TGIM

Thank God It's May! :)

I realise I haven't been taking a lot of pictures lately, so when it started to rain while the kids were playing outside, I grabbed my camera. I thought one of them would be crying at getting wet (Ben is just as likely to get as emotional as Tess right now), but they were both out there dancing away in the downpour!

I had a baby shower this past weekend, and at our Friday night crop I threw together what I've come to call my 4-Hour Year in the Life New Parent's Scrapbook. One two-page LO (8x8) for each month, with instructions to take a photo each month next to a favorite stuffed animal or toy to chart baby's growth (Dad sometimes takes this over, and loves it). Oh, and a 2-pager at the start for hospital/family & friends photos, and a 2-pager Happy Birthday LO at the back. Easy-peasy and the mom-to-be always loves and appreciates it. I try not to worry about whether or not it actually gets used, since they take so little time to put together.

I just signed up for Marit's Creative Art Journey class, which starts May 7th. I love history, and never took an art history class, so this is perfect for me. I haven't decided yet whether I will do it digitally (since I just finished Digital Techniques for Art Journaling over at GIS) or on paper, or a mix of both. There will be multiple prompts for each lesson, so I can take my choice and decide from there.

I still need to catch up on A Year in the Life of an Art Journal prompts (I'm working on February 28th, I believe..."Silence," featuring inchies) but that is definitely paper, something to get me in my "studio" (feels funny calling it that, but that's what it is!) once a week or so.

The Color Room has grown to over 1,000 members, and with a new prompt every week, I haven't been able to keep up at all. The CT seems to like LOTS of layering and frou-frou LOs, not my style at all, although I see that in last week's winners there were at least two more simple, clean LOs (more my style). This week's combo seems very "fall/autumn" to me. I'll have to dig through my photos and see if I can come up with anything...

Very sad that SIStv will be no more as of May 15th. I ended up there thanks to PrairieWillow, via 2peas (again, never my favorite place to post) and stayed because the attitude was so friendly and positive. Some folks in the scrapping world (now-defunct ScrapSmack, I'm looking at you) found it fake, but after meeting so many real "SIStahs" in Franklin last June, I can attest that -- while you can't completely avoid Drama when it comes to a group of creative women -- the majority of gals I met I have stayed in touch with and found great long-distance friendships with.

Scrap in Style TV, you will be missed.

Spring Fever

My creative juices are flowing again. At Friday's crop, I finished up the journaling for my holiday layouts. The last couple of years I've done a mini album to commemorate the Christmas season, but this year I had all these extra Lickety-Slip pages - in fact, just enough - to put all my 4x6 holiday photos in order, with room for 4x6 title/journaling blocks. They aren't anything fancy, so I haven't taken a photo, but that is 2009 put to bed - always a good feeling.

Last night we had friends over for ping pong, so late in the afternoon I had a big mug of coffee...it kept me digi scrapping until 2 a.m.! I had to try Pattie's lesson #1 again - art journal backgrounds are just not my fave thing to create, I guess - before moving on to lesson #2, which was posted Thursday.

In this class we learned to make silhouettes from photos. Now this I really liked. I only got halfway through the lesson before I was off and running with an idea for an 8 1/2 x 11 layout for my son.

The black paper I put under my silhouette layer had the swirl on it (Cali Cool, by Valerie Foster) and I added other paper from that kit to pull it together. The title font is Book Jacket (a new fave of mine), the journaling was done in American Typewriter.


I used a photoshop action from Johnna -- 1970s Summer -- which turned the photo orange (without waiting 40 years! LOL) and added a flare (above Ben's head). I turned it B&W to be less distracting and put one of Katie Pertiet's deckled vintage frames behind it.

Speaking of Designer Digitals, they are extending their anniversary sale through 6 a.m. EST Tuesday. They have the CUTEST Dragon Trainer kit (I passed...it was HARD) and the most beautiful mermaid art kit that is perfect for me to finish up our Florida photos.

Just go to their "specials" page to see all 46 new items. And no, I'm not getting any kick backs from them, LOL. Just loving their stuff right now!