A scrapper's dozen :D

Fall has been busy so far!

The little dude is transitioning back to regular school which has included some meetings and adjustments. It's going very well though, and he is in the very good hands of a very dedicated team in a brand new autism classroom :D

I have also gone back to "work", with a few days of supply teaching.

And my free time, of which I am very thankful to have a good amount, has been spent scrapping and organizing photobooks. I had 2 free books from Shutterfly and one prepaid hugely discounted one from Picaboo, all of which expired in the last 5 days of September...

So I made front and back covers and organized the scraps in the order I wanted them for the book I had been preparing for a long time (the Picaboo one about our 2013 xmas holidays in Florida) and which had 64 scraps :/ That took a while to upload! Then I gathered some extra photos to fill empty pages in the March 2014 road trip to Florida, and I scrapped a front and back cover for it. And finally, I frantically looked for an idea for one last free book, decided to scrap our summer 2014 trip to Florida with Cedric's service dog Helio, realized I didn't have time to scrap it all, came up with a mixed book (every page spread has one side of photos and text and one side with a scrap), finished the last few scrapped pages I needed, made a front cover and VOILÀ!

To make all this simpler, I managed to use some of the new releases for my books ;)

In the end, the one thing I totally skipped was blogging, so it's been a while, and I have 12 scraps to post... If you're still with me by now, I hope you're comfortable and ready for some eye-candy :D

I'm going to bullet-point them for you!

With the Scamper Squad Bundle:

Two pages from our visit to the Great Wold Lodge:

With the Cool Story, Bro Bundle:

The covers for the xmas 2013 book:

With the Snap Happier: October 2015 Collection:

A page about our first ride on the 7 Dwarves Mine Train, for the summer 2014 book:

With the Guilty Pleasures Bundle:

Our visit at Hollywood Studios for the summer 2014 book:

With the Wonderful You Bundle:

Our experience in the hyperbaric chamber for the summer 2014 book:

With Best Buds and Woof:

The front cover for the summer 2014 book:

With the Kaleidoscope Bundle:

A page of selfies with friends at a cancer fundraiser and a page of our future service dog Mani smiling :D

And last but not least, with the We Just Click Bundle:

My desktop for the month, and a page of the amazing ring my hubby had the local goldsmiths design and make for me with the tanzanite he got my a few years ago for my 30th birthday:

Aaaaaaaand that's it!

If you're still with me, thanks for looking, hope you like them :D

The other blog

Here's a quick mid-week post about my other blog!

Many of my readers are friends and family and know about both. But if you know me and this  blog strictly through digiscrap, you may not know about the other blog I write.

On "the other blog", I write about life with a little guy on the autism spectrum.

The reason I came here to talk about it is that I now have the coolest blog header ever over there.

A little while ago, Kate Hadfield had a contest for which fans would submit an idea for a design and some random people would be picked and win a version of said idea in her iconic hand-drawn style.

The winners ranged from a mouse and cheese plate, to an owl with glasses and a book. But in the mix, there was a little guy with a puzzle piece on his t-shirt and a service dog by his side...

You guessed it, that was my little guy with his autism awareness shirt and his yellow lab :D

I hurried to design something with it, using other Kate Hadfield pieces to go along with it. And then I had a veeeery hard time figuring out how to include it in my premade blogger template. Hubby, who's a computer geek, tried to help but couldn't figure out the designer's html logic and today, all by myself, I managed! Yay me!

So here's the blog header in two language for "the other blog":

I write in English because I live in Canada and can reach a wide audience, but also in French because I want my family in France to be able to read and in the hopes of reaching some people in France who also live with autism.

My hopes are that people who are not touched by autism might read and understand a little better, and that those who do live with autism can find comfort in the feeling of shared experience and sometimes maybe find a little advice or help.

I hope you like the blogo (did I just invent a word for a blog logo? Probably not, but I've never heard it and I am pretty proud of it right now :D) and if you want to read, I'd love for you to read the blog(s):

http://cedriconedayatatime.blogspot.ca/

http://cedricunjouralafois.blogspot.ca/

Two for one

It's my blog's buy one get one free event :D

Okay, it's only because I didn't blog last week, but still, it makes it worth your while today!

Lots of things have been happening, with my son on his way back to school after 2 years in a specialized program. He starts Monday, so there were meetings and shopping in preparation.

We also spent a decent amount of time this week looking at a potential new vehicle...

And the weather has started to turn towards fall, so I  made sure to enjoy as much of the sun as possible while it was still shining (today is grey and cold...).

And in the middle of all that, you guessed it, I scrapped :D

Last week, Bella Gypsy released the September installment of their year-long collection. Check out the gorgeousness of Snap Happier: September 2015 Collection:

The image is linked for a closer look at all the goodies, but you can also see them in action in my layouts.

I used the collection for my desktop with a photo of my happy dude:

But it was too big and too pretty to only do that, so I also scrapped the beautiful new cozy Bench jacket that my parents bought me while they were here visiting this summer. I am about to start wearing a lot, I think, with the weather the way it's going, but it's okay because at least I will be comfy and look good :D

The other collection last week was all about fairs and carnivals. It's called Fair and Square:

I used it twice as well. First for photos of meeting Woody in Disneyland Paris in 2012. It was my Mom's birthday and Woody was awesome, made her get up for a hug and even carried our dude for a family shot (it's people like this Woody who make Disney parks extra magical!) :D

I also used it for a layout closer to the theme. Every July the Beauce Carnival comes to our city. Cédric can't do many rides, but he really loves the ones he can go on and therefore we always go, even if only for a couple of rides (plus it's walking distance from our house):

And now moving on to this week's releases and layouts.

