Oh Canada!

This has been an extremely busy week for me! Every day I have been digi-scrapping or doing the hunter/gatherer thing - buying, collecting, downloading, unzipping, sorting, backing-up and ogling my shiny new (or shabby worn) digi-scrap stuff; usually all of the above. :)

I've bought a number of fabulous new kits this week and have been really lucky to have won quite a few awesome things too. And I received a lovely RAK from TheDigiChicks! I haven't had this much fun since iNSBD in early May, lol. However, I haven't had time to actually update my blog. I'll have to go back and post a few on the days they were made (fortunately blogger lets you go back in time to post).

I made this page today with one of my purchases ~ a brand new kit called 'Oh Canada!' kit (by Kimeric Kreations). I also used one of Kim's templates from her brand spanking new 'Paper Lovers 4 (template pack)' (by Kimeric Kreations). Kim has been really helpful in explaining how to use PSD files in PSP to me.

I added all the elements in MyMemories Suite ... it was just easier for me to do it that way, because that's the program I am most comfortable with. I placed the fireworks burst over top of the sprinkler laying there on the grass in the photo (so it can either represent fireworks, or water, haha). This layout was sooooooo tricky for me. There are many, many layers and it took hours, but this is one of my favourite photos of "the boys" when they were young and I love the way this turned out.

My hubby and I are officially on vacation until July 17th. We're planning to do some fun day-trip things while my hubby has this time off. So hopefully I'll have some new photos to scrap very soon. :)

I Love Ketchup!

My grand-nephew Hayden REALLY loves ketchup. I love this photo of him and his Daddy ... it was taken two weeks ago at "Hutches on the Beach". This is an old diner that I ate at many times when I was a kid, and even more often as a teen ... and it's still going strong today.

Hutch's Restaurant is a classic! Since 1946, the restaurant has built a reputation for its fabulous fish and chips, hamburgers and hotdogs "with the works", milkshakes and its own delicious brand of French fries. The atmosphere inside is made warm and friendly by the classic diner-style booths, old sports pictures on the walls and 1950s music on the jukebox. Hutch's classic combination of great food, fast service and 1950's-style dining makes it one of the area's most popular eateries.

I used a number of elements from a variety of kits, including... 'Mom's Diner' (by Sweet Digi Scraps). Love, love, love this kit. I won a $5.00 coupon from Liz (the designer) and chose this (and I ended up buying another kit while I was there, lol). I'm a huge fan of diners. My first website back in the late 80's was called The Dabble Diner :)

The gorgeous background paper is from 'Cruising' (by Mel Hains). This was another amazing deal ... it was on sale earlier this month for $1.00 and it's super cute. I love that the painted paper reminds me of water, and since the restaurant is on the beach and the colour matched Hayden's shirt, I just had to use it.

The SVG wavy shape is from Barb at Albums to Remember. I filled it with black and white tiled paper because the diner actually has that floor, haha.

I also used a few bits from 'That's My Dad' (by Mye De Leon). It's an absolutely gorgeous kit that is on sale for $1.00. Mye has opened a new store and will be selling exclusively at Digital Design House. She is leaving MyMemories, GottaPixel and Scrapmatters and retiring over 70 products, so I picked up a bunch more of her $1.00 kits (reg. $5.99).

The Nautical cluster by Flower Scraps was a freebie. And finally I extracted the ketchup bottle (because only Heinz will do, lol); made the ketchup hearts and wordart; and added the Hutches logo to the drink cup.

Grammar Goofs

I have no spare time to scrap a page today ... but I have lots of new kits to unzip and sort. I thought I'd post this here for handy reference. My sister always calls me the Spelling & Grammar Police, lol. I love this.............. haha.


15 Grammar Goofs That Make You Look Silly :)

HONESTY & WISDOM ~ Inspirational ;)

This morning I made another page with 'Inspirational Frames 1' (by LLL Creations). After making the first one last night I continued to look through my War of 1812 re-enactment pics and found these. We see this man Jeff Wakefield (a.k.a. Sutler Cyrus) at all of the re-enactments and have enjoyed talking to him in the past, but I really didn't know much about him. I did a quick search and found a ton of info on him. He's a real Renaissance man with many talents and VERY entertaining, lol. It's because of Lil's frames that I started looking at my old pics with fresh eyes :)

The signs in the bottom pic that I'm "pointing at" (a bit hard to read on this smaller size image) says...
LEAVE A LOONEY
(OR MORE IF YOU WILL)
THE WEASEL WILL DANCE FOR YOU
NOT BAD FOR ROAD KILL

And the one below says...
PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH MY WEASEL! :)

Of couse it's not actually roadkill. And if you don't know, a "looney" is the nickname of a Canadian $1 coin.

