Ready for Some Craft Time

If you haven't checked out my new blog yet, be sure to read my "A Big Thank You & Celebration" post! You'll also get a look at the new CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut Collection.  Mine will be here soon; I can't wait!

I'm really ready to start scrapbooking my Hawaii photos and to finish some pages I'm donating to a friend who recently started chemo for bone cancer.  Her son asked her to create a scrapbook for him, so my goal is to help her make his wish come true.  Sharing our stories with the ones we love is so important!  I don't have kids, so I think I lose sight of that sometimes.  Yet, I'm the only one who is qualified to tell my story!  I'll share the layouts that I make for her here.  I'm working on the Technique Tuesday "Live in the Moment" kit by Ali Edwards right now.  The inks that came with the kit are so nice; they are so chalky and smooth and look absolutely beautiful.

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Creative Weekend!

I completed a layout while cropping with a friend last night and another one today on Studio J!  I love weekends like this.  Only 1 1/2 weeks left of school and then I hope to spend my summer in many such creative endeavors.  Be sure to check out the video on my new blog, Studio Scrapping!  I'll post my other layout after I talk to my sister and iron out the journalling for it.  :-)

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More Studio J Tutorials

I'm really excited about the Studio J tutorials I've made over the past couple of weeks.  Studio J is so quick and easy, so it is perfect for beginners.  Yet, it is also ideal for those of us with some digital scrapbooking experience and Photoshop skills.  I'm going to start making tutorials to help advanced users get the most out of their Studio J membership, as well.  Until then, here are the last three videos I created.  Make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel, createwithamy, and leave me a comment!

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Creating & Embellishing Journaling Strips in Studio J

I had a great New Year's Eve with my husband and friends last night.  We always share our goals for the new year, but this time we are finding inspiration from the one little word post by Ali Edwards.  My guiding words for the year are balance and write.  I want to find balance in my life so that I have more time to write!

I created this layout using the new Wings kit that was uploaded to Studio J today.  This paper is so beautiful.  I have the classic paper kit, too, but haven't cut into it yet.  Here is a video showing how I created the journaling strips and embellished them using staples and thread from buttons.

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You Make Me Happy

I discovered a Sketchabilities contest last night and fell for sketch #20!  Even though I have a ton of school work to do, I decided that, after the stress of the past couple of weeks, I needed to relax and scrapbook.  So, I've been working on this layout on and off throughout the day.  I know the lighting on this photo is horrible, but I'm past my 10pm computer cut-off time, so I need to hustle and get to bed.  I had a great time playing with my Silhouette for this layout.  I purchased all the die cuts through the Silhouette store, the background paper is Scenic Route, and everything else is Close To My Heart.  I resisted the urge to further embellishment; I'm trying to simplify my process.  Anyway, this layout makes me happy, so that's all that really matters!

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Autumn/Winter 2010 Idea Book Sneak Peek

I'm not really a Halloween person.  For years, Neal and I ignored the holiday, turned off the porch light, and went to a movie to avoid having candy in the house.  Luckily, our house was never egged by disgruntled trick-or-treaters!  Even so, I find it amusing that, for the past two years, I've had a Halloween stamp for the new Autumn/Winter Idea Book swap.  In fact, I won 2nd place in a CTMH contest with last year's card!  Here is the card I submitted for the current swap and a little sneak peek at some of our awesome new colors!  The paper I used is called Hooligans (X7129B); I love this paper!  The colors are fantastic and will look great with a variety of photos, not just Halloween pictures.  The stamp set is called The Boo Crew (C1421) and comes with 6 darling pumpkins.

The new Autumn/Winter 2010 Idea Book launches September 1st, so contact me to reserve your copy!

Amy

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Studio J Sneak Peek

Close To My Heart’s Studio J will launch in a few months, and I can't wait to share it with everyone I know! Since I attended Leadership, I was given early access to Studio J but have only now had a chance to play with it. I placed my first order a few minutes ago and thought I would share my LOs here.

