A Colourful Life

Teaching, teaching, teaching.

I've been a little bit remiss in my blog posting of late. I do apologize.  (How's that for real proper English...I sound like the queen delivering a speech of some sort....)  I love the way British people speak -- so proper and eloquent -- and I also love the way they always seem to end their statements in a question...i.e. "It's awfully cold today, is it not?".....and I also love the words they use....for example I would say, "there's a lot of stuff to eat here".....and a British person would say, "what a vast array of items to feast upon".  But I digress.......

I've been teaching a lot and of course with teaching comes a lot of kitting.  I do love to teach, though so this is never a problem -- I get a bit lazy when it comes to the kitting, but once I'm in front of a bunch of people in a classroom, I come alive.  I just love to teach.  Here is what my coffee table looked like last Saturday, as I prepared the kits for my Love is in the Air class for Clipper Street.

 

With stamping involved in all my cards, it's a bit tough to try and make sure all the cards are done in time, so I pre-stamp all the greetings for the cards.  Can ya' see all of them here????  Those are all done by moi ahead of time and included in each person's kit.

 

This is the sample display of all 4 cards that are featured in my class.  I tried to make one Valentine card using non traditional colors and ended up with the blue and brown one on the bottom of this pic.  It was probably one of the faves in class and one that I heard from students they would remake to give away.  So that was nice to hear cause I waffled back and forth trying to decide if a blue heart was too wacky.  But everyone loved it.  I used Copics to color in my images and that was a good thing that everyone loved as well.

I am off today -- just at home trying to get caught up on some house cleaning and what nots.  Doug and I leave for Vegas on Feb. 4 for our wedding anniversary so I'm looking foward to that.  Can you say Las Vegas Premium Shopping Outlet?????

But before I go here's another card I made yesterday.

 

This one uses the Eastern Blooms set from Stampin' Up.

 

If you look real close you will see how I've stamped one of the little bloom stamps using white pigment ink all over the black card to make a cool background.

Enjoy....blog ya'later.

Winter Formal

This Friday night is Jordan's Grad Winter Formal.  This is the second of his grad events -- the first one being the grad cruise.  For the cruise he got new dress pants and a sports jacket.  For winter formal, he (or rather we, cause it was our money!....) got this outfit.

 

 

 

Forget that the tie is tied crooked for a minute (Doug was out of town, and what the heck do I know about ties.....)  -- but I think he looks pretty darn good.  He chose a chocolate brown pinstripe Alfred Sung suit.  His shirt is a wine color and his tie is a subtle golden, caramely color.  I love it!  I also decided to go ahead and get him matching brown Steve Madden leather shoes, cause it just wasn't working with black shoes.   This ensemble put us back about $600, but here's the good thing -- it was a buy one get a second at half price....so Doug got one for himself in navy.  Good timing as well, cause he really needed a suit too.   Apparently from the other moms, we have it good with our sons.  The girl's dresses are really expensive and they have to buy 3, cause no way can they show up at each event  unless they have different outfits.  God help me when it's Alyssa's turn.

Now, there's only one more event left -- ant that's the actual prom/dry grad and he'll be in a tux for that.  This is only the beginning of the money drain.  Next year he goes to UBC and the thought of tuition gets me hot and bothered....and not in a good way!

 

 

I don't have a new card to show you, but here is one of the cards that I am teaching as part of my "Love is in the Air" class at Clipper Street.

 

This card uses the St. Valentine's Day clear set from Fiskars Cloud 9. 

 

I used my cuttlebug to add texture to the some pink cardstock and then tore it before gluing on top of patterned paper from Kaisercraft, called Blushed Devotion.

If you live in the Metro Vancouver area, I'm teaching this class in our Langley store this weekend, January 25.  Click here for the deets!

