Winners!

The team you see above and below is my husband's softball team. Sure, a lot of the faces have changed, not that you can tell because the first picture is taken from so far away!!! I can't be sure that I could even pick him out from the group! But as the team has gotten better, so has my photography! (and those uniforms!)
This lower pic was taken this year, just after the guys won second place in the top division for the tournament, and had won first in the top division for the overall season. (I'm explaining the 2 trophies) Getting close up shows you how dirty they got this day, as well as their tired faces. It shows their personalities a little bit and the comraderie they share. Yeah, I'm proud to be a fan, and thankful that I got this shot, because although this group of guys were a little bit easier to arrange and photograph than a group of kids, they didn't stay in place too long!

Scrap happy!

Soften that picture

I was talking with a wedding photographer 10 years ago and I learned something interesting that I didn't try until last year! He said if you put a little tulle in front of your picture, it will soften it just enough. The picture below was taken this way.Another year passed, and my cousin came to visit. I don't know what you do to entertain your out of state company, but we spent a good bit of our visit playing with our cameras! I showed him the tulle and he thought it was the greatest thing.
He took several pictures of me with the tulle in front of his lens, and they pretty much turned out like this.
He has a nicer camera, so that could be why they were so cloudy. Actually, the one above is one of the best he was able to get.
Here he is showing my daughter the pictures. I took some as well, and you can see the tulle in the one below. It was blowing in the wind and is doubled in that corner.

I love the way it softens pictures and just thought I'd share my hint with all of you. Wouldn't this be a nice touch for baby pictures?

Scrap happy!

Fun with Paper! part 2

It's no secret that I like to use paper to make personalized embellishments, but here are some more ideas in how I used paper on our Disney Cruise album. Above, I used a mickey punch and gave him a pirate look to match our pirate night page.
Matting your pics (especially your favorite one on the page) is great, but mat with a little flare sometimes! Matting this picture the way I did, and including the letter stickers underneath was all I needed to decorate this page.
I love this page! I filled in the blank spots with pink and later journalled on it. It is so much easier to journal on pink than black.
Once again, I used to paper to make a mat/ journal block for this page. I also used 2 stickers to "make it my own". A title sticker on top of a regular sun sticker. I used letter stickers to spell out Grand Cayman. Love the result!

Scrapbooking is so much fun! School is starting, along with a miriad of other activities, so I won't have the space nor the time to get a lot of scrapping done for awhile. But I continue taking pictures and thinking, "How can I take this picture so that it looks unique?" Still trying to figure that out. But, it's fun!

Scrap Happy!

Reflections

I have been scrapping like crazy and I have finished from Christmas thru March. My Easter pics were fun to scrap! It's good to just sit there, putting my creativity out there for my family and friends to see. It's also good to look back, and see all the exciting things we've already done this year. I was copying a letter I'd written to my daughter into her album and it was funny how much things have changed in a year. In the letter, I wrote how I sometimes regret not giving her a sibling! Funny, because now I am pregnant! I'm so happy that I have family pictures of us from every year. Although I'm sometimes tempted to forgo the pictures because I know that I will encounter some complaints from my husband who every year tells me he doesn't have anything to wear and asks me just to call and reschedule. (which I won't do!) I'm already thinking ahead to this year's family picture. We always get it around Christmas, and this year, my belly should be pretty big at that time. I'm not planning what I'll wear, but I am thinking of the shot I have of my husband and I with my big belly showing which was taken just before my daughter was born. It will be neat to have the same kind of picture, just with my daughter in it this time!
Summer is over, and we have one week left before school and all of the craziness of a too full fall schedule start. I'm using my daughter's school desk to scrapbook on, so I feel like I have only one short week left to get all caught up on my spring pictures before packing everything away. It's been a great summer, that went too fast as always. I still have to order a lot of pictures before I can even start scrapping the summer, but I'm sure that as I get to that, it will be nice to remember the warm summer sun, being pregnant, wearing shorts and needing to pull my long hair up in the heat.
Scrap happy!