So, what the heck is Studio J?! It is a FREE online scrapbooking studio. It's like digital scrapbooking, but not nearly as time consuming, expensive, or difficult to use. You’ll be able to try the full, web-based program through my CTMH website when Studio J launches in March. Until then, enjoy this little sneak peek!


Good news--if you are a digi-scrapper, you can import PNG files to drop in the photo wells like I did here with Katie Pertiet's Postage Frame Clusters!

If you know nothing about digital scrapbooking, never fear...Studio J was designed just for you! The following LOs were designed in a flash; choosing my photos and writing my journaling was the longest part of the process.

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Creativity Challenge Update

Wow! It's a little embarrassing that I haven't updated my Weekly Creativity Challenge for 3 months! It’s not that I haven’t been creative; it simply is that my blog took a backseat to school, my online classes, my CTMH club, and my sick kitties. I’m on winter break now, so I’m going to get back into the swing of posting.

9/20-26 ~ Complete the Telling Stories Deeply and the Learn Something New Every Day class prompts. Create digi LOs for Learn Something New.
Although I didn’t do any of the Telling Stories lessons, I did manage 10 digi LOs for Learn Something New. I also went on a bit of a digi shopping spree. I’m technically not a digital scrapbooker, but I have purchased a ton of digi elements, papers, PDF files, Etc. over the past few months. Not really sure what that is all about other than the fact that most of the items are $.25 at Designer Digitals…LOL!

Blog ~ Post digi LOs. Blog “The Great Escape” story!
How is it possible that I STILL haven’t written about “The Great Escape”? Seriously!

CTMH ~ Finish card kit and Twitterpated WOTG.
I finished ½ the card kit and both Twitterpated LOs. I am absolutely in LOVE with those LOs and will post them during break!

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I'm shocked!

I have to tell you, I am absolutely shocked right now; so much so that I'm posting a quick blog during lunch at work...I never do that! I just discovered that I won 2nd place in the August CTMH "Make it from Your Heart" Contest for the "Trick or Treat" card I submitted to a swap. I love this card, but I NEVER would have sent it in on my own. I'm very thankful that my friend, Sue Laufer, asked for an extra set of cards to enter into the contest. Now I have $50 in select product credit to spend...woo hoo!

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Learn Something New Day 10

I really wanted to get caught up on my digi LOs today, but this was all I was able to finish. I need to spend the rest of the evening exercising and grading papers...fun times!

I rotated the designerdigitals.com template I used yesterday since this LO will be on the facing page. I also included a free pocket from their What's in Your Pocket challenge. I had to reduce the pocket a great deal since the photo of my card had been saved for the internet. That pocket is such a clever design. I can't wait to print out my book when I'm done and see how it looks on the page.

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Learn Something New Days 7-9

I saw a news segment on the 7th about a woman who reinvented herself by publishing her first novel at 45. I need to reconnect with myself as a writer. Neal and I have spent the past week brainstorming story ideas, and I'm getting really excited about writing again! Learn Something New Every Day is motivating me to write in my journal daily, but I haven't started writing any fiction yet. Perhaps that will be my goal in October after this class is over.
On the 8th, I rediscovered that, in the greater scheme of life, true friendship matters most! I may not get to see Karen or my few close friends very often, but they are always in my heart. I'm so blessed to have such wonderful women in my life! Neal took this photo at our house during a scrapbooking crop the day after my birthday. It is one of my all-time favorites!
I purchased this template from Digital Designs for $.25 today! I would love to get the entire series of templates, but I can't justify the expense since I'm not really a digital scrapbooker. I guess I'll just keep watching for sales.

These are some self-portraits after my first day of school on the 9th. As I was driving home, I was thinking about the fact that I had a cute new outfit for the first day and no one to take my photo. Well, I wasn't going to let that stop me. LOL! The mirror photo is blurry, but you can still see my cute Eddie Bauer outfit. I'm determined to look more professional this year as I work toward my CTE certification. I have a feeling that Neal is going to be shocked by my clothing purchases this year!

