Easter Project in the Works!

Each time Connor’s class has a party I like to make a little something for him to bring in.  Each child who brings something gets to go around and pass out their gift to their friends and I wouldnt want him to miss out on it.  He is always so proud of himself when he does.  Coming up with a gift for the children for Easter, and keep it within budget, was rather tricky for me.  I think I have come up with something fun though.  In total it has cost me a whopping $10!!  LOL  That is enough treats for the 26 kids in his class and his teacher’s little boy.

First I took some plain cloth I got at the fabric store, only cost me a quarter for almost a yard, cut rectangles with some pinking shears for a fun edge.  I then took some foam magnets I found at the store, could not find any real stamps or cookie cutters in town, and stamped on some Spring-y elements with paint.

Next I sewed up three sides, sliced some holes for some pretty ribbon and filled the bags with egg shaped gum balls.  I also bought a white weave basket, filled with basket fill and am going to make it into a bunny.  Here is what I have so far!  I am slowly learning that it doesnt have to be perfect to be cute.

Day 85

Day 86

I have been slacking on my 365 photos.  *hangs head in shame*  I am hoping to get back on track though!  I have been rather busy lately and you will all see the products of my sweat come the first of the month.  :)

Some photos….I missed Day 74, 75 and 76,  Oops.

Day 77

Day 78

Day 79

The hot water in the apartment above me burst and flooded my place.  They cut a hole in my kitchen ceiling to make sure that it would dry out. 

Day 80

Jennifer and I stopped by the new pet store and she just fell in love with this little guy.

Day 81

I have been working on some more crayon rolls and Connor was coloring next to me with his mini markers.

Day 82

Missed it.  :(

Day 83

Day 84

Missed it again.

I have a little treat for you!  Something I threw together for my chat tonight.  If you want to join us it is at 10PM EST in the Guild chat room.  A small bit of word art called Pieces, you can download it here.

Have a good night!

Bad Blogger

I havent been the best blogger lately.  :(  I have been posting a bit more over at the Losing It with the Gigis Blog.  I am now down 17lbs which makes me very happy.  I am going to see about doing some measurements tomorrow to see what kind of inches I am losing.  I went for two walks today.  Running just wasnt in the cards for me.  I have been doing a lot of it lately though, that and yoga.  Planks, killer but you know they work the abs.  I promise to post a better post tomorrow.  Complete with a new project I am working on. 

This is a layout I completed tonight.  A little reminder that I am the only one who controls my life.  While walking through town tonight I had a group of young boys yell out of their car that I was fat and started mooing at me.  Not only that but they then went out of their way to keep coming back.  Do they really think that we need reminders that we arent in good shape?  That we dont know even?  Do they really think that they could say things to us that we havent already said to ourselves?  Do they not realize that a fat girl’s worst enemy is herself?  Old Amy would have stuck her tail between her legs, put her head down and walked home to a bowl of ice cream.  New Amy did not.  New Amy used the anger as fuel and walked for an hour and a half, came home and had an apple.  I like New Amy better.   Besides, I would rather be fat then ignorant and dumb.  ;)

Oh and I have a new business card!  I came up with the idea, Sean drew the camera and then I threw it all together in PS.

Connor is raising money for Heart & Stroke if anyone is interested in helping him.  He will be participating in a Jump-a-thon at the end of April to help raise awareness.  You can see his page here.

I did a layout of Sandy.  I hate to admit how much I am starting to like the cats.  Ick.  LOL

Thanks for stopping by!  Better post tomorrow.  Promise.  :)

What a FABULOUS Week!

On Saturday my most wonderful man bought me a laptop.  How exciting is that!  I have never owned a new computer before and its just a great feeling.  I can now open Photoshop in less then SIX SECONDS!  That amazes me, it was  a day long event on my desktop.  lol  I even MADE a laptop bag!!!  Can you believe it?  Not only did I start a sewing project, I finished it!  The same day too!

Day 72

I was also busy sewing up some crayon rolls for my nieces and nephew for Easter.

Day 70

On Saturday we went to hang out with my friends at Ellen’s daugther’s 4th birthday party. 

Day 71

On Sunday my friend Jennifer came over because my birthday gift had arrived.  :)  Guess what she got me?  A DIANA F+ CAMERA!  LOMO BABY!!  So exciting.  I cant wait to learn, to play and to see the results.  She also got me ten rolls of film for it.  YES!

