Yuck. Yay!

YUCK...I am feeling so yucky today. This past last week I have been fighting a nasty bout of sinusitis. I thought it was getting a little better, but last night both Grayson and Sam were restless and awake needing my attention so I got about 3.5 hours sleep total. Needless to say I woke up with another wicked sinus headache, massive congestion and a sore throat. So I spent most of the day on the couch in PJ's and sweats, while Shane played Cars Bingo and Wii with Grayson. I grabbed a nap whenever I could and had lots of tea and honey. But of course I still had to cook, clean up the dishes and feed Sam. Mom's never get a chance to get properly sick, do we? Sigh...off to bed in a few minutes hoping for a better sleep tonight.

But there were bright spots in the day...YAY! The first day of March came in like a lamb...and I am so glad that Spring is on its way in just a few more weeks! We have had snow on the ground this winter since mid-November and we're sick of it.

My March card for Christmas Cards All Year Round was posted today along with the other cards by the design team. In honor of St. Patricks Day this month, the challenge was to do an almost all green card featuring some sort of leaf. Super cute, and always a thrill to see my work posted online.

Creative Memories launched their new line of scrappy goodness today...OMG the new baby line is so precious! And the new puzzle maker punch will be lots of fun. (You can see all the new products here.) And their new Project Centre has some great ideas in it too...inspiring!

My Creativity Project got off to a slow start today...the extent of my creativity was lying on the couch and reading a few scrapping blogs and the new Creating Keepsakes magazine. I also did some sketches for my website, but I'll have to finish one off and post it tomorrow. I wanted to get a layout done for my LOM assignement this week which is to scrap a least common layout...that is, scrapbook something you don't normally scrap about. I have some ideas but they will have to wait a day or two as well until I am fully up and around.

Hope to feel better tomorrow and do something fun.

Happy Scrapping,
Noreen

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

Happy New Year!

What did you do to say goodbye to 2008 and ring in 2009? Since I am loaded with a sinus cold, I didn't head out to a celebration party as was planned. Instead I stayed at home, drank lots of tea and created a 2009 Highlights Storybook!

I went back through my photos from 2009 (easy to do using my Memory Manager software software, then using Storybook Creator Plus software I plopped them into a 8x8 template to create the bones of the book. Then I added the background pages using the MOD Digital Kit and some point form journaling. The resulting book will be sent to me within a week or so and will be a great review of the entiure year...and I did it in only a couple of hours!

Here are a few pages from the book:

First and last pages:

March:

June:

December:

Pretty cool, huh? I love digital!

Lots of us make resolutions at this time of year that only last a couple of weeks or even just a couple of days. I am really going to try to keep my (scrapbooking) resolutions and stay on top of
"keeping up" with our family memories. Have you thought about how you might keep track of all the memories to be made? I am definitely doing this and am thinking about doing this. Both are great ways to start and STAY organized in the process of memory keeping. And just think, on New Year's Day 2010, my 2009 memories will be safely tucked away in an album...complete and ready to look back upon with fondness! (Is it strange that I am so excited about getting organized???)

I am also excited because the January 1st challenge is up at Christmas Cards All Year Round! The challenge was to create a traditional card using red/green, a stamped image or rub-ons. Here's mine:

I was itching for a chance to use the new Christmas papers from American Crafts, so I punched some squares out of the fun patterned paper, inked up the edges and arranged them on a 5 x 5 card base. I liked the brown in the patterns, so I used brown cardstock as the base for my rub-on sentiment from Memory Makers. A fun little star brad finished it off. It probably isn't as traditional as it could be, but I do love the colors and patterns together. (And I have to say that I am tickled to see my work posted as a Design Team member!)

Staying with the idea of looking ahead, if you did each card challenge from CCAYR over the coming year, you would have plenty of Christmas cards for NEXT CHristmas! So, get started already!

Whatever your plans for the upcoming year, I hope it is happy and full of blessings. I look forward to saring more memories with you in 2009.

Happy Scrapping!
Noreen

Back at it

I know, I know, I was MIA for a few days. So sorry - chalk it up to Christmas preparations! But I am back and have some exciting, fun and yummy things to share!

First off...I am so excited to have been asked to join the Design Team for Christmas Cards All Year Long! I have been following this site since it's inception and I love what Deanne and her team did this fall. When I saw the Design Team call, I sat on it for a while and debated about entering. I entered at the last minute figuring I would get a "Thanks but no thanks" email, so was I ever thrilled to get a "Welcome to the team" email from Deanne instead! Here is the card I created using elements from Shabby Princess Holiday Magic Kit. (Although it is a digital kit, I printed off some of the elements and then cut and pasted them onto my card.)

