Ketchikan Beginnings & Love of My Life

In an hour Alaska time, it will be the last day of 2009. That doesn't even seem possible! Where has this year gone???

Before the new year, I wanted to post these pages that I created for the 2peas Creative Team.


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I created this page using a new template by Jen Martakis called Photo-a-Day weekly template #1. This set has 4 templates and I really like them. Like I said before, I'm learning more and more to appreciate templates.

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Here's a layout I created using Brandy Buffington's Cabanarama kit. I really like the colors in this kit. And the frames are super fun!

Happy New Year!!

Alyeska

Good morning! I think I could use some caffeine this morning or something because it's slow-going for me! Zzzz

This is a layout I created using one of the templates from the 25 days of December class by Tiffany Tillman. I have learned to really appreciate templates. They come in handy when I haven't a clue in how I want to arrange pictures. I really like the simplicity of this page.



This morning I've been thinking about all of the things I feel like I want to accomplish and want to focus on. I feel overwhelmed. There are so many things I could add to my plate. Just recently I started to seriously look into becoming a digital scrapbook product designer. It's all overwhelming to me, but I know it's something I really want to pursue. There are many times when I want to give up on it, but then I have people in my life like Quent who supports me and encourages me. I am so thankful for him! About a month ago he asked me if I would rather have a printer or Adobe Illustrator for my birthday. His question came as a shock and surprise to me because he usually keeps quiet about such things. And then it took me like 2 minutes to finally answer his question because I didn't know what to answer. I weighed out the two options before me, and it was a really hard decision to make. I've always had plans for hybrid, so the printer would make sense for that, but then I thought about how much I want to get into design. So I told him Illustrator. Well, he still surprised me when we returned from Christmas vacation when he handed me my gift in it's orginal packaging and it was the Adobe Creative Suite. *faint* I'm so spoiled! I love that guy! For my birthday, he gave me a card and inside he wrote that he wanted to purchase my web domain for my design business. I had looked into this before and was quite discouraged because some of the domains I would have picked were already taken. But he did some research and picked out several different options. I seriously almost started crying when I read his card. It's so wonderful to know that someone believes in you and is there to push you when you need pushing.

So I've been gathering notes, sketching things out, and looking into the scrapbook world to see what's popular. There are so many things I could design, but I'm realizing more and more that even in design I have to be true to my style. I want to create what *I* would like to use when creating layouts. There are my "go to" things and then there are products that come in kits that I have never touched and will never touch.

I realize that I need to be patient with myself because I need to build up my skills. It will be awhile before I have kits and an open store. It could be months from now, or even a year. Who knows! But I do know that I need to learn and grow in this area because there's a lot of learning and growing that needs to take place. And I also want to make sure I'm careful. I want to make sure I'm staying true to my style and that I'm still creating and enjoying the whole process. I can see myself easily being swept away with design and forgetting about scrapbooking, and I definitely don't want to do that. So I'm learning about balance, too. And I definitely know that whatever I think I have planned in my mind won't work out anyway, so I better just decide to go with the flow right now. Ha!

My word for 2010 (discipline) sounds so scary to me! I keep on thinking about it and I cringe. That probably means I really need it! Ha!

Oh, and before I sign off, I wanted to let you know about a class I'll be taking. It's called Illustrator 101: Designing for Yourself. It's through Jessica Sprague's site and the instructor is Carina Gardner. I'm really excited about it! What perfect timing!

P.S. Thank you all for your sweet birthday greetings! I had a great birthday! We were with Quent's brother and his wife for a few days in Anchorage before and after Christmas. On my birthday we went shopping, ate at a great Alaskan restaurant called The Moose's Tooth (pizza!! Yum!!) and we saw the movie The Blind Side (it's awesome!!! I highly recommend this!!).

