More Vacation Pictures

Here are some pictures of the second week of our vacation with Mom and Dad. We went to Cape Breton, but it was a tiny bit of a rush visit as we had hurricane warnings at home, and Dad and Mom had to chance their flight and it cut their visit 3 days short. We still wanted to go on the Cabot Trail, so we just did an overnight trip! It's beautiful...you really have to see it with your own eyes though, our pictures don't do it any justice!

First stop along the way was the Glenora Distillery. Hmmm....there is a theme happening here...brewery then distillery! lol And I don't even drink! Anyway, it was just so beautiful and serene there. This is a photo of the restaurant part of the compound. I just love the greenery.
The stream in front of the restaurant and behind the distillery.

Inside the distillery.

Bottoms up! lol You would think they would have stopped at one, but, NO! They had to go back for more! lol

Then we got to the town of Cheticamp. We spotted this gorgeous church and had to stop. What a beautiful site.

The organ was amazing, I only wish we could have heard it.

This is a view from the balcony of the church. It is truly breathtaking.

These are pictures from along the Cabot Trail.

We were driving along and suddenly see Mama moose and her baby! I just had to get out of the car and take a picture. I was literally standing just on the other side of the guard rail from them. I was a bit nervous because I know moose do charge. BUT, there were others that climbed over the guard rail to take pics.....a bit crazy I think! lol They are awesome to see that close though!

After driving for 10 hours, we arrived in the quaint town of Baddeck. We had a wonderful evening there. We walked down to the legion, they all had a couple beer, and we all played a bit of pool. Then we went back to our hotel restaurant and enjoyed an exquisite meal with a very talented gentleman playing guitar and singing.

This is the view off our balcony at the hotel.

The restaurant at the hotel.
We then went for a walk and went to the Alexander Graham Bell Museum. Wow, I never realised how much Mr. Bell had invented, and all that he taught. I was seriously amazed and would love to go back there soon! Below is a picture of the lighthouse in Baddeck. This is the lake that Alexander Graham Bell's airplane first flew over in the dead of winter. I believe it was the first flight in Canada.
Thank you so much for dropping by and sharing this time with me! I just had such a fabulous time. My husband was so patient with all of us, and stopped wherever we wanted. I am very lucky to have him in my life! It was an awesome time for all of us!

Have a great evening!

:)

I'm Baaaack!!!! Lots of Vacation Pics

I know I haven't posted for awhile, but I have a great excuse! My Dad and his wife came out for a holiday! They have never been east before, so we had a blast playing tourist with them. Here are some pictures of our first week!

The first day Dad and his wife were here, we went downtown Halifax, and of course they already had a new favorite beer, so we had to stop by the Alexander Keith's Brewery. You can see they had their priorities all messed up! lol

Then it was onto the Navy Frigate HMCS Halifax. My husband arranged a tour of the ship for us. My Dad was so excited, he just loved it! Here is a picture of him in the Captains chair.

The next day we took a short drive out to Peggy's Cove. This is the Peggy's Cove Lighthouse. It's always so busy out there, but it really is a sight to see. The rocks aren't jagged, they are rounded and so smooth. They go on for miles. We did some hiking on the rocks, and I was quite the chicken as I am terrified of heights! lol

Pic of the rocks and Dad and Mom.

We took a walk into the town of Peggy's Cove. It's a tiny little fishing village. It is so quaint. There are some beautiful little shops on the walk down and we had to stop at every one of them.

I thought the lobster traps might be a nice picture, so I took one. The people in the village of Peggy's Cove rely heavily on the tourist trade and fishing.

A very short distance down the road is the Swiss Air Memorial site. Everytime I stop there I get a very sad feeling and tear up. It's so tragic that so many people lost their lifes that day. We didn't live in Halifax when this happened, but I hear that the people in Halifax and all surrounding areas spent days, weeks, recovering bodies, and just trying to help. Many people opened their homes to family members that lost their loved ones that day. Every year there is a beautiful service to remember that day, and this year was the 10th anniversary of the Swiss Air tragedy.

We were tired out after spending the day at Peggy's Cove. We decided to go to Citadel Hill the next day. I will give you just a bit of history on the Halifax Citadel. The Halifax Citadel endures as a gateway to Canada's military heritage and passage to nationhood. Once the command post and landward bastion of Halifax's defences, the Citadel stands watch as it has done since the city was the principal British Naval station in North America.

