NKOTB Round 3

Well, I didn't finish in the top 10 last week with my cat layout. I was a little disappointed at first, but then I realized that I have a layout that I'm really happy with, and the person I made it for is really happy with it, so it's ok. Here is the one I'm working on this week for round 3. I'm happy with this too, so if I don't finish in the top 10 next week, that will be ok too.

I've used Lauren Bavin's Tooth Fairy kit, Digital Date from Meryl Bartho, freebie word art by Tina Chambers (all from Digital Scrapbook Place), inked edges by Atomic Cupcake, and a sketch by Becky Fleck. The word art reads, "True Love only begins when nothing is looked for in return," by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

Journaling reads: "Brian and Jessica told us in January, 2006, that they are getting married next summer. We are really pleased about their decision. We have seen how happy they are together, and we care for Jessica very much. They seem to be such a good match for each other. We wish them every happiness in their new life together."

New Kid on the Block - Round 2

I'm already on version 8 this week! But I think I'm finally done. I have until tomorrow night to upload, but I don't know what else I could do to it now. This is a photo of one of my friend's cats (she has 4). Eventually I will do a layout for each cat.

I used Valeri Brumfield's Elsie May Kit and Tina Chambers' Cat Word Art (both from Digital Scrapbook Place). I used a stitching brush provided in DSU 270 class and a pawprint brush in upper left corner. I also used a sketch from Scrap Maps. The word art says, "As a housepet, I'm overqualified."

NKOTB Results from Round 1

Out of 78 layouts entered into round 1, I came in 6th!! I am so excited about that. There were so many great layouts, and I learned so much already.

New Kid on the Block

I am participating in a contest at Digital Scrapbook Place for newbies to digital scrapbooking. Each week for 3 weeks we make a layout with a specific kit. We post the layout to a forum where we can get suggestions for improvement on it. We can keep reworking the layout until we're satisfied with it and then we post our final layout in the judging forum. This is the first week, and I'm learning tons! It is so great to get the feedback. This is version 5 of my layout; I think I might be done with it now, although I have until Saturday night to upload it to the judging forum, so if I think of any changes I want to make to it, I still have time.

I used the Welcome Kit by Lauren Bavin of DSP, a grunge brush from Tomas M. Ledin at Adobe Studio Exchange, Inked Edges from Atomic Cupcake, and a sketch by Meryl Bartho of DSP.

Journaling reads: "I always take a lot of pictures of wildflowers when we travel. I especially love the wildflowers in Colorado. So the first morning we were there (July 25, 2005), I went with [DH] when he went fishing so that I could take pictures. Here are some of the pictures I took that morning.

"We had planned on taking our 4-wheel drive pickup this trip, but we drove as far as the Kansas border when the air conditioning quit working. So we turned around and got our car instead. It meant we were not able to do some of the drives we had planned on, but at least we were cool."

New Layout

I did this layout in response to a challenge on Digital Scrapbook Place to use the Item of the Week, which was this kit by Lauren Bavin called Daisy Dreams. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out - these are 2 of the many wildflower photos I took last summer in Colorado. The quote reads:

To see a world in a grain of sand,
and heaven in a wildflower,
hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour.

By William Blake

Colorado

Another layout for my journaling class on Digital Scrapbook Place - this one is for the bullet point list style of journaling.

I used Cabin in the Woods Page Kit and Extras Kit by Lauren Bavin from Digital Scrapbook Place and a sketch from Creating Keepsakes.

I took extra time to justify my journaling in the journaling box - not something that Photoshop Elements will do automatically. But I thought it would be worth it for this layout. This is also the first digital 2-page layout I've done (I used to do 2-page paper layouts all the time).

Journaling reads: "We spend a week or two in Colorado just about every other summer, and we’ve been doing that for most of the 28+ years we’ve been married (starting with our honeymoon). What keeps us going back year after year?
-- Mountains
-- Wildflowers
-- Waterfalls
-- Scenic drives
-- Streams for fishing
-- A cabin for relaxing
-- Hiking"

The "Real" Santa

Background paper is from Christmas Textures kit by Karen Bowers, brushes are from Thomas M. Ledin, inking effect is from Atomic Cupcake.

Journaling reads: "Stillwater National Bank had a Christmas party for their employees and families when I worked there. They hired a man to play Santa Claus, and the parents brought a small gift for their children that Santa gave out. Brian was 4 years old when we went to the first Christmas party. The man who played Santa must have been really good at it, because Brian believed for several years that he was the REAL Santa Claus. All the others he saw were just men dressed up like Santa; this was the real one."

