Sneak peek

Hi everyone!
I don't know if you'll like that, but I want to show you a little sneak peek of a layout that you'll get to see on get it scrapped in some weeks. I love it so much that I thought maybe a glimpse of a little corner of it could make you as happy as me. :)

I made it based on my last blogpost on what I am thankful for, and the title of the layout is a song that Arielle sings all the time. I just LOVE the song so I thought I'd have to make a page with it. :)

Have a nice Thanksgiving weekend!!
Marie-Pierre

Happy Thanksgiving and a card

Hi everyone!!

First of all, I would like to wish all my readers and followers
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

On this very special day where we are reminded to think about everything we are thankful for, my hobby comes to mind since it's such a big part of my life. I am thankful that I am able to take time and money from our family ressources to do this. I know that when I am crafting, I am not taking care of the house and my kids, and husband, and I know that everyone is a little sad about it, but it makes me so happy that they work around it. And for that, I AM THANKFUL!

I am thankful too for every opportunities that happened to me this year: being featured on Shimelle's blog and on Amy Tangerine's blog, having my layouts picked by my friend Amy Kingsford to make templates out of them, being the video contest winner at Studio Calico, arriving second at the Entre Artistes Scrapbooker of the Year contest (thanks again Amy!), being part of Debbie Hodge's team at getitscrapped.com, being selected to be on the Art Impressions design team, being invited to be on the Paperclipping Roundtable….. it's all things that I would have never thought of last year, and I AM SO THANKFUL for that!!

I am thankful for every single one person who comes here and leaves me a comment to make my day brighter, for every layout of mine that has bin pinned by you, for every comment received on Instagram. I AM THANKFUL and I THANK YOU!

And I sure hope that it will only continue to grow and get even better. :) I think it is going to. I am blessed.

On another note, I am also thankful for so many other things. One of them being my home, here in the USA. We are here since 3 years and have wonderful friends and we have a good life and for the first time in a long time I can say that I am truly happy. Another one of them is my family, my girls, my husband, and also my parents, brother and sister in law and their kids. I love them all and I am happy that I am part of this family and no other one. Another thing that I am thankful for is health. Health for me, and for the ones I love most. We sure have small things here and there, but really, we are lucky to have what we have.

Last week, Maya's teacher, who was Arielle's teacher for the past 2 years, told me that a little boy that was in Arielle's classroom has just been operated for a brain tumor. We really often don't think enough about what we do have when we are healthy. Arielle made him a card this afternoon. She wanted to use my wash tape so we made a card together. I am thankful for her and for the time we have together.

Here is the card she created:

Again, I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving with the ones you love.

Thank you for everything and take care of yourselves!!

And each other!

Marie-Pierre

Taking the bus or Using a map on your page

Hi everyone!

For this page I made for get it scrapped had to inspire myself from a book illustration, which was VERY easy because every time we read a story to the girls at night, guess what? I GET INSPIRED!!! lol

The images in kid's books are always so rich and colorful. 

And since I made this page at the beginning of September, it was easy easy easy to find a story to scrap: Arielle was taking the bus FOR THE FIRST TIME! Eeeeeek!! I was more scared than her. And I took lots of photos!! :) 

Here's the book I chose that we were reading over and over again at the beginning of the school year:

Look at the colors, and the drawings. They look as if anybody could draw them, right? 

Here is the result of this inspiration:

I decided to use some watercolor to render the colors. They are less vibrant on my page than in the book, but they are still very happy. And the green next to the orange of the school bus is a happy mix.

To reproduce the cartoony look of the kid's book, I hand drew a map of our neighborhood (as good as I could! lol), including our house, the bus stop, our playground, the forests and streets surrounding us. 

For the title I mixed 2 fonts. The pink one is very cartoonish, which I thought was fitting. 

I typed the journaling on vellum and I cut it in strips. I didn't want to hide the background. I stitched every strip and also stitched around the page with a gold thread and I mounted my layout on kraft background.

:)

Hope this can inspire you to find inspiration around you because really, inspiration is EVERYWHERE!!!!

Happy creating!

Marie-Pierre

And we have a winner!! And a good news!

Hi everyone!!

I love these kind of days!!!

