The Joy of Literary Terms!

Don't laugh...this is my English Degree coming out! I found these fantastic kids books by Michael Dahl that I think are absolutely amazing!! They teach children about literary terms! I was so excited when I found these, plus I got them on a really-super-deal-sale...$10 for all four! You can also find them on Amazon and they are about $8 a piece. I read through each one and was very impressed. Who wants to come to Auntie Pris's house to learn about literary terms?!?! (Oh, pick me! Pick me!!)

If You Were a Noun (Word Fun)

If You Were an Adjective (Word Fun)

If You Were an Adverb (Word Fun)

If You Were a Verb (Word Fun)

Some of the other books in this series include:










































If you ever feel the need to buy me a gift... :)...there are lots more great books in this series!

I Made It!!

After a superb weekend with my traveling sister-in-law(s) (one recently home from nursing in Africa, and both heading off to Europe tomorrow!!), I got some great news... I am now a member of the "Lasting Memories" Design Team... woohoo! Get ready to see some awesome challenges and layouts in the coming months. I am very excited for the next six months of scrappin'... here we go!!!!

Check out the site and greet the rest of the Design Team... congrats Mandy, Nancy, Kelli, Suezie and Melly... I look forward to getting to know you and work closely with you over the coming months!

Can't Get Enough of my Cricut!

I am entering a contest to become a member of a Design Team at Lasting Memories, to get my designs and name out, but also to make me focus a little more on my scrapbooking. The summer sure takes away from my creative time...well unless it is gardening!

I am a rather simple scrapper...I like my photos and memorabilia to be highlighted more than anything else. I have no idea what Lasting Memories is looking for as far as layouts... so I thought I would venture out and try something I don't often do... pre-made layouts rather than scrapping with pictures. Since I want this to be an available option in my scrapbooking business, I better start perfecting the art!

The designs I decided to share came from Cricut inspiration...I love my cricut(s!) but just don't spend as much quality time with them as I would like to. When I get in the mood to cricut though, there is no stopping me! Normally I draw my inspiration from the pictures that I am going to scrap, but this turned out to be a very fun little project!

The NPSS Graduation is coming up next week, so I thought I would share a pre-made graduation layout. The layout is made in the colours of the school (dark burgundy and gold). I used (one of!) my favouite cricut cartridges "Everyday Paper Dolls" for the graduate and large diploma. The "Way to Go!" lettering is from "George and Basic Shapes" and "Congrats" is from my other favourite cartridge, "Zoobaloo!" I wanted to keep this particular layout very blocky and simple to keep the focus on the pictures. I love how it turned out. Isn't the doll adorable!?!

I was having so much fun on my cricut that I decided to make a "Kid's Birthday" Layout as well. I love how the bright green contrasts with the dark brown. This was a delightfuly fun page to make. Most of the animals and lettering comes from "Zoobaloo" or one of the "Paperdolls" cricut cartridges. This would be a great layout for a kids party that was themed Trains, Zoo, or Animals. It would also be a good layout for a family outing to the Zoo. Enjoy!

For some real scrapbooking (with pictures!) see my 'categories' on the right hand side...

Girls + Jane Austen = Fantastic!

Tonight is going to be amazing...one of those nights you remember for years to come! We have just discovered that A&E (possibly the most talented movie company EVER, that made the most inceredible version of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice") has full length (about 4 hours each!!!) versions of Jane Austen's "Emma" and "Sense and Sensibility"!!!! I have not been this excited.... in an extremely long time!!
Tonight we are having a girls night and Heidi is bringing Emma. I cannot wait. I am vibrating. I will let you know all about it! YAY JANE!!!!

Love is in the Air!

Yes, it is that time of year again, when weddings abound and love fills everyone's eyes and ears. So far I have only three weddings scheduled this summer...but they are in quick succession and are spread throught the country! Aug 14th, my cousin is getting married in Saskatchewan, August 28th my good friends are getting married in Edmonton, and September 4th my husband's cousin is getting married in Cherry Point (right where we got married!! How romantic!!). Also, our second anniversary is coming up in 6 days (!), which my husband will miss because he is out at work for three weeks :( . Ah yes, the life of an oifield wife!
Anyway, since I have been thinking so much about weddings, I thought I should post a link to show off the wedding album I recently created...
You can view some of the scrapbook pages I created for my sister here: Lydia and Aren's Wedding Album. They got married in May 2007, finally received their pictures in late 2009, and I created this album in early 2010. I love the colours... black, white, cream and vibrant pink. The pink sets everything else off so nicely, that I decided to theme the entire album this way. Stay tuned for more pictures from this fabulous custom album!
If you are interested in having your own custom and personalized album, contact me at pbenterud@gmail.com. Enjoy!