Since Halifax was founded in 1749, Citadel Hill has served as the site for four different forts. Each was built during a time of percieved threat. This Citadel was the last to be built (all were built in the same location) and took over 28 years to complete. It was finished in 1856, and was intended to deter an overland assault on the city and dockyard. Such was the strenght of the Citadel and harbour defenses that no enemy ever dared to attack. The British garrison of Halifax was ultimately withdrawn in 1906 in response to the growing tensions in Europe, leading up to the First World War. The Citadel continued to serve an important role with the Canadian Military. During 2 world wars the Citadel served as a sentinel on the home front and a symbol for those departing for overseas.

In 1952 the Citadel was declared a national historic site, signalling the end of it's proud military career. Today it's restored walls welcome all who wish to learn about the defining moments in Canadian history.

I really had a great time here, it was fascinating to read about everything they endured at the fort. While we were there we saw the reenactment of the firing of the noon gun and the change of the guards.

Since none of us had been to PEI (Prince Edward Island) we decided to go there for a couple days, but loved it so much we stayed 4 days. It is a beautiful island, so clean and everything is so well maintaned. I can't wait to go back!

This picture is of Confederation Bridge. The curved, 12.9 kilometre (8 mile) long bridge is the longest in the world crossing ice-covered water, and a decade after its construction, it endures as one of Canada’s top engineering achievements of the 20th century. It's really an awesome site to see!

We took a drive up the Northeastern site of PEI to North Cape, along the way there were wind farms. And at the Cape there was a huge windfarm, as far as the eye could see. It's quite breathtaking to see it in person.

This is the lighthouse at Cape North.

This was one of the windfarms along the way.

We went to a beach at Rusitco and there were sand dunes. I couldn't resist taking a picture of my footprints in the sand.

A view of the beach.

We walked out on a old washed out wharf, and I saw these spider webs and had to take a picture. It was soooo windy out there, the sand gets caught in the webs.

It was hard to get a decent picture of the lighthouse, as the wind was so strong I couldn't stand still, and Dad was holding on to me so I could try to get a picture from the wharf. You can see in the picture the different colours of the water.

This is little wharf we stopped at along the way.

Then it was time to start our journey home. This was taken from the Ferry.

A picture of Mom and Dad on the Ferry. What a beautiful day it was. We saw a bunch of seals and saw 2 whales, but none of us were fast enough with the camera to take pictures.

We also went to the Green Gables House. It was incredibly beautiful. I have pictures of that as well, and inside the house, will share those with you tomorrow as well.

If you stayed and looked at all the pics, thank you for your patience. I know this was a long post, but I just had to share some pictures. I feel restored, and ready to get back to the real world again. I also feel that my muse has returned. Today I am going to actually get some stamping done! lol

Have a great day everyone!!

:)
Kim

PS...you can click on any of the pics to see them better.

New Look and a Card

Hi there,

Well, I was getting a bit bored with my blog, so I decided to give it a bloglift! It's been a learning experience for me....the background part was easy (from The Cutest Little Blog, link in the sidebar). But changing all the colours on my blog and getting it to match, that was a challenge for sure. Then the banner (Thank you Flower!), trying to get it to fit was almost impossible! But I managed! I am still trying to work out one thing, and hopefully that will get figured out tonight.
So....what do you think, be honest!? I find this alot easier to read than the black background. I kinda liked the black as a background for my cards, but this is alot easier on the eyes.

I also noticed in the past week that I hit 50,000 hits!! How exciting. I am going to have to go shopping for some blog bling (candy) to celebrate, so check back soon and I will have a picture of the bling, and some kind of contest. Thank you all so much for stopping by, and leaving your comments. I really appreciate you leaving your kind and thoughtful words. I just want you all to know that I appreciate constructive critism too, so if you have a suggestion, please post it! I am always up to learing something new, or just trying something a bit differently. What a wonderful group of people rubber stampers are!! Thank you for being here!

Ok...now for the card. I worked on this last night, and not really sure what to think of it. I wanted a bit of a retro look, not sure if I achieved that though. The stamps are from My Favorite Things. Oh, I just love their stamps! I used a couple cuttlebug folders on this one, and the flower die cuts are from Cuttlebug as well, from the Gratitude die/emboss set. The image was stamped in Black Archival Ink, then coloured in with Copic markers. I cut the circles with the nestabilities. Sheesh, what did we do before we had all these awesome toys? lol

I am still stamping tonight, trying to finish up a few projects. Hopefully I can share them with you tomorrow.

A friend that I work with just stopped over to fix my hair. She is a hairdresser by trade, but not working in that field right now. Anyway, I called her and begged her to come over tonight, she had been busy on the weekend. On Sunday morning, my bangs were in my face so badly, and I couldn't bear it anymore. I got out my CutterBee scissors (gasp!!) and decided I could cut my own bangs (uh huh..right). Well, the bangs didn't look too bad, so I carried on....BIG MISTAKE!!!!! I haven't left our condo since! Oh it was bad...I almost cried when I realised what I had done! It's kinda funny now that it's fixed, but it wasn't funny then! Anyway, I feel alot better, and won't be embarrassed to go to work tomorrow night! lol She just chuckled when she saw what I had done, and said "don't worry, we can fix this"...what a sweetie!!!

