~ five things ~

1.  I wrote on my first photo.  Ali Edwards and Elise Blaha Cripe do it all the time, so I tried it.  It worked.  Here's a sneak peak:

2.  I am participating in a One Little Word Blog Hop on March 1st.  Please stop back to see where my word has taken me this month!

3.  I've been loving instagram lately!!

4.  I bought a new printer so that I can print photos in the sizes that I want (even those instagrams and hipstamatics from the iPhone).  I will still get most of my photos at Walgreens or Snapfish, but this will be nice when I need something a little different than a 4x6, 5x7 or 8x10 -- and I don't want to take the time to make it work in photoshop!

5.  I have a knack for not finishing things.  Part of the problem is that I see the world through orange colored glasses, which is sometimes a bit too optimistic.  ;-) I frequently bite off more than I can chew!  On flickr alone I've failed a 365, two color groups and, most recently, a December in Photos group!!  But I have officially completed something!  Good or bad, it's done!  I present to you, February's Alphabet Fun 2012:

Click on a title if you like to see a photo bigger.  :-) 1. ~ a is for apples ~, 2. ~ b is for breakfast ~, 3. ~ c is for contagious ~, 4. ~ d is for drinks ~, 5. ~ e is for enjoying the iPad with elmo ~, 6. ~ f is for fork ~, 7. ~ lime light ~, 8. ~ h is for hearts ~, 9. ~ i is for instrument ~, 10. ~ j is for jazz ~, 11. ~ k is for king of hearts ~, 12. ~ l is for living ~, 13. ~ b. my baby ~, 14. n is for no valentine, 15. ~ o is for operation ~, 16. ~ p is for pre-performance shot ~, 17. ~ quaternary quarters ~, 18. ~ red rose ~, 19. ~ sneakers ~, 20. ~ textual textures ~, 21. ~ unfinished ~, 22. ~ volume at eleven ~, 23. ~ white winter (with a little red) ~, 24. x is for x-treme biking, 25. ~ y is for yawn ~, 26. ~ zero ground clearance ~ #thehereios

~ whispers of balance ~

I'm not sure I will use all of these photos for my OLW project this month, but these are a just a few ways that my word has whispered to (and sometimes yelled at) me lately.  I will post more about all of this on my blog for the March 1st OLW Blog Hop!

waiting for surgery

it just keeps popping up

asleep on the way to grandma and grandpa's

a few moments to stop and smell the roses

baby steps

~ OLW blog hop ~

I'm so excited (and a bit nervous) to be participating in my first blog hop ever!  If you are visiting for the first time and you like what you see, please feel free to follow me by clicking over on the right!

As mentioned in previous posts, I am participating in a class over at Big Picture Classes called One Little Word with the fabulous Ali Edwards.  This is my first attempt at this class and I am enjoying pretty much everything about it.  I look forward to checking the gallery each day to see what my classmates have come up with.  This month, I have enjoyed the prompts and feel like they have helped me get to know my word, balance.  The one thing that has been difficult for me this round has been making decisions about the small stuff!  As I shared in my last post, I'm sweating the small stuff and I don't like it!!  :-) What I love most about this process though, is watching my word continue to pop up in my life everywhere!

But let's get to the photos and the process of putting it all together.  I'll start with the final product and if you are interested in the details keep reading.  Deal?

My word, balance.  The title page is a photograph that I took on January 1st, the same day I announced my One Little Word in this post, which also explains why/how I chose it (or it chose me) and how the necklace in the photo is related to my word.

January page with title page

January 2012

The decision making part of this was the most difficult.  Choosing the word was easy and picking out the album color wasn't at all a problem either, of course.  I saw a scrapbook layout online a while back that used a grey and orange color scheme and loved it.  I didn't pin it (I'm pretty sure I didn't even know about Pinterest at that time), so I couldn't find it again, but I remembered the colors and when this project came up I knew I wanted to use that palette.  But then....white or grey prompt cards?  type or handwrite? etc.  To illustrate the difficulties that I had early on, I give you this photograph...

indecision

These were all for one quotation card!  I love the quote, "Life is like riding a bicycle, to keep your balance you must keep moving" by Albert Einstein.  This was the first card I worked on, and I decided if they were all going to take as long as this one, I was in trouble!  The real trouble was that I made six before I settled on this one...

