It's a Small Small World

I think it was November Doris put out a CT call and the team got sizabley larger... While engaging in the usual meet and great, I discovered one of the new gals Anne
had recently moved to Northern California... so I inquired a bit more... seems Anne lives about two miles from me... and it didn't stop there! After a couple of lengthy emails we discovered we both grew up in Napa! WOW!
Well one thing led to another and Anne had mentioned she wanted to learn how to "blend" photos, so I offered to meet her at a nearby Starbucks and teach her. That was Friday, we had a lot of fun! We spent about 4 hours there.. I could have stayed all day, but that's beside the point! LOL Anne was a fabulous student and took right to the technique I showed her! I had pulled up a couple pictures and a paper for Anne to work with and her final product was so good it inspired me to go home and do some "blending" I started with a new kit from Doris and an old picture of Anna Nicole Smith I had kicking around and came up with this:




I kind of like it just like that, but I figured I should show more of Doris' beautiful kit... so I pulled out this wonderful groupie from the kit.. it made the layout so, so easy, Doris had pretty much done all the work! LOL I dropped in a couple more pictures of Anna Nicole and just like magic...





credits:
ForEverLasting by Doris Castleavailable here http://tinyurl.com/a7swj8 at SBG
Eerie Garden by Doris Castleavailable here http://tinyurl.com/3w69k3 at SBG
Fonts - Passions Conflict, MSReference

re: Anna Nicole.... I was never a big fan, but I certainly appreciated where she had been and what she had done.. and the deaths of both Anna and her son were terribly tragic... I was deeply affected when I heard the news...another fighter gone...

Behind Again!

aack! I've been having a hard time shaking the blues...I've been creating, just not posting! I think I'll make these seperate posts and post them in the order they occured..
The first is a layout I did for Doris, but it says Lorrie Davison as much as it says Doris Castle. The three most important people in my like... my husband, my daughter and my grandson



credits
Let Me Count The Ways... Templates By Dorisavailable here: http://tinyurl.com/8dmw7u
The Beep Beep Bugs Kit By Lorieavailable here: http://tinyurl.com/9twlps
Twitterpated Passion Collection Kit By Lorieavailable here: http://tinyurl.com/7v3ngx
Edgy Edges - Bedazzled Curls By Birgitavailable here: http://tinyurl.com/8cpt8u

Slide!

Build your own Slide Skin!
I built this one from an upcoming Studio Girls Collaborative Kit (Impressions of Imagination) at Scrapbook Graphics
What a great way to personalize your slide show!

Jessica Mellott (again)

The beautiful and talented Jessica Mellott...

Many thanks to Jessica for the use of her photo. You can find Jessica on my space... stop in and listen to her music, you won't be disappointed http://myspace.com/jessicamellott

credits:
snow drift by Doris Castle available
at SBG http://tinyurl.com/5fvm3v

font - passions conflict

Maybe Okay!

hmmm... for feeling like i'm in a funk.... i'm thinking these didnt come out too bad....

my beautiful daughter.. long, long ago

credits:

White Chocolate by Lily Designs at After Five.... http://tinyurl.com/5t9nv2

Heart Strings Alpha By Lorie Davison at Scrapbook Graphics http://tinyurl.com/5ecmkq

font - moms typwriter

my cousins daughter

credits-

Rustic Chalet by Doris Castle available at scrapbook graphics http://tinyurl.com/56o7fa

Quick Not Short

not short but quick!?

lets see.. one of my beautiful cats is very ill and i think I am going to need to have her put down tomorrow,(she's 16) it makes me very sad and that will make 2 old fluffy friends that we lost this year... The poor rthing has a tumor on her jaw and its causing her teeth to be loose and fall out on that side and she's always drooling bloody spit and now something is making her eye on thaat side pop out and turn red... she cant close it... today she didnt even come down to eat...

