Thursday, May 19, 2011

My Photo-less Page

As promised, although a little late.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Some Monday Motivation!

So I have a little challenge for you all if you'd like to play along - Design a scrapbook page with no photos. That's right, not one photo.

I find that a lot of the time, my scrapbooking serves double duty as a memory album and a journal. Sometimes, I just have thoughts in my head that I want to get down as some sort of journaling, but there is no picture that really goes with them. This is when I sometimes make a photo-free scrapbook page.

So good luck, have fun and I'll try to have my creation posted later this week!

Happy Monday!

Friday, April 22, 2011

Wednesday Wordart???

Ok - so it's not really Wednesday but I wanted to share this "word art" with you anyway.

T and I have been making a lot of agreements lately about what is expected of her around the house and especially in her bedroom. After explaining what should be done in her room every day she replied, "I can't remember all of that!"

At first I was just going to write up a list to pin to her wall to remind her, but I worried that her friends might see it and tease her. I decided instead to make up a word art I could frame. This is what we came up with:


I just did it up quick in Adobe. I would have added some colour, but I am out of colour ink right now :(  I'll have to let you know if having the reminder on the wall is effective or not. Here's hoping!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Read the Manual!

I am telling you, some days I feel pretty dumb! Today is one of those days.

A while back I was telling you all about my photography "skills". I am working on getting better, but I am not going to run out and spend a bunch of money on classes and stuff because I'm too cheap! I am also not going to buy a new Nikon (or whatever brand) "will do everything for you, just point and shoot" style thousands of dollars camera. 99% of the pictures I take are just snapshots of our daily life and they really don't have to be works of art. There is that 1% of the time though when I really wish I knew what I was doing.

M bought me my first digital camera six or seven years ago. I was so excited to finally be rid of my film camera (which was just a basic, basic camera - a $25 jobbie) and be able to see my pictures before I printed them! It was a Kodak EasyShare C533. It was a simple camera - 5.0 MP and 3x optical zoom - but it took beautiful pictures and for a few years I was more than happy with it.

In June of 2008, I went out west for a visit and saw the mountains for the first time. My little Kodak still took beautiful pictures of the landscape, but I was so disappointed when trying to take pictures of the wildlife. I admit, I got camera envy! My sister had this Sony camera with 12x zoom and was able to get so many amazing shots. I called home to M to see if he was okay with me buying a new camera. I was a little shocked when he told me to go ahead! Off to the mall I went and bought myself a Sony Cybershot with 8.1 MP and 10x optical zoom! It wasn't as fancy as my sister's camera, but I was pretty pleased!

I have several friends who are photographers. Real photographers - they get paid to do this stuff! I love them dearly and they are always trying to give me photography advice. They use weird terms like F stop and shutter speed and scatter shot. My response to them has always been, "I don't think my camera does that." I have only ever used the preset options on the little dial.

Today I found the box for my camera and inside was the manual. I don't think I have ever looked inside of it. There are entire menus for manual settings and I even found my camera DOES have a scatter shot option! I even discovered that there are many additional lenses I can get! It's like a whole new world! I can't wait to get back to the girls and see what they can show me now!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

~Insert Random Title Here~

Hey all! I know it has been ages since I've actually posted. I've been a busy gal, which is not a valid excuse, but it's the one I'm going with anyway! If you're really curious about what I've been up to, head on over to Heanagh's Hearth to read all about it. If not, then on to my awesome find!

So I have been suffering from a creativity slump lately. I not sure what is causing my slump, although my theories abound! General post Christmas blahs, frustration of dealing with a 13 year old daughter, exhaustion or the fact that there has been so much snow in the last three months I am forgetting what colour looks like! :P

Today while just doing some random Google searches, I stumbled upon the best scrapbooking site I've discovered in a long time! I will never figure out how these sites can be around for years and I never find them. A Matter of Memories was just the site I needed to help me out of my slump! Now, I won't pretend that I have gone through everything on the site, but I did browse through the "Creativity Prompts" section. Wow! I love, love, love this idea. Each month she publishes a multiple page pdf file filled with photo ideas, journalling prompts, layouts, colour inspiration and much more! These "Creativity Prompts" are very well laid out it is evident there is so much thought and research put into them. What is most amazing to me is that she offers them free of charge! All she asks in return is that you "spread the inspiration!"

I encourage everyone to check out her site. Even if you're not a scrapper. Her prompts are wonderful for any type of creativity!