There's more

Yep, I did some more layouts. Ever since I asked for cc on my kits and such I seemed to have lost my momentum for making them. I guess too much negative feedback forced me to slow down and take a closer look at what I've been doing. One of the comments I got was: "I think you are on the right track, if you keep trying you'll get there. You're quick pages are well composed and I like your templates quite a lot. Maybe you should find a niche and stick with it." Of course there was much more to her review of my work, but for the sake of my ego I'll leave that out....lol
Any way, as I said, I slowed down and took a good look at what I was coming up with. I started focusing more on looking at other peoples work. I've been able to put together more layouts that I'm actually happy with instead of just semi satisfied. I still want to be able to provide my readers with something other than my ramblings though. So for now, I'll be sticking to smaller things. (this blog reserves the right to change this claim at any time) You should be seeing more templates, quick pages and possibly mini kits. Maybe, when I feel like I'm getting somewhere I'll try and get back into kits again.
So with that said, I did a couple more pages. Wade is like a kid when it comes to bikes, 4 wheelers, or anything with a motor. We were at a friends house over the weekend and he got to do a little playing.


We also stopped at a near by beach. I love the quote by John Lennon. Especially since it gives me a reason for wasting the day away doing what I enjoy.


Finally the template that I made from the second layout. I included a quick page, a few papers and a few elements.

The download is right HERE
Also, it just occurred to me that I've only been doing the templates in psd format. After this one I will start doing them in jpeg also for those who aren't able to use the psd files. If any of you have gotten the previous templates and weren't able to use them you can let me know and I'll post those as jpeg's as well.

Thanks for stopping by today.

I've been busy

Yesterday I spent way too much time cleaning (=no fun) so today I spent an equal amount of time doing what I consider to be fun.
Here's what I did:
1) visited 100 blogs that are members of entrecard and gave them a drop. (it may have been more than 100 but that's the maximum number of drops you can leave in a day)
2) played around and made this


3) Did this layout using a wonderful freebie from one of my favorite blogs http://censloft.blogspot.com/


4) Did another one, using the same kit



5) Made a template from the second layout

6) Zipped it up and uploaded it to 4shared to give to you. You can get the template right HERE
Just like the last one, TOU are whatever you want to do with it is okey dokey with me.

The last thing I did before posting this was check out my sisters blog. She made the coolest exploding box. I went and downloaded the template that she found as a freebie so I may go work on that when I'm done here. Why not hop on over to her blog and check it out.

Such a busy day, I'm so exhausted!

I'm on a roll

Not quite sure what's gotten into me but I seem to be on a roll here. I did another layout. YEAH ME! I used the same brush in this one that I did in the LO from a couple posts ago. Again, that was from http://www.obsidiandawn.com/ The pocket was a freebie from http://thescrappincop.blogspot.com/2009/06/finally-back-with-some-pocket-freebies.html

Entrecard

As if I don't already spend enough time on my computer, I am now totally in love with http://www.entrecard.com/ I have found so many great new places to visit through there that I have to share some of my favorites with you.

http://vanillaseven.com/ beautiful pictures here
http://freecraftfair.com/ craft business resources
http://digivic.blogspot.com/ a must see site. beautiful word art freebies here
http://censloft.blogspot.com/ one of my all time favorite blogs to visit since before I found entrecard
http://www.creationsbycarlota.com/ her latest layout that she posted is just beautiful
http://confessions-of-a-psychotic-housewife.blogspot.com/ she posts about great deals and product reviews
http://luceljuliana.com/ a little of this and a little of that
http://renaescraftycorner.blogspot.com/
http://conversationswithmoms.com/
http://everyday-adventurer.blogspot.com/ love reading this one.

These are my top droppers at the moment, but I do seriously enjoy each and every one of them.
Some others are
http://www.picturetopeople.org/blog/blog.html must see if you do any editing
http://thephotoshopper.blogspot.com/ the name says it all

There's more I could go on but I'll stop here

New look

The more I looked at the background I had the more I hated it. So after numerous failures, lots of frustration and bruises from banging my head on the desk in disgust, I finally came up with something I like. At least for the moment any way. Thoughts and opinions are always welcome.

