Creation Calls -- are you listening?

The heavens declare the glory of God; And the skies declare the work of His hands; Day after day they pour forth truth, night after night, they declare knowledge....The judgements of the Lord are true and righteous. Psalm 19

Please turn off my music to the right ..

and then sit back and witness His Creation

Love of my Life

A fifteen minute page - just love it when inspiration hits, the Petaloo flowers, Beary Patch rub-ons, the Prima bling and a slice of DCWV paper (just happening to be their wedding colours) are all hanging around my creative spot here. Feels good!

sigh ..... and I found it all in this disastrous mess of a scrapbook room of mine. One day I really have to go through and get it organized (again). I might discover even more great stuff under the piles of paper. :)

Wedding pages and other stuff

Well finally the first two layouts from the wedding. I am in a minimalist frame of mind right now and am going to try my best to make this wedding album about the pictures ~ the bride and the groom and the day and less about scrapbooking supplies.

Minimalist! I love the classiness of it ....I so often stray from it....

Allison's chosen colors were aqua and lime green - so those will be the colors I bring in.

The big day..... there is something special about that moment of arriving at the church for your wedding...

...and what would I do without Prima!

Becoming The Bride - and a stunning bride she was....

.... with the help of a very special hair dresser whose name I am not going to tell you because she is fantastic and we are sooo grateful for her willingness to come in on her day off on the May long weekend! And we want to make sure we can always get an appointment with Danielle at Sun Sera on Gray ave. oops!

In other news I am Kjijiing a couch, love seat and piano - and what a pain that is - I am trying to give them away ($20 for the couch and love seat - the piano is free and needs tuning) and spending more time responding to e-mails - 20 of them and trying to phone people back who send me their phone number...

This was supposed to be easy.....someone please come and take this couch and love seat out of my basement - you have to take the piano too!!

on more other news....I have to go back to work tomorrow and so ends my three days holidays this summer (with the weekend gave me FIVE days off in a row - FIVE! and I went crazy doing all sorts of fun stuff mostly with my camera and MAC) however reality is smacking me in the face!....the camera will go back on the shelf, the scrapbook supplies will get cleaned up and the Google Reader in box will climb into the 200 range again...sigh!

Why do I do this to myself? ...oh yeah... wedding, new roof, new camera, trip to see the new grand-baby... ah life is grand and I am blessed to be able to work and have/do all these things - especially with a wonderful guy!

My Lord supplies beyond all my needs.

...remember I have a couch I want out of the basement - a couch, love seat and piano!

Another fabulous summer day in saskatoon

Here are a few pics from our bicycle outings yesterday.

Google seems to be uploading these photos as rather dark. Just click on them to get a bigger and clearer version. I wouldn't want you to miss the rowers slicing through the reflection of the Bess.

Summer in Saskatoon

Great bike ride this morning enjoying the sights and warmth of Saskatoon in summer.

Took this off the Victoria St bridge.

Olympus E-30 wide angle SWD lens (12-60mm).

12mm, 1/160, ISO 200, F13

It's a keeper

Double click for a larger view.

This and That in Sunny Saskatoon

I know you are waiting for wedding pages but I have yet to get the printed copies in my hand. They are at Blacks Photo waiting for me to pick them up. Blacks btw has a special on right now - 5x7 are 35 cents - pretty good. The only problem is they limit you to 6 Mb per photo when uploading from home and I had a dickens of a time picking out the ones I wanted in 5x7 that were under 6 Mb.

I will get to some wedding scrapbook pages soon - with one caveat; now that summer has finally arrived in Saskatoon, I am spending as much of it in the sun and outdoors on my bike as I can (when not working a full time week) before the snow arrives for another 10 months.

In the mean time I came across this wonderful picture of my kidletts taken in 1994 - I adore this photos and it always gives me great DELIGHT to look at it - so I scrapped it (again) today.

Used an assortment of K& Co paper and Yellow Bicycle and Making Memories embellishments.

Journalling reads...

I love this picture of my precious ones. It really gives me great delight every time I look at it. I see such joy on all your faces and what more can a mother ask then to have her children filled with joy, happy, content, safe, growing and learning and especially growing in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. I love your uniforms and the fact that you boys can tie a half Windsor. I love The Kings School and all your wonderful teachers who happen to be our friends too. This picture reminds me of our crazy mornings of getting everyone ready for school – french toast, gym bags, lunch kits and a beautiful drive down Telegraph Trail. God was just pouring out His love and blessings upon us during our early journey as new believers and I am reminded of this when I look at this picture. September 1994 – Allison's first day of school (Kindergarten)

Fast forward to 2009.

Today I took this panorama of the downtown and river - took three pictures and stitched them in Photoshop. Click on the photo to see it in more detail.

What a FABULOUS day!

And now I plan to head to bed with the Good Book!

Photobooth Guy

One of my favorite Photography sites is Photobooth guy - his creations are amusing and amazing but this last post of his is down right hilarious.

It is called..... ready?

"When Milk Goes Bad"

I am still laughing and wondering how he got this pic.

Perpetuum Jazzile - Africa (live, HQ)

Just beautiful.

