Scrapping Confession

I’m just going to come clean…I am woefully behind in my scrapbooking!  I just never got back into the groove when we moved last summer, so other than creating two pages a month for the books we give grandparents for Christmas, I’ve done very little.  I mean, as in maybe half a dozen other pages. To put it in context, I usually make between 125 and 150 pages a year.

My biggest summer resolution was to catch up on scrapbooking.  I’m not there yet, but I’ve made a sizable dent in it.  As I scrap, I’m also organizing my photos, deleting duplicates and only keeping those with meaning. I save about 5,000 photos a year (imagine how many I take, since I’m the queen of deleting while they’re still on the memory card in the camera).  As I’ve been culling this summer, I find I really only want to keep about 1,500 of those each year.  I know, it’s still a huge number.

I  was completely overwhelmed as to how to go about this organization.  Once upon a time (meaning when I had only one hooligan), each quarter I printed, backed up on CD, and backed up on an external hard drive all my favorites. That fell by the wayside about, oh, five years ago. You can see why I wake up at night in a cold sweat, worrying about this. You can’t?  Oh,well, so I’m a little compulsive.

I came up with a catch-up schedule that’s working really well.  One week I organize and print my favorites from a quarter, ruthlessly deleting all those so-so and redundant photos. The following week, I digitally scrap the photos from that quarter. I just made a little note on my calendar of what quarter is what week (I’m working backward in time) and it’s going pretty quickly.  The organization and cleaning up takes about an hour, then the scrapping takes about 5 or 6 the following week. I try to do a month a night(after the hooligans are in bed, of course) on the the weeks I’m scrapping.

The renaming system I decided on works really well, too. In my “Pictures” file on my computer, the files are automatically created by date as I download photos.  I’m consolidating and renaming all those daily folders into one monthly one that contains 4 or 5 subfolders.  For example, for June, 2012:

Folder Name is 0612

The subfolders in that file are:
Family
Crafts
Food
Stampin’ Up

The photos in each subfolder have names like “0612 MKE Zoo(1)” or “0612 Raspberry Limeade".”

That way, I’m not looking for a certain photo and they’re all named DSC002010 or something.

I know, it sounds tedious, but I’m enjoying looking back and remembering what we were doing when. I’ve even been inspired to make some cool scrap pages.  These are some of my favorites, of a couple of days we spent on a Lake Michigan beach last summer.

 

All this photo work has reminded me of why I love digital scrapbooking, and it’s given me new inspiration to save my family’s memories in a way that’s creative and rewarding to me.

I print a large number at Costco for only 9 cents a photo.  I take mine in on CD (because my internet is only a wireless hot spot and works too poorly to upload them all) and it only takes about an hour before I can pick them…and I can easily waste an hour at Costco! I usually print two quarters at once, to qualify for the discounted price.

If you’re like me and feeling overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of photos you have stuck on your computer, just start small.  Organize this month’s photos.  Then last, and the last, and so on. You can DO it!

Personal Patriotism

I was thinking of ways to decorate for Memorial Day and Independence Day, and remembered all the “patriotic” family photos I love from our life as an Army family.




The photos were taken at Fourth of July parades and celebrations, my GI Joe’s Change of Command last summer, and most importantly, homecomings from deployments. 

They’re all favorites, but one I especially love is the one of our eldest taking his first steps…the day after his daddy returned from Iraq after a year-long deployment.  The hooligan was ten and half months old then…so you can do the math and imagine how thrilled I was to have my soldier home safely to join in the parenting adventure.


I’ve looked high and low for a sign with this saying on it, to no avail.  Then, just last week, a blog I read offered this free printable.  You can get it, too, at The Scrap Shoppe blog. I love the vintage sign feel of it.

I found the Army Strong sign and the heart wreath made of wood curls at Hobby Lobby.  That’s a definite plus for living in the middle of the country…I missed Hobby Lobby in the Pacific Northwest!

