Photo a Day for May

~Kim~ on the CKMB, suggested a picture of the day for the month of May. I'm going to try to do this. I won't be able to post a pic on Saturday but, I'll try to post the rest of the month. I think I'll be able to do it, though. I've been working on my photography ever since my class with Karen Russell. I've been so pleased with my photos since that class! :D I even got some good ones at my in-laws anniversary dinner...in a dark restaurant!! Oh, yeah!

My in-laws, Dorothy and Norman

My sister-in-law Kathy with Mickey. I love how they have the exact same look on their faces! :D

My niece, Kristen. She's graduating from high school this year. She was NINE when I started dating Andrew...and now she's graduating!!!!

I'm hoping to get lots of photos of my dad's family this weekend. My uncle passing so quickly has really brought it home to me how important photos are. We didn't get to go see him before he died and his future grandchildren will only get to know him through stories and pictures. So, my goal this weekend is to try to capture what I love about each and every one of my family members. Wish me luck, I have a big family! :D And, I don't know why but writing that makes me cry. Maybe it's because my big family just got a little smaller.

Tell your family you love them today, okay? :) {{{{{sniffles and hugs to you all from me}}}}}

Happy and Sad Things...

I got an e-mail from Chrys at Scrapbook Attack today asking if I'd like to be their Featured Customer for the month of May! Why, yes! I'd love to be your featured customer! ;)

Mom, Mickey and I zipped into the aforementioned Scrapbook Attack first thing this morning to pick up my leftovers from their Garage Sale this weekend. I was soooo excited to find out that I had only one box full left out of the four that I brought in. (Andrew will be very excited about that, too!) I was hoping I'd sold about $100.00 worth of stuff. Well, we put my stuff in my car, went back inside and got my total. $251!!!!! Blew me away!!! My first thought was to buy a Silhouette but they are $369 and since we are trying to buy a house (more on that in a moment) I really shouldn't be spending more money. So, now I think I'm going to buy a Bind-it-all and then use the rest for shopping. I have until July to spend my credit so that means I can shop there for the next few months and only have to pay for gas!!! Yay!!! :D

I digi-scrapped this weekend! I know, I know, it's shocking. But, it was for a good cause. I had to make this for my brother's going away party.

My little brother is moving to New York and I'm going to miss him terribly. He came up with the idea to base the invite on the MetroCard and I ran with it. The back is based on the MetroCard, too. But, I can't figure out how to blur our contact info so I can't post it. :) It was actually a lot of fun to do!

We are headed down to Sutherlin, Oregon this weekend. There will be a memorial at the Oakland High School for my Uncle Joe. Then, the family is headed up to Aunt Linda's to send him off right! There will be lots of family, lots of food and drink, lots of tears and a lot of reminiscing.

We may have found a house! I found it on Craig's List and in the small town way of things (welcome to Canby!) we know the guy selling it. His sister is my sister-in-law's good friend and my old realtor. Andrew knows him through work, I think. Even funnier, my mom knows the people who used to own the house. I'm calling him today to schedule a viewing, he's got renters in there right now, and I hope we can look at it soon!

House Hunting Update

Well, we still haven't found our house yet. We've looked at quite a few but nothing has met all our needs and so we are still on the prowl.

Do you want to see the house I like the most? Go here and enter this number: 8034900

It's got tons of space, lots of bedrooms, and a great yard. The only problem with it is that Andrew thinks it looks like the Brady Bunch house. Oh, and the bathrooms need updating. But, with three of them, it doesn't matter if Andrew takes a YEAR to remodel each of them. I've got two backups! LOL!

What do you think? :D

18 Months...

...have never gone by so fast!!!

I love you, Boogie! :D

Two Great Classes!

Yesterday, I spent about twelve hours with Karen Russell. Well, Karen and about 20 other women. ;) It was great! Karen is cool and fun and funny.

