May Review

Ah, no running people around.  No sports.  No homework.  There is renewed hope in being able to tackle to 2011 Master To-Do list, aka Goals.

Let's see how May went:

• Eating/Meal Planning:  It's gonna be hard to plan meals when there seems no point in it, in terms of not having to come home and get people moving because we have 10 places to be in 30 minutes.  Cooking is definitely more laid back in the summer.  Too hot to turn on the stove, so we grill.  That alone will at least make me think about what needs defrosting.  Whether that turns into an actual planned menu.  Couldn't say.  Personal eating . . .well I'm eating.  That's all I can say about that.  I'm eating.
• Walking:  (crickets chirping)  Hey, I told you at the beginning of the year when I set these goals, I hate - remember H-A-T-E, exercise.  So really.  Are you surprised?  Because I'm not.
• Organizing:  A little better this month.  I did finish up my closet.  Pulled lots of clothes and shoes and reorganized the shelves.  My daughter went through some of her clothes as well.  I straightened up the laundry room, which is a perpetual disaster - but the uniforms that collect there during the school year were dropped off for the exchange (sniff, all my daughter's tops, skirts and pants were in there - no longer necessary.  She was thrilled, I was sad.)  I organized the store room that houses Apron Strings.  The basement has stayed in shape.  Sort of.  In spots.
• Me Time:  I finished Creative Spaces.  That was total-me time.  I continued to read another book.  I flipped through about four back issues of magazines.  I got out to meet a friend for coffee and did so without taking the toddler.  That was huge!  I even scrapbooked.  At home.  Once.  Result - one page.
• Studio Space:  I spent time down there.  What concerned the reorg of the space was mostly done in my head.  I did the papers, but that was this month.  I think I'm gonna blame the puppy - when she's awake I can't leave her alone, she gets into too much stuff and requires constant watching.  Clearly she can't be down there with me - again, the too much stuff to get into.  So, yea, it's her fault.  Yea, that's it.  That's my story for May and I'm sticking to it.

Like I said, renewed hope that summer break will bring better results - she says trying to maintain a straight-face and choking down a hysterical laugh.  (snort).

Monday - a Challenge

I'm in the process of coming up with a Summer Challenge/Contest.  But until then, it's time to get our feet wet.  Time to take advantage of the summer schedule of some down time.  It's time to start scrapbooking.


Today, I'm using a challenge from Creating Keepsakes "52 More Scrapbooking Challenges" by Elizabeth Kartchner.  Use a specific time as your layouts title.  This is a cute idea, whether it's the time your child was born, the time of day you get home or documenting midnight Mass on Christmas.  You pick the time and create the layout.


In my organizing I've uncovered many goodies for treats.  Play along and earn your chance at one.  Upload your layout by Saturday evening for a shot.

Much Ado About Photos

It's the last day of school here - my boys were the last to get out; my daughter has been out about two weeks - the perk of being an 8th grader at their school is you get out before the rest of the kids.  Something she shamelessly reminds her brothers of daily by going to bed late and sleeping in. 

Since it's summer break and there are lots of photo opportunities this time of year, I have been thinking about pictures.  And wouldn't you know it, one of the podcasts I listen to talked about cameras and photos and gave me some food for thought.

First, I preface this with:  I have two good cameras that I don't totally know or understand how to use (a Sony DSLR that uses my Minolta lens and a Sony point-and-shoot that I keep in my purse.)  I've taken a couple online classes to try to help me understand the basics of photography and have achieved some degree of understanding.  I take okay photos.  80% of them are decent enough for me.  19% are unusable for various reasons:  too dark, unfocused, too bright, there's no point in the shot (it's similar to another shot or nobody's doing anything of interest) or it's a missed shot (what I was attempting to capture happened a shutter length before or after I clicked the release).  And 1% of my photos are truly good - either in quality or in something I captured.  I must also say, I'm not a photo editor.  I don't have Photo Shop or similar.  I don't do any post-processing of any kind and I have no desire to (I'm not talking about red-eye correction, or converting a color photo to black & white, though I don't really do that either.)  I upload and print or print at home.  I am in the camp of using the photos I do take and understanding my camera's functions to take better photos. 

