First Crop

I attended the scrapbooking crop of the Stuttgart Scrappers (or Memory Maniacs) tonight. They met for like twelve hours, but I only made it five. Of course, it took me about an hour before I did any layouts since I had to meet people, show off my albums, talk about digital scrapbooking, and of course make a late night run to the store for people who needed to shop! (I sold two bags!) :)

I made five layouts tonight working on pages from Brian's wedding. I don't know why they're so small today... I saved them the same way I always do. Oh well.

Kitty kitty

Apparently my cat likes spaghetti-o's. Do you think that's bad?

I've done other things....

...besides digital scrapbooking!

A silhouette plate for Jennifer's birthday

A mug for Miyoung's birthday

A sample Christmas ornament for Mary to display at the store

And a friend for Henry. Ok, actually Haven painted the turtle. And for those of you who don't check my friend's blogs, the snail was made by Corinnea. Anyway... the turtle is to keep Henry (the snail) company over the weekends when I'm not at work! :) So she needs a name...

A Preview of Fun to Come

They said I could sit on the Jedi Council but I can't be a Jedi Master. It's not fair!

There's more pictures on Jennifer's blog. I'll have more when I get them all cropped and edited.

Art imitating life?

I'm watching the news and they just had this funny interview with one of the actors from the West Wing. I didn't really watch this in the states, so I haven't paid attention in, well, seven years? but I guess they're having an election season on the show. So the two candidates are being played by Alan Alda (rep) and Jimmy Smits (dem). So they're doing the show and it's really looking a lot like real life and apparently each actor goes secretely to the producer and says, "hey, I really want to win this election." HILARIOUS! The ACTORS were lobbying the producer to win a fake election! HAHAHA! I love it! That would totally be me!!!

Happy Birthday

To Jenny P and Miyoung!

Haven's first digi scrapbook page!

Haven has been hovering over me the last couple of weeks wanting to learn how to do this. Tonight she made her first page. I'm so proud!!! Look! She even recolored that background paper! Funny thing is the picture wasn't taken in the snow. It just reminded her of winter!

The Amazing Barking Kitty

Canstatter Volksfest

Ok, so I really wanted to just kidnap these kids. I babysat for Jennifer while she and Jon went to Prague. See her post here. Her kids are a dream! Except for the travelling with four kids part... So here's what we did Saturday.

I turned Emily into a daredevil. I hope this is ok. After every ride she screamed "Do it again!"


Haven was SO HELPFUL. I actually wouldn't have had it so easy with the extra kids if she hadn't done it with me. She is such a fabulous big sister!!!

This is Ava. MAN she's cute! I'm pretty sure I had the four most beautiful children at the fest. And everyone kept cooing over Ava! It was so cute!

Jennifer, is it ok if Emily rode the swings? Just kidding! But Haven and Rob are up there! I love this picture. It reminds me of a dandelion.

Ethan loving the bumper cars!

Emily... not so sure about the bumber cars!

BA-WOOONS!!!

I started with Ava in the backpack, but after a few hours I had to put her down. So Ethan and Emily took turns riding in the top part of the stroller. This stroller is SO AWESOME!!! If I had two kids that close together I would own this stroller too.

The kids were FABULOUS! and we had a great day together.

I've been tagged by Sasha and Mary Beth

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Weird random facts about me: hmmmm....

1. I really don't like it when people talk through movies. Or at concerts. Really really don't like it.
2. My daddy built me a lemonade stand when I was like 7 or 8. It rocked. I've been a business woman all my life. Sigh.... good 'ol days...
3. My daughter is exactly like me. Good and bad.
4. I hate hearing myself on the answering machine. It makes me cringe.
5. I love ketchup on my tacos. Don't tell anyone. I get teased incessently.
6. My fondest vacation memories were in Brazil. Wow... what an experience.
7. My favorite quote is "Do or do not. There is no try." Now, 10 points for who knows who said it! :) I've also been known to start sentences with "There was this one time on Friends..."

Um, I got tagged by two people, so my little circle is growing smaller. So, here's who I'm tagging:

Scrapping Is Life
A Little Quilty
Chica
Leslie Cervantez

If anyone else wants to be tagged comment me!

Peacock

Ok, ignore the completely horrible photos... it's dark. But I HAD to show you how amazing this is turning out!!! Haven decided she wanted to be a peacock this year for Halloween so we made the feather plumes tonight. It can go up or down depending on how she wants to wear them. We still have to figure out the dress part... but the plumes are done and they are amazing!

More reasons why you shouldn't bring your kids to work...

Ok, in the moment I really wanted to cry because I didn't know how I was going to get him out. (We had to take the chair apart.) But now, several hours later, this picture makes me laugh out loud! Sorry... does that make me a really bad mother?

Kid Pics

I took the kids out to get pictures while the sun was actually shining! These were my top two favorites.

I was working really hard to get the "catch lights," the bright spots in their eyes. I used one of the CoffeeShop actions on them and then soften their cheeks a little. But that's all. It was a great day for getting good pictures!

I'm in computer heaven!

Turns out we had the full version of Photoshop all this time!!! It was buried in the basement. Our friend ordered it last year and it was too complicated for him so he GAVE it to us!!! When we first loaded it on the computer it was too complicated for me too and I got easily frustrated. But after using Photoshop Elements for the last few months I started wanting to do things that only the full version could do. Like type in a funky shape. The full version you can create any shape you want and turn it into a text box. SOOO after loading the full version I went back and redid some of my pages that I didn't like the way the text looked. This is the main one. I wanted the text to wrap around Haven's head. You can't do it in Elements, but look at the difference after redoing it CS.

I'm giddy! So the combination of new found photography skills, and full version Photoshop.... Oh man... I may not leave my computer for awhile...

Learning stuff

I spent all evening yesterday messing around with my camera to see if it could do everything a more expensive slr camera can do. Last night I was frustrated, but after hours of research and practice today, I can actually take a fairly decent picture! The goal was to take a picture of a single leaf with a blurry background.


Then tonight I read a bunch of tutorials on different photoshop things. I'm trying to achieve a chocolaty tint that some other photographers I've been stalking are using. We're going to the Wasen this weekend so hopefully I can try out some of my new found skills there...

Oh, and I just discovered a new website for actions (someone on the scrapbooking forum recommended it) and everything has a coffee theme!!! See it here.