SISTER SISTER

There's such an incredibly strong bond between two sisters, a special kind of love that comforts me. I thought the new Basic Grey "Urban Prairie" was a good fit for my two girls, not too girly, not too edgy, just sweet and fun!

Entre Gabrielle Rose et Gallianne Lily ce n'est pas toujours tout rose mais l'amour qui les unit, cette complicite malgre les 10 ans qui les separent me comble de bonheur. J'ai aime decliner la palette du nouveau Basic Grey " Urban Prairie ", je trouve que ces couleurs et motifs leur vont bien, et vous qu'en pensez-vous?

There are a lot of "doubles" in this page to echo the theme of fraternal love. I thought the embossed bird on a branch would make for a fun repetition of the blue bird from the p.p

Parce que meme si je ne m'en rends pas toujours compte, je ne peux m'empecher de faire des petits clins d'oeil dans les pages que je fais. Ici l'idee du double est amusante a travers l'oiseau sur la branche en relief qui repete celui du papier.

Don't forget, major blog candy by the end of this week! ( check tuesday's post )

SWEET LORRAINE

The door bell rang this morning and a big heavy package addressed to me was left on the threshold. I opened it to find the loveliest letter from my friend Lorraine ( aka Neatfreak @ CK ), an incredible digital scrapbook artist from England together with ions of goodies! As I write this post, I'm stumbling to express my gratitude toward such an incredible act of kindness and then I'm reminded that this is precisely my goal : to share ideas, give expecting nothing in return, create with joy; what Lorraine has done for me I hope I'll do for you somehow, someday...it's the only road I know worth traveling on.

thank you my friend!

MODELE

My Lilybug had never used a model to draw before so watching her tackle this new exercise with so much joy and excitment warmed my heart. I love the result, I think she really nailed it!Now that I took a picture of it I'm sure I'll incorporate it in a lay-out very very soon!

Je ne resiste pas a l'envie de partager ce petit dessin de Gallianne Lily ( 5 ans ). Elle tournait autour de ce chat depuis un moment et comme il est un peu fragile je lui ai propose de le dessiner pour qu'elle puisse jouer avec en toute liberte. Gallianne ne s'etait jamais prettee a cet exercice et je dois dire qu'il m'a fait craque son matou d'Halloween!





Lorraine: The moon on the CD Cover is an acetate accent that is part of the Frightful Collection ( My LYB ). I glued it with a tiny bit of TOMBO MONO METAL LIQUID GLUE which seems to work very well with plastic! THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST MY FRIEND.

100 + TUTORIAL

For the 100th, I'd like to share with you the making of a CD cover. It's simple, fun, fast and it could make a thoughtful gift. Just use any CD cover ( mine comes from Costco ) as a template and embellish as desired. Here is one I made for Halloween.

Pour la 100eme, j'ai pense qu'une petite pochette CD serait une bonne idee. C'est tres facile, il faut juste utiliser une pochette fournie par votre magasin ( en general, recouverte de publicite) comme pochoir. La mienne vient d'une grande surface americaine:Costco. Je vous invite a suivre les photos en esperant qu'elles vous donneront plein d'idees!








notes: a double-sided paper will give you a nicer result. I use a paper-trimmer and a bone folder to make my creases/folds. The transparent paper can be anything, from a piece of wax paper, tracing paper to acetate. Do all your tracing on the inside so as not to show any mark on the "good" side. This little project would look really nice incorporated in an album or in a card.

Please feel free to ask me any questions you have, I would like to thank you for your interest so if you post a comment today or any day this week, your name will be entered in a drawing, your name will be entered every time you post a comment so that will increase your chances of winning some blog candies at the end of the week! THANK YOU.

N'hesitez pas a me poser vos questions et pour vous remercier, sachez qu'a chaque fois que vous ecrivez un commentaire cette semaine je marque votre prenom sur un petit bout de papier, le plus de commentaires, le plus de chances de gagner le triage au sort en fin de semaine! MILLE FOIS MERCI.

NEUTRALS

As we are expecting our first snow of the season here in Chicago, I thought the warmth of a happy family and softness of neutral colors would be very comforting.Unfortunately,the lack of "good" light has altered the creamy hues of the page.
La belle lumiere de l'ete Indien nous a quitte. Dehors, le vent se fait cruel et une forte envie de capuccino me pousse a jouer des cremes et des bruns pour illustrer cette photo de famille.

