Another Challenge & Two Freebies!

Saturday, 1 May 2010Saturday, 1 May 2010 / LivE / Leave a comment

Hey hey hey! Have you made best friends with your credit cards today and gone digi-shopping? We’ve got a store-wide sale, with all designers’ products offered at 15% off in celebration of {inter}National Scrapbooking Day!

One of the best things about shopping digi is the urge to use those goodies right away! And we have the perfect answer for that need, because we’ve got a second awesome challenge going on at our General Forum Spotlight Area right now! It began at 10:00pm EDT yesterday and is continuing till 10:00pm tonight, so hurry over and play with us!

Click on the image below to fly straight to our General Forum!

Then don’t forget to hop on over to the HOMEPAGE! My dearest friend Kari (the hybrid goddess of the Spraground) and I are the featured designers for the day, and we’ve got freebies waiting for you to grab them!

Here’s mine:

And here’s another one, just cos I love ya! 😀

Images are linked to our homepage where you can simply click on them and download immediately begins! But do leave your mark and hit the Comments button because Kari and I would love to hear from you!

So hurry and grab them now because they’ll only be up for 24 hours… like Cinderella, by the time the clock strikes 12 midnight, these little babies are going to get sent straight to the shop where they’ll be at full price.

Have fun, my dear friends, and Happy {inter}National Scrapbooking Day!

Freebie & CT Call!

Sunday, 4 April 2010Sunday, 4 April 2010 / LivE / 11 Comments

It’s been a while! (A long, long while!)

Let’s see what excuses I have up my sleeve for my total slacking off on my 2010 Plans (see no. 3 here… then again, maybe don’t “see” it. LOL i’ve got a lot of slacking off to be embarrassed about!) 😆 In my defense, though, I’ve been on-and-off sick for about a month. There, doesn’t that just constitute the best reason for being remiss at showing up on my blog porch here?

Seriously, I am so sorry for being absent. I *have* been sick (we just packed up the fam and spent 4 days in the mountains to give the germfest here at home a break, and to get some fresh clean mountain air into our lungs). And before that (probably part of the reason for the lowered resistance), I was busy tutoring the kiddos for their final exams (yes! school is out! summer is in! wheeee!!!) and coming up with a surprise audio-visual program (aka movie consisting of about 100 layouts) for my 4th son S’s graduation from preschool!

But life has continued to go on (ain’t it wonderful! 😀 ), and so I have the most wonderfully exciting news to share with you!

We. Are. Having. A. CT. Call!!!

WAHOO! Do you like preserving your memories on layouts? Do you love creating layouts? Do you love working with my designs (hehehe)? Come and join the CT call at THE Place to Be, jessicasprague.com!

Click on the image for all the information you need! You can do it! Read all about it and come join the fun! I would LOVE to see what you come up with!

Introducing Miki, our fab new CT member!

Speaking of the Spraground Creative Team, have you met Miki? She’s one of the most awesome layout artists I’ve ever met (and an even more awesome lady, let me tell ya!). I am so proud that she is on our present Spraground CT!

Check out Miki’s latest layouts:

Miki used my Square 1: No. 1 {Dream Big} product, which you can find HERE on jessicasprague.com! I just LOVE how she used the entire mini kit!

Another wonderful layout created by Miki:

She used my I Sing for Spring Kit and my Squiggle Borders, both available only at jessicasprague.com! Love, love, love how Miki incorporated those precious keepsake drawings on her layout!

And here’s another of Miki’s precious layouts:

Miki used my I Sing for Spring kit for this too, as well as my latest product in the shop, Paper Swirlies ! I love how Miki’s choice of paper mimics the waves splashing on the beach! And the swirlies do a great imitation of the waves on the beach too!

WONDERFUL WORK, Miki! You totally rock!

Freebie Time!

This is actually an add-on for one of my latest paper packs, Not Quite White (available, as always, at the most AWESOME shop in the universe, at jessicasprague.com!)

Here’s my Not Quite White Paper Pack (available only at jessicasprague.com):

And here’s a closer look at the paper details:

{ Images are linked to the product page in the shop.}

And here’s your coordinating freebie, folks! 🙂

Click on the preview to download the freebie. 🙂 And thanks in advance for the love you leave on my blog as you download! 🙂

Alrighty! That’s all for today! Gotta jump into bed so that I can wake up bright and early and try to catch the Easter Bunny as it hides some eggs in our home! 😉

Have a wonderful evening, and I HOPE to see your layouts in our CT-Call gallery soon! (Remember, the call ends on April 15th, so do rush and get your mojo-motors revving!)

And I PROMISE I’ll be back bright and early (uh, more like noontime) tomorrow to bring you more news and sit with you and serve you some iced tea/cafe mocha, whichever is your drink of preference! 🙂

(((hugs))) and to all a good night! 😉

It’s a New Decade! {Ten Plans for 2010}

Wednesday, 6 January 2010Wednesday, 6 January 2010 / LivE / 28 Comments

Well, hello there! And happy new year!

If it seems I’ve disappeared into thin air these past few months, I am so sorry. 😦 I got abducted by some germ monsters who stole my alien DNA and left human genes in their wake (read: I suddenly needed more than 3 hours of sleep and I actually GOT SICK! ~ bleah ~ The thing is, for people who hardly ever get sick, once they do it’s like having one foot in the grave. I still have a major cough that makes me sound like a great barking watchdog but at least I now have the strength to sit up and work on my compy! So YAY! :D)

Then there was that great tsunami-like wave of activity brought by the holiday season 😉 , which in this part of the world can get seriously crazy. Christmas is the best time of the year for me–a sentiment shared by everybody in this Pacific archipelago, methinks–so traffic on the roads increases a hundredfold, parties and social obligations leave you crossing out every single square on your December calendar all the way till January 1st of the following year, and then there are all those gifts to buy, lists to check, and let’s not forget the most important part of it: preparing yourself internally for the reason for the season (which I will admit is such a struggle to do during this most hectic of months of the year! Luckily it’s the struggle that really counts! 😉 )

Oh and yeah, it didn’t help much that, according to my dear friend Tori, I suffer from this illness affecting my extremities: the kind that makes my right hand shoot up involuntarily whenever I hear the question, “Who wants to volunteer…?” and the same one that makes my left hand slink down under my chair whenever I hear the question, “Are there any objections?” hahaha. Pretty dangerous disease to have around Christmastime when there’s just more stuff to do than there are hours in a day.

This condition gets especially challenging when you’ve got your high school celebrating its 25th anniversary a week into January and you’re completely aware that your right hand feverishly shot up when the question about who could make the slideshow presentation was asked. (Okay, so here’s the confession: I volunteered because I didn’t want to have to sing or dance. HAHAHAHA!)

