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Classes & Cards

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There are two free classes going on right now. I’ve been reading the posts and downloading the pdfs, but haven’t had time to participate yet. Both are very worthwhile, so if you’re not aware of them it’s worth checking them out. The first is at Big Picture Scrapbooking and is called the Festival of Ideas. Each day a new lesson is posted by one of their instructors and there have been a couple of great projects. You can still register and all the lessons are archived.

Bigideafestival 

The second is a free class on journaling at Elle’s Studio. Like Festival of Ideas, each day brings a new instructor with ideas and beautiful samples of their work. Ali Edwards, Lisa Dickenson, and Christine Middlecamp are just three of the people who have posted lessons so far. This is a three week course and there’s a link on the sidebar so you can access just the posts for the course.

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Once I get into my new space, I hope to get some work done based on both these classes and the weekend crop at Shimelle’s which I totally missed.

I do have a few cards to share that I created before all the craziness began. One of my dear friends is having surgery on Monday, and I was glad that I had this card on hand.

Recovered
Cardstock: Papertrey Ink & scraps from scrap files; patterned paper: A Muse; stamps: Papertrey Ink; gems: Kaiser 

This card will soon be off to a friend who is undergoing chemo. I’m trying to get a card off to her every few days. She’s doing remarkably well, and her spirits and sense of humor have not been diminished by this ordeal.

4You
Cardstock: Papertrey Ink; patterned paper: Jillibean; vinyl alpha: American Craft Thickers; gems: unknown

Friend

Cardstock: Papertrey Ink; patterned paper: “Early Bird” Cosmos Cricket; stamp “In Bloom” Papertrey Ink, rickrack from stash; gems: A Muse Creative Candy

Colored Pencil Class

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On Saturday I was lucky enough to attend a class in colored pencil technique taught by Dave Brethauer, creator and owner of Memory Box. I first heard of Dave many years ago when I visited Impress Rubber Stamps in Seattle. Before he opened Memory Box, Dave worked for Impress. When I heard he was coming to Buffalo Stamps and Stuff I knew I wanted to attend. Two of my friends rode up with me, and none of us were disappointed. Dave is a wonderful teacher.  He gives clear directions, demonstrates techniques, and makes sure everyone in the class has the individual attention they need. We made five cards in class, all of which I like since they are definitely “clean and simple” cards. My technique needs some work, but I know I’ll enjoy the practice. One thing I learned is that it will be better for me to do work on tiny images without wearing my contact lens which is for improved distance vision. At home that won’t be a problem.

Here are the cards we made.

Reindeer

CarolingBirds

RedBird

Poinsettia

SwirlyTrees

I’m writing this post on the porch of the cottage Tracy’s family has rented on Consesus Lake for the week. It’s just a perfect day, sunny and warm, but not too hot. Tomorrow morning VERY EARLY I leave for CHA from Buffalo. It will be a very early morning, but I’ll be in Chicago in time for breakfast. I’m really excited about the chance to attend CHA, something I never thought I’d do. I’ve broken down and decided to take my computer so if there’s time at night, I’ll try to post some photos from the show.

Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages: Layout for Prompt 11

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One of Shimelle’s sketches featured a page-wide panorama-style photograph which I liked a lot. Amy created one that I loved, but I wanted to scrap some of the photos from our recent road trip and couldn’t choose just one. So I modified the sketch by using one of Cathy Z’s templates (#8) turned sideways. It worked perfectly. I thought I would have Prompt 10, 11, & 12 completed by now, but it’s been a busier weekend than I anticipated and scrapping is rarely a quick event for me. I couldn’t find any place for the journaling so I’m putting it on the back of the layout with a brochure from the Shelbourne Inn.

BreakfastLO 

Cardstock: Bazzil; Patterned paper: October Afternoon & Basic Grey; Alpha stickers: Jenni Bowlin; butterflies cut from a sheet of Graphic 45 tags, Botaniabella; Stamp: Vintage Label 4 Waltzing Mouse; Journal card: MME; template: CZ Designs #8

Photographic Challenges

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First of all, our Team-up Thursday post. The prompt this week was Where We Live. Nancy and my interpretations couldn’t have been much different. I considered the house, the front door, the new light and house number, but finally decided on the mailbox. I liked it with the Vintage action from Pioneer Woman so settled on it. Nancy’s bright, summery photo taken on her deck is about as opposite as it could be!

