I'm still alive!

And still on vacation! Having a great time in North Carolina- except apparently we brought the Alaska cold with us. It snowed (just a few flakes) one day, and was 26 degrees when we left the coast this morning!

Photo is my nephew making the first touchdown in his PeeWee superbowl. His team won for the second year in a row! (I used a Pioneer Woman Photoshop action on it.)

Xmas cards and the Outside

First, I started working on my Christmas cards for this year. I'll show you when they are done!

Second, it's time you learn that [those of you in the 48 contiguous states] are "The Outside". Alaskans- we are up north, and you all are in "The Outside."

Guess where I"m going tomorrow? Yep, the Outside!

See ya'll in 2 weeks!

Layout

Here's another layout I made using one of the templates from yesterday.


This one uses the Shiver kit by DigiApeDesigns. Fonts are Bell MT (for the { sign), Big Caslon (for "Nicky"), and I used my new tablet to write "Here and Now" in my handwriting.

I keep the "Notes" program open on my laptop most of the time, and whenever I think of anything unique about any of my family members, I add it to the list. I finally made this layout about me- and sure enough, I keep thinking of more things to add! So I started my next list already. ;)

Template Trio

I made some new templates yesterday!

Go to the new Creative Dreams blog to pick them up! They're FREE!!!
CD Blog

And here is a sample made with the American Made kit by Creative Dreams!

Fonts: Desdemona for title, journalling- my own handwriting.

Veteran's Day

Thank you for putting your lives on the line.
For believing in the country we live in.
For your courage.
For your strength.
For freedom.
For those of you who fought and lost.
For those of you who went through hell and survived.
For those of you who have nightmares about long lost places and times.
For those of you who are about to face your fears for the first time.
For the mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, and children of our heroes.
For YOU.

My new Toy

Serious gaussian blur going on. Forgive the edges. :)

I was here...

Okay, one of my favorite scrapbook page ideas is an "I was here" layout, where you list where you were when certain things in history happened. The good news, is things keep happening. So keep making those pages!

Here's a list of ideas (keep in mind I'm only in my 30s!)
1. when the spaceship Challenger exploded
2. When Princess Diana died
3. When the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 occured.


and the most recent piece of history worth recording:
4. When the first African American (multi-racial for those of you who keep track of that sort of thing) was elected president.

I was here, in Alaska, as an Air Force wife, in my living room, watching the election results on TV with interest.
Now go make that scrapbook page!

Xmas 2007

Catching up with Christmas layouts. I have quite a few to do, since the album I'm using is from 1997 to present, and I have only done like 4. ;) Unfortunately for the digital scrapper in me, I haven't even found photos for some of the layouts. This is for 2007.


Supplies: Jolly Holiday kit from DigiApeDesigns. Font: Harrington.
Oh, I spent several days rereading the archives at Becky Higgins' blog, and was so inspired by both layouts and decor... This layout is from a sketch I drew of one of her layouts. It could very well be published, but I'm not sure. So special thanks to Becky Higgins for the layout.

Happy Birthday to...

ME!!!

I'm spending my morning checking out a few e-cards that I received (man, I miss snail mail cards! The ones I can put on my bookshelf and enjoy as I walk by!!) and a few freebies from some forums I belong to.
My dh and kids gave me cards, a Christmas ornament (I love christmas ornaments that mean something) that says "Mom, Know what I love about you? Everything!" and some slippers that I wanted. Now for the long distant phone calls that make me homesick and wish we weren't military and so far away from home. :(
Tonight my dear friend Renee and her family are coming over for appetizers and screwdrivers! lol Well, that's what I drink these days. ;) We met Renee and her husband when we were stationed in England, and now we're in Alaska together! Isn't that great?! It's a small small world! I have an album of people we met along the way, and it's fun to see people again- and it's fun to go back to the photos on my hard drive of her at her first baby shower- and then to go to her son's 7th birthday last week! I'll bet some of you that still live in the same town you grew up in won't understand that. But the military folks will!

