The art journal has begun!

I started my art journal! It's lots of fun to do and very messy too! But I'll start out with a LO that's taken me a few weeks to do, mainly because I didn't know what to do next on it. I guess I just wasn't feeling inspired on this one. I really like the purple on it. Once I got the pictures glued down and the little journal circle on, I just didn't know what to do next. Have you ever started a LO and haven't been able to finish it? Today I sat down and started with the title, I never know what to call my LOs. Usually I just use a song title or lyrics from a song. I was just being silly with the dog after a christmas party and I was all dressed up, so I called it "sitting pretty". It's kind of hard to see the title through the bubble wrap dots, not my best LO, but oh well!

This is a page from my art journal. The pic is kind of hard to read, but it says " don't worry you can't see it past all the dog hair". The story behind this is: last week at work, I spilt some food on my top and I said "Oh! I'm such a slob!" and my coworker said "don't worry you can't see it past all the dog hair". I was quite offended! I actually lint brushed myself that day and I didn't think that I had that much dog hair on me. So I told some other coworkers the story and they were also in shock that she would say that to me. But now it's the running joke at work, and I now think it's kind of funny. But I'm still a little hurt by it. I added water to a little bit of red paint for the background and then I painted red crackle paint on top. After I stamped the quote on it I drew little white lines around it to signify the dog hair... because putting really dog hair on my journal would be kind of weird!
I got inspiration for this page from a book I got from the library Artist Trading Card Workshop . The technique is to take a picture out of a magazine, paint over it lightly with gesso and then outline and paint features however you like. I think it looks pretty cool. I used a line from a song (because I'm so unoriginal) for journaling. Why would I ever be anybody else but me - a line from Operator by Shiloh. It must have been on the radio or something at work that day.
So far I'm liking the art journaling thing. It can be pretty quick if you want to be creative in a short period of time or if you don't know what to scrap about (which is my problem).

We're going to the Flames vs. Flyers game tomorrow night! I'm pretty excited, it's been a few weeks since we've been to a game. And I'm glad that they finally ended their 8 game losing streak last night! And I'm glad that they traded Dion Phaneuf today! It should be an interesting game tomorrow!

I LOVE everything about the 80's!

The music, the clothes, the tv shows....

I did a LO of my friend and I at an 80's party for a challenge on the Magistical Memories site. A LO with your fav color with a piece of chipboard and a circle of your fav color. Right now my fav color is pink (it always changes!) I'm loving the houndstooth paper and the skull chipboard from MM. I'm a big fan of doodling right now. I got a book on doodling from Amazon and it has lots of great tips in it. It's called The Doodle Formula . I also used stickles around the edge of the picture.

I had so much fun with this next LO. I did lots of doodling and I had fun stamping around the edge of the text I printed out. I love these pics of Maddie wearing the life-jacket. I forgot I even had these pics. She was so cute that day, but she really didn't like the jacket very much. It turned out that she doesn't like the water very much either!
I really want to start an art journal. I played around on the weekend and I liked how easy and fun it is to do. I've been looking around on the internet to find some inspiration and I even got a few books out from the library on art journals. I'm going to play around a bit tonight and see if I can do something I really like!

New Haircut!

I got my hair cut today for the first time in 6 months! This is the before pic...

And this is the after pic... I know, there's not much of a change, but it does look a lot better and healthier now.
Today is the beginning of my 4 day weekend! I'm so excited to laze around and not do anything! Today I scrapped one page of Alex and Maddie from back in the summer. It's not really an exciting LO or anything but I'm getting short on pics that inspire me. I used glimmer mist and I doodled a bit.
I'm not sure what to do tonight. The Flames game is on, but I don't know if it's worth watching since they've been sucking lately. Maybe I'll just scrap some more!

Olympic flame

Today I woke up early and went to see the Olympic flame. It's travelled across Canada the last few months and for the past few days it's been in Calgary and will soon be in Vancouver. I thought that it would be a once in a lifetime thing to see. This was the only pic I got to take, a policeman on a bike drove in front of me right as I was taking another picture! GRRR! I'm excited to watch the Olympics when they're on. I really like watching the snowboarding half-pipe, figure skating and hockey. What are you're favorite Olympic events?

I haven't got a lot of scrapbooking done lately. It's hard to find the time to do it when I work 3-11. I'm off the next 4 days starting tomorrow! So maybe I'll get some work done then. I did do one LO of me and Alex on his 19th B-day. I'm still not sure of the colors, I don't usually use orange so it's a little different for me.

I have to get ready for work now :(

Can't wait for a long weekend!

Embarrassed by dog

Have you ever been embarrassed by your pet in public? Sadly I've been many times! Yesterday was Maddie's yearly vet appointment, she knew something was up and she was extremely excited to leave the house because she knew she was going in the car. She dragged me out of the house directly to the car, no time to pee! We get to the vet and she's still excited, she doesn't stop to pee again. We get into the vet and someone pets her...she pees on the floor with excitement. She was so curious (like usual) and she wouldn't stay still on the scale so the vet tech touched her to keep her still...she peed on the scale! It's so embarrassing! I thought that the peeing when she meets someone new would stop when she got older, but at 16 months she's still doing it.

I feel like I'm getting judged when I go to the vet. I always worry; are her ears clean enough? is her hair brushed? is she overweight? I just want to know that I'm a good dog mother! Anyways the appointment went well and she weighs 45lbs (which is average). Maddie got lots of treats and she got to go in the car and meet new people, so all in all it was a good day!

