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Creativity Book Camp: Drizzle & Final California Layouts

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This proved to be one of the most difficult prompts. I didn't want to photograph rain (although it was forecast for today), and this morning decided I use honey drizzling into tea. Easier said than done. I took a ton of photos (and needed Tracy's help to hold the honey dipper). I got only three decent shots. This one is my favorite:

Drizzle3w

I have finally finished the California album. I still need to do a little piece for the album cover, but the last of the layouts is finished. Here's the title page. I couldn't decide quite what to do, but ended up using a Cathy Z. digital template to do a summary layout.

TitleLO

Cardstock: BoBunny; patterned paper: Queen & Co.; epoxy button: Queen & Co.; digital template: Cathy Z's "Monthly"; digital paper: freebie from Katie Pertiet of Designer Digitals

This is the last of the "story" pages. When we were in Pleasanton one afternoon, I bought Sadie a new ball. To say she was disinterested, is putting it mildly. Then Sarah got the idea to put some peanut butter inside the ball. Well, Sadie's interest certainly perked up!

FeedMe
I love these little dogs from a piece of Basic Grey "June Bug" paper. All the rest of the papers are Scenic Route as are the alphabet stickers.

Creativity Boot Camp: Ornament

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As soon as I saw the prompt I thought of our friend's amazing city garden. When you're in their garden it's almost impossible to believe you're in the middle of the city, but you are. Rick has collected quite a variety of ornaments, made the columns that support many of them, and built all the stone walls by hand. It's truly an amazing place. Marcy is the keeper of the flowers and plants, and they are just as wonderful.

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And three more views of their garden.

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Garden2w 

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Papercrafting

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I have a couple more pages to share as well as some cards I made for my friend who is retiring. I'm sure she'll need a supply of thank you notes so I made two of each design and packaged them up in a clear plastic box.

3Cards
Cardstock: Vintage Cream (PTI), blues from stash; patterned paper: "Wisteria" (Basic Grey); stamps: Fillable Frames #4, Delightful Dahlias, & Mega Mixed Messages (PTI)

Package
I have these wonderful plastic boxes, but I have no idea where I purchased them. They are perfect for a set of cards. Add a ribbon, flower and a gem and it's done.

The first of the layouts I did in a Basic Grey class at CKC Buffalo. I'm not a fan of doing pages without the photos but when I was going through the pile of photos from California these seemed to work. The page layout from the class included multiple tags which I eliminated.

WalkWithSadieLO
Patterned papers: Basic Grey; Spellbinders tag die; buttons (PTI)

One of the best things about staying in California for a week is the time we have to just hang out together.

JustHanginLO
Patterned paper: Making Memories, & "Weathervane" October Afternoon; stamps: Trajan alphabet (PTI) on Sticky Back canvas (Ranger); canvas alphabet: "Fa La La" Making Memories; journaling sheet: Making Memories, sticker "Urban Prairie" (Basic Grey); Spellbinders Standard Tag; buttons (PTI); digital template "Photo Clusters No. 12" (Katie Pertiet @ Designers Digitals

Creativity Boot Camp: Fly

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The truth is I hate to fly. My family will attest I am not at my best on the day of a flight. I fly because it gets me where I want to go, but I would much rather drive—even across the country. That, of course, is not often practical and is, in fact, as expensive as flying. One way I entertain myself as we take off is to take photos. Once we're in the air, I rely on compelling books (must be a page turner) and crossword puzzles.

NYC2
The New York City Harbor in March.

I like the horizon and the deepening blue sky in this one taken over the Rockies on the same flight. 

Mountains1 

There was an inspiring post on Write, Click, Scrapbook this week that I finally got around to reading this morning. Since I had a little time before I went to the retirement luncheon, I pulled the photos from my photo walk into a template and finished the layout this afternoon. I decided against any journaling, but put the class title and date of the photo walk on the back of the layout. It doesn't get much simpler than this.

PhotoWalkLO
Paper: Ambrosia (Basic Grey); chipboard letters: "Licorice" (Cosmo Cricket); chipboard camera: "Mama Razzi" (Bo Bunny); digital template: Pri Rocha Designs

Creativity Boot Camp: Fluid & Photo Walk

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Here's my take on fluid:

Fluidw
It was a really nice day so I got to Park Ave. for a little photo walk. I took a lot of photos, but here are my favorites.

Fencew
One of the first things I saw was this fence which reminded me of Charleston.

IvyRustw
The windows on this old building had been covered with metal. It's now rusted, and I liked the contrast of the ivy.

OxfordStTreesw
This is Oxford Street and these are all magnolia trees which are stunning in the spring. I love the streets that have the malls down the middle. Our first house in the city had one, but not this nice.

SeeThingsw
This made me smile. It's in the window of an optician.

