Progress. :)

These are my book layouts.  All of them.  Some I haven't seen for a year! Approx 18" tall!

Returned to me because my book is done!  Woohoo.  You see your art gets sent in for photography and then they need to hold it just incase something needs to be re-photographed.  When your book is finally printing they send it back to you.  This is progress.  Book progress.  :)

And it makes me very happy.  :)

So, enough about me.  What are you doing for National Scrapbooking Day?  Scrapbooking I hope.

Me?  I'm hoping to get the kidlets occupied and spend some serious time with my scissors, paper and adhesive.  They miss me.  I've been neglecting them.

So today it is official.  It is Magnus' "real" birthday.  I had trouble explaining to Magnus that Saturday we celebrated his birthday with a party but his actual birthday was today.  He responded with, "So I am having a fake birthday and a real birthday?"  Well, I guess.  Kind of.  So hard to explain these things to a four year old who sees in black and white.  I have to say his logic did make me smile. 

And today he woke up asking if he was getting a real cake today for his real birthday. I think he has probably been reading this book too much.  All about a real vs. pretend (great book by a Canadian author)

And the best moment from his birthday party on Saturday?

When he opened the above present and exclaimed that he had wanted it for years!  Made everyone laugh with that one!

And now I wanted to ask you - Should I start up the Friday Challenges again?  I sort of stopped cause I got really busy but there were a bunch of you playing along and must have a little book half full and waiting for more.  Let me know in the comments if you want to do them again or email me.

Oh and don't forget to visit me at MyCraftivity.  You will see I have turned into a Crazy Craft Stalker there - read here to find out more. ;)

You may already know this but I bet there are some out there that don't so I thought I would share.

A lot of times I crop my photos directly on the computer before printing but that it is not always possible, especially when printing a lot all at once.  So sometimes they getting printed even though I know they would look better with some simple crops to take away distracting background details.  For example see the photo below.  It would definitely look better with some of the bold background taken away.

So I make manual crops with my paper cutter. But it is easy to crop to much or too little - and the cuts are permanent!  So I use these.

Pretty boring looking aren't they?  I made them myself out of black cardstock and they are about 2" wide.  I just used some scraps. But look what they can do for you quickly.

By moving them around it is easy to get a visual of what the photo will look like cropped.  Once I have a crop I am happy with I just make small marks in the corners and then get busy with my paper cutter!

So simple and so easy to make.  Hope it helps someone :)

(Oh and thanks to my sister who is the person in the photo - she made a great photo model for this demo!)

So we are prepping for a big day in the Jeffrey Rieger household.  Tomorrow we celebrate Magnus turning 4.  Every birthday party for the last few months has been torture for Magnus as he struggled to understand that is wasn't his birthday yet.  But now the big is almost here.

Yesterday we went and chose the cake and spent way too much time in the party store deciding on a theme and decorations. :) After much deliberation on his part he finally decided on a "Cars" party.  Believe me, it was a hard decision!  And then Magnus wanted a new shirt for his birthday.  A Cars shirt to be specific.  To match the cake and the decorations.  We went and looked and looked and nothing.  (Funny  - and irritating - that you can not find things you see all the time when you need them!) 

So as an alternative (and because Magnus is learning his numbers ) I altered a t-shirt for him.  He has been facinated with the number 4 (go figure!) so this is what I made him to wear to the party.

Yup!  Felt letters that I normally use on scrapbook pages have made their way onto this cute little t-shirt.  I just pinned them in place and handstitched around each letter with embroidery floss.  Took about 25 minutes and now he is the proud owner of this personalized tee. I like this better than a boring old Cars t-shirt anyway!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Do you play tag?

With your photos that is? 

[LOL  You thought I was going to play tag with you didn't you?  I so wish we could have one big scrappy tag game - imagine the giggles!  Winner could take home a bag of scrap goodies and losers would have to clean up after the crop!  OK - meet you in my front yard in half an hour ;) ]

But I digress. I was going to ask if you regularly tag your digital photos with key words?  I have found this practice so helpful - especially because I take A LOT of photos. When I want to find photos from an event I just do a quick search and it pulls up the photos. 

I just use the program that was on my computer (Microsoft) so check to see of the program you use has this feature.  If not there are a lot of programs that do.  I just add very simple tags that will help me narrow down my search.  I do it whenever I upload photos to my computer so I stay on top of it. 

For example Harper was on TV the other day so I snapped a few pictures of it so I could make a scrapbook page. (She was on TV with her school to promote a running/self esteem program she belongs to called Girls on the Run.)

(Yes the photo isn't great but I wanted to record the moment and it still captures that for me.)

I uploaded the photos from my camera and there were over 30 pictures (she was on 5 times in an hour).  Even before I went through them to delete the ones I didn't like or need I tagged them.

Just a simple tag - Harper on TV.  Sometimes I just type the kids names or words like - Spring, Museum or 4th birthday.  Words that I might use to search my computer with.  Sometimes when I search it pulls up a lot - depending on how generic the word is but that is good sometimes when I am not looking for an event photo but more of a photo to suit a story I am telling.  For example, I may be writing a scrapbook story about how I hate winter so I search "Spring" within my photos and it pulls up everything I tagged with spring.  I then can pick photos that work with my story.  Same goes for birthdays, holidays or other events in our lives.

I love this system. 

