photo a day week 4

Mostly outside this week – making the most of the snow not being here.

Big puddles mean good reflections; covering a plain frame with tissue paper; raindrops on rosehips; first snowdrops; jackdaws cruising the breeze; cat comes on a walk; coal skuttle

booklet from a sheet of paper

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love these booklets which are made from one sheet of paper.  The white one started as a sheet of A4.  The small one was a 6 inch square and the large one is a piece of brown parcel paper.  The booklet has 8 sides/pages, including the covers.  I  enjoy the magic of turning one piece of paper into a booklet by just folding and making one cut.

I have made these booklets from 12x12 patterned paper as a group activity.  People then decorate their covers and make pockets inside. 

Here are the instructions – they are easiest to follow if you have a piece of paper in your hands to follow along.

 

when is it too small to keep?

this is a small part of my collection of small bits of card.  I use my scraps a lot on pages and on cards.  Funnily enough a bag of scrap is one thing I find missing from digi scrapping  because having endless use of whole pages just does not feel the same.

The best tip that I picked up along the way was to take the time to trim off odd edges and angles before putting the scrap away.

 

But the burning question is when is a scrap too small to be worth keeping?  

I read somewhere about throwing away anything smaller than your thumbnail.  Not sure what the logic of that rule is.

 

 

But I find it hard to throw out even pieces that small if they are a nice colour or still have some design showing.  So to clear them out from my bag I decided to stick them all onto a piece of card to make a patchwork that I could use on something – perhaps.  In any case the gluing and placing of the bits made me smile.  Light is bad in photo – but  you get the general idea.

do you keep small scraps and what rules do you have for which to keep?

 

 

 

 

Photo a day week 3

watching TV; swollen river; roast lamb; Edinburgh castle at dusk; frost on the beach; lots of coloured card; sleeping dog.

writing on photos

I’m enjoying playing with the technique of putting text on a photo. 

I used a photo of a flat white that I took middle of last year (coffee is a recurring theme in my albums) and  cropped it to give a large plain area to write on with enough of the coffee to illustrate. This one was done using picasa – the fonts are rub this (for the title) and papyrus. I used the colour picker to make the font one of the colours in the froth.

weekly challenge – use a ‘bad’ photo

Helen’s challenge on scrap weekly in 2010 (see badge to left) was to use a ‘bad’ photo on a layout and to place the title over the photos.  I immediately thought of some blurred and dark photos of traditional dancers in Tonga. Have been experimenting with Photoshop Elements and layered templates this week so I did a digital page for this challenge.

Really pleased with how it turned out.

design inspired by Cathy Z.  Papers: orange from Rachel Dickson Funky pack and green Mysteria. 

photos week 2

photos: sparrow hawk in the garden – bringing shopping home by sled – steps cleared of snow – pile of snow cleared from roads in town – self portrait reflection in silver ball – new wellie boots – white scenery
To answer some of the questions from last week:
The page is A4 (8.5 x 11.5 in US speak - in so much as it is the size in which paper is sold)
I have not decided yet how I will print the photos out at the end of the year.  I’m still looking at the range of things others have done. I don’t intend to have any more journaling than the description under the page.
If you are doing a photo a day this year you might want to check out the list of links to people doing this project that Mel has organised on her web.

Hellium digi template

Last week I was lucky enough to win a didgi template in the Liberty elements series over at Liberty Cottage.  Kate’s designs have great simple lines and really focus on photos and writing.  Here is my first use of the template.

The journaling says : a trip to the beach results in lots of photos of the sea and waves and rocks and birds.  Compulsory is the photo of the feet of everyone.  Fish and chips with mushy peas is another part of the Seahouses tradition.  The cafes give you a pot of tea and sliced white bread too and the fish is very fresh.  Sea air gives you an appetite.

It was a lot of fun using this design because it fits 4 photos.  This is the first time that I have done journaling ontop of a photo – I need to play with the font and colour some more to optimise readability.

Do you have any tips on putting journaling on the photo?

