answers + word + 365

Ooh a question. A reason to keep up with the posting every day. It's like not a New Year's thing if you start before the first right? As for the 365 portrait thing I mentioned yesterday I've seen bits and pieces of it everywhere. It started somewhere with the idea of taking one picture a day for 365 days. It's kind of all over now. There's a flickr group here for the daily picture of whatever. There are weekly challenges and pools of a ton of pictures. There's info on it at Photojojo. It's a good way to get better at taking pictures and getting in a better habit of taking pictures. The self-portrait 365 project is all about taking a self portrait of yourself every day for a year. If you check out the pool you'll start to see the deviations from the typical head shot (or my personal favorite...

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NYC in a glimpse

1. 5th Street, 2. mac reflections, 3. outside looking in, 4. snowy lights, 5. shiny trees, 6. brightly shining, 7. IMG_1793[1], 8. church or staircase?, 9. happy christmas, 10. Playbill, 11. rainfall, 12. Times SqaureMade this today. Really cool. If you have flickr you can use this Big Huge Labs mosaic tool to make it of your pictures or other ones on flickr. Pretty neat huh?...

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busy holiday

Busy busy girl. The holidays were...intense. We had some bumps on the visit home, but that's just how things go sometimes. Sometimes we don't all get along. Oh well. I didn't take anywhere near enough pictures, but mom and little brother took some too so hopefully I can get copies of their stuff and make a full holiday collection. I've mentioned this in my LJ but I was thinking about starting the 365 self portrait challenge. A self portrait a day for a whole year. I've seen some so of the examples around and about and it's not just all shots of your face or you alone. I've seen shots with friends and some of shoes and outfits and such. I like that idea. Plus it might help two things 1) me take more pictures and 2) me see how much progress I'm planning to make on getting in shape. So here's...

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moving on up

Actually it's more of a moving down...going to a second floor apartment over a third. Where on earth am i going to get my exercise at ? Last night i made a valiant effort to move a good sized chunk of scrapbooking stuff. I had a good lot drug over and I made some good progress putting things in places. I'm going to have to completely reorganize when I finally start unpacking, but being forced to put everything somewhere helped a little (granted a bunch of stuff just got shoved into the cricut carrying case...but that's besides the point). I think i have more stuff than i realize. A full on re-org will be helpful for me to really determine what I have and how to go about using large chunks of it. At least that's the plan. whew....

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Quite Exciting

Boyfriend and I did Christmas a little early this year (we will both go home for the actual holiday on Saturday and then I'm in the process of moving across the complex so I'm super busy with that all week). I got to open my big present last night. Seriously, yall he's amazing. He got me a Cricut! Plus the tool kit, plus extra mats, plus the carrying case to put it in. I started crying. He's too good to me. Spoils me. (No worries, I spoiled him too with new clothes, a Nintendo DS and an adorable Build-a-Bear Polar bear). I played with it last night (talk about a good way to get the creative juices flowing) and I designed up a LO to do for my trip to NYC this past weekend. Only problems, I didn't have any of my tools/glue/stuffs at boyfriends so the actual page will have to wait just...

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Online Crop

My kit group had an online crop last weekend and it was a great excuse to get stuff done. The first two are from a "journal jogger" (to jog your memory apparently) to keep notes on what's going on throughout the year. I don't know if i'll actually use it but i've made through June and i'm having fun. I like usuing all the old papers that I bought but now have nothing to use them for.The Baby Kitties page is my lil 'uns about a year ago. Man they grow fast! This challenge was to use buttons in three different ways. If you look I've got them dotting my 'i', adding an extra pop to the kitty bowl sticker and then as a center for the flower. Love these colors!The last one was for a b&w only LO. I actually wanted to use b&w photos but...

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New project I want to try

LOVE this. I really want to try making it for the month. I'm a little behind and wouldn't have pictures for the first three days (well two days because I can take a shot of the tree this evening before the ornaments go on for yesterday). I think with some journaling it could be pretty neat. now I just need the clear pages...

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Jim = stud muffin

Just for fun. Because Jim's a cutie-pie. And Katie and I are adorable....

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it's been a mixed few days

The emotions have been back and forth today and yesterday with a mixture of good news and bad news. Good news involves things like one of my best friends coming into town, getting things finalized for our christmas party (well the evite sent out), some awesome happenings on my tv shows (Olivia Wilde staying on House, Sylar and Maya making out on Heroes--not that i care about their storyline, the tension was driving me nuts--plus all the other goings on that show, Bones and Booth...). But in the sad news it would seem my new kit club i JUST joined is taking a hiatus in January with no promise of return. This makes me a little more than sad, as I just got involved in the message boards, started making new friends and more. The women on the site seem determined to keep the group together in...

