At the pool

Going to the pool is relaxing, because I don't take my camera more than a couple of days. If I have my camera, I am thinking like a photographer. Sometimes I wish I had my camera, but with out it I am able to just enjoy living without having to worry about capturing the moment. On this page, I combined all my pictures taken at the pool over the summer. I used a water camera. It was nice not to worry about it getting stolen, and also because my camera wouldn't be sitting in the sun. Since I was filling my page up with a lot of pictures, I didn't use a whole lot of page elements. I did punch squares of water out from pictures I cropped, and put letter stickers on them to spell out the name of the pool. I used paper and stickers from the power pallets, so that they went together and I didn't have to worry about them matching. CM did that for me! I only matted my very favorite picture, so that it stood out.

I have been scrapping lately, as well as taking my business a little more seriously. I just finished Christmas and New Year's. Now I have January and February to do. Remember, I had just gotten my digital camera, so I took a lot of pictures in that short period! I can easily take 100 a day at the Children's museum, although I don't print them all. I also have most of May to do.I still feel overwhelmed, but I shouldn't.

Licking the Ponies

This is my favorite picture from my daughter's birthday party! Her cake had ponies on it, and as soon as she blew out the candles, she took off the ponies and started to lick the icing off their feet. I like it because it isn't your generic birthday party picture.

I took a lot of the generic birthday pictures at her party, including the classic "the tired and worn out family AFTER the party" shot. That's always because I don't think if getting a picture of the 3 of us until the last person is just about to leave! That's alright, because after 5 years, it's now a bit of a tradition!

Party picture tips:

I always neglect to get more than one picture with my husband and I in it. (the picture mentioned above) This is because I am too possesive of my camera and want to make sure I get the pictures I want. My husband is always so busy feeding everyone, and that's why he gets left out. Moral: If you can hand over your camera to a friend to take the party pictures, please do!

This year, I waited on the porch for the cake to come out. I had positioned my daughter and her friends at the table and was able to get a shot of them looking for the cake, with happy anticipation on their faces!

We played a couple of games, and a friend of mine took pictures while I supervised. We played a hot potatoe game and I like how she took pictures of the dwindling circle. One of my favorite shots was the kids who had gotten out in the game, watching along the railing of the porch.

To avoid the mayhem of gift opening, I had the kids stay in their circle after the game. Everyone retrieved their own gift for the birthday girl, and they would take turns sitting next to her as she opened their gift. (front row seat of honor) This also helped her to know who the gifts were from, and gave me the perfect opportunity to get a shot of her with each guest.

As you can see in picture #1, this year, I had a 5 candle as well as 5 single candles. This gave her more to blow out, and gave me more chances to get the perfect shot of her blowing the candles out, a shot that I hate to miss, but have missed in the past!

Everyone gets a shot of the birthday cake. I do, too! It's almost always decorated as a reflection of what the guest of honor is into that year.

It was raining a bit at the party. But the kids didn't seem to mind. To remember the kids playing in the rain, I took a picture of my girl and her friend with their hands up, enjoying the warm rain.

I always have one or more of my daughter's albums out at the party and try to get a picture of someone looking at it.

One picture I often find I've forgotten, is a picture of my daughter all by herself! (Even the one above was cropped.) So, this year, at the end of the party, I made sure to get one of her, alone.

Scrap Happy!

Scenes from a scrapbook

I have been scrapping upstairs in my living room lately. During the day, I keep all of my supplies in their neat little bags in the corner. In the evening, when my daughter is in bed and my husband is relaxing on the big couch watching TV, I pull out all of my scrapping stuff and try to work on it. I really haven't been as productive as I am in my workshop room, maybe because the TV is distracting. ( I usually just have the radio on, and if I'm journaling, I listen to classical music. No words in the songs to accidentally write down!) I also like to have everything spread out so that I can see it, and that is impossible to do when I'm working in the space I am.

Above is a page I did last month. It is of our trip to Arizona, and the picture I took of it does not show it well enough. I mentioned that I used the jewel and natural snap packs, which worked very well with the desert colors and made it easier. I also made my own cactus out of paper, using the heart punch and giving it needles with a pen. If you don't have page decorations, make your own! That's what I do!

