Two More LO

Posted on | February 24, 2008 | 4 Comments

I have been wanting to do this for a long time and I finally did it. I did a Pencil lines sketch. Yeah! If you’re a scrapbooker this is one must go place. I wish I have some picture to paper scrap with but I don’t so I did a digi LO with the sketch.

Like anything else, the hardest part of creating anything is the foundation or in card/scrapbooking the sketch. It’s the basis of your LO. You can have a basic sketch but through layering and embellishment, that simple sketch can then turn into a WOW layout. Or, even if it’s not one of those WOW ones, it’s one that you’re happy with. I love doing Beatte’s sketch challenges and those at SCS for cards but for scrapbooking, this is the first time that I’ve finally done a LO based on a sketch. The other sketch I want to do is one by Valerie Salmon. I’ve loved here stuff from back in the days when I was subscribing to who knows how many scrapbooking magazines. Each time I said, “wow” it was something that was done by her.

Here’s my PL sketch. This picture was taken in Germany, at the parking lot of Ludwig’s castles — the well known “Sleeping Beauty” Neuschwanstein Castle and Hohenschwangau Castle. We just finished our tour and Emma felt like posing for me. The orange sweater is mine. She had it on like a princess cape — she said they were her castles {::SMILES}.

Credits:
Journal box from Shabby Princess Festival kit
Brush from Miss M at Paperlillies
Everything else by Corina Nielsen from the A Diva’s Holiday kit at Funky Playground Design
Font: Copperplate Gothic, Elegant, Courier New

Journaling:
Emma, what a lucky girl you are. At age three, you were able to fly to Indonesia, Singapore, and Germany. You were a very good traveler. You never fussed and your favorite thing to do was watch movies on your personal movie screen. When we were driving you napped and when we stopped you were always ready to strike a pose just like this one. So precious! We’ll travel again, baby girl!

This second layout was done for a CT position, Tara Sroka Design. Not sure if I’ll get it but hey, at least I tried, right? She gave a freebie with her CT call that you need to use to apply with on top of the usual sample gallery and short questionnaire. Tara loves green, thus this kit design. But when I saw her green kit, this is what came to my mind, my green life. The pictures are both stock image from my favorite place, sxc.hu. If you’re in my line of work (or if you’re on super low budget), you can’t live without free stock photos.

I love these two LOs that I did because I see a lot of white space. I haven’t done a lot of these lately. I think I mentioned before, I am crispy clean with my cards but I do get a bit crazy with my scrapbooking just because there are more space and it’s for me. I always wonder what people do with the cards that I made.

Wow, I’ve done these many pages since I’ve been home sick. No wonder some stay at home moms can produce so many cards or pages in one day. You do have more time to get the creative juices flowing. Maybe I should sneak into my craft room and try to make a card. M seems to be sleeping peacefully.

Another LO

Posted on | February 24, 2008 | 1 Comment

Well, M’s been really sick since Friday. Friday I was feeling a lot better but we stayed home because Emma had a little fever and the doc said to just give her some meds and monitor her condition. It’s Sunday and even though it wasn’t 103 like it was Friday night. We had to put her in lukewarm water to cool her off. She was cold but so tough. That night her temp didn’t go down much, stayed at 101-102 but she was mentally aware and normal. Yesterday afternoon she was more chipper and her body temp was close to normal but last night, she still had a temp. Now she’s still warm, not bad, but warm still and since last night she’s have some blood coming out of her nose if she blows too hard. Poor thing. Earlier today I was doing some cleaning and I stripped her bed setting and used the puppy urine and odor remover to clean the blood off her baby dolls. We use Nature’s Miracle and wow, it worked like miracles. Now I just need to stick all them babies in the wash. So tomorrow we’re going to visit the doc.

Kato Due to taking care of M and trying to get the funk out of myself, I’ve only been able to do digi pages since my last card. I’ve been laying next to her a lot if I’m not fixing food or cleaning. So I’ll be on the laptop while she watches a movie or sleep at night — yeah, I’ve been sleeping with her and waking up every hour. Today, I got this LO done.

I have been meaning to scrap this picture that was taken in 2005. Finally I got to do it. Kato passed away suddenly last summer. He was my baby. I got him soon after I graduated and he’s the sweetest cocker. He has his issues, he had separation anxiety and he’d roam the neighborhood if I let him but besides that, he’s just the sweetest. He died of sudden liver cancer. He was only sick for a few days and he died at the vet’s office while the vet was waiting for the results. It was sad because I didn’t get to say goodbye properly but at the same time he didn’t suffer long. He’s buried on our acreage and it’s interesting that the two dogs would go up there now and then and linger there as if to say hello.

