Wednesday sparkle!

I have lots to update on. But I am feeling weak and most definitely watery!

I had such a dirty, grimy day (details to come in another post) that I think we all need some Wednesday sparkle in our life... or maybe I should have put ... Wednesday sparkle!

Here's hoping to brighten your day:

Been busy...

So, some weeks ago Deb wrote a blog post which featured a mobile phone photo someone had sent her of a gorgeous shop. It featured lacy white, blues, pinks and reds and Deb asked if anyone wanted to join her in using that as a new inspiration challenge. 

I loved the combination of colours and promised myself to make up my own kit based on this. I actually ended up changing it a bit using a more turquoise blue rather than the sky blue featured. And I fished out some "odd" products I have picked up on my travels and challenged myself to use them - a white, round, felt place mat and some silver transfers. The felt is really thin so I thought it would be ok to use on a page, but the circle was larger than 12" so I need to get clever with how to put it down. I had no idea what the silver transfers were (bathroom tile transfers maybe?) and I just figured I would work it out! Anyway, this kit is quite a bit smaller than the last "Pink Whisper" kit I made and I just need to come up with a name...

Because Deb also said not to forget the cupcakes and I don't have any cupcake products or photos or anything, maybe I will just call it "Sweet Hearted". Yes, that sounds quite nice. Here it is:

What's interesting is that I love the mix of products and colours and the feel of it, but so far, it's proving to be a bit difficult to use. I have played around a bit and started a couple of backgrounds which I will need to work on but so far, here is the only layout I have managed.

It features me (just for a change!!!) and a photo that is a few (5 1/2) years old and it makes me realise that I have to really "do" something about how I look at the moment! I have seriously gained weight over these years and I want to look like this photo again - maybe this can work as some sort of a motivational tool for me.

Moving on: yesterday was my once a year opportunity to go to a craft fair. It's the only one I know of at the moment anywhere near me. And this one is really near me - just a few kilometres down the road. Creativa is an all-inclusive crafting/hobby show which can be a real eye opener from my point of view. I'm always bemused by the hobby products that "rock" the Germans. There's not many scrapbooking stands but this year, there were a few new faces (mostly from Holland) and I got some great stash that I haven't found so far at my LSS in Kempen. As I have said before, scrapbooking is relatively new over here and so the main focus of the show is so NOT scrapbooking! There were 5 halls and only 30 stands I noted down. Of course, I approached this in typical Lisa way, searching through exhibitors for those stating they featured scrapbooking products. Then I noted the names and stand number and once there, I worked my way around each hall checking each one off the list, before moving onto the next. I looked a bit left and right but wanted to really focus my time there! And I shopped!!! I had both R and Libby sitting on my shoulder saying, "And that, and that, and what about that? Don't stop! Keep going!" It was fun!

Here are a few things that caught my eye.

** What a great way to showcase beads. There must have been millions there - so beautiful

** There was nothing on this stand I didn't love and I could have just taken the whole lot and put it directly into the flat. Not sure R would really appreciate the vintage, pink focus but isn't it gorgeous?

** The show's international partner this year was Korea and there was part of the exhibition featuring paper creations. Can you believe that this picture is made with paper? I loved it. I loved the idea of the nest and couldn't believe it was really paper until I got up close!

** This was a huge sculpture of a flower - maybe two metres diameter. Don't you love it?

** I kid you not, this was really made of paper. Not very practical perhaps but certainly interesting!

And what about my purchases? Drum roll please.......

(** and pat on the back to me as I stitched two photos together for the first time ever!)

I bought WAAAAY too much of course. I mean, I can't imagine using this all up even if I scrapbooked every single day of my life. In my defense, some of this will be shipped over to Libby. And I bought quite a lot of stuff that will be used over and over rather one use stuff - glimmer mists, a Martha Stewart punch, Cuttlebug embossing folders and a couple of Nestabilities for example.

I was really feeling the green again this time around and bought loads of different shades of standard, lime, sage and turquoise greens. Oh, and dots - lots and lots of dots. And I surprised myself with an urge to grab a selection of American Craft papers.

What do you think???

Birthdays, scrapping and oodles of hugs

Phew! Catch my breath. What a hectic couple of weeks I've had. Can't believe where the time has gone, but it has most definitely gone somewhere. But for once, I filled it up with all sorts of stuff.

