Corn Box-Week 2 Lesson

I was going to post this yesterday (Monday) and it didn't happen! Ooops! This lesson was jam packed with all kinds of new things. I decided to use pictures from our Saturday adventure and try to showcase Jessica, since my previous layout was of Amy. Anyway, at the pumpkin patch we went to they had a corn box instead of a sand box! It was pretty cool! The girls absolutely LOVED it! We'd go off to look at something else and they wanted to go back to the corn box. There were little pumpkins and squash buried in the corn, too. Amy was practising her swimming moves and Jessica just had a blast playing.

Now for the lesson. We learned how to add a grunge frame and make it look like the picture was made with it. We learned about the burn tool, which adds the darker color around the edges of the background paper and the notepaper. For me it would be the equivalent of adding ink to the edges of your layout and you all know how I love to add ink to the edges of my creations. :o) We got the template to add the four pictures in the circle and add the journaling in the inner circle. We added the white lines to separate the four pictures. Oh and we learned how to create the black journaling strips with white text. And finally (as if all that wasn't enough) we added an overlay (the flowers in the corners) AND learned how to recolor it. The actual overlay we were given was BLUE.

This lesson was JAM-PACKED with fun stuff to learn. I had such a blast creating this layout.

I didn't get to play with anything today. I ran errands and delivered my Hostess Club orders. Then when we got home, the girls and I carved our pumpkins.

I was a little nervous to let them try to carve themselves, but they really wanted to try it. So I poked starter holes in to give them "dots" to connect and they used those "safe for kids" little knife/saws. Jessica decided early on that I could finish, but at least she tried. Amy absolutely LOVED carving her pumpkin and she really did do a great job! It was a nice time.

I forgot to mention two things from previous posts. First, in the layout about my hair, Amy is the one who took the picture of me in the larger circle. I had her stand on the couch and she did a great job! Most of the pictures were blurry, but that one was pretty darn good!

Second, after we went to the pumpkin patch, we decided to look elsewhere for a corn maze because this place was charing $8 PER PERSON! Seemed awfully steep to me to wander through a maze. We ended up in Brighton and found a maze that was a little less and Jess was free.

I had never been through a maze other than the free ones which are just wander through til you find the end. Well, this one was designed to be the shape of a race car. They also included the words: corn maze, 7News and American Furniture. So in addition to the car shape, we had to work through the letters of the words. Our goal was to find 10 numbered signs and hole punch the corresponding number on our ticket. Each hole punch was a different shape. We could have bought a map(that had the numbers marked), but we chose not to(don't know what we were thinking). As we were looking for #1, a family was leaving and they gave us their map. THANK GOODNESS! We might still be wandering the maze today! LOL

The girls had fun and I discovered that Steve is way better with spatial reasoning than I am, although I did manage to direct us to a few of the signs. And because we were there during the day, there were no spooky scary things popping out at us. Whew...

Guess what the girls wanted to do when we were done at the maze???

Go back to the Corn Box! LOL

Happy Halloween! (since most of you will read this on Wednesday) This year the excitement for Amy is a toss-up. She's excited for Halloween, but is almost more excited about her field trip on Thursday. They are going to a planetarium (sp?) and she's beside herself about being able to get on the bus to go. She still talks about the field trips from last year. And no, I'm not going. She's too independent for Mommy and Jessica to come along. sniff, sniff

And now I'm done!!

Start to Finish 30 Minute Challenge

We were challenged today in Jessica's class to start AND finish a layout in 30 minutes! I saw we had the challenge, but didn't read all the details until after we went to a pumpkin patch this afternoon. I took this picture and purposefully framed Amy off to the side. Imagine how tickled I was went one of the details for the challenge was to use a photo with the focus off to one side! And the photo was to be one that was taken today! PERFECT!

I have to confess, I didn't really get this layout done in 30 minutes. It took more like an hour with all the interruptions from the girls. But I guess if you discounted all of those, it was about 45 minutes, not too bad.

I found that I didn't like the time constraint much. I didn't like the PRESSURE! LOL

But, I think I am happy with how this layout came out in the end.

The paper and elements are from www.shabbyprincess.com. It's a freebie kit called Harvest Spice. I also used the fonts Century Gothic and Vintage Typewriter.

Thanks for looking!

Me & My Hair Challenge Layout

In my Now We're Rockin' class, we were given a challenge to create a layout using a mega freebie kit called Carnival from Sweet Shoppe Designs. Oh my goodness, it is a HUGE kit! Anyway we had several options to choose from about what to include. Mainly, it was supposed to be a layout about ourselves. I chose to do this layout about my hair! Yes, sort of strange, but I wanted to write about why I decided to start coloring it. When Jessica was about a year or so, I noticed that it was assumed by many people that I was my girls' grandmother and not their mother and it really started to bother me. Up until that time, I liked how my hair looked. But I didn't like it that people made that assumption and I couldn't think of a good comeback. So I succumbed and started coloring my hair. And you know, no one has made a "grandma" comment since I colored it. I feel a bit bad that I let the comments of others, especially strangers, get to me, but at the same time, I do feel like I look a bit younger with color. Maybe someday, when my girls are a bit older, I will feel proud to let my hair go back to it's natural gray (or white if I follow in my mom's footprint-she had beautiful white hair).

