This is a fun layout I did with photos of Andrew’s birthday cake. He and Kyle have been all into Minecraft, which is a computer game in which you can gather various types of blocks and use them to build a world, all while surviving nighttime zombie and skeleton archer attacks, avoiding the Enderman and steering clear of Creepers. A creeper looks like, well, this cake. If you get too close, you will hear a fuse burning and you have a very limited amount of time to get away before the creeper blows up, taking you and whatever blocks are around it out in a large explosion. I decided to make my first attempt at a cake that was taller than a 13″x9″ pan, and had a blast making this Creeper Cake, although I did not make enough buttercream, and would have liked it to have been a little better frosted. Andrew was very pleased with this cake for his 10th birthday, as were the whole family and my entire workplace, who got to finish it off.

Kit used is Lauren Bavin’s Spring Sunshine Page Kit found in the http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com store.

One more Symphony layout: I made this one a couple of weeks ago for a contest. It was the day she died, and I didn’t have it in me to create anything else. I used Elizabeth Weaver’s Beauty and Spirit Value Collection.

It’s been awhile…

Greetings, everybody. I guess it has been too long since I last posted, and since then, so many things have changed. I am heartbroken today, because my dog Symphony passed away today (on her 12th birthday) after being hit by a car last week sometime. I could just cry forever. Symphony has been living with my Dad and his wife and my brother, Allan for 6 years ever since 2006 when I moved to a place where I couldn’t have a dog. I was in an apartment until just last year, and although I could have kept her in my house, I would never have taken her away from her new home. I am so lucky because she went to a place where I knew she would be loved and have plenty of doggie companions to keep her company. All this and I still got to see her every time I went home for a visit. But before that, she was MY dog and I got her when she was just an 8-week-old puppy. I’ve had so many stories over the years about Symphony, and I hope you’ll bear with me while I share some. I’ll miss her smiling dog-face.

Symphony was only a year or so old when we took one trip to visit my parents for a summer holiday. I was coming home to NJ on the turnpike, and had just reached the exit for Mount Holly when traffic came to a dead stop. I spent 45 minutes on the ramp and had no air-conditioner, so I had the window open. We were within sight of the toll booth, when Symphony jumped over my lap, dove out the window and started running around in the road and the grass next to the ramp. Fortunately, the cars were not yet moving. I immediately got out of my car and tried to call her to come over, but every time she would get close, I would take a step toward her, and she would spring away from me and run around. She wanted to play. I was almost at my wit’s end, when some nice men got out of their truck and helped me get her back in the car. I was near tears thinking I could have lost her forever, but thanks to those men, she was safe and sound, and we went the rest of the way with the windows just cracked.

My sister Andi just told me tonight that she took Symphony home with her one weekend, and she stopped at the Pilot off the northeast extension and bought Symphony a “side of lunchmeat”. I bet it was the best treat ever, because at home, per Buddy, she was only allowed to have Iams, and Denta-bones. I’m sure she was in 7th heaven with that ham, LOL.

Another time, Gram was walking with her on the leash, because Symphony was Gram’s buddy. Somehow, Symphony knocked Gram flat on the sidewalk, but Gram still insisted that she wanted Symphony to stay there with her. She was pretty good company for sure.

Ha ha, way back when we lived on Tennessee Trail in NJ, we had this crazy, drunk neighbor Jeff, who always came over to invite us to hang out and drink beer or hit on Andi in his drunken stupor. He was the only person Symphony ever bit, and I am sure he deserved it…

Symphony loved to swim in the Rancocas Creek and chase tennis balls in the water. She had a friend, Thor, who was one or our black cats, as well as many dog-friends at Dad’s house. She tortured poor Shadow right up until his last days and her yellow lab coat stuck out like a sore thumb amongst Dad’s big black Newfoundlands. Who ever would have thought that a 75 lb lab would be the SMALLEST of the dogs?!

Anyway, I am sure I’ll think of more stories, but it’s been good to reminisce a little because otherwise all I have done is cry all night. Thanks for letting me share.

