The frog and the cards

Last night poki attended a Christmas card swap at the local scrapbooking store where she shops and teaches. The frog was there to witness the whole thing!

The view from Squaw Pass

There was some snow down near the road - light, wet stuff - so unlike the snow of poki's experience. Much more snow on mountain tops in the distance. The view was just gorgeous in the valley below Mt. Evans.



When we came down out of the Pass onto Evergreen Parkway, we had lunch at a small cafe - the food was wonderful - and then headed back toward Denver. Right next to the shopping center with the cafe was Bergen Park, and it revealed an opportunity to take some animal photos - elk in the park in TOWN!

Up the mountain

Joe took poki up the mountain toward Mt Evans to see the snow today! We only got as far as Echo Lake, which was almost completely frozen. Ice was 6 to 8" deep at the edges. Melvin and the frogs enjoyed their visit to Echo Lake, as did poki, Mike and Joe!

Our new "traveling buddies"

At the wedding reception on Saturday night, JJ & Emily had "traveling buddies" for each of their guests, similar to the ones they took with them to Europe last year. Our instructions were to take them on a "grand adventure" and report back to JJ & Emily about all the places that we went with our new "buddies." On Sunday, Mike, poki and Pat took a shuttle trip to the Denver Botanic Gardens with their "buddies." Here is their photo! We're looking forward to sharing our favorite places with our new "traveling buddies."

We're here!

There is snow on the mountains in the distance, but sunny here in town today! We did stop and take pictures of the view from near our hotel! There will be pictures posted soon!

I'm loving it!

poki

Only 2 more days to wait ...

I'm really getting excited now! Monday night will be packing night for real (I've pre-packed twice to make sure the stuff is going to fit) I have to weigh the suitcase once it is full to make sure it comes in UNDER 50 pounds. My case weight in May was about 45, but I didn't have a heavy coat in it then! My wardrobe may suffer, but I think I may need that coat in Denver!

I practiced taking pictures with my wide-angle lens today (I've always had it and never really used it!) I will use it for wedding portraits! I also tried out the zoom lens, and the speedlite! They are now all safely packed and ready to head out to Denver.

For those who think Texas has no color in the Fall - the sumacs are going RED! We had one cold night (28 degree windchill) a couple of weeks ago and it started the coloring process! The Chinese Tallow in Mom's yard was tinged with red the last time I saw it (last Wednesday) Will check on that one tomorrow. Over the weekend I was in San Antonio (far North East SA) and there were some Cypress trees with a burst of color! Also, the Texas sage bush in my front yard has erupted into purple banks of flowers again, along with the purple lantana planted around it!

Check back for SNOW pictures later in the week!

poki

Our trip to Denver!

It's almost time - Mike and poki are heading to Denver on Wednesday, November 12. Check back for pictures from our trip starting Thursday night!

I've been copying all my butterfly pictures

Actually, I've been going through all my directories in my photo collection, copying the butterfly pictures and making a new (additional) directory with just butterfly pix. Unfortunately, there is no "keyword" for sorting my collection - I just have to actually look in the directories and find the butterflies. Of couse, I do have a fairly good memory for dates and have found quite a few butterflies quite easily. While searching my 2007 collection, I ran across this incredible moth photo. It's called a "hummingbird moth." and I photographed this one at the Heritage Handcraft farm outside of Waco last year in July. I had seen them before, but they are so fast I never caught an image before! This one actually stayed around in this flowerbed for quite a while, and I got several pictures.

The most "challenging" challenge -

The most "challenging" challenge so far has been the monthly Artist challenge - we were to take inspiration from Claude Monet (one of my favorite painters!) and see where it led us.

I had to go check out all the artistic effects that Paint Shop Pro can do - and I finally settled on ENAMEL - it makes it look like a painting. I knew the picture I wanted right away, from our visit to the Lewis Ginter Botanic Gardens in Richmond VA. After I created the artistic effect I wanted I just had to frame it! smile

CREDITS - paper http://www.carjazziscraps.com/

ribbons & nameplate (edited by me) http://www.theteapotlady.blogspot.com/

All collected from DSO Color Challenge for August - see sidebar for address information for DSO

My "scraplift" challenge at Color Line Design

This is the layout that I created for the "scraplift" challenge - there was a layout with 3 hanging fromes in the middle of the page. CREDIT: Joni Gray - Lazy Summer (part of this kit was created for DSO - Color Challenge in August that I participated in!)

