February 2016 Tag

Good thing we have an extra day this year...or I wouldn't have completed my February tag for Tim Holtz "12 Tags of 2016"...and I want to complete them all this year.
Here is how my tag turned out...so different from Tim's...and so different from what I started with.

Tim is revisiting past techniques this year.
Funny thing is the techniques he has been sharing so far, have been ones I have not done before, as I missed a year here and there.
The one technique I thought was interesting was to use distress stain and ink up your stencil, then flip the stencil on the tag to transfer the ink to the tag.
I do not like how mine turned out...but no worries, I will save this tag for another month, October maybe since it looks like blood splatter, lol.

So I went a whole different route.
I also thought his technique to sprinkle embossing powder to embossing paste was a pretty cool idea as well...so lets see how this one turned out, lol.
I didn't want to fill in all of the hearts with embossing paste, so used sticky notes to mask them off.

To be able to see my exact placement, I held it up to the light....looks pretty good to me :)

They turned out nice a crisp..perfect!

Now when Tim Holtz warns you about what NOT to do during a technique...my advice, Listen, lol
I have done this many times and many times I get the same result, why....because I am impatient, lol.
I was to sprinkle the embossing powder to the embossing paste and let air dry...not dry it with my heat gun.
But being the rebel that I am thought...what the heck, whatever happens happens.
Yup, the embossing paste bubbled, lol.
Which I am fine with, now I have puffy gold hearts.

As much as I like the crisp gold on the black, I thought it was a bit plain, even when I added my other elements.
So I decided to use some white ink to stamp some text.

Then I forgot to take photos of the rest of the process, lol.
So here are some close ups of the completed tag.

This here may be my favourite part of the tag.
Love all of these metal embellishments.
The game piece spinner and screw thingy are from Tim Holtz, not sure where I picked up the heart locket, but isn't it so pretty :)

One last look at my tag for this month.

I didn't do a video for this tag as I have a pretty nasty cold.
I didn't think listening to me cough, sniffle and sneeze would make for a good video, lol.

I hope you were all creative today :)

Tracy :)

Heather's Birthday Card

I made a birthday card for my daughter's birthday today :)
When I told her I had to make her a card, she requested I use "one of the girls I like with the straight hair and stripped stockings"
So she picked out the image, and which colours I was to use, lol.

Here is a better photo of the coloured image as the photo above, seems kind of washed out.

I haven't coloured with my Copics in such a long time...and I can tell.

Here is the inside of the card :)

I should share a photo of my beautiful birthday girl :)

I find it so hard to believe she is 25 today...where has the time gone?!

This is a very rare photo of Heather as she Never wears make up.

But this was from her sister's wedding, so she let them doll her up.

One of my (many) goals this year is to join more challenges...which I am failing at by the way.

So before starting this card, I went looking for some sketch challenges and found this fun one from My Favourite Things :)

I hope you all have a very Creative Day :)

Tracy :)

It's Chilly in here

I woke up this morning with the house feeling a bit chilly.

But came to the conclusion that I wasn't wearing my slippers and the heat should go on soon.....until it didn't. 

Turns out our furnace quit and we needed a new one. 

Unfortunately, they can't install it until tomorrow. 

So to warm up the house I did some baking

Banana nut bread and banana bread with chocolate chips.

I have an area behind the furnace and water heater that was my office storage/sewing area. 

But it has turned into our storage of cr@p area. I have started cleaning it out for quite a while now (a bit embarrassed on how many times I've started this area...even did a couple of videos)

So when they took out the furnace, I took almost everything out of there. 

I was pretty embarrassed when they came to check the furnace. I didn't know they were going to go back there...it was hoarder full.

I put all of the cr@p in the rec-room where I hold my Friday Night Scrapbooking evenings. 

So I have until Friday night to get it all decluttered and organized. 

Look no furnace. 

We have 4 small heaters going non-stop upstairs and 2 wall heaters downstairs. 

Hoping to have a warmer day tomorrow. 

Tracy :) 

Scrap 4 Heart Crop

Never a dull moment when we are all together :)
This years theme for the crop was Tropical....and my friends like to take it to the next level...and we did, lol.
How cute are these aprons...I mean our bod's, teehee.
We started with the shenanigans in the early morning....I guess the girls like my coconuts ;)

Here I am trying my selfie stick again...I can never find the button on this thing.
Here is my good friend Debbie and I.

Look at these kissy lips, lol.
They were chocolates, but we can play with our food...right, lol
This is my friend Denise and Lynne :)

Okay....now it is time to get to work....but don't worry, we still had a lot of laughs :)

Awwww....time to pack up and say good-bye :(

Time sure flies when your having fun.

I have been going to this event for 6 years now.

I have gone when it was my husbands birthday, or on our Anniversary...but this year it was a little later in the month, so I didn't miss anything :)

As much as I love going to this event, as it is special to me as the Heart & Stroke foundation puts it on...this year it wasn't up to par with the past years.

Some of the ladies I had chatted with, were very disappointed with it this year and are having second thoughts on going next year.

We only have 3 crops here in my city a year (besides the ones I put on) and I want to support them so they will keep putting them on.