And just for fun, here's Sutler Cyrus talking about the candy he sells... Cartridge Candy.

IMAGINE ~ Inspirational ;)

I bought these 'Inspirational Frames' (by LLL Creations) today because they reminded me of Motivational posters and I thought they would be fun to play with. I was looking through my photos to see what I could use with one of the frames (there's 12 different ones in the pack) and came across this pic.

Every few years we go to watch one of these 1812 re-enactments at Old Fort Erie (or sometimes to ones in Niagara-on-the-Lake). The battle re-enactments in Fort Erie are quite spectacular with actual musket and cannon fire from both sides (British and American), great special effects, noise and smoke, and they involve about 1000 people in period clothing. I have LOTS of photos from these events, but this one always makes me smile.

This year is the Bicentennial of the War of 1812.

Precious Sweet Baby Girl

My niece and her BFF were pregnant at the same time. Her girlfriend's baby was due the third week of May and my niece's baby was due the first week of June, about two weeks apart. However, my niece's son (Tyler) was born 6 weeks premature, on April 28th, 2012, and her friend had her baby girl (Shannyn) on May 23rd, 2012, soooooo Tyler, who SHOULD have been two weeks younger than Shannyn, is actually 1 month older than Shannyn (but he's still smaller than she is). Crazy!! But thank God they are both healthy, beautiful babies. :)

For this page I started with a QP called Bloomin' (by Down This Road Designs). But I edited it in PaintShop Pro (as usual, lol): changed up the colours so it would match the photo better; replaced some of the green to a soft purpley mauve colour; moved one of the leaves.

* I always check the designer's TOU to make sure it's OK to do that. For this QP Angie's TOU states, "YOU MAY: 1. You may recolor and/or adjust my items for your own personal use."

Then I added the beaded strings from 'Candy Fairway Pack' (Peppermint Creative), small pink ribbon from 'Baby Born' (Meta Wulandari Design), larger ribbon from 'Choochie Face' (LouCee Creations) kit now retired, tags from 'Dreams' (A Work in Progress) kit now retired, buttons from 'My Colors Buttons' (A Saxon Creation).

Monkey Love :)

This scrap page is the result of a happy series of events that occurred in the last few days.

June 17: my niece Shannon wrote this on my Facebook wall... "You should let me know of any kits that you have that you need pics for. Just tell me the theme and color... I am bound to have pics of the boys in outfits to match, lol. That last page you made was adorable!"

June 18: designer "mle Card: scraps by the brush" gave out nineteen $6.00 coupons when her Facebook fan page reached 1900 fans. I was one of the lucky 19 people who won. I chose her adorable new kit "Monkey Love" ($5.99). I had no idea what pics I was going to scrap with it, but I fell in love with the kit.

June 19: I sent five kit previews to Shannon of cute kits that I had, including the preview of the "Monkey Love" kit.

June 20: Shannon wrote back, "OMG! I was just looking at the kits you sent me and then realized the monkey kit looked familiar!! Look at his hat! (that's Hayden lol) I have a few pics of him wearing this!"

June 21: Shannon sent these three photos of Hayden to me at 9:30 pm. They were taken at his Newborn Photo Shoot on February 21, 2011, by Lemon Love Photography. Hayden was 2 1/2 weeks old.

June 22: I made this page. This may be one of my favourite pages ever!!! Thanks soooooo much to designer mle Card (Emily) for the fab kit and to my niece Shannon for sharing these gorgeous photos. They are a match made in Heaven :)

Kit: 'Monkey Love' (by mle Card: scraps by the brush).

Rockin' the Mickey Mouse Hoodie

After yesterday's multi-hour scrap page I decided to use a QP today. When I logged into Facebook at 8:00 this morning Connie Prince had posted a freebie on her blog and I knew it would perfect for these pics of Hayden. It's a Disney-inspired quick page called 'MY HAPPY PLACE' QP (by Connie Prince).

Of course I rarely use a QP without customizing somehow it in Paintshop Pro, haha. I know how to take the "quick" out of quick page! This was fairly minor though. I painted over the tag that said 'A Magical Adventure' with the Clone Brush so I could add my own text; and I painted out the lines in the round tag on the botton and made it white, again just to make adding my own text easier and more legible.

