Scrapping Weight

Well I have made a decision. Whether I like it or not, or hate it really, I am going to scrap about weight. My weight, my parent's weight. Weight. My goals, my plan, my fears, everything. Getting bigger is something that scares me to death. Watching both my parents be obese and have so many health problems was scary. And I never was heavy. Never. But noe, in my depression I have gotten bigger than I ever thought. SO I am gonna do this. For now I think that I will post them in my gallery, but maybe not. My family looks there. I dunno. But they will be for me. I still am thinking I need to scrap the things that are hard. This can't be just about making cute pages, but about being an outlet. And I need an outlet that is more than just a creative outlet but an outlet for all the pain I feel as well. Hmmm it makes my stomach turn to think of scrapping the hard stuff. How do I? I dunno. Maybe Amy will let me set up a different account to post the hard stuff into. I don't want my Gramma to read some of it, but I think it could help some people. Maybe I will just post those pages here. Where to begin. Maybe I should check out the weight group at SBB. Other scrappers. I dunno. For some reason I felt like I needed to put it here to make sure I did it. But I don't know what to say about it.

Struggles.

Up till now this blog was just my scrapping stuff. But as I need an outlet and don't want all my family reading everything, and they don't know about this, I am gonna just sit and type. Things are hard. They just are. In every way imaginable. Okay things could be worse. I try and tell myself that, but just sometimes it doesn't feel that way. A year ago this time, I had a home in the country, children than listened so well, a pretty happy marraige, and most importantly a pretty happy ME. Now back to today. Struggling to keep our house from getting forclosed upon, children that are out of control, a marraige that feels like it's failing most of the time, lost almost everything we own, had to move from my country home in with my mother in her small city house in CA (Ick), and most importantly a depressed ME. ARGH!! Today is the first day things seem a bit up, because I actually prayed and read my Bible and poured my heart out to God. But goodness things are hard. When is this supposed to get easier? When do I get a whole day without just feeling so mad at Clay? When do I stop gaining weight? When do I stop feeling frustrated with my littles? Goodness, when do we get to move out from my mother's LOL? And yet for some reason after listing those questions I am chuckling. Chucking. Why? Is it all so preposterous? Sometimes I look at it all and it makes me laugh that everything is out of control. The house is a mess, I am a mess, my marraige is a mess, my children are a mess. What a mess. How did my life get this way? There are certainly things I could blame, people I could blame. I mean, some really BAD things happened, and people did some BAD things that caused the physical change part. The house, the things, all that stuff was out of my control. But why do I let myself just fall deeper in it all? It needs to stop. I need to turn back to God and stop this madness that is my depression. He is the only one that can bring me back. And for some reason today feels like the day. Ha ha ha. How many days have felt like the day? For all of us! Today is the day we tackle the house. Today is the day I start eating right. And exercising.....Today is the first day of the rest of my life. But some people find that day. That one day they decide to change it. TO change themselves. Lord, let today be my day. And if I fail, let tomorrow be my day. And please, please let me get some things done other than playing in Photoshop.

Daisy Doodles

Somehow I forgot to ever put the cutesy Daisy Doodles on here. Here is my cutesy kit. And I love love the little painted popsicle sticks in the vellum envelope. My fave! This is a cute little kit. Hmmm... Cute, yep that's the word that sticks.

Leaving 3S

Well I hadn't really mentioned any of this on here as things we in the works. I was selling my kits over at 3S but now have left. I had been thinking about leaving for a while. Sometimes something is just not the right fit. So on a whim I emailed somewhere I had wished I could join the team at, but assumed it was just out of reach LOL. Low and behold they had been looking at me to maybe join the team and I got an offer from them. So I took it, and quit over at 3S. And their site went down (which is just HORRIBLE!!) so the timing was good for now. I have yet to sign my contract with the other site so I will not mention the name right now, but I thought I should at least mention it in case I mentioned that you could buy my kits at 3S.

Just Precious Kit

Well here is the new kit I just finished. The last for a while in my soft color scheme. It will be a paper pack and an element kit. I don't have any idea what to name it, but... This was a fun kit to make for some reason. I think that maybe it's just cuz I am getting better at doing some things so I can just get an idea and run with it. Had to force myself to stop with it though as I think I could have just kept going and going. As it is I had a hard time fitting all the elements on the preview. I did a lot of elements that were very new to me like the threaded ribbon. Used one of my edge brushed I am working on to make those border strips. Hmm. well since my leaving 3S, the kits don't have a home, but I love making them and will keep doing it until I get in the store I want LOL. And of course then I have free kits to work with! Hmm I need a name for this. Any ideas? As I type this Rie helloes me to say I should name is Just Precious. So.. Just Precious it is. yay!!! Off to work on a collection of kits I made the palletes for today.

