My Photo-less Page

As promised, although a little late.

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!

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!

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!

~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!

You're Late!

Wow! I can't believe how far behind I am already! Well, I can believe it actually - I've never been the most organized individual - but I was hoping my good intentions would have held out longer! I even received a phone call from my two year old niece on Saturday night saying, "You're late!" in reference to a project I was working on for my very organized sister! Oh well! What's done is done and today is a new day!

I am going to take up where I left off last week, and give you your Wednesday Word Art fix! It is keeping with the theme I presented last Monday, and I hope you can use it with your "addictions" page! I still haven't gotten a 4shared account set up (unless someone has a better solution for free/inexpensive file sharing!) so just click on the image and select "save image as". Enjoy!

Tuesday Tips!

Your Tuesday tip for today involves templates! Say that five times fast!

Do you ever find yourself absolutely stumped? You have some great pictures, but you can't think of a thing to do with them. Or you really want to do some scrapping, but you're pressed for time. This is when scrapbooking templates can come in very handy.

There are a lot of designers out there who offer layered templates on their websites or blogs. I like templates much better than Quick Pages (which are pre-finished pages that you just drop a photo into) because I control the papers and elements being used on my page. I can also delete some of the elements if I decide not to use them, or add additional elements as well. I do find that you have to be selective when looking through templates. You might have to do some searching to find a few that are perfect for you. For example, I enjoy using multiple photos on my layouts, but many templates are set up for a single photo. A great template I found today can be found here. (Scroll down a bit - it's at the bottom of her blog entry!)

Also, if you are new to using templates (or to digital scrapbooking altogether) there is a wonderful video on using templates that can be found here.

Happy scrapping!

Monday Motivation!

It's Monday. 'Nuff said. Nobody really likes Mondays do they? I find it's the hardest day to get out of bed in the morning although as a SAHM, it really isn't any different for me than any other day. I guess it must be all the negative Monday vibes coming from M & T!

Monday is going to be motivation day at Moondust. I will strive to find an idea, a challenge or some sort of inspiration to get your creative juices flowing for the week!

Because I am one of those creative and crafty super-mom types, the last month or two has been filled with Halloween crafts, T's birthday projects and getting handmade gifts ready for Christmas. It hasn't really left me with a lot of scrap time. I thought perhaps my scrapbook page inspiration for this week will be "My Other Addiction(s)" or "My Other Obsession(s)". A page about all of the other crafts I am involved in that usually take over this time of year!

If you are the type of gal (or guy) whose crafty ambitions begin and end with scrapping - maybe you could scrap about some other addiction. I'm sure there are some shoe addicts amongst you! Maybe you have a collection you could create a page about. I actually have several friends who are quickly becoming addicted to eyeglasses (thanks to a little site called Zenni)!

Whatever you decide to scrap about, just remember to have fun! Happy Monday!

It's Thursday!

I like Thursday. It means that there is only one sleep left until Friday which is my getting out of the house day! This week, it also means one more sleep until the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1! Yay!

I have decided that Thursday will be "Reveal Day" here at Moondust. I will give you a look at a page I completed over the last seven days. This week, I haven't done much to be honest. The only page I actually completed for myself was a journal style page. I know some people aren't really into pages with a lot of text, but they happen to be some of my favourites! I don't keep any diary or journal, so my scrapbooks end up doing a lot of double duty!

Enjoy!

Word Art Wednesday!

Well, I spent all afternoon yesterday working on my "plan." I did a lot of research on what makes a successful blog and while there were a lot of ideas I didn't personally like, I loved the idea of having a different theme for each day of the week.

Welcome to Word Art Wednesday! I love word art. When it comes to designing, I am all about the word art. It is something I am actually really good at. I love fonts and must have several hundred collected by now.

Another lady who loves word art is Bethany Harty over at Elegant WordArt by Bethany. I love reading her blog! She shares a lot about her life, and also offers a free word art with every post. Her word art is wonderful and it varies from very funny to very spiritual and everything in between! She offers all of her word art in gray scale and has a great tutorial on how to re-colour them to suit your needs. I really recommend checking her out at http://elegantwordart2.blogspot.com/

Inspiration

I had so many great expectations when I started this blog. I was going to blog at least once a week. I was going to learn how to design digital scrapbooking supplies. I was going to become part of a creative team. I was going to teach the world how I scrapbook. I was going to make people care.