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Creativity Challenge Update

I haven't been online much over the past couple of weeks due to the start of the new school year and Neal's challenging me to stay off my computer! I must admit that I felt a little lost on the days that I didn't turn on my computer. I'm hopelessly addicted; sad but true! What I have determined is that there is no way I can go without a computer two days during the week--I'm okay with one. On the other days, I simply must force myself to use my time more wisely (e.g. limit the amount of time I spend surfing blogs!).

9/6-12 ~ Complete the Telling Stories Deeply and the Learn Something New Every Day class prompts. Create digi LOs for Learn Something New.
I've managed to copy and print all the Telling Stories lessons, but I haven't written anything yet. I have written in my LSNED journal daily and have completed LOs through the 9th. I'm 10 LOs behind, so I need to increase my speed...story of my life. I'm the slowest scrapbooker EVER!

Blog ~ Post digi LOs. Blog “The Great Escape” story!
Digi, yes. Great Escape, no. I really do want to tell that story!

CTMH ~ Set up new club and place order. Send e-mail to change open house date.
Done and done! My club meets on the 28th and we are completing the September Card Kit; it is so cute!

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Learn Something New Days 3-6

Shimelle's prompt was about what we can learn from our feet. It amazes me how right on target her prompts always seem to be with my life. For instance, Neal and I were watching football and one of the players was carted off with a foot sprain. I was thinking to myself how horrible it would be in everyday life let alone as an athlete, and then I open a prompt about feet! My lesson came this summer when Neal and I hiked up Multnomah Falls. During the entire 4 mile hike, I didn't experience any pain until we were on the way DOWN...my feet were killing me!

Sadly enough, I continue to waste time on the computer. When I first took this class, I ended up with 6 pages about getting off the computer and spending time exercising, enjoying nature or doing something productive. Three years later, I'm still giving myself the same advice...I see a problem here! Neal has challenged me to leave my computer off on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I will still have to use the computer at school, but those evenings at home will be spent reading, crafting, Etc. I'm going to try to start tomorrow if I can finish all my school work at school. Wish me luck!

Neal got a little annoyed with me the other night. After exercising, I said I was going to take a quick shower. Well, our versions of quick showers don't exactly match, and he had to come up and tell me to hurry because dinner was ready. It's a good thing he loves me!

Side note: I am using much more white space on these digi LOs than I do when working traditionally. It is very strange for me. It will be interesting to see how I feel about the pages when they are printed and in a book.

I had such a busy summer with my online course, travels, and CTMH events that I never started a "To Do" list. Now the summer is over and I realize that I didn't accomplish much around the house. Oh, sure, I did a little cleaning, but I didn't do any big projects. Now I'm back to life as a busy English teacher and will be swamped with grading and meetings. Hopefully my computer ban on Tuesday and Thursdays will motivate me, but I still need to make a list!

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Learn Something New Every Day

Shimelle's Learn Something New Every Day class started again on September 1st. I first signed up for this class in September of 2006. That was an incredibly eventful month in my life, and I'm so thankful I was taking her course, because I journaled every day. I didn't, however, finish my daily pages. In fact, I completed the book during Lain's Layout a Day Challenge in May...of THIS year! Yikes! So, my goal for this year is to journal daily and finish my book by early October. I came to the realization last night that I simply don't have time for traditional scrapbooking, so I'm going to go digi for this project. It isn't my first choice, but it is far more realistic at this moment in time. Plus, Shimelle has included some great digi downloads for this class, including PDF files for the LOs. That is going to save me a lot of time.

After taking Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects from Jessica Sprague, I got pretty excited about playing around in Photoshop. In fact, I've downloaded a bunch of free digital designs and have even purchased a digital kit and some embellishments. Now, mind you, I've only ever created two digital LOs in my life! LOL! So, I'm going to use the Learn Something New class to work on my journaling and to hone my digital skills. I'll stick with Shimelle's LOs for the first couple of weeks since school is starting, but then I may try to come up with my own designs.

To save myself some time, I'm using the Ana Reis Designs "I Heart You" kit. I purchased both the paper and embellishment kits because I loved the doodle hearts.

