Isabelle's Page

Just a quick post to show the latest page I have done for Isabelle. I just adore this paper by Bohemia (sorry guys - I can't remember where I picked it up) and I thought it worked well with these images of Isabelle taken in April while the weather was still cold. I shot a whole series of photos while she was having a quiet moment with Dwayne's mom. I picked up the 3D dragonfly at my LSS and used some pearls from the SU Pretties kit to highlight the tail. One of the things that I love about using my nestabilities is the ability to frame my photos but even more than that, I was able to turn one of the frames (seen in the picture below) into a card to hide some personal journalling for Isabelle. I adapted the idea for this from the very talented Debbie
Olson who gives a fantastic how-to demo here. Thanks for stopping by - I'm off to complete some more pages for the bff's album. I promise to post those tomorrow:-)

Pages for "Zeus"

I'm so excited, after weeks without my beloved camera (a Valentine's gift from my DH), it has returned home from the repair shop! I can now actually share some of my latest projects . . . I'm going full steam ahead right now on a 9X9 scrapbook for my bff who is due in September. I have designed 36 pre-made pages covering her son's "first year" but I've only been able to finish about 6 of them. Eeeks! The shower is three weeks away and I have a lot left to do. Here is the first page of the album.

I used paper from CTMH, the Loads of Love set from Stampin' Up, and the title is done in the Circus alphabet from Madison Avenue Stamps (I bought mine on EBAY!)

Next up here is a page I designed to hold the definitive ultrasound photo which let them know they were expecting a baby boy. I used a variety of papers to paper piece the onesie from Papertrey Ink's fantastic Bitty Baby Blessings set. If you haven't taken the time yet to check out Papertrey's fantastic website, RUN, don't walk to this site! You'll never regret a single purchase you make from these fantastic people. The tag is from K&Company and matches their baby boy paper pack.

The pages above and below are part of my two page layout for baby's bathtime! I used a variety of papers bought at Michaels (I think they are Karen Foster!?!) The CS is baby blue from SU. I coloured the images from the retired SU set Fishy Friends with the SU water colour wonder crayons (love, love! those things!). The image above was cut out using my coluzzle but the images below were cut and framed using my spellbinders dies. I have seen them on so many blogs and had to break down and buy them - BEST INVESTMENT EVER! I can't believe how easy they are to use with my cuttlebug. Every piece is perfect and they add such a professional touch to everything. I should note that the alphabet font used is the Classic set from CTMH.

Hope you enjoyed, stay tuned until tomorrow when I update with tonights inspirations. TFL.

Finally some scrapping . . .

I've been so busy this last little while making baby shower invitations for my bff who is due in September that I haven't had much of a chance to work on any of my own projects . . . I thought I'd post some recent pages from my wedding album. Yes I'm still working on that album even though it has been nearly two years! I really love this page for sentimental reasons. My husband, as many of you know, is not the sweet and romantic type but he DID save the slip of paper that I handed him the night we met with my phone number on it. I kept his slip of paper too so when it came to putting this page together I had the perfect mementoes to add. See, there is a reason why I am a packrat! The font on this page is from Close to my Heart and is called "Homestead". The fence stamp is actually from an old, discontinued set from Stampin' Up - sorry ! The photos were taken by an incredibly talented photographer from Peterborough named Ashley Nayler. Check out her website for more great photos.

When my daughter sleeps . . . .

Since my daughter was born seven months ago, I have had it in the back of my mind that I should create a journal for her. Not the generic, fill in the blank type of journal or baby book, but a true journal; filled with all the trivial little details of our daily life together. I have all these profoundly deep feelings about my love for her, my joy in seeing her simplest shows of delight, and this magnetic bond I feel with my own flesh and blood. I used to be one of those women who felt that if they were never to have children, it wouldn't really matter. I didn't really have any grand desire to put myself on the back burner while I gave my child the world . . . I had no idea what I would have been missing.

A few days after we brought Isabelle home from the hospital, I was sitting on our bed with her in my arms. And I sat there and cried and cried. I simply felt overwhelmed. Not by the responsibility of taking care of an infant but by the sheer force of the love that I felt for this little person that I hardly knew. Maybe I was naive but I just did not expect to feel this way. I had no idea how much I was going to love her . . . everything about her in fact. My Belle is the tiniest little thing, weighing just over 15 pounds. She may be "petite", as her pediatrician assures me, but she is such a huge presence in every room we enter. Maybe it is the sparkle in her blue-gray eyes, or the smile she flashes constantly. Maybe it is the deep belly laugh that she gives her dad when he slides her around on the bed or the soft, constant chatter she strings along all day. Maybe it is all of these things that have me completely enamoured with her.

