Sunday Scrappy Vault -Volume 1

*Sorry this is late, I meant to auto-post it on Sunday, but I didn't get to finish it, as with many other things in life these days. So this is technically a "Sunday/Monday Scrappy Vault" post.

This 'series' is something I wanted to try out after recently going through my old layouts on Flickr and on my computer. There were so many that I hardly remembered, so I decided I wanted to come back to them to explore a bit the process of making the page itself, as well as what inspired it. This concept is also inspired by Cathy, who does it frequently on her blog. Not sure how many of these posts I'll be doing, but it's a nice Sunday blog filler :)

Here we go, my first dive into the Vault:

(sorry so blurry, as always!)

Title: "The future of my life?"

Layout date: September 2007

Supplies used: Brown cardstock, Slab paper from Michael's, random flower paper (can't remember the brand), Dollarama sticker, Stampin' Up! tag, K&Co chipboard letters, Dollarama rub-ons, Bökmark word stickers, MM Letter sticker, brad.

Techniques used: None, ha!

What I like about the layout: The thing that caught my eye with this layout (get it, eye? lol) is the fact that I actually JOURNALED. Like, the page is mostly journaling; for me that's incredible. I remember going through a phase where I took a page from my journal, filled it, then stuck it in the middle of an 8.5X11 and basically embellished it (I have another one just like it from around this time too.) So that's pretty awesome, since I struggle so much with journaling these days. I also like the bold colours on the brown background, the cut-outs, and how I did the title over this blurry generic photo of my eye. The "Random thoughts on" is from Eternal Sunshine, a movie I was obsessed with at the time (and have been thinking about re-watching lately).

What I remember most about making this layout: I remember being at that stage in my life where I still wasn't quite sure what I should be doing. I had been temping/working at HPP (where I am now) for about 9 months and at that point it was still pretty menial, non-stable work, so I didn't know if I should stay or move on, whether I should start trying to have a baby or not (this is about the time I went off BC for good after taking 2 randoms packs of the Pill over the summer), where we should live, all of it. Dan was just starting plumbing school, so I also remember that this was a time where I had lots of free time to scrap because he was in Springhill during the week, and we didn't have a lot of money (hence the cheap-o supplies). Overall, it was a time of uncertainty, and I'm glad that I documented those feelings (it shows me how far we've come!)

Well that's all for this round. Hopefully I'll be back every Sunday this month checking out my long-forgotten layout friends.

Back tomorrow with my December goals (holy, how did it get to be DECEMBER tomorrow already?!)

Loves,
G.

More Christmas-ness beginnings...

So I guess you could say I've been dabbling into Christmas decor for a little while now. Right after Halloween I took out my bottle brush trees and they have been wooing me even since, I love them so much. I have about 30 of them all over the house in little clusters, and at night I light tea lights amongst them and enjoy the glow, it's really pretty. These will probably stay up until we move. Other than that though I haven't done a whole lot, I usually wait for December before getting *really* into it. But I did manage to do a few little projects, the biggest being the felted sweater wreath.

I originally saw this project on someone's Twitter, it's a project by the folks over at Value Village, my favourite thrift store (not sure if they have them in the States? They must, it's like a Salvation Army or something...) Anyway, it looked really cute and I had it in my mind for a bit, and actually planned to buy some wool sweaters on my next trip to VV, but then on my last Modified Day Off, I was bored and was going through clothes to give to-who else?-Value Village, and I came across this tree-green acrylic sweater. It hit me all of a sudden, and I was inspired to try to make the wreath using it, even though it wasn't wool. So I took my scissors and cut out 2" square-ish shapes (they really weren't uniform at all, I just kind of free handed it depending on the sweater's shape). It took me about 45 mins to cut out all the squares.

(blurry shots of all of squares from the sweater)

Once that was done I used some of Dan's soldering pipe-stuff for the wreath (since I didn't have any wire), and basically just poked the solder through the middle of the squares, it was really easy since the sweater was kind of a loose weave or whatever. Once I had a long string of squares, I coiled it into a circle, made a little hoop at the top for hanging, and voila! I eventually added a bow and now it's hanging in my back door, I love it :)

I might switch up the ribbon to a more 'modern' colour combo later, this was just an old ribbon I had lying around, but I love the fact that I can switch it up from year to year, or add little ornaments/felt flowers to it, it's a great basic wreath that I can modify for Winter/Fall and the holidays. And it was FREE!

(The other thing I might change before putting it away for next year is the soldering wire, it's a bit too 'loose' and the wreath sags, I have to keep adjusting it, but if you use a fairly thick gauge wire it should hold its shape.)

