secrets

Do you watch Jon & Kate + 8?

I love that show!!! My twin sister and I compare ourselves to Mady and Cara all the time (she's Mady, by the way). But, in one regard, I'm very much a Mady-girl. Mady loves surprises. She loves them so much, she wants to control the surprise. For instance, the episode in which they were shooting the cover for Good Housekeeping and Kate had the surprise planned to bring a dog to get the children's attention and to make them happy for the photo. It was getting well into the shoot, and the little kids were cranky, so Kate whispered to Leah about the dog coming.

You would have thought Mady's best friend had been shot. Seriously, she about lost it because in her mind, Kate had spoiled the surprise.

As a child, I used to love surprises, too. I never wanted to know what I was getting for Christmas, rather, I loved the anticipation of the morning I would rush downstairs, and open presents in a frenzy.

What made the surprises I received as a child so wonderful was that my parents kept the best secrets. I can remember my 13th birthday vividly. There was 11 inches of snow on the ground on March 8 (in Tennessee, that was unusual), and my sister and I were so anxious to go out and play. Little did we know that mom and dad had gotten us tickets to see the recent Olympians at an ice-skating event that night. At that age, (and even still) the Olympics were a BIG DEAL and we were over-the-top thrilled.

Or, the surprises where I'd come home from school and a new Care Bear was sitting on my bed with a note thanking me for being a good student.

I think my memory of those events wouldn't have been the same had a surprise not been involved.

Speaking of surprises, we had our fair share of them at Studio Calico tonight!!!

1. The sneak peeks (on the home page slideshow)
2. A Blog giveaway
3. The referral promotion with a free mini-kit from American Crafts
4. The 3 new Design Team members (if you don't already know who they are, click here)
   

So, a few more sneaky surprises here tonight:

i suppose it's been long enough

Well, I won't be updating my blog every day, but I can do better than I have been. Just want to post with some pics of what I've been up to lately.

On Friday, 9/26, these friends came for a visit.

You may remember me talking about them before: Jason, Jessica, and Riley. Jessica had Riley 6 weeks early, but now she's a strong, healthy, 8 lbs and travelled from Cincinnati to Bowling Green to see us AND spend the night. We were honored. LOVE hanging out with them, I only wish they lived 3 hours closer.

They spent the night and went to watch Greg coach a soccer game. This was the next to last one of the season, and the last in which all 5 players would be there, so we had their party a week early.

I made these for each of the players, with photos of the team individually in little pouches.

I don't really have directions for the project, but here's the basics:

1. Use 4x6" photos
2. You'll need one 8.5x11 or 12x12 sheet of Kraft Cardstock for each pouch (a 12x12 sheet will yield 3 pieces, of which you only need 2)
3. Cut 2 pieces to 5x7"
4. Hold together and use a corner rounding punch on all 4 corners
5. Use a circle punch (you may choose which size you want, but I used a 1.5")
6. Hold punch upside down (so you can see how much of the Kraft you are cutting), and cut a semi-circle through both sheets at once.
7. Now, you're ready to sew the pieces together. You may either hand-sew or machine sew, but leave a 1/4" margin.
8. Insert your pics and voila!

The week after I gave these to the kids, Devon's (the soccer prodigy on the team) mom came up to me and said that last year they had trophies, but this year, Devon was thrilled with the pictures that were all his own. He had strict orders that the pics were to be framed along with his pouch and he was upset when that task took longer than a week. How cute it that? The ultimate compliment for me.

Below are some more pics from the soccer party.

Emily, a sister of one of the players was there. She was also born prematurely (at 27 weeks) but is now healthy and strong. It was encouraging for Jessica to visit with her grandmother and she felt so blessed to have made it as far along as she did with Riley.
Patrick....a ham!
Noah and Woods....competing for position to walk on the rocks. Now if only Noah would have been that competitive on the field!


Later that day, we had the pleasure of attending the annual fish fry in Lafayette, TN (pronounced LUH-fay-et, not lah-FEE-et, don't ask...it's country and they can cook fish, so I don't judge).

The fish fry was at the Birdwell's and here's Ronald battering the fish...the secret ingredient?

MUSTARD!!!!

Step 2 of the process....look at all those fryers!!!



And, the final step.


These 3 sit with my mom (and hence, me when I visit) at church. From L to R (Taylor, Caleigh, Mackenzie). The one on the right is a spitfire....you never know what she's going to say.

