Robert's Prize Catch

We desperately needed to get out of the house one day, so Robert took us for a drive. We went to the state park, not knowing what we would do once we got there. Anyways, as we drove, we saw that there were a lot of icefishing huts on the bay. . . so of course we had to get out to see them. The bay is really neat when it's frozen over--one gigantic, mostly flat playing feild--some people were even flying kites (of course we found out later that the ice was only 8 inches thick. . . that kind of freaked me out, especially since I was wearing a ton of clothes, as well as carrying a freezing cold Nana and another, un-named child. I might have felt better if I were wearing snowshoes to distribute the weight). We took these two lovely specimens with us (but shhhhhh. . . we didn't have a permit for them).

If the last post got you down. . .

Just when you need it, you can always find a laugh--Nana just finished watching her movie, and this commercial popped up. . . It's a gem.

Bummed. . .

Graduate school is hard. . . it should come with a *NOTICE* label or something. (One for the spouse, that is. . . ) I am in trouble. I need to finish an Independent study class by March--plan a last minute birthday party for Eenie for next week (Is it really that close? I have no idea who to invite; we've always just had family to our kids' parties)--deal with a bunch of rebate forms--I should use up my CVS ECB's, but I don't want to go out--figure out what is going on with Valentine's Day activities--there's no food in our house beyond ingredients that require imaginitive cooking (meaning I can't just eat cereal all day, because we have no milk). . .

I've also decided that when I go to help people I usually just come off as annoying. I remember once I was nursing Eenie (or was it Nana?) on the bathroom couch in BYU's HBLL and I noticed that there was a pair of feet under one of the stalls that never moved. I also heard sniffling. (I had been in the bathroom for over an hour--my kids take a really long time to nurse--especially when I'm using their little bodies as my writing desk.) I wanted to say something, but I left. I felt bad that I didn't say anything, so I went back about half an hour later--yup, still there. I tried to wait until the lady in the next stall left, but I was running late. So. . . I just spoke out and told the person that I had been on the couch for some time earlier and had noticed they had not moved, and wanted to know if they were okay. I am pretty much an idiot. Can you imagine what the person in the next stall must have thought? I hope she didn't think I was talking to her. . . 'Ma'am, I've noticed that you're taking a really long time, and I wanted to know if you were okay.' Of course, I never got an answer from either of them. For all I know, the lady that was in there for almost 2 hours (or more?) was just reading a really good book, and because of her cold (thus the sniffling) wanted to be near some tissues. It's one of the things I've done that haunts me every once in awhile--although I still can hope that I made someone feel a little more loved than they did before (if there was any room for any other emotion after all of the awkwardness).

Now my point--I KEEP DOING THIS! Someone will totally act like they need help (like with the sniffling), and I'll do my best to do something for them--sometimes it's hard, and sometimes I have fun doing it, but it pretty much always ends up getting me down (at least lately--and I've screwed up SO MUCH like this in the past week or so). I feel so awkward and awful and depressed that I do such silly things--ESPECIALLY when I was having fun doing them. It happens too often! I guess I'll keep "helping" people, but now you've been warned--you may feel really awkward when I do. . .

Cool Digi-Scrap Sites

Don't have an image editing program, but you'd like to try digi-scrapping? Try Phoenix at the aviary, or Picnik. Paint.net--although I don't know where to find it (Hava?) sounds like it is free to download (and you don't have to be online! Major Perk!). Phoenix is a lot like photoshop. . . Picnik is kind of it's own style, but it also has a lot of the same actions. The only bummer is that you have to upload all of your photos to the internet (Picnik uses programs like facebook, picassa, and flickr, I think Phoenix does too--or both can uplaod a pic online if it has an html code attached, or one straight from you computer).

Now, if you don't have any neat "paper" or "embellishments"--download some from shabbyprincess.com, or ikeagoddess.blogspot.com will show you some neat freebies she finds and where to download them.

Back with more later tonight!

Finally, I don't feel like I have to embarrass myself. . . lol. We're finally to the part where my pages look pretty good :D. Unfortunately, there's not as many of these. . . I haven't had as much time to scrap lately. But I'll post more later--The weather outside is frightful, but the heat-from-the-modem is so delightful. . . and since we've cancelled all the places we'd-a go--Let me scrap, let me scrap, let me scrap (Maybe I should try to get out of the house anyway. . .).

This is a picture of the first Lemon Meringue Pie I ever made! It was DELICIOUS! I plan on making a recipe book someday. . . a really BEAUTIFUL recipe book. . . MmMmMmmm

This page is probably my favorite (Lincoln). I never know what to do with LO's (layouts), but this one just kind of made itself--and I LOVE it! (I don't love that I had to blow up the metal ring so much that it's pixelated, but one day I'll learn how to make my own metal rings, so there).

