Happy Halloween

YEAH, It's Friday!!!!! And Happy Halloween to everyone. Wanted to share a picture of the girls and I at work today being silly. Hey what the heck, it's Halloween. We wore those all day long too.

Duke has his own Halloween greeting for you as well.

The town that I live in isn't doing trick or treating until tomorrow night so I won't be seeing any little ghosts or goblins tonight.

Hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Halloween

I finished it!

I've had the last two days off, (my last 2 vacation days of the year) so I've spent the majority of my time working on the Thanksgiving kit that I posted about yesterday. I did something wrong when I was uploading it to 4shared though, so it's in two separate downloads. One is the papers and the other is the elements and alpha set.

To download the papers click here
For the elements and alpha set click here

Like I was telling you yesterday, I had been cleaning up some files on my computer. I started looking at the mounting number of pictures that I haven't gotten around to editing and realized I've neglected that since I started doing the digi scrap kits. I picked a few out and did some quick edits.

So now it is back to work tomorrow (YUCK). For tonight I'm going to sit and listen to the wind howling outside and hope that the forecast that is calling for 2-4 inches of snow tonight is wrong.

Finish what you start

That's something I learned a long time ago. I've always had a problem following that concept though. For years now, I've been diving head first into one project or another, going along great, until I see something else that I want to do. Rather than finish project one I'm too distracted by the new project I want to start. Before you know it I've got a box full of unfinished projects.


I was going through the files on my computer today and noticed I'm doing the same thing with my digital projects. I was starting a new project today and found at least a half a dozen unfinished ones. I'm happy to report though that I did a little cleaning up and incorporated some old, unfinished projects into the new one.


What is the new one you ask? Could it be another freebie? Why, yes it could. I was inspired by Laura at http://lauras-little-corner.blogspot.com/ She made the cutest little turkey the other day and it gave me the idea to work on a Thanksgiving kit.


I'll give you just a little sneak peak at one thing that's in the kit. If you want the freebie you'll have to keep checking back until I get it all together.

One more thing before I go. I was reading through some posts on cafe mom today and came across one that I have to share with you. This lady has got a fantastic blog where she offers all kinds of CU freebies. If you're in to scrap booking you have to check this one out. It's fantastic. http://magicallmoments.blogspot.com/

Debate

No, nothing political or even important for that matter. It's a debate I'm having with myself on whether or not to redo my blog. It's not that I don't like the way my blog looks. It all started this morning when I was playing around with a picture and it evolved into this.


Ever since I finished it I'm just drawn to it. I could sit here for hours just staring at it. (Can you tell that I really like the way it looks?) This could quite possibly be one of the best pictures I've ever done. I also could be wrong here, but I swear that the eye is following me....lol.

Anyway, the only thing that is keeping me from going full force ahead with the idea is that I'm not sure if I want to go through the hassle of redoing everything. I'm also not sure I remember how I went about setting up my background the first time. I would hate to make a new background and then screw something up and not only would I not have a cool new looking blog but end up losing the one I have now.

What side of the debate are you on? Would you stick with what I have now? Or would you design a new background and redo the blog?

Another freebie

That's right I have another freebie for you. It doesn't have a whole lot of elements in it but I pretty much just lost inspiration and decided that it was finished....lol It all began with a picture that I took of a doily that I had. Now when I see a doily I think of my grandma Surovick's farmhouse. I can picture an old chair with doilies on the arms. (I can't say for certain that she ever had doilies on the arms of her chairs or not but I can picture them there) Now of course in a farmhouse I don't know that there is actually a room that would be classified as a parlor but I liked the sound of "Grandma's parlor" so that's what I called it. Besides that name sounds better than "junk I had in my craft stash and took pictures of" (Oh sometimes I just crack me up) Yes I am actually laughing at that, admit it you did find it humorous.


If I did this right you should be able to click the preview to get to the download. If that doesn't work you can click here to download


So that's it. I hope you enjoy it and I would love to see any layouts you do with it. I would also love to hear what you think of it, good or bad. I'm always open to suggestions.

