moving right along

at a snails pace.

I'm working through Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party as a self paced class, so I promise lots of Shimelle inspired layouts for the next little while.  I figured if I was going to make it to 50 before Christmas I would need a bit of a jump start.  Hopefully sometime in the next 34 layouts a spark of my own creativity will reignite.

So, 4 more for your viewing pleasure:

 This was fun.  Would you believe it is actually really a really old Christmas line?  I'm really happy to see it used and I think the bright colours work with all the toys.  I feel a bit guilty about this as it is almost a direct lift of one of Shimelle's but her layout worked for these papers and pictures.
(creativity score 0)

I had so many doodads to go with this wild turkey that I went overboard and ran out of room for the journaling.  It's partially hidden in the envelope.
The story is:  I was unloading the car after a day trip with my mother-in-law and this bird went trotting on by.  I grabbed the camera and snapped.  It's blurry but at least I have one picture.  I dropped all the bags and things to focus the camera but it was long gone.  I had no idea those things could move so fast.  Obviously it had a mission.  Funny thing is we're in a city and I took that picture from the parking lot. (Try singing the title to the tune of Turkey in the Straw.  Honest, I do try to spare you my bad humour. ;) )

 These gymnast statues are in the parking lot of a car mall with Costco.  There's more but these are the least bad of the lot I took that day.  Them, the fountains and the palm trees struck me as opulent when we first got here. Funny how I'm becoming accustomed to seeing these kinds of things now. They still strike me if I take the time to look.

Can you tell I was scrapping my desk?

Kraft!  Oh how we don't play well.  It's so brown paper bag like.  Drab!  Well, mission accomplished.  I perked this one up a bit with mist and stamping.
At least there are shiny parts now.
The pictures are of a spectacular sky we saw one day last September.  Nothing special really, except they show the return of the clouds that marks the beginning of fall here. (Summer has endless blue skies)  I forgot to do the journaling before I took this picture but it talks about everything I've said here and is in brown ink on the bottom white strip.


There seems to be discrepancy in the count already.  In one place I have 22 and here it's 20.  One of the missing projects was finishing up the stamp organisation.  There wasn't too many left but there were a few stragglers. So that makes 21 but where's the missing one?  Who knew that counting to 50 was so hard. lol

Have a great day!
~ Carolyn

and 3 more

I surf around and see really great ideas which I remember but I don't remember where I was.  Then it becomes like looking for a needle in a haystack to track them down.  I really need to find some way to keep track.

Anyways, since these aren't for contests or anything like that I'll share so you don't think I'm fudging the numbers. 

#1 - inspired by ? (please feel free to help me out here)

The text on the photo reads, "The cure for everything is saltwater:  sweat, tears or the sea. ~ Isak Dinesen"  I saw the quote on Pinterest and had to use it.  This beach picture was perfect.  If you can't read the little letters they say "Sid Style"  When Sid is really grateful he will come and touch foreheads.  It's an unusual gesture and I'm so happy I captured it.

# 2  This one was really sloppy of me.  I'm pretty sure it was a sketch.

The letter stickers are DIY Thickers that have been languishing in my stash.  This was my first time using them and it seemed to me that they needed to be coated in glossy accents, so I did.  Maybe if I had finer glitter or glitter in the right colour I would like them better.  Still, better used than stored.

You remember the trail from a couple of posts ago?  These were taken on the same one but a few miles south in San Jose. (not too far from the HP Pavilion aka The Shark Tank for the hockey fans) What on earth was a Peking duck doing there ?  We thought it was some strange kind of goose, that's how big it was, but, ducks and geese never flock and it was shaped wrong.  When we got home Dustin cooked and I surfed the web to find out.  He's good like that. :D

# 3 I'm not going to post.  It was a layout from my last birthday and has too much personal stuff on it but if I ever meet you in real life I would be happy to show you.

I did use this picture.  Can I say I just turned 12.  lol

So, up to 16 now plus a bunch of Christmas layouts half finished.

