Pixels and Glue

2 Weeks, No Posts

Published

on August 18, 2008

. 3 Comments

Geez, I was on such a roll with blogging and I let it slide. Sorry for being so absent. We’ve continued being busy. I think maybe a list would be the easiest way to go.

We took the kids to 6 Flags Discovery Kingdom, tons of FUN!! No photos, the camera wasn’t fixed yet and I didn’t want to take the Rebel with me. I grabbed a disposable for those candid moments but I can’t actually remember taking any photos. I’m developing it soon, we’ll see
I put on a 3 day training in Chico CA last week and took the whole family with me. It was fun. JT and Joel want to move there now, yeah right
Camera is finally fixed and back and ready to be used!
We went to the airshow this weekend, LOTS-O-FUN!
Took JT school clothes shopping, he meets his teacher tonight and starts Kindergarten on Wednesday. Wow!
Lulu turns 1 tomorrow and we’re having a dinner on Sunday night (after we go to Noah’s B-Day party!)
I’m still playing along in the Teacher’s Pet program. This is the last week. Sorry I never posted my last 2 assignments, the links are down now, but I’ll be setting up a freebie section here so check back if you missed them.
I dropped the ball on my {stay}cation journal after the camera broke. I’m trying to piece together some pages, I might start over and make it a mini album now that I don’t have as many photos to share. I was totally bummed about my camera, it really threw me off.
I am now on 6 creative teams!! Ykes!! I went from a total dry spell to being on 6 teams. And everyone is producing new stuff right now, so I’m really busy with layouts! I even scrapped the same photo twice and didn’t notice until this morning, haha!

Enjoy the layouts:

For Shawna’s New Stuff

JT putting easter eggs in his dump truck using Shawna's new Tuff Guy kit

My favorite TV show, using Shawna's new BoobTube kit with MandaBean

***

For Lauren’s New Stuff

My handsome KID using Lauren's Quarterly contribution to SSD Robo Boy

My hottie layout for Lauren's Team Challenges on her blog

***

For Shawna and Lauren’s new collab (I love being on both of their teams!!)

Mady on the 4th! Used "A Girl Like You" from Shawna and Lauren

***

For Corina (my newest team!! Whoot Whoot!!)

My CUTIE! I used Corina's new paper pack called Hip Summer

From Corina's amazing "Live Outloud" biggie!!!

(The photo I used twice, LOL!) I used Corina's contribution to the FPD collab "Feel The Magic"

***

And using Tracy Blakenship’s Template (another new team!) with Corina’s goodies and more from the collab

My sis and her best friend at Disneyland!

***

Um, I think that’s all for now!

Dang, I almost FORGOT! I got bit by a vampire named Edward and I can’t put the Twilight Books down!!!

More busy days

Published

Tania

on August 4, 2008

in Blabber and Layouts

. 3 Comments

Again, my energy continues, but hasn’t translated into weight loss, working on that.

Those making it through the first round of the Teacher’s Pet program were announced today and I wasn’t one of them. But I kinda knew that already, deep down. There was some amazing work in there. And the cool thing is Traci, Corina, and Chere, plus the rest of the FPD crew is committed to keeping us on board even if we don’t make it, to play along. So I’m sticking around to try and pick up some new techniques. Thanks to those of you who offered support along the way!!

Camera update: No camera fixed yet. But my friend Rebecca did get some photos off of my memory card for me! I also played with our film SLR a bit and put into practice some basic tips I’ve seen around the net lately. Plus, I found some awesome “>vintage photo actions at DA and put them to use!
From the digital camera the day it had it’s accident, at the Oakland Zoo:

And from the film Rebel a week later at Santa Rosa’s Night Out at Howarth Park:

So as you can see, the depth of field in the SLR is much better, and I can only imagine how crisp the dSLR is, but I think I’m still going to wait. I’ve given up my Starbucks and am using that money every month to save for the digital Rebel I think. I should have it in time for Christmas

So, here’s the latest from my gallery of layouts. Enjoy and talk to you soon I hope!!

