Visions of Venice

Bath

Final assignment from the digital on line class I've been taking.

Week 4 digital assignment

This photo of Jon Voight was taken on set during the filming of September Dawn in August, 2005. Andy worked as 1st AD on the feature and while it hit the movie theatres in the US, it was only recently was released in Canada (video only) at Blockbusters. The movie is based on a true event in 1857 and I recommend you rent a copy & watch it!









Credit:
Jessica Sprague's papers & brush set

UK 2007

layout made from scratch ...
Paper: Jessica Sprague - Beautiful You - coral ; Brushes: English Cursive from Obsidian Dawn, CD swirl; Selenhart flourishes; K Pertiet monogram.

Hoppy Easter

Easter weekend already!

Week 3 Digital Scrapbooking Assignments!

Welcome Spring!!

Hurray, the long dark days of winter have come to an end! Played with this photo in PSE5!

No Place Like Home

Week 3 class assignment

Palm Sunday family & friends potluck

just a few images from our potluck ... my sister-in-law Silvana made the pasta sauce, Andy made fresh pasta - he took turns rolling it out with Christine and Silvana - in this photo Rachel and Christine put the rolled out pasta through the machine to make the linguine, mom brought garlic bread, I made ceasar salad, my brother Scott and Lyden's friend Shane brought refreshments, Rachel's friend Christine a bottle of wine & Rachel and Tyler brought dessert - not one but 2 huge bowls of delicious berry fruit trifle!

After dinner my mother taught Rachel a new crochet stitch for the afghan she is making.

Two more digital layouts!

Wow, am I having fun learning! I can quite easily get lost and get frustrated when I follow the instructions to the "t" and it doesn't work the way it should but I persevere and the results are worth it! It's such a great feeling when it finally works. Off to play more in PSE5!

Farmer's Market

"Beautiful" digital layout

Results from my "mid week" assignment ... when I saw theme of the paper, my beautiful daughter Rachel immediately came to mind.

Digital Scrapbooking - 1st Lesson!

I signed up for an on-line digital scrapbooking class and this is the results from lesson #1.

March Mosaic!!

Antique Shopping in Nanton

Top photo - love the fresh spring like colors in this photo - the room was flooded with light which was a little suprising for the gloomy overcast winter day it was today! After church Andy and I drove to Nanton to check out their antique stores. For a small rural town, it was an impressive number of antique shops! We are searching for a new kitchen table, to replace our 25+ year old table currently on its last legs ... even though we didn't find anything in our price range, it's always fun to look!

bottom photo: Andy quickly spotted the England and Scottish flags.

What a slogan!

Not sure who the target audience is for this tag line ... the outdoor enthusiast or the single gal?

:)

Family Day

Andy and I hit the road today and stopped by Bragg Creek and Cochrane. Top photo taken at Bragg Creek - the red wooden sign hanging on the door said "welcome, come on in" but sadly the store was closed! Loved the thermos with the reto cowgirl theme and in Cochrane, we were delighted by the British Birds tea set we found in a home decor store.

Browsing

what is better than grabbing a coffee and browsing the local book store on a Saturday afternoon....one of our favorite ways of spending time together.

Special Valentine Card

I took the opportunity to combine both my loves .... Andy and scrapbooking and made this felt booklet to give Andy for Valentine's Day. I got the idea from another scrapbooker and put my own personal twist on it by adding photos, monograming and adding ties. Andy loved it!


We went for sushi at our local sushi bar and exchanged cards a day early to avoid the Valentine's Day rush (it's typically so busy Valentine's Day it's hard to get a restaurant reservation anywhere).

Tyler's Birthday!

Today we celebrated Tyler's birthday with a cake and a game of Quiddler, the new family favorite! Black Forest Cake is one of Tyler's favorite treats!

Wide open spaces

Beautiful clear winter day in Alberta ... I drove out to Okotoks to go for lunch with my friend Kirsty to celebrate our birthdays. We decided to go to the Saskatoon Berry Farm for lunch. Kirsty and I had a chance to browse the shop located over the restaurant after finishing our delicious lunch - we didn't buy a thing but it was fun nonetheless!

Addicted to Scrabulous!!

