and the winner is....

coming from the beautiful town of banff, alberta, the winner of this rak is:

congrats, stacy! send me an email & give me your order! talk to you soon!

thanks to all the ladies who entered! be sure to check back for more fun!

-janna

time for a RAK

i just love to jump on the RAK bandwagon!

or my version of one, anyways. you know... where you pay the shipping only.

i'm going to bring you lurkers out of lurkdom!

for the next week (until monday august 28), every visitor that posts on this post will have their name entered into a draw, and on that day we will draw someone's name to be the recepient. so enter only if you wish to pay the actual cost of shipping, which can be anywhere from $15 - 24 dollars in north america, and i have no clue how much overseas. contest is open to residents of, umm... earth. and if you live within driving distance, you can pick it up!

what's it for?

any letter in any of my sizes of your choice. pick your font. pick your size. tell your friends!

come on, ladies!!

good luck!!

janna

big picture scrapbooking! week 33!!

yay!! remember this? waaaay back when (okay, it was april, not that long ago! just seems like it!) well, donna's week 33 of big picture scrapbooking was to alter her great big 'd'! i've got the before and after shot! i am so excited... and these big picture classes are pretty darn cool!! i also saw a class in there that i want to take... some digi classes from renee pearson!

here's a transcript of the audio file that donna put up for her class (i couldn't resist! how cool is this??)




Is there anything better than diet mountain dew…ahhh! Refreshing, no calories, and just the right kick of caffeine for the middle of the afternoon.
It is week 33, my children are playing outside with the neighbors in the cul-de-sac and I am reclined back in my green office chare admiring my big "d". That's kinda funny isn't it?
Many of you may already know the story about the big "d", but for those that don't, let me share with you where this enormous project inspiration came from.
I was teaching at an event in Canada earlier this year, when this young woman came up to me after class and handed me an odd shaped object wrapped in an unsuspecting black garbage bag. She said, "I made this for you." Hmmm, I thought, I am always up for a little surprise gift receiving so I open it up and my jaw immediately hit the floor and my heart started racing…it was this enormous wooden lowercase letter "d".
Now for those that know me, or read my blog for that matter you know that I really have an affinity for lowercase letters…and if you need proof, just ask poor chelsie who copy edits my text for Big Picture and might I add a public shout out the her for making me appear educated in print…thank you Chelsie!
Anyway, the woman that handed me the amazingly kick-butt 24-inch wooden lowercase d's name is Janna. She had no idea how happy this piece of wood made me (and as that sentence passes through my lips, I knew that there was a joke in there somewhere, but I am going to let that slide for now….) I couldn't wait to finally alter that bad boy up and I am so happy with the results.
I am pretty sure Ali Edwards was the first one to make me aware of how cool it was to identify yourself by your initial and being that my first and my last initial are the same I figure I am allowed to be twice as happy about it.
So for this week's lesson I want you to try altering a letter or a word of your own…Challenge yourself to alter your letter (s) in such a way that represent your personality and style. Nowadays you can find chipboard, wooden or even paper mache letters in almost any size and style imaginable at your local craft store or go all out and order up a custom made 24" wooden one for yourself. I personally am not going to stop here…I think I need to place an order for the word family to hang across my living room.
Now, I am going to go think about that and go check my back account. So, have a ggod time this week altering your letter and I can't wait to see the results.

-friends-

aren't they great?

this was taken at my birthday festivities last weekend. both dear friends of mine i met through scrapbooking.

i met renee last year when i found her store (www.love2scrap.ca) and placed an order. after hanging around on the forum, my girlfriend rhonda and i decided we needed a getaway and signed up for her pigeon lake fall retreat.

HAD A BLAST!!

i decided that this must be an annual thing:) while i was there, i also got to know elizabeth. we exchanged numbers and started spending time together. around the same time i started hanging out with renee (okay... hanging out/spending time=scrapbooking).

i really suck at letting the people i care about know how much they mean to me. i'm not good with words and don't always know how to show it. so to my dear friends who love me for the big nerd i am, for all the things i may do and say, for all the corny jokes i tell, for everytime i've showed up late, for all the good and bad, and everything in between, thanks. big thanks, big hug, you mean so much to me.