Here is a little 2 pager I made of Adric and his new sleeping arrangements. He just wouldn't go to bed nicely no matter what I would do! I sat in the bedroom in the dark for months and it never got better. So one day I pulled out a blanket and laid you on the floor. Well low and behold he fell right asleep. No fussing, no screaming. And every night since I lay him right on the floor and he falls asleep like an angel. So here is his new "bed".

On a CT! And scrapping problems

Well I got invited to be on Kathy Moore's creative team. Kathy sells her stuff at SB-E and at kathyssimplescraps. How much fun to have someone look at your stuff and think you are good enough to be worth inviting. I guess I just feel really honored. That said I had a CT layout I needed to make this weekend. I tried and tried but just couldn't. It's the first time I couldn't scrap something I really wanted to. I needed to scrap this 2 pager of my hubby. But I couldn't. I just wasn't liking my hubby that much this weekend and just couldn't find it in myself to scrap all the great and funny things that make him Him. But thankfully last night I got into it and ended up with 4 pages instead of 2!! I really love this LO in the end. It is very much my hubby. Even the title which he came up with. So of course I had to use it!






The journaling reads:

My darling hubby. When I told you I was thinking of doing a layout about you, this is the title you came up with. What fun to find all the pictures that showed what a Texan you are. And I found as I went through them that these are really the things I love about you. I love that you are a man’s man. A man who will go out and fix his car. That will come home from work and pick up a guitar. That is proud of his roots. That makes me feel safe. I know that when you are around, nothing will happen that you can’t handle. And I am proud to have a manly redneck Southern gentleman for a husband. I love you honey, and you are mine by the grace of GOD.

The 2 Pager controversy lol

Oh man, I wrote this all out and it crashed on me!! So here goes again.

Well it is no secret to any who know me that I love 2 pager LOs. I love them! I love pouring over scrapmags and looking at all the paper 2 pagers. I think Becky Higgins is a genius. And every time I ask anyone, they LOVE the look of 2 pagers. If we were paper scrappers, we would do them all the time. Yet as digiscrappers we hardly do them. There are a rare few who do, but for the most part the digiscrapping community has just pushed the 2 pagers to the side. I love not having to look for that one perfect picture. I am not the best photographer yet and sometimes I have felt like I couldn't tell a great story without that one pic that makes the LO jump off the screen. I have so many pictures from the same event and hate trying to pick one or two to use. I love being able to tell the whole story in pictures. My Puzzler LO makes me smile. There wasn't a great pictures of him looking like a model, but that LO tells me a story. It has him concentrating and frowning and thinking. It is him. It is who he is to me. And I love being able to tell a story through the years. My Country Children LO has pictures from all over the last 5 years. It is a 12 picture LO. 12 pictures. If I could have squeezed a few more I would've. It tells the story of my littles. Boy do I love them.

So onto my controversy LOL. So lately as I post my LOs in the SBB gallery, I get at least 7 comments. Even my lame ones I hate get at least 4. So, whenever I would post my 2 pagers I would get either none or 1 comment. So I asked in the chat last night why we all thought that was. The general concensus was that it was because I was posting it as one long LO instead of 2 12x12s in the gallery. So I split them up and started to upload. Hmmm.... yet still no comments. Okay now 2, and from someone who was at the chat and said "good luck on the comments" LOL. So why do I think this is? There was a theory that it was about shape. That the eye of the digiscrapper was drawn to the 12x12. Hmmm.... Weird? Sound totally lame? LOL.

Update. Well I guess one of my 2 LOs have accumulated 7 comments. So maybe this is all part of my neurotic paranoia. Aahh welcome to my madness!

Well I hope to someday start a 2 pager scrap and start getting more of us to scrap 2 pagers, to do more day to day events, use up pictures. Here are the 2 pagers to date. There are only a few, but they are dearly loved LOL. Go, do a 2 pager!!! You can do it.

Artsy Smartsy

Well this is my first "artsy" LO. It was really fun to step out of my box a bit.

