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Team-up Thursday: Morning

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This week's prompt was "morning" and I knew what I wanted to do, but it was a struggle. I ended up with three versions of my photo but settled on the one with the texture from Kim Klassen. I'm still trying to perfect this technique. It was taking so long, I finally had to just quit and live with it.

MorningDiptych
My breakfast on the left; Nancy's take-out window on the right.

It's taking a couple of days to get readjusted after all the traveling I've been doing. There have been lots of appointments, unpacking, jet lag to overcome, and serious efforts at organizing for moving my office/studio. I have another post to do after dinner but wanted to be sure this post was up–late as it is.

Cards for Scrap-Mart

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Before I left for CHA I made some cards to take with me. Laura and Howard wanted cards they could display in the Scrap-Mart booths. They particularly wanted cards that used Nestabilities so most of these do.

HeyThereLabel8
Cardstock: Pure Poppy, True Black & Kraft (PTI); clear stamp: Unity; Nestability Labels Eight (Spellbinders); Flower embellishment made with Jenni Bowlin papers; ribbon from stash

QuoteLabel2
Cardstock: Raspberry Fizz (PTI) & Solar White (Neeah); stamps: Vintage Label Two (Waltzing Mouse) & Unity; patterned paper: Flutter (Making Memories); Nestability Label Two (Spellbinders);Felt flower from PTI felt and Beautiful Blooms die, gem from stash

ThanksLabel4
Cardstock: Ripe Avocado (PTI); patterned paper: Flutter (Making Memories), ribbon (Paper Source), gems (Hero Arts), Nestability Label Four (Spellbinders), stamp (Jillibean)

CelebrateYourDay
Cardstock: Pure Poppy (PTI); stamps: Unity and Signature Greetings (PTI); patterned paper: October Afternoon; buttons from stash

And my favorite of the bunch:

SmileLabel1
Cardstock: Rustic Cream (PTI); stamps (Just Rite) & library card (PTI); patterned papers: October Afternoon, Nestability Label One (Spellbinders), Scalloped punch (EK Success); buttons (Sassafrass Lass)

CHA Consumer Super Show

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The CHA trade show started on Monday and went through Thursday. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday there. Cruising the show as Howard and Laura met with the manufacturers to decided what they will order was truly an education on what it takes to produce and create the products that we all love seeing hit the  scrapbook stores. On Thursday Howard, Deb, and I set up the Scrap-Mart booth for the CHA Consumer Super Show. I think the last time I worked this hard was the day we moved into our current house about 25 years ago. 

We started by unloading Howard's truck. It was packed solid from floor to roof, and that was just a small portion of the product that was delivered to the booth.

Truckw

It took almost 11 hours to go from this:

EmptyBoothw
To this:

SMsetupw 

And it still wasn't quite done when I snapped this shot. Scrap-Mart carries a wide range of products. Deb and I unpacked, checked off, priced, and hung the new Making Memories display of Vintage Jewelry.

VintageFindingsw

This shot shows the Spellbinders display. Beyond that is a wall of Just-Rite, then Making Memory Slice, Eclipse machines and supplies, Xyron machines and supplies, the Vintage Findings display, American Crafts papers, Thickers, and embellishments, then Copic and Triart markers, as well as the Cuttlebug and Cuttlebug products. Tables held piles of American Craft cardstock.

SMSetup5

I had seen a Scrap-Mart booth twice before—once in Buffalo where I first discovered Scrap-Mart and then in March in Pleasanton, CA when I first met Howard and Laura, the owners. I remember being overwhelmed in March by the amount of product, but never gave much thought to how it got set up. Now I know. On Friday and Saturday we manned the booth. Friday was incredibly busy and we never sat down from the time we arrived at the convention center about 9:00 am to finish pricing and setting up, to noon when the show opened and to 8:00 that night when the show ended for the day.

Saturday wasn't quite as busy so I was able to visit the Papertrey Ink booth, pick up some stamps and supplies, and do a Make & Take with Dawn McVey.

PapertreyM&Tw

DawnMcVeyw

This is a view down the aisle at the Super Show. It was really fortunate for my budget that I didn't have time to shop any of the other booths.

SuperShoww

It was a great show, and despite the hard work, I had a great time. I was really tired by the time I got home, so I have to admit it's been very nice to be here at Sarah's this week where I can just hang out and relax.


 

Photo Cards

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Right before I left for Chicago, I needed to create some photo cards. A few weeks prior, I had picked up some Museum Parchment inkjet paper for just such a project. I'm very happy with the way they came out. I love the texture of the Museum Parchment paper. I've had the embossed photo cards for years and have no idea where I got them or who manufactured them. I wish I knew because I'd like to purchase some more.