One day last week one of my friends from church committed suicide... the funeral is thursday afternoon

Ive done a bit of scrapping while Kalleigh has been sick to keep my mind off  her when I wasnt pushing her food up into mountains so she could eat it and wasing blood off her face, so i'll share some of those

my cousins son in the garden

 

3 versions of a funeral program

the grandson

The Prince of latvia... LOL (myspace friend)

former cat sitter now at the U of U

a birthday card for a friend

scrap therapy!

credits later... sorry (Doris Castle, Lorie Davison, Aneta Branch and Ivy)

Studio Doris

Picture taken in Napa last year scrapped with the latest from Studio Doris



Whispers of Autumn elements and Papers
by Doris Castle available here at SBG:
http://tinyurl.com/453dsk
http://tinyurl.com/3eetrz

Leaf cluster Blog gift by Doris Castle:
http://tinyurl.com/3zwejj

Folded Ribbon from Eerie Garden by
Doris Castle Availabel here at SBG:
http://tinyurl.com/3w69k3

Stitching from Gathering Hearts by Doris Castle
Cucrrently retired

tiny tag from Little Darlings by Doris Castle
currently retired

Sequins From Bling It Baby by Traci Murphy
at Funky Playground Designs - currently retired

font: Angelina

FREEBIE

Would you like a gift from Doris Castle?
Receive this FREE Leaf Groupie as a FREE For All at Doris's Scraps of Life Blog.



This groupie coordinates beautifully with the Whispers of Autumn Backgrounds, Embellishments and Quick Page Album

OScraps Designer Spotlight Challenge Merkeley Designs

Photos I took while on a road trip with my mom
last year.

LO created for the designer spotlight Sept 1 to Sept 7 2008
The challenge was harder that at first I thought...
I had to go back 2x and add things.
the challenge can be found here: available here at OScraps,
Fanciful Overlays
by Doris Castle. available at Scrapbook Graphics
http://tinyurl.com/5eyw9y

fonts:
Passions Conflict, Rosewood Std, Times New Roman

Sweet Sixteen

I have recieved some wonderful news from Studio Doris! Doris is comming back to digi! YEAH!!!
And to start things off, she has a little number called "Peaceful Joy" she has done for The Story Tellers Club!
I used "Peaceful Joy" along with pieces of her "Exceptional" kit (previously at Scrapbook Graphics) and her new "Fancyful Overlays" available here: http://tinyurl.com/5eyw9y to scrap another photo I lifted from my nieces Facebook Page.



fonts: Mutlu, Rosewood Std., Times New Roman

Game Time

This is Rye playing a new Nick game on my computer. I loved the faces he made as he made his way to new worlds as well as the ones he made when he lost lives. He was so cute I just couldn't resist giving him an extra 30 minutes after the timer went off.

In this layout I adjusted the levels on ALL the papers and elements to the same specification to achieve the "brightness" I also Layered two papers for the background.

When I pulled this up today to post it. ( I put it away at 3am ) I noticed a couple things I wanted to change but I can't find the psd file... grrrr!




credits:
Impressions Of Laughter By Studiogirls at SBG
ScrapDrawers: Dictionary Definitions By Doris Castle at SBG
ScrapDrawers: Fasteners By Doris Castle at SBG
fonts: Passions Conflict / Times New Roman

Here's a preview of the kit so you can see the original colors

Buds

Dan (left) and Craig (right) have been friends since Junior High and I thought it would be fun to do a layout for them but the only picture I had of them together had a lady standing between them. Naturally I had to cut her out. LOL that's just me.. she was distracting from the purpose of the layout, Dan and Craig's friendship.

I admit I didn't do the best job... Because of their height difference I couldn't just slide them together and stitch the photo... I had to rebuild Dans entire side next to Craig (the lady was standing in front of Dan covering his entire shoulder upper arm as well as the edge and top of his ear.)

When I got that done I decided I didn't like the background... it was just white (snow)so I went through some other photos I had from events they were at together and found this one with trees in it. When I extracted the picture of the guys and lay-ed it on the new background, there was a skier doing a jump over Craig's head. No matter how much I tried I just didn't seem to be able to cover him up, So you got it... cloned him out! LOL THEN I noticed the new background was bright and sunny but the boys had snow flakes on them, so I cloned them out too!.