Back to the grindstone.
 Have a wonderful day
~ Carolyn

50 or bust (pt 1)

So yesterday I started talking about the 5o project challenge I'm doing.  That is 50 projects without purchasing anymore stuff.  I'm doing terribly.  The printer died and so I needed a new printer and ink and photo paper and then there was a stamp sale and then ....

So I reset my counter and started over.  Currently I'm sitting at 13, which isn't too bad for 6 weeks and a restart. (I guess?)

I can't think of a less painfully way to get you caught up with the progress than to just show you the pictures.  There's no fancy techniques or anything just me putting my nose to the grindstone and saying there's too much stuff in this place, so use it.

Starting with using up some Christmas supplies. By the time this is over I will have removed all the old Christmas things.








Next up layouts:

Tape on the Stairs

I've done this picture before but I never told the story of how it took 4 years to paint the stairs. I expect over the course of this challenge there will be a few more of these untold stories show up.

Surprise

I started this one with Shimelle's Sketch from this post. Icy really isn't a sign I would have expected to see just outside of San Juan Bautista.

Fine October Afternoon

This one reminds me of someone's layout but I can't figure out whose.  So, whoever you are please accept my apology for not giving credit.

Isn't that Hybiscus something?  They bloom here in October.  I'll never get used to that.

Today I Saw

At the Carwash

Both of these are from a walk I took last July.  RIP Stompin Tom.  I was singing with you that day.

Evidence

and what can I say about this one.  That bird was 6ft from our bed and woke up at 4:30 in the morning all summer yet we never knowingly saw it.  Couldn't help but know it was there though. ;)













I guess this last one is a little bit interesting.  When I saw Shimelle's sketch I immediately thought of the panoramics I had done from the top of mount Fremont last year. I don't really know why but it just clicked that this was the way to do them. So I turned the sketch, moved a couple of things and I really like how it turned out even if it is a little plain.

3169 feet (above see level)

So now the accounting:
1 double page lo    = 2 (I think it's cheating but them's the rules :D)
6 single page lo     = 6
5 completed cards = 5 (the 2 in the bottom left aren't quite finished.)
-----------------------------
Grand total            = 13

There are two more sitting on my desk right now, one needs the buttons attached and the other is competed.

Be back soon
~Carolyn

Long Time No See

Well long story short, Mum was here for a couple of weeks.  A nice quiet visit since she wasn't feeling well.  She left and left her virus with us.  It's made the rounds.  As always I got it last and ended with a sinus infection.  Whine, whine, whine.  Anyways that knocked the wind out of my sails for a while, not to mention the voice out of my throat.  I still can't speak for any length of time without a coughing fit.  Almost better now, though. (I hope)

So what else is new?

We went walking yesterday, or urban hiking as I call it since we were taking some of the trails as well as the roads.  The point was to get some pictures of the new football stadium going in just around the corner.  I'm a little uncertain about this, traffic, noise and all that but we'll see how it goes before I pass a harsh judgement.  On the positive side how often do new stadiums get built?  Quite exciting! It's a massive construction project and I wish I had started taking pictures when they first broke ground but here's how it is going so far.

About 2 blocks from home

It's a healthy couple of blocks but only about 5 mintutes until you can see the stadium rising in the background. Yes, they put they the stadium right next to a residencial neighbourhood.

 

 Turning right down the road we get to this staircase.  It's actually a train station but to us it's just a fast way to get up to the road above.

From the top of the stairs.  I still can't seem to catch the scale of this thing.  It will be big enough to host the Super Bowl.

Still walking down the road, here's the other side.  Yes I was standing somewhere I shouldn't have been.  Oops ;)

Notice the Sunday afternoon traffic. ;)

  

Zigzagging back and forth across the road.  The bridge crosses a creek.  It's sad that the trail is closed for over a year during the rest of the construction.  The VTA train is supposed to prevent traffic problems.  That is they are also building a huge parking garage across the road, right?