Day 73

To achieve this faux lomo effect I used my Acidic Addictions Photoshop Action, then put a vignette on it and a black stroke.

Yesterday I received my new camera strap, which I have yet to take a picture of but it is already on the camera.  :)   Its so cute!!  Today I received my Amy Butler fabric.  Oh how I love her style but you cannot buy her stuff around here. Thank goodness I discovered Etsy!  :)  I bought some Coriander Pine which I believe I will be making a laptop bag with.  The one here in this post was suppose to be a ‘trial and error’ bag.  lol  It turned out well but its not padded enough for my liking.  I am going to give that one to my mother when for her meetings.

Today I launched a new blog!  its called Losing It with the Gigis.  My friends and I over at the Guild are starting a weight loss challenge with ourselves.  Please join us if you like!  :)  Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today my father is 57 years young.  :)  I know he had a good day from start to finish.  He was grinning from ear to ear the entire time he was here for his 'party.'  Connor and I baked him a cake and made him cards.  Plus we got him a signed copy of The Vinyl Cafe's latest book by Stuart McLean.  I only took one picture tonight but we had a lovely time.

Day 69

I have been feeling like sewing lately.  Which is odd because I generally despise the sewing machine.  I am one of those people that measure three times, cut once and mess up ten times.  lol  Ok, I am not that bad but I have had my moments.  Picture me if you will, nine months pregnant with Connor, on the kitchen floor of my parents' house at 1am crying hysterically because I messed up a blanket I was making for my boy.  My father walked into the room, turned around and went upstairs.  I believe I was screaming something along the lines of being a complete failure and for him to leave me alone.  lol  I blame it on the hormones.  I have a lot of pregnancy stories.  ;)

ANYWAY!  I found this fabulous tutorial for Crayon Rolls and eagerly jumped into it today.  I made TWO!  My friend's little girl is having a birthday on Sunday so I made one for her and one for her baby brother.  He is still too young for crayons but there is always next year for him to use it.  :)

This is the first one I made so it's kind of messy.

She loves Disney Princess so I bought her some of the crayons and made the roll to match in colors.

I am planning on making some more tomorrow.  Connor has requested a Spiderman one to match his room.  I might go to my mother's to make some.  She has a serger so it will be a great excuse to play.  ;)

My 365 for yesterday...  We like movies.  Can ya tell?  This is a small section.  We buy them on sale from our local video store second hand.  Great deals.

Day 68

Today is my third anniversary of digital scrapbooking.  :)  That makes me happy.  Its officially my longest obsession. 

SCORE!!!

Score, its what I yell when I make a FABULOUS purchase!  Connor's birthday is coming up in May and he wants a Batman theme party!  Batman, I can do Batman!  I really like planning parties.  I try to be creative, while saving money, and making it fun for the kids.  For Connor's first birthday I did nothing.  Really.  We had a few family and friends to the house for cake.  For his second party?  Momma went ALL out!  We rented a hall and had a carnival theme party.  My friend Courtney and I made a clown costume for her.  I dressed as a mime.  My Dad was the ring master/hot dog vender including bow tie and vending box.  We made balloon animals, Sean did face painting, pin the nose on the clown, piñata, bean bag toss that I made everything for, "heavy man" competition where I made the "weights" with black balloons and a broom handle, etc..  LOL  It was so much fun!  Courtney and I even made the cake!  It was a clown head.  The hair was cotton candy, the nose was a lollipop.  Very cool party.  :)  He was sick.  He always seems to be sick on his birthday. 

We had a Bob the Builder party once, a SpongeBob once, a Cars themed party with everything related to cars and racing, we went out to a Fun House for one where the kids could plan on these giant toys.  Each room had its own theme including massive bouncy tents, virtual golf, video games, etc..  I cant remember some of them. I remember last year we had a Transformer party.  Oh man it was fun!  I got a bunch of games off of the Internet.   We played pin the logo on the Transformer.  Scavenger hunt for "the cube" which was filled with goodies, piñata,  Transformer cake....lots of fun stuff.  The kids had a blast.

This year Sean and I are making each child their own Batman capes in place of treat bags.  They will be getting lots of treats at the party and from the piñata, so they wont be missing any sugar!  I headed into the city with my mother to buy some fabric because she said the store was having a sale!  What a DEAL we got!  I will have to share when I am done planning.

