I used Pencil Line sketch to help me with this LO. This was March’s sketch. Here’s the story behind the title… When M was a baby, up to two years I think, she was not the most generous kid in terms of smiles. She’s even tougher when it came time to take studio photos. We’d do everything and we’d just get a stare and she she did smile, either the camera person wasn’t ready or she blinked. So these are a few photos that we got from Sears. There’s one good smiling photo and the rest looked like she didn’t care to be there… of course there’s got to be one where she either has something, her hand/thumb usually, in or in front of her mouth.

Now she’s a totally different person. Quite friendly although there have been days where she’s just not camera friendly or will not smile for people she doesn’t know well. Her excuse… “Emma’s grumpy.”

Now, does any of you have a Ning account? Ning is a social networking account. Once you have one, you can create a group of your own or join another group. It’s like Yahoo group but with a better interface. I’ve used my Ning account to join educational groups… so work only… but recently I just joined two scrapbooking groups: Pink Paislee and Scrapbook Dimensions Magazine. If you’re not socialed out yet, check Ning out and the two groups. You might like it. In my field, I find the groups I’m in very informational.

Ok, leaving for my conference in a little bit. I will not have anything new, project wise, to share until this weekend. I had plans on getting stuff ready and just automatically post for me but I never got to it. I did a few that I posted already and besides that, I’ve just been working late prepping for my presentations. Hubby said I’m going to have to much info but hey, I rather have too much and cut back as needed than the other way around. So for today, I just want to share one little item… I found out about this from my Twit buddies last week or so.

What I want to share is a new online photo editing place. If you don’t have any photo editing application on your computer or you just need to do something quick and not too overly complicated Adobe has a new online application, it’s called Photoshop Express. You can check it out and play around with it. Opening an account is free and you have a few megs to mess with. Now, if you’re a Picnik user (Flickr uses Picnik too), PE is similar. For a comparison, check out what Steve Dembo has to say. He’s quite known in my field, technology in education.

Alright, got to finish packing. I’ll check back in later if I have Internet in my room. M’s so excited to go. She’s been packed since last night and dragging her big back pack around all morning. She looks super cute too (she ALWAYS pick out her own outfit) and I should get some pics.  If anybody out there are ed. techs or in IT, let me know, I’d be happy to share my work on: Actual use of Web 2.0 Technology (beyond blogs and wikis) and using Joomla and WordPress (MU) for faculty or organization sites (they’re both geared towards higher ed but can be applied to K-12). Bye!

It’s spring break. YEAH!!!! What does it mean for me? A little time to play, no grading, no fighting for a parking spot, and also take a couple days off from work.

Today, I thought I’d log in to Kuler and see what kind of colors they’ve got today and try to create one for submission. I’ve been on Kuler (my coworker introduced me to this site) for a while but never tried creating and submitting. I thought it’d be difficult but it was sooo easy to create a new color and submit. Fun!

To see the color code or details for the particular color scheme you like, select the color first then click on the little monitor icon to the right of each color scheme:

From here you can edit… or, if you are logged in, submit your edit or new color scheme to Kuler. It’s really cool.
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I am branching out more. Today I just received my orders from A Muse and Stamping Bella (about time). The Bellas took almost 3 weeks to get here. I chose super pokey cheapest mail from Canada. Oh well — I was trying to save $1, ha! I wasn’t in a hurry but I’m so happy they’re here! From A Muse I got the Nature and the Coffee Break sets. They are clear acrylic stamps. I found out about them from Amy’s blog. Isn’t the Internet amazing this way? From Stamping Bella, I got the pregabella and the cosmobella. They’re so cute and the one I did, I colored her with my Stampin’ Up! markers and she looks fabulous. I love my Bellas! Did I tell you I bought some PaperTrey Ink stamps too? I bought the Mixed Messages set. The set has a lot of little verse — so little for some. They all stamp really well and storage is super compact compare to wood mount. But I do still love my wood stamps; I just love how they handle. Oh so many stuff! I just saw some Prima stamps today — I like! Oh, my bill for Studio Calico came today. I can’t wait to get my March kit!! Lookie, lookie… isn’t the kit gorgeous?!?! I think that’s all I’ll buy next month. Between Christmas and the last shopping I think I’ve gathered enough to last me a few months. I’ll just do my monthly Studio Calico and be happy.