They just don't understand

No one I know understands my fascination and excitement for the pictures I take, edit and scrap. Wade will look at an edit and say he likes the original better. From Amanda I get either an "Uh huh" or an "OMG mom, delete that now". My coworkers have heard enough about my hobby that they generally try and quickly change the subject. Duke is possibly the only one who shows the slightest interest. Of course I have to hold one of those doggy bacon snacks in front of the computer screen first. But when I do boy does his tail wag over what he sees.
Any way, the other day, while I was hanging out in the parking lot at work (a.k.a the smokers lounge) I pulled out the camera and started playing. This was of course during my lunch. I spotted this dirty old piece of cardboard that I was just fascinated with. I was in awe of the colors and textures that I saw. OK so I'm a bit on the weird side, who isn't? I HAD to take a picture of it.

When I put the picture on the computer I started playing around and layering other pictures on and came up with this.


Then I did a layout of my whole parking lot experience.

Everything used for this layout I made myself with the exception of a brush I used from http://www.obsidiandawn.com/
Then, to show my appreciation for the people who actually read through this I made a template from my layout.



If you want it grab it right HERE No TOU included with this, just use it however, wherever, whenever you want and have fun.

Thanks for stopping by today, and if you use the template drop me a line and a link so I can see what you did with it. PLEASE, just leave me some love, because no one understands! lol

It's so hard to stay motivated

The last couple of days I have had to force myself to do the exercises that I learned when I was going to physical therapy. I've been feeling pretty good so the other day I decided to just skip them for the day. WRONG choice. It wasn't horrible but I sure was a lot stiffer than I have been. So yesterday, even though I was dead tired, I forced myself to get it together and exercise. Today, again I thought about just skipping them but told myself that I just can't do it. I think I need a drill Sergeant standing over me. The reward for doing them certainly is worth it but it would be icing of the cake if it would just do a little more for me, like maybe shrinking my butt a bit.
Oh well, enough about that. This is the picture I was going to post about the other day.

I found this tutorial called "Powder pastels" I like how soft it makes the picture look.


After I was done I added an extra little touch to it. I can never seem to stop where I'm supposed to. I used the paint daubs filter on it and it really made the picture pop.

Other than my weekly cafe mom challenges I haven't been doing too much in the way of creating new things, so I don't have anything to give you today. I have a three day weekend coming up though so maybe before it's over I'll come up with something.

First day of summer

Yeah! Summer has officially arrived. Now if the weather will just start acting like summer on a more consistent basis, I'll be one happy little camper.

This weekend our little town had their sesquicentennial celebration. That's 150 years. Last night they had an awesome fireworks display. I was fortunate enough to be able to sit out on my deck and watch it from there. Of course I had the camera with me. I've never taken fireworks pictures before and I had to try it. Lets just say it was NOT a huge success...lol I got a couple shots that were sort of cool looking but by no means could they be considered good pictures. You know me though, I'm not one to throw away lousy pictures. I pulled out 3 different ones plus a picture of the American flag, layered them all together using different blending modes and VOILA! I shared it with Wade, and I really should have learned by now that he is not going to give me a positive reaction on any of my masterpieces....lol He just doesn't have the same appreciation for my creativity as I do. Hm, maybe if I did an edit of a race car, driven by a naked woman holding a can of beer he might look twice....lol


After I did that I started working on a layout for some of the pictures. I used two of my fireworks pictures and the third one (at the bottom) is part of a mural that is painted on a wall of one of the building in the borough park. I'm not sure who painted it but they did an awesome job.


Before I put everything away, I came up with another mini kit and quick page for you. You get 5 papers, 6 elements and the quick page.

Grab the download HERE Hope you like it.
I was going to show you another edit that I worked on over the weekend, but I decided to save that for my next post.

One last thing before I go. You HAVE to stop by my sisters blog and check out the recipe she posted for Monkey Brownie Bars. I'm drooling just thinking about them....lol Hop on over to http://xsurvivingmotherhoodx.blogspot.com/2009/06/monkey-brownie-bars.html while you're there could you leave her a comment and suggest that she make some to send to her sister?

Are you silly?