" I look like a bride!"

Sometimes, you just have to be in the right place at the right time! I was with my cousin as she got ready for her wedding, and when her mom put her veil on, she saw herself in the mirror, and it just hit her! She gave this pretty and excited smile, and scrunched her shoulders up. See that face? It's pure joy! I have lots of pictures from the wedding, but this pic, taken in the bathroom before the ceremony officially started, is my favorite.
Hey, guess what?! This weekend, I spent some time laying out pages in my power layout box. I planned out from Christmas through Easter 2008. I also was able to go to a crop on Sunday. (This crop is in a new location, right in my hometown, so even though I had to drive since I couldn't very well lug all my things there, it took me just minutes to get home!) I was able to complete 10 pages there, not much for 5 hours work, but at least it has gotten me started. I'm excited and now have plans to have a scrapbooking desk for myself in our new office. (Our office isn't built yet, but I have my dreams!)
Scrap Happy!

Her first look at Disneyland!

When we walked up and saw Disneyland, I was somehow able to get this perfect picture of my daughter's face in absolute bliss as she saw the park for the first time. We had a great vacation in CA! I took over 500 pictures of our time with family and sightseeing as well as the wedding we attended. (The real reason for our trip!) My daughter now wants to live at Disneyland. Since my husband and I haven't been to Disneyland since our visit 8 years ago, we had never seen California Adventure, and we really enjoyed our time there. We found the parks to be more detailed and different in little ways than the same rides they have in Disney World. We liked the little differences, since we have gotten very used to things at WDW. It was nice to notice the extras. For the most part, we found these differences in the rides, fireworks and parades to be for the better! We do think that the haunted mansion and tower of terror are better in Florida, however. Another difference was the weather! We never saw a cloud in the sky! It was very hot, in fact, you had to work to keep hydrated. The people in California do not impress me. I'm sorry, but it was my experience that had me thinking of them as rude. They shove right past you, knocking into you, without even an "excuse me" or an apology! They curse, push and even the castmembers would ignore you at times. I left CA thinking I wouldn't want to live there. They can have all that nice weather; I'll stay near the nicer beaches and have seasons, thank you very much!

Tip of the Day: When I got to Disney, I asked a photgrapher to take our picture. Thankfully, he told me that my camera was on the wrong setting, and Will was able to fix it so that all of my pictures at Disneyland would be taken as clearly as possible. I noticed that my camera would change settings often, I guess because I was taking it in and out of the camera bag a lot and buttons were getting bumped. Check the setting really quickly when you pull out your camera.

Scrap happy!

Summer pictures

These pictures were taken this week on a trip to the Pittsburgh Zoo. I have so many little settings on my camera that I don't ever use. I realized that I wasn't able to get a clear shot of the cool looking flower in picture 1, so I found a foilage setting in my camera and took picture 2 using that. The difference is amazing!
I have had a fun and busy 2 weeks, without any time for scrapbooking! I had princess camp, and then this past week I was visiting with out of town family every day. It was great, and I got a lot of great pictures. My cousin, David, is a photographing fool, just like me, so we had a blast playing with our cameras. Our last day together, we make a CD (this time, 2!) of all the pictures we took during our week together. He gets a copy and I do, too. This way we both have all of each others pictures. The summer is far from over and there are still so many pictures to take! Scrap happy!

Fill that page!

Since I take a lot of pics, I find that I need to squeeze more onto a page than fits. The page above is of my husband and daughter snorkling. I included pictures taken with the underwater camera. Since there is a lot of water and a lot of pictures of fish, I laid my favoorite picture of them snorkling right on top, didn't cover up anything important, but it all goes together. I also left space for journaling, see my little journaling block? I was so excited to find stickers of Mickey and Minnie snorkling because it exactly went with the paper I used under the vellum! I love when that happens! These pictures are from our Disney Cruise, so the Mickey stickers made it even better!
Here's the page of my daughter and I snorkling. I filled in the little spaces with strips of pictures, and once again...left room for journaling. That's important!
This page is a little different, because 2 of the pics are bigger. There were 3 cameras capturing these dolphin moments! The professional photographer took the big pics with his nice camera, I took pics with water cameras, and a friend of ours used my regular camera to get shots from the dock. But although they are similiar, there were little differences, so I had to include the little ones, as well as the big ones. I accomplished this with major cropping! I'm happy with the results! I hope that after this, you will feel as I do, that it's Ok to cram sometimes!
Scrap Happy!

