This is my interpretation of the Beyond Appearances Blog challenge to create from the word, Faith.

Journaling:
Faith in Myself.
I know how to produce the life I want.
I have the passion.
I know how to make it work for me.
Consuming doubts and negative self-talk
have never been a part of my process.
Exhileration and expectation always have.
I believe life often rolls in the direction we push it. It is that pushing part that is so enjoyable.

Products:
Cardstock: Bazzill
Patterned paper: 7 Gypsies
Transperancy: Hambly
Rub-on’s: Bohemia for My Mind’s Eye, Basic Grey
Felt sticker letters: Thickers for American Craft
Chipboard letters: Heidi Swapp for Advantus
Letter Stickers: Creative Memories
Acrylic Paint: Grumbacher
Pen: Creative Memories

Another layout from the fourth episode of Paper Clipping…

Journaling:
You and Art

I love how you concentrate. You are precise. You are serious. Actually, you are a jokester! But when you are creating , building, or analyzing you are serious. You concentrate.

(Word strip says: work in progress good times here comes trouble this is only a test the perfect kid)

Products:
Cardstock: Creative Memories, unknown
Patterned paper: Scenic Route, 7 Gypsies
Coaster: My Mind’s Eye
Letter stickers: Creative Memories
Word Strip: 7 Gypsies
Pens: Creative Memories
Ink: Stampin’ Up

HeDiscoveredHisPockets.jpg

Originally uploaded by Noell.

I showed you this layout in the fourth episode of Paper Clipping.

Journaling:
Aiden approached me with an ecstatic, “Hey, Mama! I have pockets!” He showed me one of his front pockets and slipped his hand in it.

Then I showed him a back pocket. “Hey! Another one!”

It was when he walked out of the room that I realized he was unaware of the rest of the pockets. He sauntered away from me with one hand in a front pocket and another hand in the back pocket.

Products:
Cardstock: Bazzill
Pattnerned paper: Creative Memories, Rhonna Fharrer, Tingalings (?), Carolee’s Creations, other unknown
Rub-on letters: My Mind’s Eye
Letter stickers: Creative Memories
Large letter “a”: traced from a Basic Grey monogram

What a happy morning. I was chosen as Pubster Of The Day in The Pub on 2Peas. As POTD I announced two challenges. I’ll be going shopping tomorrow morning for yummy stuff for the winners. If you want to play along, check out the following links. You’ll have to register with 2peas if you’re not already a member.

Challenge #1
Challenge #2

The 4th installment of Paperclipping is here. This one will help you draw specific colors out of your photos! It’s fascinating how a piece of colored paper can affect what we see in a picture.

Some of the color variation does not show up well on camera. When you’re done watching the video you’ll definitely want to try what I did for yourself so you can see it in person.

Don’t forget, if you do the challenge at end of the video, please leave us a comment with a link to your layout. I’d love to see what you do.

This episode is in the archives. To learn how to access the archives, please visit the membership information page.

I designed this layout for the Random Inspiration Challenge on the Baltic Amber blog. If you click on the first link you’ll see the inspiration piece, which was a furniture ad. If you scroll down you’ll see some other takes on it.

The ad inpsired me in three ways: I wanted to use the tan color and have texture. I also wanted to make use of the white. Originally I was going to use a white background and thought these photos would be good for that. Ultimately, I felt the white did not enhance the photos, so what remained in terms of inspiration is the tan and texture.

The cloth embellishment is from a shirt I cut up. The flat circular beads (lighter color) were from some flip flops (Target brand…anyone recognize them?). The smaller darker beads were from a hair clip I bought when I lived in the Philippines. They have extra sentimental value and I feel happy whenever I use them!

Journaling:
A luxury vacation with you is…
a good camera and some time to shoot.

Cintas Reward, July 2006, Cancun

While the others were soaking up the sun at the pool (water infested with too many bodies doing who knows what) we spent many hours practicing photography. You taught me how to shoot in manual mode and we had the best time taking photos of each other in good scenery.

Products:
Patterned paper: My Mind’s Eye
Journal block: Ali Edwards for Cocoa Daisy
Rub-on’s: My Mind’s Eye, KI Memories, American Crafts
Letter Stickers: Creative Memories, All My Memories, American Crafts
Pen: Creative Memories

This is the second of five tips on how to increase the speed of your scrapbooking while improving your skill. Click here to read about the first tip.

Tip #2: Spend at least ten to twenty minutes at your scrapbook table everyday.

In her book, The Creative Habit, dancer/choreographer, Twyla Tharp, talks about the blank canvas each of us starts with when beginning to create something. As a renowned dancer, Tharp’s own white canvas has always been an empty dance studio. She tells her story:

“In five weeks I’m flying to Los Angeles with a troupe of six dancers to perform a dance program for eight consecutive evenings in front of twelve hundred people every night. It’s my troupe. I’m the choreographer. I have half of the program in hand–a fifty minute ballet….