First, the giveaway for a spot in the YOUR DECEMBER STORY held by Debbie Hodge is now closed and we have a winner:

Isabelle, I'll email you your code for the free class! Enjoy!  And thanks for playing. :)


Second, here's the good news:

I have the pleasure to tell you that I have been selected to be on the

Art Impressions Desing team

I am very happy and honored and I am happy to tell you that you will start to see a little bit more card inspiration around here. :)

There will be the same amount of Scrapbooking, but also once a week I'll show you a card I made with Art Impressions stamps and from time to time some tips and techniques that you can use in your card making and that you can also translate on your scrapbook layouts! It will be fun, I'm telling you!! :)

On that note, I wish you a happy Weekend and make sure to come back Tuesday since I will show you a layout I have been dying to show you since I made it, almost 2 months ago!!!!! :)

Take care guys and thank you to all the new members of my blog and for all the kind comments you let me during the Blog Hop. It was very heart warming to red through them!!! :)

By the way, what do you think of my new blog name and banner??!

Marie-Pierre

Your December Story Blog Hop and Giveaway

***EDITED***

The giveaway is now closed.

You can still register to the class though using the link on the left side of my blog. And you can still get the die cuts and printable files though if you register to my blog and send me an e-mail. See below for more details. Thanks for your support everyone!

Hi everyone! 

(Read until the end for participating in the giveaway and to know how to get your free die cut files!)

Today I got a peek at "Your December Story" (that's the December class thought by Debbie Hodge) and I'm giving away a free pass to the class!! 

As I told you earlier this month, I am doing a December Daily type of album this year again and since it is my 4th year of doing it, it has become a little repetitive so I wanted to mix things up a bit this year!!

I checked out lesson 1 of Debbie Hodge's Your December Story this weekend, and I LOVED it!

Your December Story is shaped around the Hero's Journey

This December, like Dorothy dropped into Oz or Alice tumbled into Wonderland, you will receive a call to adventure. You will move from the ordinary world into a one of magic and tests as the holiday season arrives.

Many of the most-loved and best remembered stories play out in a story form described by Joseph Campbell as "the hero's journey." This class has prompts and page ideas for visual storytelling that have you telling Your December Journey, from the heralds, to the challenges, mentors, special tools and the return to the known world and what you take forward.

This is what I think of the class and how it inspired me

The lesson came with 20 prompts, lots of ideas of stories that could be told right now, even before December has arrived, different ways of telling each of the stories, layout design ideas and even ideas for possible titles!

After answering the prompts (it took me about 20 minutes to do that) I started going through the lesson and I had to stop several times to jot ideas down. My head was spinning!! In a (very) good way!! :)

Since it's still very early in November, I tried to limit myself to two pages of my story "leading to December". I'm pretty pleased with my pages which are setting the tone and helping the reader to embark IN THE STORY with me. Here are my first two pages:

 The first page is our November everyday life. I chose to make a mosaic of small moments that shape our everyday life at the moment.

 These small moments include: the bedtime story, the evening bath, weekends activities with daddy, the girls playing together, Maya alone with mommy, pick-up from school on dance days. I could have put many more photos, but these are the one I chose to go with.

I added more details in my journaling.

 And small embellishment clusters + lots of gold!! :)

My second page is all about welcoming the Spirit of Christmas into our lives. Lesson 1 invites you to look around and see what is already there, at this time of the year. I was pleased that I could include all these moments in my album. In my classic December Daily album, I would have probably left them out. Sadly.

 Even my Christmas card made it in the album! :)

And Santa is already sitting at the mall, waiting for us and waving and chanting Ho!Ho!Ho!

(you can go here to check the front page of my album and to check the supplies I am using)

I am definitely in the spirit of Christmas and I am ready to document our December story in a new way and in a more global way than just documenting one moment a day. Are you in?! :)

If you like what you read and saw here and if you are interested in joining me on this December journey, please register to the class using this link:

Click here to visit Get It Scrapped.

(Keep in mind that I am earning a commission on this so your support is truly appreciated if you decide to join us on the journey! :)

Registering here and now will give you a 10$ gift card!***

This offer is only good through midnight Wednesday, November 20th. When you purchase "Your December Story" by midnight PT, Wednesday, November 20, you also get a $10 gift card that you can use for Get It Scrapped and Masterful Scrapbook Design classes.


