CKU!!!!!!

It is 6:30 A.M. on Thursday. Meg is still asleep, so I won’t tell you where I am blogging from.

I have spent an entire day getting here to Houston in order to Meet and Mingle with some of my favorite people from the scrapbooking world (Sorry Peaches, y’all know you’re still Number One!).

I got up at 9 yesterday and did some yoga and exercised because I knew I’d probably get no where near a gym for the rest of the week. Before I knew it, 10:30 rolls around and I have to leave if I was going to make it to Meg’s by 11:30.
Made the required stop at Starbucks for an iced Vanilla Latte and then hit the road.
Meg was hugging and kissing on her kids and mom as I pulled up. We loaded all of her stuff in the back of my Jeep, took one look at each other, giggled, and drove away!

We had some lunch and spent some time just hanging out trying to decompress from the real world. We chatted over chicken ceasars and contemplated ordering hard cider. We passed on the latter, but the conversation was great. I can’t remember when I’ve had a long conversation with an adult.

Anyway, I am keeping you from the stuff you really care about! The plane ride was uneventful except for the fact on this really tine airplane two people also going to CKU sit right in front of us. Marie and Michelle were so funny and we bantered back and forth quite a bit on the ride. During the hour and 38 mins in the air, Meg watched two episodes of Weeds. I couldn’t hear the dialog, but I could see the monitor screen. That show is risqué! She was giggling away though. We landed in 30 mph crosswinds so it was kinda bumpy.

As we got off the plane, I called Michelle A who was already at baggage claim for Southwest. We were going to meet up with her and share a taxi ride to the hotel. Well, Michelle and Marie came through as our cruise directors and spotted two other people who also needed a ride. Little beknownst to us but one of them was Michelle Van Etten! The designer for Prima and one of our instructors this week! How cool is that? Being the Beta Boy that I am, I swooped in and saved the day by securing an entire van from Super shuttle for $15 a person.

45 mins later we arrived at the Westin Galleria. We all check in and promise to catch up with each other later. Meg and I lug our stuff up to the ninth floor and dump it all into our rooms. The rooms are pretty nice. The beds have those thick crisp sheets and loads of pillows. There’s plenty of room to move around in and a nice long wide desk for us to organize stuff for the day. I overheard someone say that the rooms are usually $300 a night (EEK!) so the price we paid for them being at CKU is a steal!

Both of starving since it is now 6 o’clock our time. We head down to the mall. Right outside the entrance we spot a Starbucks and a Godiva Chocolatier. Could this be heaven? We were drooling over the smooth coconut truffles as the counter girl, Lola (love her!) started asking us what we wanted. We shyly respond that we probably needed to put some food in our stomach first, but that we’d be back for dessert. She highly recommended the Kona Grill for its great sushi. Plus they are right in their middle of their happy hour pricings!

We quickly ordered margaritas and a plate of the most yummiest pot stickers. Do you know when you bite into food and you can taste all of the ingredients in it? These were beyond great! We debated over which kind of sushi rolls to order and just decided to get one of each. I would have taken a photo of the California, Atlantic, Spicy Tuna and the shrimp but we were so hungry.

Then it was time to run back to the room and get ready for the Meet and Mingle. We briefly stopped at Lola’s spot and ordered truffles to go. I had to pull all of the name badges and the card swaps and grab my binder with the lists of orders together. Snatch my camera and we were off. GUESS who we saw in the elevator??? Tells me how this entire weekend is going to go, but we step on and there is LISA BEARNSON just hanging out. Both Meg and I are tongue tied and barely got two sentences out to her. We saw her later and had a more intelligent convo so it was much better.

We had to go to the usual A-C, D-H, M-S lines to get our registration packets and then head upstairs for our goodie totes. I will let the pictures stand for themselves. But let’s just say it was chock full o’ stuff! I believe all of it is going to be used tomorrow in our Inspiration stations to create the CKU album. I could be wrong.

Meg and I plopped ourselves down at one of the available tables and just waited. I told everyone on the Yahoo board that I would be around to pass out the name badges. Stand there and they will come. Mob City! Thank goodness I had Meg there. I pressed her into servitude when folks started throwing money and Christmas cards and gifts my way. It was bedlam, I tell ya! When it finally calmed down a bit I managed to take a peek around.

GUESS who was at the table behind us about 50 feet away? *Drumroll please* JESSICA SPRAGUE!!! She was looking great, I think she chose to wear green in honor of her new site rolling out today. Isn’t she amazing that she can roll out a new website AND be at this event on the same day? Meg and I had to wait a very long time before the crowds dispersed around her before we could approach and be accepted into her court (HA!). Here are two shots of us together. One, I am doing the Beta Boy ‘save’ pose. The other was more sedate.

I am so ashamed of how star struck I was when I first went over to talk to her. But she immediately put me at ease with this super huge smile. she gave me a big hug and told me how great it was to meet me. HUH? Here I am falling over my own shoes, and Jessica Sprague is glad to meet me. Will wonders never cease? I have to say that Jessica is such a great personality to meet. Someone who is really friendly and down to earth. She even did a little dance to show how excited she was to be at CKU. She and I chatted back and forth about the new site. That girl will not give up the goods on where those fantastic flower backgrounds came from. After coming down from cloud 9 of having met my own personal Super Hero, it was awesome to meet and have a conversation in real life with Ms. Jessica Sprague.

More and more people began to file out and head down to dinner, or to the cropping area. So Meg and I took this opportunity to meet the other GREATS! Here we are with Ali Edwards who was so sweet to remember me from Atlanta. And there we are with Tim Holtz who told me I was too popular because everyone signed my bag. Well, ya know. When you got it, you got it!