Credits:
Journal by Annie Manning from her Charm D’Antan kit. Floral and tan stitching from Cherie Shields Always and Ever kit. The rest are from Cherie’s Flights of Fancy kit which are both available at www.SophiaSarducci.com. I love the green feathers, butterflies and dragonfly. really beautiful.

Font: Bickham Script Pro and Arial

Journaling:
August, 14th, 2005
Oh there was a story to this… Emma was about 18-months-old when this incident happened.

Kato was sleeping peacefully in his little bed when Emma came in, pushed Kato out of the bed, and plopped herself on his bed. While she drew, with no idea on what just happened, Kato sat, just right there, looking so sad but waiting so patiently for her to move. This scene lasted almost a good few minutes. If I didn’t ask Emma to move, this would probably have gone a bit longer.

Right after Emma got up, Kato didn’t waste a second and he jumped back on his bed and continued on with his slumber.

He was such a great dog. We still miss him so much. There are so many memories but the one that stands out the most is his patience with Emma. Hope Emma can remember Kato. If not, hope this photo can help share his love for our little girl.

Tut: Converting Color Photo to B&W

Posted on | February 23, 2008 | 2 Comments

Download Converting Color Photo to B&W

Well, I’m experimenting and I think this youtube video will be temporary until I can get my video processed at Revver. For some reason it doesn’t look as good. I also tried running it straight from my server but since I don’t have a streaming server, it clogged up my website. So, here’s the video — kind of blurry. So if you’re not happy with it, you can go to the download version and hope you have high speed. At least for a little while.

There are many ways to do this but CS2 and 3 has this b&w option that’s really nice. I don’t recommend going into Image -> Mode -> Grayscale. You want to keep your RGB status but change the photo to B&W and edit still or go back to color without the hassle. Also, you can do this by going up to Image -> Adjustment -> Black & White but you see how nice the layering system is? I sometimes forget it’s there too but by using it you can remove, make it invisible, go back to it and edit, etc. Give it a shot.

Oh, I didn’t learn this technique on my own. Actually I learned all I know, except a few maybe, from books, online tutorials, school, conferences, seminars, etc. I’ve worked with Photoshop since college (just a hint, I graduated in 1997) so I can’t always reference my resources. Now this B&W technique is new but I can’t remember where I learned it from.

All About Me

Posted on | February 21, 2008 | 7 Comments

An all about me page. I did this page for a Weeds and WildFlowers challenge. Tough for me because I don’t take pictures of myself much. I had to look hard to even find this. So here it is. If you want to read the jouraling, go to Flick page and select “All Sizes” on top of the picture for a bigger look. It’s just a little story about me.

Credits:

Page was created using Gina Huff‘s Lazy Days, Cherish Add-Ons, Being Me.
World map from Stock Exchange, www.sxc.hu, user cjluc photo ID#: 953490
Font: Caterpiller

I am at home today. I didn’t go to the conference, had to cancel yesterday, due to my sickness. But, everything, or many things at least are closed today. The roads are super icy. Initially we were suppose to come in late but another text message came and my work decided to close. The hubby came in late but he came home an hour later — they decided to close too.

We’re watching Transformers now — for the how many times — M just loves this show. It’s almost over and then it’ll be nap time. Yeah!!! Oh wait, I just took a peak and she’s already napping. Ahh, the little turd… didn’t invite her mommy! Ok, enjoy the rest of the day. Hopefully soon I’ll feel well enough to make a video. I can make the videos now but then there’ll be no voice over. How good is that, right?

One Sick Card

Posted on | February 20, 2008 | 5 Comments

Bitty Easter This is what happens when a sick person makes a card. The birthday balloons are now the Easter eggs in some sort of basket. I did this to entertain myself while I “feel good”. When you’re sick you have that 30 minutes of feel good time after you chug down all the meds — do you get this or is it just me? My meds wearing off so I should go to bed again.

I did this card because I need an Easter card. I don’t send out a lot of Easter card. Actually I just send out one, ha! So this is my Easter card for this year. The colors came from the color challenge at SCS and the layout is from the sketch challenge. This is the first time I’ve used these three colors together. Not sure if I like it. That’s why I added the black. Seemed like it was missing something without it. So the colors are Certainly Celery, Pumpkin Pie and Orchid Opulence. The stamps are SU Bitty Birthday and the word art is PaperTrey Ink.

Have a great night everybody. More later… I think I’ll quit trying to be creative until I feel better. I’m not quite liking what I just did. I know my mother-in-law will love it but I don’t think this card looks right.