Senovia Designs

Interviews with my boys

2012-01-24T10:01:00.000-09:00

I love interview/ survey type layouts. It lets us have a little insight to people that they may not think to write down otherwise. I often ask my kids to answer questions, and I type them up in Evernote for putting on layouts later. I did good this time- I asked the questions and got them on layouts within a week! Plus I used half way recent photos!

Supplies:
template-I Love You template album by Cilenia Curtis coming Feb 1st to Digitals
papers and wordart-A Study in Gray and Yellow by Angie Young coming Feb 1st to Digitals
font- Minion Pro

I used the same template and the same kit components for both layouts. I just changed around where I used the papers for each layout. It doesn't matter- they are going in different albums anyway. The point is, now I know that my younger son wants to be a dentist when he grows up. Who knew?! lol

Superhero Comic Cookies

2012-01-23T20:01:00.000-09:00

I made these cookies to go with my son's cake that I showed you last time. This is BrettBoy- the burrito lovin' superhero star of my son's comics.

Here's basically how I did it.

I used this chocolate cookie dough, which was SO easy to make and roll! It didn't rise or expand AT ALL! Perfect for cookie cutters! (Georganne has a great blog- check her out!)

I used a round cookie cutter. Once cooled, I used royal icing (not my glaze icing), with a black thick icing, and outlined Brettboy's face. I let it dry a few hours, and tinted some royal icing for Brettboy's face and hair. I thinned the icing a bit and filled in the faces and hair, and used toothpicks to push the icing into corners and pop any bubbles.

Once they dried overnight, I used an Americolor food color pen to draw the faces on.

They aren't perfect. But that's not the point, right?

Brett loved them and they tasted GOOD!

Original Superhero Comic birthday cake

2012-01-16T10:19:00.002-09:00

So my son draws comics. Often. He has one superhero comic character that he draws quite often that he calls Brettboy. For his birthday, I made Brettboy into icing and put him on the birthday cake! Wanna see?

Well?

Brett loved it! I love it! It turned out so much better than I expected.

Want to see how I did it?
First I made Brett draw the character about the size I wanted and then I made 3 photocopies of it (this is a delicate operation! I needed extras just in case one broke!)

I taped it to a platter and taped a piece of waxed paper over top of it. Then I made black royal icing and piped the outline. CLICK HERE for my recipe and a tutorial from Cookie Week.

I made him three times. :)

Then I waited a few hours for the outline to dry. If I didn't, I could have not only messed up the outline, but the black food coloring would have certainly bled into the white. Then I let the whole thing sit overnight to dry completely.

Here is Brett when he first saw the Brettboys in icing. He was very excited!

I managed to get Brettboy on the cake, only breaking his neck! (I had a feeling I would, but once he was on the cake, we could hardly tell.) I took the body (and then the head) and added just a teeny bit of wet royal icing to the back to use as glue.

I used a black Americolor food dye pen to draw his face. That was nicer than I expected. Royal icing dries nice and hard.

It was at this point I wished I had made the speech bubble the same way! Instead I piped the black outline straight on the cake. I let it dry a few hours, then filled it in with white. Unfortunatey the white never dried completely, so when I wrote "Happy Birthday" the point of the pen dug into the icing a little bit. Oops!

I used the "B" symbol that Brett drew on his comic and more wax paper to make a bunch of symbols. I would either use one for the top of the Brettboy on the cake, or, if I had enough not break, use them around the side of the cake.
(The rectangle above the B is a burrito- because it's Brettboy's favorite food.)

Here is the final cake. I used royal icing to glue the B symbol to the Brettboy and also had enough to go around the cake. We think it turned out pretty awesome!

My next post will be the cookies I made to match!!

Ready to Soar

2012-01-08T20:04:00.001-09:00

My friends and designers Cilenia Curtis, Angie Young, and Aria have started a new blog and challenge about art journaling- creatively expressing themselves. They would love for you to join them.

Here is the blog.
Here is the shop.

The kits that they are making for this project are very detailed and beautiful. I am not really an art journaler per se (and if I were, I think I'd prefer using tactile supplies like paints and textures) but what they are doing is really fun to see.

I used the kits (pieces by all three designers) to make the following layout. I took a beige paper by Aria and changed the color, but the rest of the supplies are as they were sold.

Supplies:
Follow Your Art Jan - A Seed Grows by Aria
Follow Your Art Jan - Ready to Soar Word Art by Angie Young
Follow Your Art Jan - Book Pages by Cilenia Curtis
Follow Your Art Jan Date Tags by Cilenia Curtis
Artist Tool Box 04 brush set by Cilenia Curtis
font: My handwriting font.

And did I mention I took the picture using my new camera?! It's a Canon 7D and I'm SO excited about it!

Check out the art journaling blog and let me know what you think about it. :)

iPhoneography and little snowflakes

2012-01-04T13:33:00.000-09:00

Hi friends!

Have I shown you these photos yet?

Before Christmas the kids, Art and I were strolling through Lowe's (does anyone else love walking through home improvement stores/ I just LOVE walking through the kitchens! Oh, back to the point. We found these cardboard glasses, like "3-D" glasses, that claim to let you see snowflakes, Santas and snowmen. Well, we looked through them at the Christmas lights in the store, and they were pretty cool.

Fast forward to Christmas morning. I had stuffed one pair of glasses into each of our stockings, and when I opened my stocking, I was surprised to find 4 pair! Art and I had the same idea- but he bought me one of each! How funny is that?! We spent a while passing them around and looking at the pretty lights.

Later that night, I think, Austin got the idea to look at the lit Christmas tree in our front yard. I found that the colored ligths didn't look as awesome as the white icicle lights hanging from the eves. Then I wondered if I could photograph that.

Guess what?! It worked! I took these pictures with my iPhone and the normal Camera app. I just held the glasses in front of the lens.

Then I tried out my XTi! I used Aperture Priority, which I use most of the time, and left Autofocus on, and got these shots, which turned out even better!

I was so excited I emailed my Digi friends right away! Now I'm showing you!

This was the best 99¢ I ever spent! I put them in the Christmas box so we can play again next year. :)

Did you make a fun purchase for Christmas? Did you and your spouse have the same idea?

Happy New Year!

2012-01-02T17:28:00.000-09:00

Happy New Year friends!

So far so good, right?!

Did you make any resolutions? I don't like to- because I never keep them, but throughout the past week I did compile a list of about 23 goals. Not like "lose 10 pounds" kind of goals, more like things I want to do once or consistently. No pressure. :) Things like only take online classes for photography, blog 2 times a week, spend more quality time with my husband, be a better Mom, get off the freaking internet and MAKE something! You know, easy stuff! ;)

Today I made my first layout of the year- a Christmas compilation layout. You've seen all the December Daily/Journal Your Christmas/ Holiday Templates layouts that I've done- I'm not holding back! lol I have more stories to tell, but went ahead and made this one that will be printed 9x9 inches and put into my Christmas album. In this album I have 1 page for each year (for 14 years now), and a couple of extra "favorite ornaments," "Christmas card list," etc. pages. I am 3 years behind. ;) Ooops.

Left:

Right:

I didn't use a template for these- I just threw them together and then copied the layer styles from a template onto my photos and title. I did use the kits from the Holiday Templates class by Paislee Press and Creashens, so it matches the rest of my layouts. I also used the fonts Marketing Script (title), and my handwriting font that I told you about a few weeks ago.

So did you get anything scrapbook or photography related for Christmas? I'm dying to get mine in the mail! Well, on Christmas morning my sweet husband gave me a reflector, a gray card, a Gary Fong Lightsphere flash diffuser (but I don't have the flash), and a filter for a lens I hadn't ordered yet. Oops! Guess what? Now I've ordered both of them, so it's all good! I'll be stalking the UPS truck all week!

Oh, and guess what else? I'm expecting something else!!

No! Not that!!

No babies!!

My sweet husband let me use some extra money (not that we have any of that!) to order the camera I've been saving for!! I'm a lucky, lucky girl! Yep, I'm stalking the UPS man double this week!! You'll be seeing LOTS of photography posts from me!

I hope your Christmas was great and that you have a super awesome new year!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T08:10:00.000-09:00

Merry Christmas, friends, and best wishes for the new year!

I am enjoying having my family here for the holidays, so I'm not posting much. I have scrapped a little, though! We're making cookies, fudge and mounds bars, and enjoying some Christmas movies. I hope you are enjoying your holiday as well!

I'll leave you with some photos of the holiday display at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Writing Christmas Cards

2011-12-14T15:27:00.004-09:00

I am really starting to like these templates! One day the template I chose had lots of paper pieces and took me forever to do, but the rest have been fairly easy. I have to admit I have not kept up with watching the videos from the class and I have not been home for one chat yet. :(

But I have scrapped more than I had in a while, so I'm happy with that. This one has lots of little information- the stuff I'll forget over the years. Is it bad that I had to look on the internet to find out how much a stamp costs right now?! (44 cents, by the way.)

Here's my layout. I turned the template sideways so I could get my wide photo on there. Then I deleted the "journaling block" layer and just filled in journaling wherever I wanted to. I also threw my Christmas card on there. Yep, this is the card I'm mailing out. I made a 4x6 card in Photoshop and had it printed as a photo at Walmart. One of these days I'm going to print nice folded cards, but I needed it FAST since I was running behind!

Supplies:
template: Tiffany Tillman Holiday Templates 2011
kits Oh Joy by Creashen
and Oh Joy by Paislee Press
fonts: Marketing Script and my handwriting font

Fabric Flower Art

2011-12-13T13:51:00.001-09:00

My dear friend Cilenia (who is the digital designer I often scrap for) is an amazing artist! She recently made this art quilt that I just adore!

Isn't it gorgeous?!
Check out her post- she has lots of pictures of her process.

I went to her house yesterday and she taught me how to do the same art!

I will mention that I tried to steal the aforementioned art quilt but she blocked me every time I went near it!!

First she taught me how to draw the flowers:

Then we set that aside to dry and she had one ready for me to paint:

What do you think? I love it! Not as much as hers, but I was afraid if I kept going I'd mess it up, and I really wanted to save it! I came home with my drawn flowers and her artist pencils, and plan to play for a long time!

Thanks, Cilenia, for sharing your art with me!

Outdoor Lighting- Christmas Day 10

2011-12-10T22:02:00.001-09:00

Today I'm sharing my layout about our outdoor Christmas lights. This is the first time that we've ever done outdoor lights!

Left:

And right:

Supplies:
template: Tiffany Tillman Holiday Templates 2011
kits Oh Joy by Creashen
and Oh Joy by Paislee Press
fonts: Marketing Script and my handwriting font
The pictures of people were all taken during daylight. The light photos were all taken at dusk.

Christmas Wrapping

2011-12-08T08:42:00.001-09:00

I have finished another layout for my Christmas album- this one about wrapping presents. I used a template and supplies from Tiffany Tillman's Holiday Templates 2011 class.

Supplies:
template: Tiffany Tillman (Holiday Templates Class 2011)
papers: Creashen- Oh Joy kit
and Paislee Press- Oh Joy kit
date tag: Tiffany Tillman Hol11 date tags
fonts: Marketing script at 80pts, Georgia, my font at 12pts

My all time favorite part about this layout is the journaling font! Guess why!! That's MY HANDWRITING!! My first Christmas present was having Darcie Baldwin make my handwriting into a font! It looks better than my actual handwriting and I love it!! Thanks, honey, for buying it for me for Christmas!

Online Gaming and Christmas

2011-11-29T08:54:00.001-09:00

Sorry I haven't been around in a while. Part of it was how busy we were around here, and another part was I just haven't been feeling like scrapping.

Our Thanksgiving went well, for the most part. We had my in-laws here which was wonderful. We always stay busy when they come.

On to Scrapping!!

I have an announcement! I'm so excited to say I am CTing for Angie Young! Have you seen her store? Her designs are so pretty and fit right in to my style! I'll show you a Christmas page I did with her new "Vintage Christmas" kit in a minute.
Here are a few of my favorite Angie Young kits:

Nice, right?! She has a ton of stuff, so go check her out!

First, I made this page:

Supplies:
Papers: Whimsical Holidays by Aria
tag and safety pin: Art Journal Project by Cilenia Curtis
painty edge: A Little Vintage Christmas by Angie Young
all of DigitalScrapbookPages.com
Fonts: Mom's Typewriter, Pea Lacy Chunky, and Teen.

I tend not to use items from a bunch of different kits at the same time, but this one turned out well.

On another note, don't you love how there is so much inspiration out there? For example, in December, I can think of three major projects that are very popular for Scrapbookers: Ali's December Daily, Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas, and Tiffany's Holiday Templates 2011. I love them all! Here's the best part... you can take what you love and what inspires you from all sources and make it your own! For example, none of these three classes begins until Dec 1st.
Guess what- I started already!!

Supplies:
A Little Vintage Christmas kit by Angie Young
brush from Artist Toolbox 4 by Cilenia Curtis (for blending photo)
font: Pea Snow

I don't do a page a day, but I try to take pictures most days in December, and I use layouts, themes, and techniques I see from these sources and more as inspiration in my own projects. Isn't this a great hobby?!

Will you be doing a December or Holiday project this year? What are you planning? I'd love to know!

Scrapping about Baking, Part II

2011-10-28T19:05:00.000-08:00

I've scrapped my most recent baking fun today. I'm really behind in my scrapping- not in the "not caught up" way, because we've talked about that before, but in the sense that I'm a Creative Team member on two teams, and I haven't scrapped in weeks! Woops! I hope they don't fire me!

