Easter pages

Last year I took so many pictures of my daughter in her Easter dress. It was special because it was the first time she had picked out her own dress. I think she is so beautiful! When it came time to do the pages, I had a lot of fun, using sticker packs from most of the power pallets on the many pages. On this page, I included shots I had taken of her dancing around in the yard. I love it!

For this page, I used my pink pen to do most of the embellishing, framing the photos with it ....

and matching it to this sticker. This was where I got all the inspiration for this page. Since I didn't have any other stickers that would match this one, I made my own flowers.

This page was probably my favorite because it screams "KID!" It's just so colorful! I used the CM primary paper from one of the power pallets and started the word "jellybeans" with one of the everyday ABC stickers. I like how the papers all match in the pallets. It makes it super easy to mat a picture. Notice that I also cut the eggs so that I could have the bottom of the picture slip underneath them. I tossed a couple of jellybean stickers up in the corner and I was all set.

All the embellishments here are Creative Memories, and no, I do not sell it or get paid to mention them. I simply like the quality!

Scrap Happy!

Finding "me" time

I have been scrapbooking my son's album this week and I'm appreciating this desk that I can leave a scrapbooking mess on. In the past, I would scrapbook in the basement or years ago, upstairs! So, having my scrapbooking area set up so close to the action of the house is enabling me to get a lot more accomplished in the short time I have. The page I did last night contains one of my all time favorite pictures of my kids. I had it blown up to an 8x10 since I liked it so much because I wanted it to be a page of it's own. I decorated this page simply, using a quote sticker that I really liked from the Inspirations pack. (CM) I used a black pen to write my title, so that it would match. I drew the hearts freehand and then did something I don't normally do. I colored my finger and used it as a stamper to fill in the hearts. It gave them a soft, imperfect and personal feel.

When looking over all the pages I've done this week in my new son's book, this simple one was my favorite! I feel that most of the pages I've done this week are not that creative, and are pretty plain, as my goal is to get the pages completed. I have done a lot of journaling at this point, because I really wanted to write out the details of how we found out we were expecting him, his birth story and different things like that. I'm blessed to have saved one of the old baby boy kits from CM. It's now retired. I was tickled to find the baby boy sticker pack, still for sale on Creative Memories' website. They also have new baby packs, as well as new kids packs. I placed an order on the website and was pleased with how quickly they shipped it directly to me! Things are going to get accomplished now!

Scrap Happy!

Basketful of Clean Baby

Babies smell so good! I don't know if it's the special baby shampoo, the fact that they eat nothing but milk, or that they are so pure and sweet, but they smell delicious! When I hold my little man, his soft hair is just at the right level for my nose to smell, and for my lips to kiss him on the top of his bobbing little head.

I enjoyed my daughter as a baby. I still do. She's six, but since she has been sick, I am transfixed by her tiny little woman hands. When did they lose their chubbiness? When did her fingers get so long and slender? Since the baby, I find myself amazed by the fact that her legs seem to stretch on and on and her head is gigantic now, compared to my new baby boy. When did this happen? Until he was born 2 months ago, she was my baby! Now, she suddenly seems so grown up! You can see this in pictures where she is proudly holding her brother. I see it in daily life. She no longer calls me when she is going to get sick, she merely reaches for her basin. She answers the phone, doesn't expect me to check on her after I've put her to bed, and only needs help washing her long hair in the shower. I can casually suggest things to wear, but the days of my choosing her outfits are long over, even for family pictures.

I was so excited to get the pictures I ordered in the mail yesterday. Now I have pictures to scrap for my daughter's album. Exciting pictures of her becoming a big sister, and our giant pine trees being chopped down, our super bowl party and Valentine's day. I look forward to making fun pages for her to look at again and again. I love scrapbooking, duh! So I look forward to that aspect of it as well. But all of this is for her to remember how important she is to her daddy and I. I guess a big part of it is also for me to remember her as she was when she was still my baby, my little girl and soon to be a little lady.

Scrap Happy!

Taking Great Zoo Pictures

A lot of the same rules apply at the zoo, as they do in life. I took this picture of the camel, and while it's cute, scroll down and see how much better the camel looks when I took a close up of it. Rule: Close ups are the best!

I took 13 pictures of the lions and from several different angles. Once I was home, I went through and found the one I liked best. Rule: take a lot of pictures! Here is the lion roaring....

and here is my daughter roaring right back! I stuck my camera over the railing to get the picture of my daughter's face. In the picture below, you can't even tell she is roaring, and there is too much "nothing" in the picture. Boring! Rule: point of view is very important!

We move on to my favorite creatures at the zoo, and also the cutest!

