Odds and Ends

December Daily & Journal Your Christmas

I thought this year I'd do a combination of the two and of course I'm behind as usual (already!).   But today I finally picked out the kit that I'll mainly be using (that was a lot easier after I changed my digi supplies to a different way of organizing them).   So aside from some templatels & numerics from other designers (namely Ali Edwards & Biograffiti I'll be using Cilenia Curtis' Days of December digital kits that I got last year from Digitals.

So at least that is one thing settled about the album.  :)

 

Finally Scrapping Legoland 2003

I'm going a bit slower this week on the scrapping as I had to relearn how to do a collage and life just interfered - the nerve of it.  :)  But I am finally into the California pictures. 

I've decided to break the trip album up into sections.   There are just so many pictures from the attractions/activities from that part of the trip that we really want in the album.   Each section is going to have a title page and this is the one for Legoland.  I think this is the last digital page till I get to the next section.  In 2003 we were just starting to take digital pictures with my little point & shoot and still had the SLR so a lot of the pictures aren't digital that we'd like in there.   

Credits:  Red paper is from Anna Aspnes of Designerdigitals.com kit that she shared in Ali Edwards Yesterday and Today class.  The yellow is from Maurine Stettler of Let me Scrapbook Designs at Scrapbook Studio from the Fiesta Blog Hop. 

 Not sure if going with the lego colours was a good idea or not.

We had a super time there and spent way more time than we thought we would  - it's not just for kids as our friends Gigi & Darrell who were our unofficial guides told us.

 

Change in Yesterday's Layout

I found just what I'd been looking for this morning for the layout I shared yesterday.   I finally did a search on digital scrapbooking construction and came up with the Scrap Orchard site.  It had exactly what I wanted.   I knew it had to be there somewhere.  :)   So here is the revised layout.

Paper is from Lifesong Kreations by Karla, World Traveler kit  and the construction signs are from the Under Construction collaboration kit by Laura Banasiak and Suzy Q Scraps at Scrap Orchard.

Still simple but a little less so today.   Ok - on to Legoland.

Yesterday and Today

This has nothing to do with the Yesterday & Today course but is about what I've been doing yesterday and today.  The past couple of days have been busy - some of it by choice and some of it not.  I could have done without the not part - more on that later.  :)

Sunday I started working on one of those layouts where there are no pictures and trying to come up with something to put on it has been stumping me.  I just didn't seem to have anything in my digi stash that was calling out to me to use on it.  So.... yesterday I spent a good portion of the day looking for new digi supplies that might be travel, especially road trip, related.   I found some on ScrapGirls and have spent a lot of the time downloading the zip files (talk about slow).   Next step unzip them all and look for something that just might work on this page.

Paper is from Lifesong Kreations by Karla, World Traveler kit that I flipped (so the steering wheel was on the North American side of the car).  

So far I'm coming up blank but ....   Anyone have any suggestion as to what to use or a good digi site with road trip type embellishments etc.?

Ok, for the not part.   While I was working away on this I had my readers on with my regular glasses sitting beside me on the desk.  I reached past them to answer the phone & knocked them on the floor.  Now this is where it gets fun - Not!   Well not then anyway.   I couldn't see where they'd landed but checked around the wheels of my chair and they weren't there so I thought I'd carefully back up and have a better view of where they might be.   That is until I heard crunch as I put my heels down (I usually sit with my toes on the floor but not my heels).  Ok, found my spares (one prescription ago) and off to the Optometrist I went where the assistant fixed the bent nose piece for me.   Great.   That is until about an hour later when I got an intense pain in one eye, a sure sign that the bifocal part must be out of alignment.  Back to the spares and after a quick call was told to come back in today when my Optometrist would be in and she would fix that part. 

Todayit was back to the Optometrist who hopefully has fixed those glasses for good :) and then on to what I really had planned to do.   Namely get the winter tires put on my vehicle (possibility of snow tomorrow some time so we want to be ready), have a much delayed chai latte & chat with my school days friend while I was over in her city (right next door to ours) and download more of those ScrapGirls files while I had some time.  If i can't come up with an idea for that page it's just going to stay the way it is and I'll move on to Legoland in California. I bought some neat lego type paper from Paper Wizard years ago to use on those layouts and I'm just dying to get at them.