Or okay more than a bit. I thought that as I scrapped more and more I would find my "style". That dreaded word. I think that as newbies we all have that conversation. What is my "style"? I find that I look at LOs stuffed with Kathryn Balint and Rhonna;s stuff and LOVE them. They suck me in to look at all the details. Then I look at kimbee's gallery and her graphic Los and just am amazed. Then I look at these artsy LOsand just think they are so creative. Just today I was looking at Amy's LO she was working on and just looked at how simple and beautiful it was. I love all styles. I wish I could just look at a pic and have a "style" that flowed out so easily. But then my reasoning takes over and I know that we should embrace whatever we like, all styles, even rebel against having a strict "style". But it is not my style. I need to know what I like LOL. I am the worst decision maker ever. Ever. I can't even decide how I like to scrap. Do I need to decide? Sounds stupid doesn't it? I loved doing this artsy LO too and learned a lot. I think as scrappers we need to step outside our comfort zone a bit and find the beauty outside of the mundane that can become our "style". Has a word of this made any sense I wonder? Babble babble. The bottom line is I love this LO *chuckle*

Sunkissed

Well I was thinking that maybe putting my kits here might seem a little self absorbed, but yunno I love them. I do. How many hours are spent sitting in front of this puter slaving over it, laying in bed thinking of elements, agonizing over every little detail. And really they are a part of me. This kit is the one that really was an escape. It took over completely. That was good. Made mom a bit mad but... I wish I wasn't so obsessive as a designer though. I look at some kits like Jen Wilsons and she has a handful of papers and elements and it's perfect. I can't stop. 5 papers, 10 papers, it's not enough. Maybe it's just a new designer thing, feeling like the kit is in adequate until I cover everything. Hopefully with time I can learn to make what is needed without going and going and going. Sometimes less is more. And how to price huge kits? As a new designer I don't feel like I can charge that much, but at the same time the Sunkissed kit has over 100 pieces, not including the leather (which I ADORE by the way). And I think I am gonna put the B and B kit in the freebies section at SBB. It's just not my style at this point and with the drop shadwos, it should be free to all. argh SO MANY hours in that labor of love. But I love the freebies section and download all the time there so... Without I never would have done this. I couldn't afford food let alone kits at the time I started. Thanks SBB for everything.

Affecting me

I can't believe at this point how this scrapping has consumed my life. Sometimes to my benefit, sometimes to my detriment. With the heartache and depression that has run rampant in my life lately, it is a huge release and coping mechanism for me to be able to retreat into scrapping. No matter how upset I am I can sit down and enjoy myself, and learn, and smile and cry. I have laughed out loud at Los, and cried buckets of tears like I did going to sweet Auntie Pea's website. I cried many a tear over the LO I made last night. I thought I would make a 2 pager about me. My first page ever about me, who I am, what I like. As I made the page, it made my smile to no end. To look at the things that brought me joy. Joy, what's joy?, I think I have forgotten. And to think back on my dreams of just a year ago. This time last year life was the polar opposite of what it is now. So today while talking to my hubby, Clay, I cried. I told him about making the LO and the sadness I feel now that all of that is gone. Gone. I read a letter to the editor in I think CK today where they mentioned an article in a past issue about scrapping tough subjects. If someone out there (like anyone reads this LOL) has that issue and wants to copy the article or send me the mag, let me know. With so much pain just sitting there refusing to go away or even fade, I have been thinking about scrapping about the events of the last few months. I can't journal. I have tried. But I can journal in my LOs. I have a picture of our home, or soon to be ex-home, that I can't even look at let alone scrap, that is calling for closure. Could I do it? Could I really write down and document the pain? I need to do something. maybe this is it. I dunno. Here is the LO that started it all. One minute it makes me smile, another in tears.

And I wonder if I could actually post my "ME" LOs anywhere after I did them. Would be hard.

Redoing old LOs

Argh I can't believe how often my style changes, how learning one or two techniques can make you seem 100 times better. I have so many old LOs that I just hate. Ha ha. I used the best pictures and have bad LOs. And as I start to figure out what my style is, I find I like my old LOs less and less. I can't even stand to look at some. I am sure ALL scrapbookers know that feeling. So I did my first redo. When I did this LO the first time I rushed through it wanting to put as many of the elements from my Sunkissed Kit as I could. The result - a half baked cluttered LO that did not do the picture justice AT ALL. And such a gorgeous photo. Everytime I looked at the LO it just seemed such a shame to hacve wasted such a great picture. So I redid it. I still am not 100% about it to be honest, but it is a huge improvement.

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What a beautiful little girl Cassie is. Sometimes I look at her and am just amazed at how utterly gorgeous she is. Her skin, her hair, her eyes, everything is just heaven sent. She is heaven sent. I could not love this little girl more than I do.

Using Elements

So I have been trying to use more elements. Hmmm.... sometimes it goes well sometimes not. I know if I was a paper scrapper I would love sewing on buttons, stapling ribbons, it's just how I am. So here is a LO I made trying to focus on adding elements. And boy do I LOVE these pics of Adric. I have pictures of all three of my littles wearing one of Daddy's hats.


