Christmas Cards with Tim Holtz Dies

This year I started my Christmas cards in January.  Yep, hardly got through making the ones for 2010 and started right back up with 2011.  Why?  Not just to beat the rush.  I love scrap booking, but sometimes I just don't have the time or inclination to do a whole page.  Cards are quick, easy and Christmas cards let me play with glitter and bling in particular, so why not?  Even with that said, I am only about half way through making all the cards I'll need, so the pace is going to have to pick up significantly.

Here are a couple of cards I made using Tim Holtz's ornament die.  I love how one is retro, clean and colourful and the other a little more muted.  This die can go whichever way you'd like it to, never mind that you can even make an actual ornament with it too.  Perhaps Tim should do the 12 Ornaments of Christmas one year.

Also used, Kaiser craft stamp, Impression Obsession CAC Pine boughs, Snow Writer, and Melissa Frances Glitter Glass.

Fall has Officially Arrived

Yep, she has arrived.  I thought the leaves were never going to turn in the backyard, but in the last few days, poof there they are.  The frosty nights help.  I loved the sky today.  That steely blue that makes me think of sunny days in February on the ski lift.  The only colours in the whole world are the blue in the sky and the skiers on the white snow.  Everything else is shades of gray.  That too will come, but right now, I'll enjoy the fire.

Spooky Stuff

So last night was my high holiday.  Yes Christmas is lovely, but every Halloween I get to be something that I decidedly am not.  It's a chance to create something that is not real and invite others to share it with you.

The wee ones don't get it, whatever you do, so we always no matter the theme try not to scare the little ones.  The older kids, however, are great fun to mess with.  Last night's theme was Zombie Strong-hold.  I am on a bit of a zombie bender anyways, what with Walking Dead being so awesome and zombies in general just being hot, hot, hot.  It was a natural extension.

What makes Halloween especially fun is that my husband participates and I think, enjoys it all as much as I do.

The disinfection team arrived, but didn't get very far before running into a little trouble (or a zombie).  All visitors were carefully screened to detect the zombies.  "Are you a zombie?"  The neighbour insisted this was a poor test, as the zombies might lie.  We of course knew that zombies only moan.  Our cat has failed the test.  Not sure what to do about that.

A "disinfection" may be imminent.

We had a couple of close calls.  Apparently things went horribly wrong at Oktoberfest this year.  But we had treats for everyone.

Happy Halloween!

Winding down while winding up without whining.

These are the days that you realize the sun is disappearing from our lives.  The golden hour at the end of the day, comes sooner, but also lasts longer.  Those horizon hugging moments can create magic as the golden tones of the fading sun wash everything they touch with warmth.  I wish I had an awesome photo to share, but I don't.  The reason: the shortening days are also the time of the year when not only my children head back to school, but so do I. 

This year I have decided to learn Latin.  My study of medieval history leaves me no choice.  I was deathly afraid of this language and as a result put it off until now.  I left myself room, by only taking this course this year, but life in and of itself can be busy enough.  I am glad I gave myself the space.  As a mature student, I pursue learning with determination.  I learn because I want to learn.  I want the time to absorb the knowledge and the time to be able to work hard at it.  I get good grades, but not because I am a genius, but because I want to do well, because it means that I am understanding and learning.  That's the only reason that I am there after all.

People ask me what I am studying and why.  I want to learn, I want to know, I want to go on a journey of discovery and I want the tools to do it.  I am not even sure that I will finish a B.A.  I am not interested in breadth requirements.  Sink me in medieval history and let me soak.  Now that's a bath!

Let Her Eat Cake

So it was mom's birthday and I needed to make a card.  I have been looking at pictures of Versailles and putting away my new Catherine Moore stamps bought before the vacation and well what could have been more natural than to do a paper doll card.

I used a Spellbinders die to create the frame and mirror paper accent.  A little Krylon gilding pen added just the right decadent touch.  Stickles and Liquid Pearls gave Marie her bling.  The dress is attached just at the shoulders so she's still a true paper doll.  Mom loved her and the cake she later ate.

