Our Digital Wedding Scrapbook

An entirely new digital scrapbook to share, a complete new blog design AND two posts in the span of the same weekend? Look at me go!

That's right! Even though I mentioned in my last post that I wasn't sure I'd find the time... I sat down and made myself focus on our digital wedding scrapbook this weekend, and 40 pages later... voila! Of course I used My Memories Suite by Polaroid (Can I possibly rave enough about that software? I think not.) and I am proud to say that I'm an old pro at it now; every single one of the 40 pages I personally designed and built from scratch myself. It was actually hard to stop at 40... there are SO many fabulous pictures from our wedding weekend that I was sure I would be sitting at my computer for weeks. Thankfully the creative juices were flowing this weekend!

So where can you find the full 1200x1200 digital pages? We've created a new page on our personal website just for our scrapbook albums, so head on over to Our Wedding album to view them all now! :) You can also see them either in my digital scrapbook Flickr set or in my scrapbook.com Wedding Album. If that link doesn't work for you, head on over to my scrapbook.com profile, then navigate to my gallery from there and look for "Our Wedding." If you're going the Flickr route, the first page of the wedding album series starts here; just click forward from there. Enjoy! And please be sure to let me know what you think :) Thanks to Lucas being a web coding genius, you can always see all of our digital scrapbooking albums on our new page: Lucas and Lesley's Digital Scrapbook gallery.

Just Married! And a Few Changes Around Here

Hi!

We're back from our fabulous wedding weekend in Las Vegas, and it's time to update my blogs and show off all of the crafty things that were part of the celebrations. I am most proud of the wedding gift I made for Lucas -- a scrapbook. And if you've read any of my more recent posts, you know I mean a digital scrapbook made with My Memories Suite software. I showed off a Christmas album I made and an album I made of our two dogs... but for the wedding gift album I took it one step further and had Polaroid, the company that makes My Memories Suite, do the professional printing and binding of the digital scrapbook pages and ship it to me as a physical scrapbook. The result was amazing! I was worried that the print quality or the book quality wouldn't be as good as I was hoping for, but it was just as good if not better than I was expecting, and I will definitely be turning future digital scrapbooks into real life book creations this way. Kudos to Polaroid! I did my best to take some photos of the actual book once it arrived (see right), but you just gotta see it in person to do the quality justice. You can see the full digital version in my scrapbook.com wedding gift album. If that link doesn't get you there, head over to my scrapbook.com profile and navigate to my gallery and then to the Wedding Gift Album.

Our favours were a lot of fun. We didn't do anything too terribly crafty, but we did order photo coaster sets and personalized shot glasses. The photo coasters came in sets of two, and we put a 2"x2" photo of us (seen here) in one of the coasters, and printed text with our names and the wedding date for the second coaster. They turned out really well. We put them in little pink paper bags and stamped the little bride and groom design that we used for our invites on the front of the bags. We used some cute brown and pink polka dotted ribbon to close up the bags, and I made little personalized tags to string up with the ribbon. The tags sported little pink poker chips with our name and the date on them plus the words "thank you" scrolled around the outside of the chip. While it wasn't much, seeing all of the finished favours together made us proud of our efforts.

There was one other little thing I made for Lucas to go along with his album: a little stuffed ball and chain! As a joke I sewed a little stuffed ball and added a keychain chain to it to finish it off. He really liked the gesture and we got a good laugh out of it. Now my crafty efforts are focused on building an actual wedding scrapbook album now, showcasing photos from our wonderful wedding weekend and all of the fun we had with friends and family. I'm also trying to figure out what I want to do for a summer job since I'm done teaching this school year, so stay tuned for that wedding scrapbook as I have time to devote to working on it. If you want to see all of our wedding photos, we've got them posted HERE. I can't wait to creatively collect those into a digital album! All of the photos really turned out well.

You may have noticed that my posting name has changed slightly, the actual name of the blog is a bit different, and that my profile isn't quite the same -- due to my name change I needed to change my email address that was linked to my blogger account. I managed to shift this blog over to my new gmail account, so the profile is still me, just on my new email. It's all mostly the same, though! I also decided to give the blog a bit of a face lift since I was starting "fresh" with my new profile, and now more than ever, this blog's subject matter spand across many various types of craftd instead of just knitting or sewing... especially with my latest obsession with digital scrapbooking. Hope you like the changes, and thanks for reading!

A New Member of the Family

As if we weren't already busy enough with moving into a brand new house a few weeks back and preparing for our upcoming June wedding in Las Vegas, Lucas and I decided to throw more fun into the mix of life by getting Oliver a little brother. As most of you know, Oliver is our handsome 5 year old border collie/brittany spaniel, which means the newest member of the family is a new puppy.

