Sunday, September 30, 2012

Back in Action with a Sunday Smashbook

Apologies, I've been absent for the past week. I was feeling very down on myself, grouchy and grumpy last week and I couldn't motivate to work on anything.  Half the week I was also staying at my parent's house with no crafts to partake in.  Tonight I ordered Chinese food and my fortune said "turn negativity into creativity".  I was like, "thanks fortune cookie" and started working on my much neglected Smash book. 

I admit it is not my best work but I needed something to get me started.  Tomorrow is October and October is my favorite month, so I feel a lot of creative and positive energy starting to flow into my body for this week.  Man I love the sound this keyboard makes when I type on it. Random thoughts.

Anyway, I did 4 pages in the Smashbook, 3 being from birthday celebrations.  One is just a simple cut out of things I want to do + the fortune. 






Thursday, September 20, 2012

Alaska: Camping First Night

If football was on every night, I would get so much scrapbooking done. There's something about watching the game that just gets me crafting. I think it's because crafting eases my nerves, and I get really anxious watching the Giants--even more anxious now that I started Fantasy Football.  

Tonight I did two pages. I seriously could've done more pages but I'm getting a bit tired and I feel like the pages just would've gotten progressively worse.  I like both of these pages though. They incorporate some scrapbooking techniques with the simplicity of this album.

The first page shows our camp set up in Denali as well as the Alaskan beer we drank. I patterned paper has leaves on it, to enhance the campy feel.  I used the ripping technique at the top of the page.  It's so simple to rip the edges of the page but it definitely gives it a different feel.  

The second page is about starting our fire.  The map cut out is from a leaflet I picked up about Denali at the visitor's center.  The map shows where our camp is and on top of it I pasted the information about our campgrounds (flush toilets yeaaaaa).  The pictures detail the building of the fire. I made little notes on the edges of the photos, describing the steps we took to get the fire going. 










Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Alaska: Bars and Denali Part 1

It took a long time for me to get off the couch tonight and start working. It actually took a long time for me to get out of bed this morning and go to work. I wanted to call in sick so bad but it's not really my style.  Guilty conscience and all that.  

Anyway, once I finally rallied, I ended up making two pages - and surprisingly I like them both. ::gasps:: Actually no gasps, there's only 3 people reading this blog, so probably not enough gasps for me to actually hear it over here.  

Fun Fact about me: I usually buy things and not use them until almost a year later (this does NOT include food, which I always eat right away like ravenous dog).  This happens very often with clothes and even more often with crafting materials. In this particular case, I bought these sponge paints almost two years ago now and just decided to use them tonight.  They are actually really cool. I made the rainbow design behind my first page with them.  Then I used a rub on over them to get the wording. 

The second page is my collage for Denali. Denali was the big event during the trip so it will probably stretch out quite a few pages (there might even be two full pages devoted to bear pictures, seriously...so many bear pictures). 










Monday, September 17, 2012

Alaska Album: Always visit the Zoo

Whenever I go anywhere, I always end up at the zoo.  I don't know why, zoos are kind of the same everywhere, but I love them.  The Alaska zoo was a little different though. Not only was it vastly smaller than say, the Bronx zoo, I also liked it's goal.  The zoo was more of a conservation center than a zoo.  Most of the animals were rescues (some were hit by cars or hunters, lost wings, injured legs).  The zoo helps nurse them back to health and sometimes lets them back into the wild. Of course it also had non-Alaskan animals like..tigers.  

I took so many pictures of the animals, I didn't want to squish them all into one page.  I made this layout a two page spread. I still had the map of the zoo (of course), and then the front of the map had a blurb about the work they do.  It's a pretty simple layout.  The polar bear sticker is raised, and those types of stickers have been difficult with this type of album.  The top plastic doesn't lie flat and gets very bunchy. It's not too bad though.  I'm actually enjoying this different type of album. Expanding my horizons as they say. 

I took lots of pictures this time from all different angles. Really trying to figure out the best way to showcase the work. 










Sunday, September 16, 2012

Sunday Scrapbooking: Alaska Girdwood Part 2

Ah Sundays. If I didn't have to go to work the next day, Fall Sundays would be my favorite day of the week.  No obligations, football all day, got the slow cooker running...it's awesome. Unfortunately, a long week of work awaits me so Sundays always end in disappointment. 

