Saskatchewan

I am away on a trip to Whitewood, Saskatchewan this week.
My little Kaiella is along with me and we are having a great time! It is wonderful here, lots of wide open space and plenty of fresh air. As far as our fun time goes we have managed to fit in some yummy lunches out, a bike ride, a visit to the library and some toddler painting so far. I am sure the rest of the week will be full of happy adventure, Bella and little Jake are just the best of pals.
Here are a couple of photos I did of our good friends Krista and Braden and their wonderful little guys.Over and out for now
Have a great day wherever you may be and
don't forget to see the blessings that are all around you!

kick off party WINNERS!

First of all I want to say a huge thank-you for all of the wonderful comments that you guys left me on my kick-off party post. It feels so great to have that kind of support in a new adventure :)
thank-you thank-you thank-you!
Now let's get right to the good stuff...
announcing all of the winners!!!

From the comments my little Kaiella has randomly pointed at these 5 who win a free pack of their choice from my LDD store.

1. kam said...
yippee...you are selling your wonderful creations! How awesome! Now I have another new fave for myself! Love your stuff.

2. Traci said...
Hey CD,I am so happy that you are "branching out" and "spreading your wings" into the unknown. You know we all adore your work and I know you will find tons of support. I had an amazing time sharing class with you at inspired. and know what you are speaking about is completely true.

3.Tara C. said...

Awesome product, CD!! I can't wait to have some money in PayPal so I can splurge on some of your beautiful product!!!
Thanks for the chance!

4.Victoria said...

Thank you for the sample, C.D.! I'm so glad that you have decided to start selling some of your designs. It has been delightful to see so many wonderful things happen for you! You bring an attitude of fun and acceptance of one's abilities on every level. Your grin is infectious, too! Best wishes to your success in this new venture!

5. Denise R said...

Yay CD! Believe it or not, I just stumbled across your desings the other night when scrapping (I pretty much just do digi now!) and already bought some!!! They are so cute! Of course, I bought the doodle alphabet first after spending all that time in class that time at CKU trying to do that myself! haha! You KNOW you have a fan in me and I will buy pretty much anything you put on the site! Hope you and your family are doing well!!!

A big thank-you to everyone who ordered goodies from me. These 5 ladies are the random shoppers who win 2 free packs each

1. Penny Noel

2. Jeanne Carver

3. Sherry Medley

4. Bonnie McDonald

5. Melanie evans

And .....drumroll please......

the grand prize winner of all 8 packs in my original post ......

from those who posted in galleries using my designs......

IS

IMCCANDLESS

whoo hoo congrats!

check out her super cute layout

All listed winners please shoot me an email letting me know what you are wishing for and I will get your prizes over to you!!!

Thanks again for all the good lovin' everybody :)

Happy Canadaian Thanksgiving to all!

Hello and warm wishes from cartoon me!

hee hee

I can't believe how good these things come out,

too funny, I just had to share :)

you can make one for fun here

We had a great Thanksgiving with all of our fam here this past weekend, and we really missed all of our family that aren't here in Winnipeg right now to share in the festivities; sending blessings and lots of thankfulness for each one of you guys spread across Canada this weekend.

I haven't loaded our photos yet...Things are going to be slow around here this week, I have one of those kind of head colds where your head and your eyes feel about 20 times their normal size and you can't sleep because it hurts your throat to breathe through your mouth and it is nearly impossible to even try the nose route. And y'know, my ears are so plugged that I may possibly be shouting at everyone in my path without knowing it, but if indeed I am, then so far they are being quite fabulous about it.

It's life, we have all been there right? :)

Thankful today for such a loving husband to take care of us all.

wishing everyone a happy week

We have a new baby on the way!!!

Isn't she gorgeous?!!!

As you can see our baby has a full head of beautiful orange hair and sweet little blue eyes, and most important to note is that she is not of the human variety ;)

but truth is that from the time she and her siblings were born I have to say that the excitement around here is practically equal to if she was, LOL !

