New York through my eyes

This past week, we spent 2 days in New York City.
My tip of the day is this: If you see a person using a better camera than you are, ask them to take your family's picture! This is us in Central Park.
This is my daughter with the wall of names on Ellis Island,
holding her nose by the stinky subway,
and my adorable family at the Statue of Liberty.

This photo was taken as we walked to the site where the twin towers once stood.
It's loud in the hot subway station!
The tip of Ellis Island, with NYC in the background.
My daughter, who is 5, got a lot out of touring Ellis Island.
The problem for me was that much of New York is the people! You can't just go around taking shots of people without their permission, unless you are paparazzi! I wanted to capture the man squished in the tiny stand on the streets, selling magazines. I wanted a picture of the homeless man sound asleep on the busy sidewalks, the vendors selling fruits, the taxi drivers hanging out of their windows yelling at the pedestrians, the fish stands of Chinatown with their rotating strings to frighten the flies away. So much of New York for me was the people. Some things could not be captured on film or even with video. You have to be able to smell the burning smell at the WTC site, hear the security guard softly singing as you explain to your 5 year old what happened here 6 years ago.

I appreciated being there. I loved seeing the famous buildings, streets and eating pizza slices folded in half at the first pizzeria in America. Seeing the people, who by the way were very nice and eager to help tourists. It was quite an experience!

Boating with a five year old

It was a hot and humid day, when my daughter and I decided to tackle one of the things still left on our "50 things to do this summer" list. We packed a lunch and water bottles, and my daughter brought along white bear and kitty, with a complete wardrobe for kitty in a shoe box, as well as a jewelry box with all the essensials, lipgloss, coins and jewelry. We were loaded down this way, even as we struggled to put on our life jackets and pick up our oars. The instructor told us that if we both leaned to one side, everything in the boat would fall in as it tipped, and would sink to the bottom, never to be seen again! That was enough for my little girl to decide to leave all of her prized possessions safely on shore!

I really think that this talk and talk of the waterfall to avoid had spooked her, and she no longer really wanted to do this, but she was a good sport, and other than very light grumbling, she didn't say anything.

We headed out, in a zig zag pattern, away from the safety of shore. The lilypads and their flowers were interesting, and my daughter was convinced that the fish were holding onto her oar with each stroke. We made our way to the front part of the lake, where I stopped to take 1 or 2 pictures, and as I did, our canoe turned around! It was pretty much the only break I got. Although I took that as our cue to turn back, I found the return trip to be much more difficult than the trip away from the docks. I don't know if it was because I was so much heavier than my 5 year old, or because I was really the only one rowing, or what...but we kept getting turned around by the current and the wind. We even went toward the side shore several times, although as they had told us to, we were trying to avoid the sides due to debri in the water which you can get caught in. I was thankful that we were having trouble on the way back rather than the way out, as I had gotten better at my paddling by now. I may have given up if it had been that hard from the beginning, even though I'm not a quitter.

Each time I stopped for just a second to take a picture of my daughter's back, the boat would turn! I did get quite a workout! I loved feeling the water splash across me as I switched the oar from my left to my right. It felt really good on such a hot day! It was also nice to share this experience with my daughter, even though once she was talking to me and then asked, "Why aren't you talking to me, Mommy?" To which I replied, "Because I'm trying to keep this boat going straight and it takes all my concentration and strength, honey!"

My tip of the day? If you feel it would be a good experience to take your young child out on a boat, you may want to consider a Kayak. This way, you have 2 oars on one, and don't have to switch sides, and the kayaks are smaller, there isn't such a big space between you and your child. I imagine that this would have been much easier.

Princess Day Camp

Last week was a busy, fun one! I had a princess camp at my "castle", actually in my yard. It was great; really a blast! We did all sort of princessy things, and I took hundreds of pictures. After camp was over, I wondered, "What am I going to do with all these pictures?" So, yesterday I made an online album of my favorite pictures from camp. It ended up being 36 pages, and I'm not sure if I'm going to pare it down or not. But it was a lot quicker to make than scrapping the pictures, and I will still dedicate a few pages in my daughter's album for Princess Camp, so I'll get to use the new little girl paper pack which has tiaras and wands, very cute! Scrap Happy!

T- Ball

Last week, I was feeling ambitious and decided to cross one of the things on my longstanding TO DO list off. So, I finished off the 10th grader's last album! (Well, the last one I'll be doing.) It feels great to be completely done. Now I can focus on my daughter's albums.

These pages, of Kristie's T-ball games are very simple, but cute. I tried to make the one shot of her batting look like a baseball card. I left a lot of room for her mom to jot down any memories she might want to add. I just write what I know, which is only what I can see in the picture or what has been left on a sticky note for me.

Pictures are so personal, that of course I have gotten to know this family in a small way as I did the albums. I hope that her mom will make her some more albums, even if she does them online. I have almost completed an album for my cousin online and I want to send it to him as he is in a different country right now. I think it will help him fight any homesickness he might have.

Scrap Happy!

You're Invited!

Each year, we have a themed birthday party for our daughter. We carefully pick out matching decorations and invitations. I like to include the invitation with the pictures from her party. I have occasionally included a stamp, because the price is interesting, and some years the stamps really go with the theme!

This page, with an invitation and a picture of the family or just the birthday girl, is the first one leading into the birthday party pages.

To do this, you need to plan ahead a little bit and either keep an extra invitation for the album, or ask a Gramma to hold hers for you! That's what I did this past birthday party!

In a Creative Memories album, you can feel safe adding the invitation directly to your page, but just be careful not to have the paper touch the photo in any way.

Scrap Happy!

caught in a summer moment

I couldn't have posed this shot if I had tried. The setting is fabulous, the subjects relaxed and having fun, just doing what they do, and I just stumbled apon them. Although they saw me, (even though I tried to be sneaky) I told them to ignore me, and keep saying whatever funny things they were saying. This picture screams "SUMMER!", and it's my favorite picture in a long time. Unposed. I love unposed!

50 Fun things to do this summer

This summer, I created a list of things for my daughter and I to do. They can be anything, from little things like blowing bubbles, to bigger things like going camping. As we complete activities on our list, we check them off. I try to get a picture of us doing them, too. We have learned a lot, and have had fun together, doing things we probably wouldn't have thought of doing, or gotten around to doing, if we didn't have them on our list! We have found the park with the best swing, caught tadpoles, had picnics and hiked. Even after we cross something off of our list, we still find ourselves coming back to do it again, if it was something we really had fun doing! We have gone to so many different parks and waded in several different creeks and had many more picnics than usual! Best of all, we are having fun playing together. And making the memories is the best thing that isn't even mentioned in writing, on our list!

In the pool with Daddy

What a beautiful, sunny, summer day! We had been shopping at the outlet stores in Ocean City, and came back in time to have the pool to ourselves pretty much. My daughter had just started swimming that summer, so we couldn't get enough of watching her swim underwater! She never seemed to get tired of swimming from the side of the pool to her Daddy. Back and forth, over and over again! I just sat in the sun, with my feet in the water, enjoying the sight of the 2 of them playing together.

Tip of the Day: These pictures were taken in the evening, so the sun was not directly over head and didn't create a glare on the water. I loved the color of the water,and tried to keep it the focus by using aqua sticker letters and the little ripple sticker along the side of the page.
I also used a gold flecked page instead of white. I think that helps the page not to look so plain. I love the way the aqua looks with the gold page as well.

Scrap Happy!

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.