CMK DT Call

(Warning to my non-scrappy readers...feel free to skip this post...no kiddie updates here :)). 

Ok, here goes nothing.  I'm officially applying to the CMK DT Call.  I'm being brave and putting myself out there with all the other extremely talented ladies applying.  The assignment was to dig into your stash and create a kit and then, using the items you pulled together, create at least two projects.  Then post the kit and your creations to your blog.  I had a lot of fun with this.  I liked the challenge of pulling together product from different manufacturers and making it work together. So, (holding my breath)...here's my kit: 

Kit Contents: 

3 Cardstock (1 Prism (green), 2 Making Memories (1 black, 1 white))

6 Pattern Papers (4 Basic Grey (Urban Prairie), 1 Heidi Grace, 1 Heidi Swapp)

2 Die Cut Papers (1 Pink Paislee, 1 Creative Imaginations)

1 Transparency (Hambly)

2 Sticker Sheets (Basic Grey Urban Praire elements and alphas)

1 Alphas (Making Memories)

2 Rubons (Glitz and Scenic Route)

Journal spot (Jenni Bowlin)

Bling (Prima, Kaiser, unknown - clear studs)

Blooms (Heidi Grace, Fancy Pants)

Buttons (Fancy Pants)

Ribbon (Pink Paislee, Creative Cafe, unknown - black polka dot)

Chipboard (Maya Road)

And here are my LOs: 

I'm really please with how this LO turned out.  I love the way the rubon birdie peeks out from behind the pic and pattern paper and how the chiboard bird is layered on top.  I used periods from the alphas for my flower centres and did some handstitching in the corners.  I couldn't resist adding all the bling on this fun, girly LO.

I think this LO is really striking.  I love the way the pp circles pop against the neutral LO.  I was originally going to use squares, but I'm glad I decided on circle :) The picture flips up to reveal journaling underneath: 

The journaling reads: 

I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, a niece, a grandaughter, a godmother. 

I am a lover, a peacemaker, a negotiator, a referee, a chauffer, a nurse, a maid, a cook, a waitress, a singer, a story reader, a snuggler. 

I am a reader, a photographer, a videographer, a scrapbooker, a crafter, a baker. 

I am loving, funny, creative, sarcastic, energetic, honest, loyal, emotional, caring, beautiful, a homebody, sentimental, overly protective, a worrier (at times).

Most of all, I am happy to be living the life I am.  I am truly blessed with family, friends, a home, comfort and security.

This LO took on a life of it's own.  It seems I just couldn't stop adding to it.  I love the "miss personality" rubon on the pic!  The transparency was fun to work with and I really love it layered on black CS.  The little bird is just so fun and the touches of bling really finish it off.  The corner was a last minute touch...a  technique I'll probably incorporate into my LOs more :)

A fun LO of Bridget making her "I will NOT smile" face.  She's such a tease already!!  She makes this face a lot when we're trying to get her to laugh.  I really like the touches of bling and ribbon on this one.  And who could resist that cute little face? :)

That's it!  I had so much fun with this :)  Wish me luck!!

One more sleep!!

Not sure about you, but the excitement is sure mounting in this house while we patiently wait for Santa :)  Have a few last minute things to do today, going to make a chili for supper, bake cookies at the McHarg house, have supper with Grammie, Grampie and Uncle Scott, then get the kiddos in their jammies for church tonight.  Then Kevin and I will watch a Christmas Carol which I have yet to see this Christmas!  Can't let the day come without seeing it!

Ok, so I totally did pull the flower off that LO.  I haven't decided what I'm going to do in that space yet so it's waiting for me until after the holidays :)

Here are the promised pics of the gingerbread house (which I might add, no longer exists.  You try keeping 3 boys away from an edible house...yes, I said THREE...have you all met Kevin???).  

Aren't they cute???

I just love the concentration on his face.  He took his task very seriously!

Ok, so those are in bckwards order but I'm typing with one hand while holding a squirmy baby so I'm not fixing them, lol!

And, a few pics of Bridget in her Christmas dress...

Look at that face! Haha!  Yes, quite the little lady!

(Ok, so we relaxed on our strict no touching the tree rule :)).

That's pretty much as good as a picture of the three of them gets! :)

I'm not sure I ever posted this LO.  We played scrap lift tag at Paws.  So, one person created a LO then the next person lifted it, then the next person lifted that lift and so on.  We didn't see all of the LOs until the end, just the one we were lifting.  So, it's kind of like playing telephone tag when you were little and the message gets all change.  It was neat to see the progression of LOs. Anyway, here is mine.  Totally not my normal style, but the girl that I was lifting does a lot of distressing so I tried to bring that though in my LO.