Turn off my music to the right

and then turn up your volume because you don't want to miss the rain drops at the beginning of this.

Wedding Photos - Finally!

LOVE this shot! Melina you rock!

I think he adores her! :)

Very beautiful bridesmaids.

Our gang

The bride with her three big brother, who BTW each did a wonderful job of the toast to the bride! Made me laugh, made me cry. Love em!

Basic Grey madness

What do you do when you have an EDO? Besides laundry, ironing, a gym class and grocery shopping, you scrapbook with the new Basic Grey and some of the stash. And get FOUR more pages done from 2002. YEAH!!

You take an oath, you sign on the line, you shake the captains hand and you are in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve Communications unit! Lots of journalling about this short (and rather miserable) phase of Paul's life.

Ah, I remember the days of 20 people for lunch after church on Sundays - and all the preparations the day before - no wonder I was always stressed! Lots of journalling all hidden behind. And yes there were 20 people here that afternoon.

Using up the stash on this page with a BG background from the new Basic Grey Designer cardstock - I could use a LOT of this!

I wanted to record all the Christmas Eve traditions for the kids to remember.

Allison's 13th birthday (this is the Allison who just got married to Sammy) Celebrate with your best friends - all Basic Grey - June Bug and Designer card stock along with an assortment of BG letters (love em) and one piece of stash - turned the word GLOW from some old We R Memory Keepers chipboard into Blow - cause glow didn't work but blow did! hehe

The June Bug is starting to GROW on me. LOL

Click HERE for a video on the Basic Grey designer card-stock and HERE for a video showing the Basic Grey June Bug.

Then come back and tell me what you think!

The June Bug arrived!

For those of you not remotely familiar with scrapbooking, this is not a beetle of great dread who will eat your trees. No, I am referring to the new Basic Grey line of paper that many have been waiting for with great anticipation.

The Basic Grey June Bug arrived today along with a few other goodies.... too bad I have to work tomorrow.

New stuff is always so inspiring!

First let me say though that I think the recession in the US is far greater than I realized because I think BG fired their usual designers and hired someone on the cheap.

I am disappointed with this line. They have had so many incredible, timeless lines in the past but this one ....well I'll just say it doesn't tickle my fancy.

However! I am always up for a challenge and hey I can use red plaid (vintage plaid) along with cabana on a layout with the right pic. And this picture of Mark with the big old red wooden carriage wheel worked.

...and get this, I used eyelets! Remember them? They were so perfect with this. Took me a while to find my eyelet setter, but there they are and you know what? Placing eyelets on the dotted card stock was just too easy to line up perfectly!

Journalling reads....

You sure do take a good picture Mark!

One cool dude!

Handsome, nice guy, talented, kind, a good cook, gentle and a strong brave fire-fighter as well. How come some girl hasn't swooped you up?

I know, I know – you are waiting for the perfect wife... and that is a very good thing. I know she is out there and she will love the Lord like you do. Every day Dad and I pray for you and for your future wife, whomever she might be.

My plan is to attempt some of the more floral June Bug papers as soon as I can. More challenge!!! But I love a challenge.

Have you caught the June Bug yet?

I want to know what you think.

2002 layouts

I know you were expecting wedding photos but I chose to get the 2002 album out of the way, packaged up, gone from the scrapbook room, before I tackle uploading wedding photos.

Then I have to decide which ones to print and what size.... watching for those Blacks and Don's specials..... then the wedding scrapbook begins. Can I get it done by September when the grandbaby arrives? I think not - but perhaps well into it.

Here is the weekends efforts....

Thanksgiving 2002 - no guests... since our usual guests were off having Thanksgiving with their families and we have no extended family in Saskatchewan - but we still had all the fixin's!
I love this page - I like all the subtle stuff on it - the way the page picks up on the guitar - the music stamp on the journalling tag, the mesh with the black line - like the guitar. It just came together when the house was quiet except for the washing machine and dryer and I had a hot cup of decaf - ahhhh....love having time like this. I have been waiting all week for a morning like this.

There he is my son Paul - my guitar-man - like his Dad - and brother Mark come to think of it.

Coca Cola Crazy - only Paul could take the Pepsi challenge - tell the guys that one of them was just awful and the other fabulous knowing all along which was the Coke. Nasty boy!
Lots of Basic Grey on this page - so glad I stowed those leftover Coke papers.

Okay so as bad as these photos were I felt pretty good about the layouts... but this last one had horribly faded photos and there were abut 12 of this Christmas church event - and so few of my kids.. but I know the kids will want to remember this fun talent night. So here it is. I pulled out the Christmas stuff and gave it a shot.

A lot of cropping went on to make these fit. And the scanner cut off the bottom - it really does have a bottom border.

Four pages done... six more to go and I am finished 2002.

Easter 2002

These dark, out of focus, turquoise pictures from 2002 are starting to get to me. At this point I just want to finish the year off. I only have about 10 more pages to go and 2002 is all recorded and in the album. Thankful that Allison kept a great journal of all the things we did back then - YEAH to home schooling!

However, sometimes it is hard to come up with something I like with these old bad photos.

