Happy Saturday

Here are a couple more LOs I created. It is such great incentive when I have to get them done for a class. I just need somebody to stand behind me with a whip, otherwise I just sit at my computer and fiddle around, download stuff, read blogs and posts and waste precious time. Today I spent hours downloading goodies from freebie sites. I already dread having to organize everything in ACDSee, but it is so necessary. I know I have stuff in the deep dark corners of my laptop that I totally forgot about.

Today I posted my last photo for the photo a day challenge at Jessica Sprague's site. I really enjoyed doing that and reading everybody's comments. There were such interesting pictures from all over the country and even overseas. They showed how different our lives can be depending on where we live. I so enjoyed that. Now the big question, what am I going to do with them all? I would really put them together somehow. Tammy suggested taking screenshots with the comments, I am not sure how to do that, but it would be nice to have the comments with the pictures.

June 4th is coming up fast and I can't wait to see what Jessica has planned! I really want to try to get into the photography class, I really need help!

A citizen

I finally did it, this past Friday was my swearing in ceremony for citizenship at the Courthouse. I didn't really know what to expect, but it was really nice and there were quite a few of us, 35 in all, plus their families. The judge gave a little speech and we all had to swear our oath, received our certificates and that was it. Now I am an American citizen, woohoo! That was pretty exciting, Phil and Rachel were with me, but I didn't get a lot of pictures. Rachel didn't quite get it, she messed up a setting on the camera and thought she'd ruined it, so she quit taking pictures. Oh well.

On another note I just started another class at Debbie Hodge's and I am loving it already. It's all about designing your pages, what to think about and what to take into consideration etc. Really interesting. Here are the 2 pages I made so far, the first one was supposed to be assymetrical and the second one aligned. I think they came out okay.















1.Paper: A. Teets TightieWhieties
K.Pertiet Vintage text
torn strip: R. Fritschmann (Div.Dig.)
K.Pertiet Vintage frames, pinned frames
ribbon: 2Peas
red circle L. Grieveson web freebie (DD)
world: K. Pertiet, global brushes
stamp: K. Pertiet, vintage stamp
Alphas: K. Pertiet tailed alpha
Scrappykitten alpha

2.All supplies by M.Terasawa (DD) Flutterbutter kit

fonts: Embossed Germanica, Century Gothic, Moria

I used the first LO for the weekly challenge at the Spraground also, we were supposed to use b/w pictures, so that worked out well. It has been so busy lately, I had a lot of catching up to do. I am really trying to leave comments on every LO and every Photo a day posted on the site and this past weekend I got so behind. Yesterday it took me forever to get all my posting done and get my own photos ready to be posted. At least I am caught up now and can concentrate on my class. Jessica has some stuff up her sleeve too, June 4th is her first anniversary, so we'll see what she is going to come up with, some new classes maybe? The excitement is killing us.

Another challenge done

Here is the LO I created for the Spraground challenge for this week. I played around with it for hours, adding shadows and just having fun. Maybe it's a little too swirly, but I really liked A.Aspnes swirl brushes. Here are the credits:

All papers and embellishments: K. Pertiet: Botanist kit #13 (DD)NotebookEdgeFrame: K. PertietFlourish: Anna Aspnes (DD)font: CK Love note

I also spent some time last night playing around with textures and layer styles and I came up with this:
I'm not exactly sure what I did, but I like the endresult, true to Kimi's style. I love her homework challenges, she has the coolest ideas and her pictures are always pieces of art!

One new LO

So I felt like creating another LO for last week's challenge at the Spraground, I really liked the grungy color requirements. I had fun with it. I created the background, then added a ghostbone texture to it, threw on some elements and voila. The picture is from about 1964, I think, that's me on the right, my younger sister is standing in front of me. The rest are girls we were hanging with from Church and/or school, I can't even remember, and that bothers me. I remember some of the faces, 2 girls I was really good friends with, but the others, whe knows. Of course it was a really long time ago. The photo wasn't very good, it was a scan of an old picture, but I used one of K.Pertiet's dirty frames over it, so it looks kind of grungy. I like the effect.