Sometimes her cooing is so soft you can barely here her, it is like a secret she wishes only to share with me . . . and then there is the way she wraps her tiny legs around my waist, letting her head drop down onto my shoulder when she is tired, a motion that carries with it all the confidence in the world that in my arms, the world is at peace. I am so blessed that Isabelle is a cuddly spirit, completely gentle in soul. When other babies her age are struggling to free themselves from the parental grasp, I have Isabelle who loves nothing more than to be wrapped in loving arms and held tight as night falls. Even in her sleep, I've noticed that she will wriggle her way as close to me as possible, stopping only when I have wrapped an arm around her or placed her hand in mine. It swells my heart to be so close with someone so wonderfully perfect, humbles me the way she gives me all of her trust and seeks out the comfort of my hold, my presence when the odd tear does fall. What a miracle of parenthood.

I heard her stir in her crib tonight and went over to check on her . . . was she hungry, too warm? Just dreaming. I went to tuck her sheets back in and looked down at this tiny, little body lying fast asleep and I wished that I could hold her in my arms forever . . . wished that there were enough words to convey to her the great depths of this love that I have for her and I wondered did God send me for her or did He, in His wisdom, send her to me?

Big Day Ahead

This afternoon, my husband and I will enter the church where we were married nearly two years ago and baptise our seven month old daughter. It's funny how places can be so nostalgic for people. You see the church where we were married hasn't been a functioning church for quite sometime. In fact, having been sold to the community by the United Church of Canada, all services here require a minister from "outside" to agree to perform our religious ceremonies.

So why not go to another church? Family. Tradition. Nostalgia. My parents were married in this church as was my brother, my aunts and uncles, as well as my cousin. As an adult, I was baptised along with my mother and brother there. Tomorrow, my daughter will join the ranks of the Nevills family who have come to know Christ there along with four of my cousins and an aunt. What will really pull at my heart strings though is the presence of my grandmother who will be brought from her nursing home to the church for the ceremony. My grandfather died when I was a teenager, right before Christmas. He used to take my grandmother to the Christmas service over at the church every year. She would get all dressed up, put on her fur coat, and the two of them would drive over to the church for sermons, candle lit carols, and prayer. Now the year grandpa died, she didn't want to go to church alone because it would have reminded her that after over fifty years of marriage, he was gone. So I volunteered to go with her, initially, just so she wouldn't be alone. But then year after year went by and we continued our christmas eve ritual. She in her fur coat; the two of us trying not to get candle wax on our sleeves. I loved everything about going with her. But last year was different. Grandma decided to move into a retirment home for health reasons. Not long after, a fall put her in the hospital and seriously damaged her already failing mobility. Last year was the first year in fourteen years that Grandma and I did not spend christmas eve together in church. I didn't get to see her looking simply beautiful in her fur coat or stand next to her, my arm in hers, holding a candle in the dark church singing Silent Night. And I deeply missed it. Tomorrow may be the last day my grandmother and I will ever be in this church together.

The church is also important for another reason. At the very front of the church, on a small brass plaque in a stained glass widow, my grandfather's name sits inauspiciously next to my grandmother's. There is no "in memoriam". But we all know this is what it means. And some part of me hopes that God will let him be present in this space for my daughter's baptism tomorrow. The morning of my wedding, I took a few minutes to myself and went over to the cemetery where my grandfather is buried. I cried until my eyes became puffy but I needed him to be included in my day. I remember thinking, as I stood up at the front of the church, how much I wished he could have been there. A few weeks later, I had the most vivid dream about my grandfather. I was moving through every step of my wedding ceremony just as it had happened but when I got to the front of the church, as I looked out over our guests, I saw my grandfather sitting in the front pew smiling. I woke up in tears . . . but when I mulled it over, I felt it was my grandfathers own way of letting me know he had seen me wed. I have absolute faith in life with our Heavenly Father when we die and I thank God that He has given me such riches in family. Tomorrow, my husband and I will ask God to take charge over our daughter and I pray that she will find strength in His word and a light for her path. But I also hope her great grandfather will be sitting in the front pew smiling.