Happy Halloween!!

What a crazy week. We’ve been going and going. (think Energizer Bunny!)

Sunday: Photoshoot for senior, my dear friend Carol’s son & his girlfriend :)
Monday: Bought a new car :)
Tuesday: MRI & Bone Scan :(
Wednesday: Caught up with work :|
Thursday: Shopped for my dad. I do this since my mom passed away. :)
Friday: Bad day, got a call and I need to get a PET scan, a call like that can really mess up your day mentally. (pray for me that it’s nothing). :(
Saturday: That’s today, and the day is still young. :)

Those were the ups and downs of my week... my PET scan is scheduled for Tuesday. It’s scary, and that’s all I’m going to say about the subject. I’m not going to dwell on it and mess up today or worry, because worry doesn’t do any good, and I can’t change what’s going to be. (sounds good anyway)

Also on Friday, I did this layout... it’s a digi. I used lots of different stuff from different places. The papers are Crystal Wilkersons so are the buttons and ribbon, the Happy Halloween is a freebie from Ali Edwards. The drips are from Laina Lamb also a freebie from 2 Peas. It’s also an SVG file so you could cut it out. I think one of the pieces of tape is from Peppermint Creative.



I got the poem here.

My kids, almost 12 & 14, are still going trick or treating. I asked Emma, my oldest, when she was going to stop, and she decided that in 4 more years she will. That puts her at 18, lol, I think she’ll stop before that. I don’t get too many 18 year old trick or treaters. They are just going to paint their faces, which makes the whole costume thing easy on me. Plus, it’s going to be only 50° that evening, so they will have coats on anyway.

We didn’t carve pumpkins yet... I should get one today. I looked thru my photos from last year, and I did not take one Halloween picture. I can’t even remember what the kids dressed up as. Last year was a blur.

Anyhoo.... my very bestest friend Carol asked me to take some pictures of her son for his casual senior shots. It was fun. Good practice for me. I don’t charge anyone when I do this. I don’t feel worthy of pay yet. I did get a lovely handmade card from Carol and she slipped a twenty in there! (bad girl)... I also got some pizza out of the deal!

It was a fun shoot. Here are a few of my favorite pictures:



Cute couple, eh?



Used Pioneer Woman’s 70’s action on that one.



I think this one is my favorite!!



Shot this one when they weren’t looking. Ran PW’s vintage action (I believe).

I still need to edit about half of the photos.

That’s about it. I might do a paper layout, I just might! I have an idea in my head.... and the title is “Zoom Zoom”.... that tells you the brand of car I got!

Have a boo-tiful weekend!!

Did A Digi

I got an email from Crystal Wilkerson to work on a layout using a template...

This is what I came up with:



My dear friend Theresa has 6 girls (and 1 boy!)... quite a handful. Ages range from 18 - 2. Her girls are so adorable, and little clones of each other, especially when they were babies.

I randomly make digi layouts of her kids, and hope to print them out and give her a little book some day.

I used Crystal's kits that are available at Jessica Sprague.

And, check this out... full manual photos!! I even focused manually!!



This is a log cabin from probably the Revolutionary War era... it's in Historic Hannastown, about 3 miles from where I live.

I loved the texture of the logs:


And some mushrooms...



I enjoyed my photography class last night... we learned about rules of thirds, but I think most scrapbookers know that already... he touched on photoshop, but next week we get to play. I feel like taking my laptop because I don't want to work on a PC. (I'm a mac!!)

Well, that's about it today. I need to work on some Creative Charms stuff. There will be a downloadable freebie on their blog. I'll keep you posted on the deets!

Have a great day. Keep on scrappin'!

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1.02.28

A Scrappy Page!! Finally!

Here ya go! A scrappy page. It's not super blinged up or anything. I did this for my LSS, Art Tech. It's all Basic Grey. I used Cindy's EK Success big punch on the edges while at the crop last week. I had never used an EK Success punch before. I like how they lock closed.



Couple of close ups:



I really like these BG flowers:



And here is a picture of my baby... oh, how I love, love, LOVE this purse!! Seriously...



What's funny is I never thought of myself as a purple person... this is more on the magenta side, tho. I like it. Coach outlets are the best. When we went last week they had a Columbus day sale, plus if you donated $1 to Breast Cancer, you got another 5% off. Of course I donated the $1... I mean, what a bargain! What a great cause!!