Well, on that note, I guess I best get back to it!
Have a great evening everyone!

A few challenges in one....

Hi Everyone,

I am so sorry I haven't posted anything for the past week, I just wasn't feeling the best, and was busy with work! I did this card for a Created Byhand Challenge, Window card challenge, and a girls night challenge. The Byhand challenge was to make a card using dream somewhere on it, the window challenge explains itself, and the girls night challenge was to make an interactive card. My mind must be on halloween or something, because until I showed my card at girls night, I didn't realise how green she looks....like the incredible hulk, or perhaps she is green with envy...or just plain SICK! !! lol Urgh..I don't like it at all!!..nothing I can do about it now...wish I could have redone it though! (sorry, I took the green face out, I didn't want to see it anymore! lol) So when you first look at the card, it shows the green face, and when you pull the tab on the right, she shows lavendar. I really prefer the lavender. Oh yes, and the card had to have bling as well! Anyway, we do an exchange and I got Julies card!!! It's a purse card, and it's amazing!!! Check it out here! Thank you so much Julie!

The face stamp is from Viva Las Vegas, and all the other stamps are from Quietfire Design.

Well, I best get to bed here....hope you come back soon! I will be posting more over the weekend as I have 4 days off!! Woohoooo! lol

Challenge Me Thursday - Will have to wait.....

til tomorrow....sorry Ladies! I just haven't felt the best for a few days. I started my card, but I am too tired and have to go lay down for a bit, and will probably fall asleep for the evening. I will finish it up tomorrow after work, take a photo and post it. And yup, and I am doing the window card challenge!! A bit different for me, but I like it! lol

So, until tomorrow....sweet dreams!
:)
Kim

Thursday Challenge - Post your challenge for me!

It's that time again! If you have a challenge you would like to see me do (or try), please leave a comment on this post. It could be a technique, colour, style, stamp company challenge! Whatever you can think up, and if I have the supplies I will give it a try. Cards only though please! I will pick one challenge tomorrow morning and post tomorrow evening.

Hope to see many challenges here for me when I check later!
Have a great day everyone,
:)
Kim

Gentle Thoughts Quotations Book

Hi Everyone,

Suzanne from Quietfire Design just put my book on her website, so now I can share it with you! I had so much fun altering this chipboard book. I wanted the focus to be on Suzanne's beautiful quotes, but there are some images from different companies used in the book. All the background stamps, the flourishes, music background, crows and sentiments are all from Quietfire Design. I used Versafine inks, distress inks, and maybe a bit of Ancient page as well. I had fun distressing everything! lol

So here is my book! Be kind....it's my first one! lol

Here is also the link to my book so you can see the instructions if you like, and there are links to each Quietfire Design stamp that I have used! Easier to do some shopping that way! lol

Enjoy your evening!

:)
Kim

P.S. You can click on the pictures to make them bigger if you like.

Thursday Challenge - Duet stamp from Inkadinkado

Kim's card Val's card

Afternoon Everyone,

Today Val and I challenged each other to use the same stamp and we had to colour in the image. I had to laugh when I saw Val's card because she and I used basically the same colour scheme. Val watercoloured her image, and I used Copics for mine. I added some clear spica glitter overtop of my colouring, and used a couple cuttlebug embossing folders for my card. I think Val's card is more elegant, and mine is more cutesy.

I just realised this card is good for the Whatchadoin Wednesday challenge on the Storage Units, Inks and More blog! Their challenge this week was to use the cuttlebug folder somewhere on your card, and I used 2 different folders on this one, so it's good to go! lol

Thanks for stopping by today! I have something special to post a bit later....drop by if you can! I will give you a hint, it's something I have never done before! lol

See you later!
:)
Kim

Challenge Thursday- Already have a challenge

This week I am doing a challenge with Val. We both ended up at one of the local stores, Photo Memories, and we both bought the same stamp. So we challenged each other to use it for Thursdays challenge. This is the stamp, and we have to colour the image. I am interested to see what she is going to do for colour....watercolour? Markers? Hmmmm...I guess we will find out tomorrow!!

Thanks for stopping by!

:)
Kim

A couple Created Byhand Challenges

Good Evening Everyone,

I finally stamped last night! It's not that I haven't wanted to, but I have been busy! Hubby is finally finished a long job, and we had the weekend to spend together, and he has been home at a decent time at night lately! lol I love having him home more, I missed him even though he was working in town, I didn't see him much for over 2 months. I don't know how he works 16-18 hours a day without any days off.