My Word for 2010

My word for 2009 was “relax”. In the beginning of the year I talked about how I read that book about perfectionists and about “the one thing”. I started having an afternoon tea-time, where for an hour or two I would read a book, study the Bible, and/or journal. I kept this up for a couple of months, maybe more, maybe less. But then as life became a little more busy (like staining the deck, taking care of the cat situation, etc), I stopped having that time in the afternoon. Now I know that the definition of relaxing isn’t a tea-time in the afternoon, but for me it meant a lot and fulfilled the meaning of the word. I used to have a really hard just sitting and relaxing. I’m still not where I want to be, but I have learned so much this year about relaxing. God has helped me to rest in Him more and more. When we were preparing to move to Ketchikan and preparing to move into our new house, a lot of people told me that they forgot I was moving because I was so calm about things. All glory to God for that because without Him I would have been FREAKing out. Haha! I had to really keep my eyes on Him and decide each moment to just trust Him. Things would come up in my mind, but then I would realize I just had to let it go.

I also felt like I relaxed in the way I keep my home. I talked earlier this year about how I would worry about the cat hairs flying around the floor when company came over. I thought everything in my house had to look and be perfect. I thought I had to have the perfect cleanliness, the perfect decorations (everything had to match), that nothing could be out of place. There were certain areas in my house that would drive me crazy, like the computer desk, because there are always piles on it or something that needs to be sorted through or filed. After we moved into the apartment in Ketchikan, there were boxes everywhere. Some of the boxes shouldn’t have been with us because of a mix-up the movers had, but it really wasn’t a big deal. At first I didn’t want to unpack anything. It was like I was having a hard time adjusting. After awhile I realized that at that moment we were in an apartment, and that I was going to enjoy that moment even if it wasn’t my “ideal”. And I think because of my changed attitude in the apartment, now in our house I’m finding myself feeling relaxed about how things look. I’m not as picky about where things are. This is a new thing to me and I like it! When we were gone for Christmas, I realized how much I want our home to be cozy, warm, and welcoming. Things don’t have to be “just so”. So what if there is water spots on the floor from a bad mopping job? So what if the decorations don’t “match”? So what if the shelf is wobbly? It doesn’t matter. These things don’t define me. They might reflect what I like or simply being human, but they aren’t me. And it’s not ok if someone comes into my home and judges me by what they see or don’t see.

Yesterday I was thinking and praying about what my word for 2010 will be. And I have the answer. I’m not too excited about it though. The word is DISCIPLINE. Whew! There’s a lot of work to be done!

1st Birthday

Guess what? Today is my birthday!! Happy birthday to me! I'm 28 years today! It feels so weird to be only two years away from 30. No rotten tomatoes being thrown here, but 30 still feels like this huge wall to me, almost like a hurdle. And then once I'm over the hurdle...oh boy! Haha! I won't say anymore because I can see some of your faces right now. Hee, hee!

So to celebrate my birthday, I thought I would create a page of my first birthday.

Spider Plant

Hello! Well, today we are flying north to Anchorage to visit family for Christmas. I'm really looking forward to it. It will be nice to have it 'feel' like Christmas. I will really miss spending time with our family in Michigan, but maybe next year... I hope you are all enjoying this holiday season!

I'm kinda surprised at myself that I used this mauve-pink paper in the background, but it does match Tigger's tongue pretty well. Originally, this page was mostly green, but it needed another color. It's been fun adding more patterned paper and elements to my pages. Being on the different design teams is really challenging me! It's been fun!

Dreams

Hello!
I've slowly been working through our 2009 photos. There are two big projects I see in the plans for some of the pictures we have. One is for our Montana trip and the other is a surprise, so I cannot say. So I've skipped over those two groupings of pictures for the most part because I'm just not mentally ready for that...yet! Ha!

These are some pictures that I have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to scrap. A few days ago CD Muckosky put this cute kit into her shop at Little Dreamer. You know I'm such a big fan of CD's work. I saw this kit a few weeks ago, but it wasn't offered at that time. It had been a special kit she created for Oscraps (I think that was the place?). I asked her if she would be putting that into her Little Dreamer store, and when I saw it I jumped on it right away. She's so inspiring!


