A perfect Saturday

I have had the “itch” to scrapbook for weeks now. But life has been too hectic with the beginning of school and the other things we’ve had going on. Scrapbooking, unfortunately, has taken a back seat to the rest of life.

The good thing about this is that there has been plenty of fodder for the scrapbook!

The bad thing is that there hasn’t been much time to capture those memories!

SuperMan helped me take care of that today, though. He knew I was dying to scrapbook, so he granted me a “retreat” day. I was able to sit at my computer for most of the day – organizing files, sorting through pictures, unzipping purchased kits, and finishing up some of the digi-scrapping classes I’ve purchased but never finished.

It was glorious.

And, I learned a lot, got a lot organized, and even managed to do some pages!

I’m really proud of myself because these are ALL from PSE. After finishing the classes, I decided I needed to challenge myself and put the new skills to work (before I forgot them!)

And I don’t think I did too shabby. I have a lot to learn, but PSE seems to be so powerful that it is enticing me to do more and more and more…

Learning the keyboard shortcuts sure makes things quick! That is one of the things that drives me crazy about the CM software. It seems to lack the shortcuts that an experienced digi-scrapper would look for. While it is a fantastic program for beginners (and is, indeed, how I learned to digi-scrap) I find it frustrating now because I can’t make it do some things I want it to do. Granted, I can’t figure out how to get PSE to do some things either, but I think that is more operator knowledge than software limitation.

I feel like I’m still wobbly – like I’m learning how to ride a bike again – but I know that soon I’ll be zooming along… especially if I can sneak a few more of these “retreat” days into my schedule!

Anyway, I’m sure you are curious to see my pages – or I hope you are, because I’m going to share them with you!

I’m planning to use 12×12 page protectors and just slip these in my 2011 Project Life album right along with the weekly pages. That is what I did last year and I think it worked out well. That way I get a little of both types of scrapbooking without feeling deprived either way! I tried my hand at using a template for this page (the others are all my own invention) I’m not sure if it was easier or not – It was nice to have the framework to start with, but then I had to get creative to make it work for me. I fiddled a little with it (they had the journaling where I have the title, for instance) but I think the overall result is nice.

I made a 24×12 page – for a double page spread. Of course, now I have no idea how I am going to print the darn thing. Do any of you PSE experts know what I can do with it to get 2 12×12 pages out of it? HELP!

Well, that’s it. My eyes are tired and my back is telling me it is time to sit in a different position for a while.

More fun next time, folks.

Up, Up and Away!

I posted camera phone shot yesterday of a hot air balloon that flew over our mountain yesterday morning as I was taking the kids to school. I didn’t have my trusty camera in the car (shame on me!) but I was able to grab a quick shot with my phone.

This morning they were back again, soaring over the mountain. I was alerted to their presence by Buster, who HATES the sound of the burner and thinks the balloon is some type of monster from the sky that is going to eat him up. He is really a scaredy-dog, that one.

So, I went outside to see where the balloon was – imagine my surprise when I saw the chase truck driving down the street in front of my house!

Oh my! It’s going to land in our subdivision! I ran inside, grabbed my shoes, my good camera, and SuperMan.

By the time we got halfway down the street, it was obvious that the breeze was not going to let them land in the cul-de-sac after all. So, up they went, back into the air and over the trees to head to the next possible landing spot – the cul-de-sac in the neighborhood adjacent to ours.

It was so pretty – and Buster was so scared!

They were waving at everyone who had come outside to see them.

And then they were headed back down to attempt another landing.

What a nice way to start the day – soaring above the mountain – I would LOVE to do that one day… even have my own balloon. I’ve always loved flying and even contemplated taking flying lessons once when I was in college (and broke with no way to pay for flying lessons!)

I took SuperMan on a hot air balloon trip once years ago. I managed to arrange a super-secret anniversary present one year. My brother and his family live in the Pacific Northwest and he helped me to arrange a sunrise balloon ride as an anniversary present. All I told SuperMan was that we had to get up at 4AM and the directions to the place we had to go(a farm/field in the middle of nowhere).

(OLD OLD OLD scrapbook pages from 2003!!! Look at how young we were!)

It was awesome. We had such a good time. I was enraptured by the peacefulness of gliding just above the treetops, floating along without a sound (except the blasts of the heater) and gazing at the countryside below.