I couldn't stop at just one quote!  I also chose a quote by Henri Matisse, "What I dream of is an art of balance".   I happen to love Matisse, so I was extra excited when I found it.  I purchased a digital print of a Matisse painting online and printed it for my page.  I chose this particular one because the people somehow remind me of my word -- and I like the colors.  There are three layers, the base layer (the grey card stock is a bit of BazzillBasics (canvas) smoky goodness).  The top layer is just the print, and I threw a bit of orange for good measure - a bit of an orange sandwich, if you will!  I used this EK Success edger punch for some added fun, and wrote the quote going up the side.  This one only took a couple of takes (headed in the right direction).

Probably my favorite card is the homemade chevron pattern, with the date.  Inspired by this post by Katie Scott, I decided to add some chevron fun.  First, I punched squares out of various paper.  Next, I cut the squares in half and, finally, glued into a chevron pattern!  Easy peasy!  (Now we're getting somewhere)

And then, my word, Balance, written over two cards.

For this I inked, cricuited (heh, new word) and sewed.

This awesome embossed card stock, BazzillBasics' Tin Roof, was the base of these two cards.  I cut them to fit and then I rounded the corners with my Creative Memories Corner Rounder.  I lightly inked the raised parts with orange (of course) Stampabilities pigment and then ran the edges across the ink pad, too.  I used the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge to cut out the letters on my Cricut.  I was able to use several patterned papers from my stash.  Finally, I got out my new(ish) sewing machine (read about my first adventure with that here) for a few, very imperfect finishing touches. 

I had several mistakes that actually worked, which is always nice if you have to have mistakes!  One is pictured below.

I had this great idea to use this awesome EK Success punch at the bottom of the thesaurus card (my first mistake was not spacing out the words to fill the card).  I completely forgot that this punch doesn't really create a border, it detaches completely from the original paper!  So I just stuck some patterned paper behind it, glued 'er down and called it a day.  

Overall, I'm please with the final product and it was fun!  I hope I didn't add too many boring details, but I happened to take a few photos while in the process and thought I'd share!

One more thing...looking for that self-portrait?  I have taken a few, but been quite unhappy with all.  So...I'll try again, soon.

Thanks for stopping by!  Next up, Tere!  

Margie 

Sharyn 

Jill

Lynn  

Jenn

Carmen  

Marilee

Kristina            

Cindy C 

Kelly

Cheri    

Amanda            

Cindy  

Brooke            

Naomi

Melissa            

Karen  

Melissa S            

Devon  

Donna 

Dawn                        

Katrina             

Sam                        

Monica             

Kimberlee              

Missus W            

Kaylea                         

Nikki                        

Erin                        

Jo                        

Coley                        

Beth                        

Veronica            

Jamie                        

Monica B            

Lisa                   

Rebekah         

Jan                  

Cate

Stephanie              

Orange Gearle   <~~~~~ you are here!  :-)            

Tere                           

Junelle                   

Ruth                  

Becky                  

~ news ~

As you may have noticed from my previous posts, my older daughter, H. and her daughter M. are staying with us for a while.  This means I will be taking more and more photos of my grandbaby, M. and sharing them here. B. is a bit confused when I'm called "Grandma", and always says, "You're not Grandma!", but overall we are adjusting the the change.  Aunt B. looks forward to the days that M. is here to see her when she gets home, and M. is always full of smiles when we walk in the door.  Here they are playing with hats...

Both girls have been a bit under the weather lately, and B. learned how to take her own temperature...

I have completed more of my December Daily album, but it's status is still incomplete!  I believe I've passed the halfway mark, and I'm needing to print (and/or reprint) some photos in order to finish.  I will finish!!  And when I complete it, I will share.

I am participating in a blog hop on Wednesday!  My first.  It's a One Little Word blog hop, and I will unveil my January page.  But...it's not done!  YIKES!  I'm having a difficult time fitting it all in -- balancing it all, if you will.  ;-) This 365 photo project is kicking my butt!  Since I was explored (six times in one week!) I really dislike posting photos that are not very good, even more than I did before.  Some sort of pressure that I am putting on myself (as usual) and it's really silly!  Same with the OLW project.  It should be quite easy.  I'm having problems making decisions like...Should I hand write it, or type it up?  Should I use a grey background for the assignment pieces, or white?  Should I write in grey or orange ink?  Etc.  Just when I think I've made a decision, I change my mind again.  I've done the same little 2.5x3.5 quote insert at least 8 times, and I'm still not sure it's right!  I do have one of the quote inserts completed (I think there will be two).  I have it basically planned out, but I haven't found the proper amount of time to implement. I haven't been able to make simple decisions -- pretty much about color, so it's holding me back.  It's so unbelievably silly!!!  I stayed up until 2 AM working on it Saturday night -- plenty of time for a person that can make decisions to complete it, but alas, not I!  Maybe my word should have been decide! :-)

I do know these things:
Orange and grey will be the main colors.
I enjoy the project, just not the decisions.
Next month will be easier, because the basic color decisions will have been made.
I am excited about the blog hop!  (So come back and visit Wednesday morning by 8 am)!