I think I've finished baking for a couple of weeks. My birthday is coming up, so I'll bake my strawberry angel food cake. And I'll be baking a cake for my final Course 2 class the same week. Other than that, I think I'll be taking it easy!

That being said, I've dropped off my donations for the bake sale tomorrow at our local community center. I made some gingerbread skeletons for the bake sale, and a bouquet of autumn flower cookies for the auction. I hope it helps raise money for the Great American Bake Sale!

Then I decided to get scrapping. I have missed it! I love the papers in this kit: Beautiful Mess 08, so even though I have already used the kit, I just had to use more papers for another layout!

Supplies:
Papers: Beautiful Mess 08 by Cilenia Curtis
Frames (altered to add 2 extra frames): also by Cilenia Curtis
Fonts: Destroy, Pea Jamie B, and Modern No. 20

And one of these days I need to remind myself that I haven't printed layouts in over a year now! That's not good!

Skeleton cookies

2011-10-26T21:59:00.000-08:00

This week I made skeleton cookies.

I used THIS tutorial and THIS recipe. I take no credit what-so-ever for this design! I saw them on Our Best Bites and fell in love with them!

Sara didn't say how much my hand and arm would hurt after piping 5 dozen! Not to mention I went to a cake decorating class that night!

Are you a couple and want couple skeleton cookies?

How about a couple with a cat?

Or a cat lady? (or man?)

I took a bunch to our Cub Scouts Halloween Party tonight. I gave some to the gate guard when I drove onto base. And I have some wrapped up for the bake sale this Saturday to raise money for the Great American Bake Sale. I placed two people and a cat in each of these bags for the bake sale.

Nope, I'm not done yet for the week! I am making my daisies for the bake sale (only I'm going to try to do them in autumn colors), and I have baked a cake and put the base icing for tomorrow's cake decorating class. Then I think I'm done baking for a while!

Pumpkin Cake

2011-10-25T20:16:00.000-08:00

You know when you realize you haven't scrapped in a while and then you realize you've been too busy? That's where I am.

I'm on the PTA and we just pulled off the Fall Festival (with too few volunteers and spent way too much money, but whatever) and I made a cake for that, and I'm still going strong on two cake decorating classes, and this week you'll see 2 kinds of cookies for a Bake Sale coming up next weekend.

Yep, busy.

So today I want to show you the cake I made for the Fall Festival. At my old school when they asked for cakes for a cake walk, most people MADE the cakes or cupcakes. Well, not here. I made this cake, and one other person brought homemade cupcakes. The rest were store-bought. Not only were they store bought, but the PTA itself had to buy almost all of them!

ANYWAY.... I made this cake. My friend Dena won it. Okay one of her daughters won it, but still... :) I was so happy because no one wanted it for over an hour! I was a little upset, so when Dena grabbed it I was thrilled! I made the batter and split it in half, and colored the two halves purple and orange. Then I covered it with chocolate buttercream. Then I piped on the pumpkin and border. Cute, huh? (Not professional cute, but amateur cute for sure!)

Dena was kind enough to send me a picture of the cut cake. Love it!

To the rest of the moms who didn't chose my cake at the cake walk: I'll bet you wish you had grabbed it now, huh!?? lolAnd to the mom who advertised a certain kind of beer on her BUTT the whole night? Not appropriate for an elementary school, dude. Just not cool. I'll see ya later after my claw hand feels better after all the piping I've done today! :)

Bad Hair Day Cupcakes?

2011-10-20T15:08:00.000-08:00

Today was my 3rd day of my Wilton cake decorating class. I learned some piping skills and came home and decorated these cupcakes. What do you think?

The yellow ones are "Shabby Mums" and the blue ones are "Pompom Flowers."

I think the yellow ones look like someone's having a bad hair day!

Two hobbies in one: Scrapbooking and Cake Decorating

2011-10-16T12:26:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a cake decorating class!

I'm taking Class One- learning about buttercream frosting and the basics of making and decorating cakes. This is from our second class- I made this cake with a cupcake on top. This class is great.

My Nana taught me how to decorate cakes when I was about 10 years old. I still have some of her old tips and the cake pans she used to make my wedding cake. I wish I had some of the other things she gave me (I remember clown heads for sure). She used to sell decorated cakes when my Mom and uncle were still at home and my Papa was away working. She made some gorgeous cakes! My wedding cake was the last cake she ever decorated (I think.)

Anyway, I made this layout about my first cake in class.

Supplies:template: Sketchbook Templates by Cilenia Curtis

papers: Beautiful Mess 07 by Cilenia Curtis

fonts: Pea Our Best Bites and 1942 Report

Here are some close ups of the cake:

UNC Tarheels cookies

2011-10-14T20:15:00.001-08:00

Hi there!Now that my hubby has received his cookies in the mail, I can tell you about these. :)Normally I'm decorating cookies to give away for one reason or another, and the ones that I mess up are the ones that my husband gets to eat. I am not sure I've ever decorated cookies JUST FOR HIM.

He's away at school right now and I was missing him, so I had a brilliant idea to make him some cookies. He is from North Carolina and loves the UNC Tarheels.

I found a football set of cookie cutters that I bought in a dollar section, so I was going to make him some helmets with the Tarheels logo on them. As I took the burnt helmets out of the oven, I realized that he doesn't really watch them play football- basketball is his sport of choice. So I used the jersey cookie cutter and made these basketball tank tops. That's what they are. Really. :)

I used this tutorial to make the logo. I found a logo online, pulled it into Photoshop, and enlarged it. I printed a sheet of them. I taped the sheet to the counter, and taped wax paper on top of that. Then I used royal icing to pipe the UNC logo. The thicker the better. Then I let it dry. For 48 hours or so. At least. :)

Let me give you a tip- make extras. Lots of extras! I used a small offset spatula to remove the logos from the wax paper. And I broke a lot of them during this process. Like half of them.

I used my glaze icing to pipe the tank tops on the jersey cookies. Then I immediately dropped the logo into the wet icing and pressed lightly. (Here's where I broke one more.)

After I'd done a few I really liked them!

With the logo above, the wax paper had gotten a little bend in it, and it made the logo dry that way.

Today my hubby texted me and said he was very happy with the cookies he received. :) That makes me happy.

2011-10-06T05:43:00.002-08:00

Yesterday I decided that instead of piling change on top of my new, pretty, red washing machine, I'll make a jar for it. I asked my girlfriends for a good poem, and this is what we came up with.

I used April Stakers kit No. 10.
The poem says:
I keep pennies, nickels, and dimes.
I take them all and make them mine.
When it comes to money, I'm not picky,
They all scream, "Camera fund for Nicky!"

For the caricature of me: I made a pinkish oval using the round shape tool. Then I used the brush tool to make my hair in 3 passes. One light thin brushed curly hair pass, one darker blonde thin brush curly hair pass, and one light blonde (the same as the first pass) thick round brush to fill in the spaces so I didn't look like I was balding.
Next I used a slightly darker shade of pink and a soft round brush to give some shadowing to my face- cheekbones and under the sides of the chin. Then I used a small hard round brush to draw in my facial features, neck, shirt, and arms, just like I would if I were drawing on paper. Then I filled in my shirt and pants. Cute, huh?

And I already have 8 cents saved up for that Canon 5D mark II!!

Antique Quilts

2011-09-29T09:19:00.000-08:00

Isn't this wonderful online community wonderful?

A week or so ago I was linked to a blog post where a woman, Fee, had inherited an heirloom ring and then scrapped the story. I love stories about hand-me-downs!

My Digisister friends and I had a nice conversation about antique rings, which quickly led to other heirlooms and finally to quilts. I have a ring that my Great Great Aunt Nita had made years ago. I also have photographs of some antique quilts that my Nana has possession of- that she intends to hand down to her great grandchildren (my children and nieces.) So I decided to scrap about those quilts.

I called my grandmother and asked about those quilts. I am so glad I did! Here is the layout with the story, and the journaling is below.

Supplies:
Digital kit (3 masks, paper, notebook paper, and alphas which I recolored): Beautiful Mess 07 by Cilenia Curtis
Border stitches: Stitches 06 - Framed by Cilenia Curtis
font: Arial Narrow

Journaling:
It all started with a blog post about a hand-me-down ring that someone inherited. My friends and I had a nice conversation about that, and it eventually evolved to include antique quilts and other heirlooms. Well, I have pictures of four antique quilts that Nana has. She plans on giving them to her four great-grandchildren- Brett, Austin, Natalie and Juliana. The Sunbonnet doll quilt means so much to me because for many summers during my childhood I'd sleep with it every night when visiting Nana and Papa on the ranch in Idaho. Natalie is getting that quilt but I’m not bitter. Really. (Okay, just a little bit.)

Anyway, after having this conversation, I decided to scrap these pictures, so I called Nana to find out what she knew about them. I’m glad I did. I thought Grace McIntyre (my great grandmother: Papa’s mother) made them, but I was wrong—it was HER mother! These quilts are a generation older than I thought!

So I asked Nana what she knew about “Grandma McIntyre.” She doesn’t remember her name, but I might call Uncle Bud and find out what he remembers. Nana said that she lived in Kansas in the same town as Leavenworth prison (Nana also inherited a cute little wood table that the prisoners built years ago), in a “big, old, old, old two-story house with really old furniture like five poster beds with headboards that went almost to the ceiling and feather mattresses.” Nana also said that Grandma McIntyre’s husband had already passed away when she and Papa got married in 1949. My Great Aunt, Nita, whom I knew and have scrapped about, lived with grandma until she passed away, and then she moved, bringing the quilts with her, to Suisun, California, to live with her sister, my Great Grandmother, Grace.

I am so glad that I was inspired to make this scrapbook page. Thank you for writing up this blog post, Fee!

Don't wait until it's too late to learn the stories of your heirlooms and scrap them!

another template quickie

2011-09-13T12:17:00.000-08:00

My friend Michelle just issued a challenge to the Digisisters: use one of the Layer Works Templates (from Designer Digitals) that we all hoard and share them. I say "just" because I read her email like an hour ago. I had this template in my stash from one of the previous DD quarterly sales and never used it. I knew right away I had to do it!

I bought it because it is called "dude" and I am teased occasionally because I say "Dude" A LOT. When I opened up the template I saw it was very "boy" oriented, so I had to change a thing or two- namely, I clipped a different paper on the title, and I deleted a little green alligator. This is why I LOVE layered templates!

Supplies:

template:StudioDD_LayerWorksNo39
title paper: a freebie by Katie Pertiet
"just say": my handwriting using the brush tool & Wacom tablet

Journaling:
I say it a lot. Dude. Yep, it’s a great word. It means so many things! I hadn’t thought about it in a while, but lately I have some Digisis friends that tease me a lot about writing it in my emails. I thought it was because I grew up in California, but not all of us that grew up there say it. Maybe it was a generational thing. Maybe it was the next thing to “Valley Girl” talk, which I was a little too young for. Anyway, I’ve embraced it.

There are so many meanings, and it all depends on how you say it. The most common way to use it is when you’re saying something about a man or a boy, “That dude is wearing a cool shirt.” You can exclaim “DUDE!” when you’re excited about something and want to express it. You can use it as a warning, “duuuude!” You can say it instead of someone’s name “Dude, do you remember that?” It makes a great expression when you’re having a bad day or when someone cuts you off in traffic and the kids are in the car- you just have to make it two syllables: “Duuu-ude.”

Dude, there are so many ways to use it. I suggest everyone start saying it RIGHT NOW.

Thanks, Michelle, for the quick challenge!

Weekend trip in 8 pages?

2011-09-10T15:18:00.000-08:00

I really think this trip will take lots of pages to document! I want all the photos and all the details! I'm only on page 3...

Here are the first two pages of this layout.

Left:

Right:

Supplies:
Template: Multiphoto Templates 1-6 Bundle by Cilenia Curtis
Papers: Vintage Beach Kit by Cilenia Curtis
Fonts: Palatino, Tw Ten MI, and Pea How Sweet Eats

More to come!

Baby cuddles

2011-08-24T15:19:00.000-08:00

Aren't baby cuddles so sweet?

Supplies:
Papers, rubons, title from the Beautiful Mess 4 kit by Cilenia Curtis.
Stitches: Stitches 06 Framed kit, also by Cilenia Curtis
Both can be purchased at Digitals.

For the green paper, I started with the brown pattern paper and changed the color to match the baby blanket. I love that we can do that without a tube of paint and lots of cleanup!

Win a new kit!

2011-08-22T06:49:00.002-08:00

First, today, I want to show you a new kit that is coming out this week. LINK TO BUY KIT

I love it. It's neutral and can be combined with any other color. It would be great with heritage photos or something more recent. You can really show off the kit or make your photos the center of attention with lots of elements that seem to fit right in. I love kits like that.

I had a chance to glance at the kit really quickly before I had a weekend away, and this rub-on really caught my attention. Place this over any paper and change the blending mode (you know I love to do that!!) and get a great texture!

Look at all that texture!! That's what I love about Cilenia's kits!

I chose to try it out on one of my portraits that I showed you the other day. What do you think?

If you're interested I could do a quick tutorial. It's pretty easy in Photoshop. In PSE it's easy, too, but would be done slightly differently. Let me know. ;)

Here is another example using this kit from my friend Valeri:

Guess what? You have a chance to win this kit BEFORE IT'S RELEASED!! Isn't that exciting? Go to Cilenia's blog and enter to win! Hurry! You only have till tomorrow!

