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!

Southwestern Escape

Last night, I came home earlier than I thought from a Mom's night out. Once I checked that all was well, my husband and daughter were both asleep with the windows opened enough and the fan's positioned to bring in the cooler night air, I snuck down to the basement to scrapbook!

I'm still working on our Arizona trip, because my aunt will be here this weekend, and I'd like to be able to show it to her. I'm mostly using both the neutral and the jewel snap pack. The colors are very south western in the jewel pack and the dark browns and grays in the neutral one work well with the rocks, too. Arizona is akin to a different planet! It's challenging to me, because I'm used to using completely different colors than these.

9 pages later, I felt so exhausted! I came to find out that the time on the clock in the kitchen wasn't the right time when I originally looked at it! It was actually much later! Even so, I am pleased with my completed pages and glad that I didn't realize that I should have been in bed!

Stripes are in, girls!

HI! me again! Did you know that stripes are in? Well, they are! At least for scrapbooking. I chose two pieces of 10x12 paper to make this layout. I chose the pink because it matched what my daughter was wearing and the blue, just because it looks so fun! I chose to mat my pictures in white, because the blue paper WAS a little busy, and I felt like my pictures were getting lost, just not standing out enough!

Can you find Stitch? After all, this is my insane album, where Stitch appears on every page!

I haven't been scrapbooking for a couple weeks. I have a sticker pack that I bought and am looking for. Most likely I put it in a library book when we were traveling, and returned it to the library. Oh well!

I received my new Scraps in the mail today. It's a magazine from CM that tells me all of the new stuff, and I can't wait to order now! There are new kid paper packs and album kits! They look just right for my daughter.

Scrap Happy!

What you mean to us

At my Mom's 60th birthday party, I made sure to get a picture of every guest. This is something I always do at my daughter's parties. Next, I handed journaling blocks and a CM pen to them after taking their picture, and asked them to write something to my mom. I've learned that people like to have some kind of guideline with this activity, so I asked them to write something they had learned from her, or something sweet about her and how much she meant to them. It's very important to collect them before people leave the party. They always want to take the paper and write later, but in my experience, you probably will never get that person's completed journaling box back, so strongly encourage them to finish it before leaving that day.

I then put together a 7x7 album for her, including the pictures of the party first, and then placing the journaling boxes with a picture of the person who wrote it. It's one of my favorite albums I ever made! It was relatively easy, too. I used the Paradise Storybox, and it comes with paper and journaling boxes that are perfectly coordinated.

I gave it to her for Mother's Day, and she loved it!

Scrap Happy!

P.S. I answered your questions as best as I could in my own comment. See the comments in the blog below this one!

Once a Year

Once a year, I take pictures of my daughter's little feet and hands. I also stamp her hands and feet to put on the page. Looking at the first set of footprints I have of her, and comparing them to the way her feet look now just blows me away! She has gotten so much bigger! I love her little hands and feet! I time this page so that it's right after her birthday.

Scrap Happy!

Take me out to the ballgame!

Sometimes you get the perfect seats, have a great time at the game, and even get a game ball! Those are the moments you want to capture; first with great pictures, and then on a page that compliments them! I chose the background paper because it just screamed "baseball" to me. Both the paper and the stickers came from CM. I just stuck the pictures on without matting any of them, and made sure to journal about the day. What do I like about this page? Well, the pictures! The page doesn't take away from the pictures. I love that you can see the happiness on our faces:) We had a blast, and I think anyone who looks at these album pages can tell! So, the pages convey the feelings that we felt at the game. I'd say that's a home run!

Dance, baby, dance!

My daughter's dance recital was this past weekend, and in light of that, I'd like to give some tips for taking pictures at events like this!

Y I chose to get the smallest photo package from the professional photographer because I liked the idea of having a picture of the whole group of kids and the papers they gave us strongly discouraged us from taking pictures while the photographer was there. One mother was chastized by the photographer for taking a photo and ruining his light.

Y On the way to the rehearsal, I allowed time to stop and take a few pictures of my daughter on my own. This meant, I chose the background, just a simple walking trail, with trees along side. You can't tell that there are cars driving by, can you?

