Week 6 - Ella's Six Weeks of Sketches

It's the 6th and final week for the Ella Sketch challenge ... I've done all 6 sketches, although only 5 of them were on time. I'm sad to see this challenge end, because it did motivate me to scrap at least once a week, and because the sketches were good and stretched my creativity a bit. You can see the Week 6 sketch here, and here is my take on it:

While I was scanning it, I realized the pictures are from 2009, not 2008 ... lol ... gotta hate it when that happens! I'll fix it before I put it in an album.

Thanks for stopping by!

PS - Wasn't yesterday a great Olympic day for Canadian women? Wow, gotta love that "women's 2-man bobsleigh" sport - have you seen the calves on those women??? - and the results, gold and silver for Canada! Oh, and it was a good Olympic day for "men's ice hockey" too - what a great win over the Russians. I sure hope the men's team makes it to the gold medal game, and I've got my fingers crossed for the women's hockey team tonight!!!

Catch-Up Post

I wish every Saturday could be like yesterday. I had a lovely day, unhindered by anything domestic (other than a couple of loads of laundry). First the husband and I took the dog through a long walk in the snowy woods, including a pit stop for a small campfire, hot coffee and a snack; then, I spent a couple of hours scrapbooking; then, I lay down on the couch in my scraproom, read a bit and had a half hour nap; then I took a long steamy shower; then I took the boy to hockey; then we had a nice family dinner; and then the husband and I went on a "date" to Walmart (puppy needed a new pillow) topped off with coffee at Starbucks. Then I came home and went to bed. Aaaaaahhhh ...

So, Olympic fever hasn't hit our household as hard as it has hit some, although I did find myself watching curling the other night (until I realized I know nothing about this sport and was actually kind of bored). I am, however, looking forward to catching some of the "men's ice hockey" tonight (I love how they call it "ice hockey" - I mean really - is there any other kind of hockey worth mentioning? And as the girl would say, we don't call it "grass soccer" do we?). Canada plays U.S., should be a good game. Seems I lucked out when I was in Zellers the other day, they were pouring hundreds of those red Olympic mitts into a big bin and I thought what the heck, I'll buy myself a pair ... turns out you can't find these babies anywhere now:

Yes, I am a dork, wearing my new red Olympic mittens at the office. Turns out, by the way, that it's pretty darn near impossible to type or even click the mouse wearing these things. But they are nice and warm.

So that picture is over a week old for sure ... because last week, my assistant and I went on an organizational blitz and my desk is now clean(er) and populated with colour-coded files (red - program action items; blue - management action items; green - manager bilats; black - meeting files; burgundy - working files). That plus an evergreen To-Do Log and a new way of using Outlook seem to be keeping my head above water. I still miss deadlines, but I can now predict missing them in advance, lol!!!

In other news, I found some really cute additions for my scraproom at Winners a couple of weeks ago. One is a small tiered stand - I think it was originally meant for jewelry - which I now keep on my desk with pretty embellishments in it, for inspiration:

The other one is a also meant for jewelry I think - it's a dress form. I got this idea from a scrap mag I recently bought. I'm going to tie all of my ribbon bits to it and keep it handy; it'll be both a room decoration, hopefully sometimes an inspiration, and a storage option for those shorter, leftover bits of ribbon that rarely get used:

I don't think I've ever posted that framed 12x12 layout here ... I was waiting til I was done the 2nd, matching one (which I haven't started yet). I intend to put the two up on the wall in my scraproom.

So thanks for stopping by ... I have to run, it's time to wake up the husband, write out the grocery list and start my day. Busy one today, including a visit to my mother-in-law's and a visit from out-of-town friends this afternoon.

Ciao!

Ella's Six Weeks of Sketches - Week 5

Got it done just under the wire - thanks to the husband who reminded me I had to scrapbook tonight, and hustled me upstairs after dinner so I could get it done. Yup, he's a keeper. You can see the sketch here.