On a Scrapping Tear

After weeks of seemingly nothing in the way of my own scrapping, yesterday I managed 3 layouts - definitely a scrapping tear for me.  :)   They are all really simple but done and they finish up the Las Vegas part of our 2003 trip.   Now on to the Southern California part.  It feels really good finishing that part up.  It's hung over my head for months, once I finally started working on that album.   I'm actually glad that I waited this long though as before I would have been trying to scrap every little picture and now I know I don't need to (thanks to taking Stacy Julian's LOM class last year & Finding Photo Freedom this past year at Big Picture Classes - even if I didn't finish them). 

Here's the 2 layouts that I didn't share in yesterday's post.    They are both using templates that I got on my massive Biograffiti purchase of the other day.

Kraft paper - Cre8 kit from a Jessica Sprague class I took, red paper from Nadi Designs from the Jessica Sprague blog party of November 2010.

These were the only 2 decent pictures we have from that night but we have super video of it.  :)

Kraft paper is again from the Cre8 kit as the one above and the red this time is from Mary Ann Wise waterpapers (I have no other info as that's part of the picasa file that was lost, although I think it was from 2Peas).

We've seen the pirate show many times but this was the first time we were there with a digital camera and our video camera and really wanted to get some pictures/video of it.  Mother Nature though decided otherwise - every time we went to see it they had to call it off because the winds were just high enough to make it dangerous for the performers.  It was our last chance to see it as they announced while we were there that they were replacing it with a Sirens show.

Looking forward to starting the Southern California portion of the album this week, hopefully today.

Was There A Full Moon Last Night?

Right now I'm in the midst of re-creating my Picasa file of all my digi supplies.  UGH.   All the information was there on Thursday but when I opened it up this morning there was absolutely nothing.   Now of course its backed up so I thought no problem.  Wrong!   The external HD that the backup is on for some reason is not working.   My computer is not recognizing it at all.  Everything on there had keywords applied to them (whether it was cardstock, patterned paper, colour, where I got it, etc.) so that it was easy for me to find things and also credit where I got it from.  Well it seems as it is being recreated a lot of that is missing.   I'm just hoping that maybe I can get that HD to work on J's laptop and then sit & copy it onto mine.  That sounds like way too much work.   It's beyond me why the file disappeared since Thursday.  Ok enough of that. 

The whole reason I was wanting to use the Picasa file was I actually was scrapbooking this morning.  With what's been going on with me lately I've realized the importance of getting this backlog of scrapping done.  So I've gone back to an album I had started months ago - maybe even last year.   It's of a trip we took in April/May 2003 to Las Vegas & Southern California.   I've decided that what this album is going to need is the KISS method.    So Thursday I went through my 2003 Storage Binder (a Library of Memories/Photo Freedom thing) and pulled pictures for 3 layouts.   The first one is now done -  it's of the gardens in behind the Flamingo Hilton where some friends of ours were staying (they'd come down from their home up by Lake Tahoe to surprise us).   It was unreal in the gardens - they actually had flamingos (of course) and penguins - in the desert!   Made me wonder - what do they do with them in the horrendous heat of the Las Vegas summers.

Template is from Biograffiti - Focus, background paper is from the Cre8-Mini kit I got from a Jessica Sprague class (sorry that one is one where the info is missing but at least I've got that much).

Speaking of Biograffiti, I went nuts yesterday and bought tons of her templates.   She's going out of business and everything is on sale at her store for $25.00 total until the 16th of this month.  You can find out more about the sale at Oscraps.

The Best Laid Plans

Talk about your plans for the day going out the window.  Yesterday was one for the books.   Why can't you get better time estimates when you're having work done?  I knew I had to take the Camry in for the usual stuff plus a look at the brakes (they were feeling kind of mushy) and it's emission test (so we can get the license sticker for 2012).  So  I made plans about what I could do to kill the time.   I took the laptop over with me as I figured I could work on organizing 2010's & 2011's pictures while I waited to meet my friend from school days at 10.   I was told it shouldn't take any longer than 2 hours so I figured I'd leave the power cable at home - Note to self:  Don't do that ever again.  I did also take my Kindle (more about that later).  The plan was to work away on the laptop till either the car was ready or they gave me a ride over to meet Janie at Starbucks at 10.  Somewhere in there I needed to go to Costco too to pick up some 12x12 prints I'd had printed of digital layouts that I had never printed off.

