Autumn Greetings......

With the change of the seasons...comes the change of my outside decor :)

Happy Trails.....

Good morning everyone!! Well I guess we can say now that Fall has officially arrived. The grass is turning brown and crunchy and the flowers are wilting away. As much as I love summer with the heat (well not this year anyways...) and the outdoor activities; fall is probably my most favourite season. The changing colours and the nice crisp mornings are amazing!!! The only downside is, it means winter is on its way..BOO! Well I guess there is always snowmen, snowmobiling and sleigh rides to keep Raydn entertained. This has been one busy summer for him for being outside, so I think winter may be torture for him if its to cold to go outside. I guess time will tell.

With fall comes scrapbooking again, no flowers to keep me busy until bedtime. I actually cleaned my scrapbook desk off yesterday so I can start; I have SO many ideas and pictures that I want to scrapbook. Lots of camping, Raydns 2 year birthday party, family reunion, Raydns 2 year pictures, girls trip to Las Vegas, quading and lots of pictures at grandmas house with cousins!!  Many, many, many great memories and great times.

This layout here that I did is a Roxanne Olsen creation. It was her August layout and her technique this month was wood. We used my favourite products...Tim Holtz stains and alcohol inks :) Very fun class!! This is paper I would normally not have used because its very bright and not distressed but I LOVED the end product. Being in this class pushes me to go outside my comfort zone and create some things new. Its good to be pushed a bit, I think it makes you a better scrapbooker. Unfortunately I DO NOT have the last 3 months of Roxannes classes completed...just the kits in my room. My summer was way to busy to attend the classes but never less great winter projects.

I also was nominated for a blogger award from my good friend Roxanne eons ago it seems. I actually typed it out twice (a very long post) and blogger erased it....twice. I am going to redo it again and get it posted as well, perhaps I will use Microsoft word first..lol. Just like today........ I went to add pictures to this post and it booted me out of blogger. Thank gosh this time it actually saved it!!! Technology can be so frustrating!!!!

I also just want to thank you all for still keeping in touch with my blog (Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!) and not forgetting me throughout the summer months. Now that's its cooler out, I will be in my room much, much more (that means I am going to have a lonely husband again...lol). Happy scrapbooking all!!

These pictures were taken at Drayton Valley on one of our quad trips. This was taken early August and the leaves were already starting to change. The couple on the top left are great friends of ours, Betty and Carl...

one of the many times we were stuck that day. The top right is Timm and Raydn throwing rocks in the river. Great Day!!!!!

The top bottom picture is of Timm and Raydn in the ranger. We have created a monter...Raydn cries when he is NOT in the ranger!! The top right picture is of all the men that we quad and camp with.

Happy Trails created by Roxanne Olsen

and put together by Rhonda Witzke

Hipstamatic

Wow! It sure has been a long time since I wrote on my blog but not for the sake of trying. My computer booted me out and shut down about 3 times in the last couple of months. I thought computers were supposed to make our lives easier. Now I type it out in word and transfer it all.  

This summer has been one of the busiest ones since we have moved here four years ago. So far just in the last 2 months involved camping, a family trip to Winnipeg, a trip to Las Vegas (the temperature in the middle of the night was 38 degrees…hotter than any given summer day so far here), a very busy 2^nd birthday party for my little prince and of course the duties of yard work and housework (which never seems to end as a mother). In fact I have been so busy that I have not attended the May, June or July’s scrapbook class with Roxanne. I am really hoping to make it to Augusts. Nothing planned so far and I am REALLY happy about that!!!!

I wanted to share this new app on my phone called Hipstamatic for any of you iPhone lovers out there. It is truly a great photo app for taking really neat pictures. My sister-in-law got my hooked on it. I believe you initially pay $1.99 for the app and if you would like additional lenses and films each cost $0.99. Here is a list of some of my favourites:

1.    Lens: John S

Film: Kodot XGrizzled with the flash off.

……This adds a vintage “just out of the dryer” look to your prints

2.    Lens: John S

Film: Float with the flash off

……This adds a pleasant warm tone to your prints.

3.    Lens: John S

Film: Ina’s 1935 with the flash off

…….This film is clean and beautiful.  Needless to say the photograph speaks for itself. Another favourite of Ina’s is 1969…this also adds a vintage look to your photos.

