Dedo = Grandpa

Yesterday I asked my sister Lil if she would share a couple of photos of Peter & Hayden together because I wanted to scrap a page of them. She sent me 38 photos, lol. So I'll be making more than one page :)

I used 'Grand Connections' (Marie h Designs); 'Wonder-Fall' (Marie h Designs); 'Fall Frolic' (Marie h Designs) and the mauvey-grey background paper is from 'Looking Back' (The Urban Fairy). I made the title with 'Mister Alpha' (Mad Genius). I re-coloured the films strips (Alb2Rem) from black to brown. The LO is based on one of Barb's page builders, PB5 (Alb2Rem), but I modified it quite a bit. :)

The Colours of Fall

OK, I realized AFTER I made this and viewed the finished page that it's kind of a hot mess, lol. Soooooooooo busy, but really it's just one large photo with some embellishments on top of it. I have so many old photos of the dogs that I'm scanning and this one just needed a page all on it's own :)

I used 'Wonder-Fall' (Marie H. Designs)
and 'Fabulous Fall' (Kimeric Kreations)

The Caricature Artist

Some more photos that I took at the fall fair last weekend. We ran into a woman who used to shop at the paint store where I worked and she and her partner were getting their portraits done. I asked them and the artist if I could take photos while he worked. The caricature artist was really talented, very speedy and a lot of fun.

Kit: 'He Creates' (Dawn by Design)
Very loosely based on a freebie template, by Unforgettable Moments (July GS Temp Challenge) - but that was actually a white space template ... it isn't now, lol.

Update: (Tues Sept 25) I uploaded this to GingerScraps and this morning I got a message that it's been nominated for Baker's Best 9-23-9-29

Double Rainbow

A few years ago, just as a thunderstorm was ending, I looked out my front window and saw a beautiful double rainbow that went from one end of our street to the other. I grabbed my camera, ran outside, stood on my driveway in the rain, and quickly took some photos. It actually was a triple rainbow for a short while but the third arch didn't show up in the pics.

Last Christmas I scrapped one of these photos (bottom left), printed it and framed it and gave it to my neighbour for a Christmas present. She loved it and has it hanging in her front entrance hall. If I remember what I called it I'll post it too. :)

Kits used: 'Cloudy Day' (A Work in Progress)
and 'Rain on' (Caroline S.)

Canada Geese

Fall arrived today ... but the geese don't seem to be heading south. They would just fly from one part of the field to another as we were walking with Dillon. Eventually they went out onto water in the canal.

These photos were all taken today. It's hard to tell in this small format, but in the photo on the upper right there are hundreds of Canada Geese all staring in our direction. Dillon knew there were geese around, but he couldn't see them or hear them. I'm sure he could smell them but the wind was blowing the wrong direction, towards the geese, so most of the time he couldn't quite figure out where they were. Of course he was on a long leash because we can't let him run loose any more because of his very poor vision. I would be terrified that he'd tumble off a cliff, or run out onto a road, or fall into the canal. But I run around with him so he gets lots of exercise and his little tail never stops wagging. :)

I used a little mini kit called 'Canadian Geese' (by Tracey Monette)

Boyz Rule

Two of my grand-nephews, 3 year old Devin and 1 1/2 year old Hayden (they're cousins). I think I got a bit carried away with the embellishments, hahaha. Somedays it seems like once I start adding I can't stop... just like eating Lays potato chips. :)

Everything except 1 wordart is from the 'Rough and Tumble' NSD Blog Hop (PDW).
The 'Boyz Rule' wordart is from Swap 85 (Wordart World by Jennifer).
Template/Sketch: Bumbershoot (Jeanye Labaya Designs) *highly modified.

