Oops, I did it again...

...I haven't blogged in over a week. I'm getting bad, I'm sorry! I don't suppose I have much of a reason for not blogging, although I will say that I was quite busy hanging out with and soaking up as much as this chick as I could:

Yep, she's gone. My only good friend in Halifax (and one of my few good friends, period), Heather, flew out yesterday morning to start a new life out in British Columbia. I drove her to the airport, and I must say that it all didn't feel very real, more like she was just going on vacation for awhile. I kept telling people all week that it probably wouldn't feel real to me until next Wednesday night when I want to talk to her about LOST before getting together to watch it, then it'll hit me that, oh, we're not going to watch LOST together again for possibly quite a long time. And it makes me kind of sad, but I know that this is what she wanted and what she needed for herself, so I can't wait to hear about her adventures in the mountains!

Soooo, that about explains my absence. I was helping her pack and clean and get rid of her stuff all last week (well, watching her do it mostly, ha) then we went out on Saturday to celebrate her last weekend here (bowling and a pub, how exciting), and on Wednesday we watched our last LOST together in her empty apartment, with nothing but the computer and a few pillows to sit on the floor with. It was nice.

As most of you know, Heather has been my primary practise model for me over the past year, so I thought I'd share some shots that I've taken of her over the last year:

This was my first really good shot of her, back at the beginning of April last year. I was so happy with myself and my brand new camera! Still learning back then (still learning now too.)

Last winter we were stuck inside, ALOT, because of the weather, so many-a-Friday night was spent just taking pictures of her in our crappily-lit apartment, but from time to time I'd get a gem like this one (back when she had brown hair!) Or we would try and stage "sets" and put her in costumes:

Anywhere we went basically I had my camera and I took pictures of her. By the end she was pretty used to it.

Shots from our first "major official" photoshoot, the Halloween themed shoot out in Clam Harbour. I had alot of fun that day, and she did too, despite being out in a nightgown when it was only about 10C! These types of things I will remember the most, our foolishness and drives out to nowhere to take silly pictures.

My absolute most favourite picture of her ever, taken this past January, again in the freezing cold and again on Clam Harbour beach. Just radiant.

And finally, shots from our last photoshoot, our "friends" photoshoot, taken this past Sunday in her empty apartment. I love these shots too.

That's us, one year in a nutshell basically.

She was my lunch buddy, sometimes roommate, noon-time rambler, etsy shop co-founder, sharer of crafty dreams, photo model, LOST obsesser, Michael's and shopping partner, arguer, costume-wearer, dreamer, holiday lover, new craft tryer, button pusher, supporter, therapist, confidant, complainer, plans-that-never-happened maker, and my friend. And I will miss having her around.

Good luck Heather, I'll send you one of those caramel apples someday!!

(Ps-Non-Heather related: I have a few layouts that I made this week, and my new 52Q book cover and entries, I'll show those later this weekend, along with my new and improved living room I hope!)

Sail to the Moon

I, for the life of me can't get that song out of my head, j'adore it so much, that whole album "Hail to the Thief" has got me by the heartstrings, I must say. Radiohead kick is definitely still in full swing. Anyhoo, haven't posted in a bit so I thought I would share some visual bits and give a little update with what's going on with the Flynnies.

The main thing that has been filling my head this week (besides Radiohead) is planning a trip to Italy. Yes, the infamous trip I've been talking about for oh, about 3 years now, but it's come back into my mind and darn it, it's going to happen this year. Dan has amazingly and selflessly given me the go-ahead to go alone since we both can't afford to fly there, and with our tax money coming back we should have enough to cover me going (I can't express enough how much I love my husband for understanding my need to travel and his willingness to allow me to spend so much money quite selfishly on myself)... so now I'm on a ticket search. The only problem with this seemingly simple plan is that I can only go in August because that is the only time that my friend Jelena (who I will be staying with) can take on vacation. Which doesn't sound like a big deal until you try searching for plane tickets for August...hello high season! So I don't know what I'm going to do, I'm searching and searching, I may have to grab a seat sale ridiculously early, or dangerously late to my ideal travel time, who knows. All I know is that I HAVE to go, it's not a want anymore, it's a HAVE. It's my new mantra. So I'll be constantly on the lookout and mentioning it briefly from time to time in the next few months, just to warn you. Italy this and Italy that...

