My Wordpress blog got a virus last July and I spent two months working with my then hosting provider to resolve the situation. They finally washed their hands of the situation and said I needed to get help from the Wordpress forum. Well that did not go anywhere either. So, my blog sat stagnant for the fourth quarter of 2009 while I mustered the energy to rebuild.

From September through December I was working on a contract basis doing strategic marketing for GoAnyware which left me with very little spare time. They are giving me a break in January and I expect it to pick back up in February. So, I decided January would be the month to rebuild my blog (post by post and picture by picture…ugh) and launch my website. I’ll also go ahead and backdate some posts with work I shared on Facebook during my technical difficulties.

I used a great little application called “Artisteer” to create my Wordpress theme. It was very easy. I’d highly recommend it.

I also decided to try using Joomla for my main site. Call me brave or call me naive. It has been a bit more challenging so if you go to my main domain (please don’t) then you will see a mess right now. I’ll be getting back to that next. I might even get started this afternoon!

I’m thrilled to be able to get back to blogging in 2010….Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our house to yours…these are just mailing today!

The kit is a collaboration between Catherine Designs and Bisontine.

My dad was an only son and he had three girls then finally my brother James. So, since we need to carry on the family name we were all happy that James’ second child was a boy. It was a proud moment. And, I thought my Nikon 1.4mm lens captured the moment quite beautifully!

These layouts were created with Kiki Halbert’s U Build It items at Scrapbook-Elements.com. Make sure and check the U Build It collection out because you get to mix and match your own kit with $1 and $2 items. They are available that way for a limited time.

Other Credits:
The flourish is from Kiki’s Cool Nights Blue Sky. I also used Dawn Inskip-water colors/bear/buttons/tag alpha and frame masks from Christina Renee and Tracy Ann Digital Art.

I just adore fall and spring! Especially with camera in hand and my beautiful girls as models!

This was taken on Thanksgiving out at Neal’s parents log cabin in the woods. I always have plenty of good photo ops out there!

Kiki Halbert’s Le Grunge kit was my starting point. I think Kiki’s Le Grunge is perfect for outdoor fall layouts. It is the paper right behind the frame, but on the left here it it is blended w/ a photo I took of a log w/ peeling bark.

By the time I finished I also used the frame and a jewel from Glimpse of Twilight and papers from Cool Nights Blue Sky. I used some commercial use swirls from Jason Gaylor, a pierced scallop from Mira Designs, and two Atomic Cupcake actions.

A variation on this page is available as a freebie Quick Page on Kiki’s blog!

The ninetieth anniversary of my sorority’s founding happened to also fall on the 20th anniversary of my graduating from college. Scary, I know!

I had a really fun time hanging out with the 7 out of 67 (or so) pledge sisters that showed up!

I really enjoyed working with Kiki Halbert’s Neopolitan Sundae kit for this event. Our colors were “pink and mode”, and mode is a shade of brown I suppose. Who would know that pink and brown would actually be fashionable 20 years later?!

Credits:

Frames-New Life Dreams, Flourishes-Katie Pertiet. All else Kiki Halbert: Neopolitan Sundae, Glitter Dust Edges, and Cherry Ice Alpha

Granny made Danielle’s princess dress as a birthday present. She loved it! Of course the curls, the “Bumpit” hair piece and my Grandmother’s Cameo really made the outfit! Raeleigh wanted to be a pumpkin but they only make those costumes for babies, so I talked her into being a pirate princess, which she also loved. I took some great pictures of them in our yard right before sunset.

I used Kiki Halbert’s Royal Treatment and Glimpse of Twilight for my Halloween pictures. Three of the paper are from Royal Treatment. And a freebie stamp set from http://www.brusheezy.com/brush/205-Creepy-Tree-Brushes . I confess that I used a Katie Pertiet (Designer Digitals) template to start these with, that is where the perforated masks came from.

I can’t remember where I first heard that term, but the Magic Hour is right before sundown. The time period that most bridal portraits are shot. I took this photo of the girls a couple of years ago at the tail end of sunset. The sky was striking, and I had the flash on so you could actually see the girls. I like the way it turned out even though I didn’t have a fancy flash or camera. It was before I got my Nikon D90.

This layout uses Kiki Halbert’s Cool Nights Blue Sky kit…one of my favorites from her stash. I overlaid my own pumpkin photo on her Kraft paper using Photoshop’s blending tool. A nifty little trick anyone can try.

I had a Coke too late in the evening last night and couldn’t sleep. And a quote from my Oswald Chambers devotional that evening was really stuck in my mind. So I got out of bed at 1:30 a.m.,  surrendered myself to my awake state of mind and drew till about 2:45. The roofers then promptly awoke us around 8:00 and I colored this afternoon while trying to ignore their nail guns because a nap would be impossible for my 3 year old, much less me!

When I read what Oswald Chambers wrote I totally “got it”.

The call of God is like the call of the sea, no one hears it but the one with the nature of the sea in him.

I call myself a “wimpy” certified diver. I love to dive but don’t want to ever see a shark. Ever. I prefer stationary dives to drift dives. And my dive master is always in my sight. Despite all that fear, when I am underwater and all I can hear is my own breathing while gazing at a whole other world it is amazing. There is something about getting past your fear and being 100 percent in the moment that is kind of a memorable experience.

There was a point in my marriage where my relationship with God hit a new level. It was when I realized that I was totally alone in my relationship and accountability to God. Despite the amazing God fearing husband He gave me there are some times when He is talking to me and only me. Running what I think I heard by my husband, sister, or friend really doesn’t do any good. Because ultimately my relationship with God is and always will be as solitary as I feel when I’m under the ocean and can’t talk to anyone else. I can’t get anyone else to chime in and validate what I think I’m hearing. My faith is MY faith and mine alone.