I will be going again next year, as well as all of my friends...no matter where we are, we always have a great time :)

I hope you all have a very Creative Day.

Tracy :)

Loving my planner....again

Another week is almost done.

I know now why so many planner junkies love digital printables!!

I found these free digitalis from PomPlanner and love them.

These are the only planner stickers that fit my DayTimer. 

Mind you, I didn't have sticker paper, or a machine to cut these out. 

I had to cut them by hand and stick them on with my adhesive.

I love the look!!!!

I hope you all have a very creative day today :)

Tracy :) 

Crafty Fun

I have been creative all day today :)

Wayne had some dental work done, so we watched Jericho most of the day. 

I grabbed a bunch of crafty supplies, set myself up on (and around) the couch and crafted all day. 

What have I been crafting all day, you may be wondering.....goody bags/envelopes for my crafting friends for a 12 hour crop we are attending on Saturday. 

Now to figure out what to put in them?

I hope you all have a very creative day. 

Tracy :)

Happy Valentine's Day

Today is Valentines day, but Wayne and I are more excited about the new episode of the Walking Dead!!!
With that in mind, here is the Valentines Day card I made my honey ;)

Wayne surprised me this morning with some flowers and chocolate.
He isn't big on flowers...jewellery, yes, flowers not so much.
I was pretty surprised when I saw him come in with flowers today.
He told me, I figured it has been about 28 years since I last gave you flowers, I thought it was due time, lol.
Actually the first time he had given me flowers was when he proposed and the ring was in one of the roses.
He has got me flowers a couple of times in our 33 yrs together, but today's flowers surprised me more then when he proposed to me, lol.

I hope you all have a wonderful and creative Valentines Day :)
We are having a Walking Dead marathon before the new episode starts....perfect day!!

Tracy :)

Family Brunch.

Monday is Family Day here in Canada.

I was going to have the family over for brunch.

Kristy has to work on Monday, so we decided to have our family brunch today :).

Kristy made this yummy French toast bake. It tasted more like a dessert, yummy. 

We also had pulled pork buns with coleslaw, tortellini tomato soup and fruit salad. 

But the best part was having those around me that I love. 

Hope you all have a creative day :)

Tracy :) 

Inking Embossing folders

Here is a card I had made for a swap I was in.

I had seen this technique where you ink up one side of the embossing folder, and then run it through your embossing machine.
The ink transfers to your paper, where the ink was placed and where there is no ink, it says the colour of the paper used.
In this instance I inked the de-bossed side of the embossing folder.
I don't think my embossing folder was deep enough and some of it flowed to the parts that I didn't want colour...the trees.
This took me a few tries to get it to where I liked the look.
I then added more colour with my water colour pencils.
Lastly I added a deer die cut and the greeting.

I hope you all have a very Creative day :)

Tracy :)

Pancake Tuesday!!

Kristy wrote a note on our memo board to remind us all of what we were to have for dinner tonight :)

In this house we love love love Finn Pancakes...and not just because my husband is Finnish...it's because they are delicious.
They are so thin and I love when the edges are a bit crispy too.
See how thin they are.
Heather made the strawberry sauce..yummy.

Here is how I prepare my pancakes.
Usually I enjoy my wild (handpicked by me) blueberries.
But today I cut up a banana and put some inside the pancake before I rolled it up.
Then I added some whip cream, more banana some strawberry sauce and lastly a drizzle of maple syrup :)
Okay, its more of a dessert than a dinner...but whatever, lol.

Did you enjoy a yummy pancake today?
I hope you all have a very creative day :)

Tracy :)

Its a Haul Post.

Okay, are you ready for this.....my shopping from our 5 day adventure.
I know we were celebrating Wayne's birthday and our 28th Wedding Anniversary....but you know, we love to shop when we go away.
We stayed in Tofte at the Bluefin Resort, but also drove to Duluth a couple of times.
So here we go!!!!!!!

1st stop was Michaels.
We do have a Michael's here in town, but their prices here are over priced...plus everything I bought here was on sale!!!
I did use my 40% off coupon on one of the stamps though ;)

Then off to Dollar Tree :)
One thing I love about Dollar Tree in the US, is that everything really is a dollar.
Our dollar store, Dollarama, not everything is a dollar..you have to keep your eye out, as many products are way more than a dollar.

We also traveled across the bridge to Superior, where there was another Dollar Tree :)
Isn't that little purse/tote cute!!!
I really don't need another tote, but this is a nice size to just carry a book or my journal and a pen around when I will have to wait somewhere...plus it is so cute :)

Hobby Lobby haul :)
I know, I know, I don't need any more paper.
I will never use up all of the paper I have, no matter how long I live......but with all of these paper companies closing down, I think I need to stock pile a little bit more, teehee.

I do like my dies...I don't use them nearly as much as I should...but I do like them ;)
Wayne convinced me that I needed this match box die.
I know how to make one without the die, but this will be easier, when I ever do decide to use it.

