Confession time

Don't fall off your chairs... but yes, I'm actually posting on the blog twice in one week.Shocking, isn't it!

I've had many people asking me these past months what the hell is happening with my blog, and why don't I post layouts anymore? ( Helen from Toronto, if you're reading this, you have to leave me a comment, got it? :D) I'm totally assuming here that someone is actually still reading here amongst the tumbleweeds, lol..

 So here's my confession.

A while back, in January or so, I thought long and hard about shutting down this blog. I was exhausted from the holidays, feeling burnt out, and at the same time, feeling a huge sense of  excitement about starting the 365 project on Flickr. I wasn't at all into blogging, mainly because I had so much other stuff going on in my life, and couldn't find any left over energy to post. I had nothing to say. Call it the winter blahs, I don't know. But what I really wanted to say was that I was becoming a little bit jaded about the whole scrapbooking world in general. If I can be completely honest here (and I will be, because it's my blog, and I can say what I want, lol) all the tweeting, status updates, horn tooting, and Facebook fan pages really got under my skin, and I decided to distance myself from it all for a while, and just do what was making me feel good, which was taking photos. I'm a fairly humble person, and I don't feel comfortable crowing about everything I do. It's just the way I am. So I stopped reading blogs all together, ( even Cathy Z got the boot)  kicked my Facebook habit, did some mental housecleaning, and pared down my online consumption/web surfing to a reasonable amount of time /day.
With the exception of Flickr, which I became addicted to in about 5 minutes after starting the 365. Ha.
Uh, yeah...
Anyway, I took a brief, but much needed break from scrapbooking & blogging, and now that spring is here, and the birds are singing, I actually feel like I want to do both again.
(That statement elicited a huge sigh of relief from the hubby, who was freaking out over the thought that all the paper I've amassed over the past 5 years would eventually have to be used as fire starter for our charcoal BBQ.)

So to ease back into it, here's a page I did this week that combines my 2 loves... scrapbooking and photography. It's sort of a lift of an old page I did a while back, and while there is nothing innovative or trendy about it, I really like it. It's simple, it's who I am, and it makes me very happy to be able to combine the 2.
As always, this page was done mostly with my one true product love, American Crafts. My deep affection for them is undying. :) That cool negative ribbon is from Tim Holtz... I knew I'd need that.
Have a great Thursday... I'm off in search of some Easter goodies for Sunday. They're calling for 23C+ weather this weekend, how awesome is that?

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some (very) amateur photo talk

I was hoping to do a blog post before the weekend got away from me, but it wasn't to be. Things were hectic, as usual! Anyways, I wanted to say a big thank you to all of you who left comments about the photo of Bobby & Lily in my last post, I was seriously flattered. :) Alot of you asked me questions about what lens I use, what conversion etc, so I will tell you what I know, which ain't much. ;) Truth be told, I'm kind of a hit and miss type photographer. I've gotten a wee bit better over the past year with lots of practice, but I'm learning as I go, and I experiment alot with different settings. Hit & miss all the way, really.

This particular photo was taken in Shutter mode, one I haven't used much, and that entire batch of photos came out quite rich looking, so I will be using that setting again, I liked it. Usually, I shoot my photos in Aperture Priority ( the 'A' setting on the camera) and once in a while, I'll venture into manual mode if the light is good enough. Not steady enough with manual yet though, soon, I hope.
One thing I can tell you about my photos is that they're all taken in RAW format, and it really makes quite a huge difference from a normal jpeg image. Once I saw what I could do with a photo taken in RAW, I never shot in jpeg again! What I love about RAW is that if you're anything like me, and tend to underexpose your photos, you can adjust the exposure to be spot on with the RAW commands in Photoshop or Lightroom. Or if you have forgotten to change the light settings on your camera, for example, you can magically change it back to what it should look like with RAW format. I use PSE, b/c I still haven't figured out Lightroom enough to be comfortable with it. PSE with RAW images is pretty straightforward, and amazing how you can take an average photo and make it look much better by just adjusting a few minor things. I also use some PSE- friendly actions I bought a while back, but most of the time I find them a little too bright and on the orange-y side for my tastes. One nice thing about the actions I have (which are by Mindy Bush, I'll try to find a link ) is that you can control the amount of light, contrast, etc, to whatever you prefer, and often I'll tone down the action I'm using by adjusting the sliders. Most of the time though, I'll just adjust my photo from the RAW format and then play with the levels and colour myself, until I get something I think looks good. Same deal for my b&w conversion.

