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.)

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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)

Making a Splash!!!

OK, I had to go way back for these photos, haha. (1981). I was looking for something to represent a lazy afternoon and found these of my brother and hubby being goofs. The pics were all taken on the same day, but the sun was coming in and out of the clouds, so in every photo the water and the redwood/burgundy? edge around the pool was a different colour. It was making me koo-koo, so I made two of them black and white. Problem solved, haha!

I didn't use a template (obviously) ... the LO is a bit odd, but I wanted the water level in top two photos to line up. :)

The kit is called 'Lazy Afternoon' (Kimeric Kreations)

Red Hot Summer

When I saw this gorgeous kit I searched through a lot of photos to find something summery in the right colours to go with it. Fortunately I take a ton of pics so it's usually just a matter of wading through them to come up with something.

I started out using a sketch of one of the new Lichen templates (LGFD), because I was going to use 5 photos, but that was making the photos too tiny to see any of the details .... so then I just kind of fiddled and veered off course and did my own thing, haha.

The kit is called 'Red Hot Summer' (Kimeric Kreations)
The template is called 'Lichen' (Little Green Frog Designs) *modified

Backing up is Easy to Do

Oh my ... I have been very busy!! Last Thursday I saw a message from Tracey on 'Trixie Scraps Designs' FB page about BackBlaze. It's her (and many others) program of choice for online backup storage. This is what she said...

It used to be said that something didn’t exist digitally unless you had two copies, a working copy and a backup copy. These days, I would say that something doesn’t exist digitally unless you have three copies. A working copy, a local backup and an offsite backup. We use BackBlaze http://www.backblaze.com/ in our home they offer $5 a month to backup everything on your computer. It is really an amazing company! We have recovered a few lost files with no issues. Be sure to check them out!

It sounded interesting. I did some checking and Reviews say...

"Backblaze is simple to setup and has two very strong suits: unlimited storage per PC, and continuous backup monitoring, making it a good hands-off choice. But it lacks a lot of goodies you get in other products, such as file sharing, mobile access apps, and complementary local backup software."

I don't care about file sharing or mobile access apps. All I wanted was something super easy to use with unlimited storage and this seems perfect for me. I bought BackBlaze the day Tracey posted about it (July 19th). 2 years for $95.00. That works out to $3.95/month ($1.00/week).

My computer has been backing up 18 hours/day for the last 6 days, lol. Still not done, and that's just my C drive. They said it could take up to 30 days for the initial backup. Based on how much has been saved so far I'm guessing it will be about 2 weeks by the time it also saves the files in my EDH. However, it's very seamless and doesn't seem to eat up any speed from doing other tasks so I'm really happy with it and I feel more secure.

I used to have Norton Online Backup but I really wasn't happy with it and I didn't renew my contract. I have 2 EHDs, plus all my photos are also backed up onto 2 separate computers (one of which is never connected to the internet). I also leave my digital photos on my SD cards, haha. I HATE losing my digital life. I've lost things in the past and there have been some close calls too. You just can't so too safe, lol.

Anyway...... I have been scrapping and will post my pages according to the day I made them over the last few days (so below this post, haha.)

BFFs share a fab experience

I got this freebie template last month and thought it was so cool. I finally decided to make a page 'similar' to it. The fabulous kit is 'Market Square' (Kimeric Kreations) and I used 'SO June Blog Template' (by Scrapping With Liz, on the Scrap Orchard blog) as a sketch ... I mirrored it and changed the orientation of the photos and added all the blocks in MyMemories Suite.

The pic on the top of my niece Shannon and her BFF Krysta was from April. The pic on the bottom was just taken last Thursday. The two moms were heading out to go shopping together with the babies. I originally thought the photo was taken after their big day (and had teased my niece about how they shopped till they dropped), but no ... this was taken as they were just getting in the car --- the babies fell asleep before they even left the driveway, haha.

A Boy's Story

More pics shared by my niece. I love these photos of my grandnephew Hayden so much. Shannon just finished painting his new bedroom and I had helped her choose the colours (based on the bedding). Three walls are painted blue and one wall is that fabulous green colour. So fun. This is another one of my crazy 'use a lot of various kits' pages.

