Maybe he's going to be an artist...

Today we're hanging out. I'm trying to get my thoughts and to do list organized, and he is playing, playing, playing. Right now he's coloring Spiderman with some bath crayons my brother gave him.

I made a promise. Last night he was digging in my cabinet. When I asked him what he was doing, he said he was looking for the blanket. I finally realized he was talking about the vinyl tablecloth I keep under there. He said, "Yes. Paint finger." It was like 10:00, so I promised him he could do it sometime today. Well, he doesn't forget anything. So he got to paint finger earlier. He's also reminding me about the batteries I forgot to get at WM yesterday. Why couldn't he remind me at the store before we were checking out?

Sharing some recent stuff

I've seriously been neglecting my blog--and my scrapping. I've been busy with life and doing some reading and studying. You just have to make time for other things first sometimes.

Here are a few recent layouts. I absolutely love the first one. I'm hoping the mojo that got it going last night is here to stay for a while!

Some pretty flowers

For our field trip in our photography class we first stopped by the highway where they have planted a field of flowers. After that we went to Battle Park and took some water photos and stuff. The only thing is I switched to RAW in the middle and now I can only open and view the RAW format because I don't have an editing program that can open the NEF format. Arrrgghhh!

Anyway, I like the first ones better anyway. Here are some of my favorites.

I've been meaning to share...

...my second digital layout. I did this one without Photoshop, too. It's simple, but I love these elements. They are from the New Growth kit by Tia Bennett. It was a free download for the SS Digital 5 book. The photo is one from my shoot with my sister and her fiance.

A first attempt and a redo...

I made my first attempt at anything digital this weekend, and I made a brand new list of reasons why I need Photoshop. You just can't effectively use digital elements in any of the programs I have. They are too limiting. I had found some freebies to download, and I decided to play around with them to make a mother's day e-card for my mom and MIL. Anyway, it's simple, but it's a start.




I can't say I will ever be able to cross over completely to digital since I am such a tactile paper and paste lover, but I do think there is a lot of inspiration that can be gained from playing with digital. Plus, you can always print elements out and use them on a paper page.

Now for the redo. If any of you actually follow my blog, you might recall the train wreck of a layout that I posted a while back. You can actually see that post here. Well, when I ordered the NSD goodies, I made sure to include a sheet of the paper I needed to fix the wreck. It isn't exactly like it started out, but I am loving the new much more than the original. The journaling is still crooked because I didn't feel like redoing that part. Check out the new and improved version!!

YUM!

clean house. good mail. sleeping little one. good stuff.

We have been crazy busy the last week or so. We had friends from church over last night for dinner, and I barely rescued our house from total disaster before they got here. It was BAD. We had a yard sale last Saturday which required cleaning out the attic. Not good.

And this past Saturday was also National Scrapbook Day. I didn't really get to take part in any festivities (except for chatting a little with the Junkitz girls), but I did take advantage of some sales to order some goodies. I always want to get a good amount at one time since I don't have a LSS, and I want to save on shipping. Mr. Postman brought me all of these goodies today.



Oh, and I got a GC code for http://www.downmemorylaneco.com/ from Laura for the Fontwerks Birthday bash!! Too bad those George stamps were sold out before I could snatch them up. I hope they restock soon!!

Now, I actually have some time, and I'm not sure where to start. Oh, and I'm out of photo paper, so I can't print any pics here. It feels good to be caught up and have my call list out, though.

In other news. I was able to order the 50mm f/1.8 after my birthday last week, and it came on Monday. I've been a bit too busy to play with it a lot, but I did get some OK shots. I can tell there is definitely going to be a big learning curve when it comes to the really low apertures, but I'm loving it already!

A First

Well today was the first time I actually tried to take real photos of someone besides Jonathan or Jerry Bear. I took some photos for my sister and her fiance. I did all of the shoot in manual so YAY for that! I posted a few of my favorite shots in my gallery, so tatke a look and give me some feedback if you're interested. I'm very green at all of this, so I know I have a long way to go. I just have to decide what I need to focus on first. I think getting faster with the manual controls may be at the top of the list, but I need to be thinking about composition stuff too. I'm pretty happy with some of the results, and I just wanted to share.