The ones I use most of Mindy's are 'colourful kick' and 'light and airy b&w', but for the b&w, I usually bump up the contrast and deepen the shadows after I do the action because I like my b&w's to be very black and contrast-y. I think her actions cost about 20$, and if you have PSE like I do, they are definitely well worth the $$. She's even included a web resize action in that set that is a huge time saver, I love it, and use it all the time.

As for lenses, you'll laugh when you find out that I still only have the kit lens ( 18-70mm) that came with my camera, but hopefully by this time next week, I'll be the proud owner of a 50mm 1.4 AF, if my quest at the camera show I'm waiting for goes well. I've been wanting this lens forever and I hope I can find a great deal there, so keep your fingers crossed for me, please!

So here's my original photo, it's kind of blah and oh yeah, out of focus, as are a ton of my photos.. *sigh*. Still working on getting those settings right. I do love the unsharp mask button a ton. ;p


















And here's the 'after' pic again, so you don't have to scroll down...
















I really just played around with the levels here. I did up the exposure with the RAW settings just a bit b/c it was dull, brightened up the midtones, and bumped up the contrast to my liking. I didn't use actions on this photo b/c they didn't seem to work for the colours in the pic. And yes, that beautiful unsharp mask command came in VERY handy here. Notice how Bobby looks kind of blurry in the before shot, and umm, still blurry in the after , but not as bad. ;)


Anyway, now that I've bored the pants off you guys , I'll leave you with a layout I did last week for the DYL class. This is pretty much a blatant copy of CZ's beautiful page, but hey, I got the photos and story scrapped, and that's a good thing, right? I'm finding it kind of hard to be creative in her class, b/c her layouts are lovely, and the sketches she gives us just make it easy to lift her's. ;p I'm going to try to be more adventurous with them if I can find the time to get everything done. I've been scrambling to keep up , so it's been easier not to have to think too hard about them.

























I'll let you know how my lens hunting goes next weekend, unless by some miracle I can find time to post before then!

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And the world's worst blogger award goes to...

Me.

I've come to the conclusion that I totally suck at blogging. I'm sure anyone who reads this thinks so too. It's been crazy hectic here the past few weeks, and I haven't had any energy left over to sit down and actually try to string together a coherent sentence here. ;p

Anyways, since the last time I posted, we've had our (Canadian) Thanksgiving last weekend ( I cooked a wicked good meal if I do say so myself!) high school visits for next year, lots of homework to help with, scrapping assignments finished up, the new hockey season starting, and a ton of other stuff going on. Yeah, I'm tired. I've been trying to keep up with my CZ and Elizabeth class stuff, and I've already fallen woefully behind, but you know what? I'm not stressing about it. Really, I'm not. I knew it would be a huge undertaking for me, so I'm going to do what I can, and the rest will be stored away for whenever.I just wish I could sit here on a daily basis and scrap while the elves worked their magic.



The kids and dh are going on their annual Scout camp weekend today, and I'll be blissfully on my own for the entire weekend. Tomorrow am, I'm driving to the big city of Plattsburgh, NY with my bff to visit the brand new TARGET, and we're both very excited about that. Heck, it's 45 minutes away, but totally worth the trip. The only bummer is that I won't be able to buy anything since I won't be staying the requisite 48 hours, but I will definitely be scoping it out for later next month when I go for my Xmas shopping weekend. It will be hard to resist the urge to try and smuggle stuff across the border though. I may drive down in some throw away clothes, just in case. ;p



I've decided to ditch the photo blog and just use my Flickr account for the photo-a-day thing. Not that I've uploaded anything since the 1st, but I've been taking my pics everyday ( more or less), and once I have time, I'll upload them there. The thought of having to update 2 blogs was just too much pressure. ;p

I'll leave you with a photo taken last Thanksgiving weekend of my Bobby and the dog- he just adores her. :)













And a VERY quick 5 minute layout I did this week:




Have a great weekend!

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fun stuff...