On to real world things...

Latest scrap page, again using the pictures from Heather and I's last official photo shoot (well, perhaps not the last, we may do another this weekend, but the most recent.) I really liked how this turned out, it's based on Sketch #118 on Pencil Lines (hello my name is Geneviève and I'm a sketch addict....Hello Geneviève.) It's junked up but not tooo junked up, and the BG birdie paper is too cute! Pulled out the ole' masking tape too, which is fun. Scrappy goodness.

Been reflecting alot of Heather's upcoming adventure out West (one week from today!), it's going to be quite something, I'm very excited/nervous for her, but she is really looking forward to it so I can't wait to see what happens to my little blonde! She has been slowly shedding everything she owns, something that I'm not sure I could ever do with my things, but in the process of her doing that I have inherited quite a few of her items (I'm not complaining!) The biggest thing I've taken over are these 2 chairs that I actually blogged about waaay back in April of last year (it's shocking to me that I've been blogging that long!) when we thrifted them off Kijiji:

They are now mine, and they don't look much different than in this picture because Heather never got the chance to properly refinish them, so the task now lies with me and I'm very excited. I'm going to go scout out some fabric that will go with my couch and new love seat (coming on Saturday!), and I may get a quote on professionally re-upholstering them. Has anyone ever had anything re-upholstered? Is it pricey if you provide the fabric? The legs also need a good sanding and staining, so that will be a spring project for sure. I'll be sure to update once they get their makeover :)

I'm also getting a white coffee table, a set of lamps, 3 baskets, some craft supplies (yarn and fabric and scrap stuff, oh my!), a gorgeous tree print, lots of books and other random thingies. It was very nice of her to let me have all this stuff, and I can't wait to meld it all in with my own things. Little pieces of Heather in my home (but not in the serial killer kind of way that sounded...)

So, speaking of decorating and things, this weekend will be dedicated to a living room re-do. Our new love seat is coming on Saturday, and I have Heather's chairs/2 new prints/new floating shelf/Heather's lamps/possible new curtains to add, so I will be doing some re-jigging for sure. Before and After pics will be provided :) One thing I wish I could do, but can't, would be to install some gorgeous built-in shelves like these ones, wow and double wow:

Photo from Design Sponge

Love them so much. Maybe in our house someday. After I do the living room the only thing I will will have left to do in there will be to get a new TV/sideboard, but that probably won't be until later in the year. I may also paint our coffee table in the near future, we shall see. If I'm smart I will also do some paint touch-ups I've been ignoring for months...bad me. Ok, one last house thing and then I'm done: yesterday and today an electrician is coming in to replace our fuse box in the apartment because it was suuuuper old and before the landlords sell the place they had to update it (I'm guessing.) Anyway, so yesterday I come home and my whole house has been tampered with, and there's gyproc dust allll over the place! Left by 2 holes in the walls, just perfect. So I'm waiting for him to finish today so that I can de-dustify the place and put everything back in its right place. I don't think I would be too good with the whole re-modeling thing, I would probably have to leave my house for fear of going insane/into a rage at the messy tradesman (of whom my husband is one!) The one good thing about it I suppose is that it's going to force me into an early spring cleaning, which isn't a bad thing necessarily...

Ok, moving on...

In the next few days I look forward to:

-Playing ScrapJack (I have a mini book in the making started in my head for this one...)

-Playing Work Your Soul (Again, there's something flocullencey cooking up in my head)

-Possibly looking into participating in the 52Q Challenge on Emily Falconbridge's blog, I really like the idea...thanks Dani for linking it up!

-Swimming (I flaked on Tuesday and last night was LOST, so this will be my first time!)

