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 :)

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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).