Seriously though, I have been missing in action (shamefully hanging head down here). And I have so missed sitting with you on my blog porch, my dear friends. And I have missed my Spraground family… and I promise to never stay away this long again!

Speaking of promises…

Have you made any resolutions yet? I do mine on a daily basis (and if you’ve been coming to my blog porch for some iced tea and some nice talkies, you’d know my rationale for this)… but it’s nice to do the whole traditional new-year’s-resolutions thing… *and* blog about it so that there’s pressure to live up to it. 😆

I checked my 2009 Resolutions and realized that I failed at 3 out of 5 but passed 2! Not a great grade to get on a pop quiz, haha. But I believe in walking on the bright side of life, so I’ll be happy with the fact that one of the two I actually got to accomplish was the top one on my list! (Lose 25 pounds I did! YAY! )

Who was it who said “If you don’t succeed, try, try again” ? (It happens to be attributed to several sources… plus did you know that it was originally a maxim used to encourage American children to do their homework? Got that from a google search. Love me some google).

So here we go, my resolutions for 2010 (in which I have absorbed a couple of the unresolved ones of the past year):

1. Discover something new every day. – Learning is a good thing. A very good thing. I love learning something new every day because the excitement of that eureka moment always brings a rush of excitement (and reminds me I’m alive!).

Speaking of learning, I just learned how to use imovie and idvd in a couple of hours the other night! Gotta love that! Did I mention that I volunteered to create the slideshow presentation for the … uh… 25th anniversary of my high school batch (totally dating myself here 😆 )? The only presentations I had ever made in the past were powerpoint presentations (I know, shameful, huh?) but I knew that powerpoint certainly wouldn’t do for this big event (which is coming up in a few days, by the way).

So MacGyver (aka my mac) got a workout and I learned how to use two programs that I never even touched before. And now I have a new saying to add to my collection of LivE Philosophies: Desperation is the mother of education. (Yes, I was beating a deadline which is what led to me learning the two programs in one evening, hahaha!).

One thing that thrills me even further about this first of my 10 plans for 2010 is that the day’s discovery doesn’t even have to be a big thing! It could be a flower that I never noticed growing in the little pot that was barren for months. It could be a new word. It could be something new that I happen to read about in A.J. Jacob’s “The Know-It-All” (I’m on page 324 in the Ts) that makes me smile. It could be… geesh, it really could be anything!

Now doesn’t that just make the new year seem even more exciting? 🙂

2. Create weekly. – I love creating. I just take forever to do it. In my wildest fantasies I am like the Energizer Bunny (just keeps going and going and going). But in reality I get so absorbed in the process of creation that I enter a time warp and come out of it with a few new strands of white hair. 😆 So this year, I promise (as I did last year) to be more productive in less time. Promise!

3. Blog at least 3 times a week. – Ooh! This is yet another carryover from last year. I failed miserably this year, I know (picture me shuffling my feet in shame). But hey, the great thing about being alive is being able to begin again! In Latin, we say Nunc coepi: Begin now! Love that philosophy… It’s like your angel whispering in your ear: So you didn’t do so well today? No matter, you can always begin again. Why yes! I can!

(Ps. I actually considered just saying “Blog weekly.” But hey, dream big and fly high, right? 😉 )

4. Make a layout every week. – I hardly scrapped during the 2nd half of the past year and I have to admit (banging fists on table, tears gushing down my cheeks, dramatic music doing a crescendo in the background): I miss it! I can’t even remember the last layout I made. I think it must have been during our Type+Writer 2 course. (Not counting the 3ft x 9ft poster layout I created for my 7-year-old J’s classroom… a Christmas wall decor that had me photographing and extracting 32 kids and a teacher for 3 straight nights. Phew!)

But creating layouts is one of my deepest passions. It’s how I celebrate moments in life and those I love! So I. Must. Make. A. Layout… every week (crossing fingers here).

5. Do an act of kindness every day. – Why not? Making people happy is one of the few things in life that give a greater ROI than what you put in. You make someone happy and it makes you happy too. Can’t think of too many win-win situations like this one. 😉 Serving others (the ultimate act of kindness) is easy… but to consciously make an effort to do something concrete every single day… now that is the adventure!

6. Take a photo every day. – Okay so I may regret ever writing this down. I attempted to do this last year (though I didn’t turn it into a resolution) and I failed miserably. The funny thing is I take photos all the time! And lots of them. Just not on a daily basis. I’m keeping my fingers and toes crossed on this one– let’s see how it goes.

7. Be grateful for something every day. – It’s easy to think that we all have a general attitude of thankfulness, that resolutions don’t have to be made about this. But to consciously notice and pinpoint in concrete terms what it is that makes our heart sing for that day, every single day, is something that can be easily overlooked. So I promise not just to have a thankful heart throughout the year… but to visualize and verbalize and then celebrate that gratitude. That is the essence of Plan No. 7.

8. Write family once a month. – I grew up in a very close-knit family: seven kids who counted each other as our first and foremost best friends. Today we are kind of scattered across the globe. My sister in Paris and I chat every single day, something that makes me love technology that much more. But the time difference between me and my brother (who is two years older than me) is not so ideal, so that makes it harder to stay in touch. But I miss him a lot. And he is as much a genius at keeping in touch with monthly updates as I am his polar opposite (let’s see now: that makes me effectively a doofus at keeping in touch. Nice.) So I resolve to shed off my doofus costume and get my fingers working at keeping the family ties tied tight! (Say those three last words six times, quickly!)

9. Surprise a friend every month. – I like surprises (nice ones only, please. No lizards, no black furry fat spiders, and certainly, absolutely no cockroaches). When I was a kid, my dad would give me a big box on my birthday, year after year, and there was no way to tell what was inside the box because it was a generic box with its standard shape and its basic dimensions. But when I tore off that wrapper, I knew the inside would be filled with little doodads, a collection of little items that taken altogether made up my birthday gift. I loved the thought of not knowing what was inside till I unwrapped the big ol’ thing.

Today my favorite gifts come one at a time instead of in little collections, and they’re mostly bigger than the little trinkets of the past (and also, usually sport plugs that attach to my computer or my camera, mmm!). But I still love surprises, my most recent one being the that came in the mail all the way from Sweden last Christmas (more on that later because that deserves a post of its own!).

So because I think surprises are wonderful and they bring out such childlike glee, this year I’d like to make a conscious effort to bring that whee-clap-your-hands kind of happiness to a friend once a month. 12 friends, 12 nice surprises, 12 little yelps of glee. Can’t wait to do this!