Cotton Candy

Yesterday we went to the 160th Annual Niagara Regional Agricultural Society's Exhibition aka the Welland Fall Fair. I just love these kinds of good ole country fairs. I split a cotton candy with Dennis. $5.00 for a lot of air and some sugar, lol. It was the first time I had cotton candy (or "candy floss" as we used to call it) since I was about 10 years old ... so half a century ago. (Egads!!) It's pretty to look at but I don't mind waiting another 50 years to have it again. :)

Apparently, a typical serving of candy floss on a stick is approximately one ounce/30 grams and contains roughly 500 calories. I'm glad I let Dennis eat most of it, haha.

I took almost 200 photos at the fair ... so that should keep me busy for awhile ... or until next weekend. :)

Kit: Country Fair bundle (Sherwood Studio)
Template/Sketch: Fuss Free FreeBee38 (FDDD) *modified

How Beautifully Leaves...

Kit: Fabulous Fall (Kimeric Kreations)
Template/Sketch: Paper Lovers 3 (Kimeric Kreations) *highly modified

Fabulous Fall

Kit: Fabulous Fall (Kimeric Kreations)
Template/Sketch: Yabba Dabba Doo (Jeanye Labaya Designs) *modified

You Smile, You Laugh

More Facebook pics ... my youngest grand-nephew Tyler. He looks soooooooooo much like his "older" brother Hayden (who's only 14 month older than him). They are both adorable.

Kit: Summer's End (Kimeric Kreations)
Template/Sketch: Bumbershoot (Jeanye Labaya Designs) *modified

Spread Your Ears and Fly

These photos of Rudi (a handsome English Springer Spaniel, the best breed of dog on earth, lol) are from a lovely lady from Sweden named Britt Marie Webster that I met on Facebook. I told Britt that I loved her photo and wanted to make a page about Flight and her photo of Rudi with his ears flapping was perfect.

Britt said she was flattered and said I could use her photos. She also said that she really like that picture too, and it won a photo competition in her local newspaper a few years back.

So I happily made this page and sent it to her and she posted it on her blog Julita-Rudis Blogg.

I posted this page on GingerScraps yesterday, Wednesday (September 12th). This morning I got a message that it was nominated for Baker's Best 9/9-9/15

Update: On Sunday (September 16th) I got a message from GingerScraps that this layout was nominated for LOTW (layout of the week) and voting commenced. There are some truly gorgeous layouts this week, so I don't expect to win, but it is an honour to be chosen none-the-less. :)

Credits:
Photos of Rudi taken by his owner, Britt Marie Webster (Sweden) and used with her permission. Thanks Britt!
Primary kit used: Take Flight Collab (Kimeric Kreations and Sweet Digi Scraps).
Paw print border, green background, leaves and journal oval from 'Cats and Dogs' (Connie Prince). Orange mushrooms from 'Fall Frolic' (Marie H Designs).
I made the text bubble with an SVG shape and did the extraction of Rudi on the bottom right. :-)
Note: In the pic on the left Rudi is laying in a patch of moss and wild mushrooms.

Oh and I should mention, the Swedish text in the thought bubble says, "I have my own wings.", courtesy of freetranslation dot com, haha, but Britt said it's right.

Let the Sons Shine

My niece posted this photo on Facebook and I just had to scrap it. Love, love, love --- my grand-nephews Tyler and Hayden.

Kit: Summer's End (Kimeric Kreations)
Template/Sketch: Revisited 3 (Scrapping with Liz) *modified

Walk A Little Straighter

I made this page for the September Lyrics Challenge on TDC. You were supposed to "scrap a LO using song lyrics about fathers". Sadly this is the song that came to my mind, "Walk A Little Straighter Daddy" by Billy Currington. After I made this layout I decided not to post it for the challenge after all. It's just not a happy page, but it's real.

To be fair my dad wasn't a bad guy. He always managed to keep a job and he wasn't physically abusive. He actually had a lot of pals, but not the kind you'd bring home to meet your kids. He just had one main problem, which affected our whole family. I'll do a happier page about him someday. He passed away 29 years ago at the age of 64 due to alcohol abuse. RIP Daddy. I hope you eventually found what you were looking for.

