Subject Sunset

Thought it would be fun to try to capture this sunset with watercolor paper. Had a bit of trouble with getting the water black enough, but in the end I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.


Then I tried my hand with some Crayola watercolors while we were parked out in the Quartzite desert. Let me tell you it sure was nice, sitting in my lawn chair in a tank top and shorts watching the sun set and painting with a daughter!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone

Technicolor Travel

With opportunities to create art coming in small batches, Ive found a lot of fun waiting to be had with a few finger flicks. Even the most mundane photos become masterpieces of travel momentoes once I run them through an app filter or two!

My go-tos are PhotoGrid, PhotoLab, Vinci, and Picas, with a little Color Splash Photo and Snapseed thrown in for good measure ;-) Did you know these are all available for FREE!? Sorry, even the best Michael's coupon doesn't compete with that price...

 

So what are your favorite ways to get creative quickly? Must have app(s) to fun-up your features?

Photos are from Joshua Tree National Park, Knots Berry Farms, our indoor #RVLife, & Quartzite BLM land.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone

Sunlit Rainbow

A pretty pastel picture of Sunday in Seattle

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone

Season of Selling?

November is a time for gratitude, and I always feel that when I get to spend the day with my mom in a booth selling whatever we've made to shoppers in the mood to purchase handmade awesomeness.
We decided to take part in my local elementary school's first such event, and it was a truly enjoyable-albeit chilly- day in the gym.
The best part of the day, aside from being with my mom and sharing a delicious breakfast she packed for me, was when our good friend Becca stopped by. Not only did she exclaim as many other's did over my mom's super cute snowmen made from socks of all things, but she also bought a handful of pre-made scrapbook layouts I'd created.
Later that day, Becca really set my heart aglow when she texted me the completed layout- I love the picture she chose! You know, for some scrap bookers, only using one photo on a page can be a bit of a challenge, but I have grown to enjoy it because the photo really gets to take center stage this way.
This would be an easy page to recreate, or "scraplift" as I say; just take a 12x 12" piece of solid cardstock, this will be your base. Then take a 12x12" piece of patterned paper, and cut it down to 11.5x11.5." Next, you'll need either some striped patterned paper, like I've used here, or some border stickers, or some ribbons, and lay them to one side or the other, across the top, or down on the bottom- it's your layout! Add a photo mat, a title and a journaling box under a light sprinkling of embellishments, and you're set to scrapbook!
Here's another one of those layouts I'd made- this is actually just a photo! I have no physical version of this any longer, but I was still able to use it for a photo of a Pampered Chef party I hosted as a fundraiser for our preschool. How? Through the magic of a favorite (free!) app I have installed, called Photo Grid! I opened up the photo, added text and the photo, and bata-bing-botta-boom: Insta-sta-scrap!
Let this be a reminder to you that it can pay to take photos as you go, before you actually add the photos, haha. You could use a few pages to create a whole album of template scrapbooking, right on your phone, and then send it off to a photo book service for additional cool points :-)

Spotlight on Sunday on Monday

   She's got....personality  <3 

You know something I am never lacking? Printed photos. The feeling of a fresh stack of prints from Walgreens contained within an envelope riding on the passenger seat next to me is one that literally gives me a thrill just thinking of. Hey, I basically scrapbook for a living so those are all little inheritable CraftWithAnna tax write-offs! You know something we don't have many of? Professional family portraits. Living within our age of digital photography, combined with my desire to take better photos of my family, to really capture our lives and twinkling eyes more naturally, has always made getting into a studio with the four of us an unimportant task.
Enter gala nights on board our cruises. Enter fabulous outfits that we would normally never wear! Enter a REAL photographer, huge umbrella'd lights, and... posing in front of strangers with little to no direction, on the way to dinner, with two hungry kids and a very possibly inebriated hubby?!
Yes, it's true that part of the reason my family was so anxious to dine was that I made them all pose for my own photo session in our cabin :-O  I had each of my subjects stand near the natural light coming in from the window, then turned them in a few directions and coaxed familiar grins and real smiles from them. Oh and we couldn't forget mom! Thank you, self-timer. THEN I allowed us to progress to one of the photo stations set up to capture our fellow travelers in all their regalia.
Check it out; we totally nailed it! I mean, of two poses and quick photographs taken of my reluctant and ravenous family, this one has those gleams and twinkles and even the dramatic background that I love to capture with my android lens.
I even captured this photo, with that same lens, albeit "illegally" from the display gallery. Cause people, I was trained by the best in the art of sneak photography/photobombing. And, you should know after reading a few posts of mine that I would much rather hubby saved his money for (wine and) organic food stuffs than to pay $47 for ONE photo that we may or may not ever be put on display in our home. The home where we may or may not lounge about dressed in our (birthday) suits and glittering dresses. I do wear glittering shoes often... :-)
Besides, there was still the po$$ibility that we could run into a paper products store of some interest along the way... 

