Playing around

I've been playing around with different things, yet not accomplishing all that much. Last week there was an adventure to Archivers to check out the clearance paper bins. You see, unlike some scrapbookers, the people who buy cards don't care if the paper used on them is the latest and greatest or not. I'm starting to care less and less about my scrapbook pages anyway, and so the adventure began. I ended up with a big ol' stack of patterns I never got to see in real life when they came out, some patterns I forgot I liked, and a few patterns that I would never have bought for scrapbooking. And they were all at a great price. Now I just have to sit down and actually make some cards!

I was excited to find a few stamps there as well. I picked up a Heidi Swapp birthday stamp, a Rhonna Farrer star stamp, and a great new greeting stamp by Inkadinkadoo. They have this great line with various sentiment and picture stamps and decorative ring stamps that go outside of these. All of them can be mixed and matched. I ended up settling on the Thank You set, but I would love to get some more.

I have had several chances to actually get out my camera, even thought the battery did finally die right about the time I was going to retake some of my card pics the other day. Mostly I have lots of pics of the little guy being himself, but I did snap one photo this weekend that I've been experimenting with. Sometimes I'm so focused on the little guy that I forget the other cool stuff all around.




















I also came across this fun site for helping with colors. I think it may have been through StumbleUpon (which is whole other post in and of itself). Usually I pull color schemes from a main paper or pattern, but sometimes it's good to be able to visualize schemes without a base pattern. Especially if you want to use only cardstock. The color schemer gallery has been especially useful since I have been working on creating my own digital papers to use in my photo card designs. I love stripes, but sometimes I can't visualize how various colors will work together, and it can be a lot of work changing colors of tiny stripes one by one after you decide the color scheme doesn't work. I haven't completed a lot of designs, but I did make one that I used for a birth announcement. You'll have to tell me what you think.


I'm headed out some time today to go to my sister's. That means I need to get a stack of stuff together in case I decide to play with her cricut while I'm there!

Not much to see here.

We've been busy doing the summer thing lately, so my crafty adventures have been less frequent. That, and I am out of adhesive, so nothing remotely scrappy will happen until I can get a refill (which I can't seem to remember whenever I'm out).

I did get a chance this morning to play around with my camera a bit. It was nice and quiet and fun. Take a peek!

I'm learning...

When I first got PSE, I sat down to do a few things, and I almost instantly realized that ever doing what I want to do with that program would take work. I'm not used to that. I'm used to being able to feel my way around new programs, but his one seemed like it was from another planet. The basic photo editing (at least to my standards) wasn't so bad--especially if the photos are in RAW, but I won't tell you how long it took me to learn how to just draw a rectangle outline. I have made a bit of progress, and I have to say I owe it all to one oh so talented person. If you haven't checked out Jessica Sprague's blog yet, and you're remotely interested in learning how to use Photoshop, you should. I'm not really interested so much in doing fully digital layouts, but I do like to play around with other things. Her tutorials have helped a ton--even in teaching me how to draw a rectangle.

Here's just a photo I played around with from one of her exercises.



I like actually being able to do stuff. I have heard great things about Jessica's new book about PS, but I haven't had the chance to see it yet. I'm thinking I must get this one. If any of you are in the area, she's actually going to be at Carolina Memories next Saturday, and she's supposed to have a make and take. I don't think I'll be able to make it in time, but I might have to stop in for some shopping! Every now and then i just need to see and touch the goodies...

I think I'm almost there.

...almost ready to get back in the groove. I have some possible plans beginning in the spring that are spurring me on a little, but so much is up in the air as far as the near future. I can't really make concrete plans, so I just have some little goals.

I have a few knitting projects I'd like to get done in the next two weeks while we're waiting for the baby excitement to finally be here. I finished up a blanket that I had been working on forever, and I have to admit I'm frustrated with it. Apparently I got off a decrease probably around the time I added the new skein of yarn. It's not so obvious to some, but it glares back at me. It still needs some major blocking, too. We'll see what it's looking like after that. After I finished this one, I realized that I like the pattern for the one I made Jonathan a few years ago so much better, and it's really not that much harder to work.



Since I have to go to the doctor twice a week now, I sometimes take advantage of that opportunity to run in a few places sans 3-year-old. Our new Sam's club opened recently, and I have been slowly uploading pics one at a time to have printed, so I decided to do a test run this morning. I only sent about 6, but it was so nice to see how they came out. It was nice to be able to just walk in the door where the photo counter is the first thing and pick up my already-paid-for, matte prints--no going in and finding out the machine is down...again.

Some of the pics I sent in were several stitched onto a 4x6, so I'll see how that works out with the scrapping. I often want to use more than one pic, but I don't do well with several 4x6s and I can't really crop the ones I like down any. PSE has made the whole stitching process a lot easier, so I'm trying that route.

And then...I remembered that some cute frames I had seen at Target were marked down last week when I was there, but only like 30%. I decided I'd just run in today, and if they were marked down any more, I'd pick up a few. When I got there, the sign still said 50% off, but apparently they were in the process of marking them 75% off. Those little red tags are evil. I just couldn't resist or control myself. Hence the stack I now have to find a place to store until I decided what I'm going to do with them all. I mean, the most expensive one was a 12x12 shadow box for around $4. I love the freedom of shadow boxes! And who could resist the chalkboard frame. It even has a cute little holder for the chalk.



In addition to all of today's excitement, I have successfully spent all of my gift certificates for scrap stuff, taken advantage of some great deals, and cleaned out my paypal account. Needless to say, I should have tons of new inspiration from all my new goodies. I even rearranged some of my supplies and cleaned out a bit more. Since I actually have a stack of pics that have been printed, I really should be able to crank something out now. I think I'm almost there.