Geocaching

Hi everyone!
Last Thursday my daughter came back from school with a BIG RED BAG! This bag was containing the very famous Finkelhopper Frog, the Finkelhopper story book and a scrapbook.

Finkelhopper was sent to us by Arielle's gym teacher and we had the weekend to bring him along and have him make some exercise. We had to take a picture and log the exercise and the picture in the scrapbook. The teacher didn't know that Arielle's mom is a scrapbooker. ;)

This weekend we decided to bring the frog with us on a Geocaching trip. We we in the forest for 2,5 hours! We found to "treasure" (they are called "cache"), we took many photos, we had lots of fun, we spent some nice family quality time and it resulted a beautiful (digital) scrapbook page which will go into Arielle's teacher and Finkelhopper's scrapbook. :)

Tomorrow morning, the frog is going back to school and will hop in the bag of another student. He will be missed dearly. 

Marie-Pierre

Il était une fois...MOI!

Hi everyone!!
Salut tout le monde!!

Today I'd like to take a moment to talk about the class I am part of, given by Céline Navarro and Entre Artistes: Il était une fois... MOI! (Once upon a time...ME!)

(I wont translate the next part since the class is given in French, I think it's a little irrelevant for my English speaking blog readers. :) But you can still look at the first page I made for this class. Until now it is VERY inspiring and I can already see so many other pages that will be built in this class. I'm very fortunate to be one of the teachers!!)


Aujourd'hui j'aimerais vous parler de l'atelier dont je fais partie aux côtés de Céline Navarro chez Entre Artistes: Il était une fois...MOI!

Je vous en ai déjà parlé, mais peut-être pas assez. Maintenant qu'il est en ligne et qu'on a vu la première semaine, l'inspiration coule à flot, même pour moi qui est dans la liste de profs. C'est pour ça que je crois que je dois vous en parler encore une fois, juste pour être sûre que vous ne manquiez pas le bateau. Pour ne pas que dans 6 semaines, vous disiez "j'aurais dont dû!!" Si vous voulez vous inscrire, c'est maintenant qu'il faut le faire!! En fait, vous pouvez le faire jusqu'à la fin du cours. Vous n'avez rien manqué. Les PDF sont en ligne et accessibles à tout moment. Les premières pages des filles commencent à rentrer, petit à petit dans la galerie. C'est magnifique!! Et c'est très émouvant de voir toutes ces histoires. 

Pour vous inciter peut-être un peu, je vais vous montrer la page que j'ai faite en réponse à cette première semaine. 

J'ai imprimé mon texte sur du vélin que j'ai cousu sur un fond que j'ai fait avec plusieurs morceaux de papiers et du Washi tape. J'ai ajouté plus de Washi et des petits embellissements, des lettres et de la couture et voilà. :) Tout est dans le texte et la photo je pense. C'est cette page qui va ouvrir mon album et surtout (surtout!!) qui va remplacer la page d'ouverture que j'avais faite dans le cours de Ali Edwards quand j'avais suivi le cours Yesterday and Today. Je ne l'aimais pas et là j'ai une bonne raison de l'enlever. :) 

I've printed my text on velum paper that I layered over a background made of paper and Washi tape all coming from an older kit from Studio Calico. I added some embellishments and some more Washi tape, some letters, some stitching and voilà! A pretty page on which the words and the photo are really what matter! This page will become the first page of my personal album, replacing a page I had made in Ali Edward's class Yesterday and Today, 5-6 years ago and that I really never liked. :) Now I have a good reason to take it away! :)

Thanks for looking!!
Marie-Pierre

Are you documenting December this year??

Hi everyone!
I just received my Studio Calico Kit for my December Daily and I am so excited to dive in as soon as December 1st is here!!! Or even before if I decide to prepare my album in advance.

My December daily albums are some of my most precious albums in my library because they show the same thing year after year, yet it's always different: the kids have grown, our schedule have changed, Patrick and I have changed too, and what we do is basically the same, but is still different and all these differences documented in a special book are very very very precious to me!!