We got over nine yards of black "cape" material, 6 yards of ribbon, three yards of miscellaneous fabric, and like 30 pieces of felt for FIFTEEN DOLLARS!  *chin drops*  Can you imagine the giddiness I felt??  When we got to the car I started yelling at Sean to drive away like the lady in the Ikea commercial.  lol

I have been scrapping!!  With this month's Guild kit, Remember This.  My niece Deliah...

This one also uses my Wonderful You word art.

Inspired by SoBlessed's layout, Dada.  Brush by mimi.

Project 365!

Day 67

Connor asked me to make him a pillow case with the fabric he bought last month.  He loves it.  :)  Such a long post today...

Fun in the Kitchen

Tonight after supper Connor asked what we could have for a snack.  Well, I didnt have anything ready so I thought we might be able to throw something together.  So we worked together and made some peanut butter bars.  They actually turned our pretty good.  They are clean and gluten free.  :)  Connor originally wanted to call them Brown Balls but I pointed out that they arent balls.  SO we came up with Bear Bars because bears like peanut butter and honey.  ;)

Bear Bars

1 cup of all natural peanut butter

1 cup of honey

1 tbsp of baking soda

1 egg and 2 egg whites beaten

Mix together in a bowl, spread on a cookie sheet and back in a preheated oven at 350C for about 10-15 minutes.

Variations

On some of the batter I tossed on some walnuts.  On another area I put a thin coating of unsweetened applesauce and some cinnamon.  I LOVE the applesauce part, Sean really like the walnut part and Connor was a fan of the plain ones.

 

I am doing so badly on my 365 photos these last two weeks.  I missed another day.  Ack.  I promise I will do better.  On Friday I left my house at 8:30am, without a camera, and did not make it back home until noon on Saturday.  Things were hectic and the last thing on my mind was taking photos.  :(

Day 64

Sean is getting annoyed with me taking all of these late night photos of him.  lol

Day 65

I was feeling creative on Sunday so I painted this.  I never said I was a good painter!  This is going to be my business card design I think, with my web address on the backside.  I also said I wanted to do a version that says, "I shoot people for a living."  My mother literally reacted with HORROR so I am definitely going to do it.  ;)  My father thought it was a great idea and made a few mafia related jokes.

Day 66

One day last week we were walking to school when this dog came out of nowhere and started walking with us.  He walked all the way to the school with us and then disappeared.  Connor asked where he was today and SURPRISE he came!  He showed up when we were almost home and followed us tot he house.  He even came up on the step so I grabbed a quick shot.  Aint he the cutest?

Have a good one...

We may not be big, but we are small.

Last night Mr. Casey and I headed out to the local theatre to watch a show.  His sister gave us tickets to see The Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean for Christmas and last night was the night.  When she called and asked me if I thought it was a good gift idea, I responded with, "I am SURE that SEAN will LOVE it."  She offered to get me something else and I said that was silly, of course I would go with him.  Who is Stuart McLean? Well, he is a lovely man who tells this beautiful life stories on the CBC radio.  Sean has literally spent hours sitting in his car and listening to them.  I am a bit of an antsy person and it bugs me to sit in one spot just listening.  I have listened to a total of ONE full story.  Until last night that is!  I am SO SO SO glad that I went with him.  It was such a perfect evening.  There were stories that made us laugh, nod in understanding, smile and shake our heads and even one that literally brought the audience to tears.  It was an amazing feeling.  Mr. McLean said he liked it because it felt as if we were all sitting together in someone's living room and just talking.  You know what?  He was dead on.  Such a warm, cozy and inviting atmosphere.

A terrific surprise was the musical entertainment.  Between each story there was a little musical interlude.  Mr.  McLean really knows how to put a show together!  The first musical act was a man named Matt Anderson who seriously sent chills down my spine.  WOW!  That man rocked the stage.  He first sang, Aint No Sunshine, and it was the best version I have ever heard.  Amazing.  Such a doll too!  I talked to him after the show, he signed a CD for us.  A man said he had a voice like honey, I concur.  He just recently won two ECMAs for Best Male Vocalist and Best Blues Album.  So deserving...

