Scrappin' without Scraps

Studio Friday - Sparkle/Shine/Shimmer

The challenge this week was to find something in our studios that had sparkle or shine or shimmer.  Besides my forehead in the afternoon, I'm afraid nothing much shines here. I'm not much of a sparkle or shimmer kind of girl tho my daughters are certainly fond of sparkles. Glitz aplenty is their motto. Not me.  Fortunately mother nature saved me...this photo was taken last spring after a rain and so I made it into ny May calendar and now it sits on my desk to provide some (little) sparkle! 

Credits: Shabby Sage kit by Lie Fhung of Zhampf.com; May calender by Renee Pearson from her CD calender templates

April Calendar

The daffodils are up and gorgeous! I never remember where I have planted them so it is a surpirise each spring!  These are some in my yard.

Credits:  Renee Pearson's calender template, Dana Zarling's Floral Brushes

Studio Friday - Working Hands

Hmm....bit slow this week wasn't I?  Anyway here is mine and the journaling too.  The challenge was to show our hands at work.

"Once again behind the wheel. Sometimes I can't believe how much time I spend driving.  About five hundred miles a week since last year.  In the beginning, I really resented it as a waste of time but more recently I find that it is my most and best creative time.  It is the only time I am completely alone since both my husband and I work from home. And with kids and pets, it is the only place that is really quiet. Ideas for layouts and designs just come into my head where they get tossed around in the white noise of tire hum. Sometimes I listen to music, jumping from station to station to avoid inane DJ chatter, and more often than not it is an independent or alternative station. Sometimes only complete silence will do. There is no (safe) way to jot notes so I stop at the park on the way home and jot notes to myself so I won't forget. Now if only my car had auto pilot it would be prefect."

Credits: Paper by Christine Smith from her Scrapped, the Movie kit; fonts are Ticket Capitals Repressed and Augie

**Edited**  Just wanted to assure you I did not take this while driving - a couple of people have asked ...LOL...no, I was parked on the road (which happens to be my road).  I put the camera on my shoulder and set the timer.  It took quite a few tries but finally I got something I liked.

Happy Spring!

Just some photos I took today - I snuck outside while we were getting ready for a dinner party tonight because the light was just perfect.

The Hawthorne tree near the house.

The birdbath in the backyard with daffodils.

Ah...spring at last! 

Rollerblading

Gee maybe spring made it here after all!!  It was lovely and warm and tween had a half day of school today.  So after a conference call, we decided to play hooky from work and homework (I guess housework for that matter lol) and go rollerblading in the park.  Perfect day for that! 

This is one of Katie Mann's new kits called Le Jardin and the colors were just perfect for this LO.  Since DD was wearing a bright red shirt I decided to use the B&W filter effect so the photo wouldn't clash with the kit! I also re-colored the stamps using the eyedropper tool in FxFoto to pick up the colors from the kit and then made the re-colored stamps a bit transparent (setting was 120) so they would look too bright against the B&W photo.  Oh I made the pink tag using a tag crop in FxFoto too.

Credits:  Le Jardin by Katie Mann at Scrap Outside the Box; fonts are Augie, Stencil, Romantic and Dirty Ego.

My Birthday Present

finally came today!  :-)  For my birthday, my DH ordered a chick graphic from Clara Wallace at Matter of Scrap.  I've been thinking about getting one but just never got around to it so he went ahead and ordered her!  What a wonderful guy!  It was the coolest present!!

Clara makes her chicks individually from a photo you send and a questionaire you fill out so she can give your chick personality.  Hence the red coffee mug. She was kind enough to not include the wrinkles - lol. Her website has a whole The Chick Club - Chick Gallery and you can see all the fab chicks she has made.  Wonderfully talented artist! 

Tween

Just for fun!  I used the current challenge at the Scraplift blog to do this LO.  I just love Shabby Princess stuff and this is a combination of two of her kits - Flea Market Chic and Sweet Serenity.  Font is Jenkins v 2.0

Guess I was feeling very springy today since it was a wonderfully warm day with lots of sunshine!

War

The other night DD#2 and I were reading when she spotted a bug crawling across the rug.  Thinking it was a ladybug we went over the investigate but it wasn't.  It did have spots it was too round for ladybug and I was suspicious it might be some new tick breed (our poodle picks up ticks like crazy and it is very hard to find them in all that curly hair) so I scooped it up and headed to the bathroom to flush it. 

When I got back, DD had this look of sudden enlightenment and said, "You know, Mom, I think that's why wars start?"  "ummm....huh..what do you mean?"  "Well," says DD, "we were afraid of that bug so we killed it.  Maybe that's why wars start - people are afraid of other people so they kill them. You know, people who are different and you don't understand.  Like that bug we didn't understand."

Ah....wisdom from an 11 year old girl....

What's up?

Seems like a billion things...class play, softball season, work galore and spring!  I decided to take a break and update the header for spring.  Time to get rid of the snowman and get some flowers. I used some pink paper from Katie Mann's It's All About the Drama kit at Scrap Outside the Box and some green wrinkled paper from Angela Sharrow's Bit of Country Charm kit at Scrap Outside the Box. Really great kit with wonderful charms which alas didn't fit in my scheme this time! 

Having no talent for drawing and I had to look elsewhere and found some very cute Flower Doodles by Serena Thomas at DigiScrap Designer.  They remind me of the ones we used to use to decorate our book covers in school - that was in the days when you used paper bags to cover books LOL.  The covers always got covered with doodles and flowers were my favorite.  I don't have a tablet and I find it absolutely impossible to draw with a mouse so I used Serena's brushes.

Then I decided I needed some color so I colored them in using the Color Brush tool.  I used the swatch colors that came with my Digital Memories Magazine to get just the right colors.  They have some cool new fonts too but I haven't had time to check them out yet.  Maybe I'll do V 2.0 of my header later but I just wanted to get it up today!! It was quite fun and even my 11 yo daughter did  some coloring (and color advising) last night!  :-)

Let me know if you like it!!

Studio Friday - Room with a View

This is going to be so fun since I suggested the topic.  I got the idea from a brief chat I had with my old nurse/medical assistant about our former office which was located underground without any windows and how much we really liked having windows now.  Don't get me wrong-  my old office was bright and cheery but there is something to be said for just being able to gaze out the window.  Even if it is just to see what the weather is like - LOL- in New England that is so key!  We used to ask patients all the time about the weather! 

BTW there is a great old movie called A Room with a View - if you haven't seen it you can complete the theme renting it this weekend!  :-)

Now I have two views that I love.  One I scrapped and one I didn't.  My DH is from California and wanted a house that had a view...so we overlook a lake.  We're not on the waterfront but up on a hill overlooking it.  This one was taken of a rainbow over the lake (which they call a pond here ).

And this is the view outside my desk that never fails to bring a smile - my feather friends who were more than happy to pose for a photo shoot when I got my new camera.  There is tree right outside the window and I have a couple of feeders there.

Credits: Primitive Photography by Moe Jackson, font is Batik and Augie

I can't wait to see your views!