Father's Day Mini-books (Part 2)

This is the second album I made for Father's Day. This one was for my father who joined us for the 4th of July celebration we had at the cabin. It was a great weekend and fun to play cards and be silly like when we were on vacation as kids. The cousins were all together and it gave me a chance to be grateful for my family and the chances we have to get together to just be.

Album 2: You Make Me Smile mini-book
This album was made using a kit I received at the Technique Tuesday Bliss weekend (which was awesome!). It was very quick to put together - just glued on the paper and rounded corners. Cropped the photos and placed them on with some quick journaling. It was fun and I'm happy with how it turned out. For the journaling, I asked my kids what they liked best about Grandpa and just created a simple list to go with some photos I had around. Took me a little over an hour to pull together.

Father's Day Mini-books (Part 1)

For Father's Day this year I made mini-books for my husband, father, and father in-law that turned out super cute.

Album 1: Shrimping with Dad and Grandpa
Mother's Day weekend was one of only a few days you can shrimp on Hood Canal and we had fun taking the kids out for their first time. Carter (5) decided he wanted to try to kayak by himself this weekend too, so it ended up being a lot of firsts for us! I was glad that I got to document it for our family and knew that my father in-law would like to look at the pictures over and over again.

I couldn't find a decent chipboard album last minute at the craft stores I visited so I had to improvise. I bought wood rectangles that were super light and adhered the pictures directly to the wood. After trimming the pictures with an exacto knife, I used sand paper to even up the edges and give them a little white border. Then I took some white ink and stamped directly onto the photos - but the ink took forever to dry. I used my hot gun and it still didn't dry. The stamps are all Ali Edward's from Technique Tuesday. A friend gave me a tip to just put some paper towel over to soak up anything that was still sticky and that seemed to work. I think they turned out awesome!

Part 2 coming soon!

Spring is here

I am loving the longer days and the sun shining through the trees in the evenings. Kids playing outside and happy. It makes me so thankful to live where we are. We had a great Easter weekend - Sabrina had a birthday and we got to hang out with both sides of the family.

This is the digital scrapbook page I pulled together to remember Easter. My first digital spread all by myself! I used an Ali Edwards template to help make it easier and I'm hoping it'll go faster next time.

Now I need to work out a new process and work flow for processing my pictures. I would like to be able to import the pictures, review them and mark my favorites and tag them, then edit the pictures I like if they need it, and then share them with my friends and family or print them at Costco.  There has to be a more efficient way to do that. I like how iPhoto organizes the photos, but don't like how they make another copy. I think I'll download Picassa to organize and tag the photos, Photoshop to edit the pictures, and then pull them into iPhoto to facilitate sharing.

Photoshop lesson 2

Scrappin' fun

I'm taking another Photoshop class from Jessica Sprague and I really like it. This is the layout I made during the first lesson:
And while this may look simple, I think I had almost 40 layers in Elements before I finished. I even turned the photo to sepia manually and colored in Carter on his bike. I'm feeling very fancy right about now.

December Daily Album

I've decided to create a December Daily scrapbook album before Dec 1 and got a great start on it yesterday. I am so inspired by Ali Edwards and love her sense of style and imperfect approach to capturing everyday life.

More links to projects and products for my, I mean your, inspiration:
Another December Daily album done in July in preparation.
Holidays in Hand class by Jessica Sprague - which I am also planning on doing this year.
Journal Your Christmas with email prompts

My goal is to slow down this year - be intentional about creating christmas magic, focus on experiences (not stuff) and savor every moment. I'm hoping these projects will help!

My first digital scrapbook page

I made my first page today, do you like it?

Jessica Sprague taught me how. I took a free class online here.

Basic Photoshop stuff but I needed it. It's been over 10 years since I really used Photoshop! I'm very excited. Taking the next class now...

Cricut Contest Entry

This is contest entry for those crazy folks at TodaysMama and Cricut. Be sure to check out Cricut's cool new cartridges and the chance at $30,000 in travel for you and your friends at the Great Gypsy Escape site!

Great Escape Meme
1. If you could escape to anywhere in the world where would it be? Hawaii
2. What song do you play when you are by yourself in the car? Viva la Vida

3. If you had a night to yourself, and money was no object, what would you do? Spa, hair, pampering generally
4. What is your guilty pleasure? anything baked, especially chocolate
5. What is the farthest place you have traveled away from your home? Munich
6. Last book that you couldn't put down? Edgar Sawtelle
7. When you want to escape into another time, what movie do you watch?
8. What is your favorite local escape? Point No Point beach with the kiddos
9. How do you escape on a budget? Parks, beaches, long walks, picking blackberries
10. Best food you've ever had while on vacation. Sushi in hawaii - so fresh and yummy!

Inspiring Layout: Hearts

I ran across this beautiful scrapbook page yesterday. Enjoy!

Look what we did today!

I got a new scrapbooking tool called a Cricut that cuts any shapes I want. It is very fun and a little addicting....