Finally Getting ATCs Scanned & Put Away

The ATCs have been returned and adored by me but they sat in a box for a very long time before I decided to get some scanning done.  I am the person who hates filing...

I am going to enter all of my lovely returns in this one posting and call myself caught up on swaps.  I will also post some fun goodies I received along the way in a future blog.

Here are some ATCs I received from the uber talented Melonscraps (AKA Marilyn Wiggins).  She always posts her left overs for anyone who wants them – I snag them any chance I get because I love her work.

And then we have another Valentine Swap from February 2010...

And from Pink Ribbon in March 2010...

 And Live, Love, Laugh & Dream in March of 2010 through ATC Lovers... 

And Circus from Art42 also in March 2010...

 Then we move onto ATC Lovers "Stamped"

 and ART 42 "Nature" in May 2010.

And then finally we have the Art 42 "Extras Swap" for all of those extras we made but never sent out. Here are my returns from June...

 There is so much talent & inspiration out there!  I love thumbing through the pages and pages of ATCs before I get started on a project - it really gets the thought process boiling.

As always, I cannot resist the temptation to work on more swaps.  I am signed up for one more twinchie, a tag art swap, a monster ATC for Halloween and a mini-zine.

The tag art is to make 3 tags and send to the next person on the list.

The mini-zine is a little more complicated.  It makes a mini magazine out of decorating and folding a 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of paper a specific way.  I have been working on this in my graphics program.  I am excited to finish the artwork so I can send it off and try out a new printer I have been wanting to use.

Of course, I will post it once I have them in my hot little hands!

I hope to make the mini-zine a catchy little way to advertise specific promotional products like golf accessories or embroidery.  Everyone loves a novelty...

The Return of the Inchies

I received my swap for the inchies back and they are soooo cute.  A lot of ladies put some serious work into their inchies!  The member that goes by the name of Artsyclara even made little envelopes for the inchies.  Check out the "Tea Time" and the little "Bird on Nest" inchies - their envelopes are right below.

   I am still waiting for the twinchies and I am sure they will be really nice also.

Speaking of waiting...  The puzzle I submitted for swap way back in May is rumored to be completed by all and ready for swap and mail out.  I sure hope I get to see it pretty soon!

Inchies & Twinchies

So, here is a quiz...

Who knows what an Inchie is?  If you know what that is, do you know what a Twinchie is?  My guess is that you are about to get an education like I did.

I am on this art message board called Art42 which is located at artfortytwo.org.  They seemed to be having a lot of other swaps besides ATCs like inchies & twinchies.  I had heard of inchies & twinchies but was not too sure so I Googled them.  I found out that they are just like ATCs except on a much smaller scale.  Inchies are built on a 1" x 1" surface while twinchies are built on a 2" x 2" surface. 

There were two swaps I joined and neither of them had a theme except "anything goes" so I figured I could handle that :-)

I had a set of stamps that I had purchased back in the spring I wanted to use.  I focused on red, white & black and here is what I came up with...

I decided to emboss the stamps with a shiny red glittery powder.  It took me longer to figure our what I was going to do than it did to complete the project!  I just made a dozen each while I was there, popped them in the mail and waited for the swap to be returned.

Facebook is so much fun…

I have been really enjoying my Facebook account over the past few months.  It seems like once a week I see a new face pop up that is an old friend.  A lot of us are turning 40 this year and it is fun to see what everyone is up to.

There were several lost children over the years that I have missed and some have been found.  There is one in particular that I have really missed over the years and often wondered what became of her.  I have searched for her off and on over the last year on Facebook to no avail.  I just figured that she was under her married name without her maiden name listed.

I posted all of my old elementary school class pictures in hopes that someone would know where she was.

I got a huge surprise this week when she friended me!

Her name is Michelle Louderback and we have been chatting back & forth through FB and email.  It is so funny how memories of things that were very small come rushing back when you get to talking to someone.  She mentioned my old playroom downstairs and the labs we used to have.  Boy, those were the days!  When Mom & Dad paid for everything and my biggest worry was whether I would be ungrounded by Friday night so I could go skating.

I have also acquired a new friend and I wish this would have happened years ago.  My ex-husband convinced me that she was my enemy many, many moons ago.  I’ve thought about her many times over the years always wondering if she was ok since she hooked up with him and I knew what that was all about.  I always wondered but I never wanted to breech her privacy or bring up bad memories.  One day a few months ago I opened my FB account and there she was friending me.

What a brave young woman she has turned out to be.  I am really learning a lot from her and the biggest thing is that people are not always what you think they are.  I am very happy to report that I can call Codie Kriege my friend.  I finally feel like I can put that ugly part of my life to rest and I realize that I came out of all that as a better person.