Lucas and I have wanted a new puppy for a long time. We'd always put it off and said we'd wait until we had a house with lots of room and a backyard. Well now that we have a house with lots of room and a backyard, we started thinking again about adding to our family. We weren't sure exactly what we wanted, but we knew that we wanted a female (ha!) and that we wanted a small dog. To get some ideas, we visited a pet store in the area to browse. We really liked the look of some miniature schnauzer puppies we saw, and we were also considering miniature dachshunds now that my entire family seems to have one. We started browsing the classified ads and shelters and came across a family on the north side of town who had a litter of miniature schnauzers they were selling. We decided to meet the puppies and see how we felt. I should've known that once we got within range of puppies, we'd not be going home empty handed. We're such suckers.

From the very beginning when we first entertained the idea of getting a new puppy, we'd planned on getting a female. And then we met the little boy of the litter. Not only was he adorable, he was all white! He looked very different from his furry traditional salt 'n' pepper coloured sisters. The litter came rushing out to meet us, and we couldn't take our eyes off of the little male. He melted our hearts and we realized we were going home with a little brother for Oliver instead of a sister like we'd planned. Not everything happens as planned; Oliver was actually chosen under the same circumstances when I picked him out. I went in to the shelter with the intention of picking a female and instead came home with Oliver -- mostly for the same reasons we chose the white male schnauzer -- his colouring made him unique and just that much cuter. He absolutely stole our hearts.

We brought our new puppy home and introduced him to Oliver, who wasn't sure what to think at first. It took us a day to finally decide on a name, and we picked Winston. It just seems to fit! As a schnauzer he has a little beard, and our little guy's beard is white so we decided that only an old man kind of name would work. Oliver wasn't aggressive towards Winston, but he did try to avoid him for a few days. Thankfully Winston is incredibly laid back and calm, which complements Oliver very nicely. We've had Winston for a week now, and Oliver has finally warmed up to his new playmate. Oliver even plays tug-of-war with Winston! And typical of siblings, the younger one follows the older one around and wants to do everything that the older one does. Winston wants to be just like Oliver. (For all of our sakes, we sure hope that Oliver stays unique, lol.) And at first, Oliver didn't seem to be too keen on having a little shadow, but we've noticed over the last day or two that when Oliver realizes that Winston isn't following him around anymore, he misses him and goes to find out where he is. Oliver is incredibly social with people, but isn't very social with other dogs so it took him a few days to figure out HOW to play with Winston. Now that they are getting along, we can focus more on helping Oliver to lower his voice when he plays. Oliver is so much bigger and louder than Winston, but he's definitely improving and figuring out how to use his "indoor voice" when he plays with his little brother. They're really cute together when they get going!

This blog entry wouldn't be complete without pictures, and of course, we've taken loads of them. With our good digital camera gone, I've had to resort to the old icky one. It takes even ickier video clips, but I've put together some low res/low quality footage of Oliver and Winston playing together, too. You can see all of the pictures we've taken so far of our new family member HERE and check out the videos HERE and HERE. I've got a newer video that's a little better quality (Lucas' cell phone takes better video than a 6 year old digital camera), but I still need to convert the format and put it all together, so you may want to check out my videos to see when it's up. The photo page is updated as often as I can tear myself away from my boys to upload, and is constantly changing, so be sure to check back to see more. Wish us luck on housebreaking! ;)

Where Have I Been?

Holy lapse in posting, Batman! I've neglected my poor blog for nearly two months now, but that's because I have nothing newly made to share! With our trip to Indiana for Christmas and our big move later in January, I've just not had time. While I'm sure you were all waiting eagerly on the edge of your seat this whole time, dying to know what crafty goodness I'd been cooking up, sadly I'm here to report that my crafting supplies are still in boxes, waiting to be sorted and put away in the new basement. So what's been going on all this time?

Well, now that I've mentioned it... you can guess that a lot of what's kept me from updating is that Lucas and I moved into a brand new house a little over a week ago. It was not a scheduled event initially, but the increase in break-ins (including our own townhouse) in our old area prompted us to seek out greener pastures. We lucked out and found a gorgeous new house that was just recently built in a newly developed neighbourhood. The house was finished being built a week before Christmas, and thanks to the help of Michelle, Jeff, and Jeremy, we successfully moved in last Saturday. It took two full UHAUL trips and a lot of blood, sweat and tears... but we're finally mostly settled in. The house is so new that it doesn't even have grass yet; the builders plan to lay the sod for our yard in the spring. It has hardwood floors throughout the main floor, carpet upstairs, and together the two floors are just over 1400 square feet. That doesn't include the additional 700 square feet that make up our unfinished basement! We have lots of glorious space -- almost more than we know what to do with -- and it's a dream come true. I think Oliver loves the abundance of the big spacious windows the most; his favourite new place to be is either in the front office or lounging lazily on the middle landing of the carpeted staircase so he has the perfect view out the window over the foyer. And it was like the builders had our little family in mind when they put in the tall, skinny window alongside the front door -- it's the perfect width and height for Oliver to greet visitors, framing him perfectly.