~ mostly photos ~

Just a quick post to share some photos that I like from  the last week and a half or so.  The first comes from Christmas Eve at my folks.  This is my mother, B., and my granddaughter, M., waving out the door as SANTA left!  Yes, my mother arranged for Santa to visit the girls on Christmas Eve!!!  She's amazing!  Shortly after this photo was taken, Bea yelled, "Bye Santa....hey...yook at the yights!"  She really wanted Santa to see Grandma's outdoor Christmas lights!

The next three are from Christmas Day at the other grandma's house.  The first is B. looking at her new dollhouse!  She loves it!  We are working on finding a way to get it to our house so that she can play with it more often (it's so big, we really don't have the space).  

Did you know that the next Olympic sport is nearly-naked iPadding?  ;-)  This is a sight frequently seen in our home, however this shot was captured on Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Cousins, all on iPads, the younger brother more concerned with what his older brother is doing than with the iPad itself (as is usually the case).

Below you will find days 2 and 3 of my 365 adventure (I shared day one here).  I must admit that I am already just taking random, unplanned shots that may or may not work!  That's not a good start to the year!  Day two was going to be me standing on my piano bench in brightly colored socks and PJ bottoms.  However, B kept climbing onto the bench!  So, for the first Bench Monday of the year (and photo 2/365), I submitted a black & white of B's tiny toes.

2/365

Tuesday was my first day back at work and it was long and busy (and the alarm clock was not welcome)!  The three of us went grocery shopping after work and I snapped this "number" shot for the We're Here! flickr group that I am a member of.  As it was my only shot of the day, it is also my day 3 of 365.  There is something about this iPhone shot that I do like.  It could be better, but the green and numbers make me happy in some way.  :-)

3/365

OLW update.  I decided to use the photo of my necklace as my title page for my One Little Word book.  After going back and forth about using PSE for the word "balance" or printing it without the word and adding some sticker alphas, I (think I) settled on the PSE version.  For some reason when I upload this photo it looks like the necklace is gold, but it is silver.  Not really sure why.  :-(  Anyway, a funny story.  I went to pick up my photos and Walgreens and they questioned if this was a photo that I took or if it was professional.  It even had "pro release" written on the front of the envelope, questioning if I needed a release from the professional that took the photo.  I know that it is just because of the overlay, but I still said, "Thank you" when he said that it looked professional!

In the same vain, a few weeks ago I received a flickr email from Getty Images, asking if I would like to license some of my photos (chosen by them through my flickr photostream) for commercial use.   Getty Images is an "invitation-only service for Flickr members to license their photos for commercial use" (quote from the email).  They found six photos in my my photostream that they thought I should license.  I had to fill out a bunch of forms (W2-type stuff) and I still need to get releases for five of the photos (because they have people in them) before they can be placed on their website for sale.   I didn't do much with it until the last week or so, but one of my photos (that didn't need a photo release because there are no people) is currently "for sale", which just cracks me up. 

4/365

Finally, today is Gwamma's birthday.  Among other things, Gwamma got soft pink jammies for her birthday and I got photo four for my 365 project.

~ balance ~

Happy New Year!

I've started many new projects today!  Last year at this time I began my first 365 (photo a day) project on flickr.  I failed in August.  When I say "failed" I mean that I didn't complete the project, started missing days and gave up.  However, I did (virtually) meet some wonderful people along the way!  Many of them completed their 365's yesterday and are beginning a new one today.  I, too, am beginning again, today!  I am hopeful that I will succeed this year.  Many of the people that I met through the 2011 project, are also doing a 52 week project (one photo per week).  I'm doing that, too!  The social aspect of these flickr groups are really powerful, encouraging, and helpful along the way.  I'm very excited for these two projects!  I will continue to participate in several other groups like 112 pictures in 2012 (I failed at that one last year, too) and one of my favorites, the group We're Here!  I think both of those groups will help move the 365 project along and I will be less likely to get into a rut.  I will overlap photos for these projects as needed.  That should make it more manageable.  Now that I know a bit more about myself and the groups and how it all works, I think I have an advantage as I begin this year.  Overall, my goal is to have fun and learn a little more about photography along the way.