Y In my own photos, I encouraged her to do some of her dance moves.

Y I took both full bodied shots and some closeups. The outfit is a big part of the day, right down to those little white shoes!

Y When taking shots of your kid and another backstage, try to either get a plain background, without people walking through, or really zoom in for a close up.

Y When the papers you are given tell you that pictures and video are restricted to the dress rehearsal, please listen! It's distracting to everyone around you and flashes are also distracting to the kids on stage.

Y On this same note, you may actually get better pictures at the rehearsal, because the room will most likely consist of parents waiting for their kids. As their children leave the stage, the adults will leave the room to meet up with them. We found 2 seats directly in the front row at dress rehearsal, and had the best seat in the house for taping and photographing our little girl! She happened to be on stage directly in front of us!

Scrap Happy!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, OH MY!

I have used the zoo sticker pack that Creative Memories makes TWICE now. Since we go to the zoo once a year, and Animal Kingdom the same amount, I have to be somewhat creative when I do zoo pages. For these pages, I used this paper throughout the zoo pages, as well as a deep red paper the same shade as the flowers. I cut out the flowers from the paper from time to time, to add a little something to the pages. I used the same color of letter stickers, and I still haven't even journalled yet. The pages are plain, but I think they are fun!

Tip of the Day: Zoo pictures are great! But make sure you take enough pics of people you are with, too. Put at least one picture of a person on a page with all those animals, or the viewer will most likely lose interest. If you can get pictures of your loved one interacting with the animals in any way, that's the best!

Scrap Happy!

A Flower from my Girl

Hello! Isn't this a beautiful tulip? When my daughter gave it to me the other day, I thought it was so gorgeous, and would live so much longer if I took a picture of it! It's currently my profile picture on My Space. What a sweet little gift!

After I put my daughter to bed tonight, I grabbed an hour to work on her album. I didn't feel like starting with Christmas, so I skipped ahead to March and did a fun 2 page spread, using journaling boxes, matting a few of the pictures and using a couple stickers. It's cute!

Tips of the Day: The pages I did today were of an event that my husband took my daughter to. Since I wasn't even there, I simply added the journaling boxes, and I have asked him to fill them in. I'm really into using journaling boxes lately, especially since I have been journaling later, rather than at the time I do the page. Each pack of perfect fit paper comes with coordinating journaling blocks, and you can find them in the storyboxes as well. I like that they have different sizes, so that I can fit them to my page.

Scrap Happy!

A magical moment!

This Disney trip was my 10th since I have been married, so you would think that I would have run out of things to photograph. As you can see, that is not the case! I adore this page! It was taken in Cinderella's castle, and I wanted it to capture the magic and the royal feel there. The paper and stickers are from the princess pack from CM. You can't tell, but the paper has little magic wands all over it! The punch is the new mickey punch, and the paper underneath , just peeking through, is from the metallic paper pack. It's silver, but looks gold due to the lighting in the room when I took the picture of the page.

Today I did a program at my local library. I had done one before where we made a border, but today, I just did a crop talk about vellum, and showed them some of my albums and the pages I had used vellum, and how I had used it. We really only have 1/2 an hour for the program, and there isn't much you can do in that time! Next week, I have encouraged everyone to bring their albums so that we can share our lives a little bit.

Quote of the Day: Ecc. 5:3 says "Too much activity gives you restless dreams; too many words make you a fool."

Scrap happy!

Here's how I started off each day....

Here is a picture of the page that starts off our 11th day at WDW. (on the left) I used a certain type of sticker, to keep them all the same. I used a Mickey Mouse ornament sticker. I used letter stickers to write "Day ___" in this case, 11. I always wrote, "Memories of _______", filling in blanks with the date.

Scrap Happy!

Completed ALBUM!

