Texturize Photo Giveaway

Kate at Chronicals of a Country Girl blog is giving away a beautiful photograph of your choice. Check them out here. My wonderful friend Debra has one of Kate's beautiful photos at her home and I would really, really love to win one for myself.

Diva Dinner

Has it really been two weeks since I blogged? Well, please accept my apologies for not updating sooner. I've been so busy with my 365 project and getting the pictures Photoshoped, printed, organized and put into my binder.

However, tonight I took a break from Project 365 to have dinner with my Darling Diva friends. It was our Valentine's celebration. Complete with the most beautiful Valentine's from Chere. And fabulous cupcakes from Pam. It's so great having a friend who makes the best cakes and cupcakes.

Dinner and the company were wonderful. Here is a little photo of all us, even Baby Diva, Ava. This will be my Project 365 photo entry for today. Thanks for the fun and friendship.

Project 365

For the last few weeks I’ve been busily working on Becky Higgins’ Project 365. While reading various blogs I came across some comments about how excited people were about Project 365. So, I quickly jumped over to Becky’s blog and read up on the project. Basically, you take a photo a day and journal about it. Because all the kits sold out instantaneously, I got to reading about other approaches to this project. There are some awesome ideas out there that lead me to developing my own approach.

For my project 365 I will be doing the following:

We R Memory Keepers 12 x 12 binder This was ordered from Ritz Camera.com
We R Memory Keepers 12 x 12 6 up 4 x 6 photo pages. These came from Scrapbook.com
Downloaded the jpg files from Becky Higgins' Blog and have printed some of those onto matte photo paper
I’m having a blast making my own journaling cards and week of cards using Photoshop Elements 7

Since I am still waiting for the binder to arrive, I have not actually started scrapping the project. I’ve been taking my photos and writing about the day in a little notebook that I carry with me all the time. It’s been great fun trying to figure out what I will take a photo of each day. Becky has said not to stress about taking a photo every single day, but to capture something for each day. It can be receipt from shopping, or a past picture of a memory you may have had that day. There was a day last week that I couldn’t think of anything to take a photo of so I’ll be putting my favorite quote onto a 4 x 6 card and slipping that into the photo pocket for that day. The entire concept is to capture something from everyday life each day for one year. This won’t replace my actual scrapping of layouts, cards etc., just an additional little project. Once it is set up it will be completely manageable if I set aside time to print my photos once a week and jot the journaling down daily.

Down below are some photos of Maggie Holmes’ Project 365 to give you an idea of how it is set up. You can also check out Becky Higgins' blog for more ideas.


One more point of reference will be the January issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine which also has a list of 365 ideas for photography. Does this sound like a project you would like to do sometime?

Quote of the Day: "Time has a wonderful way of showing us what really matters." ~Unknown

King Tut and the First Emperor

Saturday my friend Amy and I set out to see King Tut and the First Emperor exhibits in downtown Atlanta. We sped off in Amy's darling little Mini Cooper for a day of fun and adventure. Our first stop was the First Emperor exhibit. The First Emperor was the emperor Qin who united all the states in China. For his burial tomb he had 1,000 workers make 7,000 Terra Cotta soldiers. All these 7,000 soldiers have different faces, hairstyles and clothing. I don't believe there are any two alike. Along with the soldiers there were birds, chariots, horses and other decorative objects. It was truly amazing to see these unique pieces of history. Unfortunately, there were no photos allowed in the exhibit. But we did get a photo outside of the High standing by the cardboard soldier. It almost looks real.

Amy and I then went to South City Kitchen for lunch. We had awesome fried chicken with gravy and green beans. Because it was Amy's birthday we also had a free Chocolate Bread Pudding. Lunch was delicious.

We arrived at the King Tut exhibit right at 3:00. There was a 3d movie and it almost felt like we were in Egypt at the various tombs of the Pharaohs. The Tut Exhibit was truly amazing. When you go, get the audio tour. It is narrated by Harrison Ford and gives interesting facts about the artifacts. The quality of the statues and furniture and jewelry was unbelievable. Hard to imagine they were 4,000 years old. Again, no photos allowed in the exhibit. Guess you'll just have to see it for yourself. It was worth every penny and then some. Maybe someday I'll get to Egypt to see the real tomb of King Tut.

Blogging for AccuCut Die

AccuCut has posted several new dies which they are showcasing at CHA. Check out their blog to see them. Enjoy

Six Random Things

My friend and fellow blogger Debra has tagged me to post six random things about myself. On her blog she explains the word meme and how this Six Random Things meme came about. I’m so glad she chose me to participate. The only trouble is I don’t have six new friends to tag and continue with this fun exercise. However, I will do as much of my part as I can, so here goes.

