Why so angry?

Hello everyone!  I hope you had a great weekend.  Ours was busy but wonderful and as usual. it came to an end way too quickly. 

I don't have much to show you today, and need to keep this short and sweet as I have a million and one things to do...it must be Monday. 


I just wanted to wish you a good week and quickly show you these angry bird pumpkins I painted for the kiddies.  Every year, I paint whatever character the kiddies are into at the time.  I have painted Nemo, Scooby, Dora, Dinosaurs, Picachu and the list goes on.  Unfortunately, that was before I even knew what a blog was and so I have no pictures to share with you....

This year, the choice was obvious...

I had some fun with Picnik and made these Angry Birds even angrier.  These guys are in serious need of some anger management...

 But here is a little secret...

I painted a pretty Morpho butterfly behind the blue bird, because we all have a soft, kind side and this is the blue bird's...

The truth is, as long as there is paint and a brush in front of me, I will create.  But I also have this unhealthy attachment to paint and hate washing it down the drain; especially when it's my favourite colour.  So I played a little and even sprinkled some blue glitter on top of it.  I love the turquoise and orange combination. 


Well friends, sorry I don't have much today, but please allow me to wish you a good week and remind you to be safe tonight while out trick or treating.  Thank you so much for stopping by. 


Have a great day!


much love,
Lucy 

It's hard to believe that today is the last day of October. As you might know, I used pink font for the month in support of Breast Cancer Awareness. Please take a minute to pray for those who are currently battling this heartbreaking fight. xo 

Magic Pumpkin Seeds...

"She flung the beans through the open window and sent Jack to bed without his supper..."

I came across this idea when looking for an image for vintage pumpkins.  I thought I had saved the link, but I can't find it to share it with you (sorry). However during the search, I found a similar activity here and here 

All you do is give the kiddies some 'magic pumpkin seeds' and have them plant them outside.  Perhaps read them Jack and Beanstalk as a bed time story and when they awake in the morning, a full grown pumpkin (that you placed there over night) greets them.  MAGIC!  I think it's such a sweet idea for little ones and I wish I had done this when my kiddies were smaller.

There is nothing more tender than the innocence of a child and it makes me a little sad to know that my kiddies are growing so fast that soon all the little fairy tales will be just that, tales. 

A thought I had to make this activity a little extra special was to make little packets of 'magic pumpkin seeds' and share them at Halloween or during Thanksgiving.

I painted and wrote the words "Graines de Citrouille Magiques".  If you follow along, you may recall our children attend a French school and therefore, they have become my little French tutors and we (I ) try to use French every chance we (I) get. 

I made the little envelopes out of craft paper...

 

This Image from The Graphic Fairy  could easily be used to print right onto the craft paper.  Just cut paper to size to fit the printer.  

And since we're in the topic of magic pumpkin seeds.....

Every year I roast pumpkin seeds for the kiddies, but since we have yet to carve our pumpkins I went to the store to buy some already made ones.  And of course, I had to have one or two (or three) to taste.  But they were extremely salty and I thought maybe if I rinsed the salt off, I could have some....(I know,who does that?) 

But when I tried to 'rinse off' the salt, this is what happened....There was some sort of coating on them become a pasty, nasty mess once it came into contact with water.  What do they coat these things with?  I can't believe that I actually ate one (or three).  No wonder they were so perfectly white and pretty. 


Moral of the story - homemade is the way to go!  But we already knew that, right?


Build some memories today! 


much love,

Lucy

 ps. reminding you once again about the giveaway; please go here if you have not entered yet...xo

I will be sharing these magic seeds at these linky parties, thank you for hosting...xo

An oak leaf.....

Happy day to all!  I know this is only the third day of the week and I should give it a little more time before I jump to the conclusion that this week is going by too slow...

And with the kind of weather we are having, it feels like the nights mix right into the days as the sun decides once again to call in sick for work.

This was the case yesterday as well, and I find that the pictures depict that gloomy feeling of autumn's rainy days.

I tried to play with the ISO which controls how sensitive the image sensor is to light. In another words how much light is allowed into the camera, but it also makes the picture 'noisier' or grainier.  I almost sound like I know what I'm doing, but since I have no clue, please feel free to correct me or give me any tips you might think may help me in this new Canon journey.