Curling - an Eye Opener

Alyssa's class went to the Richmond Winter Club 3 days ago.  I have never been curling, or had the desire to learn how to curl, mainly because I don't like being cold.  But it was an interesting visit and for anyone who might think that this sport is for wimps, think again! 

 

Those rocks weigh over 40 pounds!  I was surprised how heavy they were.  And trying to push them off so that they go off in a straight line is harder than you might think.  With all the kneeling, bending, throwing and the actual sweeping of the ice, the kids had a good workout!

 

 

 

Alyssa did quite well!  I stayed on the ice for a few minutes to take pictures, then I went off to do what I do best.  I had a coffee and watched from the outside where it was nice, cozy and warm.

I got home really tired tonight (went to the gym at 5 AM!), so I had a quick dinner and then went to have a short nap.  NOT.  I fell asleep around 9:30 and didn't wake up till past 11.  This is bad.  Now I will be up for awhile.  So I started to play with some new stamps from Our Craft Lounge and made this card.

 

This card features the set called Anna Mae as well as the Happy Everything stamp set from Stampin' Up.  This is card is sleek and simple, a style that I like to do and I think I should get back to doing!  

  I like this simple look.  My Dad used to always say to me, "less is more."  Usually he would say this to me as I was walking out the door to a party or on a date wearing what he thought was way too much make up!  (Dads!......)  My Dad was a doting dad and he spoiled me rotten, but he was very strict and protective and I had strict curfews that I had to (or tried to....!) adhere to.  Most times I got home on time, but I remember a few times when I was late and then was grounded for the next week!

I used Copic markers to color in Anna Mae and I cut out the cake and popped it up on her hands -- love this set!

 

 

Snow or Rain. Pick One.

Well, the snow is mostly all gone now.  But now we have rain.  We are lucky enough where we live to not have to deal with flooding, but some parts of the valley got hit with it.  With the accumulation of so much snow, and then the incessant rain after that, the flooding was inevitable.  Personally, I'm just glad to not have to drive in snow and ice, so the rain was a welcome change.  I really don't like winter!

We tried out the new Gold's gym in Richmond, about a 2 minute drive from work.  It is AWESOME!  The owners let us have a free pass, knowing we are already members of another gym, in a bid to have us join.  It is a superb gym, with machines I have never seen before that worked muscles that I didn't even know I owned.  I was sore the next day and I could tell that I had gotten a good workout.  But the membership is over 2x the cost of our current membership and I'm not sure I'm getting over 2x more worth of value!  Plus, we have to commit to 2 years.  I don't like that.  So we are still wavering.  The owners gave us another 1 week pass, so we can continue to use the gym.  Today, I went to work out at our gym, and sweated up a storm, so it really isn't all that bad -- I think all the new machine at Gold's (each equipped with individual TV's!) just blinded me a bit.   Doug leaves for the NAMM show in L.A. on Tuesday, so I'll wait till he gets back, then we can use the 1 week pass together.    He goes to NAMM every year in January -- it is the biggest  trade show in the music industry, second only to Music Messe in Franfurt, which he has also attended. 

I made this card today, while the rain poured outside.

 

The card uses stamps from the Eastern Blooms set and a greeting fromPapertrey Ink.

I had some small Prima flowers in white lying around, so I dyed them rose red to match the cardstock and added a gold brad to the center to add interest.  The bottom of the card is Sahara Sand cardstock stamped with the Floral background stamp.   The ribbon on the bottom is from the Stampin' Up's Theatre set.   The rose red cardstock is punched with a Martha Stewart embossed zig zag border punch which I bought in Palm Springs last year.

