Write My Life

For week #3 the class considered repetition in a layout. That’s the idea of repeating the same concept on a layout. It could be a color, embellishment, photograph, shape, etc. It doesn’t have to be exactly the same but enough to give your eye the cue that these things go together.

One unexpected thing I learned from this class was that I really don’t feel comfortable working in 8.5X11. I keep taking every 8.5X11 sketch Cathy gives us and turning it into a 12X12 layout. Both of this week’s layout were suppose to be 8.5X11 but I couldn’t do it. I had to charge them to 12X12!

Knights of Avalon.

Journaling: In the Tournament of Horses Arena, we watched the Knights of Avalon compete in full contact jousting using lances. Our section of the audience rooted for the red knight. We were led in cheers by our animated squire “Johnny.” Our knight did not win but it was certainly fun to cheer anyway.

What is jousting? During the middle ages there were many types of jousting with special rules and items of armor. We witnessed the joust of peace. The main objective of the joust of peace was to “break a spear” on the opponent from the waist up. It is generally inappropriate to target the head. The opponents do not try to dismount the opposing rider because this could lead to real injuries to the horse or the rider. Points are awarded on how well your opponent is struck with maximum points being awarded for shattering the lance. A jousting match consists of a number of runs with the riders attempting to hit each other’s shields. Points are awarded for each run. The joust of peace became common from the 14th century onwards.

Jesse Edwards: Clean and Serene Solids, Christmas Traditions Solids

Katie Pertiet: Sea Salt Paper, Decorative Scissors Brushes-n-Stamps, Tied Fasteners

Kellie Mize: Double Dates No. 01 Brushes-n-Stamps

All designerdigitals.com

Fonts: King Arthur, Century Gothic, You Are Loved and Garamond

Layout and concept provided by Cathy Zielske’s Design Your Life workshop at BigPictureScrapbooking.com

Our second week of class focused on balance. Instead of symmetrical balance Cathy discussed asymmetrical balance. Asymmetrical balance has always been hard for me to really understand. I think I get it now but the question still lingers: what makes an assmetrical layout NOT work. I think that will become clearer in the following weeks.

A few days before the deadline for signing up for the Design Your Life class by Cathy Zielske, I stumbled upon some information about it. Being a big fan of Cathy’s and haven taken a class from her previously, I decided on the whim to take the class. It’s a 12-week on-line class with videos, message boards, handouts, etc. The class covers topics related to design which I can always use some aide and inspiration. I’ll share my projects on my blog.

In week #1 we concentrated on symmetrical balance.

We were also given a challenge to use a certain color palette (orange, yellow, blue, brown in muted shades) and a sketch.

Journaling: While Back to School means some things to the girls, it means different things to me. It’s back to meetings, daily trips to school, volunteer hours and Girl Scouts. One event that starts it all is my Moms In Touch group meets for breakfast at Alana’s Cafe. Here in this cozy, intimate cafe, we discuss our summers, the upcoming school year and our group plans. After our initial breakfast meeting, we will meet every other week at one womnan’s house and prayer for the school and the students. Through the coarse of the year, we will pray for every student, administrator, staff, field trip and school event. We will prayer for our own children as they struggled with academics, homework, relationships, physical changes, and their influence on the school and other students. Every year we see wonderful answers to prayer.

Jesse Edwards: Clean and Serene Solids, Fabric Overlay
Anna Aspnes: Challenge Paper 7/27/08
Mindy Terasaqa: Flutter Butter Kit
Ali Edwards: School Words No. 1
Kellie Mize: Double Dates No. 3
Fonts: Ali’s Handwriting and Century Gothic

All these layouts are from the Boston/New Hampshire/Vermont trip in June. All supplies from Designer Digitals unless noted.

• Destination: Boston

Journaling: For four nights of our vaction we stayed in Woburn, MA. T\On two days we visited Boston by taking the subway into town. We boarded the subway in Wellington, MA (orange line) then got off in the heart of the city. We learned to navigate the subway system. On one trip, we let Jackie lead the way, reading the subway map and even navigating a transfer from the orange line to the blue line at State. We made it just fine. Excellent job, Jackie!

