Just a few Apron Strings Extras!

So I’m finally on the RIGHT computer to post the extras I made with the July kit! 

I finally :blush: made this composition book for Alexa.  It’s been on my table since before school got out!  I didn’t have enough of the paper to comletely do both sides of the book the same so I improvised :)  There’s a little seam on the back that’s hardly noticeable!  I know it’s pretty simple, but take my word for it, she’s hard on things and if I added lots of stuff she’d find a way for it to fall off! 

And here are a few cards I made:

  

  

I’m not much of a cardmaker! LOL     

And I keep meaning to scan the picture (well, honestly I keep hoping the Canon guy will email it to me!) of me when I received my prize in Dallas.  And the slide as well!

Tomorrow I’m off to Tiny Town…  the weather should be awesome!  And I hope to post more about the CPR this weekend as well!

More on the CPR

I learned so much at the conference!  Although honestly I was expecting more hands on with my camera :)  I did get very hands on with Photoshop!  On Thursday night my friend Cindy and I took an Intro to Photosho course.  We decided it really wasn’t aptly named as really it was an Intro to Digi Scrapping.   The class was taught by Jessica Sprague which was great (I was very anxious to meet her!) but was very similar to her online Intro to Digi Scrapping which I’ve already done!  So, I probably wouldn’t have paid for this class had I known what it was about!

So both photoshop classes I took were on Saturday - the first two classes Saturday.  I felt horrible for Jessica because she was miserably sick during our class and actually had another instructor teach the one after ours.  And, the material covered was essentially the same as the first few classes in the Good to Great Workflow class she teaches on her site, which I’ve also already taken!  It was good to go through it again :) and I need to go through the second half of the class again online.

The next class was taught by Tiffany Tillman.  I thoroughly enjoyed this class!!!  She took the time to go through and explain basic photoshop and photoshop elements tools and stuff - like what I was expecting on Thursday night!  I learned about this fabulous tool called “sponge” which I had never heard of before!  I played with textures that I never thought would interest me and added one to a picture of Sadie I had “pre-edited” in Jessica’s class beforehand.  It looked pretty darn good!

After class she was helping me try and get my photoshop screen the same way hers was and she saw the picture of Sadie.  She wanted to mess around with it and showed me a few things using the sponge tool and all that fun stuff.  So here are the before (before Jessica’s class) and after (after Tiffany edited it):

and here it is after Jessica’s and Tiffany’s classes:

How much fun is that??? :)

I’m excited to start playing with photoshop more!

More on the CPR classes tomorrow…  and I can upload the rest of my Apron Strings projects (I’m at the wrong computer or I’d put them in here!).  I’m going to try and scrap a bit tonight!  Hope you are too!

Woohoo!!! I'm a winner!

I’m back from my Creative Photography Retreat - it was a lot of fun!  And I have some awesome news to share too!

I’ll go into more details tomorrow (or later this week) because I fell on an escalator and hurt my knee pretty good - and I’m ready to go to bed!!  But I had to get this up….

Although the retreat was not as hands-on with the cameras as I had hoped, we did have a chance to get out and shoot pictures for the scavenger hunt.  Cindy signed us up for it and off we went!  We went down to this park by Addison circle (I think that was the name) and took pictures and wandered around a bit.  One of the items we were supposed to take a picture of was “retro”.   We found this cool old barbershop sign and were trying to get both reflection pictures and the retro picture.  This is one of the ones I took - on manual!!! with only minor editing:

 

So, at the retreat, they also had a photo contest for the “best of” Dallas-CPR.  I went ahead and submitted the picture above.  And I won 3rd place!!!!

They first had listed 7 honorable mentions and when I didn’t get one of those, I figured I didn’t win.  Cindy said she knew that since I hadn’t placed that I was going to be in the top 3.  I was pretty much in shock!  I didn’t see the picture up on the screen, just my name.  I had no idea what I had actually won until I sat back down.  And I feel really bad that I don’t have a clue what pictures the second or first place picture-takers took or what they won!

So, you want to know what I won?  I won a Canon Rebel and a Canon printer!!!  They are shipping the printer to me.  Too bad I shoot Nikon :P

How cool is that!!!

Apron Strings July Reveal

At long last I get to show you the FUN layouts I made with the Apron Strings Smaller than a Breadbox kit!  Be sure and go get yours today here!

I thought this paper was perfect for so much!  Unfortunately, I don’t have very many outdoor summer fun (water) pictures yet so I went with the cooking show the kids did at the end of the school year.  Alexa made a fruity frog!  I layered the letters to create some dimension for the title and my journaling is behind the picture.  The letter stickers were from my stash!  Don’t you just love Bo Bunny products??

I did have these pool pictures but Sadie’s bathing suit seemed to go better with these papers!  I did put an outline around the layout in photoshop as scanning white layouts doesn’t work so well for me  It’s hard to tell, but I used glimmer mist on the word POOL and popped it up so it stood out a little bit!  The Minds Eye papers are always so fun to use!

And my last layout was using some Jenni Bowlin papers!  I did use Fourth of July pictures even though my girls were not wearing the best colors!  This layout was based on an exclusive PageMaps sketch!

I had plenty of leftovers for some cards and even an altered composition book for Alexa.  I’ll share those in the next few days!

Be sure to check out the newsletter for lots of great ideas, tips and even some layout recipes!  I see there is even a list of upcoming lines listed!

Happy Scrappin!

Sussies Blog

Go check it out!  I posted today :)  With my Big Fish story!  Here’s the link!