I have been very busy

October is flying by in a whirl ... I have so much going on right now, preparing for classes & projects in my papercrafting business, and also getting ready for a week long trip to Denver to see Mike's family and attend the wedding of his last unmarried nephew on Saturday Nov 15.

Working with a DEADLINE keeps me hopping but I still have time for some freebie searching.

I joined a new forum yesterday - Color Line Design http://colorlinedesign.com/

They have some fabulous challenges every month - really makes you work and think! I have completed two challenges, the photography challenge and the scraplift challenge for October. I've loaded up three pages in my gallery there (poki04 - just like my e-mail name) and I'm waiting to be allowed to upload my third example. (You can only do 5 per day, and I loaded the first two, didn't like how they looked and deleted them, so I reached my quota for yesterday, and haven't been allowed to upload today yet! Don't know what time zone I'm dealing with!)

Photography challenge layouts - focus on subject from a direction other than horizontal!

Photo was taken from the next to top platform in the Currituck Beach Lighthouse, Corolla, NC. I knew that this was the perfect photo for this challenge!

CREDITS - GingerScraps Beach Glass

My latest photo shoot

On Thursday last week I drove out to visit my friends Pam & Lloyd in San Saba county. They always graciously share their butterfly garden with me ... they have loads of flowers and butterflies almost year round! I am always amazed when I get out there (I don't go often since a round trip is about 200 miles for me!) But I didn't want to miss the Monarch migration this year ...

The flowers were gorgeous as they always are. These passion flowers have completely taken over the fence around the garden!

Butterflies I saw: Monarchs and Queens

Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, both male

and female

and loads of others too! I did see and identify one other swallowtail but my picture is blurred and cannot be corrected (the butterfly was moving - imagine that!)

LO with hummingbird picture

I was finally able to find just what I wanted to complete the layout I was doing with my hummingbird picture.

CREDITS: paper - PiggyScraps; fence & leaves - wimpychomperscreations.blogspot.com; flower strip - KJOI studios designer contest week 4 contestant 21845 (I changed the color)

Our trip to San Antonio

We had a great time in San Antonio over the weekend - on Sunday afternoon we went to the San Antonio Botanic Gardens, both Mike and poki just clicking away on their cameras. I was excited to see a hummingbird up close, and even more excited when I saw that I had actually gotten a fairly good (although over-exposed) picture. I will be doing a layout later, but wanted to show the photo.

A "new" challenge for me ...

I was blog surfing on Monday evening and came upon a blog I hadn't visited before - Rachel's

http://steelcityscraps.blogspot.com/

In a post from Sunday, September 21 she had issued a SCRAPLIFT ME challenge, inviting everyone to choose one of her layouts at Digital Candy

http://www.digitalcandy.ca/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=2241

When the page opened I was immediately drawn to a simple layout called buddies

http://www.digitalcandy.ca/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=26408&ppuser=2241

It seemed to match my simple approach to scrapping, yet would give me some challenge in pulling together a LO using materials that I had.

My first step was picking a photo - I wanted one that I hadn't done a personal, hand-done layout before (no sense in wasting time when I could be creating something for my scrapbook) I picked a photo of a beautiful white painted bridge over the swamp at Cypress Gardens in Monck's Corners, South Carolina. Mike and I had taken a guided boat tour through the swamp. Our guide told us that the bridge is the most photographed location in the garden by wedding photographers. It leads to a small island where many weddings take place! I can understand why ... when the water lilies are in full bloom, I am sure the swamp is gorgeous! (the lilies had barely begun to bloom when we were there, but it was still a beautiful place!)