Backyard summer fun

Here are some pictures of my girl and her little cousin. They don't get to see each other more than once a year. Aren't they cute?
I just love this one! It shows the size difference between a 2 year old and a 6 year old.
Apparently, the slip and slide also works as a drinking fountain!
These girls have such a great time together. I just loved to watch them play.
Scrap Happy!

Make it Yours

I'd like to encourage you to personalize your scrapbooks. After all, this is a very personal thing, why not change your stickers and die cuts to fit your page just right? For the above picture, I really wanted the wreath to be in a mickey shape. I ended up using grass paper, then covering it with holly so that it went with the round wreath. Ta Da! A perfect Mickey wreath to match the mouse himself!
Something I do a lot with the title stickers is add regular stickers to make them perfectly match your theme. For this beach page, I added seashell stickers to the title sticker.
I did the same thing on the page below, only this time, the clear title sticker is placed right on top of the other stickers.
I had a lot of fun on this book, and just finished putting it all together this morning. My husband looked at it today and pronounced it "Nice" which must mean it's fabulous! Happy Fourth of July everyone! Scrap Happy!

Please do not disturb! Scrapbooking in progress

Let me apologize for the bad quality of these pictures of 2 pages I did this week. I took these pics at night, with the flash off, so they aren't the best!
Aside from that, the page above is of our room on our December cruise. I made the little portholes from paper, using the circle punch.
The page below is of unposed pictures of my daughter's reaction to items we found in local stores while at Key West, Florida, our cruise's first stop. I only used a little paper, and then took one shell sticker and placed a title sticker over it. I love it! You will see that I used quite a lot of title stickers on this cruise. I often used them with stickers to give them a unique look.


Ah! I'm now 12 1/2 weeks pregnant! I really feel the pressure to get caught up on my girl's album and other dangling projects before the baby comes. This week, I worked whenever I could on my daughter's album and was able to get all the pages designed and created! I am now in the process of journaling, which will probably just take me one more day's work. It is so much faster to journal than scrapbook! When I work, I just scrapbook, only adding page titles if needed. I save all the journaling for the end. Especially when I'm working on a project that is many pages long.
I loved reliving the cruise, and I really like so many of my pages! I try so hard not to do the same thing over and over, and I was quite satisfied with the ideas I came up with. Not to brag...I just can't wait to get it all journaled and finally show it off.
Scrap happy!

Baby Butterfly

When I had my daughter, I thought that the next time I had a baby, I wouldn't worry so much. I believed that the next time I was pregnant, I would eat whatever, do whatever; because I already had her so if I lost the pregnancy, it wouldn't hurt so much. But now that I am pregnant with my little one, I worry. I carefully eat what I should and shy away from things my husband has warned me not to eat. ( Oh, yes, he is very much like that. The first move he made after I told him I was pregnant was to e-mail me a bunch of pregnancy eating tips.) I already know that when I go to Disneyland I am not going to be riding the rides with warnings on them. Because this baby is already so important to me. I already want to protect it. I already include it in my future plans and in my prayers. I am in no hurry for this pregnancy to be over, because I love being pregnant. I love feeling the little kicks and seeing my daughter's face light up in a huge smile when she heard the baby's heartbeat. I even like looking pregnant. I like having the baby all to myself!
This week was a special one because the caterpillars that my daughter and I had watched turn into chrysalis', broke out and became butterflies! We were actually able to watch many of them emerge. As they climbed from their cage, my daughter would put her finger out and they would climb on. Her face was priceless. As she held one, she said, "This is the best day of my life!" She was able to let all 9 of them fly free for the first time from her finger. It was an amazing thing, and would you believe that I took 100 pictures?
My, I'm chatty today! As for my scrapbooking, I am moving right along on my cruise pages. I keep it set up in the school room and sometimes my daughter even comes to "scrapbook" with me. I did let her do a page of pictures that she herself had taken on our pirate adventure.
That said, I am now itching to get off the computer and get something done!
So, Scrap Happy!