Edit: The kit is released now. Find it HERE.

Show me what YOU do with this kit!

Hey there, old friend!

2011-08-19T09:27:00.001-08:00

Welcome back! Sit down and have a cup of iced tea. :)

The kids and I just got back from visiting my family in California again. I had a great time, as usual. This has been one heck of a year! I've been home 4 times already! In 14 years I've never been home more than once in a year.... ah, living the military lifestyle....

Anyway, I went back this time because my beautiful sister-in-law was about to have a baby (she timed it during my kids' summer vacation, isn't that sweet?!) So we got to meet my beautiful niece the day she was born, and then a few days later I got to take some pictures of her in a real photo shoot!

As soon as I texted my brother the week before and asked if I could, and he replied "It's all good," I totally got nervous!

I had seen the beautiful portraits of babies in baskets and laying on gorgeous antique stools and stuff- but I wasn't sure how well I could do! I've never shot a baby (well, I've taken tons of pics of my kids, but not like THIS!)

So want to see how they turned out?

Not too shabby, huh?

I have to say I LOVE the green wall in their dining room! It turned out so gorgeous in the pictures! Do you notice you see no pics of her in a basket? I took a bunch, but I didn't like them as much as these.

Lessons learned:
1. double check the shutter speed! I was shooting in aperture priority with low ISO, so my shutter speed was kind of low- I didn't realize until I downloaded them to my computer that most of them were slightly out of focus. :(

2. Take pictures of the big sister alone, too! It had been over an hour by the time we brought big sis into the room, and we were all getting a little tired. But I wish I had taken a few of just big sis.

3. It takes assistants! I had my sister-in-law there, but I felt bad asking her for anything since she just, you know, had a baby. And I had my Mom, who helped a LOT. I couldn't have done it without her. :)

4. Have a few more ideas for poses. I like what I got, but I wish I got one or two different poses. :)

So, that's what I did this summer, how about you?

Taking a break from WITL...

2011-08-01T14:41:00.001-08:00

to be artistic. :)

Yesterday the weather was beautiful. It was 83 degrees and cloudy- but considering I live in the desert, it was so beautiful. It was the first day the temperature was under 100 in weeks! I sat out on my back patio with my laptop and played.

I opened a paper from Cilenia's new kit. It's a beautiful, textured paper in shades of yellow. I decided I wanted to see what it would look like in another color; maybe that would inspire me.

So here is the original paper from the Beautiful Mess 3 kit.

Then I wanted to play with the Hue/Saturation command (Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation in Photoshop).
Before I did that, I didn't want to mess up the original paper, so I duplicated the background layer.
As I was playing with the hue and saturation, I found this great, bright blue. Isn't it gorgeous?

Then I decided to have some real fun!
I had the top (blue) layer selected, and started playing with layer modes!

Layer mode: Darken

Layer mode: exclusion

Major difference, huh?!

Layer mode: linear burn

Layer mode: normal, but with the opacity at 43%

Layer mode: multiply

Layer mode: normal, but with the opacity at 69%

Layer mode: overlay

Aren't they gorgeous?! I love the difference in colors. I love the totally different looks! I love that I bought one paper and have COUNTLESS papers in my stash!

I took one of those papers and made the following layout:

Supplies:
paper: Beautiful Mess 03 kit by Cilenia Curtis (altered as explained above)
brush: Artist's Tool Box 04 by Cilenia Curtis(used to blend the photo of the lenses)
font: Helvetica (title and journaling)
the word "envy" is my handwriting using the brush tool & my Wacom Bamboo tablet
I have to thank my Digisisters for helping me with the journaling. :)

Now doesn't that sound like a fun and creative way to spend a beautiful afternoon outdoors?!

WITL Day 5

2011-07-29T23:02:00.000-08:00

Well, another day down. I was just sitting here thinking that if I don't do the layout each day like I did in 2008, it's not so hard to keep up with the Week in the Life project. And then I realized I hadn't written journaling at all today. Woops! Guess I'll have to do that first thing in the morning, because I'm about to fall asleep sitting up right now. chkl.

Here are a few pics I took today:

My assistant photographer (and soux chef).

Our community center put on a small carnival and book fair to raise money for our base library tonight. My kids were a little leery of Curious George.

Again my little guy took a ton of photos for me with Daddy's P&S camera. He took 69 of the 132 total for the day. At one point I asked him to go to his room and take pictures of his 5 favorite things. He came back with about 20 pictures. This one, I believe, shows his favorite things. :)

WITL Day 4

2011-07-28T20:43:00.000-08:00

So today I took 73 photos on my dSLR and none on my phone. I meant to. I meant to take a picture at the vet. And I meant to take a picture of my Frappacino. But I didn't. Of the 73 photos I took today, 62 of them I took after my last post where I said I was losing steam. I guess I got some back.

I have to admit, though, that most of my pictures today are blurry. And most are of my youngest son. I think there is a direct correlation there. He's an energetic soul.

So on to my pictures:

My breakfast. Multigrain Cheerios with strawberries. If you knew me, or if you've seen my scrapbooks, you would know that I've been eating Multigrain Cheerios for probably 13 years. I have proof. It's in the scrapbook. :)

I took this because it hit 107 degrees today. Yep. It's hot. The last time I did WITL, I lived in Alaska and there was snow on the ground.

And, finally, my kids preparing their tacos for dinner. I always make my own shells. I use corn tortillas from the store and fry them in Canola Oil. I hate the crunchy shells you buy at the grocery store. They are stale and they break. I love these homemade ones. No, they aren't healthy. But they are healthier than I used to make them, because I used to use Crisco. ;)

Just before I took this picture, I was telling the boys I was going to take a picture of my tacos with a bottle of ketchup, because my friend Jill thinks I'm crazy for eating ketchup on homemade tacos. (Take into consideration that I'm one quarter Mexican and that I make my own salsa, and it's even weirder.) Then my youngest said "Mom, take my picture! Put me on Facebook!" Aaaah, kids these days.... lol (He's cuddling up to me right now asking if I'm putting him on Facebook. Should I explain what a blog is?)

Okay, that's about it for today. Tomorrow I'll try to take more pictures of my eldest and try to take pictures that are not blurry. Consider it a goal. :)

WITL Day 3

2011-07-28T14:56:00.000-08:00

So I think I'm losing steam. First, I didn't blog last night like I had been. Second, I only took 53 photos total yesterday. PLUS I only wrote journaling for half the day. That being said, I was a little busy last night. :)

One thing I've been thinking about is that last time I did WITL I took a ton of photos of the accessories around the house- things we may forget eventually. Well, we just moved into this house less than a month ago, and haven't unpacked most of our clutter yet. I think I like it that way, but I have a lot fewer things to take a picture of! I don't like that!

So here are some of my day 3 pictures.

I wonder how many of you have these laying around your house every day? If you do, you know what they are. An ABU shirt, a reflective belt, and the cord for a flightline badge.

Anyone?

Homemade salsa. This is currently our favorite snack. I make this ALL THE TIME. I make half a mild recipe (my MIL says it's not mild, lol,) and the other half I make much hotter. (If anyone is wondering, I started with the Pioneer Woman's recipe for Restaurant Style Salsa, and altered it a bit.)

And I'm super upset that this one turned out blurry! But I love it all the same. :) DH was getting ready to go to work, and getting his afternoon hugs, and I ran over with my camera. Then they hugged again, and DH made a funny face (I have that shot, too), but I pressed that shutter button one more time and got a real smile. The kids were a bit fidgety, though. Oh well. Works for me! :)

So, have you started to lose steam yet? Only 4 days left!

WITL sidenote

2011-07-27T08:41:00.004-08:00

I just linked up to Day 2 of Ali's blog. While I was there I thought I'd take a few minutes to visit a couple of the blogs who also linked. Let me just say that I'm in awe right now.

In the course of 5 minutes I have visted with people (women, I assume) from 6 different countries and VERY different lifestyles. I visited another home in the USA, Australia, Indonesia, Germany (which is one country I am very fond of), and two blogs that I could not even guess which country they are from Here and Here. I love looking at the people, the objects, even the groceries, of these women. I don't know why the world still seems so big, when we are really so similar.

Thank you, Ali, for this project, for the Linky on your blog, and most importantly, for the opportunity for little ole me to visit so many wonderful places around this globe of ours. :)

Update: one of those blogs from an unknown place is Sweden. Thanks for emailing me, Marie!

WITL Day 2

2011-07-26T20:24:00.000-08:00

I'm still going strong! How about you?

I just finished uploading photos. Today I have a total of 168 photos! That sounds impressive, huh?
Here's the breakdown:
76 from my dSLR
2 from my iPhone
80 from my husband's P&S
(Total for the week: 249)
So should I mention that 32 from my dSLR are of some fighter jets that were flying over our neighborhood? And that the last 40 or so photos on my husband's camera were taken by my 7 year old? So a lot of those look like this:

No biggie! It's fun to see his perspective.

Here are a couple of my shots today.
For this first one, I removed my 70-300mm lens that I used to take the airplane shots and saw all my stuff sitting there. So I used my iPhone to take the picture really quick.

For this one I set up my dSLR on the remote setting and took it while my 7 year old and I were sitting in the spot that has turned into my "office" area. I used to sit comfortably on the old couch to do my blogging and browsing, but the arms are too high on this new couch to be comfortable. So I spend a lot of time here. And, yes, my back has started hurting again.

So, tell me... How is your WITL going so far?

WITL Day 1

2011-07-25T21:22:00.000-08:00

It's a good start in my neck of the woods. I have taken 78 photos today, between my DSLR and my iPhone. Plus my dear hubby took 3 photos with his iPhone and emailed them to me.

I've written a few paragraphs of journaling. I talked about my doctors appointment this morning (I'll spare everyone the details, lol), what the kids had for lunch, and I wrangled the 6 kids I had in my house this afternoon together for a photo. I had told my Dr this morning that I was 98% sure I didn't want anymore kids. After I dealt with 4 extras in my house (one of which is more energetic than my own youngest), I was 104% sure! lol (That IS in my journaling. My friend Kathleen dared me to add it!)

I'm only going to share a couple, since it's just more work to get them blog-ready, and this project requires a lot more work than usual.

This is my son working on a lego project. Taken with my trusty 50mm 1.8 lens. Love that lens- except for the fact that I need a wider lens to get more of the room in some of the shots. I used the Pioneer Woman Sepia action on both of these.

For the following shot the lighting was terrible. I took it with my iPhone. The picture is yellow and dark. I lightened it the best I could, but couldn't get the color balance right, so I pulled out the actions and used the PW Sepia Action on this too. I will probably leave it in color for the WITL page. I figure it's better to be poor coloring than to miss out on having a picture of my son sitting like that playing a Nintendo DS. In a few years that particular system will be obsolete, and he'll be too big to lay in my chair that way. :(

How is your WITL going? I hope you took lots of pictures today!

Simple Things: Cannon Balls

2011-07-25T12:00:00.000-08:00

I am clicking away today taking pictures for my Week in the Life project. Are you? I have a few sentences of journaling tucked away in my Evernote account- which is left open on my laptop so I can add to it whenever I think of it.

In the mean time, I'm linking up to Simple Things at one of my favorite blogs.

Sitting on cabinets & Races

2011-07-21T20:40:00.001-08:00

I wanted to document this cute iPhone picture of my son sitting on the kitchen cabinet putting away dishes. Obviously he's not much of a journaler. chkl

Supplies: paper and elements from the Beautiful Mess 2 Kit by Cilenia Curtis.

My husband ran an uphill race for the first time last weekend. I wanted to use his words to document his race- so I used his Facebook statuses. Pretty slick, if you ask me!

Supplies:
Template by Cilenia Curtis
background paper from the Nature's Muse kit by Betty Jo Martin.

Week in the Life - planning.

2011-07-11T10:21:00.001-08:00

Have you heard???

Ali Edwards has set a date & we're all invited! July 25-31 (-ish) will be a grand event with hundreds, if not thousands of scrapbookers doing a wonderful, personal project called

A Week in the Life!

I've done it before, and I am starting to make plans to play this time. I'm very excited. Here's the basic idea: for one week, take photos of everything you and your family do, the things you touch, the places you go. Write journaling every day, and make pages or an album about your week. The idea is that in a couple of years, your life will have changed so much (even more so for us military families) that it will be fun to look back and see more than "Jim's birthday" or "vacation to the beach." It will be in depth and detailed and awesome!

If you've never done this before, you should check out Ali's blog. She has lots of posts with how to get started, ideas of what to take pictures of, etc. Here is this year's first blog post.

Here is where I am so far:

1. Choose whether you're doing a traditional page, a digital page, or hybrid. I have chosen digital. I have made my template. During the week I will add my photos and journaling and be done. It's not so overwhelming if you plan ahead.

Step 2: Choose a digital kit to work with.

Step 3: Choose accessories, such as overlays, stitches or tags that might come from other kits.

Step 4: July 24th- make sure my camera batteries are charged and I have lots of room on my memory cards. Leave the camera out so I remember to use it. Maybe I'll warn the family that I'm doing this again so they'll have patience to last a week with me. ;)

Step 5: During the week, take thousands of photos and write some basic journaling. AKA, drive my family crazy. Each day I plan to upload my photos and write my journaling. If I plan well, I should be able to do my daily layout each day (or the next, at the latest), and it will be easy to keep up.