But it isn't about the photo quality, right? It is about recording the event .... and I think from 2001 until 2005 we had someone around our dining room table very Sunday after church - in fact I am sure we did. That is too much scrapbooking of food and I am going to have to pick and choose what gets into the albums.
This I can live with so in the album it goes.

The good news it the wedding photos arrived last night and oh my, oh my, oh my.... Melina did a FANTASTIC job and every minute outside of sleep and work is going to be spent on having fun with these. (and getting the 2002 album done so it is out of the way).

People, I am out of commission for anything other than scrapbooking, work, sleep and the gym for the next two months!

I will try to post some picks in the next 24 hrs.

I have to get them into Adobe Lightroom, organized and ready for blogging (sized).

But here is one for you today!

God is in Control

I feel sad and heartbroken ....I read the headlines and I ask myself.... can this fallen world get any worse? Unfortunately, the answer is yes and it will likely get worse.

Home from work, groceries away, supper on, ahhhh sit and open my e-mails and get the headlines....

2 Canadian soldiers die in Afghanistan helicopter crash

China's Xinjiang province put under curfew

Suspected U.S. serial killer shot by police

UN condemns North Korea's missile tests

Teen who killed rugby opponent spared jail

Snowbird pilot's death blamed on 'false-lock' problem with lap belt

Body of fallen Canadian soldier returns home

I read this and I am in tears. I sit hear heartbroken - am I just tired? No I am sad, so many mourning, so many to pray for, so many need His peace and comfort at such horrible times.

It is just the news.... but somewhere two mothers just lost their

sons. I imagine the moments of terror for these two young men as their helicopter spun to the ground, knowing that this was it. Were they ready to meet their Creator? I imagine their mothers imagining the same. I think of the oppression in China. I wonder what demented turmoil in a person would cause them to go out and randomly kill. Yes we hate the killer - but what was going on in his life? How did he grow up - what in this fallen world made him like this? How do the families who lost loved ones to this rampage deal with this? How does the teen rugby player live out the rest of his life knowing he killed another player - what was going on in his life that made this happen? There is another story that is untold here. Are the family of the killed snowbird pilot reliving the grief all over again with this "story"? Could I ever cope with the horrible experience of standing on the tarmac to wait the arrival of one of my son's bodies from what to me is a senseless war in Afghanistan?

And yet.... God IS in control. Yes

He is in control of all things and that is good.... that is soooo good because I am weak and sinful and lost and hopeless and I am mortal and I too will die one day. I cannot change any of these events. I am helpless, but God is not and He is in control and I know (and scripture continually reminds me) that He is GOOD and He is righteous and He is perfect and while I may not understand why or how these things happen... I trust and know that He does and one day I will understand and it will all make sense.

Oh that all people suffering today would know the grace and love and goodness and perfectness of a God who is in complete control of this world.

sigh....back to reality - supper has to be readied, put a smile on my face and carry on. Something weirdly hypocritical in this...

Your thoughts??

Another 2002 page

I decided that the weekend was not going to pass me by without getting at least one page done. And so, besides getting a whole bunch of laundry finished, 26 items ironed, guests for lunch after church this am (do Sammy and Allison count as guests?), a new banner made (you like?), I did get a page done.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a 12x12 scanner that didn't cut the bottoms off my pages?

The Basic Grey Wisteria has the perfect colors for this page and besides - time to use up the old stock in preparation for the arrival of the new Basic Grey - June Bug!!

Saturday morning bike ride.

Our Saturday morning bike ride this week took us down to the river and what a beautiful Saskatoon summer morning it was. The farmers market was abuzz with people, vendors, food and entertainment. We really must make this a regular Saturday morning adventure. We picked up some lemon infused vinegar, BBQ sauce, arugula for tonight's salad and fresh onions. All organic and very healthy of course.

We stopped at the Bess for breakfast - waaay over priced and we won't do that again - what did they think? .... corporate office was paying or something?

Do find time to head down to the river landing this summer and enjoy the activities.

When I say "I am a Christian"

by Carol Wimmer

and my photos

When I say, "I am a Christian,"

I'm not shouting, "I've been saved!"

I'm whispering,

"I get lost!

That's why I chose this way"

When I say, "I am a Christian,"

I don't speak with human pride

I'm confessing that I stumble,

needing God to be my guide

When I say, "I am a Christian,"

I'm not trying to be strong

I'm professing that I'm weak and

I pray for strength to carry on.

When I say, "I am a Christian,"

I'm not bragging of success

I'm admitting that I've failed

and cannot ever pay the debt.

When I say, "I am a Christian,"

I don't think I know it all.

I submit to my confusion

asking humbly to be taught

When I say, "I am a Christian,"

I'm not claiming to be perfect

My flaws are far too visible

but God believes I'm worth it

When I say, "I am a Christian,"

I still feel the sting of pain

I have my share of heartache

which is why I seek His name

When I say, "I am a Christian,"

I do not wish to judge

I have no authority

I only know I'm loved

Copyright 1988 Carol Wimmer

....from a stumbling, lost, weak, flawed, confused, broken and forgiven Christian.