And then when I have a few moments I do go through my photos and delete the ones I don't want.  I don't always have time when I first upload but I do try to do it somewhat regularly.  I take a lot of photos and if I don't delete I end up with too much (overwhelming) and there is no point in keeping the ones I will never use.  I have two steps to this.  I do a "first delete" which is the really obvious deletes - like duplicates of the the same moment (I have a habit of taking two of every picture to make sure I "got" it) or really out of focus or "bad" shots.  Then later when I go to print I get more critical and start figuring out what I really want to print or keep and what I really don't need.  Sort of like when you are cleaning out the closet.  First step, toss away everything you hate.  Second step really ask yourself, "Are you really going to wear that again?"  Same with the photos.  Best done in two steps.

So basically try and find out if your program has this feature and try it out.  Don't worry about tagging the backlog of photos if you find the task overwhelming.  Just start with the new ones you upload from today on.  As a scrapper I bet you like it - no more searching forever for that one photo of Jimmy that you know is there somewhere!  Hope this helps someone, somewhere. :)

And remember I said I was going to scrap last night for the first time in a bit.  Well I did.  I got a page done that is a gift for someone (can't show it until she gets it) and I am really happy with it.  It had been half done for awhile but I was stumped on one part.  Inspiration hit last night and I am really happy with the way it turned out.

And then I started in on some more class stuff.  I worked on the embellishments for my Altered Canvas Memory Clock class (offered at all four GASCs).  Just love the way these turned out.  We will be making them in the class to be used on the canvas.

And then I need to do some number organizing for the class.  Some yummy felt numbers.

And now I am off to go cake shopping with Magnus.  It is his birthday soon and we are celebrating this weekend and he gets to pick his cake today.  Can we say excited???

Not my book since, well, it isn't finished printing yet but over on MyCraftivity there is a chance to win a copy of Debbie Hodge's new book Get It Scrapped!.  Here's a little blurb about the book.

Do you have stacks and stacks of photos just waiting to be put to good use? Author and artist Debbie Hodge has your solution! Whether your photos are digital files or prints, everything you need to know for organizing your images, analyzing what you have and making a plan for the layouts you'd like to create is right at your fingertips in her new book, Get It Scrapped!, due out this week. Inside you'll discover a wealth of information on basic page formats, photo storage and organization, creative journaling, photography and more...

Seriously.  Who doesn't need that?  I don't know one scrapper who couldn't use some help gettin' it scrapped!

So all you have to do is post a comment on this blog entry and you are in a random drawing.  Winner is announced Friday.  When I was there there were just over 50 comments - pretty good odds I think!

So that is it for today folks.  I have had one of those super busy days where I did a million things and still feel like I got nothing done!  Now, though, the kidlets are in bed and my hubby is reading so I am off to scrap!  Feels like forever and I am so excited.  Might be a late night for me :)

When photographing your scrapbook pages do you get this?

Weird angles and distortions?  Then this is for you.  I have been asked to become a contributing editor for TakeGreatPictures.com and have my first article up and guess what it is about?

Yup.  If you have trouble photographing your layouts then read the article and your photos should improve immediately. Go. Read. Leave your feedback. Let me know if it helps you.

I am going to be writing regularly for TGP - all scrapbooking/photography related articles so be sure to check back at the site.  And for those who are curious people here is a little about TGP...

My final cover!  My editor sent it to me last week and I thought I would share.  It is being printed right now and I cannot wait to see it as a book!  Woohoo!  I am so excited **insert me doing a happy dance**.  You can pre-order it on amazon.com and a few other place I believe but it will officially be available in July.  There will be copies available at the GASC when I am there so save some of those scrapping pennies and you can pick up a copy.

So what did you do this weekend?  I spent a good part of it doing yard work.  Clearing up leaves from the fall and clearing out the gardens.  I am certainly feeling the aches of it today!  LOL.  It is not nearly complete and I spent the morning on it again today but it is totally satifying.  Though the work is hard it is nice to see the yards looking tidy and it is wonderful to uncover tiny plants that have been growing under the winter mulch in the gardens.  It definitely feels like spring and there is no going back to winter now.  THAT makes me very happy!

OH and a new, especially funny "funny" from Magnus.  We went to the museum on Friday and for the first time went to the Egyptian section the museum.  Who knew we would spend the entire time there trying to explain the difference between a "mummy" and a "mommy"!! Very difficult for a three, almost four year old to understand!  

We explained mummification (there were some drawings on a chart) and tried to get him to hear the difference between the two words to no avail! 

I then told him this particular mummy was a boy and he just kept asking how did he turn into a girl after he died, lol.  Austin and I laughed and laughed over it.  And he still does not get it but it is just too much for him to understand right now.

My husband also got a good laugh at me while there too.  I had a slightly embarassing moment in the Roman statue gallery.  Magnus was asking questions about, ahem, the body parts on the statues and while I am not one to fudge things with my kids, there were others in the gallery and there was a slight echo in the place.  So in an effort to be discrete I tried to answer Magnus' questions honestly but my effort to censor myself because of the others around caused me to be slightly flustered and I ended up "shouting" out a male body part's name. (Not the proper name either which shows how flustered I was - a slang name!) I disagree with the shouting part but my husband insists that I shouted it!  Plus the echo...you can imagine the embarassment now right? 

Now Austin loves to walk past me when no one is around and echo the word at me.  I have to admit now that moment is over it makes me laugh cause it is something out of a book or a movie but at the time I am pretty sure my face was bright red! 

So the moral of the story for me - just go with what I always do.  Be honest with the kids.  Body parts are not something to be embarrassed about and are not something that I am normally embarrassed about.  I talk freely with my kids and I need not censor myself because of the people around me.  My trying to censor probably made more people uncomfortable than if I hadn't! 

I am pretty sure they went home and told their families about the woman in the Roman statue gallery who shouted out the word...

(I also wish I had take a discrete photo of the statue in question just so I could make a scrapbook page with this story!)