Now that I’ve printed all these photos, I’m thinking I may need to find a collage frame to display them year-round.  These memories deserve to be enjoyed more than six weeks out of the year!

Winter Woods

I found myself ALONE at our house last weekend, before the snow was trampled by a thousand little footprints, so I took some photos. The whole time I was thinking of my grandmother’s favorite poem, by Robert Frost. She was a high school English teacher, and I’ve always been amazed at the amount of memorization that generation did. She and my grandfather (and my great-aunts and great-uncles) would spout poetry all the time. Clear up into their 80’s and 90’s…imagine having all that in your memory and in a spot you can find!

I can barely remember nursery rhymes to chant with my kids! Although just last night I whipped out a quote from Shakespeare as I was saying goodnight to my husband. And he was able to identify it. But I did crack my noggin yesterday, so that may have been an anomaly on my part.

Anyway, here’s the poem, and the photos, converted to black and white using Photoshop Elements. And thanks for my grandma for liking poetry that rhymes and is not completely beyond my understanding without hurting my already aching head!

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

-Robert Frost

We’re a Thankful Family

I know, back before Christmas I made some thank you cards, just to be prepared. And they were cute and I was happy with them. Until Christmas came, and I decided we really should put a photo on our cards, the ones going to relatives, anyway.

We went for a walk along the Lake Michigan shore the day after Christmas. It was blustery, cold, and virtually deserted. We had a most excellent time. Even Princess Thundercloud who wouldn’t smile for love or money in any of the photos we took. This was good of everyone else, so too bad for her.

I did a little color editing in Photoshop Elements, giving it a retro cast. After adding some text, I printed them (at home ‘cause I was too lazy to drive to town), matted them on Riding Hood Red cardstock, then put some fancy little kraft photo corners on 2 corners. They covered up the text on the other corners, so I made a design decision. I stuck the whole shebang on a Crumb Cake card base (that’s kraft for non-Stampin’ Up people), and stuck a fork in it.

The ones I actually mailed were much more centered than this…I forgot to take a photo until I only had one left, and it was kind of a reject, that’s why I had it left!

I really like the 1960’s feel this photo has now, and don’t you love Princess Thundercloud’s conehead hat? She had her hair in a high ponytail that day…her skull is really not that large!

My afternoon holds the challenge of drilling a hole in a penny to make my GI Joe an anniversary gift…18 years on Sunday…my how time flies! And we dated for 8 years before that! You can bet we never thought we’d still have 3 young kids almost 20 years into our marriage, but they should still be earning money in time to support us in our old age. And now that I’ve shared that retirement plan tip with you, I’m off to drill!

Cold Play

As I may have mentioned, we have been the tiniest bit impatient for our snowy Wisconsin winter to begin. We’ve had a couple of small snows, just an inch or so, nowhere near enough to go sledding. Needless to say, as the snow began to accumulate while we were watching the Packers on New Years Day, we were beyond excited. Unfortunately, a blast of arctic cold air arrived with the snow. Funny how that works. We waited until mid-morning on Monday, but then just had to test out the hills in our yard, frigid temps or not. We had a blast, even though the grass was poking through in a few places. We ended up with close to 3 inches and it packed nicely for sledding runs.

We were out for about an hour, then in for hot chocolate and peanut butter and honey sandwiches and naps, then back out in the afternoon. Everyone slept well last night!

The hooligans are back at the sledding hill today. They raced home from the bus to put on their snow gear…they have to wear it at school, so it was a drippy mess inside their backpacks. Nothing was damaged, though…it’s not like they’re carrying around the first drafts of their novels in there or anything.

I think they need supervision…I can hear the snow calling my name….but here’s the scrapbook page I made from yesterday’s adventures.

Farewell to Fall?

