Category: Alice

A few more


(Click on the image to see a closer view)

Products used:
Ice Cream Treat Day: ScrapGirls Refresh EHI Ice Cream freebie, ScrapGirls AMC Fruit Smoothie Green Solid; Designer Digitals LynnG Crisp1, Designer Digitals JEdwards Everyday Challenge 9/7/08 Freebie; fonts are Calvin & Hobbes (dafont.com) and Cambria.

Ballerina Girl: ScrapGirls BHA Abstract Expressions TornNote, KSC Patternologie Linen Rose; Designer Digitals MWise Silver Pin, KPertiet TouchupPaint; fonts are You Are Loved (dafont.com), Texas Hero (dafont.com), and CK Ali’s Writing (CKMedia)

These Hands: From ScrapGirls.com: Erica Hite Layer Your Own Embellishment Buttons; From DesignerDigitals.com: Katie Pertiet Spot Dot Brushes, Graphic Pop Circle Brushes, Basic Bare Chipboard; RPenn Express Yourself BG7, Anna Aspnes Monoblendz Woodsey 7; Fonts: Dali and Cambria

Retreat Next Week

I’m going on a scrapbooking retreat next weekend, and my goal is to make significant progress in our Disney Trip album during the retreat. I’ll be doing the album digitally…

Usually when I go to these retreats, it’s been a while since I’ve scrapbooked so it takes me a good 18-24 hours to get my mojo and get really into it. Because I have such a lofty goal this time, I’m trying to plan ahead.

I have all of my photos organized by park, which is how I think I’m going to organize the book. There were 12 of us on the trip, and we’d scatter every day. Organizing by park is the only way to get some continuity, because organizing chronologically would just be too splintered, I think. What’s been really cool is that iPhoto organizes everything by timestamp — so they’re in these folders organized chronologically anyway. So I can see that while Jerry and Helen and Alice and I were entering Animal Kingdom, Lauren was making a silly face in front of the Japanese pogodas in Epcot, etc. Kind of neat to relive the vacation like that. Hmm. Maybe I will go chronological. Dunno — opinions? I just think that it would make sense to combine all of our BEST pictures of the Safari, rather than do three or four layouts of the same ride since they happened on different days…. Thoughts?

A very kind and giving person (Hi, Karen!) had already scanned the 2008 Park maps, so she sent me those scans, saving me a significant amount of time/headache doing that. I plan to use those on the title pages for each section.

Tomorrow I plan to organize my sketches/templates by the number of photos included. I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to get fancy and do lots of layers and distressing and so forth like I do for most of my digital pages, or if I’m going to go simple/clean and graphic, just in the interest of time. I suppose I’ll figure it out when I get there.

The other thing that I’m doing is operating under the assumption that creativity begets creativity: this week I have done a digital layout every day. Just a few minutes here, a few minutes there, etc., but I have found that when I discipline myself and do this, I’m already revved up when I sit down for the next time. The creative high from yesterday’s layout is still there, so I can just pick up and go on today’s layout, etc. And hopefully this will help me when I get to Texas so I can just sit down and START, instead of sitting down and wondering what the heck I’m going to do first.

One blessing is that because I’m going totally digital on this project, I will not have ANYthing with me except my laptop, digital tablet, and external hard drive. So I don’t have to spend time setting up my supplies — they’ll already be organized exactly as they are at home, and I won’t have to shuffle around trying to set up my workspace for optimum productivity. Sit down, open the laptop, power it up, and GO. That’ll be awesome.

So. Without further ado, here are this week’s layouts so far:

I was going to upload “Hail No!” but then I realized I already did. Ha!

Last week I finally did the pages for Alice’s Birthday:

Products used on the above pages:

Kelley’s Birthday: ABR His & Hers Solid White background paper (ScrapGirls); KPertiet Grunge Overlay, King Me Paper, and Art Warehouse Vibe Alpha (Designer Digitals); DTope Frames from the Moonrise set (OScraps); tjd_juwt The House Hardwood3 paper, NRJ Funky Vintage frame from class materials from a JessicaSprague.com class; Font is CK Becky, downloaded from CKMedia

Boosterthon: SNU Photographic PhotoTrans, BHA GrungeScratch Transparency White, BVA Worn Threads Brushes (from ScrapGirls.com); KHMize WebChallFree 072008 GreySolid (modified) (from DesignerDigitals.com); Fonts are Marcelle and Marcelle flourishes, Geneva, American Typewriter

Alice’s Birthday: KPertiet staples, Notebook Edge Frame No2-2, Vintage Frame, Graphic Pop Overlay No3-4, PKnox arrows (Designer Digitals); Miss Mint Wild Weekend Starstamp2 (Peppermint Creative); BHA GrungeScratch Trans 12×12-blk, AMC Fruit Smoothie EmbMini Heart, ASO Ultimate Grunge Brushes (ScrapGirls); Fonts are CK Becky and Minya Nouvelle

Let’s Dance

I’ve gotten the girls hooked on the “Wicked” soundtrack. When we drive to school in the mornings, there are periodic requests for specific songs, and their favorites change frequently. Helen currently likes “For Good,” so we listened to that as we were driving through Jones Valley this morning to drop her off.

Then Alice wanted to hear “Dancing Through Life,” though she asked for it differently: “You know, Mommy! The one with the beautiful girl in the chair! And then he says ‘Let’s Dance’ and she says ‘What?'”

So Alice and I sat in the parking lot of her school for about 5 minutes, listening to the whole song. She crawled over the console into the front and just hugged on me for the entire time, showering me with kisses and smiling at me.

In the middle of the night, Alice came upstairs and silently stood next to me until I noticed her, and so I pulled her into bed to spoon with me for a little while. She’s such a snuggly little thing; she immediately just cuddled up and passed back out, never saying a single word. After about 30 minutes, when I realized I wouldn’t get a decent night of sleep that way, I asked her if she was ready to go back to bed. She nodded, and silently went back downstairs and crawled back into her own bed. I covered her back up again and kissed her on the head and left the room. So precious.

Funny how all of her transgressions (did I mention that I need to get more Mr. Clean Magic Erasers to eradicate the crayon marks on at least three walls? And that the overwhelming fragrance of the AirWick Scented Oil vessel that she dumped last week is finally dissipating? And that I’m missing the interior bag of my high-fiber cereal and have no idea what she did with it? And that I still can’t find my graphing calculator, two months into the school year? And Jerry finally found my missing wine bottle vacuum sealer under Alice’s bed last night?)…. Sorry, I got distracted. Funny how all of her transgressions can evaporate in just a few short minutes.

I love that she takes my hand in parking lots, that she randomly tells me that she loves me and that I’m the “best Mommy she’s ever had,” she likes my cooking, and that she’ll stop playing abruptly to race across the room and get a hug, only to return to her play without saying anything. For all her terrorism, I end the day knowing that she loves me and knows that she is loved, too. And it doesn’t get any better than that.