Mission Accomplished!

Before I explain the page above to you, can I just tell you that I have finished my Disney World (Dec. 2007)vacation pages?! There are only 20 some this time, which isn't much for me. Last year, I had 2 books for my Disney trip! I still have to scrap the cruise. But I have finished a big part of my trip, so I'm excited. I just was realizing that I only have a couple weeks free this summer before my big trip to CA, so I really need to get to work on these albums!

The page above is of my birthday dinner at Teppan Edo in Japan. (really in Epcot!) I have since journalled on this page. It's a simple page, but I like it very much.

Scrap Happy!

Scrapping and loving it!

This page design came to me as I looked closely at the border of the picture on the upper right hand corner. It took awhile to punch all of those mickey shapes out, and then I even cut some of them because I wanted them to go right up to the border of the page. I adhered these with the regular tape runner as well as the CM glue pen. I even put 3 silver Mickeys on the page, and those are actual confetti from Disney World. Here's a close up:

I started scrapping again, and I really have been booking! I completed my Disney World trip last night, and now I need to find my notes so that I can go back and journal all 8 days. I still have the cruise to do as well. I feel so far behind. Having the room set up so that I can scrap anytime has been just what I needed. I also have had to cut way back on the anount of things I do around the house, since I get backaches or lower abdomen pain if I do too much house or yardwork! I have to spread my work out now, and that gives me time to scrapbook.

This is probably one of my favorite pages (above) from this trip. I love using punches and you can use different colored paper to match any page you're doing! I have used some of these punches for years! I have 4 slightly different Mickey punches.

Scrap Happy!

Different Angles

First, I have some news! I'm pregnant! Yay! These pictures were taken yesterday by my newly 6 year old. I feel like my tummy is enormous already, but I can see from picture #2, that I'm not. The first picture is from my daughter's point of view. But it really wasn't flattering! So, I had her stand on the second step of our porch and take another picture. Sometimes it's all in the angling!
My plans for scrapbooking are as follows: I have a huge desk for my daughter, which she won't need for the summer since she is done with Kindergarten! I've taken over this desk as my scrapbooking station and I plan to sit there for hours every day and scrap. This room is right on the main floor of my house, so this plan HAS to work! I simply feel the need to catch up now that I have a baby on the way. That is the best incentive for me. As for after the baby comes, I plan to still scrapbook for my oldest, but keep up to date on the baby's album by doing Digital albums as I take the pictures. Once I fill up a book, I'll simply order it and it will come to my house all done! Those of you who think that it is unfair to the baby to only have a digital album, keep this in mind....Which child will need to rent 2 U hauls to take their albums when they move out, and which child will just need a van? Which child will be laughing then?!
Scrap Happy!

"I see Pooh!"

The picture above was published as the photo of the week in allears.com's newsletter! Yes, that's my little girl and I took the picture! The funny thing about this picture is that I took it in November. I knew it wasn't the best picture I've ever taken, so I sat on it until deciding this week to just send it in to Allears. It was chosen immediately. I had to crop it first to get rid of the flash. It's the first time a picture of mine has been selected, and I've been sending pictures in for years!

I was sitting in a Walt Disney World restaraunt, waiting for my daughter and husband to come back from the buffet table. Our seats were right by the windows and a line had formed in front of the window as people tried to get in to eat lunch. A little boy in Mickey ears smushed his face up against the glass looking in. We were enjoying a character meal, so Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore were making their way around the tables, an awesome view for any little boy. I asked his mom if I could take his picture and she nodded, but I just didn't get the picture I wanted. I knew that it was a unique shot. So I had my husband and daughter go out there after our meal so that I could recreate the shot. This is the only one I got. I think the title had a lot to do with them choosing this picture. "I see Pooh!" is just funny!

