random reflections

Project 64

I really need motivation to take photos on a daily basis. I've started Project 365 twice and made it to about June before I gave it up. It's much easier for me if I have a prompt of some kind, some kind of muse to keep me focused. Recently I came upon Project 64: Out of the Box which began just five weeks ago, so catching up wasn't much of a problem, although you can join the group anytime and just start where they are. Here's the explanation for the project, taken from the website.

We are calling this photographic journey Project64: Out of the Box. We are a group of 6 ladies and one official color selector (my hubby) planning on taking a 64 week journey through a box of crayons. We are hoping to take the crayons out of the box for a little inspiration in our photographic work! Each week we will be assigned a color, chosen at random from a box of 64 count crayola crayons. We will then take our color inspiration and search for it in the world around us! You'd be surprised by the colors you miss when you're not looking! The goal of the project is to challenge us creatively, making us think outside the box, and to hopefully slow down a little bit and notice the world around us! Of course accomplishing a 64 week goal is fun too!

I just happened to have a brand new box of 64 crayons in my craft closet.

Here are the first five colors for the project.

Week 1 was Yellow Green. There's not much in my house that's yellow green, but while I was holding the crayon I looked up on my bookshelf and found Bill Bryson's "Dictionary for Writers and Editors." It's almost a perfect match.

Week 2 was Carnation Pink. I've had these tulips on my table for nearly a week. Another perfect match--even though they're not carnations.

Week 3 was Chesnut. This basket holds my 8X8 pads of paper.

Last week's search was for Robin's Egg Blue. I didn't think there'd be much of that around here either, but was delighted to find some twine I just received from The Twinery that was Robin's Egg Blue.

As it turns out, I didn't need to leave my studio to find any of these colors!

This week's color is gray, and I'll post it next week when the link goes up at Project 64. One of the things I think I'll enjoy about these challenges is another chance to put the 60mm macro lens to use.

 

One Little Word--January

Rinda threw down a challenge earlier this month to create an art journal, book, or some method of keeping a record of your progress with your One Little Word. My word for 2011 is FINISH, and I am well aware that having some method of accountabilty helps me in any endeavor. Typically I made a book or a layout to document my One Little Word, but I've never done a monthly accounting. I've decided to join her, and created a tag book to record my progress.

I had a set of chipboard tags from The Paper Source that I purchased for a project that was never finished. (Hah, thus my word for 2011!) I decided this was a perfect format for this project. I painted the tags with Making Memories Manila paint, and distressed the edges with Tim Holtz Walnut Stain ink. Then I chose some papers for the project. I decided to stick with Papertrey Ink papers since their colors remain consistent from one paper collection to the next. I chose a kraft cardstock and shades of brown, kraft, & cream with a bit of green mixed in for the patterned papers.

My second decision was to utilize my stamp collection rather than letter stickers. For the cover I stamped Papertrey's Fillable Frame #9 and the word "finish" with the Fresh Alphabet. The 2011 came from Calendar Basics which I used to stamp all of the months as well as the little star detail (more about that later.) The tab and hanging tag are both from Basic Grey.

There are seven tags total. I'll journal for each month on one side. For the back of the cover I typed up a list of projects I'd like to finish this year, cut them in strips and distressed the edges. Do I think I can complete all 12 projects? Probably not, but I think the list will help keep me focused this year. You can see one star next to JYC 2010 because I have finished that project. As I complete each project, a small star will be added next to the title.

For the journaling I've decided to use Papertrey's Spiral Notebook Page die and paper from their Library Ledger collection. It seems to be just the right size, and I'm trying to streamline this project as much as possible so it doesn't become an unfinished project in the end. I also decided to change the color of my ink whenever I use the word "finish" as a way to accent the accomplishments. You can see I chose to add a comment about another activity as well as my papercraft projects.

I found the perfect spot to display the tag book---on my table under my printer's drawer that holds many of my wooden stamps. I'll see it every day and will have a visual reminder of my focus for 2011. Thanks, Rinda! I'm not sure I would have done this without your prompting, and I'm glad I did.