And I have some more exciting scrappy news!  I've been asked to be a Guest Designer at Scraplovers for the month of February.  I'm very excited to get to work with the talented girls on that site.  And my good friend Cindy made their DT!  Congrats, Cindy!!! 

Ok, one last cute Riley story.  Kevin and Riley went out the other day to get lunch at McDonald's and I gather that the conversation went something like this:

Riley: Maybe I can wear gloves to eat so that I don't have to wash my hands after I'm done.  

Kevin: But then you'd just have to wash the gloves.

Riley: If they were magic gloves then we wouldn't have to wash them and they would just clean themselves each night so that they would be clean in the morning.

Kevin: Are there any magic gloves like that?

Riley: No, I guess there's no gloves like that in the whole world.  

Kevin: No, I guess not

**silence**

Riley: Maybe I could use a bag.

Kevin: But then you'd have to wash the bag

Riley: Unless it was a MAGIC bag.

Kevin: Yes, unless it was a magic bag.

 

(Ok, I'm literally LOL as I type that).

There, Uncle Adam, that story was for you.  Merry Christmas!! I know you love Riley's stories :)

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

A LO, a Santa pic, and a gingerbread house story

I'm very sleepy today due to being out late last night scrapping with some friends.  I know I shouldn't do it, but it's just too tempting and fun :)  Thanks for the fun time, girls!!  Here's what I managed to do (ok, so I finished it this morning, but I did most of it last night...).  

I'm still not overly happy with the white flower in the corner of the pic.  I may yet rip it off and try something else.

Here's Bridget's picture with Santa...and you thought the others were bad :)

Poor baby!! It does make me laugh a little though...heehee.  She really is a very happy baby generally for those of you who don't know her very well.  

Today we made a gingerbread house with the boys.  I'm too lazy to upload the pictures right now.  Maybe tomorrow.  But it was fun and the house managed to survive much longer than last year.  It's still together now even!  Imagine.  I mean, if it were a real house there would be large leaks in the roof, lol!  Poor soggy, gingerbread people.  The boys had great fun decorating it though.  Kieran took his task very seriously.  Riley was more concerned with when he would get to eat it (shocking...did I mention that he's his Daddy's boy?).  Pics soon, I promise!

5 more days as Kieran keeps reminding us!

Having fun...

You've probably noticed that I'm having fun playing with my blog :)  Trying to make it a little spiffier, a little cheerier for Christmas!  I'm also typing without my left shift key which is very annoying.  It's broken and tends to fall off (especially when little fingers get at it!).  

Are you all ready for Christmas?  I'm almost there I think.  I did some wrapping last night and should be doing some more now. Especially since Kevin is at the hockey game and all the kiddies are in bed.  But here I sit, playing with my blog instead.  I still can't get the slideshow to work properly with picasa so that's why all of my pics are still old ones.  I might just remove it and put it back in later.  I think I need more technical help from Kevin :)

Riley had his preschool Christmas concert yesterday morning (luckily before the storm hit and they cancelled school at noon).  It was cute.  And, and...he actually did some singing and actions (he's usually adamantly against such things.  He's not shy either so I'm not sure why.  Guess he didn't get that Winchester gene for performing...sorry to let that side of the family down, lol).  It was chaotic with all the parents/grandparents/siblings, but it was a pretty pleasant morning.  The kids had a little party after the concert and Santa even made an appearance.  All the kids got to sit on his lap so that was nice.  No waiting in line for a lousy mall Santa for us!  Bridget wasn't such a fan, but Riley and Kieran went right up to sit with him (I'm sure the bag of candy canes had nothing to do with it...).  I got pics of the boys but our camera died when Bridget sat with Santa.  Another mom took a pic, but I don't have it yet.  You aren't missing out on much though...it's not much of a picture (no fault on the mom's part...just Bridget crying).  But really, I was thinking about it and chatting about it with my friend, Cindy, and what other time of year would you ever just plunk your baby into some strange man's lap???  Umm...NEVER!  So really, I don't blame the poor kid.  Maybe next year we can bribe her with candy!

Ok...I am literally laughing.  This is the first time I've looked at the pics myself and we took FOUR of Riley and this is the best one, believe it or not!  Santa was telling him to wave though.  Next year he should tell him to put his hands down and smile or no presents...then maybe we'd finally get a decent picture.  Now off to look at Kieran's.  LOL, literally...wait til you see this one....

Hmm...maybe I can photoshop him a shirt.  Got a little Britney action going on there, lol!!  It's actually a nice picture other than the belly button.  Probably still the best pic of the three of them.  How sad is that?!

