A Page In Time…Peek A Boo

Li’l K On the Farm

I did this layout a few days ago.  This photo was taken the day I did the photoshoot for Baby G.M. 

Credits:  Background: Marcee Duggar “Old Bo Back Pack”; Font:  Donnyshand from the internet.

Changes

Changes…sometimes they are good, sometimes not so good.  Well, I am here to announce some good changes!  I have recently set up my business blog, Sands of Time Designs!  Yeah!  It’s been a long time coming.  Please continue to bear with me as I am still doing some tweaking of things on that site. 

So…what do these changes mean?  Well, I will continue to use this blog to talk about our family and the events in our lives.  You will see some of my photography and scrapbook pages here, but mostly family related topics.  I will be posting most of my photography, scrapbook layouts, and photo books on the business site.  I hope you all get a chance to check it out!  I would love to hear any feedback that you might have.  I’m so excited to share these changes with all of you. 

Recent Scrapbook Layouts

Here are a couple scrapbook layouts I did recently:

Credits: 

Papers: retrodiva_walk-park-ff_paper2; jhd-playtime-words; O_DarnDirty

Frame: JEdwards_WebChallenge080308_2

Tab: retrodiva_walk-park-ff_tab

Font: BlackJack

 

 

Journaling reads:  “You’re my _____ Girl – I love your spunk and love of life.  I love seeing the flash of your smile and the gleam of light in your eyes.  Spring 2009 – age 12”

Credits:

Papers: AASPN_SomethingSpringy_Pattern2 & Pattern 3

Lip stamp: CherieMask_2ps_AllTwitterpated_lips

Journaling label: CherieMask_2ps_AllTwitterpated_note

Font: Goodfish

Staple: AASPN_SomethingSpringy_StapleGreen

Word Art: RhonnaFarrer_2ps_IloveYou; RhonnaFarrer_2ps_Theseare;

Tag: RhonnaFarrer_2ps_FreeTag1

Stitches: AASPN_SomethingSpringy_Stitching

To The Moms…

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there!  I hope you have a wonderful day!

Tooth Fairy Adventure

J recently lost another tooth.  Let me first explain her mindset about loosing teeth.  We were having a discussion one day with her older sister K (now 12 years old) about K's not having any more baby teeth to lose.  J's reaction was, "Poor sissy!"  We asked her why and she said, "Because she doesn't get any more money!"

So, needless to say, J really loves losing her teeth.  She lost her first one at age 2 or 3 due to an accident on the ice in the wintertime.  Of course, even though it was an accident, the Tooth Fairy still came to visit.  But it was a very, very long time until the Tooth Fairy came again, since J didn't lose another tooth until she was 5. 

(Here is a digital scrapbook layout I did documenting her losing teeth.  The journaling reads:  "J lost her first tooth and a couple weeks later lost another one.  She was so excited to get a visit from the Tooth Fairy!")

Now...we have a very, very forgetful Tooth Fairy.  She is rarely, if ever, on time and frequently has to be petitioned many times before she actually shows up.  It's really very terrible.  I haven't figured out a way to fire her, though. 

So, on the night that J lost this most recent tooth, she put her tooth in a ziplock baggie and put it under her pillow.  Sure enough the Tooth Fairy forgot.  So the next morning as I was still laying in bed, J peeked her little head in my door and her first words were, "Bad Fairy!  Bad, bad Fairy!"  I had to laugh.  She's our girl of few words, but she gets right to the point. 

The next evening I told J to put her tooth under her pillow again and this time to write the Tooth Fairy a note and put it on my pillow.  Here is what I found:

Just in case you can't read it, it says:  "Doo not frgit to get the toth and gev mee mi munee."  Well, the Tooth Fairy promptly delivered that night!

Winter Scenes From Around These Parts

Here are some photos I took recently of scenes around here.  We've had a lot of fog lately and it's made for some really awesome photo ops.  I've been having fun.  I hope you enjoy them!

Have a nice, crisp wintery day!

Sharing

Well, I have been thinking lately about sharing with you some of the fascinating things I've learned along this exciting journey of digital scrapping and photography that I enjoy so much. Mind you, I'm no expert. Quite the contrary. It's just that I get so excited when I'm playing around with a new technique and end up learning something totally unexpected and wonderful...you know, those "accidents" that turn out to work just right. So I want to share with you one of those experiences I had today. Sort of a mini tutorial, if you will.

Over the past several years, since I became interested in digital scrapping and photography, I have found a wealth of information online. The internet is such a fabulous tool for self-teaching! There are SO many tutorials available as well as networks of people who are willing to share what they know. Several of my favorite tutorial sites are ScrapGirls, Digital Scrapbook Place, and one of my most recent favorites (within the last year) Pioneer Woman (don't ya just love her?). I have found tutorials in many other places as well, but these have been the most influential for me.

So, what I want to share with you today is a tutorial on digital chalking by Brandy Hackman that I found some time back at ScrapGirls. This tutorial was written for Photoshop, but I operate with Photoshop Elements 5 (or PSE) and it works just fine. If you take a look at the above layout I did of my daughter J, you will notice the little embossed, chalked, flower in the lower left corner. I won't share the whole tutorial with you here, as you can follow the link provided above and go through it yourself if you like. However, what was so fun to me was what happened as I was playing with it after I did the tutorial. Let me just say also, there are many ways to arrive at a given result. Like my Grandma used to say, "There's more than one way to skin a cat." Well, we won't do any real cat skinning here...I like them to much. So here's one way I did it.

After the "chalking" was done, I thought the flower would look cool if it had an embossed look to it too. So here is what I did:

- Turn the eye (icon) back on, on the PNG layer

- Go to Layer Styles > Bevels > Simple Emboss: 125 degrees lighting angle; Bevel size: 1; click OK

- Make sure the PNG layer is still selected (looks blue), then play with the blending modes (the drop-down menu under "normal" in the image below) until you find one that suits your taste.

This effect made a wonderfully textured, embossed, chalked look! It was so easy and so fun!

By the way, if there is anything mentioned here that you don't understand or are not familiar with, please feel free to leave me a comment and I will try to explain. Also, if you have done this technique, or another that you really enjoy, I would love to see it! Send me a link in the comments section below. Thanks!

Layout Credits: Background paper: "For Love of Clover" by Amy Bleser (DigitalFreebies.com); Flower Doodle: "Doodles 2" by Angie Briggs (ScrapGirls.com); Overlay: "Serenity" by Angela Sharrow (DigitalFreebies.com); Word Art: "Winter Sparkle 2" by Miss Mint (PeppermintCreative.com); Photo corners: "Patch It Up" by Theresa Kavouras (ScrapGirls.com); Font: Tangerine.