Magnolia1 


Magnolia2
 

Magnolia3

These were all taken this spring in Highland Park where there is a lovely collection of magnolia trees.

Team-up Thursday: Up

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For the first time Nancy and my photographs really couldn't be fit into a diptych so I made a little canvas for them. The top one is mine and was taken on our boat before I left for Chicago. I'm not sure where Nancy found this beautiful umbrella.

Up

CHA: Part 2

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There were lots of things I liked about attending CHA:  seeing new product, spotting folks I know through the internet, looking at fabulous sample layouts and cards, getting demos of new products, doing make & takes, and looking at the wonderful booth designs. I left my make & takes at home when I came to California so I'll have to save those for a later post. I'll also have another post about the CHA Consumer Super Show.

Here are some of the things I liked at CHA:

The display and the product for 7Gypsies Conservatory Collection:

7GypsiesCollage 

7GypsiesConservatory

7GypsiesSamples

I did a great make & take at the Teresa Collins booth. Here new collections—Freestyle, Celebrate, and Noel–are at the top of my wish list for the fall. Strangely enough I only took photos of the stamps for two of the sets. If you click on the link it will take you to one of her blog posts that shows the papers. I loved the papers, the tags, the transparencies, the stamps . . . the whole package!

CelebrateStamps

FreestyleStamps

It was fun to watch everyone crowd around Tim Holtz at the Ranger booth.

TimHoltz1w

This was a display at the Ranger booth. There were so many great vintage items displayed with the new products.

TimHoltzDisplayw 

I liked this one at Little Yellow Bicycle that highlighted their new Savor line.

SavorDisplayw 

LYBSavor 

The Doodlebug booth was about as cute as any at the show, and their products exude cuteness too!

DoodlebugBooth 

DoodlebugSamples

We got an amazing demo at the Sizzix booth on how to cut folded papers into fabulous shapes using their dies.

SizzixFolds

Fold&Cut2

Fold&Cut1 

Just-Rite Stamps had shelf after shelf of beautiful samples. I came home with an Autumn Blessings set I can't wait to ink up.

JustRiteSamples 

I did a Make & Take at Hero Arts with Sheri Carroll; so much fun to "meet" the folks you "see" on blogs week after week.

HAMake&Take 

Here are a couple stamps sets I particularly liked from their new designs.

HAStamps1w 

HAStamps2

Studio Calico has some great new products coming out. I've already pre-ordered some of their new mists including a white opaque one. These rub-ons go on like butter. I did a make & take here as well.

SCRubons 

Some of my favorite samples were at the Girls Paperie booth. I wasn't alone; it was really hard to get close enough to take a photo.

Tinsel&Twig
This layout is one by Karen Grunberg:

GruneburgLO 

There was so much to see and take in that it can be overwhelming. Everyone was talking about how small this show was compared to the winter show. It was plenty big for me, and certainly was not a disappointment!

Happy Birthday, Sarah!

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I got home from CHA and the CHA Super Show late Saturday night. On Sunday, I decided to fly out to California to spend a week with Sarah. Adam is off on a mission trip, and Sarah wasn't feeling well enough to go, so Tracy suggested I come. You didn't have to ask me twice. I arrived yesterday. Both of us are delighted, and it was great to be here for her 30th birthday today.

She got her "big" gift when we were here in March—plants and pots for a garden which is doing quite nicely. She has tomatoes, beans, strawberries, basil, peppers, zucchini, and some other herbs and flowers. Before I knew I would be here, I sent a couple of gifts to be opened on the real day. The first was a book she and I saw at Disneyland in March called The Princess Handbook. It's a really cute picture book with quite good instructions on how to be a princess. She's actually been practicing for 30 years now. The second was a journal Tracy and I found on our recent road trip. When we saw it, we both thought of her.

Journal
Of course, you can't have the journal without the tiara and the cape. I was hoping she'd be with a group of high school kids when she opened it, but it was just me. Nonetheless Sadie and I enjoyed the whole thing.

SarahSadie2w
Sadie&Sarahw

You can't have a birthday without a cake, so we went to Nothing Bundt Cakes today. Just as we were about to pay for our purchase, Sarah spotted Bundtinis and we changed our order. We have a dozen tiny cakes in four flavors: White White Chocolate, White Chocolate Raspberry, Chocolate Chocolate Chip, and Cinnamon Swirl.

Cakesw 

Candlesw
And here's the card I sent her. It's a close lift of a card I saw on Melissa Phillips blog a long time ago. As soon as I saw it, I knew this would be Sarah's birthday card and I ordered the wooden crown from the Etsy shop linked in Melissa's post.