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style?

I got a comment from a scrapbooking friend about my "style" and how much she enjoyed it. This is like the ultimate compliment in my opinion, because it's one thing to have someone say they like one of your layouts. That's an opinion that can be judged on anything--the colors you used happened to be their favorite, it's a cute picture, you used something they have, a layout they can see themselves doing. But to compliment someone's style? That's their work as a whole. But then you end up back at that age old question. What is your style? Some days I honestly don't think I have one. I just do what I like on a page and I like too many different things (I see this problem with like...all aspects of my life, not just scrapbooking). But I think nailing down your style is more than just doing...

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Scrap What?!? Scrap Naked.

LOVE this. I just finished this up for the scrap naked challenge. It came out totally awesome. I used up some older stuff, some stuff i love and I took a new twist on my usual layout. This is 8.5 x 11, but landscape style. It's different but fun. I did more with acrylic paint accents. Such fun....

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Ornaments? Possible project to work on while at home?

Look at these! (the page may load funny, scroll down to see the actual pictures) I saw them linked elsewhere and I'm totally sold. I wonder if Hobby Lobby at home will be open when I get in. I might have to make a quick stop for supplies and work on this while I'm at home visiting the family for Thanksgiving. Very exciting....

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Cute Little Girl

For another ScrapGoods "book of me" challenge I was supposed to do a LO with a picture of me as a child or baby. This is the ONLY picture I could easily locate that was before middle school. it's a cute one of me though. Smiling, laughing...eating. haha. I adore my new KI lace cardstock, and I probably won't have the heart to use it again. I really love this paper from Basic Grey (LilyKate). It's so much fun and so happy....

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cards!

I mentioned these cards in a previous post and sinc they are already uploaded I figured I should just post them. They are pretty simple since the main embellishment was supposed to be stickers from our stash. I think for the next batch I make I might step it up a little bit. But I did get two votes for them as favorites for the challenge so to me that's pretty good (especially since so many others did such awesome cards!). This was also the first time I've ever ripped paper to put on a LO (or etc.). I was nervous and then I realized I ripped it the wrong way (the other side has the great white paper contrast). Either way though I think I kind of like the idea. A big thing I loved about the challenge (make either cards or LOs with stickers...

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oh the things to do!

So my creative rut is gone and i'm literally coming up with things to scrap while i'm sitting around (or like last night, trying to go to sleep) . Sadly though, the current issue is not so much that I can't motivated and/or can't come up with things. It's that i'm running out of time to do them in. I had the parents in town this past weekend so most of the weekend was spent with them and the week before trying to get the apartment into "mom and dad staying with me" shape. But I've got great ideas for two more layouts. One will incorporate my tattoos (ooh something I haven't scrapped yet) plus kit items from ScrapGoods and the other will experiment with some new mediums. I'm pretty excited. Plus I have a minibook i'm setting up about the kittens. it's going to be a buy scrap-filled...

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So Behind...

I've been so distracted from scrapping! for a while I was still stuck in my funk, but with parents coming into town, massive cleaning and even more going on I've barely had time to sit down and work on things. I made about a zillion cards for a challenge to use stickers as your main embellishment and I laid out a great page for a scraplift challenge I'm in through ScrapGoods, but I've had the hardest time finding the time to actually glue it down. It's just in pieces on my craft table. Hopefully I'll find some time this week (between work and getting ready to go home for the Thanksgiving Holiday) and hopefully I can post some things up to prove that yes I am scrapbooking. Or that I still love it at least....

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DELIGHT

I've been slow to look at the OLW update for the next word. Since I didn't do the last one I was somewhat distracted from it. The new word is DELIGHT. I think I have some more potential in this one. Especially since the phrase "absolutely delightful" keeps coming to me. This week's challenge for the Book of Me on ScrapGoods is to do a page with a picture of you as a baby or a child. I'm gonna have to search to find one. I found some old Disney World pictures not too long ago, but they were just of the actual place (I have high hope for them) and not of me. I'll have to dig or ask Mom to pick one out to bring to me this weekend. It's frustrating because I don't actually have a lot of the pictures of me as a little kid. I need to do something about that. Plus on top of everything I got...

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just to say I love you...

