Z Good Life

oh, scrap. it's hot!

I've been doing a little digi-scrapping lately. Here's the most recent page I completed -- Independence Day 2009.

 

Did you all survive the heat wave last week? The kids and I were NEAR or IN the water during the hottest days -- either a lake or the beach! We're very thankful for our portable A/C unit, which cooled the upstairs family room wonderfully. At bedtime it came to our bedroom with us! BLISSFULLY cool sleep the entire week! I'll try to post pictures of our wonderful, waterful escapades soon.

scrapbooking anniversary night

Last Friday night, my monthly scrapbooking group had our 8th annual anniversary celebration. Everyone brought a dessert or appetizer to share, and we had a goodie bag exchange (in which I scored some darling Etsy items).

My favorite part of the evening was a round-the-room scrapbook page. Everyone who participated chose photos and background paper for a layout. We handed those items to the participant on our left, and got started on someone else's layout!

I was not prepared for how nervous I'd be to start cropping and matting someone else's photos. Eeek! I barely got started when 10 minutes was up, and it was time for everyone to pass to the left again. OK, an entirely new layout, new pictures, now what? I think I may have gotten those photos adhered to the page when it was time to pass AGAIN! New layout, partially finished! Think fast! 

I was thrilled with the way Jay's baseball page layout turned out. I think the other ladies liked their layouts, too. This was a super fun activity, and I'm glad I participated. I'd definitely do it again. Great job, ladies! Thank you!

valentines

I decided to make valentines for the kids' classmates using some digital scrapbooking techniques. The girls' were really easy. I used a "canned" QP-type digital valentine I downloaded for free, plopped a cute picture in there, and added some text.

 

 

Jay's was a little more challenging. He didn't want pink or a bunch of hearts, obviously, so here's what I came up with. Jay -- and his friends -- loved it!

   

I do like the idea of the kids making and signing their own valentines, but these were awfully fun to make AND give. I ordered them from Costco, and made sure I had enough on hand for grandmas and grandpas.

scrapbooking night

I got home after 2 a.m. this morning! I had a lot of fun at Scrapbooking Night, and had great conversation with great friends. PLUS, I got to hold Baby Liberty! Oh, gosh, what a precious little bundle. Congratulations, Carolynn! :o)

I owe this page to Pamela at DigiTreats. I love this picture of the kids on Christmas Eve in their new footie jammies. What a great page! I was going to save it as a small document, then drag it onto a new digital page, but the words to the poem would have been too small. I wasn't sure I wanted to print this page out as 12x12, but Melanie is right. It will look REALLY cool!

 

Here are 2 pages of Chrismas Eve at my mom's house.

 

The facing page:
 

Hmm. Some of those drop shadows look a little high. Better check them out again before printing!

Oh, yeah. I forgot about this page:
 

"Hmm" again. I completely forgot drop shadows on this page. Woops!

Already can't wait for Scrapbooking Night ANNIVERSARY PARTY next month on the 13th! Lots of people usually attend, and it is ALWAYS lots of fun.

more pages

We left at 7 a.m. New Year's Day to head to the island for Z Christmas, and got home at 10:30 last night. I'll post pictures another day. They're still on the camera.

I did a couple more digi pages -- one on the ferry! I noticed the page I posted New Year's Day got cropped a little on the right. Let's see if I resized these next 2 pages properly.

 

In the picture of Luna above, she happened to be standing over a dry brown leaf that had blown onto the top of the snow. The brown leaf was RIGHT under her tail. I'm sure I don't have to tell you what it looked like in the photo! Thank goodness for Photoshop. The shadows are a little "off" in that spot, but the snow makes for a very forgiving background.

 

I still need to add drop shadows to the embellishments. I still haven't remembered how to add them. I need to play a little more. (No, you don't need to remind me that I'm turning 40 in 6 weeks. Nor do you have to remind me about the ONE gray hair on top of my head that multiplied overnight. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!)

mommy's snow angels

Happy New Year, everyone! Erich put in a long day yesterday, and we had to get up early this morning. Yep, we were sleeping when 2009 arrived. That is, we were sleeping until everyone in the neighborhood lit off fireworks at midnight. And past midnight. But not much past, so that's OK.

This is a page I did while I was teaching Karla some digi-scrapping basics. I drove myself nuts because I couldn't remember how to add drop shadows. Wow. Pretty sad, huh? I'd better get back to work!

 

I need to teach Karla how to use templates. I did this page without one, and I think it's a little boring. Now I remember why I like templates so much.

We're off for our annual "Island Christmas" with family. Bye for now!

digi-scrappin'

I went to our monthly scrapbook gathering last night. Since I was tired, I didn't stay late. (I had to refill my antibiotic prescription yesterday -- still not getting well!) Here are the 2 digital pages I created:

 

   

I saved them as 4.5"x4.5" for posting on my blog so the pages would be big enough for you to actually see them, but that cropped the right edge off just a tiny bit. Use your imagination to fill in the missing inch. *laugh*

to my fellow scrapbookers:

Run, don't walk, to our local Big Lots store!! Lookie what I found! I'm sure they won't last very long:

 
All 4 products on the left are by Heidi Grace. The 3 packets on the right contain various coordinating papers.                 

The letter "C" is for "cute." The letter "C" is also for "check out that low price:"
 
 

I bought 2 alphas because I constantly run out of certain letters. Something about the name "Lily Anna" uses up all of my L's, A's, and N's. Go figure. This problem doesn't occur in digital scrapbooking, I must point out. :o) However, I enjoy both types of scrappin', especially if I can get cheap goodies like these.

If you're ever in the area, stop by Big Lots. Sometimes they have cute scrapbooking supplies. Sometimes they don't. It's definitely hit and miss, but worth dropping in if you have a few minutes.

 

scrap nite

I accidentally closed my page when I was almost finished, and lost the whole thing. I started over again, and I like it better. I was too tired (and uninspired) to start another page, so here's the only page I did:

 

How cool is that picture with the word "swim" as part of the template?! I learned how to do it thanks to my favorite freebie digi-scrapping blog, Digi-Treats. Princess Pamela is so talented! (Understatement of the year!) It took me awhile to get it just right, but I love how it turned out. Now that I know how to do it, I can make a photo template with ANY word. Cool, huh?

scrapbooking night

(I had some issues composing this blog, to say the least. Explorer and Typepad are conspiring against me!)

I'm taking a little break from the sun. Not that I'm complaining about the weather! Heaven forbid! I think it may have hit 80 degrees today. *laugh* I've been watering flowers, cleaning out Lily's playhouse (we're tearing it down in the fall -- the floor is rotting), and puttering around in the sunshine. I'm anxious to be outside, but not anxious to get sunburned. When it's a bit cooler, I'll head back out.

I've been attending a monthly scrapbooking night for a few years. It's interesting to witness the gradual movement away from traditional scrapbooking, and toward digital scrapbooking. Last night was a relatively small crowd, but the majority of us brought our laptops in lieu of our carloads of scrapbooking supplies! (OK, maybe not carloads, but if you're a scrapbooker you know exactly what I'm talking about.) Personally, I find it so freeing to grab my laptop and waltz out the door on scrapbooking night! I like being able to leave all of my traditional scrapping supplies at home, and work on those pages at my leisure. I can get a lot more done if I take the time to plan, but that just doesn't happen very often.

Here are the pages I worked on last night. How cute is that photo split of Lily on the 3rd page?! My new favorite digi-scrappin' toy! (And, of course, it was a free download. I have yet to spend one cent on digital scrapbooking paper, elements, or tools -- besides PSE.)