My friend Nathalie has started a photo-a-day challenge for October over on the Scrapbook Centrale website, and a bunch of us there have decided to join her. I've always adored looking at these on other people's blogs, but have never tried it myself- it's always seemed a bit daunting, and a lot of work too. I hope that I'll be able to keep up the pace, especially now that it's getting darker way earlier and I won't have much opportunity to shoot after work with the light gone. I almost never use a flash ( don't like the look of flash photos), so that's out of the question for me. I'll probably do this before I go to work, so I'll have to get organized to allow for some extra time in the am, haha! I'm going to open up a new blog just for the photos in a bit and link it here, because I don't think Blogger has the photo album feature that Typepad does. One of the perks of paying for your blog, I guess. ;p Anyways, feel free to join in on this with us- the more the merrier I say! If you do decide to play along, leave me a comment here and I'll link you up on the side bar. Should be fun to see what we all come up with.

And check this out- Simple Scrapbooks finally has a brand new look! Be sure and check out Angie & the new Simple blog, and it's sister blog, Simple Studio. The CK website has also had a complete overhaul, and you can find it here.

I'll leave you with a layout I did the other day, using some of the beautiful new Moda Bella line from American Crafts. The pic really reminded me of the old Tiger Beat/TeenBeat mag posters, and so I got my inspiration from that for the title. Or maybe it's that 70's -looking beaded necklace he wore all summer?

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'Almost 8' birthday fun..

Noah is a Labour Day baby, which means the poor kid usually has to celebrate his birthday right around the time school starts. It kind of sucks. This year, I got it together with my neighbour to have a combined pool birthday party this week with her son, who happens to be Noah's best friend, and who also has a September birthday. She did loot bags, I did the food, and it was probably the easiest party I've ever thrown. The kids had a blast swimming and playing some fun pool games ( even though it was a tad chilly) and we had the added bonus of built in babysitters with the lifeguards being there to watch them.

A fabulous idea, if I do say so myself! ;p

I'm posting a few photos here, but I'm kind of limited as I don't really want to put pics of other people's kids on the blog, so these will have to do.

The birthday boy, floating with a friend.

Noah adores the outdoor shower. It's probably one of his favorite things about the pool. ;p

We played 'bobbing for apples', the pool version.

The cake. I used to be a great cake baker, but over the years, I've slacked on doing the Martha thing, and it shows!

a sweet handmade card from best friend's 4 year old sister. Awwww.

Lots of Bionicles were acquired, which made this almost 8 year old pretty darned happy. :)

Have a safe and wonderful Labour Day weekend. We're probably not going to be doing much 'labouring' except for a bit of much needed yard work, and hopefully just hanging out in the hammock and enjoying the last few hours of summer vacation. How did it go by so fast?

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The Lake, lovely no matter what the weather

So, we did end up going to my friend's cottage last week, and alas, the weatherman wasn't wrong. It did indeed rain for the 3 days we were there, but it was ok. It's a perfectly lovely place, no matter what the weather. My kids are troopers, and I love that they're not easily put off by a little ( or in this case, a hell of a lot) of rain. They swam, they fished, they played, caught toads, picked blueberries, and Bobby learned how to drive the boat- an amazing 3 days of adventure for 2 active boys. Someone needs to figure out a way to bottle that mountain fresh air too. My boys are very hard to get to bed most nights, but up here, they're almost begging to sleep by about 8pm. It always amazes me. I've already scrapped about the lake in this layout, but here's a few photos I took to show you how beautiful it is, even in crap weather. My friend Norah and I had so much fun together, and I'm always so grateful that she invites us up here to spend part of her vacation with here every year. Love her!

Here's a particularly ominous looking shot taken shortly after we arrived Wednesday afternoon.

Then a sunbeam gave us some false hope...

The kids didn't care about the rain. They wanted to fish and swim...

We ran out of dry clothes. Not so fun.

Here's Lily enjoying the scenery. Her fur is almost normal again. And soft from the lakewater.

Ahhhh, the good life. We didn't want to leave.

I went to work on Saturday, and came home with some new American Crafts rub-ons and more papers. I just couldn't resist, I'm so weak. It's foolish of me, since I should be getting my AC box any day now... pretty please?! This collection is N I C E. Really, really, really nice. I'd say it comes close to being my fave.

I had to sit down and scrap with it Saturday night, even though I was exhausted, and should have gone to bed. I made these note cards... easy, cute, and very quick. I think these kinds of little cards are going to be perfect for those teachers gifts I always seem to be scrambling to make on December 21st or so, so I'l be whipping sets of these up every week or so until I have enough. Famous last words. ;p

I'm particularly fond of this awesome, funky flower paper. Yum!!

Ok. That was the longest post ever for me.

I'm off to watch the rest of '21'... hope it's worth staying up for!

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