Fall has really kicked in here. I took some photos yesterday. Did I mention that I've enrolled in a photography class at the local community college? The sad thing is I learned more yesterday from an online photography guide than I did these past 2 weeks of classes. I did ask the teacher after class if he had a more advanced class. This week, we're going to learn photoshop... ummm, I already know photoshop. I use it everyday for work. I thought the class was more on how to use your camera. I know how to use photoshop. Don't you think we should learn first how to take the photos before we learn how to edit the photos?

Oh well, it's kind of fun to go and the people in class are nice. And, I really like my teacher. He's an older guy, but he's cool. He has cancer right now, and is getting chemo for the third time. It's Hodgekins I think... I just can't imagine going thru chemo 3 times. That's terrible. I told him to read the book "Anticancer: A New Way of Life". They way I figure, eating that way won't hurt.

I'll share my photos with you a little later in the week. I need to make them smaller file size for the web. I was pretty excited, though, to shoot full manual!!

Have a great Monday!!

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1.02.28

It Was a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Weekend!!

But so much fun. Non-stop laughing. It is so nice to know that there are people out there in the world as goofy as me. Seriously.

The scrap retreat was held in Lancaster County, PA... in Paradise to be precise. We stayed in a cute little house. Everyone was so nice, and we all got along. I think that's just how scrappers are.

We have so many stories. We had raffles and food and goodie bags and food and personalized t-shirts and food and scrap shopping, oh did I mention food?

Jokes flying left and right about the local town names of Intercourse, Blue Ball and Bird in Hand... not to mention the Amish buggy horse poop that was everywhere... too funny.

Let me share some photos of these crazy girls... here is the Friday night crew. We were the ones who stayed in the house, except for Michelle, she lives in Lancaster:



Top L-R: Cindy, Karen, Gay,
Kyla, Jeri, Michelle,
Nicole, Carol, Chris (that's me!)

We passed the albums around on Friday. It was fun to see how differently everyone scraps. I collected a ton of ideas.



Me, Nicole and Gay... aren't we cute???

Nicole and I made these scrapbook pages of Gerard Butler (the hot Scot) for Gay. (She has a tiny crush!) Nicole's is the white one and mine is the blue.


Saturday we went shopping to different LSS. There was a Buggy thing where you got your passport stamped. Carol and I went to the outlets instead and bought purses. I got a Coach Purse!! It's my first, so excited. After lunch, Carol and I did hit the Flower & Craft Warehouse and did some damage.

When we got back to the house, I actually scrapped a page! I'll share that with you later. Can you believe I got anything done? Then we hung out, ate some food, watched some Gerry Butler movies and some naughtiness ensued.... with a giant pair of purple panties... OK, we won't go there, but these girls are K-A-Razy!!



Nicole and Michelle.

I had a great time. It was so fun to meet all these people in real life. I've met some IRL, and talked to others on the phone. Isn't it funny, though, that we all knew so much about each other from talking so much on the scrappy message boards and facebook? This internet thing is pretty cool. ;)

So, what do you think of my crazy short curly dark hair? Well, at least it's hair! LOL!

One more photo, this is all 12 girls on Saturday night. I was getting a tad tired, but still having fun:



Far Back Top: Karen, Carol, Kyla, Jeri, Michelle, Me, Cindy, Rose, Gay, Nicole, Renee and Becky.

Have a great day!

Sweet Treats!!

I'm leaving in about 12.5 hours for a scrap retreat with some girls I met online. I've "known" these girls for years on the message boards - Creating Keepsakes and a few other scrap sites. It's going to be so cool to meet them all in person.

I have scrap goody bags to give them, but I also made these really cool treats. When I bought the knobs for my dresser, each one came in a plastic package. I held on to these thinking I could do something with them.

Here's what I did.

First, I made some labels on my computer and then printed them out on label paper. I had some kraft crack n' peel, so I used that.



Next, I took a really cool Martha Stewart butterfly stamp and using my brayer and some paint I "stamped" onto the plastic boxes.



While the paint dried, I cut out my labels and gave them a little notch at the folding point and a decorative edge.

Here they are:



They look cool all stacked together, making a full butterfly. Love how the fall M&Ms look in the boxes.

I guess this is upcycling??!!



I seriously love how these turned out. I picked the number 12 because there are 12 girls coming. I saw this design on a tea label and kind of "scraplifted" it.

I hope to get at least a few layouts done in between all the shopping and eating and well, someone is bringing Marg & Rita.... I hear they can cause trouble!!

Have a great weekend!!