Nine forty-five comes along and I can see that the car is still up on the hoist and I can also see that I have hardly any battery life left on the laptop.  Hmmm, after a chat with them where I was told they needed 45 minutes to one more hour they gave me a ride over to Starbucks.   Janie and I had a great visit over our favourite Starbucks drinks (Tazo Chai for me) and she drove me back there at 11:45 (so they've had 2 hours extra at this point right?).  The car by their estimation should be done.   Whats this - I don't see it out in any of the parking spots.  I'm thinking Oh Oh.  I walked in and get "Its not finished.  Its taking longer than we thought.  We'll need another 45 minutes."  Whats with that?    Seeing as they are in the next town to where I live it's pretty senseless having them take me home and just a few minutes later come back and bring me back.  Ok, I did have stuff I needed to do but I'll make the best of it and read my Kindle.  I open it up and theres a screen staring me in the face telling me it needs charging and you've got it - the charger is at home.  ARGH!  

One hour later and finally the car is ready.   With my one very quick stop at Costco (less than 5 minutes away from them) I got home at 1:45  Almost 2 hours later than I had expected.   And I still had to have lunch.  Needless to say I was not impressed and I made sure the owner who we've known for decades knew I wasn't impressed.  He was actually quite shocked that the car or should I say his mechanic took that long.  If they had given me a better idea of the time initially I would have had them bring me home and got some work done for the kids' visit this coming week.  They've always been so good before at time estimates but this time was the pits.  :)

I decided after all that I needed some scrapbooking time.  Any excuse right and I think you need something to look at after reading about my morning yesterday.  Last night, I shared with you my version of the colour assignment for DYL (Design Your Life).  I decided it really needed another page to go along with it and this morning I managed to finish it off after flipping the template, reducing the size of the journaling block and putting in another picture.  I'm pretty happy with it except it shows my wonky big toe that I broke years ago (that's another story all together).  :)   I wasn't sure though, seeing as week one was about symmetry, if I needed to have a circle on the right page to match the left one but I don't think so as I think the bones of the layouts are symmetrical without doing that.  What do you think?  Does it need the extra circle for balance?

 
Here's the complete 2 page layout and I'm happy to say I've got something done from 2005.  :)  Supplies:Template - Cathy Zielske, Papers - blue -Jessica Sprague Beautiful You Kit, red - same kit, cream - Katie Pertiet of Designer Digitals Vintage Blooms kit, beige Jessica Sprague Grand Intentions kit. Date Stamp from The Voyager Collection at Digital Scrapbook Page by Kristmess, Ring on the far right are  from Flutter Expressions at scrappity-do-dah and the Believe in Miracles kit, the font is Tahoma for both title & journaling.

 

Toe Rings and Week 1 Colour Assignment

Evidently every week of DYL there is an assignment to do with colour and this was my first one.  Cathy gave us a colour scheme to work with but it just wasn't me so instead I took the colour scheme from an ad I'd always liked the looks of.   The colours were blue, cream, beige(brown) and red. Nothing to do with what it was an ad for (I think Citi Bank) just that I liked the colour scheme in it.  The template was for 8 1/2 x 11 page and I really have problems with that - I've always done 12x12 right from day one.

Back in April's Story Telling Time I shared part of the story of my toe rings.   Well today I did part of the layout for it for my colour assignment.   I will be doing a right hand side page to go along with it once I figure out how to adapt the template.  :)

 Papers - blue -Jessica Sprague Beautiful You Kit, red - same kit, cream - Katie Pertiet of Designer Digitals Vintage Blooms kit, beige Jessica Sprague Grand Intentions kit.  Date Stamp from The Voyager Collection at Digital Scrapbook Page by Kristmess, font is Tahoma for both title & journaling.

I'm going to pretty scarce probably for the next few days.  My niece is coming down next Thursday and bringing P-Man (4 1/2) and Miss M (19 1/2 months) and our house is definitely not toddler/small child proof so guess what I'm going to be doing.  :)  

 

Yesterday Was One of Those Days

It started well and then slowly became very aggravating and all because of one thing - my 12x12 photo printer or maybe it was me. 

The day started with me finishing the second assignment of week one in the Design Your Life workshop.  I did this one totally digitally.   I know summer really doesn't end for over a month from now but parts of the garden are finishing up while the fall stuff is starting to come on so I thought I'd do a layout of some of our favourite perennials we've planted over the years.  So following Cathy's template for the assignment I came up with this.

The journaling reads  When we started our gardens back in 1987 we were mainly into annuals but gradually we’ve learned that it’s much less work if we replace them with perennials plus then we seem to have more flowers throughout the season.  These are our most favourite ones we’ve had over the years.  sadly squirrels and such have done away with some of them though.                     