The photography class was just what I wanted. The first half was pretty much all about composition. The second half was all that stuff that is totally Greek to me. You know, aperture, f-stops, shutter speed, light metering all that jazz. Now, composition is much easier for me to pick up. I've read a few articles and books about the subject and understood them. (I highly recommend Tracy White's Photography for Scrapbookers)

In Karen's lecture we covered some of that stuff and a lot more! She passed around photographs that illustrated each concept. She also answered every question we asked, and we asked a lot of them! We broke for lunch after we had covered composition and before we started the technical stuff.

At lunch I had the good fortune to meet Liz Ness and Jackie Wood of Illustrating Stories. That was really cool. I'd read Liz's blog for a while and was soooo excited to get to meet her. She recognized me as melegs from the CKMB. The funny thing was that we had just sat next to each other for FOUR hours without a clue who we were! I love those kinds of connections! :D

After lunch it was on to the hard stuff. I took lots of notes and paid serious attention. It was like college all over again. :D I had been worried that the class would be beyond me because I'd tried to learn this stuff in books but been completely stymied. This class was great because Karen explained everything in ENGLISH!!! Not photographer lingo...ENGLISH!!! :D It was difficult and complicated but, it was understandable. So happy!

The class was supposed to go from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm but, since we all talked so much (Karen, too...she's got great stories!) Karen stayed until almost 5:00 pm to make sure we covered everything and got all of our questions answered. That is the mark of a teacher that is invested in her students. :D

After the photography class was over, I helped Karen set up for her Interactive Scrapbooking class. Yes, I know that makes me a suck-up, but I seriously had nothing to do until the next class! LOL! Anyway, after that I was heading out to my car and the two owners of Scrapbook Attack, Sherri and Sam, were walking out the other way with Karen when some weird looking old man ogled me! It was so random and so unexpected that it took me off-guard and I had no comeback whatsoever! I just kind of said "umm..thank you???". Meanwhile, Karen, Sherri and Sam were laughing their fool heads off at me. So, of course, I had to do a little dance for them and shake my tuckus at them! I mean, what else do you do in that situation. It totally only made them laugh louder. Ah, well. I do love to make people laugh!

After dinner (an oh-so-healthy MickeyD's run) I headed back to Scrapbook Attack and met up with Christina (Inara from CKMB). We sat next to each other during class and had a lot of fun. I got up on the table and danced (if you are the first person to do this in one of Karen's classes, you will win a door prize!). She took my picture and gave me one of Creative Imagination's journaling books!!! So flippin' cool!

During the class I also won a door prize and got some very cute pearl brads! We made two really cool layouts and left with lots of leftovers and inspiration.

All in all, it was a great day! If you ever get the chance to take one of her classes, I highly recommend it. :D

Quick Updates

Things I've done...
~mailed our taxes yesterday.
~gave Mickey a buzzy on Sunday.
~Scrapbooked from 7pm till 4am at Christina's on Saturday/Sunday!
~Went to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival on Saturday.
~got sunburnt (just part of my forehead, nose and my forearms!) Friday at the garage sale at my dad's house.

Things I need to do...
~clean the bathroom.
~catch up on laundry.
~go grocery shopping.
~upload all my pics from my external hard drive to scrapbookpictures.com.

Things I want to do...
~finish the board book I started at Christina's for Mickey.
~go to Big Lots.
~upload all my pictures I've taken in the last few days.
~read some more Agatha Christie!

Make It Green Card and Mini-Book!

Well, I promised you the last two projects I made with Fresh Pages April kit, Make it Green and so here they are!

This first one is a mini book I made about our dog. He's a Whippet and his name is Devo! :D
I've actually finished the journaling but, I haven't photographed it. I used my white Signo pen (love that pen) and wrote his full name "Iron Sky's Devo" and his birthday. I used white Making Memories rubons to put WHIPPET below that.

This is a picture of Devo meeting Mickey for the first time. Devo is not only Mickey's first dog but he is also my hubby's first dog!