Oh my .... I've lost count of the number of scrabulous games I've played. It started off so innocent, a scrabulous game with my daughter and my friend Allison ... Andy was feeling left out so he broke down and got a facebook account - soley to play Scrabulous with me (and the occasional 3 way with Rachel or 4 way with Rachel and Jord). As always, our games are very competitive - would you really expect anything less? For the record, he's kicking my butt - I've never seen so many 7 letter words - he's definitely won more games than he's lost but there's always the chance I'll prevail in that next game.....

2008 Arrives - Happy New Year!

Rachel & Tyler celebrated their 1st anniversary in Canmore. They went up on Friday, Dec 28 and had rented a 2 bedroom condo. They invited the rest of the family & Erin to spend New Year's Eve with them. We arrived around 5:30pm - Rachel and Tyler prepared a delicious dinner for all of us. As usual, we broke out the games: Monopoly, SET and a new game Rachel and Tyler picked up: 5 Crowns. New Years Day we went to the annex and played a few games of pool & card games before heading home. Good times.

A thing of beauty is joy forever; its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness -John Keats

Mosaic Fun!

Set up a Flickr account today to try my hand at making a photo mosaic of various random photos from 2007 - what fun!

Photoshop digital layout

Learning how to put together a digital scrapbook page is quite a challenge for me! I would love to take a Photoshop Elements 5.0 course with specific focus for scrapbookers but I have not yet seen any such course offered! I guess practice and experimentation is the only way I'll learn! Maybe I can find something on line ....?

Playing with Photoshop to create "vintage" feel

Believe it or not, there were many steps to create this photo. Most of the color has been washed from the photo, creating a dreamy like photo of my neice Chloe and I, taken this past June in England. Note the slight coloring of the frames of my glasses, jacket and greenery behind me. This was super fun to create.

Playing with Photoshop Elements

I received a "Computer Tips" magazine from Lyden for Christmas and decided to apply some of the lessons from the magazine and what you see here is the finished product!

Christmas Day 2007 has come & gone

Photos from top to bottom: Kids with their Christmas Eve Gifts (new pjs); kids playing the new card game "Set" that Rachel received from Lyden; Andy trying to crack the mystery of the puzzle Tyler received from Rachel (everyone had a go to no avail); Christmas Dinner.
























After the Christmas Eve service at our church, Tyler and Rachel came home with us and slept over. My mom and Scott had breakfast with Jeff & Silvana and stayed there until about 2pm and then came over for dinner. Scott brought his dog Keisha with him and usually she's pretty good and well behaved but she decided to relieve herself on the carpet, in front of the tree! Scott was mad at the dog, saying she knew better. He figures Keisha is annoyed at him because he's not taken her out to the dog park since he returned from Thailand in early December. Scott's excuse is that it has been "too cold" but it hasn't been - it has been rather mild, but it is cold to him, when compared to the warmth of Thailand.....

Christmas Carol

After grabbing a quick bite to eat, my mother and I went to see the Christmas Carol at the theatre Friday evening. The play adaptation was marvellous - it was really well done. I had seen the play a few years ago but it bore no resemblance - this year's story adaptation, set, costuming and "special effects" were terrific. Who doesn't love this Charles Dickens classic?

An excerpt from an essay found on the web sums the story up rather nicely - to read the entire article, go to: http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/classics/story/0,6000,1673562,00.html

"Dickens valued morality, but what he really worshipped was merriment - the buzz of making other people happy, of making a moment glow, of dancing a jig for no particular reason. The greatest tragedy he could imagine was an existence devoid of excitement or playfulness, a biding of time on the way to the grave. Fun, for him, was the only compensation for death, the dismal inevitability of which preyed constantly on his mind. Scrooge's triumph is that he stares his own corpse in the face, and, instead of despairing, defiantly resolves to enjoy the gift of life to the full. He is galvanised by a thousand volts of goodwill. Witnessing his transformation, we realise with a pang of regret that we are hard-hearted too, and that it might take a thousand volts to transform us likewise. We cling, miser-like, to our self-protective anxieties, our emotional meanness, our pointless inhibitions. Perhaps we're all waiting for the Ghosts of our own Past, Present and Future to burst through our defences, seize us by the hand and shock us into joy. Until that day, we revisit A Christmas Carol and watch this alarming miracle happen to someone else."