The first few weeks were easy. Then it became harder to think of a topic that I felt was fresh and new to talk about. Then I found myself talking more about my life in general, and less about my scrapbooking hobby.

So, today will be a fresh new start. Well, tomorrow really. Today I am working on "The Plan!" I have decided that maybe I should treat this whole blogging experience like I would treat a real outside of the home job. Not that I want to make blogging a chore, but I do find myself needing a bit more structure. Today I am cleaning off my bulletin board and organizing it into days of the week. I am going to pick a topic for each day and do some research. I am giving myself deadlines AND I will give myself rewards for meeting them!

There! Now that I have put it out there I had better stick to it! Wish me luck!

Brain Tumor Awareness Month

October is Brain Tumor Awareness Month. This month marks 4 years, 4 months that T has been tumor free! I encourage everyone to read any information you can find about brain tumors and brain tumor survivors. Visit the Brain Tumor Foundation's website to see what activities are planned for your area. http://www.braintumour.ca/braintumour.nsf/eng/home  If you can, make a donation to your local hospital or the Children's Wish Foundation. I guarantee that someone will be very thankful that you did!

Picture Perfect

I don't know if you remember, but a while back I had written about scrapping your pictures even if they aren't perfect. I still stand by that - BUT - some teens from our church introduced me to a little gem of a website called "Picnik".

Picnik is a great little site for editing your pictures, especially if you don't feel comfortable with Adobe or other more complex programs. It is all set up to be dummy-proof! The best part is that you can use it's more basic features for free! Tooth whitening, red eye removing, blemish healing, softening, black and white, and many other features are simply a click away! The biggest downfall to using Picnik is that you can only edit one picture at a time, so it is not really time efficient. I am unsure if that would change if you chose to pay for the premium service or not. The other thing I have noticed with Picnik users (in general - not every user) is that a lot of photos end up looking like some sort of abstract art. You have to know when to stop. Just a tip if you decide you would like to try it out - remember to save the picture at the highest quality possible if you plan to print it AND remember to save the picture with a new name so you do not lose your original!

I hope this will inspire you to use a few of those pictures that you might have overlooked due to imperfections.

Brand New Day

Sigh! Teenage girls! I know I was a teenage girl at one time (long, long ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth!) but I don't remember being as catty at girls seem to be now! Maybe we were, and time has just blurred out the worst of it.

This week was back to school week for T. She was dreading going back because for the last few weeks she was the victim of what I am calling "Facebook Bullying".

One girl, who is supposed to be one of T's best friends and has spent many, many weekends at our house, started spreading nasty, untrue rumors about T. We have no clue what brought on the attack. Because I am undecided whether FB is a good or bad idea for my daughter, I make sure I know her log in ID and password. I randomly log in on her profile and read her messages, check out what's on her wall & check out her friend's profiles as well. (All you other mom's who are tisk-tisking me right now for invading her privacy - get over it - she knows that this is the condition on her having a FB page at all!) You can imagine my surprise when I read the cruel and hurtful things her "friend" was saying about her! The worst was the amount of foul language that was typed out, right there for all the world to see!

What I didn't see was any retaliation from T. None. Not one word. Oh, there was lots of retaliation alright - from T's other friends. I was glad to see that she had so many friends that were sticking up for her & supporting her. I was even more proud that not one of them had stooped to the level of the "Facebook Bully". No swearing, no name calling, just comments on how great T was and for her to "take back" what she had said (I love that they are still at the age where as long as you "take it back" it's all good!). I was most proud of T though. She never said a word. She cried herself to sleep a few times and we had some heart to heart talks and a sleepover, but she never said one negative remark to that "friend". She even went so far as to call the "friend" and invite her to come to town with us when we went back to school shopping (with no success - but at least she tried!).