More brain power

Today I seem to have just a tad bit more brain power than I did last night and was intelligent enough to figure out what I was doing wrong when I tried to upload a picture. Maybe I'm over worked and need a vacation. Or maybe it's because yesterday was such a slow day at work there wasn't enough stimulation to my brain. Speaking of slow day at work. How slow was it? Well let me tell you....lol

You may or may not already know that I am the bakery manager in the only grocery store in town. Wednesday is senior citizens day so it's usually pretty busy but not yesterday. I think everyone in town decided to stay home. Or it could be because it's nearing the end of the month and between social security checks and food stamps people are running low on money. Being the ever diligent employee that I am (really I am stop laughing) I was finished with my work fairly early due to the lack of interruptions from customers. I decided to show one of the newer girls some cake decorating. She had been wanting to learn how to make flowers and this was the perfect day for it. (I also had some ulterior motives here) I had run home at lunch time and got my camera so that in the afternoon I could play in the frosting and take pictures of different stuff and then do some extractions to use in a scrapbook kit. I think however, that the teaching story is a much more conscientious one just in case the boss should ever happen across my blog and read this.

I'll let you decide for yourself who made which flower.




And finally here is the LO I was going to share with you last night.

Did you ever?

Did you ever have an idea in your head of exactly how you want something to look? There are so many times when I can see exactly how I want a picture to turn out or a scrapbook page to go together. When I push the shutter button though the camera sees something entirely different that I do. Likewise with my scrapbook pages. I know how I want them to look but when I start putting things on the page they turn out way different than what I imagined. I just don't feel like I have that same artistic flair that so many other digiscrappers have. Whether it's my lack of design concept, the wrong tools or what I don't know but I always end up hating the way my pages look.

If you've been following any of my blog posts you know that I'm working on designing my own kits. The process is going very slow, much slower than I like (mainly because I'm not a very patient person). I start to put something together and don't like the way it looks so I trash the whole thing and start over. Before I know it, I've wasted an entire evening and accomplished nothing. I have learned though, through my sister, that I'm doing everything the hard way. Other people use the CU items in their kits. I thought about maybe buying some of those but to me it just defeats the purpose of creating something MYSELF. (aside from impatient I'm also stubborn) So I keep struggling along doing things the hard way and without all the bells and whistles that the more advanced programs have. (Can you hear the song poor poor pitiful me playing in the background?....lol)

The only reason I'm telling you all of this is because I've finished wasting away another evening on trying to create something and I thought I would share with you a page I made using the new kit I'm working on. I can't say when I'll actually be finished with it and post it as a freebie but it will be coming.

I guess maybe I'm not going to share the page with you today. For some reason I'm not able to upload any pictures. (I don't know if it's a website problem or an impatience problem) I guess it will have to wait for another time.

I'm possessed...

...By the scrap kit designing bug. I joined a new group on cafe mom (one of my favorite web sites) called scrap kit designers. There is a challenge to create your first digiscrap kit. Well I've been possessed with it ever since I joined. I've neglected all my other cafe mom groups, my photo editing and my house cleaning. I think I have remembered to go to work and feed the dog though.
Well the challenge is for a Christmas kit. It's being done in 5 phases and I'm way ahead of the game. So in the meantime while I'm waiting for phase 2 to begin I thought I would start on another kit. I have to say that, personally, I think both of these kits are going to turn out much better than the first one I did and offered here as a freebie. I've learned a couple things since that kit. Also, with a little help from my ever talented sister Tanyia, who by the way is a fantastic designer, I made some adjustments to my first drafts for my challenge kit that made them look sooooo much better.
I really can't give too many details about the kit (other than it is a Christmas theme) because I'm doing it all secretly. I'm not even showing my stuff in the posts in the group. I'm waiting till the end to unveil the final kit. (They gave the option of doing it this way) I will offer it as a freebie here though once it's completed.
In the meantime, I thought I would share a little bit of the other kit with you now. I just started it, and it's far from being done, but I made this Hello tag with it today and wanted to share it with you. Once the kit is done it will be offered right here as a freebie of course.



