POTD - Textures

DD and I were just leaving the ballfield and they started letting off fireworks and I just so happened to have my camera with me! I've never tried this before but I remember reading about how to shoot them. Unfortunately, I didn't have a tripod with me so I did have to hand hold these. Some have noticeable camera shake and others aren't so noticeable. This was actually pretty fun to do and I can't wait to try this again!

Do you see any camera shake in these two?

I love the reds in this one!

Here is DD watching the fireworks through the sunroof of my car.
Here is one you can definitely see the camera shake.
I like that you can see the smoke in this one. I took a ton of these but only looked at the finale ones so far. Let me know what you think. Looking for any cc you want to give!

POTD - Texture

Here's my first texture post. . . dirt. It was getting dark out. I wish I could have laid on the ground and got this shot but the game was still going on, maybe next time LOL!

POTD - Scrapbooking

I made this mini-file album to showcase some photos of DD's first Ice Show. The theme was Candyland and she was a lollipop. Loved their costumes. . .they all were so cute out there on the ice and their song was the obvious - The Good Ship Lollipop. I used all Doodlebug paper and the usual elements. . .ribbon, brads, rub-ons, etc. I'm a big tag freak too. I used tags to tuck in behind the photos for the journaling.

Here she's getting her makeup done.
She felt so special when she got flowers after her performance too. Can you believe it, I actually had someone take our picture together. That doesn't happen very often. Something I really need to start doing more often.

One of the best parts for the little girls is getting the big girls to autograph their program. They look up to them and one day they will be the big dogs giving out their autographs!

These photos aren't great but it was the best my film camera could do in the dark.

This is one of the best things about scrapbooking and the whole purpose. Looking back through them. I can't believe how grown up my DD looks now compared to these photos. This was 3 years ago and she's already had her 3rd show. She'll start in September this year and is no longer a basic skills skater. She's on her own to get her ice time and practice with her pro during private lessons. Going to cost me a mint from now on!

POTD - Scrapbooking

I had stated before I taught at our local scrapbook store and I made these layouts for my classes. Some were to show how to use the item we made or like this first one we actually made the layout. Obviously my photography is much to be desired here. Tough taking shots of layouts and getting them to look halfway decent.

This one is using foam board to raise the top cardstock layers to give a shadow box effect. This is a great technique for real lumpy bumpy items like the glass stones you see here. I also used liquid beadz which weren't very popular at our store, but I really liked this embellishment. This is a Heidi Swapp technique, gotta lover her stuff! I'm all about lumpy bumpy and lots of embellishments. I tend to try to start out doing a layout and having a simple clean layout and end up overloaded. I guess that's just my style :)

This was a layout I came up with to push the zippers that we had an overabudance of. I cut all my own chipboard letters and used Basic Grey paper to cover them. Then I used UTEE to give them the gloss, which you can't see in this photo. My 2 scrapping buddies convinced me to put this layout in the CK Buffalo Layout Contest. Which I did and of course like I told them, I wasn't going to win and didn't :( They are always busting my chops calling me Becky. "Oh let's see what Becky's got new this time LOL!" I love Becky Higgins but like I said I try to go clean and fresh and end up more like Heidi Swapp, who I love as well.

This layout was produced for my borders class. Very simple - 3 coordinating papers, some ribbon and a few silk flowers w/brads.

Ooooh, my 2 babies!! I love this layout and the photos! The photos weren't the best, I only had a digital point and shoot and had total demonic dog eyes, but these are the last few I got of the 2 best friends before Jessie had to go to doggie heaven. I made this layout after she was gone and I think I cried the whole time I put it together. Can you imagine? It takes me hours to put a layout together LOL!

Had trouble getting the whole layout in the picture. I was using my 50mm. I put this layout together for my slide mount class. By using slide mounts you can make shaker boxes and that's what we did in the class, made the snowman. Isn't he cute?! This is one of my favorite layouts of DD making a snowman all by herself! She even ran next door (to grandma's house) to get a carrot for the nose because we were all out! Gosh she's 4 in these and she will be 9 soon. Told you I'm way behind! This photo really doesn't do justice here.