If you want to see more in the series – the first was won by Amy and the rest are still to come to keep an eye out on the Liberty Cottage website.

simple pleasures

One of the books in our Boxing Day bookpile was “The Book of Idle Pleasures” – descried on the back as “The book lists and reflects on 75 simple pastimes and proves that the best things in life really are free: lighting fires, skimming stones, catching falling leaves, whittling, staring out of the window, dreaming, doodling or taking a nap. "The Book of Idle Pleasures" is a celebration of pleasure for its own sake in a world of consumer overload.”

Each idea has a double spread with a lovely drawn illustration.

As soon as I saw it I thought “minialbum”. No specific ideas or format but I like the idea of focusing on those simple things that make me happy and don't cost much. I was dipping into it again at the weekend and thinking about which I agree with (dancing; slippers; popping bubblewrap) and which others I would add (laughing; paddling in the sea; markets; rainbows, cutting and gluing coloured card).

A mini-album with a photo on each page and short handwritten journaling would work well I think, probably no more than 20 items. I will keep the idea percolating.

What would you have on your list?

12 photos on the 12th

I first did 12 on the 12th last month when I saw a reminder on a blog evening of the 11th and thought ‘I could do that’.  Then my sister was looking through my old posts at the weekend and said ‘it’s almost the 12th  what will you take photos of?’. So I thought I’d do it again.  But I’m concerned I have now embarked on a commitment every month. 12 is a lot to take on a normal day, perhaps I should switch to 7 on the 7th but then again some challenge is good.  Will have to wait to see how I feel about it in a month.

Today I decided to concentrate on close up and detail rather than scenes and vistas in my photos.

compressing A4 sheets seems to lose more detail than compressing smaller jpeg files.  something I need to look into.

challenge – list of 10

for the second challenge on scrap weekly in 2010 (see blinkie in column on left) the task was to include a list of 10 things.  I decided not to number my list and instead used & between each item related to dealing with heavy snow.  Design is one from Cathy Z’s Design Your Life class.

photo a day – week 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

left to right, top to bottom: quarter past midnight – snowman – making trifle – card making – tree decorations packed away – snow on the garden – ice and snow on the river.

first try with ATCs

I’ve known a bit about Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) for several years but never thought about doing one, in part because I thought they had to be ‘art’.  Today I was reading more about them after the post on kind over matter and discovered that the range of acceptable forms includes photography.

So I decided to have a go at some rather than watch the icicles forming outside the window. 

Here are my first five.  What do your think – honestly – would you be happy to receive one of these in an exchange.  (and thanks to Rinda for one of the quotes).

 

 

using my new alpha stamps

I was given this lovely set of alpha stamps and collection of stamps for Christmas.  One of the things I have used them for is to make some cards to send to Cindy to pass on to good causes. I used bits from my bag of scraps of coloured card to go with the stamped phrases.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of may favourite ways to use scraps of card is to make a striped strip.  Collect several pieces of card that share the same colour or tone – it works best with a mix of plain and pattern.  Trim them to the same width and cut any wide pieces into several strips. 

Then take a piece of backing card, cover it in glue and stick on the strips in any order.  This technique never fails to produce a pleasing strip of colour.

 

 

fun in the snow

“it is play that stimulates creativity.” –  Linda Naiman

recipe for success

 

On Thursday Rinda at Gallo Organico posted a recipe for making a card using those papers that have a picture like an old card.  I have some of these sheets in a book of papers I was given and a card challenge felt doable so I collected the ingredients and off I went.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was very pleased with these two cards I made and it was easy.  The sticker words on the right are ‘thank you’ with 3 stars and the ribbon really is red and does lie flat now.

Rinda is running a competition for people who follow the recipe by Sunday – head over to her blog and check it out – it really was fun and easy to follow her recipe.  I haven’t really used these kinds of images before so really appreciated this recipe.

Russian doll cards

The Russian doll foldout pattern turned out well and was easy to use.  I asked my Mum to draw the faces because she is good at that sort of thing and is on hand.  I will attach each to a birthday card to donate to charity.