It's the Small Things

The Ultimate Couch Potato

When I first saw the new Cosmo Cricket Delovely, I knew I would own it. I fell in love with the fresh and fun bright colors. I have a thing for yellows, right now, too. When I saw the chipboard, I kind of paused. "What on earth am I going to do with a couch?". There has definitely been a trend of home decor and I admit I have avoided it. I think it's cute conceptually, but I have no idea how to use it. 

 

Anyway, the Delovely couch didn't stop me from purchasing the product, but it's been sitting in my mind churning away for a while. No doubt how to use couches and lamps is glaringly obvious to many of you, but it really eludes me. I, however, like challenges. I was determined to figure out a way to use that couch!

This month, Petaloo, challenged us to do Pet projects. I have three huge cats, all of whom are girls and very, very lazy. They are more dog-like, than cat-like, for sure. I looked at the chipboard and thought "duh". These kitties are the ultimate couch potatoes. They wouldn't even stir if a bird flew in the room and buzzed over their heads. So, there you go. That's what I went with in a silly way. 

I started with a white background, cut down, so I could use some Creative Imaginations Luminarte in yellow and pink. I had fun with Petaloo's glittery flowers and blingy flower centers. My favorite is their sequins. I love the long, skinny sequins and thought they'd make a fun border instead of sewing. I'm not sure I love my layout, but I do love that I got a page about my kitty done. I tend to focus on the kiddos and have been neglect in documenting the other part of our family.

Have a great Memorial Day!

Totally Rad Actions in Action

I'm a huge fan of Totally Rad Actions. I use them all the time to punch up my layouts before I post them online. I do my best to take pictures of my layouts in indirect sunlight for the best natural look, but I usually need to punch them up just a bit. 

I recently had a deadline and had to take the photo of my layout at night. That meant it was going to look yellow. I wasn't worried about it because I knew I could easily correct the color with some actions. What I did have to sacrifice was crispness. 

Being an amateur photographer means I have no clue how to adjust for evening photos with no flash. I do shoot in manual mode, however, and I knew that I would need to bump up my ISO to 800 to get the image with no flash. On my old camera, a Canon 10d, that means lots of noise, which to me, looks like blurriness. 

Still, I knew the actions would help compensate for these two problems, noise and color. 

I thought I'd share what I did. A few things before I begin:

• I am not a pro photographer. The actual photograph on this page was taken by Pascale Wowak. The photo of the layout, however, was taken by me. :)
• I am a hacker in photoshop. Most of what I know is self taught from manuals. 
• Totally Rad Actions do not work with elements. It requires Photoshop CS2 or up.  

To take this photo, I needed to tape it at eye level to my wall. I have overhead lighting in my room and trying to stand over my layout on the floor would have caused shadows from every angle. It was important to get the shot without any shadows and taping it to the wall was the solution. 

Here is the shot straight out of the camera. I created this layout using BasicGrey's new Basics Collection in white. You can see it is more yellow than white in this picture, which is due to the lighting in the room. 

In order to remove the yellow. I used the action "Cool as a Cucumber". This adds blue to the image and effectively removed most of the yellow. Normally, I would never use an action at 100% opacity, but I did here. I even ran the action a second time, but ultimately removed it, as it made the black and white photo too blue. 

Next, I needed to correct the blurriness. I ran the action "Boutwell Magic Glasses". This is my favorite action for sharpening an image. The image is still a little blurry, but the action made it sharper. 

The last thing I wanted to do was brighten the whole thing. It needed that punch I referred to earlier. I ran the action "Oh Snap". This punched up the colors by making them brighter and it, also, added some sharpening. 

At this point, I was satisfied with the image, saved it and sent it off. 

The Totally Rad Action set I own is The Original Set; TRA1. You can read the descriptions of all the actions for a better idea of what they are supposed to do. My descriptions are based on my observations vs. the technical photoshop speak, so if you want that, go check out their site because they do a great job of explaining in technical detail. 

This layout was for the BasicGrey May newsletter and is based on a sketch provided by Kelly Goree. Kelly is uber cool and crazy talented. Each month she posts on facebook that she needs volunteers for creating layouts for the BasicGrey newsletter. Then she randomly picks three people. Cool, huh?  

It's a holiday weekend here and my family is being mellow and staying home. I hope all of you are enjoying your day. 