This picture was taken right after my little guy had woken up from a nap. He was so happy to see us! The only problem here is the flash on glass. I had to use the flash, because there wasn't enough light inside and because it is very hard to get a good shot of my little guy without flash since he moves almost constantly as he tries to keep his head up, which makes pictures of him blurry! Rule: Make sure your kids are well rested if you want a smile.

This picture is just because we were in the right place at the right time. Rule: Have that camera ready, because you just never know when that photo opportunity will occur at the zoo!

Ok, I just liked this guy's expression! Rule: If the animals are closer than normal, take advantage of it!

And here we have my camel picture that I love so much! This was also another perfect zoo picture day because it was slightly overcast, which makes for good pictures.

Other zoo rules:

Don't take pictures through the fence. If you can see fencing or netting in the picture, it isn't going to work.

Bring extra batteries! We all know why and some of us have had to learn from experience. But if your batteries do run out, you may be able to get at least one more shot by shutting your camera off for a bit and even removing the batteries and then putting them back in.

Don't use a flash when taking pictures through the glass.

Sometimes it's nice to take picture of your kids from behind, looking at the animals. I like to do this but point something out to my daughter that is off to the side and causes her to look that way. Then I get a side view of her face, and it's really cute.

The Pittsburgh zoo has footprints of some animals in the cement, (I particularly like the polar bear) which you can have your kids put their feet next to. This makes an adorable picture.

Scrapbooking zoo pages is fun. Please take pictures of your kids at the zoo, and not just the animals. Then, when you scrapbook, you can put several pictures of animals on a page with at least one picture of your kids.

I like to get a picture of my daughter with the "Kid's Kingdom" sign at the zoo. You can see her grow through the years.

Getting pictures at the monkey house is tricky for me. Usually, I just enjoy the stinky little beasts and give up the idea of taking pictures there. I did get a cute one of my daughter looking at the gibbon this last time. It looks like he is looking back at her and they are both resting their heads. It's funny. To take it, I focused on her and didn't stand too close.

I hope you enjoyed my pictures and maybe learned something, I don't know! Are there any places or events you would like to take pictures, and would like ideas or tips? I'll try to help! Just leave me a comment and let me know. I'll do my best to answer your questions in one of my future blogs.

Scrap Happy!

As if I need another excuse to take pictures!

Last summer, I wrote a princess story specifically for each girl who attended Princess Camp. On the day of the photo shoot, I tried to take pictures that would go with the story I had written them. The last day of camp, I gave each of them photos that I had taken that week, some posed and some random shots and let them scrapbook their personalized books. Are you following me? I have since changed all 15 of the princess stories on my computer, putting my daughter's information in to make them HER stories and have created a collaboration of all of them for her to have. Now I just needed the pictures to go with the stories! The picture above is from the "Candy Princess" and the picture below is from "The Island Princess. " It has taken quite some time to personalize the stories, print them ( I ran out of ink!) and take all of these pictures to go with them! But right now, I'm actually taking a break from putting all of the stories into plastic sleeves and into a folder. So, I'm getting there.

Having just had a new baby, it was harder to find the time to do these things, but it was really nice to have that special time with my daughter, getting her dressed to match the story and having little photo shoots here and there. Today she wrote me a short little note (on toilet paper!) thanking me for making the book for her. I bought her some princess scrapbooking supplies, and intend on letting her have free reign designing pages for the pictures we will insert in the non-photo safe plastic folders. I'm hoping that she can scrapbook at her desk, while I am right nearby, catching up on her album! I'm sure we'll be reading these stories at bedtime for a few years to come!

A Digital Baby Album

I'm caught up on my new son's digital album because I do a few pages every time I have enough pictures. The fuzzy photo above is what the side of the screen looks like. it shows you the pages you have completed, and the page you see blank is left waiting for pictures I want to take of the baby's room.

He already has 38 pages in his album, and this is one that I just did today.

I'm really loving this kind of scrapbooking. My supplies aren't all out everywhere, my pages are so easy to switch around if I decide I want different pages facing one another, and there are so many cool things you can do with the Storybook 2 Creator program! After I took this picture of the above page, I decided I wanted to give the circular photos some shadow, so I did! It changed the page so much. I do miss my stickers, but you can purchase "digital stickers", I'm just being cheap and also, I know that the more toys I have to play with, the longer it will take me to do a page!

For example, I designed the page above, making the picture of the baby after his bath the background (it has a bit of a haze to it as well, to make it soft) and adding the pictures with soft edges to complete the page. This is the second page of his first bath. The first isn't shown here, and I will journal on it, leaving this page journal free. I still do my journaling later, even in my digital scrapbooking! See, uploading photos and creating pages are something I can do while nursing, and I save the journaling for a time when everyone is sleeping.

Scrap Happy!