Yippee! I finally finished the Disney Vacation from December 2006! I was so exhausted from the endless hours of working on it, that I fell asleep as my husband and daughter looked through it! Notice the pictures at the beginning of this blog? The thin album is from the Disney Vacation the year prior to last December. If you remember, I was beside myself because I was using a whole album on one vacation! HA, HA! That's so funny now! It is recommended that you only put 40 pages in an album. But in this latest album, I did 50 pages, that's 100 if you consider each side! I have to remind you that this is BEFORE my digital camera. This book is #11 for my daughter's short life so far of 5 years.

Things I did different in this album:

I tried to only take spontaneous photos. We had professional, posed pictures taken of us by the Disney photographers, and purchased the whole CD of our stay for $99. It had 245 pictures on it.

I put a Stitch on every page. It was challenging to make it that way, but my daughter does love to look for them, so I guess it was worth it!

I scrapbooked in chronological order, which I usually do. But I started off each new day with a page showing pictures of 2 or 3 things that we did over the course of that day. I kept the photos off to the side, and used the other half to record things that happened that day. I usually don't have pictures for everything, so this page was perfect for including things that I probably wouldn't have fit in, such as the weather, funny moments ect...

My Wish

When I heard the words to Rascal Flatts' MY WISH, I knew that I wanted to include it in an album for my daughter. While at the beach, my husband clicked pictures of us here and there, and I ended up doing a 2 page spread with not much more than a few matted pictures of her and I, and the words to this beautiful song. That was all it needed. It brings people to tears. (me especially!)

Sneak Peek!

Oh, I love the warmer weather! It seems like it's been winter forever! I have been dedicating a lot of time to scrapbooking. The more pages I do, the better I like them. Here is a picture from our Disney trip. It's one that I just did this weekend, and it isn't journalled yet. I love the picture of my daughter's hands holding some of the "pixie dust" (mickey confetti) so I matted my 2 favorite pictures, it being one of them. "Catch the spirit" was from the Everyday Title pack, and it's a clear sticker. I used some actual mickey confetti, and carefully sprinkled it on the sticky side of the sticker before adhering it to the page. I have challenged myself big time with this trip, by having myself put a Stitch on every page. They say that he is always taking over the Parks, so I thought it was a cute idea. Wrong! I can't tell you how hard it has been. I was doing my pages around the stitch, and what would go with him, and where. But I've changed things and am doing the page first, and lastly sticking Stitch somewhere on the page. At least my daughter will have fun fining him! I'm almost done with the Disney vacation, and then I can journal the whole album at once. Happy Scrapping or rather, Scrap Happy!

last bit of tips from the book!

Tip of the Day:

I learned so much from this book. Some things i read and thought, I'm doing this right! I felt pretty confident in my skills as a photographer. But I did learn a lot, too! I learned that i need to really learn about my new camera. How to turn the flash off, how to change the settings, how to hook it up to a tripod, A high USO number means it's easier for me to take pictures, If your picture is dark, add more exposure (+) and if it's too light, (-) reduce the exposure. Auto focus is nice, but not as good as learning how to manually focus. Estimate the distance to your subject. 20 feet away=put 20 Ft into the focus setting. This guy highly recommends Adobe photoshop. Take landscape pics horizontally for a change! (picture 1)I'm going to test myself by trying to capture a portrait without the person in it that I'm photographing! (Here's one of me, picture 2)

I have been a scrapbooking fiend lately! It's all I want to do, but of course, I still don't ONLY do that, or nothing else would get done. Scrap Happy!

See, I'm learning too!

I have captured some photos that illustrate what I learned from Nick Kelsh's book on photography. This first picture of the Grand Canyon illustrates these tips:
Try to avoid taking pictures of people or scenery in the middle of the day, when the sun is right over head. I did take many pictures of the Grand Canyon in the heat of the day, but the color was washed right out of them. It wasn't until the sun had started to set, that I captured this perfect shot. The best time to take pictures is 1/2 hr before the sun sets, or on an overcast day.
When taking a landscape picture, don't have it be 1/2 sky. The horizon should be on the top 3rd of the picture.
This second picture was also taken at the Grand Canyon. It's a picture of my daughter yelling and enjoying the echo she heard while hiking in the canyon. It illustrates these tips:

When on vacation, take the pictures that captured what you lived and what made an impression on you. Don't just have someone take a picture of you in front of every landmark you saw!
When capturing a group of people, have everyone's heads in relatively the same area. Don't try to get body shots, unless you are capturing how much the kids have grown.
Get as close to a close-up as you can. If you can get up a little higher than the group, on a chair or even a step, you can get everyone in the group with their chins raised toward the camera, and trust me...this helps everyone look better!
Take a different point of view!

