Photo Shoot Fun

Before

After adding some contrast and color saturation and vignette feature.

Before

After removing some color saturation and vignette feature.

Before

After adding some brightness, contrast and vignette feature.

Harper and I took some new pictures yesterday. Living in Bakersfield, it's not too hard to find a farm field to use for background, LOL. I played around with them in my new favorite photo editing program, Picnik, which is available to use for free online. I am so in love with their "vignette" feature, which darkens the edges of the whole photo. I think I used it on all my photos, LOL. Harper was a good sport, climbing through the weeds for the sake of my 'art'!

Weeds

Well here it is, the day of my scrapbooking club and I still hadn't made the layout from the kit that I put together for the month. So I figured I'd better get my rear in gear and get something done. Our technique for the month was hand dyed paper. I made the yellow paper that is behind the title "weeds". And since these darned sunflowers are in bloom all over the back yard I figured I'd use a pic of them, as they go well with the yellow paper I made. So with just hours to go I put this layout together. I think it turned out ok. We'll see what the girls at scrapbook club think tonight. Wish me luck!

Layouts of the Week

Here's what I've been working on this week. On the Watchin' Birds layout I used chipboard painted brown/black and then brushed with two coats of platinum colored Stickles. The photo in the BFF layout is Harper and her new college best friend Lynzie. The flourish was created by cutting it out of a patterned paper with an exacto knife, and the center "F" was covered in paper that I printed with my computer printer. Enjoy & leave a nice commment, LOL.

Weeds in Bloom

Look what popped up in the backyard. We didn't plant them this year so I guess the sunflowers of years past had dropped their seeds. Isn't it funny that these babies have come up strong with no care and the hollyhocks that we have pampered aren't thriving at all. Hmmm metaphor for life?

Busy Week in Review

It's been a heck of a busy week. Lots of boring stuff, but I did teach my first class at Simply Scrapbooks on Wednesday. We did this "Sassy" page with the hidden jounal spot, and everything went well. Then on Saturday I taught the Sassafras Lass book. I had no idea how long it would take so we schedualed four hours. It actuall took SIX hours!!! I had four ladies in class and three of them left after four house but one faithful scrapper stayed on to complete her book and it turned out really cute.

In other news, I spent a day getting my financials all budgeted away so I can get saved up for Memory Trends this September! I am so excited. I've got the summer to get my business licenses all in place so that I can buy my supplies at the convention in September and be ready for business in October. I've already got the domain name http://www.scrapsdelight.com/ and am busily working on my business plan. Speaking of business plans, it's like writting up a never ending report on a math book you read 20 years ago, in other words.....torture!

More news on Scrap's Delight to come.

The Crop Fairy

The Crop Fairy has been at it again and has left me with these two cute layouts. The papers are all from the new Love, Elsie line. The bit of black scalloped cardstock is Bazzil. They were quick and easy layouts to make and I think they might make a good class project. What do you think?

The Midnight Scraper rides again!

"Harper @ 13" is a layout for the store.

"You Stand Out" is a photo that Harper and her friends took up at school this winter.

Remembering our Vets this Memorial Day

Midnight Scrapper

I seem to do my best scraping, or at least do the most scraping in the middle of the night. Used the kit from Jenni Bowlin for this one, plus added lots of sweet embellies. Heidi Swap clock. Bazzil and Prima flowers. Plane Jane chipboard flowers covered with notebook printed paper. "five" is chipboard letters, painted white, painted pink around the outside edges and polka dots. Making Memories blue ric rac. Everything else is from the Jenni Bowlin kit.

What my camera was doing today

Harper and I took pictures of Lauren this afternoon for her graduation announcements. These are my favorite four of the 110 we took. Which one do you like best? Look for these pix to show up in my future layouts for the store.

The Latest

This is the latest layout. My husband. Hard to look tough when there is a kitten in your arms.

Simply Scrapbooks Design Team

This is my first layout for the store as a design team memeber. I attended the instructional meeting last night and brought home this Stacy Claire Boyd paper from EK Success to work with. The words "Lucky Girl" are Basic Grey rubons and of course the flowers are Prima.

Magnetic Photo Cards

This is what I have worked on today. They are magnetic photo cards. They are backed with a magnetic sheet so they can be put on the fridge. And they have a Basic Grey magnet snap inside of them so that the card will be held shut while on the fridge. The papers are by Cosmo Cricket. They were inspired by Davinie's beautiful cards at the Two Peas website.

Check out my Slide Show!

Tootin' my own horn

Oh Yeah, I just got an e-mail from Basic Grey. They have accepted one of my layouts for their online gallery. I submitted four and they accepted "The Road", shown below. And they have added my name to their design team list. Granted, it's a long list, but I am excited nonetheless.

Not Gettin' Much Done Today

This is what's going on in my front yard today. Inside, I'm not getting much done. I sat on my butt for two hours and watched CMT while I got caught up on my document shredding. And I have now gotten half the living room steam cleaned but am not going to do the other half as there is not time for it to dry before my husband comes home from work. What I meant to get done today was to clean off my work table and get some SCRAPPING done! Well, it's only 5pm, there's still time yet, LOL.

Page of the Day

I finished this page today using Sassafras Lass papers and rub-ons. There is a hidden journaling spot under the monogram circle. The circle rotates to the side to reveal the journal spot, and is held in place with a Basic Grey magnetic snap. I love those things.

What I am working on today

Sassafras Lass Book

Today, while recovering from the concert, I am working on finalizing the supply list and instructions for this book. I will teach the class at Simply Scrapbooks sometime in the next two months. I'll keep you posted on the date and price as soon as I know them.

Woohoo, I made it! That was awesome. Opening acts were

• Jack Ingram
• Kelly Pickler
• Taylor Swift

And then two hours of Brad!

Kelly Pickler was just adorable. I like it when the artist talks alot and tells you the stories behind the songs. She sang a song she had written to her mother, who abandond her early in her life. Kelly cried while she sang it.

Taylor Swift was just adorable. At only 17 years old she has written over 200 songs, including the ones on her new CD. Now she talked alot about her songs and was so funny. Not a shy bone in that girl's tiny body.

But by far the best was my little Brad Paisley. I wish that he was more of a talker. I would have loved to have heard about his wife and new baby. He even cut Kimberly's shots out of the "Fishing" video. Guess he wants to keep his private life private. While he was performing "When I get where I'm going" my friend commented that Kelly Pickler would have been a good fill in for Dolly Parton's part, as her voice is similar. I Said that what I would really love to see my very favorite Alison Kraus perform "Wiskey Lullaby" with him. Two songs latter I got my wish!!!! There she was, larger (and blurrier in the photo) than life and Brad didn't even introduce her or say a thank you or anything. That was wierd. But he did keep playing until the arena turned up the lights. Guess they didn't want to stay all night as bad as my Brad and I did, LOL.

Photo of Harper taken by Lauren Cooper.