I haven’t done a lot of scrapbooking lately. I finished a layout of DS that I had been working on and I like how it turned out. Then I started playing in Photoshop Elements. I bought a whole bunch of actions for it during a sale last weekend and I have been busy printing off photos to scrapbook. I have been playing in black and white as well as sepia a lot. I am sure I have gone through an entire package of photo paper now. It’s just so much fun to play with colour and lighting. I even still have the photoprinter here with me in the kitchen as I am typing this blog post. You just never know when you might want to start printing photos right?

I did some shopping this week at http://amillionlittlethings.com and had a blast. At this moment I forget what I ordered…oh right it was the new CHA S Sassafras Lass papers Indian Summer. Then I decided I wanted the Autumn Leaves Foofala paper also called Indian Summer. I should be good for fall papers. I just need to take DS to the park on the next street for some new photos. Then I will have to go and edit them and start the process all over again LOL. Talk about obsessive compulsive! It’s fun.

My folks have been in Calgary for the past week. We are really missing them as things around the house are very hectic. Taking DS to school in the am, walking the dogs, doing dishes, trying to keep the house up, laundry, picking DS up from school, laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, packing lunches. There just aren’t enough hours in a day to get it all done. The dogs have been great company but they sure do miss Granny and Grandpa. They keep looking for them and then looking to me to find them for them. (Does that make sense?) The dogs are so lost when the whole family isn’t home.

I wish DS were getting all the school lunches that are offered. He has opted only for Subway and pizza and would not consider getting Chinese food and sushi. He had all 4 one year and that was an easy lunch year. He hated the Chinese food. The sushi had faux (fox) crab in it and he hates fox crab a lot. We call it faux “fox” because we wanted to fool him into believing that faux “fox” crab was just another species of crab like dungeness, rock etc. Eventually he caught on and then decided he didn’t like it. As he says “at all”!!! Ok so he will eat school lunches 2 days a week which is better than none. I just wish it were 4. I wish we had had those options when I was in school. It would have made life a lot easier for me growing up!

Well CSI NY is coming on in a few minutes. I have to see how Mac’s vacation in London was. Hopefully it will be exciting. So far this week I have watched the premiers for CSI Miami, Law and Order and the Grey’s spinoff called Private Practice. I didn’t get into it and I don’t think I will be watching it. I tried but it did nothing for me. I will stick to my CSIs, Law and Orders and ER. I don’t need to be staying up any later than I already am.

Will try to write again sooner than the last time.

 Elannah

I haven’t been very impressed with the labour day on line sales this year. Rocky Mountain Hobbies and A Peek into Yesterday are both pretty sold out of anything I would have wanted. That’s ok because I didn’t need anything in particular but there was some stuff that I wanted. I still may get my Cosmo Cricket paper in this month’s Zany Zinnia kit. Hopefully she will have one left over so I can get it. Just going to cross my fingers and hope for the best, I guess. All the other kits I saw it in were too big. I like the paper but just want a little bit of embellishments…not a whole ton of stuff I might not use. I will live if I don’t get it. I would just really like to get it. I am sure my LSS won’t be getting it in so I have to find it on line.

I hope the owner at the LSS gets it all cleared up soon. They had just received some new product display things and they were beginning to load them. The place looked like a bomb had gone off when I was in there on Friday. I didn’t get very much-just some Basic Grey paper and 2 sheets of Fancy Pants. I also got some Maya Road acrylic stamps (the journaling stamps). I liked them from before and wanted to get them. I already have 2 sets of the Li’l Davis ones but wanted these ones too. You just can’t have too many sets of journaling stamps right?

I did a layout this afternoon using Heidi Grace paper. It turned out really nicely. (This was the paper that Amber didn’t want me to get). I did a huge chipboard sneeze and it looks good. It’s a very lumpy page LOL but I like my lumpy and bumpy scrapbook pages.  I was going to do another page tonight and the evening kind of just got away from me. After we had dinner and I walked the dogs, I didn’t go back down to the scraproom. DS’ best friend needed to be driven home and then i had to put DS to bed. By then it was after 10 so I skipped scrapping tonight. Too bad because I could be down there right now but it’s almost midnight and I need to get up in the am.

Anyway I will write again when there’s something interesting to write about.

 Till then,

Elannah

I am a K & Company addict. I have tons of Brenda Walton and Tim Coffey papers and embellishments. I mean tons. I don’t know why I collect it as I have never used any of these supplies yet I manage to collect them. I have a whole ton of the pads of paper to eventually scrapbook with. I love them. I think I like them too much to use. I have some fugly ones by Brenda Walton called Citrus maybe? I can’t remember. They are the yellow ones from a couple of trade shows ago. I got them from QVC. Now don’t ask me why I got them because they are hideous. But they are K & Co. and I had to get them. My favorite all time are K-Ology Addison and Hannah. I can’t get enough of those papers. I go back and look at them all the time. I am planning to get some more of their new stuff from Summer CHA. I think the line I am wanting is called Wild Safron. I don’t like Margo that much but the Wild Safron line is very cool. I think it will look great with my stash.

