On the mend...

Well, it's been a long week battling this infection, but I'm happy to say that I'm feeling a lot better.  By Wednesday night I was happy to say good-bye to this place.  

This photo was taken at around 6:30a.m., everyone is still sleeping, just the sound of snoring.  It's funny just to sit there and listen to all the different types of snoring, just like a symphony.  Yes, I know I'm weird, but what else do you do at that time in the morning, waiting for a nurse to open the clinic, so I can go back home, back to bed too!  I have sat in this hallway, let's see, 12 times in four days.  I was grumbling a lot about this until on my last visit, a nurse told me that some of the patients on this ward (geriatrics) have been there for months and months, a few have been there almost a year!  I can't imagine being in a hospital for that long, can you?  There's nowhere else for these patients to go, they are too ill to go home, too ill for a retirement home, it's just sad.  No more grumbling from me, however bad I'm feeling, there's a lot more people worse off.

But, I can always find something humorous, no matter what my situation.  Like on Tuesday, when I had a doctor's appointment, to get my drain taken out.  Instead of driving all the way home and then having to head back to the hospital again, my husband and I decided to walk around West Edmonton Mall and then go for lunch.  Well, I was getting pretty tired and we were still too early to go to the hospital, so we decided  just to sit in the car and relax.  All of a sudden, I woke up with a start, we had both fallen asleep!  Luckily I had woken up (hmmm, I was probably snoring, no, probably my husband was snoring, I don't snore!) when I did, we would have missed my appointment!  I wonder if anyone walked by and noticed us sleeping?!  

Yesterday afternoon this was delivered to my house.

Thank you sooooo much Aimee, Alison and Benjamin!!!   Isn't this the most gorgeous bouquet of flowers?  Aimee and Alison are customers of Urban Scrapbook and they sent this to me.  Where else do customers send things to the employees!  I have received some beautiful cards and flowers from others too.  We have the best customers and friends at Urban!!  Thank you so much, it is like a bouquet of Spring.  

I haven't been able to do much scrapbooking this week or go on the computer, so I'm anxious to get going again.  I did finish this address book yesterday:

I've had this chipboard binder forever, I can't even remember who makes it.  But we needed a new address book (my husband threw ours in the recycling bag by mistake, oops!)  I used Graphic 45 papers and their typewriter alphabet punch-outs.  The pictures aren't the greatest, but the small rose type flower was made with 7gypies gaffer tape.  This idea came from Pat, my sis and owner of Urban.  I have quite a few of those tape rolls and this is a great way to use them up.  I just folded it in half and twisted and wrapped it around and around, the same way as done with paper.  The large flower was just strips of paper, sewn down the center with a large size of stitching, wet with water, then gathered up.  You do have to gather it with care, as the paper tears easy when damp.   After it's dry, glue to the paper.  Now, the hard part, trying to find all our addresses and phone numbers to fill it!

Here are a few sites to lure you away from laundry, housework, etc. -

Our family has always eaten healthy and even more so lately.  If you are interested in eating habits, check out this video on Heather Prins' blog about Jamie Oliver.  

Check out this beautiful layout by Roxanne, she's so talented!

If you're into the vintage look, this is a great blog for free vintage images.

Hope you have a great weekend!

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Is it Monday??!!!

More about that later, but first a layout and some cards...

A layout I did last week, of my daughter at a few months old.  I've been loving all the layouts done with glimmer mist lately and figured I might as well use some of the many bottles in my stash.  Trying to use up some older paper too!

The chipboard needed something, so I used microbeads in the center of two flowers and an accordion flower(one edge punched out first with a border punch) in the center of the big flower.

It was my friend Heather's birthday last week so I made this card

and since I was in the card making mood and I have a lot of birthdays next month I made two more.  Usually I leave it to the last minute, so for once I hope to have a head start!

I love using the Bazzill embossed and scalloped 6 x 12 sheets for cards.  They make a great base for a card!  Hopefully I'll be able to work on more this week.