We went to have a visit when the kittens were 6 weeks old and this little girl slept in Tiara's arms almost the whole time. she is so peaceful and sweet we all just fell in love with her right away. I loaded these pics that I took and I just had to share our happy news.

Nothing much else of interest to say right now, I have been putting together a handful of new kits when I have a minute, the laundry reeeally needs to be done or I am afraid the kids are going to have to go sockless to school, and we are getting excited for some happy family get tethers this weekend ( Canadian thanksgiving). Today Emy and I are working on a project for school that involves a cutlery drawer organizer, plastic animals and a glue gun. sound fun? It really is!!!

She is so super creative and I love helping her out and hearing how her little brain works. It is one of the best parts of being a mom sometimes, just to sit back and observe these wonderful little people that I am honored to have in my life.

on that note,

Take care and Happy day to you

creating just to create

This week there is the perfect amount of crisp fresh chill in the air, it is sooo refreshing, makes me just want to stand on the spot and breathe it in deeply. The leaves are really starting to change colours, my favorites are the rich reds and yellows they make me smile everywhere I go....in case it isn't already clear , I LOVE THE FALL!

Simply adore it.

Today we are creating...just making stuff with no plan and it is super energizing. I LOVE MAKING STUFF!!!

I feel like it has been forever since I had the time to just make stuff that wasn't for a class or for my new designs , for a magazine article etc. I create differently when it is just for the sake of letting my heart and my hands do the walking and with no concerns for the how and why of it. I think that I need to make a plan with myself to do that more often.

OK, So here it is, my public declaration:

"Self, you need to make stuff just for the sake of making stuff...to watch the creation take shape and unfold as if it has a life of it's own. And no matter how big or small or even how ugly, it HAS to happen once a week absolute minimum."

OK done deal signed and dated.

Alright now I'm feeling the need for a sidenote: I don't often spend time talking to myself, but I figure that this blog is a pretty good place to keep myself accountable and so... what the heck!

Tiara and I settled right into making her a paint shirt for school today. She decided on a big T with wings and a halo and told me what to write on it. Such a great project to do together with a kid.

Just prepare the shirt with gesso in the area that you want to write/paint/colour on and then once it has dried completely treat it just like paper. Easy peasy and super fun together time!
And me, I am happily playing around with old french dictionary pages, mesh, ink, matte gel and lots of sand paper all in a little old board book I am starting to turn into something'R'other the fun is really not knowing where it will end up till I get there. Tiara and Kaiella did most of the sanding ( see above for cute little busy hands) and all of the gessoing for me and they loved every single minute of it...so much fun to get them involved in the creating and spend time together exploring what we can make. Some moms bake with the kids and around here we sand up books with aliens in them...why not.

Whoo hoo Scrapbookin Adventures!

... TOTALLY RAWKS!!!!

-I was treated like a Queen by Jenn

-tattooed by Kelli and her cool custom made stamp,

-I was the cause of A LOT of dirty hands and thrilled to watch the creation of so much happy art,

-and stayed in the most beautiful suite at the Parksville beach club where I enjoyed sitting by my own fire place while I sipped my tea and looked out at the ocean. **sigh** what a rough life hey?! ;)

To the amazing students who truly heard my message about sharing the story in your heart through cool design, thank-you so much;
For listening to what I had to say, for trying new things and stepping out of your box, For sharing your personal stories with me, and to so many of you for taking the time to hang out and become my new friends...
Thank-You, Thank-You, thank-You.
I enjoyed each of my classes so very much. I can't wait to come back to Parksville in the new year 2009 and I sure hope to see many of you awesome peeps again.