Other than that DS is all ready to go back to school. I am ready for him to be in school. He needs to do something stimulated. He hasn’t picked up a book all summer. Not even once. We read a lot as a family and he just seems to hate reading. He doesn’t play his Wii that much either though. He likes golf. He would golf from morning until night. He hurt his shoulder playing today but I am sure it will be all better by tomorrow when he has his game with Grandpa.

I have to go to Michaels tomorrow to get a new Xyron 510 permanent adhesive. Mine broke (this is still a mystery to me as there was still tons of it left) but I need to replace it. I use it all the time now and like being able to make bigger things into stickers. Can’t get enough of it!

 Hugs,

Elannah

I still haven’t found the right flowers to fix the ugly layout just sitting downstairs in the scrap area. I looked all over the place for the right colour purple to fix it and can’t find lavender flowers. Now this is someone who has more than 10000 primas and I don’t have the right colour lavender? Can’t be.

I need to take a good class in Photoshop Elements. I want to improve my digital scrapbooking but I just don’t know how. I want to take at least a month long course in it. I hate doing it over the internet and I know I would enjoy the classroom setting so much more. I have to see if Camosun College is going to offer another one of their classes. I think I could indulge in that this fall hopefully.

I should go down to the scrap area and scrap. I know i should. I am just feeling lazy today and don’t want to. I have tons of stuff I could be working on right now too. I am just not motivated to do it.

Amber just told me she has a 50% off coupon for Roberts (her LSS) and she really wants to go shopping. Heck if I had one I would so be going there! I am sure I could find something great to buy. My LSS sometimes and that’s a rare sometimes has a 40% off sale. Even then they don’t have good stuff in stock right now and i go in and then leave with nothing. I wish I were the buyer for the store. I would make all sorts of suggestions LMAO. But alas it is NOt my store so I just MYOB. I suspect most scrapbookers that frequent LSSes are Suzys and they like paper that matches their photos and they aren’t stuck on one particular designer. I follow scrapbooking a little too closely I think and know who made what for when and why. Just slightly obsessed one might say.

Must run. I am hungry and need something to eat.

 Elannah

It’s 1 am and I can’t sleep. I have an interview tomorrow and the place sounds like a dream to work at. I want to work in a new field. It’s a big change for me seeing how I usually just stuck to working in the public service. This is a small retirement community. It’s what I want to do. It will be lower stress, positive and hopefully a lot of fun. I am looking forward to my interview at 9:30. It’s just in a few hours. I hope I get some sleep before I have to go to it. I am just not tired yet.

DS is at yet another sleep over. It will be his last one until Thanksgiving in October. I feel badly for him but his idea of sleep overs are awake overs. I am sure they don’t go to bed until really late and they talk until the wee hours of the morning. He will be tired for the rest of the day, too. Oh well. If he has another one on Friday this week then it will be his second last one of the summer.

DS starts school on Tuesday. I am meeting with his teachers on Thursday of next week. I don’t for the life of me know why they aren’t seeing us this week (I mean we have been at the school for 8 years and that’s the way they have always done it) but ok. What choice do I have? We always have a meeting with the parent(s) and child and the teachers to talk about the new grade, expectations, homework, classroom assignments etc. I really wanted to get a feel for his new teacher, Danielle. I hope she is inspiring. I wasn’t all that excited about what went on last year so hopefully this year will be better. He will be in a grade 7-8 split class. I knew this from the beginning so this is not a shocker to any of us. I also know that he is going to Camp Thunderbird the week after next for 3 days. It is the highlight of his year. I can’t wait for him to go back. The kids really bond at it and it’s such a great learning experience for them.

Well I should go and try to get some sleep or I will go back and Pea for a little while longer.

 Talk to you soon,

Elannah

It’s really cold outside right now. I know it’s still summer but it feels like late september rather than the end of August. Before we know it, we will have Canadian Thanksgiving and then it will be DS’ birthday and then Hallowe’en. I can’t wait really. I love Autumn and all that goes with it.

 I am trying to decide if I need to place an order for some new paper. I found a local on line store that I have bought Quickutz from (in the past) and they have some paper that I really wanted to order (in stock). I was going to place a good sized paper order at A Peek into Yesterday but if I can get it here and free shipping, I might just go and do that. Decisions, decisions. I had a shopping cart going at APIY and it disolved. Darn. I really wanted to remember what I had in the cart too. I have no idea what I was thinking about ordering now. Just Cosmo Cricket Gretel.

Ok good night world! I will hopefully write another blog post again soon.

Elannah

While we were away I did get to do a bit of scrap supply shopping. (Not just clothes) so this was a good thing. I found a few really great LSSes while there. I also went to a Dollar Tree and got some of the $1 thickers which was a great deal. I wish we had Dollar Trees here. All for a buck and NO TAX. Gotta love Oregon for that.

 I am loving my Silhouette and it’s cutting really well. I am finding I need to use the magenta blade the most. It’s not just for cardstock but a lot of my patterned paper is thicker cardstock weight so I have just been using it. I have also found I am not able to cut out swirly fancy fonts. They just do not cut out well at all. That was kind of disappointing but live and learn I guess.