Other ideas my friends have come up with...
keep a list or tally, instead of paragraph journaling
use Hipstamatic or another phone app to take all the photos during the week
use trading card page protectors and print photos to fit (Ali is doing this)
save any memorabilia you come across that week! Mail, newspaper clippings, flyers, tickets, etc.

Here is one page from the last time I joined WITL:

Isn't that cool? I know you don't care about the details of our lives too much, but for me, this is great, because we no longer live in Alaska and our lives have changed SO much since then.
Can you imagine how fun looking back on this will be in 10 years? 30 years?

And all of my posts on the subject: Click Here.

What do you think? Are you joining in?

Quickpage +

2011-07-08T19:26:00.000-08:00

I'm in the mood to get a few pages done, after not scrapping for a couple of weeks! I downloaded a set of Quickpages from April Staker today, found the one that is least feminine (why do I always download feminine kits when I have a house full of boys?) and made this page.

Sing it!

Ha ha!! Does anyone else think this is as funny as I do?? ;)

Supplies:
Quickpage: Summer Grunge Quickpages by April Staker
Cloud (around my journaling): taken from the Summer Grunge kit by April Staker
Watercolor brush: (GUESS!!) Artist's Tool Box 04 by Cilenia Curtis
Font: Arial

Catching up...

2011-07-07T22:06:00.000-08:00

I mentioned a few days ago that I had a layout or two to show you. Well now I have 2 more! I've been productive for the past 2 days! Here we go!

I made this one tonight- this is a new kit by Cilenia Curtis called Beautiful Mess 1- Mixed Media Kit. I'm so excited to share that she'll be selling more CU (creative use license) products soon! WOO HOO!

Most of this stuff is directly from her kit. I made the little journal frame thing on the green tag. And the bottom picture is overlay mode, and the title is in color burn to blend in. I love the curly stitches up there, too! So fun!

Next is the page I started yesterday and finished today. I got a new Kitchen Aid mixer- the professional 6.5 quart one as a housewarming gift from my fabulous hubby, and the bowl is so big my son can fit his whole head in it to lick the icing! Can you see the icing on his head?! Gotta love those days!

This kit is the new kit by April Staker called No. 10. I love the bright colors! The title is made with one of the THREE alphas that come with the kit. Should I mention there are over 100 elements as well?? It's SUCH a great deal!

The following pages are from a few weeks ago. This is the No. 9 kit by April Staker. I also added Stitches 01- White Messy - by Cilenia Curtis.

This is the No. 8 kit by April Staker. I handed my camera to my brother to take a pic of me and my two Grandmas at a dinner a few weeks ago. Man I miss living near family! I think the photo turned out GREAT! I might have to frame one!

This is the No. 9 kit by April Staker again. The word "*photo" is using the alpha that comes with this kit- but I changed the layer mode to blend it in a little bit. I also used the Artist's Tool Box 04 watercolor brushes by Cilenia Curtis (as usual- I LOVE LOVE LOVE those brushes!) Don'tcha love the hobbies of kids these days? These photos tell the story without ever seeing their faces! I love it!

Fireworks and sparklers

2011-07-06T20:58:00.000-08:00

I'm no professional photographer, but I love striving for the best photographs that I can possibly take with the equipment I have. (And, of course, I have a wish list a mile long for a better camera and lenses.) That being said...

We recently moved from a small town in Alaska to Las Vegas, and we were happy to see on the 4th of July that the citizens of Las Vegas go ALL out with fireworks for the 4th. In our old house, we could only see a few random fireworks, but here, we could see at least 3 separate fireworks displays from different areas- all in our own backyard!

I pulled out my camera and took some pictures. Then we pulled out the sparklers and let the kids have a blast. Here are a few of my photographs from the 4th of July.

This one is my favorite:

{settings: ISO 400, 55mm, f/6.3, 3.2s}

My kids:

{settings: ISO 400, 18mm, f/3.5, 2.0s}

My hubby making a heart. :) *swooon*

{settings: ISO 400, 18mm, f/3.5, 6.0s)

{settings: ISO 800, 46mm, f/10, 1.6s}

{settings: ISO 100, 46mm, f/5.6, 1.6s}

We spent most of the day unpacking from our move. How did you celebrate the 4th of July?

Cookies!

2011-07-05T22:16:00.001-08:00

My friend Kathleen used the recipes and instructions I shared during COOKIE WEEK and made her own Sea Creature cookie bouquets!

I think they turned out fabulous! I LOVE the extra touch of using pails to display the bouquets in! How creative!
Thanks for letting me share your pictures, Kathleen!

2011-06-26T07:27:00.000-08:00

I have a few new layouts to show you!! Unfortunately I've been having problems with my internet, or blogger, or both. In a few days we move out of the travel trailer and into our house, where, I hope, internet will be a thousand times better than this wifi! I can't wait to show you what I made!

Random Bits

2011-06-08T06:25:00.000-08:00

So I've mentioned several times that I collect bits of information- quotes that my kids say, things they do that I think is cute or really shows their personality, etc- in Evernote (any word processing program will do). Yesterday I realized how long I've been collecting and not using... So I took this new kit by April Staker, No. 8, and made a layout for Austin. I copied the info from Evernote, pasted it on my layout, and arranged it a bit so it looks like it all belongs together (dates at the end, etc), and here ya go!

And then I changed the background paper and the swirl, along with the photo and journaling, to make Brett's.

These two layouts will be in separate albums and no one will know that they are virtually the same. It's a two-fer. :)

DDS Update

2011-05-30T08:17:00.000-08:00

Please see this post at the Digital Designer Shop blog for an update.

Digital Designer Shop's store will be closing May 31. They are having an incredible sale right now, so go check it out!

The designers have all moved on to other stores, which is really exciting. See the blog post above to find where your favorite designer is selling now! The creative team at DDS (including me) is moving to Digitals with Cilenia. We're very excited about that! Cilenia will be spending her time teaching and designing, the things she loves, rather than the labor of running a store (which is harder than I assumed!)

The forum at DDS will be a member's only place to go for tutorials on designing- for designers AND scrapbookers! We'll be learning lots of great things over there!

Another one of my favorite designers is having a Creative Team call! April Staker, who took some time of from designing, is back at DigiApe Designs! Those of you who have been visiting me for a long time have seen lots of pages made with her kits! (I wish I had figured out how to tag my posts back then- then I could link you up pretty easily!) Anyway, check her out!
*Edited: I found 26 posts including April's designs on my layouts and tagged them. You can see them HERE or look for DigiApeDesigns on the tag list to the right.*

And for some eye candy....

I took this in the RV Park a couple of weeks ago (these flowers have already started fading).

a 4 page layout

2011-05-26T09:48:00.000-08:00

When I paper scrapped, I often made layouts that were more than 2 pages. I didn't usually want to cut down my 4x6 photos, and I wanted to use as many as I could to tell the most detailed story, so I'd glue picture after picture to cardstock after cardstock. I think my longest layout is 8 pages. (Not including minibooks, of course.)

Since I've been digitally scrapping, most of my layouts are 1 pagers. No biggie, most designs work best that way. I love 2 page layouts in my albums. Now that I'm trying to make more photobooks, I find it hard to match up layouts that don't match together - in a way that they still flow. I told you in a post last week the idea of using a full bleed photo (one that touches all 4 edges of the page) across from a layout. Love that idea.

Well yesterday I was looking online and wasting perfectly good scrapping time, when I came across a freebie for a challenge at Jessica Sprague.com and then immediately after, a post by Ali Edwards about time and motivation. Something in there made me just put Firefox away and start scrapping.

I started with a 2 page layout. I wanted to use these photo frames with stitching on a layout, so I put one cluster on each side of a 12x24 canvas in Photoshop. I added my free background paper and started looking at photos. I found the photos from this trip to Matanuska Glacier in south central Alaska, and had plenty to make a 2 page layout. As I was working I thought I would make this a 4 page layout! Check them out!

Page 1 and 2 will be together:

and page 3 and 4 will be together:

Supplies:
Papers- by Linda Roos at Jessica Sprague.com- it was a freebie for the 7 Days in May event.
photo frames with stitching, red circle brushes, and watercolor brush (the photo mask): by Cilenia Curtis who is now selling at Digitals.

Simple Things: Piggy Back

2011-05-22T07:11:00.000-08:00

Brett and Austin were playing superheroes and Austin was taking pictures with an empty juice box. Gotta love imaginations!

When the WiFi is out...

2011-05-17T20:26:00.000-08:00

this girl makes time to play!

I unzipped two new kits I just downloaded yesterday. Do you know if you get on the mailing list at Digital Designer Shop, you'll get coupons for free kits? It's awesome. Click HERE, and submit your address on the upper right. It's easy. And free.

(Do any of you reading this NOT get the DDS newsletter?)

Today while the WiFi was wonky I sat here and made 2 layouts in an hour. You know I love templates- and I have no problem manipulating them or using them more than once... so I did that... Check it out!

The layout above is the template just as it's sold. I just added photos and changed the journaling (and the handwriting font, because I don't have the font that Cilenia used on the template. The font is Pea Missy Cursive.) Template from the Designer Inspiration 008 kit by Cilenia Curtis.

On this layout I only added 2 things that were not on the template. Can you guess what they are?

Yes, I rotated the elements and moved the text to the right.

What else?

The most obvious thing is I added a pattern paper from the coordinating kit. (The kit is called Sometimes by Cilenia Curtis.) The other thing I did was change the handwriting font for the title and tag.

The two layouts will be in two different albums. Do you think it will be an issue that I used the same template twice? Nah! No one will ever know!

(Need more ideas for getting the most out of templates? Click HERE.)

Have a wonderful week!

A couple of recent layouts.

2011-05-13T09:13:00.002-08:00

The kids and I flew kites last weekend, and then stopped for an ICEE. This was my younger son's first one ever! (So of course I had to take pictures!)
Left side:

Right side:

I saw a blog post a while back at Paislee Press' blog, where she talked about her techniques for making a book (like Shutterfly or Heritage Makers) look cohesive. I admit, all my pages are a mish-mash, and I'm okay with that. But her books are beautiful. The one thing that stuck with me is that she often uses a full size photo across from a one page layout- a photo from the same event or of the same person that the layout is about. I loved that. So that's what I did here. I used the same swirl as on the left page on the photo, but that's it. I can't wait to get that layout in a book!

Below is another page- from when we were flying kits. I used a template from Tiffany Tillman's new set- and nothing else!

Supplies of the first layout:
Background paper- from the Design House Digital blog hop for National Scrapbook Day 2011 (I can't find the designer, sorry!)
Paper "scraps"- Freak Out kit by April Staker of DigiApeDesigns (I was trying to match the color of the ICEEs!)
swirl- from Creative Musings April 04 kit by Cilenia Curtis at Digital Designer Shop.

Supplies of the Kites layout:
template from Modern Master Template Collection 1-4 by Tiffany Tillman

Mother's Day 2011

2011-05-09T11:01:00.000-08:00

I have to share... This is the best card I've ever seen.

I've never seen one so honest...

or that applies to my life any more.....

This is the card....

That brought me to tears....

of laughter and sadness at the same time.

Yep, welcome to my world.

:)

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T14:33:00.001-08:00

With Mother's Day approaching, I had been going through my iPhoto library looking for pictures of me with my Mom and of me with my Nana- the two most influential women in my life. I made this with the new kit by Betty Jo called Monique. It's a beautiful kit.

Supplies: Monique kit by Betty Jo Martin, found at Digital Designer Shop.
Photos edited with Pioneer Woman's Heartland Action.

And to my Mom, Happy Mother's Day. I love you so much!

Layered Quick Page Templates- how to use them...

2011-05-02T07:15:00.001-08:00

So I've mentioned QPTs before - Quickpage Templates, or layered Quickpages. Are those terms confusing? A few designers have started making them, and everyone calls them something different. Personally I like QPT, because you can use it as a quickpage by adding photos and journaling, and print it just like that, or, because everything is on it's own layer, you can use it as a template by hiding, erasing, replacing, resizing, or moving all of the elements of the page. Isn't that cool? I love them.

I just made one for the shop at Digital Designer Shop. Actually it's my second. But I want to give you some ideas on how to use them.

Here is the template as you'll find it in the shop.

Here I pretty much used it as a QuickPage and added my photos. I moved the top circle element up a little to fit in my journaling. I took the arrow element and flipped it horizontally, and chose not to add a title.

This one I took advantage of the layered elements by using the move tool with the "Bounding box" selected to widen the rectangle photo clipping mask first, and then clipped my photo to it. I needed that space to be landscape (or wider). Then I moved the paper block all the way on the right out a little bit to keep the spacing between the rectangles in proportion. The ability to change the size of the photo masks is the number one thing I love about templates.

This is fun- select all the element layers in your template, including the text layers, and with the move tool selected, shrink your elements and make more white space! White space is good! Really!

Here is the best part about QPTs- you an use it as a template and completely change out the papers and elements! I dded the sheer clock, changed out all the papers except the one with the cameras, and removed the "Beauty is in the eye..." cluster, because it just didn't match. I added flowers to that space. Then I matched the clipped papers, and the circle element on the top to the colors in Kate's outfit. Isn't that an amazing thing about digital? When I paper scrapped I had to paint papers to get the colors to change! What a mess!!! ;)

You can always flip or turn the template! It will affect your text layers and any elements with text, and you will have to work a little bit to get those to work with your new template, but it's still a new, fun, look!