So, preschool is over and the wait for Santa is going strong.  We have a gingerbread house to make on the weekend and I have a few more things I would like to bake.  A bit more wrapping, possibly a teeny bit more shopping and then we're done.  I still can't believe that it's only a week away.  It really doesn't feel like it, though the snow helps a bit. 

We had the DT reveal at Paws on the 15th.  Here are the projects that I made with this month's kit.  

It was a fun kit to work with.  I really loved the Pink Paislee silver rubons!  I still had a couple more things I had wanted to do with it, but life and colds got in the way! 

I also altered a Basic Grey (I laugh when I write this because I know that most of you reading my blog are NOT scrappers...Basic Grey is the name of the manufacturer, though, coincidentally, the tin is ACTUALLY grey as well...ok, I digress) tin that I've had for a couple of years.  I made it to hold handmade cards.  I love the way that it turned out!

Ok, you are probably tired of reading this so I should get off my butt and go do something productive.  Or I can sit here and be lazy and see what Christmas special is on CBC tonight.  Oh, hockey, well that's festive...  Guess I really will have to go find something to do :)  Or maybe I'll just play some more with my blog (yes, I am having too much fun!).

2 weeks...

I can't believe it's only 2 weeks until Christmas.  Thankfully, I have most of the shopping done. Now, just to get the tree up and decorated (and have it stay that way with 3 kids and two cats), wrap the gifts and send out the cards.  I did our Christmas card myself this year.  I basically lifted the design of a fellow scrapper.  You can see Leigh's card here.  I really enjoyed the collage since I can never get a decent picture of my three kids together :)  Here is the card that you may be lucky enough to receive in the mail from us (if I have your address that is...feel free to send it to me if your card doesn't show up, lol).  

The photo shoot was interesting to say the least but I think that it actually went better than last year!

Riley...so many stories always with Riley :)  Today for instance he's been driving me crazy. Honestly, a lot of the time we are just like oil and water.  Well, I'm taking them to get their hair cut later and I told him that he wouldn't get a sucker at the hairdresser if he wasn't good.  He said he didn't want one.  I said, "fine, then no cookie (which we made the other day...oh, that was fun with 3...but I digress) after supper."  He says, "well, today I'm being healthy so I don't want any suckers or cookies or chocolate."  It never matters what I try to take away.  The kid is too "glass half full".  Sigh.  I guess that's a good thing but it makes it very difficult to punish him, lol.

He made up a song last night too.  Heehee.  After we turned on the Christmas lights I hear him singing, "Christmas lights, Christmas lights, I love Christmas lights (repeat)".  He runs into Bridget's room and tells me that he "learned up" a song.  

Me: "You made up a song?"

Riley: "Yup, about Christmas lights."

Me: "What's it called?"

Riley: "I love Christmas lights"

Me: "How does it go?"

Riley: "I don't remember.  Oh. It's not very long. Christmas lights, Christmas lights, I love Christmas lights."

Heehee.  Ok, sometimes he's cute :)  The song actually got longer as the night went on.  Something about all the colours and how he likes to turn them on, etc.  Usually to the tune of jingle bells. 

Kieran is his usual Jekyll and Hyde self.  LOL.  I swear sometimes that he's manic depressive. One minute he's happy as a clam and the next he'll just turn on you and, oh man, is it ever hard to get him out of that mood!  What does work sometimes is looking for his smile.  I'll tell him that he's lost it and then we'll look for it.  It can usually be found in his pocket :)  Well, that works for awhile until he remembers why he was angry and then we're back to square one.

The boys both got their letters from Santa and are getting more and more excited about Christmas.  I only threaten once or twice a day that I'm going to email Santa and tell him to keep their presents :)  It's funny to tell them that Santa is watching and watch Kieran look around for him, lol.   We've been doing lots of fun Christmas-y things like making paper chains and cards and cookies.  

Bridget is her usual happy self.  She's getting more and more mobile.  Still doing her army crawl but every once in awhile she'll get up on all fours and look like she's going to crawl before she drops to her belly again.  It's ok with me.  She can take her sweet time :)  I do enough running around!

A few cute pics: 

I know I have to update my slideshow.  Heck, I need to update the whole blog.  It never has been set up the way that I would like it to be, but I barely get time to write these posts, let alone play around with all the settings.  And, for those of you who can't leave comments, you're just doing it wrong, lol (and I mean that in the nicest possible way :)).  I've had other people do it successfully.  Let me know and I can explain what to do.

Hope you are all having a lovely holiday season!  The countdown is on (as we're reminded every morning when the boys scarf down their cereal so they can have their countdown chocolate!).