My day in pictures

The day started off with a 15 minute quad ride. This is the smooth part of the trail. It is full of rocks and washouts.

To our much loved blueberry patch

Then another15minute ride back to our cottage.

Can you tell I'm smiling here. We didn't think we would get any berries as we missed 2 weekends of picking.

Then to clean the berries of leaves and stems. We picked in the bush so no sand on them. Yeah. 

Lastly to dry and bag them. 

16 generous cups of sweet berries. 

For lunch we started a camp fire for cooking hot dogs, marshmallows and s'mores for lunch. 

Lastly finished the day off with a swim in the lake. Well except for Heather and I. Heather was determined to beat her video game and the cold water killed my knee. Ashley didnt come up this weekend as she is working on her house. Yes that is my finger at the top of the photo lol. 

Lastly I took my 3 mile walk this evening. Watched lightening from the deck and now off for a hot sauna.

I am posting from my phone and notice when I check my blog on my laptop the photos are so big half of it is missing unless I click on the photo. Not sure how to fix that. 

I hope you enjoyed my day in pictures. I hope you had a creative Saturday.

Tracy

Augusts Monthly Tag for Tim Holtz challenge

I did it...just in the nick of time :)
I finished my Tag for August.
If you have been following me, then you know that I have been trying to do all of Tim Holtz monthly tags.
I have done them all, but one month I was a bit late.

For this month Tim was focusing on layered masks, stamps and his distress stain.
I only used 1 out of his 3.
I wanted to focus on his travel theme.
If you know me then you know i love my road trips.
As I lay my head against my pillow last night, thinking of my tag the first thing I thought of was to use an old map for the background.
I used a brown tag for the background and cut the map a tad smaller then the tag.

I used some stickers for the word "Road Trip" and the charm is attached with a fishing swivel.
I cut down a hotel card envelope and added alcohol ink to the actual card key.
If you look close you can see I punched the ticket coupon with today's date ;)

I stamped this old car. It was the closest stamp I had that was close enough to the look of my jeep. Yeah, its a stretch I know ;)
I came across this flair button with a map on it, and thought it pretty cool and added a bit of colour to the tag.

Before I could work on my tag, I had to clean off my desk.
Scary isn't it, lol.
I haven't created down in my craft room for many months. I have been creating at the cottage or upstairs, so my desk has become a dumping ground.
The reason the table cloth is on there is for when I take photos of my projects. I just cover all the nastiness and snap away, lol.
But believe me my desk is all tidy again.....can't say the same for the floor though ;)

I don't want you to go away with that messy desk burnt into your eyes, so here is another look at my tag.
I am happy to say that this tag turned out just how I had planned. And we all know that doesn't happen very often.

Well we are off to the cottage for this long weekend.
I am bringing as much creative supplies as last weekend as I hear it is suppose to rain a lot :(

Hope you all have a creative day and a wonderful weekend. You know I will be posting over the weekend, as I don't think I have missed a day posting since I had started my blog over 3 yrs ago.

Tracy :)

Card Class and idea books

Last night I went to a card workshop put on by a Close to My Heart demonstrator.
You make 5 cards for 5 dollars.
It was a fun evening out and the girl teaching the class was really nice.
These two cards are my favourite out of the 5. I did change these up a bit from her display cards.
For the first one I just changed the top and bottom papers as I liked the darker shade on the bottom.
For the second card, I only put on 3 of the 4 flowers as the 4th covered up my scallops. I also used the other side of the bottom pattern paper as I didn't like the side we were suppose to use.
Yes I am picky and have to change things up.
My friend teased me as the 3 flowers were coloured with copics. One copic colour per flower. My friend knows me well, as she said, You are going to have trouble just using one colour and not shading it, lol.
Honestly I was thinking of adding more shading when I got home....but I will just let it be, lol.