Later today JM Designs posted a new Facebook Exclusive mini kit called, 'You Rock My World'. I used the "YOU ROCK" wordart from it for this page.

Then I extracted the red Mickey Mouse hoodie/T-shirt/jeans set from my own photo. This past Christmas I had bought two of these outfits, one for each my grand-nephews and took a photo of them to show my sister (just to make sure we weren't giving the boys the same thing. I also added a round close-up of Mickey Mouse playing guitar to this page, from the photo.

Welcome to Summer!

The Summer Solstice: Summer begins in the Northern Hemisphere on June 20, 2012, at 7:09 P.M. (EDT). Today is the first official day of summer and this week it has been blisteringly HOT and humid. It was uncomfortable outside when I woke up at 4:30 this morning and went out to the back yard with Dillon (in the dark). This week also marks the first official heat wave of the year. A heat wave is defined as 3 or more consecutive days with temperatures above 32°C (90°F).

Forecast for Today
Sunny. Wind becoming southwest 20 km/h this afternoon. High 34°C (93°F). Humidex 41°C (106°F). UV index 10 or very high. * Humidex advisory in effect.

I'll have to scrap something summery today :)

---

I said early this morning that I wanted to scrap something summery, so I started looking through my old pics to find ones I hadn't scrapped yet. I scanned three photos. These were all taken on the same day, June 21, 2002, which also happened to be the first day of Summer that year. Dillon was 2 years old, Nathaniel was 9 months old, and our budgie Jesse James (in the cage on the table) was 3 years old at the time. Jesse just passed away three weeks ago @ 13 years of age. Nat passed away in 2009 about a month before his 8th birthday. So the only one of our beloved "boys" still with us is Dillon. He's 12 now.

I love the photos, but the old scanned images are just not as clear and crisp as the digital pics, and you can't really see the dog's eyes and faces. This is the best I could get them. This whole page took hours ... there are MANY layers and I really fussed with it, changing it over and over again, lol.

I used a LOT of kits for this, some I bought, some were free...
~ One flower is from 'Celebrate' (Sweet Pea Designs).
~ One flower is from 'Family & Friends' (Albums to Rememeber).
~ Red ribbon tab from 'Boys Will be Boys Addon' (Kimeric Kreations).
~ Leaves from 'Sunset Melody Bundle' (Marie h Designs).
~ Shabby button, Worn paper, red butterflies, and wordart (re-coloured) from 'Food, Family and Fun' (Stuff to Scrap Collab).
~ Journal card from '3x4 Journal Cards' (Persnickety Prints).
~ Papers from 'Super Summer Fun' (Kooky Cat Designs); 'Sun and Sea' (Persnickety Prints); 'Summer Breeze Paper Pack' (Snuggle Berry Pie Designs); 'Sweet Sunny Summer' (Marie h Designs); 'Sunny Days' Blog Train (Scraps n Pieces); 'Hello Sunshine' Blog FB Train (MScraps).
~ Oh, and I drew and painted the sun. I don't know why, as I must have dozens of suns from other kits, lol.

Whew!!!
I think I'll just use a quick page tomorrow, lol.

Playing Crib with Dad

MyMemories Blog is having a *#1 Dad Challenge*. My dad passed away in 1984 (6 years after this photo was taken). I really don't have many photos of Dad and I together. It's kind of sad really. He had his problems, but he tried his best, worked hard all his life, having two jobs much of the time, yet when we were little he taught all three of us kids to love nature and animals, sports and games, reading and journaling. He passed away 6 weeks before he was due to receive his first Old Age Security cheque at the age of 65. I rememeber that he had been really looking forward to getting that first cheque. RIP Dad.

I used a kit called 'Remember' (Word Art World by Jennifer), and this week's swap freebie wordart. The cribbage board and cards are from Dreamsfulfilled.

Cute as a Bug

These photos of my adorably cute grand-nephew Hayden were taken a few days ago by my niece Shannon. I think the pics are awesome and as soon as I saw what Hayden was wearing I knew I had the perfect kit for this.

I used 'Boys Only' (collab by Marie H Designs and Craft-tastrophic) ... I loved it so much I bought the bundle. I know I'll be using this kit over and over.

Blue hearts (Viola Moni) & blue buckle (Digi Cyber Scraps), from May's 'A Royal Wedding Blog Train'). Bugs from 'Bug Detective' (MDF).

Waking Up is Hard to Do!