Okay, I cheated here. I used a QP (quick page) for this layout from Akizo (or Aziko or something). But I think it's GORGEOUS--and I have the skills to make the same thing--if I wanted to ;D.

What in the World Was I Thinking?

Tomorrow I promise to show you what my skill level is like right now--I'm still learning, but I think I do pretty good. Okay, so some people can do these awesome-tripped out layers on their scrap pages--mine usually just look kind of weird (but I'm getting better: I hope.)--case in point:

The "Enlightenment" of Digi Scrapping

When I got to the Shabby Princess--I was a little ashamed that I thought I was doing so well. Look at all of the cool stuff out there that I was missing! I didn't know they could be so creative! I made this shower invite right after I found out about the site. The rest are from all sorts of different times since then. I don't remember exactly when--I bet you can tell which ones I did later on (hopefully I was improving. . . oh, and they're actually in chronological order again from the ones I did first to the last).


Eehhh. . . Needs something more--still pretty 2 dimensional. I may come back to this one.


Still a little 2D--this was a "piece-a-cake" page. Obviously, you can tell about when I did this by how old my kids are (about 9 months ago).

I cheated on this one too--the papers are from shabby princess (moody blues--I made them green), but the template is from epson.
I think I'm getting better--this goes to an album I'm making to document the 2nd most horrible month of my life (lol). I'm hoping to just turn it in to something positive :D.

A Revelation

This is the invitation I made for my brother's somewhat casual (as in they put me and my family in Utah in charge, and we held it in my in-laws beautiful backyard) wedding openhouse. My other brother's wife was the photographer for their FL wedding--she's amazing. I felt pretty comfortable with my program and with my shading and distressing at this point. You can't tell, but I'm pretty proud of how the ribbon in the middle of the picture turned out--it has grains on it and everything!

It was nice to see Brandon and Rachel (they are really fun, loving people--especially Rachel. . . lol). And becasue of this invite, I got to see some of my brother's old friends--and their wives. One wife in particular was my favorite. Kira is sooooo cool. She told me about shabby princess(dot)com, and my digi-scrapping life has never been the same! (She's really nice, too.)

Sorry this is so fuzzy--I didn't have a jpeg or png, so I had to take a picture of my computer screen, and this is the best I got. The colors are off a bit.

Epson(dot)com--we'll call it "The Iron Age" of Digi Scrapping

One Saturday, when I still lived in Wymount, I saw a scrapbook show on BYU TV. They had a segment on digi scrapping, and referred their viewers to the epson website to download free papers and embellishments. (The older the download, the less attractive the pages). These pages (and many others) followed. I don't remember the title of the show, but they have tutorials online that are worth looking up, especially if you have photoshop or a similar program. I would say these pages each took me about half an hour--I was getting better. All of them are my own layouts--that's what takes me the longest time--TRYING to figure out how I want the layout to look and what pics to use.

I actually created all of this one (even the brads),

except I downloaded the orange, patterned page in the middle.

Just enough shading (yay me!), but not enough distressing.

I changed the colors--it looks weird

(it wouldn't if I'd deleted the buttons),

but these colors matched better.

If only I had used more shading!--and distressing!

Finally, the downloads are starting to incorporate distressed edges!

I didn't do this layout. It was all put together for me.

I just had to find a picture, resize it and drop it in.

Love it! Of course, I have the papers if I ever want to do my own layout.
I don't use pre-made as much, becuase I usually have specific things I want to do,

and it's hard to find matching pre-made pages for free.

Some Digi Invites--still mostly primitive

The very first thing I EVER made digi-wise was our wedding invitation. I started mostly with invitations, actually. Then when I discovered epson(dot)com, they got a little more interesting. I still didn't realize that there were so many sites out there with even cooler freebie papers and embellishments, so these still aren't my best work--the shading could definitely improve--but I like them--especially the ones with my hot hubby in them. (These ones are in sequential order from what I made first to last).

This took me forever, because we both had sunburn really bad (you can still tell on my arm), this was our best photo (we actually busted out the tripod for this one--none of that cheap hanging from trees stuff), and Robert was across the Atlantic, so I couldn't get another one. I learned how to take the red out of people's complexions, though--a very helpful skill. It also took me awhile going back and forth from the printers, because the green on the side wasn't right the first few times. Printer's ink does NOT exactly match your computer screen, so if you need to match embellishments, or envelopes, or something, make a couple of examples to take to the printers, or just focus on something that won't clash instead of something that will match.

Maybe not the most impressive invite,

but I like it because I learned how to make the words triple-toned :D.

Yes, I know I spelled Marriott wrong. . .

but I put shading under the pictures. . . so I pretty much rock. I wasn't sure of all of the information for Nana's 2nd B-day,

so I wrote that on later with a marker.

Obviously, I've discovered epson at this point. . .

just not the value of shading everything.