Scrapbooking is about photos.  Can you make pages without them?  Sure, but modern scrapbooking is about the photo memories combined with the stories.  There has always been a lot of emphasis on the photo.  It can put pressure on us - only the perfect photo deserves to be scrapbooked.  Magazines are filled with great pages that contain amazing photography.  Just flip through one to see all those one-photo layouts where that one photo is crisp, clean, perfect in focus, color, composition and emotion.  That's a lot when I compare that to my cluttered, underexposed, no composition photo.  Why scrapbook it at all? 

Because in that photo, with the clutter in the background, is my 4 y.o. in the foreground, holding his beloved train, grinning ear-to-ear.  That is the memory.  That is what I'm scrapbooking. 

So I'll tell you what I tell myself, what was reaffirmed after listening to a podcast.  The best camera is the one you have with you.  A camera's price tag doesn't determine the photo quality or your ability to capture a moment.  Learn to use the camera you have.  Read the manual, take a class or simply play with your camera.  I've learned there is nothing wrong with using pre-sets and I'm discovering as much as I'd love to be a manual-set-camera-girl, it may just not be in the cards for me.  That doesn't mean I won't keep trying.  The best photo is the one I took; the one that captured the moment.  Learn to love what you take.  Learn to use what you have.  Creative cropping can fix a number of issues.  So can printing in black and white versus color.

Check out Get It Scrapped or Big Picture Classes for several options (free classes, self-paced and regular paid classes) based on what you already know - or don't know. 

Scrapbooking.  It's the memory, the people, the moments.  They're your memories to share with your family.  Don't use your photos or your photography skills as the excuse not to mark the moments in your life.

This summer go play and take your camera along.

Finished It

I savored the Creating Keepsakes Creative Spaces special issue.  I lingered over it.  I drank parts of it in.  I dissected it.  I gathered what I needed from it.  I found things I didn't know I wanted.  And I drooled, just a little, when I found the one space that most closely resembles the one I built in my head.

I have been mulling over what I want my space to look like since I decided to make purging, cleaning and reorganizing it a goal for this year.  Since I sort the kits down there as well, and once I have a rhythm down it becomes fairly brainless, it is the perfect time to occupy myself with redoing my space.  What if I stack my cubes to make my desk?  Once I empty that drawer, what can I put in there.  I need to see it to use it, so what 's the best storage solution for this, or that?  Should I take up real estate with albums, or move the albums to my cupboard?  What kind of cubes do I need?  Should I just get an Ikea piece?  What colors - I love them all, so I play color wheel all the time.  The Creative Spaces issue has helped me see some of my ideas in action, color combos I thought of and now seeing them in a room think, "ya, maybe not.", and helped me solve some "what to do with this" issues.  And given me a couple of "cool, I have one of those I can totally do that!"

I would say, if you are looking to redo your space, are looking for storage solutions, are looking to solidify your style then you should find yourself a copy.  Really pick rooms apart once you've been drawn into one.  If you just love the voyeuristic side of looking into other studios, then that works too.  And I'm not kidding there's at least one "space" that's simply a desk, but they've made it work and made it personal. 

Now, let's see what the summer brings . . .

Monday, No Wait, Tuesday

Happy day after Memorial Day.  Hope you had a nice weekend and that the weather treated you well.  Here we enjoyed seven soccer games over four days, under mostly sunny skies.  In the end neither boys' team made it to championship rounds (though I hear my niece and her team did - and won!  Go Katie!)  They played well though - with the 12 y.o. netting a goal!  And the 10 y.o. with an assist!  Yeah boys!  The silver lining to not making championships is we had a day of down time that we took full advantage of in doing. . .NOTHING.  Well, almost.  The boys mowed a couple lawns and DH did a little spot carpet cleaning - you know, new puppy thing and all.  I made ribs, fluff and potato salad in true summer fashion.  I even managed to get down to my space to sort out a drawer full of paper. 