The bottom line states, "Photo taken December, 1985 - Page completed January, 2006" And yes, the photo really is that old - my son is 24 years old now!

How my parents met

These are photos of my parents very shortly after they were married.

I used the Raspberries and Cream kit by Kim Liddiard and a sketch from Scrap Maps.

Journaling reads: "My mother told me in January, 2006 how she met my dad: “We met in a bowling alley. I went with another guy [Dixie]. Mac’s brother [Bernie] was a friend of his [Dixie’s]. He [Bernie] told Mac that he better get dressed and get to the bowling alley because there was someone there he would want to meet.”

"She never dated Dixie again.

"Later she told me that at that time, my dad had had a habit of not getting dressed on Sundays, which was why Bernie had told him to get dressed and go to the bowling alley. She also said that she had been out with Dixie the night before and they had seen Bernie, which was how Bernie knew that she was going to be at the bowling alley that Sunday.

"They met in October, were engaged in November, and married in December, 1946. Even though they hadn’t known each other before they met in October, their families knew each other. In fact, she told me that my dad’s mother’s brother was her dad’s best friend."

One of my favorite photos of my son

Background papers, mat, the large "B", and the pocket with tags are all from the Boy oh Boy kit by Valeri Brumfield from Digital Scrapbook Place. I also used a sketch from Scrap Maps.

Journaling reads: "Dear Brian, This has always been one of my favorite pictures of you, but it almost didn’t happen. I took you to a store when you were 3 or 4 to have your picture taken, but you really didn’t want to be there. While we waited in line for our turn, you fussed and complained and made it very clear that you were unhappy with the whole idea. When it was finally our turn, you decided to get funny and started making faces at the photographer. You would stick your tongue out or cross your eyes or make some other funny face, then laugh about it. The photographer tried his best to get a good shot, but as soon as he would snap a shot, you would be making another face. I had no idea what I’d see when we went back to the store to pick out our photos. Most of them just caught you making your funny faces, but this one caught you at just the right moment. You can see the mischief in your eyes, but you can also see your sense of humor and love of life. And what a great smile! Love, Mom"

The pocket (from the kit) reads: "A boy is . . ." and the tags in the pocket read: "Truth with dirt on its face. Beauty with a cut on its finger. Wisdom with bubble gum in its hair, and the hope of the future with a frog in its pocket."

Another digital scrapbooking class

I have taken several classes at Digital Scrapbook Place, and I've really learned a lot from all of them. I think the one I'm taking this month is the best one yet! I'm taking Creative Journaling and Typography, from Stacey Jewel Stahl, and she is such a great teacher!! Very supportive. She has so much great information. She's really pushing us - we're doing 7 layouts this month! I've completed 4 so far, 3 of which I'm really happy with (the 4th one is ok, but not as good as the other 3). And it's gotten me to tell some stories that I've wanted to tell for a long time. I'll post the 3 layouts I'm happiest with in the next 3 posts.

Figure Skating

My DH and I love to watch figure skating. We always watch it on tv, and we have been to several events. So this week is the US National Championships in St. Louis, where the Olympic team will be decided, and we're there! We'll be going to see the first event in a couple of hours. Should be a fun week!

Another Digital Layout

I finished another digital layout tonight. This is the first one I've done in the 8.5X11 format right from the start. I haven't gotten my printer yet, so I haven't printed it, but I hope to get it in the next few days. These pictures are from Christmas morning. I used kits from Digital Scrapbook Place for this layout.

Scrapbook page sizes

I made a big decision yesterday. I have been making paper scrapbooks for several years now, and I almost always use a 12X12 page size. I really like this size, and I'm used to it. So when I started digital scrapping, I created my pages in the 12X12 format there as well. Of course, I don't have a wide format printer, so I thought that I would print them at 8X8, since there are some really nice scrapbooks available in that size. I even test printed an early layout (draft print on plain paper) just to see what it would look like at that size, and it wasn't too bad. The pictures were a little smaller than I'm used to, but you could see them clearly enough.

Well, I figured out yesterday that I could redesign most of my digital layouts to 8.5X11, which would mean that everything would be just a little bit bigger than on the 8X8 size. The first layout I redesigned was the one that I had test printed at 8X8, and it really does look better at 8.5X11. I've been wanting a new photo printer that prints borderless prints anyway, so I'm going to get that and then print my layouts at home (since I haven't printed any of my layouts yet other than the 2 test prints).