 

Friendsies

My friends are pretty cool.

They endure my hysterical exclamations over my latest scrapbook and cardmaking endeavors, coo adoringly over my kids, and lend me their ears and tissues over noshes and vino.

Who could ask for anything more?

 

While gazing with a smile at the above photo I've printed out, it struck me: The brightness of the photo corresponds with how old the featured friendship is. Wow, I didn't intend that when I created the collage in PicGrid, which means I literally don't even have to try to create awesome, artistic compilations. Well, I won't go giving myself all that credit just yet, but it did strike me as pretty cool.

Thanks for being my online friend, dear reader!

#bestfriendsday 

Pocket Page Practice

All those gorgeous Easter outfits sitting in your camera or on your phone today can help fill a few minutes of down time, just load them into your favorite photo grid app and you'll practically have your scrapbook pages complete!

I used the Android app PhotoGrid to create these ready to print 4x4 square photos. There is a really neat app out there called Snapbook that lets you download Project Life style cards in assorted designs. This app also has an editing program for fun borders, stickers, and more, but for this project I just saved a few patterns I thought looked Easter-y and then added them to my photo line-up in PhotoGrid.

I could have stopped right there, but you know, I have what I call a preservists mind set; if there's a story or sentiment leading the day, I want to include that along with the photos. Otherwise known as scrapper's dilemma, journaling is really what makes these more than just cute pics of the kids and family dressed in their best. Without the story, there isn't much for the observer to do other than flip the pages of cute after cute after cuteness.

For example, see those great selfies my mom took up there? I found myself throughout the day turning to point things out to her or just to smile or share a moment during the sermon. Since last week was her chemo day she wasn't really supposed to be exposed to the level of germies present at church yesterday, but thanks to technology, I still brought her to the pew! Adding those sentiments to that photo collage really enhances the images featured.

Now, there is always room for more embellishment, and I'm sure I'll be digging into my extensive Queen & Co. bling collection to complete these mini pages, but they will also make great snail mail gifts just the way they are. I'll be using yet another app to send these to either Costco or Walgreens (half off at photo coupon code is: FIFTYORDER) and then we'll see what their next step in scrap-evolution will be :-) I've got just a few scraps of the April 2015 EmbellishKits Jubilee Card Kit left, so you'll most likely see my layouts on that next card share. Click HERE for the last one.

 Wednesday night I'll be up at Michael's showing you all the tricks of using the Cricut Expression, a magical device that transforms your cut out wishes into tangible embellishments for your cards or scrapbook layouts. I've even used them for home décor pieces so really the options are economical and limitless- just the way they should be!

Basking in the Sun

 Ahh fall, I know you're not long gone, but I sure do miss you! I miss the crispness in the air, the warmth of the afternoon sun in the windows, and I still have a lot of fall embellishments from 2013 to use...
but wait, this is Washington's warmest winter on record! And the air is still crisp and the warm days have kept on coming! Oh yeah, and I STILL have a lot of fall stuff in my stash lol.

When I saw Rainier getting a sun tan on the living room floor, it reminded me so much of a few pictures of myself at just about her age, doing the same thing on the deck of what would become a sunroom on the house I grew up in. In my mind's eye I can still feel my puffy purple coat cushioning my back as my big poodle mix Daisy sniffed about me.

Rainie loves to get her Vitamin D au 'natural, and we look forward to playing with the sun as it falls through our living rooms picture window. Have you ever had a scoop of sunshine poured over your head? Or drank a warm cup of sunlight tea? Those are just a couple of the cute ways she's taught me to enjoy God's radiant light. That love is echoed with the border strip punched with hearts running down the page. I'm a fan of Jen Gallagher who usually includeds a tied piece of twine on her borders somewhere. I'm an even bigger fan of lifting cute ideas like that so with all those bordering bits I figured this was as good a layout as any to attempt that look. (Success!)