Another project that I started today is called One Little Word 2012.  This is an online class, taught by Ali Edwards through Big Picture Classes.  The basic idea is that you choose a word for the year (or let the word choose you).  This is a word to "focus on, meditate on, and reflect upon" throughout the year.  This year long class guides you through the year with your word by providing monthly prompts to help you get to know your word, focus or refocus around the word, and make your word more visible in your life.  I'm super excited to begin this project!!

I had a difficult time choosing my word!  If you know me at all you know that I have a difficult time making decisions or making up my mind sometimes!  Well, this was no exception!  I thought about the word "present" or "presence".  I thought this might be a good word for me because sometimes I am not "present" with my family like I should be.  Instead of being present, I will be thinking about work, photos, scrapbooking, you name it!  I can't tell you how many times B has come over to me and shut my computer for me!!!  But the word I kept coming back to was "balance".

In my work, it is important to create the perfect balance when providing instruction for students.  That's where I first met my word.  I found myself, over the last year, using the word "balance" a lot when discussing professional books that I was reading, when coaching other teachers, or when working on other projects with my colleagues.

Then I had the miscarriage, another encounter with the word.

After I miscarried my mother gave me a necklace.  The necklace had a gem on it and a round, silver charm with a symbol on it.  My mom isn't really into zodiac signs, but the symbol on the charm is the libra "sign" (which happens to be my sign).  I looked up more information on the symbol and it lead me to read about what a Libra "is".  "Balance" kept coming up.  Here is one example of what I saw when I searched:

Part of balance in my life is balancing work and play, creative times and family times, and realizing that balance doesn't always mean "equal".  Another part is related to food and exercise, which includes a balance of good food and fun food!  :-)  And still another is related to my first encounter with the word, as it pertains to balanced instruction within my professional life.  So, balance it is.

My first photo of the year, taken with my new macro lens, "balance" :

the necklace that inspired my OLW

I think I might be using this photo on the cover page of my OLW project as well.  I will share my pages as I finalize them.

Oh, and by the way....I have NOT finished my Dec. Daily project!  I've had an extra busy winter break that has put me a bit behind!  I will not allow it to go onto the "failed in 2011" list!  :-)

~ dec. daily - 1, 2, 3 ~

I was finally able to complete a few pages of my December Daily album, at least enough to post.  I think it is possible that some pages may continue to get tweaked here and there, but for now...let's go!

the cover page

I would like to do something fun with the left side, have a few ideas, but nothing is quite working at this point!

I'm finding myself using a lot of kraft (the book that I'm using from Elise Blaha's etsy shop has some, and I've added some with embellies, letters, etc.).  But there is also some traditional red and green.  I like it!   The cover page lists some of the things I would like to do in December.  Cricut for numbers, Martha Stewart letter punch for alphas.

day one spread

Day one -- Highlighting a new tradition in our house (the 25 wrapped books), and a trip with Daddy to Menards.

Thickers "one", EK punch on photo mat and more help from my Cricut for the tag!

One of the things I was waiting for in the mail was the cool Hambly Transparent Sheets that Ali Edwards is using.  Although they came in a timely fashion, I was late to decide I wanted them, so I had to wait.  They were worth it!  Here is one dividing my two stories for day two (Bea taking pictures, and packages beginning to arrive on our doorstep)...

day two spread - left

day 2 spread - right

I added the paper on the right.  The paper, along with the letter stickers on this spread are from Memory Works- 25 Days of Christmas 6x6 paper pad that I purchased at my local scrapbooking store.

Day three we decorated the Christmas Tree!  For this one I had a bunch of photos (none of which were THE PERFECT PHOTO), so I created a collage in Picasa and printed it as a 5x7.  Then, cut and adhered it across the two pages.

day three spread

t{h}ree -- get it??? 

Day four and five are half done, and day 7 only needs a spot of journaling and a number.  I have photos printed out for all pages through day 13, and most of the rest are picked out, just not printed.  This past weekend we had one family Christmas celebration, so I have many to choose from for that day -- and not so many on others.  I am going to try to allow myself to not get hung up on exactly what day something occurred (at the encouragement of Ali Edwards).

On another note, I signed up to do One Little Word 2012 with Ali Edwards, through Big Picture Classes.  Let's see, One Little Word, a 365 +1 group and a 52 weeks group on flickr, plus my family, job and other crafty fun...what am I thinking??? Oh, and this blog that no one reads!  :-)

Geez, do I worship Ali Edwards?  I've mentioned her a lot today!

One more thing...cool app...needed by all.