Here are the next 3.
I didn't change too much, except on the "Hello" card I used cream paper for the flower to sit on as opposed to the orangey-red paper she had cut out. I thought the flower stood out more on the cream paper.
The other cards I more or less kept the same.
I also stamped on the envelopes as did all the other ladies.
As you know it isn't my usual type of cards, but enjoyed spending the evening with a friend, getting to enjoy the company of other creative women and it was fun to make some more simple cards :)

The girl that was teaching the class is moving to Germany to teach.
So she was selling off some of her supplies.
When I seen these books I got a bit excited as I have had my eye out for them for a while.
I know they are very pricey (if you can even find them).
She sold each book for $10.00 each.
My girls laughed at me when I told them, as they were just picturing me grabbing them up before anyone else could get their fingers on them, lol.

Onto My Day:
Spent the whole day with Heather and Kristy.
Did some errands together. Then Heather wanted to try out a new recipe for supper.
Then Kristy did a bit of baking.
I heard Heather ask when is the next time we are going to visit Ashley, because she misses her :(
A few hours later I get a text from Ashley asking if she could come over tonight.
I told her of course and you never have to ask, this is your home.
Wayne and I are surprised that Kristy and Heather didn't go have a sleep over at Ashley's tonight :)
As Heather doesn't have to work tomorrow. Mind you Ashley does.

Hope you all had a very creative Thursday :)

Tracy :)

Last Project for LBBS Design Team

Today is my last DT day for Little Blue Button Stamps.
My 6 month term with them is up....hard to believe 6 months came and went so fast.
Mind you it is hard for me to believe this is the last week of August :(
So for today's project I actually did 2 cards.

On this card I used the adorable image called Miss Lilly Sakura.
When my daughter Ashley went to Toronto a few weeks ago, she went to China Town and picked me up (not only my Fish Flops :) but also these red bags.
I thought they would go well with this image.

Here is a closer picture of this cutie.
She has flowers drawn into her hair, but I punched some flowers out of paper and adhered them to her hair and the corner of the card.

A closer look at these pretty bags that Ashley bought me. I also made a tag to put into the bag for an added note to the recipient.

Here are the Copic colours I used on this image. Because I paper pieced her dress I didn't use that many colours :)

Lastly the inside of my card.
I like the inside to be just as pretty as the outside. I really like this paper with the writing on it. I thought the parasol paper was perfect for this image as well.

I made a second card for today.
Olga (the designer of LBBS) have these girls as a Free digi to practice your colouring or to record some of your favourite hair and skin combinations.
I decided to colour them up and put them on a card.
My daughters like to give flowers to their aunt and I thought they could give her this card as well. I coloured the images up to match my girls daughter's colour :)

Because today is my last DT day for LBBS, I thought I would do a creative walk down memory lane and share all the cards I have made with Olga's images.
Hope you enjoy :)

Wow, there are a whole lot of cards I have made with Olga's images.

If you want to see more of Olga's images, check out LBBS, she creates new images monthly :)
I just want to say Thank you to Olga for asking me to join her DT 6 months ago. It was a pleasure to colour up these adorable images and get to work and become friends with the other DT members :)

Onto My Day:

If you are still with me, lol.

I went to a card class with my friend Debbie. It was through Close to my Heart. We made 5 cards for $5.00. It was fun. 

The lady that was teaching this class, is moving to Germany, so she was selling some of her goodies. I picked up 5 idea books :)

I hope you all had a creative Wednesday :)

Tracy :)

Planner Pages and dinner at Ashley's

I made a couple of cards today, but I can't share them yet as tomorrow is my DT day.
So I thought I would share my planner pages with you.
This week I have used washi tape (are you even surprised, teehee)
I also used these epoxy stickers I bought at Michael's in the $1.50 bin.
I know they are going to be a pain to write on, being raised up from the paper, but this is the last week of August, Can You Believe That!!!!!
And being that it is the last month, I will have a monthly calender in between to next week. So we will see how much it hinders my writing.

Ashley invited her sisters over to her house to watch the new season of one of their shows.
She also invited them and me for dinner. As Wayne worked late tonight, I accepted the offer.
Heather, Kristy and I got to Ashley's house before Ashley got home from work. So I did a few more coats of paint on the trim, Kristy started cooking dinner and Heather hooked up Ashley's xbox.
Heather said that it felt like we needed to do something as every time we are at Ashley's house we are working, lol.
When Ashley came home she said how nice it was to come home from work and have us there to talk to. instead of a quiet house :)

Here is the dinner Kristy prepared for us.
Seasoned chicken with cooked fresh veggies. It was very good Kristy :)

After dinner, Ashley and I got to work putting her shelves back into her upstairs hall closet.