The rest of the night was spent cutting, taping, stuffing, and wrapping the gift boxes. These are to be Thank You gifts for the instructors from the Yahoo group. It was amazing how quickly people pulled together and organized this stuff to go in there.

Then I had to go to bed. It was midnight my time and I was ready to crash! After all, tomorrow is another day!

TWO DAYS til CKU!!

Oh the sweet agony. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas to arrive. I have packed and repacked all of my stuff. Gone through the checklist so many times to make sure that I have everything I need. Finished all three of my card swaps and ATC swap. I even organized a collection of items to put in a gift basket for the instructors. Made sure that I had the name badge holders and the card swap materials. I can just imagine the angry mob surrounding me with paper trimmers and tape runners if I forgot those things.
I am going to print out my flight reservations right now. So really all I have to do is sit back and WAIT!!
If you know me at all, you are aware of how much I hate to wait, especially for the FUN. I mean I am so anxious that I mowed the backyard. THREE times - Aside: we have an electric lawn mower that can't cut through thick grass. So I have to cut it down in stages. Not fun, but at least I don't have to worry about gas and pulling that starter any more.
I'm not meeting at Meg's house until 11:30 on Wednesday. This is still too far away, people!

Raven's Cliff Falls

When we went into the visitor's center at Anna Ruby, they gave us a map of all the other area waterfalls. One was the Raven's Cliff Falls. It was a 2.5 mile walk into the falls, so that would be good exercise right?

Oy, what a walk that was. It was a very rustic trail with only a few bridges made up of split logs.

There was one spot off of the trail that was beneath one of the smaller falls. So I manuevered my way down to it to take some pictures. Gordon decides to follow. As he is almost down, his foot slips, water bottle goes flying, and he does a pirouette in the air. Landing...on his FEET! Thanks be to the WII Fit, eh? All that yoga was good for something.

After this, I asked him to take some pictures of me down by the falls. Here's a shot he took. That, if you agree with me, definitely makes up for those earlier shots from the Battlegrounds (see earlier post):

One of the funniest moments from the whole day came right after the slip up. We were walking the trial and then one of the branches on the path decides to move. Gordon had almost stepped right on it. It was this arm long gray SNAKE! You should have heard the boy scream. It wasn't exactly like one of those high pitched things, but more like a WHAAAAOH OH OH. Imagine the sound getting weaker as it continues because Gordon raced down the trail about 500 yards! hee hee

The falls at the end of the trail were actually quite pretty. Worth the trek in, sweat and all. Who knew such vistas were tucked in the woods of North Georgia? Well, other than the guidebook writers.

Anna Ruby Falls

I'm on a mission to hunt down all of the great hikes within a 60 mile radius of my house. Who knew that someone already beat me to the punch? There's a book out there called 60 Hikes in 60 miles from Atlanata. And with me being so close to that, I am in heaven!

I've already done several of the hikes listed in the book (Cloudland Canyon, Amicolola, Tallulah Gorge) and recently did one at Kennesaw Battlegrounds because of their suggestions.

Today I needed to break in some new hiking shoes I bought for Hawaii. Hiking the Volcano National Park is quite an ordeal, so I hear. Pulled up the website for that book I mentioned earlier and found a hike listed for Anna Ruby Falls. It is located up above Helen, Ga. Hmm, never been there!

It took almost two hours thanks to construction on 85. But we arrived and found the spot in Unicoi State Park with little trouble. The hike was almost non-existent, since it took less than a mile to reach the falls. But MY GOODNESS! Talk about being worthwhile. Here's a shot:

That's Gordon at the bottom of one side of the falls. There were two cascading spectacles. It was really quite beautiful.

Here's a shot of the other side :

Okay, one more picture of the whole reason we traveled two hours ($35 worth of gas!).

It's late. I'm tired. I promise more tomorrow!

How easy is it to forget.

School has been out for an entire week. Do I miss it?

Umm, no.

How easy it was to completely lose all of the stress, frustration and paperwork.

Now I sit around all day and wonder, "What should I do today? Do I have anything I need to get done? How long til lunch?" Then I get out of bed.

I have time to read now (two books). Time to go through all of my old Creating Keepsakes magazines and tear out what I want (three hours). Attend lunches that last two hours. Watch old dvd's I haven't seen for a while. Oh, and teach myself how to use Adobe Illustrator.

One of my biggest problems is staying on my diet. With more free time, I am uncovering those deep seated desires for CHOCOLATE! I had to stop myself physically from going into the Coldstone Creamery. Oy. I think I need a sponsor to help me over the withdrawals.

Okay, I'm gonna stop rambling now and watch Last Comic Standing.

My Story

I wrote this out over on the Spraground. Thought I'd throw it in here.