Nevertheless, I love using neutral colours for fall.  I think as long as the fall elements are there, leaves, pumpkins, burlap, it works.

If you follow me on FB, you may remember the day I found these crates out by the curb. They are grape crates, but I think they work well in this little vignette. 

Some of you asked for a tutorial for the oak leaf garland, so I created a brief tutorial for you.

Trace the outline of an oak leaf, or any 

other type of leaf you desire onto the fabric

Cut it out 

Optional: Dip the edges in tea or coffee. 

This will make the fabric curl and fray a little.

1. Place several sheets of paper towel between the leaf and your ironing board if you used coffee to stain them, as this will avoid staining your ironing board.  
2. Set iron in dry setting and iron leaf.
3. Place a pipe cleaner under the middle of the leaf and spray leaf with starch (the pipe cleaner is there to give the shape of the vein of the leaf) 

4. Fold in half and iron along the centre and repeat the same process along the sides of the leaf, where the veins would naturally be visible.  Make sure that you only crease to the centre vein, otherwise you will have creases going across and it will not look realistic (I am sorry I did not include a picture of this step, if you have any doubts or questions please let me know) 

The longer you leave the iron on the leaf, the more visible the creases will be.  Trim the fraying edges if you wish.

This one has the leaves glued vertically 

With a hot glue gun, glue as many leaves as desired to a piece of twine or ribbon.  You can glue them horizontally or vertically.

I thought they would be so pretty if you stamped or stenciled a name and use as a place setting, or individually scattered on the table with beautiful messages such as: Thankful, Family, Love, etc. 

Thank you for reading along.

Have a beautiful day!

much love,

Lucy    

ps.

If you have not had a chance to enter my current giveaway, please go here and check it out. There are only a  few entries so you have a great chance to win.  xo 

I will be linking Here, thank you for taking the time to host. xo

....and on....(a giveaway)

Hello my dear friends, I hope you had a good weekend.

I am always humbled by your beautiful words and friendship. Please know how appreciative I am of your daily visits, and as much as I try to say it with words, there are times when I wish I could show you with actions. That is why when the nice people from My Memories Suite contacted me for a review and giveaway, I was truly excited to be able to share it with you. 

I do have to admit that I was a little hesitant as I am not all that savvy when it comes to digital scrapbooking and even though I had heard of My memories suite, I had not previously tried their software.  I politely informed them that I would only do a giveaway if I truly felt the software was a great product. Their response was that they expected nothing but my honest review, and so here it is.....

This is the first layout I worked on.

After the initial download, which took approximately 10 -12 minutes, it took me less than 15 minutes to learn how to navigate through their program.  

The program has step by step instructions and it's fairly easy to understand.  I created this template on my own, but they have numerous pre-designed templates available.

Such as this one.  All I had to do was change the colours to my liking, move and add some of the snowflakes and load the picture.  In total, this layout took less than 5 minutes.  The pictures I am showing you are individual jpeg format, but you can create albums with music, books, CD's etc. 

A quick collage from my previous post. I love those little wooden pegs.

 I decided to keep my layouts simple and without many embellishments

 but there are many to choose from.

And while I was at it , I made these prints just for you.  I think people have the notion that you can only create albums with digital scrapbooking, but as you can see, you can also create prints, invitations, thank you cards etc.  You just need to think outside of the box.

Right click on the picture,

save it onto your desktop and print.

All of the embellishments and fonts that you see are from My Memories Suite version 2 package. There are many others to choose from, both that can be downloaded for free or purchased. 

I can honestly say that I was very pleased with the program and it became addictive very quickly.  I created several other albums, which I will be downloading onto a CD, which means I just created extra space on my hard drive for more pictures :)

Here is a sample of some other albums I found on their website...

On to the good part....

I am excited to be able to provide you with an opportunity to win your own  My Memories Suite software.


Here's how:

1. Leave a comment to let me know where you currently keep your photos.  Are they sitting in a box?  On a memory stick?  Perhaps taking up space on your hard drive?

For additional entries: 

2. After visiting My Memories Suite website (www.mymemories.com), leave me a comment here telling me what your favourite digital paper pack is.

3. Become a follower of My Memories Suite on FB and let me know you did via a separate message. 

4. Tweet about this giveaway or follow My Memories Suite on Twitter and leave a separate comment letting me know you did.

And finally ....