Supplies:

solid cardstock: Archiver's

embroidery: Bazzill

all others: Basic Grey " Archaic"

Next post is my 100th! Join me for a tutorial and some blog candy!

Revenez vite, le prochain, c' est le 100eme! Un tuto + des douceurs!

METAMORPHOSIS

To the children and I, the best part about Halloween has to be the Transformation and so every year I bring out the make-up products from my "MAC days" we look for props throughout the house, buy a couple of new accessories and VOILA!
So without further ado, I am pleased to introduce:

Cleopatra a.k.a Gabrielle Rose


Captain Jack Sparrow a.k.a Keelan Ange


and Sorciere Citrouille a.k.a Gallianne Lily


Next : the parents! Which leads me to my next question: What will YOU be for Halloween?

STRETCH

Do you like the die-cut papers ( also called lace paper ) but don't know what to do with them or wouldn't mind using the same sheet over and over again? Here is an easy idea that could also work well for a school project or with children of all ages.
J'aimerais vous presenter une idee toute simple, facile et pas chere pour utiliser un papier dentelle. Le genre de brico. a faire avec les enfants pendant un apres-midi pluvieux de la Toussaint!



click on the picture
Supplies:
My L.Y.B Frightful Collection => Halloween Word Paper
grommet: Making Memories
punch: Marvy
silver spray paint

GOT BUTTONS?

If you have loads of buttons and know a little girl, why not pull out the glue gun and put these barrettes together in no time.
Just please be caution with handling the HOT glue gun

THANK YOU.

NIGHTMARE

Do you scrap the "UNhappy" pictures / moments? Personally, I really treasure these bits of REAL life! The journaling here says something like : "I've finally understood that when I take too long to wrap up a photo shoot at birthdays, it's likely to end up in tears for Gallianne Lily."

Supplies:
solid cardstock: Bazzill
title: Quickutz " Abigail Classic "
all other: My L.Y.B "frightful"

IN OCTOBER

The idea behind this L.O was to include different elements ( a drawing, a song, a picture,some stamping,sewing...) that would make like a quilt recaping the events for October.

J'ai pris beaucoup de plaisir a la realisation de cette page que j'ai voulue chargee de differents elements racontant le mois d'octobre. L'effet "patchwork" qui s'en degage me plait bien et j'ai pu ainsi y inclure differentes techniques de "stamping".

Most of the stamps are from Hero Arts, if you enjoy stamping I highly recommend you visiting their blog ( please see right sidebar ).

Have you noticed the repetition of the circular shape ( an homage to the Pumpkin )? It's on the p.p but also dry-embossed on the orange p.p and stamped here on the border:

Supplies:
solid cardstock: Bazzill
p.p: Basic Grey " Beat It"
embossing heat tool: Marvy Uchida
stamps: Hero Arts and Ladidah
embossing stamp pad: Hi-Boss Tsukineko
comptine: http://www.momes.net/
scalloped punch: Fiskars
paper trimmers: Tonic Guillotine, Fiskars
brad "Fall": Karen Foster
green brads: American Crafts
inkpad: Stazon black
dry-embossing die: Cuttlebub
Sizzix die-cut machine
water colour pencils: Derwent
title: Quickutz "Abigail"
foam squares: 3M

P IS FOR PUMPKIN AND PRINCESS

Last Saturday's weather was spectacular,it was warm, the sky was clear everything looked as if it had been dipped in honey.A perfect Indian Summer day to go to a pumpkin farm and take lots of pictures!

I love this collection called Frightful by My Little Yellow Bicycle, especially this "lacy" bat paper and the acetate embellishments. The sketch belongs to Melissa ( see yesterday's post).
J'adore cette collection de My Little Yellow Bicycle, surtout ce papier "dentelle" et tous les petits embellish. transparents ( j'espere que vous pouvez les voir sur la page). le sketch n'est pas de moi mais de Melissa ( Windy City Scrapbooking).
Dernier petit point qui n'a rien a voir mais quand meme; si vous voulez visiter Chicago ou le Midwest venez pendant notre Ete Indien, c'est un vrai Delice, tout y est miel, c'est un peu comme un bouquet final que nous offre Dame Nature et qu'elle nous fait payer au prix fort pendant les 6 mois d'apres!