A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they're not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they're not so bad. ~Arnold H. Glasgow
 

me & jason

here's a pic of my very handsome nephew. he's only 12, and has a couple of inches on me already.

we miss you, jason, can't wait for you to come out and stay with us longer next time:)

-janna 

know what this is?

YAY!!! WE'RE OPEN FOR BUSINESS!!

okay, i know it took a LONG time, but phase one of my website is up!! home page, about us, and the catalog... more to come! please come by and take a peek at www.lettersbyjanna.com!!

special thanks to my new and awesome webguy, brad at 3 a.m. designs . he's the man... FAST excellent service, awesome

pricing, great vision... the best. (brad put this together in very little time after my last webguy had to step aside for personal commitments) i've passed his name on already, i can't recommend him enough. and guess what... he was recommended to me by one of my customers, grace in calgary (thanks, grace!!)

there will be more added to the catalog as we go. got a couple of things that i need to fix in the catalog, but all in all it's been smooth. and very exciting!

~hope to see you there~

happy birthday to me

okay, so it's not my birthday yet, not until friday (so you still have time to RUN out to the store and by me a gift!! really... don't let me stop you! ;) but since my dad was out here from golden with my nephew jason (he's 12 and he's taller than me!!) and his girlfriend shelly and her son, i thought this would be a great weekend to do it. we splurged and rented a 'jumpy thing' (one of those inflatable jump yards) so we wouldn't have to entertain the kids and i could visit with my friends. great investment!!! i highly recommend it!

so jason had been looking forward to going to the west ed waterpark for, well, ever since the last time we went (he was four, now he's twelve, been awhile). don't you know that the poor kid was sick... he was fighting off a cold and was so tired that he only went down a few slides. poor guy. i finally decided that it was time to go, and we were home by 5:30, and he went straight upstairs and slept until 9:00 the next morning. but he felt much better:) he's leaving tommorrow, i'm going to miss him. he is such a sweet boy.

what a wonderful weekend, spent good times with good people. happy birthday to me:)

my little girl

okay, i guess i'm just showing off. i love my fiesty little girl who gives me more heartache and grief and trouble and sass and attitude and i guess all things stereotypical of the fiery redhead.

i love her madly even when she drives me mad.

"There was a girl who had a curl right in the middle of her forehead, and when she was good she was very good, and when she was bad she was horrid."

whoever wrote this knows my daughter. 

weekend fun

here's some pictures of caleb's friend nicholas' third birthday party and the festivities. caleb had a blast but the highlight for him was crashing the party at the other table... man he craked me up... they were posing for group pictures and caleb walks right up and sidles right in there to get in the picture, lol. obviously my son is used to the camera:)

the rest are from the lake - our friends jill & brian came with their little one and we all went waterskiing with our other friends and had a blast. beautiful lake, beautiful skies, beautiful sunsets. love it. 

some cku projects & etc.

but not much etc., as blah blah blah... haven't had much time! (who does?) if i do anything these days, it's small, like altering something small or, ahem, fridge magnets. enough to exercise a tiny little bit of creativity, and quick. i don't even know when i did a scrapbook page last. i miss it all.

okay, i'm going to stop whining now.

-janna 

i like this woman

i've rewritten this post a few times, this is not coming out right!! all i want to say is that melody ross' blog came as a surprise to me. i was unsure that i wanted to read another blog about another perfect woman who can be so creative, succesful, beautiful, a wonderful mother, juggle it all and have time to spare. (and, of course, SCRAPBOOK IT ALL in a wonderfully organized studio with tons of filled albums) there are plenty of blogs out there like that that i have started to avoid, simply because i have a tendency to compare myself (bad, i know... shouldn't i be past that at this stage in my life??)

but i'm glad i did. she's got a lot on her plate, and a lot of struggles for her family right now. if you haven't checked it out, do so at www.melodyross.typepad.com i leave there inspired to do better and feeling uplifted. it also reminds me never to judge a book by it's cover... things are not always as they seem. i never comment there (well, maybe once), but i do stalk it.

have you ever read it? do you like it?

-janna