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Something From Nothing: Patterned Paper

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Despite all I have cleared out, I have tons of patterned paper and find it hard not to buy any more. But I didn’t cut into one new piece of paper for either of these projects. They both were done with scraps that I keep in a plastic baggie.

The calendar templates, (created by Celeste Smith), I found on Pebble’s blog. I thought it would be fun to have a perpetual birthday calendar hanging on my bulletin board. I haven’t quite decided how to bind it yet. I don’t have a Bind-it All so perhaps I’ll take it to Kinko’s. They’ve done some binding for me in the past, and it’s been quite good and inexpensive.

BDCalendar

Yesterday when I was looking for photos for the little metal frames, I found all these little square photos in the envelope with a common theme. (Thanks, Stacy Julian!) I knew right away I’d do a layout with them. Then I saw all the great pages done with punched circles on Shimelle’s class forum and thought they’d work well with the photo cluster. This is not my usual “clean & simple” layout, but I’m quite happy with it. Along each side of the photo I wrote where the picture was taken.

Shutterbugs 

 I’m off to chair the Youth Ministry Committee at our church tonight, so it’s unlikely I’ll get any more done today. Chicken Cordon Bleu is next on the agenda, at Matt’s request.

Scrap-Mart Projects

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I thought I’d share a couple of Scrap-Mart projects that have gone up on their blog recently. The first is a layout I did for the Friday challenges.

8oMemoriesw
The patterned papers are all new American Craft papers from the Dear Lizzie and Letterbox lines. I love both lines. The white Thickers are also American Craft. The embellishments are all from my stash:  Prima flowers, Papertrey Vintage buttons and Amuse Creative Candy pearls.

And a card using the same papers:

Butterfliesw
It’s a little busier than my usual card, but it’s just the card for a friend of mine whose birthday is in April.

And one more with the Dear Lizzie papers:

Splendiddayw
The stamped sentiment is also from a Dear Lizzie stamp set. This one was lots of fun to make.

And now for a set of cards I made with the new Just Rite stamp set “Seeds of Kindness.” Also for a friend’s birthday in April.

SeedsNotecards 

Notecard1
Each sentiment is different and the colors of each patterned paper differs. Both the cardstock and the patterned paper are from Papertrey Ink. The ribbons are all from Paper Source.

Something From Nothing: Metals

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Classimage

It’s been a particularly productive week, but finding time to get to the computer to blog has been difficult. I broke down and decided to take Shimelle’s class Something From Almost Nothing for two reasons. One, several of my blogging friends were taking it, and second, I have plenty of stash to work with even after cleaning out and giving away a LOT of my supplies since the holidays.

The first prompt involved using your metal stash. I have several little drawers filled with metal letters, words, and frames as well as a little box devoted to brads. One items I saw used in the prompts was bottle caps. Ever since I bought them (probably 3-4 years ago) I have wondered what I was thinking. So I pulled them out and this is what I came up with.

StarBottleCapCard
Matt thought this was a particularly cool card–“Wow, a card with beer bottle caps!” Well, not exactly, but it sure is the idea.

3BottleCapCards
Three very similar cards, but all with a slightly different shape and size.

BottleCapDetail
These cards will need to be hand delivered or put into a padded envelope, but I like the flowers.

And a card with brads. I saved this paper when I cleaned out earlier this year and cut it into little squares. But then didn’t know quite what to do with it.

BradCard
I have quite a bit of it left for another project or two or three.

When I was perusing my metal goodies, I found a set of Making Memories metal frames. Then I started going through the little square photos I have in a drawer (a tip from Stacy Julian’s Photo Freedom). I found a set I have piled on my desk for a later layout, but these four fit the frames perfectly. Since the three of us were just talking about Kiawah the other night at dinner, the journaling came easily.

MetalFrameLO
I have a lot of ideas for prompt #2 (patterned paper), and hope to get to some of them this week, but the days are pretty filled with appointments and errands that need to be done before we leave for California early Saturday morning. I knew when I signed up that I would never be able to keep up, so I’m pleased to have created a few things for the beginning of class.

Weekend Projects

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First of all, the Weekly Gratitude pages for the last two weeks. I’m not sure why last week’s never got posted.

Gratitude2.13 

And this week’s–I used just the journaling part of the Weekly Gratitude template so I could put it on the back of last week’s page. I’m liking how flexible this album is turning out to be.