When T came home after her first day back to school, I asked her how her day went. She was in such a great mood! All of her friends (except the FB Bully) were happy to see her & they all sat together just like always. She told me that nobody brought up the FB drama at all, and everybody was polite to the FB Bully all day. (Although she is glad that they don't have any classes together!)

I leave you with a page I made this morning. The layout is roughly scraplifted from a page I saw in Creating Keepsakes December 2007 issue. The papers and bow element are from the "Shine On" kits (from the blog train blog). The journalling/title is an excerpt from the song, "Brand New Day" by Joshua Radin.

Goodbye Mika and Delgado!

Didn't I tell you? Make sure you print! Be sure EVERYTHING is backed up! I'm sure that's what I said!

The dreaded format and reinstall was completed last night.

I spent a lot of time backing up pictures and scrapbooking supplies over the last week or so. The one thing I forgot to back up was all of my Word documents. Resumes and recipes are not so bad to lose. They can be replaced pretty easily. The list of "100 memories from 2010" will be missed, but I am sure I can recall some of it. What I feel horrible about is the 10-12 page story that T was writing. The Adventures of Mika and Delgado! She was so upset when she found out it was gone. She didn't even have a hard copy printed. I hope that between us both we can re-write most of it!

On the up side, we had some company visit from down home over the weekend, R, J & B. This was the first time they visited since we moved up here. They arrived via train and I am sure they were beginning to wonder where exactly I was taking them after the hour and a half drive into nowhere! We had some campfires and smores and did some boating. We even spent some time being all touristy in town. Since I didn't grow up in this area, I really enjoyed being a tourist for a day! Of course I got some great pics, but they will have to wait until the computer is good to go before I can do some scrapping!

Home Again...

Wow! Isn't it funny how when you get home from a vacation all you want to do is sleep? It makes me wonder if going away for a few days is even really worth it! I did enjoy seeing my family though, and M, T, my mother & I did get to that theme park I mentioned. It seemed a lot smaller than when I was a kid, but T loved it which is all that matters, right?

I finally have Adobe working again. Well, it's kind of working. I can't open more than two or three files at once without it crashing but as long as I pay attention to what I'm doing it's all good! M keeps trying to get at the computer to do a reformat but I keep holding him off! I have to make sure everything is backed up first!

I finished some scrapbook pages for a lady yesterday. She had won the Moondust Memories gift certificate I donated to the Canada Day celebration. I just received an email from her this morning stating that she liked the proofs I sent her, so I will get them printed for her this afternoon & get her book off to her tonight! I am enjoying scrapbooking for others and I really hope it becomes a more steady form of income for me!

I'll leave you with a page I finished the other day. My brother in law bought a boat this summer and we have been having a blast with it (other than M cracking a rib during a particularly bad wipe out)! Enjoy!

Frustration & Fun....

I realize that my blogging has been pretty pathetic lately. There are many reasons/excuses I could come up with, but the main one is computer related. I haven't been able to use Adobe in about three weeks. The program will open, but I cannot open any files. I am 99% sure that I have some sort of nasty virus on my computer because there are a few other programs I am having trouble with as well.

Without Adobe, I feel lost! I haven't scrapbooked anything in almost a month! I have been taking lots of pictures with scrapbook pages in mind so once I am up and running again, there should be an abundance of pages being created!

I kept myself busy during the latter part of June helping to organize our local Canada Day festivities. It was a lot of work and a lot of frustration, but totally worth it! There had not been a Canada Day event in the area for almost ten years and all of the planning committee members were rookies at planning an event of this size. Lesson learned? Starting to plan an event for July 1st in March is not a good idea. We missed all of the deadlines for requesting government funding and ended up doing a lot of begging for donations from local businesses. For a rural area, we really did well! Even businesses who could not donate funds gave us gift certificates or merchandise we could use for prizes!