First there was the LOAD challenge. And I did it! Yes, 28 layouts in 28 days! It was such a brilliant feeling to get to the end of the month and realise that I really had managed the whole month and my pile of layouts are sitting here, smiling at me, giving me a warm gooey feeling inside! I got a great sense of achievement and that is brilliant. At some point, I will do a review of what I learnt from this experience and see if any of my original strategy needs to be modified before the next session of LOAD in May! And yes, I'm already signed up for that. Imagine. Another 31 layouts. Enough for the rest of the year! (NOT!!!)

So without much delay, here are the remaining layouts from the month.

February 21st

February 22nd

February 23rd

February 24th

** a layout without a photo was a first for me, but I like it! It, of course, relates back to this post about my playlist for 2010.

February 25th

February 26th

** You may not believe me, but this layout was put together and completed whilst sitting at the airport on my way to the UK. I knew I wouldn't have time to do it any other time of the day, so I packed a box with the photos, some scraps of paper (remember, no scissors!), a glue runner, some bling, a ruler and a pen. I had an idea of what I wanted to put together and had written out the jornalling I wanted to include so while I was sitting there, I just put it together. You should have seen the looks from some of the people there! I felt quite self-conscious, but was determined to get it done and I did! 

February 27th

**This layout was one of the classes I did at the Scrapagogo day retreat. 

February 28th

One of the two reasons for my visit to the UK was a Scrapagogo day retreat which included 5 classes (4 layouts and a mini flag book) and a lot of fun. I was invited along by Libby and Deb and I had such a good time. It was lovely to spend time with other scrappers (remember that I am the ultimate Billy No Mates Scrapper) and laugh and create and shop. I was amazed that we actually completed all the classes which was such a bonus for me. I had expected to come home with five unfinished, never to be completed, projects which would sit on my desk until the next Stone Age. But we had enough time to finish each one and I even managed to fit in a bit of journalling onto them, too. The classes were really interesting with something "special" about each one and yet not so complicated that they dragged on. It was nice to do two male layouts as I do struggle with those a bit and even though the mini flag book was not my favourite, and the colours not really "me", I love the concept and will definitely be copying this in the future. It had looked so complicated but the instructions were so clear and concise that it proved a doddle to put together. 

I have to say that my favourite was the last class of the day by Sheena when I got the opportunity to use one of my favourite Yukon photos with some wonderfully autumnal papers. Libby proved a bit of a rebel in this last class and ever the follower, I copied! We made our wonderfully shimmery chipboard shapes to open up differently and feature small photos on the back rather than underneath. So sweet and such a lovely design. 

It was great to sit and be told what to do, to have all the products (often cut) all together with clear instruction and a very good handout to follow. While I like to sit here and create my own stuff, it was lovely to just follow the crowd and have fun creating. 

I did a bit (lot) of shopping and came home with a bag full of goodies. All in all, a super day and well worth every penny. I will definitely go along again (if I'm invited!) - thanks to the Scrapagogo team!

And of course, the second reason for going home for the week was mum's special birthday which she celebrated with a girls' afternoon tea extravaganza. Libby has also posted some of the photos (here) so I will just pop one or two here to mark the event. 

We all had a lovely time reminiscing about the past, sipping champagne, and scoffing the richest, most sparkly cupcakes I had ever seen!

** yes, we are related - honest!

My wonderfully talented school friend, Geraldine, came along too bringing with her one of the best cakes I have ever seen. She wowed everyone with her interpretation of mum from way back when! She tells us that she has a totally clear memory of mum wearing an outfit something like this at a party, complete with curly hair, sunglasses and copious amounts of alcohol! We have to agree that the likeness is scary!

I knew that Geraldine made specialty cakes, but this was amazing and there is more to be seen at her website - go over there and take a look - HERE!

And the oodles of cuddles? 

Well, they were provided mostly by adorable Isabella - the whole week! That's the thing with being an aunty who lives far away: you become a bit of a novelty. Now that Isabella has got over her coyness around me (there was a time when I was not allowed to make eye contact with her), she has become totally and utterly scrumptious to me. Maddie provided me with cuddles when requested, but I can tell how she is growing up now and let's face it, I'm not her favourite uncle. Just a hanger on! And as for Cameron - he puts up with me being around and is (un)willing to give me a peck on the cheek from time to time or even an arm round my neck, but that's about it. But what I lacked from the older two, I made up for with sweet Isabella! And I have no photos to prove it!

