Taste the Rainbow

Molly turned 14 earlier this month.  Specifically, five days after I broke my arm. Lucky her.  (#sarcasm) She'll just have to wait to get beat at putt-putt golf.

Instead, we had a DIY b-day celebration.  I picked up some Duff's Tie-Dye Cake Mix from Target and crossed my fingers that little Miss Moody, er, wow, did I say that outloud?? Yikes. I crossed my fingers that little Miss Molly would find the idea of making her own cake acceptable.  Luckily, she did.  Plus, her sister Maggie hung around to help (thank goodness...I was in my very helpless days back then).  But Maggie's presence always helps Molly's mood.  (I feel like that's one m-word away from being a killer tongue-twister)

They set to work in the kitchen, I curled up on the sofa with an ice pack and Kerig took over photographer duties.  God bless him, because if there's food being made, he's there to document the shit out of that occasion!

The cake prep involved no less than 12 small bowls for tinted cake mix, 200 hand strokes of the batter, and 13 readings of the directions.  I was bracing for a hot mess and had to remind myself that even brown Easter eggs make tasty egg salad.  And let's face it: chocolate cake is brown, and no one has a beef with that, right?

Guess who was wrong?

The cake actually turned out very cool looking!  There was probably 4 times as much frosting on there than I would have preferred, but it was apparently necessary for the overall design aesthetic.  Or something like that.

I wanted the layout to convey the same joyful exuberance that the cake did - lots of colors and sprinkles everywhere.  Had I thought about it at the time, actual sugar might have been used.

I used tons of Bella Blvd papers from their Scattered Sprinkles, Summer Squeeze and Classic Calendars line.  The font for "rainbow" is called Blackout and I've gotten a lot of use out of it.  (See: here  & here)  The font comes the way you see here - with the blocks already cut out around the letters.  I've used the letters themselves as well as the negative space frame, like here.  I love it.  I used my old standby SNF Lollihop  for the word taste.  Truth be told, I don't love it here.  The word taste should be - well, I don't want to say smaller...I think I want to say "less bold".  It's just so visually large, but honestly, I did the title towards the end and I was just plain and simple running out of steam at that point. I did cut it out with a rainbow of cardstock colors for underneath, but you had to be viewing at just the right angle and have perfect close up vision to see it.  Lord knows, that detail is lost to me, but my daughter swears she can see it.  Either way, the word is too big, but I give myself a sold B for the effort.

I also used a very old Heidi Swapp mask and some new(ish) Heidi Swapp color shine sprays to break up the starkness of the plain white background.  I was on the fence about how it came out, but on the finish page, the actual design gets lost (probably a good thing) and you're just left with some blobs of color...and that's okay.

This layout has EIGHT photos on it.  Holy cow.  That's a lot.  And I haven't done a two page spread in years and years.  it was weird, trying to remember how to work all of this.  But I like so many of the photos and I had a hard enough time working it down to just these few, so I'm really glad I came up with a way to squeeze them all on.

Thanks for stopping by!

Another Happy Tuesday.

I have Tuesdays off, and I love days off.  Especially since this semester is so much easier than previous years - I feel like I can actually enjoy my away-from-work time.  I usually tutor on Tuesdays, but my tutee had a test today, so we met last night.  This means I don't even have to leave the apartment: Yay!  There's nothing wrong with going out and about, but when it's cold and grey and I'm broke, then staying home and watching Downton Abbey, scrapbooking, blogging and otherwise lounging about on my own terms is absolutely heavenly!

Ted turned 15th last month.  We had a great day - we went bowling, walked around the mall, visited the arcade and had dinner at a new pizza place that was really quite tasty. Afterward we came home and had some cake.  Once again, Kerig came through with the photos!  He did a great job - I love the fact that he thought to get a snap of Molly decorating the cake.

I love the way the layout came together.  Yes, it's even more Silhouette-y than usual, but it works.  I'm fond of the swirly border - both the pen on the right side and the cut on the left.  But it's the candles that make the happiest - they're tall and fun and I love the layers on layers in the flame. The "eat" button is from Kelly Purkey at Simon Says Stamp (as are the letter stickers for the word 'birthday") - and while I love her products and aesthetics, I do prefer the buttons from aflairforbuttons on Etsy.  Kelly's button is bigger, which isn't a plus for me - real estate on an 8.5x11 page is too precious, so even that tiny little bit can make a big difference.  But more than that, the bottom side of the button is concave, so adhering it is much trickier than the flat-backed variety at aflairforbuttons.  It's nit picking, really, but it matters to me.

Okay, it's off to the next phase of DAY OFF TUESDAY!  Thanks for stopping by! ☺

p.s. If you're so inclined, this is the featured layout on Silhouette's (FABULOUS & INSPIRATIONAL) blog, and stopping over there would fill you with great crafty ideas!