Benchw
I loved the lines of this bench and the brick sidewalk.

DeliWindoww
I've never been in this deli, but it certainly appeals to me.

SidewalkTablesw
And last, I loved the reflection of the trees in the table tops.

Still Crafting

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In between working on the prompts for Creativity Bootcamp, taking care of the garden, going to a wonderful photography show featuring local women photographers, volunteering, and the usual exercise classes and chores, I've managed to get some cards and layouts made. The first is a card for a friend who is retiring this year. There's a luncheon for her on Saturday. I'm hoping to get a set of thank you notes made to give to her as well.

JBCongrats
This card was inspired by a card by Jennifer Buck featured on the Jillibean blog. All the products used on it are from Jillibean except the card base and the ribbon.

And another one because I had more paper on the desk to use.

SendingSunshine
Patterned paper: Old World Cabbage Stew (Jillibean); rickrack: Bean Stalks (Jillibean); sentiment: clear stamps (Jillibean); dies: Spellbinders cherry; embossing folders: Cuttlebug "Swiss Dots" & Sizzix "Birthday Set #2

SunshineView2
And three more layouts for the California album:

FamilyPhotoLO
All Pink Paislee "Starlight"

MattSadieLO
All "Mama Razzi" by BoBunny except for the stamp (which it looks like I'd better redo–a bit slanted, I fear)

And my favorite of the three is about our walk along the stream at the UC Davis Arboretum:

Arboretum 

Patterned paper: Fruitcake (Basic Grey), Basics (Basic Grey) & "Today" (Scenic Route); cork alpha (unknown); Craft Paper alpha stickers (Colorbok); label stickers: Basics (Basic Grey); digital template: Cathy Z Layered Template No. 13

Creativity Boot Camp: Grow, Baby, Grow

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Today's prompt was an easy one. 

Here's a shot of the first tomatoes in our garden:

2Tomatoesw 

Typically I take my point and shoot to the garden, but today I took my SLR with the Tamron 28-300mm lens. This was shot at 120mm; f 5.6; 1/200, ISO 100. The zoom on this lens really takes pretty decent macro shots. Close up you can even see the "hairs" on the tomato stems.

I was happy to see that the slugs seem to be gone, but found two snails attached to the new lettuce plants. We read in our organic gardening book that both coffee grounds and ashes repel slugs and snails so we took some of both and spread them around the perimeter of the bed. They warned not to use too many coffee grounds as they are quite acidic.

Ashesw 

We also got a fence up around our plot today. You can see the tall "plants" beyond our plot. They are weeds! There are only three plots that haven't been claimed in the community garden and two of the three border ours. I'm hoping the mulch around the plot will help keep down the spread of weeds, but each time we go we need to dig out a few. If the plants have as deep a root system as our weeds, they will do well!

Fencew

The only thing ready to pick were some tiny arugula leaves, two kinds of basil, and some cilantro. We used the Thai Basil in a shrimp and tomato pasta sauce tonight. It has a lighter flavor than the typical basil, but is quite nice.

Creativity Boot Camp: Heavy Metal

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My first thought when I read the prompt was the heavy metal rock bands, but since I know nothing whatsoever about them, that was out. I'm a day behind getting this posted because it rained all day yesterday, but late in the day I ran out to Home Depot since I thought I might find some heavy metal there. I did, but it took until today to get the photos organized for the post.

HeavyMetalHDw 

On my way home, it stopped raining and I had to drive by an ongoing construction project near our house. All the workers had gone home, so I parked the car in a nearby medical center parking lot and hopped out to see what I might find. I took a lot of photos, but ended up deciding on these three, all taken of the same piece of equipment.

HeavyMetalCollagew 

I used the Colorize action on the last of the photos.

But my favorite photos are of this little red wagon that was "parked" alongside the road. It's obviously being used by the crews to haul cement or some such substance. Not exactly heavy metal, but I like it anyway.

ThreeWagonsw
The first photo was simply sharpened, the middle photo is the Seventies action (again), and the last one is the Pioneer Woman's Heartland action. I increased the contrast on the last one after I ran the action.

Got to say, I'd never have taken any of these without the prompt!

Multilayered: Take Two

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Part 1:

The prompt for Creativity Bootcamp today was multilayered. After a bit of consideration I decided to photograph the roses blooming right outside our dining room door. My first inclination was to play with light today, so I started taking a photo every hour or so. I had to take a break for a dermatologist appointment and while I was driving had another idea:  to show how the multilayered rose unfolds. So here is the triptych I came up with. I tried a few actions, but decided I liked the simply sharpened photos the best.