Pop up Birthday Card

Every year I try to make very personally relevant birthday cards for my nieces.  Whatever they are interested in at the moment becomes the theme.  I also challenge myself to make them different and as "cool" as an old lady like me can achieve.  The current area of interest is Selena Gomez.  Job 1: find a good image.  Luckily with the internet being what it is, this is not a difficult task.  Job 2: make the card.  This part was really hard.  I took about 4 hours putting this one together.  I added some stuff after the basic card took shape.  This is also the second go at it.  I hope she likes it.

And then when it's opened.

Here are a couple more views.

If you want to make pop-up cards of your own a really good set of books is The Pocket Paper Engineer, Volumes 1 and 2.  You can get them at Amazon and at Indigo and there is more information at their site, Popular Kinetics Press.  I picked up both books at the Smithsonian last summer. 

Thorburn's How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse: The Field Guide

Well, Here it is.  Hope you like it.  I'll add the rest as it gets done.

Front Cover: Stampotique, Dymo, Glimmer Glam and Glaze

Inside Front Cover

Page 2:  Character Constructions, Teesha Moore Stamps. Note. Page 1 with Table of Contents will come at the end.

Page 3: Character Constructions, Stampabilities, Teesha Moore, LaBlanche

Page 4: Character Constructions, Stampotique, Technique Tuesday, Wendy Vecchi

Page 5: Teesha Moore, Stampotique, Impression Obsession, Character Constructions die.

Page 6: Character Constructions, Hero Arts and Kaisercraft

Leaving London to the Last

We tried to close out Paris with a visit to Pére Lachaise Cemetery before heading to the train station to ride through the Chunnel, but rain foiled our attempts.  We saw a bit, but the two tiny umbrellas proved inadequate to the task of protecting four adult sized people from the heavy downpour.  Also, I think Newton missed a physical constant of the universe.  In addition to the equal and opposite reaction, in both validity and importance, is the fact that a disparity of 6 inches between two people sharing the same umbrella results in both becoming wet.  May need a little research and some mathematical formulas,  but I think I am on to something.  Just post my Nobel prize in the comments.

The final resting place of Abelard and Heloise, two giants of the 11th and 12th centuries.

The next on our list of adventures was riding the Eurostar from Paris to London.  Part of the thrill of this was the fact that it is a high speed rail link, something that I don't believe exists in North America.  The seats were comfy, food was available, but I had to sit aisle side.  My propensity for queasiness made me opt for less view.  The motion was something though.  You could feel the speed building and building.  My husband shot this out the window and it gives you a little idea of the speed of the train.



 We arrived in London to the chaos of the British Rail system.  Not to say it was bad, there just was soo much of it.  Trains, subways, and more trains.  Wow.  Also, everything seems to be under construction in preparation for the 2012 Olympic Games.  I have only one comment, People going to and from airports and train stations have LUGGAGE!!!  You might want to think about those two steps up and 10 step down configurations that seem to predominate at the train stations.  In the "Tube", there are tons of lifts and super long escalators, but when you get to the train stations, they disappear.  Like Magic.

In London we stayed at the Londontown Hotel.  What can I say.  It was literally around a corner to Earl's Court Tube Station, which was fabulous.  It was neat in that it was a converted Victorian home.  It was very clean, but lightly furnished with three beds basically filling the room.  It had no air conditioning, which should not have been a problem since most days the temps barely hit 20 degrees Celsius, but there was no airflow and there was heat on in parts of the hotel.  If you had stayed here in anything warmer than 20, you would expire.  Even a ceiling fan would have helped tremendously.

We went to find dinner the first night and happened across the Princess Victoria.  Cannot say enough about this little restaurant.  The people were friendly, the food great and the prices reasonable.  So good in fact we went back a second night.  Mushy peas, yum!