Finally done! Probably bored everyone to death with this long drawn out post!

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to comment on my post yesterday, love reading all of them.

POTD - Scrapbooking

I went to CK Buffalo in June of 2006 and took quite a few classes. Needless to say not one of these projects has been completed. I will finish them eventually but like I stated before I haven't been scrapping at all.

So here's a few of the projects I made. This first one is a canvas accordian album. These photos do not do justice for this album. It all canvas texture and this was the first time I used the catseye chalks and I really liked them a lot. So pretty and love the pinks and browns together too.

This is the album opened up. The top and bottom of the book is canvas and the rest is all patterned paper. Eventually I'll pick out my photos and get it done.
This was one of my favorite classes to take. It's a board book. You glue the paper on the page and then cut it with an exacto around the whole page. Then you sand off the edges. You repeat that step until the pages are covered. Then we used book binder tape for the binder, you could also use that medical tape and paint it.
I was prepared photo wise for this class and had brought my photos to use and got them in the book but no journalling. Another I'll have to get done! I really liked this idea. This book was completely white. I couldn't find these anywhere at the convention. So when I got home I made a trip to the dollar store and bought a bunch of the kids board books. I painted next to the binders on each page with white paint and it was just as good! Made my mom one about the 4 grandchildren and she loved it.

This was my only make n' take I did. It's a tag brag book. Very cute and easy to make. I can't remember the exact technique but I remember we used a flat iron, wax paper to get the rubber stamp inked into that angel hair stuff and it adhered it to the album. Sorry it was more than a year ago and I can't remember the exact technique. I do remember buying the angel hair stuff for my pages to use as snow, etc. it's really pretty stuff.

This was the Junk It Up class I took which was taught by Erin Lincoln. Got my picture taken with her. She's pretty funny. We used all kinds of elements. Adirondack ink on Heidi Swapp ghost shapes, paint, texture paste, ribbon, etc. Very messy class but pretty cool.

POTD - Scrapbooking

First I want to thank everyone for your comments regarding DD's award. She is very proud and so am I! You can't even imagine how happy I was for her. It's pretty tough during the school year and there is nobody happier than me when summer break comes around LOL! I need a break by then and I hire a tutor for the summer just to keep her fresh with what she has learned through the year.

Ok, so here I am finally on theme. This is a rolodex album and I believe this was my last project I taught at the scrapbook store before I quit. I haven't really scrapped since I stopped teaching at the store, so needless to say this album is still empty. Eventually I'll get the inspiration to scrap again and I'll complete it. For classes you pretty much have to have something everyone can use so I usually went with the family theme. There are sub-heading cards and the rest you use for your photos. Yes, I love embellishments! Any kind - silk flowers, ribbon, paper clips, brads, you name it I pretty much will use it.

POTD - 6/20/07

Like I said the last week of school there are lots of festivities happening. Today was the awards ceremony. This is DD first teacher's award! I didn't tell her so she would be surprised. Unfortunately, DD struggles every year to get through each grade. So this was a great success for her. She has low frequency hearing loss in both ears, which contributes to her problems and she also will be getting tested this summer for dyslexia. I am so proud of her for getting this award! Had to blur the faces on the other kids, but the one non-blurred face is my niece, so I can post her. My niece broke her arm during our Memorial Day picnic. She collided with DD on bikes and flipped over DD and landed on her arm. She's about due to get the brace off.

These have to be some of the worst photos I've taken in quite a while. The lighting wasn't great, people everywhere and for some reason they turned out blue/cold looking. But at least I have a few photos for her scrapbook if I ever get that far. I promise I will have some scrapbook stuff this week!