I had to reflect some of the sunlight's sparkle on my page and there were a few items in my stash that I've been holding out on using due to their high glitter content, like those bright green thickers.  Long titles can be tricky, so I tried to use complimentaryy colors there, as well as the natural cork thickers to balance all that glittery goodness.  I was also mindful of stacking my phrases so that all the letters fit into a block shape of sorts. You know I love to use my trash, so look up at the top of my title and see how I used my paper's manufacture's strip as part of that design.

Part of the reason embellishments like that large subway-art typography piece doesn't usually work for me is that I feel like the words all have to be relevant to my family or the pictures I'm working with. Don't know why I hadn't thought to do it before, but I simply used some sticker phrases to cover up words that didn't fit my layout and voila! I had the perfect glitter backed piece to include on this page.

There is a little hidden journaling card as well. There isn't really anything on there that needs to be hidden; no super sentimental gushings or words I'd rather not have read by the average lookyLou, but with so much text already on the page, I felt it best to tuck my handwriting away. I've had that little envelope on my desk since last spring anyway so it was time to find it a home!

Do you remember sun filled days from your youth? Does it seem like you were a lot younger even just a few months ago? Go digging in your supplies for some sun themed embellishments and brighten up a winter day with sparkly memories. Or, find a picture that is the epitomy of a good time for you and touch it up with a photo flare! There's an app for that- I like to play with Android's LightEffects.

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you get inspired to punch a border, tie a twine, or stack some fonting! Hey, if it's crafty, its good, right? And if it brightens your day, that's the best kind of crafty there is :-D

More Quick layout inspiration

Last night while waiting for my favorite show, Survivor, to load between commercials on the computer, I ran into my craft room and grabbed two sheets of paper, based on a layout I had admired earlier in the day, at left in this picture, featured in Northridge Media's, Create: Quick and Easy Scrapbooking. Its a little magazine with big ideas for capturing memories in a flash. All very do-able ideas I might add!
So last night all I had selected was that burgundy flourished background and the green and cream music notes piece, the reverse of which has a delicate grid with scalloped border going round the edge. Grabbed this pic of my mom and I at one of our favorite hang out spots, the Wine Studio in Gig Harbor. I thought it was a good match for the two papers because we love music and singing together and the only thing better than drinking wine for us is a little Karaoke! Aside from that, there was a lot of wood in the photo background and I like how the faint striping in the background mimics the racks of wine shelved in this place.
To mimic my example's kraft border, I simply cut along the grid lines of the green and cream print, then turned over the cut out piece, and curled the edges up for added visual interest and texture. You can just see a little of the background color along the edges and this looks extra shadowy in real life. There is something about the shabby look of those curled edges that I don't ususally include in my layouts... but when I do, I always think, why don't I do this more often?!
Another look I love is sewing on paper, but despite moving my sewing machine to sit directly in front of me while crafting, it continues to collect dust instead of improve the look of my paper piecings. My latest excuse is that it's too hard to plug in... funny though, I can plug anything else in down below that location, no matter how much I need to move or crawl, so yeah, that's not a great reason!
My aunt recently garage sale-d a bunch of kid's stickers, including a set that looks like it came in a Carnation packet or something. I decided they would be a better addition to my stash, and used them right away by adding the little sentiment stickers directly on the photo- in part to hold it in place, because it was bedtime for me!

So this morning Rainie helped me select and lay out flowers and brads to finish off this gorgeous layout. My October product of the month challenge has been "flowers," but along with that I think the challenge for me has been "hot glue gun!" Not a tool I'm used to reaching for, but damn it does make adhering easy! It's all those strings at the end that don't make me so happy. It seems like they keep appearing no matter how vigilant I try to be about getting them off!I love the smiles my mom and I are sharing in this photo. She is my number one go-to hang out person; she has a different way of looking at and reacting to situations, we have a lot of fun and can find a reason to laugh about all of life's ups and downs. Part of the inspiration to add the flowers came from that quote by Emerson, "Earth laughs in flowers." Getting to preserve the memory of that fun night out with my own daughter completes my circle of happiness!

I love that in our house it is not uncommon for the three of us girls to be in the craft room at 7:30 in the morning making things together- while Rainie and I worked at getting everything in just the right place, Sunday was busy placing her own stickers on a little mini book she had crafted (by book, I mean a piece of paper, folded over)! After that it was on to painting, acrylics for Rainier and water for Sunday. We can't find our water colors, so just water works for us lol.

Thanks for stopping by to read today and keep watching for the next Card Magic: Part Three, which will have contest info and a whole lot of fun contained within :-) Catch up with Parts One and Two on my YouTube channel- subscribe and don't miss a thing! There is a purple button link to all my social media accounts at the top right of this post.