Gratitude2.20_1

Now for my favorites from this week’s Project 365. Despite my “note to self,” once again I didn’t take as many photos as I’d wished. I’m taking “Moving into Manual” at Big Picture Scrapbooking now. There are just two assignments this week, both of which I’ve done previously to help you evaluate the light in different settings and to see the effect of changing the ISO in a setting with the same lighting. I’ll do both again because every time I work with the photographic triangle of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO I learn a little more. 

February3Collage
1. I finished two books this week. Both were memoirs, one of my favorite genres. They couldn’t have been more different, and I really enjoyed reading both of them. 2. A vintage-style phone at Donut Delite. 3. Ice Dancing during the 2010 Olympics. 4. Shrimp and vegetable chowder from a new Crock Pot cookbook.        5. The beautiful sky taken from inside my car as I drove down the street one night. It’s hard to see in the collage but there’s a sliver of a moon just above a tree in the middle of the photograph. Taken with my point and shoot through the windshield. I’m always amazed that this works.

And last, but not least, two scrapbook layouts, neither of which photographed straight. Sigh.

DonutsDelite
 I did get my hot cross buns, and they were delicious!

MacGregorsLO
Tracy and I spent the afternoon on Friday with his best friend and his wife in the Finger Lakes. We had a wonderful lunch in Hammondsport, and visited three of our favorite wineries.

I’m finally getting the hang of the hybrid layout. The first uses a digital template from Cathy Z. I used only four of the layers before printing it out. The second uses Katie Pertiet’s clustered frames. I’ve seen Paula Gilarde use these over and over on her blog and decided to give it a try myself.

Scrap-Mart

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I thought I would share some of the projects I’ve done for the Scrap-Mart Design Team. They picked up a lot of new lines at CHA, and are expecting lots of new products for their existing lines. I’m especially glad they’ve decided to pick up both October Afternoon and Jillibean as those are two of my favorite paper lines. I received some of the new American Craft papers to play with (next up in my project list), and they are wonderful. I’m waiting to get the new Hands Free mat for the Slice. They’ll also be stocking the 12 new design cards.

This is the first time I’ve ever used Just-Rite stamps. I had one of their self-stamping units and wasn’t very pleased with it. Now I have two sets of the hand-held stamps, and there’s so much you can do with them. It’s also my first experience with Unity Stamps, and they’re a quality stamp, mounted much like the new Hero Art Clings. So here are a few of the projects:

JRValentine 

Just Rite Stamps

SMJanSketch_hi

Sassafrass Lass papers

ThinkingofYouOrange 

Sketch challenge at Scrap-Mart with Sassafrass Lass papers and brad

You'reTheBest

Copic markers

PuzzlingLO 

Sassafrass Lass paper and Copic markers

YouMakeLifeBright 

Unity Stamps

ThankYo 

Unity stamps

Last Week’s Layout

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I’m late in posting this, but I did get another layout done last week. Sometimes I think there are no “daily moments” around this house with three adults, but that’s because I’m just not paying good attention. Matt has spent most of January holed up in his room studying for the Graduate Record Exam. It’s become clear that finding even an entry level job in a plant breeding and genetics lab is going to require more lab experience than he has. He has always known a master’s degree would be important, but it looks as if graduate school might be sooner rather than later. He’s hoping to get take the GRE sometime this month. On Friday, I wandered into his room and asked if I could take some photos. He’s gotten pretty used to this, and is generally very cooperative. The little photo session produced this layout. I used a digital template from Cathy Zielske from Designer Digitals, mounted it on textured cardstock, and added a real brad to the date tag.

Matt GREL0

Project 365

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Here’s my layout summary for January. I used the color picker in PSE to color the text squares, and didn’t realize quite how bright it was until I printed it. I was unwilling to use the ink it would take to redo it, so went through my stash and found this equally bright graph paper from Paper Loft. The photo template is one of Cathy Z’s from Designer Digitals. It’s definitely not me, but done. I do like the format, though, mostly photos but a bit of journaling about our month.

JanuaryLO 

I played around with some textures and blending modes this weekend, so for this week, I’m sharing the original and the altered photo. For the first one I used an Antique Paper action and then a black and white tint. I rather like it.

CardBox

 

For the second one I used the pencil sketch action in PSE and adjusted the contrast. It turned the photo into a drawing. I think it’s a technique I could use for a transfer or maybe for a card.

Starbucks 

At any rate, it was fun to play around.

Two Parties

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I subbed for my friend today in her special needs first grade. I volunteer there every week, so the kids are very comfortable with me. I love the time I spend there. They are the kindest group of children you could ask to have in a classroom, and my friend is a fantastic teacher so they are making such good progress. One reason I don’t miss teaching is that each week I get my “kid fix” and “colleague fix.” And then I get to go home without the paperwork, political hassles, and worries of a full-time job.