**GIVEAWAY!!!

Put your name in the drawing to win the class

Leave a comment telling me if you are planing on documenting your December story this year. I will draw a winner on Thursday, November 21, 2013.

(If you already purchased the class, you'll get a $24 gift card good for any other GIS/MSD classes.)

**FREE Die cut and Printable files

While working on my December album, I wanted to try my hand at making some customized files and I came up with a couple of die cut files that will work perfectly with your Silhouette:

And some overlays for your photos (or you could print them onto card stock or patterned papers):

It is likely that I will make more and share them as I go, but for now you can get these for free. All I ask is that you become a member of my blog. When it's done, send me an e-mail: mariepierre_c(at)hotmail(dot)com. 

Write "Die cut files" in the subject line and I'll send them to you shortly after per e-mail.

If you are already a member and want the files, send me an e-mail and I'll be happy to send them your way!! :)

**BONUS

If you register to "your December story" using my link

Click here to visit Get It Scrapped.

I'll have a bonus file for you which is the title of the class in a cut file. Just send me an e-mail. If you already registered through me and want the file, send me an e-mail too! :)

And on that, I thank you so much for stopping by!!
Make sure you add my blog address to your Feedly or that you become a member of the blog to follow me on my December journey and to know when I'll share more cut files. I still have no concrete plans, but I'm pretty sure I'll get to play more with my Silhouette during the month of December when I do so, you'll know it first! :)


Your next stop on the blog hop will be:


Have fun!! :)

Sincerely,

Marie-Pierre

See how the rest of the blog hoppers are using this class (and get 20+ more chances to win)

• Anna Aspnes
• Betsy Sammarco
• Christy Strickler
• Marie-Pierre Capistran <- are="" here="" li="" you="">
• Katrina Kennedy
• Carrie Arick
• Doris Sander
• Melissa Shanhun
• Michelle Houghton
• Sue Althouse
• Terry Billman
• Kiki Kougioumtzi
• Susanne Brauer
• Sian Fair
• Jana Morton
• Paula Gilarde
• Kristin Tweedale
• Katie Scott
• Amy Kingsford
• Tami Taylor
• Stefanie Semple
• Katie Nelson

My December Album - Update!!

Hi everyone!!

I just started my December (kind of) Daily album and I'd like to tell you a little bit about what I'm aiming for this year.

It will be my 4th year doing a December album this year. What does that mean?
1. It means that I like doing it.
2. It also means that it's starting to be redundant and that I'd like to mix things up a little. ;)

Ok, so this year I bought Studio Calico' December Daily kit. I had it in mind last year too, but with the price, it never even was a question. I just wasn't buying it. This year, I won the video contest and 500$ so I grabbed the opportunity and indulged in a 100$ Christmas Kit. ;)

Here's what my album look like for now:

Since I don't like to glue something to the front of my album, for practicality reasons I decided to only highlight some of the embossed stars, using an oil based gold paint pen. It worked like a charm. 

I guess it's because I didn't embellish the album much that I felt the need of doing a title page.

The small stars are cut files that came with the Studio Calico kit. I had my Silhouette cut them in some  Stampin'UP! wasabi card stock. The December was also cut with my Silhouette together with the "our story" which is Debbie Hodge's class title. I added some 2013 wood veneers and a gold frame for a very simple and clean yet very festive and Christmas-y look.

The small vellum Christmas tree was one of the many embellishments of the kit and I punched a small star in some gold card stock to create the nice star on top of the tree.