On a roll.

Seriously.  I haven't done 3 layouts in a week since...well, a REALLY long time.  And I guarantee there was some sort of deadline involved and I ended up hating them.  So three, no deadline and liking them seems like crazy talk.

The journalling reads:

Year End 16 Review:
1. Major Art Award @ Lakeland
2. Enrolled in Driver's Ed
3. Inducted into the National Honor Society
4. Passed Driver's Test on the first try. (Yay, Maggie!)
5. Landed 1st boyfriend
6. Gold Medalist in the Molympics
(who could forget the Molympics!)
7. Attended Portfolio Show at MICA
8. Landed first job at the big BK

I'm not gonna blather on about it.  I like it.  So does Maggie.  And that's all that really matters.

(Look at me, getting all Zen in my old age...)

I will say this.  I'm getting increasingly frustrated at trying to digitize layouts for sharing.  The sheer lack of light is making it difficult to get a good photo.  I got so frustrated today that I scanned this in four parts and stitched it together.  That's so old skool.  And the results seem just as cruddy.  If anyone has some great suggestions that don't involve dragging out my studio lights, I'm all ears...

I :heart: easy

My son has a friend who practically lives at our house.  And he's just a really nice kid.  For a while I wrestled with the notion of him being a bit Eddie Haskell-ish, but after a while it just sunk in that he's one of those rare, honestly nice, kind people.  Because Ian (my son) can be sarcastic and has been prone to pushing the limits, I am very grateful for Jared's good influence. 

Last night my other son Ted came to me and asked he he could borrow one of my "tall" candles.  After some confusion and a "What the hey ho are you talking about?!", it finally occurred to me that he wanted one of the super tall birthday candles that I had gotten at Crate and Barrel a couple of years ago.  When I asked him why, he said it was Jared's birthday and they were going to put it in a Little Debbie strawberry shortcake roll and sing happy birthday to him.  One of the things that I like about Jared is that he has an infinite amount of patience for Ian's younger brother and sisters.  And they all adore him as well.

I decided to make Jared a card, and at the risk of looking like a really creepy old lady, when I came across this one in my Silhouette library I thought it pretty much said it all.  This was thrown together in about 15 minutes flat, which absolutely never happens, so it is, indeed, simple.  But I glue dotted a $10 Taco Bell gift card to the inside and signed it "Ian's Mom" and I was happy to have been able to do something for him...

Molly's Birthday

Molly's birthday is July 15th.  I think we always have the most fun on her birthday.  Everyone is out of school and it ends up being a whole day celebration for her, instead of just an evening thing.  This year we celebrated by going out to lunch at Steak'n'Shake (because she wanted chicken fingers), went to the Southpark Mall in Strongsville where we played Firefly Golf, saw a movie and then headed to Legacy Village to have dinner at California Pizza Kitchen.

Sadly, the layout only showcases pictures from lunch at Steak'n'Shake.  I can't quite figure out how to incorporate the rest of the day in a cohesive manner...so that stuff is just going on a separate page.  At least theoretically.  At this pace those pictures may never see cardstock.

The die cuts are all Silhouette.  The striped paper is Fancy Pants, the blue and yellow paper is Heidi Swapp - I love those papers, I've used them again and again and again.  The little tag-y thing is Creative Imaginations - just snagged at 50% off at 2Peas.  There's a Basic Gray covered brad, and the rub-ons are BG and Doodlebug.

I have to say...not loving this.  I don't know exactly why.  Is it because I really prefer single photo layouts?  Is it because the green mat ended up cut wonky and I had to place the tag on it to make it less obvious?  Is it the total discordance of papers?  Is it the overall flow?  I don't know...  But not every page is going to be a winner right?  So we'll just accept that this is a B layout and not an A layout.  We'll live.

Boy's Birthdays

Ted springs on me that he's going to a birthday party on Sunday.  Not "Hey mom, I got invited to a party.  Can I go?"  but rather "I'm going to a party on Sunday afternoon."  He cleared with his dad and arranged his own ride, so it's not like I'm upset, but as The Mom, I spiral into what-to-buy-yet-another-12-year-old-who-has-everything mode.  I ask Ted for input, and he says "I don't know...they have everything...how about a gift card to WalMart?"  Um. How about not.  I don't mean to sound snotty, but working in a small shop whose biggest competor is (sadly) WalMart and knowing that WalMart's stated business objective is to undercut the local business....like I said....Um. No.

