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Tuesday, November 6, 2012

....and I'm Back!

Thank you for all of your kind comments on my last post. With time things are slowly getting better. I am learning to take care of myself better. I will get through it.

Today, I spent a lot of time purging my supplies and cleaning up my scraproom area. Finally it is finished, and I even managed to finish a layout that I started in March.

My clean room:






And the layout:


I started this layout during our stay at Steve's family's house in Edmonton. I just uncovered it today and decided to finish it. The colour blocking was inspired by Stephanie Dagan at Studio Calico, and the Silhouette cuts are from the Cut it Out class also at SC.

TFL!

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Where I Have Been...

There have been many changes happening in my and my family's life over the past 6 months. In May I stopped scrapbooking and therefore blogging. The month of May held two huge life events, each on the far opposite ends of the good/bad spectrum. Generally, I have not shared much of my personal life on my blog, but I believe that these 2 events warrant a mention.

 May 1 - I got the call that I had hoped would never come, but worried about every time the phone rang. My Dad, had suffered another massive heart attack. 4 years before it was a miracle that brought him back from the first one. The call was the same as when it first happened, it was late at night, he had collapsed, was unconscious and the paramedics were working on him. Both times someone was home and the paramedics responded very quickly. The first time I was very hopeful and within a few minutes received another call that they got his heart beating again. Much of that night was spent pacing back and forth down the hospital halls. It was a long road to recovery, we spent almost every day of the following month at the hospital. The stress of everything was definitely helped by the continuous revolving door of family members over that month. His prognosis went from never waking up, to not being able to move, to not being able to speak, but he surprised everyone and had an almost full recovery. This time, while the phone call was the same, the feeling was different. I could feel it in my heart that it wasn't going to be ok. The second phone call confirmed my feeling - My Dad had passed away at only 59 years old. I felt like I should have been at the hospital pacing the halls, hugging family, and hoping for the best. And while a lot of time was spent grieving with family in the days following, it wasn't the same as the "revolving door" at the hospital. No one knows the right things to say and the responsibilities are so much more. But, with the support of my friends and family, life is getting back to a new normal. I miss him more than words can describe. He would have been an amazing grandfather and I am so sad that he never got the chance.

Love you Dad!


May 10 - I had stayed home from work because I was having a really hard time that day dealing with the death of my Dad. I spent most of the day laying in bed. Steve came home from school at around 2:30 and laid on the bed with me in an attempt to cheer me up. We were talking, Steve was making silly jokes, it was helping. I didn't really notice when Steve got up and was rooting around in the closet. We were still talking, so I thought nothing of it. When he climbed back into bed, I rolled over to face him and continue our conversation. I can't even remember what we were talking about. Before I knew it he had a ring box open in his hand and he asked me to marry him. I started crying and giggling, I didn't know how to react. Not because I didn't know the answer, but because I was so happy. Of course I said YES!! He had been holding on to the ring since Easter waiting for the right time to pop the question. He felt awful that he didn't do it before my Dad passed away, but how could he have known. My Dad would be so happy! The proposal totally wasn't what I had expected, but that's what made it so great. With Steve's problem of not keeping Christmas presents a secret, I thought I would have seen this coming from a mile away.....and if you can believe it, I was at the mall with him when he bought the ring and I didn't know a thing. I can't wait to marry the love of my life! Well I guess I can.... until July anyway.



With the help of family, I spent a lot of time leading up to my Dad's memorial collecting photos and stories of him. I put together a scrapbook/guestbook for people to look at and write messages at the memorial. This left my scrapbook desk covered in remnants of this book, including photos of him. It was very difficult to clean up, and therefore it sat like that for a few months. Now with wedding planning thrown in the mix my desk is a disaster of fabric swatches, paint chips and invitation samples. I would really like to start scrapbooking again. I think it would help me with all of the stress I have been having. But, I don't know where to start. I am going to try to clean up this week and do a major de-stash. Maybe a clean slate is just what I need. Hopefully you will see some new projects from me soon :)


Sunday, April 29, 2012

She's Crazy - TLP Hybrid Layout

After much experimenting, I finally finished my first hybrid layout for the CT over at The Lilypad.
I used the April BYOC which I loved, and worked perfectly with my Rosie pics. I tend to not do such busy layouts, but I loved all the patterned papers from Jenn Barrette, and the doodles from Lauren Grier were so cute! ...and well, the layout is titled "She's Crazy", so I did want it to be a little crazy.
TFL!


Digital products used:

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Project Life - Feb 14-28

Yes, I am very behind. But since I am doing it month to month, I am only counting this as 1 month behind.

Here is my spread for the last 2 weeks of February




Tuesday, April 24, 2012

I'm a Guest Creative Team Member @ The LilyPad!