When you are at a National Monument, (or Disney World;) take a picture from a different angle.

I don't have any pictures her to illustrate the final 2, but they are too good to leave out! When getting a picture of a couple, coach them a little. (I do this!) "Put your arms around each other. Act like you love one another!" " Put your cheeks together!" When photgraphing really close up remember not to use the flash! Also, you can chop the top of their head off, (above the forehead) if you are really focusing on their face. If it looks good to you in the view finder, it will probably turn out good.

take pictures of fall foilage on a cloudy day for the best color.

Scrap Happy!

Bigger means better

I love to include 8x10s in my albums. Now that I have my digital camera and have to order each photo rather than just getting the whole roll developed, I occasionally order larger sizes, such as 8x10s and 5x7s of pictures I want to show off a little more. This really works well for group photos, so that you can see everyone. I encourage you to work with larger pictures as well. Especially if you use a 12x12 album. If you look closely at the picture above, you can see that I have used corners on my picture, rather than taping it into the book. I did this because I used to remove pictures from the book and place them into frames in my living room, and then replace them in the book. Now that I've realized that my pictures can get damaged while in the frames, and that it is hard on the pages, taking them in and out, as well as hard on the photos corners, I have decided to stop doing this.

Scrap Happy!

Easter past

One year for Easter, I decided to use one distinctive paper to co-ordinate all of my pages. The colors lent themselves nicely, because they were bright and Eastery! I kept the pages simple, using the paper as borders for pages and mats for pictures. I used the cutting system to cut perfect eggs in various sizes, and used the same letter stickers throughout. For the last picture seen here, I took a picture of one side of the table and then my dad stood where I had been to take a picture of my side of the table. I then sliced the photo and positioned it on the page, leaving a strip of space between people to make this "panoramic" shot of our family dinner.

Paper Pieces

I went through all of my papers and organized them! I found paper I didn't know I had! I save my scraps, not the teensy tiny pieces, but the larger ones. OK! I save some small ones, but I know I will use them eventually! I usually stick these scraps in a bag, but lately, I don't even look through the scrap bags, I just take out a whole new piece of paper. Let's face it, it's a lot easier than hunting for one! With my new organizational method, it should be easy to see if I have what I'm looking for without looking through 5 different bags of scraps. I used folders, and seperated the paper like so: patterns, reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, purples, pinks, tan and browns, whites and vellum, blacks and grays, silver and gold. I have 2 folders for each color set. In the front folder, I keep my scraps, and the second one holds my whole sheets and close to whole sheets. I don't just have the scraps floating around in the folder! I used ziplock -type bags that I have gotten with certain CM paper packs. They are clear, so i can see inside pretty easily, and since I have sorted my scraps by color, I will only have to look through the bag that contains the color I need. You can buy a paper holder from me! It holds 12x12 paper as well, and has it's own strap so that you can take it with you.

Coloring Eggs

A lot of times when people see my pages for the first time, they comment on how simple they are. There really isn't a whole lot going on, but then again, there doesn't need to be! I love straight lines, a well placed sticker, and descriptive writing. I also like titles, and pictures that tell the story.Last week, a fellow scrapbooker was looking at a page I'd just finished and she said, " See, that's what I need to do. Just make plain pages! Then I wouldn't be so far behind." Inside, I cringed! NO! Don't say THAT!!!! I still spend a lot of time choosing paper colors and matching stickers with the pictures. I hate to think of my pages as plain, but if you call them simple, that describes them just right!

Tip of the day: Want some ideas for different Easter pictures?

* take pictures of the kids facial expressions as they open the plastic eggs filled with goodies.