The next step was a color palette. I collected lots of freebie kits from the August Color challenge at DSO -

http://www.digital-scrapbooking.org/boards/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=182

and I was sure that I would find the perfect green there! Actually, I used two background papers - the one on top had visibility set to 50% (it's the one with the blue mixed in)

CREDITS -

paper - Digimom (DigimomDesigns.com)

paper - Bunny (admin at DSO)

side papers - Melonie (DesignsbyMel.blogspot.com)

Beads - Bunny

ribbon - Kim B (KimBDesigns.blogspot.com)

Text - Lucinda handwriting (visibility set to 45%)

The title may appear to be an obvious reference to the photograph, but it also reminds me to think back with pleasure on the adventure we had during our vacation in the Spring! We found many places we would like to return to in order to spend a "little more time!" This is definitely one of them - poki definitely found "her happy place" here! In May, and sitting at her computer in September!

I've been collecting ...

On my recent "freebie hunts" I have been collecting a set called Seashore Splendor by two European ladies

http://tempusfug.blogspot.com/ and http://tempusfug.blogspot.com/

In order to get the next installment of the collection, I had to complete a challenge using the papers and elements I had already collected. Here are the two layouts I did!

The first layout is Mike flying his Pirate Kite on Crystal Beach on April 1, 2006 - our last trip to Galveston for my birthday ... Hurricane Ike has now changed this beach forever!

The second layout I did was of the Cape Hatteras Light Station. I spent several hours working on these layouts when I should have been in bed asleep! (It's really late!) but the next part of the kit has some awesome seashells and tropical fish, that I really want to collect! So ... here I am at the computer in the middle of the night - again!

I was inspired

Kim B posted a CU freebie this a.m. on her blog - with butterflies! You know how I like them, so I had to stop my daily "freebie hunt" and make a page using her overlay!

CREDITS:
background - charliesdigiscraps.blogspot.com - Blowin' in the Wind (DSO Sept Color challenge)

overlay - kimbsdesigns.blogspot.com - CU grabbag

rolled corner - bygavotte.canalblog.com (I'm loving this little element!)

ribbon - Kim B's posting gift for participating in DSO Sept Color Challenge

flower - jonigray.blogspot.com (I visit Joni almost everyday! :>) Sweet September (I think)

Julie & Joe's wedding album

I've been working for several weeks now, on a SECRET album which will be a Christmas present for my niece Julie and her husband Joe. (They are celebrating their 6th anniversary on Sept. 28 so this project is a long time coming. The album will be an 8 x 8, and I have about 30+ pages almost complete. This is one of my favorite photos that I have taken!

CREDITS - background DSO August Color Challenge - charliesdigiscraps.blogspot.com

bracket DSO August Color Challenge - jonigray.blogspot.com

font - Edwardian Script

New Photo in header

I decided to add a little interest to my header, so I put in a photo that I took at Lewis Ginter Botanic Gardens in Richmond, Virginia last May. Be looking for a change in photo regularly now.

By the way, if you are visiting my blog will you let me know, either by leaving a comment on the blog, or by sending me an e-mail. If I know you, yoiu know my e-mail address, so I won't publish it here!

PixelFairy Enchanted Autumn add-on

I created this layout using a freebie add-on kit from the Pixel Fairy for a contest - the prize is a complete Enchanting Autumn kit which I would love to have! This photo was taken in a Butterfly House in South Carolina in May, but this will soon be a common site around home - the native lantana has begun to bloom again in preparation for the Monarch migration (we live in the path of the migration!) which will appear soon ... can't wait to see them!

DSO September Color Challenge

I've been busy "collecting" again - including from the DSO September Color Challenge. I just love these rich colors, perfect for Fall - but Fall in Texas is "like no other!" and now with the rain we are getting from IKE, I guess we will be GREEN again, not your typical Fall colors. I was pondering what would be the perfect picture to use with this color palette, and then I remember the gorgeous moth that we saw in the butterfly exhibit at the Strong Museum in Rochester, New York last year while on vacation! I just had to use it!

CREDITS - Thanks to these generous designers for their shared work!