I had some fantastic news last Thursday, my pathology report came back and all the lymph nodes that were removed this last surgery were negative!!!  I never thought I would love hearing that word, "negative" so much!  I've been waiting to hear it since December, so I'm being positive about the negative!  

And then, starting Friday, things started on a little downturn.  Wouldn't you know it, maybe it was the shock of hearing good news for once.  I didn't feel great, almost like I was getting the flu or fighting off something.  By Saturday night, I was in the hospital emergency until 1:00am.  I have an infection from the surgery.  So in the past 48 hours I have been back to the hospital seven times for intravenous antibiotics.  The worst is having to be there at 6:30 a.m. for the first one of the day, especially the night we got home (because of the time change) at 2:00 a.m.  So, this weekend was a lost cause for me, I've been at the hospital or slept through most of it.  I find out tonight if I need to continue the i.v. therapy.  I am feeling better today, so hopefully not! 

Have a great week everyone!

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When you aren't....

working, or can't lift anything, do a lot of housework, get groceries, all the everyday things I usually do; it's amazing how much scrapbooking one can do!!    I better take advantage of this while I can!  Anyways, here's another layout...

This photo is of my aunt and uncle, who are both in their 90's (you would never know it).  While we were in Australia last year, we went to visit them and when we were leaving I took this photo, they looked so sweet standing there together.  Love this line from Jenni Bowlin!  I'm also hooked on the Jenni Bowlin Core-dinations paper.  It's already embossed, so when you sand it, the pattern comes out.

I made more flowers using paper.  The large one is folded like an accordion and then glued together on the ends.  The medium one was cut with my slice(vintage cartridge).  I usually cut out two of each size, three different sizes, and layer them together.  The little flower was made like the ribbon flower in the previous post, except using paper.  After it is gathered, wet the paper, pat it dry, and then pull up the thread.

I've also started working on new displays for The Urban Scrapbook.  Here's a sneak of one:

Pat and Lynette have been busy too......

It's so nice to see some spring decorations!  Go visit the store and check them out!

And now for some; proud of my daughter, time.  My daughter has the dream job and dream life of quite a few young women (what am I saying, older women, too!!) She is a fashion designer living in Manhattan, New York. I would love it, too because; 1. - the apartments are soooo tiny, there's hardly any housework to do. 2. - There's no room for any laundry facilities anywhere in the apartment buildings, so you have to take your stuff to a laundromat, where they do it all for you and iron it too!!  3.  There's no grocery stores, other than the corner shops which are ridiculously expensive, so it's cheaper to eat out.  O.K. so far that's, no cleaning, no laundry, no cooking.....hmmm and it gets even better!  4. more shoe stores than you can imagine  5.  More clothing stores than you can imagine. 6.  There are so many amazing restaurants, you would never get bored eating at the same ones.  I could go on and on, the art galleries, the museums, Central Park, theatre, as I said, she's a lucky girl.  Yes, it is expensive to live there, but she doesn't need a car, so that has saved her a lot of money!  Anyways, (I almost forgot where I was going with this!LOL!) she has just released a video campaign for the fall/winter line that she designed here (she's the one with the knit hat helping the model) so check it out! She has worked really hard on this line, so I wish her nothing but success, she deserves it!! 

Well, enough of my rambling, back to scrapbooking....

Take care and have a great Monday!

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This confirms it....

I work with the most thoughtful, caring and amazing women that I know.  They have been so supportive since I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  A couple of weeks ago Sheri and Heather attended an annual retailer event here and they got to talking with Lindsay, Julie and Eric from Cosmo Cricket (who are so nice and friendly!).  Last year I attended and showed them a cool technique that I discovered with their black chipboard, they thought it was great and put it on their blog.  When Sheri and Heather told them about me, they decided to do this little video, much to my surprise, yesterday, when I went on their blog.
I was so blown away, and a little teary, o.k, a lot teary when I watched the video and read the comments.
So, thank-you Sheri, Heather, Lindsay, Julie, Eric and all the other scrapbookers for your comments and words of encouragement!