I deviated from the sketch a bit ... I had intended on sticking to it but in the end the journaling block looked better bottom right, while the title block looked better top left. Sometimes you just have to listen to what you're layout's telling you, know what I mean?

Yes, that's me in the pictures ... blushing bride, almost 22 years ago ... Sorry about the wonky scan, the title block is a bit thick (I built it up from a cute felt coaster I bought at Michaels ... I bought a pack of them, actually. Funny story, I had a glass of wine sitting on the coaster while I was putting together this layout and all of a sudden it struck me, the coaster was the perfect base for my title block ... !)

Thanks for looking!

Week 4 (and 3) - Ella's Six Weeks of Sketches

Yay, I got the sketch-inspired layout done on time this week! It's all about managing priorities, isn't it ... I felt pretty rotten about not getting Week 3 done on time so promised myself I would find some time to scrap this week. You can see the sketch here ... and here's the result:

The scan really doesn't do it justice, it's much nicer in real life, lol ... So you may find it hard to see a link between the sketch and my layout but here's what happened ... first I flipped the sketch upside down ... then I stretched it out over two 8.5x11 pages ... then I added a 3rd 3.5x3.5 square picture ... and then it took on a life of its own, the title and journaling just went where my eye told me they belonged. I love how this sketch inspired me to crop my pictures (I realized I hadn't been doing much of that at all lately) and how as a result, I was able to fit four pictures on a layout and still have lots of white space. Cause white space is all cool and trendy right now in the scrapbook world, you know.

I was really disappointed about not getting the Week 3 layout done on time, especially since I had the pictures picked out and the layout all done inside my head (isn't that always the way ... there are so many more layouts in my head than in my actual albums, lol!). Not one to waste inspiration, I went ahead and did that Week 3 layout anyway, and here's the result:

Again, I just stretched the sketch across two 8.5x11 pages. Simple, fast ... zoom it was done (lol). Hmn, colourful too. For both these layouts, I did some major stash usage ... the patterned paper in the first one is at least 5 years old (All My Memories - Herbanella line ... remember those?) and there's a combination of Junkitz, Basic Grey and Daisy D's patterned paper on the 2nd one (weird combo, eh). And I would like to point out that there are NO FLOWERS anywhere on these layouts, which is like a breakthrough or something for me.

So thanks for looking ... before signing off, just a bit of this and that:

(1) Humble apologies to Toronto Maple Leaf fans everywhere. You know why.

(2) The boy's hockey team made it all the way to the Championship finals ... they lost, but it was a close game til the last few minutes and it was an extremely exciting hockey weekend overall (my voice survived, surprisingly; but my cow bell is tired).

(3) When I left work today, it was light out. I had to double check my watch to make sure I wasn't leaving early. Yay!

(4) Only 14 weeks left til the trailer park opens. Woo-hoo!

Have a great week, everyone!

Too Busy to Play!!!

How sad is that. I wasn't able to set aside any time for scrapping this week. Which means I did not get to play with Ella's Week 3 Sketch before the Thursday midnight deadline. Which means I will get one less chance to win the Cricut. Cr*p.

On the bright side, I may have time to scrap a bit this morning ... I'm off work today! The boy is in a hockey tournament and he has a game at 3:00, so I decided to take the full day off. Well technically, anyway, since I've already put in about an hour of work this morning via my home computer catching up on emails etc. They played the first game last night, and they won 2-0, and the boy scored a goal. Got to use my cow bell. Fun times!

.

And my Senators are having fun times too. You almost don't have to be a hockey fan these days to know about their awesome 11-game winning streak. Which, the boy and I agree, will go to 12 since their next game is against the Make Beliefs (sorry to all you Maple Leaf fans. I respect you and all but, seriously, we're hot and you're not!).

Anyhow, thought I'd just do a quick "drive by post" to let y'all know that I am still alive, even though I seem to have only two speeds these days - full speed working, or at a complete stop nodding off on the couch.

Have a wonderful weekend!