Hawkins is my bestie!

The dictionary defines bestie as a person’s best friend. I think Hawkins is one of my best friends. Friends bring you joy in its simplest form. Looking at Hawkins makes my heart happy. He deserves is own scrapbook pages don’t you think? Along with my life long goal of scrapbooking my kids (I say lifelong as I will never actually be finished as I will never be finished taking pictures) I am going to add scrapbooking my Frenchie to the list.

This picture of him was actually the perfect fit for this fall page! Here are some of the fun elements on this page—-copper re inker mixed with white embossing paste! I used the new _____stencils or masks from the Holiday catalogue to create this random background pattern. I created the leaves inking the leaf dies on the copper, gold and sliver Delicate ink pads and then running them through the Big Shot. These dies can work like a stamp. They are designed to emboss and cut at the same time which is pretty darn cool! And of course a little foil paper never hurt anyone, and they

Who is your bestie?

Mine is my Hawkins :)

Fall stampin'...

Creating fall scrapbook pages are actually my favourite! I love the colors of fall and the feelings of gratitude that accompany this type of year. In Alberta, fall is a magnificent gorgeous time of year. The changing of summer into fall, the return to routine and just the beauty of it all gets me into a completely creative zone. I love to design pages and cards that feature leaves as there are so many different ways to stamp and develop them for my work. On this page I used the new ___________ stamps set along with the Colourful Seasons framelits. My favourite trick is to take the leaf die and press it into an ink pad and then zip it through the Big Shot. The die acts like a stamp and transfers the ink Ito the grooves of the die. It is an amazing effect!

There are so many ways to give leaves texture including different background stamps, inking framelits before running though the Big Shot and using Designer Series Paper. The possibilities are actually endless!

Halloween Sampler Class

I love all things Halloween, except oddly dressing up! haha! I love to see other people dressed up, especially little kids in their costumes but I don’t love it myself. I do it, and am usually the same thing every single year! hahaha! What I love the MOST about Halloween is Halloween crafting! And this sampler satisfied all of my needs. A 12x12 project (but not a scrapbook page!) that uses a variety of Halloween images for a cute detailed project. Love is in the details right? I got to color and fussy cut and use metallic thread and my favourite spider web folder that is retired. And I don’t care that its retired either :) I want you to make this too! Join me on Wednesday, Oct 9th at either 12:30 pm or 7 pm to make this awesome project. All supplies included in the class fee of $30 except adhesives! Click on the Sign Up Now button below!

Hello! I am back!

Well it has officially been one month today since I made a post on here! Say what? So what have I been doing in the last 30 days that has kept me from posting? Well I did go on a pretty epic girls road trip to Montana to hit up Target. Yes, Target. What did I need from visiting 3 said Target’s? Target told me what I needed. Which was a lot. It was great. I also was able to visit a Hobby Lobby for the first time ever. Dreams come true is all I can say about that. And I am thankful that we own one of the biggest vehicles are the market as it was FULL. To the ceiling. And the roof rack. We did good!

I also got my kids headed out the door and into grades four, six and high school. We actually have a kid in high school, grade 10! I am finding it rather hard to believe! What else is mind blowing is that Michael and I celebrated 19 years of marriage. 19 years! It actually has gone by in a blink and I think we are still looking pretty good! It hasn’t always been easy but we have been there for each other through some really challenging times of loss, disappointment and heart breaks. We have been our best selves and our worst selves with each other. We have been blessed with three healthy kids and everything we truly need.

I also celebrated 3 years at lululemon, my second favourite place in the world. My first is my craft room (obviously!). I celebrated the day with two of my co-workers as we were in the same training group together and yes, we needed cupcakes, a balloon, matching outfits and a photoshoot. That is how we roll at lululemon!

To round out the month I hosted two big Stampin’ events in Edmonton and Calgary! Dale Hampshire, the BDM for Canada was awesome enough to stop by our Edmonton event for the afternoon. I spent the better part of September stamping and creating for our Creative Day Getaway event. Love is in the details and It think we do a good job at providing that to our stampin’ friends.

And in between all of of that I threw a pretty amazing eleventh birthday party for Summer. We had the Sleepeeteepee Party (follow them on the Gram) come in and set up the coolest sleepover ever! I might have even been more excited than Summer! She wanted a ‘wild and free’ theme so we had a ‘build your own trail mix bar’ as its her favourite snack. Personally, I am into a ‘build your own anything’ style of party! Could be Caesars, salads, dessert, you name it!

I also want to mention that I have been working on some custom wedding invites too! I LOVE THEM. I cannot wait to share them with the fabulous couple who commissioned me and then I will share them with all of you.

So now you know all of my excuses for not posting. Actually cataloguing this month so far is actually quite interesting. I have been busy do ALL THE THINGS. I am living my best life!

Consistency is KEY, I know this and will work towards achieving some better work/life balance so you are not wondering what has happened to me! Thank you for being a part of my journey!

Why do you stamp?

I have really been thinking about this lately, especially as summer comes to an end and back to school starts. It means a return to routine and my busiest time of year as a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator. I have been pondering this question all summer as I consider how I can find new customers. This is, truly, the biggest hurdle in any one’s business. So how can I share my LOVE of stamping’ with those who have never experienced the magic of ink, rubber and paper! How can I discover someone’s motivation to stamp? What makes people carve out the time in our busy lives for this hobby? How can I demonstrate the creative benefits of stamping? I know I do it because it excites and challenges me, it gives me joy to create something and share it with others. I love to make things for people and I love to make a card that makes my heart smile. So, I am curious…why do you stamp? Or if you are visiting as a non-stamper, what would it take for you to give it a try? Leave me ALL THE COMMENTS! I will randomly choose one comment as a winner and will contact you to make arrangements to send you a thank you gift. I can only ship to Canada—disclaimer!