The day was a little spread out so we will definitely need some more activities next year. We had a community breakfast, parade, giant yard sale, barbecue, carpentry competition, rolling pin toss, kids games, face painting, music, strawberry shortcake supper, graveyard walk and fireworks! At the end of the day, we had earned more money than what we started with! Yay! My big suggestion for next year will be a bouncy castle and a clown for the kids! I was worried that people would complain about the gaps in the activities or that there wasn't much for the teens to do, but I heard nothing but positives all day! I was even told afterward that our fireworks were better than the ones in town! (That very small town!) It was such a wonderful day! I met so many new people and made some great friends on the committee. I strongly encourage anyone to volunteer for this type of event!


Since Canada Day, I have been keeping busy helping T make more bottlecap jewlery. She is making keychains and zipper pulls as well as the necklaces now. She has even received a few phone calls from people requesting custom orders! One lady ordered 10 necklaces for the nurses in her dental office after seeing one of T's friends wearing one!

It has been unusually hot this summer, so T and I made a few sundresses. In order to wear them to church, we have to have our shoulders covered. T will sometimes just wear a t shirt under the sundress, but with the less casual dresses it looks funny. I found a very simple crochet shrug pattern on line and I've been making it in a multitude of colours to go with all the different dresses! My friend has also purchased some yarn so I can make one for her as well! It's a good thing I can whip one up in a few hours!

We're planning a weekend getaway for the upcoming weekend! It will be my grandmother's 75th birthday, so we are heading down home for a visit! We also hope to check out a theme park (weather permitting). So I will have many, many more pictures and still no Adobe! Wish me luck!

Don't Forget to Print!

Wow! One month! I am such a slacker. Well, not really. I have been keeping very busy. I am on our community's Canada Day Celebration committee and with Canada Day fast approaching we have been going non-stop getting ready! It has been a learning process for me. I have never been on this type of committee before and it really makes me appreciate how hard it is to organize a successful community event. Fund raising, insurance, permits, finding volunteers! It's no wonder that this will be our first event in over six years! All of the previous committee members quit years ago, so we were all new to this at the beginning. It looks like we will have a great day though - weather permitting! Keep your fingers crossed for me!

So on to my digital scrapbooking tip for today: Don't forget to print!

You might be wondering why I would even need to mention this. (Especially you traditional scrappers out there!) I am mentioning this because I am sure there are other digiscrappers out there who are just like me.

We take some awesome shots (or mediocre shots that we plan to Photoshop!) on our digital cameras and then proceed to upload said shots to our computer. We play with the pictures in Photoshop. We create beautiful scrapbook pages. We save a print quality copy. We save a web quality copy. We upload our creations to Facebook, our on-line gallery and our blogs. We email our pages to family and friends. Our kid does something cute and we run for the camera. Rince and repeat!

I guess there is nothing wrong with this cycle if you are cool with booting up the computer every time you have company who would like to look at your scrapbooks. Personally, I hate people entering my computer/spare room. Especially when I have been on a creative streak because that means my housework streak was non-existant! My other problem (which is more rare, but also much more destructive) is having a computer genious for a husband. You might think this would be an advantage. You would be wrong! The words I dread more than any others, "I think I'll do a reformat and a clean install tonight." To those of you who don't speak geek - that means every file you have saved on your hard drive will be deleted! I haven't even mentioned computer crashes or viruses. See the importance of prompt printing now?

I discovered that I have to do a little tweaking to print my scrapbook pages at a standard photo centre. Most of the photo centres near me are unable to print a square image. (I did find one photography store that can print them, but they charge me almost $8 for one 8x8 image). The trick is to create your scrapbook page and then change the canvas size to match a standard print size. For example: to print a 8x8 page, the closest standard print size is 8x10. I create my 8x8 page just like normal in photoshop and when I am finished I change the canvas size to 8x10 (click Image - Canvas size or keystroke Alt+Ctrl+C and change the height to 10) and save it as a high resolution jpeg. The photo centre can print the 8x10 image without any problem (and for about $2-3) and then I just trim the white strip off and pop it into my album.


I did find a printing site today that I am going to try out. http://www.scrappingsimply.com/ It is an American site, but their pricing is great and they have a flat shipping fee of $5 (even to Canada)! They also offer all of the standard scrapbook sizes including 12x12 prints! I will let you know how it goes.