Background (Charlie charliesdigiscraps.blogspot.com) mat (SaniScraps - Indian Summer paper), mat (Sani Scraps - Indian Summer elements) flower (The Scrappin Cop - Cornucopia of Color Sept Blog Train)

I've been busy

It looks like I haven't been doing anything - but I really have. I have worked on a scrapblog album for my niece Julie & her husband Joe, also a hand done digital album for them - 29 pages so far! I also started a scrapblog for a visit to Oma's Garten in Killeen (nursery owned by my uncle Walt and his wife Randa) Mike got a new camera so we've been out taking pictures!!

I'm heading to Arkansas for my Aunt Edith and Uncle Chuck's 50th Wedding Anniversary party, so I guess I'll come home with a few more pictures to scrap from that!

More in DC

Two more Washington DC layouts done today.

Credits:
ribbon - Graphics Girl (see previous post for website)
paper - Fuji Film (see previosu post for website info)

Left Side:
Right side:

Washington DC 1 & 2

I created a couple of pages for our visit to Washington DC today


CREDITS -
paper - Fujifilmdigiscrapkits.com
embellishments - GraphicsGurl selling at scrapprofessor.com and DigiScrapClub.com

Left side


Right Side:

More garden pictures

I've done another pair of layouts with the Digital Scrap Obsession August Color Challenge green (839626). I had seen the left hand layout in my latest Simple Scrapbook magazine that came in the mail, so I tried to duplicate it with papers I had collected from this color challenge. I really like the way it looks;

Credits -

background paper - Kim http://www.digital-scrapbooking.org/boards/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=182

Strips - Scripity Scraps Just Beachy http://www.scripityscrap.blogspot.com/

Kim http://www.digital-scrapbooking.org/boards/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=182

Digimom http://digimomdesigns.com/

Bunny http://www.digital-scrapbooking.org/boards/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=182&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=60

bracket - Ginger Scraps - Beach Glass http://gingerscraps.blogspot.com/

Left side

Right side

Mike will disown me if ...

He promises to unplug my computer and hide the cords! I will be helping him paint this weekend, if I can survive the heat - and STAY AWAY from this computer! He's off Monday, so he plans to get lots done on the back of the house (our biggest side - still to go) as well as paint the rest of the front (red) and the two walls that he's been prepping for the last two weeks. (The amount of lumber that had to be replaced was astounding - both to view, and to pay for!!!)

I hope you enjoy seeing my work - I'll be back later with more digital layouts!

Cape May 1 & 2

Another lighthouse - I actually finished these two layouts LATE on Thursday night (or maybe EARLY Friday morning). I wasn't having any luck at loading them when I finished them, so I went to bed!

Personal use digital elements

Background paper - Leia Michaels - Grunge

Overlay - Helly - Apologize (http://designsbyhelly.blogspot.com/)

Bracket - Ginger Scraps - Beach Glass (http://gingerscraps.blogspot.com/)

Left side LO:

Right side LO

More layouts from Vacation 2008

I found a forum today called Digital Scrap Obsession. While browsing through the forum threads, I ran across a color challenge for the month of August. I really liked the color combination. http://www.digital-scrapbooking.org/boards/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=182&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=10 Go check it out!

I wanted to get away from the lighthouses I've been doing, so I did a layout tonight of Lewis Ginter Botanic Gardens. I used some digital elements I found at Digital Scrap Obsession to design these monochromatic layouts. Thanks to: Kim Bob - DSO-CC-KB - for paper 7 (http://www.kimbsdesigns.blogspot.com/); Joni Gray (http://www.jonigray.blogspot.com/) for corner frame; and the dragonfly brads - not sure of source, since there wasn't a TOU in the folder I downloaded. I know I found them today, and they were already the perfect color! UPDATE: I found the designer http://mytreasuredscraps.blogspot.com/2008/

As always for the protection of the copyright of the designers, my layouts are published here only as merged documents. They cannot be edited!