So nothing to show you today. I should probably do a digi page for the folks I’m guest-ing for in their Creative Team group. In a few days I will not be a guest CT for Manu. I love her stuff. I’m not sure if I want to apply for something else or just wait. Now, this weekend, I almost forgot, I have one of the hostess for Virtual Scrapbook Night at SCS. I’ll be hosting this Saturday from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. I’ll have some challenges for you so check it out. You might think it sounds odd, scrapbooking virtually, but it’s quite fun. I did this at Creating Keepsakes during Christmas break and last week at the SCS VSBN Preview and it was quite motivating.

I did make a card but I can’t show you until later. The cards for my good friend and she reads my blog — she’s probably the only person who knows me personally who reads my blog. Well maybe Lisa in England does — Lisa, you reading this? Ha! So… I want my friend to see her birthday card first and not via the WWW.

Have a great night and I’ll post a video either tomorrow or Friday. Laters!

I didn’t do anything this weekend that’s crafty. The car show that I mentioned last week was actually this weekend so we went that yesterday. Since it was in KC, we made a day out of the whole event — had Dim Sum for lunch — YUM. I was too pooped after we came home so I just finished cleaning and went to bed. I did though get a lot of cleaning done. I can see my craft table again {::SMILES}.

So today, I just want to share a few things…

For card folks, have you seen this by Lauren Meader? It’s the cutest card ever I think. A Onesie Card!! Yes, it looks like a little onesie. I am going to try one out this week. I have nobody to give this card to until months from now but hey, it’s too cute to pass up. If you haven’t subscribed to her blog, do so. She’s got so many creative ideas.

For digi and scrapbooker people, have you checked out Prima Hybrid? Oh you should! Not only do they have some of my favorite digi designers but they also have a gallery that takes anything AND I love Primas. Yes, Prima is now catering to traditional, hybrid, and digi scrappers! My past few LO have all had some sort of floral on them. I’m trying to change this next time around but so hard. They’re so lovely and I do have a little girl. Also, have you ever gone to Stock Exchange? They have a lot of free, personal use, photos that you can use for your digiscrap (or anything really — I use them for website designing and flier making). There are many other sites but this is one of my favorites.

I have two samples, these are pages that I did two years ago. I didn’t start buying digi kits/elements/paper until the end of 2007. Before I just use a handful of freebie stuff or I’d just do my own. Between the image and the free brushes, I could do what I wanted to do. But with the varieties of them right, I just couldn’t resist and had to buy a few. Now I love them. But this Japanese page that I did was a challenge back in August’07 at Scrapbook-Bytes. The theme was Haiku/Japan. I didn’t have an image that fits so I got these two from Stock Exchange. The brush is from Miss M at Paper Lilies (great artist this person is). I just blended them together voila. I got a page put together.

This other example is one I made for M, another challenge from Scrapbook-Bytes. The theme was “home.” Here are the details (that I copied from SBB when I posted this):

Flower from Google (another good source but check the copyright info) some while back. The flower went through the colored pencil and underpainting artistic filter. Before the filter it went through some heavy curves, hue/sat, and channel mixer.

The “Home” went through a few filters that I can’t remember, brush strokes and sketches. Both the “Home” and the flower were done in the filter gallery.

Paper, vellum, and brad were created by me. Brush from http://missm.paperlilies.com. Fonts (mistral, kayleigh, and the word “Home” - rasterized it so dunno what font type it is) from dafont.com.

Photo is of our daughter, it has gone through some adjustments also.

Layout story: Home is where we’re stationed. Though Missouri is lovely it’s not quite home. We haven’t found home yet but home is where our family is stationed at. No matter where we are though, we’ll make the best of it and we’ll be happy ’till we find that place we can call home.

Layout text: You can click on the image and enlarge it to read.

More scrapbooking stuff… I just joined Studio Calico’s Kit Club for six months (at least). YEAH! So excited. For about $36 with shipping ($29.95 + S/H) per month I’ll be receiving some really fun scrapbook stuff. I can’t wait! My first shipment is mid-March. I’ve been so inspired by one of her designer, Christine. I’ve been buying stuff that I’ve seen on her site and she’s been (well her blog at least… for all she knows I don’t exist, ha!) helping me think outside the box and be more detailed and such. Not as great as her but oh so I wish! There are so many companies who does kits but I’m so into three of them right now. Maybe after I try a couple kits I’ll join another company. We’ll see.

Ok, so that’s it. I’ll have some cards to share later today… I do want to do a onesie card!