Here are the rules:
1.Link to the person who tagged you.
2.Post the rules on your blog.
3.Write six random things about yourself.
4.Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5.Let each person know that they were been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6.Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Random things about myself:
1) My favorite place to be is the beach. I just love the relaxing feeling I get when I am there. We have recently planned two vacations to the beach for this year. First is Spring Break 09. Several friends and I are taking 6 girls ranging in age from 16 to 17 to Panama City Beach in Florida. Yes, we are crazy. The second will be to Satellite Beach in Florida, June 13th through the 2oth. This will be using our inherited time share and I can’t wait.
2) We have 3 pets. 2 cats and one dog. Dixie is our golden retriever, Husker is our pure bred Himalayan Flame Point, while Charlie is our mutt. He is a beautiful black cat that was rescued along with his mother and 5 siblings.
3) Peachy Cheap is one of the websites that I have to visit every day. They have awesome deals each day for scrapbooking supplies. I just love to see what the deal of the day is and am always inspired when looking at the examples for the product being offered. Check it out sometime.
4) I’ve been Busy ordering supplies and organizing my binder and plans for Becky Higgins Project 365. While I’m late starting this project, and there are no kits available, I’m still very excited about it. The object of the project is to take a photo every day and journal about it. The truly fun part for me is to “plan” the photo I’m going to take for that day. I’ve already done today’s photo before leaving for work. It revolves around random fact #5.
5) I’m 4/5ths of the way through the final book in the Twilight series. Wish that I could have stayed home from work today to finish it. However, it will be good to drag this out since it is the last book. It will be hard to have to say goodbye to Bella, Edward, Jake and the other characters who I’ve come to know in the last few months.
6) Saturday my friend Amy and I are visiting the King Tut and Terra Cotta Soldier exhibits in Atlanta. We will be having lunch at a restaurant I have never tried. The name of it is South City Kitchen. For two years now Amy and I have said instead of giving Christmas or birthday gifts we would do something fun downtown. This will be the first time we have actually followed through on that promise.

Please check out Debra’s blog “The Georgia Rectors” I promise you won’t be disappointed. Her photography and writing are wonderful treasures.

Here are the blogs that I am tagging to participate in this exercise.
Nichole’s Blog
Chere’s Blog

Enjoy reading others random things. This was a fun little exercise to take part it.

New Projects

With the new year, most of us tend to set new goals and plan things that we want to accomplish in the upcoming year. The beginning of the new year provides a perfect opportunity to start over fresh and do things differently. Being 10 or so days into the new year I was anxious to begin a project that I had been putting off for months. . . organizing my scrapbook and craft room. It was going to be a huge project, especially since Jessica and her friends had made a huge mess after making darling t-shirts for their boy vs. girl scavenger hunt. All the stamps and paint were spread out all over the floor. The top of my work table is cluttered with pictures and various other scrapbooking paraphernalia. There were 20 or so Label Tulip and Scarlet Lime kits piled up on the floor. As I write this I’m regretting not taking a before and after photo. But you get the picture. First project of the day was to clean all the stamps. That fabric paint is pretty tough to remove. The next task, which was actually pretty fun, was to sort through all those kits! What a joy to see all the fabulous goodies and colors that were contained in the plastic zipper top bags. Buttons were stored in a jar, ribbon put into a basket or jar depending on the type of packaging. Stickers were placed in a cropper hopper plastic sleeve as were various rub-ons. These were then hung in the closet using the new pant hangars I purchased from Wal-Mart. What an awesome idea that was! They now hang in the closet instead of placed in a pile on the floor. Little packages of brads and other embellishments were hung onto the clip it up spinner in newly marked categories. Cardstock was put in the cardstock paper trays and patterned paper was put into one of three cropper hoppers. It literally took all day on Sunday to sort through the piles of paper, brads, stickers and kits to see the floor. There is still plenty of work to do, as the top of the work space needs to be de-cluttered, paper needs to be organized along with scraps. Photos need to be sorted and boxed according to years and events. As I’m working through this I will be reading the new Stacy Julian book “Photo Freedom”. This should help me organize my photos and unleash my scrap booking log jam. I’ve attached the photo from the Scrapbooks Etc. home page which inspired me to organize the scrapping space. The closet is left to do and that should give me quite a bit more space for the photos and albums that desperately need a home. Stay tuned for progress reports.

What sort of projects do you have in store for the new year?