Kit: Howdy Ma'am (Boutique Collab by The DigiChick *Designers)
Template/Sketch: September FB Fan Freebie (Kimeric Kreations) *highly modified

*Participating Designers: Alamama's Pressed Petals, Charm Box Studios, Dawn by Design, Elise's Pieces, eNKay Design, Etc. by Danyale, Girl Boy Girl Designs, Kimeric Kreations, Lifescapes Templates, Quirky Twerp, Sherwood Studio, Stellajane Designs, Wishing Well Creations

Doggy Raincoats

The 'boys' haha. Our dog's breeder gave them raincoats as a birthday gift. I put them on the dogs to do a photo shoot to show her. It wasn't even raining out, lol. Dillon and Nat were not too impressed, but they were so good about posing for me :) These photos were taken 10 years ago. Time flies....

Kit: Rain On (Caroline S.)
Template/Sketch: Freebie by Cindy Schnieder

The Baptismal Robe

This is my niece's BFF's baby and her Great Grandmother. I extracted the baptismal robe from another photo. It's the actual robe, 95 years old and a family heirloom.

Kit: Little Princess (Sherwood Studio)
No template - I just winged it, lol.

Motherhood

My Shannon niece and her youngest child Tyler. He was 3 months old in this photo.

Kits used: 'Red Hot Summer' (Kimeric Kreations)
and Good Old Summertime' (Kimeric Kreations)

Besties

My niece was Maid of Honour at her best friend's wedding, and visa-versa. Loved the colours of the wedding party and this kit matched perfectly.

Kit: So Sassy (Kimeric Kreations)
Template/Sketch: Paper Lovers 3 Template (Kimeric Kreations) *sorta/mostly

Jump~!!

That's me back in 1977, haha. My hubby was at the bottom of a hill and I was at the top. He told me to run up to the edge and jump up .... so I did and he took the pic. One shot ... back in the day when you had to wait a week to get your pics back and see if the darn thing turned out.

Take Flight (Collab by Kimeric Kreations and Sweet Digi Scraps)
No template. I just winged it.

Port Dalhousie

I blended a bit of my photo into the background paper to extend the horizon line across the page.

Kit: 'One Day at a Time' (by Kimeric Kreations)
Template/Sketch: TDC August Template Challenge (by Emilie)

Mommy and Tot Swimming

My niece and her BFF and their 3 1/2 month old babies at Mommy and Tot Swimming classes.

Kit: Tale of the Mermaid Princess (Michelle Batton)
Template/Sketch: Three Is A Crowd (Mye De Leon)

Ticket to Ride

My oldest grand-nephew Devin. He was 2 here and is 3 now. I blended the large photo into the background. It was just a little pic from FB but I worked with it and love the way it turned out. I think it's my favourite page that I've made so far, haha.

I posted this at GingerScraps on September 7 and a few hours later it was nominated for Baker's Best 9/2-9/8 .

On Sunday September 9th is was nominated for LOTW (layout of the week) at GingerScraps. Such an honour! :)

Kit: 'One Day at a Time' (Kimeric Kreations)
Template/Sketch: 'Paper Lovers 3' (Kimeric Kreations)

Just Chillin'

I made this page for the August Template Challenge at The DigiChick. My niece and her hubby-to-be three years ago.

Kit: Licorice Parfait (Sherwood Studio)
Alpha: Charmed (Sherwood Studio)
Green leaves from Simply Sweet (Kimeric Kreations)
Template: tp homecoming TDC 08-11 (Chloe)

Mom = Love Forever

My beautiful Mom in 1945. I'm sure I've scrapped these pics before, but I love them.

Kit: 'Introspective' (Sherwood Studio)

Sweet Baby Girl

My niece's BFF with her beautiful baby daughter. I adore how the baby looks so content and is falling asleep on her mommy's shoulder. So sweet!