As for the other pages, here's a sneak:

Because I feel like my albums are quite repetitive from a year to another, and because I always feel like non-Christmas-y events don't always have a place in my December album, I chose to go with Debbie Hodge and her "our December Story" class this year. From what I understand of it, it is NOT a December Daily type of class. It's more of a global story telling process. I think that in this class, I won't be trying to take a picture of the only Christmas-y moment which lasted only one second because I won't have to make a page that day if I don't have anything to say that day. But even if I skip a day (or two) my album will be complete and very thoughtful. That, I know! I already have the first lesson in my hands and it is oh so inspiring!! I made a two page layout based on it but I could have made many more. I just refrain myself a little since it's only mid-November!! lol The only thing I can tell you for now is that even if the official holiday season is not there yet, I do see a lot of signs around me yelling that Christmas is right around the corner. In fact, it will be here sooner than we might think. ;)

Enough said on that for now, I will be able to tell you a little more about the class and show you my first pages on Tuesday, so make SURE to come back. I'll also have an awesome GIVAWAY!!! So make sure you make note of that and come back Tuesday. :)

In the mean time, if you want to register to the class without waiting, you can do so by clicking here:

Click here to view more details

This is an affiliate link so if you plan on joining me on the adventure, make sure you use this link in order to support me! :) Thanks everyone!!

And see you Tuesday for the beginning of my December Adventure! :)

Marie-Pierre

Scrapbooking about a loved one who passed

Hi everyone!!

This time for Get it Scrapped I had to make a grid, with color blocking and tone on tone embellishments. And to do so, I used (for the first time!!!) a Studio Calico Kit. :) It was awesome to work with a kit. I did picked some other stuff that I had in my stash, but I also used so many things from the kit!! And this color palette is not really one I would have chosen, but at the end I think my photo goes well with the color with the aquas and greens in it, and because my grand-father was a lover of golf and flowers, I thinks it works perfectly!! I also threw in some gold accents because…I'm into gold lately, and also because my grand-father used to tell me over and over again: all that glitter is not…?! lol

So here's my page:

And some details.
Here for the embellishment I punched a circle from the background paper that had lots of greens in it and I mounted it on a chipboard circle to give it dimension. I layered the green acrylic numbers 24 and added a small tag with "may" on it. May 24th was his birthday and since mine is May 23rd, it was always a big deal for us. :)

I stamped in gold here. The Love creatively stamp was perfect for my page since my grand-pa was an artist! He was a painter. :)

Next I used a small velum envelop in which there were some embellishments and I mounted a chipboard butterfly on it to close the envelop. I filled the little pocket with a piece of patterned paper from the kit. I used a paper with empty cross word puzzles… My grand-pa was making one (or more!!!) everyday! And all his little riddles that he had for me when I saw him were from the cross word puzzles so this symbol had to make it onto the page! One word that he was asking over and over again was belfry. He would say: how do you call "le clocher" of a church in English? I'm probably one of the few Quebeckers who know that (well, maybe not anymore). So anyway, even the word wasn't fitting all on the little square, I wrote the beginning of it. I think it's just enough to keep a memory alive!

Here you have the "all that glitters is not…" That tone on tone!! :D And next to it I stamp his birth and death years.

I've cut out the small camera from a bigger piece of paper and mounted it with some glue foam on a background of gold stars. To repeat the background and make it kind of tone on tone I used a glittery star on the front of the embellishment.
And then the green alpha! In order to have tone on tone I used the washi tape right on the square of patterned paper. I also added a small wooden geotag and a enamel dot in aqua in the middle.

If I can resume it: my grand-pa was born one day apart of me, was a gemini like me, loved me very much, was an artist (pretty much like me I think), love playing with flowers in his flower garden (and pick flowers at the botanical garden (I know!!!!! It was awful!!) and an avid golfer who loved to take photos of women, of flowers and of myself with his small and old camera! :) He passed away at 91 years old. He is truly missed! (oh yes, he loved to sing too! I'll have to make another layout to talk about how he ripped the microphone off of our best man's hands during his toast at our wedding to start singing "oh Rose Marie I love you, I'm always dreaming of you. No matter what I do, I can't forget you….")

I didn't know what to do with the ribbon. I wanted to use it because of the texture it can bring and because of it's color but at the same time I didn't want it to be too feminine. At the end I think it seems pretty "feminine, but that's ok. It picks up all the cool blue hues in my photo so I'm happy! :)
This cute etiquette was from that sheet of quotes we cot in the PL kit (if I remember weel) and it was very fitting since at the end (when the photo was taken) my grand-pa was in a place for old/sick people and we knew it was the end and I was so so sad. That day when we visited him I cried all the way back in the car. That was a 2.5 hours drive!! It was so sad to see my grand-pa there, and to almost not recognize him anymore because he had no more interests, nothing to tok about anymore… it was awful! And I'm glad I could do a page about him with bits and pieces of him that I still remember and which make me smile today when I think about him.