$From Kim\'s Teacher\'s Pet submission$

From Kim's Teacher's Pet submission

$For Lauren\'s Creative Team Page$

For Lauren's Creative Team Page

Using Emily Powers stuff from {we are} storytellers

$Lauren\'s new kit with fellow CT\'r Amanda Heimann (she\'s on Jess and Shawna\'s team!)$

Lauren's new kit with fellow CT'r Amanda Heimann (she's on Jess and Shawna's team!)

Busy :)

Published

Tania

on July 31, 2008

in Blabber, Layouts and My Designs

. 2 Comments

I have so much energy lately, I wonder if that will translate to weight loss? Hmmm, I should work on that.

But really, I’m here to share an exciting announcement. I haven’t made a kit since January and I didn’t even post that here since i didn’t like it too much. But I’ve jumped into the Teacher’s Pet event at Funky Playground Designs. The designers there have opened up their site in order to find new designers, but at the same time, they are sharing their expertise. It’s been a fun week. Our first assignment was trendy and it was due today. I just got mine up.

To download this FREE kit, you need to register at the FPD gallery, and also register with their newsletter to get the password. (The passwords to all the kits in the gallery are the same, there’s some great stuff in there!)

Please email me if it’s important to you to get this kit ASAP. Otherwise wait until the end of the program and I’ll most likely post it here in a freebie section I’ll put up with all my assignments. We find out tomorrow if we go on, but what’s neat is even if we’re eliminated, we still get to play along!

Kim also has one up, I just love Kim’s style and her detail, she did great! Free also

Camera update: Turns out the camera is fully covered under warranty, 4 cheers for Joel!!! But it won’t be ready for another 3 weeks, I’ve got a few photos from the memory stick and also I have been using the film camera and have developed 2 rolls so far. But I haven’t had much time to wade through them, or make any progress on my Staycation album either

I’m looking forward to scrapping a bit since I have this break from this design contest for a couple of days, and LUCKY me! I’m a new team member for Shawna’s other half, Lauren Grier!!! Yay!! She is awesome and I’m having a blast getting to know her team. I already finished one page from her Fizzy Grape Slushy kit:

That’s my friend Rebecca’s son, he’s a cutie huh!!!

Well, I need to do what I got on the computer to do today, research stuff for tomorrow’s trip to 6 Flags

