Awww....

We have the new Mac up and running. I've installed CS5, hooked up the printer, the scanner, etc. and uploaded my hundreds of photos from just before Christmas till now. 

This one below might be my favourite one. 

After Grandpa's funeral, we all went back to my aunt's house. Kelsey is going to school to be a doctor and brought her stethoscope with her to practice. I asked if she would be able to hear Tamiko's baby and she said maybe. She tried it and could hear the baby moving.  Then the baby's aunt wanted to hear too.

I was standing behind Naomi as she listened to her niece/nephew for the first time and got teary eyed. Like I am right now. 

Sometimes coming up with a title is harder than the blogging.

Point form blogging for Saturday...
- today or tomorrow, the new Mac will be up and running.
- then I can work on photoshoots.
- and my Project Life stuff.
- and print receipts for taxes.
- maybe that will take my mind off the big investment in myself I made 2 days ago, I doubt it, but it might help. It's a huge step, outside my comfort zone. I'm not ready to share the details. I'm waiting for things to be finalized. Maybe then, my stomach won't clench up when I think about it.
- now you are wondering what I've done. It's not bad, really.

soar

Heather is taking a class and she's been talking about mixed media stuff for weeks. I have lots of different supplies and hardly ever, never, use them. Today, she inspired me to pull them out and make my first canvas. I'd been wanting to do it for a long time, I've had little canvases for years.

I used Making Memories paints, water colours, glue, gel medium, UTEE powder, stamps, flowers, buttons, rhinestones, pearls, and mod podge. Most of which is stuck under my beautifully manicured-by-Michelle nails.

Up close, it's gross, lumpy, bumpy, dirty and just plain not my style...but I love it!

Washi Tape?

Ever After, the local scrapbooking store had gotten these rolls of tape in straight from Japan on Saturday while Heather and I were shopping. But they weren't priced yet. So I picked a package and a dispenser to be put aside until today, and I put a reminder in my phone to run down and pay for them.

 When we went in, the rolls were all laid out on the counter for us to sort through. That's customer service! It took some time, lots of time, lots of decision making, but I picked up these 5 rolls for me. I may have to go back for more.

 And afterwards, I stamped on the tape. It's wonderful! I'll be using lots of it in my Project Life album.

 I wrote on it.

 I tore it and put it o my previously posted Halloween layouts. I love the black stripes and polka dots!

And then I decorated our Project Life Challenge jar. I even taped the ugly 'wood' edges of my Cricut stand. They are now black and white striped.
I really like the tape. It's sticky but not so sticky you can't reposition it carefully. It's easy to tear. It is slightly see thru, so it gives a light airy look to glass, and on patterned paper, you can see the pattern through the tape.
And with so many patterns, there's something for everyone's taste.

Almost Famous

Back days before our Big Trip, Yolanda asked if I could help her with an ad. The winery needed a new photo for the ad she was making for a wine magazine. Of course, I said yes.

I know photography is about capturing the memories with the camera, that split second of life. But what I didn't capture that day, maybe I promised not to, was the 'behind the scenes'.  The mental pictures I have of Yolanda rolling/dragging/pushing a wine barrel that we found in the weeds are in my brain forever. We used it as a prop, and we put it back as we found it. 

I think the final product was worth it. The whole thing took very little time on my end, Yolanda did the fancy stuff. But it sure is something else to see a picture I took in a glossy magazine. 

On Friday, I made this super cute little baby album for a class. Contact me if you are interested. I don't have many available.
And we had our first Project Lifers' meeting. We did a lot of deciding what we were going to, a bit of snacking, some more deciding, and lots of talking. I'm very excited about this album, it's for me, not for a class. It's not very often that I do stuff for me anymore, well, unless you count my Road Trip album which has grown so much that I had to go out and get another album on the weekend. And I still don't have all my photos printed.
Which brings me to the computer. I shipped it back to Apple and the replacement should be here any day. I am so hoping we just had a Lemon and that our problems will cease when the new computer is up and running. I'm hoping it's not some kind of electric current I have that is frying hard-drives. I have been assured by numerous techs that killing 3 hard-drives is un-heard of, but so is killing 2 and I did that just fine. And if you want to get technical, the PC hard-drive went this year too, so that is 3 in one year. If my mom is reading this, she is now worrying about her Macbook that I am using right now.

And the biggest news of the weekend...
I ran out of space in the Picasa/Blogger photo album and had to purchase more today. I've been blogging for more than 3 yrs., I take a zillion photos and it was bound to happen.