This year, I'm happy that Debbie (Hodge) came up with something. I love Debbie! I love her ideas, and I love her way of explaining things. I love her approach to scrapbooking and I am ready to follow her along this great December adventure. She called it: Your December Story. And it will be a new way of telling your December Story so if you ever tried to follow along and never finished your album, or if you are simply looking for a new way of telling your story, to mix things up a bit and make it even more interesting, come and follow along with me!! :) You can read more about the class and register early for a bonus Debbie will give every one who pre-register (before Nov. 1) by clicking on this link:

Click here to view more details


I hope you'll make the plunge and come with me on this wonderful adventure. (If you do, please let me know in the comments down here or send me an e-mail!!)

You can find my December Daily album from last year here. It's so fun to look back at them!! :)

Talk to you soon!!
Marie

PL - Weeks 37 & 38

Hi everyone!!

Here are my weeks 37 and 38.

Week 37 was made with Studio Calico's Spencer's PL Kit.

Maya's first full day without me!! She was so ready to go in! We waited in front of the classroom and when the teacher opened the door, she was first to go in. I snapped a picture at that moment. :) I don't know what she was doing with her backpack, but it capture the moment so well!! And before I left, I snap a picture through the window. We can see the wires going through the window but that's what gives it some style, and especially a feel of what it is when I peek through the window from time to time.

When we're home, without Arielle now, Maya asks me to play games with her. We jump on the occasion to practice speaking!! :)

And in the afternoon (if I have a little luck) it's nap time for 2-3 hours!! :) I love to watch her sleep. I made a whole layout on that subject.

This is when I picked Maya up at school for the first time. I stood there for some minutes before she realized I was there, staring at her, and when she saw me she started smiling and said: "Allo maman." :)
I was happy to have her back.

And then, around 4:00, Arielle came back from school and the first thing she did when she got out of the bus is run to Maya to ask her how her day was and what she had learn (she's eager that she learn English). When we got home, they sat down on the stairs with each an apple and Arielle asked again: "So, tell me, how was it at school?" Gotta love it!!!

And now we have daily homework. It's mainly coloring, but it's a lot of coloring!! It takes time. It's not always fun. Arielle is tired. We'll get used to it. I hope.

From school I got this cute apple with Maya's name on it. It was a perfect fit for that week since we went apple picking with our friends.

Some photoshop action on the picture here before I printed it. I love the joy that I captured in this picture.

Week 38 - made with Dear Lizzy's 5th and Frolic mini kit.

I LOVE that kit. It is so soft. And 100% girl! It's a perfect fit for us and I love mixing it with the more gender neutral kits from Studio Calico. I like that the uniformity is broken throughout my album and that it's a new surprise and feel every time we flip the page.

I am so grateful for every iPhone picture!! They are not great great, but hey do they fill my album beautifully!! 

Since I wanted to keep this spread very very very simple, I didn't use any stamping of alphabet. I used another size of pen instead. I believe that this is a .5 and a .01. And I didn't use any embellishments either. Instead, I doodled. And now you know that my doodling skills are not great. lol

Here is one more time the "hug"before hopping on the school bus.

I played with the sizes of my pictures to hide what I didn't want to show on the yellow card...

The folded 3x4 cards are also great to fill 4x6 pockets!

In the middle I added 2 page protectors to hold drawings from Maya that she did in school since it's always the first thing she wants to show me when we get home: the drawing she made for me.
The fishes on the left page are perhaps less interesting since the only thing she did there was pasting, but I loved what Arielle said when she saw it so I've written it down. :) Project Life is so (so! so!) easy!!!

This is a screen capture of my iPhone as I saw my page featured on the front page of the Get it scrapped website that morning. Even though it does happen from time to time, it's always with great surprise that I discover my page on the front page.

Did I tell you that we now have daily homework??! ;) lol Just kidding.

This is something I found in Arielle's backpack. It's a drawing of Minnie Mouse and I think it is pretty amazing!! Not long ago (like 1 month ago) Arielle didn,t draw things. She just painted spots of many colors. But concrete things like that, I had never see this. I wrote some text on the photo before printing it. I used 2 fonts: typewriter and My Font. :)

And finally I used the calendar card to document the birthday of our little friend Madison.

There you go. 

Hope you like it and can get some inspiration. :)

Marie

PL Weeks 35 & 36

Hi everyone!

As promise, here are two other spreads of my Project Life album.

(I skipped week 34 because it's the week we were on vacation and I did a whole mini-album about it so I thought I could come back later for this spread.... for now, it's just a bunch of ticket stubs and maps and empty pockets waiting to be filled.)