I've been making Champ these little cards that I sneak in his lunch while he's asleep. The first one was ugly but the second came out really nice. He really likes getting them when he's at work or in the morning when I'm asleep. I thin it helps the the evening shifts (where I only see him when he's asleep and he only sees me when I'm asleep) a little easier to deal with. I'd have pictures to post but I gave them to him and as a result and he puts them somewhere...

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Telling a Story

FREE! I think I'm out of my slump! I stayed up late working on this page for a "book of me" challenge I'm starting over at ScrapGoods. The idea is similar to those I've read out in other places (yes Ali Edwards' goes on about this) and it's a really neat idea. True I do a lot more scrapping about myself than others with kids and such but usually it's about stuff we've done, not just me. So this is the title page for my book. I am smiling here, even though after a while you could think I was crying. The pp is Basic Grey (the LilyKate line), the letter are American Crafts thickers (the brown). I love my gold American Crafts metallic marker and my new Sharpie white paint pen. I did this page in 8.5x11 which is a different size for me....

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Conundrum

I love this picture. It's the current favorite one I have of the two of us. It's just so us. Champ looks happy and I look at peace. Which is how we are. I'm happy of course, but being peaceful with my mind, body and soul is more of what makes us so...us.But how do I scrap it? I've been torn for days about how to get it into a layout. I'm just flat out stuck. It's such a beautiful shot with the beach in the background, the colors came out lovely...but I'm stuck. NOTHING is jumping out and inspriring me. Help?...

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Hiatus

I've been on somewhat of a hiatus. You know how it gets when you can't seem to sit still long enough to focus on something creative. I printed off a ton of lovely pictures from the Disney trip this summer and then the beach weekend earlier this month, but as much as I stare at them nothing is coming to mind. I'm stuck on the new OLW as well. BELIEVE. I like the concept of "believing in magic" but I can't seem to make it work. Or come up with something. Silly when I have about 200 Disney photos. My goal is to get some more things done later this week though. But with the scrapbooking hiatus I keep finding that I want to read and write more which is good. I've missed the desire I've had for both of those things. I love to do both so much it was hard when I hit a serious writer's block and couldn't...

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Creative Manifesto

Lately my biggest vice has been Ali Edwards' blog and newsletter. I've just been introduced to her world as I've been expanding my scrapbooking outlooks (in a way only the internet can provide) and I'm definitely hooked. I love the newsletters she puts together and her thoughts on things that I realize I've been struggling with. With getting better at this art, I've found that I (as well as other friends I have in the community of scrapbooking) have had issues with finding my place, my style, and my groove if you will. I like so many eclectic things, but my layouts end up looking similar. Ali has some great points about accepting your style and that it is different from others. Plus the voice expressed in her writing is so full of support in being yourself that it's relaxing. In the...

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OLW: GONE

This word for OLW killed me. GONE? How do I work with that. Everything in my life is so more and not a whole lot has been taken away as of late. So I started thinking about things that were gone. I thought of college, of my friend Ian (of whom I have no good pictures so that was ruled out), old boyfriends, perhaps some old friends I had lost contact with. I was drawing a total blank. I was looking at Amber's LO on the OLW page and hers was titled "Gone are the days of broken hearts." I really liked this idea and it went with the more positive spin on my life I'm try to take. So I came up with this:Many apologies again for the AWFUL quality of the pictures. I need to crop things. I think I might have fixed the computer issues or at the very...

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ScrapPink = lots of work done

I got a spot for one day at ScrapPink at the local store (actually about 20 min away) which was sweet because i actually got some good stuff done. Apologies for the pictures not being cropped perfectly. I was having issues with my computer running out of space and photoshop wouldn't save properly as a result.This mosaic piece took an eon to actually do. I cut the 8x10 picture into little 1"x1" squares and pasted the whole thing together by hand. There are aparently like templates and such for this sort of thing, but I really wanted to try it out by hand. It doesn't help that i can't cut in a straight line (even with my cutter) or draw a straight line (even with my ruler). The notes along the side are the date and location. I've found that I...

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RI scrapping + OLW Perfect entry

These two are my latest from my trip to RI. It worked out that the second one will do for a One Little Word entry.I love this page of Ryan. I really really excited that i was able to piece all the patterned pieces together + print out the title with my printer. It took about two hours to make but the end result was worth it. The patterned paper is from the Rockstar pad by DCWV.This is little Logan and my entry for OLW this time around. Obliviously the word is perfect. I used a lot of materials from my old scrapgoods kit i got, and a lot of the inspiration came from there as we...

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