 

I'm linking this post to Creative Every Day.

 

Team-up Thursday: Stacked

 

"Stacked" was this week's prompt for Team-up Thursday. I am always looking for ways to practice with my new macro lens so I piled up some Honey Nut Cheerios. I'm really happy with the focus on these, but Tracy says they're ugly. So be it. I'm relatively new to manual focus so I don't care if they're ugly or not! Nancy's stacked produce is courtesy of Wegmans food markets. One of the great advantages to living in Rochester is to be in the home city of one of the best food markets in the country. It's something most of us don't take for granted. "Thank goodness for Danny," is not an uncommon remark! (Danny Wegman is the founder.)

Have a great day!

Sweet Shot Tuesday

I know it's really Wednesday, but yesterday was the Papertrey Blog Hop so I waited until today to post my Sweet Shot Tuesday photo. It's the same one I used last week for the Team-up Thurday diptych, but in color which I prefer.

Highland Park Reservoir

Papertrey January Blog Hop

As soon as I saw this month's challenge I knew I wanted to participate so, for once, these cards were done early in anticipation of today's blog hop. Here's the challenge:

With the new year comes a clean slate along with many resolutions.  This month's blog hop challenge involves you challenging yourself to use a Papertrey stamp set that has yet to see ink or even one that might be collecting a little dust!  Go through your stash and see what little used treasure it might hold.  If you are in need of inspiration for your chosen set, feel free to utilize the gallery posted in the side bar of each set's sale page on our website, or go to the Previous Countdown page on Nicole's blog where each set is organized by month of release.  2011 is the year where what's old is new again!

My January order from Papertrey arrived the morning I sat down to create for the blog hop so I got to combine some infrequently inked stamps with some brand new never-inked stamps. This first card is my favorite of the three and has gone in the mail this morning to a friend who had a hip replacement yesterday.

For this card I combined the Tea for Two Additions set with the new Mat Stack 3 collection. All other products are from Papertrey Ink as well.

The next card also combines a stamp set I purchased in December but hadn't inked up with the new Tag Sale 3 die. The sentiment and image both come from the Make a Wish set. The flower stickers are from my stash. I bought them at Michael's but have no idea who the manufacturer is. The card itself was created using the Grand Nestability Labels One die, cut, embossed, and folded in half.

The last card isn't my usual style. I love this dress form as it reminds me of my first creative endeavors as a seamstress. I started sewing when I was ten years old for the 4-H program and continued through my senior year in high school. For many, many years I made lots of clothes for myself, my husband, and the kids. Then fabric, buttons, patterns, and accessories became so expensive that it no longer made any sense. Now my sewing machine sees more papercrafting projects than anything else.

I started out with the bright and cheerful papers from Cosmo Cricket's DeLovely collection and went from there. I found that "perfect match" ribbon in my stash. The cardstock and ink are Raspberry Fizz and the stamp and sentiment are from Signature Series: Dress Form.

Well, I'm off to hop along on Nicole's blog. There's always a lot of inspiration to be had on a PIT Blog Hop!

Still here . . .

I've been busy creating a couple of projects for the Scrap-Mart blog in anticipation of the new releases at CHA this weekend. I was lucky enough to get a couple sets of the new Spellbiners Grand Nestabilities to play with and can't wait to share them with you once CHA is underway and they've been posted on the Scrap-Mart blog. I've also been busy with Kim Klassen's Photoshop the Essentials class. Like the earlier classes I've taken for free, this is wonderful. I've learned a lot in just two days of lessons even though she's been covering material I have had some experience with. It's going to take a lot of practice to make some of these skills automatic, but that's what I hope to do.

Here's a card I created for the Scrap-Mart blog and sent to my adult nephew earlier this month. I love this Tim Holtz Alterations die and had a lot of fun playing with it. I die cut multiple images in different colored and textured papers and then cut out individual houses to layer on top of the kraft base. I added a little distress ink and a metallic embossed greeting.