Other than that I've made a few little cards, usually I try to make a few cards every year at least, but this year I'm taking the easy way out, I had these silver blank cards from another project lying around, so I simply added some Christmas papers/embellies from last year to them, but I think they turned out kind of cute, I'll probably make 10 or so over the coming weeks.

There are tons of other projects I'd like to attempt next month, but I'm not sure if realistically it's going to happen, there's so much going on already, my days at work are getting busier and busier (my to-do list keeps getting longer and longer, plus I have all my going-away stuff to prepare) and my energy levels, though still pretty high, will probably take a dip in the next 6 weeks or so, so I need to be choosy about what I can do. Basics like gift buying/tree trimming/turkey dinner making will probably be at the top of the list and everything else will have to be put off. But I'll try (Luckily for me I'll have lots of pretty things to look at online if I can't get them done in my own home) :)

Well, better go pack for tomorrow, we're heading home and I can't wait!

Hugs,
G.

December Daily

Well, here it is, my first ever December Daily album. I saw this, of course, on Ali Edward's blog back in October and decided immediately that I wanted to make one. Last year I had done a mini about Christmas memories from my childhood, but I wanted to capture something about this year, the daily preparation of getting ready for Christmas, moving, baby, and everything else in between. It seemed like an appropriate year to capture.

When it comes to Christmas in general, I really tend to stick to more traditional things...some would even say 'country'. I just love the homey, nostalgic feeling of a beautiful green tree with ribbon and wooden ornaments and traditional colours. Not to say I don't appreciate the more modern Christmas looks out there, I do, but when it comes to my own tree/home/decor, I tend to stick to a traditional Christmas (I'll post pics later this week showing what I mean.) This December Daily book is no different. I used pretty traditional colours and looks, though it's not 'them-ey' by any means (not a Santa or elf in sight!) I knew that a lot of my days wouldn't be necessarily Christmas-related, so I wanted to keep it fairly 'neutral', but still appear to be appropriate for Christmas, if that makes sense.

(Pardon the flash and dirty linoleum floor, there's not a lot of options when it gets dark at 4:30!)

Album details:
-6X6 chipboard album cover (it was originally 12X6 but I cut the sheets in half)
-Most of the pages are chipboard, with a few envelopes and vellum sheets tossed in as well.
-Mostly used BG, K&Co and random papers from my Stash. Also used some brown velour, green textured paper and silver sparkly paper.
-Embellies include MM clocks, random ribbons, bits, journaling cards, vellum pockets, some Thickers and a few buttons (again, kept it simple and inexpensive)
-Numbers are by Shabby Chic crafts, I love how they fit into the album! I had no idea if the colours would work but they did on almost every page :)

Well that's all for tonight. Will post more Christmas projects tomorrow (including that long overdue wreath), and maybe some more Christmas inspo on Friday if there's time. I'm heading home for a long weekend on Friday, I can't wait, it's going to be busy but sooo nice to get away and see friends/family.

Happy Thanksgiving to the Americanos out there, enjoy the rest of your week!

Loves,
G.

The Numbers.

They're starting to add up on me today....

....I'm having a baby in about 13 Weeks
....I'm potentially moving in 10 Weeks
....I'm finishing work in 10 Weeks
....Christmas is in 4 Weeks from Friday
....I have approximately 30 more boxes to pack (at least!)
....I have approximately 98% of my Christmas gifts left to make/buy
....I've gained 15 pounds
....I miss 3 of my friends and am thinking about 1 constantly
....I'm waiting for 3 long overdue packages to arrive in the mail (and 1 to come for my sister)
....I have approximately 25 outfits for my baby so far, and 12 cloth diapers
....I'm starting Season 3 of Dexter
....I have 3 weeks until my next ultrasound
....I have more debt than my mind can think about right now

....

....and I have zero motivation to deal with any of it.

But tomorrow's another day.

A Pair of Prints.

These lovelies will soon be arriving at my door (an early Christmas present to myself, ha!) I love Ashley G's work, and when I saw she was having a BOGO sale in celebration of her 10,000th sale (!) on Etsy, I knew I had to take the opportunity to snatch a pair up. The one on the left is for me, and the one on the right is for the baby's room, I thought that the green would go well with the nursery colour scheme (the non-existent nursery, but you know what I mean...)

Today I picked up a few supplies for my craft-and-eat-a-thon tomorrow, picked up some pictures that I had printed (and will probably return later this week, they came out way too dark), and washed some more baby clothes :)

Oh, and took my 24.5 Week shots (I have to take .5 shots from now since it's dark by the time I get home on Tuesday, boo to winter!)