Left side LO:

Right side LO:

Hereford Inlet Lighthouse 1 & 2

Created with digital elements from : Marie at FreeDigitalScrapbooking.com (Mossy linen paper),
Ditters - Earthly Values (ribbon, green0_2 colorized) Anne Langpap Citrus Freeze at Two Peas digital (tag - colorized)


Left side

Right side

Tybee Island 1 & 2

Created with digital elements from :
Paper - Kristine Pocock - Cool Your Heels Collection (http://wenchdgrafix.com/yakkin)
Beaded border - Ginger Scraps - Beach Glass (http://gingerscraps.blogspot.com)

Left side

Right Side

Kitty Hawk

I created two more digital layouts by hand today, using elements I've collected


Background - Linen pack from maria@freedigitalscrapbooking.com (I colorized it!)


Ribbon - Sandie Krieger Rough Rider, Two Peas (I used only a portion of her red overlay, and colorized it for my LO)


Text - Bassett hue 20, sat 200





Left side
Right side

Trying to embed again ... don't know if this will work

The window didn't come up the same so I don't know if this will work. NOTE from poki - It worked!

A Birthday album from my friend, George

Just trying out something new - I just saved the latest scrapblog, and saw the code to embed it so I thought that I would try it out! And it worked!

Acknowledging contributions to my work!

In keeping to the letter of the Terms of Use for almost all of the digital elements that I have collected, please know that my layouts are all merged as single layer jpegs when I save them in Paint Shop Pro 8. The layers cannot be edited again after I save the documents. (I've learned to start taking good NOTES in case I need to duplicate something from a previous layout.)

I'm probably done for the weekend - Mike is on a mission with the east side of my house - he has removed all the siding that had issues, and we will be adding 20 more 12' boards of cedar siding tomorrow! He might even be ready to paint on Sunday, so I guess I will be outside helping most of the weekend! (I have some ideas for more layouts if I get to sneak inside this weekend!)

We're off to a late "Friday night date!" in just a few minutes - Mike went home to shower, and I will pick him up soon! Til later!

poki

More hand done ... with the help of some talented designers

I am amazed at the wealth of talent that is being shared in the digital scrapbooking world. Today I found a collaborative kit called Zoo Spirit, that was designed by 50 different people, and available free - on 50 different sites. I haven't made it to all of them, but fortunately the Zoo Train will be moving around for the entire month of August. I might get to visit all the sites by then - maybe. I was extremely impressed with the color choices, and I did very little altheration to the basic color palette. It just fit right into my vacation album. With elements from the following place - I created two LO for the Currituck Beach Lighthouse in Corolla, North Carolina:

thanks to AngelsFlyingSolo.blogspot.com, Mardesia at Crafter's Boutique.com, Gingerscraps.blogspot.com, Ann Langpap at 2Peas.

Left Side LO





Right Side LO

Old & New Cape Henry lighthouses

I created two more pages this morning when I got up - this is SO much fun! This is the left hand page LO - the two light houses are about 300 yards from each other. The second one was built because the experts predicted the first one would FALL DOWN about 1850. Apparently, this beautiful lighthouse is still there - America's first public works building, completed in 1791 (I think)

Acknowledge the use of digital elements created by these talented designers: Marie at freedigitalscrapbooking.com, Sandy Krieger at 2 Peas, Ann Langpap at 2 Peas. Their digital elements have been merged into single layer documents.

This is the right hand LO - the new Cape Henry Lighthouse is an active aid to navigation at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.

Ocracoke Island Lighthouse

Acknowledge the use of digital elements designed by these talented digital artiists:

Marie at freedigitalscrapbooking.com, and GingerScraps.blogspot.com

Left LO

Right LO

Another Cape Hatteras LO

Acknowledge the use of digital elements created by these talented digital artists: Danielle Young of Danielle Young Designs, Marie at Freedigitalscrapbooking.com, and GingerScraps.blogspot.com. Thanks to their generocity I am learning more every day! And I'm having a great time, too!

This will be the RH LO for Cape Hatteras Light Station

Another hand done layout

This is another layout I have done in July using digital elements I have collected from the internet.

Just a couple more layouts for July

I have been experimenting with some digital elements I have collected free on the internet - I am having lots of fun!

Acknowledging the use of digital elements created by these talented digital artists: Marie at freedigitalscrapbooking.com, and GingerScraps.blogspot.com (I love her BEACH GLASS elements! - you will probably see more of them in this scrapbook as well.)