A pile of scraps

I used the Boys Will Be Boys cartridge and a pile of scraps to make these cards.

 I love that puppy!

 It's taking a bit to get used to the piddly fiddly parts and watching where I put them after they are cut out. Thank goodness for tweezers.

 As soon as Kerry saw these arm bands, he said he had to order them for me. Total geekiness! The dinosaur was a freebie in the package. RAAAAWWWRRRR.

Project Life: Our Way

Heather, Marg and I have committed to doing a Project Life album similar to Becky Higgins. We did not buy the kit but instead vowed to use what we had. Hoping to kill two birds...Use our stash and make an album.
I don't know that anyone of us will take a photo a day, it's not so much a 365 album, but we decided we could keep it manageable and do at least 52, one a week or more than that.
I've been cutting and prepping some stuff and then got ahead of myself and found 1 picture I had printed so I put it in. It's grandpa.

I don't know if I told  you that our computer died again. What? An imac? Yes. It's a Christmas Miracle that we have somehow managed to kill not one hard drive in a mac, but 2! In a period of less than 2 months, and when you consider the computer was in the shop for about a month, it's even more of a miracle. The tech at Applecare assured me it would never happen again. And then when it did, he tried to assure me again and just wanted to fix the software problem. After some consulting with the very helpful London Drugs techs, I called back and left a message at Apple "I want a new computer." And within a few hours, the tech called back and arranged for just that to happen.
So for the next week or so, I'm without my computer, my photos, my files, and my 21.5 inch screen. I'm using a borrowed Macbook and the screen is so small, but it's better than nothing.
The above photo was taken with my Blackberry. Not to shabby. I am using all my will power to not upload the photos from the weekend to this laptop. I can't process them if I want to. But I did get some great shots of my cousin listening to her sister's baby bump (her niece or nephew) with the stethoscope! Gave me teary eyes.

Valentine's Classes

This little album is so cute, if I do say so myself. Who knew I'd love my Cricut as much as I do? 

 This is a class, contact me for more info.

I also have this little set of 2 cards, and one matchbox for treats  as a class.

I want to take this time to thank my friends, cyber and real life ones. It's sad thinking about the traditions and memories, but at least I have those, and all the photographs I've taken over the years. As always, death makes you appreciate what you have in life. And so often we forget to appreciate these things until something happens. Take the time, take the photos, make the memories and appreciate what you have!
Thank you! I love you all! Well, maybe.

Macro Fun

I picked up this almost useless macro reversing ring. It is no substitute for a macro lens. None at all. But it's a fun little toy to play with. I'm using it with my 50mm f/1.4 lens. As the name says, it reverses your lens. It needs lots of light and a steady hand. A tripod won't help as you have to constantly move back and forth to find the perfect focus. There's only a sliver of image in focus, it's shooting at f/1.4. Apparently, Nikon will stay at the f-stop you set the lens at before you shut the camera off, but Canon won't. Boo. So here are some things around the house.

An ornament.

 An Angry Beaver eye.

 Vinylmation Mickey's head

 Baby penguin that Heather gave me for Christmas

 Blackberry keyboard, I think I see germs.

 Orville Redenbacher's Lime and Salt popcorn, yum.

 Emily's eye. Not the worst but could be better, practice, practice, practice.

 Microphone

 Valentine's candy

 For you!

Grandpa

Yesterday, my 93 year old Grandpa passed away. It was no surprise. He was 93. He wanted to go awhile ago. He was done. He'd broken his hip and then he got pneumonia.

He was born here, not in Japan like you might think. He did go back as a child to live there for a few years, but came back to Canada. 

He was an avid bowler, right up to the last year. 

He had a huge vegetable garden, at least 4x the size of my sad garden, complete with green houses. He usually sold his vegetable at a local store.

 We always celebrated Christmas at his house on Christmas Eve. Always. He carved the turkey.

Everyone brought something. Sweet potatoes, coleslaw, ham, salads, desserts, you always ate too much.

He sat at the head of the table. He liked his sweets. He always had a bag of hard candy in the cupboard.

He had 5 daughters. 20 grand children. 6 great grandchildren, and one more in a few months.

 He liked to fish. He used to take us to see Grandma at the packing house, sometimes stopping to pick up popsicles, root beer ones. He always had a pack of Fruit flavoured Chicklets in is truck and when it was parked in the carport, he'd leave the window open when it was hot, and I remember stealing a piece of gum when ever we could.

I think he liked to travel, I remember their trips to Hawaii, and Japan, with lots of photos taken. He's with  Grandma now. 

