Baby It's Cold Outside

As I live in Northern Ontario, it's not surprising for it to be cold in February, but these past couple of weeks have been REALLY cold with temperature in the -40 celsius with the windchill!

On the upside, I'm getting some scrapping and blogging done :D

I made a layout of my guys having a moment using Mitchell (Bundle and Add-on) by Artgal Style:

Here's my February desktop of my adorable dude in his pyjamas, using 100% Boy by Jen Yurko:

Here's my funny valentine on Valentine's Day, which I very efficiently scrapped that same afternoon :D

I used Love Notes by Jen Yurko:

And finally, one more for the xmas 2013 album. It's a Small World is one of our favourite rides! It's hard to get photos because it's dark and it moves, but these weren't bad and the kit collection works well! I used a variety of items from Jen Yurko's Everyday 2015 collection:

That's it for today! Hope you're warmer than us, wherever you are, and if not, maybe my pages brightened your day :D

A little love

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

I took a photo of my little dude this morning, and scrapped it, but the kit only comes out tomorrow...

So I'll be back with that and in the meantime, here are other layouts I  made lately:

I have three with wonderful Jen Yurko products.

The first is with the gorgeous Oh Happy Days Collection (I linked to the kit, but I recommend getting all the add-ons, and the templates :D), and I scrapped a fun afternoon in the backyard being silly with said little dude:

The next one, is of my little ninja who, as the journaling says, can sneak up on us unheard like a ninja, as well as defend himself from tickles and unwanted kisses and hugs. I used Jen Yurko's adorable ninja themed valentine's day kit You Stole My Heart and one of the Everyday 2015 templates 01:

And the last one is my love of Starbucks coffee :D

I used the Expresso Yourself Collection (kit, newsies, alphabet, paint smears) and the Feeling Triangular Templates:

That's is for today, back tomorrow or another day for new layouts and stuff!

Healthy

I don't tend to make new year resolutions. Hubby always jokes if anyone asks for his that he will give up crack, lol.

Every year, though, the holidays bring an overindulgence in the food area, especially the past two years where we spent them in Florida, in the parks and restaurants, etc.

So despite not really making a resolution, January and the new year do bring a return to a healthier diet.

This year, I am sort of making a resolution to get back to a healthy lifestyle not only in the diet department, but also for exercise. I used to do yoga regularly, then I lost all my teachers one by one and didn't find a time and place that worked. I used to go to Jiu Jitsu regularly, then with work and getting a dog and class schedule, I sort of stopped going. I even tried a personal trainer for a while, but I felt really stressed for time and I quit.

All in all, I haven't done any kind of exercise or activity in about 6 months...

So like many people in January, I signed up for a gym membership with the goal of going at least 3 times a week. They have all I need for toning and hubby will serve as personal trainer, they have 3 yoga classes with decent schedules, and they even have a couple of group classes that make sense with my goals of toning and increasing muscle mass.

I went last week for the first time. I overdid it by taking two classes in a row and I hurt for days but at least I went.

When I saw Simple Girl Scraps' new kit, I knew it was perfect to scrap the Instagram pic I took after my first classes. It's called Love It, and it's really pretty and fresh:

And here's my layout:

I went back to the gym today and I feel very energized. Now I just have to stick with it, wish me luck!

As if nothing happened

See this post's title? That's how I plan to come back to this blog... As if I didn't neglect it stop writing for over 6  months as if I didn't plan writing once a week at least in 2015 and already skipped over 3 weeks, as if I didn't fail the designers I scrap for by not promoting their products, as if nothing happened!

So this week, I have a few kits to show you and none of the layouts are Disney related, which is crazy coming  back from over 2 weeks in Florida. But it's nice to scrap everyday life and other things. I had a stretch of scrapping mostly Disney photos. Then I feel like I had a stretch of lacking inspiration as to what to scrap, not by lack of good kits or even inspiration, but by not knowing which photos to scrap.
 First is one by Artgal Style. It's a gorgeous winter kit called The Big Freeze and its Add-On:

I scrapped the decor at the Toronto Airport with it. The journaling explains that after a xmas vacation in the sun, it was oddly pleasant to see the snow decors and even the snow itself at the airport:

Next up, I scrapped with Simple Girls Scraps latest kit, Frozen Wonderland:

I used it to scrap a moose we saw up close at the wildlife park we have in town:

And then I have three layouts with Jen Yurko products!
First, she released Elderberry Lane, a super fresh versatile kit with which I scrapped the first photo of our little family in 2015:

And she just released the first parts of her Everyday 2015 Collection. This is a huge collection using a large palette for which she keeps releasing parts over the year. There's a full kit every month and some varied other parts.
She released the January Bundle (with lots of categorized parts that can be purchased separately or as a bundle) with which I scrapped my brand new winter coat:

And some versatile alphas (huge collection) date strips (including blanks for other languages :D), graph papers, solid papers and striped papers:

I used them all to do my January 2015 desktop (better late than never...):

I'll be back with more news and info, hopefully in less than 6 months...

Week 23 and a half

This blog post is about nothing and everything, so I couldn't think of a title for it, lol. So here's what happened in my photo/scrappy life at the end of week 23 and the beginning of week 24 of this week.

I'm really just here to show you my P52 photo and some recent layouts for my CTs.

I'll start with P52:

The prompt was "in your closet". There are a good amount of closets in our house, and they are all in varying states of mess. The thought of showing my mess here was not appealing, a mixture of shame and despair, lol.

