I love punches - and have a nice collection of them. I backed the punched out flower on this card with silver metallic paper, which of course doesn’t show up in the picture. It gives the card a bit of bling and opulence! The background is stamped with a Stampin’ Up background stamp and the Happy Easter is by PrintWorks.

On a side note … have you heard of “The Ride to Conquer Cancer“?  This is a 200 km bike journey in the Rockey Mountains, June 27 & 28 2009. My son and his friends are going to participate in it, so are collecting sponsor donations to benefit the cause. They each have to raise $2500 to participate - so every little bit you can contribute will help. Remember what a worthy cause this is! I am so proud of these young men, undertaking something like this to help others. I wish I could give you a direct link to their team, but the site doesn’t seem to allow that.

Follow the above link to the main site, then click on Alberta below the main image. It may take a few seconds for the provinces to show up.  On the left side, under “Welcome Visitors”, click on the DONATE button. (I’m trying to hotlink these just in case they start to work - try clicking directly on the DONATE link before you go to the main site link and see).

You will need to “Search for Participant” — type in   SHAUN AICKEN   and you will get to his ‘page’. Their team is Team Rainbow Trout. :-)  If you click on the bright yellow “Sponsor Shaun Aicken” button that will take you to where you can make your donation.Thanks so much for taking the time to read this, and hopefully contribute to helping defeat the disease. I will be adding this to many of my posts between now and June, to help Team Rainbow Trout meet their goal and participate in the “Ride to Conquer Cancer“.

 Thanks for stopping by today!

My Mom & Dad ordered a special ‘first birthday’ card for Shae, so this is what I came up with. The little babe - a stamp from Stamp Oasis - is one I’ve had for years and years. It is just too cute, and can be coloured to resemble the little one you are sending it to! I used my Copics to add the colour, My Nestabilities for the oval and scalloped oval dies, and the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder for the white textured layer. Pale Pink polka dot ribbon finishes the ‘dot theme’.  (Balloons on the envelope are by Stampin’ Up).

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It’s snowing again. There is at least 4 inches of the white stuff and it’s coming down like crazy. Looks like early January out there - the mountains are nowhere to be seen because of the low clouds and it’s this cold grey light. Ug. I am SO ready for Spring.

I spent yesterday fighting with (and finally winning!!) my bread machine. I tried a recipe that came with the machine - Chocolate Peanut Butter Rolls - but they didn’t rise at all AGAIN. I have yet had a roll recipe work and I was bound and determined to. An online tip was to put the dough back in the machine with some quick-rise yeast. Since I had nothing to lose at this point I tried it - and added some warm water just to be safe. They did rise a bit, and I made them up. Fresh out of the oven they were OK, but this morning they look like chocolate hockey pucks. :-(  Maybe the city birds will like them?

Then I spent some time in the allrecipies.com site, and there were a couple of dinner roll recipes that were hopeful. Finally I narrowed it down to one and fired up the machine. For the 3rd time yesterday. At 10pm … we had hot, wonderful dinner rolls! Sheesh.  At least I now have a recipe that I know works, so I can make some fresh buns for our Easter dinner.

Onto today’s post - sweet Shae is turning ONE!!!  Yup - did that first year go by fast or what? This is the card I made for her, since we couldn’t attend her birthday party.

I used various pink and yellow cardstock and scrapbook papers (that center stip is a lightly patterned yellow one, not peach as it shows on my monitor). The bear is Bow Bear - an old retired set from Stampin’ Up. I also have Button Bear … bought them when I saw they were being discontinued. I love the old fashioned look to these teddies, and the party hat & balloon are from the Button bear set. Coloured with Copic markers, some light chalking and a few dabs of glitter for the birthday princess.

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I do have a few more pages finished on our Mexico album, but I want to post some Spring/Easter cards first. I made these last year, while I was in a Spring mood. The PSX tulip stamp was coloured with chalks, and glitter glue added … but I’d like to use that image again with my new Copic markers! The embossed background was done with my Cuttlebug, and the tags were cut out using my Wizard. Each card has a different tag on it.

