Card For Hubby

Well as you can see it has been a while since I have been on here. Hubbs is still gone so getting any crafting done is almost impossible. I have been playing with my Photoshop Elements 9 and love it. Learning how to create stunning photos and maybe a scrapbook page in the future. I took a 3 day Boot camp back in October and learned so much. I will post about that later. As for now I have a card that I made my hubby for Christmas and his troops. Also made this card after reading Cooking with Cricut blog post Day 14. She is doing a 25 day give-a-way and on day 14 she has a challenge to make a Christmas Card. I thought why not enter I have to make hubby one anyway.Not my best work, but hey I only took about 3 to 4 minutes to make it so not bad. Please excuse the photos I only had my cell phone at the time so they are not that great. Enjoy!

 It is very hard to see but the base is a dark green. I used stamps by The Stamps of Life and papers from SU and some from Michaels.

Blessings this Christmas Season! Remember the true Reason for the Season!

Whitney

Mojo Monday Challenge #209

Well I have not been crafty lately so I thought why not enter a contest. I entered Mojo Monday Challenge # 209 and here is the sketch we had to follow. I hope that this gets my creative juices flowing! I had a blast creating this and it only took me about 30 minutes.

Here is my version:

 For this card I used some stamps from The Stamps of Life. I also used my circle punch to punch a border for the right side.

Inside the card I also used the Stamps of Life stamps and added a strip of paper to the top and white so that you could write a small note. I had to add the ghosts to the sides to cover up what my stamp block had left behind.

Here are the two stamp sets that I used. I just love Stephanie Barnard's line called the Stamps of Life. The first set is called Spooks2Scare and the second one is called Thanks2Fall.

Hope that you enjoyed it!

Finding a Routine

Whew! I don't know about you, but my house has been chaos all summer. I have 4 very active boys and they keep me on my toes. Living in Texas now, much of this summer has been too hot for the kids to stay outside very long. Most of the time they are inside wrestling or fighting or making boy noises. Come on those of you that have boys know what I am talking about. Boy noises are all the low rumble car noises or the constant whistling or the fire truck sirens going off all over the house. LOL! After a while my mind starts to explode over all the noise.

Well I have been looking for a way to keep my house up and play with the boys. Needless to say I have been failing on the keeping of the house part. I have been searching for a way to become organized. I can organize my scrap stuff all day, but I guess that is because I am the only one who uses it so if it is out of place it is on me. The house is a different story. I will sweep and mop the kitchen and then the kids will come in with dirty shoes or the dog with dirty paws. I can pick up the living room and vacuum to only have the 4 tornadoes come behind me an mess it all back up. I have been very frustrated this summer to say the least. My wonderful DH had suggested that I develop a routine for myself and the kids to see if that helped. At first I was like how dare you tell me how to take care of my kids and my house and then I thought you may have a good point.

That is when I started to scour the internet for ways to help me. I am not an organized person. My mom has always tried to help me, but it has just never caught on. I was in the USAF and while I was in there I learned discipline and some organization. I thought I should try to incorporate some of that into my daily life. Then I came across a website that may change my life and the life of my family. I want to introduce you to FlYLady! She has a site that teaches you how to develop a routine. Sounds simple and I wonder why I didn't think of it before. FlyLady  uses a phrase which I can so relate to called SHE which stands for Side Tracked Home Executive. She tells us that we have to drop our perfectionism and just start doing. Kids are use to a routine at school. They have math class at the same time each day or have gym at the same time. Why shouldn't I try to have cleaning time or lunch time or playtime at the same time each day? So I have started to develop a routine for each person in our house each day.

FlyLady tells us that you should have a Morning Routine, an Afternoon Routine, and  a Bedtime Routine. Sounds simple huh? I have always read to my kids before bed so I thought that was a routine, but not like she wants you to to. I have only been working on my routines for a couple of weeks now, but I can say that I am loving this. I wake every morning and look at what is called my Control Journal to see what I need to do that day. I am still tweaking my routines so things are still changing daily. Each day there is a particular room that I work on to clean. She also picks certain Zones each week for you to focus on. This week we are working on the bathroom and the office or desk area. You are sent e-mails with your assignment that day Monday through Friday. Saturday is family day and Sunday is for resting and worship.

She even has routines outlined for your kids on how to keep their rooms clean and how to get their chores done on time without being asked. She even has an afternoon routine to help your kids get their homework done without burning them out. Like I said I am still working on our routines so things seem to change daily. I am so excited to see where we will be in a month after school starts on Monday.

You also need to check out an online calendar that she offers called Cozi You can also use this on your phone. In here you can put all the members of your family and all their appointments. I have even put in the dates from the school calendar so that I know when they have an early release or are out of school. You can make To Do list on it along with Shopping list. I have used this alot just like last night when I went school supply shopping. I didn't have to carry a paper list, because it was all on my phone and I could check off the items as I put them in the basket. There is also an option to have a reminder sent to your phone for appintments. I have the reminder sent to mine if it is for me and the kids and have it sent to my DH's phone if it involves him so that he can't say, "Well I didn't know about it."

I have never been a routine person, but I think I just may becoming one!

Online Classes

I just had to pass along the info. As you know I have been wild about Photoshop Elements 9 for a while now. Many of you are like I was in the beginning. You are SCARED TO DEATH to open the program. Well put your fears aside and FEAR NO MORE The Digital Scrapbook Teacher is now gonna offer online classes! I am so excited. Her first class that she is gonna offer is a photo editing class. This is so worth taking. She will teach you many of the editing procedures that you have always wanted to know. So if you want to take this 1st class in her series of online classes just click on the link on the left of my blog. When you get to her page click on the link at the top that says blog and you can sign up there. Can't wait to see what ya'll create!