And finally, you can take elements from the template and drag them to a totally new layout! I clicked on the artsy photo mask in the original QPT and drug it over to this layout! You can do that with any and all elements- and even the title if you want to keep the styling effects! So cool!

Man, I impress myself sometimes! ;)

Just kidding.

Maybe. :)

I finished all these layouts in 3 days with one template, one paper kit, flowers and a clock. Easy peasy.
I'm not even worried that some of them look similar, because they are going to end up in different albums. Here I have the layouts going into the Austin album, Brett's album, the Things We Do album, and the Nana and Kate layouts will go into the People We Love album. You and I will be the only ones to know my little secret!

Don't you want to run over and buy some QPTs now?

{Supply List:
Layered QuickPage Template 01 by Senovia

Kate Layout:
Papers from the Playful kit by Cilenia Curtis
flowers from the Creative Musing March 04 kit by Cilenia Curtis
clock from the Sheers 03_Clocks kit by Cilenia Curtis
Fonts: Times New Roman &Pea Frankie

Eleven layout:
Paper from the Focused on You kit by Cilenia Curtis
Fonts: Pea Sarah Quick, Champagne and Limosines
Gradiant tool in Photoshop CS4}

iNSD ~ why is it important?

2011-04-26T16:15:00.000-08:00

iNSD.

What is it?

Where have you been?!

iNSD stands for International Scrapbook Day. (The actual name is National Scrapbooking Day, but who wants to leave out the rest of the world? I don't! I have friends in Australia, England, and all over- I want everyone to be included!)

Anyway.... what does that have to do with me?
SHOPPING!

Many digital scrapbook sites have amazing deals, chats, freebies, and all sorts of fun stuff.

Umm, when is it, you ask?
Saturday, May 7th is the official "holiday" but at Digital Designer Shop we're celebrating all week! Today it was announced on the DDS Blog- and there will be freebies, a fun photo scavenger hunt, and the chance to win an entire (huge) digital kit!

Well, will you join us? Pretty Please?

CLICK HERE to go to the forums and check in!

Valley of Fire Park

2011-04-25T06:00:00.001-08:00

My family went exploring in our new backyard last week- before it gets to hot to play in the desert. We ended up at the Valley of Fire State Park. Want to see?

I was surprised to see so many flowers. They were small and sparse, but they were there! Gotta love spring. :) I have a feeling there won't be any flowers in July.

I thought this was neat to look at:

I climbed up into a tunnel and took this of myself, at a wide angle (18mm, probably) with my XTi. I was so warm that day that my face was all splotchy, so I desaturated it in ACR and then used Pioneer Woman's Sepia action- and then lowered the opacity of that layer.

I saw a couple of creatures. I guess I'll have to get used to the idea that I won't be seeing moose and bears anymore- but I'll be seeing creepy crawlies. As long as they don't startle me, I'll be fine. :)

Except for scorpions. Yuck.

This below is very cool. The cabins are made out of the sandstone rock. They're so pretty up close. (I had to wait almost a half an hour to get a shot without people in it! When I was down to waiting for one family to leave, the Mom sat down and kept telling her kids she wanted to go see Elephant Rock. They kept running around. I kept thinking "Get them out of here, Mom. You're not mean enough." lol

This one was planted in the parking lot of the visitor center. I'm not sure if it is native to the area or not. Guess I'll have to find one of those "plants of the Desert" guides.

Gotta love when the family makes it easy on you to take pictures! Especially after taking one or two with the settings wrong! "Wait!" "It's too dark- hold on a sec!" "Don't move- I need another one!"

I'm sure you understand. :)

I almost had to get on my knees to get the flowers in the bottom of this next shot.

And I gotta give credit to my son! I love having a child old enough to handle my camera (once I dial down the aperture so he has a better chance of getting us in focus). We went a few years without hardly any pictures of the two of us. It's nice to have pics of both of us in the scrapbooks. :)

Well, thanks for joining me on our trip to the Valley of Fire State Park. :)

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T10:08:00.000-08:00

Ready for Easter?

2011-04-22T14:25:00.001-08:00

This Easter will be the least celebrated for us so far. I bought a ham, and the Easter Bunny has received the change of address cards. ;) But we're still living in the travel trailer, and it's a little too warm for a full fledged cookfest. I think my oldest will miss the gravy and mashed potatoes- I told him we're having ham sandwiches and deviled eggs. ;)

On that note, I started thinking about how we celebrated Easter when I was a kid. We'd get up to find a basket full of candy- and it always included a large chocolate bunny. In the afternoon we'd dress up in fancy clothes and go to my Grandma's house for dinner- where the Easter Bunny would leave us another basket- always with my favorite thing ever- a bird's nest made out of coconut and chocolate with 3 jelly beans in it. I loved those nests.

Mmmmmmm. I can still taste the sweet coconut now.

I need to find a chocolate shop in this town. :)

I made this layout with new fantastic Easter Scuffy Overlays by Honey Scraps (some have bunnies, and others have flowers- so it's not specific to Easter), and these cool new Stitches Grids. I think I'll get a lot of use out of them!

Here's the layout:

Supplies:
Paper- just a color chosen from my great-Aunt's dress- I used the paint bucket tool.
Overlay: Easter Scruffy Overlays by Honey Scraps
Stitches: Stitches 02 Grids by Cilenia Curtis (link coming soon)
Water color brush (for the egg photo)- Art Box 04 by Cilenia Curtis (do you notice I use this set A LOT?!)
Tag & String: Tiny Tags 1- Basics by Cilenia Curtis
All of the above products can be found at Digital Designer Shop.
Fonts: Pea Kate, Tw Cen MT (I swear!) & Smiley Monster (for the title)

(Do you find reading that kind of Supply list easier than the way I did it before?)

Happy Easter, everyone!

Simple Things: baseball glove

2011-04-10T14:16:00.000-08:00

Here's to new hobbies. :)

Than & Now (keeping track of your stories)

2011-04-10T08:41:00.000-08:00

Normally the first things I do in the morning are grab a bowl of cereal and read DDS, my email, Facebook, and a few blogs that I am addicted to. This morning my wifi was out (do I complain about that a lot?) so I didn't really know what to do. I opened Evernote, where I store everything I don't want to lose- recipes, tutorials, and stories about my family's life that I want to scrapbook someday.

I came across this paragraph that I wrote in May of 2010 about my car reminding me of the green van my Dad had when I was a kid. I was inspired to get it on a page right then. Don't you love when that happens?

So this is what I ended up with:

Supplies:
papers: Relax kit
tabs: Fasteners 02_Tabs kit
clock brad: Creative Musings March 01 kit
all by Cilenia Curtis at Digital Designer Shop
Fonts: Big Caslon, CK Ali's Hand, and 1942 Report

It's not fancy. It doesn't have the artsy brush style that I like to play with now, but my story is on paper (well, it will be... that's another thread... chkl), and I can delete it from my Evernote notebook.

I love when things work out like that..

How do you keep track of the stories you want to tell?

First day of School

2011-04-06T20:36:00.000-08:00

If you follow my blog at all, you know we just moved. I wanted to write down the feelings and experience of the first day at a new school before I forgot anything. The title of the page that I saved to print has the actual name of the school, but for public purposes, I wrote "New School" in the title.

That will be a one page layout in my older son's album. But for my younger son, he has an extra story to tell from the first day of school, so this will be the right side of the layout in his book:

{Supplies: Creative Musings Kits 02, 03 and 04; Altered Art Ledgers, and Art Box 04 Watercolor Brushes, all by Cilenia Curtis at Digital Designer Shop; font: GeoSans Light}

Simple Things: Cactus

2011-04-04T09:34:00.000-08:00

I recently moved to the desert. I saw this walking to the park. :)

Country Music concert

2011-04-03T12:16:00.003-08:00

My family is lucky enough to be living in Las Vegas now, and yesterday the USO and the Academy of Country Music awards program put on a concert at our Air Base, which was totally awesome!

(I didn't take my own camera because the last USO concert I went to was packed, and we stood the whole time, and my camera is pretty heavy. So I used DH's P&S for these. Not TOO bad, but next time I'm taking mine!)

Brett Eldridge

Blake Shelton

Luke Bryan

Sunny Sweeny (whom I'm not sure I'd heard of before)

Little Big Town

Craig Morgan

Miss Willy Brown (whom I'd also not heard of before but who sang a lovely Thank You song to those troops overseas protecting us. I hope they record it someday. So many more military folks need to hear it.)

And, finally, Montgomery Gentry

Thank you USO and the ACMs. Thank you to the bands and singers who came and gave us a little treat. Thank YOU for supporting the people who fight for our freedom. They're awesome. You're awesome. (And if I don't already have your albums, I'm SO buying them now!

And, if this works... here is a video that the ACM put on their website:

See this screenshot?

We were sitting on the bleachers in that oval! Bet you think the pics are pretty good now!! :)

Pokemon Obsessed layout

2011-04-01T15:32:00.001-08:00

I should have made a layout about this obsession a long time ago. It's been a couple of years since Brett discovered Pokemon.

{Supplies: Relax kit and Art Box brush by Cilenia Curtis at Digital Designer Shop; template by Tiffany Tillman; distress brush by Nancy Rowe Janitz}

Brett took the pictures of his drawings on his iPhone. I love that he's old enough to help me with his pages. :)

What is a hobby or obsession that you or your kids are into right now?

I promised you some wild animals, didn't I?

2011-03-30T11:04:00.000-08:00

Well. Guess my wifi doesn't want me to show you the animals I promised you. Sorry about that. I'll be glad when we have a home and dependable wifi. :)

For now, let's hope this works...

But first- an eyesight quiz. How many Dall's Sheep do you see in this picture? (hint and answer below)

Caribou

Moose

Quiz Hint: Here is a cropped version.

Yep, you need to keep your eyes open on this trip!

Deer

Bison

Quiz Answer: 6 Dall's Sheep.

In total we saw:
12 moose
1 bald eagle
38 caribou
57 bison
9 Dall's Sheep (or other goats??)
8 deer
2 willow ptarmigan, then a flock of them
1 fox, and
my favorite-
2 wolves!
Pretty good for one week, huh?!

2011-03-26T03:36:00.000-08:00

I promised you animals, and I have the photos ready, but haven't been able to get them uploaded due to my WiFi at my temporary home. I need to take a short trip home for a couple of days, so I will try again on Tuesday. :)

Have a great weekend!

Road Trip!

2011-03-21T07:19:00.000-08:00

My family recently had an adventure- a move from south central Alaska to Nevada. Yes, this is a big change- in everything from climate, to sccenery, to lifestyle (swimming, anyone?)

I thought you might like to see a little bit of our trip. All photos edited and some use Pioneer Woman's free actions.
The Scenery

Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson, Alaska

Mount S, Alaska

Canada

Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway (ALCAN), Dawson Creek, British Columbia, Canada

Frozen waterfall in Canada

Welcome to the United States! (Canada/Washington)

Since when do countries and states NOT have signs where you can park and have your picture taken in front of it? I really wanted a picture of my kids with a "Welcome to Canada" and a "Welcome to the United States" sign! I have pictures of me in front of them when I was a kid. What's up with that? Are we such a fast society that they want to push us through the borders and keep us going? What a let down. :(

California

Northern California

Nevada

What a pretty week, right?!

Tomorrow I'll show you some of the animals we saw on our trip. (If the wifi works well enough for me to post pictures.)

What a send-off!!

2011-02-27T14:18:00.000-09:00

In my town in Alaska, a woman used to feed the bald eagles during winter, when they might have a hard time finding food to eat in the frozen rivers. It was an amazing thing- watching dozens of bald eagles swarming fish bits in a parking lot. It attracted a ton of people- photographers with huge lenses to passersby with cell phone cameras.

Now, I admit that I'm an emotional person, but I sit there and watch these majestic animals and get all teary-eyed. Really.

Yes, I cry at the coffee commercials that air before Christmas.

Anyway, there has been a big sign in that spot this winter "Do not Feed the Eagles". I thought they weren't doing it anymore. (I do believe it is illegal.) Anyway, today I was driving by on the highway and saw a couple of eagles flying around, and looked over and saw a frenzy, so I turned around at the very next exit and went back. I was also nice enough to call my friend who has lived in town only a year and hasn't seen it yet. :)
Here are the pictures I took. These are all SOOC (straight from the camera- no editing. In fact, only one is even cropped.) I took 88 photos total, and here are my favorites.

What do you think?

Simple Things- Bald Eagle

2011-02-20T11:19:00.000-09:00

This image is by no means a Simple Thing in the heart of most sentimental Americans. It's our National pride. It's a symbol of freedom and strength.

Living in a town called Eagle River, we tend to see bald eagles on a regular basis during winter. Now that we're moving away, I'm distinctly aware that my children take for granted that we see so many bald eagles, and they don't realize that it could be years before they see another one.

As I was pulling out of the post office yesterday, I looked up into a tree, and this guy was staring back at me. I had my camera and my 70-300 lens on me, so I pulled into another parking spot and took about 10 photos. Snow was falling and the sky was a distinct gray color- not a huge contrast from this eagle's head, but I had to take the photos and remember how special it is to live in such a wondrous place.

The New Bag.