My story?But why?It's boring and lame-O.Not inspiring at all.But I am proud of my scrappin' journey!!Hmm, where to begin? I have always tried different crafting hobbies as a means to express my creativity. Nothing seemed to fit perfectly. I couldn't play a musical instrument, painting came to stick figures for me, can't sew a straight line, quilt quickly, or even design my own cross stitch. I fell into scrapbooking quite accidently. I hosted a Murder Mystery Party with a 50's soda shop theme in October of 2004. Everyone came decked out in poodleskirts, leather jackets, ponytails, and slicked back hair. It was so great. The pictures were even better. I knew I couldn't just stick these into a magnetic album. I googled 'scrapbook' and found sb.com, and then started to talking to like minded individuals. Before long I had an entire group of people in my area who wanted to hang out and crop together (we just celebrated our third year of meeting once a month!). I was hooked. I think the missing link to my creativity was having a supportive group of friends to encourage and inspire me. I turned to digi in Feb of 2005 because I was teaching technology at an elementary school. They had a business version of Elements loaded and I started poking around. I immediately fell in love with the freedom it offered me. With paper I would look at the layouts and want that EXACT paper, the perfect embellishment, that color ribbon, etc. It was very stressful and within 3 months I spent $4000 on tools and supplies. OY!It was much easier to collect what I needed with digi without poking holes in my pocket. I could also recolor and resize to my liking. Pretty soon my brain started asking, "I wonder how they made that brad." I googled 'digital scrapbook tutorials' and was amazed at how much was available to me. I studied one tut after the other and pretty soon became pretty adept at creating my own stuff. It was so freeing!I joined another message board and was asked to become one of their design team members. Not long after I was selling kits and stuff at their store. It became difficult to juggle both my creative side and my career. I had to choose one or the other. Sigh... I chose teaching because it paid the bills. I didn't give up my digi scrapping though. Next, I stumbled onto the Spraground right about the time Jessica offered her Now We're Rocking class, so I jumped at the chance to learn more. Her teaching style is so encouraging and easy that I was hooked. I stood in the long line all day to sign up for her beta class of Digi in Deep. LOVED that class too. But I felt like something was still missing. I didn't have a perfect set yet. With CKU-Houston looming (21 days!!) Jessica, being the awesome person she is, offered her digi album participants a free U&R membership. Now how could I pass that up??That's the story of my journey. King of convuluted and backwards, I know. But one that makes me supremely happy. Happy that is until Jessica offers her next class!!Thanks for listening.

Two Weeks til CKU

School is out. Yes, you heard correctly. I am officially done with the school year with students!

Now all of my thoughts can turn to something fun. Something I've been waiting for some time now.

CREATING KEEPSAKES UNIVERSITY!!!!!

I am headed to Houston, TX for five full days of digital scrapbooking with Jessica Sprague. This is the first year CK is offering a digital album track. And of course I had to take it!

I begged and pleaded and begged some more and finally convinced my Peachy friend, Meg, to come with me.

I am so excited about this. These thoughts of an interactive time with my favorite digi goddess instructor is pretty much what got me through the last sixty days of a rough year. The amount of interaction I threw myself into with CKU shows insight into my frame of mind. Actually how much I wanted to escape the humdrum of my daily job.

I'm in charge of collecting the money and passing out namebadge holders. I am in charge of collecting and then redistributing not one, but two Christmas Card swaps. I joined an Anything Goes card swap and an ATC (artist trading cards) swap. So much to do I will have to carry an itinerary!

Right now I am waiting for my tshirts (three of which I designed) from CafePress. I must be weird to be waiting at the door watching for the UPS man. Who knows.

My homework for class is all complete and burned on CD's awaiting the plane ride. I haven't exactly started packing, but I have definitely started thinking about packing. ScrappyNan showed off all of her goodies from CKU-Chicago. I just KNOW I will need a whole other suitcase to bring it all back home with me.

I definitely have to remember to pack the 100 namebadges for the yahoo group (hi you guys!!). Here's a shot of what they look like:

We did a whole vote for the color choices. The design is something I cooked up. It's a little small and not placed where I would put it. But the name badge holders are going to be much cooler than those plastic doohickeys they usually give out.

If I forget these, I will have some very unhappy individuals circling around me!

So, in only two short weeks I will be boarding a Delta airplane next to Meg and flying to Houston to enjoy myself!

I've been SACKED

Jessica Sprague is such a fount of inspiration. She sent us over to the AIGA design gallery (http://designarchives.aiga.org/) to check out all the really cool idea generators. I found this paper sack at #49 and thought it would make a fun embellishment on a layout.

So, while I was playing I made four sacks just for you! One is blank and the other three have barcodes.

Hope you enjoy!

[url=http://www.4shared.com/file/47084385/15f0ae49/SG_Sackedzip.html] SG_Sacked [/url]

I belong in the ZOO!

The Atlanta Zoo offered a Free Educator Day. I haven't been to the zoo in so long that I thought it would be a perfect way to spend a lazy Saturday.

And it WAS! The weather channel promised rain, but in the early morning it was bright and warm.


We had to stand in a long line to prove that we were actually teachers and then we could go inside. It was very busy today. Seemingly everyone getting the same idea at the same time.

Even though there were tons of people with their children, I was much more impressed with the manners shown here. Nothing like the Aquarium where people just knock your camera out of your hands and don't even stop. I actually experienced one woman moving her child so I could get a shot. Wow!

I was playing with my aperature mode and thought there would be plenty of light since we were outside so I left the iso on 200. Every picture I was snapping was horribly blurred. Remember my complaints about Gordon's picture taking skill? Well, it seems it may NOT have been his fault after all.

I switched to auto and got the shots. Once I checked the Metadata I noticed that the iso was all over 500. Hmm? Thank goodness. I thought I would have to send in my camera to be fixed. It would take six weeks to get it back. Umm, that's not good since I am flying to San Francisco on Friday.

Overall, we had an awesome day at the zoo. These free educator days at Atlanta attractions are indeed a benefit of teaching!

Should I be mad?

I planned an outing with Gordon and told him I wanted to use this time to get some shots for my Jessica Sprague class and maybe some candid and portrait shots.
I took some shots of him, here's one I thought turned out pretty well:

Then I gave him the camera and told him I wanted some portrait shots. Now, I've seen him take some amazing shots of landscapes and other things so thought this would be a no brainer.

Here are the results:

I'm not sure if I'm being nitpickey here, but my feet are cut off. The focus is too far away, the background is entirely cluttered and they are BLURRY! Plus, I don't even know what is going on with my face...

Should I be mad?

Got the Shot!

I saw this really cool idea in a UK magazine and have been wanting to try it since I bought my Jeep back in May.