Scrap Happy!

High School Musical

Aren't they cute? Yeah, but that's not the real reason I am putting these pictures up here today. It's obvious that these pictures were taken at the same event! I have some tips for you, in reference to taking pictures at a show just like this one.

Tip #1 Notice in picture #1 that the kids are all looking at the other camera? Make sure you hve everone's attention when taking a picture. I know this can be difficult with group shots, especially when kids are involved! Tell them to look and see if they can see through the camera at your eye, or some other strange thing, that will make them smile and look directly at the camera.

Tip #2 As I keep preaching, it's always best if the photographer is higher than the subject

Tip #3 In this case, I stood on the stairs to take my picture because I wanted most of the stage curtain in the background. In shot #1, the kids block the curtain.

Tip #4 They don't like you to take pics during the show. these were taken at intermission. Plot you pics out ahead of time, so that when the time comes to take the picture you aren't wandering around, wasting time, looking for the shot.

Tip #5 I didn't show it here, but I also took pictures of the kids in their seats before the show, and pictures at the very end, when the whole cast of the show was bowing. Another cute picture would be outside, in front of the poster showing the show that is being performed, or in front of the theater.

Tip #6 Thanks to a friend in the know, we found out that we could wait out back and get autographs and pictures with the cast after the show! The kids loved this, and I never thought to do it before!

Tip#7 Keep your program and tickets for the album, too!

As for the show, it was awesome! We all had such a good time, and it was different from the movie, which was cool, at least the changes made in the second half. My favorite thing was that the 2 main characters finally kiss in the end! That's something that differs from the movie as well, and I always felt that gap! It really was a blast!

Scrap Happy!

Camping

This weekend, my daughter and I took a camping trip with some friends. It was her first experience camping. I just uploaded all 56 of my photos, and with that came memories. Memories of her eating her first s'more, wading in the creek, catching tadpoles in the river, and climbing huge rocks without fear. Memories of the excitement the kids felt to be sleeping in a tent! But the memory that stands out the most, doesn't have a picture to go along with it. We were walking to the bathroom, (actually, I was walking, and she was riding on my back!) and I smelled the air and asked her to smell it, too. She did and said, "It smells good. What is it?" I said, "That's camping." and she said, " I love camping!" That was my favorite memory!

he loves me, he loves me not....

Sometimes, when you least expect it, that moment will just happen. How awesome to have your camera at the ready at that exact moment! When you capture that moment, please make sure you give it a place of honor in your album. If you don't have it stand out and no one notices it, what's the point?
s How can you make it stand out? Here are some tips that work:
a Get it enlarged
a mat it, once twice or even thrice!
a give it it's own page.
a where do you look first when you look at a page? I like to place my favorite pictures towards the outside of the page, or right in the center of the page.
a put a sticker overlapping one of the corners of the picture

I finished part of what I wanted to get done in my daughter's album. I was able to show my aunt my completed trip to Arizona, so that was a relief! I also did something I had never done with pictures. My husband and I made a DVD of pictures set to music to show to everyone at my daughter's birthday party. I was pleased with the results, and my daughter can watch it over and over. It was a lot of work, but most of it was unnecessary, because I was learning, and didn't know what I was doing!

Scrap Happy!

short and sweet

Ahhhh, Summer! I love it! There are so many things to do that you just can't do at other times of the year, especially when you live in the northern states. Often, I find myself at places that I have gone yearly, and I still take a few pictures to capture the moments. Last year, we spent the day at a local amusement park and I only took a smattering of pictures. I put them all on one page, and I decorated it very simply. Often when I overlap a central picture, I mat it, to seperate it from the others. I did that here. I used two, soft, blue papers on part of the page, and just decorated one corner of the page by punching out 4 squares and placing a square sticker from the CM Lazy Days pack right in the center of the 4 squares. It kind of mimics the way the pictures are placed on the page, actually. In the left hand corner, I jotted down a few memories of our day in what we in the scrapbooking world call "bullet journaling". It really says all that it needs to. I used the photo I took of the entrance sign as a sort of title for the page.

I love this page!

Scrap Happy!