* take close ups of their tiny hands as they hold eggs in their hands to color them with a crayon before dying them

* Toss the colored eggs in a basket and have them hold it for a photo. (usually I do this in her Easter dress)

*Take unposed pictures of your kids looking for their Easter baskets, your toddler chewing on the only egg he found, and your angel pouring the cups of dye together to overflowing. Basically, take pictures as life happens

*I always take a picture of my daughter at church. One year, I made sure to have the stained glass windows in the backround, often I take her picture on the stage after service, in front of all the lovely Easter flowers. Sometimes I take a picture of her with her little friends, who are dressed in their Easter finery as well. If it's nice, get a picture outside of your church. The doors of our church make a beautiful backdrop.

*I always take a picture of my daughter with her filled basket. That might not be original, but I like to write down what is inside it each year, and I like a picture to go with that. Her tastes change so much from year to year, that I already get a kick out of looking back at what I got her last year!

*In Crayon, my friend writes her child's name on an egg, along with the year (07) and takes a close up of it every year.

*Any tradition you have should be documented. If you read the Easter story to your kids, have someone catch a few pictures of that. Take pictures of what you want to remember!

Scrap Happy!

Past Easter pages

Something I have always wanted to do is show you some of my past page ideas. These are from LAST year's egg hunt. It's hard to see from these pictures of pictures, but my daughter has some animal print on her dress, which gave me the idea for these pages. I'm always trying to think of something a little different!

Hunting for the best!

Happy Easter! Yesterday, I had an Easter egg hunt and Easter activities for my daughter and Daniel. I tried to get some different shots, trying different angles and such. I was satisfied with the results for the most part! I still haven't figured out how to take good action shots on this camera! I had a hard time trying to get pictures of my daughter finding eggs, simply because she moves so fast!

Now that I have my new camera, I have fallen hopelessly behind on my scrapbooking! I'm taking more, and I think better pictures, and photography has shifted slightly ahead of scrapbooking.

I was able to scrapbook this weekend, though! Two nights in a row, I met with friends and set aside time to scrapbook. My problem was that I can work for hours, not feeling like I am happy with the pages I'm making, and then I start to get better at them about 2am. Then I don't want to stop, even though I know I'll be sorry in the morning!

I am currently scrapping my Disney vacation pictures. This should be pure fun, but it isn't! For one thing, I made a mistake on my retreat, and it took me all of Friday evening to fix it. I had laid out all of my pages, planning it so that I have my 2 page spreads , and everything is just so. I have to tell you that I don't do that for everything, but Disney trips are very special to me! So, when I was on the retreat and combined what I had planned to make 2 pages, it threw everything off!

Another obstacle is that I decided I wanted stitch to be on every page. I couldn't get stickers that I was happy with, so I purchased a coloring book at Disney World, colored the pictures I wanted with colored pencils, and then my husband scanned them, shrunk them, and printed them out on acid free/lignin free paper. I then meticulously cut them out and have been adhering them carefully to each page with tape runner. I don't just stick them anywhere of course. I try to make them go somewhat with the theme of the page. (sigh) Yes, it's not easy, but I think J will like looking for the Stitches on every page. For those of you who don't like Stitch and wonder WHY I'm doing this: At Disney World, Stitch is supposed to be running all over; he even takes over on the wake-up calls! So, I have wanted to include him on every page for a while now, years! I just couldn't figure out how to do it! Also, I figured this year would be the perfect year to do that theme because we stayed at the Polynesian resort, "home" to Lilo and Stitch.

Tip of the Day: If you have a mild case of OCD like I do, you might find it helpful to write down a plan for your pages.On a blank sheet of paper, I simply draw little rectangles, each one standing for a scrapbook page. Using a pencil, I fill in each rectangle with a title, something that will let me know what is supposed to be on the page. This way, if I end up having 2 pages of pictures of the parade, I can make sure I put them facing each other. Pencil is important because I rarely get it right the first time!

Scrap Happy!

