LOs for the week

Okay, so I just noticed that you can't enlarge any of the pictures I posted and I have no idea why! I saved them the same way I always did, so what's up here. I will try the left align here and see what happens. I don't see how that could have anything to do with it, but who knows. I forgot to mention that the LO I created last week (the one using Timounette's template) was used as the Saturday Scraplift challenge inspiration at DD. I was so thrilled, I was walking on clouds all day Saturday. There were a lot of lifts in the gallery last week, so that really made me happy. Let's see what else I did this week. Okay, this page is about or piano teacher. This was one of the challenges at Debbie Hodge's, it was about journaling and very fun. You can find the credits here.

Another journaling assignment. Here is Michael posing for "natural" pictures. We all know how that goes! It gave me a chance to play with my camera too. Credits

And one more about journaling. We had to tell a compelling story with a beginning, a middle and a conclusion. I had a really tough time with this one, but I think it came out okay. Credits here. This was the last assignment for the class, it is now over. I will miss it! I loved going over there in the morning to look at all the new pictures and to read the comments. I love comments and they are hard to come by, LOL.

I am taking another class at Jessica's. It's the ACDSee class, which is supposed to help us organize our supplies. Eventually I hope to get into doing some of that. I have a lot of stuff already categorized but it is so much work! It will take me years! What a daunting project, but I must admit, it is so much easier to scrap this way, at least I can see everything I have and find it! I love clicking on the previews and have all my kits appear. It is the greatest!

Okay, this is it for today, good night and maybe tomorrow night I will have some more to say!

Recipe and some pages

Oh my, I can't believe over a week has gone by and I haven't posted a single line. This is not acceptable! I have been so busy doing Debbie Hodge's class, doing some of the challenges over at DD and keeping up with Jessica's site. Then real life had the audacity of getting in the way on top of it. I managed to get into the photography class at Jessica's last Monday, boy that was funny. 200 slots were available and sold out within 10 minutes. I am so glad I managed to get in. Maybe I will finally learn how to use my camera!

Thursday was Phil's 60th birthday, I can't even believe it and neither can he. He is not happy about this at all. We didn't have a great big celebration, just some presents and a little cake. Of course he doesn't know that we are having a surprise party for him tomorrow! The kids and I went shopping for some decorations, the friends are going to be here at 2 PM and I will have to get him out of the house somehow. We have to go to Church at 10.30 AM, then he will have to go read EKGs at the hospital, which will take maybe an hour. I will have to enlist the girls to drag him somewhere, maybe to hit some golfballs.

I made this really cool coleslaw, which is incredibly easy and so delicious:

Ingredients:

2 packages ramen noodles (I use chicken flavor)

1 lb. coleslaw

1 bunch green onion tops (which I didn't have)

1 c roasted almonds (slivered) (I had pumpkin seeds)

1 c toasted sunflower seeds

Dressing:

1/2 c sugar

3/4 c oil

1/2 c vinegar

seasoning packs from the ramen noodles

Crush the noodles and create layers with them and the coleslaw, the onion tops and the different seeds. Pour dressing over top, do not mix, cover and refrigerate overnight. I just mix it before serving and it is wonderful!

Here is what it looks like before you mix it all up

Here is a lunch I made for the kids the other day. It's not something I would make too frequently, but they get such a kick out of it. It's just mac and cheese (yuck) and hot dogs that I cut slits in at the bottom. Once placed in hot water, they open up like legs, really fun. I didn't have any food coloring, the mac and cheese could be blue. What we don't do for the kids!

Isn't it cute? And so healthy (not!)

Anyway, that much for food. Here are some pages I made during the last week. DD has a neat challenge that involves templates by Katie Pertiet, they are double pagers and we make 2 pages per week on a certain subject, so we will complete a whole book within 10 weeks. The pages are to be uploaded to shutterfly to have books made. I'll see about that, don't know yet whether I will do that, it is quite expensive. But the templates are really fun and I am doing the pictures from Cancun of 2007.

Boy, I miss that place, we didn't get to go this year, because I was waiting for my citizenship and assumed it would happen during our normal vacation time, but nothing happened. Definitely next winter, the kids can't wait!

tutorial

Yesterday I did this really cool tutorial by Cassie Jones (DD). She had a chat on Monday (I think) and I missed the first half. Now if you have ever tried to follow a Cassie chat and work on it at the same time, you know that it's really hard. At least I got to snatch up the freebie and then finally did it last night. It was really easy to follow and understand (I can say that now, when I first started with digi last winter, I didn't understand half of the instructions, I just did them) Here is the LO I did with it!

view credits here

At the Spraground our weekly challenge was to use a template by Timounette. I always liked her stuff, hadn't been to her blog in a while though, so I spent a lot of time downloading LTs and kits. It seems that I do a lot of that lately anyway, there are so many talented people out there who are willing to simply share what they create. Anyway, I got that one done, posted it at DD and got a comment from Tinounette, thanking me for using her LT. I thought that was so cute. She must have recognized it right away. Here is the page

view credits

That's pretty much everything from around here. Jana from the Spraground sent me Jessica's Computer Tricks #1, because I have been unable to find it. She refused to let me pay for it, saying it was a gift. That was so sweet of her, I can't believe she did that. It just arrived today and I took a fast look at some stuff. I am itching to try some of it, I always like to learn new things and she is so good. I don't know where people get all their great ideas! I look at some pages and can't believe how wonderful they are. Oh well, we just keep trying!

I have another tutorial from Cassie that comes from a chat. That one I actually participated in, got about 3/4 way through and then got lost. Well, I have the pdf all printed and I really want to play with that some tonight yet. It's on creating custom clipping mask using brushes and the marquee and eraser tool. It really was fun and the results were great! If I get something done, I will post it later.