It was one of those experiences that I’ll remember forever – and one day I will figure out how to fit another trip like that into our lives. Hmmm… maybe for our 20th? It’s not that far away…

Well, I hope you have a wonderful Friday. I’m off to get my to-do list for work checked off so that I can get my to-do list for home checked off shortly after that and then I can relax and enjoy the weekend (maybe scrap a little?)

I am planning to finish Jessica Sprague’s Up & Running and Now We’re Rockin’ with Photoshop classes this weekend. I’ve been piddling with them, but I want to spend some concentrated time on them so that I actually internalize the concepts and skills (and get my money’s worth from the classes!)

If I get to actually DO this, I’ll share some of my pages!

A little progress

I had high hopes of scrapbooking this past week – or at least getting some scrapbooking in during the past three days. Alas, life did not go according to plan, and neither did my muse. It just wasn’t in me.

And then, I thought to myself that even though I didn’t “feel creative” I should just sit down and piddle a little with the pictures and see if I got inspired. After all, it’s been months since I’ve scrapbooked and I’m still working on 2010 pictures, for Pete’s sake. (whoever Pete is…)

So, I did just that.

Sat down, opened up my software to see where I’d left off, and before you know it, I’d managed to do six pages! That, along with, feeding kids, retrieving dogs who are escaping their invisible fence, troubleshooting my mom’s email account, answering the phone, well, you get the picture.

The days of quiet solitude while I scrap are long gone. But, the nice thing about digital scrapbooking is that I can do just that – scrap in between life’s little interruptions. It doesn’t mean I have to put all the mess away, or pray no one bumps my page in progress. Nope, I just hit the “save” button, take care of the urgent matter, and move right along.

Love it.

Anyway, here are the pages I’ve done: (most of the digital supplies are from the Daily Digi subscription I have. Best investment for high quality digital supplies, I tell ya.)

And as a special treat for you guys – I have uploaded the template for the two pages above to my 4shared account (Creative Memories StoryBook Creator Plus templates) for you to download!

You aren’t going to believe this

But I actually scrapbooked this past weekend!

I know!

Big shock!

I haven’t done it in months and months. I had grand plans at the beginning of summer but they were washed away in a sea of other activities.

My girlfriend came over Saturday night and we hid out in the basement and scrapped and caught up on each other’s lives. It was so great. I really miss that time with my friends and the creative time.

I’m hoping I get to do more of that this fall once we get the school and activity schedules nailed down.

I have been challenging myself to do two things:

Work only from my stash. No shopping trips allowed.
Use some of the many inspiration page layouts I have filed away.

Here are some of the pages I worked on: (along with their inspiration pages)

Here is the inspiration page:

I need to go back and add my journaling to this one. I want to list all the books I’ve read this summer.

And the inspiration page:

Again, needs more journaling. The medicine I’m taking is making me a bit loopy, so I decided to wait and write when my head was more clear.

Inspiration page:

This was my own invention. 🙂 This two-page spread I tried just fiddling with some of the design principles I’ve learned in the past few classes I’ve taken.

This one is still a work in progress. Nothing is even glued down yet, but I love how it’s going so far.

Here is the inspiration page:

I can’t believe all these pictures are from LAST YEAR at this same time! The girls have grown so much. I’ll have new first-day-of-school pictures tomorrow that will quickly go in my pile to scrap.

Friday Scrap Inspiration

I subscribe to, oh, about a million blogs. I don’t read them all every day, but I love to spend a little bit of time each day to read a few blogs. I have some standards – my “Daily Fix” that I read every day – and then a whole host of others that I read when I have time. I have them categorized in Google Reader (do you use this? It is awesome if you’re a regular blog reader) – categories like Cooking & Baking, Scrapbooking, Parenting, etc.

Today, I have been perusing the scrapbooking blogs I subscribe to. I thought I’d share with you some of the layouts I’ve seen that are inspiring me today – giving me ideas and getting those creative juices flowing.

So, grab your cup of tea (or coffee) and sit back and enjoy: (you can click on the images to link back to source blog post)

I just LOVE this spiral with the hearts. Gotta try this.

and this one? LOVE the magazine-style layout.

Same gal did this one, too. Love it. Can’t wait to see more of hers in the future.

If you’re a digital scrapbooker, you should check out Songbird Avenue. Each month, they post a kit for $8 and the proceeds benefit a charity. That’s not why I buy their kits, though. I buy them because they are beautiful. Every single month. I love them. Here’s June’s kit:

I’m also finding colors inspiring today:

The cool teal blue of the water and the hot pink of the float and goggles. Must figure out a way to scrap these pool pictures and make those colors “pop” even more.