Scrapping with Mom

This week, I sat down with my mom and tried to start my disney album. I didn't get started, because I remembered something I wanted to add, and I didn't have it ready yet, so I got to work on "before the trip" pictures. I was really inspired, and did a 2 page spread on October, and one for November. Truthfully, I don't know that I did do November, as I have no recollection of it! My Mom laid out pages of her vacations, and then set about using the power pallet for the first time. It comes in a pack, with co-ordinating papers, stickers and titles. Everything matches, and once she got going, she couldn't stop! She said that after using this, she doesn't want to go back to regular scrapbooking, where you have to try to put colors together and hope that they look alright next to each other! I'm glad this works so well for her!

Tip of the Day: from Nick Kelsh's book!
Try to take a different picture than everyone else is taking. For example, at a wedding, everyone has a camera and they are clicking away. The bride and groom lucky enough to get the copies of these photos will have TONS of pictures of them cutting the cake. Maybe stand on a chair and take a different approach to the same picture. The author suggests standing on a chair to get a table shot, when you are trying to capture everyone gathered around for Thanksgiving dinner.

Scrap Happy!

Disney on the table

Friday night found me in my workshop room, alone, with 2 empty tables and a box of Disney pictures. I used the power sort system and with only one break, (to put my 4 year old to bed) I sucessfully laid out the whole vacation that evening. No easy task considering I'm going to have an entire album dedicated to this trip! I'm hoping to get a lot accomplished on my retreat. It's coming up soon!

Tip of the Day: How many nights do I spend sitting in front of my TV, wasting my life? I feel that way as I get up to go to bed. Lazy. I felt so good sorting those pictures! It was time I could have used to surf the internet, watch TV, waste my life. But because I used the time to sort my pictures instead, I felt that I had accomplished something! It's such a good feeling!

Scrap Happy!

Somebody Stop Me!

I love this picture! I am slowly learning the best way to use my digital camera. I have only had it 2 months, be patient! I took this picture without a flash. Sometimes, I think that makes the picture turn out blurry, unless my subject holds very still. I have also begun to send my pictures to Snapfish after I take about 100 pictures. Yes, I am taking OH so many more pictures now, and even though I'm not keeping all of them, I am keeping a lot more than I used to take! I'm into the "photography" part of picture taking like I have never been before! The more pictures I take, the more I learn. With film, I found that I kept track of how many pictures I took of different events, because you run out of film after 24 pictures, and that kept me in check. Not anymore! Now I take 100 pictures of one event sometimes! What I need to do, is start tackling that mountain of photos I have acquired!

Tip of the Day: If you have a digital camera, seriously think about getting the Memory Manager program from Creative Memories. It will store all of your photos and keep track of which ones you order!

Storybook!

Well, I finally took the time and did one of those Creative Memories online albums. You create the album online, and they send it to you all completed! It turned out so great! I can't wait to show everyone! The reason I decided to do this, was because I took so many pictures of the Holidays this year. I knew I didn't need to get all of them printed to scrap in my daughter's album, but at the same time, I wanted to have the pictures. They would have taken up so much space in an album, but in the book I did, I could put so many pictures on one page, just by using the collage format. Of course, I chose to make most of my pages less crowded. It took me hours to do this book, mostly because I am such a perfectionist! But I was so happy that I had spent so much time on choosing the different fonts and letter sizes once I was holding the completed book! I'm so glad I did it! I have tried to put one of the pages on here to show you, but it doesn't work! So here is one of the pics that I told you about in "Flash".

Winter

I finally dusted off the old photo album and did a few pages (minus journaling) the other day. I found that I had a lot of trouble getting back. I wasn't as able to make colors go together, and was only happy with one or 2 of the pages. Maybe that will change once I see them again. I do have to say that the ones I was happy with were the last 2 I did, so I might have been warming up!

It's been so cold and snowy here, and I think that other people have been scrapping a lot. I say this because I usually have someone contact me daily lately, wanting Creative Memories products!

I've been finding photographs more and more in everyday objects. Just the way the sun shone in through the window on my Valentine's roses, my daughter's handprints in the fogged glass on the door, close ups of the frozen bushes in our yard....I love taking several shots and then deleting the ones I don't need.