Things you'd see if you were me!

Have you ever noticed how the closer you get to summer the faster the time speeds by? I am falling so far behind on my once a week blog goal.

It has been cooler the last week or so, but still beautiful! We have been getting out for a walk every day and it's amazing how much changes daily! The poplar trees were the first to leaf out and now the maples are well on their way. Another week or so and I think all the trees will be green! There are trees that grow some sort of red berry (I have no idea what they are) that have been flowering for the last two weeks, and the apple blossoms are just starting to bud. A lot of my early spring flowers are finished blooming and my bleeding hearts are getting started.

We have seen a lot of wildlife on our walks too. Groundhogs (which I think are cute, even though I know they are a pest and have to go), pheasants, birds of all shapes and colours, a hawk, a group of three bald eagles, and wild turkeys! This is the first time I have ever seen wild turkeys and I keep hoping to get a picture of them. It seems like they know when I'm coming with a camera and they hide.

We finished putting our garden in this week. With a little luck, the blackbirds will leave the seeds alone and the deer will stay out of the plants and we'll have lots of veggies this summer!

I completed a few scrapbook layouts this week. I am still working away at Disney pages, but I took a break and scrapped some pictures I snapped during a walk this week. I usually use a lot of neutral colours when I scrap, but I left my comfort zone and went with some bright colours that were found in the pictures. I have to admit that this is one of my favourite pages to date. To the scrapbookers out there: I challenge you to step out of your comfort zone this week and just see what happens!

Bottle Cap Necklaces!

Wow! I can hardly believe it is May already. It is supposed to reach 24 degrees today (74 for those of you in the US!) and I believe it. It must be 20 already! It has been such a beautiful spring! We have had record breaking temperatures since March and just enough rain to keep the air fresh. When I see all of the wild weather phenomenons happening around the world recently, it reminds me how blessed I am to live in Eastern Canada.

The last few weeks I have been tinkering away at completing our Disney scrapbook. Although I haven't been scrapping a lot, I am keeping busy creatively! My daughter (T) and I have been making bottle cap necklaces. Her class is attending French Immersion camp in June and she has been selling the necklaces at school to earn money for the registration fee. It is a fairly simple craft that we can work on together, and she really enjoys being able to earn her own money.

I have had a lot of people ask me how we made the bottle cap necklaces, so instead of a scrapbook page, I'll leave you with instructions for making our version of a bottle cap necklace!

Supplies needed: Bottle caps (we purchased ours from a beer & wine making store, but if you know someone who drinks beer you could get them for free!), Steel wool or fine sandpaper, Aleene's Tacky Glue (or another good quality strong glue), Clear varnish, 1 inch circle punch, hammer, small nail, old paint brushes, little rings (kind of like tiny key chain rings - I got them in the craft section at Walmart) shoe laces or ribbon, and images you would like to put on your bottle cap charm!

Step 1: Find images you would like to use for your charms on the internet, in magazines or from your own photographs. (I used Adobe Photoshop to crop the images into a square and resize them to 1"x1". I then put 15 images into a 4"x6" image and printed them like I would any other photo.) Use the 1" circle punch to punch out your images.

Step 2: Slightly flatten the bottle caps with the hammer (be sure to do this on a surface that you don't mind getting scratched up a bit!). I found it better to hammer lightly all around the edges so that the middle of the bottle cap doesn't get pushed in too far.

Step 3: Lightly scuff the surface of the bottle caps with sandpaper or steel wool so the glue will adhere better.

Step 4: Evenly cover the surface of the bottle cap with glue & center your image onto the bottle cap. I find using a small paintbrush to apply the glue helps get an even coat. Allow the glue to dry at least a few hours.

Step 5: Apply 2 or 3 coats of clear varnish following the manufacturer's instructions. Allow to dry for at least 24 hours.

Step 6: Using a hammer and a small nail, make a small hole at the top of the bottlecap. You might have to use some pliers or something to bend down any pointy edges on the back.

Step 7: Insert the little metal rings into the holes. String your charm onto the shoelace or ribbon & you're done!