The second musical act just stole my heart.  Her name is Meaghan Smith (pronounced MEE-GAN) and she is the coolest chick around.  I talked to her after the show as well and just wanted to take her home with me.  She has this vintage chic appeal to her.  We bought her CD as well and its just lovely.  Its fun, funky and fresh.  Next month she will be touring with K.D. Lang which is exciting!  She is going to be a big star some day, I am sure.  Plus, she has a bowler hat.  I asked Sean if I could get away with one and he said no.  :(  Makes me sad.  Anyway, she only lives 5 hours from here so I am hoping we get to see her again soon.

(I borrowed this photo from a music site)

Tonight they had a second show and I walked back up in the FREEZING cold to get a book signed for my Dad.  His birthday is next week and I thought it would be something he would enjoy.  I was talking to Mr. McLean, he signed the book for me, and he said that they will be back in two years.  Sean, Dad and I will be there with bells on.

Some of my 365 photos for this week...

Day 60

My smoothie!  Yummy!

1 cup of frozen fruit (raspberry, strawberry, blueberry and black berry)

2 TBSP of plain yogurt

1 cup of OJ

Sprinkle of Flaxseed

Day 61

Me....we were leaving for the show last night and I snapped this.  I actually took a picture of Connor for yesterday but its on his camera and I couldnt be bothered to find it.  ;)

Day 62

Connor said that supper was "Awesome."  He seems like he really enjoyed it.  He ate the whole thing without complaint.  Usually he thinks that supper is a negotiation.   One more bite of this, two more of this and none of this.  Yeah, no.  Tonight we had a hot hamburger and veggies. Hot hamburger was one open faced with whole wheat bread, gluten free gravy and extra lean ground beef.  Mashed potatoes and carrots.  Nice.  I am now down 16lbs.  :)

A Beautiful Mess

Today is a beautiful mess.  No other way to describe it.  It is PLUS SEVEN outside my door and that is amazing.  The snow and ice are melting which is WONDERFUL but at the same time creates a complete mess.  I walked on a sidewalk today!!!!  They are still there under all the mess!!!  lol  There is mud and slush everywhere to be seen.  This morning I went for my run and by the time I was back home I was covered from head to toe in mud and water.  From running through it, to being splashed by cars as they passed, I was  looking like a monster from the swamplands.  It was not enjoyable.  Nope, not enjoyable.  I was happy for the warmth but not so happy about the mess.  I guess I just cant be satisfied.  lol

I read this quote on a blog today and thought, WOW, thats so me.  I can learn from this quote.

Souza : For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. This perspective has helped me to see there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So treasure every moment you have and remember that time waits for no one.

I think I will scrap a layout today with that as my inspiration.  Speaking of which, last night was our usual Monday evening chat at the Guild.  We spoke about using a sketch as inspiration.  Every month I create a sketch and this is the one for March. 

Here is the layout I created using the sketch.  :)  The kit is For Mellisa, a charity kit.

If you feel inspired, please use this sketch to create a page and let me know.  :)  I would love to see it.  If you want, you could even post it in the Guild Gallery where you will receive lots of love and post a link in the challenge thread so we dont miss it.

A few 365 photos and I am outta here!

Day 51

This is where it would have gone if I had taken it.  Oops.  First one I missed.

Day 52

Connor out playing in the snow.  He was rather annoyed that I made him stop so I could snap a photo.  ONE PHOTO.  Kids.

Day 53

Ya gotta use gusto when fighting plaque!!  lol  Connor brushing his teeth before bed.

Day 54

Oops, I missed this one two.  THATS TWO!  Oh man...

Day 55

Dressed up to go to church with Nana.  Apparently ties are nooses!  ;)  Did I not do a horrible job on that knot?

Day 56

It was so late and we were so tired.  *yawn*

Day 57

 

Say hello to Shalako. Shalako is my parents' dog and he is getting crazy in his old age.  He just turned 9 in January and is slightly loopy.  For instance, he will follow me around barking but when I go to pet him, he runs and hides under the bed.  Dont believe me?  Here's the proof!

Barking at me....

Hiding under the bed...

Like I said, the dog is a little loopy....

Day 59

The thumbtacks I made in yesterday's post. 

Hope you have a good day.  Oh and remember that the Guild is having a photo contest with almost $1000 in prizes.  Contest sponsors include The Guild, Vinnie Pierce, Lori Davidson, Phoung Ton, Viva Artistry, Theresa Hernandez, and more!  So stop by with your favourite baby/pet photos and you never know, you might win!