The main kit I used is 'Stars' (A Work in Progress *retired); journal quote card from 'Boyish Summer Journaling Cards' (DHD Erica Coombs), stitches from 'My Colors Stitches' (A Saxon Creation), 'Spotted Fun Alpha' (Marie Stones), string and tag from the 'Rough and Tumble' NSD Blog Hop by Plain Digital Wrapper (expired now), wordart from 'A Good Read' (Sweet Digi Scraps), blue paper from 'Boyo Grunge Papers' (The Urban Fairy), background paper from 'Drowsy Papers' DHD (Agnes Biro).

I'm not going to look up all the links for this like I usually do. I just don't have the time today :)

Sunset at Port Dalhousie

I made this page last Friday. I didn't use a template ... I just played with the layers until I came up with something I liked. I used a wave SVG shape. The photo is my own. I took it in my hometown almost 8 years ago to the day. I've always wanted to scrap it because the swirly clouds look so cool to me. I honestly love the sparkly glitter splats and all the lovely papers and goodies in the kit.

Our 1975 VW Van

I finally got around to using a kit I bought a couple of weeks ago, 'Hippie Kit' (Etc by Danyale). It's really cute and I love the groovy VW embellie, haha.

My hubby and I moved out to Calgary in 1974. At the time we had a VW Beetle. the following year we traded it in for a brand new VW Van. The micro-van was just bare inside when we got it off the show room floor, but we eventually customized it and turned it into a camper van. It was awesome (well we thought it was), although not very roomy, haha.

The pics (above that I scrapped) were taken on the day we bought the van. We had taken a drive along the Forestry Trunk Road. It's a road that runs south-north, parallel to the Rocky Mountains for 100 km (62 miles) and provides Albertans with remarkable access to their forests without having to hike for hours to get there. We used to love going there and often went camping, hiking and fishing along the Forestry Trunk Road.


Those are just the foothills in the background (not the Rocky Mountains). The Forestry Trunk Road is also known as the Kananaskis Trail. Kananaskis Country is a large, multi-use recreation area with tons of neat things to experience and enjoy. You see a lot of wildlife, and the streams are crystal clear and cold. Sometimes sections of the trail would be closed due to bear activity. In the winter we'd go there to go cross-country skiing.

Puppy De-Stuffing Antics

On Sunday Emily (mLe Card) posted this on her FB fan page, "I would love to hear your bad dog stories!" So I proceeded to tell her about one incident from Dillon's puppyhood. This is what I posted ...

"Our current dog Dillon had a few bad dog moments when he was young, but nothing too serious. When he was about 11 months old he went upstairs to the second story of our house, grabbed a queen sized pillow off of the bed, dragged it downstairs to the main level and into the living room (an awkward thing to do as the pillow was almost as big as him), then proceeded to tear it into shreds. He didn't eat any of it thank God. I was in the kitchen and I never heard a sound .... he did it really quietly, haha. I finally realized he was being TOO quiet and went to see what he was up to. I took photos .... (and tried really hard not to laugh). Bad dog!!" :)

Well, today when I went online Emily gave us all a $2.00 coupon for telling her our bad dog stories. So I rushed over to Scrap Orchard and bought her brand new kit, 'Oh My Dog!' (mLe Card). It's on sale and is just too cute!!!


I told Emily...
"I have enough photos of Dillon and all his antics from when he was a pup to fill a large scrapbook. This is just a small sampling. These photos represent 3 separate occasions. The top two pics are from that pillow story I told you about. The bottom two are 2 different bunnies Dillon de-stuffed. He grew out of the toy destroying eventually, and he actually still has the last bunny we bought him in 2002. He has played with it every single day since then, and still carries it around with him in the evenings, haha."

Please note: I recoloured one of the dogs in the kit to look a bit more like a Springer (the one at the top sitting on the couch). It does not look like that in the kit. It's actually just a light beige colour, without the white markings. Oh, and I shortened the tail, lol.

Tall Ship

I decided to make a page with a larger photo of one of the Tall Ships we saw on Saturday at the War of 1812 Naval Battle Re-enactment in Niagara-on-the-Lake. The papers are from 'My Country Kitchen' (Kimeric Kreations), and I used elements from the 'Boys Will be Boys Addon' (Kimeric Kreations) and 'It's a Wonderful Life' (Kimeric Kreations) and 'It's a Wonderful Life Worn Torn' (Kimeric Kreations, from the IAWL bundle).