Well unless you count this one:

Just look at this cheeky face here:

And if this wasn't enough, in between all this excitement, Libby looked after me so well with delicious food, plenty of cups of tea, scrapping evenings (I managed to finish a total of three cards only!), a Saturday Bromsgrove Crop where I caught up with another school friend, Sarah (one double layout completed and I don't even like it!!!), shopping trips to numerous craft shops where we met up with Rachel and Deb, and countless lifts to and from Harborne - huge thanks to you Lib!

All up to date I think...

What have you been up to?

On the homeward stretch

Wow, it's the 20th already which means that I only have another 8 days to go in my LOAD challenge. Definitely possible. Definitely some learning points along the way. Definitely very inspired by my fellow loadsters. Definitely now have a long list of (in my head - need to get onto paper) layouts to lift and ideas of subjects.

It's been a lot of fun! And my pile of layouts is enormous! It was worth it for this alone. Although now comes the problem that I need to go through all my layouts now and get them reorganised and put into the right albums as per the Stacy Julian Library of Memories system. I think I have about 7 full albums plus a pile of layouts about 6 inches high to sort and organise. Mmm. Maybe that should be my objective for March...

And I have to confess to going back over two layouts and reworking them a little.

This one from the 10th just kept calling me back, so I made a small journalling block on the computer and printed it out in a soft beige colour - it doesn't shout so much now. It felt too hard compared to the rest of the layout before. Much more satisfied now!

And this one from Friday just made me unhappy. So I have reworked it a little. Removed the journalling, and hand-wrote along the side of the photo. Added another butterfly. Touched up a few spots of stickles and moved one of the small spots at the bottom. Still not 100% but 100% better than it was (for me anyway.)

Being the sad, sociophobe, Billy No Mates that I am, not to mention Poker Widow, I've had lots of time over the last few days and have done nothing but scrap, surf the internet, browse Flickr, look through my photos and generally waste time! Wonderful - a luxury that I appreciate most of you out there don't have, but I have so enjoyed it.

And here are my two most recent layouts:

February 19th

February 20th

The prompt for today was to record something that I had overheard and while it's not overheard, this little story came to mind. Cam is so funny! I find boy pages really tricky to do but anyway, I was happy to break into Archaic which has been sitting on my shelf for the last 12 months, just looking pretty. Rather a "slap on as much as I can" sort of page. 

One last thing. 

Isn't this pretty?

When I posted my bokeh/macro photos last week, Deb asked how I get the background all blurry. It happens all by itself and I am totally smitten with this at the moment. Those spots of light there in the background is a sweet little string of lights that Maddie bought me that are USB connected to my computer and they gave exactly the effect that I wanted. 

When you use the macro lens, it can focus really close - much closer than normal cameras - and because the thing I wanted it to focus on was in the foreground, it leaves everything else in the photo out of focus. This is called depth of field or aperture (DOF or F stop) in camera speak. Using a DSLR with a standard lens and using a fully automatic program, the camera will probably try to get the whole frame in focus and this effect will not happen very often, You can change your DSLR programme to aperture priority and this allows you to set your own aperture which is the depth of field - the lower the number, the closer the range of focus. On most digital point and shoot cameras, you can work on getting this effect by using the option for portrait photos (this might be shown as a head or a flower on your options). The camera will focus on the foreground and leave the background out of focus. Bokeh can sometimes be created in this way. I am still learning and don't accept responsibility for any inaccuracies here (!!!) but this is the general idea. 

However, The Pioneer Woman has a great section on photography and repeated a short series of blog entries recently on exactly this topic. You can find a really good overview of aperture in simple, easy to understand language in this post.

It would be lovely to see your bokeh shots. This could become a new addiction for me!

Just a quick one...

Just dropping by to say hello.

1. Still playing with the camera and macro lens. Still loving the results - watch this space for layouts using über-arty photos in the near future!

2. Still playing along with LOAD - here are the latest two layouts:

February 17th 

February 18th

3. Like the first layout here a lot - the journalling means a lot to me. It describes the relationship we have with our long-distance friends René and Minako relating to our visit there last August. Don't like the 2nd layout so much. Love the subject, love the photos, love the story, love the butterflies. But the layout itself? Not really. But I had Libby scolding me for not using Stickles enough in the back of my brain so I went for it. Not really sure at all! But the story is captured and I may rework this at some point. Done and move on.

4. Congrats to my sister Liberty for pinning down a new job! Go her! Well done and I knew she'd get it - she's pretty cool, you know!

5. Pancakes for dinner again tonight! Left over from Pancake Day on Tuesday - yummy, yummy! Maybe I should take a photo as I forgot on Tuesday! It's not known here in Germany so it's always a thrill for us!