I have a wonderful family and some very special friends.  I am truly blessed :-)

A Rancher's Best Dog is Not a Dog

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid960594369?bctid=1716406566

I just opened an e-mail from Lyn and I had to share the link.

I love animals so I think this is pretty impressive.

Take a look at this video and see what you think...

Photography Fun

I took this picture at the Kuyper’s ranch over Memorial Day weekend.  The old abandon truck just caught my eye and I wanted to do a black & white with it.

I have always loved the old black & white photos.  I can look at Mom & Dad’s photo albums and old postcards from my grandparent’s days for hours just taking in the detail instead of the color.  I remember my mom taking a photography class when I was a kid and I wanted to take pictures so badly.  Back then the cameras were way to complicated for kids but that just made me want to do it more.  I remember her class did a shoot with black & white film and I thought it was so cool!  I always wanted to take pictures of old barns in black & white.

Of course I am much older now and I adore my digital camera.  I must say that I love my computer more because of the photo manipulation I can do.  Talk about spending hours looking at photos – I can get lost in my thousands of photos I store on my computer.

I had an opportunity to play with this picture of the truck today and here is what I came up with…

All I used was the photo manipulation tools on my blog and I came up with a variety of shots.

Black & white with a little photo paper, crop and tilt

Polaroid anyone?

Sepia – looks like fire in them there hills…

This is with color pop

Emboss

Reflection

Photo Paper with sharpen

Warmed up the color and rounded the edges.  Now it looks like one of those old 110 pictures!

Black & White is still my favorite.  I do think I will dabble in the sepia a bit more now.  Maybe I will someday slow down and stop to take those old barn pictures – sepia would be perfect for that.

Off to Newport, Oregon for a QUICK Field Trip

I am still not sure why I volunteered to chaperone on the 5th grade field trip to Newport, Oregon but I have pictures to prove my insanity.

 This is the bus Hunter and I were on with Mr. Hite’s class.  Mrs. Fletcher’s class was also on the field trip and they were on a second bus.

We left about 7 am on May 27th and came back about 7 pm on May 28th.  The trip was about 7 hours each way with a lunch stop and all.

One of our stops was the Newport Aquarium.  This is Hunter & Austin feeling starfish & other sea animals in the tide pool.

This is a picture of the jellyfish in the beautiful blue tank.  This small tank lit up the whole room.

This is the ginormas Alaskan King Crab.  I imagine these things could put a good pinch on a person.

The cute little puffins were outside in the aviary.

This is the two boys looking at the fish going underneath us.

And this is one of the tunnels through the tanks.  You can see the window in the floor.  Boy, I got some really weird reflections with my flash…

Of course we had to pose at the picture taking station in the gift shop.

And the second station…

Outside the gift shop was this aggressive little garbage picker.  He was as fast as lightening coming in and out of those trash cans.  He was sure eyeballing all of the fudge coming out of the gift shop!

At then end of the outside exhibits there are a bunch of statues the kids can climb on.

The next big event was going to the Newport Pool…

Here are some of the kids playing water basketball.

And then we have Mr. Jim Hite on the rope swing – here is the swing…

The roll up for the dive…

And the finish!

You would think that all that swimming would tire them out – yeah, right!

We overnighted at the Newport National Guard Armory in the gym.  Pizza for dinner and basketball or a movie for fun before bed.

On Friday morning we all woke up early so we got some time on the beach before our next stop.

  We were just slightly down the road from the lighthouse and some fantastic tide pools.

We arrived at the tide pools and the tide was somewhere around –2’.  This is a picture of Seal Rock and there are seals with their little pups out there enjoying the sun.

The kids had a class to teach them about the different sea animals in the tide pools and they got to explore and look for them.

Lots of pretty starfish, clams and mussels all waiting for the tide to come back in.

And one last look at the seals.  See the little pup off to the left?

Once class was over at the tide pools we got to do a little shopping in Old Town Newport.  Of course we had to get a huge bag of salt water taffy!  And we had to see the sea lions.  After a latte and a little walk about town we climbed back on the bus headed for home.  We did have lots of excitement on the way home though.

We were just coming up on the last passing lane before Sisters and the other bus was pulled over by a state trooper!  It would seem that someone had a little road rage trying to get somewhere on the eve of a 3 day weekend – poor bus driver!  The bus driver and everyone else on the bus were fine but some really big butthead called the cops and said that the bus driver cut him off at the end of the passing lane – yeah right!

I say “poor bus driver” because that little gal will never live that down in a small town like Prineville where everyone knows her.

Hopefully, the kids forget over the summer…

The Final ATC for Awhile

The final ATC was based on “Nature”.  I decided to use a flower since it fit the criteria, it was easy and I have so many of these flowers in my stash.

I used purple cards stock embossed in my Cuttlebug for the backing, a little graphic word art on a 1/2 circle, flowers from the $ Store and a little bling from my stash.

Here is what I received in return…