Another Class - 10 Tips for Better Type

Although I just took a type/font class a few months ago I was excited to see Cathy Zielske was offering one on BigPicture. I love her clean and classic style for scrapbooking and was anxious to pick up some ideas to improve my layouts. This is a short class (2 weeks) but man is it jam-packed with great and highly useful info! I cannot wait to begin implementing these simple but brilliant concepts. I am planning to post some things and will point out the concepts. Growth is good.

Avon Breast Cancer Walk

Thought I would share something I worked on recently that also is for a great cause. For those of you who may not know, this is my mom and my oldest daughter when she was almost 3. My mom got to hold our second daughter shortly after she was born but died soon after. She never met our youngest daughter.


My mom died from breast cancer. And until last week we didn't know if this would be a legacy she had passed on to me or not. Happily, it is not. I am forever grateful that I was able to be tested for the breast cancer gene and majorly relieved that I do not have it. My mom's cancer was probably an anomaly or environmental cause. We will never know for sure. But my girls, as is the rest of my family, are committed to finding a cure for this horrible disease and eradicating it. Our oldest one is currently preparing for the Avon Walk in June. If you would like to make a contribution please visit her page  or visit her on facebook to leave her a note of encouragement! Your support is deeply appreciated by every member of our family.

We are in it to END it!

LOAD Completed

LOAD officially ended 30 Sept but our instructor just posted this cute little medal for us so I thought I would add it here and give you my final count of pages completed!

-Completed one chipboard mini-book
-Completed 47 (YES FORTY-SEVEN) layouts in one month

YAY ME!! So here is my medal:

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).

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.

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.

Retouched Photo

Here is a scan of an original family photo that I have.
And now after retouching in PSE8. Any feedback? I've just begun to try my hand at this so any hints you can add are welcomed!
In looking at them again I wonder if I should have left the architectural feature to his left? And I think I may have blended too much between the table and the wall. What do you think?

Digital photo repair

My MIL wrote in my dh's childhood album that this was her favorite photo of him. I have to agree he is pretty stinking cute! But the photo was badly damaged as you can see.

I decided to try and repair it a bit in PSE8. Here is my result. Not bad huh?

So this is the LO I created for it. I hope she likes it! I know I do. What do you think?

Done!

Its a minor accomplishment and really only means something to me but my 10K plus photos are backed up on flickr and dvd. I started the process on 3 July. I won't wait as long next time.
Actually it is now a part of my monthly digital processing checklist
(credit to Katiethescrapbooklady)

Do YOU have a set time to back up your digital pictures?

BTW...if you go to my flickr account and can't see my 10k+ photos, don't freak out. I have them in a COLD STORAGE file that only I can see. It's for backup only. And other than photos I post here on my blog and all my art work, my photos are visible only to family and friends. If you can't see them and think you should be able to, let me know!

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!"

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!