This is my youngest grand-nephew Tyler. He was born on April 28, six weeks premature. A week ago we had a large family get together on the weekend that was Tyler's original expected due date. He's now the size of a newborn :)

I took all of these pics within about 2 minutes. My sister-in-law was holding Tyler and we were talking to him trying to see if he'd open his eyes, lol. Great Aunties are allowed to wake up their great-nephews while they are sleeping .... 'cause we can always pass them back to their Mommy if they protest too much, lol.

I made this page today and I used a kit (now retired) called 'Oh Boy' (by A Work In Progress"). I love the colours in this, and although it is not a baby kit, it went really well with my pics.

I decided to do a photo effect on the last picture, and added a border to it and angled it, just make that photo stand out a bit from the rest, in a slightly unexpected way. The photo effect was done in PaintShop Pro X4, and is called the 'Vignette Effect'.

Fishy Fone

Another page with pics from my sister Lil and her hubby Peter's little fishing trip yesterday.

Once again I used a freebie kit called 'Gone Fishing" (by snackpackgu). Love, love, love this kit! Thanks Debra! And thanks to Lil for sharing her photos with me. I loved making these pages.

I made up my own quote to suit this page (oh, and the cell phone ellie). Peter had bought a waterproof cell phone case. He read somewhere that you should never go out on a boat without a cell phone these days. He bought it and then put something in it and let it soak all day in water to see if it really was waterproof and it is! Lil never leaves home without her cell phone, so she was happy :))

Peter Gets Hooked!

My sister Lil and her hubby Peter went fishing today. Lil caught 9 or 10 fish and Peter caught about 8. They were little and they threw them all back. But Lil did catch something else ... Peters baseball cap! She hooked it right off his head. As soon as she told me that I KNEW I had the perfect kit and begged her to send me photos, and she did. Soooo fun!

I used a freebie kit called 'Gone Fishing" (by snackpackgu). It's a fabulous kit with incredibly cute graphics. I edited the element of the boy and girl fishing (the one at the top where the girl has snagged the boy's cap. The original had them sitting on a dock so I removed that part and tried to match the colour of Lil and Peter's canoe. And I repainted the clothing and the hair on both the boy and the girl to match Lil and Peter were wearing :)) I'll email Debra (the designer) and let her know. I don't think she'll mind.

I also used some items from a mini kit called 'Love of Fishing (by Karen's Scraps and Graphics). Such nice stuff!

Designers are amazingly generous!!

Doing it 4 Digi

(The imaged above is from Wendy Tunison on SNP, made with her 'Start Now' kit.)
I just signed up for the "Doing it 4 Digi Weight Loss Challenge" on the Scraps N Pieces forum. It will be a 6-month challenge in a private forum on SNP, starting July 1st.

I need to halt the steady increase in weight that's been going on for the last 8 months (coincidently it began as soon as I started doing digital scrapbooking and joined Facebook, lol). I shouldn't laugh. Seriously, I've gained a whopping 25 pounds since November 2011. I'm at my highest weight ever in the 60 years I've been on this planet.

If there is a way to combine weight LOSS with digital scrapbooking... I'm all for it! I'll be happy not to have to go back to Weight Watchers. (I'd rather spend my money on digi supplies, lol).

So my goal with be to lose 25 pounds just to get back to the weight I was 8 months ago. Even then I was at the maximum weight according to my Weight Watchers limit. But if I can lose 25 pounds, and still scrap, I'll be more than happy :))

*** First Blog Post ***

Today I decided to start a blog as a place to post my digital scrapbooking pages. I simply chose a pre-made blog template. I'm not sure if this is the one for me, but as I find my way around this new Blogger format I'll likely customize it or at least make my own header. :)

The plan is to post my previous scrap pages, from the most recent, working my way backwards, and add new scrap pages as I create them. I like that I can change the date for the blog post to reflect the day the scrap page was created. For now, this is just an experiment/work in progress :))

Thought for today:
"Everything in your world begins with a thought. So use your thoughts to give everything a powerful, positive beginning." -- Ralph Marston

Here's to new beginnings!
Cheers ~ Arlene

Fly Boy

This is my eldest grand-nephew Devin, (my brother's grandson). He'll be three in September. Such a delightful, good humoured boy. I took a ton of pics of him playing on Saturday, June 9th at our family get-together. Devin loves the swings, as most little kids do, and just can't get enough. "More!" ... "Higher!" ... "More!" ... "Higher!"