4. Lens: Lucifer VI

    Film: Kodot XGrizzled

    .....Makes it a little rough around the edges

These are just a few of 10 films that you can choose from, I save the pictures and email them to myself and print them on my photo printer instead of sending them away to get printed….it is cheaper to do it yourself.  It’s a neat app if you want to add something different to your photos.

Well I thought I would share this with everyone and if you have an IPhone try it, you won’t be disappointed…..I promise!!!!

Katelyns Shadow Box

Hello everyone!! Yes I am still alive!! It has been SO long since I posted anything but this summer has been insanely busy and has not left much (or any) time for scrapbooking. So far the summer has involved two trips to Medicine Hat to visit family, lots of gardening, quading and lots and lots playing outside. In my yard I have lots of 5 perennial beds and roughly 20 pots of annuals, so that alone keeps me pretty busy. Yes my other addiction......my flowers!!! Here is a peek of my last years flowers (this is what keeps me busy)..... these are just a few.

As you can see I LOVE lilies!

A while back now, I did a shadowbox project for my friends little girl for her birthday. It was such a fun day, we used such pretty pink paper. I had a station set up for her and we put in a movie. Katelyn decided to do her shadowbox theme about her sisters and her. She did such a great job for been almost 10 years old.

Designed and created by Katelyn

I am hoping to get in my scrapbook room soon and start creating.....I promise...don't give up on me. I have got some great pictures to use though. My friend Roxanne nominated me for a stylish blogger award...thank you so much Roxanne. A couple of weeks ago, I created a long blog (it took me about 2 hours)  for it and my computer erased it. So sad. .....and mad lol. I have to work on it again so that will be posted soon too. Until then, happy sunshine days!!

..Raydns Shadow Box....

Last night ,I finished Raydns shadow box for his room, I had started it quite a while ago but never got around to completing it. They are a bit addicting I must say, I wanted to add more gadgets to it but I finally ran out of room. I must have rearranged the picture's about a hundred times, I originally wanted to have a single picture in the top middle and 2 pictures on the 2 bottom corners but I wanted to add some flowers in the middle and they didn't look right going in the down direction, so it ended up this way....up so all the ribbon and clumped flowers were around the same square. If that just made any sense at all. For my embellishments I used all silver (the keyhole, brads, key, clock, clip and paper clip)  instead of brass to match the handle.

 I used the Stella and Rose line from BoBunny, the oranges fit perfectly with the leaves and Raydns jacket in the pictures.  I used the Rangers Distress Stains for the wooden bird cage and bird. Amazing product, the applicator is a dabber which allows you to paint and blend it on. Very cool. I used the colours  antique linen, wild honey and of course walnut stain (walnut stain is my favourite distress ink too). The stains match the distress inks perfectly. Lately I have been addicted to alcohol inks and colour wash and now I think I found my newest addiction.

 I borrowed the bottom left section from Roxanne, she just had a shadow box featured on the cover of "Simply Homemade" for Scrapbook Trends Magazine. You should check it out, it is absolutely amazing....so, super talented. Roxanne used words that stood out on a alphabet piece of paper,and seeing this paper in the Stella Rose collection, I wanted to do the same. It makes the paper stand out a tad more, I used 8-18-9, Raydns birthday. Very cool idea Roxanne!! Hope you don't mind :)

 As you can see I used some gadgets and such from Tim Holtz, 7 Gypsy's and Maya Road. My favourite are the little bottles with the corks. Inside them I have music paper (left over from a class of Roxanne's, last February), the paper is VERY old, I think 100 years old or something like that. The paper would rip while I was rolling it. The only thing I wished I did diferently was used my border punch that had a bunch of little circles to match this paper instead of the one I used. (I bought it after I had this one punched and then had no more paper left. I love to use border punches in my layouts, I now finally own 3).

Designed and created by Rhonda Witzke

I know I have used this quote numerous times in past layouts. "Between the innocence of babyhood and the dignity of manhood, we find a delightful creature of a boy" but it is my favourite.....and the writing matched the background paper. The flowers I made using Timm Holts Tattered flowers die cut....looking on blogs this die cut is actually used LOTS and you can make so many variations using the flowers. I coloured the flowers with dabs of mushroom alcohol ink and sprayed them with espresso color wash. I was originally going to use butterscotch  color wash but I forget to pick it up at Urban...and that's why I went there, hehehe.  I then used the Stella Rose accessory brads to match.
It was a nice change to work on a shadow box and not a layout, if you have a chance you should try it....its super, super fun!!!