I finally convinced Gordon to come out with me and set up the tripod. Eventhough the weather was not as warm as once promised he braved the elements to humor me. He reluctantly stood around while I repositioned myself through six shots. He grumbled and groaned about the remote shutter release doo-hickey.

But, I got the shot! Here's how:

I brought a tripod and a remote control shutter release. Set the camera up on the tripod and angled it where I had the car in full 3/4 profile. I took a test shot and made sure everything was fine. I planned out the five different spots so they don't overlap each other.

At home I opened all six shots in Photoshop CS3. I dragged them all onto one document. Gave each a layer mask and filled it with black at the beginning. Then at the top of all this, I added a levels layer that brought the light up and added a little punch to the darks. Next was a hue/ saturation adjustment layer that brought out the greens more.

Then I clicked on the brush palette, made sure the first layer mask was clicked and NOT the picture box. I knew I had the right one because the brush colors changed to black and white. I changed the white to the foreground and with a feathered brush I started painting in my first 'self' onto the original Jeep shot.

I continued to brush on a new 'self' until each one was uncovered and made to look like it was all one shot.

Fun, eh?

TIM HOLTZ RULZ!!

OMIGOSH! So Freakin' Awesome! Tim Holtz got the go ahead from CKU to offer a FREE TUITION to someone who posts on his blog (timholtz.typepad.com) about why the want to go to CKU. The only catch? It has to be in 25 words or less. Ugh

Here's my entry:

Sadness = digital scrapper assisting Ali Edwards at CKU07 just to meet his heroes. Happiness = CKU08 including entire digital album track. I wanna go!

Think it will fly?

Am I CKU Obsessed?

I am not saying this is a bad condition to have in any shape or form, but I am starting to worry myself.

If you don't know yet, my bestest friend, Meg and I are going to our first Creating Keepsakes University event. I have booked the flight to Houston, Texas on June 4th. I have started my homework for all of the classes. And I've even created a packing list. Also, I am posting like crazy on the yahoo group (love you guys!).

But the issue is I don't know when to stop.

Not only am I heading up one Christmas Card Swap. I have opened up a second one because of all the great response. I agreed to join in the ATC swap and think I just signed up for the 'Anything Goes' card swap. Now I've decided the yahoo group should have customized name badge holders!

They will look like this (we haven't voted on the color choice yet. I wanted Orange and Blue, but Meg balked at that choice):



I got the idea for this from a terrific blogger ( ScrappyNan ) who headed this up in Chicago. She even gave some of these as prizes to the instructors. Cool idea. I needed to get at least 100 orders to get a good price. After two days I have 32 orders. Isn't that awesome!

Spurned on by that many requests, I came up with a little logo for the top flap.





Whaddya think?


My whole problem with this is that I have to make myself available to over 100 people now. I have to be in one place to give out, receive and redistribute TONS of materials that first night. When am I going to have time to enjoy myself?


Don't even get me started on whether or not I'm joining the M.A.N. frat at CKU. That is a whole other story!


I can't imagine anything else that I can volunteer for, but ya never know!

Green Gables Update

I couldn't spend $14 on a book I wasn't even sure I was going to like. So I ordered it from the public library. It came so quickly...not a good omen. I started reading it with trepidition and by page 2 I was already offended. I don't want to ruin it, but Bertha Shirley should NOT be discussing personal information like that with her neighbor!!!
I've read up to the part where Bertha and Walter die and Anne is taken in by a woman with good intentions. I am going to continue because I haven't decided conclusively how I feel about it yet.
Stay tuned!

Chalky Numbers

I saw this concept on a flyer this morning. It looked perfect for a school kit.


Let me know if there are any issues with it.
http://www.4shared.com/file/40916211/872c7e92/SG_ChalkyNumberszip.html


here's how I did it:
I clicked on my text tool and chose an Eras Bold ITC font set at 282%.

Next came the Control Click trick on the text layer. This created a marching ant border. Create a new layer on top of the text.

I went to Edit > Stroke and set it to 20 pts and chose a simple white color.
Click on the eye icon next to your text to hide it.

A new layer was needed underneath the outlined number. Here's where the brush comes in. I chose the Chalk 44 pixels brush in the default brush palette, and opened up the brush manipulator. I moved the spacing on the brush to 60% to spread it out for a nicer chalkier look.

Then I did nice even strokes back and forth underneath the letter outline trying to get it to look as if a student held the chalk sideways and ran it across the board.

You can see the final results.

Before Anne of Green Gables

Has anyone else seen this?
Umm, say what? I saw this at Costco and almost fell over. My first thought was why are they messing with such a classic? Haven't they learned anything from the GWTW remakes?
Apparently Budge Wilson was asked to help honor the 100th anniversary of Lucy Maud Montgomery's favorite heroine. Budge is going to tell "in my own voice" the prequel of Anne's life before she arrives in Avonlea.
I think it's positively 'providential' that I just finished the entire Anne series for the first time in February. I tried before long time ago after first seeing the PBS show. I never got past book five because it got too lovely dovey for me. After going through the books again, I found that book five was actually my favorite. Who knew?
Okay, I digress. I'm still really upset that they are trying to mess with a perfectly good original.
If anyone reads this, PLEASE comment and let me know if I should attempt it.

Just cuz I love the ladies

over at the SPRAGROUND!!!

Here's a freebie just for y'all.