SarahBD10
It's been a whirlwind week. I have two more posts to get up about CHA. I finished editing the photos today, so hopefully tomorrow I'll have time to do some writing too. Sarah and I are off for pedicures and manicures tomorrow morning, and perhaps to the mall afterwards. This visit is a gift for me as much as it is for her!

Team-up Thursday: Doors

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This week's prompt was Doors. Mine (on the left) is a photo of a local garden store's front doors which I have always loved. Nancy's shot is from her trip out west in June of an abandoned house in Two Dot, Montana.

Doors

CHA: Part 1

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I've taken 250 photos in the last two days, but don't worry, this post is photo heavy, but not nearly THAT heavy! Being at CHA is like being a kid in a candy store. There is so much to see, and lots to learn. My understanding is that this is a smaller show than the winter one, but it's plenty big for me! Yesterday the show opened with a bagpipe parade. This is a traditionally done for the manufacturers before the doors were opened, and we were lucky enough to be inside to see and hear it.

Bagpipersw

One of the first booths we went to was Spellbinders. Their Nestability dies are my favorites and the big new product is large format dies. They are fabulous, and can be used in scrapbook layouts as mats, as books, and as cards.

Nesties2 

One of the best things is seeing all the samples by the manufacturer's design teams. Here's a layout using one of the large format dies.

NestiesLO 

Learning some new techniques has also been one of the benefits of being here, and I'll have more to show you in the next post.

Nesties 

The American Craft booth had fabulous new papers, embellishments, and Thickers. Some of my favorites were from the new Dear Lizzy line. We got to meet and talk to Elizabeth Kartchner who couldn't be nicer.

EKartchnerUsw

Laura, Eva, me, Elizabeth, and Katie

ACPaper
ACEmbellish1
ACEmbellies2 

I love these new Thickers.

ACThickers 

Next stop was the Making Memories booth. These wonderful butterflies are just one example of the great decorations, hard work, and thought that goes into creating these booths.

MMButterfliesw 

The Slice now has a new cartridge that cuts appliques. How cute are these?

MMOnsiesw
MMOnsies2 

They were doing Make & Takes with their new Vintage Jewelry line.

MMJewelryw
Here's Katie's.

Katie'sNecklace 

This was my first opportunity to meet Katie and Eva who are on the Scrap-Mart Design Team with me. They are, of course, just as nice in person as they are online!

KarenEvaKatiew
I even bumped into Sharon Klima, the owner of Buffalo Stamps and Stuff. We were both watching a fabulous demonstration of Art Parts by Wendy Vecchi. Wendy's coming to Buffalo to teach a class in September and I hope I'm able to go. I loved her work.

Sharon&Wendyw 

ArtPartsArt 

ArtParts 

But the best part of today was winning not one, but two raffles. First I won the Martha Stewart Cricut Cake machine which I handed over to Laura since I'm not ever going to be a professional baker.

CricutRaffle 

That was at 11:00 and at 2:00 I won a Slice machine! Can't beat that kind of luck!

MMRafflew
Tomorrow we set up the Scrap-Mart booth for the consumer show on Friday and Saturday. I've learned a lot about what it takes to run a business in this industry (and it ain't easy!), and tomorrow should be another learning experience. I've got more to share as soon as I have time to get the post written.

Colored Pencil Class

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On Saturday I was lucky enough to attend a class in colored pencil technique taught by Dave Brethauer, creator and owner of Memory Box. I first heard of Dave many years ago when I visited Impress Rubber Stamps in Seattle. Before he opened Memory Box, Dave worked for Impress. When I heard he was coming to Buffalo Stamps and Stuff I knew I wanted to attend. Two of my friends rode up with me, and none of us were disappointed. Dave is a wonderful teacher.  He gives clear directions, demonstrates techniques, and makes sure everyone in the class has the individual attention they need. We made five cards in class, all of which I like since they are definitely "clean and simple" cards. My technique needs some work, but I know I'll enjoy the practice. One thing I learned is that it will be better for me to do work on tiny images without wearing my contact lens which is for improved distance vision. At home that won't be a problem.

Here are the cards we made.

Reindeer

CarolingBirds

RedBird

Poinsettia

SwirlyTrees

I'm writing this post on the porch of the cottage Tracy's family has rented on Consesus Lake for the week. It's just a perfect day, sunny and warm, but not too hot. Tomorrow morning VERY EARLY I leave for CHA from Buffalo. It will be a very early morning, but I'll be in Chicago in time for breakfast. I'm really excited about the chance to attend CHA, something I never thought I'd do. I've broken down and decided to take my computer so if there's time at night, I'll try to post some photos from the show.

Team-up Thursday: Silhouette

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Here's this week's Team-up Thursday diptych. I love silhouette photos, and Nancy's of the horses is so lovely. The sky was just perfect.