Definitely getting bigger, I just read today that in 1.5 weeks I'll be starting my 3rd trimester, holy moly! Not much time left now...

Well, off to watch more Dexter, have a good Saturday, more bloggies tomorrow!

Friday night sillies...

Silly survey I saw through Janel's blog...play along and link up!

♥ What are your middle names?

Katherine and Daniel (his first name is John, but he goes by Dan)

♥ How long have you been together?

6 and a half years (woah...)

♥ How did you meet?

We technically met once at a birthday party when I was 15 and he was 16, but we really met at the end of my 2nd Year of University when he sub-letted my roommate's room.

♥ How long did you know each other before you started dating?

We probably were hanging out about a month to 6 weeks before our hook-up.

♥ Who asked who out?

It wasn't that kind of situation, if you catch my drift...

♥ How old are each of you?

I'm 26 and he's 27.

♥ Do you have any children together?

In utero :)

♥ What about pets?

We have had a pet bunny named Pierre, and we now have a cat named Shimi.

♥ Did you go to the same school?

No.

♥ Are you from the same home town?

No.

♥ Who is the smartest?

Dan is more logical than I am, but I would say we are equally smart, but at different things.

♥ Who is the most sensitive?

Me probably, though not always.

♥ Where do you eat out most as a couple?

Umm, McDonald's? :S

♥ Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?

California.

♥ Who has the worst temper?

I think we are pretty equal, Dan's temper flares up faster than mine though.

♥ Who does the cooking?

Dan does, thankfully!

♥ Who is more social?

Dan probably, but we're both pretty anti-social.

♥ Who is the neat-freak?

Ha, no competition...me.

♥ Who is the more stubborn?

Not sure, neither one of us is that bad.

♥ Who hogs the bed?

I would say he does, he would say I do.

♥ Who wakes up earlier?

I do for sure, Dan's a total night owl.

♥ Where was your first date?

I have no idea.

♥ Who has the bigger family?
Dan does (Irish Catholics!)

♥ Favorite memories?
Probably our wedding, honeymoon and first year anniversary. Also our trip to California, the moment I got back from Spain after being apart for 5 months, and so many little moments over the years.

♥ Do you get flowers often?
Enough I would say, Dan's pretty good about getting them at random times.

♥ How do you spend the holidays?
Visiting both of our families in New Brunswick usually.

♥ Who is more jealous?
Neither is all that jealous, but if a situation came up, I probably would get pretty jealous/insecure.

♥ How long did it take to get serious?
Not very long, we were living together pretty much right from the start, said our I love yous at 2 months, we settled in pretty well right away.

♥ Who eats more?
Dan for sure.

♥ Who does/did the laundry?
Me, 100%

♥ Who’s better with the computer?
If it's a techy thing, Dan, but I'm better using programs and general computer stuff.

♥ Who drives when you are together?
Dan always (he also buys the meat when we do groceries. We're old school.)

♥ Who plays an instrument?
Dan plays lots of instruments, it's one of the things I love about him :)

♥ Do you share the same taste in music?
Not really, he's gotten me into some bands but many of the ones he likes I just can't get on board with.

♥ Who exercises more?
We're both pretty lazy, but I would say I do more walking.

♥ Who eats better?
Me, though not by much!

♥ Who's more romantic?
I'd say we are about the same, which isn't much at all.

♥ Who wears the pants in the relationship?
I like to think that we both do, but I tend to make more decisions...

♥ Who snores loudest?
Neither, but Dan does make little sleeping sounds.

♥ Is there anything you both share/enjoy?
Watching good TV shows, playing Doctor Mario, backrubs, staying home together, just being together, comfortable.

♥ Who takes more pictures?
Me!

♥ Who cries the most?
Me I guess.

Have a great Friday night! We're watching Dexter (of course) and listening to the rain. Busy day coming tomorrow though!

Loves,
G.

This is the reason...

I haven't been around all week...we started watching Dexter last weekend and we're now totally hooked on it. We finished Season 1 and are 4 episodes into Season 2, I imagine we'll be done quite soon and will move on to Season 3 and 4. It's a great show!! It's holding us over now that Mad Men is done (sniff!), and Breaking Bad/LOST haven't started yet. We haven't had a good series to watch since we first got into Mad Men, so it's nice to have a new obsession, even if it's about a serial killer :)

(Oh and PS-I totally love Dexter's clothes, especially his casual thermal/slim/looks-like-he's-going-camping tight shirts with baggier low waisted cargo pants. It's how I love to see Dan dress too, their body types are similar. Just thought I'd mention that, ha!)