Of course, today is DD's weekly sale, so I still have to head over there and see what they have. I feel like a kid at Christmas! We'll see how far we get tonight, the family requires some of my attention too!

Water Art

Credits:
P.Knox: AbsolutelyAcrylicTabs (incl. staple and eyelet) Paper and sticker: LDD, Kristen Rice, appr. chall. fonts: Monotype Corsiva, Freestyle Script, JustAsFastAsYouCan

How about some nice water pictures. It has gotten so chilly here, there is no way you could get me into the pool now. It doesn't seem possible, that the temperature could change so rapidly! The other day it was so hot, we couldn't stand it and of course I had to put airconditioners in the windows. I should have known better! Every time I do that, it begins to rain and look, it's freezing again, LOL. Well, hopefully it will warm up again. Yesterday I dropped my EHD and now I can't access it at all. All my ACDSee tag gone! Thank goodness I double back-up everything and use Mozy too, so I can get all my precious supplies back. All my organization is gone though. I have to find out how to prevent that in the future. Well, I enrolled in the ACDSee class at Jessica's anyway, so I might as well start over fresh and do it right! Okay, here is the LO, hope you like it! I was playing with shutter speed settings on my camera and they were spitting water around, so this is what we came up with.

Father's Day

credits:Pattie Knox: Dad LT

Dana Zarling: Timeworn Papers

K.Pertiet: white stamped stitching, messy stitching

AprilDawn: Chrome hearts

fonts: One Fell Swoop, Century, Monotype corsiva

We had a nice quiet day for Father's Day. Michael made a card for his Dad, he took a long time writing about how special he is to him, which was so cute. Rachel made an artistic card with a little flower and buttons on it. We had bought some clothes and another card yet and he was kind of happy. He is not much into celebrations of special days and that's okay. We went to Church, stopped at the store and stopped for some subs. After lunch we went into the pool. Today is supposed to be the last warm day for a little while so it seemed like a good idea to take advantage of it. I took 120 pictures of them fooling around in the water. I played with my shutter speed and got some great water splashing pics. Later we ran up to the Country Club, hit some balls and then had dinner, so all in all we had a great time. Here is the page I created for Phil, although created is almost said too much. I used this great template which made it so much easier.

The Ugly Duckling

Okay, last one for today! I had all those pictures of flowers I had taken in the last few days and I really loved them. Plus I was practicing with my camera settings. I saw this dandelion in the grass all by itself and tried to get a really sharp picture of it. When I looked at all of them, I started thinking about the ugly duckling story and that's how I did the LO. I thought it was kind of cute. I really like this template, I used it once before. They can be embellished in so many different ways, that they always look new.I really enjoy using overlays, they are my favorite thing right now!

K.Pertiet: Counting LT, paper from Botanist #13, Overlay Botanist#3, Snap frame alpha font: CK Love Note, Century Gothic tag: Bits to Kits, C.Skaggs

Rachel's Friends

This was so funny! I was in Church when the kids did the living Rosary, which was really cute. Each had to go up and hold on to a long ribbon that wound up spanning the whole inside of the Church, quite beautiful. I was there with my camera taking pictures and the girls just kept turning around in the pews, all trying to get into the pictures. I just had to make a page about them, they were so darn cute. The page design was one of Debbie's from an old class I took. I always liked the overlapping of pictures.

Background paper: L. Grieveson (ad chall. DD) Overlay: M.Wise So Lovely (DD )A.Aspnes Tattered paper template, ass. zigzag stitching PP and brads: R. Farrer, 2Peas (recolored) Photocorner: Rfl, time of my life iron butterfly: Dana Zarling fonts: Laundromat1967, Malagua Demo Beauty tag and blue tag: Bits to Kits

Wall hangings

This is yesterday's LO for Debbie Hodge's class. The challenge was to create a title which includes some embellishing of letters or something of the sort. This one is not one of my best, but I really like the photos. Rachel and I were admiring some moss and succulents on our front stone wall, and I just loved the texture. In the photos it looks like a landscape and the raindrop on the succulent was so pretty, I just had to capture it! I have really gotten into taking pictures left and right and am so looking forward to getting into this class to improve my skills. I made the background from a picture I took of our gate. I played with layer styles and applied a ghostbones texture. That was really fun!

background: Mine (ghostbones texture) A.Aspnes FotoBlendzClippingMask L.Grieveson: Golden circle, golden glass sticker Frame: MA Wise (2Peas) Summer's here Round stitching: Bits to Kits K.Pertiet: Barely there Alpha, staple, tag (I look up) fonts: One Fell Swoop, Century Gothic

Just an update

Well, June 4th was here and is gone. Jessica's new site is up and it is pretty cool!! We have our own gallery now, so I can upload my LOs and my photos to the site. We got a couple of freebies from Liv, great papers, very pretty and we will have a photography class coming up, yoohoo. I can't wait! I never knew how much I like taking pictures, but I have so much to learn! I have been practicing with aperture and shutter speed a little bit, but I don't really know what I am doing, especially when in a room with low light and activities going on. So hopefully I will get in and learn something!

The weather here has been crazy! We went from deep freeze just a couple of weeks ago to subtropical temperatures with high humidity! We opened the pool just in time and the kids went in before we even got it warmed up. That's kids for you. They loved it!

I have been busy with Debbie's class, I love her lessons and the challenges we have to complete. There is so much talent out there and it's such an inspiration to look at all those LOs. All those great ideas that people have, paper scrappers or digi girls alike. We are working on creating titles today, this was great fun, the imagination people have, I got some great ideas looking at their stuff!

Anyway, here are some LOs I created again