random reflections

Class Reviews

I took two online classes this month focused on photography for the holidays. The first, "Picture the Holidays" by Tracey Clark, was at BPC. Every day in December an email prompt and inspiration arrives in your inbox. When I signed up for the class, I knew exactly what I’d be getting since I had taken "Picture Spring" in April. I also knew from the outset that this time, I probably would not respond to every prompt, but I thought I might get some ideas for some different photos during the holiday. As expected there are several prompts I didn’t connect to at all, and there are several still on my list to take. I was inspired to look with new eyes at the usual holiday decorations and events, and I’m very pleased with some of the shots. Taking the pressure off myself not to participate daily made this class much more enjoyable. Tracey's classes are a great way to jump start your photography if you're in a slump or looking to try something new. Here are three of my favorite shots with their prompts.

"Warm Glow"

"Sincerely Yours"

"The Day After"

I signed up for the second class on the spur of the moment, and I am so glad I did. Katrina Kennedy’s “Capture the Holidays” through Get It Scrapped included seven lessons and two videos. This is the second class I’ve taken with Katrina, and I’ve learned a lot from both of them. Each lesson focused on one aspect of taking holiday photos:  Lights, the Tree, Ornaments, Presents, Food, Outside (decorations and lights), and Morning (preparing for Christmas morning shots.) The pdf lessons (about 7 pages in length) provide technical settings for your dSLR, settings to try if you’re shooting with a point and shoot camera, and ideas to improve your composition. I found the technical information extremely helpful. Katrina provided the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO for a variety of shots. Starting with her settings, it was easy to adjust them for my particular situation. Her suggestions about using flash on Christmas were invaluable. (See the previous post.) Katrina sells some very helpful e-books at Designer Digitals. The one I like the best is “Get Me Off Auto.” I can also highly recommend her course “Through the Lens.” Earlier I posted a series of food shots I did after reading the lesson on food. Here's one more food shot from this course.

Cranberry Cheesecake

Christmas Recap

Our family was four short this Christmas. Sarah and Adam were in California, our neice, Grace, is traveling through Europe after a semester studying in Florence, and Toby was ill. We missed all of them, but had the added pleasure this year of having Greg's friend, Sonora, and Jasmine's friend, Hollis, with us.

Thanks to some great information from an online course I took this month, I got out my Speedlite and did some practice shots before Christmas night. Our house is incredibly dark, even in the daytime, and I'm never happy with overly bright shots with on-camera flash. Without flash, the photos are too grainy. The Speedlite was great. The flash bounces off the ceiling so no one is getting the bright flash in their eyes (and people are less apt to recognize their photos are being taken), and the color was quite good. So here's a look in photos of our Christmas.

Our living room before it all began. Tracy, Matt, and I didn't get home from church until well after midnight, so we had a late start. Even though there were just three of us in the morning, we took our time and enjoyed watching each other open gifts. My big surprise was receiving the DVD set for the complete West Wing series. It was my favorite show and went on for seven seasons. It will take me the better part of the year to get through them. I've seen the first eight episodes this week as I worked on my Christmas Journal and other projects. I'm enjoying them as much the second time as I did the first. I've never been a big fan of DVDs, but I was delighted to get these.

At four o'clock the family arrived. Even with the absences we were 18 strong. I get a lot of help with the dinner preparations as everyone contributes their specialty. The menu varies very little from year to year.

We always have just a few more than we can seat in the dining room. Tracy was busy helping Randy pass the heavy (and hot) dishes before they sat down to eat.

For years we've opened gifts in the same order: youngest first, and everyone watches and admires the gifts. The older adults exchange names and the younger adults exchange names as well. Now that we're all adults there's some confusion at times at who is next to open gifts! This year we ranged in age from 17 to 89!

For the last several years, a highlight of Christmas has been the Walker family band. This year Hollis joined with his flute, and Sonora joined in with the drums. Off and on through the evening, different groups of people would sit down with instruments and start to play. It's a talented family!

At one point it was just drums, and wonderful! The drum on the left is Matt's. Sarah brought it back to him when she came home from a summer in New Mexico. We all agreed it has the best sound.