Yesterday I spent most of the day working on the computer trying to learn some more features in Photoshop Elements 8. I made some progress, and spent a good amount of time working on a watermark for my photographs. Tracy gave me a set of actions for Christmas that will resize, sharpen, and add a watermark to your photographs before you upload them to the web. I’ve yet to come up with a watermark I really like, so it’s a work in progress.

I do have two layouts to share.The first one is from my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday party in June. As I was going through some papers recently I found a Doodlebug paper with pennants, and it seemed the perfect embellishment for the photograph that had been in the “to scrap” pile for several months.

80YearsYoung 

Basic Grey and Doodlebug papers, tag and ribbon from stash, American Craft “Jewelry Box” chipboard alphas 

The second layout I did for a sketch that will be posted at Scrap-Mart tomorrow morning. It’s another party layout from this summer.

1-22-10

It'sAPartyLO1.22Sketch
Scenic Route, Sassafrass Lass, &  Collage Press papers, title cut from Making Memories Slice “Calendar,” Sassafrass Lass border “Gum Drop Garden,” circle cut from Nestabilities die, Papertrey cardstock, buttons from stash, Jolee’s sticker (I think.)

Cold Snap

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Although it was a bit warmer today, it’s been cold and snowy ever since Christmas. Last week I went to Highland Park, briefly, to take some photographs, and over the weekend, I walked around the outside of our house for a few more. I thought I’d try putting a few of them in a template I downloaded last spring. Once I finished it, I was inspired to make a layout for the 365 Challenges. This one is for the Clean & White challenge. I didn’t want to ruin the clean look, so I put the journaling on the back of the layout.

ColdsnapLO

Cardstock (Bazzill Swiss Dot), snowflakes (Reminisce), alpha stickers (Scenic Route), and template #64 by Timounette.

Here’s closer look at the snowflakes:

ColdSnapDetail 

And the journaling:

JournalingColdSnap

Journal Your Christmas–Done

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I finished the last two pages of the Christmas Journal today, and I’m please with the end result. The smaller size inspired me to do a lot more digital work so I could include more photos. Once again, it’s apparent that our holidays are filled with good times, dear family, and wonderful friends. There’s always something new and different, so I’m expecting to do another journal next year. But I’ll have to find a bigger basket for them.

PackedUp 

And a total lift from Ali Edwards, although a much reduced version. We no longer get very many family photos, and what we do get come in the way of newsletters so I just punched squares from lots of the cards we received and picked nine to close the journal.

JYCLastPage

Apples to Apples

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Another of my intentions for 2010 is to post a layout every week. Maybe I’ll get on a regular schedule with this, but I want to complete more layouts. Today I finished one for the sketch Katie posted on the Scrap-Mart blog.

ApplestoApplesw
I used my Slice machine and Calendar design card to cut the apples and words for the title. Cardstock (Bazzill Swiss Dot and red and green papers from scrap files), journaling card (Pebbles), patterned paper (Sassafras Lass Me Likey “Fresh Pick”)

Intentions

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My little project is finished and ready to go. In the “Reclaiming My Time” class at BPS, we spent three weeks thinking about how we use our time, keeping track of our time, and making a wish list of how we’d like to spend our time. Karen asked us to group all the things we do in a week into categories. I ended up with 13 groups, 8 of which are in the book. The other five I’ll do no matter what, so my intentions there aren’t so important. Thinking all this through was very helpful to me. 

Another trick I learned from Karen’s blog was to make lists. So each two-page spread includs an envelope that houses the lists I’ve made to help me stay focused on the things I want to accomplish. For instance, I made a list of 41 books I’d like to read this year. In 2009 I read 36 books, so it’s possible I might read 41 books, but that’s not the purpose of the list. The list does not include the books my book group will choose for 2010, and I’m sure I’ll read a review of a new book and decide to read it instead of one on the list. But the list includes all the books I’ve been wanting to read (and many of which I own). Each group also includes a photograph and a quote I liked about each subject.

Cover 

Album (Tinkering Ink), patterned paper (Paper Loft), stickers (SEI)

InsideCover
Clocks (Heidi Swapp), spinner (Tim Holtz), number stickers (from stash), patterned paper (Paper Loft)

Family
I haven’t attached the envelopes to the right-hand page, but may decide to do that later. Patterned paper (Paper Loft), stickers (Frances Meyers), Quote: “Family is the greatest blessing.”


Friends
Patterned paper (Paper Loft), stickers (Frances Meyer), Quote: “Friendship is what gets you through the bad times and helps you enjoy the good times”.