It has been raining a lot here lately, and it is quite chilly. That makes it a little harder to get a nice picture for the photo a day challenge. I went out yesterday to take this picture. I was pretty wet when I came back in. I really wanted to get a raindrop picture though, I saw Hedderlee's header and loved it!!! I have been looking for a lovely branch like that since, LOL. This will have to do for now.

The kids had their piano evaluations yesterday, so we still had to get up early, since they had to be there at 8.20AM. Then at 10AM we had to be at Karate for certification and Michael had his testing at 1.30 PM. I didn't get out of there until after 4PM. That much for a Saturday off! It seems as though there is something going on every single day, but that comes with the territory of being a Mom, I guess. At least I don't have choir practice tonight, so I can play a little, if they let me.

Spraground challenge

I just finished my LO for this week's challenge at Jessica Sprague's. We had a certain color scheme we were supposed to follow and use some brushwork. This was fun, although I am still trying to figure out how to do things in CS3. I really love the elements I find on Kopirovat's site, she is an amazing designer.

click to enlarge

paper and elements: Kopirovat wordart: R. Farrer (Happiness) 2Peas brushes: SS lightbeam Aethereality: TreeBranches

Kimi's homework #24

before
after

Kimi just posted a new homework challenge, how to make pictures pop. Here is my example, I just completed it, it really works well to increase sharpness and get rid of noise in your picture. Check out her blog http://kimikreations.blogspot.com/, she has some good instructions on there.

Some cut-up tomatoes, fresh Mozzarella cheese, fresh basil, salt, pepper and olive oil and you get a fresh, delicious salad, simple and good, reminds me of my years in Italy!

Here is a LO I did the other day, something simple, using K. Pertiet's Quickpage from Sunday, her postmarked New Year stamp, Bellissimo paper by L.Grieveson. I added some extra shadow, using the technique Cassie Jones teaches in her tutorial.

Long weekend

Boy, these last few days have been busy, but what else is new! We went to Altoona on Saturday to see Mark and Joanne, the kids had so much fun! They love spending time with Joanne and they think Ryan is hilarious (which he is). Mark is always good for a few laughs. Phil had fun hanging out with the guys, smoking their cigars and just talking. Tom and Ann stopped over, they are good friends, I like getting together with them.


We got to go to Sam's and stock up on some necessities. My cart is never full, but I always spend a ton of money when I go there!


Sunday was Mother's Day and I got some beautiful flowers and cards and even a little teddy bear! For lunch we went over to Helen's and of course all the kids were over there. There is always a big crowd for any of the festivities. Some of them just got back from a cruise and they sounded like they had a ball. We have thought about going on one of those, it really sounds like fun!


Here are some random pictures from the weekend

My Front Porch

click on picture to enlarge

Debbie Hodge is running this weekly challenge to win a copy of her new book, which I really would like to have. I guess I could just order it, but it's so fun to participate in the challenges. This is the LO I created for this week, we were supposed to show a favorite place and I decided that our front porch is definitely one of those places. When it's rainy and thundering we have spent hours sitting on the sofa, wrapped in blankets and watched for lightening. So fun!

Kimi's Homework

click on picture to enlarge

I was just playing around with Kimi's latest homework post, her homework #23. It is so very cool! I tried it on a different picture first and didn't get it at all, then I tried Gabrielle's picture and wham, all of a sudden I got the effect I wanted. The photos become more like artwork, I like it, just something different to play around with.