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Well I managed to re-do the rest of my “beach vacation” themed kits into smaller zips, so to celebrate I’m putting them all into the Nifty 99 this weekend at E-scapeandscrap!! Yup - each kit will be available for just 99 cents; the sale runs from midnight Friday until midnight Sunday. Enjoy!!

First up — my Tropical Breezes Digital Scrapbooking kit. One of my very favourites — I use the backgrounds and butterflies a LOT for other layouts and card designs!

And since I kept creating items for the kit after it was in the store, there is a Tropical Breezes Add-On kit!

I made this To The Sea Digital Scrapbooking Kit after a cruise we took …

Then I realized I needed some softer colours, that wouldn’t compete with some of the ‘gray sky’ photos that can happen when you visit the ocean so I made To The Ocean Digital Scrapbooking Kit …

Here is a card I made using the above kit … I printed it out on my favourite glossy photo paper (Professional Glossy Inkjet Photo Paper by Kirkland - available at Costco).

Thanks for stopping by today - and have a wonderful weekend.

People must take as many pictures of the iguanas at Tulum, as they do of the ruins. These three were quite small compared to some of the ones we saw.

Credits - Template by Misty Cato.  Backgrounds from my “To the Ocean” kit; Plastic Waves from my “Tropical Breezes” kit; I took one of the iguana pics and applied some different filters to get the sketched look at the top. I love Photoshop.

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When the guide finished with us at Tulum, we were free to roam for a bit. Gregg went down to the beach - and met up with some of the other people from the Butler convention.

Credits - Template by Misty Cato.  Backgrounds, flower, & word-art from my “To the Ocean” kit; Plastic Waves from my “Tropical Breezes” kit; Leaves from my “To the Sea” kit.

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Yikes - I am sure late posting today! Tuesday mornings I spend here with 2 of my friends - and we work in my studio. We scrapbook, make cards, talk and laugh - and today we celebrated Jane’s birthday! This is the card I did for her…

I have a number of these hilarious Art Impressions people - and colouring them with Copic markers makes me want to get them all out to play with again. I added a red ‘jewel’ to the ring, and the background was done with chalks. I used a Cuttlebug to emboss the green layer, and inside it says “Age is just Mind over Matter.  If you don’t mind, it don’t matter”. 

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Sometimes you have to let the pictures speak for themselves. I tried this first page with frames, embellishments, decorative background papers, subtle background papers and was just not happy with it. When I deleted all those layers and only had the photo left on the white background, I realized THAT was the look I wanted for this spread.

We took a group tour to Tulum - there were 2 buses of us from the convention. It was a GORGEOUS day - and the ruins were something to see.

Credits:  Photo Corners - my “Tropical Add On Pack” @ E-scapeandscrap.net; Template - from my personal collection; Font - “A Bite”.

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Well it’s snowing like CRAZY in the mountains today. There is at least 6 inches … and it’s still coming down. Crazy! At least it’s not too cold (minus 6). Hard to believe we were sitting outside on our deck yesterday enjoying the sunshine.

We had a couple of issues with our hotel room in Mexico. First - there were two DOUBLE beds. Second, there was no balcony — and we really enjoy sitting outside. We did end up changing rooms when the convention part of the week was over, as lots of rooms opened up then.  The top left photo shows the ferrys that were waiting to shuttle the cruise passengers back over to Cozumel.

Credits:  Background, shells and starfish - my “Hawaiian Paradise” digital scrapbooking kit; Bracket background, journal block, and white paper for photo mat - my “To The Ocean” kit; Palm Tree Overlay my “Altered Fragments Tropical Brushes and Digital Stamps“; Green paper for photo mats - my “To The Sea” kit; Sand paper for photo mats - my “Tropical Add-On Pack“. Font for journaling is “CK Tall Type”.

Thanks for stopping by today!