 I am excited to announce that I have been chosen to be a Guest Creative Team Member over at The Lilypad. Now you may be thinking, why am I doing a guest spot at a digital scrapbook site. Well, here's the exciting part - they were wanting to get some Hybrid creative team members and lovely Shanna (from SC) emailed me asking if I wanted to try it out. I've never done anything really like this before, but I have been playing around with my Silhouette Studio and am going to be using the Print and Cut feature a lot in the next little while. Looking through the Lilypad store I am loving so much, and wishing a lot of the things could be paper products and not digital...but with printing it out and my Silhouette I should be able to make it work. Watch for another video tutorial coming up soon, and cross your fingers that I can figure this hybrid thing out :)

Monday, April 16, 2012

I've opened an Etsy shop

I have had such a great response to all of the things I have been creating with my Silhouette that I decided to open an Etsy shop.

I only have a few things listed so far, but will be adding more in the next few days.

Would love for you to come check it out.

http://byNESS.etsy.com

You can also view my recently listed items on my sidebar and I will be updating my twitter with shop updates ( @nessa9116 )

TFL!

Another Silhouette Tutorial

One of the girls over at the Studio Calico message boards tried my tutorial that I posted earlier today and was having some troubles with it. I had a hunch about her problem and managed to figure it out, so I decided to share it with everyone.

You can view it here.

Silhouette Tutorial: Cropping Background Shapes

I should be studying for my Pharmacy Tech: Drug Distribution final tomorrow, but I got distracted playing around with my Silhouette Studio, and I'm up with another tutorial. In this tutorial, I show you how to crop a large 12 x 12 background into a 3 x 4 that you can use in Project Life. You could also use this technique to crop a large background into any smaller size (i.e. 4 x 6 or 8 1/2 x 11) 

Here's the link:

Go from this ^

To this ^
Thanks for watching!!

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Liebster Blog Award :)



Thanks so much from Caz Hancock for giving me this award. I know her from Studio Calico, she is always posting up a storm, and keeping the boards fun and interesting! I was very surprised to see this as I often forget that people even look at my blog. The lovely comment she gave me on her blog gives me inspiration to post more Silhouette tutorials. (I'm busy with school/working, but will try to come up with one next week). You can check out her blog here and her awesome gallery over at Studio Calico here.

The Liebster Blog Award is awarded to show appreciation of smaller blogs (under 200 followers) and to help with readership. As part of the tradition, the award is to be passed along to five other blogs that have motivated and inspired me.
To accept the Award you must:
1. Thank your Leibster Award sender on your Blog;
2. Link back to your sender on your Blog;
3. Copy and paste your Leibster onto your Blog;
4. Present the Leibster Award to 5 other Blogs with 200 or less Followers that you feel deserves some attention and recognition for awesome stuff;
5. Let them know they have been chosen by leaving them a comment on their Blog.
So tag I'm it to share the love of 5 blogs that bring me joy, creativity and inspiration!
Here are the 5 I chose:

1. Suz - What a great woman! She has been so friendly and helpful to me since I signed up at the Studio Calico message boards. She is my go to gal for Silhouette questions, and her blog is full of awesome photos and layouts!

2. Ursula - another amazing gal from Studio Calico. Her blog is full of beautiful photos and super creative and artistic layouts. So much inspiration!

3. Christine - yet another Studio Calico gal. She has some fantastic Project Life inspiration. I love her photo collage of her PODs each month. She also has some great tutorials.

4. Aurore - What a sweet person, she used the labels I posted on my blog and was kind enough to link me up. I've been looking through her blog the past couple of days, and there is lots of pretty layouts for inspiration. Her blog is in french (which I can kind of understand), but you can see the translated version here

5. Audrey - she may not know this, but back when we were both at Scrapdango, I really admired all of her work. I just revisited her blog, and wow, she has some amazing layouts up there.

So there you have it! Go check those wonderful ladies out and leave them some love!
Thanks again Caz :)

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Easter Weekend Scrapbooking

This past long weekend my boyfriend, his brother and I decided to drive out to Edmonton to visit their family. They took turns driving, we left at around 7pm on Thursday and got there around 7am Friday morning. Boy were they surprised to be woken up by us. It was a great weekend with beautiful weather, lots of yummy food, and some shopping :) I managed to score some of the new Amy Tangerine line, as well as some new Studio Calico and Crate Paper. Since we drove out, I preplanned some pages, printed a bunch of the Sunday Sketches over at Studio Calico, printed photos, and brought my scrapbook stuff. I managed to get 5 layouts done! Oh and my car has a new name given to "her" by Steve's brother Matt - Penelope. She may not have much power, but that little Tercel got us there and back in one piece with no problems, and she's cheap on gas. Oh and the odometer hit 250,000 km on the way back!

Drive by night

Blue skies for the drive home on Monday
Here are the layouts I completed while I was there:


08/07/2011 Sunday Sketch

03/04/2012 Sunday Sketch

02/05/2012 Sunday Sketch

04/01/2012 Sunday Sketch


Also, I've been having so much fun cutting stuff with my Cameo. I think I like cutting and designing the stuff more than I do using it :). I made the ticket and the journaling cards for the "Spidey Cat" layout with my Cameo. Since I'm loving it so much, I am thinking of listing some stuff in an Etsy shop.

I'm thinking maybe some of these:


and also maybe some "polaroid" type frames that fit the Project Life pockets. What do you think?
Is there anything else that you would like to see?