-Taking some more pictures with Heather, hopefully outside

-Finishing the first Season of the Sopranos with Dan (great show!!)

-Getting our love seat finally

-Shimi being out of heat (poor little thing, we need to bring her to the vet next week)

Well I don't want to get too wordy so I'll end it there. Hope everyone has a great weekend and I hope to be back this weekend with some pics of the new and improved living room and maybe some scrappies!

G.

Yep, it's a day of love...

...and no, we aren't celebrating it. Dan really isn't into V-Day, and I can't blame him, it, like most other holidays, has been totally commercialized, and that is soooo not my husband, and I'm fine with that. He does nice things for me without any occasion, so that's good enough for me. Like these pretty pink and white carnations that he got me, they weren't for V-Day, he bought them for me last week without even realizing it was V-day the following week, he just thought of getting me flowers one day for no reason. I much prefer that over a card one day a year :) Plus, I got Dan to go to the mall with me today, so that was a gift in itself!

They are lasting forever!

Let's see, what else? Oh, the other day I got my fabric from Etsy for my blanket, I can't wait to go home and start making it with my mom! We are making a simple twin-sized sheet blanket with 6 inch squares, it's going to be so nice with all these bright patterns. Love love it.

Random picture of my husband. He gets better and better looking everyday, I swear. I'm too lucky sometimes.

And some random picture of me (365s) I finished Eclipse earlier this week, now I have nothing to read and it's bugging me. I'm going to borrow Breaking Dawn from my sister the next time I go home, I can't wait to see how this turns out (or does it not finish with the 4th one? Is she writing a 5th book? Twilight fans, do you know?)

Been feeling kind of down in the dumps lately, not sure why. Just super super bored I guess. My job was crazy boring this week, I couldn't get myself motivated to work on anything that wasn't needed right away, and so I wasted a lot of free time that I won't have in the next few months once the new Fiscal year starts...and at night I just wandered around the house, looking for something to do but never really wanting to do anything. I went to bed early alot. I don't know, I think it's just mid-winter blues, there's nothing coming up soon so I'm just cruising along, waiting for spring. But it's the weekend and I feel a bit better, a bit more inspired to do things, so that's good. I have Monday off too so I'm hoping to do some crafty things and work on some home decor projects, so we'll see how that goes. Other than that though, life is, you know, just life. Unless we go on a trip or I get pregnant, things are staying pretty much the same with us.

Me being melodramatic, ha. I love it sometimes though.

I'm working on a few pages right now, so I'll probably be back to post them later this weekend. I also finished editing the wedding pictures I took a few weeks ago, so I may post some of those, the bride was quite happy with them so that's the important part, it doesn't matter what I think. Up next, shooting little Judah's birthday party (he's 1 already, it's so hard to believe!) I may also do an outdoor shoot for a coworker, and perhaps a couples shoot with Sara and Dave, so I'm getting a lot of practice!

I hope everyone is having a nice day with your loved ones, whether or not you celebrate Valentine's Day.

<3

Tuesday Sigh-ables

I finished this layout last night. It's for the latest Effer Dare Challenge, which is "I am a ____ Virgin". I decided to make it about my hubs and his lack of ink. For 6 years now he's been saying he wants a tattoo, but he can't decide what he wants.

(I already have one tattoo and my opinion on them is that as long as they aren't too topical/trendy/dated, then it doesn't matter what they are. I for example just have a little flower on my lower right back (it was 2003, so the lower back was the "it" spot, whatev), and I know that when I'm 80 I'm not going to think "a flower, what is that?" or "Man that flower is soooo 2003!", so to me it's fine. He doesn't see it that way though, it has to mean something to him, so he's taking his time until he find something he really wants. I can't wait for him to get one though, he would look so hot!!)

I really like all the blues and greens with the black and brown in the layout, and it was super quick to come together, I love when that happens :)

So, the other day I got my print from artandghosts (I love it sooo much!) and I'm now thinking about my living room wall re-do. I want to get some floating shelves and create a wall collage (I attempted to make one above my couch but it's never really taken off, so I'm going to start over.) I've been looking online for inspiration, and sigh, there are so many pretty rooms out there!