“The other half of the program is a mystery. I don’t know what music I’ll be using. I don’t know which dancers I’ll be working with. I have no idea what the costumes will look like, or the lighting, or who will be performing the music. I have no idea of the length of the piece, although it has to be long enough to fill the second half of a full program to give the paying audience its money’s worth.” (pg. 5).

How does an artist create something out of nothing under enormous pressure and little time?

“I’ve worked long enough and produced with sufficient consistency that by now I find not only challenge and trepidation but peace as well as promise in the empty white room. It has become my home.” (pg.6,bold added by me).

Tharp lets us in on the method of those who increase their creativity and learn to create beautiful things with their empty white canvases:

“…the real secret is that they do this every day. In other words, they are disciplined. Over time, as the daily routines become second nature, discipline morphs into habit.” (pg. 6)

Creativity from routine? Creativity from habits? Absolutely. Creativity grows from daily stretching and working. This is why I stress the importance of having a permament table, one that you can go to everyday, even if for only ten minutes. And ten minutes really is a minimum.

I always keep something out on my table to work on. If I finish a layout and my scrapbooking time is over, one of my routines to keep the creative juices flowing is to pull out the next set of pictures or a story I journaled in my notebook, and lay it on my table. That way, my mind is already getting to work on my next project. It is there for me to work on as soon as my next opportunity to sit down and play arises.

My projects are always there in my sight. Creating is always on my mind. Doing it daily keeps the creative organ warmed up, flexible, and strong.

If you do not already spend time creating every single day, I want to challenge you to try it for two weeks. Then, please come back here and tell me what it has done for you.

This is my first time completing a chalenge for the supah-rad crew at The Dares blog. The challenge was to pull out our old deco-scissors and (gasp)…use them.

I had to go dig mine out of my daughter’s bag. It’s been years since I’ve used them and the unique feel of the curvy scissors biting into the paper took me back to my early days of scrapbooking. Matching the last groove with the first groove of the next cut. Eyeballing the the edge of the paper to keep the cut straight.

I just might use those scissors again…

Anyway, this layout was a trial. I narrowed down my stack of photos, all of which looked just like these but with different facial expressions, to four. Doing four busy photos like this isn’t easy. Couldn’t let it get too busy. Had to keep it from looking like a long train of people and glasses.

I’m not 100% happy with it (I actually got lazy at the very end and wrote “New Year’s Eve” in really lame handwriting on that tag on the far right because I didn’t want to put any more time on it. I’ll probably go back and put letter stickers or stamps over it. Or maybe not…).

But I am very happy with some of the detailing, especially around the bottom tag.

Journaling (word strips):
Raise a glass to: friends, laughing, stories, playfulness, spouses who rock, tangents, detailed explanations, sillyness.

Products:
Cardstock: Bazzill, Stampin’ Up
Patterned paper: Badsic Grey, Creative Memories
Tag: My Minds Eye
Rub-on’s: My Mind’s Eye, Chatterbox, 7 Gypsies
Letter Stickers: Creative Memories
Stickers, word strips: 7 Gypsies
Stamps: Tim Holtz
Ink: Stampin’ Up
Pen: Creative Memories
Ribbons, small tag, flower brads: unknown

Remember the first episode of Paper Clipping? Here’s one of the layouts I used in it. I finally got around to photographing this one. The others are still safe away in their albums. Maybe I’ll get around to doing them some time as well!!

Journaling:
This year Israel and I entered the world of internet entertainment and education as givers instead of receivers: blogs, podcasts and video podcasts.

Our first venture was the Idle Minds Podcast where we discussed our current interests in t.v. shows, movies, books, and music, along with stories from the day. A little teasing and a whole lot of banter made this show fun!

What a surprise–we actually had listeners: 300 subscribers!! It only lasted 7 episodes as we both found another internet calling.

Products:
Cardstock: Creative Memories
Patterned Paper: Basic Grey
Rub on’s: 7 Gypsies
Large Letter: Basic Grey
Solid Letters: unknown
Letter stickers: Creative Memories
Stamp, Ink, purple circles: Stampin’ Up

Israel’s Valentine gift.jpg

Originally uploaded by Noell.

We spent a lot of money on gifts recently so we decided not to exchange any for Valentines. I should know better by now. To Israel, “no gift” means he’s just not going to splurge. So I got a small surprise gift.

Everyone who knows me knows I love coffee cups. A good cup makes the tea or coffee experience better.

And do you see that card? I love it. It’s going on my inspiration wall.

By the way, this is my photo for the Daily Photography Challenge on 2peas. Click on the link if you want to see what everyone else is doing.

Settings:
50.0mm lens
Fstop: 3.5
ss: 1/125
iso: 400

If there was something I’d change about the photo it would be to light the subject better so that I could use a higher Fstop. I would like the design on the cup to be less blurry (although the “sweet” on the inside is good, which was important).

I set the Fstop lower than I wanted to keep the shutter speed from getting low enough to warrant a tripod. I probably could have increased the Fstop a tiny bit and had the shutter speed at 100, though.