 

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Project Life Catch-up

I have been quite busy with school work so I haven't had a chance to scrapbook much, and therefore I haven't blogged.

But for now, here are my PL pages that I have caught up on. The first 2 page spread is the second half of January, and the second 2 page spread is the first 2 weeks of February. I have the end of Feb done, but haven't had a chance to take pictures.







TFL!
I got lots of scrapbooking done on this past long weekend, I will be back to post it sometime this week. :)

Monday, March 19, 2012

More Print and Cut Fun - Label Tutorial

 Hi Guys,
I had such a great response to my first video tutorial, that I thought I would make another one. This one uses the offset function to make an inner outline of the label. The labels I have made are pictured here:




View the tutorial here

Thank you for watching!

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Silhouette Ticket Tutorial

I have created a tutorial showing how to make these tickets with Silhouette's print and cut feature. Please bear with me as this is the first video tutorial that I have made. I fumbled on my words a few times, but after doing about 20 takes, this one was the best. For those of you that haven't tried the print and cut feature, I hope this helps you to try it.
The blog was taking forever to load with the video on it so
You can watch the full size tutorial here 

Thanks for watching!

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Labels Printed and Cut - Edited to Include Download Link

I was going to wait until I got my prints from Staples, but I couldn't. So, I printed them on AC White cardstock. Just thought I would share a quick picture. These are the ones titled "Soft" and they go really well with the SC Daydream Believer kit :)


EDITED
Due to an overwhelming response to this file, and the amount of time it is taking to email each separate person - here is the download link for the .Studio files

http://www.mediafire.com/?lxvdbmc14k5d46t,97me7uhupe5dqbe,0vbqwn2cv0j5vwj

and the PDFs

http://www.mediafire.com/?2812om2g3c6j75s,gs8wf2umbg9ey9b,8lvb6wu95b3bjkd


Free Printables - Labels

I was playing around with the Silhouette Design Studio software today, particularly with the internal offset. I drew these labels, and chose the colours according to the new Dear Lizzy and Crate Paper collections. I am hoping they print out true to colour. Anyways, I would love to share these labels.



If you would like them, become a follower of my blog and leave a comment saying so. Also, let me know your email address to send the files to, and whether you would prefer them in PDF or .Studio files. The registration marks are for the Cameo, but I am sure you could adjust them on the Silhouette Design studio for the SD :) See the next post for the download links, I was becoming overwhelmed with sending emails.



Saturday, March 10, 2012

Project Life - January 1-15

I have decided to jump on the bandwagon and do Project Life. This is kind of similar to the Project 12 that I did last year but with divided page protectors. You can read more about Project Life here. I am using the page protectors from Becky Higgins, and other stuff from my stash. Some people do this with a picture a day, a 2 page spread per week. This seemed a little extensive to me, so I am doing 2 or 4 page protectors per month depending how many photos I take. This month it will be 4.

I know that I am behind, but I have been taking a picture a day so I think that I can manage. I also have a new toy which I absolutely LOVE - the Silhouette Cameo

Here is my first 2 page spread:



TFL!

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Lift the Layout Above You

Every once in a while, someone over at Studio Calico posts a "Lift the Layout Above You" thread. You reply with "I'm in" or something similar, and then whoever posted below you chooses one of your layouts to "lift" (use some or all of the elements to make a layout of your own). You do the same with the person who posted above you.

I posted under Kimber-Leigh
I chose the layout "At Night" to lift, first of all because it is very pretty and I felt the elements worked really well with the Daydream Believer kit from Studio Calico. It was also a fairly straight forward design, and as I totally forgot about this challenge until today (the due date) I needed to get it done in a hurry.

Here is Kimber-Leigh's layout:


And here is what I pulled together:

You can see it at Studio Calico here

I also thought I would share Just g's lift of my layout
She chose this layout to lift:

Home Alone

And she took inspiration from the loopy twine and came up with this:

Loopy
What a fun challenge :)
 TFL!


Tuesday, February 21, 2012

New URL

I figured out that I could change my blog URL
Not many people have the link, so I am not really losing out that much, and I had become tired of the blog URL that I chose when I first started Scrapbooking.

I think this new URL is more fun, and hopefully, more me!


PageMaps Sketch Contest 13.02.12

Another sketch...another layout

This one is for the latest sketch contest on the PageMaps blog

I knew as soon as I saw this sketch what pictures I wanted to use. The puppies are German Shepherd x Golden Lab and they are at the SPCA where Steve and I volunteer walking dogs. We had walked their mama on a previous week before they knew she was pregnant and we really liked her, and what is not to like about these adorable puppies! This and kittens are one of the perks volunteering at the SPCA, I love cuddling them :)

Anyways...
 Here is the sketch from Becky Fleck
And here is my take on it
PS. This is from the February kit "Daydream Believer" from Studio Calico. I am loving the kits and all the inspiration from the message boards!

As always....TFL!

Monday, February 20, 2012

Sunday Sketch 19.02.12

Here is the next Sunday Sketch from the Studio Calico Blog

Here is the sketch
And here is my take on it
TFL!