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Quent will probably be thinking this when he sees this page: "Oh no! She's green!" LOL! I did a page with some crazy overlaying years ago and it still gets under his skin. It is kinda scary looking!! It's fun to do that every once in awhile though, right? I like to blend photos. I want photos to be a central focus. Believe me, I contemplated leaving out that greenish face, but I just like it too much. Ha!

I better get to some blog scheduling!

Too Cute

Good Saturday morning to ya! There's less than an inch of snow on the ground outside. It looks pretty! We are hoping to go out and hike through it today. But before we do that, I wanted to share a layout with you. This was one I created using Jen Martakis' This Year kit from 2peas. What attracted me to this kit was the gray paper. In the last few months I've really been liking gray. I just love these pictures of our kitties! Too cute!!


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Revelations

Here's another page I created on an unpacking break. About 90% of our stuff is unpacked. It feels good! And below is the long-winded post I was talking about yesterday. Happy Friday!

Written on December 16, 2009: So I’m taking a break from unpacking my crafting stuff. So many thoughts are entering and exiting my mind. I thought it would be good to just sit down and start typing. I can’t blog this (yet) since we don’t have our internet hooked up (yet), but I can always save this, copy, and paste it into Blogger (later). I’m looking at all of this craft stuff (stamps, paper, buttons, etc) and I’m wondering what lays in its future. Being a SU demonstrator, I have accumulated a lot of ‘schtuff’ over the years. I have drawers and drawers of scrap paper alone that are leftovers from demonstrations. I have lots of stamps that I have to admit I didn’t really even miss. Ok, maybe some of them. Ha! As I’m unpacking this stuff, everything seems so foreign to me. Not just because I haven’t seen it in 4.5 months, but more because I haven’t stamped or paper-crafted in almost two. That’s not normal for me. But I don’t even know what is normalcy anymore.

Yesterday I was looking through the January 2010 Creating Keepsakes and I was jotting down ideas and sketching out plans for things I want to design for digital scrapbooking products. My passion is definitely in the digital realm of creating. And I kept on thinking of things that I have, like acrylic paint, will come in handy for creating some of the digital stuff.

The room all of this crafting stuff occupies, along with the computer desk and computer, is now referred as “The Office”. When we first started planning on what furniture would go where in the house, the computer was originally going to go downstairs, but it’s basically like a walk-out basement. It’s dark. I knew that it would inhibit creativity. After moving to Ketchikan and basically walking away from the paper scrapping and diving more into digital, it was a good idea to have the computer in a brighter area. And living in an area on the island that gets up to 15 FEET of precipitation annually, I think the brighter the creativity space, the better. This room is 8 x 11 feet (I’ll have to remember to take a picture). It’s not super big, but everything seems to be fitting very cozily in here. And there’s a closet! Thank God for a closet that can be stuffed with stuff!So what’s the future for paper crafting in my life? Sometimes I get these crazy ideas to just sell all of it. But I know I cannot be impulsive. Maybe I’ll hold onto it for a few months and see if I even use any of it. Maybe I should keep a written record of the things I DO use and then after some time get rid of what I haven’t been using? All I know is that before leaving Wrangell I never thought I would be having these kinds of thoughts while unpacking. I talked before about how it broke my heart to leave my beloved loft. It was a little creating, crafting sanctuary. But I’m ready for this new adventure. The adventure has already begun. Maybe it started when I accidently knocked over some of the paper scrap drawers onto the floor and then had to clean all of it up?

