Sunday? How did that happen?

It's 10:30 Sunday night. I SWEAR it was just 4 p.m. on Friday. Where exactly did the weekend go? I know where it went - it went into lots and lots of creativity, friends and more great memories.

Denis went to Scott's place to chill on Friday night and I was more than happy to have a "me" night in the studio. I was in such a ZONE to get creative and I loved every second of it. I threw on my blog so I could listen to the music I got busy. Is that what married "gettin' busy" is? Throwing on some cheesy music and attaching some pictures to paper with glue dots? My how life has changed!!!

I have to admit, my pages on Friday night were very unexpected. I went through my stack of pictures, did some organizing and was faced with overwhelming choices. I probably have at least 200 pictures left! That is after THREE YEARS of working on my albums.

Several times a picture of my cousin Amber and I has "spoken" to me but I've never been in the right zone to scrap it. That all changed Friday night. I'm so glad it took me forever to use these pictures because I absolutely LOVE how my pages turned out and I don't think that would have happened had I done these pages six months or a year ago.

I used a Tinkering Ink (one of my favourite companies) line from last year. I've been wanting to use this paper (and embellishments) for a while but once again, they just weren't speaking to me in the past.

I wanted to stick with only one picture on this first page - it was taken of Amber and I just after we got married as we left the church. She looked just gorgeous that day and I was so happy they were able to make the trip to Ottawa to be there.

I have always been very minimalist in my style but I think Steph is rubbing off on me and I'm adding more and more elements to my page. I started this one from a page I saw on the Pencil Lines blog. In the end it looked NOTHING like the inspiration page I used.

I was nearly done the page but it looked BIZARRE and far too busy - there were all sorts of patterns converging at one spot with the flowers and the stems were barely visible. Then I had the idea of making some grass...that little piece of grass totally changed the look of the page. It was amazing to see the difference. I just couldn't resist adding the ladybug.

It turns out I came across another few pictures of Amber that I really liked so I decided to turn her into a double layout! The first picture is of her with my dad and the second is her with Hayden. I think Hayden has been calling Amber his girlfriend since he could talk. He LOVES her. I made him a scrapbook a few years ago with special pages dedicated just to his love for Amber.

I decided to not make this page just about the pictures but also about Amber herself. She is an incredible human being who has been through so much in her young life (she's a few years younger than me). In the year before we were married she faced cancer - she fought it like a warrior and won! I never heard her (or heard of her) complaining. She accepted it, put on her fighting face and went with it. I was SO HAPPY she was able to be at our wedding. She is so many wonderful things and I just had to put a few of those on this page. I used rub-ons all along the outside of the page with some words to describe her:

Beautiful, mother, sassy, friend, survivor, sister, strong, daughter

I love how the greatest pages happen when least expected...

Saturday morning I was raring to go first thing. I just couldn't wait for the day to begin...

As I was having my cereal I came across the Michael's flyer for the week. This is itself was THRILLING because for some reason in the past few months we rarely get the flyer. The diva doesn't like this! As if just getting the flyer wasn't thrilling enough, it turns out it is DOLLAR DAYS at Michales which means big savings PLUS this week there was a 20% off your entire order coupon along with a 40% off for next week. TRIPPLE ARM PUMP baby!

I spent a good hour filling my cart with lovely goodies and then at least as long at the cash! Poor cashier forgot to take the 20% off my original order, then messed up several times along the way on the return. It is a very long story (I'm not joking when I say I was at the cash for nearly an hour) but in the end I got the 20% off plus a bonus $5 off because of her screw up!

Oh - and if THAT WASN'T ENOUGH - when I walked in the door there was a pile of flyers sitting there. JACKPOT. I grabbed a few and stuffed them in my purse - just in case the urge to shop hits me later this week. I went in for glue dots and I came out with so much more. Here is just a bit of a peak at my goodies...

Michael's took SO MUCH out of me but I had other errands to run including picking up some flowers for my studio. It was my first time hosting a friend in there so I wanted to make sure it was extra pretty! I wasn't thrilled with what was out there for flowers but it turned out ok. I was hopping for light pink roses but they only had these brighter, two-toned ones.

I got the vase last weekend at the lake with Chris and Cawi - I paid a whopping $4 for it and it's oh so lovely...

Funky pic taken by D...D ended up cleaning the ENTIRE house while I was out (thank you darlin' I really appreciate it) so I had a quick bite, got some stuff done and then took a quick nap while D went to the movies with Stephane to see the Dark Knight. I figured it would be a late night and wanted to be sure to make it through!

I also had time to embellish a gift from Cawi - she got Chris and I matching bulletin board type things - Chris' is denim and mine is HOT PINK. How perfect for the studio. I've been looking for something for D to put my mail in (so that it doesn't get lost or forgotten) and this is the perfect solution. Although it was gorgeous in all its pink loveliness, it needed a little something extra so I pulled out some "accent" pieces and went to town. It really turned out great - it's amazing how just a few little embellishments can really change the look of something. We still need to hang it on the wall.

Before I knew it Steph arrived (finally)...we've been looking forward to this all week! We hit Michael's right away (yes, I went back for more torture) and then we headed to The Works to meet the boys for supper. It was SO YUMMILICIOUSLY DELICIOUSLY WONDERFUL. Poor Steph wasn't feeling too hot but we still had a blast. As soon as we got home, we each went our seperate ways. Boys playing X-box, girls scrapping.

Yet another wonderful night that just flew by. I totally LOVE the page Steph did and it was fun watching her play with the latest Making Memories line Passport. I would love to pick it up but don't plan on doing any of our trips anytime soon so I think I'm going to hold off. Instead, I knocked out these two pages:

Clownin' around was the first layout for the evening. Once again it was "loosely" based on an image I saw but I had to do some pretty big changes. I have to say I totally scraplift all the time but I do try to make it my own at the same time.

I had a few goofy pictures of my dad so I put those on the page.

My first title idea was "send in the clowns" and then I thought maybe I'd call it "foolin' around". In the end I decided on "clownin' around" - a combo of the two! My dad is a clown so I definitely wanted "clown" in the title somewhere.

Steph gave me the idea for placing the "around" around and what a great idea it was!

Note: I know the lacing isn't evenly spaced - it's meant to be that way...

Last but not least, I did a page with my friend Mabel and my dad dancing. I've always loved this picture - leave it to Mabel to get my dad to dance! I really struggled with this page, I'm not sure if it was creative fatigue or what but it took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to do with it. Then it just started clicking more and more and more and voila! LOVE IT. I just can't get enough of this Tinkering Ink paper but I guess I sort of have to because I'm all out of it!

All in all it was yet another wonderful night. Unfortunately we had to cut it a bit short (1 a.m.) because D had to work in the morning.

Sunday rather than sleep in I got up and went right back into the studio for about an hour and a half before meeting the girls. I just can't get enough lately. Scrapbooking is my crack. I think a crack habit would be a bit cheaper than this but I'm thinking paper and embellishments are a little less harmful to my health...most days!

I saw Mama Mia for the second time with the girls - what a blast! I think I laughed more at Lynn laughing than at the movie. I liked it even better the second time around. Denis surprised me with the CD on Friday so I've listened to it a few times over the weekend so I'm now used to the voices.

We made a yummy dinner tonight and then had some fun snapping pictures of my weekend creations!

Well, I must say goodnight - it's getting late and tomorrow morning will come very quickly.

Happy Monday morning everyone.

'night lovelies