Another base page ...

... and they keep coming - which is a good thing as I need 30+ pages for my holiday album! LOL


(wonder if Jen M. recognizes her template ... hhhmmm ... ???)

ETA: Got another page finished tonight! Yahoo! Used the same template as above, just rotated it 90 degrees. As with all the others, the title and photos will change - these are just samples so I know what to place where.

In the spirit!

Well, it didn't take long - holiday shopping almost complete, tree will go up shortly, eating Thanksgiving leftovers ... the holidays are almost here. Hard to believe that Christmas Day is now officially less than a month away! EEEKKK!!

Still working on the base pages for my '09 holiday album ... just wanted to share. Six base pages done now ... still quite a few to go. LOL


Some pages don't have much room for journaling, which is the whole point of Journal Your Christmas ... well, duh! Think I'll create some blank corresponding journaling pages to make a double-page spread with a few of the bases.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving yesterday.

Letter to Mr. Mojo

Dear Mr. Mojo,

Can I just call you Mojo? It seems we've known each other for so long, and adding "Mr." in front of your name just seems so, well, formal. Not my style at all - and not yours either, I suspect. Glad we got that settled.

Now, I know we've had our up's and down's over the years, and while I'm not complaining or anything, could I please know why you keep leaving? I mean, I'm sure glad you came back this time, especially at such a busy time of year. See, with you here, I've been creating up a storm - and even last night, with one eye on the television, I still managed to put together this page:


I don't know why you leave ... wish I did. Maybe then I could get you back sooner. I mean, the creative drought that ensues when you're gone ... well, it's just cruel. I look at a blank screen - and just keep looking! I'll open kits and spend a lot of time pushing elements around on a page ... and ... nothing.

Oh well, not to dwell on the negative. You are here, and I'm glad you are! What can I do to entice you to stay? We'll be having Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow - you'll be here for that, right? Turkey, sweet potatoes, baked veggies, green beans ... oh, it will be nice. I hope you can make it. On Friday we're going to get into the holiday spirit and put the Christmas decorations and tree up. An extra pair of hands is always welcome, especially for placing those ornaments at the very top of the tree. I'll also be wrapping some of the gifts that need to go overseas, and always find that I need a finger to help hold a ribbon in place ... can you? Will you ... ?

Well, hope you relax today as I will be calling on you over the four-day weekend (yep, no work, so we'll be busy, that's for sure). If I don't see you tomorrow, have a great Thanksgiving.

-- Me.

It's all her fault!

Audrey, you are such an enabler! Okay, okay, so I started it ... I was the one who asked about some photo post-processing that you did. You directed me to Pioneer Woman Photography (Ree Drummond) - and her Photoshop actions can be downloaded for free.

I'm "supposed" to be scrapping tonight ... but instead, I'm playing with actions on photos ... bad Audrey, bad Audrey! (LOL) In all seriousness, though, I've never really used actions on my photos - I just do my own thing. But with my holiday album, I wanted a more vintage feel to go with the kits I'm using - a full blown color photo would just not look right, kwim? B&W probably wouldn't do, either ... so, here I am playing - and having so much fun! The first is the original photo ... and then the other is one or more layered photo actions from Ree's website - I really like how this one turned out:


... and then with some selective cropping, taking that photo and placing it in my DRAFT page for my holiday album, which is definately subject to change ROFL - but I really like how it looks ... yep, thanks Audrey for the tip!

Getting Prepared!

I can't believe I'm THIS organized for the holidays already - Thanksgiving grocery shopping is all but done, 75% of my gift shopping is done for family and friends, wrapping paper and gift boxes purchased ... tree will go up this coming Friday. Oh yeah, we're getting in the spirit - in fact, one of our local radio stations has even started playing holiday music already. For now, it's nice - but ask me again in a week or so ... I might be sick of it by then! LOL

I've been keeping tabs on the gals at the Journal Your Christmas project - and wow, now THERE are some organized ladies! I feel like I'm so far behind! Some have started their album pages, decorated their covers, and even started making their date tags (as each page should have a date as we go through the month of December). So, with so much inspiration on the boards (check out Shimelle's website for more information), I decided to go through my digi kits, pick a selection to use, and begin preparing MY pages. I've got a few designers selected ... and today I used a template from Jen Martakis' White Space collection and Michelle Underwood's Vintage Holiday Memories kit - love all the little embellishments in the kit. So, I still have to add journaling (well, DUH, that IS the point of the class) and a title ... but here's a sneak peek ... consider this a "work in progress" and things might change before I'm done :)


... and now, I'm off to create more pages for me to play with! The big question will be can I make 30+ pages that are similar and yet a little different ... hhhmmm ...

Unheard of!

Well, almost unheard of - two posts from me today! My MOJO IS BACK! It's a terrible thing to lose your mojo ... you feel lost, hopeless ... frustrated ... sad. But all is good - it came back. Have no idea where Mr. Mojo went (yeah, you know it has to be male, right?!), but he's back, and that's all that counts.

So, here you go, a little more eye candy from today - sssshhh....I'm working in the office, really, I am (did that sound convincing enough?)!

(too many kits to mention for credits - just click on the picture to find them)

I knew them when ...