Crate Paper Card Sketch

This week on the Crate Paper blog cards have been the big feature. Yesterday, a card sketch challenge was posted and there are two collections up for grabs. The sketch is really adorable and below is my take on it.

 

I used the Pink Plum collection to create this card. I love pink, orange and brown. They are happy colors to me. To create the petal effect, I cut the scallops off the scallop die cut paper, inked them, curled them, then adhered them to the edge of my circle. You could, also, punch out circles and cut them in half, if you didn't want to use the die cut paper.

This is a fun challenge if you love making cards. It's definitely worth trying.

Sketches, Sketches, Get Your Sketches

Creative Imaginations started monthly sketch contests in January. It's been wonderful to see everyone's take on the sketches in the gallery. One super, cool thing that Creative Imaginations is, also, doing is giving away prizes to the winners. And, to appeal to more of us, they are running not one but two sketch contests each month; a card sketch contest and a layout sketch contest.

This month's layout sketch can be found here. The sketch is wonderful! Even better the prize is $50 worth of CI products AND a blog feature!

This month's card sketch can be found here. There is a prize package for this, too.

So, what are you waiting for? Get thee to CI and play along!

Last month, I did an example for both the card sketch and the layout sketch. For the layout, I used some pictures of my youngest playing in a Spring rain storm. He refused to wear a hood, but insisted on his dinosaur rain boots, so I went with a little humor. The journaling reads "Real men do not wear hoods in the rain, but they do wear dinosaur rain boots". I used the Real Wood for the background and sprayed it with Luminarte, which will be in stores very soon! I, also, used a bunch of Petaloo's fun glitter flowers and their glitter paper.

For the card sketch, I just did a simple "hey" card. I love having these simple cards around to send out for no other reason than to say "Hey!".

If you love sketches, I highly recommend checking into CI's sketch contests each month.

Thanks for the feedback on what you love to see on blogs. I've got my thinking cap on.

Signs of Spring

It's nearly summer and I find myself looking forward to my son being out of school. We have a very mellow summer planned and that is just want we need this year. When the signs of Spring started cropping up everywhere, I started to get that giddy feeling. I love how fresh things feel when Spring comes around. I've decided to make a layout for each season documenting my favorite signs both nature and family tradition. I think it will be a great thing to look back upon.

 

I used the Lovely Collection from Lily Bee Design for this page, along with some Webster's Pages bloomers, trim and sparklers. I used Helmar ZapDots to pop up my photos and give them some dimension and I used Helmar 450 Quick Dry for the bloomers and lace trim. It dries clear, so you cannot see it through the delicate ribbon.

If you care to answer a question, I'd love to hear what you like to see on crafty blogs. What types of posts draw you back to a blog time and time again?

My Next Class

I have been wanting to make myself a card planner for a very long time. I am always scrambling last minute to get cards in the mail, so I wanted to organize the process and make it simple. I created a fun card planner that has tons of my favorite photos. It's for me, so I have filled it with all of my favorite photos of our family. 

It is a mini book that is broken into months and includes addresses and lists. It, also, has two pockets for cards and stamps. I love my little book! I think it would make a great gift idea, as well. Below are just a few images. The inside pages are filled with photos and lots of fun details. 

 

We will be working with canvas, luminarte, gel bead medium, gesso, micro beads and more. I went technique heavy this time around. The book features the brand new Creative Imaginations IOD Loolah collection, shipping to stores soon, Christine Adolph Chipboard and Creative Cafe! We will, also, get to play with some of the gorgeous new bloomers ribbon from Webster's Pages. 

Here are the class details:

Memories Live On
Saturday, June 5
10 a.m - 1 p.m.
$45

• Supplies needed:
• Fabric Glue – Helmar 450 Quick Dry
• Personal Trimmer
• Tape runner
• Foam dots or squares
• Scissors
• Favorite Border Punch – I used Martha Stewart “Double Scallop”
• Red ink – Colorbox fluid chalk ink catseye “warm red”
• 2 Foam brushes
• Ranger Glossy Accents
• Skinny paintbrush (about ¼ inch)
• Black Sharpie extra/ultra fine pen
• White paint
• Sand paper or nail file
• Photos - twelve 4"x6" horizontal and nine 3"x5" horizontal or vertical. 

Have a wonderful Mother's Day weekend!