Life is good. I’m still working on a bunch of projects, a lot of PS (upgrade to CS6 is coming right up in a few days–wahoo!) and some HTML. I’m looking into paths I could choose for a career change, since my teaching career is pretty much kaput until I make up a whoooooole lotta Act 48 credits. Mine from NJ didn’t count for anything toward my PA certificate, even though I was teaching in NJ the whole time and NOT in PA. It’s ok because it’s time for a change anyway. I loved teaching and some day when I have a bigger/more suitable place, I’ll teach instrument lessons, but I’m not even in any hurry for that.

I am pretty sure I want to stay involved in computers and design. I have been researching a media design program from an online university that looks pretty interesting. It’s a Master of Fine Arts in Media Design from Full Sail University, if anyone is interested. I’m still not sure I’m going to do it, but it’s something I’m toying around with. Coupled with the html 5 video class I’ve been taking, and my work in PhotoShop, I might be leaning toward web design. At any rate, the information in that program at the very least would benefit job-hunting in the field. I will figure it all out in time. For now, I’ve got one more month of school for the boys before my annual trek up to my hometown to work construction/remodeling with my dad and brother. After that I will be going back to work, whether that is in a new career, or a filler position until which time I have my path in order. It is bittersweet for me. This year has been so wonderful. I’ve been able to be home when my boys are sick, without being made to feel like I’ve let everybody at school down. I’ve been able to establish a routine at home and sit down to eat real meals with the family every night, instead of always being on the fly. I’m not driving hundreds of miles every week, which is wonderful. It only took me 9 of 10 school months to feel like a stay-at-home-mom and now it’s over. Ahh, well. Such is life, right? 🙂

Anyhooo, I just wanted to post a general synopsis of what’s up, since I’ve been MIA for a few weeks. Hope everybody’s having a great May!

SO…I’ve been working hard with the trial of PS CS6 for the last week, and I’ve finally come up with my very own digital scrapbooking page kit! I could probably do with another element or so, but for some of my very first designs, this one is complete, and it looks just fine, if I do say so myself! I hope to toss it up on my website one of these days, but I’m still working on that. The website isn’t going very well, but the kit is cool! It’s called Boys and Toys and it looks like this:

I hope you like it–I’m super excited to have a complete kit under my belt. I hope to do a few special occasion kits in the coming weeks! Thanks for reading, friends, your support is noticed and appreciated! 🙂

Heather

PS CS6-Beta

Wow, I didn’t know how much fun PS could be until I finally opened up my CS6 Beta version! I’ve been using PSE9 a relatively short time (I really didn’t open it up until February of this year) and I’ve learned tons of things from the ladies over at DSP. I like PSE9, but I know that I’ll eventually need to upgrade to a CS product if I want to do more design work. So yesterday, after speaking to a rep from Adobe about what package I will buy, I began my free 60-day trial to CS6. It was amazing, and overwhelming!

Going from no background in PhotoShop whatsoever to PSE9 for a couple of months to the big, bad, brand-new CS6 is quite a big step. I was surprised to see how many shortcuts are different in the program. I assumed that since they were both made by the same company, that PSE would be a lite version of PS, with many missing components, but basically the same interface. I guess in the grand scheme of things, maybe this is true, but from my perspective and with my limited experience, this is not exactly the case.

Let me say that as confusing as it is, there are tutorials for just about everything online. I wanted to make a seamless pattern and in 3 seconds, there were 12 seamless pattern tutorials in front of me, plus dozens more pages of search results. If you find a really good tutorial, it goes pretty quickly, and voila! You have your very own seamless pattern. Other times, you’ll pick out a tut where the narrator assumes you know what little steps he’s skipped (because he is so familiar with the program) and it can really throw you for a loop. I found both, but overall, I learned how to create a seamless pattern and have used it several times already to make digital scrapbook background papers–woo hoo!

I’m having a few issues converting the things I used to do in PSE to CS6, and right now, I can’t tell if it’s user error (most likely) or a legitimate bug in the program. A little more playing around and I’ll figure that out, I’m sure. The best thing to do, like all the designers have told me, is to just play around with it and find all the little nuances and ways to make your papers really work! I’m fortunate enough to be in a community with excellent digital designers who have been around the block a few times and who are willing to answer my one million questions–that really helps.

