quote of the day

"When your hobbies get in the way of your work--that's okay; but when your hobbies get in the way of themselves, well...."
~ Steve Martin

It is a Friend Raising Drive!

Here at Memorable Seasons, we love our members. It is exciting to see our membership grow. We have a little over 450 members at this moment. We like that we have friends all across the country but we want more friends. Will you help us make more friends? As an incentive for you to ask your friends to become our friends, we are having a contest. Our goal is 500 members. The 500th person to sign up for membership will receive a $20 GC to the store and the person who invited them will get one, too! Doesn’t that sound fun? All you have to do is invite your friends. Post it on Facebook. Post it on your blog. Send out mass emails to all your scrapbooking friends. Tell them to say hello in the Welcome forum and mention who sent them. Let’s see how fast we can get to 500.

July DT kit at Memorable Seasons

Over at Memorable Seasons, Jill gave the design team free rein in the store to pick out papers for our own kits and then she “accessorized" it for us. My goal was a red, blue, green color scheme. The pictures I had in mind are from Father’s Day and the 4th of July. I started with some papers from BoBunny Block Collection and then went hunting for some papers to coordinate with those.



The papers I chose

Bo Bunny Block Party Collection
http://www.qbaroo.com/memorableseasons/ ... oduct=8885
http://www.qbaroo.com/memorableseasons/ ... oduct=8609
http://www.qbaroo.com/memorableseasons/ ... oduct=8608
http://www.qbaroo.com/memorableseasons/ ... oduct=8606
http://www.qbaroo.com/memorableseasons/ ... oduct=8600

Sassafrass Lass
http://www.qbaroo.com/memorableseasons/ ... oduct=7797
http://www.qbaroo.com/memorableseasons/ ... oduct=7800

Bella Blv
http://www.qbaroo.com/memorableseasons/ ... oduct=4359 (this paper is mossier green than it looks in the store)
http://www.qbaroo.com/memorableseasons/ ... oduct=4368 (aand this one is lighter brown than it looks in the store)

Jill’s picks
Basic Grey flowers
http://www.qbaroo.com/memorableseasons/ ... oduct=8709
epoxy clips
http://www.qbaroo.com/memorableseasons/ ... oduct=8686
stitched brads
the blues and greens from this package
http://www.qbaroo.com/memorableseasons/ ... oduct=8683
glittery thickers
http://www.qbaroo.com/memorableseasons/ ... oduct=8900
OA rub ons
http://www.qbaroo.com/memorableseasons/ ... oduct=5723
and lace ribbons
http://www.qbaroo.com/memorableseasons/ ... oduct=7871
and this one is red which apparently is all gone cause I actually ordered some of this for myself.
http://www.qbaroo.com/memorableseasons/ ... oduct=8936

and here are a few that I did last night.

I used a craft knife and cut around two of the petals of the flower on the red paper and tucked the photo behind it. I also mimiced the look of the chipboard pieces with the brads.

the scan cut off a little on the left side but it has enough margin that there is a hand drawn black line around the photo collage

The lace that Jill included was perfect with the lace border around this Sassafrass Lass paper.

and for this one, I asked these questions of my girls, their guys and Seth. I plan to do a page for each of them.

_________________

Amen

And this is Karen

My oldest child is doing well. She is happily married and raising a beautiful little family. Seth is 6 and Stella is 6 months old. She and Joe have just bought their first home and are in the process of acquiring those essential things you need in a house and will be moving soon to Saginaw, Tx. She has been fortunate enough to stay home the last year and half with her kids and I believe everyone involved has benfitted from it. Although losing her job was traumatic at first, it all worked out. She plans to begin job hunting again once they get settled in their new home.

Karen keeps us entertained with her facebook updates and her daily adventures with her children. There is never a dull moment at her house. She likes me to take pictures of them which I love.

I am so proud and happy with the woman she has become. She is a wonderful mother. She is best friends with her sister. She fills my heart.I am also so proud of the way she ferociously defends her kids and looks out for other children, too.

Look, I'm back

As promised, let me tell what is going on with the girls. I will talk about Allison today.

Allison has finished up her first year of teaching physics at Colleyville Heritage High School. She also taught a Geology class and a TAKS recovery class for kids who did not pass the science portion the first time. She now knows what it is like to stand on your feet all day and to catch every cold and sickness the kids bring to school with them. Her teacher friends assure her that her immune system will toughen up. The feet will probably continue to hurt, though. Next year, she will be teaching a new class called Aquatic Science. She is really looking forward to this one as her major was actually Biology and this is more her "thing." Right now she is searching for donations to supplement the budget she has been given to buy enough supplies (tanks) for the kids to take care of their own ecosystems as their year long project. She has applied for a grant at this site and is looking for help  from anyone who wants to help out her cause. Here is the link to her grant proposal.

Raising Nemo in Aquatic Science

Allison is living in her own apartment not far from here. She has a serious boyfriend, Ryan, whom we like very much. Poor guy is an only child and is sometimes bewildered by all of the very large family shenanigans that goes with my extended family. She has also recently adopted a dog that she named Beaker. How's that for science geekdom?

Here are a couple of Allison layouts I've done recently.

Hello Blog

Hello Blog,

It’s been a while but I’ve been kind of busy. I’ll do a quick catch up on what I’ve been doing and see if I can make you feel appreciated. I’ll try to visit a little more often after today.

I spend quite a bit of my time at Memorable Seasons where I am the design team coordinator. Between keeping things going on the boards and doing the projects required, I stay pretty busy and my scrap room stays terminally messy. Come see me there. The Last Scrapper Standing contest is going on right now and we already have some amazing entries. Jill keeps me supplied with enough supplies that I don’t even need to go shopping anymore. The ladies on the design team are super, too.

I have also been taking some photography classes at the University of Texas in Arlington. It is part of their continuing education department and can lead to a professional photographer certification. I’m still not sure I’ll go that far, but I might. So far, I’ve taken Digital photography basics I and II, Photoshop for photography, and am now in the first lighting class. There are classes for portrait photography, wildlife and nature photography, weddings, Lightroom, photography business, etc. If I take things one a time, I should be in the program for a while. I can shoot in manual. I spend more time in aperture priority but manual does come in handy for certain things.

I am really enjoying learning to use my camera. I am now shooting with a Nikon D90. I have two lenses, an 18-200mm 3.5 VR and a 35mm 1.8. I am always willing to take your picture. Please feel free to ask. I really want the practice. I’ve taken three nephews out to fun locations and done some photo shoots. I’ve taken family pictures for Karen twice and some couple shots of Allison and Ryan on their way to a wedding. I think that with each one, I’ve learned some different things. I am constantly reading books and searching for tutorials and help on the internet.

I have also discovered facebook. It manages to eat up much of my time, too. It is so much fun looking at everyone’s pictures and catching up on what every one is doing that time seems to just fly by when I am on there. I am also seriously addicted to Bejeweled and really need to beat my son-in-law’s score. It is my number one goal. At this time, though, I get positively giddy if I am in the top 10 scorers of my friends. Yes, I know that is pretty sad.

Of course, I do spend time in the recliner, too. While I don’t watch a whole lot of TV, Curtis does and I keep him company. I like to read or thumb through magazines while he watches the Discovery or Learning channels. Most of those shows just do not interest me.I mean, really. Why do I want to know how things are made or watch some guy eat a 30 pound hamburger in an hour?

Here are a few layouts I’ve done recently.I know if any of you are actually reading this, you know me from scrapbooking. 

Next time, I’ll catch you up on the girls.