My first page deals with the presentation I gave to our staff about metacognition. I felt good about the presentation but didn't think it was amazing. Throughout the day I was given a lot of positive feedback. My colleagues made me realize that I do a good job and that I should have more confidence. I'm using a horrible photo from a Web 2.0 presentation I gave at a business education conference in May. Yeah...people should NEVER be photographed while they are speaking!

My learning continued at our school district teacher training on the 2nd. I co-presented a workshop on lesson planning using Project CRISS and then went to a workshop about ways students hook us into power struggles. The presenter talked about being intentional in our emotional lives. Negative thoughts impact everything we do even if we don't say them out loud. This made me think about my health and approaching it from a positive POV (e.g. I'm not trying to lose weight, I'm gaining muscle, tone, and a firm core!).

This is a photo from my classroom in May. The presenter also talked about seeing your most difficult student as your greatest teacher in living an emotionally intentional life. Brilliant!

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Creativity Challenge Update

I have been MIA the past few weeks, because as soon as I finished my online CTE course, I had to start gearing up for the three presentations I gave last week. I didn't get any of my own school work done, so I'm going to have to work very hard in my classroom tomorrow! I decided to use today to get caught up on some of my creative projects.

8/9-15 ~ As I really want to take the Telling Stories Deeply class at BPS, I need to complete my unfinished classes before I enroll for another class. So, I’m going to work on my 52 Card Pick Up class this week. My goal is 2 cards per day starting on Monday.
I didn't look at my 52 Card Pick Up class once, but I did sign up for Telling Stories Deeply. I have done nothing with that class since I have been so busy these past couple of weeks. I need to add it to my challenge list for this week.

Blog ~ Post my LOs from Kyle’s visit and my two cards each day. Blog “The Great Escape” story!
I did post the LOs from Kyle's visit, but I still need to work on "The Great Escape" story. Hmm...I'm sensing an opportunity to double dip with my Telling Stories Deeply class!

CTMH ~ Advertise and prepare for my Christmas card workshop; finish my Leadership projects; complete my card swaps. Yikes! It’s a good thing I’m still on summer vacation.
I finished my card swaps and Christmas card workshop. I still need to finish the Leadership projects.

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Shhh…Halloween Card Sneak Peek!

You guys know how much I love CTMH products; I think it is safe to say that I’m addicted…LOL! What I love the most is how versatile they are; in fact, this is the key point they make on the latest episode of CTMH TV. Take a look at these new Grace papers; they are perfect for feminine or masculine projects. The text paper is well suited to Thanksgiving or any other project that expresses thankfulness for family, but what about Halloween?

Well, I say "Yes!" This is a card that I made for a swap using the new Grace papers and Beware stamp set. I used the front side of the text paper for the large circle and the back side for the smallest circle. I speckled the large circle with Black and Olive markers using an airbrush and then added Black Distressing Ink to the other circles using the Black Texture Tool. Using these distressing techniques helped me convert a shabby chic Thanksgiving kit into a spooky Halloween card!

Pattern: Delightful Dots from Wishes (pg. 53)
Paper: Grace (X7117B), Autumn Terracotta TCS (X5669), Olive CS (1245)
Stamp: Beware (D1381)
Ink: Versamark (Z891), Black Distressing Ink (Z1296), New England Ivy (Z2135)
Markers: Black (Z2305) & Olive (Z2337)
Embellishments: Black Embossing Powder (Z670), Black Bitty Brads (Z1218), 3-D Foam Tape (Z1151), Sanding block (Z1294), Texture Tools (Z1298)
Other: Inkworx air gun

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Wolf Haven

Our second day trip with Kyle was a quick visit to Wolf Haven. We arrived a few minutes prior to the tour, so it was perfect timing. Wolf Haven is a sanctuary for many wolves but only 14 are on the guided tour. We didn’t get to see all of them, but the ones that were out were absolutely beautiful. They gave us a special treat about half way through the tour…wolves started howling on one end of the sanctuary and each of the wolves returned the call. It was breathtaking! According to the Wolf Haven website, “Vocal communication among wolves consists of howls, whines, growls and barks. Although all the functions of howling are not known, scientists think that one of the main reasons wolves howl is to assemble the pack. Another possible function of howling is to claim territory. Some experts think that wolves can identify other wolves through their howls.” I don’t know what they were trying to communicate, but I’m so glad that I witnessed it!