These 3 ladies were a real pleasure to spend time with,

Donna was hilarious and kept me laughing till my stomach hurt through the whole trip, Jenn is the most generous person with a joyful easy laugh, and Kah-Mei has such a gorgeous and peaceful genuine heart...so nice to have some time to get to know each of them better. Jenn and her family took so much time out of their lives to show Donna and I the rain forest and the ocean and all of the beauty that the island holds. It was truly breathtaking for a prairie girl who is nowhere near anything like this. I wish I had days and days to spend simply taking it all in. WOW

I was all over the place, finding cool nature with the kids, climbing up on top of big trees and laying on the ground to take photos...guess a little girl who loves to explore just grows up to be a big girl who loves to explore LOL! And last but not least, I have to add the sincerest THANK-YOU to Jenn, Scott, Emma and Alex for all of the time that you guys took to prepare such a wonderful event, take me exploring, and to make me feel so much at home on your island.

Even though I was coming for work, It was a real pleasure to spend time getting to know such a loving and generous family...next time I will be coming for so much more than work.
Peace

Class Page Peeks

I had a great night here in Parksville, meeting everyone and getting a bit messy with our make'n'takes to kick off the weekend, Whoo hoo for messy paint and a great bunch of creative Canadians!!!

Tomorrow's class is called "Bringing the story Home", we are going to be doing 4 new layouts that will tell 4 important stories and we'll be learning some super cool Art tricks along the way. Art mediums, paint, text transfers, and some cool design ideas that give a creative "home" to our photos and journaling. Here is a little sneak peek at 3 of our pages for tomorrows classes!

good night sleep tight :)

Pacific Feet

I am Out in Parksville BC, on Vancouver island this week, teaching with Donna Downey, and Kah-Mei Smith at the 2 year anniversary event for Scrapbookin' adventures. I am so looking forward to meeting all of you who have emailed me, and for that matter all of you who haven't LOL.

Donna and I went walking this morning on the bottom of the ocean while the tide was WAY out ( well...she is RAD and went for a run, I just happily poked around finding treasures) . Seriously the bottom of the OCEAN!!!

Here are a few pictures, as promised, for my girls. Some of the things I found to show you guys. The seaweeds were cool, but sorry girls, just too slimy to bring home in my pocket this time ;) miss you xoSuch a cool little adventure to start the day...I got so wet that I finally gave up and abandoned my footwear all together. It's way more fun with sand in your toes anyways :)

Oh, and It was one of the craziest things I have ever seen, being a girl from nowhere near oceans, I was super amazed to come back to my room later this afternoon and look out the window to find the water all back in and right up to the shore. I know I sound clueless, but dude!... it was all ripply sand, seaweed and shells for as far as the eye could see only a few hours before!

Kewl Beans.

Had a great lunch with these gals and I am off to get ready for some good creative sharing tonight. Just wanted to pop in and say hello, ramble about my amazement re:tides coming in and out, and leave a few pics for my kiddos. I will be pretty busy here this week but I am sure that I'll have all kinds of photos to share when I get home as well as the product winners to draw!!! Thanks so much to everyone for the AMAZING support you have all left for me in the comments from my last couple of posts.

see ya for now

gallery links

Anyone who has posted a layout with my new goodies and wants to be entered in my kick-off party draw. please leave me a link right here!

announcing....

Some pretty fun news! It has been over 2 years of lovely sweet requests for me to sell my designs.

I make my own things for my paper layouts ( anyone who has had classes with me or hung out and scrapped with me knows how very true this is) and I have made a lot of my own goodies for digi/hybrid pages too, but the thought of making it "good enough" to sell and finding the time to package it all up etc. just made me shake in my polka-dot socks LOL!

In the last 6 months or so I have finally been feeling ready to just go for it, to stop saying "nah" and start sharing my creations...it's been stirring my friends. Seriously.

Soooooo, when my friend Michelle asked me to be a guest designer at the Little Dreamer Shoppe I decided that the time had come at last to finally say "YES!"