In London we saw Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guards, The Tower of London, Westminster Abbey (much more weeping, even in line waiting, people must have thought I was looney, but Margaret Beaufort is lying there), the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Kensington Palace, Princess Anne coming out of a helicopter, Greenwich, the Maritime Museum, Trafalgar Square, a variety of circuses, the Thames, the Tower Bridge, Bond Street, Carnaby Street, on and on.  All of it very cool.

But by far the coolest, was the Tardis just outside Earl's Court station.  I swear it was not there the day we arrived and I am pretty sure it wasn't there the next day.

My absolute favourite thing in London was something called The Monument which commemorates the fire of 1666.  Love the photo on the linked site.  If that is all you knew of "The Monument" you would never believe you are standing in front of it when you in fact are.  It reminds me of Calgary's tower a little.  Somehow this monument got surrounded by modern buildings and doesn't really have that much space around it.  Kind of ironic.

Now one of my husband's prestated goals in London was seeing the pub which was used in Shaun of the Dead to be the Winchester Pub.  We found it ahead of time and one day he and my older daughter went looking for it while my younger daughter, who was not feeling well, and I headed back to our room.  Well it's not a pub of any sort anymore, but find it they did, sans Zombies.

And that brings me to the end of our trip and transitions nicely into the topic of my next post, which will be my Zombie book, well at least the beginning of it.

Paris, the city of "Where are we?"

Ah Paris.  First, I have to say that everyone warned us about driving in Paris.  They did not warn us about driving near Paris.  We were supposed to go to Chartres to see the beautiful blue stained glass in their famed cathedral.  In my husband's carefully timed plan, it should have worked.  We needed to have the rental car at Orly by 7 pm.  We left Vimy at 1 pm.  The drive to Paris should have taken 2 hrs, to Chartres a further 1 hr, at the cathedral for an hour, back to Orly in an hour and hand the car in with an hour to spare.  Easy peasy right?  Not so fast buddy.

The drive to Paris slowed to stop and go just as we hit Charles de Gaulle Airport.  OK.  An hour later we knew that Chartres was a pipe dream.  I was really upset, but tried really hard not to be.  What is, is.  I really wanted to see the sun pouring through the glass.  Chartres has a relic, is steeped in history, and is supposed to be breathtakingly beautiful.  Next time.

The other crazy thing about the traffic was the scooters and motorcycles screaming up between the stopped lanes of cars.  Not slowly either.  One inattentive driver and pow!  Finally we wondered how close to our hotel we were.  GPS said about 10 minutes, so we decided to get rid of the bags and hubby suggested us too.  Wow!  I have one thing to say.  DO NOT drive in Paris if you can at all avoid it.  My husband tells a horror story about a roundabout and the GPS saying go straight through, but how to tell when you are opposite to where you started while dodging traffic mayhem in a monster roundabout.  Needless to say he found both airport and hotel via transit.

So on to Paris.

 Cafes everywhere.  Paris has a feeling of relaxation.  Sure there is hustle and bustle, but there is the feeling that taking a moment is O.K. too.  Everyone we met was polite and helpful, despite our french being limited.  Also nice that unlike in Montreal where the slightest waiver brings on perfect English, here they let you struggle if you want.  We saw all the typical tourist sights, like the Arc de Triomphe and the Tour Eiffel. I highly recommend seeing it at night.  While you're waiting in line, watch the police harass the illegal souvenir sellers.

We did a little shopping at the Galleries Lafayette.  Didn't buy much, but the glass dome and the way the store is built around it is worth a visit all by itself.  But if you do get there, the real treat is the roof top patio.  There is a place to eat, but the observation area is free and the vantage point not too bad.  The eatery one floor down looks onto the back of the opera house.

Old and new juxtaposed by happenstance.

We did some churches too.  Of all the churches we visited in Europe, my husband says Saint Chapelle is his favourite.  This was the one that blew him away.  Restored to its Medieval appearance, it is a stunner.  The glass, and there is oh so much of it, seems to stand there on its own.  The tracery of support beams hardly intrude into the wall of glass.  On my weepy scale this one sure was up there.