What is inspiring you today?

Field Day

When I was a kid, Field Day was something I dreaded. It was sooo hot in South Georgia and the thought of being outside and being forced to participate in sports was the equivalent of being banished to Hell. I used to try to come up with all sorts of reasons why I couldn’t go to school that day (none of which worked) and why I didn’t need to participate. I was not athletic, competitive, coordinated, or heat-tolerant. All of those things added up to making Field Day a miserable experience for me.

My girls, however, have not inherited those traits from me. They, thank goodness, have a love of physical activity and seem to be relatively heat-proof. So, Field Day for them this year was a great time.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that their school put on a fantastic event. I have to hand it to those folks. You can tell that months went into planning the day. There were water events, track and field-type events, coordination challenges, relays… all sorts of things. And there were eighty-bajillion volunteers. Which, I am sure, is part of why things went so well. Thank goodness for involved parents!

SuperMan was off of work so we were able to enjoy watching the girls in most of their events. Here are some highlights:

Finally Scrapbooking Again!

The girls had a Girl Scout event on Saturday and SuperMan was busy with yard work. What’s a girl to do when she has a few hours on her hands and no pressing chores?

Scrapbook!

Exactly!

I had purchased the Jessica Sprague intro to Photoshop class a long time ago and had never sat down to actually take the class. So, Saturday was the day. I had peace and quiet, no interruptions, and some recent pictures to use. I was ready.

Before I share the layouts I made, I have to tell you – if you are considering doing any digi-scrapping and have been intimidated by the sheer power of Photoshop, you are not alone. I have resisted using it for a long time because it just seemed overwhelming to learn. As a matter of fact, I owned it but never used it.

Which, I decided, was really silly.

So, that’s why I purchased Jessica’s class. And it is a great class. I would highly recommend it to anyone. I love the clear and easy descriptions of what to do, how to do it, and the great supplies she includes in her course materials. So, even if you don’t have any digital supplies yet, you can still complete your first pages as part of the class.

Here are some of the pages I’ve made so far. I’m about halfway through the class.

This was my very first layout:

Then, I got all crazy and used a Cathy Zielske template I had from the Design Your Life class I took this winter. I think it turned out well and it was good practice using the things I’d just learned.

This was a “challenge” layout made with a quick page kit. I still need to go back and add some journaling. And this was my Lesson 2 layout. I still haven’t figured out how I am going to do 2-page layouts, but I am sure I can do it. I just don’t know how yet! But that is important to me because I do most of my scrapbooking in 2-page layouts. Like this “Fish” page is just begging for a sister page with the rest of the photos and story.

Ok, more to come. I am on a roll.

My Project Life

I’m starting my Project Life this weekend. I am looking forward to sitting down and putting the book together and getting my first few weeks of pictures in the pages. I am determined that this year I will stay more caught up than last year. So, I am hoping that I can sit down at least once a week (or once every two weeks) and get the pictures printed and the journaling done.

I thought I would share some of the pictures I’ve taken the last two weeks – they aren’t terribly exciting because we’ve had strep running amok in our house for the past few weeks. But that is part of what this project is about, right? Capturing everyday life in all it’s nuances. From the exciting to the mundane.

So, here are some of the shots:

Oh, and here is a great link to an article I read about making your Project Life/365 successful. Great ideas.

Another Template for You

Ok, SBC+ ladies… I have a mid-week goodie for you.

I thought I would share another template I have made.

Here’s the template:

And a page I created with it:

The papers and embellishments are CM’s Vintage Digital Power Palette
(except for the button – can’t remember where I got it from)

You can download the template from here.

I hope you enjoy and I would really like to see some of your pages! Post a link to your blog in my comments section!

A goodie for you

I had a little time this weekend to create a couple of templates. I thought I would share with you.

Here is the template:

The embellishment is from Creative Memoires’ Digital Freebies page. Have you downloaded any of theirs? Some of them are really nice. I especially like the flourishes that you can find there.

And here is the page I created with the template:

The paper and snowflakes are from Jen Allyson’s blog.

If you haven’t checked out her new digital scrapbooking store, you should. Design House Digital, it’s called. There is some beautiful stuff out there. I go browsing and I just want it all!

So, here is the template, if you’d like to download it to play with. (it’s for StoryBook Creator 3.0)

I’d love to see what you do with the page! Post a picture of your layout!

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