I'm having problems uploading a picture right now, so cute Maddie pic to follow!

I HATE being sick!

So last night when I was getting ready for bed, I really started to feel sick. After laying there in pain for awhile, I finally fell asleep and then like an hour later, I threw up! EWWWW! I hate being sick so much! I still cry every time I throw up. Do grown ups do that? Yesterday was my "cheat day" on my diet and I must have gone a little overboard or something. I had bacon (only 3 slices!) for breakfast and then for supper I ate at McDonalds. I'm guessing it was the McD's that got me so sick. I don't know if it was eating good all week and then eating a greasy hamburger that made me sick or just a bad burger! But I HATE puking! I think I'll lay off the fast food for awhile.

Since I felt fine today, I took Maddie to the park and we played in the snow. And by play, I mean she sniffed everything and ate bunny poop while I threw her ball and went to get it myself. I took a couple of pictures and thought that they were kind of funny. Notice how short her legs are, the snow is up to her belly! The other pic I caught her licking her lips!

I decided to play along with a challenge blog and I created this LO based on my goals for 2010 and I also had to use a piece of chipboard, which is the pineapple (which is glimmer misted!). The challenge is on Magistical Memories . I also got the inspiration for the crinkled up background on the Scrap in Style Site that I was talking about yesterday. I really love this LO, it's definitely one of my faves right now!
I think I'm going to get a bath and read my new book "Push" by Sapphire.

Have a good week!

Sick week

I didn't do a whole lot this week because I've been sick with a cold. I even called in sick to work one day and I pretty much slept and lazed all day. I was in bed at 8 every night! I finished my book though - The Scarpetta Factor by Patricia Cornwell. I love her books so much! I love the characters and how they solve crimes. I definitely recommend her books. Last night I started reading "Blogging for Bliss - crafting your own online journal" by Tara Frey. So maybe I'll learn a little bit about blogging!

I only got one layout done this week. I thought it was pretty cool that Jan 2 was a palindromic date (the same forwards and backwards). There will be 12 palindromic days in the 21st century. I did this LO based on what we did that day, which was went to the Flames vs Maple Leafs hockey game. I glimmer misted the red flower because it was pink and I used black stickles for the circle outline. I like this LO but it's probably not one of my favs.

Today I came across this fabulous scrapbooking site http://www.scrapinstyletv.com/ - the LOs in the gallery are so amazing. They are so creative, I wish I could make LOs as beautiful as those. This site is definitely worth checking out if you are need of some new ideas or some inspiration. Well I have a bit of time to scrapbook before Brad starts dragging me all around the city, so I better get at it. Maybe I'll blog again tomorrow!

Happy New year!

So the holidays are over now. They were hard since I couldn't go home to be with my family. But I still had a great Christmas. I was spoiled like usual! Maddie also got spoiled! Everyone sent her out presents and she got so many treats that day, I'm sure she was confused as to what she did that was so good to eat treats all day! We went to see Sherlock Holmes and the theater was so crazy! We got into the theater 30 mins early and still had to sit in the 2nd row! It was a really good movie, but I probably would have enjoyed it more if I was further away from the screen!

One of my Christmas presents from Brad was some money to spend at the scrapbook store. Of course I was all over that! I managed to spend $140 at Scrapbooker's Paradise and I bought some scrapbook storage at Michaels. I bought so much stuff! Especially since I always cruise the sale aisle first and then pick out a few things at regular price. I got some stickles (which I now love!) lots of rub-ons and stickers some flowers and tons of paper! Yesterday I went to Winners and I found scrapbooking felt, so of course I bought 3 packs of it! I have so much stuff now, I just need more pics to scrap!

I've got a little bit of scrapping done over the holidays. I did this LO of my Grampy and Maddie last night with some of the felt I bought yesterday. My Grampy was so funny when he met Maddie, he brought her out treats a couple of times during the night and Maddie being the food motivated dog that she is, never left his side. So Grampy is the dog whisperer! I used some of the new paper I bought and I love them together! This is probably one of my favorite layouts now.
Because I spent so much money at Scrapbooker's Paradise, I got a free magazine - Srapbook & cards today. One of the LO inside inspired this one. This took me a long time to do. I cut out those pink cards by hand and then went around the edge with stickles. In real life this LO is sparkly and shiny. I find I always ruin my layouts when I do my journaling. I hate my hand writing, I think it never looks quite right on my pages. I used some of the new paper in the LO too!
I always have so many pictures from one occasion that I want to scrapbook, so I ordered a photo collage from walmart and it made a lot of my pics smaller so I could use more of them on one page. I used lots of glimmer mist on this. I never know what to call my pages so a lot of them time I use the name of a song or a line from a song. On LO of girls night out I usually try to think of a song that stood out that night (which depending on how much I drank, could be hard). These are pics from a night out in the summer with my high school friends back home. And once again, my ugly hand writing looks awful on the page.
We went to the Flames/Oilers game on New Years eve and had a blast, it was probably one of the best games we've been to all year. After the game we went over to brad's friend's house. We were going to just stop by for an hour or so, but we were having such a good time that we stayed until 2am! Needless to say, I was exhausted yesterday! But I got all my chores done so this weekend I can do whatever I want! Which will probably be more scrapbooking! Tonight we're going to the Flames/Maple Leafs game, so It should be another win for us!

Hopefully this year I will be able to stick with something and continue with this blog on a more regular basis.

Happy New Year!