10. Make a book within the year. – The summer between Fifth and Sixth Grade, my best friend and I sat down for a week or two at the country club veranda and wrote a children’s book. I kept the transcript written in our childish penmanship all these years. Yep, I still have it. It has always been my dream to publish that book and surprise my friend with it. If I actually manage to accomplish this in the next 12 months, I’d have accomplished Resolution No. 9 for one of the 11 months in the horizon while making a childhood dream a reality. So hello, Blurb. I’m going to need to learn how to work with you. (Hey! That could totally help me accomplish Plan No. 1 too!).

NOTE: Resolution Corollary to the Ten Above: I promise not to beat myself on the head and stress out if I don’t manage to accomplish all that’s on my list.

Now let me tell you, it was not easy to think of 10 for this year (I was struggling at no. 5). But 10 was my plan and I can’t flake off on the first plan of the year, right?

Three Things: A Question, a Challenge, a Gift!

So I’d like to ask you: have you thought of your plans for this year? (If you haven’t, here, sit right beside me and have a glass of iced tea while you ponder the matter. If you have actually thought of your plans… oh man, you put me to shame! And if you’ve actually written them down, then make a bit of space for me while I grovel at your feet).

Anyway, here’s the challenge part: Come up with TEN plans for 2010 (that’s right, baby, TEN :D). What do you want to accomplish this year? Doesn’t matter if they’re big or small; they just have to be what YOU want them to be. But here’s the thing: They have to be concrete and measurable. That way, it makes it easier for us to check how we’re doing throughout the year. So instead of saying, “I’m going to be nicer,” try “I’m going to smile every morning at that old man down the street whose pet rooster wakes me up at 4AM every single bloody day”. See? Now that’s a nice and concrete and specific plan! 😆

Next, write them down, all ten of ’em. (Kind of like carving your resolutions in stone, hehe). But seriously, write down those 10 plans for 2010, and if you’re comfortable doing so, maybe you can link me up to your blog or send me an email? I’d love to know what yours are!

And here’s a little gift for you if you do decide to come up with your own list of 10 for 2010:

It’s a .png file in two versions — curled and flat, with and without shadows. You can print out the flat one and write on it with your favorite ink pen… or if you live on the Dark Side like I do, you can open any of the two files on your compy and type in your ten. (Here’s a little tip: if you use a standard font and set it at 14pt, your words will fall perfectly within the notepaper lines 😉 ). Oh! and I’ve made this large enough for you to attach to a layout if you are so inclined. But you can certainly reduce the size if you want to print it out and put it in the little notebook you carry around in your bag. 🙂

You can download the freebie by clicking on the image above. And thank you so much in advance for the love you leave right here on my blog (Go ahead, click on that red Comment button at the bottom of this post; it’ll make me so happy! You know I love reading each and every one of your comments! heehee!).

So that’s it, folks! That’s all I have for today! I’ll see you again real soon, and thank you so much for your patience with my being totally remiss at coming out on this porch swing and sitting a bit with you. HUGE, no, HUMONGOUS hugs to you!

And may your new year be filled with lovely new beginnings!

Last sunrise of 2009, taken on our post-Christmas trip to the mountains. 🙂

Last 2 Minutes to Snag a Great FREE Course!

Monday, 16 November 2009Monday, 16 November 2009 / LivE / Leave a comment

Well, not really the last two (more like the last 24 hours), but do rush, do hurry, do run and sign up for this year’s final awesome FREE class at our Spraground! Registration ends at 11:59PM Eastern Standard Time.

Click on the image above and you’ll find yourself in our magical Spraground with all the EASY info you need to sign up for this awesome course. Did I say it was FREE? F-R-E-E! Wooooot!

You don’t have to have any special skills as pre-requisites for this course. You’re a digi scrapper? Come join us! You’re a hybrid scrapper? A paper-only scrapper? Come and join us too. Not a scrapper at all? Come join us too. You’re strictly into photography and nothing else? Or into just blogging? Or into just journaling and writing? There’s lotsa room for you too!

See? Everyone is welcome! Seriously! That’s because the main aim of Jessica’s newest (and this year’s last) course is to capture both the past and the present magic, memories, and wonderment of all that spells Holiday. And then come up with an album project as tangible evidence that we certainly have so much to celebrate and be thankful for.

What better way to prepare for this most awesome of all seasons? So tarry no longer, and click on that image, and join us for an amazing seven days of fun and frolic and falalala’s!

See you at the Spraground!

Happy Day!

Saturday, 5 September 2009Saturday, 5 September 2009 / LivE / 4 Comments

Some days just turn out to be serendipitously happy ones, for no particular reason except that … it’s a happy day! 😀

Am celebrating it with this song!

And this!

Dance with me? 😆

Today’s Funny

As my son J and I were riding home from school today, he was (as usual) telling me about his day in school. Our discussion revolved around a classmate who probably had a bad day and ended up dealing a few punches and a kick to my son. (Ah, boys!)

So naturally, mama took the opportunity to talk about the importance of using words, not hands or feet, to express oneself.

Me: Maybe you can tell your friend to use words next time he’s upset. Only babies use their hands and feet because they don’t have words to express themselves. Grown-ups use words.

J: I know, Mama! I used words today! (said proudly)

Me: Really?

J: Yes. Someone told me “Hey, you, poopy-head!” So I said, “Hey… you! Back at you… poopies!”

ROFL. I think this kind of boy-talk I can tolerate. 😆

Today’s Freebie!

And because it’s a happy day for me, and happiness is meant to be shared, here’s a freebie for you! 😀

This large (approximately 6×8 inches) grungy frame brush can easily be resized if you need a smaller frame. It comes in .abr format and .png format (so if you use a program other than Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, you can still use the frame! Yay!)

Preview Stock Photo Credit: Ayla87 at stock.xchng

{ Click on image to download. Please see Terms of Use included in zip file. 🙂 }

Here’s how I used my frame on one of our class projects done for my dear friend Jessica’s awesome Photo-Editing 2 course at jessicasprague.com!

PhotoEd2-proj1-w

Spraground Shoppe: My Newest Baby

I’ve got a new product up in our shoppe! YAY! 😀

(Image is linked to the Spraground Shoppe. Click on it and find yourself in our awesome Spraground candy store! :D)

My Storyboard Album Template Pack will help you create your own album with a graphic, storyboard look in a jiffy! It comes with twenty-one 12×12 layered templates (in .psd format), including a title page (with optional text path included), filler template pages which work well if you use them side by side in order (or you can also jumble them up and mix and match them), and a special template page for the last page of your album. I’ve included text boxes and text paths which you can use as is, or you can also opt to replace these with your own.

Because the Storyboard Album Template Pack is done in graphic style, you can use it for virtually any album theme you want! Use clipping masks in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to clip your own papers and photos of choice. You can choose to use all the masks for photos, or if you’d rather clip patterned paper on some of the masks, that’s totally fine too! Add a bunch of your embellishments if that’s the look you want, or use just a few if you prefer the clean and simple, minimalist look. Don’t you just love all the freedom you have at your fingertips? 😉

Best of all, you can use it again and again for as many albums as you wish to make! 😀

And… that’s it for today, folks! It’s back to the drawing board to create more stuff for you!