I've also been a bit MIA because for the past 3 days or so Dan has been feeling pretty sick, he took 2 days off work (very unlike him), and has just been lazing around mostly. It might be H1N1 since a guy at his work (and his daughter) had it last week, but it's nothing serious so far so hopefully he'll soon recover. But that has meant early nights in bed for us and very little getting done except for watching TV and a bit of Internet surfing. He's gone in to work today though and we're supposed to do groceries tonight, so I'm hoping things will be back to normal soon.

This weekend I need to get working on some Christmas gifts for far away friends and family, since in order for them to receive their gifts by the 25th, I have to ship them off in about 2 weeks! Today it's 5 WEEKS 'TIL CHRISTMAS, oh my word!! So much to do. I'm going to a co-worker's house this weekend for some crafti-ness (and eating), so I hope to get at least 2 gifts done then, and I may do a bit of shopping this weekend as well, though I'm trying to keep the purchasing to a minimum this year, what with little bébé soon on his way...

(Another side note: I've gone through over 250 pages of baby names this week from a book I bought 2nd hand on Monday and I still haven't found anything that I'm in love with...this baby is going to be known as "bébé" forever I think! Did anyone else have this much trouble naming their child?!)

Ok, enough rambling, I really hope to be back this weekend to share my felt wreath (like I promised), a new belly shot, and if I'm lucky my December Daily (which is mostly done, I just need the numbers to arrive in the mail!)

Happy Friday and weekend everyone!
Loves,
G.

Chilly? Need some warmth?

In anticipation of the Christmas season, Heather and I are listing everything in our shop at 25% off! So if you're looking for some cute knits or a great Christmas gift, be sure to check out our shop!

(That green scarf is my personal fav, I may have tried it on a few times and swooned over its loveliness...)

Today it's rainy and grey, but I'm heading to Michael's (again) to get some more Christmas gift supplies, then hopefully this afternoon I'll pull out my sewing machine to attempt a few projects, I really need to learn to not be afraid of it, but I'm such a newbie when it comes to sewing that if my mom isn't around for support, I get kind of freaked out. And don't even get me started on stitching by hand!

Tonight Dan and I are going to see Billy Bragg. I can't say that I'm the hugest fan but it's always fun to have a night out with the husband, so I'm sure I'll enjoy myself.

I'm also almost done by December Daily, I'm just waiting for the Vintage number tags to show up in the mail so that I can add them, along with a few other embellies that I might purchase today, but the bones are done and I'm very happy and excited to start filling it starting in 2 weeks (seriously, where is November going?!)

I'll be back tomorrow to post my felted sweater wreath that I mentioned last time, I just need to add a bow and it'll be ready for presenting :)

What's on your plate this lovely Sunday?

Now I know I'm biased...

...but that is one cute little baby! Big smile and a thumbs up for his Mama :)

Have a great weekend everyone, I have Monday off so I'll be back to blog more soon!

Prego catch up...

Just a quick post to show off the quickly growing belly in front of me (it's still shocking to see how quickly it's happening), and share my V-log for Weeks 14-20 (recorded 3 weeks late...) I'm trying to take a shot every 2 weeks now and record a video for every 6 weeks, hopefully I can keep it up until the end!

Weeks 14-20_Nov 11, 2009 from Genevieve Flynn on Vimeo.

(Sorry the video is dark and quiet, the webcam isn't the best thing for this but it's all we have at the moment...)

Tomorrow is my echocardiogram, wish me luck!

I'll be back later this week to post a crafty project I did today :)

Happy Wednesday

Question and Answers

Since about February I have been sporadically participating in Emily Falconbridge's 52Q: A Year of Mini Art journaling. Basically she provides a question every week and we scrap the answers, (supposedly on just a little tag, but I've been doing 5.5X7.5 cards). It's a fun idea, and I like having the little prompts. It's my go-to scrap project when I don't have anything 'big' to scrap (literally, when I'm not feeling like doing a 12X12 or 8.5X11). I'm also trying to use up just scraps/old Stash for this project, no new supplies allowed, which has been fun...sometimes the pages aren't my 'usual style' since I'm using older stuff, but I'm enjoying the challenge of making dated scrap stuff look cool again :)

Some of the questions are a bit tough, I really don't have photos or answers for them (and I have a super hard time scrapping something without a photo), but I'm determined to get them all done before the baby is born next March. I'm not doing them in any particular order, I just choose whaever question inspires me, but I thought it would be fun to share some of my most recent ones (I think that I have about 21 done out of 42, so I still have lots of catching up to do!) My goal is to get 10 done this month and I've done 5 already, so halfway there!