Silhouette

Photos and Textures

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Between exercise class and heading off to another busy day away from home, I thought I'd tried another of Shimelle's prompts. This one was to try using textures with your photos. I've played around with textures a few times, and see lots of examples on blogs that I like a lot. Shimelle's directions gave me some new ways to play with them. Before today, I usually just played with opacity and levels to get the look I wanted. Today I played around with the blending modes, and it certainly gives one a lot of options! I'm not totally happy with any of these but would like to hear your thoughts about improving them.

Here's the first image I played with from our trip to Vermont a week ago.

Sheep-Barn3w 

Here's the first adaptation. I used a texture called "branded" that I downloaded a while ago. Sadly I have no information on where I got it or who created it. I decreased the opacity to 61% and then ran the Pioneer Woman Lovely and Etheral action on it.

Sheep-BarnTexture2w
The next one uses Kim Klassen's Simple Things texture at 51% opacity.

Barntexture1w
Lastly, I played with the photo I took of the rope at Shelbourne Museum.

Ropew

For this I used a texture called Brown Paper with the opacity at 82%.

RopeBrownPaperw

Hope to be back with some layouts, but it probably won't be until tomorrow since our book group meets tonight at our house. I have the photos chosen, just need to get them on the paper!

Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages: Layout for Prompt 11

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One of Shimelle's sketches featured a page-wide panorama-style photograph which I liked a lot. Amy created one that I loved, but I wanted to scrap some of the photos from our recent road trip and couldn't choose just one. So I modified the sketch by using one of Cathy Z's templates (#8) turned sideways. It worked perfectly. I thought I would have Prompt 10, 11, & 12 completed by now, but it's been a busier weekend than I anticipated and scrapping is rarely a quick event for me. I couldn't find any place for the journaling so I'm putting it on the back of the layout with a brochure from the Shelbourne Inn.

BreakfastLO 

Cardstock: Bazzil; Patterned paper: October Afternoon & Basic Grey; Alpha stickers: Jenni Bowlin; butterflies cut from a sheet of Graphic 45 tags, Botaniabella; Stamp: Vintage Label 4 Waltzing Mouse; Journal card: MME; template: CZ Designs #8

Photographic Challenges

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First of all, our Team-up Thursday post. The prompt this week was Where We Live. Nancy and my interpretations couldn't have been much different. I considered the house, the front door, the new light and house number, but finally decided on the mailbox. I liked it with the Vintage action from Pioneer Woman so settled on it. Nancy's bright, summery photo taken on her deck is about as opposite as it could be!

WhereYouLive

During Picture Spring, one of the prompts was "The Grass at Your Feet." I took a photo I liked a lot of tiny blue flowers, but I wanted one of the grass with dew on it like Cheri took during the class. Yesterday's prompt from Shimelle for Love Your Photos, Love Your Pages was pretty much the same. So off I went again. I started out with my DSRL set on aperture priority mode. This is the setting I used for nearly two years, but for the last year I've shot in full manual almost all the time. I also wanted a shallow depth of field. Let me just say with a sunny sky, it's a very bad combination. However I took two of the shots into PSE and used the Pioneer Woman's Dim the Lights action on them. I ran the action twice and although these were certainly not the photos I intended to take, I find them pretty interesting.

Grass2w
Grass3w
Then I pulled out the trusty point and shoot and got what I was looking for during Picture Spring.

Grass1w

Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages: Skies

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Today's photos are a bit of a cheat. It was a busy day. I went to Essential Stretch, followed by my first Aqua Zumba class. Then I spent some time trying to get organized for a trip to CHA in just two weeks. I'm really excited to have an opportunity to go to the trade show. I got my airline ticket last night, and today Laura sent me the bar code for my vendor pass. I'll be staying with Katie who oversees the design team at Scrap-Mart as well as meeting Eva. I've met Laura and Howard, the owners, but haven't had the chance to spend much time with them. I'll be there five days. I'm sure it will be exhausting, but I think it will also be a lot of fun! This afternoon I had two appointments and by the time I got home we had a downpour so extensive streets were flooding. I do like to take photos that feature skies, and I knew I had several
from the last couple of weeks. So here they are.

These were all taken with my point and shoot, Canon Power Shot SD3500 IS, that I bought before our trip to California in March. I love this camera, and it's almost always in my purse.

Sky1
We were on the NY Thruway enroute to Ithaca, NY when I took this shot through the front window of the car. I just loved the look of the clouds.

SkiesCornellw
Taken the same day on the Cornell campus.

SkiesSailw
This was taken about 10 days ago on my first venture out on the sailboat this year. It was rough on the lake and the spray from the lake water was so chilly, we decided not to put up the sails and to motor down the river instead.