Now, because Target has had the good sense to keep their animosity of local small businesses to themselves, I'm all for a Target gift card.  So off I go to pick one up.  But of course, I enter the store...and get SUCKED into the dollar spot.  And worse, into the $2.50 spot. :P  Black handled bucket?  For $2.50?  I'll take it!!  I'll fill it with Twinkies!  I'll put a skull sticker on it!  I'll be the most hated mother on Bama (this kid plays on Ted's football team)!  Ok. Pause.  Rethink.  But I'm still taking the bucket! 

Aside: what is it about scrapbookers that make us so stubborn about just putting a gift card in a greeting card and handing it over?  I feel like everytime I give a gift card I'm challenged to engineer some presentation device...


Today is no different.

In an attempt to not bring on the hate from Tyler's mother, the bucket is filled with Rice Krispie Treats (c'mon! At least they're better than Twinkies!), Trident Gum, Target fruit snacks and a bag of Goldfish snacks.  When I got home I asked Ted if he was okay with my doing the monster and even let him pick which monster.  And I asked him "Are you sure this is ok?" about 6 times, and he enthusiastically said "I'd love to get this!  I'd take it downstairs and play video games with it all day." Um. Yeah.  Feeling the hate. (In my defense, at least it doesn't make noise or come apart to 200 tiny pieces that hurt when stepped on)

And then there's the gift card holder.  Cute, no?  I love the skinny monster, and I'm glad I finally had an excuse to use the talk bubble....kinda cute.  The googly eyes? Yeah. I dig 'em.

And I want to take a minute to talk about flash.

Poor, maligned flash.  Everyone hates him.  Especially everyone in the scrapbook world.  Heavy hitters like Karen Russell, Erin Terrell Clarkson, Maggie Holmes, Erin Cobb, Tara Whitney...etc, etc, etc...  they ALL say FLASH IS BAD.  Most even go so far as to say they don't even own a flash.  Seriously? 

And I am NOT saying that I am a better photographer or know more than the aforementioned heavy hitters.  They're ALL amazing shooters, and I wish I had half the talent any one of them has. 

But I just want to stick up for the poor, maligned flash.  He's not all bad.  He's just misunderstood.  You can't just use the one on your camera and expect it to do a good job.   Because aside from using it outside on a sunny day to fill in shadows, the on-camera flash just can't do a great job.  Why is it even there then?  Well, near as I can tell, it ads enough light to boost shutter speeds in order to avoid blurry shots.  Hopefully we can all agree that blurry shots are decidedly worse than shots with flash.   And really, if you're shooting with a point and shoot camera, your only option is flash on or flash off.  (Mostly...there are a couple of excpetions, but I'm not going there right now)

But if you're using an SLR you have another option.  A dedicated flash that slides into your hot shoe solves a myriad of problems: No red eye.  No harsh shadows.  No blurry pictures.  No whacked out color shifts.  The joy of the dedicated flash is that 9 times out of 10, the flash head can be aimed at the ceiling, and in so doing, the light bounces off the large white plane of the ceiling where it gets diffused, and rains back down on the subject.  It wraps around the subject - so the harsh shadows are eliminated.  The light is softer, which is really pleasing.  You can still set your camera to a very low f-stop so if you want a shallow depth of feild, you don't have give that up.   And it's not like you have be some tech-no whiz.  You put it on, aim it at the ceiling and fire.  The camera pretty much takes care of the rest.  Yeah, if you turn the camera sideways to get a portrait shot, you do have to have a flash that both swivels and bounces, but most flashes do that anyway.  (Let's say 7 out of 10 flashes can both swivel and bounce) As an added point, bouncing the flash keeps you from having that harsh shadow that just plain yucky, but it also prevents the flash glare that happens on shiney, reflective surfaces.  For instance, shooting the metal bucket with the flash aimed right at it would have  giant white spot, totally devoid of detail.  Not. Good.  Bring on the bounce.

At any rate, the shots above were taken at 10 o'clock at night.  No way could I have taken those without flash.  Even if I had boosted my ISO to 3200 and turned on the room lights, it still would have been iffy.  And I'd have to have made a custom white balance reading - there's no way that the three light sources in my kitchen would have come across cleanly in any of the pre-set white balance settings.  The joy of flash is that the camera knows EXACTLY what the flash is doing, and knows exactly how to deal with the white balance when you're using it (unless, you, the user, set the white balance to something funky - but under Auto or Flash, the light will be pure and whites will be white).   

Blah blah blah.  Too much lecturing.  Maybe I should do some before and after/good and bad shots to really illustrate why flash is so damn functional.  Next time the heavy hitter's voices ring in your head that FLASH IS BAD, say gently back NO. HE'S JUST MISUNDERSTOOD.

And that's what I'm working on.  I may finish sometime this month...

(also taken with flash.  :)  Just sayin...)