Kit: Simply Sweet (Kimeric Kreations)
Template/Sketch: The Big Picture 2 (Amber Morrison) * slightly modified

30 Years

My oldest nephew as a baby and 30 years later with his son.

Kit: 'Not So Ordinary (Kimeric Kreations)
Template/Sketch: Angelclaud ArtRoom freeboe Week 1.

Anything's Possible

I posted this page on GingerScraps this morning and it was nominated for Baker's Best 8/19-8/25. I'm so new to posting on GS I didn't even know what that meant, haha. I figured it out and it was such a thrill and an honour to be nominated.

Kit: 'Anythings Possible' by Kimeric Kreations
Mud Puddle WA from Elegant WordArt by Bethany

Update: On Sunday August 26 this page was nominated for GingerScraps LOTW (layout of the week) and voting began.

Further Update: On September 3rd I found out my page had WON Layout of the Week!! I had no idea there was a prize for this, lol. I was honoured to be nominated and more than happy with the LOTW blinkie, but I also got a $5.00 gift certificate to the store. So cool.

You Fill My Heart

Kit: 'Anythings Possible' by Kimeric Kreations
Template: Aug Blog Challenge by Little Green Frog Designs
WA: 'You fill my heart with gladness' by WordArtWorld by Jennifer (re-coloured)
Font: Pea Anderson

YeeHaw! Thanks Maw!

I won this amazing bundle from Wendy Tunison on her Facebook page. I adore it, and it's huge! Between the kit and the bonus addon there are 100 ellies, 2 full alphas and 32 papers to play with, and I love all of them, haha. Plus the CT gave away lots of fab freebies with this kit.

Kit: Simply Turquoise' (Wendy Tunison Designs).
I couldn't resist using Amy's freebie cluster border on the bottom. (Mind you I added more ellies on top and behind it, haha). So fun!!

Dream Dreamer

My youngest grand-nephew Tyler. Such a cutie-pie!!

Kit: 'Wishful Thinking' by Kimeric Kreations
Template/Sketch: 'Have No Fear' by Simple Girl Scraps

Live, Laugh, Love

We had a family gathering at our brother John's house today and while we were there I asked my brother if he would take a photo of my sister Lil and I using my camera. Well, he's such a goof he had us both cracking up. I asked him to take a close-up, from about the waist up, but he wouldn't zoom in ... so he'd take a pic and we'd look at it and Lil and I would be really tiny but he took a ton of background of his pond, haha. We'd ask him to try again... and again. By the time we got this last photo Lil and I were laughing so hard that tears were pouring down our faces. (The pic in the circle up top .... it still had way too much background, but I cropped it, lol.)

I'll have to go back and figure out what kit's I used .... I grabbed bits and pieces from lots of old kits.

You Are My Sunshine

Our sweet Becky... Seilatan's Rebecca Sunshine. The photo on top of Becky with me was taken on her 13th birthday, July 2, 1996. We had just found out she had cancer. She crossed The Rainbow Bridge the following Spring. :(

Kit: 'You Are My Sunshine' by Kimeric Kreations
Template/Sketch: 'Copperhead' by Little Green Frog Designs

Outdoor Adventure

I won a $5.00 coupon on Albums to Remember Designs FB page. WooHoo. I put it towards Barb's newest kit ... it's so fab. Scanned some old pics (because it's been "awhile" since I last went camping, lol). These are my nephews Eric and Jordan when they were younger, and their dad, my brother John :)

Kit: Outdoor Adventure (Albums to Remember)
I used a layout similar to the WM Squared Template on SO's August 2012 Template Challenge, but added a bunch more "stuff" to it :)

Tuskinny Chicken

One of my favourite recipes - yummers!! I take pics of food a lot, haha.