At any rate, if you’re interested in checking out PS CS6 (it’s probably coming out in May sometime) you can go download it from Adobe here. It’s worth a look and while you’re at it, come by http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com and join me in an outstanding community of digital scrappers where you can learn how to work the software!

Hopefully I’ll get some designs up and running here and be able to post something on my website for download soon!

Cheers!

Seeing the big picture

I’m learning so many wonderful things during this time in which I don’t have to go to work, mostly related to digital scrapbooking, but a few other random things as well. I haven’t done as much with my website as I had wanted, and frankly, I’m kind of stuck, my vision having ended in frustration at trying to do it all myself. I have some great books on Dreamweaver and blogging that I’ve paged through, looking for things I need to know, but I am having trouble with what should come first–the big picture. I’ve always had trouble with that. I can’t walk into a room and imagine it a completely different color with different furnishings and decor. I have the most trouble with this and I don’t know why, and I wish I could just do it the way I feel others can. I wish I could see a scrapbook page in my head or a website in my head, completely finished (even if changes come about in the process of creating it). I feel like if I could make myself see the finished product, I could do so much more amazing things, and really speed my projects up a lot.

Come to think of it, it goes way beyond decorating and crafting. It is a reflection on my entire life. I can’t figure out where I’m going in life because my whole world has changed directions completely and I feel as though I’m kind of left here, trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up. I’m waaaay out of school, so anything I might learn to do from here on out is up to me entirely. Do I want to spend time and money getting myself back into teaching just to have a reliable income? Do I want to go try something completely new and start from square one and work my way up? I don’t know, and I can’t see past the end of my nose on this one. I have NO IDEA what I want and I can’t even find the direction to the big picture here!

I think of this as a shortcoming, and something I’d like to improve upon. I feel like it’s holding me back from finding my niche in the world. I can do a lot of things fairly decently, but nothing seems to stand out as the one thing I’m good at. I think if I can gain this clarity, I’ll find that one thing and then I’ll be able to meet my potential and work hard to exceed it. Maybe I’m missing the point entirely and wasting precious moments of my life looking for something that is impossible to find. I just don’t know.

Anyway, I am going to continue to work on my digital and scrapbook design, dabbling with my website and enjoying my time to be home with my little guys and maybe one day I’ll come across the magic inspiration that helps me see the big picture clearly. Maybe I’ll find the one thing that I can provide to the world and then I’ll make it my job to provide it. I hope it comes soon, though, because I’m almost out of time to figure it out. 🙂

Looking for Love

Hi to my humongous WordPress audience!  I just posted a scrapbook layout to Teresa Loman’s (of digitalscrapbookplace.com) facebook page.  The deal is, if I can get the most people to go to her page and “Like” my layout, I’ll get a free kit of digital scrapping stuff, so I’m reaching out to my loyal fans and asking you to go and “Like” my page, please!  Here is a link to the layout:I hope you genuinely like it!  It’s done using Teresa’s Mary Alice Value Collection. Happy “liking”!

Looking for Love

Hi to my humongous WordPress audience!  I just posted a scrapbook layout to Teresa Loman’s (of digitalscrapbookplace.com) facebook page.  The deal is, if I can get the most people to go to her page and “Like” my layout, I’ll get a free kit of digital scrapping stuff, so I’m reaching out to my loyal fans and asking you to go and “Like” my page, please!  Here is a link to the layout:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3517856625418&set=o.118670361492991&type=1&theater

I hope you genuinely like it!  It’s done using Teresa’s Mary Alice Value Collection.  🙂  Happy “Liking”!

I think I’m hooked

I do so love my paper scrapping, but digital is steadily reeling me in. I can see that paper may start to become more of a social scrapping event than a productivity one. Messing around with overlays and blending and a monochromatic color scheme today, I came up with this beauty. Well, my friends donated the beauty who is the subject, I just added the backdrop. Soon enough, I’ll get back to blogging more than just the pages I did today, but I’m having too much fun playing around with PSE right now!

Credits: Pleasantly Plum Page Kit by Lora Speiser of digitalscrapbookplace.com