Share

 I'm taking an online class called Sketchbook 3 taught by Kelly Purkey. This is based on the first sketch which came out a week and a half ago! These pics were a valentines day photo shoot gone awry...but turned out pretty fun :) Hope I can get lots more done, working from a sketch makes the scrapbooking process much faster for me.

All supplies are from the latest Studio Calico kit, Singin' in the Rain. I have subscribed to this kit for a couple of years and haven't had a month I didn't like yet! I've been enjoying focusing more on scrapbooking for fun rather than items to sell. I've put so much pressure on myself to make a success of the Etsy shop and art/craft fairs that I lost sight of why I started all of this in the first place....a creative home for my pictures that records my family's story in an interesting and beautiful way. I only hope my kids don't want to burn the scrapbooks when I'm gone since they always say "Mom's scrapbooking, AGAIN!" :)

Yeah. I'm still here :)

It's been a long winter folks. Very long. I'm thinking my 8 faithful followers are getting pretty sick of checking to see if I've posted anything since Thanksgiving 2010 :) Why haven't I posted since then you ask? I'm not sure, but mainly I just haven't had much to say, I guess. We have had a very snowy winter here in mid-MO and the kids were off of school so much I spent a lot of time entertaining them. I heard we had more than 55 inches of snow this winter and that was before it snowed 2 more times!

So, I think I'm back on track...I've spent some time thinking about what purpose I want this blog to serve, and I guess I'm still not too sure about that, but I know I love to share recipes, crafts/scrapbooks and photos. So, that is likely what you'll be getting! I have a great go-to dinner recipe to share tomorrow....

What are you having for dinner tonight?

Recent Faves

It's been so long since I last posted, time goes by so quickly! So much has transpired I can't even think of what we've been doing all month :)

Here are my recent favorite pics of the kiddos...M's bday was yesterday, so we celebrated with manicures and a fashion show.

P is getting to be such a handsome young man...I can't believe he is already 10.
I'm headed to a scrapbooking weekend getaway next weekend. I'm so excited...I've never done anything like that before. Hopefully I'll have lots to share after that :)

An Update

So, I didn't do a very good job updating the process of my big photo organization project. Here are a few preliminary shots of what the finished product is looking like...
These are the albums I put all of the older family photos into. Each of these holds 144 4x6 photos. Since most older photos are smaller than 4x6, I put a couple in each section.

This is my storage under a table I have covered with painter's canvas. The large tubs house various craft/scrapboking supplies and the small tubs are my photos.

These tubs house printed photos from basically 1989-2009. The last few years each have their own tub as this was when I started scrapbooking and taking a ridiculous amount of photos. Inside each one are the packets organized by event that year. Some of the older ones I have separated with tabs, still by event as that makes the most sense to me.

All in all I'm pretty happy with this. It feels more streamlined and I think I will be able to find what I need fairly easily. So far my system of not printing every photo I take has worked well...I've been printing some at home and I like the convenience of that. Also, if I print at home, i use the photos right away on a layout or for a project so there is no need to find a place for them until I can get to it.

Next, I'm going to get through a lot of the classes I have taken and finish those up. I hope to be sharing some soon!

More vintage Parker

These are a few of my favorites that I came across during my scanning extravaganza.

Don't hate me mom, but I really love this one:)


Dede fishing.


I really like this one for some reason.


Cousins.


And I haven't even gotten to the box of Tyrer photos!

Still Strolling Down Memory Lane

In the process of organizing photos I came across the motherlode...slides!! And since I took over my mom's all in one printer/scanner/copier, I can scan slides! You have no idea how exciting this is for me:) I've mentioned before, my grandpa (Papa) on my mom's side was a professional photographer, so slides were a mainstay for their photo collection. I remember having "slideshows" in the evenings while visiting my grandparents...so much fun.

Remember this post? Here is the promised proof of an igloo on the beach.

No kidding. I remember going inside this house at some point and the walls/ceiling were rounded, just like being inside a real igloo. But warmer.

This is our beach house. It's funny how I remember this so clearly when right now I barely know what day it is!


Now this picture cracks me up. At first glance it just looks like a typical chaotic Christmas morning at my grandparent's house. But upon closer examination there are several things going on here. My grandma (Dede) in the lower right corner is holding a jar full of candy(the funny thing is she still has a jar full of candy that she offers to my kids). My youngest brother and I are ready to pounce on her for it. My other brother (bottom right) is digging for gold which is apparently more important than candy :) And even still, in the background, there is somebody still trying to open gifts! Meanwhile, the whole place is completely trashed. That's what I call documenting the details. I love it!


I love this one because it is showing the beginning of my generation. My 2 older cousins are babies there and my mom is pregnant with me. Even though she is probably at the end of her pregnancy, you can hardly tell she is pregnant!


I've got plenty more where these came from. I'm guessing you all will tire of this before I will :)

Playing

Trying some new textures...



A little orangeish, don't you think?

Still working on the organization project. And I plan to scan in some more oldies today, I'll share those later.

Memory Lane

Is where I live now :) I have scanned in some of the older photos I have been scrapbooking/organizing. I even found a slide of the igloo beach house I blogged about here.

This one is circa 1971...Baby me with my Dede and Papa.


Gotta love the 80's! This one is the whole fam in 1984.


Me in a lovely field of flowers. Not sure about the year.

I'll share more as I get photos scanned in. I also want to update on the organization project as I progress. Since I haven't really started on it, you haven't missed a thing :)

New project

I started organizing some photos yesterday. I am taking an online class called Yesterday and Today from Big Picture Scrapbooking which involves using older photos from my childhood. This isn't too hard since there is no shortage of these types of pictures as I was a first child and my grandfather was a professional photographer. It did take some digging to find some specific photos I was looking for...hence the catalyst for the major reorganization. I have gone through phases of photo storage and as a result I have a wide variety of systems in place. Photo boxes, photo albums, photo disks and over the past year a giant pile of picture packages. For a girl who took over 3000 pictures over the past 12 months this just ain't cuttin' it.

So. Now it's time to streamline the systems. I am a little nervous about the sheer volume of photos now residing on my table. This brings me to the first change I am going to make. I do not have to print every photo I upload. I upload photos in order to share with family and friends and automatically just print them. My scrapbooking mindset is that I will print them and have them ready when I have time to scrapbook. But now I'm too overwhelmed with photos to scrapbook...can you see where this is going? So starting now, the photo disk will be my friend. And I am looking into possibly moving towards printing at home as this would likely be cheaper and for sure more convenient.

The next thing I'm going to do is get some of these. I can store the picture packs I have in these according to date. I have decided to leave the photo albums that I have filled in various phases intact, even though it is an interruption in my process. Embracing this will allow me to move forward and spend less money on new storage. And besides, the kids really enjoy looking at these. I may fill a new album per year with "highlights" so we can look at these periodically.

For the older photos I have, I am looking into these. I feel this is more protective and easier to access. I will be scanning in some of these photos, so will have some saved to a disk, but in general, the copies we have are the only one with the negatives who knows where.

I think it's pretty funny that the longest non-photo post I've ever written is on the subject of photo storage :) I'll keep you updated on the progress...I'm hoping this will inspire me to scrapbook more once it's done.

Some Days

you just need to hide under your towel...

My favorite photo

This is my new favorite photo of all time...

Isn't he cute? :)

My little photographer...

So I was uploading photos the other day and came across some crazy shots that I did not take...

This one cracks me up...


Apparently I left my camera in the van, and at one point when I wasn't looking Em decided to take some pics. When Iasked her about it, she said "Yes! Did you see the one of the steering wheel? That's a great one."

Funny.