I have been doing a lot of scrapping lately. I got about 7 pages done on Saturday night. Amber and I skipped our Friday night routine b/c she had to work all day Saturday so we decided at about 10 pm on Saturday night we would start cropping. I was using my newer stash (because it was out and oh so inviting). I got quite a few photos of DS’ last day of school and used Junkitz’s Extreme Boy papers and embellishments. I am now sick of that paper and have used just about all of it. It feels so good to use things completely up! Wow. That just felt so good.

I am now working on a lavender layout of my folks using Karen Neurenburger’s papers. So far so good. I will be glad when this one is also done because I am such a simple scrapbooker and this is a very simple layout LOL. I wish I had a ton more creativity but I do not. (No big surprise) and this layout is simple. I am also loving all my Versamagic chalk ink pads. I got all of them a couple of years ago and they are sure coming in handy.

DS starts school again next week. I keep hoping the teachers are going to call and set up a meeting. I have plans for tomorrow and Wednesday so those days are out. They always have an introductory meeting to meet the teachers and talk about goals and expectations for the year. DS is having a new teacher this year because one of his regular teachers is going on maternity leave. I have never met “Danielle” but I hope she is good.

Other than that I think that’s all the news. PJ my on and off boyfriend of oh so many years is emailing me and we will probably go out for a drink (or a diet coke as the case may be) at some point this week. I am not sure how I feel about him. He isn’t sure how he feels about me either. It’s complicated and weird. Who knows.

 Hugs,

Elannah

We went out to the LSS in the not so nice part of town. They have an amazing selection of both patterned paper and cardstock. That store is packed full of scrappy goodness. I managed to buy only 3 sheets of the cardstock I needed to complete the project I have been working on. I am more than happy about this as Amber was going to have to send me some if I couldn’t get it locally. That totally made my day.

My mom and I had ice caps this afternoon for a treat. They were quite delicious. I could go for another one now even. That would be a nice night snack. I could always go through the drive thru near my house. But I won’t. I will be good.

I seem to have no scrapping mojo right now. I put photos on the page and just can’t arrange them so I like the way they look. It’s very frustrating for me right now. I have to like what I am doing and I am not. It’s so hard for me to work with primary colours. I just don’t work well with them. I have to use up this page kit and it’s just taking me forever and ever. If I could just sit down and do it life would be much easier.

There is a gentle, cool breeze blowing into my room tonight and it is so nice. I wish it were like this all the time. I love having the fresh air in my room. The air outside is quiet. I don’t hear noise on the street and life is good. Now if I can just figure out at whom and why my dad is mad tonight things will be a lot better in my world.

Going to watch Law and Order. Will write again soon.

 elannah

 The weather has improved. It’s definitely not as hot as it was. Wednesday measured a peak of 40 degrees. With no air conditioning in sight it made for one very long day! Don’t want to go through that again any time soon.

Tomorrow DS is going golfing with Grandpa and then to a friend’s birthday party. He has to make said friend a card in the am before golf. Grandpa just bought him some new golf shoes today and a new golf glove yesterday. The little guy is in all his glory.

Mom’s back still is bad. I wish we had a *clear* diagnosis of what is wrong. She went to see her yet again new family doctor. He doesn’t know what is wrong with it either and is sending her for a CT scan. I wish she wasn’t in so much pain all the time. It’s so frustrating to watch her suffer like that. It was bad enough with her foot but to have her back go too is just cruel and unusual punishment. She said they are going to cancel their trip to Italy in the fall. That would be so disappointing to them. They were both really looking forward to going but she just isn’t well enough to make the trip there. That would be such a shame. She is in no condition to go though so it would be too far and for too long.

Have to take mom shopping this afternoon. She needs to take in her Rx for Embrel and we need to do some shopping at Zellers. Zellers is kind of like Target but definitely not nearly as good. Remember this is Canada and nothing is quite as good as it is in the states LOL.

Talk to you all later.

Elannah

I asked my dad about getting air conditioning…and he said for the 5 days a year we need it? Um yeah. We just got the new tvs so why not a/c too? It would make life much more bearable here. Not open for discussion.

I haven’t felt like scrapbooking for a few days. I keep thinking I should get back to it and something always gets in my way from doing so. I just need to sit at the desk and work on my bear for a while or something.

I placed a nice sized order to a lady on eBay for some thick mulberry paper that I was recommended to get for bears. I can’t wait for it to get here. I am looking forward to all the colours I ordered. I hope they are as nice in person as they are on line.

DS is at tennis camp right now. He is really enjoying it a lot. I can’t believe they are already on day 3. It’s going by so quickly. He decided not to go swimming today so he could play more tennis. Talk about a hit for a camp. He has to go to Carnivor Park tomorrow (Carnarvon Park) and doesn’t want to. He is very mad that they are making the campers walk to the camp. He thinks it’s just a stupid park and they don’t need to go there. Just up and walk there already. You will be fine.

The dogs are feeling the heat too. They are rather unenergetic right now. Jo was just sleeping on the floor in the front hall because she was so hot. I think I am going to go and watch tv for a while and hopefully fall asleep downstairs.

Will write again soon.

Elannah