Katie Pertiet: Border Die Cuts No. 2
Katie Pertiet: Stacked Photo Frames No. 2
Katie Pertiet: Traveler Stamps
Katie Pertiet: Little Fly Aways
Ali Edwards: The Story Word Art + Hand-Drawn Brushes
Font: Garamond

• Walking Boston

Journaling: Our subway stop began partially along the Freedom trail so we began at the North Station on the orange line. The sites we saw included the Old State House, Faneuil Hall, Quincy Market, Paul Revere House, Old North Church, Charlestown Bridge, USS Constitution, Beacon Hill, and the Boston Common. 6/22/08

Katie Pertiet: Travel Stamps
Mindy Terasawa: Flutter Butter brown paper
Ali Edwards: Layered Template No. 22
Fonts: Myriad Pro and Arial Black

• The Pew Box

Journaling:
Circa 1724. Church members were often seated according to social rank, whether by assignment or purchase. The wealthy could purchase their pew box. These private pews were marked with a name and they also gave rise to the practice of numbering pews for easy record keeping.

Circa 2008. Mike and I sit in our normal pew spot at church where our whole family sits together. “Don’t get used to that pew you are sitting in,” our preacher says. “As our church grows someone else may take that pew. That pew does not have your name on it.”

So, when we saw these pews at the Old North Church in Boston, we had to laugh.

Katie Pertiet: White cabana paper
Fonts: You are Loved and Garamond

• Whale Cool

Journaling:

Ohhhhh. Ahhhhh. Ohhhhh. Ahhhhh. Ohhhhh. Ahhhhh. Ohhhhh. Ahhhhh.

It’s about all we could say as we were watching the whales

Jesse Edwards: Clean and Serene Solids
Jesse Edwards: Title Lines No4
Katie Pertiet: Tied Fasteners No2
Kellie Mize: DoubleDates No3 -Block
Fonts: Garamond and Hannibal Lecter

• Never Again

Journaling:

We may never go on a whale watching tour again.

Not because of sea sickness.
Not because the tour was bad.
Not because we didn’t see any whales.

Actually, the opposite – we were spoiled with the number of whale sightings and the incredible number of different behaviors we saw!

We sailed on a large boat to a feeding ground called Stellwagen Bank, a plateau at the Massachusetts Bay’s eastern edge. Here the current comes up to the bank and carries nutrients with it, making a great spot for whale feeding. While we were there, we saw an abundance of fish which were even visible from the water’s surface. We saw up to 10 different Humpback Whales, including a mom and her calf.

Humpback Whales can be identified by the pattern on their tales and after they are a few years old, they are given a name. We saw Echo with her calf. Echo was first sited in 1988. A NOAA website says, “Echo has a great tail to identify. Her left and right flukes are very similar in pattern, however, on the left fluke near the leading edge is a very distinguishing mark. This mark reminded researchers of the depiction of an echowave from a dolphin or bat. And so, she was given the appropriate name of Echo. This mark may have been caused by an attacking orca whale.”

We felt really blessed to see this many whales at one time. It prompted us all to say, “We don’t ever need to go on a whale watching tour again.”

Paper: Jesse Edwards, Indigo Solids and Clean and Serene Solids
Date Stamp: Katie Pertiet, Digital Dates No. 10
Brads: Anna Aspnes, Something Springy

Font: Bank Gothic, jGaramond

• The Artist Within: Lovin Life

Journaling: I had a camera. Tia had a camera. Grandma had a camera. Even Jackie, who never takes photographs, had a camera. Each of us snapped away as we watched the interesting behaviors of the humpback whales on our whale watching tour. I had the advantage though. Even with a short range zoom lens at 105mm I could get closer to the action. The real adantage came because I was using an Single Lens Reflex camera with continuous drive mode. Instead of waiting for the right moment, I could just press down on the shutter button and take a whole sequence of photographs. In the end, I took 86 humpback whale photographs!

Jesse Edwards: Clean and Serene Solids
Jesse Edwards: Indigo Solids
Kelly Mize: Tortuga Template No. 11 (for long, thin photo)
Kelly Mize: Double Dates No. 03 Brushes-n-Stamps
Ali Edward: Title + Journal Photo Overlays No. 01 (for The Story)
MaryAnn Wise: Doubletake Drama
Font: Garamond

• Neat

Journaling: Despite the threat of rain, we rode the subway to Boston Harbor to see the New England Aquarium and take a whale watching tour. Thankfully, we were able to do both activities with only minimal rain disturbance.