As to the "Where are we?" of the title.  Well we wander, a lot.  We head out in a general direction confident that we can find our way.  In many places, especially in the US and Canada with cities built on grids, this is not overly difficult even without a map.  Paris is a whole different critter.  First, "Where are the street signs?"  This took us a bit to figure out.  They are on the buildings on the corners.  Bring binoculars, they are small.  Second, in Paris all the buildings are about the same height and so finding tall landmarks by which to steer doesn't work.  Third, the buildings are all similar looking and hard to distinguish, so getting lost in the maze of streets is easy.  Use a good map.  Fortunately, the one our fantastic hotel Classics Hotel Bastille gave us was perfect, complete with Metro map and stops marked.  I highly recommend both the hotel and the Metro.

A little Europe

Ahhhh, back home.  After 2 1/2 weeks of travel, I am usually so wanting to go home.  I would go anywhere with my own bed, house, kitchen, book shelf and craft room in tow.  Sadly, we cannot yet beam ourselves anywhere, and really I don't want to get into that is it really you argument.

We visited a few places, the first being Amsterdam.  As my youngest said it was the oldest looking of the three major cities we visited.  We stayed at the WestCord Art Hotel which was a five minute bus ride from the central station and was a great place to stay.  We got around with a 48 hour transit pass which was the perfect way to go.  Amsterdam though has two marks against it in my books.  The first being the pot.  I want a coffee shop to sell coffee.  I want to take my kids to a restaurant and know that it's not a front for a pot den.  We ended up at Burger King.  What a stinking (like skunk) shame.  Nonetheless, it was beautiful and the Rijksmuseum and Historische Museum Amsterdam were both well worth visiting.  The other crazy thing about Amsterdam was the bicycles.  All I can say is pedestrian beware.  Look all ways before stepping anywhere.

Delft on the other hand, had all the canal city charm with fewer bicycles, no skunks and a gorgeous city square lined with cafes where on a Saturday you could watch the parade of weddings.

After Delft it was Osnabrück, Germany to visit relatives.  We visited a few of the sites in and around this lovely town and I am not biased because it's my parents hometown.

 

After Osnabrück, it was off to Lille for the express purpose of seeing the Vimy Ridge monument the next day.  Lille was a little bit of a surprise.  I don't know why, but I expected a small town.  The old part of town was small with a cathedral and pretty little streets where the awnings of the restaurants almost met over the middle of the street.  Pretty.  Our hotel was near the train station and in a big complex attached to the station that had a shopping mall and full grocery store in it.  The whole complex was modern and was literally five minutes from the old town on foot.  Getting to the hotel by car from the highway was an almost 2 hour adventure that finished with the whole family doing a mission impossible trick with a parking garage door and my husband driving the car through the parking garage sounding like he was going super fast only because of the rubber coating on the garage floor.  High fives all around.

The next day we had Vimy Ridge in our sights.  This monument is a must see.  Be forewarned, it takes longer than you think to see and you don't want to rush.  Also, without a car of your own, we rented for this part of the trip, you have to rely on a tour group as no public transit goes to the site.  We love this monument because it is beautiful and because, despite all the hyperbole about Vimy being the great victory that allowed Canada to sever the apron strings with Britain and be recognized in her own right, it is a war memorial about sadness and loss.  There is nothing celebratory about this monument and when it comes to war that is as it should be.

Next: PARIS

Downtown Disney

It was my birthday recently and a friend gave me a lovely present in an awesome sparkly bag with the express purpose of using the bag in a paper project.  Well here it is and sadly photos never convey sparkly, shiny things in the same was as real life.  Makes you wonder about buying jewelry online.  It's just not the same without the halogen lighting and the light bouncing all around.  It's mesmerizing!  I thought that this paper added to the sparkle and dash theme of Downtown Disney.  If you've been you know what I mean.  If you haven't, well it's sort of like an outdoor mall, combined with a club district, combined with a theatre district.  There is entertainment, music, art galleries, clothing stores and the biggest Disney store ever,ever, ever.  We almost lost the girls in there.

