Boy has today been my day to Catch Up. I have been working like crazy. I finished two of the lessons from last week which really is four as there is a journaling lesson before the scrapping lesson. Now I will need to go back and see which papers and fonts I used so that I can post the finished layouts here. It has been crazy trying to stay current with the class and have company at the same time. Also that is, of course, when life decides to get in the way in many other ways. Things always get busy all at once.

I must rave a bit about the classes that I have taken from Jessica Sprague. They are so filled with information for those of us who digitally scrap that sometimes I feel like this old brain can't take it all in. Really she packs each class with so many ideas, goodies, and tasks, that you do start to become excited about what each day will bring. If you are interested in learning to scrap digitally her classes are great.

The class I am taking now is called Type+Write. It is heavy on writing and also on text work. I am learning how to grunge up text, how to tilt text, how to change a quote into a brush, etc. etc. Then I have to go and find the photos to use. Not having young ones around stretches my imagination quite a bit when it comes to subject matter.  'nuf said. Here are the first two:

In The Final Tally I used: Mod Circles and Torn 'n Tattered paper templates by Anna Aspnes, Barcelona Circles-Lynn Grieveson, Vintage frame, stiched journaling strips,postmark locations brushes and stamps,-K. Pertiet, The Final Tally template and TW papers by J. Sprague, santana black, and PeaLisa fonts.

In 17 small things I used Notebook Coordinate 2 paper, TW-green solid, TW-Gold dots, and template by J. Sprague, KingMe 3 and Serenity 8 papers-K. Pertiet, KH Mize Pacific Point Stripes paper. Quote by Beverly Williams and Justus and Charms BV fonts.

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Wow, I can't believe how long it has been since my last post. My mother has been here visiting from Florida. It is her annual visit during hurricane season. She spend a few weeks with us and then a few weeks with my brother in Edmonds (just north of Seattle) and then home again. She lives in a small town in the middle of the state and it is usually safe from hurricane damage, but we always feel better with her here. She told us upon her arrival that she will not be flying again. Perhaps thae train next time. The airports are just too much trouble for an 85 year old. Standing in lines and all of the hassle is more than she cares to deal with. It is a shame as air travel used to be the easiest mode of transportation. She is healthy and sharp as a tack and for this we are very grateful. I will post a few layouts soon. 

In the meantime I started taking a journaling class from the Jessica Sprasgue site this past week and that has also taken up most of the time that I can get away and be on the computer. I hope to have some wonderful layouts to share soon. Because of Jon being on vacation while Mom is here, I haven't really been able to do much more than keep up with the writing for the class. Will do more next week. Mom goes to Bruce and Kristie's today and Jon returns to work tomorrow. Study time...

I look forward to sharing more of my work soon. I really appreciate the feed back that I recieve on my work. It is a help when you can get ideas from folks who do and love the same things that you care about. This family at mycraftivity is wonderful. Thanks for all of the support.This is a picture of my mother and me with my son and daughter-in-law. We were at our local coop having dessert and coffee.

I am not in the habit of entering contests but I do love reading scrapping magazines both paper and on line. One of my favorites is the Digital Artists Magazine that I have been getting through ScrapArtist.com. This month they are having a month long party on their blog site and so I decided to take a peak. Shouldn't have done it..  I have been lurking and entering several of the contests ever since. I haven't been a winner but I am finding out that contests are very much like challenges. I am so leary for some silly reason aboutentering a challenge. Perhaps now I won't be so frightened. Here is the layout I did for one of their challenges and the photo of where I had it sitting.

I used the paper from this months DAM kit called Calypso by Hollydesigns and the swirl and parenthesis are from ScrapArtist Lisa Whitney's kit Zesty. The word art is from the Digital Artists Magazine blog site and the font on the journaling is Georgia.

I finished this layout today of Mayumi and her children, Shannon and Cody at the new wading park the other day. We had just gone earlier to visit Robin and her new son. The new park with all of it's water spouting fun is located just two blocks from where I live. We packed snacks and watched Shannon and Cody run and play. The only thing missing is some shade for the on-lookers (we adults) to sit under. As the park just opened this summer, we are hoping that this oversight will be corrected in the months to come. At the least by next year.

The layout was made using a red paper from Two Peas- All Twitterpated kit by CheriMask, and the word art is from an Oscraps TaylorMade tutorial.

I have had almost no time to create and/or be on the computer this week. Then after thinking that I could spend the weekend creating, I remembered that Jon's company picnic is this Sunday at the race track (this should be fun). I will take my camera and see what I can get. It is so hard to believe that just a few months ago I was feeling creatively blocked and then with my copy of Cut Loose I am now finding all kinds of things that I want to scrap and wanting more hours in my days. I will post a few older things today and hopefully have something new soon. These were both done last fall. The puppy page is using a template from Jen Caputo from a class with Jessica Sprague. The second one was completed following a Jessica Sprague Friday Photoshop Tutorial.

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