5. Unlike some giveaways, you do not need to follow me to participate.  I have never actively requested anyone follow my little blog and as such am so humbled by those who have chosen to come along with me on my creative journey.  But I will say this - if this is your first visit to Craftberry Bush, please take a couple of minutes and look around; I hope there's something of interest for you.

Please note that Memories Suite is also offering Craftberry friends a $10.00 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook Software and a $10.00 coupon for the MyMemories.com Store.  Just copy this code STMMMS11658, click on the My Memory Suite button on my sidebar and paste the code at the checkout. 

The giveaway will remain open for two weeks, closing November 12 at midnight.  I will announce the winner on the morning of November 13 - GOOD LUCK everyone!

much love,

Lucy 

A teaspoon of Rosemary...two versions of the story

Hello dear friends.  I hope your weekend is off to a good start.

I have debated whether or not I should post this morning.  As I woke, there was a burden in my heart and while making some last minute editing to this post, I suddenly felt like I wasn't being true to you or myself.  This is not what I felt at the moment, yet I learned a spiritual lesson that I think is important to share and therefore I have decided to post.

I have left the original post written in pink and what I really felt like saying in gray.  Feel free to read both, or just one.  Here is my post in two versions....

It's Saturday morning and here I sit with a bowl of oatmeal to my right, my little girl drawing to my left and a busy little boy making too much noise for this time of morning.  I love weekends and the carefree mornings they bring.


It's Saturday morning and here I sit with a bowl of oatmeal to my right, my little girl drawing to my left and a busy little boy making too much noise for this time of morning.  I love weekends and the carefree mornings they bring.

I've been feeling somewhat uninspired lately.  I think it has a lot to do with the weather and the fact that my routine was disturbed this week; funny how we complain about routines yet we rely on them.

This morning however, things seem a little different.  Yes, I am surrounded by all the familiar things that make me happy and the smell of cinnamon from my oatmeal brings me comfort.  But there is a burden in my heart that I cannot ignore, yet I don't know what it is or what is causing it. 

I am however, really excited to tell you about my new Canon, a birthday present from hubby.  You can't see me right now but I have a huge grin on my face while I type this.


I had originally written this post yesterday, and my intent was to tell you all  about the new Canon I received for my birthday from hubby.  I had a huge grin on my face while my fingers were doing the talking.  But today, that material gift that brought me so much joy yesterday is not able to lift my heavy heart this morning. 

But even though I'm so excited about my new little treasure, it is extremely frustrating trying to figure all the settings.  And so as I play with it on a daily basis I have moments of "OOOHHHHH's" and moments of " AAGGGRGRR" 

And so, I pause my writing and try to look for distractions.  But he finds me, the one that I should always run to when I need a burden lifted, the only one that brings me true comfort and joy, and he says these words to me " So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself" Matthew 6:34

Needless to say I am determined to figure it all out and hopefully bring you beautiful and inspiring pictures...


And suddenly tears fill my eyes, like an overflowing river they stream down my face.  Yet my heart becomes peaceful.  I wipe away the evidence from my face before the interrogation begins and as I refocus on what I have written, I can't help but smile.   

Today while I was playing with my camera, I thought I would to show you a few easy ideas for your fall table setting.  As you may recall, I used a neutral palette for my fall mantel and decided to continue the same colour scheme.  I know the placement of the cutlery is not correct, it is there for photo composition only.


I smile because I have a true God that loves me and runs to my aid when I need him.  Yet at this time it seems pointless to talk to you about the 'neutral table'; the fact that I used a darker background, not typical of my usual staging.

So I will end this post here and let the pictures tell the rest of the story...

Please let me know if you would be interested in knowing how to make these fabric oak leaves, or is it self explanatory?

But know that if there is a burden in your heart, even if you don't know what it is, you can always find comfort in our Lord. 

Use unexpected items to dress up your table.  I simply threaded twine through this wooden button, tied it around the napkin and inserted a feather behind it.

 This is just fresh rosemary wrapped around floral wire and tied around the napkin...

And lastly, this pretty little flower was made out of air drying clay.  I have a tutorial for you, which I hope will pleasantly surprise you.

I'm off to explore some more ISO's and white balances and apertures and all that good yet confusing stuff....

My dear friends, thank you for allowing me to share my heart with you.

I wish you a peaceful, burden free weekend.

much love,

Lucy