Serious Play

The Beauty of Fall LO

So, up until last week, we have been enjoying an extended Fall.

 

I dread the cold that comes along with Winter, so we had been making the best of every moment outdoors that we could. Here, we had been out geocaching in Canmore.

I treasure these moments that we have with our two girls together. The oldest one is wanting to move out at the end of this school year to go away to college. This could be our last months of living as a family of four!

Also, with two teenaged girls together in the same house, there are sparks that fly at moments. So, seeing the two of them together and smiling is a good thing for a mother's heart.

 

 

 

Gone Away

So, I will be away from my computer this week.

 

I am going to Indiana for a conference. It is all about Quality Learning and how to teach students about Quality in their work and how to make improvements in their learning habits.

I know that this will be a profitable time for me as a teacher. There will be long days and long nights. I really want to give my all while I am there and come home full.

So, I am taking a break from blogging this week and will be posting again when I return.

 

Blessings

December Daily Foundation Pages

So, now that we have had our first snow, I am feeling excited for Christmas and especially the start to my December Daily project!

 

This year, I am using the Crate Paper line called Peppermint in my album. I have already written a post on preparing for December Daily that you can read here.

I am so glad that I decided to go with Marcy Penner's kit this year. It is so full of personalized touches, like stitched pages, coordinating ribbon, banners and punched stars. To be honest, with working full time, I just would not have had the time to put together such a wonderful album, so I have Marcy to thank!

If you are still wondering what to do for your album, you may want to check out her December 2011 Journal Kit.

I created my own cover for the album. I covered two pieces of chipboard, that I had trimmed to 7x9, with woodgrain adhesive drawer liner (found at the dollar store). I embellished the front with various items from the bits and pieces that come in the Crate Paper Peppermint pack, as well as included embossed numbers similar to Ali Edwards. My numbers turned out a little more blue in the pic than they actually are, but I did add irridescent glitter on top of my embossing powder to get this effect.

The inside front and back covers, I covered with the blue/green paper from the Peppermint pack. Since I had trimmed the paper at 6in wide to allow two pieces (from my 12x12 page), I was just a tad too short to reach the edge! So, to fill the gap, I slipped in some lacy paper that I trimmed from a square doily (from the dollar store too). I love that you can see the doily peeking out and framing each of the page layouts.

Without further delay, here are my pages...

I like flexibility and am a bit of a perfectionist, so I have not yet adhered my numbers. I may end up moving pages around to fit with the particular day and the layout I create, so I am holding back with the numbers and will add them as I complete each page.

Along with the kit, there are a number of wonderful goodies, including numbers, as seen below. I will be using these items throughout the album, as well as others from the Crate Paper Peppermint pack.

 

 

Along with all of these lovely pages, I have purchased Ali Edwards' December Daily Layered Templates. I will be choosing a template each day ( according to the number of pics I take that day ), printing my page of pics, and adding it into my album. At that point, I will also decide whether to simply add patterned paper to the back of the printed pics, or adhere two pages of pics back to back.

So, there you have it...my December Daily 2011 album just sitting and waiting for December to arrive.

 

 

 

 

Starbucks Christmas Love

So, it is Christmas at Starbucks!

 

I don't know what it is about Christmas, but I am always enamoured. All the red. All the sparkly objects. All the excitement in the air. All the decor.

My husband and I had a lazy morning at Starbucks today. We were surrounded by the wonder of Christmas at Starbucks, enjoyed a hot drink in a red Christmas cup and played Sudoku together.

Love it.

 

 

 

 

Word Art :: Create

So, I was inspired by Pinterest.

 

A few weeks ago, I repinned this writing on the wall from Picture Party and fell in love with the idea. It kept circling through my brain and would not leave me alone! So I caved...and made my own.

I started with a piece of adhesive shelf liner that I found many moons ago at the dollar store. I love the rich dark colour of this woodgrain but it is hard to come by. Recently, I have only been able to find a very pale woodgrain in this same shelf liner material and as wonderful as it is, the dark woodgrain is my favourite.

To make the lettering, I turned to my computer. I chose Rockwell Extra Bold as my font and, in Photoshop, I resized my letters to be almost 3 x 3 in square. This font is solid, and so as not to waste extra ink while printing it out (because I just replaced my black cartridge and it was $18), I recreated it to be just an outline of the font.

To make an outline of the font I did the following:

1. In Photoshop, type and resize the letters.

2. Select one letter using the Magic Wand Tool. It will have those little marching ants around the perimeter.

3. Create a New Layer above the letter you are working with.

4. With that same New Layer selected, go to Edit > Stroke, and then I chose a pale grey colour at 3 pixels wide.

5. Deselect the object, which on a Mac is Command + D.

6. Hide or delete the original solid letter.

Essentially, what you are doing is creating an outline of the letter in a new layer (sort of like tracing it onto tissue paper) and then you don't need the original letter anymore.

 

After printing the outlined letters on a scrap piece of paper, I cut them all out...

To get inside the a and the e, I used an exacto knife.

Once all of the letters were cut out, I flipped over my woodgrain shelf liner to transfer the letters.  I adhered my letters with a glue stick at this point, simply so that I could save time by not tracing them and dealing with shifting letters. Be sure to flip over your letters in order to have them come out the correct way when you turn the woodgrain back over.

Again, to save printer ink, I only printed one letter e, even though I needed 2 on the woodgrain material. So, in this step, I traced one e and then adhered the template in another spot to get the second e.

 

All that was left to do was cut out the letters...

 

And there it was... wonderful woodgrain word art.

 

Thanks to Pinterest for the inspiration.

I have a few more Pinterest-inspired projects on my To Do list in the coming weeks...

 

 

 

 

 

December Daily Kit Giveaway

So, unfortunately it is not me doing the giveaway...

 

But if you hop on over to Elizabeth Kartchner's adorable blog, you can be entered for a chance to win!

 

Good luck everyone...here's hoping for that album.