The wide format printers are still quite a bit more expensive, and so is the paper for them. And the paper isn't 12X12, it's 13X19, so there would be some waste and trimming involved.

Seems like such an obvious solution, I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner - one of those "DUH" moments!

New camera!!

My husband surprised me this morning with a new Canon Digital Rebel XT! I am so excited - I've only taken 3 pictures with it so far, but I can already tell I'm going to LOVE it!! So here is one of those 3 pictures - it is my precious kitty (his name is Lucky).

Olympus

I wrote my letter to Olympus a few weeks ago. In yesterday's mail, I received 2 envelopes from them. The first one was a check for all of the shipping that I had spent to send the camera back to them all 3 times, so that was good. The second one was a letter of apology, along with a 2 year extended warranty. I certainly hope that I won't need to use the warranty again after my last experience. They stated in the letter that the extended warranty also gives me a free cleaning and check up, but I won't be using that. I won't be sending the camera back to them unless there is something really serious wrong with it, but at least they tried to make the situation right.

So I don't feel quite as negative towards them as I did before. And they actually have 2 service centers, so if I ever do need to send it in again, I will try the other one. But I'm still hoping for a digital SLR camera. Someday soon I hope - I really want the Canon Digital Rebel, because we have a film Canon Rebel with 3 lenses that would fit the digital. If I get that, I don't think I'll ever shoot film again.

Sunrise

I took this photo in front of our house the other morning.

Christmas Ornaments

I made this digital scrapbook page about my ornaments for a challenge on Digital Scrapbook Place. The journaling reads, "I love my ornaments. Most of them are hand made, although not all of them by me. I have been making ornaments ever since [my son] was a baby, and I make or buy a few new ones every year. When [my son] was a child, he hated the fact that our ornaments didn’t look like all of his friends’ ornaments, but he appreciates them much more now. In fact, I gave him and [son's girlfriend] many ornaments last year, and it was interesting to see which ones they chose. These are 2 of my personal favorites, both of which I made."

I used several kits that I received as freebies from Digital Scrapbook Place to create this layout:
Background paper - Christmas Add-ons by Bethy
Photo mats - Christmas Textures kit by Karen Bowers
Word art (That which is loved is beautiful) - Christmas Textures kit by Karen Bowers
Text background - Airplane kit by Bethy
Ribbons and Bow - Addon5 by Elizabeth

Another word art assignment

I completed another assignment for my word art class over the weekend. This is another photo provided by the instructor (isn't it a beauty?), and I found the quote and added it to the photo. I love doing the word art - it can add so much to a photo! And the best thing about it is it isn't hard at all!

The quote reads, "It is almost impossible to watch a sunset and not dream." (author unknown)

Christmas cards

I usually try to stamp at least some of my Christmas cards each year, but I have totally not gotten around to doing it this year. So yesterday I decided to try to do a digital card instead. My husband is a bird watcher and also likes to take digital photos of birds, so I looked through all his recent bird shots and settled on this one. I then added word art and a background to it, and this is what I came up with.

I usually print my own pictures, but I decided to check out different printing services for this one. Several offer free prints on your first order, so I uploaded the file to 3 different services, giving me 35 free prints (I will have to pay a couple of dollars shipping on one of them, but that's all). I picked up my first order today, and I was very disappointed to find that, even though I had made sure that my upload was exactly 4X6, part of the borders were cut off, and more was cut off on the top and bottom than on the sides. When I asked the clerk why this happened and if I needed to do something special when I uploaded the photo, she said she didn't know, they weren't trained on uploading. I will just need to trim these a little bit so that the borders are the same all the way around - and I'll have to cut off the black line that outlines the card. I'll be very interested to see how the other prints come out.

Word Art Class Homework

The class I'm taking this month is Word Art. This photo was provided by the class instructor, Tina Chambers. I did not take this photo (although I wish I had - it is so beautiful!). But I added the quote, which reads, "There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly," by R. Buckminster Fuller.

Another circle journal entry completed

I had a really rough time finishing this today. I started out by deciding to make a card for a contest. I spent a long time getting it exactly right, then when I was looking up the name of one of the stamp sets I had used, I realized that it was discontinued, meaning I couldn't enter the card in this particular contest.

So then I went on to work on the circle journal. I completed one of the pages, only to realize that I'd made it too big. I guess I hadn't measured the page size. I had thought it was 6" square, but it was actually 5 1/2" square.

