Right now I have 2 grandchildren living with me. They have been a source of joy immeasurable, and also the reason I'm often up late at night. At normal bedtime, around here it's usually 10:30 pm, I will be so tired I can't stay awake. I won't go to bed til I know these little people are asleep, so while they are chatting and winding down after their bath and stories, etc., I come into the craft room, (where I can still hear them) and browse the internet til they are safe and sleeping. Well, many nights, like tonight, it took them two hours to finally unwind so now I'm wide awake and couldn't go to sleep now if I had to. So the blog seems like a good idea.
I mentioned the craft room earlier. It is full of paper scrapping supplies that haven't been touched since March of this year. I knew I wouldn't be able to scrapbook as I had in the past with the two little ones staying here and I was more than willing to let it set to the side while I focused on them and their needs, but all these ideas and layouts and embellishments just keep calling out to me. My logical side says - don't get that stuff out cause the kids will tear it up and it will just be a source of anger for you. My creative side wants it all out in the open so I can touch it and feel it and play with it every spare second. My logical side is much stronger than my creative side so everything has stayed boxed up just like it was when I came home from my last scrapping retreat before the kids moved home...but my creative side found an outlet!
Digital scrapping. What a life saver. A dear friend had suggested it when her daughter got into it, but after seeing her daughter's work, I was so intimidated I wouldn't even consider taking it up. I did, however, start reading her blog and envying her creations until finally one day I went to one of the sites she referred to and what did I find but a "tutorial". Photoshop has been on my computer ever since I've had one, but I never even learned how to crop a photo in it, it was so complicated to me. I was given a photoshop manual by my brother who knows how much I love photography (he built my computer and installed the programs) and still, pure panic is the only way to describe how I felt just opening that program. But as I wandered around a few of the sites, I realized what they called a "quick page" had to be pretty simple, and low and behold there was a tutorial to walk you through a quick page with the very same program I happened to have on my computer. Well, what do you know? I did a layout. It wasn't bad. I had been collecting freebies from a newsletter, never even knowing how to use them, but I am a collector and these were FREE so why not? I cannot tell you how many I had or how long it took me to open them all, ( or how embarrassed I was to even learn there's a way to unzip without clicking on each and every item in a file....oh my my my!). Well, I have found a creative outlet that I can access in the evening hours while the little ones are heading off to dreamland. All my paper products are boxed up and will remain so until I can 1) return to them and scap without little helpers, 2) pass them on to someone else that will use them or 3) teach these little one's how to safely use a paper trimmer.
Anyway, I'm going to see if I can post some of the layouts I've done here. Now I've found several sites that offer challenges and even prizes and I'm considering getting my feet wet but first I want to see if I can manage a blog. So here goes....
Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com
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