Fontastic

No no, it's not a typo, it's just a bad pun :D

I'm here to tell you that I am Marie-France and I am an addict!

For the past 7 years, I have been collecting fonts like a maniac. I use a very small portion of them, most just take up room on my hard drive, a bunch of them look like each other,

but I can't help myself... lol

I know some people out there believe that fonts should be limited to Times New Roman, Helvetica and Arial. For some, it's even a pet peeve. I agree that for formal writing, like published work or work related documents, that's preferable.
I however, do not see the harm in a teacher using a fun font on an assignment instruction paper, even if it is Comic Sans Serif!! That's right, I said it, and I've used it!

In digital scrapbooking, I think a collection of fun fonts is not only okay, it's a must! Varied, original fonts make titling your layout easier and more interesting, and if you journal at all, while a typewriter style font can look good on some layouts, I think it might get a little boring if used on every single one. For that, a variety of fonts, especially some handwritten type fonts, is great!

Let me show you some of my favourite layouts using fonts as a tool to add interest:

Here I used three alphas combined with two fonts for the title, and a third font for journaling.

Here, I didn't want to use the alpha for the entire title, which would have been too long, but as the second part of the title is right above the journaling, I used a fun font for the second half of the title and another handwritten one for the journaling.

Here, I wanted the title to be simple and not stand out to much, so an alpha with shadows would have been too much, so I chose a font, but a fun one that matched the theme of the page.

I go a little further than that though...
I like to make myself happy with little details that don't matter in life. Little things like matching my socks to my top, or using a cute mug, or placing things in rainbow order.
Well, I sometimes kind of do that with fonts. If a page has a clear theme, I match the font to that (like a Western font for a cowboy themed page like above), but if the page does not really have a cultural or geographical theme, I try to match the name of the font...
Let me give you examples so you can understand the madness, lol

If the page features pancakes, or a family brunch, I use a font called Second Breakfast. If the page shows my little guy in his snow suit, I might use Canadian Penguin, and if on the other hand he's wearing his raincoat, I'll use Grenouille (which is frog in French). If I'm quoting Antoine de St Exupéry (a famous author and aviator), I use Santos Dumont (the name of another aviator). I'm pretty sure nobody every notices (especially as I am really bad and never credit my fonts) but it makes me happy :D

Now, the only hard part, which limits my font collection and choice when journaling, is being French! There are many many many fonts out there, but only a small portion include accented letters :(
So when I'm doing a page in French, which I have done more and more of for my son's sake, I have to take that into account. I used to type a comma or an apostrophe and manually go add accents on letters. Seriously! It took forever and sometimes didn't look great... But the little guy used to nap for hours and go to bed early, lol. Now he sleeps a lot less and I work more and I just don't have the time for it. So I choose from the accented fonts available out there. I've also never paid for a font as there are soooo many awesome free ones out there. And therefore, I want to share the name of my two favourite font designers. One if from Québec and therefore naturally includes French accents. I don't think she creates anymore, but I love the few fonts she's made. Her designer name is Jellyka Nereva and you can see her fonts here on Dafont.

The other one is Darcy Baldwin, who does not have any reason to include accents, except for being awesome! Here's the amazingly long list of DJB fonts with euro letters.

I'll conclude with a couple of the fonts I use most often. If I don't have time to think about it and I just want a cute, accented, easy to read, handwritten font, I pick either DJB Geeks Who Wear Glasses or Aint Nothing Fancy. They are my go-to fonts!

What are your favourite fonts?

Hello You

Well, hello there!
I had a pretty busy short week, with a day and a half of work, and a day-long meeting added to my regular routine. So I didn't scrap a lot, but I had one CT layout already made for release this week and I did manage an extra one! Here they are.

This week, Mel Hains released a really happy kit called Hello You, available at My Memories and I used it to re-scrap an old photo that I wanted to include in a photobook. The old layout was from the first year I ever scrapped and not up to par to my current style and, if I may say so, skills.