So I started all over. Decided that the snowman I had used on the 6" page was too big for the 5 1/2" page. Made a few other smaller mistakes, but finally got the two pages done. The theme for this journal is "this and that," meaning I could do pretty much anything I wanted in this. So I decided on snowflakes and snowmen, since it has been so cold the past few days, and we even had a few flakes a couple of days ago.

Christmas Stocking

Here is the Christmas Stocking I made for my son's girlfriend. I pieced it and quilted it on my new sewing machine. Several of the applique blocks came from the same book that had the pattern for the stocking, but the paint palette and the camera I did from clip art. I am especially proud of how they turned out. This was quite fast to make, since the appliques are all done with a heavy fusible that can't be stitched through. And the extra details like the bell on Santa's hat and the buttons and bow on the gingerbread man are glued on. Many of the key fabrics are the same as the ones that I used to make the rest of ours 9 years ago. It's amazing that I still had so many of the fabrics still in my stash!

Another digital layout

I finished another digital layout tonight. I did this one for a challenge at Digital Scrapbook Place, which is where I've also been taking a lot of classes. The challenge was to use at least 4 of 8 colors provided and at least 1 floral brush among 6 provided; I used 5 of the colors and 1 floral brush element (the 3 flowers along the lower left of the layout). I created the background, the ribbon, and the brad myself.

Camera

Our digital camera is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow. It better be repaired correctly this time! Once it is, I plan on writing a very detailed letter to the company. I don't think I've ever written this kind of letter before, but I'm still mad about this whole ordeal, and I want Olympus to know it! I'm not sure what I expect by writing to them - I probably need to figure that out before I write the letter. But this has been some of the worst customer service I've experienced in a long time. And the company should know!

I hope to be able to start posting pictures of some of my quilting projects sometime tomorrow!

ABC Atc Swap

Another ATC Swap - this one is ABC's. There are 26 participants, each one chooses a letter and makes 26 atcs using that letter. I chose "C" because I wanted cats on mine. When all swapped out, each participant ends up with a set of the whole alphabet.

Here is my completed atc. Kind of cute I think.

Design Team Work

I am on the Design Team for Our Stamping Studio. What this means is that each month, we have a sponsor (usually a rubber stamp company) who provides us with free product. We then create artwork with the sponsor's products and promote the sponsor for the month. At the end of the month, we provide the sponsor with our samples or scans (whichever the sponsor prefers). It has been a really great program for both the sponsors and the Design Team, and I love doing it. So here are a few of the things that I created for this month's sponsor, Silver Fox Stamps.

Christmas Stocking

I finished another quilting project today - this one is a Christmas stocking for my son's girlfriend. It matches the rest of my family's stockings as closely as I could get it to match - I found many of the same fabrics in my stash (which is amazing, considering I made the other stockings 9 years ago!). The stockings have patches with applique on them. All of them have a santa for one of the applique patches, and then they have other Christmas-type images (tree, present, ornament, gingerbread man, etc.). Then each one is also personalized in some way - for hers, I added a paint palette and a camera, since those are things she likes to do. It turned out really cute - and as soon as I get my camera back, I'll post a picture of it!

Ornament ATC

I am in a local group that swaps ATC’s. We meet twice a month and generally swap once a month. This month’s theme is ornaments (as in, an atc that can be used as an ornament). Here is the one I completed for the current swap. The green tree is a metal charm, and the circle is actually punched out of the atc, so the white you see is from my scanner.

Vision of Women ATC

I finished this for today for a swap on Our Stamping Studio. After stamping the lady, I colored her with Walnut Ink Tintz from Fiber Scraps and also with Distress Ink from Ranger. Then I collaged some papers around her and added lace and a fancy brad. I also stitched around the edges with my sewing machine. One will also be sent in to Technique Junkies for their current contest.

Circle Journal

I am in a circle journal swap on Our Stamping Studio. This is basically the same thing as a deco swap. There are 11 of us participating in this one, and we have a month to work in each journal, which means it will be almost a year from start to finish. Our journal had to be mailed out by April 15, so it has been going around for a long time now. I only have 3 more journals to work in, and then I get my own back! This one has been much better about staying on schedule than the other one (Asian Deco) I'm in.

I finished my pages today in the journal I have now. This was a very thought-provoking theme for me - Treasures. Our instructions were to fill the pages of the book with what we treasure - whatever is most important in our life. We could include photos if we wanted to, journaling if we wished, or an artistic expression of what means the most to us. I spent a lot of time just thinking about the theme before I did any work in the journal - it was a great chance to really think about all of my treasures. I did a 2-page spread, and tucked some journaling into a pocket. I really enjoyed this one once I got started.