Combo of Gina Cabrera's Boys and thier toys kit and Shabby Princess's rainbow smiles kit and the buttons are by Rhonna Penner

Being True

Well after having read over at Dawn's blog I really am feeling convicted. I need to remember to stay true to myself. True to my style. As a newbie I made some LOs that as I look back on were just someone's else's style. And while I love those people's LOs, I hate mine. I am going to do something nice for myself, save some money, buy a kit, and redo an old LO just how I want.

So I will say it to myself - Stay true to yourself, true to your style and let this be an outlet for what is truly in my heart. Let it be a release not something that ties me down when I think I should be something I am not. Let it be an extension of me. Let it be me.

Missing Scrapping

I must say I miss the days when I was just doing LOs and was completely content with that. On one hand I love designing. I don't know that I could be a completely happy scrapper without making stuff. But the days where I didn't make anything and was just so happy to scrap my pictures and go to crops was like being a child. The innocence of my scrapping youth. I have made a few LOs lately since I hadn't made any in a while, but even when I do I feel behind on my designing. Argh. I sure do like to make everything as miserable as I can. Welcome to self sabotaging 101 :)

I think one of my problems is that I learn more about everything, I find myself more picky about what I like to use. And I don't have a penny to my name to buy anything. Maybe when I get paid my kits in the store, I can buy the quality of kits I really want to scrap with and will find it easier. Maybe I should go through the freebies at SBB and see of there is anything new today I like and do a LO. At least I realized yesterday that I am not the only one. I chatted with some different designers, etc. and many felt that they needed to scrap more.

talking about scrapping, here are a couple of my faves -Okay I have lots of faves, but here are couple fun, more graphic LOs. Funny how sometimes you want gorgeous papers and lots of elements and at other times just need a pic and PS and that's it.


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I love my boys. Adric cracks me up so much and LOVES to have a dirty face. I have a few different dirty face Adric pictures. And my Frankie, the sweet big brother. I will forever love this LO of them and their kiss. Especially since it was unscripted, love between brothers. Oh I NEED to scrap today. Will need to work on LOs for my calendar project for my aunt - Gramma, DO NOT link her to this blog. Or my GALLERy!! Just a friendly reminder. Off to SBB to find a kit until I get paid.

Venting

Oh I feel like I have all these things that have been annoying me lately. Can I vent?

I have a friend, who will remain nameless, who is a CTM at a site that will also remain nameless. The site has these guidelines that the CTMs need to try and put as many elements onto the LOs from the DTM kits as they can. It is supposed to showcase the kits more, but she hates it and I do too. I don't think that using loads and loads of elements always shows kits off at their best. Many times less is more. A great LO with a couple papers and a couple special elements often makes me long for the kit more than a big cluttered LO of loads of stuff. Don't get me wrong I have some LOs with lots of elements, and some with none. But it creates this atmosphere where the CTMs can't do what they were chosen to do - make great LOs in their style. And how frustrating to submit a great looking LO only to get rejected because it needs more "stuff" on it. Not more stuff because the LO needs something else, more stuff just cuz. I don't want my stuff to have to be showcased by cramming as many elements as possible on a page. I wonder how many stores have these types of restrictions on their CTMs? Hopefully none and this is just a weirdness thing.

Hmmm and to continue the rant, I have become more and more surprised with the low quality of product many stores are selling. There are some AMAZING designers out there, and many who are good but just not my style, and some so-so designers that I can see people buying, just not me - I mean, to each their own as far as taste, etc. But then there are kits I see that I am amazed these stores are allowing in. I think that given how quickly this is growing, how many new digiscrappers there are, that it does a disservice too our community for these stores to be promoting and selling such low quality stuff. It takes advantage of the new scrappers too who don't know what to look for in terms of realism, etc. and they end up with layouts that leave a lot to be desired. And if we as a digiscrapping community want to eventually be able to rival the big paper company names that will eventually move into digi products, we need to be building a community of good quality designers and products. That doesn't mean I think we shouldn't support new designers. I am a new designer. And there are new designers with previous art or computer graphics backgrounds that can jump in and keep pace with seasoned designers. But I think many of the designers these stores are supporting should be promoting them by starting them working as DTM doing chats, freebies, etc. or something. I dunno. I just think stores need to keep standards. That said, I am very thankful for those who took a chance with me and worked with some of my inexperience in design. I just now more than ever want to help make this community grow and prosper. And see many of my friends do well as this thing continues to grow. Boy, it's almost 2AM!! Guess My ranting needs to come to an end.

