Missing You!!

What else can I say?

Love, Christy

Pueblo Love

I scrapped 3 digital pages today! What else is there to do when your back isn't feeling so well? I think it's time for a Therapedic (sp?) mattress...seriously!! So I have 3 pages to show, but I'm going to stretch them out over the next few days. I like to post each day, so I'm saving them in case if I don't get to creating on certain days, which is very possible as it's only 17 days until moving day. Ooi!



Rebekah told me about these digital freebies today! The brick overlay is from one of the free sets. I looked at this page for a long time before deciding I definitely liked it and that I would want to post it. Ha!

Creek-Hike

This is the digital page I started last night. The background paper made all of the difference. The template is from Creating Keepsakes, by Tiffany Tillman. Tiffany is an amazing digital scrapbooker. I found her site last week and I bookmarked it right away! Because I'm mostly a digital scrapbooker now, I am always on the search for digital scrapbooking blogs. Honestly, it's hard to find them. Looking through a Creating Keepsakes magazine once, I tallied how many traditional pages there are compared to digital. There are a LOT more traditional pages published. Maybe I should submit a bunch of mine and change that ratio. Haha!

Absence

I've been absent...I know. I haven't really been creating. I worked on a page tonight, but I didn't really feel like I was in the mood to create. *gasp* I think I'm tired, so that is probably what is effecting me. I think we all go through times when we aren't in the mood to create. There are seasons. Some seasons are long, some seasons are short.

Speaking of seasons, we've been having gorgeous weather here in Southeast Alaska. It's been amazing! It's one of those summers we won't ever forget. "Remember the summer when it was sunny and in the 70's for 3 weeks straight?" Ha!

I've been reading some fun historical fiction books, spending time outside, cleaning, but I haven't been doing much creating.

We are moving in less than 3 weeks...it doesn't seem real.

Trail Head

This is a digital page (most of them are these days). I'm finding that scrapbooking our vacation pictures in order is helpful. These are some pictures of some time we spent on a trail. I was inspired by a layout Ali Edwards did in the August Creating Keepsakes magazine. I worked on this page for awhile until this result came about. There is no turquoise in the photos, but I just had to add it to the page.

Friday Cards

I painted the bathroom today and treated myself to card-making afterwards. I deserved it, right? When I first arrived in the loft I thought I should start working on a workshop project. Sometimes I feel like the only time I stamp is when I'm planning projects. I made myself lay aside all of that and to just stamp for the sake of stamping. It's almost like I have to give myself permission to stamp. It's weird! Does anyone else go through that?


I really like this stamp set called On a Pedestal from SU. It's a new stamp set. I don't normally get these kinds of stamps, but I thought it would be perfect for birthday cards. I have a lot of flower stamps, so I'm challenging myself to break out of the flower box...haha...and try something different. But that something different still needs to be something I like, and something that will fit my style.

I could visualize the cupcakes I wanted to make. I love when that happens! They look more like gumdrops. Actually, when I was making this card I thought a lot about my sisters, Amanda and Katie, and my brother Jacob. It brought back memories of playing Candyland with them. I sure do miss them!

New stuff

Remember the workshop I hosted last weekend? The stuff came today! Whoohoo! I picked out all stamp sets for my free stuff. I thought I would share what I picked out.



1. Free hostess set: Christmas Punch
2. Wheel stamp: Bright Blessings. This one is like for harvest/fall/Thanksgiving time. I'm really excited about it. I don't have many wheel stamps, but I have one that's similar to this that I use a lot, so I thought this one would be fun, too.
3. Farm Life: Maybe I am a farm girl at heart? When I saw this stamp set in the catalog my heart went pitter patter.
4. Free hostess set: Wings of Friendship. I really like the birdie and flourishes.
5. Woodgrain stamp. I'm really excited about this one. I have seen the Hero Arts woodgrain stamp used, so I was happy that SU came out with one of their own.
6. Free hostess set: Country Morning. This is another farm-girl set. Ha!
7. On a Pedestal: Fun birthday stamps!

Summer Days

I was missing for a few days there. This is some of what I have been up to...