• Week 1- Getting Started (Even if you've used Photoshop Elements in the past you will learn new stuff in this lesson!)
• Week 2-Lightening and Darkening a Photo: Which method is the best?
• Week 3-Color: How to Fix It, Change it, and Remove it.
• Week 4-Straightening, Cropping, and Getting Artistic.

Photoshop Elements

I have been busy learning so much about Photoshop Elements. I am having a blast! I have been going through Patty Debowski's book Photoshop Elements Basics and Beyond. I am reading the section on organizing. Wow I so needed this! She explains how to use tags to find just the right photo. As someone who takes a ton of photos this is gonna come in handy.

You can see in this screen shot of the organizer in PSE9 that I have already tagged these 2 photos. Patty explains that it is easier to add more tags than not enough. I have tagged these with sunny, Texas, June, 2011, and cell phone. I also tagged the 1st photo with my nieces Megan and Kaitlyn and the 2nd photo with my son Dylan. So now that these are tagged lets say I wanted to find a photo taken in 2011 of my nieces in a sunny location. All I have to do is click on these 3 tags and walla you would bring up this photo. Sounds simple doesn't it?

It will take me a while to get all my photos tagged, but in the end I believe that it will help me so much. I have always used the organizer, but had not used the tags. She also tells you how to create multiple catalogs so that you can have 1 for photos and 1 for digital scrapbook supplies. I will next tackle tagging the scrapbook supplies, but as with the photos this will take me some time. To learn more of these great tips go to Patty's site located on the left side of my page and check it out. I never thought that I would learn how to do this stuff!

Have a wonderful day!!

The Digital Scrapbook Teacher

All of the classes that I took at GASC were digital scrapping classes. I did this cause I already know how to paper scrap for the most part and wanted to learn something new. The first class that I took was from Story Tellers. In this class we learned some of the basic techniques for digital scrapping. Here is what we made.

She taught us how to add a shadow, how to duplicate an element, and how to add a photo to a template. All this sounds so simple, but it is not.

The next 2 classes were taught by The Digital Scrapbook Teacher, Patty Debowski. I was in such awe of how well she taught us. As Patty will tell you she is not a techie. She now teaches, because when she tried to learn PSE there were not alot of great tutorials out there. She taught herself how to do many of the wonderful techniques with trial and error. She tries to tell all of her students how to do it the easy way to save us a headache.  I love how she can teach how to do something without getting so technical.

I ended up taking the class #6 Stamping, Distressing, and Making your own with PSE. This class was so much fun! We learned how to use brushes which are like stamps to us that are familiar with paper scrapping. She also told us to push every button and play with everything that is how you learn. If you make a mistake oh well there is always an edit button. She explained that some brushes are created to act a certain way. Look at the photo below.

Here we used the grass and leaf brush. As you can see as you click and drag the image changes colors and blends wonderful. How cool! She also taught us how to make our own digital papers.

The other class that I took was #7 Creating Montages with PSE. In this class we were taught how to take a picture and and add a person to the photo in different locations. Here take a look.

This is the same boy on the slide just in different locations. She took 3 pictures and taught us the Eraser Method and the Masking Method to create this photo. Pretty cool huh?

I also bought her new book Photoshop Elements Basics and Beyond. I am going chapter by chapter to learn new techniques on how to organize my photos and my digital scrapbooking elements. Patty has created a disk that has 3200 digital items already tagged and separated into categories. This saves hours of time!

Here is another picture of all the template disks that I also bought from her. I am so excited to learn how to do some of these amazing techniques with PSE.

I am also trying to butter up my dear hubby to let me attend one of Patty's Boot Camps. This is where for 2 days for 8 hours each day Patty teaches you all the ins and outs of the program. I so want to go. She is having a Boot Camp in Irving, Texas this year on October 22 and 23. I wouldn't have to pay for a hotel, because my parents live not too far from there. Hope that it works out for me.

If you want to find out more information about The Digital Scrapbook Teacher just click on my link on the left side of the page and it will take you to her site to check out all the wonderful products that she has to teach you with.

I want to wish everyone a glorious July 4th weekend and hope that you are spending it with the people you love!

Mouse, Paper, Scissors Hybrid Layout

Just realized that I never posted my hybrid layout that we created in Jessica Sprague and Heidi Swapp's class. This is one amazing class. It teaches you so much stuff that my brain hurt after taking it. I have reviewed the class many times so that I can get better at the techniques that Jessica teaches you in PSE. Heidi then explains how to put it all together. What a terrific team!

Here is one of my Twins Dylan riding his new scooter. As you can tell my printer is not so good on printing pictures. I am on the look out for a new one that does better.

This picture showes the titile and the 3 gems that I added.

This one shows some of the frames that we used around the pictures. I love this technique!

Here is the little element that we created. Jessica showed us how to use a brush to stamp the leaves and how to change the opacity so that you can see the lighter color. She also showed us how to add the words.

 

Here we used another brush stamp to stamp the circle for the journaling. Then Heidi showed us how to use tissue paper to create the white pleated look. As you can tell I need lots of practice on this part.

This is another view of the frames that we used on the photos.

Here again is the final product. All of the patterned paper is digital that Jessica showed us how to print out to use on this layout. Isn't that cool? Think of how many layouts you can create with these digital papers and you can use them over and over and never run out.

Hope that everyone has a wonderful Friday!