War of 1812 Bicentennial

Yesterday we went to watch a fabulous War of 1812 Naval battle re-enactment in Niagara-on-the-Lake. There were 5 tall sailing ships and 22 longboats with 300 naval re-enactors all dressed up in period costumes, lots of canons and muskets firing. We had a perfect vantage point and I got about 120 great pics. It was so cool to watch the tall ships sail across the lake, getting closer and closer, then the soldiers rowed to shore in the longboats and then the mock fighting began. It's always to fun because the American tourists root for the Americans and the Canadians root for the British, haha. We always have a blast and this year was extra special. From where we were standing I was only able to photograph the British troops.

Papers from:
'Boyfriend' (A work in Progress),
'Just Like Dad" (Meagan's Creations),
'Stars & Stripes' mini kit (Trixie Scraps) *July FB exclusive.

Embellishments from:
'The Great British Street Party' (LouCee Creations),
'All American Holiday' (Missy's Bits),
'Stars & Stripes' mini kit (Trixie Scraps) *July FB exclusive,
'Memories of Old' (LouCee Creations),
'Boyfriend' (A work in Progress),
'It's a Wonderful Life' (Kimeric Kreations),
'Boys Will Be Boys Addon' (Kimeric Kreations).

Template:
'Focal Point' (Little Green Frog Designs)

Queenston Heritage Walking Tour

I thought I'd make a layout that was a little more challenging than my last ones, and this proved to be a tricky one!!

I've been wanting to go to visit the RiverBrink Art Museum in Queenston. The current Featured Exhibition is RiverBrink’s War of 1812. This year is the bicentennial of the War of 1812, a huge deal in our part of the world, lol. The village of Queenston, Niagara-on-the Lake, is only about a 20 minute drive from our house.

Early this morning I had gone to the website to check their hours of operation and found out about their 'Queenston Heritage Walking Tours', held every Wednesday and Saturday at 11 am and 2 pm. I thought, "Perfect", today is Wednesday and the weather is gorgeous!" I told my hubby about it and he said, "Sounds good. Let's go!"

Here's the info from the website ...

The picturesque village of Queenston breathes an atmosphere of history and charm. First settled in the 1770’s by United Empire Loyalist refugees and immigrants from the United States, Queenston served as the key shipment depot for moving goods around Niagara Falls in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The War of 1812 was the area’s defining historical event, and is marked by two important sites in Queenston – the Laura Secord Homestead, which commemorates this celebrated war heroine, and the Brock Monument, which commemorates the iconic military leader. Queenston is also site of the restored home of rebel publisher William Lyon Mackenzie, which contains 500 years of printing technology, amid the authentic ambiance of a period print shop, and Willowbank, an exceptional example of Classical Revival architecture and the country estates of Upper Canada in the early 19th century. Queenston continues to thrive as an active community. This Heritage Tour Walk provides an informative orientation to the historic village of Queenston.

We went for the afternoon tour and my hubby and I were the only ones who had signed up. Our young college-age tour guide was super nice and friendly, very knowledgeable and it was great to learn a few new things about our local history. The Art Museaum is amazing, with beautiful paintings, bronze sculptures, historic artifacts, documents, and books that are hundreds of years old.

I have lots of photos to scrap, but when I was looking at them and trying to decide what I wanted to do I remembered that last week I had bought a new kit from Kim and thought the colours would be fab for these pics. What a time-consuming project this page was, but I love the way it turned out. If I wasn't so fussy about getting the colour/pattern combos "just right" (to my liking) it would have been quicker. Oh well, sleep is over-rated, lol.

Credits: Most of the page is made with 'Beautiful Summer Days' (Kimeric Kreations), with a few bits from 'Sweet Summer Sunshine' (Kimeric Kreations), and I used a template from 'Paper Lovers 4' (Kimeric Kreations).

