Sketchabilities Reveal #20

My first sketch reveal as a design team member is up at Sketchabilities. Go check it out! The design team did a fantastic job!! So much inspiration!





I loved that this was a multi-photo sketch. As you can see from my blog, I always have a ton of sports photos. This was a great sketch to highlight a few of those. The papers are all Jenni Bowlin -- don't you just adore that sun paper??? The bracket paper and the sun were all one sheet, so I cut the sun out and placed my photos over the empty spot on the bracket portion....ingenious. That paper is one of my faves. I had to buy it in duplicate I liked it so much so look for it again on another post :)

Whittling down

I am making my way through some of the kids' sports pictures...namely soccer and baseball. It is hard b/c I just have so many and I am TERRIBLE at sorting through and printing only a couple. I tend to print everything and then find myself with stacks and stacks of pictures that I like of essentially the same thing. It is just easier for me to pick and choose when I have the pictures in front of me.

This layout is based on a sketch from Becky Fleck. As soon as I saw the banner in her sketch, I immediately thought "sports layout". Of course, as I got about 1/2 way through the layout, I realized how similar it was to a layout I created last year based on a sketch for a Studio Calico challenge. Oh well, two different years, two different albums.



Last year's layout:

Caught the Bug

Or should I say butterfly?! Butterflies are all the rage in scrapbooking and have been for some time now. There are stickers and rub-ons, chipboards, diecuts and punches, I myself must have a hundred butterflies in my stash. Well, I finally put some to use. Inspired by at least a dozen different people, since these frames and doilies are quite popular right now as well....



It is a $7 frame from Michael's. I popped the glass out so that I could add dimension to each of the three frames. Papers are Pink Paislee and Jillibean Soup. Doilies are Martha Stewart. The large butterflies were cut with my cricut (Give a Hoot). Jenni Bowlin butterfly stickers and push pins. October Afternoon Love sticker and American Craft stamp.

Very, very easy to make and look will wonderful in my living room!

Taking Control - warning TONS of pixs

Before I got married and had children, back in the days of film cameras, I loved photography. I took classes at the art institute and would spend my weekends roaming the city in search of the perfect picture and then spend hours upon hours in the dark room. I LOVED IT!! Then life took over as did the ease of digital photography. I bought a nice camera but only used it in Auto mode. I have decided enough -- I am determined to learn how to use my camera. No more relying solely on Auto.

Yesterday, the kids and I headed out back to "play" -- them on the swing set, me with my camera. Here are a few of my fave shots. For anyone with camera knowledge...feel free to critique, I won't know how to get better without your input! None of these have had any editing done what-so-ever.

We started with some simple swinging...I am so used to "sports mode" that it was difficult to find the right settings to capture the movement but I think I fared ok.



Next, we moved to jumping off of the swing. The two older kids insisted I get pixs of them in teh air...who was I to argue? This first one isn't perfect by any means but I liked that N's face is in focus (and intense) where the rest of his body is a bit blurred.


These ones are more focused shots....not good shots of my kids mind you but at least I figured out how to freeze them in the frame without blur.




Then I had to go and get some simple shots of S. She is quite photogenic when she wants to be!! I love the warmth of these pixs (had set the AWB to cloudy)....




That was a lot of pixs, I know. I will share more scrap stuff tomorrow -- did a layout tonight but ironically, too lazy to take a picture.