Photo a day 5

click to enlarge

paper and frames by K.Pertiet (DD), fonts Germanica and Edwardian Script

Here is my picture for today, I combined that with another challenge from Jessica, which was to place 3 pictures onto a storyboard. I fancied it up just a little. I always love this bush near the pool with those red flowers. Spring just seems to jump out with different blooms everywhere, they seem to have come out of nowhere.

paper: K.Pertiet Graphic Floralsframe: K.Pertiet WebInspire frameclusterK. Pertiet SecondHandAlpha brushFonts: Edwardian Script and Century GothicK. Pertiet Journaling stampK.Pertiet Postmarked New Year stampJ.Edwards Chatfreebie (Sing)

I actually finished a LO yesterday. With NSD on Saturday, DD had this daylong chat going with freebies every hour. I managed to participate toward the end of the day, after everybody had left. It was a lot of fun. Those chats are insane, so fast and confusing, but I love it! I used some of the freebies to make a page.

Communion follow-up

Well, Michael's first Mass after his Holy Communion. Finally he is one of us!!! He is so thrilled about the whole thing. I was up in the Choir, so I had a good view of him going up to receive communion. The only problem was that I had brought the wrong lens, since I expected to be closer to him for the Maycrowning. Since it was so chilly, they decided to have it indoors and the choir never left the loft, so I had to try and take some pics from up there. They didn't really turn out that great (of course I still don't know what I am doing with my camera either, LOL). I did the best I could with them

Michael's Holy Communion

Boy, did we have a busy weekend. Friday was Michael's First Holy Communion. We had to be at Church at 9.30, so they could assemble all the kids in the classroom. With all the practice they had, everything worked out really well. Mark and Joanne were in from Altoona and Helen came too. We all went up together to receive. Michael was so excited and proud to finally be able to go up with the rest of us. They had a little reception in the cafeteria afterwards, which was nice. Tom and Ann joined us a little later at the house, Ann had bought scratch off tickets for Michael and he actually wound up winning $100 with one of them. He was so happy! Overall it was a really nice day for him!

Godspell

Some pictures from tonight's show Godspell, that the kids put on for the school. Unbelievably good! The crowd was going wild, because the kids were doing such a great job! All that hard work paid off. I had seen parts of it during practice, but I didn't expect it to be this good. They are just in grade school! I am so proud of the girls and everybody else. All the little problems seem to be forgotten and the girls had a great time! Their Godmother (Joann) and a friend (Ann) came to watch it, and they were very impressed. They had lollipop flower bouquets for them, they were so excited. It really was great fun

More pics

Okay, here are the other two pictures, I just stuck them into frames (dirty frames by K. Pertiet, DD, background color by R. Farrer, 2Peas) I really like the effect of the frames, they act as an overlay too. Great stuff out there! I am really going to try and stick to the picture a day, that should be great fun. At least the sun came out today, that just makes everybody feel better.

My DDs are participating in a Musical at school and my oldest came home all upset, because she and the other girls in her group felt treated unfairly. Boy, it sure gets harder as they get older, all those hurt feelings. The play is tomorrow and supposedly her group isn't singing loud enough. There is only so much young kids can do, she is so upset, she doesn't even want to go back, and she said the other girls feel the same way. Great! This is going to be a fun performance. After all, that's what it is supposed to be, fun! Not tears and heartbreak. They aren't even in Highschool yet, for crying out loud. Maybe I am just a little overprotective here, but it really bothers me to see her so upset. Well, enough of that, I just wanted to add the pictures after all

Photo a day

Jessica just proposed to the ladies at the Spraground to start a photo-a-day challenge. Sounds like a wonderful idea. I think she knows that we all have withdrawal symptoms, now that the class is over. It's also a great way to explore my new camera a little better. Actually I take pictures almost every day anyway, it it's not me, it's the kids taking pics of the dog, LOL Anyway, here is my picture for today. I applied the soft focus technique taught by Jessica in one of her tutorials

Background paper is by R. Farrer (2Peas) and the frame by K.Pertiet pinned frames (DD), font is Monotype corsiva.

This was fun. Actually I took a couple more pics, will see if I'll get them in here yet.