Well that was fun...

I just spent an hour working out with my Wii! I haven't used it in ages. Tonight I played Just Dance and Golds Gym Dance Class (?). Fun!

I was doing this tonight because first, I should be exercising every day and I have let that go the past few weeks and second, I just received my S2H (Switch to Health) wrist band in the mail today. If you haven't seen this you should check out the website! Basically, you put this wrist band/watch on your wrist and exercise. There are these bars that add up as you exercise. Once one hour of exercise is complete a code appears! You enter the code on the website and you receive 60 points! These points add up and you can redeem them for stuff! How cool is that? What a great motivator for exercise...and wearing it on your wrist all the time is a constant reminder to exercise!

Love it! :) I have been busy making cards since I signed up for a table at the kid's school Christmas Bazaar this year. From what I hear though, selling cards is a tough business! :) Thought it was a good cause though and I like to support my kids! :)

I will take some photos and share them soon! I'm up to about 50 unique cards now and I have made some sets as well by digitally designing them, printing and adding some slight embellishments. I will sell these in packs of 10. The originals will sell individually. I also plan on making some Christmas gift tags as well. We will see how it goes. The sale isn't until the beginning of December so I have a bit of time. :)

Well, hello there!

Here I am! I'm back. Hoping to make a good go of this blogging thing now that I have some more time on my hands.

I'll keep it short for today and share some cards and a layout for my probably-not-noticed return to blogging. :)

I think I'm ready....

To start blogging again...

Another layout

'Cause I don't have much else to say today. :)

This layout is a result of the ad challenge over at The Scrapping Nook as part of their winter IceCROPades event. We had to make a layout inspired by an ad that was provided to us. There were two and I chose this one.

I was drawn to the curved lines. I really liked the retro feel of the ad and realized I had the perfect photo already printed off just waiting to be scrapped!

This was my end result. The layout took a surprisingly long time to scrap...which usually happens to me when I have a picture in my head of how I want the end result to be. In the end I think the simplicity of the layout does true justice to the ad. Thanks for taking a look!

I hope to be back in a day or so to share some more Project 365 photos with you...although already it's only a few times a week. I'm easing into it I guess. Off to night shift tonight. Wish me luck! :)

New Gel-a-tins!!

I love the new Winter CHA release Gel-a-tins. I have hundreds of ideas swirling in my head with not nearly enough time in the day to make them all come to life. Here is my first layout with two of the new releases, "Flower Power" and "Butterflies are Free".

I went back to my tried-and-true alcohol ink technique for this layout. Using a transparency on the smooth side, drag coloured alcohol ink along the length leaving it looking striated. This will give you a stained glass look. I then flipped the transparency over and stamped the butterflies with Pinecone Versa Color and sprinkled Gel-a-tins Pearly Glitter embossing powder over top. Then you just need to tap off the excess and heat emboss on low. Taking your handy-dandy scissors, cut out each image and bend up the wings so the butterflies look as if they are landing on the page.

For the flowers, stamp with coloured ink on Kraft cardstock and heat emboss with the Pearly Glitter embossing powder. Hand-cut out each flower and leaf. I also outlined all the petals on the flowers with my brown Slick Writer to give the individual flowers more contrast. I bent the edges and popped some up on the page to add dimension.

It takes a while to complete all the steps but I think the end result is well worth the work! I hope you do too! :)

Things you forget to tell your kids about...

So it's 9am and the phone rings...I look at the phone and it says it's the kids school I answer and I hear, "Hi Mrs. Backler. It's _______ school calling. Grace is okay. There has been an incident. Grace says she was pushed and got her tongue stuck to a pole. I don't know how she fell with her tongue sticking out but she pulled it off herself and now the tip of her tongue is bleeding. We were wondering if you wanted to come down to the school to look at it." In my head I'm saying, "Seriously??? WTF? Why didn't I tell her what would happen if she did that?" and "No I don't really want to go to the school to see her...I have a bunch of stuff planned for today." So I say, "Well how bad is it?" and she says she will get Grace to talk to me on the phone. A couple of minutes later Grace is on the phone and in a teeny, tiny voice she says she wants to come home. We go pick her up. Now she is home the tip of her tongue is raw, we gave her Advil because I don't know what else to do. There isn't a lot on the internet on how to treat this kind of injury! :) I'm going to try to take a photo of it later for my photo a day. I doubt she will let me though. ;)

You will be happy to know that we have now had a talk about not sticking tongues to poles on the coldest day of the year (even if someone "triple dog dares you") and if you "just happen to fall against one with your tongue sticking out when someone pushes you", (::rolling eyes here - 'cause I don't believe that for one moment::) don't pull your tongue off yourself! Wait for help if you can (and warm water).

