A quick post of my pages for my friend Ursula

Hey, I know I owe a major update and redecorating of my blog but I've been busy with loads of things. I literally have 2 more master's classes. Two Tuesdays and I'm done!!! I've been running Brian back and forth across town to summer school. 1st semester final is next Friday; please say some prayers! Last weekend I went to a weekend scrapbook crop. I actually did 25 pages with paper, scissors, and glue! We also had college freshmen orientation. Hard, hard day there! More about that later.

While at the crop, I put at the top of my list to get my friend Ursula's baby pages done for her. Each of us in my Tipster's group signed up for a 2 page layout. It was to be pink and girly. A bit challenging...I don't do pink and girly.

Anyway here is the pages, I know she's dying to see them. They went postal yesterday. They are for the 7th and 8th month...isn't Harper about that age now??? Sorry so late Urs!

Crossing off things on your to do list feels so good!

Today I made myself get a few things on my to do list done. They weren't the hardest or the most fun, but when I teach all year long, some things just get put off. Also when you have a husband who has been working buku hours and had a seizure that affected a bit of memory, things get just get lost in the shuffle.

Each summer I make a to do list. I start with things I want/need to get done and then as I do other things that weren't on the list I add them and immediately cross them off. I save the list on my computer because then I always have access to it. I also put things back on my list that I didn't get done from the previous summer. Sometimes those are just the frivoulous things that sound fun or aren't the most necessary. For three lists now I've had "make daring dice of transformation" on there. See I found these kewl dice by Keri Smith and could just print off this page onto some cardstock but for some reason I have it in my head that I need to make them out of wood and paint them myself. I don't know why, I guess I could print these out and modge podge them onto my wood blocks but somehow I feel that is settling for less.

I also am quite the procrastinator. I owe my darling friend Ursula two baby pages and because I've not been scrapbooking with paper, glue and scissors I just haven't gotten my stuff out. Well next weekend I go on a scrapbook retreat and I've added it to my list that I'll get them done. You know, all sorts of things and projects that procrastinators never get done. I swear if I finished all the projects I want to get done or that I've started I'll be amazed. I'll also have crossed off a bunch on that to do list. Right now there are 39 things on that list and about 6 are crossed off. That's good considering I've been on vacation for 4 days and these have been put off for weeks and months, some even years.

Well 2 entries in one day is amazing, but I must go and cook dinner. See that is another thing on my list...make dinner more often. Toodles!

I've been avoiding my blog

But I've been reading those of others. I've even been trying to leave a few comments.

I've been avoiding this because I've wanted to update with graduation pictures and they're still sitting on the disk in the digital camera. I've not wanted to dl them because I want to have time to edit them first. Today I've got plans, the bank, the post office, the accountant, and I should get some homework done today.

Tonight Doug is hosting a bonfire. The goal is to burn their Advanced U.S. History books. It was even mentioned by the speaker at graduation that this is a time of change and you have to keep some thing and make changes about others and they said get rid of Degler. So that is what the kids are going to do tonight, come and burn their Degler books.

I promise I'll upload some graduation pictures before the weekend is over.

goofing around

I've got the knack for digital scrapbooking but I've felt very lacking in my photo editing. I've surveyed a couple of my good friends for what they do when they photo edit. Ursula Page who does some great photography has given me some editing tips. But I guess without sitting down and actually trying them consistantly, I've just not gotten that good at it.

As I begin to plan out my summer, I want to really get my photos edited and organized. The only problem is that my computer isn't reading my cd/dv-r's. Hmmmmm I really need to back up photos badly too!

Well today I found Everyday Digital Scrapbooking website. They had a photo editing tutorial with a link to a website for a free effect. I tried it and really seemed to understand what I need to start doing with my own photo editing.

Well after I finished with their tutorial, I started playing a bit.
This was the original


It took several different photo correction steps, I think I remember them
1. Adjust Levels
2. Adjust Brightness and Contrast
3. Remove Noise (
4. High Pass Filter radius set to 10
5. Layer Pallet set to hard light
6. Opacity slider suggested between 20 and 70) mine was 59
7. Applied a mid-tone sharpening that was a freebie offered at this website, lonestar digital
8. Then I was continuing to read the lonestar site and saw their unsharpen mask, fade tutorial but PSE4 doesn't have fade so then I was looking for some filter that may be like fade and found Halftone Pattern
9. Then I selected (I think, this is when I was goofing around) underpainting.

Anyway, this was the outcome.