One of Tracy's brothers lives in Phoenix. He has three beautiful daughters and several grandchildren. This year we got to visit with them and share our celebrations through the wonders of Skype.

I don't imagine it's very likely that the WHOLE family will ever manage to be present at Christmas. We are scattered across the country (and this year, in Europe, as well), but we take joy in the times we are together and certainly are grateful for the many ways technology lets us share with one another.

Many Thanks!

As most of us do, I have need for thank you notes after the holidays. Yesterday I got busy and made a set of cards to send. I recently acquired a lovely new set of stamps from Papertrey Ink called Love Lives Here. I used two of the images on this card, but another one--the heart in hand, which has always been a favorite of mine--was the one that really called to me. I'm sure you'll see it soon.

I didn't have the right color tags so I took some standard Avery tags and distressed them with Walnut Stain. I love the waly they came out. The patterned papers were all from my scrap drawer. The beautiful flourish is one of my favorite stamps--from Vintage Labels (Papertrey).

I didn't think this card was really appropriate for my brother-in-law who drew my name in the gift exchange this year. He gave me a year's membership to the George Eastman House and I'm thrilled! Better yet, he made it a couples' membership so Tracy and I can go together. This card is almost a total copy of one Cristina posted on her blog. I used the scrap drawer again and you'll see the same Martha Stewart twine as in the card above. The sentiment is from Waltzing Mouse.

Earlier this month I was responsible for sending thank you notes to two manufacturers who sponsered the Scrap-Mart Blog Hop. I wanted to be sure to use their products when making the cards. It was easy to do since the first one was Spellbinders and I never go more than a week without using one or more of their products.

I think this snowflake die was my very first Spellbinder die. I saw it on Debbie Olsen's blog and just had to have it. The card is a shimmery blue. One of the local shop owners told me that it's made by Bazzil. The patterned paper is from the 6X6 Eskimo Kisses pad by Basic Grey. I die cut the snowflake from the same shimmery paper and then added glitter to both it and the brad. It's placed on another Spellbinder label die the Scrap-Mart exclusive Oval/Square which turns out to be just the right shape time and time again. The beautiful ribbon is from Paper Source.

The last card went to Silhouette America. I purchased a Silhouette SD in November but didn't have a chance to work with it until earlier this month. This was my first project and I knew immediately that I would enjoy having this addition to my tool set. I love that it connects to my computer, doesn't require cartridges, and will cut any True Type font that is on my computer. I'm working my way through the tutorials on the website, and you'll be seeing a lot more from the Silhouette once I understand everything it can do.

This was so easy. I ran the paper through the machine, backed the snowflake with shimmery cardstock, cut out a Spellbinders tag and embossed the sentiment (from Impress) with gold, and it was done.

Christmas Treats

I took two photography courses this month and will review them at the end of the week. One class was more technical and the other provided creative prompts. Both, however, encouraged taking photos of home-baked sweets. I knew I needed to take cookie photos for Sarah's Christmas Cookie album, so I decided to try a little food styling.

We give multiple cookie trays to neighbors and friends each year. Here's a photo of one of the trays and the tags I made using Paptertrey Ink's Everyday Treats set.

Just as I was setting up to take some photos, Matt showed up and got interested in the project. By the time we finished the kitchen looked like a tornado had hit it, but we had a great time. Here are a few of our photos.

Gingerbread Snowflakes

Lemon Drops

Magic Bars

Double Mint Chocolate Chip

Snowballs (Russian Tea Cakes)

Sugar Cookies (always decorated by Dad)

Thumbprints

White Chocolate Crunch

I hope you had time to relax for a day or two after the holidays. I've enjoyed being totally laid back with no where to go and nothing in particular to do for a few days.

Merry Christmas!

I hope your day is filled with good times, much laughter, and love of family! Enjoy it all!

A Wreath for All Seasons . . . and All Occasions

I love a versatile stamp set and Papertrey's A Wreath for All Seasons fits the bill. I needed two birthday cards for friends whose birthdays are the end of this month. Although the recipients are over thirty years apart in age I think the card works for both of them.