Winter's Glitter

Hey, hey, hey!! I'm back!! We are in our house! We have internet! Yippee!!!!!!!!!! I have a long-winded blog post prepared (you'll see what I mean when you see it). I'll send it through within the next day or so. In the meantime I thought I would share a page I worked on the other day. I had to take a break from unpacking to scrap! Ha! It was easy using one of Tiffany Tillman's 25 of December templates. Speaking of that project, I pretty much gave up on it. I had a feeling there wouldn't be 'Christmasy' activities going on around here because of moving, so I decided to skip out on it. But I'm loving the templates from the class. I have a LOT of catching up to do! And a lot of catching up to do in the blogworld...and the internet world!! I feel so out of touch!

Thank you all for your sweet comments you left me!

That reminds me, I can post our Christmas card soon, too! Yeah!

No Thanks Santa

Hello again! This is another one of those scheduled posts. Maybe we are moving into our house today? Maybe not? I guess we'll find out, huh? Ha!

I know I've said this a few times already, but I've really been enjoying scrapbooking my childhood pictures. I can't be picky about what pictures I choose because there's only so many pictures (this was before digital! LOL!) So there's not much effort into finding a picture...I just look at what I already have and make a quick decision. I like that! This picture is a bit blurry, but it works. Do you see the expression my face? I'm so not impressed with Santa! It makes me laugh! Anyway, before I blabber on too much, this layout was created using Betsy Tuma's Fa La La kit. I was drawn to it right away! There's a really cool flourish in the kit that I've yet to use. One thing I love about creating with the 2Peas kits is that it helps me get out of my box and work with elements that I wouldn't normally work with. One thing I'm becoming more comfortable with is using colorful designed paper. I used to shy away from it, but now I'm learning to incorporate it into my creations.

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Gracie

I thought I would share a bright, summer-like page with you! Remember summer? Don't worry, it will be here in six months. Hee, hee! This was created using Brandy Buffington's Sunshine Day @ 2Peas. Such fun colorful kit. I had to turn up the vibrance a bit to match the photos. I'm not sure what I think of the ribbon border. Maybe I'll change that later?

{Gracie}

I have a feeling it's going to get really crazy around here in the next few days with moving and unpacking, so I thought I would prepare a post to publish. So I'm actually preparing this at 11:30 pm on Tuesday evening (the 8th)...Alaska time. Ha!

Hat

As promised, here is the hat I knitted:


Does my face look more round these days or what? Eeek! Maybe it's just the hat...LOL!

And the back of it! What I love about this hat is the opening for a ponytail.

Bragging Rights

Can I brag on someone? I just have to! I am SO super duper excited because my very good friend Carrie had a layout published in the January 2010 Creating Keepsakes magazine!!!! Carrie, I'm so proud of you, SO proud!! I just keep on looking at page 20 and smiling!! I'm just so excited!! I could go on and on!!!

Merry Christmas

Don't worry, it's not Christmas yet! Whew! That's just the title of my page. I was super duper excited to see this new set by Leora Sanford. This one is called Cozy Christmas. And since I have like zero Christmas-type pictures from this year right now, I have been digging through older photos. This one is more recent. It's funny because I can't really guess my age in this one. I know it was at least 11 years ago. Maybe longer?


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So far it looks like we'll still be closing on our house this Friday. It could be sooner. The latest day would be Monday. So it will be soon!! I'm believing that it will be this week!!

Oh, and the 'merry' font is actually some word art that I'm really really liking! It's from a new designer on Little Dreamer! She's amazing!

Tomorrow I will post my knitted hat pictures! Yeah!

Blessed

Oops! I didn't realize that it had been 2 days since I posted.

This is a page I created a couple of months ago. I wasn't planning on posting it, but I think it's ok to now. The journaling on this page is very close to my heart, and sometimes I hesitate in sharing such things with the blog-world. Lately I have really been missing Wrangell. So much that I get tears in my eyes just thinking about it and the wonderful people who live there. It's funny because so many people move away from there relieved that they are getting off the island, but soon after they find themselves wanting to go back. We didn't leave to runaway from island-life (since we live on another island!), but it is a place very dear to our hearts. This is a page about Wrangell and some of the amazing people who touched our lives and hearts.