So here it is folks, the official launch of Chickie-D Art :)

Time for a virtual Kick off party! please make yourself at home, and help yourself to a few little party snacks I have put out for you here ;)

The decorations are lovingly hung below...

and I have lots more in the works....

check out my little corner of the shoppe Now for a little more kick off party fun!!!I wanna give some more goodies away :)

3 ways to win
1.Leave me a comment here on this post and let me know what you think, or for that matter just say hello and tell me something good about your day! I will randomly draw 5 names from the comments who will receive a free kit of their choice

2. We will randomly pull 5 names from everyone who purchases any of my new products in the next week to win 2 free packs of their choice!

Or

3. Scrap with some of my new goodies and post it in whichever galleries you post your scraps. Then leave me links on this post to be entered in a random draw for everything that you see above!!! ($30 value)

Whoo Hooo!!!!

for happy fun

Come out and play with me
Thanks for coming to the party and have a FAB Tuesday my friends!

back to school

Back to school after an amazing summer.

**sigh**

It is always bittersweet for me, sending the girls to school in September. I Love having them home with me and I just want to keep them here, but I am so proud of them and it is great to see them growing into such wonderful people.

Emy has this thing for school uniforms, she is so adorable, and thinks it would be just dreamy to have to go to boarding school. LOL. So I totally indulged her and let her dress as very much "school girl" as she possibly could come up with. She pulled it off fabulously and was such a doll in her little outfit :)

Tiara, starting grade one, being gone all day, EVERYDAY.

I have so many feelings about this. Not the usual mom letting go kind of feelings, well maybe a few tiny ones, but more of the worry over a child with severe sensory issues and so many anxieties being able to handle the intensity of a full week at school kind of worries. A full week of noise and busyness and GETTING DRESSED properly in clothes that are not half of a pair of P.jammies. She needs/thrives on routine so I think that once she settles in it will be a great thing to have every day the same, but I worry about the the rocky road that I know we will have to get past first.

And of course we have the wee one...I can't even believe that my littlest baby is starting preschool this year. WOW times change so fast. The thing I love about having a blog is the record that it keeps, and how I can look back at what was going on a year or two ago. Check out these little people just two years ago!
That was Tiara's first morning of preschool and little Bella was such a baby still. She really is thrilled to feel like one of the "big girls" and is going to have such a great time making her own little friends and her own little crafts etc.

The girls were super excited about these lunch "purses" they got this year. Aren't they great?! I want one;)

And Tiara is proudly holding up her one little finger to stand for Grade One.

GO my girls, and grow even more amazing!!!

Happy September,CD

Camping

Awesome camping....hard core true north style, nestled in forest in a big ol' tent with no electricity and all of our cooking on the fire kind of camping. so so RAWKIN!!!

It was the perfect time together, truly priceless, and such a great way to finish up our busy summer! We had great weather and didn't miss modern technology for one second...well maybe one teeny tiny second when I wanted boiled water faster than the fire could do it, but that's it. And patience is good for us all, even when it only concerns boiling water :)

Cam and I were big time campers when we were younger and even when Emy was a wee one, but then once Tia came along with all of her sensitivities it just wasn't such a great plan...we sure have missed it though, and as much as I want to bottle up these little people and keep them small forever, it was pretty awesome to do "bigger" non-baby things with them all.

There is way too much to tell so,
In a nutshell ....

-Emy had a friend out for a few nights which was probably one of the highlights of her summer.

-The kids went on a bug hunting expedition armed ith a big pink net, and caught all kinds of different grasshoppers , crickets, and other bug friends in the ladybug care homes that they made last year.