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I have been scrapping up a storm the past couple of days. School hasn't provided me with much homework this week and I'm enjoying my last few days to myself before I start my new job. My layouts are all challenges from the Nook's IceCROPades event going on now through March. I highly recommend it because it really gets the mojo going again.

I made this first one in 31 minutes (it was a 30 minute challenge). So I didn't quite make it but 30 minutes is a huge stretch for me.

This second one was to use a quote provided. It was about winter and snowflakes. I had this photo of a tiny snowmen the kids made a couple of years ago hanging around for ages. It was perfect for the quote! I cut the snowman out from the photo and popped it up so that you could make the edges of the snowman out.

The last challenge was to use this layout by Deanna on the site as inspiration for your own layout. I took inspiration from the colours, the word "big", and the arrow. I had scrapped this photo as a digi layout in the past but really wanted to do a paper version of it. I'm happy with the result. Thanks for the inspiration Deanna!

Project 365...

I love the idea of it. I don't think I can take photos everyday of the year but I'm hoping that mine will be a bit more like Project 201 or something. I'm starting a bit late and I have already missed some days. I have seen some great things this week that I wanted to have photos of but didn't have my camera with me. I have to keep my point-and-shoot in my purse at all times! Bad Jen.

I started out following a challenge on another board using their suggestions of what I should take a photo of but quickly realized that I wasn't going to be able to keep up. So now I'm just planning on trying to take some daily photos and posting the best of the day.

Here is what I have so far:

This was to be a self-portrait. You can't really make it out but there is a stethoscope above the keyboard in this shot. It really says a lot of my life and the direction it's going in the coming year. Blending my nursing with my interest in technology and through it all having my family to hold me together.


The next shot was to be something you can see from your desk. I took this photo of Simon's Webkinz who is patiently waiting for a tail reattachment surgery. Isn't he cute?


We were then to take a photo of the inside of our fridge. Here is mine in all it's messy glory.


Here is the view from my front door. I was trying to get the handle and welcome mat into the shot. Not very well exposed (I'm learning as I go).


Here is today's shot. I was completing the photo challenge for the Nook's IceCROPades photo challenge. This week's word was "ice". I'm really happy with how this one came out.

I'm going to try and post my photos weekly. We will see how that goes. Maybe my blog will keep me accountable. Fingers crossed.

So....

I started school this past week. It's going to be a lot of work. I'm a bit nervous about all of it to tell you the truth. It's been 10 years since I was in full time school and I wasn't working full time as well! I'm excited about what I'm going to learn though and it still sounds like a great program. I realized yesterday that I don't have to work Saturday's ever again...well, for at least a year or so. :)

I'm going to be staying at my SIL Jenn's place on Thursday nights (for as long as she can stand me) as school starts at 8am on Fridays (I have a full 9 hour class day on Fridays). I'm looking forward to spending time with Jenn and chatting it up.

Paul is still looking for a job. We are starting to feel the crunch now. Here's hoping he hears about another interview soon.

I'm off until Thursday when I have to go back to school and I don't have a ton of homework yet so I'm planning on actually scrapping! The Scrapping Nook is having the iceCROPades online crop right now and I'm itching to get to the challenges. I love a good challenge and these are going on until March. Stop by and check it out! There are going to be some great prizes.

Paul gave me an iPod Nano for my birthday so I have been busy loading that up. I'm looking forward to using it! I'm hoping to start a learn to run program soon and I love the idea of the Nike+ system. They have beginner running training programs and I think it's a great way to stay motivated.

I'm getting ready to cozy up by the fireplace over the next couple of days because the cold front is a coming! It actully said "frigid" on the news forecast this morning. Yikes!