Merry Christmas!

For December's club night we were at Chrystal's and did we have a great time! I decided to combine my love of snowmen and glitter into the cards this month. Everyone can use a little glitter in their lives right? :) We decided to forgo pages this month and everyone did cards - because tis the season right!

I also discovered the magic of Picasa this month..... I am in love.....

Advent Anyone?

So perhaps I am a little behind.... So November.... We hauled our butts to Elita's home and settled in for a very loooooooonnnnnngggg night of creating this beautiful advent calendar. We had all seen this in the Occasions Mini and decided that we couldn't live without it in our lives. I put it in a 3D frame just so I didn't squish the beautiful embellishments :)

Sunflowers

Oh Fall..... it is truly my favorite time of year. All the colors, all the crunchy leaves - I love this time of year so much! I am particularily a fan of sunflowers so when Stampin Up! brought out the Sunflower background

stamp I couldn't resist.

This month we were at Monica's in Leduc! It was definitely a great night - I should've popped popcorn to watch Monica, Jackie and Jenn M in action after a few glasses - ahem - bottles of the peach wine ;) What an awesome night! This month Elita also brought her cousin Molly so I am really hoping she joins our silly and crazy and fun group!!

So here are the pics of the creations this month:

Retreat 2011!!!

Retreat Weekend! And what a weekend it was! We retreated to the Lone Pine Ranch (http://www.lonepineranch.ca) and were treated to an amazing weekend of scrapbooking, cardmaking, eating and perhaps partaking in a few glasses (ahem, bottles) of wine. If you have never stayed out at the Lone Pine Ranch and eaten Sylvia's cooking you have missed out! (don't worry there is always next year) There was just the 6 of us there but it was a perfect way to spend a weekend. We shared ideas and laughed for 3 days. What an awesome time with some of my favorite people in the world. Thank you for an awesome weekend! (and a huge THANK YOU to Nancy for being the paprazzi for the weekend).

Here are a few snapshots of us, the cabin, the Wolf Den and a sampling of the fabulous food that we got to eat.....

Something different.....

Hello friends! This month's club night was hosted by our very own Megan (who was extremely tired from flagging but got to leave work "early" so she could hang out with us!). We also had a little crafter join us for club this time around. Jackie brought Addison so those of us who hadn't met her yet could. I am so glad she did because I absolutely love cuddling a new baby. :)

This month I took a step outside our scrapbook pages and card making circle and dabbled in a little idea I got from my Stampin Success magazine called matchbook scrapbooks. They are mini scrapbooks that you make with cardstock and designer paper and embellishments and and and whala - this is what you get (oh and a few shots of us being crafty too - and Chrystal hogging cuddles from Addison):

Summer....

Since it's almost time for our next workshop I should probably blog about our August club night eh! So we went all the way to Andrew this time to see Jenn's new home (WOW - is all I have to say - and Jim had a small cry on the inside when I told him how much room and land they have....). Anyway it was a great summer night to drive out. Shockingly enough we ALL made it out - the whole club! Even Jackie who was quite a few days overdue with her baby - what a trooper! PS the baby was born a day later - I am just going to put it out there that I think we induced her labour.... You're welcome Jackie ;) The lovely ladies of the club also pulled out all the stops and got me a birthday cake! And sang happy birthday - my face was completely red. Thank you girls - you absolutely mean the world to me.

OK so onto some of the inspiration for this month. I think a lot about scrap booking and crafting and ideas. A lot.... I always want to bring new ideas to the girls because trust me if I am bored it's not a good thing.... So this month we did a few techniques between the pages ladies and the cards ladies. For the pages we tried our hand at Quilling! A great way to make your page interesting and fun. Everyone got to see the new Flirtatious Specialty DSP in the catalogue and use it in the projects this month. For one of the cards I had them use folders, embossing powder, Versa Mark ink and the new Newsprint Specialty DSP. Put them all together and just see what we got:

Ingvild Bolme

Right before we left for Slave Lake I had the opportunity to meet and craft with one of the ladies I follow online - Ingvild Bolme (http://www.ingvildbolme.com/). I'm just going to say that she is a ROCK STAR and I am so excited that I got to meet her. Treasured Memories, on the southside of Edmonton, brought her in from Norway to do a few sessions with some of the new paper and products from Prima. I can't begin to tell you all how amazing she is and how much I enjoyed the class that she taught. I never really cared for the new craze of vintage scrapbooking until I tried it with her that evening. I learned so much in that 3 hour session - I can't wait to share in our club nights!

New Favorites

So it's July which means, in Stampin Up! land, it's new catalogue time! (stay tuned because next month I will be using some of the new Designer Series Paper (DSP) and new In Colours). This month we headed to Jackie's place - what a trooper she is - over 8 months pregnant and still stayed up and played with paper :).

I have some new favorites this month - Marina Mist paper and ribbon, new Aqua Painter and Heat Gun techniques and my latest favorite stamp set - Elements of Style. Oh and my latest favorite punch - Petal Card Double Punch. I seriously played with this punch for days.

Here are some of the creations....

SURPRISE!!

So this month we were at Monica's house aaaaallllll the way in LA - that's Leduc, Alberta people. :) It was just a little bit better because our Megan is home! After months of secrecy she surprised everyone on Friday night. When people came down the stairs and saw her standing there it was a grab bag of emotion from mouths hanging down to the ground to tears and lots of hugs all around. There were a few bottles of wine consumed as we had much to celebrate. Also we did a little scrapbooking :)

The new summer mini came out and here are just a few of the samples:

New Stuff!

Oh April!
This month was really fun because we got a sneak peek a few of the new products that are coming out in the new catalogue. We were out at Elita's beautiful home in the country - a great space for all us girls!

Here are the projects we worked on this month:

Spring? Where are you???

OK so this month I got my inspiration for my layouts from one of my favorite stores to visit, particularily on my days when I need a "happy place" or an escape. It's called the Urban Scrapbook - you can check them out here: http://www.urbanscrapbook.ca/. Anyway, the staff there create pages and post them throughout the store. Fabulous ladies there. Anywho, I was wandering through there one day and came across a page that I couldn't get out of my mind so I thought I would create something with Stampin Up! materials and jazz it up to cover 2 pages instead of 1. Combined with this unusually terrible winter I felt that it would be great to pick up our spirits.

As for our cards well the Sale A Bration promotion going on right now has the coolest set (Punch Bunch) that I thought would be a great combination of cards. It covers anything from birthdays to babies. I love the stamp set so much because it matches with some of the punches from Stampin Up! perfectly.

Check out the pictures here (pictures to follow from the workshop night!)

Happy Heart Day!

So this month we cut it pretty close to Valentine's Day (we blame Jim for this one) ;) Anyway, this round Chrystal hosted our crew and we did 8 cards to celebrate the day! Jenn M. was such a trooper coming out to spend the afternoon making cards - only 12 days until her baby is due to arrive in the world and she's going hard core - so fun though!!

Well here are some pictures of the cards we made this month. I took a card class with my upline, Aaron a few weeks ago and here are the results!