7 Gypsies Mykonos Paper Project

I saw these papers by 7 Gypsies and immediately thought that they would be a good fit for my pictures of Key West.  Yes, they are Greek travel themed papers, but the rich saturated colours in riotous patterns felt very tropical to me.  I decided to start with my picture of the wild rooster.  The rooster was very uncooperative and took forever to get into the right pose.  He completely ignored me as I got closer and closer.  He should give Brad and Angelina anti-paparazzi lessons, cause he was a total pro.  No pushing, no shoving, no nothing.  Anyways, the paper worked very well.  I stuck to the colours in the paper, and even with very busy patterns managed to get a focused (in my opinion, feel free to tell me different), not busy layout.  The metal flowers are from Graphic 45 and the stamp is a Wendy Vecchi by Stamper's Anonymous.  I used Quickutz Fiesta for the title and Hero Arts Typewriter Letters to finish it off.  Thanks for looking.

A Bisque Paper Doll

Another Catherine Moore paper doll.  I dressed her in layers of shimmery tissue paper and gave her a flower hat.  Isn't she as delicate and pretty as the china dolls she's modeled on?

And because I can't help showing the beautiful things happening in my garden, here she is on a peony.  I don't know the name of it.  I started it from seed about 10 years or so ago.  I was at Canada Blooms talking to a gentleman from the peony society.  He gave me the seeds he collected from some of his plants.  I think I started with something like 10 seeds of which about 4 or so sprouted.  Of those just this one plant managed to reach maturity.  It has no scent, but the contrast of the deep magenta petals and the bright yellow anthers is gorgeous.  This peony blooms quite well every year, despite being in quite a bit of shade.  This year it was a little thin.  I think because my weed of a wisteria was shading it to a point where it is unwilling to cooperate.  I hacked back the offending vine and hopefully next year it will be happier.  I can't wait to see what the fern leaf peony seedling I bought for a dollar last year gets up to in the coming years.  Boy I love these quick result gardening projects!  Now you know why I need quick fix paper projects.

Butterfly Girls

I can never stray too far from paper.  The sewing machine will gather dust, despite my best intentions and the knitting will sit, but paper always draws me back.  Buying a new stamp set and a die helps too.

Thanks again to Catherine Moore and her great inspirations.  The Birthday card uses a Paper Artsy stamp.  The butterfly wings are from Artchix Studios.

Oh she's cute with her little dragonfly side-kick on her shoulder.  She's a superwoman of nature, defender of pollen, fighter of bad bugs, and a delight to the eye.

This is a Birthday card made from scraps.  I finally figured out how to make the spiral flowers.  They are really not that hard, but sometimes I just get stumped.  That's the last piece of that ribbon I had.  I must get more, I adore that colour.

Finishing up some projects

So I finished the felted slippers and one, yes just one, sock. It did take over a year so actually finishing one is an achievement. Besides, what do you know, I may just need one sock. OK just trying to evoke a little guilt. Sock two is cast on, ribbed and into the pattern, but the lady a couple of doors over had the audacity to have a baby and so a quick knitting project is in the works.  Not like I didn't have a few months notice, but she didn't know the sex of the baby and I really didn't want to knit something green or yellow, so here I am.

This is the most ridiculous plant ever.  This Japanese peony tree is just over the top.  Those flowers are almost 8 inches across.  In the heat they only last for a few days and then they're gone until next year.  This year there are a bumper crop of blooms, twelve in all.  That's a record on this nearly fifteen year old shrub.  Any more and the colour police would show up.  Best of all this year it's late to open, so I have an orange azalea and a yellow azalea going at the same time.  Can anyone tell mother nature to respect the colour scheme.

Hosta Love

My family knows that I have a soft spot for a group of plants known as Hostas.  If you have a shady garden, you likely have one of these reliable leafy relatives of the lily.  They are far more known for their leaves than their flowers, which is unfortunate as some produce beautiful large white flowers that are heavily scented.

