Fishing

We've been iced in since Friday afternoon, so I've actually been getting a lot done for once! I've been doing a lot of sewing and embroidering, and last night I started a new layout that I finished up this afternoon. We have 2 cards for our digital camera, and one of them was totally full and the other one was getting close, so DH and I looked at all the photos and decided which ones to save and which ones to delete. There were a lot of photos I'd forgotten about, so I have some scrapping material again. YAY!! This layout is using photos from last Memorial Day, when our DS's fiance and her family came fishing at our pond. I had actually scrapped a couple of photos from that day before, but this is a new layout.



This layout was published in the Aug/Sept 2007 issue of Ready Set Create.

Journaling reads: "The Blackburns and Browns came over to fish on Memorial Day 2006: Jessica, Ira, Billie, Catherine, Bryan, Holden, and Parker. Holden was pretty hesitant to go out in the canoe at first, but once he was out in it, he loved it. Everyone caught fish who wanted to."

Credits: Strumming the Blues Kit by Eve Recinella (here)
Filmstrip from Book Bag Essentials by Gina Cabrera of Digital Design Essentials
Paper Tear by Stephanie Krush
Freestyle Arrow by Christine Smith of The DigiChick
Fonts: Artistamp Medium (title), Cheryl (journaling)

The Daffodil Principle

Katie the Scrapbook Lady posted a link to this website on her blog yesterday. It is one of the most inspiring stories that I've read in a long time. I hope you'll take the time to click on the link and read it - it is well worth it, believe me!

But just in case you don't have the time, it is about a woman who planted five acres of daffodils over a period of 35 years, one bulb at a time. I'll quote just 2 paragraphs of the story here:

"The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration: learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time -- often just one baby-step at a time -- learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time.

"When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world."

I have to admit that I had tears in my eyes as I read this story. And I also feel like I do this just a little bit myself - certainly not on this scale, but I make quilts, and the only way to do that is one piece at a time. There are times while making a quilt that I wonder if I'll ever finish it (and I have many quilts that I probably will never finish!), but if I keep working away, I do finish the ones that I really want to finish.

Submission for Publication

I just finished a new layout today, but I can't share it yet. I submitted it for possible publication in a new Blueprint Layouts book. I used some of our Christmas photos and a sketch from Blue Media (the publisher of the book). They put up a new sketch or two each month and take submissions until the end of the month, so I should know whether they want my layout sometime next month. I have a feeling that they get LOTS of submissions, so we'll see - I'm not extremely hopeful. But it would be really cool if I get the layout published.

In other news, I had a birthday yesterday. My DH gave me a couple of books I'd been wanting, my DS and his fiancee gave me some new teas I'd never tried before, and my mom gave me a check and took us out to dinner. So all in all, it was a good day. Oh, and I'm playing with a full deck now (meaning I'm 52!).