Vicki Boutin

Some new Queen an Co

Hey there!!!!  Just stopping in to share a few pages I have been working on with the new Queen and Co goodies!

Lots of new felt!  Lots of oh so sweet brads!  This release will be a ton of fun, but then again Queen and Co never dissapoints!

Back to work!  I will have more to share over the next few days!

EDITED TO ADD: Layle has the GRAFTON line up on her blog!!!!  I think it is my favourite of the new Scenic lines!!!  Go check it out and post for a chance to win one of 20!!! paper packs!

New Scenic Route Lynden!

Just finished these up!

Used the Ranger Crackle paint for the "eggs" which are from this sheet of Scenic Route chipboard....

You don't need to feel limited with Lynden's color palette!  I used my bright photos and just tied them in to the papers with one of the fun colors from my photos...like orange!  Works like a charm!

Layle has added more sneak peeks to her blog!!!!  Scroll down to see the new chipboard shapes!!!!  I love the birds and butterflies!!!!!  Makes me giddy! 

Happy Monday!

Hi friends!  It's Monday and I just wanted to check in!  FYI....go check out Layle's Blog for the new Scenic Route line called Providence!  She has pics posted and a chance to win some goodies!!  It is beautiful!!  I just walked away from a few pages I am working on with the new Lynden line to come and post here.  I will add them tomorrow after I take pictures.  It is such an incredibly pretty paper line.

I taught at the two Cherished Scrapbooks stores on Saturday and I have to say I had such a great time!!!  The ladies were all wonderful and so happy to be creating with the SR Loveland line!  When I left the Mississauga store on Saturday night it was snowing and the ground looked like it was covered in glitter!  You know that kind of perfect, light snow on a not so cold night??  It dances down from the sky and it is completely magical!  A perfect end to a perfect day spent with friends teaching.

I am going to cut this little post off now.  I had a mole removed from beside my ear this afternoon and it is starting to hurt.  Early bed tonight.  Well, after I watch Medium, of course!

Kitting my classes...

Hey y'all!  Busy day!  Working on CHA stuff and kitting my classes for Cherished Scrapbooks on Saturday.  I will be at the Thornhill store in the morning and the Mississauga store in the afternoon.  It should be a ton of fun!!!  We will be using the Loveland line by Scenic Route...LOVE this line!  AND...I received the Lynden papers today and wholly cow!  They are so GORGEOUS!  The pictures on the site do this paper NO justice at all!  It is PERFECT IRL!!  The blue is a lovely, rich aqua and the green is so incredibly fresh!  I am going to create with this paper tomorrow and I will post sometime over the weekend.  So for all those who weren't too sure about this one...rest assured...it is niiiiiice!  Should never doubt Sarah...she is a genius when it come to product design!  OH!  And just wait till you see what is coming out in February...yeah...you're gonna love it!  Have you been to Layle's blog??  Buttons, stamps and mini books, OH MY!!!!!  Ahhhhh.  Can't wait!

I also received some Kelly Panacci stuff this week and let's just say...it is YUMMY!!!  One of her new lines...it was like she was in my head...I LOVE it!!!!

There are going to be some exciting products this season!  I am really seeing a huge grunge, skater, boy trend in the products out there.  Can't wait to see what else is to come.

I have had a few emails about my scrap space so here are a few answers to some questions.  The two tiered basket was a recent purchase at Target.  It was with the Easter stuff.  The chandelier is from a store called In Vu Drapery Co. in Mississauga, ON.  I love this store!  They have a dining room set that I would buy in a heartbeat!  All of the other baskets are from Homesense.  I would recommend watching for these types of baskets in the spring in garden centers.  They were very reasonably priced..$10-$20.  The large, round brown one was from Crate and Barrel and is meant for growing herbs.  It was on clearance for $20!!!  If you have any other questions let me know!

My Creating Place

I cleaned my scrap space today.  It is starting to take shape but it isn't quite there just yet.  So keep that in mind when you look at these photos....

That's it for now.  As I add to it I will post pics.  The owl and birdies came from Vinyl Wall Art.  Fabulous customer service and really easy to use.  I think the owl is the large size.  I bought the robots for Ri and the fairy for Dev.  Such fun!!!  Let me know if you have any questions about anything else.

I promised that I would answer a few questions so here you go:

1.  What do you do to free yourself up and just have fun?   I don't take it very seriously...I love the whole process of creating!  If I don't like a project I am working on, I move on and try to make it better the next time around.

2.  CHA Sneak Peaks...They will be coming!  As soon as I get the go ahead to post them I will.

3.  Pics of the new house...one day soon!  Just need to get it decorated first!

4.  How do you organize your paper?  Do you see the vertical Cropper Hopper holders in the third pic??  That is what I use.  I like vertical paper storage!

5.  Do you scan your layouts or photograph them?  I photograph them.  Scanner is too much work and I get shadows when they are bulky.

I think that's it!!

So I went to see Juno tonight.  What an absolutely FABULOUS movie!  I loved it!  Rich didn't want to see it and he came out of the theater a fan!  So funny!

K, friends!  Off to bed!  Thanks for visiting!!!! 

So proud!

My kiddos were so cute today at swimming lessons!  They are both doing so well.  I wasn't sure if it was going to be a positive experience this time around.  Ri was so scared to go.  Last year he had a traumatic experience when his instructor said he would catch him when he jumped in and he let him go under.  He took in water and was terrified.  Totally damaged the trust he had for the instructor and he was scared from that point on.  Fast forward to tonight and my kid is giving it his all.  He has a fabulous teacher and we lucked out because he is alone in his class!  He is putting his face in the water and actually trying to swim!  Makes me so proud of him!  He is trying to deal with the fear and learn how to swim!  Go Riley!  Dev is doing great too!  They both love swimming night!