On Monday night we had a pretty cool storm. It's very rare for Southeast Alaska to get thunderstorms. Everyone around our house was out on their deck watching the lightning. It was like watching the fireworks! I really miss storms, being that I'm from the midwest. The power was out for close to two hours. In the 4-1/2 years we have lived here, this is the second time I've seen lightning here.

And then I've been having fun in the sun. Here is my friend's daughter, Grace thinking about going down our make-shift slip-n-slide.

There she goes!

Whoohoo!

Over the Bridge

I guess I'm in a scrapbooking mood today. Cool! Yesterday I got the new Creating Keepsakes magazine in the mail. So today I sat out on the deck in the beautiful sunshine and read through the whole magazine. It got pretty hot out there! Whew! The layout on the cover page of the magazine really caught my eye. This is my rendition of it. These were some other pictures I was struggling to scrapbook. I think it was because of the colors in the pictures. Thank you sephia tone! A lot of these pages are going to have blank spots for the journaling I will include on them later.

Camp

This was like my 3rd or 4th attempt to scrapbook these pictures. Something I have noticed about scrapbooking for me lately has been this: if I'm not in love with it/liking it from the start, then it's time to start over (delete). There are many pages I have deleted because of this. I don't look it as a discouraging thing, but more like a learning process. In the past I have continued to work on those pages that I didn't really care for, and really, I never was satisfied with the end result. So sometimes it's ok to just wipe the slate clean and start fresh. That's one of the reasons I LOVE digital scrapbooking. There's no wasted paper, no wasted pictures...just a waste of time...haha!



I have a feeling that the Arizona trip is going to be scrapped faster than any other trip. I think I feel more settled in my style and how I like to scrap. Well see... We have a second trip planned for this year, so I'll have to make more creative room for that. Ha!

Travel

I've been missing...sorry! It's been so nice out that I haven't really been creating.



A few weeks ago I sketched out a butterfly design that looks very similar to this. I thought these pictures of our trip were rather boring, so I wasn't very excited about scrapping them. I think the butterfly shapes make them more interesting. The brushes on this page are from the Photo Editing class by Jessica Sprague. Did you sign up for it? It's a simple class and the class kit is amazing!

Happy 4th!

The parade starts at 11:00! I can't wait! Today is a BEAUTIFUL day! We are certainly blessed to have some gorgeous weather on the 4th here in Southeast Alaska!



Here is a double-page layout I started last night and finished this morning. I find that I like (sometimes *need*) to be creative every day, so I took some time this morning to do just that. I really like this layout. I tried to add more to the page, but it was distracting. It's simple, but I really like how the colors pop.

Traveler's Inspiration Challenge #1

I saw that Winter had posted about this new challenge and I thought I would give it a whirl. The picture below is the inspirational picture. The creator of the challenge said we could make anything that was inspired by this picture. And because it's a picture of shoes and they are sparkly...

I made a card with flip-flops and glitter! Yeah! This card was made for someone very special to me who really likes flip-flops.

This is the inside of the card.

July 3rd

Wrangell has an awesome July 4th celebration! So much has happened already and it's not even the day of the 4th! An event that happened today was the scrapfish derby. And since my blog is about 'scrapping' I thought it would be fun to include some 'scrap'fish derby pictures. Haha! Ok, maybe that's pushing it too far...


This was my first time at the event. There were all of these kids on the dock fishing...without fishing poles. They used these sticks with rope tied to them with a hook on the end. I don't know the name for the contraption. There were a lot of kids and adults out for the event since it was such a beautiful day! I hope tomorrow is beautiful, too!

Here is the crowd waiting to see if their name is called to win a derby prize. It's not very often we see large crowds like this in Wrangell. There are SO many people who come for the 4th.

We were driving around the harbor/docks and I saw this boat. They misspelled my name! Ha!

Happy Independence Day! As a friend of ours once said, "Happy freedom from the British!" It makes me laugh when I think about that.

Copy Cat Christina

I love inspiration! I've really been wanting to make cards, but you know, the whole 'creative' thing isn't all there right now. So when that happens I look for inspiration.