Perfect Summer Picnic

Oh look ... more food! haha. Can you tell I'm on a diet? I think about food a lot when I'm trying to lose weight. My hubby and I are still on holidays this week. On Monday we got a reprieve from the extreme heat we've been having so we drove to one of our favourite outdoor places, Chippawa Creek Conservation Area. It has a lovely little lake, called Dils Lake. (Oh yes, Dillon thinks they named it after him, lol.) There are nature trails, a lakeside recreation trail and a marshland boardwalk; great spots to have a picnic, go hiking, camping, swimming, fishing or canoeing. We love it here, year-round.

We brought a picnic lunch but it was not our typical picnic fare. No hot dogs or hamburgers or potato salad, but the food we had was delicious. I made a couple of salads, bought two of kinds of hummus, some whole wheat pitas, and a roasted chicken (removed the skin), and a bunch of fruits and veggies. All the items were fresh or homemade, healthy and yummy. Even my hubby, who has never had a weight problem, thought it was the best picnic we'd ever had. Afterwards we walked around the perimeter of the lake. It's not that big. It look about 45 minutes (including the times I stopped to take pics). It's good to know that picnics don't need to be fattening to be fun.




I kept these pages really simple and didn't use any embellishments ... just a wordart and date tags that I made. (Oh, and one cherry, haha.) Background is a freebie from an old kit called 'Summer Dream' by Collab Girls. I don't think it's available any longer. It's funny, I have many hundreds of kits, but I still enjoy using freebies when I like the quality of them. I don't know what it is about this paper that I like so much ... I just do.

Week 1 ~ Back to Fresh

Today was the final day of Week 1 on the new weight loss/healthy lifestyle regime, called "Doing it 4 Digi Weight Loss Challenge" on the Scraps N Pieces forum. I had a very good week and concentrated on eating fresh food, made from scratch, with lots of fruits and veggies, good quality lean protein, whole grains, and low fat dairy. I made my own dressings using things like extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar, so although I had a little fat, it was the healthy kind. Fortunately I love to cook and I often photograph the meals I prepare so scrapping my faves from Week 1 was a natural for me, haha.

I did OK on the exercise front ... meaning I actually did some, which is a far cry from what I'd been doing for the previous 8 months, which was nothing. Hopefully tomorrow's weigh-in will reflect the effort I put in this week.

I used a kit called 'Freshly Squeezed' by Heather's Digital Creations and the journal card is from 'Mom's Diner' by Sweet Digi Scraps. All my recipes came from a recipe book called, 'The LooneySpoons Collection' by Janet and Greta Podleski.

As soon as I saw you...

My niece posted this photo on Facebook and it made me laugh out loud, for real. It looks like Hayden is thinking, "Yikes, Tyler ... stop with the crying already!!" That's not what was really going on but I had fun scrapping this pic and telling a story of what might have been going on in his head :)

Hayden has this "trick" he does .... he shows his muscles like he's a little body builder. It's really funny. You can watch a short video clip of Hayden doing that (taken two months ago, so he was a bit smaller).

In the photo (above) that I scrapped Hayden was actually "showing his muscles" to Tyler, trying to distract him from crying. It wasn't working, haha. When I made the page I was aiming for kinda crazy ... like "2 boys = all heck breaks loose."

I made the two main background papers myself in PSP, using colours from the photo. For elements I used two of my favourite boy kits ... 'Boys Only' *the bundle with the wordart and paint splats (collab by Marie H Designs and Craft-tastrophic) and 'Boys of Summer' (by Ziggle Designs). I used one journal from 'Boyish Summer Journaling Cards' (by Erica Coombs), but I recoloured it to match my page.

Good Ole Days

These pics are from that 40th Annual Heritage Display that I had scrapped about on Sunday. Most of this one is made from 'It's a Wonderful Life' (by Kimeric Kreations) and I used two IAWL Wordbits and one IAWL Graffiti. The blue background paper and one flower are from IAWL May addon. The two yellow flowers are from 'Oh Canada' (by Kimeric Kreations). The little red barn is from 'Farmer Ikean' (A Saxon Creation). I sort of semi-scraplifted a template/sketch from 'Debbie Hodge' but for the life of me I can't figure out which one I used as inspiration.