Once I got this made up picture of Dan and Craig it was time to lay it out... I love Doris Castle's Lost Mojo kit, not just because it was inspired MOI but because it's FUN! Can you believe even though I have three ever so slightly different versions here, I'm not really sure I like any of them? LOL!!! maybe I should go back to the original photo.... uh then..... maybe NOT! If you look at the picture long enough you will notice Dans chest is too broad and he has no upper arm, but other than that, maybe it's not so bad! LOL

New From Studio Doris!

One day last month I took an impromptu trip to
DD house for a quick visit... just a couple of hours,
while looking at the pictures I took that day, I
realized why it is that I get so exhausted when I'm
with my grandson. These are just the things I took
pictures of.. he did lots more! I got pictures of him
painting, running through the sprinkler, taking
pictures with mommy's camera, bouncing in his
bounce house and resting... I know he also played
with the dog, played with the cats, ate,
played catch, Frisbee and batted with daddy...

Whew, I get tied just thinking bout it!

I used items From the collab project Chelsea's Garden
by Doris Castle and Diane Rigdon available at SBG
http://tinyurl.com/64fxov
http://tinyurl.com/6hnmvd
http://tinyurl.com/5dkj4j
http://tinyurl.com/5jc7s9
http://tinyurl.com/68fmsy
http://tinyurl.com/6x9q7x
http://tinyurl.com/5cvmwa

I also used swirl brushes by Aneta Branch (aka Sweet Made)
available at Ashalee and Sweet
curl template by Marcie Reckinger at funky playground
curl action by Tracy Murphy also at Funky Playground

Fonts: Passions Conflict, Times New Roman



Since his first finger painting, I have been
amazed at Rylie's painting skills, not because
of the realism, but because of his sense of
completion, He has a very minimalist style
to his work. This day he added just a touch
of glitter glue!

I used a close up of his art as the back with
a paper from the kit layer blended over it
to add a bit of color and texture

I used items from the collab project
Chelsea's Garden by Doris Castle and Diane Rigdon
available at SBG

http://tinyurl.com/64fxov
http://tinyurl.com/6hnmvd
http://tinyurl.com/5dkj4j
http://tinyurl.com/5jc7s9
http://tinyurl.com/68fmsy
http://tinyurl.com/6x9q7x
http://tinyurl.com/5cvmwa

font - passions conflict

Belle Jeune Femme

Ok... I have spent enough time licking my wounds from the last scrapper standing competition... I have wonderful news! Studio Doris has returned to SBG! So stop on over and take a look at Doris' newest kit Eerie Garden. I used it to scrap this beautiful photo of my niece




credits:

Doris Castle's new kit Eerie Garden
available at SBG. http://tinyurl.com/6hdcd3

also, Bow by Vera Lim from the April DST
gold member kit Free Love

Elements from Lori Wiley's Blue Magic Element
set available at Lori Wiley Designs http://tinyurl.com/5ra35e

and Lori Wiley's collab kit with Melgen Designs,
Mountain Valley also at Lori Wiley Design's http://tinyurl.com/67j3l8

font: CKBoutique

Scraps of Life

those of you from the digiscrap community might recognize that as the name of Doris Castle's blog... ... ... that's because I come bearing glad tidings from studio doris! Doris is having a blog contest.... read about it here... and pick up a new studio doris blinkie while you're there!

SALE!!!

Add $30 worth of great kits to your cart at Studio Doris, upon checkout, enter Coupon Code: SPRINGFLING30 to receive discount.

Woo Hoo!

Check it out!

April 11/07 justjulz's "bare footing"
3Scrapateers Layout Pick of the Day!

April 11/07 justjulz's "bare footing"

What a great layout for the newest trend, photo popping! Great extraction, and terrific journalling to go along with it!To see Justjulz's gallery, click here.


Thanks kiki-kins! you made my week! Hugs! ~Julz

ACTION!

