Not topless but laptopless

The poor thing is either very sick or terminally ill. Anyway, with the school midterm break and sometime to find out if can be fixed and have it fixed or buy a new one, it will be 2 to 3 weeks, plus a week to reinstall all everything.

I'll be browsing and checking the forum, but won't be posting anything in the blogs in the meantime. Maybe a blessing in disguise to let me pursue the creative activities which don't need a computer. Sigh...

See you in a few weeks.

No Name LO

This layout's been in my desk for a couple of weeks. It started with a title in stickers - which i hated - I then tried a combination of amhandwritten & handcut word and another set of stickers. Didn't work either. I considered having all the title handcut but by then the patterned paper had disappeared, so I gave up.

Not all layouts need a title.

It is about my son's progress in this first bike.

12.08: Got a bike from Santa. Could not pedal, but looked cute on it. 01.09-04.09 : Bike just stood there. 05.09: Started pedalling in a really odd way, as he only put pressure on the right foot. 06.09: Got the hang of it. 07.09: Went cycling all the way to Gran gran. Slow. 09.09: Cannot keep up with him anymore. Too fast.

* Patterned Paper: Making Memories (script) and Studio Calico (trees)
* Chipboard turns: Maya Road
* Bycicle Paper: Studio Calico
* Big brads: American Crafts

Finally a LO!

I really missed working on a layout. I think this is the first one I have finished this month. I've been doing bits and pieces of crafty stuff, but this is the first paper LO in quite a while. And I enjoying doing this.
This is the my August 09 summary. It is based on a challenge @ Studio Calico - to get inspiration from a favourite catalog or magazine.

Here's my layout:


* Patterned paper: Studio Calico
* Digital pattern: Photogenic by Paislee Press & Audacious Designs @ Oscraps.com (on top left paper)
* Fonts: Marketing Script, VT Portable Remington
* Other: pearls, masking tape

and here's my inspiration:


* Anthropologie website

Too much sleep, not enough craft

A good night sleep might be good news for most, but for me feeling sleepy greatly impairs my crafting. I only get to do something when the kids are in bed and I get the last day chores dones. And my emails/forums checked, of course.

This week I only made 3 cards, and 2.5 layouts. And not even one of the weekly tasks I assigned mysef only last week. Ah... well...

One of the layouts was a digital one. Usually I end up working a way to print it and add some papers and embellishments, I can't figure out a good way to do this one, so it will remain only digi. I might clean it up and have it printed sometimes.



* Fonts: Impact, GF Halda Normal
* Brushes: Design Fruit

It says:
"She loves the camera and the camera loves her."

I used PSP, I am not sure it there's a way to do hollow letters in PSE.

Grateful

I'm a born pessimist, a glass half-empty sort of person, sometimes I have to remind myself how lucky I am and that I should be grateful for my blessing, specially my family.

This layout does triple duty, as it is also my PaperPlay entry for this week, and another fun project for my "to-do" list - I used gesso and acrylic over a b&w paper, to tone it down a bit.



*Patterned Paper: Teresa Collins
*Other: gesso, pink acrylic paint, cardstock, bit shot die-cuts and buttons.

Lifebooks, lists and manga - another long winded post

Did I ever tell you about how I started scrapbooking?

When adopting Lucy (and Luke) we were told how important was to write a lifebook for them. A lifebook is the story of the child, from birth. It is a great thing for every child, adopted or not, to have a book to tell their story, but even more important from a child who's been adopted or in foster care. It is a way to provide information about their origins, understand the circunstances that led them to an adoptive or foster family.

While trying to write it, I found this book by Beth O'Malley, which helped enormously with the topics it should cover and the wording. But on the design side, I was on my own, and I wasn't pleased with it.

While trying to find out some hints on how to improve it, I stumbled across the word "scrapbooking" and a whole world opened to me. I started me into digital scrapbooking. Eventually I finished the lifebook for my daughter and jumped into paper scrapbooking and the rest is history.

But the story if not finished. While I slowly managed to scrap their little (and big) current stories, the lifebook remained untouched. And while I have a few pages for my son's book, it never got even printed.

Because I got into scrapbooking, mini albums, photography, cards, craft forum, blog hopping, etc. Besides my daughter loves to look at her earlier photos, but never had much interest in her lifebook. So why bother when there are much more interest things to do? And not enough time?

But the thing is, now that I know my audience, I probably can rewrite the book and make it more appealing to them. By adding much much more photos. Oh how the love to look at photos of their cute selves when they were babies! And how their love the stories of what made them happy or laugh or cry.

So I decided for the n'th time to finish/rewrite their lifebooks. But I didn't want my whole craft time taken over by this task - I still wanted to scrap, edit my photos, read blogs, etc etc. So I came up with a list.

With things I should do daily, weekly and monthly.

For example:
each day:
a card (OK, maybe each other day, or each 3 days... :-) )
each week:
a page each of the children's lifebook
a page of my childhood memories book
my paperplay challenge entry
each month:
a month summary
a couple of fun, do-not-worry-if-it-is-going-to-be-a-disaster, project.

It might look a bit like the scrap time is going to like a job, with goals and timetable, but for someone like me that is disorganised and slow, it is probably the best way to accomplish what I want long term, while still leaving time to pursue this scrapbooking hobby of mine.

I will also nurture my creative by just trying to do something without worrying too much about the outcome. Like painting, stitching, origami, or anything I fancy at the time.

I was lucky this week, because the fun project turned out to be the one for the PaperPlay Challenge, check it out tomorrow (1st October).

And today I made another one, inspired by Lily. She made a manga inspired card.

I spent good part of my childhood drawing pictures, and lots inspired in the mangas lying around the house, which I couldn't quite read - Japanese is complicated it has 2 alphabets plus a symbol based writing. But I loved the drawings which were elaborate, and full of girls, flowers, stars and beautiful dresses. Looking at Lily's card brought back memories and I decided to draw a manga inspired girl. But boy, am I rusty! After a half-dozen attempts I decided to use a photo of my daughter and draw her manga-style.

Since I don't own any copics, I went the digital way and scanned it, coloured and added some ready made embellishments.


* Drawing: my own
* Heart background paper: Shabby Princess
* Floral brush: Fresh Foliage by Design Fruit

What am I going to do with it?
Probably nothing, apart from posting it here.
But that's the fun of a fun project.

TFL!

By the way, she's way cutter IRL, see here, fourth photo, right-hand side.

Height Chart

Besides the regular measurements at the doctor's (which I don't put much faith), we used to measure and record our children's heights on a certain bedroom wall.

Now, this bedroom is going to be my son's bedroom and the wall was repainted. Before that, I took a photo of the height chart and wrote down the heights and weights and the respective dates.

I am slightly disappointed with this LO, I was happy with the idea of printing all the dates & measurements directly on the cardstock and the design and photos are OK, but I think the colour combination is a bit wishy-washy, it lacks a certain punch...


*Patterned Paper: Archaic, Basic Grey
* Chipboard Letters: Fetching, Pink Paislee
* Journaling Paper: Collage Press (I think)