God does speak to others in order to give you affirmation, but that is a whole other subject. I don’t get into my Faith very often on my blog, but I thought I would today so that you would understand the illustration I’m sharing. Also, I was inspired by the latest Artful Blogging to be authentic. So there you go. Deep, huh?

I drew this using two Dover illustrations as reference and then colored it with Copic markers. The flourish is meant to be seaweed or living coral. I colored the water BG10, drew squiggly lines with BG13 and shaded with V12, B32 and YG11. Then I came back with the colorless blender to make the bubbles. I won’t list all the colors for the fish and seaweed. I took creative liberties in coloring them in an attempt to stylize the look instead of making it realistic. Lastly, I finally over came my fear of the Copic air brush system I’ve had for about nine months. You can’t see it but I airbrushed around the illustration with pink and orange. What fun!

My latest layout of the family birthdays this past January is a pretty good example of how you can add depth to a layout by adding additional papers as overlays. Here is the layout before I added the overlays. It was a very nice looking layout but I thought it could still use a little texture.

And here it is with two sketchy/painterly papers used as overlays. Just place them over the background papers. Click on the new paper layer and choose blending options to play with the different modes. I can’t usually predict which mode will look good because it really depends on the color combination of the papers. In this case I used the standard “overlay” mode for both papers.

Just another example of what I like to say, “it’s not finished till it’s finished.” And, the beauty of digital is that the playing around in search of perfection is non-destructive!

CREDITS:

Alphabets: Christina Renee and 5 Steps to Heaven
Glitterline and grey swirl paper: TADA
Red paper: Holly Designs
Paper overlays: MK Designs and Dawn Inskip
Floral accents: Jofia Devoe
Ribbon: Lotta Designs
Frame Cluster and Fasteners: Katie Pertiet

And I can’t forget to mention the fabulous “web” resizing action from Fruit Loop Sally. Right now available as a Freebie.

I have never used templates for scrapbooking. I guess I’m too much of an artist in that I want the design to be my own. But, I am really feeling guilty that Raeleigh is 3 and does not have a single finished scrapbook with pictures of her to look at. Danielle has been asking me when I’m going to do some scrapbooks of Raeleigh. So, I’ve been thinking I should consider using some pre-designed templates. I started by buying the cluster frames from Designer Digitals. But, they didn’t really save me any time on the Cheer Camp layouts. It may have been because I was working with Maroon which I found a bit of a challenge…guess I better get used to it!

Yesterday I ran across a freebie template and I decided to try it out to see how much time it took me. I am happy to say it only took me about an hour and twenty minutes to do this layout which beats my average by a landslide! My resulting layout does not look much like the design I started with so the snobbish artist in me is still happy. I almost always scrap in double page spreads, so I will be on the lookout for sales!

My hint for this layout is that you can still use those photos that have soft focus because the setting was not ideal. The gym had horrible lighting, she was too far away for the flash to do any good, and I didn’t have time to switch out to my 50 MM 1.4 AF lens. So, I used a gradient blend to make the photo part of the background layer and the soft focus almost looks on purpose!

I should close with saying that Danielle is NOT a high kicker! LOL! But she thinks she is! I’m not about to journal that because I don’t want her to have a complex! Hopefully I’ll remember the “truth” and will someday tell her how much my dh and I giggle when she isn’t looking! That will wait until she will think it is funny too.

CREDITS:

Postage Stamp Frames: Katie Pertiet

Title: MK Designs

Clock: Christina Renee

Ribbon Cluster: TADA

Brown Ribbon: Sunflower

Papers & Pink Ribbon: Holly Designs

I bought a bunch of cluster frame sets at Designer Digitals this week while they were having a store-wide sale. I just went with a personal license for now because most of my S4H work uses only one picture per layout. I’m hoping that they will allow me to speed scrap! But, maybe not because these layouts didn’t take me any less time! I need to find a good action for shadows with warping options because I’m now hooked on doing it that way but it takes too long!

Anyway, Danielle completed her first Cheer Camp this week and she is having a blast! My favorite pictures are actually from the first day of camp, so I’ll be doing one more page to go with this set.

There really are not any techniques to share on this layout except for the warping. But, I’m really still figuring out the angles on that and my shadows are all over the place. So, the only word of advice I’ll offer is to first “load selection” on the item you want to warp so that the grid will be on just that item instead of the whole page. Most of the time I just fiddle with pulling the corners all down in the same direction. but, when you are dealing with fun elements like the swirls or the thread here you can really have fun pulling at all the middle anchor points too.

I am pleased with how this turned out, except for maybe the title. I think it could be better. I hope to use the frame clusters to scrap 2009 in real time and quickly move through my pictures from 2007 because I made Tabblo pages that year and all my photo editing/journaling is done. Hopefully the 13 packs of photo clusters I bought will do the trick.

CREDITS LEFT SIDE:

Paper 1&2, Swirl, Journal Bubble: TADA
Paper 3, Stitches, & Flower: Designs by Laura
Frame Cluster: Katie Pertiet (with additional warping and shadow to match right page.)
Stars: MK Designs
Leaves: Holly Designs
Burnt edges: Atomic Cupcake

CREDITS RIGHT SIDE:

Papers, journal box, swirls: TADA
Flower 1: New Life Dreams
Flower 2: Holly Designs
Flower 3: Diamante
Stars: MK Designs
String swirl: Designs by Laura
Mask: New Life Dreams
Photo Frame: Katie Pertiet