This is the first Design Team I have been on, and I will be creating cards for the site from January through March! Make sure to bookmark the site and check back often, or use the link on my sidebar.

Next up...many sites and blogs are giving away free things leading to Christmas. Yesterday I got an email from Big Picture Scrapbooking saying that they are giving away a class called "Glimpses". Of course I immediately signed up! While I was there I saw the schedule for the new year has been posted! They are offering classes from scrappy stars like Wendy Smedley, Ali Edwards, Kolette Hall and Jenni Bowlin among others, but the class I have been waiting for is "Library of Memories" by Stacy Julian. I first came across Stacy's system in her books, and I have implemented some of her strategies, but I am looking forward to taking the three month long class with her and finally get my photo/scrapbooking system working! (The class starts in February) Then today I got another email from BPS with free downloadable and cute Christmas gift tags! Better get over there and sign up so you can get fun emails like this too!

As for our dailly baking of Christmas treats, that got a little behind as well! We haven't actually made our Chinese noodle cookies (as mentioned in Dec 5 blog!!!)yet, but we did make Nanaimo bars. Here are the recipes (sorry no pics) for both:

Nanaimo Bars For those of you who are reading from outside of Canada...these are named for a city on Vancouver Island, BC. Apparently they were a winning entry in a recipe contest, but the modest baker named them after her town as opposed to herself! Whatever the name, these are so yummy! The recipe is a bit involved (not hard though) so when I am in a pinch I use a boxed mix from Robin Hood, but when I have enough time, here is the recipe I use:

Bottom layer-
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
5 tbsp. Cocoa
1 egg beaten
1 1/4 cups graham wafer crumbs
1/2 c. finely chopped almonds
1 cup coconut
Melt first 3 ingredients on top of a double boiler. Add egg. Stir constantly until cooked and thickened. Remove from heat. Stir in crumbs, coconut, and nuts. Press into square (8x8 or 9x9) pan and refrigerate while you are making the middle layer.

Middle Layer -
1/2 cup butter
2 Tbsp. + 2 Tsp. cream (ie: whipping cream)
2 Tbsp. vanilla custard powder
2 cups icing sugar
Cream all ingredients together in a large bowl. Beat with electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Spread over bottom layer.

Third Layer -
4 squares 1 oz each) semi-sweet chocolate
2 Tbsp. butter
Melt chocolate and butter in microwave, stirring until completely melted. Cool for a few minutes, then pour over second layer (spreading if needed to cover entire layer). Refrigerate. Cut into bars, squares or triangles. Freezes well.

Chinese Noodle Cookies When I was growing up mom and I made these every Christmas. Another very easy, delicious, chocolately, no-bake treat that freezes well.
1 12 oz. package chocolate chips
1 12 oz. package butterscotch chips
1 10 oz. can Chinese noodles (I use China Lily brand)
1 12 oz. can peanuts
Melt chocolate and butterscotch chips in large bowl in the microwave. Stir until smooth and glossy. Add Chinese noodles and peanuts. Mix well. Drop by spoonfuls on parchment or wax paper. Let cool until hardened. Makes about 30 cookies.

Now I have to do some updating on my website (watch for this week's page plan a little later on) and get the Christmas cards in the mail. Then there's still wrapping, cleaning, shopping...yikes! Gotta go!

Happy Scrapping!
Noreen

Christmas Cards

In my earlier post today I said I was going to work on the photocard that we would send out with our family photo on it. Well...I got sidetracked and decided to play with paper and glue instead of jpegs and pixels and made some "regular" Christmas cards!

In October I took a class at BPS called Giving Well. The instructor was Kolette Hall who is a stamp and product designer for Hampton Art (you probably have some of her designs if you have ever shopped the dollar stamp bin at Michael's!) Besides giving us 14 great gift idea projects during the class, she also provided us with designs to use on tags and cards. I used the card designs today to make these cards:

These are very different cards for me...usually I spend time designing one or two cards and then make several more identical ones. This time I made fourteen different cards using the same materials. Each one was trial and error and I just did whatever I felt looked good with each of the little templates from Kolette. It was fun to not have a plan for a change! In addition to a few pieces of 8.5 x 11 cardstock and 2 sheets of 12 x 12 double sided paper I also used some brads, ribbons and buttons I had in my stash, so this was a very inexpensive project!

I think I'll work on the digital photocards tomorrow!

Happy Scrapping!

Noreen

OH...I also changed the template on my blog to three columns using instructions and HTML code from this blog. There was lots of good info - check it out!