Holy moly, paper I had totally spaced out having - some I didn't even recognize.  Sad.  Loose stuff.  Kit stuff.  Cardstock in colors I didn't use then and don't use now.  And hello, anyone remember vellum?  I'm guessing the stash I have is a QVC purchase.  The drawer is now empty and I have stacks - cardstock, stuff I'm thinking of keeping, stuff that is going and then the kits - not sure what to do with them.  I need to return to the scene of the crime and get it cleaned up.

I also found the time to do this:

I really, really wanted to do more, but just didn't happen.  However, I used another sketch from Lisa Day's 28 Sketches class at Big Picture and a challenge from LOAD - something about journaling the hard stuff.  This layout doesn't fit that subject, but with LOAD challenges, that's okay.

Now, check out this totally cute card, created with scraps from the October Afternoon line in the May Smaller than a Breadbox kit.  This is the final project from this month's Guest Designer, Wendi Robinson - and like her card says "Thanx" Wendi for a great month filled with wonderful examples and inspiration.  Follow Wendi at her blog HERE.

I'm off to rotate laundry, get some lunch and head back to my focus for the day - my studio space.

Friday Inspiration

Ah it's the unofficial start to summer with Memorial Day this weekend.  We'll see how the weather holds here and how much free time we have between games.  I hope there's BBQ and baked goodies in ya'lls plans this weekend.

While you're waiting for that strawberry cake to bake-up, check out Wendi Robinson's layout using the Sassafras Lass portion of this month's Smaller than a Breadbox kit and the PageMaps sketch included with this month's kits.  You can see in the close up shot below that she added rhinestones to the paper to add some dimension (I personally like the "crinkled" ribbon - FUN).  If you've loved Wendi's work, and how could you not?  Go check out her blog HERE.  Oh, and did you note, she not only used rhinestones on her son's layout, but has flowers and pink! And it works perfectly!

I'm off to pick up kids who have a half day and get ready for another soccer game and hopefully a little down time.

Go, BBQ and have a great weekend!  Don't forget your camera.

Thursday Already?

I'm really not sure where this week has gone - crazy fast, pseudo busy - all those little things that don't seem to take up much calendar space, but are spaced just right to take up your day and before you know it the day is gone.

Last weekend was soccer-free, we hardly knew what to do with ourselves.  We sort of wandered around in a daze, with a lack of focus tossed in for good measure and ended up doing mostly nothing.  I did manage to do this. . .

I combined one of the sketches from the class 28 Days of Sketches by Lisa Day over at Big Picture and then a May LOAD challenge.  The sketch is pretty much verbatim - needed to do that to try and get past this creative bump and then the challenge was about using embellies, trendy ones - which I interpreted to mean JUST USE THEM, wuss.  Embellies are my achilles heel - just struggle with using them in any great amount or variety (though in my head I use a ton.  Perfectly.)  So this was a stretch for me, sad as it is - five blooms and five flower brads (with brad centers, I might add) and one sticker - geez.  I know, you can laugh.  I was pretty psyched about my visual triangle that happened without me really trying, with the orange bowling balls in the pictures.  This layout brings my grand total for the month to . . .drum roll. . .ONE!  Though if any of the projects I helped with for the kids counts, then I'm a little higher.

Well, I've got one almost-graduated 8th grader home in full slug mode, the toddler always running on "go" and have to get ready to serve hot lunch, the last of the year.  We've also got two soccer tournaments this weekend.  Naturally, one is at one complex and the other is spread out over three complexes all over the Denver Metro area.  Luckily in the seven scheduled games we have only one game conflict between the two boys and then one game that is now at the same time as my daughter's graduation Mass - so her brother will miss that, but make the reception.  We lucked out on the schedules this time.  Hopefully, we'll escape the storms that roll through here about game time.

Speaking of storms, my thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by the horrid storms that have literally blown through the country this week:  Joplin, Kansas and Oklahoma.  The images are simply unbelievable.  We have family in the Overland Park area, and while they were only two miles from those tornadoes, they are all well.

Take care!