LOAD week 2

Homework Assignment: Start small. Identify one area of your scrapbooking “space,” whether that’s a kitchen cabinet or the entire basement, and spend 15 minutes organizing. Try to do this a couple of times this week.
I feel really good about the organizing progress I've made this week. Between beginning to get things together for a garage sale (things are priced, boxed and waiting to be added to) and my digi organizing I think I have more than met this objective.

Layout Assignment: During your organizing process, pull out a few items that you forgot you had. Use them on a layout this week. Yesterday I was finally able to use some of my digi kits and templates that I've been wanting to use for a LONG time and got 13 pages for my 2011 Monthly book ready. Its amazing how fast you can do this stuff once you have a great system going. I cannot tell you how essential I now think it is to have organizing software for scrapbooking. I should have bought it long ago. Here is one of LOs I did last night.


Photo Assignment: Photograph something that makes you smile. It could be a kid, a kitten, a clematis – your choice. I had to post this picture because I took the photo and then Caity came in a while later and said, "This just makes me smile!"

Week In The Life | Ali Edwards

Just a reminder this is coming up very soon!Week In The Life | Ali Edwards

A freebie for scrappers

More Digi Organizing

I spent the day working through a small number of photos today and documenting my digital workflow system. Basically this just means the steps you go through once you upload your photos from your camera until you produce a physical page to place into your album and everything that happens in between! Since everyone's equipment, software, objectives are different I won't bore you with the details of my workflow. If you are curious or need something to get you started on yours just contact me and I am happy to share it with you.

I am finding the learning curve with ACDSee to be a bit frustrating as I am anxious to make strides with my digi pix like I have with my traditional photos. Patti came to work with/help me again today and I am SO grateful! Its always nice to have some one sitting with you as you mumble about batch processing the IPTC and if that is even possible with your program (which it isn't! Grrr!) and especially if they don't look oddly at you while you do. And in this case, she even knows what that means and can help me figure it out! (Pretty awesome considering she doesn't use the same software and is a MAC person!)

Here's a look at my LOM closet last year and this year.

Studio Move and ACDSee

"The best laid schemes of mice and men...go oft awry..."
ah! So true.

Seems that it was just a few months ago that I relocated my art studio upstairs and had settled in. This weekend found me moving it back downstairs once again. Its no big deal as to why but it is a change none the less. Here is the UP side...I was able to clear out some things I haven't used and tossed them. That always makes me happy. Also with my recent scrapping projects I was able to clear out tons of those items as well. It is rewarding to see my traditional paper scrapping area getting smaller and using less space! On the other hand (and I DON'T consider this a DOWN side by any means) is my art supplies have grown tenfold! *L* They now occupy about 2/3 of my space.

More UP side:
-I do like being in the main part of the house surrounded by my family and not having to go up and down stairs is a blessing.
-Emi's pen is next to me so its much easier to keep an eye on her, monitor her seizures, and let her in and out.
-Randy set me up with dual screens for my computer which is pure luxury while working on digital projects.
-I can get my easel outside much easier!

So while I may have lost a day to moving things I feel even more organized and ready to go than I did before.

Adding to that is my new software, ACDSee 12. Having completed the Jessica Sprague class on organizing digi supplies and then actually organizing my supplies I was ready to move on to my photos. I am currently plodding my way thru creating categories and rating pix. Then I decided to do something absolutely brilliant and WAY OVERDUE...I am backing up my photos on discs. So far I have 5 dvd's done with 2 more large files to copy. Feeling very accomplished I must say.

What are you doing this weekend for fun? What's your latest organizing project?

Why I Scrapbook

tn Brown Eyed Girl, originally uploaded by Trish Nonaka.

In one of the classes I am taking at Big Picture Classes, LOAD (LayOut A Day) with Lain Ehmann, we are to examine WHY we scrapbook. Here is my response.

I scrap as a creative outlet.
I scrap to capture moments I don't want to forget; both big events and daily life.
I scrap to share our story as a family.
I scrap to share our faith with future generations. I want them to know they inherit a legacy of faith and belief in Jesus.
I scrap because I want to reflect on the gifts and goodness God has given me.
I scrap to remember where and who I came from.
I scrap to share inner thoughts and dreams.
I scrap to leave a tangible way of touching loved ones when I'm no longer here.

If you scrap, leave me a comment as to why you do.

Scrapbooking Update

Yes occassionally I blog about my scrapbooking progress here as well as my art. Today is one of those days. You might notice a new "blinkie" on the side bar that looks like this:



My friend Patti and I have been hard at work on our photos and using our LOM system to its utmost. Even if you know nothing about the method you will still understand that in 3 days I:
- emptied 9 storage binders of photos from 1981-2005
- created over 20 more pages for albums
- created one complete album of Randy's adventure in Hokkaido
- staged an additional 20 plus pages for an upcoming class we plan to take the end of this month

- and placed all the remaining photos into categories (4 drawers total; all labelled and organized so yes, I can put my fingers on a particular photo in just a few minutes time!) That means that EVERY UNSCRAPPED printed photo I have in my stash is now living in the sum total of only 4 drawers measuring 4x6x18in. And every one of those has room to spare. Essentially, I am caught up!

That was last week....
This week brings me back to the blinkie. The photos that I mention above are all printed photos. I still have GOBS of digi pictures on my hard drive. I've found I rarely print individual photos these days and only print out complete layouts all ready to place into my albums. That is the general rule and yes there are exceptions. But I digress...

Since the majority of my scrapping and photo keeping is now digital, I invested in ACDSee (an organizational tool) and just completed a class on the program. I've been BUSY adding all my digi supplies to the catalog, adding/organizing/deleting folders and files, etc. I cannot wait to use this system in the near future (hopefully this doesn't confuse you but I have mine set up the same as my LOM system). I still need to work through my photos (Previously used PSE8 to organize them but didn't like that much...LOVE it for editing but organizing.)

I also moved all my scans of my artwork over to ACDSee to organize those as well.
Hopefully I will get all this work done, get a nice workflow going and will be posting here more regularly than I have been recently. Just didn't want you to think I left the planet!

Tsunami Doodling

The color blotches were already on the paper and I just began doodling over the top of them in an effort to practice a style similar to ancient Japanese woodblock prints. I thought it was kinda fun but didn't go back to do a more finished piece. Maybe some time in the future I will attempt it. Otherwise its just a great idea and practice piece.

33/100 "Maggie"

This is just a simple linear drawing using some colored pencils for accents. I did this back in March but did not share it here til now. Thoughts?

Artists for Respect!

mixed media painting photography online teaching - Julie Prichard - Artists for Respect! Join Us Today.

Julie Prichard is inspiring us all to do what should be a no-brainer and that is to RESPECT artists and their work. Check out the button on the right and see what others are saying.