!

it's time again...

it seems that i only have the time lately to upload my lo for the a.c. blog challenge, but i have done many other los which i will find time to upload soon i promise. it was an 'all about me' challenge and i used one of the photos i took of myself in the june photo challenge month that i did with ruth and julie.


supplies:
cardstock: american crafts & bazzill
pattern paper and sticker: american crafts
butterflies: heidi swapp
letter stickers: doodlebug
bling: mm
hug: scrapworks

tfl!

how about another lo for the a.c. blog challenge???

this is one of my submissions for the american crafts design team, and since it was made using all american crafts products i thought i might as well use it for this challenge!

supplies:

cardstock: bazzill and colorbox

pattern paper, buttons, thickers & chipboard: all american crafts

pen: sakura

number stickers: creative imaginations

tfl!

it's a.c. blog challenge time again!

supplies:

cardstock: bazzill and colorbox

buttons, rub-ons, glitter thickers and pattern paper: american crafts

pen: sakura

tfl!

weekend fun!

so far it has been a fun weekend starting out with friday night when i had a nice relaxing dinner with nathalie and julie in st. lambert, after a very hectic day starting out at 6 am when i went for my blood test with the rest of the cattle at the clsc.

saturday we celebrated 3 birthdays, donald's was on monday, laura's yesterday and zoé's is on tuesday, and we finally had a great saturday weatherwise to do it on!!! here are a few shots from the day.



in this next photo, zoé is serenading us with a meow, meow, meow song and to keep the rhythm, her head went back and forth with the meows!



nemo took a surfboard ride which he liked better than going swimming!



elki was not in such a good mood and wanted her mummy until we blew up the alligator and then she was right in there having a ball with justin who was alligator wrestling, turning them upside down and just having some good old kid fun!



and to top it off the blowing out of the candles on the asked for strawberry shortcake, but zoé only watched as don and laura blew, she was more interested in using the candle end to sneak some whipped cream!



thanks for stopping by letting me bore you with our weekend photos!

a layout for the american crafts blog challenge

ok so i only own one american crafts pen, so i couldn't go crazy, but i did use it for the line under the title and the journalling and for the date on the photo!



supplies:

cardstock: colorbox and bazzill
pp, rub-ons & thickers: american crafts
brad: unknown
pen: precision pen by american crafts

tfl and good luck to everyone who enters!