Have a wonderful day, my sweeties! (((hugs)))

Birthday Bash at JessicaSprague.com!

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 / LivE / 1 Comment

We’re turning 2 years old this month at JessicaSprague.com, and we’re inviting everyone to the PAR-TAY!

Things are buzzing around the Spraground; we’ve got a week-long birthday bash going on! Lots of cookies (as can be expected from the Dark Side, hahaha! 😆 ) and cakes and ice cream, and boy have we got party hats in a big way! Come on over and check it out!

Also just doing a quick post to let you know (but you probably already do! 😉 ) that we have awesome party favors and giveaways!

Birthday FREE COURSE!

First off is Jessica’s uber-awesome, highly-anticipated, new FREE Photo-Editing: Special Effects & Frame-Ups course! (Did I say you get it for free?) Sign up period for this free course is strictly during our birthday week, so if you haven’t yet signed up (and let me tell ya, the response has been H-U-G-E, it is so EXCITING!), come and sign up for it! Registration ends on Sunday, along with our festivities, so you have till now and then to hop on our fun bus!

To sign up, you just need to be a registered member of the Spraground (registration is FREE too!)

Then follow these instructions:

Free Registration for Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects – Just log in to your account (or create one), then click here and enter the code: FREECLASS062009 to be automatically registered! Then check out the class introduction in your My Classes link in the main menu. Registration is free through June 28, and class begins July 6!

HUGE 20% OFF SITE-WIDE SALE!

It began yesterday, it’s going on right now, and it doesn’t end entil Sunday 11:59PM! We’ve got 20% off everything in our jessicasprague.com store! This includes self-paced classes, templates, products, EVERYTHING!

Plus we’re getting new stuff in the shop throughout the week, so keep checking back for more stuff!

BIRTHDAY GIVEAWAYS!

We’ve got 24-hour birthday freebies that we’re giving away every single day of this Birthday Bash week! You’ll find them up on our Spraground blog homepage, and you can download them from there from 10Am of the release day till 10AM of the next day, when a new freebie comes up and the previous one gets moved to our shop. So I hope you’ll take advantage of those 24 hours when these awesome goodies will be free for you! YAY!

I’m coming in a day late here (partying too hard on the Spraground, hahaha!) so the first freebie has gone up and down, and will now be available in the shop… BUT we’ve got the Day 2 freebie up, and this is why I’m running over to my porch to let you all know! There’s still time to snag it! 😀

Today’s freebie is my first template product in the shop (well, technically, it isn’t in the shop yet as it’s FREE right now, but tomorrow it’ll be moved to the shop shelves 😀 ). It’s also the template we’re using to play with today as we go about doing our Birth-Day 2 / June Create-a-Day:Day 23 challenge!

Here’s what it looks like:

And here’s the layout that I created as a sample (featuring my very pretty niece):

And you can download it from our blog homepage till 10am tomorrow morning, Eastern Standard Time! After 10am it will go into our shop, and a new freebie will be up for grabs! YAY!

More coming soon, but right now I’ve got cookies waiting for me on the Spraground! Come skip and hop with me to the Spraground?

(((hugs)))

Beam me up, Scotty!

Free Photo-Editing Class, Fun Find & Freebie!

Monday, 15 June 2009Monday, 15 June 2009 / LivE / 22 Comments

Oooh, I just love posts like this!

First things first: have you heard of the latest fabulous free class that’s coming to you real soon?

FREE FABULOUS PHOTO-EDITING COURSE!

In the follow-up class to her hugely popular first Photo-Editing course, Jessica Sprague (and I’m proud to call her my friend! :D) brings more photo fun to you with her new and FREE Photo-Editing: Frame-Ups & Special Effects course!

The two-week instructor-led class begins on July 6th, with all the awesome stuff that come only with JessicaSprague.com courses! (Daily emails, a very friendly forum, screencast videos, a class private gallery, lots of love, and more!). Be sure you don’t forget to sign up and register (did I already say FREE?) for the course when you come around to our Spraground on the week of June 22-28. We’ll be celebrating our second Spraground birthday on this week, and let me tell ya, we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to make sure that you’ll have an awesome time celebrating with us (how does “amazing giveaways and exciting announcements” sound to you? 😉 )

What will you need to take this course? Just Photoshop or Photoshop Elements (no experience necessary, and if you don’t happen to have Photoshop/Photoshop Elements, all you need to do is click on the image above, and you’ll zip right to our homepage where you’ll find a link to a free trial download of the program! Awesome, isn’t it? )

So mark your calendars, set your date alarms, and I hope to see you at the Registration line in about a week! YAY!

NOTE: Click on the image to learn more about the course!

FUN FIND

So I was moseying down netland and guess what I found?

Bwahahaha. That’s about the closest I’ll ever get to finding my photo on a wall. 😆

There is an amazing variety of stuff you can put your face (or your friends’ faces) on at PhotoFunia.com, from walls to magazine covers to coins and t-shirts and museum gallery frames. You can even have some cool guy spray-paint your face on a wall filled with graffiti. 😆

(Snort!) Try it and watch time fly while you play. 😆

AND FINALLY…

I have a new pack up at our shoppe at JessicaSprague.com…

T-Stickies:100% is the first in a series of textured stickers (thus, the T in T-stickies 😉 ). This one is a set of 30 glossy, slightly-crumpled, textured stickers in five colors. The 100% labels are separate from the words so that you can mix and match them to your delight! 🙂

* Click on image to go to the shoppe *

And because you know I love ya, here’s a little freebie from the pack (this one is curled, pre-shadowed, and pre-matched so that all you have to do is pull it onto your layout and voila! 😉 )

* Click on the image to download, and thanks for the love you leave on my blog as you snag this freebie!

And that’s all the F’s we’ve got for today, folks! 😆

Have a wonderful day! I’m off to bed! ((((hugs))))

Greetings from the Chicken Coop!

Saturday, 21 February 2009 / LivE / 33 Comments

Wow! It’s been a looong time, hasn’t it? I’ve been missing you!

Forgive the absence and the total failure to live up to Resolution No. 5! Tsk tsk. But real life happens, right? So in real life, I’ve been running around pretty much like a headless chicken (refer to blog title 😀 ) attending to one million and one things all crying out my name at the same time.

Uhm. In retrospect, I think I’ve been much more of a duck (“calm on the surface but paddling like the dickens underneath”). There’s a funny part of me that hopes that being calm and collected on the outside will somehow seep into the inside by osmosis. hehe.

