missing in action! Photo bombing!

well ok, it's not as dramatic as my title sounds!  everyone is fine :)
however, my cards and layouts have been missing from my blog.  I have been creating, just not updating my blog.  shame on me!  Here are a few things i've created that have never been posted.

sorry for the bad picture on this one...

 thanks for stopping by!
Bella

Ashton Kutcher is so sexy smart!

i might be a bit late posting this video and most of you out there have probably already seen it but i just had to share.  Ashton Kutcher delivered such a great speech at the Teens Choice award this year, this guy is smart and as he says being sexy is being smart.  i'm gonna get my kids to watch this until these lessons sink in ;)

1. Smart is Sexy
(be smart, be thoughtful, be generous)

2. Build your life, don't live your life

3. Opportunity = hard work

(find your opportunity)

a baby photo shoot

Hi!!!

i know, i know it's been a while... i really don't have any excuses to give you :(
i'm still card making, project lifing and scrapbooking but very very sporadically.  However, last monday i set up a little photo shoot of my friend's new baby boy.  you can check out more pics on my other blog but here's a look at my favorite pic of the day (and guess what, it's was taken with my phone as a little extra...)

have you heard...

 if you are a follower o m y blog via goggle reader you might have learned that google reader

will be abolished as of July 2013. So with that said, i've been trying to find another blog reader.  I've discovered bloglovin, I just love this site and there's even an APP, sweet!  You can follow my

blog by using the link below.

 
Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Good News!

last night i received an email from Jackie Ludlage over at Canadian Scrapbooker requesting one of my layouts for the Summer 2013 issue!  you have no idea how good it felt to receive that email.  it's been so long (at least 2 yrs) since my last publication.  hmmmm... maybe i should start scrapbooking more so that i have more to submit...

charlie's 6th bday - part 2

oops!  i totally forgot to get these pics uploaded!  i promised you i'd come back and post them so here we go.

As i mentioned on the first post (a month ago) this year's birthday theme was "winter". cut up a whole bunch of snowflakes (like when i was back in elementary school!) and hung them from the ceiling over the sweets table

he wanted an "igloo" cake.  i ran out of fondant to cover the whole cake (which was what i wanted to do at first) but i had a whole bunch of white chocolate so changed up the look of the igloo and made white modeling chocolate for ice blocks

i found a great youtube video on how to make a fondant penguin.  i also added a puffle in there. the penguin is made of brown modeling chocolate tinted black and the puffle is made of a little leftover fondant that i colored pink (that's what Charlie wanted, a pink one!)

store bought "snowball" donuts (man these are good!)

then i made pretzel sticks dipped in white chocolate and sprinkled with blue sugar. 

(i love the sweet and salty taste of these!)

Marshmallow pops! my first time making these, but not the last...oh so good! 

and to wash everything down...

bottles of "melted snowman" I made these labels using a digi xmas kit i had, i also put each kid's name on his bottle

I had also left my Xmas tree up, i'd taken the decorations down the week before but  decided that a winter themed birthday would not be complete without a snow covered tree so i re-decorated it using only white snowflakes and other white ornements.  i completely forgot to take a decent picture of said tree, i was able to crop this out of another photo but unfortunately it's not in focus but you get the idea of what it looked like.

getting back in the game!

So i realized that i was missing being a part of a design team so over the last few months i've been on the look out and this week I applied to 3 different DT posts.  With that i started looking over my blog, knowing full well that I hadn't done a good upkeep and realized there were some layouts that (i don't think) i'd ever published. So here they are most recent to oldest.

a quick valentine's day tag that will probably be added to a card in the futur

this year's Santa layout (i'm not really liking it that much, but hey what are you gonna do about it) and yes i just noticed that i forgot the "I" in the title.  For real this is all my boys had on their list for Santa.

this is one of my favorite layouts lately.  I used one of the pictures the photographer took of my boys at my sister's wedding this summer.  photo by Joi Photography

thanks for dropping by, 

i've got something (i think) pretty cool coming up so tune back in. 

Bella

Charlie's 6th bday

This year charlie's birthday theme is "winter" I made marshmallow pops, candied pretzel sticks, homemade hot chocolate pouches and an igloo cake. Here's a photo of the cake, I'll come back later with pics of the rest (party is tomorrow)

the simple things

yesterday i went for a quick walk in the woods behind the school with the boys.  took a few snapshots with my phone.

 

  

 

   
i just found this Canadian blog and i loved the idea behind this weekly challenge, now we'll see if i can actually do it every week...

I changed it again

My hair that is! Last February I died my hair fushia, I loved it but had to get rid of it for my sister 's wedding last June. It was really hard to remove from my hair. In fact it still shows in some places. Last week I was finally able to get what I wanted - light blonde with colored ends. She bleached my roots left some of what was left (blond highlights and left over pink) then I chose a gorgeous deep Purple for the ends. Sorry for the akward picture I'm using the Blogger app on my phone and it won't let me flip my picture

Painting with the kids

Today I decided to take out some canvases (cause I have a lot) and get the kids to paint with me. Charlie is my more creative child but Brady willingly participated. Charlie painted a minecraft pumpkin that was shot and Brady also painted a scene out of minecraft with a creeper.

I also started a canvas, I think I have a good base going not too sure what I'm gonna do to finish it all up. If you're wondering what the red all over is well I had a candle burning and I thought there was too much wax, so I took a spoon and pour all over -it smells wonderful! It was an apple candle from Bath & Body Works.

