Some scrapping action in the house

I sat down this morning to do a layout and 2 cards, next I'm working on the Christmas matchbox countdown. I'll take some pictures later, school is letting out soon.

Weekend

We went over to Disney this past weekend, it was beautiful. The Shades of Green resort has a giant koi pond with 50+ koi and some other invading fish (brim or similar). The Koi are HUGE since they are feed almost non-stop by people.
They are not timid, they'll come right up and take food or suck food out of your fingers.

The boys showing off their LEGO loot, we love to fill the little tubs with misc. lego parts. Lots of wheels & single pip jewel pieces.

The boys scouting out some new sets.

Candy Jar

I haven't been active lately, the days are zipping by and I have not scrapped at all. I hate PMS!

Made up a candy jar for Halloween treats. This is a 2qt plastic container that was filled with peanuts, I could not find a jar without some sort of decoration on it or wasn't $10. This 95% finished, i just need to make the tag and add a better ribbon. I dug out a large circle stamp (Stampendous) and washed some purple Twinkling H20s over it.

First step is add a layer of M&Ms or other round items, I couldn't find the black & orange M&Ms. Line up the ghost Peeps around the jar and add some goodies in the middle to hold up the ghosts. I also spied pumpkins & cat peeps, I should have picked them up to make an asst. line up.

I filled the center with lots of little chocolate bars and more m&ms. Can never have enough m&ms.

I topped it with caramel candy corn (that's what nick picked out) and some dum-dums.

ScrapPink Crop

Where did the last week go? I did 3 projects and forgot to take pictures before handing them in! Yesterday was the Scrap Pink Crop at the Doodle - all the food was pink even the sandwich bread.


I took this cute pic of Dianne, she was my "lighting tester" for the afternoon "photo shot" that jen set up. All the croppers had a small photo session in front of the cardstock display and it's the darkest unlit corner of the store. Gotta love the brown carpet and the black & red walls didn't help.

Sunday evening

I'm waiting for the boys to walk through the door, they spent the weekend at grandma's since I had 2 classes yesterday. I slept until 7.45am, started the dishwasher, the washer and laid around watching television.

I finally got around to picking up some toys & decluttering my desk late in the afternoon. My legs were killing me and I was just burnt from working yesterday. Talking and giving directions is mentally tiring, I couldn't even think when I got home. I just sat on the couch and watched something...I can not remember what movie I watched.

Tomorrow I need to work on a few projects & organize a little.

Mr. Serious on the swing.

Volunteer

I've been busy with the book fair the last few days and I'm achy tired by 3pm. The kids are so cute, they wander around the library looking at all the books & decide they just want a poster. We try to sway them back to books by asking about their interests and literally walking them over to the books. Henry picked out 2 books about firetrucks and Nico picked out a Star Wars book, a penguins book & 2 other books about animals.

I'm teaching 2 classes tomorrow and need to pack the kits but I can't peel my butt off the bed. Doesn't help that I have a snugglebunny laying right next me. Tonight is "Snuggle up & read" at H's school.

Made some flair

Recovered 20gigs of hd space

I could not take it anymore and removed almost 20gigs of pictures from my 30gig hard drive. Freeing up that space allows me to run some photo editing programs that have been sitting on my shelf for a year.

Beach pictures are some of the hardest to work with - washed out and usually overexposed (my fault). Using PP I am able to pull up the blue & add more depth to the water.

Original shot

Running it through Preset Direct positive - So much better.


This picture came out of the camera fine but I used direct Positive & cyanotype, upped the exposure 1.5pts & pushed up the black a smidge. After messing with the output it's not a photo style I'd necessarily would scrap but I would definitely frame it up on the wall.

Disney

From Eat Your Veggies

From Eat Your Veggies

From Eat Your Veggies

The weekend

Nico hanging out in the pool all by himself and he loves it. He was tired of me taking pictures of him, he said "no more!"


He gets closer to me and says "stop!"

A few hours later at aunt cissy's pool. He decided he was going to swim underwater.


And there he goes!


Nico waving at me "mommy watch me swwwimmmmm".

Merry mini book

A little book I'm working on for fall festival - American Crafts new christmas line.

changing the blog again

I tossed the orange bkgd and tired of fighting with blogger over trying to center my header image.

Countdown to Halloween

I forced myself to do this yesterday, sad that I have to make meself do things but once I get started I'm happy I did it.

I pulled out my Halloween stash and got busy - covered a bunch of matchboxes and then had to figure out what I wanted for the top. After cutting out a ragged sign I covered it with black paint & then applied a thick layer of Distress Crackle paint (dried marigold) and let it dry overnight. This morning I sponged Dried Marigold distress ink over the top to darken the crackle paint.


I'm going to make a Christmas countdown so I used a strip of magnetic tape across the back of the Halloween topper to switch out the toppers, maybe I'll do a Thanksgiving if I'm ambitious enough. All that I would need to store is the boxes and toppers together in a plastic bin.


These are the numbers I decided on, just stamped them on misc. sticker labels. After I finish the numbers than I'll apply little embellishments to the front of the boxes - stickers, buttons, charms and such.


This project took about 4 hours total, the longest time was waiting for the crackle paint to dry. I tried to keep within one manufacturer but I had to find a big icon for the topper. So when I'm working on my christmas calendar, I'll shop specifically for the calendar. I spent way to much time digging through my Halloween bin looking for that perfect item.

Travel portfolio

Another class that I am teaching on 13Sept at the doodle, all 7gypsies product. Its a flip book in 7x11 portfolio with a pocket to hold tickets stubs & brochures.

Hanging at the beach

With the hurricanes moving around us, the waves were perfect for being tossed about the beach. After taking a look at the beach action, we decided to put a lifejacket on Henry before we hit the water.


Henry loving the surf
Nico not enjoying the beach at all, he was so ready for the pool after 5 minutes.
On the way to the pool, we hit the playground.


Joe was covered with shells, including the top of his head & his chin-beard. The surf just tossed him around like a rag doll.