Time for me to get back to my new kit. I wonder if the boss would be made if I called in sick tomorrow because I have a project going on at home that I just have to finish....lol

Free Therapy

That is exactly what my camera, computer and photoshop elements program provide me. Although I suppose you could argue that I had to spend money to buy all these things then there is the electricity that is needed to keep the computer running and charging my batteries for my camera. I however would counter with the fact that I use electricity for many other things in my house AND I've had a computer longer than I've been involved with image therapy. Image Therapy, I like the way that sounds....lol

Taking pictures, editing and creating something new on my computer helps me to forget about all the daily stresses and problems. I can get lost for hours doing any of these three things. If I'm out walking with my camera, I start taking pictures and the rest of the world just seems to fade away. It's just me and the images I see through the lens. When I'm editing or creating a new scrapbook something or other it's quite possible that the house could burn down around me and I would be unaware. That may be carrying it a bit too far because the fire would undoubtedly shut off the power to my computer but you get the idea....lol

I highly recommend that everyone find what it is that they enjoy and indulge themselves in a little free therapy every day.

This is just a little something that I got from a couple of therapy sessions.

Who could ask for anything more

Today could quite possibly be one of those days that fall into the category of perfect. I actually got something accomplished around the house for a change. I got my cleaning done, I baked cookies and Duke and I went for a walk. Even though summer is my favorite season, I just love the fall colors, and I've been wanting to go out and get a few pictures before it's time to hibernate. Here's a few from our walk today.

Ahhh gotta love mother nature.

Before I go today I want to give a great big thank you to Tabitha at Tabbyscraps. She left me a comment telling me how to do the link thing that I couldn't figure out. THANK YOU TABITHA! You should check out her blog, she has her very first kit up as a freebie. If you're a football fan or have one in the family you'll love her kit.

As promised

I said I would share the link for my digiscrap kit so today is the day I make good on that promise. I was trying to figure out how everyone does the links but I couldn't do it the way I wanted to. This works just as well though. What I wanted was to post it like I've seen in other blogs where there is a picture and underneath it says to dowload click here, with the word here being the link. But alas, my frustration level got too high and I gave up. If any of you who know how to do this could share the secret with me I would be eternally grateful.


Before I give you the link I just want to share a picture with you. In preperation for Halloween and photographing jack 'o lanterns I was doing a little experimenting. Last year the pictures were a complete disaster. Of course then I knew nothing about all the different settings a camera has to offer. I lit some candles on the coffee table, got out my camera and spent who knows how much time taking pictures with different settings. Here is one of the pictures I got straight off the camera
This next one is an edit I did on it. For some reason I just love the color. So why did I feel the need to share this with you? Well because, I used the edited image in one of the papers in the kit.
OK, now on to the download link. I do have a password on it, it's aseshappyfall
Let me know what you think, (remember this is my first one...lol) and if you use it I would love to post your work for others to see

happy fall y'all.zip

Where to begin When to stop

It could be quite possible that I am already experiencing blog idea overload. I have a million ideas for blog posts but don't know which to start with. I'm also afraid some of my thoughts could get a little long winded and bore everyone to death.

So for today I'll simply show you a small preview of the digiscrap kit I made. Hopefully by tonight or tomorrow I will have figured out how to add the link so that you can download it and try it out. Here it is "Happy Fall Y'all" There are more papers in the kit but I didn't include all of them in this picture.

Ok I'm off to go shake some cobwebs out of my brain and work on that download.

My first official Blog post

Like the title says this is the first official blog post. Pretty obvious but you have to start somewhere. I've been meaning to do this for some time but have been putting it off. Well I finally figured out how to create my own background and so I was excited about actually using it. Yes, I made the background all by myself (pat on the back) So what do you think? I didn't think it was too bad for my first attempt.

Anyway, I plan on using this blog to show off my (hopefully improving) photography skills, my edits and my scrapbook pages. I'm also working on learning to make my own digiscrap kits and I'll be looking for a few good scrappers to try them out (free of course) and give me some feedback. I actually have one almost ready so check back in a day or two and I should have it posted for you to try out.

Well to start off on the right foot here, I have to share a couple of pictures with you. Let me introduce you to my family.

First my daughter Amanda

Then my son Brad

My husband Wade and three of his 4 kids

and last but not least, Duke (my Westie with an attitude) and Pringle (the poor cat who has to deal with the dog.

Be sure to come back and visit me often. Can't wait to hear from everyone. TTFN