It's the grungy and glittery picture overlay featured in my "Ouchies" layout. Thanks for asking. Makes me want to start designing again!
http://www.4shared.com/file/40300924/69ae6335/SG_030308_GrungeFramezip.html]

JS Week 4- Digi Lesson Results

Here it is, my final class assignment:


There were tons of great techniques for this one. I love all of the elements that Jessica chose to use. The colors and the frostiness of the grunge made me think of Christmas. Since I had these shots already begging for a layout I married the two together. How'd it come out?
The journaling on here doesn't give half of the scope necessary for this past holiday. Christmas was a major one for the Fryns Family in '07. It was the first time in fifteen years that almost the entire clan was together again. Karen was the only element sorely missed. Everyone gathered at Paul and Cindy's Christmas night for a feast of goodies and present swapping.
It brought back so many memories of growing up with these people. I must confess, even I got a little teary eyed! Although the surprise gift that Lisa gave to Darrin and I brought back the laughter. Can you imagine waiting 32 years for a practical joke?
Here's the back story for future generations: When my family moved into the house some still live in today, we left behind some good friends. Barbara Nichols was just one of my mom's confidants. She happened to take a liking to me especially. I think someone told me that she had lost a baby around the time that I was born. Anyway, the first Christmas after the move I was 6 and my brother 4. Barbara came to visit with gifts. I got this SUPER COOL 6 Million Dollar Man action figure....my brother? A funpad. If you are not familiar with these petite packages of fun, they are like coloring books with some puzzle pages thrown in. Needless to say, my younger brother pitched a fit for all to see. Embarrassed, Barbara left and came back from the Toys 'R Us down the street. Unceremoniously she presented my brother with a Rescuers Down Under Board Game. He was finally placated. And I got to seeth over his behavior. Hmph!

Now fast forward 32 years later. My sister kept hinting about this 'special present' she had for Darrin and I and that we had to be together when she gave it. On Christmas night with the entire family gathered around, she consented to hand over the contraband. Darrin opened his first and found a 6 Million Dollar Man action figure in an original space rocket. Me? What do you think I got for my troubles? A funpad.

As the disappointment was about to set in, Lisa whips out a second action figure all for me! She managed to track down two pristine dolls on ebay of all places and snagged them for less than $30. And another chapter of our family history is brought to light for the next generation. Everyone had a good laugh over this. Personally I am still a little mad.

Frosty Dreams

Here it is! My results from Jessica Sprague's week 3 class. I've been wanting to scrap these shots of that BLIZZARD we had in Georgia recently. It was such a fun day taking shots of the snow, even though I had to carry my umbrella around so the lens didn't get wet.
I played around with the color scheme, took out the hearts from the grunge frames and replaced them with snowflakes (from adobe.exchange). I also torn the edge of the dot paper and put a paper core tear edge. I used lessons from Tandika Starr. Still love here. The font is from dafont called Frosty's Winter Land.
What do you think?

GA Peach Greet - Archiver's

Today was officially the wackiest Peach Greet ever! Who knew that the Archiver’s Make and Take weekends would be so popular? Who knew they would open their doors an entire HOUR before regular times? Apparently not the customer who called in yesterday and was told 9:30 and then showed up to have the room completely packed and not a seat to be found anywhere. Boy, was she livid!

Yep, it was crazy. I was up and putzing around and could have gone in earlier to reserve the five seats we would need. Unfortunately I was unaware of the time change and the well-liked weekend response. I got up there at 9:35 and was halted in the aisle by Jenn. She asked, “Umm, you’re here to crop? You’re people are probably already here, right?” Don’t you love how she knows us!! Come to find out only my friend, Carrie that I invited had managed to sneak into a seat. Sharon came up out of the stacks to introduce herself after having arrived at 9. She hadn’t gotten herself a seat, though. Jenn explained that they were trying to set up a small table for us in the back workroom.

I immediately call Courtney and Martina to fill them in. Their advice was to hang out until we were all there together. While we waited Carrie suggested we move the party to her house since she had a large dining room table that could easily accommodate all of us. The staff at Archiver’s managed to shuffle things around and find us three empty seats. Since Carrie had one, we were still one seat down. So I asked if it was okay to grab me a stool and I could prop myself in a corner near the back counter. They got it approved, but then turned around and gave my seat to someone else standing there at the counter. GAH!

Pretty soon all of us were assembled and decided that with the bleak fate of having to sit scattered around the room we would take Carrie up on her offer. We decided to shop and then grab a lunch to take with us before we left. I snagged a great pink baby album for my sister-in-law and thought about a doodle design book. Soon we were all piled into Courtney’s van and headed to Carrie’s.

She was right. Her table was more than adequate to fit us all. We ate and got settled into scrapping. Carrie was so ecstatic to have found other scrappers in her area and eagerly shared her previous albums with us. It was fun to watch her progression as a scrapper emerge. Reminds me of myself as a newbie. Can you believe it’s been four years? Oooh, that’s the first time I’ve said it myself. It just seems like yesterday that I discovered how to rip and ink papers!

We loved meeting Sharon and having her share her Disney album. The story about her 13 year old daughter realizing that the family trip was to be her first adventure with the Mouse was so great. Sharon also showed us how she was going to incorporate all of those character autographs into her album. I took a shot of it and will post it on the wink account.

Courtney was a whirlwind of activity with her college day pages. I think CCA was a good influence on her because she flew through FIVE pages. Martina was doing her thang with her LO about her daughter’s first scrap page. It was adorable! I was making some more pages for my digital school year in review. Carrie was finishing up some pages from her London trip where she got to go to a real live ball, gown and all. She needs to finish soon to get ready for that first grand baby on they way!

Sadly, the time to go came all too quickly. After dropping us all off back at Archiver’s we hit the road. Oh, except Martina who went back in to make good use of her 30% coupon. The mall was incredibly busy which made traffic just drag along. Another Peachy Day has come to a close.

Thanks to Courtney for this awesome blinkie!!!