Oh , and she'll kill me for putting that one up there because she didn't like those!

Cherry Arte Goodness

I am in *L*O*V*E* with these papers,but I have just about used up all of my stash. I definitely want to get my hands on some of the new stuff. It's even prettier. In the past I have put off submitting DT applications until the last possible minute, partly because I am a chronic procrastinator, but mostly because I would sit around and analyze things way too much. I decided a while back that I wasn't going to enter any more of these things unless it was one that really got my mojo going, and I felt comfortable with. Well, this one just fell together with little effort and lots of FUN!! So I held onto it for a little while, and I finally just hit send. Now I want to share what I have been working on--what has kept me away from my new scenic route papers. *GASP* You know it's serious now. I ended up with 5 layouts and 2 projects to choose from not counting the ones I had already submitted for their gallery, but I'll just share the ones that made the cut.

These are papers from the Bolded line.



These papers are from the Basic Blue. I should have gone over with more stitching, but my sewing machine gets offended when I use it for paper. Grrr...




These are from the Boys Boys line. I love how the band-aid pops in this one!

This last one is a mini book that I made using those little plastic thingies made for holding IDs and badges. I made the covers out of chipboard and put it all together with binder rings. You've gotta love office supplies!!

A Happy and a Train Wreck

First, the good news. I will be a guest designer for the month of May at www.expressionsbythemonth.com It is a faith-based monthly kit club, and I am so excited to have this challenge!

Now for my train wreck. I am just spilling it all here and now by showing everyone how scrapping can get ugly! I am actually pretty disappointed in this because I L*O*V*E*D the original design. Lesson: make sure you order extra sheets of paper just in case--and have extra letter stickers on hand. Anyway, I will have to hunt down the supplies, but I am determined to recreate my original design since I couldn't save the layout.



The original design had just the photo, buttons and journaling block on the whole sheet of AC paper. The title was similar but with black AC letters directly on the background. Anyway, somehow I screwed up the title and managed to make a hole in the background paper, so I tried to save it. That's when I realized that the photo was stuck down crooked and I had already glued the bittons down. Ugh.... It's kind of disappointing, too because I wanted the layout for this photo to be pretty simple, and continuing to add schtuff didn't help that. In the end, I didn't even bother to make the journaling straignt. Well, you win some...you lose some.

Share Day

I guess I have a lot to say and not much all at the same time. I decided I won't bore anyone, but I did want to post some of what I was able to get done with no kiddo last week.

Here's a fun Junkitz one. It's not quite as funny when you can't read the shirt, but the shirt he has on in the photo says, "My grandparents' don't spoil me. They're just very accommodating."


The next one is my layout for 1 Peter chapter 5. I sort of skipped chapter 3. I have a LO idea and everything. I just haven't been able to get the photo I want yet. I have another idea for chapter 5, but I think I'll put it in my art journal. I think it will involve a poppet-like me and an abstract lion.


Here's some more fun Cherry Arte. I put these papers away for a while, but I need to get a move on now because the DT applications are due at the end of April. It's a long shot, but I'm jumping in anyway.























Well, that's pretty much what I have done this week. I really need to go through my stuff again next week and pull out some stuff to get rid of. I hope I'll have my secret bunny package to post the goodies soon.

Superstar K

The time is coming for the secret bunny festivities to get in full swing! I am taking the chance of posting this here assuming that my secret bunny doesn't wander to my blog. I am still thinking of a fun way to send her out to follow clues to reveal my identity.

Anyway, I had picked up this little shadow box to try out some stuff for J's room. I thought about it, and I decided to make a Superstar K for my secret bunny. It will be delivered to her along with her goodies very soon, so if any of you figure out who she is, don't tell! Sssshhhhh!

I used white acrylic paint to paint the box and the striped Christina Cole to cover the outside edges. Can you tell I've found a renewed love of that little slab?

I hand cut the K out of chipboard, traced it onto the circle paper and cut out the shape. I adhered the paper to the front of the chipboard and sanded the edges. I added the word Superstar with AL rubons.

