Recent paper crafts

I am WAY behind on my scrapbooking. The week before Aspen was born I printed out all the pictures I wanted to scrapbook that we'd taken in the last year and a half. I organized them into the books (one for each of the kids and a family album) so they're ready to scrap. Now I just need to make a goal to do a certain number of "catch up" pages a week, plus keep up on new things. Here's a page I did a couple of months ago of a 3-year old picture of Trey holding baby Caeden.
I used one of my newest toys... glue rub-ons from We R Memory Keepers with foil rubbed onto the glue - you can see how it catches the light. There are several different colors of foil, glitter and flock and I bought 12 sets of rub-ons since they were on sale for $1 each (90% off!)
Last month I made some little treat bags for Easter using the bird die cut from my new old machine:
And a set of thank you cards with Stampin' Up! paper, ric rac, and felt bird die cuts with a rhinestone eye:
Last fall my friend Jodee showed me a countdown calendar she'd made so I made this one in anticipation of baby Aspen:

Obsessed with hairclips

I have always loved hairclips on little girls. 2 years ago when my friend Anna was pregnant with a girl I saw the cutest crocheted flower hairclips at Gymboree and I had to buy them, along with the matching smocked tank of course. After that I started looking at hairclips on etsy and bought 100 alligator clips... and this even before I was pregnant. When I found out I was having a girl, I bought some silk flowers and felt and started crafting, using buttons, brads and ribbons I have for scrapbooking. I've been making some hairclips to match specific outfits and others just to see how they turn out... here are a few of the dozens (Carson would say too many) that I've made so far:
This red one was made to match a red sweater that should fit her in the fall, out of a burlap wire-edged ribbon. You pull the wire from one end of the ribbon and scrunch it on one side and then wind it around in a spiral and glue it.

A few months ago I bought an old school Sizzix from a Craigslist post. It cuts felt and some fabrics - for thinner fabrics I had to add a fusible webbing to the back, this also helps it to not fray. This one is made from a microfiber faux suede so it doesn't fray anyway and didn't need the fusible backing. I thought it would look good with fall colors.

This is a small green silk ranunculus with a fabric-covered brad - these are so perfect for flower centers, this one is satin with little rhinestones on it.

I love this one because it goes with a lot of her outfits. Again it's a silk flower with a satin-covered brad.

This felt flower I bought pre-made (as a scrapbooking embellishment) and it has a sequin flower center. All I did was glue a ribbon-covered alligator clip to the back!

I made this daffodil months ago looking forward to Spring, and I love how it looks with the striped metal brad center.

I made this from a silk gardenia with a rhinestone brad for Aspen's blessing outfit.

I made this butterfly to match a shirt I bought with a similar butterfly on it... I'm not sure I like it but it was good to try out some different stitches. I free-cut the brown and I would definitely use a template or something next time. I bought a butterfly die cut that works great for felt and the most recent one looks much better (I'll have to post a picture later).

These are just ribbon (American Crafts 3/8" grossgrain) on the clips. Right now since Aspen doesn't really have hair I just clip the flowers and things onto a headband, but later I think it will be cute to use matching pairs of clips on pig tails, etc.

I made these with a pink velvet ribbon and brown velvet flower ribbon and added tiny rhinestone centers.

This owl is a little weird... again I made it to match a shirt I bought and I thought it would be cute with googly eyes, but... I don't know.

Generally I don't like yellow (does this mean I'm not a happy person?) but I like the look of these silk flowers with the striped satin brads, especially if she has medium-dark brown hair.

This felt flower I had already and I added a rubber button and some stitching with embroidery floss.

The blue felt flower is from Creative Imaginations and the brown ones I cut myself.

These velvet flowers came in a set of scrapbooking embellishments with matching rhinestone brads included.


There are actually tons more that I've made and I'm just starting to make rolled fabric flowers and the ones with the singed edges... I've been watching tutorials online and playing around with what I have at home. I really love to try new things with all kinds of materials and hairclips give me the perfect outlet!

For my own reference

http://ginsphotos.blogspot.com/2008/09/free-stuff.html

I edit all my pictures with the lighten, color boost, and make it POP actions.
Simple & basic!

PS- I've had several people ask me about my B&W and how I process them. I use the Mocha action on most of them. Some people also had questions about the PP'ing on the picture of Abrie a few posts down (the one with the cheesy grin). I used my Vintage Gold action on those ones.

Finally...

I should have known I would be this much of a slacker! So much for 100 pix, I'll just post whatever turns out well in manual mode. Here's what I've taken over the last month with my new skills (?)

Favorite photo blogs

A friend of a friend has this photo blog:

http://ginsphotos.blogspot.com/

Check out the color saturation in these pix:

http://ginsphotos.blogspot.com/2008/01/beuaty-shop.html

And the baby photos:

http://ginsphotos.blogspot.com/2007/11/for-amanda.html

This makes me want to take my kids on a photo shoot in a rustic location:

http://ginsphotos.blogspot.com/2007/09/more-of-kiddos.html

Or maybe it just makes me want to have a daughter like this (what a sweet, adorable girl!)

Look what she did with Photoshop:

So much to learn!

And look at the inspiration blogs she has listed, particularly

http://amyfurstenau.blogspot.com/

This is my favorite of her many great pix:

And here is an awesome tutorial on how another one of her inspirations edited this picture:

http://thepioneerwoman.com/2008/02/because_im_impatient.html

There is so much more, I would definitely recommend for everyone to do a little blog stalking and see what we can come up with!

Starting my 100 days of pictures

Hi girls! I hope you don't mind me crashing your party, but I really wanted to learn how to use my camera, I just didn't get on the ball soon enough. So I'll catch up with the lessons and start posting pix using what I learn. For now, I thought I'd just post some pix that I've taken this week (and a couple of old ones) that I think are somewhat artistic or at least show some effort in lighting and composition. This can be like a baseline for my improvement (hopefully!) - all these are using the automatic settings on my camera. FYI I have a Canon digital Rebel, the original not-as-cool-as-Melissa's one, with no extra lenses or flashes.

Myself reflected in the window

Becks and his modeling clay octopus (portrait setting, natural light)

Very early spring (portrait setting)

Trey with newborn Caeden (portrait setting, natural light, brown drape backdrop)

Caeden's birthday (portrait setting, flash)

Blowing a kiss (portrait, flash)

Trey with a butterfly

Gingerbread man (focused on cookie with portrait setting)

This is Carson's contribution (he might do the photo group)

Sports (fast shutter) setting

Hiding from the camera (I didn't know if the back light would ruin the shot but I think it turned out okay)

I'm so sad that I'll miss my tulips blooming this year! (portrait setting to blur the backgroup, I really need to learn how to decrease my depth of field more!)

Poser

I tried to take some pix of myself with the brown drape as a background and natural light. I was going to do a scrapbook page using the colors from my gloves for the CKHOF contest, but I didn't (but I did enter... wish me luck!)

So there are 14 pix and I'm going to call myself caught up. Starting today I'll do the picture a day with the rest of you.