Saturday, March 28, 2009

Learning New Things

Ethan taught himself how to rollerblade. He had help from Haven, but basically he just put the skates on and went... Oh, and normally I make him wear a helmet. I guess this was a bad mom moment...

Haven is learning about circles: radius, diameter and circumference. Part of her homework was to calculate the circumference, but they hadn't learned about pi yet. So I used my handy dandy Bamboo pen tablet to show her pi and she did her homework with the tablet instead of scratch paper! I KNEW I needed the tablet!!! :)

Friday, March 27, 2009

Turtle Tracks


Isn't he just the cutest thing? I covered a paper mache box with paper from the Basic Grey boy collection we have. (Sorry I don't know the name of it...) Then I covered the lid with Terrifically Tacky Tape, leaving the top film on. I drew the pattern on the film (I tried to use a pencil, but a Sharpie would work SO much better) and used an exacto knife to cute out the pattern. Then I lifted off only one piece of the film at a time and covered it with Art Accents microbeads and glitter. I just love how he turned out! This is the sample for a make and take project I'll be doing later in April.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Catching Up

Since I have become obsessed with designing I've gotten behind on blogging and on my 365 Photo Project. I whipped out a few pages today, but March is going to be a pretty bare bones month for that project. I did make all the pages for the month with papers I made, so I feel pretty good about that. They aren't quite ready to share.

But here are some things, made by me and others, I do want to share:

A Thank You gift from Adrienne for her baby shower. She made one for all the attendees in their favorite colors. (Or at least I'm assuming she made them for everyone...)

An apron for Ethan from Jennifer. This is a great story in and of itself. Ethan is learning to cook and needed an apron, so I got him one Jennifer made with monkeys on it. But the monkeys scared him (so weird) so I had to take it back. Jennifer let Ethan pick out the fabric (she showed him pictures online of ones she had) and she made it just for him! It is SOOO cute! It's a little city with roads and cars all over it. Here is Ethan making dinner last night. I had to keep telling him to stop eating the maultaschen or there wouldn't be enough after it was cooked!
Sample ceramic eggs for the shop. I made the front one and Jennifer and Emily made the back two. I LOVE the one with the little dots! She used little stickers to keep from painting there.

A placemat for the kitty from Karie. This was also a custom order. I got to pick out the fabric and she coated it with vinyl so it's kitty proof.

I took home some papers to make a sample scrapbook page well over six months ago, but alas... I just can't do traditional scrapbooking. So I begged Lizy to make the pages for me. This is one of three she made. They are SO cute!!! They are hanging in the store as samples for that paper line.
And lastly, I never really blogged about my felt food. Everyone was making such adorable stuff that I really wanted an excuse to make it too. But my kids are too old for it. So I made it for Adrienne's baby shower! I made the breakfast set and then did a green version in honor of "Green Eggs and Ham."
Ok, I feel fairly caught up now!

Monday, March 23, 2009

Digi Teaser


I am having SO much fun with my pen tablet! And with designing in general. This paper is my first to make with the pen tablet. I love the doodled flowers look! I spent HOURS yesterday making my own brushes, doodling images, making digital "stamps," and just ignoring all my household duties in general.
In other news, our church got a new pastor yesterday and we had a special service to welcome him and his wife. It was very much like a wedding service, complete with vows. So a new chapter starts in the book of IBC Stuttgart.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Blame it on third grade


I remember very well when I fell in love with computers. It was third grade. We had touch screen computers with those coloring pictures that you click a color and then click a spot to fill it. You know the ones. I really loved going to computer lab! It all continued in junior high where I learned how to use the keyboard, followed by high school where I mastered all the Microsoft Office programs and competed in contests (and won). I did my first big photo editing project in high school too. Superimposed the gym teacher's head on a ballerina! Hahahahaha! After high school I taught some classes and made the PowerPoint presentations for the church sermons. Then I got my first pen tablet. You know, I don't really remember what I made with it! I did a lot of freelance computer stuff, like making business cards for people, flyers, stuff like that. I even created the menu for a local restaraunt and typed a book for someone.

I kind of gave it all up when I came over here, but this digital scrapbooking has just really rekindled my love of graphic arts. I mean seriously, with a passion. And now designing is taking over all my free thoughts. I see inspiration in everything! (My next kit also inspired from a Kleenex box!) I finally decided I needed to revisit the pen tablet. After thinking about it for a couple of months, researching, wishing, dreaming..... I finally went and bought one today. Yes, the PX actually has them! Of course my DREAM tablet starts at $1000, but we won't go there. I paid SIGNIFICANTLY less than that today! LOL! Anyway.... more to come, but just wanted to let everyone know I'm not slacking!

Monday, March 16, 2009

My Album Cover

Here are the rules:
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 - Use some photo-editing program like Photoshop to add your band name and album title to the cover, then post your own note with these instructions and the resulting image. Tag your friends in the note.
Here's the picture I got from Flickr:

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Digi Dare #2


Ok, followed the rules this time.