Cruisin' to Alaska

As we are coming up on our second anniversary (!), I thought it would be appropriate to post the pictures from our honeymoon. In July of 2008, Kurtis and I went on an Alaskan Cruise. We spent most of the week in our room... not because it was our honey moon, but because Kurtis was deathly ill! He started feeling very tired on the flight to Vancouver, and by the first morning he was dead to the world. We had terrible rainy weather the entire trip, and were surrounded by old Americans playing Bingo and getting drunk. Not really our kind of vaction. Despite these drawbacks, we enjoyued ourselves as best we could by playing minigolf, reading lots of books that we bought in Skagway, and eating delicious food. I think we'll save our next cruise until we are about 85 years old... that or go somewhere that is guaranteed to be hot!

 

I had a lot of fun putting this album together shortly after we returned. I bought some of the paper and cie cuts while we were on the cruise, but most of the stuff is just from my personal collection.

Yard Adventures

Our trip(s) to Dawson last Saturday with our neighbours yielded ALOT of wood. Even with driving the truck down to Dawson twice (diesel is not cheap these days, and we'll need at least one more trip) we will have saved five or six hundred dollars on lumber for our fence!That just goes to prove how greedy and overpriced everything is in Fort St John. Our neighbours all want the same fence which definitely makes things easier and cheaper. We are hoping to get all of the post in the ground this weekend, and then we will be able to slowly put up the fence boards throughout the summer as we have time and money.

Amongst this weekends trips to Dawson and two birthday parties, I managed to plant all of the rest of my perennials. I made another bed along the back wall of our house with all of the plants Jody brought me. I spent the most time on this bed, mixing the soil and making it nice and deep. I will probably have to redo the beds in the front yard next year, but this one will be perfect! A few more weeks and I'll post pictures of the multi-coloured blooms!

My garden is doing splendidly and I already have several large (about 6 inch long!!) zucchini! Oh the joy of planting early indoors... you have veggies that much earlier! My peas and beans are all about four inches high, tomatoes are getting nice and hardy, lettuce, spinach and carrots are popping up all over the place and my broccolli are flourishing! I even have two inch high corn stocks! The only thing struggling are my squash... they are just getting too wind blown, another reason why we need to get our fence up soon! I can hardly wait to be eating fresh veggies from our back yard!

Fantastic Flowers!

To elaborate on the previous post... here are some pictures of my gorgeous flowers...a few more weeks and everything will be in full bloom! As you can see, our grass is coming along quite nicely, though rather patchy in places.

Fuscia are my favourite flower... so I have lots of them in all different colours! They are just so gorgeous! How could anyone not want these hanging in their home or yard?

Never enough rocks...or flowers!

Last night we headed out to Solid Rock Ranch to collect some more rocks for our yard. We got another truck box full that we plan on lining my front and back flowerbeds with and then filling under our front deck. I think it will look superb!
Yesterday at lunch I started turning over the earth where my flowerbed is going to go in our back yeard. It will be right along the house and between the deck stairs and the wall. Jody brought me a bunch more gorgeous flowers yesterday (thanks Jo!!) and I can hardly wait to get home to plant them! I have another bag of peatmoss, some fertilizer, mulch, manure tea and even a little bit of sand all ready to be mixed and made into a little piece of heaven for my pretty plants! They are going to be so happy!
My husband is a little annoyed at all of the flowers streaming into our yard, so I think this will be the last new growth I plant...this year at least! I'll have to let him warm up to the idea of having a nice, lush and colourful yard! He is very proud of our grass, however, which he cut for the first time on Tuesday night. It looks a million times nicer than it did since it was getting rather tall and scraggly, not to mention the weeds and bald patches were more prominent!
We are very proud of our little home... come by for a visit any time!

New Life Inspires Creativity

My dearest friend Naomi had a baby girl yesterday morning! She is perfect! A few weeks ago, I made this baby raggy quilt for her. Little Amy looks so cozy cuddled up in it! I also made a matching dolly quilt out of the left over scraps for her big sister Mia.

Isn't the little ladybug material adorable! And, or course, the pink camo was for her Dad!

 When I went to start working on the quilt, my Singer (only a few years old, and barely used) decided that it no longer wanted to sew properly. The tension was extrememly messed up, and I couldn't figure out how to operate all the new-fangled knobs and dials. Several years ago, my Dad had made a great find at a garage sale, and bought me a really old sewing machine for really cheap. I had never used it before, but decided now was the time to give it a whirl. Boy does she sew! Things were made so much better and so much simpler years ago! The threading and tension adjustments are super easy and she sews like a dream! This may be my machine of choice from now on... unless I need a zig zag stitch that is! 

 I made up the pattern, and am really happy with how it turned out. I used a half meter of six different pink flannels, 3 dark and 3 light. Double sided, I cut 24 rectagles 3x6 inches from each colour. I arranged them from lightest to darkest and then placed them in alternating rows of vertical and horizontal pieces. The result is interlocking light and dark squares.

Here is a shot of each side before the snipping, washing and drying stages. It looks so much better once it is actually "raggy"! The most time consuming part of a raggy quilt is the "snipping" stage. It took me two and a half movies (about 4 1/2 hours) to snip all of the edges!