May 29, 2011 | Cards, family, Graduation, Punch Art |
We had high school graduation this weekend. Tyler graduated – here he is
That’s #2 for us and we have one more to go. I can’t believe I have two boys that have graduated high school and will both be gone in August living at college. My how time flies! Weren’t they just little babies not too long ago? Tyler will be going to Kennesaw State University in the fall and we go this week for orientation. I’m excited for him to start this new part of his life.
I made graduation cards this week and this is what I finally decided on –
I found this idea on Stampin’ Connection (a demonstrator only web site) from another demonstrator named Katherine Pritchard. I used the owl punch to create my owl – her owl was made from a variety of other punches and was bigger. The hardest part of this card was creating the tassel to go on the cap at the top. Not sure what my problem was but it took me forever to get something that resembled a tassel. The cap is a 3/4″ square (I used the retired SU punch, but you could also cut by hand). The diploma is the 1-1/4″ square punched from the First Edition Designer Series paper and then rolled and tied with the Whisper White Baker’s Twine (that’s what the tassel is too). I made several of these in various colors – trying to match the school colors for each of the graduates. We had a lot in our family this year – there was Tyler, then my niece will also graduate high school in June, my nephew graduated college, a cousin that is graduating from vet school, and my little nephew graduated from kindergarten.
Have a nice Memorial Day and I’ll be back tomorrow with the UDI color challenge.
May 19, 2011 | family, My Digital Studio, Scrapbook Pages |
Tyler, my middle son, is graduating this year – in about a week actually. He has been in the high school band for all four years and each year the Band Boosters give the seniors a gift. I suggested that we give them photo books for their senior gifts and the committee agreed. We spent the next few weeks gathering pictures of all the band seniors – we had 20 this year. For the past couple of months I have been working on their books using My Digital Studio.
I started by creating a book for Tyler – I designed all the pages – creating pages for each of their four years of high school. I used a combination of individual and group/full band photos. Luckily we have had other band parents taking photographs each year and the band has a website where we have many of them loaded. Then to make the rest of the books I started with Tyler’s completed book and then did SAVE AS (important to remember this part before you make all your changes or you’ll lose the original – ask me how I know). I saved a copy with the next students name and then switched out the pictures of Tyler for that student. In some cases where I didn’t have as many pictures – I added in other group or section photos or made changes to some of the layouts. As long as I had pictures I was good. I had a few students that needed a bit more editing – one that wasn’t there during the freshman year – so I deleted those pages and added pages in other places, two that were Color Guard so they didn’t have concert season photos, and one that wasn’t in marching band for the senior year (and that was the biggest section of the book).
I was excited that Stampin’ Up! was having the sale this month on print products – I was able to print all 20 books at 30% off! I ordered on the 1st so they would be here in time for the banquet which was this week. I showed the band booster committee a few days early and they were so excited. We presented the kids their books at the banquet and they loved them – the band director played a special good-bye song for them and I felt bad because I don’t think they were even paying attention to the song because they were looking at their books and at each other’s books. I hope they will be cherished memories for them – if not the mom’s will love them!
Here are a few pages from Tyler’s book – and the matching tag that I made to go on them after I wrapped them up – I used the new swatchbook option for the tags.
For each book the first page was their Senior Night Photo with their parents. I listed their name, the instruments they played during their four years, leadership positions, and special honors. While Tyler didn’t actually play flute at any time in the band, he participated in a student led Flute Choir last year and they played as part of the concert that year.
This page was from their senior year and Tyler played a solo at the beginning of their show. He was also the brass captain so the lower photo is all the leadership at one of their competitions.
This is the back cover of the book. I wasn’t originally sure what to do with the back but I when I saw these photos that some one took from the back of all the students marching in formation to the football field. And I thought the quote from the Word Play stamp set was perfect for this – and coincidentally was the same quote they used on the banquet program too.
And here is that tag – you can see it matches the page from the Senior year I posted above.
This is a page from the swatch book and I just exported them to .jpeg and printed them at home on my computer.
I think I have rambled on enough today. Have a good one!
Apr 7, 2011 | family, My Digital Studio, Scrapbook Pages |
It’s Prom season around here and the boys high school had theirs the other weekend – during one of our storms. Tyler went with one of his long time friends – Afton. They were part of a group that met at one of the girl’s homes and then they all went to dinner together and then to prom. Last night I decided to put together a quick My Digital Studio page with a few of the pictures of Tyler and Afton.
I used a photo template that was in My Digital Studio that happened to suit my photos – one vertical and two smaller horizontal photos. I also have some group shots from everyone but those will be added to a second page. I decided to use Basic Gray for the background since Tyler had the silver tux accessories. Looking back I wish we had gotten silver ribbon on Afton’s corsage – oh well. I added a mat in Basic Black around the photos and a drop shadow.
The digital stamp is Baroque Motifs – they are all in Basic Black but the ones in the background I changed to be 50% opacity which makes them look more gray. There is also a background overlay that gives it a more distressed look – it was also changed to a lower opacity – I think I started with 50% and then went back and made it even lower – just play around until you get the effect that you want. I added the journaling and move my stamps so they didn’t cover any of it. Finally I added some pearls at the corners just because.