Some of you may know that when I get a creative block I often go out begging for other peoples photos. I don't know why, but I always find them so much easier to work with. Thanks to an old friend of mine, I didn't need to go begging this time. He has the coolest action photos of his family... I have never had an opportunity to work with such photos before and I think I'm addicted. Take a look at what I have done with his photos

More Fun

MIA.. yeah.. I'm not ready to talk about it! But I do have this to share with you....

Falling Behind!

Ack! My life has run away with me! Holidays have been tough for a while.. I really thought I was going to beat it this year... I know my limits and have learned to say "no"! I try to leave room for the unknown but it would seem have yet to estimate how much "unknown" I will have. The thing about me is that I "appear" to be "well" most of the time. That appearance consumes energy.. blah blah blah.. enough of that garbage...

My computer is about ready for it's annual reformatting, I defragged the hard drive and the registry, but it is still moving slow and the items on my task bar seems a bit small. Ho Hum.. I hate reformatting, it often takes me 6 months to get everything back on and tweeked just right.... I tried to scrap last night and waited a half an hour for PSCS to load... then I just dumped it, I didn't want to wait anymore... I can't post my layouts to the photosite page either... I don't think I have enough ram to run the program anymore... all it wants to do is crash! grrr... Anyway, I thought I would share with you some of the layouts I have been able to finish! This first one, is of course, that little cutie of a grandson of mine... The products I used were created by the very talented Doris Castle for "The Storytellers Club". To be honest with you, I haven't been able to locate it over there.. so no link.. sorry...

OK... now another one of the little cutie! he he.. again using products by Doris Castle this time created for Cottage Arts.. this is Simply Love 1 Paper and Element paks.I really like the way this one came out! I wasn't sure what to put as journaling so I just used the lyrics to the Carpenters song "Close to You"

Oh now more fun! I went out and bought the little guy a bunch of finger paints. Everyone thought I was crazy, but I wanted to do this with him. (did you know finger paints now come in squeeze bottles?) I solicited Grandpa's help to set us up with a painting studio in the garage. He set up his extra work bench and covered it with a old shower curtain (I knew that would come in handy someday), put all our supplies on top (including the painting apron I had purchased for Rye) He even put out paper towels, a trash bucked and a bucket of clean water! WOW, we were set! Oh, yes, do you notice the jammies under that apron... this was the same visit where I couldn't get him to put on regular clothes! LOL So we start painting... he wasn't real keen on putting his hands in the paint, so Grandma showed him how to put blobs of paint on the paper and fold it in half... that was good... but I foresaw a huge problem with that meathod... and a frustration factor if he couldn't get the paper unfolded, so I went over to Grandpa's supply closet and pulled out a foam roller and a small brush! Now we were in business! He really enjoyed that! He just loved putting lots of paint on the page... so much that it took all week for the paint to dry! LOL... I was impressed with the results! I remember hating to finger paint in kindergarten because while everybody else ended up with these colorful pictures.... mine was always BLACK! LOL now there's an instance where more isn't better... more color and more mixing only made my picture worse! But Rye, on he other hand... well, you can see.. I cut one of the pictures in half, framed both pieces and gave one to great grandma and one to great grandpa (my mom and dad) for Christmas! The supplies I used here are from a new source for me, a German site, Scrapbooking Heaven The designers name is Gisela and she is a real sweetheart! If you are int he market for a Valentine kit... check out her "I SEE PINK" it's fabulous! This kit is called "Sparkling Stars". Gisela has a number of "gifts" on her site including an adorable Star Doodle that would go very well with this kit!

credits

Kit - Sparkling Stars by Gisela http://tinyurl.com/368jwc

Handwriting Cards By Doris http://tinyurl.com/3atq39

ScrapDrawers: Dictionary Definitions By Doris http://tinyurl.com/2nzmsj

ScrapDrawers: Photo Lifts By Doris http://tinyurl.com/32v66x

Personal Trash By Doris http://tinyurl.com/348vgz