GAH! I was tagged

These are the rules…. each player starts with 7 random facts about themselves on their Blog. People who are tagged need to blog 7 facts about themselves and post the rules as well. At the end of their blog list 7 people you are tagging. Let them know that they are tagged by leaving them a comment. My facts are:

1. I am currently on hold for my bank and have been for ten minutes. They suck.
2. I was all set to see a outdoor showing of ET when it got rained out. V. disappointed.
3. I got my first issue of Photoshop User and made my first payment on my Jeep on the same day. My anniversary. Whee
4. My dog follows me everywhere. I don't think it is out of love or anything, it's more out of "will he spontanesously drop food?"
5. I have been to every Peach Greets for the past two and a half years.
6. I just put all of my digi kits on sale at 37% off.
7. I am still on hold. Yep, they suck.

Seven taggees:
Courtney, Nicole, Jenn,

Scalloped Edges?

Someone had a question over at SB.com and I threw this out there for them to try.
Thought some of y'all might need this too.

You could try and create one using a hard round edge brush.

Click on the brush and then go to your brush palette (Window > Brushes). Click on the 19 inch round edged brush. To the left of your brush selections you'll see Brush Presets and under that is Brush Tip Shape. At the bottom of this screen you'll see a Spacing slider. Slide it to the right until the circles are just touching. I did mine at 95%

Then go to your paper that you want to scallop. Create a new layer on top of that. Zoom out until you get some gray area around your document. Click once just outside the left edge of your paper and proably about a half inch down from the top (you'll want some space at the top for later) then Shift and click on the right end of the paper. This will create a row of brush circles across the top.

Control Click (Command Click) on the brush layer to get the marching ants selection. Highlight your paper layer. Control + Shift + Letter I to invert the selection. Grab your eraser tool and erase the paper along the top edge of the brush circles. This should work.

You can then just rotate the brush layer 90 CW to erase the sides and bottom.

HTH

Embroidered Alphas

I think it's time to share a new tutorial. Whaddya say?

Here goes:

I found this one off of another site (http://www.dwphotoshop.com/photoshop/embroidery.php) but didn't quite like the striations it created so I played around and found a twist to it. Plus they were making monograms and that wasn't my purpose either.

Let's start with a new document set for 4x4 inches (1200x1200pixels) at 300dpi. This will give us a good size if anyone should want to increase the letter later.

1. Pick the main color of your alpha for the foreground. Then pick a shade that is darker of lighter depending on your first color. Darker color should be set for background choice. I usually eyeball it and go directly below my color choice.

2. Click Ctrl + Backspace to flood fill with your darker color.

3. Click on your text tool (T) and select an alpha with large open areas so that you can see the effect more clearly. I am using Broadway at the moment. Type your letter and resize as necessary. I have this one at 180 pt.

4. Create a new layer above your text. Click on Alt + Backspace to flood fill with your foreground lighter color.

[IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y67/frynsg/PSE%20Tutorial%20Screen%20Shots/EmbroidLayers.jpg[/IMG]

5. Go to Filter > Render > Fibers. Set it for Variance 14.0, Strength 50.0. But feel free to play around with these until you get a setting you like.
*Note: Don't worry about the pattern going vertical right now. We're going to alter that.

6. Go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. Set it for Angle 0, Distance 5.

7. Go to Edit > Transform > Rotate 90 CW. (For PSE users it would be Image > Rotate)

8. Ctrl Click on the alpha layer while keeping the top layer activated. This will highlight your letter shape onto your top layer.

9. Click Ctrl + Shift + I (letter i) to select the inverse and then hit the Backspace key to delete everything except inside the letter shape. I like to click on Ctrl + Shift + I again to reselect the letter shape.

10. Click Ctrl + Shift + E (letter e) to merge all layers. Your letter will still have the marching ants around it. Don't deselect.

11. Click Ctrl + C, then Ctrl + N (new document in the exact size of your letter), and Ctrl + V. Now you have your embroidered letter on a transparent background to save as an individual png file.

Now you are ready to add your favorite bevelling and drop shadows. Have fun!

Action, Action, Who's Got the Action

So I tried to 'save' my action that I used to create an embroidered alpha. Figured it would save me all of the clicking and typing stuff. Unfortunately I had NO idea what I was doing. I tried looking at the steps that Atomic Cupcake uses for their chipboard action. Might as well print it in Greek, I can't read that either!!

If there ever was a kind soul in this world, they would contact me and try patiently to explain how to create an action...

Anyone? Anyone???

Simple Scrapbook Quiz #06

1. If you were lonely, whom would you call?
Lisa. She knows all the good gossip in the family.

2. Who in your family do you really admire?
It would be a tie between Lisa and Paul. Both took in children
that were not their own and did a durn fine job of it!

3. Who is your most interesting family member?
Aunt Kate wins hands down. As the matriarch of the Linton clan
she holds a lot of keys to our past. I would love to just sit down
and ask her a bunch of questions.

4. What's one of your mom’s greatest strengths?
Calmness. That woman had the ability to remain calm while
raising five headstrong children.

5. What one quality of your dad’s would you like to have?
Funny, but I would like to do a jack knife off the diving board
like he could. It was amazing to watch!

6. Who's the funniest person in your family?
Lisa, she’s the original Wild and Crazy Sister. I can’t tell you
how often I fell victim to her antics, but I love her dearly.

7. Who's the best cook in your family?
That would be me. I have learned some skills over the years
and can create a sumptuous meal for about twenty people.
Just ask my volleyball team!

8. Which family member would you turn to first if you were in
trouble?
Lisa would get that late night phone call to come bail me out.
Not that I would ever need it....