2011-02-19T12:18:00.002-09:00

{Supplies: Stitches 01- White Messy Stitches, by Cilenia Curtis; Honey Scraps CU Textures 01 and Blueberry Lime papers, both by Honey Scraps- all at Digital Designer Shop; fonts: Pea Lacy Chunky and Baskerville}

LINK to Jill-E bag. LINK to bag cheaper at Amazon. ;)

Journaling: It was Valentine’s Day, and Art asked what I wanted as a gift. I immediately said a “Canon 5D Mark II” which is a $4000 professional camera with a super high ISO setting. Of course I knew that wasn’t going to happen, but I thought it was funny. The next day, Michelle, one of my Digisisters, was posting about camera bags that look like purses, which I’ve had on my wish list for over a year now. She linked to this beautiful red one- a Jill-E small bag. I loved it at first sight. I forwarded the link to Art, just like I had forwarded links to three more bags over the last two years, and he said to buy it! She is about 3 inches too long, but that’s okay. Art said she doesn’t look like a purse, because she’s so big, but so far I’ve been really happy to have had all my camera gear with me a couple of times, which I wouldn’t have done before. She’s not too heavy, and my camera is finally safe while I’m carrying it around day to day.
1. this is how I carried my camera before- so not safe! 2. this is the flap of the new bag- with my ear buds, battery, remote, and an extra memory card. 3. Me and my new bag (Brett took like 5 photos to get one that wasn’t blurry- which explains the annoyed look on my face.) 4. The new and the old. 5. Bigger. 6. Holding my bag with the shoulder straps

February 2011

Check out the awesome new products I used! (Links to products are in the Supplies section above.)

*Here's a great tutorial so you can see just how easy it is to use the CU Textures 01!

Valentines

2011-02-19T11:36:00.001-09:00

Well, I jumped on the bandwagon and made these Valentine's for my kids this year. They loved them and they got a lot of attention at school.

Here are some of the posts I got my inspiration from:
24-7-365
I can't find the other one at the moment, so I'll get back to ya. ;)
Found it!
Eighteen 25
I showed my kids all of the ideas and let them pick which ones to copy. ;)

What did you help your kids make for Valentine's Day?

Spring and Books

2011-02-13T15:10:00.000-09:00

Cilenia has a fabulous new kit coming out called Spring Renewal. I saw it this morning and immediately made 2 layouts! Don't you love when that happens?

{Supplies: Spring Renewal kit by Cilenia Curtis, font: American Typewriter}

For this layout I took the overlay that looks scratchy (see the dark lines to the left that run into the photos, and the dark vertical lines on the right?) I used the Darken color mode to get that dark color, but I didn't like the parts running straight up through the yellow tulip. I still wanted something there, just not something that dark- it was a bit overpowering. So I duplicated the layer (the overlay), and changed that blending mode to something much lighter- Multiply. Then I used a layer mask to erase that part of the darken overlay layer. You can still see the part of the overlay, but it isn't so dark that it distracts you from the flower. This is just one easy way to deal with overlays and blend modes. :)

{Supplies: Spring Renewal Kit (coming soon!) by Cilenia Curtis, Sketch Paper Notes (the journaling tag) also by Cilenia Curtis, of Digital Designer Shop; fonts: Engravers MT, Handwriting-Dakota, American Typewriter, photo frames with custom shadows- I made those myself.}

For the second layout- I used one paper, added one journaling note...and that's it. :) I made the photo frame a few weeks ago and saved it as a psd file, so I just dragged that onto this layout and duplicated it, clipped my photos to it, typed my journaling, threw on the journaling paper because I couldn't read my journaling very well. That's all I did. Easy peasy- but the texture and detail in the paper is amazing- and it was all done for me! I love layouts that come together like that!

As I was finishing up that first layout, I recalled my Waiting for Spring layout a couple of years ago that was published in Creating Keepsakes magazine. Both layouts are about the same thing, but they are so very different. Isn't it interesting how people's style change over time? I think working with Cilenia has challenged me and taught me so many things.
Cilenia- if you are reading this... THANK YOU. I really love how my pages are turning out now, and you are the reason why. :)

Buy American

2011-02-10T12:46:00.001-09:00

I normally don't get on a soapbox about too many things. I just have a quick story. (I intend on scrapping it at some point.)

So it was a couple of years ago, probably in June, and I was at Joann's (a chain craft store). I found a cute tin bucket with stars and stripes painted on it. I wandered around the store looking around a while, when I noticed a "Made in China" sticker on the bottom.

Really?

It's Americana themed. Stars and Stripes.

Made in CHINA?!

That was the last straw. Previous straws included poisonous pet food and lots of lead covered toys. I started noticing just how many items that we buy (yes, I shop at WalMart- so it's a LOT) that were made in other countries. China being the most prominent.

I still buy things made in China (against my better judgement), but if I want something, I will look at all the brands, and I will pay more for something made in America. That's how I am. I also make items (keeping in mind where the products are made. I will NOT buy fabric made in China.) I'm by no means GOOD at a lifestyle with high standards, but I try when I can.

I found this blog post this morning, and she says it better than I do. The grapes story cracks me up.
HERE IS THE BLOG LINK.

Thanks for listening to me ramble. :) Please try to Buy American.

Edited: For those of you who live in other countries besides the USA, buy locally! :) I wasn't trying to leave anyone out. Also, do you have any imports FROM America? I'm just curious. When I lived in England I don't remember buying anything from America in a local store. Do we export to any of your countries? What types of items?

One for the Air Force wives...

2011-02-07T12:21:00.002-09:00

I'm living in TLF while we're waiting to PCS out of JBER. (If you understand that, I love you and you totally deserve my respect. Honestly the JBER is new and unless you live here, you probably haven't heard of it. Elmendorf AFB and Fort Richardson have combined to become Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson. I know...)
Anyway, for those of you who don't understand that, we are living in a "hotel" while we are waiting to move out of Alaska. I thought we needed a scrapbook page about our facilities and experience. I may end up changing out the photos of us and putting photos of the interior of the "hotel room" or I may end up making it a 2 pager.

{Supplies: papers and pearls from Pearls and Lace by Teresa Digi Designs, template was a freebie from 1068 Designs at Digital Designer Shop [link], fonts: Pea sdflenner and Palatino}

Remind me when I do that second page to write about how freaking loud the washing machine is in this room!

Template for sale!

2011-02-02T20:22:00.000-09:00

I'm so excited to tell you that I have a Layered Quickpage in the store at Digital Designer Shop! I never really wanted to be a designer, but I love scrapping, and thought I'd share this with the world! This is a quickpage (just add photos and journaling) AND a layered template (add papers and elements as well). It also has LOVE wordart that I made myself.

Here is a layout I made with it using photos from 2008.

Click HERE to get the template!

Creative Team Call!!

2011-01-28T07:52:00.000-09:00

Come join me on the Creative Team at Digital Designer Shop!! I'm proud to be a part of such an awesome team!

Why I'm not posting...

2011-01-27T18:05:00.000-09:00

So I'm not scrapping much this week. And I'm not posting this week. Why?

Here's a hint...

This has been our home for nearly 7 years. It will not be our home in another week or so.

This makes me sad.

We are moving on to another adventure.

And in 7 years I don't think we have ever taken a picture of the whole family in front of our house. Nothing like waiting till the last ~~minute~~ week!!

{Supplies: frame with shadows- I made; Pioneer Woman's Actions}

I wonder what I'll think when I see this picture in 10 years and 2 or 3 houses in the future.

While I'm telling you about this- would anyone be interesting in seeing pictures of a long drive in March? I was thinking about blogging from my phone.

Blog design

2011-01-23T11:16:00.002-09:00

Forgive me while I play with my blog design. I can't figure out why Blogger is uploading my header so pixelated. Thanks.

Simple Things

2011-01-23T10:21:00.000-09:00

I ws sitting on the couch with my laptop when I looked up and saw my son and cat, Rocky, cuddling on the couch. It doesn't last long, but I was happy to get the picture!

I'm at it again!

2011-01-22T19:40:00.000-09:00

Between packing, cleaning, and planning our upcoming move, I made one last batch of daisy cookies. I donated them to my PEO chapter for a city-wide luncheon that happened today. I wasn't able to attend, but was happy to make these cookies for a worthwhile cause (women's education and scholarships). I made 40 cookies, but one was a little funky and I was too embarassed to send it, so my boys shared it.

My friend and "sister", Sally, called me earlier to tell me that the cookies went very quickly and I was so happy to hear that! I think my Sisters sold them for $4 or 3 for $10. Not too shabby!

I also made some little circle cookies as taste testers. Apparently they worked- because my other Sister, Susan, who emailed me tonight, said that everyone who tasted one bought cookies!

Yeay!

It's a Birthday party at DDS this week!

2011-01-18T09:39:00.001-09:00

There will be freebies each day and lots of fun on the message board! Come on over and visit!
CLICK HERE!!

Simple Things

2011-01-16T20:54:00.000-09:00

This is my normal seat. My cat steals it within 2 seconds of me getting up. :)

Crafty Cupcakes

2011-01-16T10:32:00.000-09:00

I love being creative and making things with and for my kids. So for my son's 11th birthday, I made tie Dye cupcakes and brought them to his class. He really loved them. :)

{Supplies: Upcoming kits PhotoMasks and Misty Blues paper kit both by Lily St. Studio, Art Box Watercolor brushes by Cilenia Curtis at DDS, fonts: FFF Tusj and CK Ali's Hand}

They are really easy to make. I bought 2 vanilla box mixes (I know, sacrilege for those of use who usually bake from scratch- but I'm moving in 2 weeks. That's my excuse.) I prepared one box at a time using the instructions on the box, and then split the batter between 5 bowls. I added food coloring (both the cheap little 4 pack bottles in the grocery store, and Wilton Food Coloring from the baking section of your local craft store). I then added a teaspoon of blue in each baking cup (each box mix makes 24 cupcakes, so I prepared and baked the 24 cupcakes, and then prepared the second box mix and started over.) Then I added a teaspoon of green, and so on. Then I baked them. Easy peasy.

After that I used THIS recipe for buttercream icing (I had to make SOMETHING from scratch!), put the icing in a piping bag, cut the tip off the bag, and decorated the cupcakes.

Happy new Year everyone!

2011-01-09T10:15:00.001-09:00

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2011! My family spent New Year's Weekend here:

in this cabin:

{Unedited iPhone 4 photos}

Isn't it awesome? We had a fabulous time! We didn't see any wild animals, except a dead (frozen) muskrat and a squirrel, but we had the most Alaskan time! You can't even drive to the cabin- we had to drive snow machines! (Yes, Alaskans call them snow machines, not snow mobiles.) Let me tell you that walking to the outhouse in my pajamas while it was 18 degrees out was....exhilarating!

This trip led me to the following layout:

Here's my first layout of 2011!

{Supplies: Art Box 04 Watercolor Brushes, Creative Musings 01 - Isn't she Beautiful, Creative Musings 01-04 Jan Base Kit, Creative Musings Kits 2, 3, font: Minion Std.}

I actually made this one below, but I liked the light paper with the painted shapes on it. So I tried it and made my friends vote. They ALL chose the lighter paper!

I used the January Creative Musings kits (all 4 of them, even though 2 of them are not available yet), and brushes from the Art Play Watercolor Brushes kit. Those are AWESOME! I may have to do a tutorial on them for ya.

What do you think of the title texts? I used a regular font, lowered the leading so the words touched if it takes up two lines, and then used layer blend modes to blend them into the backgrounds. I love that effect.

Christmas layout

2010-12-27T22:23:00.000-09:00

Although I'm not following Journal Your Christmas exactly, the prompts sure have gotten me to think about more of the things in my Christmas, and journal about more things, and scrapbook about more. Usually I'm happy with my one Christmas layout per year for my 8x8 Christmas Album, but this year I've made 6 or 7 layouts, and have journalling for a few more pages! Yeay!

Here is my official Christmas Day layout. This will not go in my 8x8 album- it's too cluttered, and there is too much writing (which will be way too small when printed 8x8.) So this will go into my Library of Memories Things album (eventually- after I move and unpack my album!)

Left:

And Right:

{Supplies: papers from the Days of December kit by Cilenia Curtis and Honey Scraps, Christmas trees from the Chrissy Trees kit by Lilly St. Studios at Digital Designer Shop, reindeer- I drew him using my Wacom tablet after googling "how to draw a reindeer" for my son, font: Georgia}

So about those trees... Aren't they cute? I got to play with it a little bit before it was released, and I made the cutest To From tag. Want to see it?

Here's how it works:

{Supplies: trees from Lilly St. Studio, green paper by Honey Scraps}

Have fun!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T12:16:00.000-09:00

Blessings to you and yours this holiday season!

Christmas letter

2010-12-23T21:23:00.000-09:00

Another page for Christmas and Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas 2010.

{Supplies: Days of December paper by Honey Scraps; distress brush by Nancie Rowe Janitz, font: 1942 Report, my handwriting using my Wacom Bamboo Tablet}

being selfish...

2010-12-21T22:38:00.000-09:00

I started a challenge over at the DDS forum inspired by my Journal Your Christmas class at www.shimelle.com. Want to join in?
My idea is to be selfish, for a change. I know I'm a mom, and most of our worlds revolve around our kids. If they need food, we'll go without new shoes. If they need clothes, we'll wear shirts that are covered in stains that much longer so they can have their clothes. And for Christmas, of course we want their dreams to come true.
But what about us? I have a wishlist a mile long. It's that tech geek thing where I always want the next best thing. My DH says I'm a photography geek. I want a new camera (with super high ISO), several pro quality (read "sick of photos that aren't sharp") lenses (I would love a wide angle lens and a macro lens), a pretty camera bag that doesn't look like a camera bag, Photoshop CS5 (can you believe I'm still using CS2?? I know!! See- I go without...) These are all things that I will get someday in the far far future. As a substitute teacher's aide who's about to move, there's no money in the budget for these things right now, that's for sure! But it's like that hopes and dreams question "what would you do if you won a million dollars in the lottery?" In this case, it's what would you ask Santa for if you could. None of that "world peace" stuff- I know you're thinking that! Nope, be selfish. Most of the people who read my blog are scrapbookers- there are always new tools, supplies, and idea books out there. What do YOU want?