Scrap Happy!

A Star is Born!

This year, my daughter paricipated in a Dance recital again. It was our second recital. It was just as time consuming as last years recital was, and just as worth it once again! This year, we did feel more comfortable and knew what to expect, and thus were better prepared. I took most of my photos at the dress rehearsal. This is because the school asked that we not take pictures during the performance, and I like to get action shots as well as posed pictures! I did take a picture of my daughter with her Grammas and Auntie after the show. I like to remember who was there. Tickets are in high demand and we were blessed to get 2 extras this year. I also spent a good deal of time trying to get one of the 3 of us that was perfect. I'm very picky and this is a big night, so I was a bit grumpy with my loved ones as it seemed to take awhile to get a shot of my husband, the star and myself that I would settle for. The picture above is the last picture I took. She looked so adorable in her white coat and was holding her flowers with so much happiness. She had practiced really hard before this recital and it showed! She had done a stand out job, and we were all so proud of her. My sister and I both cried during her ballet number. She was like a beautiful angel!

Scrap Happy!

Sporty girl!

HI! I'm leaving for a youth retreat this weekend, and will miss my daughter's first little league game, as well as T ball pictures. I decided to take some of my own today! I like that I can always capture her REAL smile, something professional photographers don't always do because they think her "cheese" smile will pacify me. I'm a proud momma! My girl was chosen as one of her cyber school's student of the month this month, an honor you don't usually see given to kindergarteners. School is winding down! Maybe then I'll have time to scrapbook again!

Scrap Happy!

We are all unique

I took this picture on Easter Day. I wanted a picture of her looking at this glass trinket because it means a lot to me. I loved to look at it when I went to my Great-Aunt's, and one day, she gave it to me! I only bring it out at Easter now. This picture won't be going into her album, but I do like it. It tells a lot about my daughter. How silly she is for one! Can you tell she's smiling? Her smile reaches her eyes. The other thing is the stickers all over her hands! She just does that! The "bracelet" was a set of beads we found for sale. They had them at the craft store in the beading section. They have them on clear bands all grouped together. Her wrists are so tiny, that it fit her! So, she wears it as a bracelet!

Here's what's going on in my life, as far as scrapbooking goes! I did finally get started on my vacation in December, but I just keep stalling out. I have everything laid out on the table downstairs in the basement, ready to go. My husband is working on a project for our kitchen, so he has started to bring items in for that and lay them on the table right next to my pictures. So, now they have wood dust all over them. I have to move my scrapbooking area for now. I have brought a table up to the office on the 3rd floor, and now I just need to move my supplies up here. The only problem with scrapping up here is that it's right next to my daughter's room and I may keep her up. Yes, she's an only child and not used to a lot of noise when she sleeps! But I need to have a place to work, a place where I can lay everything out and leave it out until I get caught up! My goal is to be caught up by June. By then, I'll have pictures from my daughter's birthday party that will need scrapped, so I won't be comepletely out of things to scrapbook, don't worry! Not with the amount of pictures I take!

Scrap Happy!

Spring Soccer!

My daughter isn't playing soccer, but it seems like everyone else is! So, I thought that I'd include a page I did for someone else's album, just to give soccer moms a page idea. An idea that everyone can use is on this page as well. Do you notice the picture in the upper left hand corner? It is behind the soccer ball, which would make the soccer ball look like it was closer than the rest of the page, if I hadn't laid a few pictures on top of it. Space was an issue here, as I tried to fit 7 pictures onto the page. I also did another page titled, "Soccer Stars" and used black stars to decorate it.

I'm sorry that I was so late with this week's blog, and it is hardly worth it, I know. I have just been spending very little time at the computer lately. It's amazing how much you can accomplish when you cut out your daily computer time!