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.

The End

I [think] I have finished scrapbooking the pictures of our 2008 Alaskan vacation!! There will be 53 pages total in the album. Now I just have to save up some $$ and have these pages printed. In the mean time I'm going to save them to our external hard drive. I'm really excited about this accomplishment! I am going to go back through the pages and make sure I have all of the journaling included. Before I even started scrapbooking this trip I had typed all of the journaling out. And I'm so glad I switched gears from my original plan of how I was going to scrapbook these pictures. Whew!


You know those pictures that we all take that aren't that important, but they do fill in the blanks to the story? This is a page of some of those pictures. I had journaling that I needed to put somewhere, and I wanted to include some of these pictures to fill in the blanks of our trip. I got this idea from a page I saw in the April Creating Keepsakes magazine by Ali Edwards.

I still think this page is missing something, but it's finished!

This was the very first complete page that I created for this trip. I created it for a submission that CK was asking for. It was for the July issue using one of Becky Higgins' sketches. It wasn't published (sad face), so now I can post it. I thought about re-scrapping these pictures, but nah...

This is the last page I created for this trip. Texture is back!

So now, before I go any further with anymore creating I *should* journal the rest of our 2009 trip. I was thinking it would be good to do that before the rush of moving hits us. I don't remember if I've mentioned that yet on this blog, but we are moving to Ketchikan, Alaska, which is about 90 miles away from where we live now. The movers will be here at the end of July. It's coming soon!

Who do you create for?

Each morning I check Ali Edwards' blog and something she said really spoke to me today:

What thoughts about yourself as a creative person are holding you back right now? Are you dealing with those "I am not good enough/I am not creative enough" fear-filled voices in your own mind? How do you answer that? Who do you create for? Why do you love the process of creativity and what do you love most about it?

Now is the time to let those fears go and shed those layers that are holding you back from embracing your own creative energy. It is time to celebrate your own unique self rather than continuing to feel the pressures of being something or someone you are not.

*clapping* Amen!

My favorite parts are in bold.

As a Stampin' Up! demonstrator I sometimes feel the pressure to create for others. I used to buy all of these stamps sets and use colors that I didn't really enjoy because I felt that I had to display these things and show a good variety. But after awhile I realized that I cannot do that. I have to stick with my own, true style. So I use only the colors I enjoy (every once in awhile I break out of that 'box') and I only buy stamp sets that I enjoy. The new catalog came the other day and with it also came the pressure that I should buy certain products. Where did that come from? My customers aren't surprised anymore when they see yellow, brown, kraft, turquoise, and the other colors I like to use (over and over again). They might see the same stamp set at every single workshop that I do. What's important is that I'm sharing what I love: the colors I love, the stamps I love. And then they go home and use the colors they love. I love it!

The rest of Ali's article talks about simplifying our scrapbook/card-making stash. I love her simple style. It's so refreshing to me!

Raspberry Suite #10

The color challenge colors were melon, cream, berry, and dark brown. I had a hard time figuring out what color of my SU collection should be 'melon'.

Yesterday I was talking about how I really want to stick to my own style when it comes to making cards. This morning I was thinking it would be fun to participate in Dawn's color challenge. I went up into the loft and my first thought was to look at ideas, but then I told myself that I had to come up with my own. The first stamp set I thought of was this set called Friends 24-7. And then because I just got some Grunge Board, I wanted to put that to good use too. It was FUN to make the card to my style. It was the first time in a long time that I have done a color challenge without the pressure of thinking it had to look like someone else's style.

Here's what I did to make the card:
1. Cut out the Top Note die on the grunge board, painted it with a vanilla acrylic paint; let dry (actually, I used my heat tool)
2. Embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder.
3. Sprayed with Glimmer Mist; let dry (again, using my heat tool)
4. Stamped bird, cut out, and sprayed with Glimmer Mist (I love that glimmer!)
5. Cut out oval, stamped on it, distressed it, inked the edges.
6. Cut out a branch (my own design)
7. Stamped flowers and cut them out.
8. Adhered everything.
9. Cut out main part of card using same Top Note die and stamped inside.

The colors I used were: Melon Mambo (ok, so there's my 'melon' color! Whoohoo!), Chocolate Chip, Cameo Coral, and Very Vanilla

Truth Be Told

This is a digital page that was inspired by a page Ali Edwards created for the May 2009 Creating Keepsakes magazine. I wanted something more simple for this page. It was fun to create it and it didn't take forever and ever. Ha! I love the story on this page.

Today I was creating in the loft and I realized something about myself when it comes to making cards. I spend WAY too much time looking at card ideas, like WAY too much time. Like blog hopping...I'm sorry to say it, but it's been TOO much. I recently bought the Cards magazine online subscription, but I think I'm going to cancel it. It's getting to be too much. I want to go back to simplicity. Does that mean my cards will become more simple? I don't know. What I do want though is to sit down to make a card without all of these card ideas and other people's styles flying through my head. Years ago I seriously thought there was only one or two places on the internet to find card ideas, and now I see that there are thousands upon thousands of blogs all geared toward card-making. I kinda miss just looking at Splitcoast Stampers and calling it good.