The other side of the trail is open so we went up it.  On both sides are parks and recreational areas.  The first picture, looks more or less south.  The second looks north and we can walk out to San Francisco Bay on it.  At this point there was a nice cool salt, breeze coming off of The Bay which was a good thing given I forgot the sunscreen and was turning a bit (well maybe a whole lot) red.

I worry about these guys 

And in other news, I think I have found a new scrappy home.  Leave me a note if you are interested.  There was a problem with trolls there, that I hope has been solved so that the board can be opened up again.  I would love to see my scrappy friends there.

Anyhoo, a  challenge was started 50 projects or Bust.  That is 50 projects without buying new stuff.    I joined!   Aaaack, what was I thinking?  Well, so far at 13 but I've been blogging long enough today so I'll post pictures tomorrow.  Blogger is being very, very slow to add image. :(

See you soon
~ Carolyn 

Jumping through hoops

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/5196529/?claim=e4k4env9dbd">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

So I have to paste code into a blog post to get bloglovin to recognise my blog.  argggh.

Found a petition to sign.  I doubt it will save reader as it has already disappeared from my options when I sign in to gmail.

Still if you have the time to sign it and share, here's the link

Save Reader Petition

Thanks
~Carolyn

Final Round of Stamps

There were a few things about Gelatos that I couldn't figure out how to write in a blog post so I took recorded some videos.  I'm still editing those but while I was in the mood (and playing with the video editor), I did a quick one to show you the rubber stamps.

Honest this shoe box and one layer on the lid are the only space I have in the craft area.  I could store more if I was willing to move more stuff into the closet.  That doesn't seem like a good idea to me.  You know out of sight, out of mind and all that.

I can't say that these are organised, the organisation is the indexing in the binders, but it is how they are stored.

And that's a wrap as they say, hope you enjoyed it.

The swelling is gone on the ankle.  It's just a bit twitchy now so I went walking.  The cherry trees are in full blossom and it was gorgeous today.  Spring is coming your way promise.

Hope your day was beautiful

~ Carolyn

So I want to say

I'm upset about Google reader. Scroll to after big bold mission statement to avoid the rant.

At the moment I'm experimenting with two alternatives, Feedly and Bloglovin.  I do like the interface of Feedly better, mainly because I can read the full article without leaving the reader BUT they depend on Google's RSS feed.  They claim they will have their own code ready by the time Reader is actually shut down but I'm not leaving that to chance. Bloglovin does not require Google's feed.  It's interface is OK, but I have to click through to see the posts and I have yet to figure out how to access the URL from non-active blogs.  I keep a few old challenge sites that I never got to participate in around in Reader for when I'm lacking inspiration. Really don't want to lose those.  Yeah, Yeah bookmarks. PITA

And what's this about personal blogging being dead?  Really???  More likely Google has not found a way to monetize it sufficiently and so it is not worth the resources.  As always, it's their business and their decision.  I'm understanding of the fact that I am not their customer but rather, their product, nonetheless what happened to their mission statement?

"Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful."

Rant over

Before I checked reader yesterday and got what will henceforth be known as "The Message" I had an idea.  Dangerous I know.

I've been playing with these things:

Gelatos

What's caught my eye?  Transportation and storage, that's what.  They are Chapstick sized tubes of water soluble colour that, oddly enough, have a Chapstick-like consistency.  Into the pencil case along with two empty misters (or more), a water brush, and away I go with everything I could need for stamping, painting, misting and colouring in any colour I could want in one compact, safe for travel package.  Maybe an old sippy cup for water too.  I do love multi-taskers!

Now watercolour and I have history.  The list on how I have failed with it, paper bags, portraits, stretching paper and so on, is quite long.  In fact, touching a watercolour-like thing makes me cringe but they looked too useful to not give them a fair shot. Since about September I've been giving them a fair shot and I'm pretty sure I can now do something with them.

Are you interested in short technique series or have these been done to death?


My day so far?  It started way too early as you may be able to tell from the time of this post.  Why, oh why did the child get up at 4:30.  Oh well, on the positive side my ankle is only a little swollen and  a bit stiff. Things are looking up for the weekend.

Until Later
~Carolyn