-We went for super FAB ice cream

-sat around the fire often playing games and roasting marshies. Or like these guys just getting in lots of cuddles and together happy bonding time.-Cooked up some good crunchy fresh Manitoba corn YUM! and our signature perogies and bacon fire cooked pack of goodness. -Went for a "sounds of the night" hike and learned about the differentnt annimals who live and hunt in the forest at night>>>so COOOOL!
-We went on a history hike to an old homestead built by pioneers and learned about them

-rode bikes, read books, and enjoyed the slower pace

-had a day at the beach. Well, technically at the beach... I think we spent more time, as you saw in the previous post, ankle deep in the slimy swamp around the corner catching frogs and finding shells.The kids ended up with their beloved "Rose, Toad-a, Jackson, and Green" and spent hours playing with them in the water and building a little habitat for their new froggy friends from water, sand, and leaves.
Even Bear was thrilled to finally be able to come along on a family vacation and had a wonderful time spending his days outside with us all and keeping us warm in the tent at night.

a sticky situation

Well, normally I am the girl who is unafraid to get in there and get her hands dirty...normally. Today was a little different, today I had to also be unafraid to get my feet dirty! To sink right into a slimy muddy swamp up to my ankles while it smooshed and sunk underneath me, and I tried to shove out of my mind the possibility of LEECHES living in it ( one of my life long fears) , all in the spirit of good outdoor summer fun. OK and to be the super hero mom, who is really awesomely cool, and catches frogs to make the kids super duper happy. The kids who will always remember my incredibly cool awesomeness and consider me a big super hero for the rest of their lives.......right?

Sooooo. I shut my eyes for a minute as the first foot sunk in and I shrugged off the cringe that was growing inside me in exchange for channelling my inner tomboy from the days of old when messy gross activities like his would have been totally up my ally. How is it that as I get older I get boring and lame, and grow out of a love for sinking into slimy sticky warm gooey mud????

It was all well worth it and ended up being great fun. Here we are with our triumphant bucket of shells, after trying to wipe most of the slop off.

We are having a great time with the kids.

Gone camping and spending some QT together before the school year starts up again.I got a signal here at the campground store today and so I was able to check a few emails and send a few while my people were napping. I will write more when we get home but I just
HAD to pop in for a little hello and an update on our summer fun

Happy day to you!!!

summer posts

hey there, just wanted to pop in and let you know that as promised, I have been slowly getting  some of those old draft posts up that have been building over the jamm-packed-away -from-home summer months. If you pop by here for a visit please scroll down and check out how our summer has been rolling :) 

I will keep adding them as I find bits of time to throw on the photos and spell check ;)

Been working hard on a few VERY exciting new projects, well... I think they are exciting anyways, hope to share more details very very soon. 

We are away in the US right now getting in just a bit more quality time with the girls before the new school year gets under way. 

Sending them off to school after the holidays is always so bittersweet for me. *sigh* I really do have the three very best girls in the whole world. Sorry if you have girls but I'm afraid I was blessed to get the best!

Hope your weekend is Fab, Fresh and always FUN!

peace and blessings and happy day wishes,

xo, me

random notes from the road

Sitting on the floor in the airport this morning,having a cinnabon for breakfast and watching people walk by. Man, there are a lot of people in a rush!

I always enjoy airports for this reason; watching all of the rushing people going by all around me makes me enjoy all the more my own inner peace. In busy hustle bustle places I seem to find myself extra peaceful; with a book, my thoughts, a drawing...it is Like my own little island of quiet amidst the stormy sea.

RAD

It has been a busy summer with A LOT of time away from home.

I am feeling like my feet have barely touched Winnipeg soil. Some of the time away has been on my own, for work, but there has also been plenty of time away with my family. I always LOVE the time with all 3 girls home for the summer, we fill our time together with all sorts of adventures and new memories.

I have at least 10 blog posts in draft that I have written as I have a thought to share, and tons of photos etc.

WOW,I am really hoping that some more time at home as we head into the fall will mean some time for me to catch up on things like that. The fall makes me sad to send the girls away all day to school, but getting back into the routine of the school year is always a good good thing.

I am throwing in a few pictures of the girls out for ice cream just because a post needs pictures ;)

Happy day to you

wherever you are; I hope you can enjoy your own inner peace in the middle of your day :)