So. Lots of reasons why I hope you’ll forgive the long absence, but I won’t bore you with all the details. In a nutshell, this is what kept me away from my porch these past weeks:

dealing with medical emergencies ( one of which was major and took me out of the home for an entire week)
starting a crash course in Nutrition and Cooking Duty to answer the diet and lifestyle changes required by the medical emergencies (see above). Uhm. I have to confess: when God was distributing kitchen talents, I was way over on the opposite side, lined up in the Digital Addiction area 😆
working on the construction of a new annex to our home and remodelling of the existing one
helping the younger kids with their school work for this last stretch before summer (blissful summer!) comes
attending to the graduation needs of the two older ones (including graduation balls, graduation practices, and all those major class activities that seem to get scrunched up in the last few months of the school year)
writing my usual column for our community newsletter (and editing the whole thing too)
and…(I’ve saved the best part for last)…
working with Jes on our new shoppe. That’s right! We now have our very own little shoppe on the Spraground! Woohoo! 😀 (more on this below)

Extreme Makeover, Home Edition: The Kitchen

Did I mention that our home has been undergoing a major makeover since late December? We added an annex to our home (when you have five boys, you realize you need *lots* of space) and what that translates to is, basically, building a house all over again. Or at least it feels pretty much like it. Repainting, acquiring more furniture (luckily, we have access to a carpenter who can translate my designs into wood so we don’t really have to buy too many ready-made pieces of furniture), sorting through accumulated junk and trying to decide what goes and what stays (and having to deal with “No! We can’t throw that away!” from all corners of the home), ripping out flooring material and … you get the picture. 🙄

The good news is, with the additional space, dh and I get to have our own workroom. I’m still trying to decide which shelves and cabinets to move from our bedroom to the workroom over there (separation anxiety from my scrappin’ goodies, hehe). Funnily, the kids refuse to get their own bedrooms (which is one of the main reasons we added the annex); they prefer to sleep together in their own shared bedrooms. What this means is we get to have a guest bedroom (you’re all invited to come over for a sleepover! YAY!) and another bedroom turned into a playroom for the kiddos (which serves as a second guestroom if needed so come over and bring your entire fam!) 😆 . Oh! It also means I finally get my own veranda, which I’ve turned into our art nook! The kids’ art table is now there, and my oil paints and canvases and my easel and palette and paintbrushes and…

And then, there’s the kitchen. Which is being made over. Which, in this state, pretty much represents what the rest of the house looks like while it’s undergoing plastic surgery:

A bit of a side story: We had wooden floors here, which we ended up removing because we realized on Year 2 that wooden floors and kitchen spills don’t mix well. Now that we’re doing major work on the house, dh and I decided to replace the flooring with the more friendly Italian tiles. So he brought home 5 large square tiles for me and the kids to choose from: there was one amazing tile that had a wood pattern very much like our old kitchen’s wooden floor–very tempting, except that it had a slight pink-orange tint to it that disturbed me (heehee). There were 3 wonderful textured tiles of the warm-color family, the kind that make you think of Tuscany… and these seemed the perfect ones to choose from. But then there was this lone Zorro. The black italian textured tile. Very sleek. Very cool.

Hubby and I looked at each other and had the requisite “should we do black, knowing that dark colors make areas look smaller?” conversation. But then he said:

“Look at our black granite counters. And all that stainless steel…”

I thought of the black tiles. And the silver. And the black. And then the flashing marquee: Totally Sleek. Gorgeous. Yum.

So. Black it will be. 😉

And now, moving on from the kitchen, let’s go to…

The Little Shop on the Block

I love little towns. I love the concept of having everything within walking distance. I love the thought of walking on late afternoons and passing by the butcher, waving at the baker, nodding at the corner grocer, smiling at the florist… I love the completeness of small towns where you can get everything within walking distance and where every corner oozes with warmth and sense of family.

If the Spraground were a tangible place, this is exactly how I imagine it to be. There’s the hotdog man in his rolling stall with the children around him; there’s the flowershop with tulips and carnations and chrysanthemums in full bloom; there’s the playground right smack in the center where everyone gravitates, and … oooh! in the corner! Look at that! It’s a little new shoppe!

😀

If you’ve been around to my uber-amazing friend Jessica’s blog or to our wonderful Spraground homepage, you probably already know that we have our very own little shoppe on our Spraground! Woohoo! If you haven’t heard about it, come, run skip and jump right over HERE and consider yourself our very special guest!

Jes and I have been so excited working on sharing our creations with our uber-loved friends! For the record, I will state (again) how awesome a friend Jes is, and how grateful I am to her, and how awed I am by her uncanny ability to pluck a dream of mine from the sky, a dream I didn’t even know I had, and put it in my hands. What a girl. A-W-E-S-O-M-E.

And of course, nothing could come out from the most awesome digi goddess than the best stuff, right? Have you seen Jessica’s templates? They’re all to-die for! These templates are the most amazing, most wonderful things to work with because not only do we get to use Jessica’s stellar designs but… listen to this… her templates aren’t just templates, they’re Templates PLUS!

What this means is when you get Jessica’s templates, what you’re getting is really much much more than just a template. You get a lot of goodies as well that come with it. Goodies that you can use over and over again on different layouts! How awesome is that? So buying a template from Jes is like getting a template and a host of element packs as well, all with the mark of excellence of Jessica’s great design and creativity and genius! Does it get any better than that? 😉

Here’s a preview of one of her awesome single-page templates:

When you open up this template, you’ll see that you get not only the template design but every part that you see on the template, including the circle embellishment, the frame, and the torn paper effect! Now that’s a huge PLUS, right?

And here’s an example of one of her terrific double-page templates:

Yummy! Don’t you just love this?

Oh, and have I mentioned that Jes included a tutorial on her blog last week, together with a free template and video tutorial on how to use them? Her blog tutorial tells you how to take the items from the template and separate them into their own files so that you can find them easily and use them later on your layouts without having to go find them in your templates? Awesome, isn’t it?

Candice, photographer *and* creative woman extraordinaire, is also selling projects at the shoppe. Have you seen her Valentine Garland? It’s awesome!

And little old me… I create kits and all the other bits and pieces. 😆

Here’s the latest kit that I’ve got up in the shoppe:

My absolute favorite thing to make is papers… so I’ve got a coordinating paper pack that goes with the kit (papers in this pack are different from the ones that come with the kit):

And here’s the latest bit-and-piece I’ve uploaded:

One of the things I love about this country I live in is the fact that textures abound everywhere! I can step out of my front door and find literally hundreds of texture sources! (This, by the way, is how I justify to my DH the need to bring my camera with me everywhere I go. heehee 😆 )

And because you know I love ya…

Here’s a freebie for you!