Here are a few with floating shelves...





(This space above it my ideal, when we get a flat screen TV I want a sideboard like this, with shelves above)

And here are some pictures of wall collages that I find oh-so-beautiful (I really like the full, busy look, but still with some airiness)

*Most of these photos are from Deorology, a great visual sight for decor and inspiration!









(Not a wall collage, but I LOVE these bookcases and this room!)

Soooo, I hope to get to work on this possibly this weekend (with the help of my husband and his mighty drill.) I need to get some shelves, and a few frames for some of the prints I've been collecting, I might get some of my pictures blown up, so we'll see how it turns out! My walls are not white, so I don't know if it will be as effective as it would be on a white wall, but I'll try it out anyway...I love DIY and decorating! And this time I'm not letting renting stop me from beautifying my home (my landlords are pretty cool...as far as I know, I've never seen them, ha.)

Anyway, this should cure my decorating itch until the spring when I re-paint my kitchen (well, re-paint the walls-goodbye hideous lime green, hello light sandy beige-and finish painting the inside of my cupboards...) I'm also interested in painting a surface in my kitchen in chalkboard paint (I have one little end of my cupboard that would be perfect) Has anyone tried using this paint? Can you paint over it with regular paint once you don't like it anymore (or are moving out?)

Happy, lovely Tuesday afternoon!

G

Wishes...

For The Art is Found challenge this time, the theme was 'wishes'. I decided to do the same as the lovely Dani and ask my hubs for his wish list, and added it to mine.

If I had 3 wishes right now, I would wish for the ability to travel all over Europe with Dan, to be debt free and to have our own house, and to have a baby. If Dan had 3 wishes right now he would wish for financial Independence (same as my debt free), to have musical genius (which I think he already has), and...a taco machine. Yep. Tacos. He was even nice enough to (carefully) journal his own wishes, and I love that.

[Please ignore the clips at the top of the layout, I have to hang them on my fridge in order to get good pictures until I get my scanner working again...sigh.]

I also played The Creative Type Challenge, which was to use retro fonts, and the layout is based on the latest Pencil lines sketch (#120). Three in one, oh yeah!

Here's another layout I did while I was at my mom's last weekend, not totally in love with it but it's fairly cute :)

This week I have absolutely no plans. I'm hoping to scrap of course, take some pics of course and watch LOST on Wednesday, but other than that it's a fairly boring week. But I suppose it's better than an overly stressful week, isn't it? Perhaps on Saturday I will do something looove related with the hubs, but we really aren't into that stuff all that much, so it will probably be fairly low key.

Umm, what else? Oh yes, I want to see Coraline. Looks so cute in a Edward Gorey kind of way (which is, of course, my favourite way.)

Well that's all for now, back later this week with more scrappies, I'm working on an Effer Dare layout right now, and I'll probably submit something for the ScrapMojo design team call, but we'll see.

I leave you with some pics of Heather and I from a semi-planned photo shoot we had this weekend at her place, nothing fancy, I'm hoping to get at least one more in before she leaves on the 26th. Does anyone have any cute ideas for a "friends" photo shoot?

Fun colour shots (playing with tint a little bit here)

Black and white "dramatic" poses, ha

Happy Monday!
G.

Haven't Blogged in over a week!

For me that is crazy! I'm usually pretty good about blogging at least once a week, most of the time 2 or 3 times...there's nothing worse than reading/following a blogger who posts fairly consistently and then just all of a sudden stops, that really irritates me. Not that I expect people to blog everyday or be entertainment to me, it's more just that I miss them! Weird how the online world works that way, we are interested in people we have never met...and while I'm on the subject, there is also nothing worse than people who come on their blogs and whine about "missing blogging" and saying that they "want to blog more", but then never do, the only time they come back to blog is to say that they want to blog more...ugh!! If you want to blog more, then BLOG MORE. It's not hard, it's just a habit, people can fall out of it and people can fall back into it, simple as that. Sorry for the rant, just something I've noticed lately. Moving on...