9. Who wrote or phoned you last?
Jennifer, Darrin’s wife sent pictures of Lowell Fryns.

10. Who in your family are you most like?
I am most like my mother. Her and I are more kindred spirit
than even I probably know. We have the same taste in movies.
Both avid readers and total extroverts. We can cut loose if we
want. And we share a love for travel.

My newest Craze

I am in love with the Simple Scrapbooks Shortcuts -Quizzes book. So much in fact that I actually emailed them to see if they would grant me permission to use some of the quizzes in my digital challenges at Scrapbook.com [http://www.scrapbook.com/forums/showtopic.php?tid/1379051/]. So far no response yet. I did use one of the quizzes they had posted on their website. Hopefully they won't come hunting me down for that!

I plan on using these a lot this year. They are so fun and quick it would be great to hear some of the responses my students will come up with. Then I can use them in my digital year in review album I am creating (or thinking about creating). Wish me luck!

Where have you been?

I have only one excuse for not being around lately. And it's spelled S-C-H-O-O-L!! Mansakes alive! This year has been a trial already. Usually there is a honeymoon period for teachers. The students don't know you yet and you aren't bothered by their little quirks yet. So everything goes smoothly. Well not this year. A lot of the teachers are saying they started the year off with issues. Lovely!
It's doubly hard on me because I lost some of my best friends to graduate school this year. Christine is off at Duke having the time of her life becoming a little lush in the process! Christina is only around three days a week and then stuck in an office on the other side of the building so I rarely bump into her. No one to just hang with and vent this year. Although Alia is quickly becoming a sounding board for all my gripes. Jennifer is also a kindred spirit in that department too, so it may just work out after all. Gotta have faith!

I Can't Sleep - So you get a DIGITAL FREEBIE

I consider tonight to be my last night of freedom before school starts again. Yes, Yes, I know. Technically it doesn't start until Monday for the teachers. But I have a luncheon to attend tomorrow to meet my new mentee for the year. I am planning on working on pulling together things to be copied and calling parents to schedule for registration night. So really, the gates open tomorrow....sigh. Where did the summer go?
I am quite pleased that I managed to cram so much into this summer. Started off with the surprise going away party for my best buddy, Christine. Go DUKE!! Gonna miss you, GRIL! (inside joke). Then I had my sitting around the house being a big lazy bum time. Next summer school descended. After that it was the Scrapbook Expo with the Peaches staying at my house. After that it was off to Indianapolis for the RCA tennis championship. Big Hey to Andy Roddick and James Blake!! Of course there was CKU and volunteering. Huge moment for me, personally.
And now school looms near.

Since I can't sleep. I am feeling a little generous. I have a new Baseball themed kit just for you!

You can find it here at this link:

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.ph...A2C9FE7A19C283

Leave me a comment and let me know if you can't find it, okay?

Now what do I do til I fall asleep?

Guess who is my new HERO???

I just spent five whole hours hanging out and chatting with.....Ms. ALI EDWARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!




Guys, she is SOOO awesome. So laid back and carefree. It was hard to remember that we haven't been best buds forever. Actually everyone I met while volunteering at CKU-Atlanta was so awesome! I got all the big ones to sign my book. Ali, Cathy Z, Becky Higgins, Tim Holtz , Ginger from Gin-X, and some others I don't recognize right off the bat.

I was kinda fretting that I wouldn't be getting any goodies as a TA because the morning lagged on with nothing being mentioned. But come 1 PM I am informed I get a FREE catered lunch, here is my FREE Ali Edwards lanyard and FREE Cropper Hoppper Stand Up Case and FREE Page Planner 5 packs.

Lunch was a yummy taco bar. Then I was TA for Magic Scraps two elective classes. Emily Adams turned out to be fun to work with too! I hadn't known her before. By the end she gave me BOTH of her class kits and a name for a gal looking for a digi designer!! AS I signed out, I got more goodies. A FREE jewelry case and a FREE bag of goodies with tons of stuff!!


Long but incredibly wonderful day!!

http://aliedwards.typepad.com/


Other pictures from the day:

Inspiration - how to create your own texture

How funny that inspiration comes from the unlikeliest of places. I recently took a class at a Scrapbook Expo here in Atlanta on digi scrapping and got more out of just chatting with the instructors than what they were teaching. I picked up a few tips, but most of it I already knew. The biggest thing I learned was that in order to create wonderfully textured background papers in my scrapbook kits, I had to go out and take pictures of TEXTURE!!

Texture can be anything from your favorite pair of jeans, to your mother's heirloom lace, to your hair, and to all things found on the ground. Yep, there is wonderful texture on the ground. That rock bed surrounding your begonias. The wood chips lining your walkway. The very grass itself!!

Go outside right now and take a picture of anything that has a bumpy, lumpy, gritty feel to it. Upload it to your Editor and open the picture.

Save it as a .psd file to Program Files > Adobe> Adobe Photoshop > Presets > Textures.

Now you can use it to give your papers a unique feel.

Open up the file you'd like to add texture to. Click on Filter > Texture and then in the far right next to the textures name there's a little right pointing arrow. Click it to find the option to Load Texture.

Manuever to your newly saved file in the Presets folder and VOILA! Instant texture.

Here's one I did with woodchips:

I'm so bad at this thing.

I thought it would be so cool to join the ever growing population of bloggers. I like to talk. I like to share my views with others.

Why can't I commit to blogging???

Maybe I just need to challenge myself and start a new topic each day. Here I go...

Miss Me??

I haven't been a very good blogger, have I? I have been lost in the world of digi kit creation. Amazing the amount of mental stability this requires. I am so sorry that I have neglected you, but I can't promise that I will do more.
Things are starting to rotate in my little world. I am in negotations with a few online sites to start selling my kits. V. excited about this fact. But it means that I need to get serious about correcting all of the kits I screwed up earlier. Can you believe I created the bg papers at 72 dpi and NOT 300dpi? Thank goodness I created all of those patterns and miraculously they are still in the pattern selector! This might make things easier on me. We'll see.