Kit" My Country Kitchen (Kimeric Kreations)

Here Fishy, Fishy

Jen Balding had a freebie mini kit on her Facebook page. I thought it was really cute and it reminded me of a very old photo of mine. I had to go digging for it and found it in rough shape (really faded and blurry), but I scanned it anyway. The pic is not very clear and the colour of the wallpaper looks wonkier than it was back in the day, but you get the idea of what was going on. :)

I used a wave svg shape so I could use a couple of the papers from the kit. Later Jen posted this, "Has anyone use the "Here Fishy, Fishy" kit? I'd love to see what you've done :) " ... so I posted it on her page.

Mini Kit: 'Here Fishy, Fishy' Girl Boy Girl Designs by Jen Balding

I Love Colour

I made this page yesterday, for no particular reason.... just "because" I wanted to scrap and was looking at photos taken in my garden last summer. I have almost no flowers this summer.... everything is nearly dead from this horrendous drought we've had for the past two months, the worst on record, and there are water shortages so we're not allowed to water our yards. I feel like I've lost some of my best friends and pray for rain every day, but it never comes :(

Anyway, I was just playing around in PSP when I made this overlay or whatever you call it. I cut out holes in a bkg paper and then added papers behind it. I don't know if there is a name for that "technique", lol. It was almost like making a quick page. I saved it with a white background first, so I could replace it with paper easily if I ever decide to use it again.

I've come to the conclusion that the reason I love digital scrapbooking so much is due to my love of colour and design. I've had all kinds of artistic hobbies relating to them. For a kit to appeal to me it has to have fabulous colours, and/or unique and interesting designs.

Kit: 'Market Square' by Kimeric Kreations

The Digichick is broken :(

There has been a major disaster at The Digichick. Their server died this week. Apparently they pay big bucks to have a dedicated server and backups, but when the site went down the company that they pay as a server found out that even their backup was corrupted! YIKES!!! They were able to save some of the site, but they lost the entire store and possibly all of the galleries. (ACK!). The staff and designers have been working like crazy behind the scenes to get things up and going as soon as possible.

The amount of work involved getting a whole store, going back to 2005, with dozens of designers and their hundreds of kits, and layouts, and zipped files and x-cart, all back into place is ginormous! Ugh. So some of my links to kits that are from TDC will not work until this is all fixed. I feel so bad for the owner Sinead (a lovely Irish lass), and all the designers and staff. What a nightmare this is.

Kit: 'I'm Sick' by Albums to Remember.

Update: TDC was offline for about 10 days, but it's back up and running and better than ever. :)

I ♥ Clematis

Some pics from our backyard gardens (from last summer). This year we had such a terrible drought and such high heat every single day that we didn't have many flowers :(

Kit: 'One Summer Dream' by Kimeric Kreations

Second Child

My niece and her two babies, Tyler and Hayden. It's hard to tell from the size of this photo, but you can just barely see Hayden's feet and head peeking out from the front of the double stroller :)

Kit: 'Summer Sunset' by Kimeric Kreations

1974 Music Festival

Today is my hubby's 64th birthday. Holy Moly!!! Time sure does fly. We've been together for 38 years. Hard to believe!!! I made this page for him this morning. This was from our first summer together :) By August I had turned 22 and he had just turned 26.



Happy Birthday Dennis. I ♥ U
BTW, we weren't posing, we were walking that way. :) My friend took a bunch of candid shots. I didn't even know we were getting our picture taken at the time. You can't tell from that pic but my hair was below my waist ... I could almost sit on it. Weird... I can remember so much about back then, but half the time I can't remember where I tossed my car keys now, lol. That's a sure sign, too many senior moments, haha!

Kit: 'Hippie Kit' by Etc by Danyale
I love this kit. I bought it the moment it came out, haha.

Sunset Sail

The gorgeous photo on top is from my friend Meghan, taken here in my home town (used with her permission). The bottom two are close-ups from the same pic.

Kit: 'Summer Sunset' by Kimeric Kreations
Template/Sketch: freebie from Rosey Posey (No#fr01)

"Unique" Carrot :)

And now for something completely different....


