Let's Have Some Fun!

Welcome to my blog - and happy iNSD!  Okay, so truthfully, there is more that just one day of celebrations going on - but the more, the merrier, right?  If you just arrived here from Sarah's blog, you remembered to collect your letter for the awesome collection of journaling cards created by the Pixels and Company Creative Team ... right?

We're all sharing our P&Co shop faves with you in our blog hop.  There's so much to choose from in the store - it was definitely hard to pinpoint just a few! (all linked below)  The "crooked" templates are so much fun to play with - I used These are the Days and combined a couple of templates to create this double-page layout ... and even though I never been to Disneyland, there are so many fun elements in Started With A Mouse that I keep going back to this kit, time and time again.

Wicked Crooked Templates by Simply Tiffany Studios (Tiffany Tillman) | Started by a Mouse by Scotty Girl Design (Shannon McNab) | These are the Days by Karen Funk | Color Pop Action by Jennifer Valencia

*** don't miss the sale prices in the store! ***

Okay, back to the blog hop ... you should be collecting letters or numbers from each of the CT members.  Follow in order to get all the pieces to spell out a coupon code.  Here's the full list:

Pixels and Company
Sarah Hemmert

Katherine Hansen  { You're here! }

Mandi Buchanan
Kate Christensen 

Rachel Alles
Anna Drozd
Jan Fortier
Carey Bridges
Emilie Stevenson

Ronnie Crowley
Amy Kingsford
Jennifer Hignite
Celeste Smith
Melanie Ritchie
Aria Andrus
Jennifer Evangelista

Linda Roos
Christy Carlson
Barbara Unzen
Mary Rogers
Arielle Gordon
Jeryn Carlisi
Indah Permenta Sari
Melanie Call
Jen Papadimitriou

Erin Taylor

Kelly Mobley
Kim Hammond

Wendy Bretz

Okay, so I mentioned at the beginning of this post that the collection of journaling cards were created by the CT - here's a preview of what you'll get - and it will coordinate with the Pixels and Company designer blog hop kit, More or Less ... um ... bonus! (you can find out about the designer blog hop and all the iNSD happenings here) And YES, there's a TON of cards here!  Do both blog hops and use your codes to get the kit and the cards for FREE!

And now, the piece de resistance - my part of the super-secret coupon code: 

I'd love for you to stay and chat a while, but I'm sure you're eager to get your kit and keep moving along.  So, adieu and off you go to Mandi's blog - remember, do all the hops in order to get your code.

The Reveal

Earlier this week I posted a "coming soon" tease on my blog (yeah, how about that - two blog posts in the same week!  Slap me - right?!) ... and here's the page, well pages.  These were pretty emotionally-charged layouts to put together and I sniffled my way through them.  My father passed away a few years ago, but the emotions are still pretty raw.  It took a strong man to make the decision he did, a decision I'm starting to accept (still wish he was here, though - miss him every day).

Credits: April Coordinates Vol. 1 - Tiffany Tillman | Butterfly - Karla Dudley

Hard as those pages were to put together, they are things I need to work through.

Thinking of those in Boston, MA in the aftermath of the bombings earlier this week, and for the families in West, TX who still have unanswered questions after the fertilizer plant explosion.

That is all for today.

Love Learning!

For those that know me IRL, you know I'm a tad geek'ish.  I'm not really into books, although I do read on occasion (like going through The Hunger Games trilogy in about a week LOL - what can I say, I loved the books) ... but I'm most happiest tinkering about on my computer.  Whether it's playing with my pen and tablet doing some digital coloring - like this work in progress ...

(digital brush from Lori Boyd)

... or working on pages with soon-to-be-released kits ...

(check Pixels & Company | April 19)

... I love to learn new things - or really fine-tune and hone those skills for things that I know.  Well, okay, so things I think I know and then find out I am barely scratching the surface of (don't even get me started on the sections of Photoshop and Lightroom that I have yet to master! LOL).  I took art classes throughout high school, and even started an Industrial Design degree in college - and now I find out that Tiffany Tillman's The Scraphic Design course back at ReneePearson.com - but only one more time.  Eeek!!!  Love how Tiffany teaches her methods for creating "kick-butt" pages (and the fact that she calls them kick-butt is pretty awesome, too). I've taken a few of her classes - love that they're self-paced 'cause that works really well with my daily schedule.  There's two classes in this series - the foundations and then core principles - graphic design with scrapbooking = happy camper.  Eight weeks of learning about layering, mixing patterns (love doing this!), color, embellishing, and shadowing. There's even a critique at the end of the classes on the pages you complete - yup, your homework assignments! LOL  (but hey, scrapbooking isn't anything like your high school algebra homework, right?) Don't miss a chance to sign up - registration is open now and class #1 (Foundations) begins next month

Really?!

Eighteen years old and still acts like an eight year old when the camera comes out ... dude, really?!  Oh well, if you didn't do this, I'd probably start to wonder what was wrong LOL

Credits: Everything by Scotty Girl Designs (Shannon McNab) - see here

Photo Oomph

I love taking photos.  I'm still learning the in's and out's of my dSLR camera - and I'm always open to learning new things, taking classes, etc.  However, sometimes I still need a little help to bring out the best in a picture.  Enter: Photo Actions.  I'll admit it, right here, I used to be a photo snob and think that actions were ... well ... cheating.  I mean, I was always striving for that perfect photo.  I could do it.  I didn't need help.  Uh-huh.  Now I've got quite a few actions in my digital arsenal - and I love them!  Some add a softness to photos, some turn color to black 'n' white (some extremely so, some with softer coffee cream overtones) ... and now I have a new one that I think I'll be using quite a bit: Color Pop from Jennifer Valencia.  Here's a before and after of a photo with Jen's action:

Pretty cool, huh?  I used this photo in a layout - see below - with the April BYOC kits from Pixels & Company - well, this is Wanderlust from Wild Blueberry Ink.