Tip of the day: I had pictures of a party we went to, and I didn't want to do anything more than a one page spread, even though I had more pictures than would fit on one page. I wanted to make sure everyone was pictured, but I made sure to put a shot of my daughter and her buddy right in the middle, matted so that it became the focus for the page. I included tabs to do bullet journaling, because that's really all I have room for and all it needs, since this is my daughter's album.

Scrap Happy!

FLASH!!!!

I love that I have a digital camera and can see my pictures as soon as I take them. This helps me to train to be a better photographer. I have been challenging myself to take specific pictures, to learn how to take the picture I want.

Tip of the day:One thing I really learned from this book was that you should try not to use your flash! It's so bright, stealing away from the feelings in the picture you're taking. You capture the mood when you don't use a flash. Try to use natural light, which is best. But you can even get good pictures just using the light from candles (with a tripod and a night setting) . I have taken pictures using the light from the Christmas tree, although I've never loved the result. But I usually am unhappy when I take a picture of the tree with a flash. It just sucks the ambiance right out of Christmastime.

The picture on the left is one I took without a flash several years ago.

A few days ago, I challenged myself to take a good picture of my daughter without the flash. I positioned her next to the Christmas tree, (very close to get enough light!) and would ask her to try and find certain ornaments, just to keep her looking at the tree. The hard part was keeping her close enough to the tree! She would back up to get a better view of the ornaments! I also opened the window to let in some more light.

Yesterday, I positioned my daughter and her friend at the window. I captured only 2 pictures that were any good, because when they moved, it would blur. I love the picture of them looking out of the window at the snow!

Scrap Happy!

The book, the retreat, the workshop

Workshop Friday was so thereputic! It's so hard to get back to scrapping once you stop, and having a workshop was just the punch I needed! Can you believe I finished 13 pages in the 10th grader's last album? I'm still not finished with it, but I will be soon! It felt really good to scrap.

My retreat is coming up fast! It's 7 weeks away now, and I still have a few rooms available if you want to come! Just ask me about it! You will have your own room and bath, and we can scrapbook in our pjs if we want. I plan on getting a lot done at this retreat. I want to be completely caught up before I go to Arizona to visit family!

I just finished that amazing photography book by Nick Kelsh.( How to Photograph your life)
Here are some tips from the book:

*take close pictures

*take lots of pictures of an important situation

* don't put your suject in the middle of a picture, rather place them off to the side

Scrap Happy!

Digital Christmas picture

Yesterday we dressed up, and sat in the living room, to use the auto timer setting on my digital camera for the first time! We took Christmas pictures in front of our tree and the stockings STILL hung on the mantle, with care! I know, it's a little late for all of this to be happening! Will plugged the camera into the TV, so that we could see how each picture turned out, which made it just like being at a studio! The setting we accidently chose, allowed us to get into place and took 3 pictures, a very nice feature!

Late last night, I was on the computer, attempting to order some of my Christmas prints, which eluded me! I finally gave up and went to bed! Oh, how I long for the days when I could just send the film in to be developed! It was so much easier! However, I just need to get the hang of this, and then I'll like it, I'm sure!

The artist in me

I just started reading a book called, "How to photograph your life" by Nick Kelsh. So far, it's really good. I like reading an expert's opinion, and all of the photographs in the book were taken with an ordinary point and shoot camera. Just a few pages into it, and I have already learned that I need to get to know my new camera better. I had the camera I just retired for 3 years and I never learned more than the basics.

Now that I have my digital camera, the hardest thing for me to get used to is the fact that I can take as many pictures as I want, because I won't be wasting film! I have better odds of getting the perfect shot if I take more pictures. In fact, this book encourages you to take as many pictures as you can possibly get in. Today, I took my camera out on the porch and clicked away as my daughter played in the snow. It feels so great to have the freedom to take as many pictures as I want!