It was -5° this morning and just too cold to venture outside! I do have a church meeting tonight for which I am the secretary, but I'm going to reward myself with a stop at Starbuck's on the way!

The Last of Christmas

I was just visiting Melissa's blog where she has posted photos of her lovely Christmas Journal as well as some other great ideas for documenting your holiday. It reminded me that I have never posted the last of my Christmas layouts which I finished last week. I was really ready to put away all the Christmas papers and embellishments that were cluttering up my studio!

The first layout is one I did for the Scrap-Mart blog about the food styling session Matt and I had. First I arranged my photos in PSE 9. This time I didn't use a prepared template since it was easy to get all the photos into a grid myself. I used my Silhouette to cut the title as welll as the corner embellishments for the layout. I used red pearls for the berries in the corners since red paper wouldn't have shown up on the background. The layout came together so quickly. The rest of the patterned papers and the alpha are all from Girls Paperie collections.

I printed about seventy photos from our Christmas celebrations this year and wanted to get them into the 2010 album. I picked six from Christmas Day that represented some of the highlights of the day and did a two page spread.

All the papers are from Girls Paperie as well as the alpha. I used the Silhouette again to cut the gorgeous stylized tree and added silver and gold gems to it. I love that you can resize any of the images to exactly the size you need for a project. I didn't include the journaling here since both layouts are summaries of information I shared on the blog previously.

When I was in Atlanta, I made a trip to Archivers, the best scrapbook store I know. I picked up a variety of the WeRMemory Keepers Easy Scrapbook protectors. They come in a variety of sizes and make adding extra photos to your album so easy. Here are two of the six I put together. Some pages are all photos, but when I didn't have enough photos to fit the design I used some patterned papers.

Melissa shared some information about using Christmas cards. The stocking embellishment here came off a Christmas card we received two years ago.

Team-up Thursday: Black & White

Black & white was the prompt for this week. We finally had a day that got above freezing so I went for a short walk in Highland Park. There's always something interesting to shoot there, and I got a few shots to play with in Kim Kassen's "Photoshop the Essentials" class which started this week. Here is Nancy's and my shots for Black & White. Mine from the park is on the left. This is the fence that runs around a reservoir at the park. I liked the light on the horizon, and have a color version I like as much, if not better. Nancy's mailboxes give you a glimpse of the amount of snow we've had around here.

Moxie Fab Bold and Sweet Shot Tuesday

I have two challenges to share today. The first is the Moxie Fab Bright and Bold Color challenge. I'd like to get all of the color challenges completed by the end of the month if I can.Here are the colors:

And here's my card:

I had these white flowers left over from another project and decided they'd be perfect for the card. Everything is from Papertrey Ink except for the two orange buttons.

One of my goals this year is to develop a daily practice of taking photos. I'm not trying to do a Project 365 since I've failed twice at that already. I've joined Darcy's Flickr group for Project 52, and I'm planning on playing along at Darcy's Sweet Shot Tuesday when I can. Here's my favorite shot from last week. Tracy's growing some Christmas cactus under lights in the basement. When they bloom, he brings them upstairs for us to enjoy. I'm trying to learn to use my new macro lens, so this was a good subject.

 

 

Some Photography Fun and a Winner

It's rare that I post twice in one day! Tracy decided the whole downstairs of our house needs to be painted. I don't disagree, but I know it will take way longer than I want it to. He started with the china closet that is built into our dining room. He pulled all the dishes out of it, boxed up what he could and put the rest on the dining room table. I thought I should document his project. The first photo looked like this.

Then I decided to stand on his new stepladder.

And finally I thought it would be cool to take a photo of the inside of one glass. Let me just say I took many photos before I came up with this one.

I've owned these wine glasses for over 20 years and never realized that the cut glass forms hearts on the inside. I wonder how many other surprises lurk in my china closet?

The winner of the Pass the Book is:

I've sent you an email. As soon as I have your address, the book will be in the mail. Enjoy!!