My  hubby, Austin surprised me with my favorite cake last night to celebrate the arrival of the book.  That guy knows how I love to celebrate!

And since I have been confessing things lately here on my blog I will admit to having a piece for breakfast this morning.  I mean, is there anything that says I am celebrating more than a piece of decadent cake for breakfast??  I think not!

So last night I was in a bit of a daze after the book arrived.  My hubby kept asking what was wrong ‘cause I didn’t seem excited enough.  I think I was just too excited to get it out.  Who knew super-dee-duper excitement for me was shown as a daze?  LOL

I love the fam’s reactions though.

Magnus couldn’t, umm, care less.  I mean he really didn’t care!  (He is only 4 after all so I can forgive.)  He was much more interested in the boxes of class supplies that had arrived at the same time.  You see he likes to open the boxes.  It is his job.  One he takes very seriously.  Once that box is open he couldn’t care less what is inside!  I did try to convince him to look (he was the only one home) but since seeing his photo in Memory Makers magazine and other scrappy books he has come to the conclusion that he is every book with pictures.  Seen them once, see them all is his opinion. 

I am saving for therapy already.

Now Harper was completely different, the darlin'.  She ran into the house, grabbed the book and settled down on the couch for a long read.  She read everything.  Cover to cover.  Asked questions, made comments.  That girl knows how to make this momma happy!  I was in such a daze that I didn’t think to take her photo but next time she has the book in her hands I will.

Austin of course made me laugh like he always does.  He wanted to know how many times he appeared in the book.  Not a word about me.  Just how long until people recognized him on the street (phh). Made me laugh hysterically. J

But seriously, my family had ego issues.  I am calling a carpenter today to get the doors made bigger in the house so everyone’s head can fit through.  Just call us the big-headed-Rieger’s.  As in, oh, here comes those big-headed-Rieger’s.  Quick, don’t make eye contact!

OK, so that my husband doesn’t appear to be anything but the amazing husband that he is (remember the cake from above!) he did get all mushy on me and gave me the –babe, you are the best- speech which did make my head swell a bit.  So now my head won’t fit through the door!  ;)

What are we going to do?  I hope that carpenter gets here quick!

So here are two things I loved about getting to see the book, live and in person.  Things I hadn’t seen until yesterday.

The spine.  Can’t wait to see it on a bookshelf!

And the back cover.  It has a back cover!  Ahhh….

And now some details.

The book arrives at the F+W warehouse at the end of June.  This means shortly after that it starts shipping to local stores and to online stores such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Tower Books, Buy.com.  If you are in the UK you can buy it here or here.  In Canada you can buy it here or here.  I am looking into Australia.  Live somewhere else and want to know where to buy it?  Let me know and I will find out for you.

And something exciting for those of you coming to the Great American Scrapbook Convention in Arlington, Texas in a few weeks.  There will be advance-hot-off-the-press-brought-in-just-for-you copies of the book available at the Memory Makers (F+W) booth.  Yup, you can get a copy almost a month early if you are at the show!  I will also be attending a book signing on Saturday, June 7^th from 1-2pm at the booth if you are so inclined.  (sounds very glamorous doesn’t it – no wonder my head is swelling!!)

So that is it for my rambling.  I am sorry you have to go through this.  Feel free to skip this post.  I will not be offended at all!

And I am putting together that rounded corner tutorial in Photoshop today so it will be back to the regularly scheduled programming soon!  I promise! ;)

dude, my book has arrived.

Do you remember the other week when I posted this entry?  I mentioned that I created a page that made me really happy.

I did do some more scrapping last night after the kidlets were in bed and I think cause I had taken a break during the day (and spent the day before being creative) I felt like I was on a creative high.  I ended up creating a page that really made me happy.  I mean every little bit of it was just right to me.  It has been awhile since I have been so creatively satisfied with a page. Since before that crazy creative overflow a few weeks back actually. 

And you know what is great -the page is for someone else.  I was creating a page for someone and it is a wonderful feeling that it turned out so right.  I am mailing it off to her today so once she gets it I hope she will let me share it here.  I definitely want her to see it first. :)

So she got the page and she loves it.  And Annamarie has been gracious enough to allow me to share it here.