Anyway, enough of that! Here are a couple cards I created for the Created Byhand Challenges. I missed last weeks, so the Papillon card is for the Pin Back Challenge, and the Car card is for this weeks challenge.

The Papillon card is done using the instructions posted on the Created Byhand Challenge site, I did change mine up a bit though, and just used d/s patterned paper and cut it. I used a Quietfire Design collage image for the center of my card. The image is black and white, so I used my photo pens to colour a bit of pink on the flowers in her hair. Also used were the Flourishes 1, and the new stamps of the butterfly and the sentiment. I quite like the way this card turned out and can see myself doing this type of card again.

The longest journey card was done for the Journey Challenge. The car stamp is from the Tim Holtz line of stamps from Stampers Anonymous, and all other stamps are from Quietfire Designs.

For the more vintage style cards I always used alot of distress inks from Ranger, which you can also find at Quietfire Designs. If you haven't stopped over there for awhile, you may want to check it out! Suzanne just released more of her GORGEOUS rubber!!! You are going to LOVE it all!

Thanks to Suzanne and Kelly for the awesome challenges,, and thanks to you for stopping by!

Have a wonderful evening,

:)
Kim

Wylde Woman Award!

I just received an award from my super talented, super sweet friend blogging friend Sheila!! Thank you so much for the Wylde Woman Award!

There are rules to passing on this award.....as follows......

1) You can give this award to one or a hundred people, or any number in between.
2) Link to their site in your post.
3) Link back to this blogsite.......http://www.tammyvitale.com........so that Tammy can go visit all these wonderful women.

The pupose of this award is to send love and acknowledgement to women who brighten your day, teach you new things and live their lives fully with generosity and joy.


This is really hard because there are just so many blogs I love to visit, so in no particular order I am sending this award on to......

Julie Koerber - Out to Impress - Julie is such an inspiration to me, and her work is just GORGEOUS!

Jennifer - Thimbles, Bobbins, Paper and Ink - Jennifer is so sweet, and her colouring is AMAZING! Her cards are awesome!

Penny - Penelope's Pitstop - Penny is who I want to be when I grow up! lol...Seriously though, Penny's style is so elegant, I just love all of her cards!

There are so many people I would love to pass this on too, everyone on my blog list, and more! You are all an inspiration to myself and many others. You all give me hours of bliss just looking at all your creations! So please consider yourself awarded as well!

Thank you again Sheila!
:)
Kim

Challenge Me Thursday - Buttons and 5 stamps or more

Good Evening Everyone,

Since no one posted a challenge this week, I went with 2 challenges from the last Thursday. Paula challenged me to do a card with 5 or more stamps, and Barb challenged me to use buttons! I combined both of these in the one card.

The main image is a favorite of mine from Viva Las Vegas, isn't she beautiful? The others are a combination of Inkadinkado and Kelly Panacci (Sandylion). I stamped them all on background paper, then distressed. The main image was cut out with the Nestabilities, gotta love those things! lol Not sure where I acquired the buttons, but they matched quite well, thanks for the great challenge Barb. I used 2 different inks for stamping the images, Archival Sepia, and Versafine Sepia. Even though they are both Sepia, they are very different in colour and coverage. The green paper is Coredinations, and I did a little strip of it using the Swiss Dots folder. I ended up using 6 different stamps on this card...great challenge Paula!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I look forward to some awesome challenges next week! Get your thinking caps on everyone! lol

Have a great evening,

:)
Kim

Thursday Challenge - Post your challenge for me!

Hi Ladies,

I am back and ready to do Challenge Thursday again! So if you have a challenge you would like to see me do, please leave a comment on this post. It could be a technique, colour, style, stamp company challenge! Whatever you can think up, and if I have the supplies I will give it a try. Cards only though please! I will pick one challenge tomorrow morning and post tomorrow evening. If no one comments today, I will pick a challenge from the last Thursday Challenge post, there were some great ones there!

Thanks everyone,
:)
Kim

A very late Thursday Challenge!

Sorry for being soooo late everyone!!

I decided to take the challenge of a Christmas card for the week that I had missed! If no one issues a challenge this week, I will pick another of the last challenges! There were some great ones there!

I also did this challenge with another stamper, it was to use the same Santa stamp from The Stamp Shack. It is also the first time I have used any of the MANY stickers I have? I have received some as raks or design team items, but never used them, so I thought it was time!

Thanks for playing along with me ladies, hope to see your challenges on Thursday again!

:)
Kim