I have no idea how they fit in there before we painted them as I had to shave off the ends of the shelves to fit back into the closet. 

Good thing we left Wayne's hand planer there. Would have been nicer if it was electric ;)

It was so hot upstairs. Finally I realized it would be a lot cooler in the basement and brought my project down there....of course I was almost done, lol.

I left Heather and Kristy at Ashley's to enjoy their show and I went home to feed Wayne some supper. 

But I took a turn to Michaels before heading home and picked up a few goodies for myself ;)

I really like the green washi tape. Even though it is packaged up for Halloween, it is pretty enough to use for any time.

I hope you all enjoyed a creative Tuesday :)

Tracy :)

A mini handmade Smash book Journal

Remember this "Smash-type" book my friend and I made on our creative getaway?
We had some papers and chipboard left over that Debbie wanted to somehow use.
I told her we can make another book (as I had more coils as well), but smaller. This one is 5 3/4x 5 1/2 before I added the binding.
This is such a cute little size and I am really happy with how it turned out.

I coloured up this adorable Gorjuss girl with my Copic markers. The wings I fussy cut out of some paper. I think it may have been Graphic 45 paper.
I made the frame around the girl out of pattern paper that I cut and mitered the corners.

Here are the Copic colours I used to colour up this pretty girl with. As you can see...no wings.

Here are a couple of the inside pages.
When making these albums, I would recommend using double sided, thicker papers as we did here.

Here are both mine and Debbie's books.
I love the title on Debbie's book. Perfect for this background we enjoyed all week while we were away :)

Onto My Day:
I spent most of my day cleaning house.
A friend came for a visit and another one called and chatted with me for a few hours. I guess my friends missed me while I was away and then helping Ashley with her house.
Talk about Ashley's house.
We have been there every night to bring some of her bigger items.
She has been here everyday to either pick stuff up or like tonight, for dinner ;)
I think we see each other more now then when she lived here, lol.

I hope you all have had a creative Monday :)

Tracy :)

Fishing anyone? A card

This is one of the cards I had made on my girls getaway the other week.
Actually this was the first card I had made that week.
I don't know the name of this stamp as it was one of Debbie's.

One fun thing Debbie and I did was follow the same sketch and sometimes used the same image and/or papers. It was so fun :)

At first I was just going to leave the card like this. But thought it was way to plain...even if it will be going to a man...who we all know, don't get as excited about handmade cards as most women do ;)

But like I said, it was too plain.
So I added some colour with my copic markers and paper pieced his pants.
I just coloured over the pattern paper. Which surprised me on how well the colours went on the pattern paper.
On the original sketch they had put these pen strokes around the image. I really liked how they looked on the original card.
I'm not sure if I love the look on mine, but I don't hate it ;)

Here was our inspiration card by Jeanne Streiff
See how nice her pen marks are.














Here is both Debbie and my cards
Even though we used the same image and sketch, they are still different as we didn't use the same papers or colours :)


















Onto My Day:
We left camp early and were home a little after noon.
We then dropped by Ashley's house as she was getting her front steps fixed as they were crumbling.
Wayne's nephew (Ryan Gosling, yes that is his real name, lol) is a brick layer and said he would fix her steps for her.
We also brought her a few little things she could use for her house :)

On our way home, at a red light at the expressway, there was a guy standing at the lights with a sign "Broke, just passing through, anything will help".   Then I see him pull out his cell phone to read a message. Seriously....are you kidding me!  The truck in front of us gave him a $5.00 bill. Then I find out my friend saw the same guy, in the same spot last week. I guess he wasn't passing through, lol.
I really hate when someone takes advantage of good-hearted people.

I hope you all had a creative Sunday.
I am off to take a hot bath to ease my knees.

Tracy :)