Picture from The Ellen DeGeneres Show's Facebook page, lol
Wordart from Create with TLC :)
Carrot embellies from Dreamsfulfilled

Soft Hearted

One the weekend Lou very generously sent me the links to her newest creation. The kit is called 'Soft Hearted' and it's sooooooooo darn pretty. I used an old pic of my mom (before she was my mom, haha) because she was the most softhearted person I've ever known.

Kit: 'Soft Hearted' by LouCee Creations
Template: Freebie MONDRIAN LS-Blogbuck-1 (by Lifescapes). I just used the overlay grid png from it and filled it with a lot of the goodies from the Soft Hearted kit. (Not all of them I ran out of space, lol.)

---

Congratulations to my friend Lou Clark aka LouCee Creations, this Week's Featured Designer on MyMemories Blog. I absolutely adore her work. Thank you Lou for all you do to make our world a more beautiful place. I made page this using Lou's gorgeous kit, 'Beautiful Life', and posted it on MM's FB page :)

To the Fullest

Kit: 'To The Fullest' by Kimeric Kreations
Template: Freebie 'whodathunkit:one' (Jeanye Labaya Designs) * template modified.

Hayden's 1st Dip in the Lake

Kit: 'Good Old Summertime' (bundle) by Kimeric Kreations

Kite Festival

Kit: 'Good Old Summertime' (bundle) by Kimeric Kreations

I ♥ Watermelon

Kit: 'Good Old Summertime' (bundle) by Kimeric Kreations

Lazy Afternoon

Here's another Lazy Afternoon page. I really love this kit. I used a 'Filed Away' Template from Wishing Well Creations and modified it a bit. I also tried some blending (the largest photo blended into the background on the bottom). My hubby with Nathaniel and Dillon. This was from 2008. Nat passed away the following year so Dillon has been an only dog for the last three years. I decided to use the deeper blue from my hubby's shirt and the darker green from the plants in the photos to make my title ... just to try and tie those colours into the page a bit better.

We still miss our Natty-Boy so much. :( He was such a fun and loving dog. And now Dillon is getting old and is blind and deaf and has arthritis. He's still my darling and such a charmer and we love him dearly. I just wish we could keep our pets around a lot longer. I'm NEVER ready to let them go. Hopefully that's a long way down the road. *sigh*

Kit: 'Lazy Afternoon' (Kimeric Kreations)
Template: 'Filed Away' (Wishing Well Creations) *modified

My Country Kitchen

The very first kit I bought from Kimeric Kreations was on May 6, 2012. Kim was giving out $3.00 FB coupons and I was lucky enough to get one. I had never seen her store before and looked at all her kits and chose 'My Country Kitchen'. I bought the whole bundle. It was on sale for iNSD, Reg $9.50 less 40% = $5.70 minus the $3.00 FB coupon. I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven, haha.

I've used this kit a few times now and love it. Today I wanted to give Kim's July FB Fan Freebie Template a try. So I took a bunch of photos in my kitchen.... mostly close-ups of stuff I have hanging on the wall, etc. I have a lot of 'Pear' stuff and birdhouses and things with birds on them.... a plate collection on the wall, a pear clock, etc. I also took close-ups of the hinge and knobs on the cupboards and extracted them, lol. I didn't use all the pics because I wanted to use some of the papers and embellies in the kit too.

I also didn't use the template the "right way". I took an individual stamp from the template and saved it as a png. Then I filled it, one at a time with pics and saved each as a png. I know.... not the most convenient way to do it, haha! Anyway, this is what I ended up with.


Our kitchen cupboards are still the original ones built in the 1940's, we've just updated a few things, replaced the doors with solid maple shaker-style cabinet doors, which I painted a light cream colour, and put all new brushed nickle hardware on them, replaced the countertop, etc. No major renos.

Kit: 'My Country Kitchen, bundled' (Kimeric Kreations)
Template/Sketch: 'July FB Fan Freebie Template' (Kimeric Kreations)