But last week was a very important week for us as it saw the arrival of our new dog. He is an autisme service dog for our son and I spent most of the week training of handling him. As a result, I did take a moment last week to reorganize one of the big messy drawers in my kitchen to store all his things. So instead of all the messy closets, I will show the newly organized drawer :D

It looks pretty good and organized, right?

It used to have a huge mess of random bags of various sizes, shapes and colours that I was keeping "just in case", added to grocery bags, random camping stuff and the old dog things we had from our previous puppies.

I purged the bags and put them all in the biggest one and I put all the grocery bags in the pouch for Provence made for that! Then I stored all the food items for the pooch in the little plastic bin, because he's a lab therefore always hungry and knows how to open drawers, and I put all the grooming tools and products, toys and various travel items on the other side of the bin.

I love a well organized drawer!

(now let's see how long it stays that way...)

On to scrapping :D

Lately, I feel like I have no time to scrap and my schedule is crazy; I feel like each layout takes days (seeing the kit and planning on scrapping, choosing a photo, downloading and unzipping, then actually opening the software and doing it really does seem to happen over at least a few days). But when it comes down to it, I am scrapping my memories and I have a nice spread for you today :D

First, my desktop for the month:

 Credits: Monster Party kit and the Bits of Yesterday templates by Jen Yurko

Then more of our xmas vacation.

A day at Blizzard Beach for a template challenge at Mousescrappers:

 Credits: Summer at the Lake by Jen Yurko and Valarie Ostrom Designs and a template by Keystone Scraps

And the Canada Pavilion at Epcot:

Credits: Everyday June Bundle by Designs by Jen Yurko (lift of a page by nenner1)

And a quick simple page of the first cuddle with our new dog:

Credit: An Adoption Story by Artgal Style and the Super Chunk font by Jen Yurko

You are my sunshine!

Last week was crazy...

I had to get a bunch of things ready, I worked Thursday, I had a BBQ for the opening of the playground at my son's "school" Friday, then we had a surprise 60th birthday party Saturday for my sweet mother-in-law and that same evening, we were getting our new dog!

It all went well and fairly smoothly, though.

My MIL was really surprised and happy, which is always great, and despite being delayed by an accident on the highway, our doggie got to us in the evening (he was driven here from 900km away!).

Sunday was spent getting to know each other and bonding. Thankfully, the weather was beautiful so we took a walk, and hubby took Cédric for a ride and to visit his grand-parents so the puppy could get used to the house without the constant movement and noise our little dude creates!

No scrapping was done last week whatsoever as a result of all this, but I did take my P52 photo :D

The prompt was "sunshine", so of course, the sun went away for the first 3 days and the sky stayed cloudy.

First chance I got, I took a quick photo of the sky. It was a very bright sun, so I lifted the camera, closed my eyes and snapped it. It's not an ugly picture, it has the sun and clouds and it looks fine:

But then I had a brain wave. It happens, it's rare, but it happens :D

As I've said before, I like the photo to really represent our week. And last week had some sunshine, but not as much as the week before. The BBQ was actually really sunny and beautiful, so that would have worked too. But most important last week, we were getting a doggie. And my brain wave was that our doggie is a yellow lab (a fox red lab, to be precise), so he's sun coloured. And because of that, I agreed to the name Hubby wanted for him which is Helio, and Helio comes from the greek "helios" which means "sun". So on a sunny Sunday walk, here  laid our new "sunshine":

Isn't he the most gorgeous, happy looking dog?

Camera phone

We had a beautiful week-end. We pretty much skipped spring and went straight to summer, with temperatures in the mid 20s celsius and a beautiful sun!

So we've been taking rides and walks and spending a little time on the deck.

Went we built our house, I made sure there would be lots of windows in the open-concept main floor, adding a high window in the south wall and choosing a windowed front door. All that to say that the lighting was great for my photo of last week's P52!

The prompt for last week was "camera". I used to have a cute point and shoot that was small enough to carry around easily and did everything I wanted. Then I lost it... and my awesome hubby got me a new one (summer 2012) which did the same things and more.

Then, still awesome hubby got me a iPhone. I had been using a cheap flip phone, and as I didn't work, there had been no strong reason for me to have a smart phone. But everyone else had one and I guess he could tell I's like one too. It has been amazing for me.

Of course, I waste a lot of time playing silly games. But the Calendar app has changed  my life, I use the Notes app everyday for my lists of things to do, hubby and I text instead of calling (which is easier and more efficient for him), I use the Clock app for potty training our son, I use the Music app and the Podcasts app to listen to audio books and podcasts while I clean and cook, and the reason that led me to tell you all this, I use the Camera app to take photos of our everyday!

And that camera is so good, it takes better photos than my point and shoot did. For someone like me who knows nothing of photography, it is absolutely perfect:

- I always have it with me,

- I can transfer, email, facebook, ... my photos,

- it is very fast and therefore I can take many shots of the same thing hoping one will be good (with an autistic hyperactive son, you don't know how precious that is!!),

- the photos are truly good quality and I end having to retouch them less for scrapping,

- I was able to personalize it with a Gelaskins hard case (HP inspired scrap... I'm a nerd).

For all these reasons, since I got it in March 2013, I haven't used anything else and it's funny that was last week's prompt because I just gave my old camera to my mother-in-law!

So here's me with my "camera", probably the way I look to my son when I take photos of him:

Hope you like it!

This week's prompt is sunshine, so let's hope the clouds go away...