So last weekend in the UK we had Bank Holiday which means that I had Monday off work. So my sister and I decided to take her kids to visit our family in Devon for the weekend. When we made the arranagements the week before we remembered was her best friend’s birthday so we all met up at Bristol Zoo.
Four kids under five are a lot of work. Here are some of the pictures from the zoo.
Shanna.
So I was going through my photos tagging them for as per Stacey Julian’s Finding Photo Freedom class and I stumbled across a picture of my cousin Sean which I absolutely love from when he was a little kid, (he’s in his twenties now) I remembered seeing a layout I liked in Creating Keepsakes Super-Fast Pages with 4x6 Photos vol 2 by Kelly Purkey called Woot Woot so I decided to lift it using supplies mainly by Echo Park.
Here is my version.
Shanna
I don’t know why when I woke up a few hours ago I had the sudden need to figure out how to use embellishment clusters. Looking at digital layouts in galleries I can’t decide whether I like them or not. I understand they can give balance to a layout and work on all sorts of design principles but I still don’t know whether I like them or not.
So anyway I decided to Google it and the first thing that came up was a new class at Big Picture Classes by Sir Scrap-A-Lot called Digital Clustering Like a Pro. Having just finished the Finding Photo Freedom class with Stacey Julian and having heard Aaron Morris (Sir Scrap-A-Lot) on the Digi Show several times and that it was a self paced class that came with a free digi kit and was only $10 I thought it couldn’t hurt to check it out.
So I quickly paid for the class and instant access any time of the day is great. I downloaded the free kit and the two pdfs. The first one walks you through making a layout with the a digital cluster. Here is my attempt.
It’s a cute layout.
I read the other pdf which is all about different ways to use clusters.
But even after a few hours and only one layout I have come to the realisation I DO NOT LIKE EMBELLISHMENT CLUSTERS on my layouts. It looks too busy and distracting.
I have come to the conclusion that even thought I am a digital scrapbooker I like my pages to be simple not overly busy and to look as much like paper layouts as possible. (With the exception of my holiday layouts which I use Yin’s templates for so I can get a lot of pictures on the page. I like more than one picture on the page. I like Allison Davies Sketches, and Becky Higgins sketches and on occasion Page Maps sketches (I own both books but rarely use them).
So for $10 and less than two hours I’m not sure the class was worth it but at lease now I know.
Shanna.
Time for another addition of the top 25 most played songs on my iPod. I have a habit of getting caught up on one song and putting in repeat for hours at a time but here is my list
25. Faith Hill – Bringing Out The Elvis
24. Enrique Inglesias – Hero
23. Katy Perry – Teenage Dream
22. Glee Cast – Thriller/Heads Will Roll
21. Bon Jovi - Always
20. Orianthi – According to you
19. Rascal Flatts – What Hurts The Most
18. Gloriana – You Said
17. Cher – You haven’t seen the last of me
16. Celine Dion – Because You Loved Me
15. Glee Cast – Bad Romance
14. Dolly Parton – 9 to 5
13. Westlife – Home
12. Glee Cast – Need You Now
11. Glee Cast – Get It Right
10. Lone Star – Amazed
9. Glee Cast – Beth
8. Glee Cast – Only The Good Die Young
7. Pink – Centrefold
6. Glee Cast – Stop! In The Name of Love / Free Your Mind
5. Celine Dion – Next Plane Out
4. Glee Cast – Shout It Out Loud
3. Whitney Houston – How Will I Know
2. Rihanna – Good Girl Gone Bad
1. Crossin Dixon – Make You Mine
Shanna
So my nephew turned 5 last Tuesday and I snapped some photos on my phone while we were waiting for dinner at the restaurant we went to for dinner. I thought it would be a good idea to ask him about five of his favourite things and do a layout.
When I had asked him the questions I had him write his name and draw a self portrait on a sheet of white paper with a black pen. I then scanned the paper in and using photo shop I deleted the white background leaving me with just his signature and self portrait.
I had to change the colour of his name to white so it would show up on the layout but it is still his signature. How cool is that?
Shanna.
So last weekend my niece and nephew over visiting and everything was quiet (not a good sign when you have kids around) when Ashley came in to say ‘her Aidan’ was stuck. We ignored her for a minute until Aidan yelled. So I went to investigate. He had some how managed to lean over the bannister from the wrong side and got stuck.
Being the good aunt that I am I told him to hold still and went and grabbed my camera and took a picture before I helped him down. Oops bad aunt.
Shanna.
So I signed up for the Creating Keepsakes digital yearly subscription. It’s $19.99 dollars for the year and you get access to the digital copies of the monthly magazine (which is great because the only store I could ever find a copy in was Borders and it closed last year) and access to archive copies back to 2008, and Simple Scrapbooks.
So today I took a break from reading books and read some back issues.
In the June 2008 issue they had this pattern for creating a two page layout, two one page layouts and two cards from only a few pieces of paper. They looked cute and simple to follow instructions using digital supplied from Club Scrap, Weeds and Wildflowers, Echo Park and Scrapgirls I followed the instructions and created the pages digitally in a few hours. Here are the results.
Shanna
I always read a lot, but with two holidays in July I got to read some more. Here is a list of books I finished in July.
The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare.
Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
Angelology by Danielle Trussoni
To be honest I only read half of this as it is so bad.
The Immortals series by Alyson Noel
Beastly by Alex Flinn
Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins
Vampire Kisses by Ellen Schreiber (the first two I gave up after that)
Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan
I’m still reading this series into August.
That’s 26 books in a month – that’s not bad.
Shanna.