Oh, and I received an incredible email two days ago. ScrapStreet.com wants to publish - YES PUBLISH - one of my LO's. I created this with a kit I love from Alisha Hess called You Are My Sunshine. Love the distressing she used in it and all the rusty embellies. Anyway, I digress. I am going to have an actual PAGE published. This was one of my New Year's resolutions. Amazing that it came true so early.

Forgive me while I dance a little....

Okay, back to my groveling and apologizing...HA NOT!

I am signing off now to get to work on a kit based on a trip to Martha's Vineyard. TTYL

Peach Greet

If anyone has their April issue of Memory Makers, take a peek at page 36. There you will see my big ole' mug staring out at you. The fine ladies behind me are part of my croppin' group. They are so cool!

We met this past weekend in McDonough and had a laughing good time~ I usually do the write ups afterwards, so here's what I said on Sunday:

I was so ready to get going, but didn't want to seem too eager so I hung around playing on the computer til 7:45. Since it would only take about 5-7 mins to get to Courtney's house I thought I had plenty of time. Didn't realize that it was raining out! So I had to hunt around for some way to cover up this huge box full of paper and supplies I was brining in the back of my pickup. Alas, I was only about 5 mins late. Courtney forgave me and we snacked on Fruit Loops. Well, she did, I watched. She had a cough going on. We waited for Martina to arrive. And then set off down the road. We stopped at the Starbucks near Courtney's house where I proceeded to get ripped off. They gave me a grande sized cup when I ordered a VENTI!! Can you believe that? Oh, the humanity!Martina and I debated the finer points of the Canon Digital Rebel XT (both drooling all the while) while Courtney drove. Martina shared her knowlege about camera lenses to be found at pawn shops and ebay. I shared my knowledge about how the casing and grip of the camera was custom made for fine delicate ladies to hold it. She agreed.We made it to McDonough in an hour and found the little group clustered right inside the Super Target waiting on us. It was so great to see Hedda, and Margot, and Lenee, and Nicole and Sam. I didn't get to Lori because she was surrounded by people on one side and coffee beans on the other! It was so neat to finally meet (hey, I rhymed) Amy Lynn! Great to put a face to all these posts we've been reading! Plus, she brought an awesome peanut butter cake. So we like her now. Kate and Kay came later after we had played musical chairs with Martina. We moved her to one side of the room to the other so that I could sit next to a plug for my puter. It all worked out cuz she got to sit with Courtney and the donuts. I got started right away with shopping! We all had to take a poke around the store to see what they had that had to come home with us. THey had a little Easter tag make and take going on at this time. The table was surrounded by Nicole, Hedda, and Lenee. I was rudely shoved aside...boohoo. Seriously, though. The tags were very cute.I began my first project which was NOT the baby album. I found a great card LO in my Bazzill Eclectic book and created seven cards to give to my Secret Pal coordinator at school. Lenee and Nicole made up their banishment of me from the make and take by offering their advice for design features. They came out great! I think she will like them. I was stuck against the wall all day, but from what I could make out Lori was working on her Gecko Girl page. Ask her how she made her own portable compass! Nicole was putting together her daughter's bday party at Chuck E Cheese. Kay was finalizing pages in her gorgeous heritage album. Margot was scrapping the pictures from our Thanksgiving greet in Calhoun. Cute colors! Courtney didn't have time to print out new pics, so she was working on some pages from Seaside, Florida. Sam was working like a maniac as usual. I didn't go near her because buttons, pieces of ribbon, a glue stick, and paper shards were flying every which way. Kate was hammering away on her end. Hedda was keeping calm, even though her wedding kit didn't include enough paper to make the LO's. Lenee was plugging away on her four pages. And Amy was working so quietly across the room from me. I never did get to sneak a peek at her work. I must remember to do that next time!After much haggling, we all decided that Chili's would be the place to eat. Hedda suggested we walk there. We all took one look at the torrential downpour and politely said, "NO". We had to wait a bit for our table because there were twelve of us. So we spent our time going through the menu to know exactly what we wanted when we sat down. Lenee had to go early, so we were anxious for her to eat. Lunch was fun. Full of talk about marriage, virgin angels, and the Miracle of Life. My stomach will never recover!We got back and Margot proceeded to tackle me and shove baby paraphenalia into my hands so that I would finally sit down and finish that baby album I started in Dec. Under her careful eye I did complete the job to a resounding chorus of "hallelujah". I just need to tie some ribbons along the spine and it will be done. I will immediately phone Margot when that is completed. The rest of the day went by so quickly. I couldn't believe it when I looked up and it was 6 o'clock already. I wowed the girls a bit with my digital skills - Courtney still can't believe I created a monogram with a textured matting in under three minutes! Then it was time to eat again. I reheated my lunch and dug in. The salesclerk came and hung out with us as her customer base slowed to a trickle. She wowed US with her tale of staying til 3:30 A.M. Friday night for a crop at the store. We thought we were bad!7 o'clock rolled around and with an hour drive staring at us and Courtney's cough medicine kicking in, it was time to go. We packed it all back up and hauled it all back out to the SUV- Courtney's Big Girl car. I hugged Lori TWICE this time around.The conversations ranged from Courtney's upcoming trip to Alabama to meet Elsie Flannigan and Heidi Swapp (jealousy has already set in), to who's going to steal the winnings of the SB $20,000 contest this time. Are they going to let me say that?I made it back home safely and was curled up on the couch by 8:30. Another Peach Greet for the record books.