This card and the card below were inspired by Kelley Eubanks. You can click on the pictures to see her blog and the cards that inspired me. (Kelley, thank you for your amazing creative inspiration!!) This card will be for my Grandpa's birthday which is mid-July. Hopefully I'll send it on time...poor Grandpa! (I have a long history of sending cards late...cough)

I love buttons! I have a nice little collection of Basic Grey buttons, so it was nice to put them to good use.

This card was inspired by a card I saw in the August Cards magazine. I really like these butterflies which were created by a Martha Stewart punch.

Party

On Sunday I hosted my first Stampin' Up! workshop. I've been a demonstrator for 4 years now and this was the first time I sat and let someone else work. Ok, maybe it was hard for me to sit. There were times when I didn't know what I should do. Ha! The new demonstrator, Laura, did great!


Her hostess gift to me is something I will cherish forever. She said it was hard to think of something to give me since I'm a demonstrator and can pretty much get whatever I want. And so she picked these little, tiny shells from off the beach for me to embellish cards or scrapbook pages with. She said it's like I'm taking a little bit of Wrangell with me since we are moving. *tears* How sweet!

This project is super cool!! I love her creative ideas. I stick with cards, so it's so neat to see her branching out in these creative endeavors. Go Laura!

There she is, doing part of the job!

Watermelon

The card on the cover of the August Cards magazine inspired this card. I made it for my mom; she loves watermelon!

Raspberry Suite Color Challenge #11

Whoa! These colors are so not my normal color combination. BUT it was a great challenge. I've been wanting to scrapbook, but it seems like I've been struggling with the creative part. I notice it's during those times when I need I need a challenge, a template, or something to get me started. This page started out following a template, and then I saw the color challenge and noticed that most of the colors in the pictures match the challenge. I think the color that was the most challenging for me to fit on this page was bright pink since there's no pink in the pictures. Another thing that was challenging was that Dawn didn't include white in the combination. The template I used had white outlining the pictures, so I just left it. I hope it's ok!

I really like how it all came together. Now I must go play some more...

I haven't double-checked, but the 'journey' font looks like what Ali Edwards uses on her blog. It's called Capture It from dafont.com. The 'come true' font is called Jane Austen. I love Jane Austen, so I just had to download that!

Monday!

Sorry, no pictures to post as of right now, but hopefully sometime later today. I'm in a card-making mood, so I'm hoping to play in the loft.

Today Ali was giving an update on her word for 2009, and then she asked where everyone else is with their word. I think about my word often. My word is "relax". Have I been relaxing? It depends on who you ask. But for me, I think I reach that goal more than I have in the past. We are hitting the peak of the hustle/bustle with moving and here I am, still scrapping, still stamping, enjoying friendships, and just taking everything one moment at a time. When we moved from Wisconsin to Alaska, I wasn't this relaxed...no way! I was very stressed, but I didn't have to be.

I had a stamping party yesterday! I was the hostess, not the demonstrator. That's like the first time ever! I've hosted candle parties, Pampered Chef, but hosting a Stampin' Up! party was much more fun because it's something I am passionate about. And everyone who came enjoys stamping, so it was fun to have all of these people with the same hobby together laughing and having a great time! My friend Laura is the new demonstrator for our town. I'm excited for her!

Enjoy your Monday, everyone!

Just Kidding

Do you remember how I said I was finished with my 2008 Alaska trip photos? Well, I wasn't!

I usually have my pages printed with Good Life Photo. They have amazing quality and service! But since I want to have all of the pages printed at once, it will be about $150.00 at $3/page. So...then I looked at Shutterfly to see about having a book made instead. It will be cheaper in the long-run (so far anyway) because I won't have to buy a $30 album for it. Plus it will be easier to store.

There were three pages that I had made that were hybrid/traditional. One of them I scanned, and the other two I trashed since I thought they were, well, pretty dorky. Ha! The pages in this post are the redos, which I created digitally. Seriously, I think I'm a digi-scrapper all the way!


I love the worn, textured look on this page. The "Adventure" sticker is part of a set of freebie words that Jessica Sprague had on her site yesterday.

I created the background fish paper first, and then added the pictures and words. Dr. Suess inspired this one.