RosesTriptychw 

Part 2:

Last night I finished a layout for the vacation album that was an "out of the box" design for me, but one that I see frequently on blogs and admire. When I finished I was quite pleased with the final product. This morning during my coffee/blog browsing hour I came across Layle Koncar's article at Ella Publishing. She'd read a pamphlet about decorating that suggested three things to consider when mixing patterns. Layle boiled it down to this:

  1. Have an odd number of patterns
  2. Include a solid
  3. Include a stripe

I was curious and checked. Indeed, that's exactly what I had. Perhaps that was why I liked it so much. See what you think:

In&OutLO

Cardstock: American Craft; patterned paper from scrap drawer; chipboard embellishment: "Mama Razzi" (BoBunny); pin: unknown (purchased at a stationery store in Ithaca a couple of years ago); digital frame: "Framed no. 3" (two shutter sisters)

It fits the multilayered prompt as well. A bit of serendipity.

Weekly Gratitude X 2

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With all the excitement of Creativity Bootcamp, and trying to get the California photos scrapped I'm late again in posting my Weekly Gratitude pages. Here are the last two weeks:

WeeklyGratitude5.29 

WeeklyGratitude6.5

Creativity Boot Camp Day 2

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Today's prompt is picnic. Merriam-Webster defines picnic as "an outing with food usually provided by members of the group and eaten in the open." For this prompt, I set up a still-life outside, tried  various settings, played with different apertures, and took about 40 photos from different perspectives. These are the two I liked the best. Both were taken with my 50mm. lens at f 4.0; 1/100; ISO 400. The diptych frame is from Katie Pertiet's Vintage Storyboard Frames. I used a new (to me) action on both photos from Noel Joy called "Picture Pop."

  
PicnicDiptychwcopy

Have To Have

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We spent one day in California in Pescadero and Half Moon Bay. One of our favorite shops in Half Moon Bay was the "Have to Have It" shop. We spent a lot of time there, but didn't buy anything. Since we've come home, Matt and I have decided we should have bought one of the flying pig sculptures for our garden. If I ever go back, I think I will pick out a small one and ship it home. I'm partial to the red one and the blue one.

HalfToHave2pg
Patterned paper: Basics (Basic Grey), Quite Contrary (MME), & Bitty Dot Basics (PTI), cardstock: Rustic White (PTI), chipboard circle (Scenic Route); chipboard wings (unknown); Vintage Calendar Tag (Elle's Studio)


HaveToHavep1 


HaveToHavep2

Creativity Boot Camp Day 1

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Today's prompt for Creativity Bootcamp was "Ivory" and the piano keyboard was the first thing that came to mind. One thing I decided to do with this class is to play with some new techniques. Today I used a photo mask for the first time and played with some of the Pioneer Woman Actions.

IvoryDSMask
Define and Sharpen Action; Katie Pertiet "Stamped Blocks No. 7"

Ivory70sMask
Seventies Action

IvoryVintageMask
Vintage Action

Love is in the Air

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We're off this evening to the wedding of one of our long-time friend's daughters. I sent the gift to their home in Colorado, but made a card to take to the wedding.

WeddingCard 

Cardstock: American Craft & Aqua Mist (PTI); embossed cardstock: Creative Imaginations; dies: Beautiful Blooms (PTI); ribbon: Paper Source; gems: Memory Box; stick pin: Making Memories

And the inside of the card:

InsideWedding

Dies: Nestabilities Label 4 & Beautiful Blooms (PTI); sentiment: Delightful Dahlias (PTI)

A daughter of another dear friend got engaged a few weeks ago. Tracy was able to get to the party, but I had tickets to the RPO so missed it. I made this card to send to them.

4x4Congrats 

Cardstock: Dark Chocolate and Lemon Tart (PTI); patterned paper:  Letter Box (American Craft); die: Flower Layers 3 (Sizzix); embossing folder: Swiss Dots (Cuttlebug; Flair Badge: American Craft

About six weeks ago, I got an email from Tamron announcing a two-hour workshop "Eleven Secrets to Improve Your Photographs" at our local photography store. Since I own two Tamron lenses and the cost was minimal, I decided to sign up. The class was this morning, and although the first half of the material was familiar to me, I picked up enough tips to compensate both my time and the cost of the workshop. I also got a chance to try out the 60mm 2.0 macro lens that is on my wish list. The most helpful information for me was about lighting, filters, and using your flash. I have a lot of things I want to try out, and hopefully, I'll be able to incorporate them into the projects  for Creativity Bootcamp. The workshop pretty much solidified my choice of medium to photography. I'm looking forward to the first session tomorrow.

Creativity Boot Camp

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Creativity Boot Camp starts this weekend. I first saw a reference to it on Mel's blog and signed up. I'm both curious about it and looking forward to it. It's designed so that you can participate in a variety of mediums, although it appears that it will be best to choose one. I've decided to wait until the first prompt on Sunday to decide whether to use photography (most likely) or scrapbooking.  It's free and you can check it out here.