{Supplies: paper- the upcoming Happy New Year kit by Teresa Digi Designs of Digital Designer Shop; Santa- the Days of December Elements 1 kit, notebook paper: Ledger Papers kit, and staple: Staples Plus, all by Cilenia Curtis of Digital Designer Shop; font: Didot and my handwriting using a Wacom Bamboo tablet}

Back to Christmas layouts...

2010-12-19T15:09:00.000-09:00

I'm happy to be back to Christmas layouts, and working with the prompts at Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas class. I took this picture the day the kids and I put up and decorated the Christmas tree. This is our kitty's first Christmas, and I am expecting lots of excitement (and fallen ornaments.) So far I have not been disappointed.

{Supplies: The Days of December collection at Digital Designer Shop. It was created by Cilenia Curtis and Honey Scraps. They work so well together! I think the font was Didot.}

What do you think? Do you have a kitty trying to steal your precious handmade ornaments, too?

Cookie Week! Day 4- Royal icing

2010-12-10T17:11:00.002-09:00

Welcome to Day 4! How are you doing with the cookies? Any questions about yesterday's icing/glazing? Anyone willing to link me up to photos yet?

Today we're going full throttle. We're making the infamous Royal Icing! Most people only use this for their cookies- for outlining and filling, and also for detailing. Since I already outlined and filled, I'm going to use this for details.

Remember I said that this icing is very different from the one we used yesterday? The white is much whiter and brighter, and the colors are much subtler. We need a LOT more gel food coloring to get bright colors.

Here is what you need to make royal icing:

4 TBSP meringue powder (this is a substitute for raw egg whites, which were used in the original recipes for royal icing.)
1/2 c. water
1 lb. powdered sugar
1/2 tsp light corn syrup
few drops clear extract (the same clear vanilla or lemon go well with my cookies, but you can use any flavor)

I throw all of the ingredients in the mixer, mix to combine, scrape the bowl and then put the mixer on medium for about 5 minutes.

You want to mix it until you get a stiff peak when you pull the beater out of the icing. This is NOT a stiff peak. It needs a couple more minutes. That being said, you don't want to overmix, either. 10 minutes is definitely too long!

This is a little better. :)

I fill my bags just like I did yesterday. This icing is easier, though, because it's not as runny- it won't drip out the tip like yesterday's glaze.

I use a bowl and a toothpick to add royal blue gel food coloring. See how much more I'm using today than I did yesterday?

After you put the food coloring in the icing, if you think you need more, use a clean toothpick. You don't want to put that sugar back into the food coloring- it will go bad.

I use a butter knife to mix the color in. Add more color if necessary.

When you squeeze the icing out, it comes out nice and pretty. This is the icing consistency you want when you are outlining the cookies or adding details. If you are filling in an outline, while the icing is in the bowl, add a few drops of water and stir it in. You want the icing to be less stiff. The test I've heard of is to lift the butter knife out of the icing and let it sort of drip back into the bowl. You want the drip of icing to blend back into the bowl of icing in about 3 full seconds. When you do it you'll understand. :)

I don't have any pictures of me actually piping details, because I need both hands for that. Remember yesterday I told you how to roll the bag, hold the bag, squeeze and guide all at the same time? (Click here if you need a refresh.) Below are some examples I made. I really like the look of the blue candies in the icing! It really made them look nicer.

Honestly I'm not the most happy with these cookies. It takes me 5 or 6 cookies before I find a design I like.

My favorite cookies are the ones on the black plates in the collage below. I made 3 basic designs, and 3 basic backgrounds- one with no background, one with white glaze, and one with blue glaze, and then I did all the details in white. They turned out so pretty.

That's it for Cookie Week! I'll make a post in the next week or so with some easy but wonderful tricks and tips! I didn't do anything too fancy on the snowflakes, so I need to show you how to do polka dots, spider webs, and hearts! SO EASY! So come back and visit!

Some more links to check out:
Bake at 350: Royal Icing 102- awesome information and links to even more awesome information at this wonderful website. (There is a link to almond sugar cookies that I'm going to have to try soon!)
I'll add more links as I find them. I have a ton of cookie pages in my bookmarks!

Sweet Sugar Belle has a great post with three videos on the consistency of flood icing and piping icing (and what she calls 20 second icing- which I'd guess is more like I would make the glaze icing from yesterday.)

Links to Cookie Week:
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

HAVE FUN!!!!

Cookie Week! Day 3 - Icing day one!

2010-12-08T21:04:00.003-09:00

Welcome to Day 3! I may have mentioned that I'm not a professional. If I did this right, I would skip today completely, and head straight to Day 4. But, I'm not! I'm a rebel!
I have two reasons I use this particular icing. Well, it's more like a glaze. One, I think it tastes better than royal icing. Two, I like how shiny and pretty it is as a base layer. This icing doesn't pipe well, so I really ONLY use it for the base layer, if I'm using one. That and my white daisies- this works perfect for those.
One thing to know about this icing is it takes color WAY better than royal icing. A teeny bit goes a LONG way! Do not try to make this and royal icing to match. You'll have to use so much food coloring in the royal icing that you'll begin to taste it long before you have a bright enough color!
Is that enough warning before we start making what I call Cookie Icing?

Ingredients:
2 lb. bag of powdered sugar (confectioner's sugar)
1 tsp salt
4 tsp clear vanilla (found in the baking section of any craft store or superstore. Do NOT use regular vanilla- it will tint the icing brown)
2 TB milk
5 TB water (for consistency- add more if necessary, a little at a time)
2 TB light corn syrup

Mix all ingredients in large mixer until smooth. Wipe down sides of bowl and then mix again for at least 5 minutes. The icing will be smooth and shiny.
Let stand for 5 minutes.
Separate into bowls and add colors as desired.

Items needed for the icing process:
Food coloring gels (do not use liquid food coloring. Wilton is an okay brand, but Americolor is apparently better- I haven't had the opportunity to buy any.)
toothpicks
Wilton piping bags
I use glasses to help get the icing into the bag. You'll see this later.
Waxed paper to contain mess
several wet paper towels
Scissors
icing tips (I am using #4 round for these cookies- I have several because I use this tip for several colors at a time)
Various sprinkles, candies, etc for your project.

This is a piping bag. You need to cut the tip of the bag off. How much of the bag you cut will depend on the size of the tip you are using.

Drop icing tip into bag and arrange it in the bottom of the bag as shown.

This is where a glass comes in handy. I drop the tip end into the cup and fold the top of the bag over the cup. This holds the bag upright and open so spooning the icing into the bag is much more manageable.

I am tinting this icing blue, so I put it into a bowl. I like to use butter knifes to stir the color into the icing. It's a nice size and flat, so scraping the icing off the knife is easier than if I was using a spoon.

Use a toothpick and get just a teeny amount of food color gel. With this particular icing- by teeny amount, I mean teeny tiny! This was a little too much dye! Wipe the tooth pick into the icing, and use the butter knife to stir it well. I have a picture of this icing tinted blue, but it's all blurry and gives me a headache to look at, so I'll spare you.

I couldn't take a picture AND spoon the icing into the bags at the same time. Sorry.

Pull the bag out of the glass and lay it on the wax paper. This particular icing tends to run, so be quick in the following process!

This way may be old fashioned- my grandmother taught me to do it this way when piping bags were paper. I was 7. That was a while ago. The people on TV hold the bags differently. I can see using a Twixit Clip on the top to hold the icing in and squeeze, but I was taught this way, so that's what I do.

I think I missed a picture. First, fold one corner in, and then the other.

Then fold the point in.

Then start rolling until you get to the icing. As you squeeze the bag to use the icing, roll the end more and more.

Yes, I roll my toothpaste tube from the end, too. :)

Okay, once your bags are ready, get out the fun stuff.
(Looking back on this project, I won't recommend using this particular type of blue sprinkles- the blue dye bled into the white icing and it looked terrible. That was the one cookie I was too embarassed to take to the bazaar. So my hubby ate it. :)

Okay, this is as close as I can get to showing you how to hold an icing bag while taking a picture. I am right handed, by the way. I hold the icing bag with my right hand, holding the rolled end closed, and holding most of the weight of the bag. I will squeeze with this hand. I will place my left hand around that open part of the bag you see and use that hand to guide the bag around the cookie.
Squeeze right. Guide left.
Got it?

This was my first squeeze. Sometimes I have to add more water. I should have this time, but didn't want to go back, empty out the bag, and basically start over. (See why the pros don't do it this way?)
I had to hold the bag with my left hand to take these pictures with my right, by the way.

Okay, let's pretend the icing is the right consistency, and go for it! The first step is to outline the cookie.

Then fill in the outline some. (If you were doing this correctly, with royal icing, you would have "piping" icing, and "filling icing" which you will add water to in order to make it flow easier for filling in. We'll talk about that tomorrow. Or maybe Friday. I'll let you know.)

Use a toothpick to help the icing fill in the areas within the outline and pop any bubbles.

This is what my background looked like this time. (See why I should have added a teeny bit of water? That should be one nice even layer of icing.) Also, the cookie sticks in the cookie sometimes make a bump (see the picture above). That's just something you have to work around.

I said this icing doesn't pipe as well as royal icing, but sometimes I use it for lines. I will show you my daisies below.

This is what the piping bag looks like as you use the icing up. Keep rolling the end up so the icing doesn't come out the back end, and to keep the icing bag nice and full, so when you squeeze it will squeeze through the tip nicely.
(I am trying to give you enough information so you can do this as a beginner. If I am over-explaining, let me know.)

Here are the cookies I used the blue icing on.

I added a few drops of water for the white icing. See how it flows so much nicer?

These are the cookies I used the white icing on. See the blue sprinkles? Test your sprinkles on one cookie so you don't ruin all of them if you do this! The two white cookies below the blue mess- I sprinkled white Wilton sprinkles into the wet frosting. I liked how those turned out- like snow fell on them!

Let the cookies dry at least 3 hours before adding royal icing. I let them dry overnight before doing the royal icing. The icing will dry nice and firm on the top, but below that it will still be soft. Let them dry at least overnight if you are going to wrap them or stack them on top of each other.

Tips: This icing tastes better when it dries than when it's still wet.
How to use a piping bag by Wilton. {LINK}
Various tips (more about cakes than cookies, but has bags, tips, etc.) {LINK}
Cookie decorating tips by Wilton {LINK}

Links:
Watch these videos. Part 1 and Part 2. This is where I got this recipe. It is in the comments section of part 2. Meladig- the woman who posted the videos, paints this icing on her cookies.
While you're there, watch some of the recommended videos on the right side of the page. You'll be there all day. :)

Here are my daisies. The Cookie Icing I describe above is the only icing I used on these.

Cookie Week! Day 2- cut & bake

2010-12-07T20:13:00.004-09:00

Well? Did you make your dough last night?
Good, because today we're rolling, cutting, and baking those cookies!

You will need:
the dough from yesterday.
a rolling pin.
all purpose flour.
cookie cutters. I used Wilton set of 4 nested snowflakes. (They are half price at Amazon as I write this, but I bought them at the local major craft store. These stores have 40% off coupons all the time, so I use those and stock up. One of these days I'll have to count how many cookie cutters I own now.) The flower cookie cutter also pictured is also from Wilton- a daisy.
8 inch Cookie sticks if you are making cookie pops (I love my daisies on sticks to make a bouquet of flowers.)
baking sheets. (I use four so I always have 2 baking, and 2 that I can put cookies on to be ready to bake when the first are out of the oven.)
parchment paper. (keeps the cookies from sticking to the pans and makes clean up easier.)
cooling racks. (I used 5. May I recommend Pampered Chef cooling racks? I love them because they are sturdy and stack up very well. I have tried the cheap ones you can get at the local superstore, and they are flimsy and the legs flop around when I'm moving them.)

First, turn your oven on to 375 degrees F.
Unwrap your dough, break it in half, and wrap half back up and put it back in the fridge. I like to work with half at a time because I don't have a large countertop to work on.

Sprinkle flour on the countertop and use your hand to wipe flour on your rolling pin. I take the dough, because it's cold and hard, and break it into a few pieces, and squish them a little to make it easier to roll. Don't be afraid to add more flour- you really don't want your dough to stick to the counter top or your roller.

I knead it once or twice to make it rollable. Then it looks like this:

Roll out the dough to not less than a quarter inch thick. If you are using the sticks, make it a little thicker. If the cookies are too thin, the edges will turn brown and burn before the rest of the cookie is baked properly.

Now pretend like you're an 8 year old again, and press the cutter into the dough. If you used plenty of flour, the cookie will come up with your cutter. Awesome! Place it on a piece of Parchment paper on your cookie sheet. If you didn't, don't worry, you might need a spatula to help you get your cookie up. If that fails and your cookie shape is ruined, throw it to the side, and when you finish cutting out the cookies, re-roll the dough and try it again.

If you are using the Cookie Sticks, lay the sticks out on the cookie sheet, and place the cookie on top of the stick. Make sure as much of the cookie is touching the stick as possible- they will be more stable that way.