The elderly man holding the plaque is the founder of this heritage club and started the event 40 years ago. While we were there my hubby and I had gone into an open sided pavilion that had these huge old picnic tables and a couple of old guys came and sat with us. Turned out to be the founder and another founding member. Ken (the founder) was soooo proud of the plaque they had presented to him I just had to take his photo. He told us lots of neat old stories about the Good Ole Days. I just love talking to the old-timers at these events. You can learn a lot if you stop to listen, and we had a few good laughs along the way. :)

July Exercise Calendar

Yesterday (July 1st), was not only Canada Day but Day 1 of on the new 'Doing It For Digi' weight loss/healthy lifestyle regime. I'm a lists and calendars kinda gal. I like to have a plan and be able to check things off my lists and add little checkmarks or "you did it stars" to my calendar. I guess it takes me back to my grammar school days. Anyway, I've come up with my exercise schedule for the month of July and decided I might as well scrap it ... as in make a page, not scrap the whole idea of exercising, lol.

The plan is to start off slow and ease myself back into a fitness routine.

• Sunday: Walk or Cycle 40-60 min.
• Monday: Yoga 20 min. and Strength Training 20 min.
• Tuesday: Walk 30 min. (Treadmill Hills)
• Wednesday: Yoga 20 min.
• Thursday: Walk or Cycle 40-60 min (or REST if needed).
• Friday: Yoga 20 min. and Strength Training 20 min.
• Saturday: Walk 30 min. (Treadmill Hills)

We have a small home gym set up in our basement. Nothing fancy, but have a treadmill, an upright exercise bike, weights, etc. a flatscreen TV on the wall, and an area large enough to do yoga or any other type of fitness DVD. I use to collect fitness equipment and exercise DVDs the way I currently collect digi-kits.

I'm hoping to walk or cycle outdoors a couple of times a week, but if it's killer hot out I can still do it indoors. I also have a couple of fans set up downstairs so I really have NO excuse for not exercising. I just haven't done any since last October. Paint me lazy.

I hope to build up to 60 minutes of exercise/day and increase the strength training to 3x/week. That's the goal anyway. We'll see how it goes. I am not going to beat myself up if I miss a day now and then.

I used a kit called 'Start Now' by Wendy Tunison Designs and the stars are from 'Rock a Bye Baby' (by Marie h Designs). I made the tiny treadmill from a photo of the treadmill that we actually own, and I made the wordstrips.

The Horse Pull Competition

Yesterday my hubby and I we went to the 40th Annual Heritage Display presented by the Niagara Antique Power Association at their Show Grounds on Learn Heritage Farm in Sherkston, Ontario. We honestly love these small town country exhibits. This is what it said in the ad about the show...

Forty years ago Ken Benner and a small group of friends decided to hold their first "Power Round-Up" on Saturday July 1, 1972. The location chosen was at Ken's home - to be specific, behind the workshop where he played with his old rusted relics.

Since then members of the Niagara Antique Power Association have dedicated 40 years to preserving the history of agriculture in the region. The organization is celebrating its 40th annual heritage display this weekend at the Learn Heritage Farm.

• Saw Mill Demonstrations
• Blacksmith Shop & Demonstrations
• Steam Traction Engine running the Saw Mill
• Models & Model Demonstrations
• Tractor Display
• Vintage Motorcycles
• Antique Cars & Trucks
• Antique Tractors & Farm Equipment
• Antique Lawn and Garden Equipment
• Gas & Steam Engines
• John Leonard's Military Band Organ
• Memorial Wall & Show Picture Display
• Parade of Equipment
• Soap Makers
• Trading Post
• Arts & Crafts
• Flea Market
• Souvenirs Shop
• Niagara Ole Tyme Fiddlers
• Our Log Cabin was built in 1850

It was great. We walked around looking at all the old equipment, watching demonstrations, eating really good food and talking to a lot of the old-timers about the by-gone days. I took a ton of photos. The horses were fantastic and really huge. The ones in the pulling competition are known as draught horses (draft horses in the US), or sometimes just called work horses. Truly beautiful animals.

I used a kit called 'It's a Wonderful Life' (by Kimeric Kreations) as well as the coordinating IAWL Borders, IAWL Wordart and IAWL Wordbits. This is one of my favourite kits. I actually bought the whole bundle and have since bought almost all the addons to go with it. I buy the new releases when they are on sale and use coupons whenever I can.