Clean Slate

I have spent at least a week cleaning up my scrapping room. A few hours here and there weren't really tackling the problem. So I spent a whole day, eating my meals in there and catching up on back episodes of the Young and the Restless and I made progress. I snapped these pictures to proof it. It really isn't that dark at the other end of the room but it does need more lighting.

 The table is clean and ready for my next project. Even the paper is new.

 The dresser that I want to paint is cleaned off. Kerry says that is so good to see. Linus is scratching his back on the edge of the table.

 I sorted through my fabric bin, gave some fabric to Heather and some to mom, and now I can close the bin lid. I added another shelf to the bookshelf in the corner and it made a huge difference.

 I still have to tackle this corner, my mini album box is over flowing. I can't figure out how to store them and if you have any ideas, let me know. I also have to tackle the overflowing magazine rack, but I picked up some magazine holders yesterday and will do that today.

While I was cleaning up, I found a container with a 12x12, a couple scraps, brads, a purple flower, and 2 photos in it. I stopped what I was doing and got out my alpha stickers, Jenni Bowlin tickets that I had misplaced but found while cleaning, and my orange Tattered Angels spray and I seriously threw this together. And I love it. That gob of spray that is bleeding nearly threw me over the edge but I'm embracing the imperfection of it and learning to love that stuff.

 The other photos called for that weird pack of Halloween papers I bought, and as luck would have it, I only had to cut about an inch off the purple piece and I threw the scrap out! And I used my Cricut to cut the cat and the web out. Happy Halloween was cut from the pad of papers, and stuck on one of the pins Amy sent me for Christmas.

 After everything was cleaned up, Heather and I had a meeting about our Project Life albums and we stayed up chatting well after midnight. It was motivating. So the next day I made my layout for my classes this week. I even put pictures on it, which I hadn't been doing in a few months. But now that I have 2000 pictures from our trip, well really 1000 in duplicate, I have a set for the trip album and a set to do whatever with. I plan on getting the rest ready for printing this week.

From Sue

Looky what I got from my friend Sue!  Thanks, Sue!

Part of this award, I need to :
- Thank and acknowledge the “giver”
- Share 8 things about myself
- Pay the award forward to 8 fellow stylish bloggers


Now for eight things about me...
1. I don't care for celery.
2. I can't knit or crochet, and this plagues me.
3. I sing to the dogs, but not to the humans.
4. I hate being the person in line at the bank covered in dog hair.
5. I hardly ever give out cards.
6. I don't have a favourite band/singer.
7. I want more tattoos but am having a hard time finding something I want to commit to.
8. I can't eat bananas, they make me sick and they make me hurt.

And to pay it forward to eight Stylish Bloggers in no particular order...I follow so many and it's hard to narrow it down to only eight...

1. Rae

2. Amy

3. Angie

4.Angie

5.LB

6. Callista

I can only think of 6 at this time.

Dog Prints

Dog Prints
Angie contacted me a week or so ago about using my photo on this site. It's great to see that other people take so many pictures of their dogs. I can relate.

Hoarder? You decide.

I'm still cleaning out my craft room. It's not THAT messy but it's the things you can't see that need some help. Like my chest of drawers. Sure you can't see the top of it, I'm working on that. But it's what's in the drawers that will shock and amaze you.

In 2 out of 9 drawers, this is the list of what I found...

13 Stampin' Up tape runner refills
5 packs of Stampin' Dimensionals
18 brand new Post-It note pads
2 packs of Scotch book binding tape
12 rolls of Sookwang tape in various sizes
2 packs of Coluzzle blades
8 packs of Fiskars paper trimmer blades
1.5 boxes of Scotch atg tape, that's 18 rolls for those counting
6 glue pens
2 glue sticks

I'm a freaking adhesive hoarder!

And just to clarify, no I won't sell it, or give it away, I organized it and put it all back in the drawers!

In the bag!

I was going to make myself a camera bag insert. I looked on-line, found a pattern, and was going to start this week. Yes, I could buy one on-line, but I have the supplies so I thought I'd try. But while I was out today, I found this ugly little thing. On clearance. While you should not judge a book by it's cover, you should also not judge a bag. It may hold an after-Christmas-Miracle.

 When I opened it I found an insert, a removable one. I figured for $20, I'd bring it home and hope it fit my camera. I could always take it back. It fits perfectly with my new lens.

And it fits in my purse. So now I can turn any purse into a camera carrying bag. This is for when I'm going out, say to a friend's place, lunch, etc. not on a shoot, for that I'd use my Crumpler and/or my shootsac.