Credits:
Kit: Shabby Princess Happy Go Lucky
Fonts: Pea Kelly and Klikomite

I Digi Dare You


Lynette found this cool site with weekly Digital Scrapbooking Dares. This week's dare is:
1. Choose on person or thing in your life and think about 5 reasons why you love them and then create a layout.
2. Use at least 1 photo of the person/thing that your layout is centered around. I want to see white space on each side of your layout, so center it and fill the center 1/3 of the page from top to bottom.
3. Journal each reason in a different way. Use Tags, stickers, scrap pieces of paper, etc…
4. Use red on your layout somewhere, but you can NOT use any hearts anywhere on the page.
~ OH NO!!!! I just reread that.... No hearts! Yikes..... will have to take that heart off before I submit....
Check out the Digi Dare Site here.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Busy busy

Monday we had a meeting at Ethan's school where they talked about his need for more intense language study and some of his attention problems. Then Wednesday he had a check up with the Gesundheitsamt, or the "department of good health." (German words are awesome!) He did pretty well in the motor skills areas but had a really hard time with the language parts. Well, he still has another year till he has to go to first grade, but we still have to watch out for some his learning needs and especially helping him with concentration.
So we decided to make some changes to help be more organized and give the kids more creative things to do than just watch tv and play video games. The first thing was more for us than the kids. We just created a new area for them to organize their coats and gloves and everything so we can find stuff in the mornings! That's always the first struggle of the day!
Then I got this shelf from Ikea and the black boxes and filled them with crafts, play dough, legos, and anything creative the kids can do in the afternoon.
It's working already. The kids are down to one hour of tv per day (two if there is nothing else going on or it's the weekend) and they are doing creative things the rest of the day. Ethan is really excited about the play dough and he's been drawing more. I also got him a little over the door basketball hoop which he loves! And the sun is FINALLY coming out and the kids have had more opportunities to go outside.
So anyway, this probably wasn't that exciting, but the kids' development has been on my mind a lot lately and this week was just the week to do something about it!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Project 365, Week 10

It took me three versions and I'm still not totally happy with it, but it's ok. There were so many things that had to do with eggs this week that I just dropped two photos and went with the whole egg thing! I made the papers and the journalling tag. The alpha is from DSM Oh Boy CD, the little stapled tag is from DSM Family Ties, and the frames and string are from Designer Digitals.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Everyday Inspiration

Miyoung brought in this adorable Kleenex box and I just couldn't stop looking at it. It's so silly because it's not really my style, but for some reason I just really like it.


So I came home tonight and made my first complete paper pack. Six cardstock papers and four patterned papers. I called it "Summer Pears."
I don't really know how to make embellishments yet so all it has is two felt borders (from my doodles), a pear, and a journally tag (also from my doodles). I made everything from scratch from tools inside Photoshop. The only things I bought were the felt actions and I used a grungy overlay from Designer Digitals.

And here's a page I made. I couldn't figure out WHY I needed pear paper... But these photos from our chocolate fountain work just fine! :)

Thursday, March 5, 2009

The Birth of a Patterned Paper

I started with a doodle I drew a year ago and re-drew it clearly and scanned it.

Then I moved pieces of it around and made it a continuous repeat.


Then I colored in the flowers and texturized the pattern.


Then added the background color and the grungy overlays.
And voila! The birth of a patterned paper.

This was fun as an experiment. I don't know if I would enjoy doing this all the time. It took a lot of time to make the overlay transparent after scanning, and it took a long time to colorize the flowers. I guess it was fun though or I wouldn't have done it! The next step will be to use it in a layout.

I made my paper to coordinate with the new Shabby Princess free kit, which I downloaded today. It's HUGE! 12 papers, embellishments and a full alpha set. Click on the preview below to download your own copy.


Tuesday, March 3, 2009

New Week, New Trick

I've seen several products that I felt like if I had a pen tool I could draw it myself. Finally the other day I sat down with some paper and just doodled. I was inspired by Jen Caputo and her cute hand drawn shape templates. So these are pretty much just copies, but I had to start somewhere. The brown felt in the page above is from the lumpy border in the middle of the design below. The pink paper is from a bigger frame that I made. They're supposed to look like handcut pieces of paper. I won't use them on all types of layouts, but I think they're fun and quirky. :)

I just realized the page has the wrong dates!!! GRRR! I'll have to fix it.
Update: ok, it's updated. :)

March Desktop Version 2

For anyone who didn't want to look at Haven's stretched out face all month! :)


Monday, March 2, 2009

March Desktop Calendar

March Desktop from Shabby Princess
Instructions:
Click on photo to enlarge
Right click and select "save picture as"
Save to your computer and make it your desktop

and a page about the cat show made for the Lucky in Love challenge.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

The Cat's Meow

Haven and Tinkerbell participated in a Feline Fun Show on Saturday. It was so cute! The categories were Fat Cat, Loud Mouth, Most Toes, Cat of Many Colors, Longest Tail, Judge's Choice and People's Choice.

The judges wore vet scrubs. So cute!
Each cat and owner had a nameplate and everyone got a little bag of goodies. Ours had two little kitty toys and a can of food. We wished it had a lint brush with all the fur flying around!

And Tinkerbell won first place in two categories! She was the Cat of Many Colors and apparently she has two extra toes that not all cats have. Who knew!
All the cats behaved themselves very well. It was funny to see so many with leashes! Of course mostly it just made me feel better that we have one! LOL! It was totally fun and cute and I'm glad we went.
If you would like to see some of the competition you can click here to read the shop blog.