Week 35 was made with the Studio Calico Project Life kit Marks & Co.

I really love to work with a kit. It doesn't mean I can't mix it with my stash if I need other supplies. But the kit itself already goes a long way and let me do this I wouldn't normally do with what I usually buy. :)

A little word art directly on my picture before I printed it.

I chose a chalkboard font. This day was the last day before school start. I went with my daughters to Flatbread. Our last lunch the three of us together. I was pretty sad when thinking about the next BIG day. 

A 4x6 card, some washi tape and a date stamp is really all I need to immortalize the last afternoon with our friends. This week was all about "ending". It was hard for me. I think I still could render it in a positive way. All the bright colors are definitely helping.

The tiny alphabets are oh so handy!! This is Maya with dad around a fire at our friends house. It was both there first "roasting marshmallow" experience. Touching. :)

Here's another cute card from the kit. I did some stamping with a very small Hero Art Alphabet Stamp kit. Daddy and Maya are waving goodbye as I head to school with Arielle. Today I can be there, tomorrow, she'll take the bus and be on her own.

This is the name tag Arielle wore on her first day of school. The big silver letters let us see right away what the week is about when we open the spread.

The obligatory photo in front of her new school. This week was so emotional.

Bringing my big five years old to the bus for the first time was hard!! For Maya too. But we made it. :)

And we were so happy to see her when she came back in the afternoon.

Week 36 was made with the Dooble Scoop PL Kit from Studio Calico. I loved the colors of that one!

The cards with a small frame are perfect to add a little something more to a simple photo. This is the story of our local scrapbook store closing. :( Like there wasn't enough emotions around here like that.

Homeworks is a new thing we'll have to get used to. It's part of the routine now and when Arielle comes back from school at 4, it's tough. It makes her days very long. Here I was helping her coloring in the letters and I loved it. I would have done it alone too, but with her telling me what to do it was just this more fun ;) The little golden heart is one I punched in a scrap of golden paper. I made a bunch and I put them along with some stars I made the same way with my other embellishments. Easy and fast to use.

This is a "before I get on the bus" hug. I love them!!! And even now, one month later, they still exist. morning after morning. I'll take them as long as they come!

Some more cute cards paired with smaller photos.  Cute :)

And then it was time for Maya to have HER first day of pre-school. She is three, and she doesn't speak a word of English. I WAS NERVOUS!!! But she saw Mrs. Heath 2 years in a row when we dropped Arielle to school so I knew that she was comfortable in that school. That helped a lot. And for her it's only 2.5 hours twice a week. It's really not that much.

Because we didn't want summer to end, Pat proposed that we spend the weekend at the beach. It wasn't beach weather anymore but I'll take sun and sand a little longer anyway!! It was a GREAT weekend gateway.

I still can't believe that we are only 2.5 hours away from the beach. I love my new home!!

Voilà.

Two more weeks coming your way tomorrow! Stay tuned!! :D

Marie-Pierre

Project Life - Weeks 32 & 33

Hi everyone!!

As summer has passed, and school has started, friends have come and gone, projects were finished, deadlines were met. A class (a first!) went online yesterday, and Patrick and I just came back from a short road trip to Toronto last weekend, life seems to slowly be settling down for me.

Yesterday I tackled the purging of my patterned paper, while listening to Aby Garvey on the Paperclipping Roundtable - How to deal with all that stuff and this morning I'd like to pursue my quest of catching up so I'd like to share with you some Project Life spreads. :)

Week 32 - August 5th to 11th
Using Studio Calico PL Kit: Marks & Co.

Look at this stamp, in red! :) I also loved all these small velum tags, and mini wood veneer hearts!

I did a little bit more embellishing than usual here and I kind of liked it. :) I loved that the kit was designed (and bought!)  for PL so I wasn't feeling guilty of using all these cool embellishments. :)

Week 33 - August 12 to 18
Also using Studio Calico PL Kit: Marks & Co.

 Love the stitched heart on the tag.
And yes, this is Amy Tangerine... :) I was lucky enough to spend half an hour with her on Skype. It was awesome. The journaling is from an e-mail she sent me.

In the middle of these pages I added some inserts:

I'll work on some more pictures of my album this afternoon and will present them to you tomorrow. :)
See you soon!!

Marie-Pierre