Not the best photo of the page (looks slightly warped, lol) but this was it.  She gave me the photos (so easy to work with when they are this gorgeous!) and I made the page.  The lines on the left side are for her to add her own journaling to it. 

One of the things I liked about the page was the rounded corners on the photos together with the white borders.  I thought you might like to do this too (pushy aren't I?) so I am hoping to get a tutorial together in the next day or so to post.

Also, my new article is up at TakeGreatPictures.com.  This article is a two part-er.  It is about scrapbooking your childhood photos.  This article is some prompts and encouragement to get you started.  Next one will be about ways to scan the photos so you can use them.  There are 3 new pages with the article - here is one of the photos I used.

Now you know you have got to see what that photo is about!

So that is it for today.  It is kind of rainy here today and Magnus and I have lots of errands to do.  Harper is finally back at school (thanks for the well wishes) so we have lots to catch up on.  Have a great day everyone.  :)

That just about sums up my long weekend. 

Remember how I mentioned last week that Harper was sick?  I don't know if I mentioned that she had strep throat.  She went on antibiotics and they seemed to help.  Th en Friday she broke out in a rash.  As soon as I saw it I knew - Scarlett Fever!  How did I know?  Well, she had it once as a tiny kidlet and it stuck in my head cause the name sounds so terrible - try saying, I've got Scarlett Fever.  Sounds as if you are on your death bed doesn't it?  LOL  Well, it is nothing that serious.  It is a form of strep that has a rash with it.  So back to the doctor we went and we had to cancel all our plans for the weekend.  She wasn't feeling too badly after we got more meds in her but we couldn't take the chance of passing it to anyone. 

So we were house bound and I have to admit it didn't feel much like the first long weekend of summer.  BUT I did get a lot done.  I figured I might as well get a lot done around the house so NEXT weekend we could have lots of fun! :)  On my list of things to do was a bit of class prep.

I cannot tell you how much I love seeing supplies all piled up and ready to go into class kits.  I absolutely love teaching and knowing that the GASC is right around the corner has got me itching to go.  Can wait to see old friends and meet some new ones. :)

I did get some scrapping done which I will share with you tomorrow.  It is for a new article so I will wait until it is posted to share.

And since in last entry I confessed to you my messy nature I though I would get another confession out of the way.  LOL  We're friends, right?  You can handle my nitty gritty, right?  So here it is...

I am secretly an old lady.  I have things covered in clear plastic. 

OK, so it is not my couch (sorry Grandma!) but it is my scrap table.

You see I use the dining room to scrap.  I use our big antique table as my work surface.  And even though I have a large cutting mat to work off of it was just too nerve racking that something could spill or something could scratch the table.  So the solution I came up with was clear vinyl.  It did make me cringe a bit over the sheer tackiness of it but it made things easy to clean up, protected my table and wasn't covered in distracting patterns (which most tablecloths have).  I went to the fabric store bought a couple of yards and I was all set.  It was super cheap and I thought I would have to replace it often but I have had it for well over a year and it still looks the same.  Three cheers for tacky clear vinyl!  This girl loves it. :)

I am.

I can doodle on a pad of paper while on the phone but do I want these scratching on my scrapbook page?  I think not!

BUT, I like how stylized doodles look on scrapbook pages.  You know the ones I am talking about?  The flourishes and swirls that are so popular in scrapbooking right now.  I love them but I am too afraid of ruining a page.  And the more nervous I am about ruining a page the more like I am to ruin it!  These type of doodles feel more like mini drawings to me and not really like doodles from the subconcious.

So what's a girl to do?

Well, this is what I do.  I use these.  They come in a variety of different patterns and are made from a sturdy plastic-like material which means you can use them over and over and over.

I love that they come in a 12"x12" size and offer lots of variety within one page.  You can rotate them and flip them so the variety of "doodles" goes on and on.

I find that they add just the right touch to a page.  See the page below.  Really simple in design but with the doodled circles the page looks complete.

Or another example.  This page below uses two different templates.

A flourish type doodle in white pen and the wavy lines for my journaling. (I did actually doodle the scalloped frame around the photo - that I can handle!)

I love them as embellishment for my pages - not something to take over the whole thing.