There's a new CT team over at Two Peas - and it's a digi/hybrid group. Even better, I know a few of the ladies that made the team. Okay, so I don't KNOW them, like I haven't met them in person or anything ... but I "know" them from message boards, Facebook, blogs, etc. CONGRATS to everyone that made the team, and also to those ladies that took the plunge and decided to apply, even if they are new to digi scrapping. So, when everyone moves on to bigger and better things, I'll be right there saying, "I knew you when ... " LOL - yeah, right, like I'm THAT important in your lives?! I can dream, can't I?! (BTW, these are all rhetorical questions that do not require any responses in your part :) )

My scrapping mojo disappeared for a while and reappeared briefly last weekend. Here's a page I did with some of Carina Gardner's new Letters of Love line. I added a few things from Michelle Underwood's Vintage Holiday Memories kit - it all just seemed to work well together. If you click on the picture here, you'll go over to Two Peas and you'll be able to see the full credits:


Hopefully I'll get some scrapping done this weekend - I have a "list". Yep, I even plan out what I'd LIKE to do ... of course, whether I actually GET to anything on the list is another story! LOL

Hard to believe Christmas is only about five weeks away! I'm busy enough with 'stuff' ... and now I've signed up for a scrapping class - Journal Your Christmas by Shimelle Laine. For a nominal fee the first year, you get free access every subsequent year to the forums, and a whole bunch of journaling prompts, hints, etc. to be able to journal each day ... from December 1 through to January 6. Shimelle's even helping with a digi kit to get us started - but, of course, the projects could be traditional or hybrid, too. I'm going to TRY and combine this with a December Daily-type project ... journal and take pictures of something about the holidays ... EVERY DAY. Gulp. Wish me luck!!! Figure this will be a good fore-runner to see if I can do it, firstly, but also it will give me a taste of doing a 365 challenge ... was tempted last year, so maybe this will help me decide if I could truly keep up with it. We'll see.

So, I'd better get cracking and think about laying out some templates or blank pages so that I can hit the ground running ...

Later!

The Results are In ...

... and they're very sad. Yes. I was all ramped up for Digital Scrapbooking Day on Saturday - all ready to go ... and then there's the vet appointment for the dog, grocery shopping, errands ... and I miss the a.m. chats. In fact, I got my time zones all screwed up (didn't I say I was bad with time zones?!), and ended up one hour late for the one morning chat that I "thought" I would make. To top it off, I ... *sigh* ... I feel asleep on the couch in the evening, thereby missing ALL of the p.m. chats. Yeah ... no comment.

On the bright side, I did just a "little" shopping with the DSD sales and made a few pages. So, without further ado, here you go (credits can be found by clicking on the picture):

Join Me for Digi Fun!

I've been in such a fog this week with work (ugh, health insurance contract renewal time), that I almost forgot - almost, but didn't LOL - that it's digital scrapbooking day tomorrow, November 7. Hope I'll see some of you over at Two Peas for their fun during the day.


There's going to be chats starting at 9:00 a.m. CST ... all the way to the last one at 11:00 p.m. Gulp! I'd better make sure I've got warm jammies, fuzzy slippers, and lots of Diet Coke on had. I'm an east coast girl ... so that's, what ... 1:00 a.m. for me? (I'm terrible at working out time zones). Some designers will also have freebies to give away.

I haven't scrapped in a week (eeeeeeeeeeeekkkkk ... a WHOLE WEEK?!?!), so I need to get my mojo back - and what better opportunity that this. Notice, I didn't say "excuse" (LOL).

On a personal note, happy birthday Stan! Wow, fifteen today - where has the time gone? (don't answer that - it's a rhetorical questions LOL) Enjoy the Wii Dance Revolution - just don't play it too loud. Man, I just realized I sound like my parents.

Morph Me!

LOL - well, not ME, exactly ... my scrapbook pages. :)

The wait is finally over ... the digital scraplift morph game is over - well for this round - and pages are posted. Remember as a kid, a group of you would sit in a circle and with one person starting, whisper a message into someone's ear ... and it would go from one person to the next? By the time you got to the end, the original message had changed or morphed into something totally different? Well, over at Two Peas, we do a similar thing with our pages. It's a great game - and the suspense of not knowing what each person did can be a little taxing - but then again, I do this to myself every time we play. Waiting ... waiting ... waiting. You see, it's a "blind" scraplift, so the only page you see (to 'lift) is the person immediately before you in the game. This time, though, I made it worse on myself - I was in charge of one of the groups, so I COULD have seen all the pages as they were submitted ... it was rreeeeally hard not to open the files in my email! Kerry and I posted the group results last night - you can find them here: Group A and Group B.

For my part, I did two pages using, predominately, Jen Allyson's Fall Jamboree Collection - just so in love with the colors of her kit at the moment ... and who wouldn't love that cute little owl?

(full credits for the pages can be found by clicking on the pictures below)

Our next digi morph group is forming. If you'd like to join in the fun, simply sign up here. Whether you're an experienced digi scrapping or just beginning, it doesn't matter. The key is to HAVE FUN - and isn't that what scrapping is all about?