At the aquarium we saw various sea creatures. We enjoyed the several different types of penguins as well as the fur and harbor seals.

We also enjoyed the central tank with various animals swimming within it. To make our whale watching tour, we slightly pushed ourselves, but we make it through the aquarium and lunch in 3 hours.

Although a nice aquarium, we still ranked the Monetary Bay Aquarium and John G.. Shedd Aquarium higher.

Jesse Edwards: Clean and Serene Solid paper
Kellie Mize: Tortuga Template 24
MaryAnn Wise: Double Take Drama Brushe
Katie Pertiet: Traveler Stamps

In July I did about 30 digital layouts. Here is a sample of them. All supplies from Designer Digitals.

• Along for the Ride

Journaling: It’s been a long time, but this year we took the dogs with us on our vacation. We had several reasons and it all worked out well. The dogs enjoyed being with us, playing in the snow and getting to take many walks.

Merlin, 14, stumbled a bit on the snow but enjoyed it. He barked whenever we would stop walking. He didn’t want to sit still!

Arthur, 10, had plenty of energy! When we did stop, he would instantly climb into my lap for cuddling. He was so lap happy that when I got into a sled he joined me and sledded down a very small hill on my lap.

Katie Pertiet: Crystallized Flourishes Brushes-n-Stamps,
Ali Edwards: Title + Journal Photo Overlays No. 01
Font: jGaramond

• Oh No!

Journaling:

One of Mike’s favorite movie lines is from Finding Nemo. It occurs when the Ray says, “Can I help? I am a Scientist.” He uses that line a lot with the girls, replacing scientist with mathematician when appropriate

Mike loves helping the girls with their math homework so he will often ask them, “Can I help? I am a mathematician.” The girls are not as gleeful about math help from dad, partly because he likes to explain in detail the concepts and doesn’t let them slide with just “getting it.” He will often add more information than what they really needed. They roll their eyes. I think its great that he can give them the extra help so they fully understand the concepts. They will avoid Mike and say, “Oh no. I don’t need any help with math.”

When the girls DO need math help, it is will trepidation they ask Mike for help. He smiles, rubs his hands together in glee and gets that “oh this will be fun” look in his eyes.

Katie Pertiet: Cabana white paper
Katie Pertiet: Messy Stamped Alpha No. 3
Jesse Edwards: Clean and Serene Solid paper
Pattie Knox: Brad Bonanza
Anna Aspnes:Something Springy (orange brad and orange staples)
Katie Pertiet: Hanging Tags No. 01 (staple)
Katie Pertiet: Stacked Photo Frames No.

March Madness

Journaling:

This is Mike, watching one of the greatest University of Kansas basketball comebacks in history – to win the 2008 National Championship! Kansas defeated Memphis 75-68 in overtime, rallying from a nine-point deficit in the final 2:12 of regulation.
Throughout the entire basketball tournament our kids have been watching us with a certain caution. They don’t like it when we get LOUD and emotionally charged. That’s bound to happen when we watch the college basketball tournament so they kinda keep away from us. On the night of the final game, Jaclyn sat outside reading a book so she wouldn’t hear us. Jennifer sat in the same room, but on the far side. They celebrated with us, but not until it was all over and they were pretty sure that their parents were returning back to “normal” behavior.

Ali Edwards: Title + Journal Photo Overlays No. 01 (two overlapping)
Katie Pertiet: Tied Fasteners
Kellie Mize: Double Dates No. 01 Brushes-n-Stamps

• So You Think You’re An Engineer

Journaling: I have never really doubted that Mike was a true engineer at heart. His childhood exploits and career path demonstated that. But if there was any shred doubt it was erased when we visited Railtown 1897 State Historic Park in Jamestown, CA. Mike signed us up for the tour, which was led by a docent who knew the ins and outs of every train in the park. Mike immediately begins asking all kinds of question about how the engines operate, how certain aspects of the engines perform and what is required for maintenance the engines. Question after question… I should have known. How can you take an engineeer to a place that specializes in historic trains and not get this endless series of questions? I don’t think he’s an engineer. I know. True to heart, he’s an engineer.