POTD - 6/19/07

Today was Track Day at School. It's the last week and there are a lot of fun things going on. Each class competes against the others and everything is tallied up as a whole to see which class wins. DD's class got third this year and she was seriously disappointed. Sorry, she gets that from me I'm very competitive. They get to play on the playground for a while too while they wait for the ribbon ceremony. Yah, I'm backwards today I have the end of the day first. LOL! I love how this turned out. This is DD's 3rd grade teacher and she was awesome! She was definitely the type of teacher "S" needed. She was a lot of fun, she participated with the kids, she had a structured class, could be sensitive and also crack the whip when needed LOL! I tried the baby blues action on this and I actually like it, do you?

This is the relay race unfortunately the baton was dropped during the hand off but she made up for it because she's pretty fast.

She's got a great arm too, yup takes after her momma!
I was disappointed when I saw that this one was blurry. I seriously fought with the sun all day. It was almost 90 out and the sun was full bore. I tried everything, the f/16 sunny rule didn't work. So I kept trying to wing it. I had blurry photos, overexposed, underexposed. I was trying to keep the SS up for the action but sometimes it was impossible.

I did manage to get her best-friend's photo though without it being blurry.

Banner issues. . .

this is my first time making a banner and I really struggled with it. I resized it over and over and it's still huge and stretched. Can you give me a few tips on doing this the correct way!? I am also wondering about the Blog title. It wouldn't let me post without having something in the title, but I put my title on my banner when I made it. So I just put a C on there and changed the color to white. What do you do with that? Now my blog title is "C". How do you keep you title but not have it plain through blogger, not sure if there is a place in customize that you can change the title font and color or I would just do it that way.

The instructions I have say to have the banner sized to 800 x 200 pixels. This one is 600 x 200 I believe and it's still huge. Also wondering how do I get the border all the way around the photo as well.

Hope I didn't confuse anyone I tend to make my questions harder than they really are! Hope someone can help. Also want to thank everyone for all your comments for the last few months, this is so much fun!

POTD - 6/13/07

No fire shots today, just more of our beach trip. Although my legs felt like they were on fire when we left. Got a little too much sun watching DD swim. This beach has an amusement park and DD was dying to try out the bumper boats. Unfortunately, there was only one other boat to bump with, but she enjoyed it anyway. Here's a few of them bumping.

I just had to post this shot I got of the tourists LOL! I have no idea why they were both turned looking at me. The little boy giggled the whole time! He loved it! So DH see's this one and gives me the why look? So I said I was the decoy, well I'm keeping them occupied, "S" can sneak attack (sorry just my competitive nature) LOL! I actually like that you can see her in the background heading their way.

POTD - Fire

This is our first cookout of the summer. DH must have been rusty with the grill because he had the whole thing on fire! By time I got over there with the camera, there were only a few flames left (down in the corner). Notice the spray bottle, can't waste the Coors Light on those flames!

The smoke is starting to clear out here.
A little better here, you can see some of the burgers that caused the fire.

POTD - Fire

I took these in anticipation of this weeks them. We had a cookout and we promised the kids s'mores but because it was going to storm we couldn't build a fire. So we used the next best thing - the grill! We made s'mores with reese peanut butter cups and twix and the kids loved them.

I had my aperture opened too much for this shot and I ended up with an out of focus flaming marshmallow. . .ugh!
DD blowing out the flame not a great shot but I had too many distractions all around.

The final result - a fried marshmallow!

POTD - 6/10/07

I've been in a slight slump this week and haven't really participated in POTD this week. My step-son plays in volleyball tournaments all summer and had told me he was playing at the beach this weekend. I figured it was a perfect opportunity to put the camera back in my hands and some fun for DD at the beach.

Gosh, I seriously hate that darn tattoo, but he thinks its great! Wish this one was sharper, but I guess it's trial and error.

These next few prove that white balance really matters. It was really sunny, then it would go cloudy so I was trying different settings. This was was set on shade (because I'm not fond of the cloudy setting - they look too cool). I don't really like the coloring though and can't figure out how to fix it.

This was set for cloudy and it's cooler, but I think the coloring is better.
Here's one of his partner. Another shade white balance setting. I usually like the warmer looking photos but they aren't as appealing for these shots I don't think.