CREDITS:

Digital scrap items in the header, layouts and sidebar are by Miss Mint at PeppermintCreative.com or Jen Wilson at JenWilsonDesigns.com

Friday, November 30, 2007

Extra, Extra!

Miss Mint gave us Mint Chicks the Christmas kit late last night and WOW is it cool! The colors are red, hot pink, light pink and lime green with the most amazing pink ornament paper! If you have girls you're going to LOVE the light pink on hot pink floral toile paper that comes in the kit. The elements are filled to the brim with all the best, including an adorable gingerbread man and whimsical christmas trees! Not to mention the coolest button wreath I have ever seen! And of course, STARS! Boy are there ever a lot of cute paper stars!

Even better, there are several new christmas elements. My favorite is the new Magnetic Poetry with more holiday word strips than I could ever use!

Our layouts aren't due until Monday so I don't know if the kit will launch this weekend or if it won't be until next week. Keep an eye on Miss Mint's blog to see if there's a sneak peek and info on when the new kit and the new freebie will be up. (I haven't seen the new freebie but I heard it's going to be wintery!)

Taking Aiden to the doctor at 9 am for this horrible, phlegmy cough he has and then he's coming home for a nap so I can scrap! Glad I have until Monday....she wants several things from each of us for a big, fat newsletter. I can't wait to start playing!

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Sick Baby = House Arrest

Aiden is sick with his second cold in a week AND he's getting both top teeth at the same time. That's probably why he cried for about 5 hours straight last night. I don't know how parents with colicy babies do it. Usually he quits crying when he's held but last night he screamed, even in my arms. Today he's developed a bad cough and threw up all over the carpet in the office while I was trying to look up his symptoms online to see if we needed to visit the doctor. He got an outfit change and just went down for another nap but I'm sure he's going to wake up famished. I scrubbed his entire lunch out of the carpet...poor baby.

I wish I had something more interesting going on. I filled a jewelry order, downloaded all the Thanksgiving pictures to the computer and scrapped a new frame for the picture column on the right during Aiden's earlier nap. Pretty boring day, stuck here at home with a grouchy, sick kiddo!

I'm posting this one bigger so you can see it. I think this is one of the cutest pictures of his little face!


Wednesday, November 28, 2007

More Picture Tricks

I just can't stop making these! I think I should probably convert these into overlays so I can just slap them on a picture instead of doing all ten or twelve steps to get these images to look this way....the Beachy effect was 30 steps! Yes, THIRTY!




Beachy


Brassy Tone


Urban Green & Grungy

Brian said his favorite is still the rugged style that we're having printed. Mine, too. :) Now I just need to get scrapping with my funky new pictures! Still can't wait for the new christmas stuff.

Playday

Today is a playday! I know yesterday probably sounded like a playday, what with the party and all, but I spent nearly all afternoon cleaning up the chaos so it wasn't much more than another housecleaning day. Aiden and I need some down time so as soon as his morning nap is over, we're going for a walk.

Meanwhile, I can't stop inventing new photo finishes! These are SO fun! Here are a few more I have been playing with. This is the original again for comparison:




Defog Technique


Dark Chocolate Tint


Rugged Finish


The rugged is by far my favorite! I LOVE the blue tint with the blackish gray grit over the top. Totally my own custom mix - I don't think I have ever seen blue tinted photos with grunge. (Remember what I said about being original instead of copying? See, it works!!) I'm having this printed large for Aiden's room and plan on adding other roughed up photos to it. What a perfect boyish look!

I need to quit playing with pictures and get all the christmas cards & birth announcements done. Then it will be the end of the month and I'll have new scrap stuff that I need to get layouts done with.....so much fun! I really like my hobby. :) Brian, thanks for taking care of Aiden last night. It was so nice to come in the office after dinner and play until bed time. I love you!

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Show Off!

Kelsey got a gorgeous card/photo in the mail a few weeks ago of a baby girl done in a cool looking colored sepia photo finish. (Why does Kelsey get all the inspiring mail? I get nothing but junk ads...) Any ways, she asked if I could figure out how to do it. I told her I could and when she asked about it again today, I sat down & whipped out some new fun photo effects. You can never have enough, especially when scrapping! This is the original:


Chocolate Finish

Colored Sepia


Worn & Weathered Colored Sepia

I used my new weathering trick to rough up the colored sepia photo. Kind of cool. Can you believe we're actually TRYING to get our photos to look old? My grandmother is freaking out about my dad's baby pictures and how they're aging and I'm attempting to get Aiden's baby pictures to look as vintage & fabulous. The grass is always greener, isn't it? LOL!

Okay, off to bed! I'm beat!

New Tricks

I finally got one nap time to play in photoshop with some of the new tricks I have learned. Way, way, way back in early summer I stumbled upon a website that had the most GORGEOUS grunged out photos. I was totally in love! I immediately tried to do my own scratchy photo aging but to no avail. I have been playing with techniques off and on until very recently it clicked and I can do it!





And these aren't even the GOOD ones! Of course, no sooner do I figure out how to do this edgy, super-unique photo treatment than I find messy, dirty, splattered edges showing up EVERYWHERE! Oh, well. I guess the only way to have something orginal is to BE original!

Will Post More, Promise!

I'm having a party in the house this morning so I can't write much but I did want to mention, for my out-of-state scrapping friends, that Miss Mint is brewing up some great holiday stuff so start watching her site towards the end of this week for the promised big freebie and all the new goodies!

I swear I will write more and post some pictures and new LO's! Check back soon!