Anyway, I selectively recolored the hair on a couple of the pictures. I used a template I got from ScrapGirls.com The fonts used are CTMH Uptown, Typewriter and Century Gothic. Oh and I softened the look of a couple of the papers (the green and the cream journaling area) using an overlay option in my layers.

Hey a post two days in a row! I'm on a roll! LOL

Now We're Rockin' Has Begun!

I am here! Sorry for not posting in what, a week?? Life has been keeping me hopping. First I was working on organizing my digital files, which isn't hard, but is time-consuming. Then, Amy bonked her chin on the playground jungle gym after school last Wednesday and a chunk of her molar came out! Just yesterday we went back to the dentist to get a crown. I had my Hostess Club this weekend (which means I spent time prepping for it) and we also had Jessica's 5th birthday party. So, I've been fairly busy.

I also made a difficult decision. I will be leaving CTMH after my Hostess Clubs end in January. I'm finding myself becoming more interested in digital scrapbooking and would like to be able to devote more time to it. It's been a great 3 1/2 years, but I think it is time to move on. Please don't worry, I will still be posting to my blog. I'm not giving up paper crafting and stamping. I'll post projects I make and how to create them. I am just freeing myself up to explore the digital world of scrapbooking as well.

Isn't this a neat layout? I signed up for Jessica Sprague's newest class called Now We're Rockin' with Photoshop. We started on Monday of this week. This is an advanced beginner/intermediate class and a follow up to the Up & Running class I took this summer. I am so excited to participate again and learn more great things from Jessica! Anyway, this layout is our first assignment. We learned how to selectively color part of the photo, which was also turned into a sepia photo. I know I used this photo in a previous layout, but I really wanted to see how it would look if I changed it to sepia, then had part of that oobleck pop out with color. Pretty cool, huh? We also learned how to create columns for journaling and creating justified text. The paper tear/curling is from a layout template and the papers/elements were part of our downloaded kit that came with the class. Oh and she showed us an easy way to round the corners on that tag. So very neat! I can't wait to try this with some other photos.

Thanks for visiting! I hope you find some time to create today!

Stretch!-Digi Layout

I hope you don't mind my sharing another digi layout, but I am having a lot of fun learning how to do different techniques and thought you might like to see. Jessica Sprague has a blog where she posts Photoshop Challenges on Fridays. She explains how to do a technique and invites readers to try the technique. Then you can post the layouts on her website gallery at http://www.jessicasprague.com/. I've known about the blog and even subscribe to it. I've seen on her website forum where people post a challenge to work on a specific technique she teaches on her blog. But I haven't felt the confidence to attempt one of these techniques/challenges until this week. The technique here was to highlight the focal point of a photo as described here. It was a lot of fun creating the focal point. I struggled a bit with coming up with a layout though. It took me some futzing around with it for a day or so until I felt happy with it. I liked trying the challenge and look forward to attempting more soon.

Credits:
Shabby Princess paper and dotted frame(SF_Kristie) http://www.shabbyprincess.com/, Trish Jones, flower from Captured Moments kit(freebie from http://www.scrapwow.com/) . I did stamp a brush a couple of times (not sure who to credit for that) Fonts: Anthology, Century Gothic.

Thanks for visiting! Oh and if you are a subscriber who hasn't actually clicked onto my blog this week, I created a new blog header. I think it looks kinda neat and I hope reflects the fun of October. :o)

Surprise in the Grill-Digi Layout

I'm not sure how well you can actually see this layout, but I worked on it most of the day off and on. I followed another layout pattern in Close To My Heart's Imagine book called, "Everthing in It's Place." The papers and elements are from a cd I picked up at Hobby Lobby called Playground. You can see the website at http://www.digitalscrapbookmemories.com/ The specific kit I used is Zoe's Merry-Go-Round. The letters for "grill" are an alphabet from Trish Jones' Captured Moments kit found at http://www.scrapbookgraphics.com/. Other fonts used are Century Gothic and 28 Days Later. I also worked on learning how to create a paper tear digitally. This was a lot of fun to put together.

The journaling reads:
Imagine our surprise when Amy opened up our gas grill and found this bird’s nest! We had just grilled a few weeks before this and I had not noticed any unusual activity around the grill. We were planning to have steaks, but couldn’t disturb the nest, so Steve decided we should buy a small charcoal grill. Of course, this was decided about the time we usually eat! Got the grill, put it together and we were waiting for the charcoal to get ready. Then Steve thought it would be fun to roast marsh-mallows, only we didn’t have any! So, I went to the store again for those! I think we finally ate around 8pm! It may have been one of the most expensive steak dinners we have ever eaten, but it was worth it to see the excitement on the girls’ faces over the nest and being able to roast marshmallows for the first time! We left the nest alone for a couple of months and think one egg hatched. Next year though, I think we’d better cover the grill!

Thanks for visiting! I hope you find some time to create today!

