Where Have I Been?

My goodness it has been a long time since my last blog entry! Where've I been, and just what the heck have I been doing? Well, in the beginning of October I started a new job as a Jr. Business Analyst and my job requires me to travel every week. With my new job I'm living in Oklahoma City during the week and on Friday's I fly back home for the weekends. That makes my commute on Monday morning a whopping 884 miles! (Yowsers!) Needless to say, I've been pretty busy trying to adjust to this new lifestyle! BUT I am loving the new challenges in my life and am so lucky because my friends and family have been very loving and supportive of my new career. (Remember guys, I love emails during the week and I promise to write back.) I was long overdue for a new career path, and now I get to use my Technical Writing skills.

Not to worry, I haven't forgotten my love for art! I've already found an excellent Hobby Lobby in Oklahoma City, and I picked up some small ATC paper packs. This will be something fun and easy to doodle on in the hotel room at night. I'm also packing my Pentel Pocket Brush Pen this week too. I'll get back to doodling, posting, and reading my favorite blogs very soon! And even if I can't scan and post my art during the week, I plan on blogging more about my travels. I promise to be back soon!

~Jenifleur

"A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery while on a detour."

~Author Unknown

Good Charlotte - My First ATC

So this is my very first Artist Trading Card. I've titled it Good Charlotte.

Behind the Scenes: The paper is watercolor paper from my little handmade ATC journal. For the background I used my Winsor & Newton half pan watercolors. The images were copied and clipped from odds and ends I collected. I used a pewter sunshine charm that I bought at Michael's for .88. With a needle and a bit of blue thread, I did some stitching at the top and added a shinny green ribbon to the at top and bottom of the card to make it glimmer.

If you make ATCs and have a website, please leave me a comment. I'd love to visit your page! Making these little trading cards may become an new favorite pastime of mine.

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Good Charlotte,
Where do you want to go?
What do you want to do?

You glow everywhere you go,
and everyone expects sunshine from you.

Now it is time to take up your light,

carry it at your side,

and don't fritter it all away
to those who don't give at least a bit back.
Save the rest for yourself.
Because you are the one who appreciates it the most.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Scanning for Collages and for Scrapbooking

It has been a super productive night for me! What did I accomplish? Well -- tonight I scanned some small pieces of clip art that I've gathered. I'm planning to make a few ATCs with the things I've scanned. I will be sure to post after I've done a few. I'm only as far as watercoloring the background for one and having the basic layouts determined for two of them. And let me tell you, it is a challenge to work in the small space of 2.5 X 3.5 -- but this is a challenge I'm ready for! I love tiny so Artist Trading Cards are right up my alley!

I also went through a disk of scanned pictures of my family. These are very old pictures of my grandparents, family, and baby pictures of my mother. I tried to go through them and write who was in the shot for for each numbered picture -- but it was pretty tough. I need to sit down and ask my mom if she knows all of the people in them. Since she is the baby of the family, she may not. So I may have to ask my Uncle since he is 16 years older than my mom.

Here's one of my very favorite pictures. It is my Grandpa's High School Graduation picture. Isn't he cute? I might add that of our family he was the first to graduate from Bismarck High School. This is the same High School my mom graduated from and then I followed later. So I was the third generation to graduate from good old BHS.

Going through this one disk of very old pictures has got me excited to get scanning the rest of our pictures. It will be quite the project! A good one to tackle over the winter, for sure!

Here's a quote to leave you with...but let me just say that I'm not referencing my grandpa here. Just thought this quote was cute and maybe something he would have said to us because he always liked to make us laugh.

"Families are like fudge... mostly sweet with a few nuts."

-- Author Unknown

A Long Overdue Update!

It has been forever since I've posted on my blog. There have been more than a few reasons why. The biggest reason has been my computer being "out of order." I hope to have it back tomorrow, and with a new hard drive it should work like new -- I'm hoping! Right now my brother is graciously letting me borrow his computer to check on my email.

What have I been working on lately? I started to make a few Artist Trading Cards (ATC) and came up with a theme for them. When I have my computer back, I need to work on scanning some of my clip art that I plan on using for my ATCs. I also found a book that I'll be ordering from amazon on Artist Trading Cards.

I've also bought more Creative Memories products to start my "Christmas present surprise" for my mom. All I can say is that it will be super cool! I promise to post it when I'm done for all to see. One of my next major projects will be to scan our family pictures. So much to do! So much to do! :)

Hope everyone has been having a great summer! Hard to believe it is almost over! But you won't find me arguing too much. I love fall and fall weather. The best time of the year, in my opinion!

Just thought I'd post a quick update to let everyone know that yes, I'm still alive and I will be back to blogging and catching up on reading all my favorite blogs shortly! :) I've missed you all!