At the last minute I remembered I wanted to check and see if there was a set of coloured pencils in some skin tone colours, because the 75 set I have, does not have any good flesh colours.
I did notice that they had a flesh tone in the water colour pencils as well :)
I had to really look at the price as some of the same exact coloured pencils were a dollar more.
I think they were new stock and the price increase was applied, but I bought all of these for the cheaper price :)
I needed a treat...we can't forget to fuel our bodies as we shop ;)

Now on to Target.
We had Target in Canada, but they pulled out last year.

I picked up this planner for Kristy as she took an interest, when Ashley and I worked on ours.
I had asked her if she wanted one, but she didn't think she would use it.
But when I saw this one and it was under $5.00, so if she didn't use it, it wouldn't be a huge investment gone to waste.
I have to say, she has worked on it the last 2 days and is really enjoying decorating it up :)
I can't tell you how happy this makes me...2 out of my 3 daughters enjoys planning with me :)

Still at Target :)
I knew Ashley would love these tumblers...as well as everything else I bought and she nabbed either half of it, so what I was going to give her as her BDay gift, lol.
But she gave me a new pair of boots that didn't fit her right...so I think we are even ;)

I had to run back into Target, as I needed to get something besides chocolate covered pretzels for Heather.
She is enjoying those adult colouring books...I bought my girls some for Christmas.
I also bought them all a package of pencil crayons...but Heather is the artist of the family and even though there were 3 different shades of greens in the smaller pack, she said there weren't enough shades.
I suggested she use my Blicks colouring pencils, but she didn't want to as she knew how much they cost...which didn't matter to me if she took an interest in colouring.
So I picked up this set of 50 for her and hope there are enough different colours for her in here...if not, I hope she will use mine.

When we were over in Superior, I wanted to run into Walmart for my Cream Horn pastries, as they seem to be one of the only Walmart's I have ever seen them at.
But of course since I was in the store, I might as well check out the craft section ;)
I found these pocket cards to be fun...as they will apply to the not to perfect days, lol.

Also well we were in Superior, I had to check out Fabric Works.
I love paper crafting, fabric and wool/yarn...and this place has it all :)
Sadly they are only going to carry wool/yarn and are discontinuing their fabric and paper crafts sections of the store.
They did have all of the paper crafting and fabric on sale, but still sad they had to do this.

A couple of visits to both Wayne's and my favourite store Barnes and Nobel.
I picked up this book by Janet Evanovich...I have read so many of her books in this series, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember which book was the last one I read.
Good thing you really don't need to read them in order (even though it bothers me that I may have missed a couple).
I knew I was going to finish the book I was reading on our drive, so I needed another one to read on the way home :)
The note books are a set of 3....I honestly think I have them already.....but one can never have to many notebooks ;)

I bought another MiquelRius for my Fauxbonichi journal as well as a coiled notebook with the same cover as the sewn notebooks above.
I also picked up this book for Wayne as well as another one I didn't get a photo of.

Thats it, thats all :)
Now the fun part...or not so fun part..is putting all of these supplies away.
Not so easy to do when my room is a mess and I need to reconfigure the whole room and how I am storing all of my supplies.

I hope you all have a very Creative Day :)

Tracy :)

Happy Anniversary to Us

Today Wayne and I celebrated our 28th Wedding Anniversary.
We have been together for over 32 years....since I was 16!!!
Who knew that at such a young age, I could make such a smart decision ;)
Wayne hates to get his photo taken, on those rare occasions that he does...these are usually the types of photos I get, lol.

Here is a better one...Ashley took it last Thanksgiving.

I brought some supplies with me on our week adventure, so I made this Anniversary card here :)
I tried to get Wayne to make mine as well....but there was no way he would.
Which I found odd as he always does what I tell him to is creative....but I guess he doesn't think paper crafting is "manly" enough for him, lol.

We enjoyed Red Lobster for dinner tonight....yummm.

I hope you all have a very Creative Day :)

Tracy :)

Just for Me

Wayne and I went out for a delicious lunch today to celebrate our week long adventure :)
We only go to this restaurant once a year and for the last few years, they haven't had my favourite dish on the menu :(

The chef actually escorted us to our table and we started chatting.
I had asked him why they don't have my favourite dish on the menu.
It was a 1/2 chicken in a lingonberry sauce.
He explained why and as sad I was, I understood.
I suggested in the future...maybe just use a chicken breast instead of the full 1/2 chicken.
He suggested we come back again at dinner and he will serve me up my favourite dish.
After explaining that this will be our last time here this year...he told me to order the chicken, and he would make it special just for me.
So I did.

Here is a closer look at what he created for me :)
It is exactly what I used to order..but with a chicken breast on a lightly toasted bun.
I have to say I wanted to cry, it was so good.
Actually it may have been better than the dish I used to get and more to my portion size :)
Thank you Kevin....you Rock!!!
You not only made me smile today, you also made me feel so special.

I also got a side with dish with this meal so ordered their wild rice and duck chowder.
I have never had wild rice with duck...chicken, yes, but not duck.
It was good :)

Now that I made your mouth water and your taste buds long for these meals...I will end my post, teehee.

I hope you all have a very Creative Day :)

Tracy :)