Don't ever let anyone tell you that silliness and playing is just for kids. I strongly believe that holding on to your inner child is what keeps you young and happy. I personally bring out the inner child frequently. Of course sometimes it's to throw a temper tantrum but that's another story...lol.
My inner child likes to draw, and I don't care if it's good, bad, colored inside the lines, or even recognizable. My inner child also likes to fabricate stories, because I really don't like drawing all that much, I do stink at it. BUT, I did have fun with a tutorial I found to make a picture into a cartoon drawing. I did this one real quick just to try it out so it's not that great, but like I said it was a lot of fun. I got a little carried away with the burn tool but I was real careful not to draw in all the wrinkles on my face...lol


I also did a little playing around a did a layout of my all time favorite aunt. This was a very old picture of my Aunt Mary. There are so many wonderful stories I could tell you about this woman but I won't bore you with all of those. She sure was something special though.

I also put together a mini kit for you. In the kit you'll find everything I used in my layout plus a quick page. I couldn't think of a name so I just went with Mary since that's who the layout was about.

You can get the download HERE

Don't forget that Sunday is Father's Day. If you need something for Dad I posted a Father's Day word art freebie a few posts back.

Have a great weekend and see ya next time.

It's Tuesday.

As if you didn't know that. But, it hurt my brain too much when I tried to think of a witty title for today's post. My brain is feeling challenged enough lately, I didn't want it to overload...lol. If you haven't noticed on my side bar, I'm now on Twitter. I also signed up at Entrecards. As for Twitter, I must be a total twit because I just don't get the point of it. I can't even think of anything worth saying to update it. I think I'm a little slow in figuring out Entrecards too. Maybe the saying "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" applies to me. I was trying to figure out how to buy ads and I finally just gave up. Oh well I know how to do the dropping thing when I visit a site so I'll just stick with what I know.

You may remember me talking about a book I bought a while back. It was How to cheat in Photoshop elements. Well they have a tutorial in there for taking a picture of a flashlight and making it look like it's lit. I decided to try it out with a picture of a car. I found this picture on morgue files and really liked it. I don't know what it is, but there's something about old broken down things that I just find fascinating.


I played with this edit forever. It's still not perfect but it didn't look too bad.

Well that's it for today. Hope every one's week is going well.

Am I?

...a procrastinator? Yes, I believe I just might be. I'm very good at thinking about things, making lists of what needs to be done, and how to do it. But...(or maybe I should say butt) I'm always sitting around on my butt and not getting anything done. I'm not saying I'm lazy, because I don't sit 24 hours and stare at walls or anything like that. I do work 40 hours a week. It's just the other 128 hours in the week that I seem to have the problem.

I think about cleaning my house and getting it organized.
I plan craft projects
I surf the Internet and look through magazines for decorating ideas.
I take and edit pictures that I plan to print and frame. (ooh I think this one is more of a doing something than thinking about it...lol)
I come up with and start digital projects to give as freebies.

So does this post have a point? Hmmm, I'm not really sure....lol I can say though that over the weekend I did get a very good start on the cleaning. The basement is finally cleaned up and my computer room is cleaned, organized and rearranged.
Craft projects are still sitting on the back burner.
Decorating? I don't think I have any decorating sense at all. I'm just too darn eclectic.
I haven't been taking too many pictures, or editing any lately.
I did start a new freebie for you on Friday and I finished it today.
Well see! This post had a point after all...lol
I thought maybe some of you could use some word art for father's day. It is right around the corner. There are 4 in the set, 3 different sentiments, one of them is done twice with a slightly different look.

Go grab the download right HERE

I feel like such a slacker

I can't believe I haven't posted since last Sunday. I really had thought about it several times over the past week, but didn't have the motivation or inspiration to actually do it. I also didn't want to post without having something to give you. After all, if you're willing to listen to me ramble on about this, that or the other thing, you DESERVE a freebie...lol
And then, the rambling started....lol
My daughter and her friend were in Canada for the day. I'm not really sure where this picture was taken but she gave it to me and said she needed me to fix it for her. So she pulls out the picture and explains that she really likes it except, who the heck is that guy sitting there behind us....lol


She gave me another picture they took that day to replace mystery man

I decided to actually use one of my own quick pages. I've made several to give away as freebies but have never used one myself. What's up with that?....lol So today I was reading through some quotes and found the one I put on this layout. I loved the quote and knew I had the perfect picture to go with it. I did an edit a while back of foot prints in the snow.