And you can use them for other purposes too.  You could trace and cut out the designs or even use them as a paint stencil.

That's it,  my PSA for the day.  Let me know if you try it.  I would love to see. :)

(seriously, I should not be allowed to make blog titles!  I am just getting cheezier and cheezier!)

So I learned how to use brushes in Photoshop and how to make a brush so I figured I better take the plunge and learn how to use Actions. 

But I was scared.  Seriously, PS can be intimidating without someone to hold your hand!  Then I met Kay last week.  Never spoke to her before and there she was offering to hold anyone's hand who needed PS help on the Scrapsupply message board.  AND she was offering some PS actions for people to download and try so they could learn.  How nice is that?

So I thought, now or never!

So I downloaded her actions and saved them to a file on my computer.  But then I got stuck.  I couldn't figure out how to install them.  But Kay was there to hold my hand.

See the little arrow thingys - that is what you press to find the file on your computer to install them.  To run an action on your image click on the action you want to use and press the play button.  Then sit back watch the magic.  Pretty easy.  I don't know what I was so scared about!  Thank you Kay!

And the good thing - these actions were made for a higher version of PS then what I have but I was still able to make it work.  Some of the steps were unavailable but it still worked for me.

Want to see?

ORIGINAL PHOTO

COLOR POP ACTION

another action called MORE COLOR POP

And for the LOMO lovers...

I think I will play with the layers to make some adjustments but I am really happy with the looks I got.  I also think it depends on the photo to decide which action looks best - I am leaning towards the MORE COLOR POP for this one but it might be a bit too much for me. Undecided still.

And remember you can run an action more than once on a photo or different actions together on one photo.

And since you are going to playing with actions (right???) why don't you download the new free digital kit from Memory Makers magazine.  They released it for NSD and would be a great backdrop for you new action-ed photos!

Fall directly on head; do not pass go, do not collect $200		This one is slightly painful but might be worth it ???
Have someone steal $1300 from bank account		Oh, I highly recommend this was just to see how high your blood pressure can go – really it is like a health check that should be done once a year!
Host impromptu late night party for small, sick kidlets from 12:30am to 3:30am		No prep required really – just make sure you fall asleep first so it feels like a surprise party!
Get zero scrapbooking done all week so you have nothing to blog about on Friday		I bet you really appreciate this one!  ;)

So yesterday I feel like I made a PSA (public service announcement)!!  I had no idea how much everyone was going to like the stapling/cutting idea for rub-ons!  I have so much positive feedback that it makes me want to go look through my scrappy stuff and see what else I do that you might like.   :)

So a couple quick things today.

First - registration for the Grand Rapids, MI Great American Scrapbook Conventions opened yesterday (July 25-26).  I have a bunch of classes that I am teaching there so if you live nearby check it out 'cause I'd love to see you.

Second - I have a new article up at takegreatpictures.com.

Obviously, it is about the supporting photos that you want to take for your scrapbook pages.  You know - the ones you take to highlight the details of your main event.  These photos play an important roll on your pages but sometimes we don't give them the attention they deserves.

As I was writing the article I felt like I kept saying "supporting" over and over.  There just wasn't another way to put it! 

So I have a deal for you - go read it and then the first person to report back here how many times I used the word "supporting" will win a prize.  I have one mini kit left from the other day - the sample that I made up to show you - that I will send you.

Go.  Read.  Report back here. :)

(the tally includes the titles, the intro and article - really any time you see "supporting" on the page!)

Do you hate this as much as I do?

You have to cut apart the sheet so you don't accidently transfer a rub-on that you don't want to transfer.  And then this?

Trying to get the darn thing back in the package but of course it won't go easily cause it is all weirdly shaped now!!

This is how I solve the problem.

I cut them apart and staple the backing to the transfer sheet.

This way they don't get ruined because they are shifting off the protective backing and you don't need to scream everytime you have to put them backing in the packaging! (You've heard me, right?!!)

Pretty easy to move them around my page until I get the spot I want and then I just quickly remove the staple.

Simple but effective.

Happy Scrappin' everyone!

**Just editing to add - after I cut and staple them I toss them back in the original packaging.  This way they stay together, don't get damaged and I can easily store them.