This makes him pretty cool! He knows it, too! Check out that pose! :D

Andrew suggested "A man is a dog's best friend" for this page and so that's what I did. (See! I do sometimes do what Andrew wants!! LOL!!!)

This last project is just a simple card. I love it though. The brads that came with this kit are soooo cool! My mom is all over them! (She's a big card maker, too!) (Hi, mom!!!)

I used my favorite two-tone paint technique on the petals for these. It's so fun and kind of messy! :D

Well, that's it, folks! The last of my design team goodness! Since I'm going to have a little time on my hands now, I'd like to do another tutorial. If there is one you guys want, let me know. I'm open to all suggestions!

Erica

:D

It's official!!!

Well, two things are official!

1) I am spending all day April 19th with Karen Russell! I'm taking her photography class from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm and then her Interactive Scrapbooking class from 6:30 pm to 10:30 pm. I am sooooo excited about this! Little man will be spending the night with his Auntie Kathy and Uncle John and Andrew will be in Roseburg at a bowling convention. Yep, we are cool.

2) I will be reviewing a scrapbooking murder mystery in September. I got the e-mail from the author, Joanna Campbell Slan, today. Nicole knows her and posted on her blog that Joanna needed scrappers to review her book. Well, I volunteered and I was chosen!! Whoo-hoo! I'll be getting the book in September and...I'll be getting two copies! One for me and one for a RAK!!! Yeah, baby!!!

Such fun stuff!!!

Fresh Pages for April!

My last kit for Fresh Pages is called Make it Green! I loved this kit! Green is my favorite color and when I opened it up, all I could do was drool! And, the goodies that come with it! Just check 'em out! Thickers! Mmmmm, I love Thickers, don't you?

I decided that since these kit colors were so "me", I should do layouts about me! The first layout I did is about me and one of my best friends...my cousin, Courtney!

I used my brand spankin' new border punch, Threading Water, on the photo mat. I painted and then clear embossed the chipboard flowers and cut apart the wings and pop-dotted (new word!) them on either side of the word friend.

The journaling (around the green paper) says ...born to be friends...Courtney and I on her birthday...born to be friends.

The next layout I did is all about my love for tulips. (I got my hubby to promise to take Mickey and I to the Wooden Shoe Tulip festival in Woodburn this year. Can't wait!!!) The layout is monochromatic so that the pictures of the tulips would really stand out.

To get my monochromatic (read: celebration of green!) color scheme, I dug out my Adirondack Paint Dabber in Willow. It matches that Basic Grey Lily Kate paper perfectly! I painted just the tops of the Thickers and chipboard so that the edges would provide enough contrast so they wouldn't get lost on the page.

I also painted the individual petals and put two together to make little hearts at the bottom of my journaling box. Journaling reads: "I love tulips, the weirder the better. Like the double blossomed ones and the lily-tipped ones and even the ones with the feathered edges. But, my very favorites are the parrot tulips. I love their unique shape and their gorgeous colors. I planted these tulips at our Pine Street house the fall after Andrew and I got married."

I'll post the mini book and card I made with this kit tomorrow. :D

I won a Revolution!!!

Last night at Scrapbook Attack's open house, I won the second biggest prize there, a Quickutz Revolution!!! Whoo-hoo!

I had actually had my name drawn for a smaller stamp set from Technique Tuesday and so when they drew my name for the Revolution, I was so excited to find that I could trade up! And, trade up I did! LOL! :D

I waited to take it out last night until Andrew got home. He was duly impressed. I only had one Revolution die (I bought it because my mom has a Cuttlebug and said I could use my die in it.) It cracked me up because that is the die they show in the instructions!!! It will be great for mini albums, don't you think??

You can see my lovely photo on their blog. I have an enormous smile on my face and look a little silly but, it was a lot of fun!

Laura (Tigardlilly) from CKMB won something too but, you'll have to check out her blog to see what it is!!! :D