This page started out as a Quick Page called Aliens and Underwear QP (by A-Manda Creation). It's a freebie on MyMemories. I've totally changed it to suit my photos. First I recoloured it, then I painted out all the aliens and spaceships, and added some tiny star scatters. Poor Amanda.... I really must send her a note and let her know. :)

The wordart is from a free kit called Fly Boy (by Marie Stones), which I also recoloured to suit my pics.

Little Sunshine

This is my grand-nephew Hayden, (my sister's first grandson). He's 16 months old and a sweet, happy, smily, daring little guy. I took lots of pics of him too on Saturday, June 9th at our family get-together.

For this page a made a transparent mask/overlay (more experimenting) to give the pic a sunny glow. The elements are from the "Hello Sunshine" MScraps iNSD blog FB hop. The yellow Tonka truck is from the "Rough and Tumble" NSD Blog Hop by Plain Digital Wrapper (expired now).

Just Being a Kid

More pics of my grand-nephew Devin playing, taken on Saturday, June 9th at our family get-together.

I never used to use quick pages but over that last little while there have been some really cute ones that were too hard to resist. This one is called "We Are Family QP" (by Connie Prince) and I added freebie cluster frames from the same kit in the bottom right corner. The yellow Tonka truck is from the "Rough and Tumble" NSD Blog Hop by Plain Digital Wrapper (expired now).

Zombiefied!

When we were at our family get-together yesterday my niece showed us an app on her i-phone called ZombieBooth. She took a photo of eveyone, one at a time and zombiefied us, then instantly send the photos to us by email, haha. Gotta love technology. This is how the pics of my hubby and I looked as zombies. So pretty, haha!

We're huge fans of the TV show, "The Walking Dead", so this app was a ton of fun to play with. To make this page I used a freebie kit called 'Bone Yard' (by Dreamsfulfilled); the background paper is from 'Halloween Curiosity' (A Saxon Creation), and made a few things.

1973 Groovy Wallpaper

The journaling says...

This was my first real place of my own. I rented the top half of a house on Lake Ave. in Stoney Creek and I even had my own backyard.

When I moved in I painted every room in the house and hung this groovy wallpaper in the kitchen. I also painted the kitchen cupboards. I was very proud of my handiwork, haha.

It's a tad busy by today's standards :)

I made the funky shaped frame by creating a custom shape in MyMemories Suite and filling it with paper. I used a previous Facebook Exclusive kit (from February 2012) called 'All Retro' (by PersnicketyPrints"). I tried to make a page that just screamed LOUD and BUSY!!! I think may have succeeded :))

Diamond Jubilee

Yesterday my hubby and I watched the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant on TV. (3 1/2 hours = fabulous). I just LOVE stuff like this. So funny how the British newscasters refused to say the word 'rain' but referred to the weather as 'unrelentingly damp', haha. (It poured!) It didn't seem to dampen the spirits of the people though. I must say the Brits do Pageantry exceedingly well. So nice to see some Canadians taking part in the flotilla. Thought I'd make a little page to celebrate.

That's Dillon holding the Canadian flag in his mouth. I used the kit "The Great British Street Party" (by LouCee Creations). The photo of the Queen and the Diamond Jubilee emblem are downloads available on The official website of The Queen's Diamond Jubilee. (http://​www.thediamondjubilee.org/)

Feed, Me, Feed Me!

This is my page for a Blog Challenge Scraplift on Marie H Designs blog and FB Fan page. I used 'Sweet Sunny Summer' and 'Good Old Summertime' (both by Marie H Designs). The photos were taken in our backyard on May 15th. I didn't realize how huge a baby sparrow's mouth was until I zoomed in with my camera, lol. These little guys have already taken their first flights out of the nest, but the parents are still feeding them.

For participating in the challenge I received this free kit from Marie, 'Dear Diary'

Linda Ronstadt Hair

This isn't really a scrap page. It's just a little something I made after a few of my digi scrap pals on Facebook and I were talking about old hair styles from back in the day. There were four of us that nearly the identical style (and in some cases, the same glasses) lol.

I used items form February's Tinsel Town Glamour Blog Train (on Divine Digital). Now expired.

1983 Eric's Christening

We were discussing old hair styles on facebook and I made this simple little page just to show some of the gals my 80's perm, haha. This was taken on the day on my nephew Eric's Christening in 1983. My husband and I were (are) Eric's God Parents.

I used a retired kit called "Choochie Face" (by LouCee Creations) and another retired kit called "Baby Born"(by Meta Wulandari Design).