Inspire Me!

Ahh yes, life is good. I am having fun doing a little playing around and having a chance creating something simply for the sake of creating. However, soon I am going to have to get down to work because I have something fun going on......

Wanna come cruising and scrapbooking with me in October? On a big boat? Wanna see the Eastern Seaboard?

I am extremely excited to announce that I am going to be joining Oh My Crafts as an instructor for their annual 2009 Fall Cruise to Eastern Canada and New England from October 3rd - 10th, 2009.

I will also be with my good pal and talented instructor Trisha Ladouceur.

How awesome is that?

Our departing point is in New York City and from there we visit

Halifax, Nova Scotia

St. John, New Brunswick

Bar Harbour, Maine

Boston, Massachusetts

and Newport, Rhode Island

So add in some fun classes, some great sponsors and a whole lot of scrapbooking and I say that you have one inspiring holiday!

If you are interested, you can find more information here.

So like I was saying, I am enjoying this little bit of time before I get down to business to just create and play around. Quite a while back, I had purchased a Tim Holtz Grungeboard Mini Album and some Grungeboard embellishments. Since then it has sat there and I have been staring longingly the whole time.

so I pulled out my inks, paints, stamps, glimmer mists and anything else that was sure to make one heck of a mess and this is what I came up with.

For all the examples, I primed every page with different colors of Tim Holtz Distress Crackle Paint. It added a fun texture to play with.

As you can see, I also stamped some faint images onto the surface and then I went in with some Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist to color it in.

This page was really fun and it tested out some basic painting skills that have not used in absolutely forever!

I did a color wash for the sky using my favorite acrylic paint from Claudine Hellmuth's Studio Line collection for Ranger. Lastly, I added some clouds to the background and voila!

Gotta add that Prima to make the page extra cheery!

Lots more ink and Glimmer Mist for the letters and the butterfly too.

On this page, I used Grungeboard embellishments and covered them with gold leafing for a genuine gold look. To emulate the millions of stars in the sky, I used the Ranger Distress Stickles.

This last one I did, I had to lift from Tim Holtz and his Grungeboard demo. I love the little hearts, wings and crown combo, it is completely cute!

And there you have it. I hope you come join me in October and if not, I'll have a ton of pictures to share!

What Goes On With No Sense of Time or Schedule.

Ahh, yes. Relaxation. This folks, is where I threw any sense of schedule away for two weeks. This is a place that is surrounded by trees and rocks, bears and plenty of fish.

This is Rocky Lake, Manitoba.

This was the first time that I had ever ventured to this place and the trek was 12 hours, but it was completely worth it! Picture if you will the Canadian Shield, which means towering rocks and forest everywhere. The views were amazing! I mean, you wake up, get out of your trailer and look out upon this.......

Can you imagine? Rocks everywhere. Even the little islands in the lake were perfect little tables of rocks with a beautiful cropping of evergreens bursting into the sky.

And we loved the hospitality. This gorgeous place is home to Ed and Arleigh Tomchak, owners of the lovely Kum-Bac Kabins. It is definitely a popular destination. Friendly faces and faces from everywhere. We met people staying there from all over. Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, North Dakota, Kansas, Indiana, Missouri and even as far as Texas!

What brings everyone form everywhere out to this remote place? Why, the fishing, of course! There is nothing more gratifying than casting out your line, getting that bite and reeling in a fish on a thin little line. There is also no better meal than fresh fish for a fish fry either. Yummy!

As you can see, we also managed to get a fair share of photographs. Between myself and my camera nut of a husband, we the photos that we came home with were absolutely breath taking.

As I am sure, you can already tell I made a page. I told you in my last post that I decided to get back into the routine.

I told you I was back! Alrighty, until next time, see you later!