Well, I'll try to keep this short since I don't have any pictures to post (yet.) Last week I had a 4 day weekend and it was sooo nice, I really needed it, I was burnt out at work for sure. Needed to escape my cube...so I went to Sussex during that time and it just reinforced how much I want to go back there for good. To live a nice, simpler life close to my family (and fur family), get outside more and just live quietly. Not that life here in the city isn't like that, I'm sure once I move home and start working and living day to day it wouldn't be the same as it is when I go visit, but still, I feel like I would generally feel better being HOME. And it really didn't help that I found possibly the house of my dreams in Sussex...it's just like what I pictured, old, full of character and right in the neighbourhood I wanted too! And it's fairly inexpensive, which makes it all the more tempting. Wanna see a pic? I'm sure you do :) You can see it here on MLS, and here's a picture of the front, it doesn't really do it justice, but trust me, it's a cute house!

So I think that Dan and I are going to ask our bank about mortgages, just to find out what type of things we would have to do in order to get one in the not-too-distant future. Dan has said that he's not quite ready to leave Halifax yet, and we still have some saving to do, which means working at our current jobs (which pay far more than what we would make in Sussex), so this house might slip away from us, but knowing that houses like this are out there is reassuring. I can soooo see me living there though!

While in Sussex I took pictures at my friend Sara's sister-in-law's wedding. I was super nervous and I can't say that I'm super thrilled with what I came up with, but I worked with the circumstances I had (it was an evening wedding and we had no time for outdoor shots, so they were all mostly taken inside a dark-ish church), but I said that I would aim for 60-75 good shots and I think that I got them (I have over 50 shots of the ceremony alone!). I'm still editing at the moment, but I'm hoping by the end of the week I'll have most of them done and will be able to post some of them (after getting the bride's permission.)

Now, I have a question for any photographers out there who take shots of people: Do you ever find that before you actually go to a shoot, you are full of ideas and shots that you want to take and things that you want the people to do, but then once you get there and the people are in front of you, waiting for direction, you just kinda freeze up? I don't know what it is about me, even with Heather I get that way; we always come up with super cool ideas for shoots but then once we are out there she asks me what to do and I'm like "ugh...." and we don't end up doing half the things I picture in my head. Is it a personality thing? I'm kind of shy when it comes to telling people what to do at shoots, but at the same time I want them to do specific things and I get disappointed when they don't do them/the shots don't happen. Like for this wedding, I wanted to do all kinds of outdoor shots with her in the snow and really play up the winter-ness, but I was way too shy to ask her if she wanted to do them (it was also a matter of time, we only had about 30 mins for pics before we had to leave.) Does anyone else have this problem? How to you overcome being "bossy"? Is there a line between letting the shoot happen naturally (which in the end brings out the best shots) and giving directions on what to do? If you were being shot (that sounds funny, haha) would you rather have the photographer tell you what do you or just go with the flow?

Well I guess that's enough rambling for the moment. Before I go, check out this super fabric yumminess. I am making a blanket with my mom's help this year (one of my Goals for 09), so I went on Etsy and found these delicious Anna Maria Horner prints from this shop, aren't they just amazing?! I am ordering 8 1/2 yard pieces, which should be enough for a twin-sheet sized blanket made up of 6" squares...I'm so excited, I think that next time I go home we are going to start working on it, I'll be sure to update as it comes along! (Right now I'm making a pink/red one, but once this one is done I think I'm going to make a similar one in blues/greens...)

I love being domestic. In fact this weekend I plan on going on a bit of a cooking binge, making a few casseroles/soups for my lunches next week, now that I have no lunch buddy (sniff sniff.)
Three weeks from today she leaves! It's so surreal.

Have a great Thursday, I'll be back soon with layouts and pics hopefully (back to my normal blogging self...)