week 2 challenge...making a reubus

So this week challenge was to use a rebus on your layout. A reubus is a type of puzle where you substitute pictures for the words. I did my title as a reubus. My title should read(lol) a happy family is the heart of the home. I do hope some people get it, because John said he did not..he was saying what does a cloud with a happy face mean....where I state I was trying to convey how the parents were feeling happy...oh well. I am not totally happy with the design, but do hope it catches some of the judges eyes...crossing fingers.

...how is this right?

I must say that I do not ever remember another time when we had this much snow on the ground before halloween. We went to bed last night with quite the storm brewing. Lots of heavy wet snow and high winds. We awoke to a very chilly house due to the power being out since midnight. The first thing the girls had to do when they awoke...go play in the snow...since there was no t.v. to watch..lol. I am really glad I picked up some winter boots for Ab last Saturday. I thought I was being a wee bit early, but I must of known subconsciously:) So of course there was no school due to power being out throught the town. John also stayed home. He was not going to try and go on the roads. SO what do we end up doing this afternoon. Carving pumpkins. It jusat-not seem right to be doing our halloween jack-O-lanterns with the ground covered with snow. I really thought that it would have melted during the day..but it is still there..yuck. I just hope it is gone by Friday, and it is not too cold to trick or treat. SO now I am thinking that we really should invest in a generator. This is the thrid time the power has gone out(for lengthy periods) since we moved into the house. Anyways I leave you with a few shots from today, and hopefully I will have my new lo posted tonight.

Ab's hair

As promised, here is a photo of Ab with her new hair colour. Unfortunately you cannot see the full extent of it, since by this time I had already pulled her hair back for school. I will have to try and get one with her hair all down. She is also sporting one of her new shirts she bought this past weekend. The cat is hiding the tie. I think she liked it because it was kind of Avril Lavinge like. I am just happy because it is somewhat of a dressy shirt for her. Not very easy to get her looking all dressed up. It is a shame she did not have her hair done and this shirt for picture day..even she said this. SO I will have a new layout to show by tommorrow evening. I am just about finished it and then we must wait for the gallery reveal before we can post on our blogs. It is a crappy day out today..John told me this morning there is suppose to be a snow storm either this afternoon or tonight. 20 cm expected..can I say YUCK!!!! I really hope it does not happen. Today I am trying to clean up the disater of a basement and hope to finish painting down there. I am still sifting through boxes...I hate having them sitting all about...I cannot wait till we are completely unpacked!

...no more baby in this house!

So I need to start of this post with stating how Hadley is becoming such a big girl! This morning she woke up and walked into our room naked as a jay bird stating she was getting dressed. So off she runs into her room and a few minutes later she was all dressed (shirt, pants and pull up). Now if only she would not be so damned stubborn and actually use the potty. She is so like Abigail when it comes to that. She just could not care that she has a wet bum. I think since we have been in the new house, she has used her potty a few times. The move has really set her back as to how she was using it daily at my parents place. Oh well...at least I have gotten her out of dieapers. Wwe used the last ones and just never bought any more...pull-ups it had to be:) Mind you yesterday she found a few diapers and she thought she was in heaven..LOL. Her speech is really improving now also. She tries and gets most of her thoughts out into somewhat full sentences. I am sure it helps being around all the other kids.

So talking about growing up, Ab had highlights and lowlights put in. So now she has blond and a copper orange/red framing her face. I swear she looks all grown now. I will try and snag a photo of her this morning to show. She also had a few inches(well needed) cut from her hair. Her hair was reaching her butt...I cannot believe how long it got. I too got my hair cut once again. It seemed to grow so long in the past month..it is once again in a nice short bob...so much easier to dry out straight.

So the standings came out for the contest over at Just Cre8 for the first week. I am in the top 12..I wish I was a bit higher..but hey..beggars cannot be choosy. It is really is a who know's type of competition...I mean it really all depends on the judges styles right. Week 2 challenge has been posted, and oh my...it is a thinker. For it you have to use a reubus story within your layout(as a title or within it somehow). What is a reubus story some may ask. It is when you use pictures in leiu of words within a sentence..ie a picture of an eye, a heart embellishment and then a photo of someone...meaning I love you. They are looking for originality and creativity for this...ughhh..so you do not want to use the usual thing such as that..I really need to think about this one....I wonder how well a art journal like page would go with them....I have a feeling it would be too artsy, but that is wear my mind is going towards. We will see.

I really did not announce it on here, but I will be an aunt once again. My sister is due in the spring. She had her ultrasound a few weeks ago and found out it will be a boy..of course it has to be one...since I bought more baby girl clothes than boy ones for her..lol...but in my defence there just seems to be more baby girl stuff out there. So I will just have to hold onto the baby girl stuff until someone else I knows has a little one. This will be my first nephew that I will be an aunt since birth. With all my other nephews and neice, they were already around when John and I got together...and now they are all grown up:( It will be nice to have wee baby around to cuddle(just cannot do that with young men in their 20's..lol...) who is not my own..ie you can hold the baby and then pass it back when a dirty diaper needs to be changed...LOL...I feel I have paid my duty in diapers with my children...teeheeehee..