Back in England:




Last week:

(our kids)

Quickpage

My friend Melinda made this 8x8 inch quickpage over on the new Creative Dreams blog! I snagged it, and let me say, I snag a lot of free things, but I think quickpages are my new favorite! It's SO EASY! Except I just realized I forgot to put the names/date- but I can write that later. Anyway, back to reality... Check out my quickpage (that's my dad!!) and then go snag it here!!

My first blinkie!

I made my first blinkie!! It was fun! I might have a new way to waste time! :)

I voted.

... and I'm scrapbooking about it! How about you?
I walked out of the voting area and thought "I did my civic duty." Then I stopped, and thought about all of the women who had to fight for my right to vote today. And I felt bad that I used the word duty. So I did my civic privilege. :)



I didn't take pics inside- of the booths- because people were looking at me weird as it was, pulling a 5 year old in there with me. But I got the sign on the way in.

I decided to make a cake and let the boys decorate it like the US Flag. I would LOVE to have done a US map, but am NOT that great of an artist! If anyone knows how to do that easily, let me know! lol

This is how we add government lessons to everyday life. :)

Halloween layout

Here is our Halloween 2008 layout. I asked the boys what they want to remember about Halloween. Can you read it? My little guy said something to the effect of my batman costume. my batman head. my batman belt... So cute!
I used a freebie kit by my friend Anne.

Remember a few posts ago I said I wanted my layouts to look more digital? This is what I did (basically). First I used the rectangle marquee tool with "feather" set at 50 pixels, I laid out my rectangle so that I only touched the right side of the photo, and left off the other three sides, so that the left side would fade into the background. Then I clicked on select> inverse, and hit the delete key. I duplicated the photo, then turned one off so I couldn't see it, and then did a lot of selecting and erasing to extract my kids. Then I turned back on the other photo, put it under the other layer, and played with blending modes and opacity until I liked it. You can see the white stove and the bamboo spoons above Batman's head if you look carefully. I didn't want those things overpowering my kids, but I wanted the background there a little bit. The edge of the photo is between the Clone (from Star Wars) and the left side of the journaling.

Camping Album

I have a camping album. Dedicated to each camping trip our family makes. I started it the first year we owned our camper, 2005. The album pages are 9x9 inches, which is a weird size, but I love it! I take it on our camping trips and let our guests, if we have any, peruse the book. Or I pull it out and force my guys to look at it and reminisce!

For the 2007 camping trips, somehow all my camping (and Disney) pictures disappeared off my computer, so I have no layouts for that year in my Camping Album. Once I realized this, I started making all of the 2008 layouts. Here is another one (the post below has the first trip of 2008). One more to go!



I love this background paper! It's from the Freak Out kit by DigiApeDesigns! It's so bright, and the pattern is awesome! You can't tell, since I covered most of it up with photos, but the pattern fades out toward the middle and one side of the paper.

It's perfect! As I was making this layout I realized how much I love the handwriting fonts for writing on the photos. As much as I like it- I really REALLY wish I had a pen tablet (or had my handwriting turned into a font! How do I do that?!) I would love for this to be MY writing, rather than Cammie-pea's!! :) (Santa, are you reading this?!)

The scary thing is, I have several more photos I wanted to put on that layout. So I think I'll enlarge 2 of them and make them their own pages in the next two page protectors. :)

New layout

Happy Digi Scrapbook Day! I hope you are enjoying the freebie in my post below!

Here is a layout I pretty much finished the other day, except for saving it as a jpg so I can print it! I used a kit called Adventure by DigiApeDesigns (AKA April Staker).


Now go down one post and snag the freebie quickpage, and then go to my friend Anne's blog, grab her awesome Halloween freebie minikit to scrap last night's photos, and to start a serious freebie grabbing day! Have fun!