Highlights from July

Here are some pictures from our travels and visiting in July!

 Canada Day Face Painting

 Canada Day Face Painting - Jeremy's inner tiger comes out!

 Our Canada Day crew (Daniel wasn't wearing red so he got to take the picture!)

 Beating the heat with friends in Edson!

The kids were thrilled to ride a horse when we visited friends near Castor, AB. Jeremy kept noting that it was his "first time" riding a horse!

Other events this month included two family reunions, a week of swimming lessons in Olds, swimming in Red Deer for a birthday party, friends from Edson camping in our farmyard for three days, and just hanging out on the farm in Olds!

Gift Calendars

This shows the the calendar I made as hostess gifts this summer as well as keeping one for myself! The event calendar is from CTMH and what I love about it is that I record everyone's birthdays and anniversaries on it once and then I just re-use it year after year! The calendar comes with a white square on the top for embellishing - I simply matted each one with cardstock and patterned paper and then embellished with stamps. I also random stamped on the calendar below for fun. All the paper and stamps are CTMH, although some of them are retired.

Exciting news from Close To My Heart!

Close To My Heart had their annual convention last week and they made some exciting announcements! If you are a scrapbooker or cardmaker, then you will be excited to read:

• ALL stamp prices are going down as of August 1! For example, a D - sized stamp set is going down from $25.50 to $19.95!
• All the new patterned papers will now be in a heavier cardstock-weight, include a designed zip strip across the top of each paper, and have a unique, full-color design on each side of the paper. Wait—there’s more! The Level 2 paper packets have been reconfigured so that they also have LOWER prices! We have removed the copyright symbol from the printed papers and have placed it on a removable 1/2"-wide zip strip along the top.  The reverse side of this zip strip is printed with decorative borders or sentiments and can be used as a border or other element to complement your artwork.
• CTMH now has an exclusive Cricut® cartridge! This Art Philosophy collection includes a Cricut® cartridge with shapes and designs chosen by Jeanette herself, and three coordinating D-size My Acrylix stamp sets and three sets of Dimensional Elements (9" × 12" sheets). The stamp images and Dimensional Elements coordinate perfectly with the images from the cartridge making it so easy to quickly create fabulous artwork.
• Online shipping is going down as well in August so it will be the same as if you ordered directly through me!
• In addition, the new Idea Book coming out August 1 has eight new paper lines, more artwork, new embellishments, and more projects!

I'm looking forward to receiving my new Idea Books in the mail next week and checking out all the new artwork and products! Let me know if you would like one!

Highlights from June

I can't believe it is already half way through July! We've been having a great time visiting family and friends. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), Daniel hasn't come with us since he is working in Olds so it has just been the kids and me traveling the province!

 Playing with friends at Hawrelak Park in Edmonton on a very cool round swing.

  Racing Auntie Lisa and Uncle Travis on a bridge by Hawrelak Park (some got head starts!)

 Watching Auntie and Uncle bungee jump at West Edmonton Mall!

Jeremy cutting the grass

 Slip n' slide at Grandpa and Grandma Schulz's - summer is here!

Bouncing on the trampoline with cousin Kaytie and Auntie Janine

Excited about their banana splits after we had a small year-end school program to celebrate Noelle finishing kindergarten and Nathan finishing grade 2!

Jurassic Forest

We had the opportunity to visit Jurassic Forest, just north of Edmonton, with our friend Luella on Tuesday! Jurassic Forest opened last summer: "Gigantic, life-sized and startlingly realistic dinosaurs live and breathe in Jurassic Forest, and they're waiting for you."

 All the dinosaurs move ("come to life") as you walk along the two trails. I liked how they kept so much of the forest so that it seemed like the dinosaurs were supposed to be there.

 There was a big sand pit for the kids to dig in and they had fun uncovering a claw fossil with the paintbrushes. Nathan couldn't wait to see what dinosaur was around the next corner, Jeremy was mostly just awed and Noelle liked digging for fossils.

The assumption of Jurassic Park is evolution but the kids and I talked about how dinosaur fossils would have been formed during the worldwide flood of Genesis 7 and how the dinosaurs that lived through the flood on the ark would have either been killed by people or natural disasters. If you are interested in more details about dinosaurs and the flood or dinosaurs and people, check out creation.com and type "dinosaurs" in the search box. Creation.com has a ton of articles sharing evidence of a biblical creation.

June CTMH Specials!

There are two specials Close To My Heart has on for June - a Studio J free JPEG of your layout and a campaign for survivors of the severe storms in the US. Here are the details!

1. Studio J® Free-for-All , we’re giving everyone a FREE Studio J^®JPG file—no purchase required! Simply log on to Studio J, create a layout, then order one JPG file of your layout during the checkout process. It’s as easy as that! We’re offering one free JPG file per customer account during June, so if you already have a Studio J or a MyCTMH^®account you can log in and start creating. If you don’t have an account, no worries— log on, create an account and then order your free JPG file with no strings attached.

I love mixing my Studio J pages with my classic scrapbook pages and I love that I can scrapbook this summer in Alberta with just my laptop! When you try it, let me know! I'd love to hear what you like about it and help you learn the program!

2.“You & Me: Stronger Together” Storm Survivor Benefit Campaign
Many have asked CTMH if there is something they could do to support those affected by recent severe weather in the US, and they also had requests to extend the availability of the You & Me scrapbooking kit offered during the month of May. They've combined those two aims into a single campaign called You & Me: Stronger Together, to raise funds for the survivors of the severe storms that have pummeled the Midwest and Southern states.

During the month of June, order a You & Me kit for only  $16.50 (a retail value of $38.95), and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the American Red Cross 2011 Floods and Tornadoes relief operations.

You & Me Kit

You receive an instruction booklet to create four fully embellished layouts with the You & Me Kit or you can use the kit to make cards or projects. There is no qualifying purchase needed. Now I just need to decide what pictures I want to use on the layouts!