Digital Fun

I'm playing around with some lessons on digital scrapbooking. The first lesson is to add a frame and word art to a photo. I love this photo of N, taken back in June. I tried getting rid of the legs behind her, but I need another tutorial on that!

I really like the way this class is set up, with video tutorial every step of the way. It's nice to be able to pause the video and work through the steps, checking back when I'm not sure what to do next.

Enjoy!
Immi

Button Bouquet

I took a leaf from my daughter-in-law's book for this craft project. She'd shown me some button flowers some time ago, and I really liked them. I thought it would be fun to do some button bouquets for some of my co-workers for the first of May. I found some cute little bud vases at Walmart which were the perfect size. (I originally wanted to buy all the vases from thrift stores and call them "vintage", but I couldn't find enough of the right size that way - that's what I get for coming up with a plan with only a few days to execute it!)I bought some bright colored buttons at the fabric store, as well as some floral wire. I added a few beads from my stash below each stack of buttons. I also bought a bag of crushed shells to go in the bottom of the vases. At the last minute, I decided to add some copper colored wire, twisted with beads as an accent to each vase. I stamped a tag for each vase, with a "to and from" on the back. I managed to sneak them onto everyone's desk the afternoon before so they'd see them the first thing the next morning. Everyone loved them!

While poking around on blogs today, I came across a drawing for a new book out (see photo). The requirements to participate are to post the Amazon link: http://tinyurl.com/64h9tm and to post a link to the artist's blog so that others could enter the drawing as well: http://ilkasattic.blogspot.com/2008/12/book-give-away-contest.html#links

So, there you go! Looks like a cool book, and I'd love to win a free copy of it!

Immi

90th Birthday

In November of 2007, my grandfather celebrated his 90th birthday. A party was in order, so my mom and aunt got busy organizing. All of his grandchildren, most of his great-grandchildren, and his one great-great grandchild were there.

The photo at the top shows 5 generations, with A sitting on Daddy Clyde's knee. The bottom photo is all of us squeezed in for a group photo. We met at a restaurant in Sweetwater, TX for some good food and catching up. I'm so glad we were able to do that!
Happy creating!
Immi

71 Years

Here is a layout of photos taken on my grandparents' 71st anniversary. It's amazing to me to think of being married that long - longer than some people live! Nanny was no longer able to live at home, but the staff at the care facility helped put together a celebration for them.

I didn't do much in the way of embellishments here. I used a pretty piece of vellum over white cardstock as my background. In my stash I found a neat ribbon with a slide over it which I adhered across the page. (I took to heart the lesson learned from the mistake I'd made with ribbon before!) I did want to cover up the date stamp on the photos, and I had some epoxy word stickers that worked well for that.

Happy creating!
Immi

Sweet Face

First, a note about AARP. My DH decided to apply for membership to take advantage of discounts. Weird enough to be married to a spouse who is a member of AARP. However, when his card arrived this past weekend, I was shocked to see a card with MY NAME on it!!! It's one thing for him to have a card; I wasn't ready for it at all. Sigh.

Okay, now for something fun and young! I took this photo of A back in June, when he was watching a He-Man cartoon. He was so absorbed in the action. My inspiration for the layout came from a post on Ali Edwards' blog - her layouts are always so clean and simple. I particularly liked the half-circle she'd cut out of a photo, with a circular element in the negative space left. I used up what was left of a piece of serendipity paper I'd done, so this really came together quickly. This layout is going in my scrapbook, which isn't chronological; it's photos I love that aren't necessarily tied to an event.

I did learn a lesson from adhering the ribbon to the page. I used some thin, double-sided tape, and put it on the ribbon first. I should have put it on the page, and then put the ribbon on top. Putting in on the ribbon caused the ribbon to get distorted and wavy. I wasn't very happy with the way it looked, but the tape is so strong, that when I gingerly tried to remove it, the paper underneath began to tear. I decided I'd better leave it as is and live with the waves.

Enjoy!
Immi

Inchie ATCs

I recently came across a swap on Swapbot for inchie artwork that would be about the size of an ATC. The inchies had to be connected to each other somehow.

I worked on the one on the left, and was liking the way it looked. I hadn't decided how to attach them to each other yet when I looked back at the rules for the swap. I realized this wouldn't work, because the swap description stated that it should be one continuous image, separated over the inchies used. So I glued them down to a black piece of cardstock, and kept that one for myself.

Back to the drawing board for the one I would send out. Do you remember the glossy photos from the social studies curriculum? I used one of the photos (sans glitter glue) for the background. The bird was stamped on tissue paper, and glued over the photo. I added some color with markers and a fake jewel for the eye, and cut it apart into inchies.

I thought I'd try attaching them to each other with thread. I used a very small hole punch to create the holes, and used sewing thread on a needle, tied in a knot on top. However, they wouldn't stay apart the distance I wanted, and it was all floppy. So I bent the rules a little, and glued everything down to brown cardstock and called it done.

If you'd like to get your feet wet in some swaps, Swapbot is a good place to start.

Till later,
Immi