My Cabana kits

After the B and B kit I decided I really needed to design in my style. I was determined to make kits like I would buy. So I sat down with myself, had a talk :) and started playing around. I found a pallette I liked, and here were the 2 kits that came out of it first. I admit though that another kit came out of the same color pallete I loved working with it so much.

All these summer kits were coming out and they were fun and more vibrant than I tend to work with. I was taking the littles to the pool everyday for swim lessons and wanted a kit that was soft, beachy and could match the beautiful color of the water. These kits can be found at www.3scrapateers.com right now.

Cabana Boy Kit

Cabana Girl Kit

I have these kits marked down right now to $3.50 so we can all scrap our summer pictures!

Here is a LO that I made with the Cabana Boy Kit of the swim lessons:

The Design Revolution

Well, in doing tutorials to learn to scrap you learn how to make elements. Usually easy ones like buckles, brads, etc. Well me and my obsessive nature loved making stuff. I jumped right in, joined a good yahoo group for newbie designers called the element kit gang They have links to tutorials, helpful guidelines, and they walk you through making a kit. Each week they do a certain part - like week one plain papers, etc. - that kind of thing. Of course my obsessiveness did the whole kit in a week or so. It was fun, more fun than I had had in a while. I love to create and just absorbed tutorials like a sponge. I picked kind of interesting colors, but the kit turned out okay for having been my first one. It is called Somewhere Over the Rainbow It can be hard to look back at that given how things change, but I still hope people like and use it.

Well the rainbow kit started everything. There's no stopping it now. I moved on to another kit that has remained in the vault. I have yet to put it in a store or the freebies.
It is the B and B kit. The Blues and Browns kit. I have yet to out it anywhere because part of me wants to sell it, but part of me still looks at it as a newbie kit. In my ignorance I put slight drop shadows on my elements. I know some out there still design with drop shadows, but personally I like to shadow my own elements and really feel that all designers should leave that option to the customers as well. So the kit is just sitting here taking up hard drive space waiting for me to decide it's fate. This kit was very fun for me though because I started to actually know what I was doing - a little - and could enjoy making it a bit more. So if you read this and think you know what the fate of this kit should be, let me know. I am the worst decision maker ever.

Juradric Park

My recent LO of Adric - a little different style for me, but FUN.

My Scrapbook Pages

As much as I would love to put all my layouts here for all to see - I love showing LOs!- there are far too many. They can all be seen here at SBB:

My Scrapbook Gallery

As I make pages I am sure I will post them here for the simple fact that I LOVE scrapping and showing my layouts. Much fun!

And we're off

So this is going to be my first official entry in this thing. Don't know really where to start. Since this is mostly going to be my scrapping blog as opposed to my homeschool blog, and one for family members, (boy do I have that much time?), I will just start on about scrapping.

Well I am officially addicted to digiscrapping. For all my family members and newbies, I will explain what it is. Maybe I should just start with how I got into this and go from there.

Loving crafts of all kinds I had always wanted to scrapbook but could never afford it. And with 3 under 5, who could spread that out in our little house and actually scrap. One day on a message board for Christian Mommies, someone mentioned digital scrapbooking and gave me a link to www.scrapbook-bytes.com . I went there and was in awe. How could I have never heard of this before? I saw thousands of great scrapbook pages done solely on the computer. Gorgeous, realistic looking pages. Background papers, 3D ribbons, buckles, tags - all of it was there but done on the computer. Amazing. I was hooked!

I knew my hubby had a copy of Paint Shop Pro 7 on the puter so I opened it up and jumped in. I did a tutorial on Sbb a did my first layout that night. I think I stayed up until 4AM learning PSP and doing that LO. Well, digiscrapping came at the hardest time in my life and was, and still is, a great source of escape and release for me. I spent every night that month staying up almost all night scrapping.

What an amazing thing to be able to find free kits, and scrap my littles' pictures and our memories. How many times had I longed to journal for them, or write them letters, or do something to have those memories kept and cherished. But it would never get done. Now as a scrapper everytime I do a layout I am writing them letters, journaling the cute and wonderful things that happen as they grow up. I can't wait for their wedding day when their wife or husband gets to look through these great books of memories of their love.

And so it began. A day can't go by where I don't scrap. Or read scrap magazines. Or scrap some more. :)

And so the blog begins.

The test.

Well here is my first post but mostly a test. I will probably be spending the next few days tweaking the html so it is how I like it before I really start posting. But I need one post in order to even preview it, so........

Testing testing 1,2,3.