And honestly, I feel like I've left my true style when it comes to making cards. When I make a card now I think of other people's cards and wonder if they measure up. That's wrong! I feel like I've found my style groove with digital scrapbooking, so that's good. So now it's time to get back to the basics. I'm no longer going to make a card to please the world of blogs.

Valdez

This digital page has color, details...

And this one is plain! Funny how that works!

Hybrid

On Friday I worked on a hybrid page and I'm finally remembering to post it now.


The picture collage is showing some of the steps of making the page. I bought chicken wire from the hardware store just for this page. It cracks me up! Tigger was trying to attack it when I was cutting it. He's so helpful!

This page was too bulky and large to fit in a page protector, so this page has grommets now to fit in the 3-ring album.

Poor Quent, his picture is on a page with glitter, flowers, and butterflies. Sigh.

And did you know? Wouldn't you like to know? Haha!

Hello

For some reason I'm really into clouds right now. I really wanted to find some fun digital cloud paper, but I didn't have much luck so I decided to make my own. I made a few different varieties and this page shows one of them.

Tigger

As I was stamping away in the loft, I heard this rustling around. I looked over and saw Tigger completely inside of a plastic bag I have on the floor for paper that will be burned (scraps and such). I laughed and thought about running to get my camera, but I had a feeling he would move if I left. Well, then I looked down again and he was laying in it and it was soooo cute! So I had to get my camera. But by the time I got back he was headed out. He cracks me up! He likes plastic bags, so I have to watch him around them. He likes to lick them, too. Silly kitty!

Before I exit 'blogland' into the world of 'painting kitchen' I wanted to share something with you that my sister-in-law Jessica shared with me. It's super cool! Check it out!

More Thank You's

I am finished making the thank-you cards I was hired to make. From what the person told me who hired me to make them, I guessed that there would be mostly guy cards. So I tried to make mostly guy cards, lots of neutral, and a few girl cards. As I was making them this is what I was thinking:

"I don't like making guy cards."

"Maybe I should just make the cards that I like to make, which would be girl cards. Then I can just buy the cards that are needed for the guys."

Haha!

Seriously though...

I've had this SU set with the moose, bear, and trees for awhile now, but I haven't used it in a long time. I really liked how this turned out. Jennifer McGuire is having free stamping classes over at twopeasinabucket.com and so I thought I would try some of the distress ink/embossing techniques she was talking about. I wanted to stay away from any bulk (buttons) on the cards I made, but I just couldn't help myself on this one.

This is one of the few guy stamp sets that I have.

Cards

This was a thank you card I had made for the group I was hired to make, but I decided to keep it out. It's not my favorite, but I like the colors. I hardly ever stamp in Yoyo Yellow.

This is one of the cards we made at the stamping workshop last Saturday. It's one of my favorites!

This is another card we made.

And this was a card I thought about making at the workshop, but decided not to. I love stamping on fabric.

Thank You Part 1

Remember the cards I was hired to make? Here are some of the guy versions of the cards. I prefer NOT to make guy cards. I don't know why, but they aren't as fun for me. These are probably more neutral (for guys or girls), so that works better for me.

And here is my Tigger! xoxo

Thank You Part 2

These are the cards I made for the female gender. Ha! I had much more fun with these!


Actually, this is the card I sent to the About Memories & More scrapbook store in Flagstaff, AZ to say thank you for letting me spend the day in their store.

This was one of those cards where there was an 'oops' moment. But you'd never know, right?

I am LOVING this new SU color. It's called Melon Mambo. The brown color is also a new color called Soft Suede.

More Gold!

As I was in the process of posting the last post, I remembered some flowers I took while we were at the gold dredge. I love the flowers on the page! Bring on the color!

Gold!

I had so much fun creating this digital page! It's so 'antiquey' looking! Where is the digital distress ink? Ha! For this page I tried to follow another sketch that I talked about in the previous post, but it wasn't working very well. There were a lot of circles and it just wasn't flowing nicely in Photoshop (plus I need a refresher on how to use vectors).

I remember going to the dredge and taking these pictures knowing that I would be scrapbooking them. And here they are! Yeah!

Fairbanks or bust

This digital page was inspired by a sketch from the July Creating Keepsakes on the page just before 35. These sketch pages don't have page numbers. I was looking through the sketches and I saw the clouds on the template and I was totally drawn to it. I think I'll follow some more of the sketches because there are some really cool ones!

I first started this page with colored pictures, but they weren't working, so I changed them to a sephia tone. Much better!

Be Happy

I saw something on Jennifer McGuire's blog that inspired me to create this page. I love the bright colors and circles on this digital page. So fun! The picture of me was taken at Sunset Crater National Park near Flagstaff, Arizona. There are ancient pueblos there. We had visited them a couple of years ago and we wanted to come back to take pictures. I bought the purple shirt I am wearing just for the event. I didn't have this picture in mind when I first started creating the page, but I love how it fits the page. And look--digital glitter! (Nettie, isn't that the best kind?) Haha!