This one is a complement of the textures pack that I have in the shoppe. What you’ll get here are three photo texture plates, ready to use because they’re sized at approximately 5.5 x 7.5 inches. All you need to do is pull the texture plate onto a layer above your photo and then play with its blending modes and opacity levels. Try duplicating the texture, combining different textures, applying different blending modes, etc etc etc. The thing about textures is that they’re great toys to play with, and there are absolutely no limits to the amount of playing you can do with them!

Here are some examples of the freebies at work:

(You can click on the images if you want a closer look)

CREDITS: photo by bjearwicke @ stock.xchng

CREDITS: photo by lusi @ stock.xchng

CREDITS: photo by jaquesi @ stock.xchng

Do you want to play with textures too? Here ya go!

Click on the image to download.

Thanks for the love you leave on my blog as you download… and if you haven’t paid a visit to our shop yet, do drop by and have a look around, and pass by the general forum as well and say hello!

Phew! That’s all for today, folks! More updates tomorrow! Gotta get back to the saltmines! 🙂

((((hugs)))) to you!

PS. Want free tuition to a really awesome photo-editing course?

Head on over to my dear friend Jessica’s blog and find out how you can win! 😉

Resolutions, Resolutions

Tuesday, 6 January 2009 / LivE / 41 Comments

Have you made yours yet? 😀

I make daily resolutions (easier to do a check and balance that way, and there’s something very soothing when, if you find you’ve been unsuccessful with the day’s resolution, you know you have the option to say, “Well! Tomorrow’s another day!” a la Scarlett O’Hara 😉

Still there’s something quite auld-lang-syne-ish (okay, I just invented that adjective, haha ) about making the traditional New Year’s Resolutions.

So… what’s on your list?

Guess what’s at the top of mine.

Hehe… I’ve been oinking along since the middle of December, shame! (Well, I had to put the new weighing scale to good use, right? 😉 )

Seriously. Oinking. So this must be at the top of my list, most definitely.

And there’s more.

More walking, for one.

My 16-year-old son has been convincing me that I need exercise while respectfully omitting the “older people need all the exercise they can get” part, something I am grateful to him for. Bahaha!

Speaking of which, some days ago, my 13-year-old R –who’s a total movie buff–and I were talking about… surprise!… movies. He was telling me he didn’t want to watch some movie (I forget which one, but I think it was One Flies Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) because he couldn’t stand to see Jack Nicholson with hair (it was filmed in the 70s). He said it wouldn’t seem like Jack Nicholson if the guy had hair. ??? (Don’t worry, I didn’t get it either >teehee< )

So I said, “Why? How old was he when they filmed that movie?”

He said, “I don’t know, but he certainly had more hair than he has now. He’s really old now. He’s ancient! He doesn’t have much hair left.”

“Really?” I said. “How old is he now?”

“I don’t know… Old! Forty?”

Ahem. 😯

So. I must walk if only to prove my youth to my growing sons. Aside from the fact that exercise is good, of course. Especially in this ooooold age of ours (*tongue in cheek*).

Okay, so I won’t kill you with all the details behind my resolutions.

But I will just mention this, because it has to do with the word for the month that my dear friend Jes blogged about here.

What was your word? Mine was… tada! PRAY! Hence my No. 3 resolution! PRAY more! Don’t get me wrong, I do pray everyday. But I figure it’s a wonderful thing to do more of, and one can never lose by doing it more. I also truly believe that work done to the best of one’s abilities and offered up is prayer, so this is my way of reminding myself to turn everything I do into prayer. 😉

So. Five resolutions. Spiritual, health, personal aspects: check, check, check. I’m good. (I figured I’d stop at five. Five is do-able. Six? Seven? Eight? Too much room for me to fail. Haha! I’ll go the safe route and stick with five. )

What about you? What are your new year’s resolutions? If you share them with me, then we can encourage each other and cheer each other and support each other throughout the year! We’ve got… what, more than 300 days to make sure these things happen! Alright!

New year, new lessons: Stitching, anyone?

I have to say… I am totally a sucker for cheap thrills, and one of the biggest sources of thrills for me is learning a new thing! There are few things that make me feel more alive than discovering new things, no matter how tiny and little they are in the bigger scheme of things.

So… did I say I spent the latter half of the holidays (till New Year’s Day) in the southern mountains with my sisters and brothers? Did I mention that most of our time was spent exercising our jaws and stomach muscles? (READ: oink! oink!)

Anyway, we stayed at this fab fab fab place (and no, we don’t own it–we rented it 😀 ), with space huge enough to house 4 families (which we were), with an almost 180-degree view of the world’s smallest volcano and lake within a lake (it’s one of the places that author Patricia Schultz lists in her book 1000 Places to See Before You Die).

I was so awed by the place that I just had to take photos… so I took 8 photos of the view as you come down the stairs from the entry, knowing at the back of my mind that Photoshop would help me stitch them together. I’d never attempted to use Photomerge in the past; in the past I had always stitched photos by hand (Riiiight. That makes it sound a bit like doing a cross-stitch sampler, doesn’t it? 😛 ).

So I tried Photomerge for the first time last night, and oh, boy, I hafta say… it’s the *easiest* and most thrilling thing to do! Loooove how Photoshop takes all the hard work and does it for you! The only thing you need to do is (1) have enough RAM; and (2) know how to fill in the missing places once the photos have been stitched together (something that can be accomplished with the clone tool).

So. I began with 8 photos and ended up with this one:

(You can click on the image if you want a larger view. Originally, this photo was roughly 12+ inches by 36+ inches after stitching. I reduced it to about 8×26 in).

I promised some of my girlfriends that I’d share how I stitched this together (it’s really easy, and I so love sharing easy stuff!) Note: I use CS3, so am so sorry if you use PSE, but I’m totally in the dark as to whether Photoshop Elements 7 has this function as well or not. 😳

Here’s how to do it with CS3:

1. Open your photos that you want to stitch into a single panoramic photo.

2. Drag your photos onto a single document. Make sure that you hold down Shift as you drag in each photo so that it comes in centered on your document space. It doesn’t matter if on your layers palette you notice transparent spaces on some layers as a couple of photos end up in different areas of the total document size. As long as they’re centered when they come in, you’re good to go.

I used one of the photos as my base document and then saved it under a different name so that I don’t write over the original photo. It’s important to ensure that none of the photos save for the background layer is locked. Otherwise the photomerge function won’t work.

It might be good to note, too, that if you’re pulling photos straight out of your camera and you shoot in super fine mode or whatever the highest quality of your images are in your camera, you’re going to end up hogging the memory of your compy… so ideally you’d want to ensure that you have enough RAM to work with (if your RAM is limited, you’ll probably want to close other open documents and programs while you’re stitching).