When you finish with the first set of cookies, knead the dough again, re-roll, and cut more. I find that I can roll the dough out three times before the dough is too warm to work properly.

At that point, I roll the leftover dough back up into the original wax paper (remember yesterday you used two pieces of plastic wrap- use one of those.) Then get out the other half of the dough and follow the same steps.

Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes. Basic baking tip- if you are baking 2 cookie sheets at once, and you do not have a convection oven, half way through the baking time it is wise to swap the sheets on the oven racks. This will ensure that the bottom sheet of cookies will not burn before the timer goes off. This is the cake with ANY cookies, not just sugar cookies.

Within a few minutes, I pull the whole piece of parchment along with the cookies, off the cookie sheet and onto the cooling rack. (Basic Baking Tip #2- let the cookie sheet cool down before placing more dough on it to bake- if the sheet is still warm, the dough will spread too soon, and your shapes will not be pretty. This is for ALL types of cookies, not just rolled dough.)
Once the cookies harden up a little, after 10 minutes or so, I'll place the cookies directly on the rack and throw away the parchment paper. I tend to let the cookies sit overnight (thus needing cooling racks that stack- so I have room for my family to eat dinner at the dining table!)

If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments. I'll be sure to answer them if I can!

So? What are you waiting for?! Go forth and bake!
I'll see you tomorrow for Step one of icing!!

**********
Edited:
I've had a couple of questions in the comments.

About convection ovens: Convection ovens have a fan in the back to circulate air around inside the ovens (where regular ovens have the heat at the bottom, and the heat rises.)
     When I had a convection oven, it was a dial temperature (like old fashioned ovens) so when I used it I had to lower the temperature by 25 degrees (because they are so efficient) AND usually check whether my food was done a little sooner than it's supposed to. This worked out well.
     My aunt has a newer one. Her's is smart enough to know to be lower temp and shorter times, so she dials in the temperature from the recipe and the oven automatically cooks correctly.
     I sure miss mine and wish I still had one.
     If you use it, you don't need to swap the cookie sheets during cooking like I mentioned above.

About freshness:
     I find that the cookies stay fresh just over a week. When I have an event, I start baking one week prior to give myself enough time for all the layers of icing to dry.
     The cookies may be frozen at this point, up to 3 months. I would never freeze cookies that already have icing on them- I'm sure the icing would crack or become splotchy. If I needed a lot of cookies, I would bake them in batches and freeze them until a week before I need them to start decorating.

For Cookie Week Day 1 click HERE.

Cookie Week! Day 1- dough

2010-12-06T16:13:00.003-09:00

Welcome to Cookie Week!

I am NOT a professional and have never sold a cookie. I make a lot of cookies, though, and I donate them when I can. I have donated to three charity events so far this season, and am making cookies this week for some local airmen who don't have family nearby.

Let's get started! Today we're going to make the dough. Here's the recipe:

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 sticks butter
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp real vanilla (not imitation)
1 1/2 tsp lemon extract*

In a large mixer blend the sugar and butter until fluffy.

Add the extracts and eggs, one at a time.

Add the flour, one cup at a time. Do not over mix- as soon as the flour is combined, stop the mixer.

This is the part that I had no idea before I found this recipe- sugar cookies roll so much easier if the dough is cold! I lay out a piece of plastic wrap, and spoon the dough onto the wrap. I fold up the wrap the best I can, and make a flat round of dough. Then I add another layer of plastic wrap.

Place in fridge at least 2 hours, or overnight.

Guess what! We're done for the day! (Okay, clean up the mixer and measuring cups, then you're done!) Tomorrow we'll cut and bake the cookies, and Wednesday we'll make the first icing and you'll see how I do it WRONG! ;)

For now, I have some links to share. Like I mentioned, I'm not a pro, so I am always on the lookout for cookie design ideas and recipes.

Signature Sweet Shoppe ~ This is where my recipe came from. It looks like they are revamping the website, but I wanted you to know where I got my recipe!

The Decorated Cookie ~ You will spend hours on this blog- Meaghan is a wonderful cookie maker and has such a creative person! Look on the left of her blog for the links for tutorials and recipes.

Let's Bake Cookies ~ Karen's site has a ton of different kinds of cookies, not just decorated cookies. Part of her site is by subscription, but you can see a couple of videos of her decorating, which are interesting, and there is a nice gallery of cookies. There is also a huge recipe section.

I Am Baker ~ Manda is an all-round baker, and has some incredible ideas in the kitchen! Her cookies are beautiful. She has tutorials on her blog, too. Just look at this gallery of cookies!

Sweet Sugar Belle ~ This blog is awesome! She has tons of great cookies, some cookie recipes, and some videos to show how to ice and the differences between the different kinds of icings. Check it out!

JYC - day 5

2010-12-05T12:52:00.001-09:00

I made this layout for the advent page.

{Supplies: Days of December Papers 1, Days of December Papers 2, and Days of December Elements kits by Cilenia Curtis and Honey Scraps, and Sketch Paper Notes by Cilenia Curtis, both at Digital Designer Shop, font: Didot}

Simple Things

2010-12-05T00:30:00.000-09:00

My youngest is learning to read. It's not that simple for him, but it's a nice time to sit with him and have that time together, and I love it. (Taken with an iPhone, edited to sepia in ACR)

JYC- day 2.

2010-12-02T23:16:00.000-09:00

I decided to wait and do my title page later in the month, so I have some better pictures to choose from (hopefully a decent family photo!)

Today I did a layout for the Day 2 prompt. The photo of the mountain I took today when I was out riding around. I realized (again) that I'm really going to miss it here when we move next Spring (well, it will still be winter here in Alaska.) Anyway, the top photo, of the window sill with ice INSIDE my house, was from the other day when the temperatures were hovering around 5 degrees F. It makes me so nervous when that happens!

Anyway, here's the layout.

{Supplies: Blue Winter kit by Cilenia Curtis at Digital Designer Shop; fonts: Century Gothic and Zapfino; title technique from Tiffany Tillman's Text FX class, Curve Clipping mask I made, and will share the tutorial on the DDS blog very soon.}

Journaling:     Alaska winters are cold. Very cold. Yesterday it was 5 degrees. As someone who grew up in California, I just can’t get used to the cold, even after 6 years. I prefer sitting on the couch with my heating pad to stay warm, wishing we had a fireplace, or cuddling up with Art or the kids in bed with an electric blanket.
    I love looking out the window at the falling snow. I love watching the kids sledding, building snowmen, and taking pictures of it. I am not fond of shoveling or using the snow blower, although I do both very well. What I really hate is ice. Last week, the week of Thanksgiving, Sunday night the temperatures rose and fell, and then rose again. The streets were a 3 inch thick piece of ice covered in water from the melting snow. Driving was horrendous. This is the only time the schools close due to weather. They never close if we get a lot of snow, like other states. But the ice, that’s another story. On Monday morning I received an email that schools were school in session, and an hour later, that buses were running about 30 minutes behind. I got the kids ready for school and to the bus stop as usual. After 40 minutes, when the two other families of children both went back home and their parents decided they could stay home, I said 5 more minutes. I had received a third email stating that if you could not get your children to school safely, their absence would be excused. We waited at the bus stop. Brett and Austin pleaded to go back inside. Finally I gave in, and we came inside. Of course the bus drove by 5 minutes later- but I noticed only 3 heads on the bus. Over the next 3 days the roads only got worse. Temperatures were high enough that more snow was melting and sitting on top of the ice floor. School was canceled Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday and Friday schools were closed for Thanksgiving. That’s weather in Alaska.
     All that being said, I appreciate having a White Christmas. I never had one until we moved here. Instead of driving 3 hours toward Tahoe in order to have sledding days, Brett and Austin can walk out in front of our house for a small sledding hill in the yard, or we can drive 5 minutes away to the “Blockbuster Park” for a larger sledding hill with some of the neighborhood kids. Being that this is our last Christmas here, and next year we’ll be living in the desert, I am trying even harder to appreciate the winter weather.

I'm looking forward to Day 3!

I'm ready!

2010-12-01T09:04:00.001-09:00

I'm ready for slowing down and really feeling what the Christmas spirit is all about. This will be our family's last Christmas in this house, which adds a feeling of nostalgia to the upcoming month. I'm sure you'll hear more about it as the days go by. :)

PS. Someone please remind me next December to print this out and frame it for my living room. ;)

Simple Things

2010-11-28T10:09:00.001-09:00

{Photo taken with an iPhone 4. Pioneer Woman's Vintage Action used at a lower opacity.}

[My kids and I playing Trouble, using almonds and Halloween candy eyeballs as game pieces.]

Quickpage Templates

2010-11-26T16:08:00.001-09:00

Have I mentioned that I love quickpage templates? You can use them as quickpages by adding photos and journaling, and be done. But they are also layered, so you can clip papers and photos to the layers and make it totally your own.

I took this QPT, as we call them, and made it into a Halloween layout!

{Supplies: Halloween 10 Grungy Papers 1 and Halloween 10 Grungy Papers 2, and I threw in a skull from Halloween 10 Elements 1: The Blacks and Die Cuts, all by Cilenia Curtis at Digital Designer Shop, Heartland Action by Pioneer Woman on photos, and fonts: Didot and Destroy.}

Are you ready for Christmas?

2010-11-24T18:20:00.002-09:00

I am! Almost. I'm ready for scrapping Christmas, let's put it that way. Presents, no. Food, not really (I generally have all my non-perishables and candy making supplies by now). Decorations? Well, we'll be putting our house up for sale next week, so I have permission for the tree and that's it. I'm okay with that.

I am taking Journal your Christmas over at Shimelle.com. I've mentioned her before, I'm sure. I never got to meet her when I lived in England, but she was up and coming, and she's a friend of a friend. :) I can't wait! I still haven't decided how I'm going to do it. I was thinking of doing it all digitally and then making a Shutterfly or Artscow book, but I kinda want my handwriting in the book as well, and haven't figured out how to accomplish that. I could buy a scrapbook album, make my pages digitally and print them, and use the page opposite to each layout for journaling. I packed up all my paper scrapping supplies (think adhesive and paper cutter) already, though, so I'm not sure that will work. Any ideas?

Other than that, I have my digital kit figured out! Cilenia and Veevs are coming out with an awesome kit on Friday! It's called Days of December. It includes tons of papers, elements, and some gorgeous silver ornaments! I love it! I wonder if she'll get mad if I give you a sneak peak? There will also be templates- tons of them! I'll show you the first layout I made using the kit. This was last year- DH and DS#2 were trying to sing my favorite German Christmas carols to cheer me up when I was homesick! It was hilarious! (Yes, I got some of it on video, too! I wish I knew how to post those, but they might not appreciate that too much!)

{Supplies: The Days of December kit (out this Friday), eyelets from the upcoming kit Staples Plus, strings (holding the ornaments in the upper left) from Tiny Tags 1 Cardstock Basics, all by Cilenia Curtis and Honey Scraps at Digital Designer Shop, font: Apple Chancery}

Tell me how you're going to scrap Christmas this year!

Edited to add: Cilenia just put the preview up in the forums, so I'm going to sneak you a peak! Here is the Days of December kit, in all it's glory!

"Seven kits offered separate and as a collection along with a 22 page Days of December Layered PSD Album with a front cover all done for you, a back cover in PSD sketch for you to embellish how you want (or use for front if you don't want to use the front), and 20 pages with 1-3 elements on each on their own layer. "

Enjoy!

Holiday Bazaar

2010-11-22T13:22:00.000-09:00

I went to a holiday Bazaar on Saturday. It's the same one I made cookies for last year. I made snowflake cookies this year, along with 4 types of chocolate bark. I'll tell you about it in a few days. I took a ton of photos of the cookie making and am proud to announce COOKIE WEEK!! December 6th will be cookie week on the blog. I'm no professional, but I love decorating cookies, and some of my friends have been *harassing* me to put tutorials up on my blog! So there will be tutorials, photos, and lots of links! Come check it out!

Right now I want to show you something I won in the silent auction at the bazaar I went to Saturday. I am pretty sure my "sister" Penny made it. This is a casserole dish carrier.

I've seen these at one other bazaar at least, and they usually go for a pretty penny! Saturday there were 2 with different fabrics. The other one was blue and green- two of my favorite colors. At first I bid on both of them. This one had a glass casserole dish with it, and I didn't want another dish to pack. So I placed a second bid on the blue/green cover. Then someone around me gasped "Don't bid against Holly!!" Yes, we get emotional and protective at the silent auction! So I bid on this one as well. At the end of the auction I won this cover and I LOVE it! Holly is a nice young girl, and I wasn't sure if she has a full kitchen yet, so I offered her the dish from my winning. Yes, I'm that sweet! :) I LOVE this cover and can't wait to bring a dish to some event so I can bring it!! :)

Here are some more views:

SPIDERS!

2010-10-31T14:52:00.001-08:00

Isn't it funny how you can be the biggest supporter of a store, and then one day you are innocently looking around and spot a kit that just calls out to you- that you've never seen before?! That's what happened with this one. It's called IT Man. How did I miss this?! I love how dark and textured it is!

{Supplies: Papers from the IT Man kit by Cilenia Curtis at Digital Designer Shop; distress brush by Nancie Rowe Janitz; fonts: 1942 report and Bleeding Cowboys}

Yes, I had to give in and use a flash for these shots. The season of darkness is coming on. I think I need to invest in some more lamps!

I forgot to mention- it's SALE DAY at DDS today!