Cardstock:  Rustic White (Papertrey); Patterned paper: Memory Box; Stamps: A Wreath for All Seasons and Birthday Bash Sentiments (Papertrey); Red Pearls (A Muse Creative Candy); Distress inks (Tim Holtz)

The To-Do list is being whittled down. The last of the Christmas cards went in the mail this morning on our way to church, and most of the cookies are baked and ready to be put on the cookie trays to be delivered on Wednesday and Thursday. I still need to wrap gifts, and finish making four gifts.  Then I'm in pretty good shape.

We worshiped today in our renovated/restored sanctuary for the first time since February. I have deliberately not gone on any of the construction tours and was simply awed by the beautiful work. Our church was already beautiful, but old, and in need of handicap access, improved choir space, and a new kitchen. Although it will be March before everything is complete for the most part, we are home. I wish I had photos to share. Perhaps I can get some from our church website or link you to them once they've been posted. It was quite a day of celebration.

Hope you are doing well with holiday preparations as well!

One Card, Two Occasions

I recently got the new Papertrey Ink Banner Builder stamp set. I 'm quite sure it will be a favorite. I needed a birthday card and a congratulations card and the same design worked quite well for both. These stamps are a lot of fun to use, and I see many possibilities for them.

After creating a card base from Hawaiian Shores cardstock, I inked up the pennant stamps with Brilliance Inks which have a bit of sheen to them to start with. Then I used the Sakura Gelly Roll glitter pen to edge the card as well as the top of each pennent. The sentiment stamps are Signature Greetings and Birthday Bash Sentiments, both by Papertrey Ink.

Spellbinders Card

The next few days are busy with lots of appointments and a huge To-Do list. I'm so far behind with blog reading it's hard to imagine trying to catch up. Tomorrow I have a long car appointment to replace a noisy windshield motor. The dealer has free Wi-Fi so I'm hoping to get an hour or so to browse again.

Here's a card we made at the last class I took at Buffalo Stamps and Stuff. The way the class was described, I was expecting a technique class with Spellbinder dies. Since I love them so much, I was anxious to find some new ways to use them. Sadly, the class was not billed correctly at all. We made two cards (one will show up here later, but it's on its way to someone who reads this blog). All the die cutting had been done for the participants ahead of time, which was fine as it was nothing unusual. All in all, a disappointing class, especially since part of our ride home was on rather treacherous roadways.

Although I liked the cards, they were quite time-consuming, and certainly not anything you could reproduce in mulitples. It's hard to see in the photo, but after we distressed each leaf and put the wreath together it was misted with a lovely sparkling gold mist. The green card is what opens for the inside message. Also hard to see in the photograph is the frame behind the green card which is a Spellbinders die cut into four pieces. It's a beautiful brown shimmery cardstock.

Picture the Holidays

I guess it's not surprising, but I'm finding it hard to keep up with daily projects right now. I'm working away at the To Do list and realize that Christmas is just ten days away! I'm remarkably calm about it all, which is a bit of a surprise to me. I've been keeping a list of the prompts for Picture the Holidays and as I can, taking photos for them. Here are a few:

December 3:  All You Need is Love

December 5:  The View From Here (We've had record snow for December.)

December 6:  Every Little Thing (This prompt was about capturing little details that you might miss. This little wooden Santa sits on the window sill in our bedroom. I was struck by the silhouette he made.)

December 9: It's a Sign

December 10:  Twinkle, Twinkle

December 13:  Simply Divine (And a reminder about the true meaning of Christmas.)

 

CASE Study #18

I needed to get several cards made for upcoming birthdays and decided I'd try the CASE Study challenge again for one of them. Frankly, I found this one very challenging. The two circles really caused me pause, and perhaps I should have gone with other elements of the card to case. Nonetheless, here is the card to case:

You don't really have to case the layout, but that's what I chose to do. I'm not unhappy with the result, but it isn't one of my favorites. I tried a lot of different things, paper flowers, felt flowers . . . but couldn't seem to come up with anything that seemed to be balanced until I went with stamped images.

Cardstock: Pure Poppy (Papertrey); Patterned paper and cardstock border stickers: Circa 1934 (Cosmo Cricket); Stamps: Giga Guidelines, Guidelines two, Round and About Sentiments (Papertrey); Circle punches, plain and scalloped, ribbon (Michaels)