Petals Card-2nd Attempt

Okay, I'm thinking this one looks a lot better! Less blue. I tried taking the photo in front of a different window, which appears to be letting in more natural light at this time of the day.


Thanks for looking again and feel free to let me know that you think.

Playful Petals-Smile

I'm posting this to see how it looks. In reading some of the blogs I subscribe to, I have noticed some pretty nice ways of taking pictures of the projects. They look quite professional in my humble opinion. So here is my first attempt at sort of dressing up my presentation. Right now, this looks pretty BLUE, so I may have to try taking my picture in a different location.


In any event, this is another stamplift of consulant Carolyn Hulin's work. I used Blush and the old style Buttercup background and texture paper. I stamped the swirl (inking up only 1/2 of the swirl) on the B&T. I tissue inked the Blush ink onto my petals stamp after first inking in Buttercup. Oh and in case you weren't sure...I'm using the Playful Petals stampset.

Thanks for looking and bearing with me as I attempt to make my presentation a little more eye-catching. LOL

Busy Day! Another Playful Petals Card

Oh my, what a busy day I ended up having today! I wasn't home much at all. After I got the girls dropped off at school, I delivered an order and came home with a van full of toys. My friend is decluttering and cleaning out in preparation for a move. I had just a few minutes by the time I got home to sit for just a few minutes, then I was off to pick up Jessica. Today was Amy's early release day, so we had just about an hour for lunch and relaxing (Jess played with some of the "new" toys), then we were off to pick up Amy. The girls always want to play afterschool, so we did that and then it was off to the dentist for Amy, who was scheduled to have a cleaning. We were there a bit early, actually. Amy did an awesome job and told me I didn't have to go back with her! What an independent girl she is becoming. No cavities! Yea!! As I was finishing up with the receptionist, I asked when Jessica was due. Well, their records show that she hadn't been in for a year! I am pretty sure she was in this past spring but they didn't have any record of it. They were able to squeeze her while we were there! She did great as well, but has a tiny cavity, so we are going back tomorrow morning to get that taken care of. So, that took longer than I planned. Get home and the girls played with the toys, while I cleaned some others up and looked for batteries for the electronic stuff. Discovered we were pretty much cleaned out on batteries, so after dinner, I went and got some. Came home, plugged them in and then read with Amy and Jess. Got the girls to bed and started to work on my newsletter, which is overdue already! Not quite done with that, but I am just plain and simply tuckered out so I will work on that more in the morning.

I did want to share this card inspired again by Carolyn Hulin's artwork. It's 4 1/4 inch square, not my normal size, but it will still fit in a standard sized envelope. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Desert Sand, Barn Red and Colonial White cardstock. Stamped with pigment White Daisy ink and heat set to dry quickly. Added some grosgrain ribbon, a just bloom and a Barn Red Bigger Brad. Celebrate is from the Happy Birthday stamp set.
And, thanks to Kim, I finally remembered what to do to insert my watermark again! I was having a brain freeze about it and emailed her. Thanks, sweetie!

Happy creating to you!

October Stamp of the Month Card

I was inspired by the CTMH Corporate artwork designed to showcase this stamp set. I added the grosgrain ribbon in the corners with the hemp because I ultimately cut the piece with the sleigh where the stamping is at the bottom instead of centered. I also chose to use Grey Wool cardstock as the base. The images are stamped in Grey Woolink on Colonial White and colored in with our coloring pencils and a few watercolor pencils because the colors worked. The other cardstock colors are Cranberry, Olive and New England Ivy. It's a standard sized card (4 1/4 by 5 1/2). Enjoy and can you believe that it's close to time to be thinking about Christmas already??
Swim class observations for today...

Jess had a sub teacher who really worked her! She loved it. One of the new things she did was to retrieve a ring he held with his foot. This means she had to go under water to get it! Wow! The look of accomplishment on her face was priceless! :o)

Amy is still trying to figure out how to coordinate her arms and kicking and now putting her face in the water when she does "monkey arms" or the crawl stroke. But, very surprisingly to me and her teacher, when she swam on her back, she had almost perfect form! Interesting! Also, her new task today was to go into the deep end of the pool and get pushed toward the bottom of the pool for a deep bob. She didn't like it much, but did it. She got to jump off the diving board a couple of times and I mean JUMP! LOL

Me, I was thankful I switched from jeans to shorts before we went...it was more humid than usual in the pool area today...LOL

Playful Petals Card

I've been working on creating some cards inspired by consultant Carolyn Hulin's cards. I adjusted just a bit to make it mine. Here I've used Crystal Blue, Chocolate and a bit of Heavenly Blue cardstock. I stamped in Chocolate and Heavenly Blue. Some stamping is second generation. It's probably hard to see, but I also random stamped the swirls on the Crystal Blue cardstock. This 3 1/2 x 8 size was a fun card to create. I have more cards to share, but I'll spread it out over the next few days.
I have also been spending some time organizing all the digi kits that I have been accumulating in my ACDSEE photo manager. I can't believe how many Freebies I've picked up already. So much fun, but it does take some time to tag the images so that they will be easy to find when I need them. I hope to be finished with that soon and then I will work on some more digi layouts. :o)

Have a great day!