Bye bye camera

Published

Tania

on July 22, 2008

in Blabber and Layouts

. 3 Comments

We’ve been having lots of fun adventures around here. Last weekend seems especially full. JT returned from a family reunion trip with his grandparents last Wed evening and had fun at PreK Thurs. and Friday mornings. We didn’t do much Friday evening. On Saturday morning my sis took me to see The Dark Knight. Good lord, that was probably the best movie I’ve seen since Fight Club. Awesome script, unbelievable acting, suburb directing, and hot guys! Yeah, I’d say it was pretty awesome. I stayed during the credits so I could say my silent goodbye to Heath Ledger, who’s performance was legendary. I remember the first time I saw him in a film, The Patriot, he stole that movie out from under Mel Gibson and I couldn’t concentrate on the story because he just was too adorable. He’s always stolen the show in movies in my opinion, so sad and tragic that he left us so soon. Anyway, if you had doubts about The Dark Knight, see it! You must! I’m going again this weekend with my hubby
On Sunday I took the kids to the Oakland Zoo, one of our {stay}cation trips for this summer. We didn’t go on Friday because we were waiting for some montey to come in and Saturday I had plans with Sis. Sunday worked out perfectly. We had lots and lots of fun!! I unfortunately don’t have any photos to show you yet, because at the end of the day, my camera was dropped by JT on it’s lens and the zoom lens is destroyed. The camera won’t turn on, it won’t upload the photos to the computer, it’s ruined. Rebecca took my memory stick and used her camera and computer to burn a CD for me, but I haven’t had a chance to go through them.
Of course this leaves me with the digital camera that my Dad gave me 6 years ago. The one that takes 11 pictures (I guess I could go get a bigger memory card for it) and shoots at 2MP if you can believe it. While it will catch some important moments, it’s going to be hard going back to that. We think the camera might be under warranty with Best Buy but Joel will have to take it in and he probably won’t get to that until the weekend. We also have the film Rebel which took any good shots you have seen in my photos and layouts, but it’s been really nice to not have to develop film for the last 7 months! If the camera isn’t covered under warranty I’m faced with a decision, get another point and shoot or get a dSLR. I briefly considered getting a P&S with great zoom (this is a must have feature for me, my T-Ball photos were so disappointing) but the ones with great zoom are almost as much as the lower end dSLRs. I think if I can find a Rebel XT (the one with 8MP) it would be affordable and well within the specifications that I need since I’m by no means a photog. Thanks to Michelle for the great advice and I now know that the two lenses we have for the film Rebel will be compatible with the digital too. So it’s almost a no brainer, it’s just the financial commitment that we have to decide on, and figuring out how we can afford it. Until then, you might not see too many new pics. See how I went from warranty to new expensive camera? I need retail therapy.
I’ve been on a scrapping frenzy lately, with lots of new layouts to show. Clicking layouts will take you to up-close views. If you wanted to see more you could always click my link in my navigation bar and leave a comment or two also.

: writers notebook challenge at WST

: creative team application for Corina Nielsen

: new kit by Shawna Clingerman and Amanda Heimann

: new kit with Shawna, Lauren, and Micheline Martin

: I Can Scraplift That Challenge at SBG that I'm doing with the BBB and used Jessica's stuff

That’s about it really, we’ve all recovered from the flu, Joel got some MUCH needed sleep on Sunday and has an interview with the County Sheriff’s Dept. on Thursday! Everyone think good thoughts for him.

Oh seriously!

Published

Tania

on July 14, 2008

in Blabber and Layouts

. 1 Comment

I am sick of puke!

But that’s not why I came here today, so I’ll stop whining right away

Just a couple of layouts to show you. Shawna released a great new kit with Dani Mogstad and Traci Reed called 2 Straws, so cute! So cute I got 2 layouts out of it!

I also completed 2 pages for the staycation album, best if viewed as a spread.

View Page 1 here and view page 2 here for close up looks

And, here is my invitation to anyone (that I really know of course) who would like to join us on our staycation trips. Just drop me a line and let me know if you would like to come (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and of course the Bevans and Jill + Shane are especially encouraged to come!). This week’s prompt for the blogshop was to come up with something that let everyone know we were officially on staycation

I’m currently working on a page about last Friday, which was spent doing about 4 loads of laundry since we had the stomach flu, that should be an interesting page, hehe! I took a much needed day off work to recover, Lulu hasn’t been sick all day (knock on wood with me now people) and JT is off at a beach at the Oregon/California border with his grandparents until Wednesday, so I think we’ve finally rounded the sickness corner.

Oh, and I remembered why I came here to begin with, THIS is a very neat idea, I wonder if it will ever happen. We’ve got to start embracing a sustainable future and it’s exciting to see ideas like these floating around The New York Times.

Chow for now!

Sickies!

Published

Tania

on July 10, 2008

in Life

. 3 Comments

Just an update, JT has it too! (By it, I mean the stomach flu, I posted below that Lulu has it) Fun!!! Wish us luck, I think our next Friday Staycation day is going to be put on hold

Photos from the 4th

Published

Tania

on July 10, 2008

in Blabber

. 1 Comment

I’m popping on real quick while I have a moment. Lulu has the stomach flu and I’ve had her in my arms, literally, for about 24 hours now. Poor baby

Anyway, she’s fast asleep right now and I wanted to upload some photos from the 4th of July last Friday. Like I mentioned we had fun at Rebecca’s! Rebecca took a couple of these, incuding that incredibly cheezy grin Lulu is displaying. Click on a photo for a description and to get a closer look.