THE BREEZE

This L.O is for my local scrapbook store's challenge whose sketch you can see here

Petite page toute simple pour repondre au challenge de Windy City Scrapbooking. Pour voir le sketch de Melissa, cliquez ici

Supplies:
solid cardstock: Archiver's
p.p and stickers: Basic Grey " Beat It"
red flocked paper and crushed velvet brad: Doodlebug Design
acrylic stamp: Autumn Leaves
ink pad: Versa Magic "Jumbo Java"
title: Quickutz " Chemistry"
3 red brads: American Crafts

BOO

l'incontournable Halloween est presque la, et voici quelques cartes reprenant le tuto. HALF-MOON CARD pour vous faire mourir de peur!OUOUOU!

These "Half-Moon Cards" work both as invitations,cards or "Thank you" notes ( I will probably include a photo in one of them and use it as a Thank you card)
All papers and embellishments are from My Little Yellow Bicycle's Frightful Collection except for the black cardstock and the white ribbon.

MILLE-FEUILLE

I don't mean the pastry but rather the idea of playing with different layers which was definitely the main idea behind this page.

Each layer is woven onto another like each of us or like the years in a lifetime.Here is a close-up of that idea:

The collection of papers and embellishments are from My Little Yellow Bicycle's LOVE LETTERS. Thank you so much for all of your comments which mean so much to me.
L'idee des differentes couches du Mille-Feuille me plaisait bien pour symboliser nos liens familliaux et les tranches de vie. Sur le gros-plan on peut voir cette idee de"tissage" entre les matieres et les textures. J'en profite pour vous remercier de tous ces mots que vous avez la gentillesse de me laisser...j'adore les lire .

PRIMARY COLORS

Two little cards to finish off a week of birthdays. Red, blue,I seem to be going back to primary colors these days,hmm...must be something in the air!

Deux petites cartes pour conclure une semaine d'anniversaires. Il me semble qu'a force d'entendre parler des etats bleus ( les Democrates) et des etats rouges ( les Republicains) je ne resiste pas a l'appel des couleurs primaires. les differents petits elements sont montes sur des petits "coussins"adhesifs.

With these two cards, I had fun playing with shapes,dimensions and texture.To reinforce the 3D I used different types of foam squares and glue dots and for texture I used the flocked paper,the glitter,the embossing powder, the ribbon, plastic and metal.

Supplies:
scallop circle note: Yours Truly by Archiver's
p.p: Making Memories' Chelsea's place
acrylic stamps: Hero Arts, Making Memories and Autumn Leaves
inks: black Stazon, Colorbox ( cranberry )
embossing powder: Ranger
glitter: sugar coating by Doodlebug
brads: Making Memories, K &Co.
adhesives: Memory Star, Sakura Quickie glue, Tombo mono metal, pop up foam squares 3M
punches: Marvy, EK Success
ribbon and button: my own.

CELEBRATION

We've had a lot to celebrate, my dad's 74Th on Monday and today Gabrielle Rose turned 15! Hard to believe 15 years ago I was giving birth to a beautiful HUGE 11 pound baby girl who was as pink and plump as an English Rose hence her second name. Joyeux Anniversaire ma Puce!

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DON'T GIVE UP!

Thank you for all your sweet comments on the last L.O I posted they mean a lot to me.I liked the picture so much that I had to give it another try.This time I turned the color picture into a smaller( wallet)black & white version and everything sort of flowed after that. I used the "Love Letters" collection by My Little Yellow Bicycle here and well,I am happy with this second take!

Je suis bien plus contente de cette version, comme quoi, parfois, il suffit de passer au noir et blanc et trouver la taille de photo qui nous convient le mieux. La collection de My Little Yellow bicycle utilisee s'appelle "Love Letters" et j'aime beaucoup cette alliance prune/gris avec des petits coups de noir pour souligner le tout! Merci pour vos petits mots qui me font si plaisir!

OLDIE BUT...?

I made this L.O at the beginning of the Summer for a magazine submission and really don't know what to think of it. Of course I like the picture because these are my D.H and D.D's hands but the colors are so...BRIGHT! Do you ever look back at something you created and thought you liked back then but now you look at it and you feel your face grimacing with scepticism?

SUMMER CAMP

After Gabrielle's Summer Camp, here is a L.O about Keelan's. I only had these three pictures of him there so Melissa's sketch from Windy City Scrapbooking which called for three pictures was perfect!

Here is a new alpha from Quickutz called "Chemistry". I thought it looked pretty good for a "boy's page".

Supplies:
background paper: Basic Grey "Archaic"
paper embellishments: Basic Grey "Archaic"
stamp: Autumn Leaves "Stampology"
ink: Versa magic "Jumbo Java"
metal grommet: Making Memories
title: Quickutz "Chemistry"