I ended up with this cute page for the book:

And here's the kit:

I also had time to scrap one more page for my Xmas 2013 vacation album. I did it for a fun recipe challenge at MouseScrappers and ended up loving the result! Yay!

I used a combination of 3 kits, which I rarely do, but they all matched the theme, photos, and each other pretty well. The photos were of our first time in Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room. The attraction is one of the original ones at Disney World so I'm glad we finally tried it, and my journaling says that everyone liked the decor and show and Cédric looked everywhere and really enjoyed it!

I used Hawaii by Dream Big Designs, Hoola Loola by Mel Hains, and Retro Island by Leidee Q Designs.

The weather here is finally getting decent, and it's looking like spring might be here, so hopefully that makes up for all our respite being canceled this week, and it helps me get some energy to take on a few busy weeks ahead and still take time to scrap and blog! Wish me luck and energy, I might be coming down with what my hubby, my little dude and 2 respite workers had last week :(

Epic fail

When I showed you Dial 911, the fun new kit by Artgal Style,

I told you that I might scrap one more page with it of a recent event.

Here it is!

It was an epic fail on my part: I fell on ice while taking out the garbage before the gym.

I fell on my right hip, then caught myself on my right wrist and just the tip of my left middle finger (what?) then just for shits and giggles, I let my face hit the ground and bounce off it (again, what?). Eventually I joked about it, but on the spot, I was quite scared and hurt. I whimpered like a little b#*$tch and my first thoughts were really vain (face ruined?). I was mostly scared that I broke some teeth, but a quick tongue count reported 32 unbroken pearly whites. I could tell I was bleeding a lot, though. I texted this to my hubby: "I fell I really hurt" (no time for punctuation), then just so he knew: "on my side and face". He got home at the same time roughly as the ambulance and we proceeded to waste 4 hours at the hospital. I never made it to the gym, lol

I had a sore wrist, finger and face for a few days. The worst was probably the inside of my lip and cheek which I really cut with my teeth, but that also healed well and fast.

I am thankful that I didn't hurt myself more, that I am healthy enough to bounce back (pun intended), that Dave came home and stayed with me, that the nurse who took care of me was a friend (we talked about the kids), and that I was able to keep my sense of humour and laugh about the ridiculousness of how I fell.

That day, I must have asked Dave a hundred times: "WHO FALLS ON THEIR FACE?".

So here's the scrap I made to document my incident:

Oh, and just a word of warning: within a couple of week, many people have fallen (my Great-Aunt, Dave's Grand-Mother, my friend's son, my sister, ...). I don't know if it's the sun flares, the moon and eclipses, the change of season, or just a fluke,

but I'd be careful if I were you ;)

Happy Easter

It's Easter week-end, so 4 days off for everyone!

We had cute little floating snow this morning, now the sun is shining and everyone here is in a great mood. We don't have any plans for Easter, but I am looking forward to an amazing organic leg of lamb on Sunday and I might make the same yummy dessert as last year.

Wanna see said dessert? It's in the layout I made of last year's Easter:

See it in the middle? It's chocolate and hazelnuts, and it's sugar free and grain free :D
The rest of the menu included a turkey dinner with hubby's parents, chocolate pancakes for breakfast (also sugar and grain free) and a lot of hugs!
To scrap the whole thing, I used Mel Hains' new collection Feast of Easter.
It's cute, fresh and on sale until April 10th!!

I also used to make a quick Easter card for my Grand-Mother and my Great-Aunt:

I also got the chance to use a new kit by Laramie of Artgal Style this week, and funny enough, it had me scrap another photo from April 2014. The kit is called Dial 911 and is a huge bundle for any emergency photo (fire, ambulance, hospital, ...). So I used it for my little guy's allergic reaction to shrimps. It was pretty impressive! His lips were swollen, his cheeks super red and he had big red bumps under both eyes. Then he proceeded to throw up :(
Fortunately, we were able to take care of it at home and it went away pretty fast.

Look at Dial 911 Bundle, a fun kit for the not so fun moments:

That's it for now, but I think I'm going to use Dial 911 again to journal what happened to me last week (I fell on the ice...).

Have a great Easter week-end!