And, out in the country at the fish fry, my husband found this:


Yes, and there he is TOUCHING it....don't those things have diseases?
Mackenzie (the spitfire) promptly called this a "chicken snake" and Greg reverted back 20 years and snarkily said, "Well how do you know it isn't a pig snake?" Of course this sent the girls in a full set of giggles....ah, that age.

A week later, we had another busy Saturday.

Before the final soccer game, I had to rush to Carter's first birthday party. Cara (one of SC's kit-packers) had such cute activities for the kids. She had a play-doh table, a face-painting table, a golf activity for the adults. Also, she had arranged to have 4 types of soups and it ended up being the perfect day...about 65 degrees for the party, and sunny. Great weather and great times.

The Birthday boy himself.

Below, 2 victims of the face-painting booth.


Tasha

Josi



And One last picture for you....my sweet cuddle-bugs.
Yes, Jett sleeps with his tongue out. Thankfully, Greg doesn't (at least not that I know of).

lots to talk about

So happy to finally say that I was asked to do a feature article for Memory Makers. I've been pubbed by them before, but never expected to be asked to do a feature for them. I am beyond excited to have my work featured in the September/October issue in the Get it Done section.

On Saturday, I went to watch Greg coach his soccer team. 5 boys, 5 years of age. Whew....they give him a workout. That's a good thing, though. It was team photo day. Can you tell who's mommy scrapbooks the most? Look at Noah's award winning pose and smile!

Also, on Saturday, I added another circle punch to my collection. That made me happy. You would think I had every circle punch ever made, but alas, I did not have this one.

The purchase of said punch immediately inspired me to create this LO, although I can't show all of it since this kit won't debut till Aug 28. All the items in this photo are in the main kit: ICONIC.

findings

I love finding vintage items, especially when those items can be used on a scrapbook page. Adding something that's unique, that no one else has (or very few people have) can make a layout or project that much more meaningful.

Today, I thought I'd share a few of our finds for Studio Calico. You might be seeing these sometime soon. ;)

soccer + sneaks

Can I just say I love this time of year?

For some reason this season, this year seems better than most. Maybe it's because I've spent more time outdoors lately. Maybe it's because the Olympics are underway. Maybe it's because I'm loving where I'm at in life right now. 28 is a great year.

Plus, we've done some fun things lately. Yes, that is my husband with 4 teenagers and a fire hydrant. He was asked to be the driver for a photo scavenger hunt. They had to go around town and take pictures of various items and they got bonus points if they were all in the picture with the items. Some of the funnier items were:

• a picture of the team in a bath tub
• a picture of the team eating a sandwich
• someone in a bath robe
• Big Red (WKU's mascot)
  

Also this past week, Greg's been coaching Noah's soccer team. Something tells me Noah didn't like the instruction he was receiving.....
I know you're not supposed to have favorites, but this boy is my favorite. I can just look at him and smile. Isn't he a cutie? His name is Patrick and he gets so excited. He's both a player and a cheerleader for the team. In this picture he had just scored a goal and was coming in to give all the "fans" a high five. His victory lap :)
Look at that form!
And, to get the kids to come back to center field after a goal, the kids give Greg "running-high-fives": a phrase coined by Greg himself.
Finally, the Studio Calico sneaks. These are from the Marilyn and Sophia add-ons.

And below is a stamp from Marilyn and the rest from the main kit.

an action winner + opening ceremonies

The winner of the PSE action is

love scrapping said...

I have Photoshop Elements but haven't used actions before. I like the Vivid Color the best!

August 5, 2008 8:37 AM

courtesy of Random.org

Send me an email and I'll get your Vivid action.

One of my favorite times...the Olympics. As kids, my sister and I never watched TV. Rarely would we even watch 30 min of Sesame Street, but during the Olympics, we would watch for hours. We even thought we were gymnasts and would practice our "skills" on the deck railing. I'll see if I can dig up a picture of that for ya.

Anyway, for our 16th birthday, my parents got us tickets to see this. I will never forget it. Because of that, I have grown to realize that life isn't about an accumulation of possessions, but an accumulation of memories. Love them for that!




So, naturally, I watched this tonight. I must say (setting political/anti-communism views aside) I really enjoyed the opening ceremonies. They said there were 15,000 individual performers and let me tell you, they were at the top of their game tonight. I especially loved the martial artists below. Perfect circle and each move, perfectly in sync.



