Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Another Trip Documented

After completing the title for our trip to Yellowstone Mount Rushmore, I decided to finish up my scrapbook pages for that trip. We went on this trip way back in 2000 and I've had photos attached to pages for quite some time but never added any journaling or memorabilia to them making them more than a little boring to look at. I won't say they are the best pages I've ever done (they aren't) but they are done and I am content with them.
These pages make a second completed chapter in what will eventually become "Our Trips with Grandparents" album and that is pretty exciting to me. I have also decided to add 8 pages to my LOAD count (even though I finished more pages than that I feel like I really only completed these 8. Either way I am happy they are done and in our Places We Go album (Vol 2).

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Text FX Work

Another class done and here are the projects we completed. What an awesome class and Tiffany Tillman is a wonderful teacher. There is so much more to explore n the world of typeography and I am excited to be able to begin adding in new techniques to my work.
Which one do you like?

Project 1 - vanishing lines variation copyProject 2 - chipboard letters aProject 3 - Text within Text copy
Project 4 e copy
Project 5 Arial w neoclassic wingding 1 copy
Project 5 Arial w Windwalker L swashProject 6 copyProject 7
Project 8 copy
Project 9
Project 10

LOAD Progress Report

I am SO excited with the progress I am making with LayOutADay (LOAD)! Of course I am not following it to the letter but have adapted it to get some projects done that I've either dropped the ball on or just plain forgot about. As of yesterday we were to have completed 17 layouts. Here is my count:
-Completed one chipboard mini-book for Caity's Prom
-Completed 36 layouts that documented a huge trip of the East Coast we did with Randy's parents back in 2006. For now this is an album in its own right but will become a section of a larger album that includes all the various trips we have taken with his parents over the years. I am thrilled with it and am already working on a second trip!
-Completed 1 layout for "Our Trip to Yellowstone Mount Rushmore"

No matter how you want to count the mini-book (as 1 layout or as 8 pages) I am still ahead of things and oh-so-very-happy with my progress!

Some lessons learned: I don't really LOVE paper scrapping (unless it is for a specific SPECIAL layout)
1) it is much harder to get color matches
2) you cannot resize photos
3) sharing layouts is difficult and requires additional steps of photographing the layouts, uploading them to both your computer and a photo sharing site
4) there are few ways to batch process pages making the entire process far slower than digital. Doing one layout a day means getting out your supplies, working on that page, putting everything away and then repeating that process every single day.

Result: Patti and I decided we can do this more efficiently with a few of our own tweaks applied to LOAD. We created a checklist of sorts and hope to give it a trial run sometime in October as we work on getting the remainder of our LOM category drawers emptied out.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

September Online Classes (that I am taking)

Just to keep things straight in my own little pea brain...here are the classes I am currently participating in (while still doing Log Your Memory 2011 Challenge, One Little Word and creating a year long look at our life using Cathy Zielske's "The Monthly"). No wonder I have not been doing much in my art journal, sketch books or on canvas lately.


textfx_1

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CopicCraze150


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LOAD Update

I haven't posted anything about LOAD recently but that's not because I haven't been working on it. The class is broken in to 2 stages; the first 9 weeks was "Training" and now we are into the "Marathon" stage where we work on a layout every day! That step began 1 September so here is my update.
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Patti and I both found that we didn't have a huge need for the prep stage since we are both into our 4th year of LOM. We have things pretty well organized and know our styles and likes and dislikes. Laine does a great job of helping you work through those topics if you aren't familiar with LOM though. We both had previously identified a bunch of photos, papers, stories, ideas, etc that we really wanted to scrap but for whatever reason we just hadn't. I placed all my stuff into a plastic file binder with each idea, etc in a separate section. On `1 Sept I read through Laine's prompt/suggestion but ended up just pulling a set of photos from my file binder along with the papers, etc that I chose for it.
I ended up doing TWO layouts actually! One is page of a trip to Philly and another is a trip to Rushmore. Today went really well despite not having any idea of what I was going to do. I haven't even read Laine's prompt for today btw and its now 850 pm. However, I pulled a group of photos from my binder again and completed 5 pages from a trip to Williamsburg, and 2 pages from a trip to Lancaster PA.
Total number of pages so far...9!! We are only trying to one a day but when the scrapping juju is working go with it, right?
I originally intended to work on Caity's prom photos but I never got around to ordering the photos. I did that yesterday but then didn't end up going over to pick them up. That led to working on the photos I described above. I also ordered some additional prints from Jamestown and Williamsburg (about 90) I discovered when doing my massive backup recently. I have now decided to put those all in a PAS (Photo Album Scrapbook) since there are so many of them.
OH! I just remembered I did a digital layout today as well from a trip to Lewes DE to see the tall ships so current total is TEN!!!