The first one is called Wild at Heart, a bundle full of wild animals and cool wood elements:

I knew right away when I saw it that I had to use it for some of my Cedar Meadows photos. Cedar Meadows is a park with wild animals walking around and you can take a ride through the park and see them up close, even feed some of them. I don't think I had ever seen a kit with a buffalo, a deer, a goose, ... it was perfect!!

And last but not least is Fall In Love, a bundle that combines, you guessed it, fall and love themes, in a colour scheme I love :D:

Every week, for the first week, if you purchase the bundle, you get a free pack (sometimes elements, sometimes extra papers, ...). I always forget to mention it, but this week, it is an alpha to die for. You can't just get the kit, you have to get the bundle to get the Leafy alpha (or you can also buy it separately!):

I used the whole bundle to make a birthday card for my husband's grand-mother. She turned 95 on Wednesday!! It was a nice card, but minimal element use and mostly text, and I knew I wanted to use it again. So I scrapped a very recent photo shoot of my dude at our neighbourhood park:

I used as many hearts as I could :D All the hearts in the kit I believe!

And there you have it!

Do glasses help to look on the bright side?

So the title is linked to the kits that Bella Gypsy released this week, but also very much to my life right now...

I'm feeling pretty old lately as my eyesight seems to be going down :(

Things are a little blurry sometimes, I can't read small things and when the sky is bright, I can't focus my eyes anymore. I have an appointment to the optometrist in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime, I've been wearing some really old glasses that I got in my third year of university. Back then the doctor said my eyes were fine and I was just tired, but prescribed them with the minimum correction available to help force my eyes to work and keep me awake. I was doing A LOT of reading to study and they helped a little. So I thought I'd get them to see if they would help a bit, and sadly I think they kind of do. I had chosen them with my sister :D

This time, if I need some, I'll have to bring my hubby to help me chose! But maybe I won't need any (cross your fingers for me people).

And as a fun coincidence, Bella Gypsy released the mini Bespectacled, which is all about glasses! So I put on my old glasses and took a couple of silly selfies. Check out Bespectacled:

And my silly layout;

But if you like Bespectacled, I suggest you take a look at the kit that it coordinates with (and if you like both, you can invest in the bundle, get the kit, the mini, and an extra pack of accents if you buy it in the next few days!). It's called Bright Side and is all about looking at the positive side of things (an attitude I love and try very hard to embrace):

This one was perfect for a photo from our Florida trip last summer. We took a golf cart ride in the neighbourhood and got caught in the rain! So it is both a literal and philosophical use of the kit :D

Cedric was so happy and thought it was so funny (of course, they were covered and I was in the back with no roof...):

Can I just say how happy the rainbow colours forming the word "rainbow" in the sticker above my head make me?

ALL DONE

My album for our March 2014 road trip to Florida is ALL DONE!!

And the funnest part for me is how easy it was, because I chose a style (sort of pocket style), I planned what I wanted to scrap and organized my pages, and then I joined Bella Gypsy's CT and as they released kits, they kept working with my pages :D

And so I was able to keep myself focused and motivated to complete the album and I had gorgeous kits to do it with! At the end, I had my eye for those last two on a couple of coordinating kits that were released a couple of weeks before I joined the team, but the designers are awesome and told me to grab them if I wanted!! And so I'm ALL DONE!

I hope the designers at Bella Gypsy didn't get too tired of seeing that type of page with almost every new release...

So here are the kits I used to finish the last two pages. They are called On The Go and Beep Beep:

And of course, you might guess that I used them for the road trip part of our trip. The 3 days going South and 3 days going back North (2800km each way!):

Aren't the themes and even colours perfect?

And of course, I also used one of their two new releases last week. Both kits were back to school themed and there is one boy bundle and one girl bundle. I used the boy one which is called Wise Guy Bundle:

And the funny part is that I didn't use it for back to school because Cedric has not been in school for a couple of years. I used it for a photo of him and Helio in the cab about to leave Florida to go back to Canada in August 2014 (so the same theme as the previous two layouts!). I also used a template by Fiddle Dee Dee Designs:

Aren't they sweet cuddling?
And now off to scrap quickly with this week's new releases...

Having too much fun

We're having an awesome summer, and my parents have been here visiting and my little dude is on a reduced schedule. So we're taking walks and playing games (mostly double 15 dominoes) and watching TV (we've introduced them to Chuck). But with all that, it's taking me days to finish layouts and I haven't shown you the few I made...

So here they are, one from last week and 2 from this week.

First off was the August 2015 installment of the Snap Happier Collection by Bella Gypsy:

I used it for one more page form our March road trip (explanation of why we left and photo of the souvenirs I brought back), as well as this month's desktop!

And this week, they released a gorgeous end of summer themed collection. There's a main kit, but also some gradient papers, extra alphas and a mini kit which all come separately or in a bundle.

The collection is called So long, Summer, and the mini is My Summer Story:

I used the main kit and gradient papers in a layout from summer 2014, of the sad attempt at a selfie with 3 people, a stroller, a dog and the iconic Magic Kingdom castle... and the awesome photo you get when a nice cast member offers to help :D

And then, I used My Summer Story alone for a layout of Helio sleeping in a perfect circle on the pillow I made him! I particularly amused myself with the title. I was going to title it "doughnut", but it was long to write, so I was going to write it "donut". But the Canadian in me was struggling until a pun happened. I kept the "g", got rid of the "u" and "h", and called it "dognut". Get it: it's a dog, it's a doughnut/donut, it's a "dognut" :D

Anyways, bad puns aside, the layout turned out pretty and makes me happy:

I was too busy, so I didn't scrap with the other release from last week or this week, I hopefully will get around to it at some point as they were also gorgeous!

My parents are now gone, which is sad, but I might scrap a little more, which will be nice!

Until then, have a great weekend!