Amusement Park Pictures

Tis the season for amusement parks! We went this week, and I have some picture tips and ideas here for you! I always like to get a family picture. This means I have to ask a random stranger to take it. First, I have us stand in the area where I want the picture taken. If you have time to be picky, look for one with a huge camera. This shows you that they must know what they are doing. I like to get a picture either right as you enter, full of excitement and hair that is not yet windblown, or towards the end of the day, when it's still pretty light out but the lights have just been turned on. This makes for a festive picture.

I like to play with my camera in lines. This picture was taken while in line, by my husband.

Here's an action shot of my little girl, hanging on tight! I took this shot almost every time she came around to make sure I'd get a keeper.

Here's a posed shot. The lighting was favorable and she looked so cute!

I zoomed in on my husband and baby boy for this one. I was in line to ride with my daughter. I don't even think they knew I was getting their picture. I liked how they were interacting.

Here is my daughter in line, and in her own little world.

While waiting for the ride to start, I had taken a couple pictures of my daughter and husband smiling at me. For this one, I had the brilliant idea to make it look like they were actually RIDING on the ride. They were good sports, and it made them laugh for the picture, too.

This isn't even a ride, but doesn't it look like my boy is waiting for it to start and zoom off?

The cutouts. Ok, what is the point of this? Well, last year, we took a picture of Daddy in the "Andy" cutout. Once you take a picture, my daughter thinks it's a tradition, and runs to pose as soon as she sees a familiar prop. It did turn out to be adorable!

This picture actually IS a tradition. I take this picture of my daughter every year. It's cool to look back and see how much she grew. It was so much fun to take my son to Storybook Forest and hear his excited little noises as we walked through. He liked it more than the rest of the Park.

Other tips:

When an attendant comes around to check your seat belt, don't hesitate to ask them to take a picture of you on the ride. I've never had one tell me no.

Carry your camera and extra batteries, film, memory card in a small case right on your person. Make sure it's hands free.

If you want to plan ahead, have your family wear colors that will go together and not clash. This makes it easier to scrapbook later and you all look like you belong together. One year, we wore red white and blue. This made for fun pages and amusement parks are the epitome of summertime, as are the patriotic colors!

On the other hand, I like to wear bright colors on my daughter so that she is easy to spot when she is climbing up tall nets and running across bridges and the like. These make for fun pictures, too. (especially with cotton candy in the shot!)

Scrapbooking amusement park pictures can be a challenge, since it can be hard to find stickers that match your theme. You will probably have to think outside of the box. I know for a fact that Creative Memories doesn't make amusement park stickers any more. Try to match your clothes, and remember that stars always work with amusement park pics.

Scrap Happy!

Live, Love and Leave a Legacy

A friend of mine went to heaven this week. She was a mother, and not much older than I am. I find myself staring and thinking. It's hard to grasp the loss of her, since she was such a presence. I can still hear her laugh! She has left a giant Krissy sized hole, especially to her kids, who are in their young teens. Kris was an awesome scrapbooker. I enjoyed looking through her albums, as she had a gift. She was also very up to date on her kid's albums, even though she started scrapbooking I want to say less than 6 years ago. She has left countless memories in those books for her children, and they have already realized what a treasure that is. I have to say that this has been another life lesson on sharing your love, because you just never know how long you have left on earth to tell people how much they mean to you. I don't know how long I will have with my kids to leave an impression on them how important they are to God. I care that they have scrapbooks to enjoy now, and cherish later. I want to do my best at continuing that for them, so that they will have something that they can hold after I'm gone. It's something that will remind them how important they are to me.

I realize that this may be a bit of a downer, and I'm sorry. But while I'm sad, I'm also inspired and I hope that you will be inspired to create lasting memories for your kids, as well as capturing those memories in photos and laying them out like a story of your life that needs to be told.

Try to Scrap Happy!

Step by Step Scrapbooking

I decided to take the day off today and scrapbook. I asked my husband yesterday if he would mind being in charge of the kids so I could. After church, and grocery shopping, Oh...and lunch, I finally sat down to scrapbook. As you may imagine, I was not able to scrap uninterrupted, but I still managed to get 5 pages done. The hardest part was just starting! While I scrapped, I thought of my blog, and took pictures of my work in progress. If you follow these simple steps, you can get your photos into albums eventually! 1. I lay out all my pictures on pages, to see how they fit and which pictures will go together.

2. I crop, usually just cutting off background things that take away from what I want the focus of the picture to be. If it distracts, it's out of there!

3. Now I go through my stickers and papers and pick out any that I think I may want to use on this page. I kind of get an idea of what I'm going to do either the step prior to this, or as I'm looking at embellishments. I usually chose my papers based on what my daughter is wearing in the photos. However, this is my daughter meeting my son, so I went all blue!!!

4. It's time to put it all together! I use my tape runner to secure the papers I've chosen and my photos to the page. Use enough tape so that the pictures won't move around. For a 4x6 photo, I like to use tape in 6 places.(as shown here.)

5. Paper and pictures are on. Now it's the fun part! Stickers!

6. You don't need too much. I just used a title sticker and pins. I used my pen to draw stitches around what will be my journalling block.

I dressed up my title sticker by punching out a circle of the dragonfly paper and putting it under the title sticker.

7. It is really important to journal. I like to save all my journalling for later. One quiet day, I just sit down and journal all the pages I have already scrapped. Sometimes it takes several days, but I like doing them all at once so I don't forget what I mentioned and end up repeating myself.

If I were to set aside an hour a day to scrapbook, I know I could catch up on my daughter's album .

Scrap Happy!

Fly little one, Fly!

My kids
I just like this picture. It was taken without a flash.

Learning to ride

This is our shadows. Mine and my girl's.

So happy with herself as she rides without assistance!

Some very exciting things have been happening in my life! And no, I'm not talking about the Pens winning the Stanley Cup, although that was exciting, too! My little girl learned to ride a bike this very week! It was thrilling to watch her! I started out holding her, slowly switched to hover mode, and soon was running along after her, and now, I just stand on the street and watch for traffic so that I can verbally warn her to get off the street. This was a life lesson. While I wanted her to ride on her own, I was very nervous when she did. When she told me she wanted me to stop holding her, I knew she could do it, and I felt a thrill knowing that she was going to make it! It was very, very exciting.

The other excitement was my little boy trying food for the first time. I first gave him various fruits to gum as I held them. He has really seemed to like this, as well as the cereal he eats right up. I enjoy introducing him to the world. I like watching the fire crackers reflect in his eyes, and hearing him laugh his deep boy-giggle as I tickle his ribs. I love how he tries to catch the bubbles I blow for him, watching them with a serious look on his face. I have to be alert or he'll get his chubby hands into everything I get too close to him. I know that if he swings his pudgy fingers through the hot water as I'm watching dishes, he'll be burnt. But he doesn't know this. The hard part is letting him learn life's painful lessons. I want to protect my kids from everything, even though I know it isn't possible.

I have fallen dreadfully behind on my daughter's album. The other night, I stayed up and laid out all of her pictures onto pages so that I can start working on her album again. Today, I saw that more photos had come in the mail. ( I used York this time (free shipping deal) and wasn't impressed. I will be going back to Snapfish.) So, I said that seeing the pictures in my mailbox made me want to scrapbook all day instead of cleaning the house as I had planned. My daughter said that she knew what I would be doing while she was at her Gramma's! But I told her, " Just because that's what I WANT to do, doesn't mean I'll be doing it." I didn't get to scrapbook, but my house is cleaner :)

I want to take and post pictures of my work in progress as I design and complete album pages. I will start soon!

Scrap Happy!