I have the Raks ready to go and I hope both ladies will be pleased with the packages coming their way!!!  Some fun goodies!  I have been up past 2am for the last few nights, so I am off to bed early tonight!  the fatigue is kicking in!  I will be back tomorrow to post!  I have a few cute pics to share.  Night all!

Checking in, a challenge and prizes!

What a fun weekend!  My classes at Scrapbooks By Design were sooooo much fun!!!!  I had the chance to meet some super cool ladies and even had a few come in from waaaaaaay out of town!  Thanks again to all who came out to play and for Jenni for having me!  Such a FABULOUS store!  I even did a little shopping!  Got some great new K&Co stuff...so pretty it made me HAPPY!  So yes Krista, if you are reading this...it is a wonderful store!

I mentioned last week that I would be posting a challenge to help celebrate The Scrappy Gourmet's One year birthday!  If you want to play along all you have to do is complete my challenge and post it Here.  The winner will receive one of my kits from the site and a goodie pack!  If you have the time and inclination to play along I say GO FOR IT!!!  The owners of the site are BEYOND generous and wonderful and it is a great way win some FAB prizes!  Good odds too!

Now for the challenge!  In true Vicki spirit it will be an easy one so lots of you will participate.  My challenge to you, if you should choose to take it...

In honor of Valentines day and my love for hearts I challenge you to create a layout the incorporates hearts, buttons and anything else your little creative hearts desire!  Make it fun!  And post it HERE.  Let me know when you do so I can see it!  There are a lot of great Valentines themed products out right now.  I bought a few yummy thing on Saturday (have you seen the giant tags and hearts by Bazzill??).

Here are a few pages I have done using hearts to get you in a Sweet heart state of creating:

Can't wait to see what you come up with!!!!!!!

Drum Roll Please!

Wow!  What an overwhelming response!  These RAKS are so popular that I am going to make it a fairly regular thing.  I have lots of ideas for this blog in 2008.  I am thinking of doing a weekly product review where I feature something I love to use or a new gadget and post a project with it.  What do you think??  It will be a little "how to", "what's hot", "use your stash" all in one.  My goal is to make this blog a little more inter sting and hopefully get you guys to come out and chat with me on a regular basis.  I want your feedback.  What would you like to see here??  What type of classes and techniques would interest you?  Let me know what you are thinking!

Now for the winners:

I had Riley choose 2 names and the winners are...

CHA? Lucky girl! want some help? hee hee! I saw quite a few of these pages in the magazines and must say that your kids are adorable!

Nadia Munarolo-Kurjata

Hi Vicki!
I love checking in with you to see what you are working on. Looking forward to Scrapfest in Kitchener.

Trish

Congrats Ladies!

Can you email me your addresses and I will pop the prizes in the mail! 

I will post a picture of the prize packs and answer the questions that were posted.  If you have any other things you would like to ask post them here and I will include them in my post tomorrow evening.  I worked on my scrap room today, so I will be posting pics of that too!!

This weekend I will be teaching at Scrapbooks By Design Toronto, so if you want to come out and play let my friends at the store know!  We are going to have some fun with Scenic Route and I will have a few goodies to give away as well!  Good times!!!

K!  Off to finishing cleaning up my mess and kitting my classes!!!  Remember...email me Nadia and Trish!

BTW- I am not yelling this part of the post...something weird is going on and I can't seem to fix it!

It's Rak time again!

You know I love to get all of you lurkers to come out of the woodwork and say "Hi!" so that means it is RAK time again!  I am going to throw two packages of my favourite things and a few other goodies together and draw two name on Thur day night!  All you have to do is leave a comment on this post.

Here are a few pages I have had published in recent months.  I feel weird when I make a post and don't add some kind of eye candy!!  So here ya go:

That's about it for now!  I need to get back to CHA projects and prepping class stuff.  On Thursday I am going to post a challenge for a contest that the Scrappy Gourmet is having to celebrate their one year anniversary!  Scrappy Gourmet is giving away a great prize and I will pick a winner as well from the people who participate in the challenge!  It should be lots of fun!

Ok, As I Promised...

I have to start this post with a disclaimer...I am not a pro when it comes to Photoshop but I have learned a thing or two from messing around in Photoshop Elements.  I have had a few requests for instructions on how I convert my colour photos to black and white.  I will try to explain it here to the best of my abilities.

I chose this photo of my sister-in-law and niece to demo the steps.

Here is the photo straight out of the camera...

First...go to Enhance>Adjust color>Remove color

Second step...go to Layer>Duplicate Layer and then go to the Layer Palette>Screen and adjust with the slider until the image is light enough and then go to Layer>flatten image

Third step...Layer>Duplicate layer and then go back to the Layers Palette>Soft Light and use the slider to achieve the contrast you like  and then go to Layer>Flatten Image

Finally go to Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask to sharpen the image.

Sometimes following these steps will give you subtle changes other times the changes are quit dramatic.  If you are a Photoshop user then you may want to consider buying the Itty Bitty Actions.  They are amazing!  When I finally take the step to converting to Photoshop from Photoshop Elements I will be buying these actions!

I hope this post is somewhat helpful.  Like I said...not a pro!  Just a fiddler arounder.

I think it is time for a little giveaway!  Tomorrow I will try to post some details!  And then on the weekend I will have something fun to announce regarding the Scrappy Gourmet!