Read
Quote:  ” Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”–Charles W. Eliot

Learn
Quote: “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”

Internet
Quote: “The heart of blogging is linking . . . linking and commenting. Connecting and communicating-the purpose of the internet.”–George Siemens  

Photography
Quote: “A camera is a tool for learning to see without a camera.” –Dorthea Lange

Crafting
Quote:  “The true are of memory is the art of attention.”

Exercise
Quote: “Commit to be fit.”

LastPage

On a different topic, we’ve seen two movies in two days. Highly unusual; I don’t remember the last time we’ve seen two movies in a month. Yesterday we saw Up in the Air with George Clooney. I loved it; the acting was superb, the writing excellent, and there was no trite ending. Today we went with friends to see Sherlock Holmes. It was well-done, but too many violent fights and explosions for my taste. As my friend said, “Hardly your grandmother’s Sherlock Holmes.”  

A New Year

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New Year

Morning light from our bedroom window.

 It’s a new year, and the beginning of a new decade. I love beginnings. The start of a new school year was always my favorite time of year. I loved setting up my classroom, getting to know a new set of students, creating new lessons, and being back with my friends. I feel much the same way about 2010. I have spent a lot of time thinking about how I want to spend my time this year than ever before. I’m sure that’s due to Karen Grunberg’s Reclaiming My Time class at BPS. I thought I would have a project to post today celebrating my thinking and my word for the year–intention–but the project is taking more time than I anticipated. The class, and Karen’s blog, have really helped me think through how I want to spend my time in 2010. Her process has resonated with me, and I’ll share some of it when I share my project.

Intention:
1.  A course of action that one intends to follow. 2.  An aim that guides action; an objective.

I decided “intention” really fit my needs this year. I always make resolutions; I’m good at keeping some of them, terrible at others. This year I’ve made some lists that I’ll be sharing to help me focus on my intentions. As I love new beginnings, I also love making lists. They help me prioritize as well as stay focused. I’m hoping that stating my intentions will help me be more productive. Here’s to a great new year!

Caught Up!

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I finally had time to day to catch up with the Christmas Journal. I had mixed feelings about the 6X6 album, but one clear advantage of it is that I have done a lot more digital and hybrid layouts. With such a small size, doing photo collages is almost a necessity. I have two pages left at the end of the album and am saving one for New Year’s Eve and have two other possibilities for the other one. Getting straight photos of them tonight has proven exceptionally difficult, but here they are (straight IRL for sure!).

Visitors 

Menu
I altered a journaling card from a digital kit by Cathy Z for the menus. The velvet letters are from American Crafts.  Patterned paper is from Memory Box.

Wrapping
Patterned paper (Memory Box) 

ChristmasEveLO 

I used a part of Ali E’s Believe template for the journaling on the left-hand page. The left column is my journaling from the morning, and the right-hand is journaling I wrote after church on Christmas Eve. It wasn’t feeling much like Christmas in the morning, but by the time we went to bed, it felt just like Christmas. We had a great evening. Patterned paper from Memory Box, circle stamp from Hero Arts, and numbers from SEI.

ChristmasLO2p
ChristmasJournaling
Hero Arts circle stamp and Making Memories numbers.  

BirthdayLO
Sunday we had a belated birthday party for my brother-in-law. Ribbon from my stash, circle number from karenika. 

Yesterday I had lunch with four good friends. We had an elegant, long, and leisurely lunch. I decided to take a notepad to each of them, so finished up a few more yesterday morning–just in time.

Notepads 

Patterned papers from October Afternoon, Crate Paper, and Cosmos Cricket. Stamps from Papertrey Ink (Take a Note), ribbons from Papertrey Ink and from stash, gems from Amuse (Creative Candy). buttons from a Studio Calico kit and Papertrey Ink.
  


Creative Calendar 2010

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For the last four or five years I’ve made myself a little calendar to keep track of the number of cards and layouts I do each year. I’m always amazed at the end of the year to find out how many cards I’ve made! I don’t complete as many layouts, but they take me quite a bit longer. Nonetheless, it’s gratifying at the end of the year to discover that I did actually get quite a bit done. This year I used all Jillibean papers. I love the graphic grids on one side and the polka-dots on the other. Since the papers are so bright, I kept embellishments to a minimum; pulling out a few paper punches seemed to do the trick. The calendar pages are from a Junkiz Calendar Kitz that I picked up several years ago. The red alphabet is my favorite this year–a puffy alpha by SEI. The number stickers came from Michaels, and the ribbons from my scraps.

CalendarCover 

AprilMayPgs 

JuneJulyPgs