thanksgiving day

Now that I've picked up my December kit club box, it's time to dig in & get to work on my Oct/Nov kit! Actually, I'd love to be playing with my December goodies, but I haven't printed those photos yet!

My layout is similar to Brenda's Thanksgiving; I knew I wanted orange cardstock for the background, and the deeper colored one worked better with the orange tops my kids had on. Originally I was going to use a fun light orange patterned paper for my accents, but it just wasn't working. And the gold made it "pop" more to me. I'd like to think that great minds think alike, even if I had seen her layout before I started!

Life, week one

And a title page too.

Not the best pictures; I have great lighting in my office to take gorgeous pics in the afternoon. Assuming it's not foggy &/or raining, and that my 1 1/2 year old is napping. And since we had cruddy weather & an uncooperating toddler this afternoon (and I was scrapping when she was napping), these pictures were taken late at night. Under an ugly chandelier with a flash. But you get the picture, I hope!

First is my title page. Yes, of course there is super-glare right on top of the one picture. Oh well, you get the gist. I'm planning on adding thickers with our last name & the year, but haven't yet. Not sure which ones I want to use yet.

And here's week one. I need to get used to the limited space & not be so wordy! At least I was able to fit the arrows on most of the journaling cards :)

Third time's a charm

Lately I've been having issues with Costco printing my photos--wait, let me rephrase that--I've ALWAYS had issues with Costco printing my photos. The first thing I noticed when I made the switch to Costco was that their 4x6 photos are NOT 4x6. They're a smidge off. Not a big deal when you're printing a 4x6. A very big deal when you're printing six 2x2s & two of them are 1/8" off. I've dealt with it by not printing up to the edge (which means I can't do six 2x2s, a relatively minor nusance).

More recently I've been annoyed by the cruddy color quality. Really not a new problem, but when I didn't do any photo enhancement in photoshop, I didn't mind. Now that I spend quite a bit of time editing my photos, it's frustrating to say the least! I know part of the issue is that my monitor isn't calibrated (something I need to do, like to do, but don't want to pay for!). But we're talking MAJOR off. Like super dark, and skin tones that don't look human.

Hence printing the photos for this layout no less than three times!

1) I forgot to "uncheck" the auto correct on Costco's website. Anytime you do post-processing, this should be turned off. But one would think that when pictures come out of the printer, the developer would say, wow! That cute baby looks like a corpse! Fortunately they were very understanding when I asked that they be reprinted.

2) This time I remembed to turn off autocorrect. But the photos were so dark & lacked depth. Just super blah. So I played around with the monitor settings & figured out that it was set to "super bright". That would explain why photos looked overexposed on my monitor & underexposed from the developer.

3) And take three! Hey, they're not perfect by any means! Most were taken indoors with cruddy lighting. Or outside at noon. But for the most part Abbie looks "normal".

2 layouts in one day!

Sometimes I just get on a roll...Well, actually, I tend to print my photos in batches. So when I go to scrap them, I scrap in batches to some extent too.

This is the February layout from Abbie's first year album...less than a year to complete :) And everything was from my stash...woo-hoo! The patterned paper is all from Bo Bunny, from a layout I did of Brandon. And the letter stickers are from the Green Tangerines July Kit. I thought I was going to have to buy new thickers--oh darn ;). And while I was seeing what they had at the scrapbook store, I saw these glitter thickers & remembered I had them at home--still in the kit club box rather than with the rest of my thickers.

Document

Finally! Over one year since the photos were taken, and almost a year since I printed them. And I did it!

We went up to Tahoe for family pics in November 2008. I used our family one on our Christmas card last year, and have been meaning to scrapbook the others for quite some time. I just couldn't figure out exactly what I was going to do. I knew what layout I was going to use before we even took pictures.

Fortunately, I'm a part of a kit club, and have quite a bit of stash laying around :) So I dug into my September kit, added some old Basic Grey, and voila! I'm done.

January Desktop

I love having these fun desktops for my computer. And my husband even has me send them to him at work now (he says it's because he likes having the calendar...).

However...sometimes it's hard to find pictures to use! Not like I don't have enough pictures around. But since I make the January desktop on December 31, I don't have "January" photos. I have a ton of "December" photos, aka, "Christmas" photos. :) 

Note to self: next year, take random photos in December of the kids that AREN'T Christmas related. Good luck with that one!

And now that I think about it, this would be a great "photo" for today's Project Life!

Project LIFE

Last year, Becky Higgins introduced many scrappers to the concept of Project 365: one photo a day for a year. Of course, I didn't feel the urge to jump on the bandwagon until AFTER it had sold out.

So this year, when she announced Project Life I told my mom, husband, and sister if they needed a Christmas idea, this was what I wanted.

Thank you David for getting it for me!

So here's week one. I can't promise that I'll upload every week, but I'd sure like to try!

Sunday, 12/27: Great Grandma Mary

Monday, 12/28: Abbie

Tues 12/29: Olivia & Misty

Weds 12/30

Thurs 12/31: New Year's Eve at the Webster's

Fri 1/1: Taking down the Christmas tree

Sat 1/2: Still playing with the Batcave one year after Santa brought it. Best darn toy EVER! Barbie & the princesses are even allowed to live there.