I drew the star out on the back side of the cardstock and then cut it out. I swiped the edges with white paint. I matted the green HS cardstock on top of a white piece and then adhered the star with mini pop dots. I drew another star with the silver glitter Keepsake Colors paint from Plaid and let it dry.

I adhered the K on top of all of this with more mini pop dots, and added some rhinestones to the corners. I had to slide it all through a slit in the top of the box and then slide the glass panel back in. It took a little while to do all of this because of all the painting and adhering with gel medium, but I like how it turned out.

1 Peter 3

Just posting my page from my challenge for 1 Peter chapter 3. I chose to base it closely on verses 3 and 4. I had a bit of a time with this one. It started out simple, and then it really evolved.
Since I have been able to spend more time this week actually scrapping, I have realized how SLOW I am. What seems like a simple page that would not take very long ends up taking hours. It really is quite rediculous. I'm starting to think more about the overall designs, though, and thinking about some of the principles in the Design Secrets book. It has been very helpful, and I totally recommend it.

I went on an adventure today to find an adhesive eraser. To make a long story short, I didn't find one anywhere in town. The joys of not having a LSS... At least a really kind pea is sending me one in a RAK. Yay!! Thanks Tina!

This page...

...was for a challenge over at the Making Memories blog. The challenge was to use MM foam stamps, the color green, and the title I must confess _______. or a similar title. I had fun doing the challenge, but for some reason, the page isn't one of my favorites. I'm not sure what happened.

I have now used my MM foam stamps twice in one week which is almost as many times as I have used them in the past. I am sure a simple update in my storage has helped with that. Who knew that piling all of 3 of the alphabets I own plus some of the designs and the CI alphabet in one tup would lead to NEVER using them? All I did to fix the problem was to take a huge zipper bag for each set and put two sets per small shoe box container. They are clear so I can see which sets are in each container and the different alphabets are separated. Now if I could just find that I-dot that I'm missing.

This week has gone well as far as schedule goes. I am still behind on a few things because I didn't exactly start the week on schedule (I didn't actually finish the schedule till Tuesday.), but Friday is a free day. I'll get caught up tommorrow! It has helped me to have more time to actually scrap since it is scheduled in. Hence the 2 layouts so far this week. Hopefully, I can keep it up.

I Want to DO This

I've had all of this stuff rolling around in my head, and I hope I don't seem too whiny in this post, but I really want to DO this designer thing. You see I had a mentor. I say HAD because over time I just heard from her less and less. It took me a little longer than it should have on an assignment or two because life got in the way, so at first I thought I just wasn't putting enough into it.

I e-mailed my mentor to ask her to let me know if there was something more I should be doing or if I could change some things to make it more convenient for her. You see, she was a winner of a certain big contest that just announced new winners recently, so I just thought she was getting busier with that stuff than she had anticipated. I sent layouts to be critiqued...it dwindled down to no response. I thought she just didn't have time to mentor anymore. Well, I would have been totally fine with thinking that, but I recently saw a post on a message board saying that she had been an awesome mentor for someone else during a recent process.

Now, I'm going to go back and delete any reference I ever made to my mentor because this is totally not a post about how she was a horrible person or even a bad mentor. What I have been thinking about is how I can be a better mentee. Did I do something wrong? Was I difficult to work with? Was I just not learning? Grrr... You see what I mean about thoughts rolling around now?

All this is to really say I want to DO this. I want a mentor. I want a mentor who will be excited to work with me and who will work me. I want a mentor who has a good eye for design principles. I think design is more important than individual style any day. I want a guide and a teacher and a sounding board. Now my problem is how to go about doing this. I could post a wanted thread a Two Peas, but then no one would want to admit they are good enough to be a mentor, and then there would be lots of "me toos" and in the end someone would post that I should find someone I'd like to work with and e-mail them directly. Can you tell this has been done before?

There are just so many talented ladies out there, and I know many of them do have a lot on their plates. I guess I just have to suck it up and start making a list, and try to decide who to contact. I just wish there were a way to know who is really interested and eager to work with someone like me.

Now comes the part where I assume someone is still reading my blabbing and as if you all have any ideas? I've really been thinking this through, so I'm sort of just getting some thoughts out in type right now. I'll post if I get any bright ideas--you do the same-k-?