I better get some sleep, who knows when Lulu will wake up, I should take advantage while I have the chance

Staycation - Summer of 2008

Published

Tania

on July 7, 2008

in Staycation 08

. 4 Comments

As I briefly mentioned in the post below, our family will be having a Staycation this summer. The Urban Dictionary defines Staycation as “1. A vacation that is spent at one’s home enjoying all that home and one’s home environs have to offer” & “2. A vacation spent close to home”. A quick google search results in 100’s of listings on such sites as MSNBC, Newsweek, and others, saying that Staycations are the IN thing in 2008 since gas and food costs are soaring and American’s are cutting costs.

This idea started for me when Rebecca mentioned that she was going to take Friday’s off for the summer. I thought, I have got to do that too! Well, I only have 4 vacation days left (new job and everything) so I’ll be taking Fridays off in July and then we’ll continue our staycation on Saturdays and Sundays in August until JT starts school.

Then, in a perfect storm of coincidences, my new favorite digi-store, {we are} storytellers announced that it was having it’s first blogshop (free workshop on a blog). The theme would be none-other than “staycation”! Yipeee!!

For week one of the blogshop we needed to do some planning for how we are going to document this vacation close to home. I decided to do a 12×12 album, mostly because I’ve never in my life finished one, and also because Melinda always documents her vacations in the most splendidly perfect ways! Taking inspiration from her (also also getting good use out of her multi-photo templates), I want this book to focus on the photos and journaling. The embellishments will only add to the journal, not distract.

I plan on using Shutterfly to print the pages in a bound album when I’m done. Mostly because I’ve never done that either, I’m always late to the game

So without further ado, here’s my cover to the album

The journaling reads: We are planning a staycation this year. Dad and I are busy with work and gas is so expensive these days. So here’s the deal, I’m taking Fridays off for the entire month of July, and we’re going to spend those days doing something really fun. We’ll finish with an unforgettable day at 6 Flags, our first time! Then in August, I promise to spend as much time on Sat. and Sun. enjoying the last two weeks before JT starts Kindergarten!

Our plans include, Family Fun Night and Movie in the Park at Howarth Park, a trip to the Exploratorium, spending time with Mady, Noah, and Rebecca, Taking the Ferry to Pier 39, and of course as I mentioned on the cover page, going to 6 Flags Discovery Kingdom. One of my favorite memories of summer as a kid was our yearly trip to Elitch Gardens in Denver (which became 6 Flags Elitch Gardens and is now just Elitch Gardens again). What I love about 6 Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo is it’s not only a thrill-ride park, but there are plenty of animals too for me and Lulu to enjoy while JT can have fun being an older kid! (Plans are flexible, so please don’t hold me to these adventures, I do have an 11 month old to consider!)

My only regret about this little staycation is that Joel will not be able to join us on most of these adventures because of his work schedule. I know he’ll enjoy the extra sleep he’ll be getting, but for us it’s a huge disappointment that he won’t be able to tag along (or lead the way actually). Whenever we leave on the weekends for a fun little outing, Joel always says, take some pictures for me. So he’ll not only have pictures, he’ll get an album to enjoy too.

My lunch break is over, so I better get busy. I have to fly to San Diego tomorrow for a 9:30 meeting, which means I’ll be leaving the North Bay by 4 am to catch my 6 am flight in Oakland. That is going to make one very LONG day. Ick!