The author told of a time he photographed Olympic swimmers, spending hours at the edge of the pool, just watching them swim. He said that after that experience, he found himself to be a much better swimmer . That is what he is hoping to do for the readers of this book. I have found that I can be inspired by all sorts of things in my scrapbooking. I can take ideas away from magazines, art on a commercial, other people's albums, even the grocery store! I once spent a wedding day with a girl I had just met. As she and I ran around snapping pictures, she seemed to catch the perfect shots! She inspired me to look outside the box, and I found that my photos from that day conveyed a lot of meaning, really captured the moment and took you there.

It wasn't until I watched this cheesy teen movie yesterday that I realized that I'm an artist! I have always held that term in high regard, but really, many of people are artists in their own right. I feel that my photos and my scrapbooks are the way I express myself artisticlly. Part of being an artist is to let other people feel what you are feeling. It's very personal to put yourself out there. If I can let my daughter feel some of the love I feel for her as she looks at the albums I've made of her life, then my work will be complete.

Christmas Day 2006

Christmas Day brought memories of family and friends and past years, delicious smells of gingerbread, cookies and ham, stories of truth about the savior born in a stable, and stories of fiction about the little animals who came to see him, and the jolly, red-clothed man known the world over. Along with all of this, came a new camera! I disliked it immediately! It wasn't fast enough, and I don't like to miss shots! My husband was upset that I was grumbling, and after he made a few adjustments to it, I found that it took pictures a lot quicker. Grudgingly, I started to appreciate that I could take picture after picture until I got a good one! It has only been a few days, but I have already taken over 100 photos. I enjoy deleting the ones that don't turn out, but I can already see that I'll have a problem choosing between photos of the same subject that just look a little different!

Christmas Scrapping break?

This is a picture of me, taken by my 4 year old while we were shopping at Disney World.

Well, I haven't done a thing having to do with scrapbooking since I've been back from my vacation! There is just too much to do to get ready for Christmas! I have been getting pictures back from being developed, and I am pretty disappointed with most of the ones I took at night. My camera is dying on me, and I am so sad to see it go. I love it, but it was acting very strangly on our vacation, trying to open when we would close the front, and even having to readjust itself, when it opened up. Sometimes, I don't think that it is it focuses properly. And right at the end of the trip, my daughter dropped it onto stone. Now the flash is eskew. So, guess what I'm getting for Christmas?

From Florida to BRRRRRR!!!!

I am just back from Disney World, where I took a lot of pictures! I really tried to get spontanious pictures, and I don't know how well I succeeded. I also discovered the negative part of having a digital camera, when in just a second, my dear husband accidently erased all of the pictures we had ever taken on his digital video camera. We will say no more about it, but I do have to tell you that we would remember yet another great picture that we had on there, and feel a twinge of pain as we reminded each other of it.

Disney has a new program that allows you to purchase a CD of all of the professional pictures you have taken during your trip, giving you the rights to those pictures. We decided to do this, and now I have plenty of pictures of our whole family from the trip, and lots of us with the characters. It's nice to know that I will be in a lot of the pictures for this trip!

We had a wonderful time, and I didn't want to come home! Our resort was amazing, we had a lot of magical moments, and had time to swim, relax and visit almost all of our favorite characters! It's late, and I'm tired, but I just wanted to stop in to say, "Hi, and I'm back!" I'll put pictures up here and there, and will start working on that album as soon as I get all of the pictures!

My husband/photographer

I have to say, that although my husband doesn't take nearly the amount of pictures as I do, he usually does get great shots! I am going to brag on him, and show some of his shots off! I'm the photo person, always asking people to take our picture as a family, so that I can be in the album, too. I also tell Will when I want a picture taken of a certain thing. I've learned that all I need to do is ask, because he just isn't thinking through the camera like I am! That is not in any way a negative thing! This love of taking an insane amount of pictures that I have is (to quote Monk) "both a blessing and a curse". I feel as though I should always keep my camera close at hand so that I don't miss a thing! If I go to an event without my camera in tow, I am seeing the shots I missed. If I do have my camera, I am always thinking of pictures to take!

These pictures are : My daughter asleep in my arms, watching the Indiana Jones Stunt show, and my "King of the World" moment!

Scrap Happy!