The foliage is very compelling as it comes in a surprisingly large variety of textures, shapes and colours.  I love them partly due to the tropical feel these plants have, despite their hardiness.  Some of the leaves are impossibly large.  The one in this Photosynth is called Sum and Substance, which it has in spades.



You can see that some of the leaves are at least 18" across. Way cool!

Spring is Sproinging

My new child.  A Cornus florida Cherokee Brave.  This lovely flowering dogwood is now in my backyard.  I am so thrilled.  I understand that they can be a little tricky, but I will give it lots of tender loving care and patience and hopefully each spring these beautiful orange pink blooms will herald the bounty to come.

Europe Here We Come

  Booked the horribly expensive flights, and the horribly expensive tiny hotels for at least two legs of the trip, which means that since we are too cheap to spring for refundable anything,  we are going to Europe!

Joy, horror, trepidation and Joy!  We'll be seeing family we haven't seen ever.  Hi, I'm your cousin!  Again, a little bit nervous.  Should be so cool though too.

I am hoping to not only add to my family, but add to my knowledge of my family history.  This trip will be far to short and with the kids along, I won't have either the time nor the will to do any real digging in archives or records.  If I find a couple of grave sites and get a real birth date or two that would be something. 

This trip is really about me seeing something of my own family history and about showing the girls a little something about their heritage.  I really hope I don't ball my eyes out too much.  I guess I need to find where they sell waterproof mascara in pint containers.

Works in progress

i have been working hard trying to get things done. I've decided that multiple half finished projects littering my life and psyche are unacceptable, so the decision, resolution maybe to finish a few things. First stop my dAughter's felted slippers. Finished the knitting, but in my happy haste I forgot to put a ribbon in the casing at the top before felting. The pattern doesn't call for it, but in the five or six pairs of these I have made, I have found it to be highly neccessary. A quick revisit should fix this. Next finish a pair of socks I started last year sometime before the complex lace pattern got the best of me.

So that's the knitting projects in hand ( please ignore the new yarn I bought for a tank top and a bikini for my 17 year old ). Now I just have to deal with a 80 + piece stained glass project for my mom. Can't solder outdoors til it's warmer so that can go down the queue.

I have tonnes of paper projects on the go as well. Last year's doors open photos are destined for a mini album, last summer's and this March break's trip photos still need to be put into layouts. I've also started a project I am really excited to begin sharing here. It's a combination of art journalling, stamping, photoshop, humour, and storytelling. The subject is Zombies. Yeah, I know, so popular right now, so being done. I hope I am bringing something new and fun. I will start to share once I am into it quite a bit more. Stay tuned.

Girls of the waves for my Nieces

I have been on a total Stickles kick.  Everything looks better with sparkle.  I did a Zentangle butterfly, coloured it with Copics, covered it in glossy gel medium to seal it and then added to all the patterns with Stickles.  Ahhh, total blingage.  If you want to see it, it's at Bizzy B's.

So Easter is coming and I'll be missing dinner with the family, so I thought I'd send something to my nieces.  I don't like the idea of big gifts, so I thought maybe I'd do a paper doll for each of them.  Better, paper mermaids.  After all, if you've ever seen fish scales, they sparkle in the sun, so it was the perfect opportunity to use Stickles.

I use a gel medium before applying Stickles so that the Stickles doesn't lift the colour underneath.  I also use Liquid pearls, which will also lift the colour if you work on an unsealed surface.  I chose glossy for this project, because they are supposed to be wet mermaids, but it does make photographing them hard.

I hope my nieces like them and that they stay out of the garbage can for at least a few hours.  I'll throw in some stamped images of other doll bits for them to colour and cut out themselves.  We'll see.  Well I won't see, I'll be at Bizzy B's.  Drop by and say hello.

Medieval Dolly, not Paper this time.