I hope you like my page and that I could maybe inspire some of you of making a page about a person you loved who is no longer here. It's hard to make pages like that, but it's oh so worth it!! And we absolutely have to do it while we remember. Memory is not something that we can count on forever, we do forget more and more small things with time passing, so get to it! That's my advice to you today. :)


Thanks for all the love you leave me here and there, on Facebook, Instagram, my galleries at Two Peas and Studio Calico. Every comment is truly appreciated!!!

Talk to you soon!!

Marie-Pierre

Arielle's scrapbook

Hi everyone! :)

Today I have something truly beautiful to show you.
It's my 5 year old's scrapbook.

Last week I was listening to the Paperclipping Roundtable and they were discussing the question: is scrapbooking dead? If you haven't listen to it yet, I highly recommend it. It was full of thoughts and inspiration.

One idea that stuck with me after I finished listening to the show was one brought up by Izzy (he's the producer of the show, and he's also the husband of a scrapbooker - that explains a lot! haha!!). He said that in order to keep the scrapbooking hobby alive, we should teach our kids to scrapbook and start them early. True. As he said, kids are open, and creative, and it's all about themselves at that age so it's really a good idea. So the next day I went to my local scrapbooking store (it's closing its doors this Friday! Sad!!) and I bought both Arielle and Maya an album. Arielle got a pink 8x8 album from We R Memory Keepers and Maya got a blue 6x6 album from American Crafts.

In addition to that, I made a major clean up of my papers a couple of weeks ago and the girls got lots of papers. (Unfortunately, lots of them are brown and olive green…. I'll have to fix that!) I also put in their stash some speech bubbles that I had die cut with Silhouette and that I thought I wouldn't use.

Well, last night, I discovered a nice surprise on Arielle's desk. Her scrapbook! Filled with three pages already! She's been more productive than me apparently! And I was so impressed with what she did (She had only one photo and she can write just so little). So here I wanted to show you the results. Remember, she is 5!

This letter A is a remnant of a package of letters she got on her birthday in June. The picture is one I that was laying around on my table and that I gave her for her scrapbook. She made the drawing of the little girl herself and wrote Matilda (heart) Arielle Papa (heart) Maman. Matilda it's a new friend she made Saturday. It's her new best friend. The small drawing on the right page was made by Matilda.

Here she drew Matilda and she added a speech bubble in which she wrote: Arielle. I think it is so so cute!! I took of picture of the 2 of them together and I told Arielle she could put it in her scrapbook. So I just have to print it and voilà, her new friendship is documented. She is 5! Did I mention that?! ;)

I am really impressed. And for me, this is the proof that when I scrapbook, I make it way too complicated! But that's another story… lol

Ok guys!!
Talk to you soon!!

Marie-Pierre

Cards Cards Cards!

Hi everyone!!!
I am now full in the swing of making Christmas cards!!!!!!
Here's a peek at my art table right now:

Watercoloring is my favorite!! I absolutely love the look of watercolor. It can be soft, but it can also be vibrant!! :)  And this year I got myself a beautiful stamp from Art Impressions and I'll be make beautiful tri-fold cards!! You can see my little sleeping Santa on one card. ;) I stamped 20 cards and now I'm on to the color. I'll take my time and do one at the time instead of chain coloring. I think it will be gorgeous!! :)

Is anyone else going to make handmade cards this year? I notice that people here are going for a "photo of the family-card". It's not my style. I much prefer a hand made card. But that's just me. The nice thing is that every personalized card is special. And now in the e-mail world we are living, any paper card is well appreciated, right?! Oh my, the feeling I get when I open my mailbox and see my name, hand written on an envelope…. awesome!! :)

So anyway, I would like to show you some of my previous Christmas cards here to maybe give you some ideas or some inspiration, or some courage to start making your Christmas cards too. And just to make sure you know, there's the "cards" label on the left side of my blog if you need some inspiration to any other occasion card!! :)

Have a good one!!!
Marie-Pierre :)