As we woke to a white lawn this morning, it occurred to me that perhaps the time had come for a final fall post. I’ve been taking photos all fall, thinking each day the colors were more vibrant or the tree trunks much more interesting than the blanket of green foliage that I saw when we arrived in July. But first, a card…

All Stampin’ Up: Inspired by Nature and Holidays and Wishes (retired)
Naturals Confetti, Early Espresso, and Very Vanilla Cardstock
More Mustard, Pumpkin Pie, and Early Espresso Ink
Hemp Twine; 1 1/4” circle and XL Oval punches; Brayer

To make the sun, I first covered the vanilla cardstock with More Mustard, using the brayer. I think you could also just drag your ink pad across it if you’d rather. Or you could just start with More Mustard cardstock and only brayer on the Pumpkin Pie. Then I punched out a circle from a Post-It and used it as the sun. I brayered Pumpkin Pie over the whole cardstock, then removed the Post-It…and there you have it…a sun! The rest was just stamping and assembling.

Now to the photos.

As they started, I was already enthralled…little did I know just how pretty they could be.

The bright greens and yellows turned the light in the forest warmly golden….this photo was taken from the balcony off our bedroom. What a great way to start the day!

Holy Hill Basilica, a National Shrine, is just a few miles from our home. It’s a majestic sight against the horizon. Even though Princess Thundercloud insists it’s a castle. Of course.

Wisconsin knows how to do fall…we saw about half a dozen other shutterbugs stopped on our way to breakfast this morning.

I’m going to have to create a scrapbook page or two of the fabulous old barns seen all along the country roads. I’m fascinated by the fact that they’re still used and seem to be original construction.

This view from our back deck is almost sculptural to me, with the contrast of black trunks and fall leaves. I spent way too much time sitting at my kitchen table, drinking coffee and contemplating the view.

Peeking through the leaves at the back of our home…a solid carpet of leaves on the lawn. Charming, as long as you’re not the raker or leaf blower. I’m neither.

Mums and pumpkins adrift in leaves…why can I not stand mums in flower arrangements, yet love them in the fall as decorations?

Part of the rafter of turkeys that frequents our yard. There are about 20 in all, but some had already fled for the woods when they saw me. You can see some of these have their necks stretched out, starting to run. Silly turkeys.

Our driveway…such a peaceful walk each day to the bus stop…as long as I’m alone!

Enjoy your day, and stay cozy!

A Little Comfort

All Stampin’ Up: Thoughts and Prayers stamp set; Very Vanilla and Early Espresso Cardstock;
More Mustard, Pear Pizzazz, and Early Espresso inks;Pear Pizzazz Seam Tape; Spice Cake DSP;
Large Oval, XL Oval, Corner Rounder, and Eyelet Border punches; Gold Glow Smooch Spritz

Sadly, my husband and I have found ourselves in need of several sympathy cards in the past few weeks. I made unique cards for each case, since it’s such a personal kind of card. As with any card, however, you could change the sentiment to fit your own needs.

I used the baby wipe technique for this. You just take a couple of baby wipes, folded, and drop some ink from a refill onto them, vaguely as you would like your image to appear. The ink spreads throughout the wipe and blends together. Then just use it like a stamp pad. You probably want to clean your stamp between each use, though, to keep the colors clean on the wipe.

Although I don’t have babies anymore, I still keep wipes around, since they’re so handy. Did you know they remove almost any stain, if you use them immediately? They also can be used to clean your stamps, since they have a bit of oil in them to condition stamps (well, it’s really to condition baby bottoms, but it serves a dual function!). I use my Stampin’ Up! Stampin’ Scrub for most of my stamp cleaning, but wipes are good for craft ink that you don’t want on your Stampin’ Scrub.

Anyway, back to the card. For the ribbon, I wrapper a straight piece around the sides and adhered with glue dots, then used bakers’ twine to tie another small piece as a bow. Lastly, I spritzed the tree portion with Gold Glow Smooch. I really like these spritzes…they can jazz up a card to make it more elegant or more rustic, whatever look you want. And it’s not just a plain cardstock background.