1 Peter 2

I'm still behind in my own challenge. Here is my page for 1 Peter chapter 2. This was a hard one to do because I wanted a relevant photo, and I just didn't have any photos of living stones. I ended up digging out a photo of myself and using verse 19 as a starting point for a prayer. I'm not sure I like the yellow part of the title, but i was having a hard time matching up paint and not using too much blue.

Can I just talk about HOF for a moment? I have to admit that I have never actually followed the process before. I was never watching the pub board during all the excitement. This year it was as if I became drained emotionally AND I DIDN'T EVEN ENTER. I am so ADD to start with, and the deadline comes at such a bad time of year for us. Plus, I know I am nowhere near the league of the HOF winners. It's an amazingly talented group. Anyway, all that to say that I'm almost sad I didn't enter. Then I wouldn't feel so silly for getting all caught up in it. And I am so proud of the inspiring Wilna Furstenburg! It was exciting to see her name on the list, and I am sooooo happy for her!!

I think it's safe

I'm thinking I 'm ok to post my latest layout here. It's actually for submission for the BH sketch, so I'm not posting it in my gallery just yet. I picked up a copy of BHG Scrapbooks Etc. Design Secrets, and I am really lovin' it. It makes me want to pull out a few more design books. I've always had a hard time translating principles into my work, but I think it's getting easier.



I got my first goodies from my secret bunny today, and I'm excited. I got a nice little package with some AC Uptown blue ribbons and some Tazo Wild Sweet Orange tea. Mmmmmmm... I was thinking I will send my chick all of her goodies at one time. I need to be making a list since I'll probably be ordering most of it. For now, I am just keeping an eye on her blog!

1 Peter 1

It took me a while to get started on my challenge. I read the chapter over and over, but we had so much going on at church last week that I never had time to sit down and work on it. I took this opportunity to do a somewhat simple layout and to practice the swirlies from squillen's blog tutorial.

I had some fun with the hand lettering and rhinestones!

It's not quite publication...

...but Cherry Arte did respond to my contact e-mail and they offered to put my layouts in the gallery. It's the closest I've ever been to being published. They are supposed to be announcing details about their design team search later this month. I'm sure that will be big, so I'll savor my short time in the gallery for now!

Once again I will admit...

I don't alter. I just have enough stuff lying around my house as it is. I do, however, have a basket of stuff just in case. I was putting together some work for a DT call, and I decided it was about time to work up something that is a little more fresh. It's definitely different from anything I've ever done, and as you can see, I still need to work on my photography.

Anyway, I ended up altering one of those AOL CD boxes that comes in the mail. I'm glad I kept it. Now I just have to figure out where to put it.



You can see more photos of this project here.

I also have to admit that I haven't officially started my challenge yet. We have been so busy that I haven't done anything besides the altering thing. I think I'm going to post my challenge on the 2 Peas General board Monday. Then it will be a weekly thing. It seems like there ay be a lot of people interested.

It's a Go

I had actually been brainstorming before my last post about doing some sort of scripture challenge at 2 Peas. In the end, this is what I came up with. Anyone can play along, and I can't wait to see all the art!

1 Peter Scripture Challenge:

* I am going to read through one chapter of 1Peter each week. Part of my goal in this is to memorize key verses and to really allow the overall truths to sink in. (That means it will take 5 weeks to read through the whole book)

* I will do at least 1 layout a week. (I'm reserving the right to do more.)

* The layouts I do will be inspired by the chapter I am reading that week. I may use a few key verses for journaling, journal about how the truths apply in my life, make prayers about how I want the truths to affect my friends or family or myself, or just begin with an idea that comes from reading the chapter. (It's all about making what I'm reading naturally overflow and inspire the work.)

* I will not worry about what anyone will think of the design or the photos or anything that normally might hold me back. Well, if anyone else wants to join me just let me know. It's just a step I need to take. If you choose to do it with another selection of scripture, then that's ok too! Just let us see your work.

There will be a weekly thread for anyone playing along to post their work. I am aiming to have the first one done by Monday, March 6.

Let's have fun!