I’m aware that the title “High Adventure” makes no sense for this LO, but I was doing a direct scraplift from page 17 of the Summer 2009 Idea Book, and I couldn’t deviate from the design! LOL! All supplies are CTMH: Back Country kit, pewter brads, Adventure Dimensional Elements, natural hemp, sanding kit, and My Legacy Writers.

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Mt. Rainier Hike

I thought I was being kind by letting the boys sleep in, but it ended up being a bad move. By the time we got up to the mountain, the parking lot was full. I couldn’t believe how packed it was during the middle of the week; I would hate to see what it is like there on the weekend. Anyway, we ended up parking a couple miles down the road and hiking back up to the visitor station. We only had a couple hours to spend on the mountain since I needed to get home for the mobile vet visit. We ate a quick lunch and then walked the Skyline Trail to Myrtle Falls and down the 4th Crossing Trail right to our car; it was almost like we planned it that way! It was a really easy, relaxing walk. I’m looking forward to going back and trying some of the more challenging trails.







All supplies are CTMH: Bella WOTG sketch, Back Country, Campin' Fever, pewter brads and photo hangers, Adventure Dimensional Elements, natural hemp,sanding kit, and My Legacy Writers.

I absolutely love this Back Country kit! I added Barn Red textured cardstock and I'm now wishing I would have used a different color. I had already sanded it, so I wasn't going to start over. The Bella sketch has the title under the photo, but I placed the title on the photo, so I'm wondering if I need anything under the picture.

Don't get me started about that picture! I used a great grunge mask from the jessicasprague.com Photoshop class. After I uploaded the photo to Wal-Mart, I checked their print preview option and it looked just like it does here. Well, when I picked up my photos yesterday, most of the top and left borders have been cut off. It looks hideous now, so I adhered it with removable adhesive and am going to print it out at Costco this week. Ugh!

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Creativity Challenge

I'm thinking that I want to archive my "Weekly Creativity Challenges." I wish I would have done this from the beginning. Oh well, I'm doing it now.

7/17-18 ~ Now that my craft room is back in shape, I am going to scrapbook at least 4 layouts for my cruise album! For a bonus challenge, I'm going to use a sketch from 52 Sketches and Inspired Blueprints.

I'm also working on my Shakespeare High Ning this weekend. I need to create a banner in Photoshop and mess with the CSS.

I met the scrapbooking challenges and posted the LOs. Although I did finish my Shakespeare High Ning, I'm not crazy about the banner. I'm sure I'll change it later, but I'm not going to worry about it now.

7/19-25 ~ I need to prepare card kits for Karen's workshop on Wednesday and page kits for Mimi's crop on Saturday. I want to write and upload a couple more stories to my blog, as well.

Again, I accomplished the scrapbooking challenges but didn't add stories to the blog. I have a childhood story that I really want to write--it's on my "to do" list--but I haven't made the time. I'm going to add it to my list for this week!

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Weekend Challenge = 2 Down + a Sketch

I completed a double-page spread from this Inspired Blueprints sketch. I spent a lot longer on it than planned, but I really like how it turned out. I don't have a great eye for random brad placement, but I like how it looks on other layouts, so I'll keep practicing.





All CTMH supplies unless noted:
Cardstock: White Daisy
Textured CS: White Daisy & Dutch Blue
B&T: Tinkerin’ (green) & Laid Back (blue)
Ink: StazOn Black, Clover Meadow, Dutch Blue, Sunny Yellow, Hydrangea
Stickers: Color Ready Alpha (Oxford Caps & Bold)
Stamps: Spot On Backgrounds (D1280), Star Struck (D1237), Circle Around (D1300), Comments (D1359), Connections (D1330), Good Times (B1332)
Pen: My Legacy Writers
Brads: Summer Carnival, Bigger White & Dutch Blue
Other: Coluzzle circle & Fiskars Threading Water punch

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