 

Dead Batteries in Snowmageddon

This past Saturday, Jan. 3 was Jordan's 18th birthday.  I can't believe my baby is 18 -- an adult!!  We woke up that day, to find it snowing again (darn it!).  What is going on with the weather here in Metro Vancouver?  This is the west coast -- isn't our claim to fame mild weather no matter what season?   Aren't we supposed to have golfing weather pretty much year round????  I swear, if it is like this again next year, I'm buying a tank to drive around.  And with a list of so many things to do that day, I was annoyed to find that my car battery was dead when I tried to start the car that morning.  So off we went to Walmart to get a new battery -- another $85 bill to add to all the Christmas spending that we just did.  How lovely.  I had the whole family over for dinner that night for Jordan's birthday.  Here are some pics:

 

Father & son, enjoying cake and ice cream.

 

Birthday boy with his cousins....cutting the cake and serving the ice cream.

 

Serious Nintendo Wii action after eating cake.  Notice the looks of concentration on their faces!!  Gotta win, gotta win!

Here's a little video Doug did of Jordan with clips from infancy till today -- the original video was done to music, but You tube blocked some of the audio due to copyright.  This is really for my close friends and family to see -- but if you fast forward to 2:13, you will see Jordan being interviewed by WOIO TV in Ohio from when Doug surprised him on his 15th birthday with a trip to see his fave team the Cleveland Cavaliers and his fave player Lebron James.  They had courtside seats.  Read about it here as well.

 

Lastly before I end -- cause I haven't posted a card in at least 2 entries - here's one!

 

I know Christmas just finished and it's not even mid January, but I'm fast forwarding a bit and making Valentine cards!  Just felt like it.....this one uses Heidi Grace paper.

 

It's very easy to color in plain rhinestones, turning them any color you wish using copic markers.  So if you are struggling with color and don't have anything that suits your project, just pull out your copics and create your own custom embellishments!

 

To create the background behind the images, I used this "love" stamp from Stamp Savvy.  I've owned it for ages.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a close up of the final card.  I added some ribbon behind the central image to add some interest.

 

Ringing in the New Year

What a night we had last night.  So much fun.  I have loads of pics and some video, but will only post a few --  there's just so much to choose from.  The event started off with lots of family pictures (of course.....) then a delicious buffet dinner, followed by scrumptious dessert, then a breaking the ice game -- we sang the 12 days of Christmas with everyone whose birthdays fell on certain months singing lines from the 12 days i.e. all the January birthday people sang "a partridge in a pear tree....", the February people sang " 2 turtle doves", the March people sang "3 french hens!"  while Doug and I as emcees stood in the front and sang the opening lines....."On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me....." and whosever month it was had to sing their line.  The catch was that everyone was sitting down, and they had to stand to sing their line then sit down again!  So the January people had to stand and sing their line 12 times, the February people had to stand and sing their line 11 times, and so on.  It was funny!  Wish I had videotape of that-- not sure if anyone was taking videos cause everyone was too busy laughing!  We also played Family Feud, a game involving a spoon tied to long string (don't ask ....just see pics below....!) and the funniest game of the evening - musical chairs.  The pictures speak for themselves.

Here are the lovely ladies sitting down comfortably in their chairs, waiting for the music to start.  They weren't comfortable for very long.

 

When the music stopped each guy had to sit on a girl's lap.  It was hysterical!

 

Success at sitting on a girl's lap did not come easy,  and unfortunately for some of the girls who were crushed and shoved........

 

There was pushing.......

 

.....and shoving.....

   

And downright, shameless cheating.  Here you see my nephew Joaquin in the white shirt, who sat down on Steph's lap first, only to be followed a split second later by my other nephew Timmy diving through the air and landing between Steph and Joaquin.  So hilarious! 

 

Here's the other game...which involved having to thread a spoon tied to string down one guy's pants and down through the leg, into a girls sweater, then down into a second guy's pants and back again in reverse going the same way it came.  Whichever team got the spoon to travel through and have it pulled out first wins.

 

And the winners..!

 

Of course there was lots of dancing -- here's Jordan, Carolyn, Steph and Kath.

 

We had a fun night -- and now ..... it's back to work tomorrow!  Welcome 2009.  I wish each and every one of you a great 2009 with lots of good things ahead!