Since I shoot 98% of the time in RAW, I first saved all my photos (without post-processing them) as jpegs. I post-processed at the end, after the photos were stitched.

3. Once you have all your photos in the single document, shift-click on the top and bottom layers to select all of them (they should all show up highlighted on your layers palette).

4. Go to Edit > Auto-Align Layers > Auto. You’ll get four options (Auto, Perspective, Cylindrical, Reposition Only) in the popup menu… I chose Auto. Guess what. I ended up with a stitched photo that looked like the Cylindrical option icon. I guess Auto makes the best decisions for you, which is a great way to do away with all the guesswork!

5. Wait while Photoshop does all the work. Go get yourself a cup of cafe moccha, or maybe munch on some Royce Potato Chip Chocolates (ha! Now you know what I was doing)… because depending on the number of photos you’re stitching together and your RAM, and oh yes, your patience level as well, this is going to take a bit of time.

6. When you come back, munching and sipping, you’ll be delighted to see on your monitor that Photoshop has done all the hard work for you.

Initially I started out with 14 photos to stitch, actually. There were some similar views, so when my stitched panorama came out, some of it looked a bit wonky. Not a problem. I found the layers that those almost-duplicate photos were on and deleted them from the layers palette.

It also helps to know before you take the photo that you’ll want to take each series of photos from the same height, more or less, if you’re planning to stitch them. (So, ideally, if I wanted a shot of the entire window view, I should’ve used a tripod, moving from left to right as I shot the photos… then to get the roof area, I would’ve tilted my camera on my tripod, again shooting from left to right. That way, I wouldn’t have ended up with huge gaps on my stitched photo and would have probably not needed to do any work with the clone stamp tool. But that’s in retrospect. For next time. 😉

Now you might find that your photos look a bit strange with different shades on them (assuming you didn’t do any post-processing beforehand); if this happens, worry not! Photoshop, our dear friend, will take care of that for you too! Here’s how:

7. With all your layers still highlighted on your layers palette, go to Edit > Auto-Blend Layers.

Wait patiently, knowing that this will take significantly less time than the stitching did a few minutes ago.

Blink your eyes a few times, and voila! MAGIC! The white balance and all the shades on your photos will be blended so they look … PERFECT! Or… sometimes, almost perfect, in case you end up with some transparent areas on the sides of your stitched photo.

Now what to do if you a less-than-perfect panoramic photo with some gaps on its sides on your monitor, same as the one I found on mine? (hehe. Don’t you just love experimenting? You learn a lot that way! LOL) Again, no worries! 😀 Paint in the missing parts with your clone stamp tool. That should take you longer than the stitching process… but since the stitching is the harder part of it, and Photoshop has done it all for you, what’s there to grumble about with the clone stamp tool at one’s disposal, right? heehee.

9. Do whatever post-processing you want to do with your photos, in case you shot in RAW, and voila! Perfect panoramic photo! YAY!

Now, for a bit more about the scene on my stitched photo:

This house was awesome (as you can probably tell, since I’m still raving about it a couple of paragraphs down this post.)

You enter through a gate and drive down a relatively short path till you get to the front door and the rooftop deck where you can host parties and get-togethers (as long as there’s no slight drizzle) and have a 360º view of the landscape.

You enter through a massive wooden door and go down a couple of flights of stone steps and enter a huge place where you have a split-level living area connected to the dining area with an equally huge kitchen right beside the dining area.

There are four huge bedrooms with their own bath/washrooms (perfect to house my little family and my sisters’ families… we moved in for New Year’s Eve as we had been staying at our own place in the country club earlier).

Then there’s a nice little pool which the teenagers were the only ones brave enough to dip into (cold winds, cold water? No, thanks!). Beside the pool area, with its uber-lush pine trees on one side, is a viewing deck from which you can marvel at nature’s wonders… and if you fancy a warm adventure with water but without the biting wind, there’s a sauna/hot bath a few garden steps below (I wasn’t brave enough to try that either… because it involves getting out into the cold winds before you get back to the house, haha!)

Surrounded by nature on all fronts, thank goodness we only encountered this little fella in the garden:

Well, whaddayaknow? A visit from one of those leaf insects that you see on the pages of National Geographic. I normally don’t like bugs (hate, hate, hate cockroaches… you can’t even get me to squish one. Ugh, that awful crunch as you smack them–notice I say “you” smack them because I’ll be the one running in the other direction at 200mph. And they fly! And they bite! And they stink! Uggggh. Shudder.)

But this is no roach. So okay, I’m fine with this, and I can stick around long enough to take its photo. Since we were in the mountains, I only had one lens with me (my lucky brother brought his macro… I’d love to see how his photos turned out!). I wonder how the poor insect felt with all those lenses a million times larger than him, all aimed at his little body. My nephew “held” the insect on his old and tattered book, and it crawled onto the ledge long enough for us to shoot a few more frames till my sister said “Eeeek! Get it out now!” End of photo session. 😆

One more time, up close, sans macro:

Recalling the Resolutions (Do you feel the freebie coming? :D)

What was No. 4? Create weekly? Let’s take that resolution seriously today, and let’s see what we’ve got here:

Oooh! A freebie! 😆

But first, I want to say THANK YOU to all of you for your warm fuzzies and for sharing with me how you’ll be doing Project 365 (or some variation of it). The 12 on 12s is a great idea! I have to admit that I’m still sitting on the fence on this one, wondering if I’ll end up doing a daily (20% chance), weekly (40% chance), or a monthly (40% chance) project. I’m wondering: if I just upload my daily photos onto my blog, does that count? ROFL. (Oh man. I so feel like Charlie Brown right now, sitting on the playground bench, watching everyone play and wondering what to do next. bwahahaha)

So anyway. You know how there are ten million options open to everyone, and anyone can do what their heart desires, right? (That’s what I love about scrapbooking and art and creating! There are no hard and fast rules! Just create! And have fun!)

One of these many options I’ve heard about is this other easy approach to housing and documenting the photos, which involves using a 4×6 slip-in photo album and turning it into a scrapbook (think: you have the option to put in photos or journaling tags or digitally scrapbooked 4×6 pages, or whatever you fancy!). Have you heard about this?

Personally I love the square size of 8×8’s so I probably won’t be attempting this anytime soon (and need a reason to use all the Bind-It-All schtuff I ordered! :D). But I can imagine wanting to try this approach one day. So for those who are doing this approach now, and for those who are doing the regular 12×12 or 8.5×11 or 8×8 or whatever size pages, this freebie mini is for you and you and you! Anyone can use it!