So as you can imagine, shortly after getting back home from our Christmas trip to the States we had a lot of work ahead of us as we packed up the old place and made arrangements and worked out the details of the move. Once we got into the new place we had a lot of unpacking to do, and the basement craft area is unfortunately on the back burner until we can get everything else in place and get the basement wired properly for electricity outside of the laundry and freezer hookups. Eventually I will have an amazing craft room to work my magic in, but until there are places to put it all away in an organized fashion, my fabric and yarn stashes will have to wait patiently in their boxes. So don't be surprised if it's a little longer between updates for awhile. :(

Now that the move is behind us and we're settling in, it's time to focus forward. That includes the Serj Tankian concert coming up in next month -- our tickets were Valentine's Day presents to each other this year. I can't wait! Serj is one of the lead singers of System of a Down, my favourite band. Lucas treated me to a System of a Down concert last July, and I'm really looking forward to seeing my favourite member of the group perform his new (and absolutely brilliant) solo album live. If you haven't heard Serj's solo album, I highly recommend picking it up. His voice is music to my ears! The smaller venue concert at Mac Hall should be fantastic!

It's also time to focus back on the plans for our upcoming wedding, which have kind of been at a stand-still due to the move. By Christmas we had picked out the chapel in Vegas and fully paid for the package that we wanted, but we now need to make our flight and hotel reservations in the near future. We're hoping February will bring a great Westjet seat sale, so cross your fingers! Any future details will be put up on our Wedding Website as they are planned.

Hope you had a Happy New Year, and best of luck for a fabulous February!

It's Official: I'm Official!

This isn't "craft" related, but it is something so big that has such a huge impact on my life in general that I just must share :)

So the day we've been waiting 9 months for finally arrived: as of today, May 17, 2007... I am an official Permanent Resident of Canada! As I reported a few posts ago, I received notification at the end of April/first of May that I was approved for Permanent Residency, but today was the actual day I went in to the Calgary Immigration office to be granted the official status.

I know there was no reason to be nervous, but my stomach was doing flip flops all morning. I kept worrying that I would forget some important piece of ID, or the photos I had to have done wouldn't be perfectly to spec... I was just worrying that SOMETHING silly would go wrong and they'd reject me. It all went off without a hitch, of course, there was just a lot of waiting.

I took a train downtown and met Lucas at his office and we walked to the government building where we waited for about an hour for my name to be called. We spent more time waiting than the actual "interview" took - I basically went into this tiny room to sign papers and that was it. The woman asked me a couple of simple questions, but they were all things that were listed on the document in front of me anyway, lol. I signed everything and she gave me my copy of the paperwork; this piece of paper I will guard with my life, as it is not only a temporary placeholder for the actual Permanent Resident card that I will receive in the mail in a few weeks, but also something I will need to keep for future dealings with the immigration office. This document doesn't guarantee anything for travel purposes, but I'm still taking my trip to Indiana next week. The teeeeeny tiny slim chance they'll give me a hard time once I'm back in Canada on the way home since I don't physically have the card in my hand doesn't really worry me; after all, I am legally a permanent resident now. Worst case scenario is I'll have to spend a little longer in Indiana or they'll scold me and make going through customs once I'm back in Calgary take a little longer than usual, but it's really a non-issue. Nothing we can't handle. It's been nearly a year now since I've seen my family (I hit my year mark just before I leave Indiana to come back), and now that I possess official status, I've gotta see them. I miss my little brother the most, but don't tell him that or I'll totally deny it. You know how it is.

So ya, it's been an exciting day! We went to a restaurant called Milestones afterwards; fitting, if you ask me. Lucas took that great picture above of me holding up my Permanent Resident document at the restaurant as we celebrated. We came home and celebrated with Oliver, and now we're going out for ice cream! Oliver seems a little confused because we kept telling him he was now officially a permanent dog resident of Canada, but he didn't seem to mind not understanding what we were talking about since he was getting lots of attention over it. "Whatever you say, mom, just keep hugging me!"

In the near future our plans include getting me all packed for my trip to Indiana next week; I leave Thursday. Because it's a big deadline, black-out-date period for Lucas at work, he has to wait a week before he can come down, but he'll be joining me in Indiana with my family the following Thursday and staying the full second week with me at my parents' house. Our itinerary is pretty full, and once Lucas arrives, starts off with Tripoly night with my parents and taking Herm out for a belated 21st birthday celebration and college graduation celebration. I can't wait to see everyone!