As I've said before, I'm not an emotional person, but when you see an athlete on top of the podium listening to their national anthem after years and years of struggle to get their, I can't help but tear up (shhhhhhhh, don't tell Greg, I do have a slightly soft side :)

PSE Actions Installation Tutorial

First of all, I have PSE 6.0. The directions for installing the PhotoBlast actions from PolkaDotPotato only go up to version 4.0, so if you're using a more current version, this might be of help to you.

1. When you get the email with the download link, click it and select "save." On my computer, they were automatically put in a download file, but you could also save them to your desktop for easy access. There are 2 files to download: one is an exe file and the other is not. You need to download both of them.
2. Make sure PSE is not open on your computer before you do the following steps.
3. Open the exe file and double click on the icon to run the installation. Just follow it step by step, there's no real directions to follow here.
4. Once that's complete, open the other file you have downloaded (it will look like a file folder icon when you open it)
   
5. Now, go to the "my computer" file and find the PSE folder.
6. Open that folder so that you can see the files it contains, then drag and drop (or copy and paste) the Photoblast Action folder into that file.
7. Now it's time to open PSE.
8. If you've done the installation correctly, it will take a few minutes for the program to open.
   
9. Check to see if you've installed the action correctly by going to Window>Effects. You will see the action next to all the other actions with the apples :)

Hope this helps. If you have any other specific questions, post in the comments and I will try to answer, though I'm certainly no technological genius.

Oh, and if you're reading this before Friday, be sure to comment on the post below to win your favorite action.

photoshop actions....playing around

I admit, I'm very very new to the whole photoshop action craze, but boy do I love them! They're so neat! Below is the photo as it was originally taken (by the fantabulous photog Greg Foster).


Here's some of the actions from PolkaDotPotato at work. Love these and picked them up by reading Karen's blog. She's an amazing photographer and knows so much more about actions than I so go read her blog if you want some good advice.


Vivid Color
Midnight Color Pro
Polaroid Transfer
Pro Black & White

Since I've been having fun, I'd like you to have fun too. Here's the deal. First, you must have Photoshop Elements, then post a comment telling me which action you like the best. Then, on Friday (my favorite day), I'll pick a winner at random and I'll buy you that action.

And, while I have your attention, I stopped by Jason and Jessica's today to see Riley. She is just so cute and precious, but she slept the whole time I was there. Jessica called me about 20 minutes after I left and said she woke up and had been alert as soon as I left. So, I'm afraid she doesn't know who I am, so I'm going to have to stop by again on Wednesday so she can properly meet me. Then, I will have pictures.

back from my blogging hiatus

So, I haven't been the best at blogging lately. Maybe it's the summertime, maybe it's the craziness that equals my life right now, and maybe it's because I haven't really had time for scrapping. Last week was spent in ATL for a leadership meeting. I'm so glad I went. A man named Alan Zimmerman spoke, who has a doctorate in psychology and is a speaker (I can't even imagine what we paid him to speak) for various businesses. Anyway, I learned a lot and have a few things I want to work on, namely asking others more questions and also being more tactful. Now there's something for me to work on!

As soon as I got back from ATL, Greg and I headed to Paducah (2.5 hours away) for their 65th Wedding Anniversary.

These are Greg's paternal grandparents and are some of the sweetest people I know. 65 years!!! What an example for us all.

And a picture of the family that was able to come before we had dinner at Kentucky Dam.
And, me with a photo taken by Greg. I just bought some Photoshop actions from here and wanted to play around with this photo, since it's a bit overexposed. I'll post later in the week the progress I've made with learning said actions :)

Finally....
Greg and I had a chance to go antiquing and I got this sucker for $20!!! Isn't she a beaut? (doesn't that sound like something the Griswald's would say?)
The "a" doesn't work, but I've figured out the issue and I think Greg can fix it relatively easily.

Also, we picked up lots of other goodies that you'll just have to wait to see inside future Studio Calico kits. Perhaps Scarlet will let me show a sneak for you at some point, but for now, trust me that the next few months are gonna be grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat!

One more thing, I've been remiss in updating you regarding the friend of mine who went into early labor. She ended up having the baby (Riley Marie) and she was 5 lbs. 2 oz. A bit small and ended up having a feeding tube for a few days, but after about a week in the hospital, mom and baby are home and guess who I get to see tomorrow???? You guessed it. I'm heading to Cincy for work and me and my camera are taking a trip!