Nearer My God To Thee

9-cello adaption by Steven Sharp Nelson

In the Bleak Mid-Winter

Give Jesus your heart this Christmas.
It's the best gift you will ever receive.

Perpetuum Jazzile - Africa (live, HQ)

Just beautiful.

Turn off my music to the right

and then turn up your volume because you don't want to miss the rain drops at the beginning of this.

Saskatoon Music Festival 2002

Hey another 2002 page. It wasn't my intention to scrapbook today (I am writing this on Sunday) because I have been working on my photos from South Carolina and finished up a table top book today with 141 of my favorite South Carolina photos in it. It ended up being 36 pages and the coup de gras? The cover is alligator skin - okay - not real but looks pretty darn cool!! There are alligator pictures in that book! Can't wait until it arrives. I used a free shipping coupon too. Yeah!!

But these photos on this page below were in the 2002 queue on my desk today, they were black, red and white and they were about music. And wouldn't you know it, I was working at JSI on Saturday and this fabulous paper had just come in from Creative Imaginations! It was about music so I bought one. I didn't realize until I got it home what a perfect match it was. I wasn't thinking about these pictures, but in cleaning up my desk, I pulled them out and looked at the new paper and wow. I added some Prima flowers and bling, ink and glossy effects on a chipboard note, some journalling and it was done. About 20 min - not including glossy effects drying time.

This is Allison and her good fellow home schooled friend Whitney. They played a rather difficult duet in the Spring Music Festival. Didn't place, but they did well. And don't they look so sweet.

I think it has been about 3 weeks since I have done a page...spent a lot of time on the two acrylic projects before I was away. So it felt good to get a page done today AND my South Carolina coffee book. If you want to see my coffee table book try this link. It doesn't show with the alligator cover though, but it will be there when it arrives. Click on the pages to enlarge them and read the words on the page.

Whew - what a creative day today (Sunday) .... AND I also posted my Governor's House post today too - took a while to edit and shrink all those photos for my blog. So that means I will hold off posting this page until Monday night... I don't want you to bypass the Governors House. :)

And the rest of the week is work, work, work...to pay the VISA, VISA, VISA! LOL

Ambrosia page

Angie asked me in a comment on my last post if I had the new Basic Grey paper yet and if I was going to make a page soon. I told her, are you kidding? It never made it to the shelf (I worked yesterday). Actually I just said yes I had it :) but that I had pages underway and would get to it by the weekend. Two hours later.... how could I resist?

I used Ambrosia "pome" and "ebony". That's a BG Christmas tag from last year. What I love about BG is that it is so timeless. This paper is never wasted - it gets used somewhere.
The new lines will go fast and so will the Basic Grey letter stickers so, no pressure here, but you might want to head into JSI soon.

Has anyone kept count of all the "music" pages from 2001? My kids can never complain that they were not well cultured in their upbringing. And did I ever put a lot of miles on the van those years. We were at band two nights a week and I got bored of hanging around so I joined - and played the bass drum. And we did the Hallelujah chorus (tons of bass drum in that) - I had such a blast doing this!! One of the joys of home schooling was being able to learn and experience right along with my children. And act goofy and fool around too.

Today's Andy Rooney thought...."No matter how serious your life requires you to be, everybody needs a friend to act goofy with.

Amen to that! Go act goofy today! Play a bass drum!

everyday "Music"

Another layout from 2001 and another "Music" layout. What can I say - my boys were always on their guitars.

I used all the Creative Cafe products and some rubons from the stash.

Journal reads....
Music is a staple in the Cortens family. The McNairnay family is pretty musical too. And so, no wonder our children are drawn to all things musical. So are their parents.

Every visit to Coney meant guitars everywhere. The boats coming over to the island had more musical paraphenalia than suitcases of clothes. Instruments were only outnumbered by bags of groceries. It made for a fun week - food and music.

Mark shares some jammin' time with Stephen and Paul with Adrian.

Jammin'

There are guitars all over our house. Classical, bass, electric, electric classical and every combination and permutation. I love it. Music belongs in every home. Okay maybe not the drums and those amplifiers, but sweet classical guitars and the piano, a little flute, clarinet, trumpet and recorder.

Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and
you will find that it is to the soul what the water-bath is to the
body. Oliver Wendell Holmes

My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and
refreshed by music when sick and weary. Martin Luther

Here is a layout done Sunday evening - about the only time I have to scrapbook these days....sigh.. I used pattern paper from DCWV (quitar paper) and the Creative Cafe (all the rest of the paper). Riff Raff chip board guitars are painted and flocked. Thickers letters and some brads. And no I didn't put the paper on crooked (although I have done that) but it scanned a tad askew)

Journalling reads...

Like Father, Like Son If I couldn’t find David in the evenings then he just might be in the basement in Paul’s room jammin’ to the Beatles. How those two love to listen and play along with the Beatles – and many other ‘rockers’ of the 60’s and 70’s. They would be lost in there own world of being a momentary rock star, jammin’. Then came the drums!

I Love to Hear you Play

I miss not having anyone home to play the piano anymore. Allison does occasionally but not too often. There were days around here when the piano was played constantly - and I loved it. Maybe if Paul and Allie moved to Saskatoon, Allie could come over and play for a few hours. sigh.

This is another page from the year 2001 - I am actually getting through this year quite well and hope to be finished scrapbooking it before the year 2008 is over. Then I might feel like I am actually gaining in some way - you know catching up so that some day I will only scrapbook current photos. Hopefully photos of grandchildren. Okay at least I hope to come close before they start arriving.

That is my motivation - to get caught up on all the years by the time grandchildren start to arrive because at that point you are going to see a gazillion pages of babies and little people.

For this layout I used Basic Grey - archaic line, chipboard letters from Heidi Swapp, Thickers and Bo Bunny and I used rub-ons from Scrapments and Maya Road, and a little ribbon from the stash.

There you have it!

Have a wonderful day, enjoy the sun, enjoy the thunder storms. I just love a good thunder storm and pelting rain that cleans the air and the streets.
Blessings!
Julie

Music Recital

Two Page Layout of Allison and Paul. Both Paul and Allison earned their Royal Conservatory Grade 8 piano standing. They are both so talented. It was worth all those years of driving to lessons and getting at them to practice. Proud Mama? You bet!!

Used the Paper Loft "Now and Then" and used the new heidi swapp clear extras - very nice. The letters are Paper Loft and Tech Tue stamps with a little gel pen on them. See? I am using my stamps! And no flowers on Pauls page.

music to my ears

Moving right along with my photos from the year 2001. Great memories, but those 8X10 's from Hawaii are a little more fun to work with! Here are a few pics from the days when we all - parents and kids alike - played in a community band. This is what home schoolers do. Hats off to Peter Gravlin for putting up with us all those years! I don't know how he did it. I actually learned to play the bass drum! tada!! If I was allowed to bring that drum home it would have made a very effective wake up call at 7am!! haha nothing like waking up to the Hallelujah chorus...well the bass drum part anyways!

A few families got together in our basement to practice and then did a mini concert at one of the seniors homes. It didn't sound very good..actually if I remember correctly it was downright awful. But seniors don't hear all too well and are very forgiving. Come to think of it they never did invite us back.

Do your kids play an instrument? I do believe (and remember I am over 50 now so this is wisdom speaking here) that all children should learn to play some instrument, even if their practicing drives us to the furthest corner of the house.

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
Aldous Huxley

and what home has silence??