A no-title post

Published

Tania

on July 6, 2008

in Blabber, Layouts and Team Talk

. 5 Comments

I hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July! We’ve been busy this weekend. For some strange reason our city decided to have their Red, White, and Boom! Celebration on the 3rd instead of the 4th. And it wasn’t very good this year. They’ve always had a band and tons of venders, but not this year. They had one beer stand, Budwiser, yuck, and Johnny Garlic’s was luckily there so I could have some pasta, but other than that it was a bust. We waited almost 4 hours for the fireworks to start and the show was nice, but not the same without the music. And I forgot my camera!
On Friday we spent the day with Rebecca and her family. The kids had a blast and it was so nice to hang out! I did get some shots of the kids playing on Friday.
It’s becoming more and more clear how different JT and Lulu are. She crawled up a slide at Rebecca’s house (photos of that coming soon) and it is so amazing to me that she would do such a thing. JT still goes down stairs on his butt, LOL! I just love seeing her personality emerge lately, she’s a charmer for sure!
I’m excited to take the next 4 Fridays off of work, Rebecca decided to do this for this summer, I have less vacation saved up so I’m only doing it for July, but I think it’s going to be great for our family. Joel is tired from his graveyard shifts, and frankly I’m a cranky mess from them too. I’m hoping he can get some extra sleep on Fridays and I can hang out with JT a bit more before Kindergarten starts on August 20th. I can’t believe it, a Kindergartener! I’m so proud I could burst (even if he’s a pain in my rear these days, but that’s another story all together).
Coincidentally, my new favorite digi-shop, {we are} storytellers is having a blogshop (or workshop) this summer to celebrate everyone that is having “staycations” this year instead of taking vacations. We honestly don’t have the dough to take a vacation this year with the gas prices, thinking about JT’s school clothes and supplies, the cars needing work done, and countless other expenses.
So once a week look for a layout from me that shows off all of us having fun close to home on my Fridays off!

Shawna has been busy with collaborations as usual! This first one was from last week (or maybe two weeks ago already?) A Shauren exclusive, Lauren Grier and Shawna teamed up again with a cutie patootie kit perfect for little princes, “My Prince to the Rescue”

And this week, SSD was proud to announce their new designer, Libby Weifenbach. Shawna and Julie Billingsly were quick to team up with her on this super cute “Babalicious” kit. I absolutely adore how this layout came out!

Finally, Shauren (That would be Shawna and Lauren) teamed up with SaraAmarie, on this gorgeous kit “Sweet Darling Sara”.

This next layout was another I did just because. I think {we are} storytellers is my favorite store to get those kits that just have to be used right away. I didn’t wait two days to use this new download, Tutti Frutti. Loved it!

Other than that, not a whole lot going on, well if you don’t count a super secret project coming soon that I’m excited to be working on. Which reminds me, I need to send someone an email about that

So toodles for now, I’m suprised to look up at my clock and already see the time as 2 minutes to 1 am! Ykes!!

The end of June

Published

Tania

on June 26, 2008

in Blabber, Layouts and Life

. 4 Comments

It’s been quite amazing to me how quickly time has flown this year. It’s the end of June. We’ve been in our apartment for a year! We have a 10.5 month old little girl! We’ve started and finished baseball and samurai sprouts and a week of swim lessons. JT is starting Kindergarten in just 6 weeks. It’s all just gone so fast.

I took some fun photos in June, here’s some favorites for you to enjoy

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and last Saturday we went to the Beach to escape the heat. Lulu has taking a liking to eating sand!

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Some of you may know (and be suffering through it with us) that we’re in the midst of a wild fire crisis here in Northern California. I just checked the Cal Fire website and there are currently 1,088 wildfires burning in CA and only 241 are contained. The air quality is horrific and we are all weary of the smoke. I’m not looking forward to the Fourth of July celebrations either. I hate fireworks anyway, but it is especially ridiculous to think about the damage they can do this year. We haven’t had rain in a very long time and we had strong winds for almost all of April and May, which dried everything out further. It is kinda scary!

My Dad and Brother’s birthdays are this weekend. It’s this time of year I really wish I lived closer so we could have a big celebration for them! Hope you guys have great days!

I’ll leave you with a layout I completed just because I loved doing it. So fun!