There you have it. I was inspired by the gorgeous sunrise to be productive today…

I was planning to make pumpkin butter and cranberry chutney today and blog about it, with recipes. I went to the basement (we actually have a small room there called the root cellar for canned goods) and discovered I have no jelly jars. Since I don’t really want to make quarts of preserves, I guess Princess Thundercloud and I will have to change out of our PJ’s after all and go to town. You’ll just have to wait until next week for canning inspiration.

Enjoy your weekend, if you are able to without pumpkin butter or cranberry chutney!

Acting like kids in Chicago

The boys had a couple of days off from school last week. I’m pretty sure it was not for good behavior. Anyway, they actually did have really great conferences, so we decided to reward them with a little trip down to the city. Yes, we live near Milwaukee, but we hadn’t ventured to Chicago yet. And it’s only two hours away. It’s like we’ve fallen off the interstate of life and into the sticks, unable to pull ourselves away from the peace of the country.

Since the weather was decent, we headed to Navy Pier first. Our kids are 3,5, and 7, so a lot of stuff there wasn’t really age-appropriate for them. Meaning it required more than a 5 minute attention span. However, the Children’s Museum rocked! Plus, it was free for 4 members of our military family.

The Big Backyard area had been “spookified,” and was super cool. Lots of shadow play and spooky sounds. But not too spooky. It’s a Children’s Museum, for Pete’s sake.

The boys really enjoyed building. The museum was almost deserted…we had whole rooms to ourselves.

Now there’s a sight that would terrify many a construction worker on a job site! Heaven forbid she sees a shiny object and forgets to drive.

The water play area was enormous, AND some genius had equipped it with raincoats and smocks. Perhaps the one in Washington doesn’t have those because everyone in Washington is just used to being wet. I’m going to drop it in a suggestion box when we move back, though!

The next day, we surprised the kids with Legoland Discovery Center. We’ve been to Legoland in California, and they loved that. This was indescribably smaller, but they thought it was amazing. My husband and I needed a drink afterward. Unlike the museum, there were about 5000 kids in a 5000 square foot space. Or maybe it just seemed like it.

She knows no fear. The lion, however, ran away as soon as she got out of his mouth.

His grandpa helped build the Sears Tower, so he consented to a photo in front of the (Lego) skyline.

Monkey Boy spent most of his time in the jungle gym area. Those Lego bricks are soft, by the way.

The real Lego fanatic, our oldest loved designing vehicles and testing them with his new-found friends. Whom we’ll never see again, but he just doesn’t get that.

From Lego animals to the real thing…we spent a few hours at Lego, then headed back to Milwaukee for trick-or-treating at the zoo.

Since we live out in the sticks, we had to go to town to trick-or-treat. I had convinced the kids that trick-or-treating at the zoo would suffice, but it did not. They only got about 6 pieces of candy each, so on Halloween we had to go out again.

Apparently Pumpkinhead here agrees with my boys’ assessment of their comedic abilities.

After standing in line for half an hour for a 10 minute train ride, Cupcake dropped her bucket getting on the train. We managed to collect all 6 pieces of candy, though, so she eventually recovered.

All in all, a successful mini-vacation. I discovered that Chick-Fil-A is only 2 hours away, right next to IKEA. The kids burned a lot of energy and thought they had a large time. When we trick-or-treated on Halloween, they collected half a bucket of candy in about 45 minutes, so they were thrilled with that.

Here’s the riddle of the day: At our house, you put your candy outside your bedroom door when you go to bed. During the night, the Great Pumpkin comes and takes away your candy, but leaves you a gift. This year, the boys got color-changing Hot Wheels and a book and Cupcake got a mini-Barbie dressed in a pumpkin costume and a book. They were thrilled with their presents. So why couldn’t we just have given the Great Pumpkin those 18 Twizzlers we got at the zoo?