Determination

Derek spent a great deal of time trying to get the shovel to stay up in the tree branch.  He was so intense & determined as he went about it.

I used the DSP Sunshine kit and fonts Bradley hand & Signboard

Then & Now

My Then & Now mini album pgs 1-6

pgs 7-12

Music Man

2 versions of a LO I did for the scraplift challenge on digiscrapdivas.com

Getting Organized

I went through my installed fonts & moved 70% of them to my new My Fonts file & categorized them. I have a couple dozen serif fonts that are the EXACT same thing under different names.

I reorganized my scrap folders to include website under the kit folders & then moved kits into the right folders

I've visited the 6-8 websites I've been checking out & posting on for the past couple of weeks & made a list of each site's challenges & chats that I like. I've got them all arranged on a calendar now. I plan to spend the rest of the month visiting the sites, checking out the stuff & seeing what I end up doing regularly. I've already dropped a few sites. I don't want this to get out of hand. DSP, DSD, 3S & Scrap Mommies seem to be the ones I like most, though RAK & POTH have possibilities.

I think I may sign up for 3 classes at DSP this October - Intro to PSP, Layout Design & Creating Word Art. This will set me back $65 when Brad's job is not all that secure but if I don't take them now, who knows when I might get the chance. Brad & I have talked about it. We're both more of the 'live the high life while you can' sort than the 'start saving now' sort. This is not good in the long run but the loan the business was hoping for has come through so I've decided to be an optimist and take the chance.

Now I need to wade through all my PSP links & sort out what is actually useful & what i have already printed out & what can be saved to my PC & clean the whole folder out. I don't know how Gizmo does it. She always has the greatest links & several times I've discovered I already had them too. I need to *use* them. But i want to get organized first.

Then I need to organize the crochet & cross stitch & quilt stuff. Someday...

Drake version 2.0

This is an updated version of the second page I ever created.  I shrank some things down, added the clips (by KT) and a small block of journaling.

Old Friends LO

I did this for the scraplift challenge on digiscrapdivas.com.  The pic is of my freaky friends & I in Detroit at our big meetup this past May.

A lot accomplished

Last night I changed the layout here to a more autumn feel and in the process the comment option came back.

Overnight I downloaded some filters for Virtual Photographer.

Today I created 3 background papers for a Ghosts & Goblins PTP on DSP. My first attempt at joining one. Background papers are the one thing I feel competant at creating. Elements not so much & ribbons not at all.

If Brad was able to dl the free papers from DSD I want to dot eh scraplift challenge tehre tomorow.

No more computer stuff after 8pm for me for awhile. I am fiarly sure that even just working on layouts is keeping me from sleeping well. I need to spend that time doing mindful meditation stuff like crochet or cross stitch and doing yoga. I know when I do those things I sleep so much better. That really cuts into my digi scrapping time though.

Lots of stuff downloaded

I was able to get the mega kits from DSD & DSP downloaded plus about a dozen more free kits I have been wanting, and 2 unabridged Brother Cadfael mysteries from audible.com. I'd still be dowloading that stuff if I had done it from home.

Somewhere along the way of my editing this layout I seem to have lost the ability to let people add comments. I have them turned on & set so anyone can make them but nothing comes up on the page when I look at it, even when I am logged out of blogger. I can only guess I deleted something onteh template I used for this template. This is the same as my Spirital Journal blog & I'm not looking for comments there. I'm not sure how to get them back so I may need to redo this layout.

Not sure when I will find the time to do that though....

new sites

I decided to join a few more scrapbook forums, to give me opportunities for more challenges & contests. I've joined www.scrapbook-bytes.com, www.sotbox.com & www.digiscrapdivas.com. There are a bunch more out there but these are the ones I hear the most about on the elist I am on.

I'm going to see about going into the office tomorrow & using Brad's T-1 connection to do some downloading. I have 2 audiobooks plus some kits I've purchased. I can just email links to him& he'll do it when he finds time during the day but I'd sorta like a few hours to myself to just surf at speed & really look around without all the tedious dial up crap.

Supposedly we are just 2 steps away from broadband but I've ranted about that elsewhere. It's best if I function on the belief that I will never see a conenction speed faster than 26.4. I get less tense that way.

DET contest LO

This is the LO I did for the DET contest at www.digitalscrapbookplace.com.  It is what I came up with after my scanner died & I felt like I had to produce something to justify the free kits.  I like it.  I was in a purple mood & this toned out nicely to purple.  The kit is tan - A Story to Tell. I got the idea when this pic came up on my screensaver.  I realized after I uploaded it that it really doesn't fit with the contest though.  DET members are supposed to scrap 5 kits at least a month & put the LOs on 3 other sites to display the kit to potential customers.  This LO does not do that.  First it iosn'teven the same color as the kit & second it uses one element & one background.  Hardly showcases the kit well.  My other idea wouldhave.  3 b&w pics of people we know are family members but are not sure who they are.  I was going to do them up as a cautionary tale on labeling you pictures.  Oh well, maybe next time.

bummer

My scanner is dead. I had a good idea of the DET competition layout but I need to scan some old pics for it. The scanner was a floor model we got for about $20 5 years ago & it hasnt seen much use so unless I can find a good deal like that again I don't think we'll be getting a new one any time in the near future.

I knew I didn't have a chance really of getting into the DET this time around so I'm not heartbroken to lose the opportunity. I just feel sort of bad because I got 2 free kits to use in the contest and since i am not going to be able to use them...unless I come up with another idea soon.. then I feel like I got them under false pretenses

Zodiac LOs

I made these with Lauren Bevin's zodiac kit.  The words "air", "fixed" & "cardinal" are by me.  The astological information on each LO comes from the children's reading on www.astro.com.

Ren Fest 2001 LOs

I've been wanting to scrap my 2001 visit to the Maryland Ren Faire for awhile now. I didn't think it would run to 5 pages but it did. I used Lauren Bevin's Live Life kit from digitalscrapbookplace.com.