Drying the paper..creating paper embellishments from molds...

Squeezing the water from the paper using a sponge was the longest part of the process....that took about 20 minutes I'd say. We took turns!! We also had a go at making paper embellishments using the molds we bought - we made a dragonfly. We added various glitters and petals to the pulp.

Making paper....

One of the Summer activities for Susannah and I, was making paper. We bought a kit that teaches you how to make new sheets of hand made paper from pulp which you can either buy in bags OR you can create by tearing up old letters/ newspapers etc and recycling your old paper!!! I LOVE this idea, especially as a scrapbooker with soooooo many scraps of coloured paper!!!! So now we have something to do with all those scraps!!!! We can turn them in to pulp and make new sheets of paper :)

We had to use Christophers blender to blend up the paper in to pulp....not sure he was too thrilled about this, but we didn't let that spoil our creative flow lol..he was at work while we were busy anyway ;)

The paper making process is really easy and fun and fairly quick - you can even use an iron to speed up the drying time of the paper and making the paper thinner!!! It was fun!!! :)

'Stamp with Tess' class....

On saturday night I went to my first 'Stamp with Tess' class. This is a monthly class where I go to Tess's house and join a group of other stampers to learn techniques in stamping and card making - or we will use rubber stamps to alter items, make a scrapbook layout etc etc....in this first class we made the two cards above. Sadly Tess had had some really difficult dental surgery and was EXHAUSTED at the first class, but we still had a lot of fun and I love the cards we made!! It was nice to see everyone too! I'm looking forward to next months class and hopefully Tess won't be in any pain then ;)

The scrapbook layout is one Tess made for me using one of my pictures of Sam - this was part of a swap we did together at the Lily Lake retreat in May - I made a layout using a picture of Tess and her husband Ryan (which Tess has framed in her scrapbooking room)!!

I love the page Tess made for me - it goes so well with the picture and it's very 'Tess' - the style and technique :) and thats what the swap was all about :) So I have a little piece of Tess amongst my pages now :) Thank you Tess!!! I hope you like your page as much as I like mine :)

First day hair.....

Lloyd went in to work late this morning and had coffee with me.....he also found time to straighten Susannahs hair for her - she had her hair cut and straighten at Regis on Saturday and she loved it, but it of course went really curly in the shower yesterday, so Daddy straightened it for her before school :)

Back to school - first day pictures!!

Laurence and Susannah went back to school today. Laurence heads off in to grade 9 and Susannah is in grade 6. Most of their new clothes for back to school are for Fall, so they were limited in what they could wear today as it is going to be 31c today!!!! Yes we are STILL having amazing temperatures every day close to the thirties (and I am LOVING it). Neither of them had much to take today, supply-wise, so they went on the bus.

Chris goes back to school on Wednesday, and I am starting with a few things today with Abby and Sam, but we plan to make the most of this gorgeous weather and get outside and enjoy it while it lasts ;)

pottering around by Grassi Lakes....

Watching rocks fall....

The pools are actually quite deep in places, so we were taking it in turn to let the waters settle and then throw a stone in and watch it fall slowly to the bottom - it took quite a while for it to fall all the way, and the waters are so clear you can see it go all the way!
You can watch people rock climbing - they climb here because on the rock face there are ancient pictographs/ drawings f stick people...said to be about 10,000 years old!! The flags around the townsite and the main symbol of Canmore show a 'man' based on these pictographs!! :)

With the man I love at Grassi Lakes :)

Pictures by Grassi Lakes....

Grassi Lakes...

Walking up my favourite trail. If you are ever in the Canmore area and haven't walked up to Grassi Lakes, then this is a MUST!! It's a really easy trail (there is a more difficult trail you can take too) and the view at the top is stunning - not only of Canmore townsite, but of the Grassi lakes themselves which are the most stunning emerald green - a complete contrast to the turquoise waters found elsewhere in the area.

Snapshots at Moraine......

Snapshots of Chris at Moraine Lake....

Chris wanted some artsy fartsy pictures taken of him for facebook so I obliged ;)