Fishing

The page at Sketch Support this week was for a two-pager. Here's what I did for my older boy's album:






I used January's Studio Calico kit called Who's Who, which interestingly had the perfect color combo for autumn fishing. Before I printed my pictures, I again used Pioneer Woman's Boost action on them. It intensified the hue and darkened the photos a wee bit, which was good since the photos were so bright. I like the look of the Studio Calico notions on this; they are geometric enough to look good on a boy's page. I squished them too, which made 'em a little rough.

In case you were wondering, I have scrapped these photos before on this page I made for my dad:


I also used some of the same photos for a page in my younger boy's album--can't show it, it will be in an upcoming publication. I am also planning a page for the family album with these same photos, which I haven't done yet.

I rarely do multiple layouts of the same shots for everyone's album. In this case, the fishing trip was special--we don't go much!--so I thought it was warranted. I didn't want to make the same layout for each, so I've given myself about a month's rest in between each layout.

I'm finishing some layouts I started last weekend. I'll share two tomorrow, plus a rarity for me--some cards!

Legos and a birthday

*I had planned on showing a work in process to share my creative process, specifically embellishing. I set up my page on the ottoman, turned on the camera--which promptly shut off since the battery was dead. It still gets dark here early, so I'll have to share that process later this weekend.

Instead, I though I'd share two pages I created last week:




This was for Sketch Support. The sketch was for a card, but when I saw the candles on the sketch, I thought of my sons' favorite part of the birthday: turning off the lights and blowing out the candles.

Every year I do that, mainly to get a cool sublit photo. At my birthday in January, the boys told me to wait before blowing out the candles so they could turn out all the lights. They don't have my reason for doing it--no photos were taken--but they like it, and it's a tradition, so they did it. Thus my page was born.

I used my February Studio Calico kit Candy Shoppe. I especially liked using gems for the candlelight. And check out my son's face! Yes, he's praying in one of the photos. He's wishing.

This layout involved some collected Lego photos I had of Rowan. I decided to put them together on a page and use the title Lego Dude, which I've probably used countless times:



Just an interesting note about the photos: the one on the left is normal, no tweaking, and the middle and right ones used Pioneer Woman Boost action. Don't they look much warmer and richer? I though about throwing away the one on the left and reprinting it using Boost, but I regained my sanity: my son will never gasp and say. "Mom! You should have used Boost!"

I trimmed one photo to serve as a title block; it sort of looks like patterned paper. The title also contains some of my typical layering. I'll write more about this later this weekend, but I think of layering as including three things:

1. Something flat--stickers, paper
2. Something dimensional--dimensional stickers, flowers, gems, brads
3. Something textured--stitching, especially

You'll notice I did all three here.

Telling the stories

I have a hard time answering the question, "Why do you scrap?" For me, it's not one thing. I love pairing photos with pretty product and writing the story down. It's a nice stress reliever to sort through patterned paper at night. Learning something new always invigorates me. I love making meaning out of my life.

If I had to choose any, I would choose the latter. When I spend time trying to figure out why I want to scrap something, I figure out the reasons, specifically, the reason why this moment/event/ person is important. I feel like this helps me live a life of purpose. That's important. Not everything I scrap is serious, and playing with pretty paper feeds my creative soul (and is probably helping to sustain the economy!), but everything I scrap has meaning. My only dissatisfying pages are the rare instances when I create a page for which I never found a purpose.

Here's my two latest purposeful pages (click on the images to view them larger):




This was my latest Project 12 venture. I used Studio Calico's Who's Who. To bring out the rich colors of the paper, I used a Pioneer Woman action called Boost, which increases the color and darkens the image a bit. I'm also trying to get over the fact that I still can't sew straight.


This page warms my heart. I love love love this paper from Studio Calico. When I get a paper like this, where the whole paper is too beautiful to cover, I don't. I use fewer photos and product and try to work my design into the paper's design. In this case, I tucked everything behind one of the trees, in some cases literally: I tucked the photo and title into a slit in the paper. And the inspiration for this page--the series of notes my son left me--are in an envelope on the back of the page.

Just for information's sake, I also used Who's Who for this page, and I used the Boost action on this page as well.

My internet is a little wonky right now--it ceases to work after about a half hour, which I'm taking as God's way of telling me to get off the computer and go do something. So, today I shall probably be spending time attending my cousins' children's birthday party, shoveling snow, and editing heritage photos my mom brought to me (this is technically on the computer, but oh well). My husband says there's some money shots in these photos. If you want a good laugh, check back in later this week for some peeks into my scarily dressed, too-big-eyeglasses, crooked teeth past, in which I apparently loved Wonder Woman and wanted to be a ballerina.

One more reminder: Laura, if I don't hear from you by tomorrow, I'll choose another winner for the scrapbooking sketches book! Gotta get people scrapping!

All about the shoes...

I am not fashionable. I own that. I dress for comfort. As such, I would wear my Keen sandals year round if I didn't live in Minnesota, the land of 8 month winter.

Both the Efferdares and Studio Calico had fashion challenges recently, so I figured that was God's way of saying it's time to scrap your love of these shoes. So here it is:


I used Studio Calico's Back 40 for it. This is probably my 10th layout from the kit plus one add-on. Product wise, I am less than satisfied with those Basic Grey journaling spots. The adhesive damages the image on the underneath journaling spot, if that makes sense. Picture sticky notes that, when you remove one from its stack, tears the note underneath. That's these spots. Bleh. But I want to get some uses out of them, so I used them.

The photo I took by setting the timer on my camera, setting it on the floor, and yelling at my boys to stop jumping while I waited for the camera to snap. I then added a Coffeeshop action to it, Attic Vintage. I like it!

Lights, Camera, Actions!

Right now I'd like to thank my husband for "helping me" (i.e. doing it himself then showing me how) install actions into PSE 7 on our Mac which runs Windows through Fusion. (It's complicated.) He did it with minimal cursing (none at me) and no corporal punishment on the computer, so he deserves a big hand. Or cookies.

So I finally got some actions installed, and am ready to play! I first got the Pioneer Woman sets of free actions loaded. Here are some of the things I played around with:

This is the photo I took yesterday--I've wanted to take this photo all summer! It's a little dark, and the sun's through the leaves, but I love it. Look how happy he is. First I used Boost and Slight Light:


I also tried Fresh Color and Soft Faded. I really like this one:

This one looks magical to me.

I also discovered that I love Coffee Shop actions as well. Boy, if you take the time to click on links, you find gems. That's what I did yesterday when we were stuck inside in our second of three major thunderstorms that dumped 5 inches of rain on us. I clicked a link on a blog (forgot where now) and ended up finding her actions--awesome! Here's a photo I took the other day when it wasn't storming, my boys building mountains in the wet sand of the playground in between storms:


And here I used Vignette:


I changed the opacity so the burn could be seen better. Sort of gives the photo an explorer look. And just for photography's sake, I was almost on sand-level for the photo. It makes for an interesting angle.

Here's why I wanted actions in the first place: I rediscovered some old photos of my husband when closet cleaning this summer. I wanted to use actions to play around with the photos a little. Take, for example, this precious one taken of my husband's family when they lived in Hawaii, those lucky dogs:


And here is PW Boost:


Coffee Shop Attic Vintage:


PW Colorized:

I'm still figuring out how to save the actions to the desired folder--and make them show up when I open the actions!--so I'll keep playing and having fun.