WhereYouLive

During Picture Spring, one of the prompts was “The Grass at Your Feet.” I took a photo I liked a lot of tiny blue flowers, but I wanted one of the grass with dew on it like Cheri took during the class. Yesterday’s prompt from Shimelle for Love Your Photos, Love Your Pages was pretty much the same. So off I went again. I started out with my DSRL set on aperture priority mode. This is the setting I used for nearly two years, but for the last year I’ve shot in full manual almost all the time. I also wanted a shallow depth of field. Let me just say with a sunny sky, it’s a very bad combination. However I took two of the shots into PSE and used the Pioneer Woman’s Dim the Lights action on them. I ran the action twice and although these were certainly not the photos I intended to take, I find them pretty interesting.

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Grass3w
Then I pulled out the trusty point and shoot and got what I was looking for during Picture Spring.

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Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages: Skies

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Today’s photos are a bit of a cheat. It was a busy day. I went to Essential Stretch, followed by my first Aqua Zumba class. Then I spent some time trying to get organized for a trip to CHA in just two weeks. I’m really excited to have an opportunity to go to the trade show. I got my airline ticket last night, and today Laura sent me the bar code for my vendor pass. I’ll be staying with Katie who oversees the design team at Scrap-Mart as well as meeting Eva. I’ve met Laura and Howard, the owners, but haven’t had the chance to spend much time with them. I’ll be there five days. I’m sure it will be exhausting, but I think it will also be a lot of fun! This afternoon I had two appointments and by the time I got home we had a downpour so extensive streets were flooding. I do like to take photos that feature skies, and I knew I had several
from the last couple of weeks. So here they are.

These were all taken with my point and shoot, Canon Power Shot SD3500 IS, that I bought before our trip to California in March. I love this camera, and it’s almost always in my purse.

Sky1
We were on the NY Thruway enroute to Ithaca, NY when I took this shot through the front window of the car. I just loved the look of the clouds.

SkiesCornellw
Taken the same day on the Cornell campus.

SkiesSailw
This was taken about 10 days ago on my first venture out on the sailboat this year. It was rough on the lake and the spray from the lake water was so chilly, we decided not to put up the sails and to motor down the river instead.

Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages: Inheritance Layout

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This layout is based on one of Shimelle’s sketches and a wonderful digital layout by Amy. After I took the photos for this photo prompt, I knew I wanted to scrap one of them. I decided that the photo with my sewing machine and my mother’s tools best supported my “story.”

InheritanceLO

Patterned paper:  Basics by Basic Grey; Sticker border & tab: Basics by Basic Grey; Cardstock: Smoky Shadow by Papertrey Ink; alpha stickers: Scenic Route

If you click on the layout you will be able to read the journaling more easily. The last line seems to have been distorted by the photographer. (sigh)

Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages: Three

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The third photo prompt this week was to photograph a group of three. My mother died when I was only 20. She didn’t have much jewelry, and I have very few things that belonged to her. My favorite is her sterling silver thimble which I have used for sewing for the last 40 years. The scissors also belonged to her as did this wooden spool of thread. I thought I had several of the spools of thread from her old sewing box, but I can only find this one. It just occurred to me that the needle might count as four objects–oh, well.  I decided to try some different arrangements, all with different light.

The first one was taken in my craft room on a piece of white foam board that I use when taking photos of paper craft projects. The daylight florescent lights were turned on. I always have to do some color correction and levels corrections because the light is very poor here even in the morning. Other than that, it’s SOOC.

Three3w

The second photo was taken in our bedroom which has light from the same direction as my craft room, but there are three large windows rather than just one. Nonetheless, I had to turn on the lights to get a good exposure here as well, so I set the white balance on tungsten. Our yard is almost completely shaded and light is always at a premium in the house. I set the three objects on an old hymnal that belonged to my grandmother. She inscribed it in 1881.

Three2w

The last photo was taken in our den which is in the front of the house and has two small windows. Since one window faces east I didn’t have to turn on any lights here. I arranged the three objects on my sewing machine, and except for sharpening didn’t make any adjustments to the photo.

Three1w

I’m quite sure I’ll be scrapping one of these photos this weekend.

Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages: Photographing Florals

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I was away for the first four days of Shimelle’s class, and it will take awhile to catch up. It was a lovely morning here and rain was forecast for later (and did, indeed, arrive) so I decided I should get the outside photo prompt of florals done. My Shasta daisies are beautiful right now so I decided to work with them. Shimelle suggested taking the photos from different angles and perspectives so that’s what I tried to do. None of the photos were altered in PSE except to sharpen them. All were taken with my 50mm 1.4 lens. I’m including the aperture settings for my friend, Nancy, since she and I had a discussion about them earlier today. As always, I’d be interested in hearing which ones you like the best. Here are eight of them in no particular order:

Daisies1w
1.  f/1.8

Daisies2w
2.  f/8.0

DaisyBeew
3.  Having the bee arrive was truly a lucky accident!  f/8.0

 
Daisy5w
   4.  f/1.8

Daisies7w
5.  f/6.3

Daisies8w
6.  f/8.0

Daisies9w
7.  f/1.8

Daisies10w
8. f/2.2

Computer Tricks for Cards

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Jessica Sprague, the digital guru of online teaching, offered a free class in digital card making. Being a card maker, I was intrigued by this since I have rarely incorporated digital work into my cards. I’m now using  digital elements in my scrapbooking on a regular basis, so I thought I’d try it out. The first day was a simple print and fold card. I’m not a fan of these so I played around a bit with one of the cards. For the first card I printed the pdf file and then opened the psd file and printed just the greeting and frame. I cut it out and bumped it up with 3-D tape.

Card! 

For the second card I cut out the front of the card and mounted it on Dark Chocolate (PTI) cardstock after I hand cut the scallop along the bottom. Then I added two brown pearls (Creative Candy A Muse). I much prefer this one.

Card2

Today’s card was a print and assemble card. This card took me way too long to complete and I was pretty frustrated. First off, my scallop punch seems to have developed a dull spot right in the middle. Then I decided I didn’t like the first ribbon I applied (which took quite some time), carefully and slowly removed it and substituted another. The greeting was to be a computer generated one that said “Congratulations.” Since I rarely have an occasion to send a Congrats card of this nature, I substituted some chipboard letters (Basic Grey) which I like much better anyway. I will probably never make this card again although I rather like the idea of the scalloped “canopy” on the top of the card. None of the layers are glued down completely so they add a nice dimension to the card which is, unfortunately, hard to see in this photo.

Card1

One of the best things Jessica’s presented in the class so far is a great card of card and envelope sizes and a good description of various kinds of papers available to card makers. 

More Freebies

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Staycation button 

Thanks to Cheri, I’ve signed up for yet another class, and like
Creativity Boot Camp it’s free, and it’s easy to sign up. I had just
found Kim’s blog in the last week, but hadn’t paid close attention to
the Stay-cation post. I’ve read great things about her online courses, so I’ll be looking forward to this once the July courses are over.

Liv-bloghopflyer-w

Tonight Jessica Sprague is hosting a blog hop with 33 participants. At each site will be a free digital goodie. It starts at 10:00 ETS tonight and runs through Sunday night. I think there are prizes if you collect all the digital goodies. 

I won’t get my last prompt for Creativity Boot Camp up until tomorrow. I got to exercise class this morning, then to my Botanical Drawing class, and finally hosted lunch for two of my college friends. This is the third time this week I’ve entertained, so Tracy is taking me out to dinner tonight. We’re off to Consesus Lake and the North Shore Grill. It’s an absolutely perfect day for it! My friends and I sat on our patio chatting for most of the afternoon.

So, about the Botanical Drawing class. You might remember I received a wonderful gift from my friend, Mary, at Christmas. Once I had all these drawing tools at my disposal I felt compelled to do something about it. I have never had a formal art class. My first high school didn’t offer any, and when we moved to New York my junior year, I had several extra courses to take if I wanted to graduate on time. So last week I began an eight-week course in botanical drawing given by the local garden club. I was dismayed last week to discover there are only two of us with no drawing experience, and it quickly became apparent that group instruction was not going to be part of the plan. The instructor’s portfolio is stunning, done in colored pencil. We were each given a plant to draw and I survived the first week with one tiny sketch I felt was worthy of a beginner. The rest: nothing I would share even with my best friend!

Today was better. I read some material during the week, and started off asking a few questions about technique. The reading also helped me understand where to start. The group of women (most of whom come to all or many of these courses) are very friendly and nice, but everyone concentrates on their own work. As I went I asked some questions and got individual help, so I think I’ve
figured out how to operate in this class. Once I got a few drawings done today, the instructor told me to add some colored pencil. Frankly, I thought it would be weeks before I got to that stage, but it wasn’t so bad. I ended up with a drawing I might share with my best friend.   And some day, maybe, there will be something I’m willing to share here. Today’s post on Creativity Boot Camp was just perfect for this experience. I’m printing out the commitment and setting aside a little drawing time every day.

Creativity Boot Camp: Smooth

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Still stymied by “Hush” and although I have a good idea, I don’t have the needed prop!

I’ve been cooking and baking today as a group of neighbors are coming to dinner this evening. Eggs seemed to be a perfect answer for today’s prompt: SMOOTH.