Supplies:  Template from Cathy Zielske, Kraft paper from Jessica Sprague's Digi in Deep Class Week 1 Cre8 mini kit, title font is Brush Script and the journaling font is Courier New.   The black around it is just a frame I added when I placed it on here.

It's a double page 8 1/2 x 11 layout and I've never really done that size before so it felt really weird.  I picked the green for the journaling block by using the eyedropper in PSE8 on that little bud just to the right of the columbine.

Here's where it started to get aggravating.   I decided to print it off to put in my album of class assignments.  That worked ok so I thought  I bet I've got a bunch of 12x12 digi pages that I haven't printed off yet so while I'm at it I may as well print them off too.  HAH!  Not!  I put the 12x12 paper in, picked all the options for printing including borderless.  So what do I get one side with no border, 2 sides with 1/8 inch borders and 1 side with 1/4 inch border.  Of course leaving off parts of the layout like part of the title etc.    OK, let's go back and try this again.   Maybe I did something wrong.  Nope - it came out the same.  After many attempts at trying different things I decided maybe I should just check the manual - ok so I was using the wrong feed for it.  I changed that, sent it through again and got the same thing!  It was just so aggravating.   I went in and did an update of the software and driver, changed to different software for the printing and no matter what I did - the same thing happened.

This morning I thought ok, enough of this I'm writing an e-mail to Epson Support and see what they say.   Just before I went to do that I discovered something, I'm using old supply and even though it says fits 12x12 it gives the measurements as 11.6 x 11.6   ARGH!  Wish I'd seen that yesterday.   I've now quickly checked the 2 new packages of it and am relieved to see they are bigger and they say Exact 12"x12".    Keeping fingers crossed.  Maybe I should have just sent them to Costco for printing.  :)

Ten Possible Scrapbooking Links

It’s time for 10 on the 10th, something that Shimelle brought up at the end of her Beyond Blogging for Scrapbookers class that I took this spring.  This month I thought I’d share some websites and classes that I really like to do with scrapbooking – both digital and traditional as I’m not totally changed over to digital yet.  Be sure and check out Shimelle's and everyone else's 10 on the 10th blog entrys here.

 1)  This morning I found this absolutely terrific site that has video introductions to all the new Basic Gray products, digital classes, layout classes and oh so much more.   Check it out here.   I think you’ll really like it.  I found some product that I know I just have to have.

2)  Ok, now that I’ve shared a “traditional” scrapbooking site it’s only fair that I share a digital one.  By far my favourite is Designer Digitals.   It’s great for kits, templates and word art.  Just lately I got this Going Away Kit by Katie Pertiet from them and am dying to use it.

3) I’ve been unhappy with my scrapbooking lately and found this really neat course that I’m hoping will help with the design and give a pleasing look to my pages.   It’s a self-paced 12 week workshop at Big Picture Classes called “Design Your Life” by Cathy Zielske.   I’ve just started it but am really happy with it so far.  Looks like I’ll be using a lot of my stash for this one.

4)  It’s just finishing up for this year but if you get a chance to Finding Photo Freedom also at Big Picture Classes.  I took it last year when it was Library of Memories and was able to take it again this year as an alumni.  It has absolutely worked wonders for me being able to find the pictures I want.  Keep an eye out for it next year.

5)  While we’re on the subject of classes, if you scrapbook and blog you should keep an eye out for Shimelle’s Blogging for Scrapbookers.  It’s not being offered right now but keep an eye out on the website for it.  She offers another one beyond that course that fittingly enough is called Beyond Blogging for Scrapbookers.  

6) Another one of Shimelle’s courses I like is Journal Your Christmas which she offers every December.

7)  Still on Shimelle’s courses is Love your Pictures, Love your Pages.  I’ve taken all of these and thoroughly enjoyed every one of them.   Check them out.

8)  Now as for learning how to digital scrapbooking – for me it’s Jessica Sprague’s site hands down.  I’ve taken Up and Running, Now We’re Rockin and and I’m taking Digi in Deep.  After that there is one more called Digi in Deeper.

9) Ok, back to traditional scrapbooking sites for my second last one - this one is a Canadian one  - The Scrapping Bug ( a couple of hours west of us).  Its a great resource within our country for things that you think can only be found in the U.S.

10)  Finally for inspiration there is a blog that I discovered while reading Amy's blog at Over at Our Place  Now Amy's layouts are inspiring in themselves but she's part of a group blog that has now become one that I check everyday - it's Simple Aussie Girls where they share as they say their clean and simple pages.  Check it out.