I made this chipboard journaling tag, with rubbed-on designs, which you can use for Project 365 or anything else, really. (It just came in really handy for jotting my resolutions on, haha!) And it’s sized at 4×6, so if you want to go the hybrid route and print this out and write on it, and then slip it into your 4×6 album pocket-pages, or attach it to your cardstock, you can! Or if you want to digitally attach it to your purely digital layout, you can too! (I didn’t include shadows so that you have total freedom with how you want to position it on your layout and where you want the lighting effects to be).

Click on the image to download. And thank you so much for the love you leave as you download. 🙂

I’ll be back soon with more photos to share… for now, I have to get to tutoring the kids with their homework, and doing my own homework as well! 😉

(((hugs))) and see you soon, sweeties! 😀

Hello 2009!

Sunday, 4 January 2009 / LivE / 46 Comments

Happy New Year to one and all!

And forgive me for being absent for such a long time! In my part of the world, the Christmas season is the biggest feast/festival/fiesta (as the Christmas carols playing on the airwaves as early as September would prove), and the number of parties and reunions and out-of-town trips increase tenfold! So yeah, I was pretty much buried under piles of Christmas lists, then Christmas wrappers and tape, then Christmas parties and reunions–and along with that, Christmas food (which is now safely tucked away in my stomach, thank you very much, BURP!)… and whatever time left over that I’ve been able to grab, I’ve spent working on a “couple” of things that have to remain a secret right now but which I’ll definitely share with you come mid-January 😉

So… for the meantime, I thought I’d share with you some photographic evidence that I have not been lying around doing nothing but filling my mouth with holiday goodies (uh… more like moving around doing a lot while filling my mouth with holiday goodies, heehee!) 😆

Wrapping Fury

Quick, answer this question: How many Christmas gifts did you wrap? You know? Well, I salute you! I bow to you! Because I can never count the total number of gifts I wrap each year; all I know is that if I seem to disappear for a few weeks during the holiday season, all anyone needs to do is wade through mounds of wrapper and tape and boxes and voila! You’ll find me buried under them, trying to work my way up. 😛

This year, I *did* attempt to count the gifts I wrapped… at least the ones for my sons’ teachers. I have to confess, though, that I lost count somewhere between 25 and 40. Multiply 4 kids in 4 different levels in 3 different schools, with a different teacher for each subject, then add the teacher aides and security guards, and you have… how many? See what I mean? 😆

So here’s the photo of this year’s bunch of teachers’ gifts:

And because gifts need a home… in comes the tree! 😀

The Tree Boys

One of the really great things about having five boys is that you eventually get to the point where you can assign certain duties to them, such as putting up the tree! 😀 Every year, we put up the tree on the weekend of December 8th (Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which also means that most schools give the kids the day off… so in our home, that means the kids have the entire day to hang out and put up the Christmas decorations!)

This year we deliberately kept the home decor simple, since we had men working on the annex that we’re attaching to our home (read: breaking down the wall to connect another unit and completely remodeling said unit). The work isn’t done yet, and I think it’s safe to say it’ll take us about 3-6 months to really fix up the unit (we’re changing all the bathrooms, installing blinds in all the rooms, putting in new furniture, etc. etc. etc.–you get the picture. 🙂 ).

So anyway, that explains why the Main Thing this year was our tree!

There are few things that beat the joy of watching one’s kids help each other trim a tree, don’t you think?

My eldest helping my youngest… mmmmm! What a lovely thing to watch! 🙂

S gets a helping hand from R:

And my little J gets help from his nanny 😀

We have a tradition of getting each child something of his own to hang on the tree each year. Then when they are old enough to have homes of their own, they’ll have a “starter kit” of their very own decorations to hang on their own Christmas tree, gathered from their very first Christmas from the time they were born.

But there’s one item hanging on the tree that has my name on it: this one! (Gotta love my Starbucks coffee! 😀 )

So it’s a 16 year old tree, and it’s not 10 feet tall, but it’s been with us from the birth of our eldest son and we love it. 🙂

The View from the 41st

On my side of the world, the holiday season gives everyone the best excuse to party. It’s a wonderful time because you get to meet up with people you hardly see the rest of the year. Relatives from around the world fly back home to be with family. Office people turn into party animals in a 180º transformation that puts the pumpkin-coach metamorphosis in Cinderella to shame. 🙂

My hubby’s office party was held in the 41st floor of a hotel, and as always, I brought along my Nikon D90 with me. His office Christmas parties are always themed, and the different divisions come up with a program of sorts where they compete against each other to win the prize for the best presentation. ‘Course I’d never pass up the chance to take advantage of the photo-ops! 😀

A couple of photos of that evening:

The theme this year was Asia; this was the winning team’s presentation:

Awards were given for best costume of the night… these ladies were the nominees:

(I think Asian costumes are so exotic! 😀 )

So anyway, when the party was over, I looked out of the floor to ceiling windows down at the city below and decided the view would make a GREAT shot! DH saw me fiddling with my camera (no tripod in tow), and teased me: “There is no way you’re going to get a clear photo of the street from this distance without a tripod and with the complete lack of lights.”

Well. Have I said that deep down inside, I have this little rebellious streak that surfaces when one presents me with a challenge that sounds more like a dare? 😆 So of course, I took a photo of the street from above. Here it is:

Don’t you just love those Christmas trees made of lights? 🙂

Project 365?

Are you doing this? Project 365, as I understand it (correctly, I hope? 😛 ) involves taking a photo every single day of the year (hence the 365). This was started some years back–the first time I heard about it was on the photojojo blog, with photos being uploaded to flickr. As all good things go, the interest in this project spread, and now some of my Spraground sistas have decided to join this project (boy, do I envy their energy and their ability to do this! I so wish I could, except that I’m also absolutely sure that I’d fail by the first week!)

I love taking photos and I joke that my Nikon is surgically attached to my body, but I’m not sure about whether I’d be able to keep up taking a photo every single day. Now if it were a weekly thing…

So I’m wondering: am I the only one who isn’t brave enough to take on this challenge? 😆 All this wondering led me to more thinking: what other options are there for people like me, who may not be able to keep up with the daily photo-vitamin requirement?

If I am fearful of my ability to tackle a daily thing, what about a weekly thing instead? Documenting a few days a week for 52 weeks in the year… that’s 52 layouts… hmmm! Tempting! *eyebrows going up and down*

What if weekly is still too daunting? What about a monthly thing? Documenting the highlights of each month for 12 months in a year… that’s 12 layouts… certainly do-able! *eyebrows going up and down faster*

Heehee. So you know where all of this is leading to, right? What can I create to share with everyone who wants to play with their cameras, whether on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis?

Yep! Here it comes! A freebie, finally! (A small one, but one that comes with a lot of affection anyway!)

Here’s a photo tag which you can use to write down the date when the photo was taken and a few notes to record the special moment captured. I’ve included two versions of the tag: one flat and one curled.