Excitement!!!!

This is not stamping related at all, but I just have to share my exciting news. After 5 and a half long months, I am excited to say that we have finally sold our house!!! We signed the papers last night and will be moving Oct. 19th. Because it is such a quick closing I guess I better not procrastinate on the packing. I am dreading the thought of having to pack up my stamp room, it means I won't be able to stamp for a little while. But I can't wait to move and settle in. I guess I better get back to work on a few cards I need before I have to pack up my stuff. I just had to share my news.

I got it and I love it!

About a week ago my friend Sue came over and showed me how to use the Quickutz Handtool and the Quickutz Revolution and then explained how the Cuttlebug worked as well. I was so intrigued by these tools. I really love the look of dry embossing, but find it pain to do with the stylis. I also love the idea of using Alphabet Die Cuts. After my little training session, Sue and I went to her favourite scrapbook store in the area (dragging our husbands of course), and checked out the machine and available die cuts, etc. There is many options to choose from. After debating over all the different tools and such, I decided the Cuttlebug was what would work best for me. The size of the embossing dies is what really did it for me. I love the idea of being able to do a whole card front at one time.

I was able to get the Cuttlebug last Saturday at Wal-mart in Kitchener, I also picked up a few embossing plates. I did not get any cutting dies yet for two reasons, 1. There was not really any shapes I wanted there and 2. I really only want the Alphabet dies anyways, but my husband says I have to wait for my birthday to get some of those. Can November come fast? So here is a picture of my new tool:

I am loving it so far. I have found it really easy to use. And the embossing on the cardstock is so vivid. I love it. I can't wait to start using this in my scrapbooks. Here are a few cards I made last weekend. I had to try out my new machine. :)

Supplies:
Stamps: Summer by the Sea
Ink: Night of Navy
Cardstock: Not Quite Navy, Very Vanilla
Accessories: Cuttlebug, Dimensionals, Pencil Crayons

Supplies:
Stamps: Eat Cake
Ink: Certainly Celery, Almost Amethyst, Rose Red, Apricot Appeal, White
Cardstock: Certainly Celery, Almost Amethyst, Rose Red
Accessories: Cuttlebug, Dimensionals, White Ribbon

Supplies:
Stamps: Think Happy Thoughts
Ink: Almost Amethyst, So Saffron
Cardstock: Perfect Plum, Almost Amethyst, Certainly Celery, So Saffron, White
Accessories: Cuttlebug, Dimensionals, Scallop Circle Punch, 1 3/8 Circle Punch, 1 1/4 Circle Punch

Mounting So Many Sayings

I recently received the stamp set So Many Sayings. It includes 28 saying and 6 designs. It comes with three pieces of rubber and three blocks, and is meant to be mounted with one piece of rubber on each block. If I had mounted it this way and wanted to use just one of the sayings I would have had to use a marker to highlight just the word I wanted. So I thought why not mount each saying separately. To do this I got some square dowels from Rona and had my dad cut them into two inch pieces. My husband then offered to sand the pieces for me so I would not get any slivers (what a nice guy). I then went to work mounting them. I am so happy with it.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Niagara Falls 2

Here is another page of photos from Niagara Falls, these pictures are from when we went on the Maid of the Mist boat. I was nervous about going on this because I hate getting wet and do not like to be near the side of a boat. But I survived, it was a very different experience seeing the falls from below. This is the first time I have split a photo across two pages. I did not include much of the photo on page 1 but I love how these two pages look together.

Here is page 2 of this layout. I saw these Ghost letters at Michaels last time I was there and just loved them. I knew it was going to be difficult trying to decide how to attach them to a layout, but I decided to get them anyways. I used staples to attach them on this page, this is the first time I have used Staples on a scrapbook page, and I am not sure if I like it and if I will do it again, but I love the look of these letters.

Supplies Used:
Stamps: Short Order Alphabet
Ink: Brilliant Blue
Cardstock: Bashful Blue, Brilliant Blue, Water Patterned Paper
Accessories: Ghost Letters, Staples

Niagara Falls

I love having holidays! Who doesn't? I am on holidays this week but my husband is working, so I have enjoyed being able to spend some time at home. This has allowed me to get some scrapbooking done. I have a strange thing with water. I love to watch water - the waves at the beach, waterfalls, etc. I also don't mind being on the water in a boat or canoe, but I absolutely hate being in water.

I love how this page turned out. I used red and black because of the coke bottle and mountie in two of the photos on the 2nd half of this layout. But I love how it really brought out the photos. This layout was inspired by a card sketch I had seen on SCS. The two white strips say: 1. The Canadian Horseshoe Falls plunges 170 feet into the Maid of the Mist Pool. 2. At the American Falls the water's vertical descent ranges from 70 to 110 feet to the rock at the base of the Falls.


This is the second half of the page. I tried to give it the same kind of look as the other half. All journaling is done on the computer.

Supplies Used:
(All Stampin' Up!)
Stamps: Heartfelt Thanks
Ink: Sage Shadow, Bashful Blue, Barely Banana
Cardstock: Real Red, Basic Black, White

Kincardine

I love to just sit and watch the water at Kincardine. My parents have a cottage very close to Kincardine, so whenever we are there we always take a drive to Kincardine and sit and watch the water. Usually we pick up some fish and chips first and eat near the beach. On our holidays this year Andrew and I spent a few days at the cottage, so needless to say we ended up at the Kincardine beach. It was really busy at the sandy part of the beach so we went down to the rocky part and ate our fish and chips.

I saw a page in the Simple Scrapbooks magazine where they put three small pictures inside one big picture. I just loved it, and thought it would work great for these pictures. I absolutely love how this turned out.

Supplies Used:
Cardstock: Certainly Celery, Bashful Blue, White, Four Seasons DS Paper
Accessories: Brads, Flowers from dollar store

Badlands Scrapbook Page

On our holidays this year my husband and I went for a day trip to see some badlands we had heard about through friends. We didn't know exactly where we going, so it was an adventure for us. We only knew what the name of the road was and what town it was near, so we just drove around for a while trying to find them. But it definitely was worth it. This was such an amazing sight. I had a really hard time trying to decide on what colours to use for these pages. As I was going through my cardstock pile trying to pick colours I found that Sahara Sand went really well. It brought out the grey strip in the rocks. I was going to use that for the background colour but I didn't have any of the cardstock in 12x12, and I did not want to wait until I got some. So I decided to use it to mat the photos instead. Here are the pages:

Supplies Used:
Stamps: Office Accoutrement, Jumbo Outline Alphabet
Ink: White Craft, Rose Red, Basic Brown
Cardstock: Close to Cocoa, Garden Green, Rose Red, Sahara Sand, Prints DS Paper - Rose Red
Accessories: Making Memories Chipboard Letter

Supplies Used:
(All Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Out & About Simply Scrappin, Chocolate Chip, Really Rust, Sahara Sand