Smoothw
This is one of three beautiful seagrass baskets I’ve purchased on our trips to Kiawah Island and Charleston.

Like several other blogging friends, I took advantage of Shimelle’s early registration and signed up for her new course. I always enjoy them. I was away for nearly half of the last class so I’m looking forward to keeping up a little better with this one.

 

CompTricksAd3

Jessica Sprague is also offering a new class that is FREE. She’s really the best I know when it comes to digital scrapbooking and photo editing classes. I’ve never been disappointed in any of her classes. This one is on cardmaking. I’ve never done anything digital with card making aside from printing a digital paper once or twice, so I’m very interested in what she’ll be teaching in this class.

Creativity Boot Camp: Full-Bodied

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I was gone most of yesterday and last night, so I’m a day behind with this prompt. My first thought when seeing “full-bodied” was red wine, but that seemed too obvious. Tracy suggested coffee, remembering some commercial where they talked about the coffee being full-bodied. So while I was grocery shopping I checked out all the coffee brands. None said “full-bodied” on the label, but one of the bulk coffees used the term in describing the coffee so I took a shot of it with my point & shoot. I also bought a few beans so I could compose something like this. Sadly I couldn’t get both words, “full” and “bodied,” into the frame

Full-BodiedDiptychw
But this morning when I was setting the table for guests tonight, I looked at the hydrangeas on the table and thought, “Wow, full-bodied flowers!” So here’s the one I’m posting on Flickr and two others. I’d be interested in which of the three you like the best.

  
HydrangeasLovelyw

This is the one I’m posting on Flickr. I ran Pioneer Woman’s Lovely and Ethereal action on it.

Here’s a version just sharpened, not a big difference.

Hydrangeasw 

And one with the Soft and Faded action. Makes me think of dried hydrangeas.

HydrangeasSoftFadedw 

Today’s prompt “hush” is proving to be even more elusive.

Creativity Book Camp: Drizzle & Final California Layouts

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This proved to be one of the most difficult prompts. I didn’t want to photograph rain (although it was forecast for today), and this morning decided I use honey drizzling into tea. Easier said than done. I took a ton of photos (and needed Tracy’s help to hold the honey dipper). I got only three decent shots. This one is my favorite:

Drizzle3w

I have finally finished the California album. I still need to do a little piece for the album cover, but the last of the layouts is finished. Here’s the title page. I couldn’t decide quite what to do, but ended up using a Cathy Z. digital template to do a summary layout.

TitleLO

Cardstock: BoBunny; patterned paper: Queen & Co.; epoxy button: Queen & Co.; digital template: Cathy Z’s “Monthly”; digital paper: freebie from Katie Pertiet of Designer Digitals

This is the last of the “story” pages. When we were in Pleasanton one afternoon, I bought Sadie a new ball. To say she was disinterested, is putting it mildly. Then Sarah got the idea to put some peanut butter inside the ball. Well, Sadie’s interest certainly perked up!

FeedMe
I love these little dogs from a piece of Basic Grey “June Bug” paper. All the rest of the papers are Scenic Route as are the alphabet stickers.

Creativity Boot Camp: Ornament

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As soon as I saw the prompt I thought of our friend’s amazing city garden. When you’re in their garden it’s almost impossible to believe you’re in the middle of the city, but you are. Rick has collected quite a variety of ornaments, made the columns that support many of them, and built all the stone walls by hand. It’s truly an amazing place. Marcy is the keeper of the flowers and plants, and they are just as wonderful.

Ornamentw

And three more views of their garden.

Gardenw 

Garden2w 

Garden3w

Creativity Boot Camp: Fly

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The truth is I hate to fly. My family will attest I am not at my best on the day of a flight. I fly because it gets me where I want to go, but I would much rather drive—even across the country. That, of course, is not often practical and is, in fact, as expensive as flying. One way I entertain myself as we take off is to take photos. Once we’re in the air, I rely on compelling books (must be a page turner) and crossword puzzles.

NYC2
The New York City Harbor in March.

I like the horizon and the deepening blue sky in this one taken over the Rockies on the same flight. 

Mountains1 

There was an inspiring post on Write, Click, Scrapbook this week that I finally got around to reading this morning. Since I had a little time before I went to the retirement luncheon, I pulled the photos from my photo walk into a template and finished the layout this afternoon. I decided against any journaling, but put the class title and date of the photo walk on the back of the layout. It doesn’t get much simpler than this.

PhotoWalkLO
Paper: Ambrosia (Basic Grey); chipboard letters: “Licorice” (Cosmo Cricket); chipboard camera: “Mama Razzi” (Bo Bunny); digital template: Pri Rocha Designs