This term for my history class I had to make an item relevant to the medieval child.  I decided to do clothing.  As I didn't have a small or medium sized child to schlep to my class I used one of my daughter's dolls.  Now she is a girl doll, but for the purposes of my class, it's a 13th century schoolboy.  Typically, little boys would have worn short tunics, as did most men, but for school, they wore long tunics.  The reason we went with boy, is that we wanted to make a piece of clothing that was somehow special.  So our clothing is underwear, specifically braies or underpants.  Boys didn't get braies till they were old enough.  The reason, when you had wash all your clothing, or most of it, and you don't have a washing machine, accidents are completely out of the question.

I love the way this turned out.  It looks really medieval.  It is hard to pick fabrics that are appropriate.  Tunics would have been felted wool as would the hosen.  Under things, shirts, chemises and kerchiefs for women were made from linen.   

Altitude Sickness: The Sadness You Feel When You Leave the Mountains.

Frontside at Lake Louise Ski Resort at the top of the Gondola.

Yep, I got weepy my last day at Lake Louise.  The mountains are way too beautiful and the skiing way too awesome not to feel a little sadness at leaving.  I am pre-menopausal, so maybe the weepy was partly that too.

Looking over the back bowls at the top of the Platter lift at Lake Louise.

 We skied at Nakiska, Lake Louise, Sunshine Village, and Panorama.  All of them were in fabulous condition and the skiing was wonderful.  I think though we have a new favourite mountain and it would be Panorama.  Quiet, well signed, a terrific lodge with storage for your stuff, great well maintained runs, lots of bathroom facilities and smaller lodges sprinkled throughout and friendly staff who gave us great advice on where to ski.  We are very good intermediate skiers by big mountain standards.  Black diamond runs with smaller bumps were typically no problem and steeps with few bumps were also manageable.  We have no experience with powder and as Eastern skiers are at home on hard pack and ice.  With all that, we still found plenty to ski comfortably and managed to challenge ourselves and grow our skills a little.  I am definitely going to spend more time in the moguls next year.  Riding the bumps is a required skill out west and a working knowledge of how to handle this type of terrain will definitely add to the amount of skiable terrain you have to work with. 
  We stayed at Hidden Ridge Resort, which is located on a ridge overlooking Banff.  This resort is comprised of a series of little cabins divided into rooms.  Our room could sleep eight people if we had wanted it to, but as it was the girls each got their own queen bed and we got our own room.  The loft set up was wonderful and left us with a living room kitchen area where were prepared most of our meals and crashed at the end of a hard day of skiing.  The resort also had an outdoor hot tub and pool which helped ease away the muscle strain from the day.  The value at this resort was really good and the kitchen helps take some of the bite out of eating at restaurants, both by way of cost and by way of calories, fat, sodium etc. 
   This was a hugely enjoyable vacation.  We loved it!  Now to start planning for next year.  I think we're going to head south in the mountain range and try Fernie and it's environs.
 

Wings to Fly

     Paper crafting, well any crafting is taking a backseat these days to school.  Not only my schoolwork, but the kid's schoolwork too.  I've been trying to help my grade 11 daughter with her math.  This means going through a math book and staying ahead of her to try to help her to "get it."  So far so good and her father is helping too.
     My current class requires the creation of an example of a piece of medieval child's clothing.  We're doing underpants and yes they had underpants.  But we're making doll size clothes and well I might as well dress the whole doll, what's the point of having a doll with just underpants?  So stay tuned for a doll doll dressed as a medieval school boy.

     Despite the time crunch I had to get a little paper therapy in.  I have to thank Deviant Scrap and Somerset's Digital Studio for my current inspiration.  Check out the magazine for an awesome offer that will help supercharge your digital mojo, not to mention the mojo just from the articles.
      So here's what I made.

 

Again Character Constructions forms the basis of the doll.  The skirt is made with the die cut Laura Haviland so graciously gave us when I took her class at Bizzy B's.  I just wove the ribbon in and out and then sewed it in place with some silver thread.

       The wings are from Deviant Scrap printed on brochure paper.  I love the realism of the wings with the stamped doll.  Of course there are Stickles, cause everything is better with a little Stickles.  (Husband and kids won't hold still and cat just licks them off, so maybe not "everything".)