Okay so I blabbed enough for now. I suppose I should try and get dressed and ready to take Hadley to her gymnsatics class. Then I hope to do a bit of shopping in the afternoon.

...another contest

So I am giving it a go with another scrapping contest. I decided to try out over at Just Cre8. It is a 5 week point base contest. SO you complete all 5 challenges. For this first week challenge we had to choose a famous slogan to base our layout on. I chose the Gillete one of "the best a man can get". I am really glad I used this one because I had 2 other ones in mind and several people used them. I was the only one with this so I kind of like that there is the originality of it. They will be taking design, photography and journalling into consideration when they choose the favourite layouts. I feel really good about this layout, especially since I just love this photo. Unfortunately the scanner did not like the bulk of the page, but there really was no good light to take photos today. Well off to bed to do a little bit of reading and then to sleep to start another day:)

...finally, some work to post.

So I have been quite productive in the scrapbooking department this weekend. I might have been stricken with this god awful cold, and my throat and ears could not possibly hurt any more...but a create I did. I also was able to unpack some of my supplies now that I haave my peg board finally up:) SO I was doing these layouts and such for challenges over at the
JUST CRE8 forum and actually had lots of fun doing them. The first one was for an art inspiration, inspired by this piece of art inspired challenge. I absolutely loved everything about it, and wanted to go with the way it appeared as to just using it as a basis of inspiration. Happy how it turned out...i also like doing these 6x12's.

This layout was for a reduce, reuse and recylcle challeng. You had to use at least 3 differnet things on your layout that would not be used as scrap products(or found in the scrap store) SO I used cardboard as my base and added some bulle wrap and masking tape to the layout...yet another 6x12.

This last challenge was for a sketch(which my lo does not look much like the sketch) and then use scraps to make a card...very simple since many of you know my opinions on card making:)

So I finished my book of Sherrilynn Kenyons..called Acheron...loved it. The library should have 2 more of her books for me this week and then she said she would by the rest of the series for me...gotta love small towns! Hadley is finally getting over her cold, so hopefully we will be out and about this week more..that is if I get over my cold..blech... SO that is all for now...I think I will be trying a few more challenges tonight, but doing them digitally so that I can cuddle on the couch:)

Today is nothing but a rollercoaster ride...

So to start I had a pretty unrestful sleep due to Hadley being sick and crawling in bed with us all night, and to top it all off she spread her lovely germs to me...my throat and ears are killing me. I awoke though to happily know that our Goverment stayed the same..a few seats gained, but unfortunately still a minority...that is still better then the latter in my opinion:) Got Ab off to school alright(it was the first mornbing I allowed her to bike on her own due to a busy street she must cross, but I was not going to wake up Hadley and take her outside). Haldey then woke up in a fairly good mood and tried to eat some food. She then had a coughing fit and then puking all in front of her, believe it or not this is the first time she has puked....and god love her all she could do was apologize. So most of the day went by okay, except for feeling like crap. John comes home and I am getting ready to run out to the post office to mail away my layout, but had to stop to take a call from my grandmother. Well long story short, I put her to tears(telling her perhaps she should think about putting my grandfather in a home) Which thus sent me to tears making me feel like the biggest shit out there. I really could not lie to her I had to tell her the truth..it just sucks now because she probably thinks I am the worst grandchild. Mom thinks she may just listen to me because that is what all her kids have been saying for awhile now, and apparently mom feels she does listen to my views. I just hate that it has to be me, neither of the other grandchildren have to deal with this, and I think if they did they would sugar coat anyways to tell her what they think she wants to hear. So dinner is in the oven, and now I am trying to numb myself a wee bit with a drink. I know that is not the way to go about things but I just must relax and stop fretting. I hate to air out my stress like this, but I just need to let it out..kwim...On a good note a part of John's halloween costume came today. Just awaiting another of his and mine..but they are coming from the US, so i expect a little wait. I am also awiting stuff I bought for a swap that I need for the end of Oct. One package is postal...but from US..so once again time...the other is from Canada, but I have not heard anything from then and I just sent an email out asking about the status and I get an auto reply saying the store is closed from oct 10-13..ummm hello it is now the 15th. I really hope it comes soon. Oh on another good note, I found this new author I love..Sherrilyn Kenyon. I picked up a book from the library and finished it in a day. SO I talked with the librarian saying that it is a series to read in order but the library has none of them. SO she is getting the first 2 in for me and then buying the rest of the series...yeahhhh. There was one of her new books there that explains the main character which I got my nose into last night...it should last me a few days..it is like 900 pages long:)

Ok off to finish dinner and thanks to anyone who took the time to read this far:) Hopefully the next post will have a few photos to it:)

ELECTION day...