I used all of my own designs for this page. I can't wait to get back into designing. Oh, Illustrator, where art thou? Can you guess what's on my Christmas wish list?

Saturday Pages

Good morning! It sure is beautiful here this morning! There's a thick frost covering everything at lower elevations and snow covering the mountains. It's simply breathtaking! I love where we live! Here are a few pages I wanted to share with you this morning:


{Take Me Out}
This layout was totally inspired by a layout CD Muckosky recently created.

This was a layout I created awhile back. I like it, but when I would look at it, something wasn't settled inside of me. Ha! So I decided to redo the page.

{From A to Z}
This is another layout inspired by CD. I just love her work and designs! It was fun using the whole alphabet for this layout.

I'm just loving my button tree. Each time I look at it I'm amazed that it only took me 3 hours! It's a lot of buttons! It's so pretty and it makes me feel better about Christmas decorating. Ha!

I hope you are having a fabulous Saturday!

P.S. Little Dreamer is having a retirement sale! We are sad to see Lori go!! Also, LD has some fun new stuff in their shoppe!

Knitting Projects

Hello! It's me again! Haha! I took some pictures a few days ago of some knitting projects I've been working on, so I thought I would share these before I forget.


This is a scarf I'm making for myself. I just love the color of this yarn. It was 25% off and there was only one left in this color, so I went for it! I saw today that I made some really funky mistake on it (I don't even know how I goofed!), so I'll either leave it alone or fix it.

This is a sock I'm making for a 'toe-up' sock class I'm taking. Tigger likes to be part of a lot of the things I do, so there's part of his tail. Oh, I forgot to mention that he was also *helping* me with the button tree today. He was trying to sniff the pins that were in their container. I told him no, and then he jumped off the coffee table and knocked over the pin container. I think that kinda scared him because he came back and his tail was big. Serves him right! One day he was on the kitchen table (where he's NOT supposed to be) and I was watching him. He sniffed the cactus up there and got poked! Serves him right again!

I finished the white hat I posted about before (picture coming soon!). All I had to do was sew on 3 buttons and then I was finished, but for some reason it was taking me a long time to do that. Procrastinator!! Anyway, I wore that hat for the first time tonight. I knitted the hat on needles that were one size up from the one the pattern called for because I thought it would be too small. I wanted something that would fit over my ears. But now I think it's too big, so I'm going to make the hat again with the pattern size needles. I have enough yarn leftover, so I think it should work. I just really like this hat! Shadow is laying on it right now. I seriously think I'm going to knit her a cat bed or something because she LOVES knitted things. Which reminds me: Sometimes I put my yarn balls on the floor while I'm knitting and Shadow will come and rest her head on it like a pillow and sleep. It's so cute! And sometimes she attacks it! That's cute too! What I don't like is when Tigger tries biting the yarn.

Ok, I guess I'm in a talkative mood tonight. I'm going to sign off and watch Dan In Real Life! It's one of my favorite movies! He plays such a different character than in The Office.

Button Tree Part 1

Today I bought the supplies I needed to make a button tree. I wasn't in the mood to scrapbook, so I worked on the tree. It took me about 2-1/2 to 3 hours. It does take time because it's a lot of detail.


The styrafoam cone, about 8 inches tall.

I bought 4 packs of colored buttons from Wal-Mart, plus a vintage pack that I took crystal & white buttons out of.

300 pins

Some corsage pins

Button Tree Part 2

This is the tree with the first 100 pins.

Putting a pin through a button hole through the styrofoam.

This is the tree with 200 pins.

Finished product, with about 300 pins.

CQ

I stayed up until 1:00 am, which isn't something I normally do, and this was a big reason for that. I was on a scrapping roll. I know better now than to ignore creativity before bed. This layout was created because of a challenge in the Elizabeth Kartchner book. The challenge is #25 and it's to use a page protector as part of your design. Well, since this is digital, I had to create my own digital "page protector". Let's see if you can see it! I also created this layout to use some of the yummy elements from Jen Martakis in her new kit called Simply Beautiful Elements. This layout was fun to make!