I did a bit of scrapbooking today. I sort of forced myself to scrap, I wasn't in the mood.  I really want to finish this album by the end of September though.  One of my Fall goals is to learn to sew, and I'm not so good at doing two things at once.  Right now my brain can only focus on this scrapbook until it's finished. 

So I did a simple page about our view from the top of the tram in Girdwood. I really need to get better at taking pictures of my scrapbook pages.  I just can't get good lighting anywhere in my apartment.  I tried taking pictures in the bedroom tonight but it didn't come very good. 




Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Alaska Collage: Girdwood

It's actually cold in my apartment tonight, so exciting!! It may be just about time to start putting the fans away and soon it will be sweater and boots time (although I wore boots today, I just couldn't wait). Fall is in the air, and next week it will officially be fall.  I want to find a nice place to take pictures of the changing leaves, especially with my new camera lens.  

Anyway, tonight is another collage. I'm loving the collage format. It's easy and simple but it still looks great.  It is also a great way to use all the random guidebooks, pamphlets, ticket stubs, stickers, etc. that I picked up along the way.  In the past, I've always struggled with including these items into the layouts. The layouts focus so heavily on pictures, the maps, stubs, information all gets lost.  

Tonight's layout is from our day trip to Girdwood.  We took the tram up to the top of a mountain and I ate reindeer sausage (I'll show that in my next layout).  The views were amazing. I saved the tram ticket stub and a free sticker from the Alyeska resort.  The background is the map of Girdwood from my free guidebook, with two descriptions describing the town and the tram. 

We also stopped at this candle store on the way out of Girdwood. I bought a candle in a Campbell soup can and I wanted to showcase it in the picture of the page.  Because of the white paper + my white wall the page sort of blends together, but I think you can see the page. 






Monday, September 10, 2012

Alaska on the Diagonal

Let me just say, it took me 10 tries to spell the word "diagonal" right in the title.  No matter how I spelled it, it just wasn't looking right. 

I saw this technique today on Ali Edward's blog today - turning the pictures diagonal and running them off the page. I really loved it and decided to use it in my Alaska scrapbook page tonight. I have to admit I'm not 100% satisfied, although that's no surprise to anyone who reads this blog regularly. I like the page but I do think the technique would be much better on a traditional scrapbook page. It was really difficult to execute with the plastic covering, so I actually needed to cut the cover off and then relay it on top of the finished page.  

Because of the raised middle embellishment, the plastic doesn't lay flat and doesn't sit well. In person it's not noticeable, but it doesn't photograph well. 


Sunday, September 9, 2012

Smashbook Sunday: First Fall Weekend

First weekend back in town and it was a good one.  It's so nice to be in my own apartment relaxing.  

Short entry tonight.  I made the first page in my Fall smash book, using pictures from this weekend and a business card a guy gave us for his band. 


Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Crafting Goes Better with Football

From disappointments to successes. The Giants are playing tonight, my first fantasy season started tonight and I am actually very satisfied with the Alaska page I made. I'm really loving what I call the "piling on" method. It's basically where I cut out/gather a whole bunch of things that are relevant to the page, plus a photo and pile them on top of each other until it's a visually appealing collage.  I've been using it a lot in this album but it still doesn't feel overused. 

Tonight's page is about our trip to Portage. We took a cruise through the ice to see Portage glacier.  It was fun but I think after this cruise we were all glaciered out. 

Still working on getting a better picture with my new lens. I think I found a great way to prop up the page for the picture, now I just need to get the camera settings right. Learning experience. 


Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Alaska Album: Hiking, Disappointing Pages and Slightly Yellowed Pictures

You win some, you lose some. Last week my creative juices were flowing like crazy but this week they've died down. This is not stopping me from creating (although maybe it should). I really want to finish my Alaska album, so I have to keep going. 

This entry is about hiking flattop mountain or what I call the scariest experience of my life.  The normally "easy" (to Alaskan) trail was still partly covered in snow. Needless to say the hike wasn't as easy as they said.  Parts of the trail were so narrow and slippery, I really thought I was about to fall to my death (in fact I almost saw a dog do just that). 

I printed out the pictures in the morning but once I started working on the pages, it just wasn't satisfying.  I'm keeping them but I hope this is the only disappointment in the album.  My new lens also didn't take such great pictures, I'll need to redo my picture set up to get used to it. 

Sorry for a dismal entry, the good news is - summer is unofficially over and that means the unofficial fall season has begun. yay.