This past Saturday was insane. All fun but insane. I gave a baby shower for my friend Robin. It was a great success and she was delighted by the games and gifts and general fun. I'll be scrapping soon from the pic's that I took during the event. After the party, Robin and her husband, Ralph came by and I took a bunch of photos for them. I had a great time. Each time I do this I learn so very much. I printed out a proof sheet for them yesterday and worked up a few layouts. I wasn't as pleased with the pic's as I had hoped. A few were really washed out. Over exposed and I don't have a good tutorial that I have found for that. Also Ralph kept his head in perpetual motion. Lots of blurry pics. I will spend some time later in the week and try to come up with some much finer layouts. These three are from yesterday. The shower pics should be fun to use on some "cut loose" pages.On Anticipation I used a paper from the Songbird Take Flight Kit by Nancie of ScrapArtist called nrj take flight2 and floxetine font. On Excitement & Wonder the paper is from a web challenge at DesignerDigitals by Katie Pertiet called Wonder The font is Scriptina. For The Look I used VickiStegall's leap of faith paper 2 from The Leap of Faith kit for Songbird. Vicki is from Oscraps. The font is Deisel. I am so pleased that this couple is in our lives and that we will get to be surogate grandparents to little Ryan. I will have some baby and kid pictures after all.

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Just a quick note today. Jon had to work a short while this morning. We shared cocoa before he left for work and I gave him the card/album. He was sincerely touched by it. Said it was the finest thing that I had ever made for him. I was so pleased as that was my intent.

I won't have time for scrapping today but lots of photography. We are off to the annual Bellevue Art Fair. It is in the heart of downtown Bellevue and covers about six blocks. There is the juried art show,  the craft show,  the inside demonstrations and free entrance to the Art Museum. It is quite the event and we will most likely spend part of today and tomorrow there. Also tomorrow is the day that I will be taking photos of my little friend Robin and her husband. Thier first baby is due in three or four weeks. That is why I was so pleased by Crystal's blog on taking photos of a pregnant woman. More layouts this week if time allows.

The book that I won, "Cut Loose" came yesterday and I spent the better part of the day reading it from cover to cover. I had been watching (lurking) Crystal's web page for some time and had seen some of her work. I wanted to buy this book and was thrilled to win it. Now I must say that anyone who buys this book is a winner. It is so much fun to read and I already have sticky notes posted on several of the pages. I am anxious to begin this journey. I'll try to post a few of my pages for the first challenges next week. Al least for the ones that I have marked with ideas already. Thank you Crystal for such a wonderful work. Now if she could only convince the powers that be to let her teach in the greater Pacific Northwest. ... I need to let you know what I used on this L/O. The papers and the the flower are from Little Dreamers, lovey dovey kit. The crumpled corner is from Scrap Girls and the fonts are Bradley Hand, Impact and Amazon BT. This was done on PSE 6. It was fast and fun and not like me at all, thus my first attempt at cutting loose.

I spent some time this weekend playing with the photos from my birthday using the tutorial from Crystal's site. I had a tough time with the first one and then things kind of clicked. Here are a couple of the before and afters.The difference is wonderful. Thanks Crystal for the help.

    I've been able to spend some time today playing. I put together this layout using two photos from my recent birthday. This is my attempt to loosen up before reading Crystal's book. I am hoping it will arrive next week. I seem to be drawn to earth colors and muted embellishments. I will keep on trying to let go. At the very least everything isn't straight on this. I'll get there. I know I will. LOL