As for scrapbooking, I thought this was such a cool idea from the Pink Paislee blog    .  I think I might have to try this!
Have a great Friday!

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I'm so sick of winter

Even though the sun is shining today and it's quite warm out, (this is Alberta, so unfortunately +2 Celsius is considered warm this time of year) I want green!  I'm sick of snow, cold, bare trees, and no flowers!  So I'm pulling out some summer photos, time to play with new product!!  This photo I used here was one I took at a butterfly house at Devonian Gardens last summer.  I can't believe how good it turned out, considering I had to snap fast before it took off.

In this layout I used Prima's new paper, the Shabby Chic and Flights of Fancy collection.  Love all their new paper!!  There's some Basic Grey Origins brads, rub-on and journaling diecuts, Jenni Bowlin button, and a fabric embellishment  from Webster's Pages in there too.  The other two flowers I made myself.  The little green ruffle one is really easy to make.

Take a piece of ribbon, at least 12 inches, and with a threaded needle, run a  gathering stitch down the center.  Pull it up tight, check to see if this is enough ribbon used to make a round flower, if not, stitch a bit more.  It really depends on the thickness and type of ribbon, how much you will need.  Once you have the desired amount, gather it tight and secure both ends together.  I used a large brad from Basic Grey for the center, poking it through a small cardstock circle, that I made smaller than the ribbon, so you can't see it.  I used glue dots on the circle to secure it to the ribbon.  This is a great way to use up bits of ribbon!

Take care, and have a great Thursday.  

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A new layout

I've been itching to use this chipboard diecut from ScrapFX, a company from Australia.

They have some amazing diecuts, but this one was my favorite.  I started out painting it, layering different colors of crackle paint, but then I just decided to do something different.  This is what I came up with:

I took plain white tissue, stamped on it with a Tim Holtz stamp and staz-on ink, and then sprayed the whole thing with glimmer mist.  While it was still wet, I laid it over the heart(which was glued to the cardstock and I covered the diecut and surrounding area with glue) and pressed down.  Where there was glue the tissue paper stuck, and I pulled off the excess.   Then, since my hands and everything else was covered in tissue, glue and glimmer mist, I though what else can I do with this tissue.  Awhile ago I saw an artist's work with book paper, books and sewing and, of course, I can't remember who it was or where I saw it(sorry!), but I loved how they wrapped the paper with thread.  So the flowers on this layout are my take on it:

I think I'm hooked on this whole tissue paper and glimmer mist thing, what else can I do? Hmmm...

The papers I used are the new lines from Studio Calico, love them!  The photo is of my three children, from a couple of years ago.  That's the last time they've all been home for Christmas.  Reece, the oldest lives in Australia, so I think we should all go there for Christmas next time!

On a personal note..., I just want everyone who knows what I've been going through lately, that I'm doing great and once again on the road to recovery.  Thanks for all your good thoughts, prayers and well-wishes! 

And for those who don't know me well,... I was diagnosed with breast cancer the first week of January 2010.  I had a mastectomy January 20th and originally my lymph nodes tested negative for cancer.  After further testing, one lymph node tested positive, so last week I went in for another surgery to remove the rest of the lymph nodes in that area.  So, hopefully they got it all, I'm keeping me fingers crossed!  I will have to have chemo, starting next month.  I do have to say, though, I am thankful that I have this hobby in my life.  It takes my mind off of everything else, it's relaxing and it's good to express what I'm feeling, or going through.  Even the days when I haven't been able to scrapbook, it's nice to check out  all the blogs, websites, and just be inspired by all the fabulous work out there.  My scrapbooking friends, co-workers, and customers are such a thoughtful and caring group of women.  It means so much to me!!

I even had a video message from Lindsay of Cosmo Cricket, thanks to Sheri!!

And, on a final note, before I forget....

Check out  the latest issue of Canadian Scrapbooker!

Some of us Urban Scrapbook girls are in there!

I have a layout in there and also my sister Pat has cards, and Roxanne  has a layout!

Whew, this is a long post!!

Take care and have a great Wednesday!

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