So finally here is your freebie. I worked on this one on and off all week. I just couldn't seem to get anything that I liked. I started playing around with some shapes and made that funky looking bird like creature. In the download, not only do you get the quick page, but you also get 3 versions of said funky bird. On the original I used 3 different actions from atomic cupcake. With the birds if you can't find any use for them, you can open them up, leave the window open on your computer and maybe they'll fly away. (Oh my, that was bad, I must be tired....lol) Any way, I called this "Calm, cool and collected" because that's what the colors reminded me of.

Enough already, get to the download link right? OK here it is, download the qp right HERE

another weekend goes by

Why do the weekends have to fly by so fast? There just never seems to be enough time anymore to do all the things I should do and the things I want to do.
Wade and I walked down to the borough park this afternoon to check out the Mopar show they were having there. I didn't get too many pictures, guess I wasn't in the point and shoot mood today...lol


I started working on another "month in review" layout. I liked the way the one I did for May looked, so I thought I would do one for June. Maybe this month I'll have more pictures to put in it.


While I was at it I made a quick page for you from the LO. There are actually 3 different pieces in the download. One is a png file with the squares blank. The numbers are another piece so you can layer them on top if you want and also be able to erase any that you don't want showing on your pictures. The third piece is a jpg. the squares are white with a lowered opacity so you can do your journaling on them if you want but still see the background paper. (I don't know if any of what I just typed makes any sense or not, but you'll get the idea when you open up the files)

The download is right HERE.
Hope you all had a great weekend.

The class of 2009

Congratulations to all the new graduates from the class of 2009. Best wishes to you all.
Wade's youngest daughter graduated last night. It was your typical long graduation ceremony, but the principal gave a very amusing speech. They also had a really nice slide show presentation before handing out the diplomas.
This is something I threw together for her. I used my circle template, and a few other things I made myself. The word art at the bottom was part of a freebie from http://digivic.blogspot.com
I re sized the circle down to 4.5 inches, printed it out and then adhered it to a CD with tacky glue.

I was a little disappointed with the pictures that I took. Bad lighting, sitting too far away and maybe a bit of crappy photography, led to a whole bunch of odd colored, blurry pictures. It gave me an excuse to experiment in pse though. No sense in just throwing pictures out. You never know what you might come up with.
This is an edit I did on one of them. I made the word art in the top corner.


Then I got to thinking, some of you may have graduation pictures of your own that you'll be scrapping. I came up with a few more and have a set of 4 to give you today.



Hope some of you will find these useful. You can get them right HERE.

Bad Attitude

That's right. I have a BAD ATTITUDE!....LOL
You could say it wasn't a great morning at work. I think the straw that broke the camels back (or in this case the bakers) was when I set out to do my favorite chore of the day. Freezer work, UGH! I went in the freezer to pull things to stock the shelves and discovered wall to wall ice cream carts. These are pretty big carts and they don't maneuver real well. The owner comes walking in the freezer and said something to me (can't remember what it was) and my response was "I'm trying very hard not to say any bad words"....lol So he says, "here, I'll help you". He started to move the carts out of the freezer for me and I was standing off to the side waiting. Just as he got one cart out the freezer door, a 6-7 foot high stack of frozen bakery products came crashing down and hit me on the top of the head. I wasn't seriously injured, but I was now quite miffed. I took an unscheduled smoke break (yes I'm a smoker, so sue me...lol), ran my mouth off a little then went back to work. Then the headache started. Not a bad one but enough to be annoying and make me even more irritated. I decided right then that I was going home and someone else could do my work today. So that's what I did.

Here's a wonderful quick page that I got from http://censloft.blogspot.com/search?q= I just love her blog. She has the quick page up for a freebie, so you should stop by and grab it.


Here's my Duke. Just a pic I took of him the other day. The background is a piece of cardboard that I made. It was amazingly easy to do. Maybe I'll put it up as a tutorial for you in another post.


Now a freebie for you. At least it's here for anyone who didn't mind sifting through my chit chat to find it. (Did that sound like sarcasm?...lol) This is a small sampler kit with the things that I used to make the layout of my grandparents. It includes 1 background paper, 1 antique grunged edge, a journaling edge piece, a mask, a fern and 1 quick page.

You can grab it right HERE