Did anyone watch American Idol last night? I did while I worked in my craft room on Easter invitations for my family (I’ll share those later) and the final packaging of the March Ribbon shares (I’ll share that too). I have no idea who to pick as going home – I really thought everyone had a good night. Which is something that normally doesn’t happen when there are still 9 people in the competition. Usually someone has an off night. If I were picking my least favorite – I would say Haley – but I’d hate to see another girl go since there are only 3 left. But I did say the boys were much stronger this year than the girls and so far that seems to be true. Another guess for the bottom 3 might be Stephano (although I do think he probably sang his best yet). Not sure about who else – I guess it could be any of them – who is the most/least popular may be the deciding factor because right now they all seem talented. Just my thoughts – ignore them if you don’t care.
Back to spring cleaning – we are tackling Tyler’s room today – oh boy! Maybe I should take before and after pictures of his…..he may not appreciate that.
Mar 14, 2011 | family |
Today’s post didn’t really get together. I’m writing this real quick in hopes it gets out here before the automatic emails go. I’ll have a post tomorrow morning. Today I had to take Tyler to the eye doctor – he got something (sawdust) in his eye yesterday while working with Greg on the deck (even with glasses on). And it was really hurting him today. We went and they said there was a little fiber embedded under his eyelid so every time he blinked it rubbed across his eye ball. Ouch! The doctor got it out by flipping his eye lid inside out (after giving him a numbing drop in his eye). All is good now a few days of eye drops just in case and all should be good. Then we headed to an already scheduled dentist appt. and they recommended he go back to the oral surgeon that removed his wisdom teeth because he has some deep pockets in the back now and they are getting filled with food. Then we went and rented a tux for the prom which is less than two weeks away.
Anyway I didn’t get a post up. I did see some bird activity today – three of the houses has visitors and it looks like one they started building a nest. I’ll see about getting some pictures up soon. Tomorrow I have a neat card for the UDI color challenge so be sure to come back. And I’ll have the next two Spring Bingo pieces then.
Feb 28, 2011 | family, My Digital Studio, Scrapbook Pages |
This is Ally – my niece – she just turned 4 years old and she is One of a Kind!
We saw her last weekend to celebrate her birthday. I gave her the big purple ball – lucky for me purple is one of her favorite colors! Mom and Dad gave her a purple Leapster. This picture was taken at my mom’s house – we thought it was too funny that she sat at the kitchen table with that big ball in her lap and her Leapster on top just quietly playing. The added purple eye patch I thought made the picture just perfect. According to my brother her bought her all these colorful patches for her eye (they are trying to correct some issues with her eyes) and the only colors that she will wear are pink and purple. If anyone needs blue, green or yellow patches I think I can find some for you!
This is my next page for Project 52 – to create a My Digital Studio page every week. I actually skipped posting one last week because I was working on some project books instead of individual pages.
I’m happy with how this turned out even though it took me some time to decide what direction to go in – other than knowing I wanted to use purple for this page – the Lovely Lilac is what matched – we still have that color in My Digital Studio even though it retired from the actual Stampin’ Up! product line. That’s one fun thing about MDS is that nothing ever retires – once you have it you have it forever.
My colors on this page are Chocolate Chip and Very Vanilla with the Lovely Lilac – the butterfly is Elegant Eggplant – the flower centers are So Saffron brads and the stem is Old Olive. One trick I figured out that I wanted to share was how I got the Pearls to line up in the circle. I started by adding a stamp – the dotted circle from Enjoy Every Moment – position it where you want it. Then I added the largest sized pearls – you can actually add 10 at a time to your page – when you add an embellishment you can select the qty you want to add so that many get added at the same time instead of you doing them individually. I moved each pearl (yes that took some time) to cover the dots of the circle. I covered all the ones that I wanted and then once I had everything lined up I deleted the dotted circle stamp from the page. Leaving only the circle of Pearls. I hope you like it!
Jan 20, 2011 | family, My Digital Studio, Scrapbook Pages |
I put together a quick scrapbook page using My Digital Studio for our snowstorm from last week. I think of this as the beginning of my adventure to the Stampin’ Up! Leadership Conference in Nashville. Normally I am excited about some snow since we don’t get it very often, but with my trip planned I wasn’t really that excited about the snow this time. I REALLY wanted to go to Nashville! The storm came in quickly on Sunday night and dropped 6 inches of snow at our house. Then it changed over to freezing rain and put a layer of ice on top. On Monday everything around here was closed (even the Atlanta airport) and no one was moving. I spent Monday shoveling snow off the driveway because all our neighbors that have moved here from up north were doing that – so I borrowed a shovel and did the same – I figured they must know something that I don’t and I wanted to have every shot at getting out on Wednesday to go to Nashville.
This page layout was one that I got from the awesome Heather Summers. I basically copied her page exactly as she had it. She is the My Digital Studio queen and makes the best scrapbook pages. The left side of the page is a collage of 2×2″ photos. This is much easier to do in MDS than it is in real life – you can turn, crop, zoom, cut and “glue” all at the same time! I was lucky enough to see Heather at the Leadership conference – here we are together on the first morning.
Heather has such great inspiration not only her My Digital Studio projects but all of her work.
I hope you get inspired too. I will be holding a My Digital Studio class at my house on Sunday, January 30th. This first class will be the basics to getting started with My Digital Studio. If you live near me and would like to come please let me know.
That’s #2 for us and we have one more to go. I can’t believe I have two boys that have graduated high school and will both be gone in August living at college. My how time flies! Weren’t they just little babies not too long ago? Tyler will be going to Kennesaw State University in the fall and we go this week for orientation. I’m excited for him to start this new part of his life.