Here's what I've done just this month (you can see the rest of the cards in my Mini Love set on Flickr), perhaps when I'm done them all I'll post them together here.

Question 15: What makes me ME?

Question 25: Have I had a hug today?

Question 32: What is something I never want to forget?

Question 36: Why did I do that?

Question 39: What brings me joy?

In other scrappy news, I have my December Daily started. I'm going with a 6X6 chipboard album, which will be the bulk of my pages/days, but I'm also using some envelopes/transparencies for a few of the days as well to mix it up (I want stuff sticking out of it all over the place, as usual.) So I have my chipboard and papers all cut, I just need some spray glue to adhere the pages to the chipboard. I'm using mostly 'traditional/nostalgic' papers and patterns (BG Boxer and K&Co), since I'm a sucker for a good ole' fashioned red/green/silver/brown country Christmas. Not sure how that will work with my daily photos, but we shall see. I want to keep it fairly simple so that when the times comes to journal/place my photos, I'll be able to do it easily. I'll post some sneaks of it tomorrow since I have the day off, woo!

What scrappy projects have you been working on?

Happy Tuesday all!

G.

Nursery Thoughts

So, as I've mentioned before, Dan and I are planning on moving home to NB either about a month before the baby is born or shortly after (depending on what the doctors tell me), so this has caused a somewhat major issue when it comes to starting/decorating a nursery. I will either have very little time to get one ready, or worse yet, I won't have one for the first few months at all and will have to wait until we are more settled to get one ready. It all depends on where we live (we may be 'roughing' it for the first few months...more on that later though.) Because of all this, I'm quite unable to get started on any serious thinking about what we need for the baby and how to decorate his space, which is driving me nuts, being the [obsessive] planner that I am.

The other day while surfing around, however, I discovered a colour combo that I really loved, and decided immediately that it would be our little boy's room colours, whenever that happened to come to be. Behold:

Teal/bright blue, white, apple/pear green and chocolate brown. Oh yes. Boyish but not just blues, bright but not too bright, just perfect I think. Once this combination got into my head, I was able to begin thinking of a 'dream' nursery. My initial reaction was to have everything in white (even the floors if I could pull it off), then have bright accessories/furniture in the other 3 colours. Scandinavian or Ikea-ish. Something like this:

But then I started seeing different rooms full of colour on the wall and I fell equally in love with those, so now I'm on the fence as to what I want to do. Here are a few wonderful examples (I found all of these simply by googling 'nursery decor', so I'm sorry I don't have creds.)

I think that the last brown one is my favourite, so gorgeous! So I suppose it's lucky that I have some time to decide on the colour of the room, since I'm still not sure and it will depend on many different things.

As far as the decor goes, I know that I want lots and lots of art, cute pillows, a comfortable chair/glider, floating shelves (or an Ikea Expedite-type shelf like above), a whimsical mobile, and lots of little vintage and handmade touches here and there, made by me :) I don't want it to be too cutesy or cartooney (none of that store bought, movie-based decor), but I'm thinking that if I had to choose a 'theme', it would be "woodland wonderland" (I absolsutely love all the little tree and fox and owl and deer decorations they have for kid's rooms these days!) Mainly I just want it to be functional, fun, and a place where I will want to spend lots of time ('cause let's face it, the boy won't care, if ever, what his room looks like, lol.)

Here are a few cute things I've had saved in my Favs on Etsy that would go well with the colour combo/concept I've picked out (check out my Favs-bottom left sidebar-for the shop credits):

(I just like this because it's in French) :)

(A little reminder for me and for him)

And a few random pictures I've found along the way (the wall collage is by Rachel, I had no idea that her little guy's room had the exact same colour combo!)

So that's that, we'll see how everything turns out, but this is my current dream and train of thought. I suppose I should focus more on the basics like getting a crib and furniture before I start worrying about the colour of the walls and what art to put up, but that's just not how my mind works I suppose. Now that I have my colours though, things will move along much better I think.

This weekend I'm planning on doing some shopping for a few things I've been needing/wanting for awhile (including some maternity pants! also some more baby stuff), finishing up a little bit of scrapping and doing lots of research for the Christmas projects/gifts I'd like to attempt this year. It SNOWED (!!) this morning and it really got me in the holiday mood (I'm listening to Christmas music as I type), so I hope that my motivation will stay this high all weekend.

Be back soon to share some scrappies (and hopefully some non-baby related thoughts! lol)

Happy Weekend!
G
xox