Jesse Edwards: Clean and Serene Solids Paper Pack
Jesse Edwards: Hearts Brushes-n-Stamps
Kelly Mize: Double Dates No. 01 Brushes-n-Stamps

• Chinatown

Journaling: Jennifer’s 3rd grade class took their final field trip of the year – a visit to San Francisco’s Chinatown. A tour guide from the Chinese Culture Center in San Francisco guided the class through the streets and sites of Chinatown. We visited a temple, a Chinese cookie factory, a herbal medicine store and a market. We finished the tour with lunch in Chinatown. Although I had been to Chinatown beforehand the guide took us to a Chinatown that felt more authentic.

Katie Pertiet: Cabana white paper
Katie Pertiet: Tied Fasteners
Katie Pertiet: Stacked Photo Frames No. 2
Anna Aspnes: Something Springy Solid (recolored)
Fonts: jGaramond and Copperplate Gothic

• Girl Scout Friends

Jackie’s troop in Santa Cruz. The girls were walking along the beach toward the waves.

Ali Edwards: Hello Summer Hand-Drawn Brushes
Pattie Knox: Brad Bonanza – Digital Fasteners
Katie Pertiet: Ledger Grids Brushes-n-Stamps
Katie Pertiet: Double Dates No. 01 Brushes-n-Stamps

I discovered recently how to engage fully into three kinds of scrapbooking: total digital, total paper and a hybrid of the two.

Digital is my newest addition to my scrapbooking repertoire. There are some great advantages to digital scrapbooking: no mess, I can do it anywhere I can take a laptop (including on the coach, on the porch and the jury duty waiting room!), and there are design options that are just not available on paper.

I’ve learned, too, how to do hybrid scrapbooking where I use some digital to get the effect I want, then print it either on paper or a transparency. All that cool digital stuff can be used right on my paper layouts.

Then, I’ve also done some totally paper layouts – and it’s been fun!

I think what has really inspired me is the ability to go back and forth. If I can’t do what I want on paper, I can do it digitally. That frees me and I don’t stress about what I can’t do. If I want to do something lumpy, include a non-digital photo or some memorabilia, I can do it with a paper layout. I can even mix the two! It’s been very fun and inspiring. Here’s a few of my latest creations.

All digital. Spring Hike is based on sketch by Debi Boler, http://www.scrapsupply.com

All paper except journaling.

All paper except journaling.

All digital.

All digital.

(Digital supplies by Katie Pertiet, Anna Aspnes, and Jesse Edwards at http://www.designerdigitals.com except round tag by Kate Teague)

I have been working this week to close out all my layouts from 2005. I’m not a scrapbooker who feels like I have to be “caught up” but I have been feeling so behind that it stresses me. I don’t scrap in order usually, but I had a desire to finish up the events of 2005 and have those albums done. So, I plugged through all the layouts I had previously set aside and I even got into some 2006 events! Here are a few of what I’ve been doing. The first three are paper layouts and the last one is totally digital.

It’s time for a challenge!

Here are some ideas to keep you scrapping the next month.  I’ll share mine on February 15.

Photography Challenges:

• Take a photograph of something that inspires you.
• A second challenge is to get down and take a photograph of something or someone with you looking up.
• Take it one challenge farther and take a photograph of something or someone with you looking down.

Digital Challenge:

• Create a journaling block digitally, including a digital element (stamp, paper, etc.)

Journaling Challenges:

• Follow my advise and do journaling for a layout before creating the layout.
• Do a follow-up layout. Often we record an interest or a change and then leave it at that. Look back from a few years ago at some interests or changes. Have they remained the same? Have they changed? If so, how and why?

Layout Challenge: Use a scrapbook product for inspiration.

Sketch Challenge: Use this sketch to create a layout:

It looks simple enough. What can you do with it?

Have fun!

There have been requests/begging/pleading to see my tag book. You know who you are. 🙂

This is a tag book I started as a make-n-take at a scrapbook retreat in San Jose. It ended as a review of the year I turned 40. Enjoy!

Mike’s birthday celebration included opening presents and going out to eat at The Cheesecake Factory. Since Mike is so hard to shop for his presents mostly consisted of clothes and chocolate.

I also made him a little book highlighting the events that took place during the last year when he was 40.