...so you know what that means...GET OUT AND VOTE:) It suprises me as to how many people truly do not go out and vote. How could you not....and really, if you do not, you have no right in complaining in how things are done in this country. I believe it is such a priviledge to go out there and make such a choice...just as long as it is the right one..LOL...just kidding everyone is allowed their opinion...that is why this country is so great. So last night I went online to elections canada to see where our polling station is since we are in a new place. Of course they did not have it. I must admit I am not impressed with their site...went through this last year also. Luckily I was able to come across it by putting in another postal code that serves our town. I was astonished to see how many of the postal codes gave up no info found. It is a good thing I found it, because the polling station is in none of the buildings that John and I thought it would be. SO once John gets home we will head out and mark our X's.

So we survived thanksgiving. We only had a small gethering and huge bird, so now we are having turkey for a week:) I don't mind though..I love leftover turkey! The weather was absolutley beautiful..yesterday we had a humidex of 28....I am going to miss the warmth:(

Need to get this out of my system....

..ok so I need to rant a wee bit more(I find once it comes out it makes me fell so much better). So I have seen so far where 2 people have dropped out of the BG top designer because they are part of a dt with other kit clubs...I am glad that they did..but here is my peeve...they waited till they made it into round #5 to do so.....um hello...it was announced during round 4 about a possible dt position but you could not be a part of another dt. Now in my opinion they should have stated before the voting that they could not move on. Instead of taking up those spots for round 5...others could have had a chance then in the next round. Of course this pisses me off since I got axed in round 4...not saying I would have made it on anyways..but come on!!!!! Some people are just so damn stupid in this world. It was real funny to see someone actually upload her entry this week and then say she could not move on...um...then why even post your entry....ok so now I will end my rant because I do not want to sound like some raving lunatic scrapper ;) like I said before I just needed to get it off my chest..know what I mean.

So I hope everyone has a great yummy thanksgiving. I am going to finish cleaning and get the needed supplies for tommorrow's dinner...cannot wait:) I also want to try and sneak downstairs an do a quick layout from the round 5 class of using colour. I just want to see what would have come out of the layout if I was still doing it:)

l8r

pheeww...i got picked up;)

...well one of my layouts did;) lol. I submitted one of my layouts(our family holiday tradition) I just did not to long ago, and thought for sure it would get picked up. As time went by I was completely suprised they did not want it(no I am not this conceded all the time..lol...I just really love this layout). So I just went on not even thinking about it...well tonight I got a nice littel email asking if it was still available to be published...woohooo. SO I will have my layout in the winter issue of scrapbook and cards today. So now I need to quickly get it out to them because they need it asap.

...I am in love

...with art journals. I have been surfing this evening and came across some videos about it. I am loving the entire collage feel/look of them(gasp..I know...so not my style). In the very near future I hope to try and break out of my simplistic box and create. What better way then to get away from my more linear way of scrapping then by getting down and dirty and experimenting. I have tried some mixed media before, but just was not feeling it. So I figure I will try with a few small projects and apply the techniques that I found tonight. I am quite excited and wanting to get to it already, but first I must clean up my damn room before any creating can be done..I am tired of not being able to find anything. I also think I need to take a shopping trip to get some more supplies.

...so no round 5 for me:(

....well I did not make it to the next round. Which to be honest..pisses me off..lol. But I kinda knew that would happen. I am really not an accessorizing girl and do not like to clutter up things too much, so my entry was quite simple. That and I just was not into doing my layout with being so busy and tired this week. I think the biggest pisser is that there are 2 people still in the competition that are more or less just there for the prize and not care about the DT position that can come with winning. They just accepted positions with a DT on another kit club....would they actually step down after that...especially since the only prescence on the BG board is more or less when they post their layouts..phhissshhh...I mean that is 2 spots for someone who wants it right... (say Katie or Steph who are movving on;) congrats girls)O.k so rant is now over, and feeling a bit better:)

Hadley woke up all sick, I am trying to get Ab up for school(picture day today...let's hope she takes a good one) I need to clean the house for the weekend and we started putting up halloween decorations yesterday, so we will have to finish that today. Seems to be a bust day ahead. But first and most important I must get my well needed cup of coffee in me before I rant and rave to strangers on my way to walking AB to school...LOL...

my round 4...

So i finally was able to complte my entry for round number 4 over at big girls. For this round it was all about accesorizing and with it showing unity, balance, harmony and texture. Phew...took me awhile to get my head around all of that and then to try and just get a chance to work on it. It was a very busy week with Hadley not allowing me to part to far from her. BUt none the less I did find sometime last night and this afternoon to do it. Having a margarita in hand last night also allowed me to just do it and not think much about how I was doing it;) So Hadley is busy at a b-day party next door. She plays with the little girl almost everyday and pratically lives over there(let's just hope she does not overextend her visit...lol) She also had gymnastics today and stuck with it the entire class. I was so happy. It is very hard for her, because there are several classes going at once and she just cannot concentrate and gets bored because she has to wait her turn. I believe I have found the way to keep her going though, so hopefully next class will go the same. Ab is off camping for the night with guides. I cannot believe they are doing it. It is supose to go down to 2 or 3 tonight. Can you say BRRRRRRRR.... it is freezing out today, and that is with the sun out. I do hope she has a good time. Well that is all for now..I should go check on Had next door.