Don't Forget the Past When Looking to the Future

Anyone who is close with me knows that I've had a really busy, challenging, and rough month at work. It has been full of both rewards and disappointments. And I don't want to get into the details at all. Instead I just want to share a few very important life lessons that I've learned recently:

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the thought of our futures and who we want to become that we forget our past and who we really are. This is my advice to you if you are going through a rough patch in your life right now:

Be proud of who you were, who you are now, and who you want to become! And don't let anyone stop you from reaching your dreams. And if things don't work out the way you want them to -- remember that everything happens for a reason and the rough times help shape us and make us stronger. And it may be very possible that something even better may be just around the corner waiting for you! :)

The above picture is of me and my Barbie Dream House -- my favorite toy from back in the day. I'm not sure how old I am in this picture because nothing was written on the back, but I'd say no older than 7. I spent hours playing with my Barbies in this doll house. My Grandma Frankie who lived in New Mexico sent this to me for Christmas one year.

My super-awesome Barbie house came complete with furniture, little plants, play food, plates & the works. My dad struggled for hours because he was the one that got to put it together. The doors and windows opened, and you could move each section of the house apart -- and he had to build it from scratch with really bad directions. Thanks Dad! :) And even the cat loved Barbie's posh digs -- she loved to climb in the middle of my Barbie Dream House, sometimes making it go "CRASH" in the night.

On Sunday, my mom and I spent all afternoon going through 2 large tubs of pictures. We had a good time laughing and talking about the good old days. And we've decided to start a new project -- organizing all of these photos and putting albums together for her/dad, me, and my brother. Also, the majority of our pictures were taken with a crappy instant Poloroid camera. So many of our pictures are falling apart and fading and getting ruined slowly. So -- we will be scanning them too. A great project for this fall/winter. Also right up my alley for scrapbooking! I have a feeling that I'll need to buy more ink and paper for my photo printer. :)

A Day of Scrapping

Yesterday I attended a Creative Memories Scrapbooking Workshop. A few consultants in the area host this get together every month. For a reasonable fee, you can bring your scrapbooking projects to this all-day workshop and use the tools that the consultants bring. This way you get to play with new tools and decide what you want to spend your money on next! And oh I found lots of really cool tools that I want to purchase eventually.

I arrived at 11AM. One of the last times I remember looking at a clock, it was 6PM. Suddenly after that it was 8PM! The day simply flew by! But it was a very productive one for me.

Here are the items I purchased: A Power Sort Mini Box, a PicFolio Minutes Album, A Storybox set of papers, and a Tape Runner. Also not shown, I bought three packs of stickers to use. The tiny little pictures scattered around in the picture below are very small pictures I printed off.

The blue and green box with polka-dots is a Power Sort Mini Box and holds up to 600 photos for storage. It is so nifty! here are a couple close up shots. Each side has a closure as shown in the second picture. And if you tip your box upside down your pictures will stay in place and will not move around. They also sell bigger Power Sort boxes that hold many many more photos. The larger box will be one of my next purchases, but I plan to use this small one to hold current projects and the smaller Storybox papers that I used for my PicFolio Minutes Album.

For my first project I wanted to start out small and do something fun that I could display. My friend introduced me to the PicFolio Minutes Albums. I immediately thought this would be a good thing to work on and take to work to display on my desk! It is always fun to have pictures to look at while at work. Especially if you are having one of those days and you just need to remember where you came from.

Here's a picture of what the album looks like all closed up. It is magnetic and you can unwrap the beige closures and open up the album like an easel. Then you can display your pictures and flip them around to whichever picture you want. I have ideas to make a few of these for gifts. They are easy and fun.

Here's one of my favorite pictures that I put inside my album. This was taken at my friend's Bachelorette Party. (She's the one in the middle. My Creative Memories consultant friend is the one on the left, and I'm the one on the right.)

Both of these friends were at the Scrapbooking Workshop and we had a blast working on our individual projects, talking, and joking around and being silly. I look forward to attending these get-togethers and maybe even a Scrapbook Convention out of town for a couple days. I'll start saving my pennies for that now.

I'm not quite done with this first project. I made 10 of the 24 pages for this album. The pictures inside are of family and friends. So I'll continue to work on this and decide how I want to begin my travel album for my France pictures. I think I will also make an album for my baby pictures.

What did I learn this weekend? Scrapbooking is a lot of fun! I'm excited to keep working on my projects with my friends because that makes it even more fun -- to create something that is meaningful while surrounded by good company -- that's special.

"Remember, the greatest gift is not found in a store nor under a tree, but in the hearts of true friends."
~ Cindy Lew

Being Introduced to Scrapbooking...

I'm excited because today because I'm going to be introduced to a new creative outlet. I have a friend who is very creative and we have a lot in common. We both love to read, write, and she's a consultant for Creative Memories, which is a scrapbooking company. So I'm heading over to her house to see her scrapbooks and what she's got to sell. She's also having a scrap day next Saturday where you can bring your stuff and work on it, and of course you can buy new scrapbooking supplies to use. But from what I understand many tools will be provided to use at this Scrapfest. So I'm gearing up to get my scrap on! Now that I have a new camera, lots of new pictures, lots of old pictures, and a photo printer, I can really dig in and start my own scrapbooks!

A couple of possible projects come to mind. One in particular is to scrapbook my trip to France. I have lots of pictures in an album that I don't really care for. So why not make a new travel scrapbook? This may inspire me to get out of the country again and take another wonderful trip!

More to come on what I discover and what I decide to take on as a project! :)

Here's a picture I took of the Eiffel Tower from ontop of the Arc de Triomphe, a beautiful site!

Happy Scrapping!