That's all folks!

Playing around

One of my targets for this year is to improve my photography and to get my camera off manual! This is easier said than done as I start to glaze over when I read the camera instruction booklet and let's face it, the minutes of sunlight per day at the moment don't make for good photos most of the time.

But I have been looking around - on Flickr mainly - and have been inspired by some incredibly beautiful photographs which show me that I have a million miles to go! But two things in particular caught my eye - one was a particular composition and one was playing around with depth of field which gives you the most wonderful bokeh when it's done correctly.

And as luck would have it, the sun was glorious today and I had time at home to play. First of all, I tried copying the composition I'd seen - too many originals to reference here but this is my take on it.

Isn't it just adorable for Valentine's Day. I fell in love with it when I saw a couple of them in Flickr and now I am just smitten!

Then I fished out our macro lens that I adore using but never seem to have it with me when I need it! I love the fact that I can get so close to things and choose if I want the whole thing to be in focus or just a sliver. That things in the foreground or background can be the main focus of the photo. And of course, it produces gorgeous bokeh.

Taking photos takes a lot of set up and usually I am too lazy or in a hurry to do this. But I gave myself a bit of time and moved things around, opening windows and testing the light until I felt things were how they should be. Then I snapped some close ups of my Valentine flowers. I always take pictures of the stunning flowers I receive from R but am always disappointed with the results. But today was different, today I used the macro!

And just to finish off, I tried some really close shots of the leftover snow on our balcony. I like the glittery quality to this one - the way that the crystals were glinting in the sunlight and sparkling like diamonds.

And this single drop of water, left behind as the snow was melting. Now, the camera was still on automatic - not brave enough with that yet - but it's good to see what the depth of field effects can be. Next step, read what to do to do it myself!

Just to finish off, here are my two layouts from the last couple of days. Bit dissatisfied with today's but I was using a LOAD prompt and wanted to try something a bit different. And I still have loads of these zoo photos that need to be used! Better done than not!

February 15th

February 16th

Still on target

28 layouts in 28 days!

It's still fun, I'm still feeling the groove, my strategy is still proving useful. And I currently have a nice pile of 14 layouts sitting in my scraproom! This is great and I feel totally energised to keep going.

Ok, so my life is probably about 10% as full as you mums out there, but it's been really good to get me away from the television and using up lots and lots of supplies.

My Pink Whispers kit has proved a life-saver but I think I might have to switch to another colour scheme! The pink is feeling a bit over the top now. Shock horror - me? tired of pink? well, there's a thing! But there is still loads left (I added in a few things along the way) and I might be able to squeeze out a few that are not pink at all.

February 11th

Still the Pink Whispers kit but taking out some of the other hues inspired by the stems and flower centres of the tulips.

February 12th

What I am really loving about LOAD is that it is giving me the push to actually complete some of the stories or ideas I've had for some time. This was an idea that I've had since I fluffed my speech at R's birthday party back in November!

February 13th 

I don't think I've ever finished my 12 on 12 so early! Continuing with the pink theme thanks to the brighter, more colourful photos. And using up some stash that I don't love quite as much as I did when I bought it so it feels great to see it used up!

February 14th

And here we are up to date and today's romance captured. The day is not over, but the main story is told. Love, love, love it!

LOAD is supported by a private group on Flickr which has also proved to be part of the fun. 147 other scrappers, posting every day, supporting each other, leaving positive comments, motivating each other and having lots of fun. I am loving it all. As a solo scrapper, this kind of thing is what I have been missing and I am really enjoying the community! And I'm getting lots of lovely comments from many talented scrapbookers which is a thrill for me. Makes me feel all warm and gooey. It is really time intensive, but while I have the time, it's great to use it in this way. 

There was something else I wanted to write today, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was.

Anyway, HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY and I hope that your day was filled with romance and love.

XXXX

Now, what can this possibly be?...

Yes, it's that time of year again and I nearly got caught out. I suddenly realised that I wouldn't have time on Friday to do anything (my usual tactic!).

So, I spent a bit of time looking around for a bit of inspiration, which has turned into a favourite past-time recently, and found this wonderful card (on the "Stitches and others" blog here).

Here is my take on it:

Personally, I think it's adorable. But then again, there's a slim chance I might be biased!

Don't forget your loved ones on Hallmark Day, whoops sorry, Valentine's Day!

ps. ETA (12th Feb) I just made this little pouch full of heart shaped sweets today - again, I am no doubt biased but I think it's gorgeous!!!!