Catch-Up

I haven't been to a crop in almost 3 weeks; it's making me antsy. I took Sunday to work in my studio (haha, I love calling it that, it's just an office area crammed with junk!) but had to let gesso dry on a project before I could do any more work on it :(

I ended up assisting at the co-op yesterday (bound to happen when you're one of two subs on the list) so I didn't get back to my project; today I HAVE to train at the gym a bit after taking last week off (Ben had the sniffles). RACE DAY IS SATURDAY (!!) and while I had to move down to the one-mile fun run, it is now my 3rd mile "race" of the year, so technically (ahem) I have finished 3-one mile races this year, nearly a 5K...anyone? Bueller? Thats what I thought ;)

At times like this, digital scrapbooking comes in handy, although I think E is getting sick of coming home in the evening and seeing me on my laptop every. dang. night.

This one just granted me a prize (not sure what, yet, but Four Hens Photography was the sponsor...) as a "random" winner (always the bridesmaid...LOL) for Digi Dares challenge #205. We were not to use straight lines...quite a challenge. I used a kit from Digital-Crea by Ninie Designs, her part of a collab called Moment of Happiness. Other bits used are masks and edges from Katie Pertiet over at Designer Digitals.

This is a prime example of in-the-moment scrapbooking. I had promised the kids we would make caramel apples, bought the caramels, then LOST them (I'm thinking they fell out of my cart...and I never bought them to begin with...) One month later, another bag of caramels, and boom! a fun afternoon the week of Thanksgiving, when Tess had half days Mon-Wed. I sat right down that evening and scrapped my photos with the iDSD blog train kit from DigiScrapAddicts (once again, too late to enter their International Digital Scrap Day contest, so I've received NO LOVE over there...sniff...feel free!)

It has been near impossible to find a warm and welcoming scrap site since Scrap In Style closed its (digital) doors. Even a subscription to the Digital Scrapbook Artisian Guild (with its inspiring and informative online magazine) did me no good, as hardly anyone posts there. This last layout was a color challenge in their November magazine, using a gorgeous "red" kit from Ruby Rhynne, who retired earlier this year. This is one of my favorite layouts this year, mostly due to the fantastic photo of my bud:

...which was altered with an action from Four Hens...hmm...what goes around!

I need to get back in the swap swing of things...left poor Angie & her wonderful crew hanging with their latest Typography ATC challenge...sorry, m'dears...and I haven't art journaled with Year in the Life since their Ning site closed down (not that that is my excuse, but...definitely made it harder to comment & keep track). Right now I've started a (free) class at Jessica Sprague and the first project is an art journal cover...that should be a big honking clue right there...but again, not a warm and fuzzy group over there either, although Jessica herself rocks.

Until next time...thanks, as always, for your comments. I look forward to them!

Hot hot HOT

I keep scrappin' away...mostly digital but I did make these cards yesterday for Ben's preschool teachers...last day of school for him...These came from the PaperCrafts book, Card A Day, which I purchased in January hoping to make at least a card a week from scraps after cropping, but it didn't work out that way...I picked up the book because the card designs were simple & beautiful (although a lot of them involve sewing...see my Mother's Day cards, also from this book) and I kept saying, "hey! I have that paper!" In fact, the design for these used exactly the Cosmo Cricket paper (handwriting sampler) that I used here. And I knew I saved all those dang pieces of leftover scalloped pieces for something! LOL --The actual card design with a half-circle slot for closing it is from a card I made in a Stampin' Up card club I used to go to each month. A fun and unexpected design...I've been trying to make more of these top-fold styles.


Jessica Sprague has been running Photoshop Friday classes for about a month now; they are regularly $3.99 but on Dollar Wednesdays you can get them for...wait for it...a dollar (didn't see that coming, did you?) In fact, this week's lesson is still a dollar, through Friday 5/28 at midnight. The LO above was done with materials from Lesson #2: Custom Shape Masks. I used a book shape instead of the sun shape she used in her LO sample, and I love how it turned out! The paper is from Nisa Fiin's Splendid Fiin (rhymes with "beans") Sweet Pea papers. I put a Katie Pertiet edge (Letterbox Overlays #2, I believe) around it to rough it up a bit...certainly nothing involving my son is going to be neat & clean! Haha. Finally, here was a LO I did for a 5 year anniversary contest over at Scrap Artist. They were picking 5 winners (DT spots for a month each -- with free access in their store for the month) so I thought I'd have a chance*, plus I liked the "5" theme, and went with my five favorite rummage/junk/antique finds. All of your materials had to be from Scrap Artist; I had quite the wish list going so I went with their incredible Studio Remnants kit...organized by color, so you know it sucked me in. It helped that they were having a store-wide sale (35% off pretty much everything), but my wish list is still pretty big over there...

I'm a little lost when it comes to sharing projects...haven't yet found a gallery to replace good ole SIStv (although it is still up and running...so I'm not sure if J.J. is actually shutting it down, or just not doing webisodes anymore). Especially in the world of digital scrapping, if you don't use their product, you aren't supposed to upload to their galleries. I've also had work disappear from galleries after a period of time, even after following the rules (DigiCrea, I'm looking at you...oh! and also Jessica Sprague's site, which is quite all-inclusive when it comes to posting projects using products that aren't necessarily from her shop).

I'm guessing that is to save server space; I can only imagine how much is on SIStv's servers after 3 years of photo uploads. But it seems pretty cold in this online world, to put up work only to have it deleted after a month or two. If anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear them. For now I'll just keep updating to my blog.

*yeah, I didn't. Have a chance ;)