This is my first post using the blogger app for iPhone so if things look wonky I apologize.
Until next time
Bella

mojo motivator!

talk about a good way to get back into things; i'm one of this week's spotlight designers on 365 cards AND i won the prize from Crimson Cloud,  this is the card i had submitted for their sketch challenge.

Lucky 7 Factory crop

Hello,

i have layouts to share!!!!  yay!
yesterday i spent the day cropping with my buddies Claude, Erin, JJ and Eliane at the all-day crop organized by Lucky 7 Factory.  For those who don't know who they are well they are a Quebec scrapbook papers and embellishments company.  We all received lots of goodies, they do a lot of embellies by hand which is nice.  The crop was extreamly well organized and the food was good too!

unfortunately i arrived late due to a family emergency but i still managed to make 4 layouts and 1 card.  I think it helped that there was a 30 min challenge and a "musical page" challenge.  That last one was interesting enough, we each started a page and after 5 min we'd pass it to the person to our left, we were 5 at our table so all 5 did something on all 5 layouts - not 1 came out looking similar.  Mine ended up very eccletic, i had just arrived and hadn't unpacked yet so i just grabbed a stencil and some ink, i did some ink drop on the too but used a paper towel to absorb it and it smeared, looks a bit like a nose bleed but other that that i like it.

 this is the "musical page" layout. see what i mean by nose bleed...

K-time

here's what i know was used...

washi tape, dylusionals, Balzer design stencil, Ranger distress ink, AC thickers

the 30 min challenge - i'm finding this one a little too plain so i think i'm gonna be adding something; maybe some clouds using a texture medium - i'll repost it when i'm done with it

One fine day

cs: Bazzill

pp: Authentique

letters: AC thickers

mushroom: L7F 

other: Dylusional inks (blue, teal and yellow), Fiskars border punch(upper crest)

ok now onto my better stuff:

back 2 school 

pp: Authentique, BoBunny

letters: AC Thickers

other: washi tape, MR robot, L7F embellishments, Jillibean Soup ribbon, Dylusional (red), number stencil, real library card and pocket from my mom (she works in a library), EK success border punch (notebook page)

Here's my card, i just love the Taylored Expression cuppie images

Bonjour card

cs: bazzill

pp: L7F

ink: memento, copics (E13,E31,E35,E50,C1,C3,C5,C7,YG0000,YG95,G0000,G20,G85,G99,BG0000,BG11,BG13,BG45,BG49,B0000,B00,R20,R32,R35,RV32,W00,W3,W5,W7)

image: Taylored Expression

other: twinery (licorice twine), washi tape, spellbinder die, pop dots

and my FAVORITE layout of the day

1er jour d'ecole

pp: L7F, Authentique

letters: doodlebug

ink: Ranger distress, memento

image: Octopode factory

other: washi tape, L7F embellishements, Studio Calico kraft star stickers (colored in black), Silhouette 

Thanks for stopping by,
Bella

365 cards sketch challenge

here's my card for the weekly sketch challenge at 365 cards.  This card came together very quickly.  I used a plain craft card base, 3 of the 5 ribbons from a Crate Paper ribbon pack and a coordinating 3d sticker embellishment from the same collection.   I stamped in Memento (tuxedo black) ink the sentiment "wishing you ...tranquili-tea" with a Stamping Bella stamp.  

thanks for stopping by, 

Bella

i'm a color runner...maybe more of a walker

yup it looks like so much fun that i had to sign up even though i'm not a runner, nor a jogger.  It's only 5K and i'm hoping i'll be able to run at least 3 out of 5.  I could walk the whole thing if i wanted to it's really mostly for fun.   and its so COLORFUL, how could i not do it!

wish me luck, it's on october 13th!  I've been walking/jogging at 3-4 times a week (since last week)

First day of school

Yesterday was the first day of school for the boys. Mommy's happy and a little sad since Charlie is now in school and no longer at home with me. I will miss my time with him. <3 a="a" and="and" charlie="charlie" chocolate="chocolate" couch.="couch." cuddles="cuddles" day="day" e="e" for="for" had="had" half="half" he="he" him="him" hot="hot" last="last" latte="latte" lots="lots" mommy="mommy" nbsp="nbsp" of="of" on="on" one="one" outing.="outing." starbucks="starbucks" the="the" today="today" we="we" went="went" with="with">

Saturated Canary blog candy

Hi there!  Do you love Saturated Canary?  well I DO!!! lots!  i just bought 3 more images yesterday...i like hoarding them :)  if you don't know Krista's work well check out her shop and all the gorgeous images she's got. 

 

Saturated Canary shop

Head on over to Fluttabyz Designs blog, she's got a 20$ gift certificate for SC up for grabs

 here's a few that i've colored with my copics  to make Christmas cards with.

(I did make the cards, i just didn't take the pictures before giving them away last year)

my sister's wedding

my baby sister got married on June 2nd 2012.  She got her photos done by Crystal at Joi Photography.  You can see some of her wedding photos on the blog here  unfortunetly i can't show you a picture but please got take a quick peek, it's worth it :)

on another note, i have started scrapbooking again and i'll be back soon with some pictures of my latest projects.

Parents of twins to appeal denial of double benefits | CTV News

Way to go Chris! A high school classmate of mine is taking a stand for parents of twins to get the same parental leave rights as a parent of a single child. i'm behind him 100%

Parents of twins to appeal denial of double benefits | CTV News

Whole Brain Teaching: Grade 1 Classroom

found this video on Pinterest. Ok, i don't know who this teacher is but i wish ALL teachers were like her. She seems to have such a way with the kids. awesome!!!