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You know what? I think I just might make another button tree!! I was thinking that I can just drive to Walmart or the craft store, buy a bunch of buttons, pins, and the styrafoam tree. Plus I can use some of the buttons I already have! That would clear my stash! Whew! Haha! First I need to finish up sending out Christmas cards!

2 pages

Today I worked on some layouts for the 2peas Creative Team. I really enjoyed creating these layouts! I felt a lot less pressure this time. I realize that it takes me time to adjust to change, so I'm feeling better now! Plus I found some awesome kits to work with!

I absolutely fell in love with My Animal Friends by Brandy Buffington! How could I pass up a kit that has giraffes in it!? (I collect giraffes) I pulled out some baby pictures of me and got to work. Also, check out these free Photoshop actions! They are fun!


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And I was so focused on the layout below that I burned part of my dinner! Oops!

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This is another kit by Brandy Buffington. This one is called Homespun Holiday. And there are some extra goodies from Michelle Underwood's Vintage Holiday kit. It's one of my favorite kits right now!

This morning I had to take our vehicle to the body shop for them to replace the driver's seatbelt. It wasn't clicking anymore! I didn't even know that could happen. Yesterday Elizabeth Kartchner's new book came in the mail, so guess what I did today while waiting at the repair shop? Yup! You guessed it! I devoured the book! I really really like it! I highly recommend it! It's geared toward tradtional scrapbookers, but that doesn't scare me. Ha!

Pity Party

So it's December 2nd. It doesn't feel like December...at all. We found out yesterday that our closing date won't be this Friday (did I say before that it's a long story?), so now it's for next Friday, December 11th. I have to admit that I'm kinda bummed because there are no festive holiday decorations to put up. I saw a picture on someone's blog today of a button tree. I made one last year and the picture made me really miss being able to decorate. It's kinda cool because I can tell I've changed because for years I didn't like decorating for Christmas. In my 'all or nothing' thinking I thought it was pointless to keep decorations boxed up for something that is used one time of the year. I had some other issues with it, too. But two years ago, and especially last year, I really started to enjoy it. I love making homemade decorations! Quent was teasing me today that we could get a tree in February and decorate it then. Very funny, Quent! But no matter what, we'll be in our house soon. We are visiting family in Anchorage for Christmas, so that makes all of this bearable (sp?)! Ha! I'm just having a non-decorating pity party. I would LOVE to see what you have been doing for decorating your house for Christmas! Please link me!!

P.S. That's a page I created last year.

Basic Grey

It's finally happening!!!

Basic Grey is going DIGI!!!

Here's the announcement!!

Creek Street

I was up early this morning, but wow, it's a beautiful morning! There's fog above the ocean and the sun is shining through the fog. It looks gorgeous! I love living by the ocean! I didn't sleep so well last night. I was working on the calendar until about 11:00 pm and then I tried to go to bed. I laid there a full hour with all of these scrapbooking ideas flooding my mind, which was nice, but I really wanted to sleep! I don't think I finally started getting some real sleep until about 2:00 am, but even then I kept on waking up. And then I got up at 6:00 am to check the sign up for the kits at 2Peas for the Creative Digital Team. It's first come, first serve, so I felt all of this pressure. I have my two kits signed up for, so I think I just might go back to sleep in a little bit here. I definitely need it! But before I do, I wanted to share this layout with you. I created this awhile ago.



If you ever take an Alaskan cruise, you will definitely find the ship docking in Ketchikan. Creek Street is a popular place to sight-see. There are a lot of photo ops!

Also, I was looking around the message boards on 2Peas and I saw someone post something about Shutterfly templates. Did you know Shutterfly has templates for their photobooks? I'm really excited about this!