Twelve on the Twelfth for September

It's the twelfth of September (already?!) so if you are doing the "12 on the 12th in 2012" project, get out your camera and start snapping.

For the past few days, I have been distracted from crafting by another big organization project around the house.   September always feels like a second "new year" as the school year gets going (even though I no longer have school age children) and I get inspired to get organized.  It all started when I was looking in the bathroom closet for some extra dental floss.  I found the floss, but also found all sorts of things that didn't belong there or should be discarded.  I ended up emptying all of the linen closets and bathroom cupboards.  I read somewhere that clutter is the result of deferred decision making and I have made a lot of decisions to toss or relocate items in these spaces that had been filled to overflowing.  Soon everything will be back in place and I may even make some labels to try to keep it all organized!

Back to the number 12...  I came across an article that lists the 12 Most Striking Tendencies of Creative People on a site called 12most.com.  This site is full of interesting lists that you might enjoy.  If you have a chance, take a look at the characteristics listed for creative people - do you agree with them?  Do you see yourself there?  What would you add?

The photo collage at the top of this post features 12 photos of our little cousin that were taken at the family reunion last month.  When you have lots and lots of cute shots, a collage is a great way to use as many images as possible.  I could print this at 8 x 8 inches and I would still have plenty of room to do a traditional page layout.  I use the Creative Memories StoryBook Creator 4.0 to do photo collages.  If you like the look of  a traditional page with one large photo, you can use the collaged image to showcase lots of photos but still decorate the page as if it is a single large photo.

I hope you have a wonderful day - it has been cool here but hot weather is on the way for the next few days.

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12 on the 12th and the Pixie card

  

Guess what?  It is the 12th of the month again.  For those of you doing the "12 on the 12th for 2012" project, today is the day to take those 12 (or more) photos.

Here is my little eight year old neighbor with her special birthday card.  Everyone loves to see their name in print.  It is also nice to know that the card you give is custom made just for the recipient.

I used digital papers and embellishments from the Cosmo Cricket "Pixie-Licious" line to create the card.  I'll do another post explaining how I used the digital elements to create all of the parts of the card.  Once I had everything set up in the Silhouette Studio software, I printed two sheets of white cardstock with registration marks for cutting.

Here are all of the card pieces after cutting.  I chose a blue card base from my stash of Papertrey Ink cardstock, this color is Spring Rain.

I continue to be impressed by the detail and accuracy of the cuts I get with the Silhouette Cameo.    The narrow frame that I cut from the sentiment page is nearly perfect.

I left a thin white border around the Pixie image to help it stand out on the card front.  Some parts of the design needed a little added sparkle so I went over them with the Sakura Gelly Roll Stardust glitter pen.

I also added some sparkle to the words with some glitter gelly pen touches on the curves of each letter (the font I used is called "Curlz").

 

The spots around the circle are actually tiny flowers and I added some sparkle to the center of each flower.

I even added a bit of sparkle to the tips of her toes!

I cut four pixies so I would have a few extras.  I did notice that the calibration was off a tiny bit on a couple of the images.  I'll have to work through the calibration process to see if I can fix the errors.

I added large foam squares to the back of the printed scalloped circle to raise it from the first layer of pattern on the card front.

I wanted the pixie to "float" above the circle so I added a second layer of dots to all of the spots on the back except the one for the heart.  I wanted the images to work together and stay level.

This side view shows how the stacked foam squares work to raise the pixie higher and keep the images level.

The inside of the card has an inner liner that was adapted from a large square piece of digital paper.  I got the Pixie-Licious paper and elements in digital files from Jessica Sprague.com, you can find them at the top of the page HERE.

This card was a lot of fun to make.  It amazes me when I do a print and cut to see how easy it is to just start with white papers or cardstock and produce all of the pieces for your card.

If you'd like more information about how to take the digital images into the Silhouette software and create the cutting lines, please leave a question or comment.  I'll try to do another post to show the step by step process.

In other news...our world travelers are home - we picked them up at the airport last night and we are all looking forward to some fun times together before they head out to California.  My crafting and blogging time will be limited while they are here but I have lots up my sleeve for later this summer!


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Reminder for tomorrow - 12 on the 12th

It's hard to believe how quickly this year is passing.  If you are doing the "take 12 on the 12th" project, this is a quick reminder that tomorrow is the day.

I had great intentions but I haven't really kept up on doing the photos.  I may start up again - I do think it is a wonderful thing to do if you want to capture little pieces of your real life and have them to look back on some day.

Ella Publishing has a Take Twelve Photo Challenge Guided Inspiration Kit available to help you with the project.  On June 12 only you can use the code TAKE12JUN to save 12% on any two items (such as the Take Twelve Guided Inspiration Kit and the Take Twelve Templates).

I take photos everywhere - whenever something catches my attention.  The image at the top of this post is a close view of the tiles in the front entrance of our town library.  I have walked across them many times and last Saturday at the book sale I remembered to take a photo.  I think the pattern would make a great cutting file...inspiration is everywhere!

I had a hectic morning and busy day and forgot to post this reminder until late on Monday - I hope you see it Tuesday morning!

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Time for 12 on the Twelfth

Happy Saturday!  For all of you who are doing "12 on the 12th in 2012" - today is the day to take those photos.  If  you are an email subscriber, you may have two posts in this message as I am trying to get back to the usual schedule.

I had great intentions but I haven't been able to keep up with all of the chronological projects I thought about doing this year.  I do need to get my photo organization back up to date, so I am spending time purging all of the images that are redundant and saving only the final versions from my project posts.  It's a big job - I have 2 memory vaults and one has about 40,000 and the other has about 60,000 images.  I know that there are many I can delete so I am trying to do a few hundred or more each day.

I will do better going forward and be sure to delete excess images as soon as possible.  In the meanwhile, I keep plugging away - "one brick at a time" (if you know the musical "Barnum" you will recognize that song!).

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.  I'm planning ("Lord willing and the creek don't rise") to start the scrapbooking challenge next week so get your photos ready!

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Reminder - 12 on the Twelfth Today

Good morning!  If you are doing the "12 on the 12th in 2012" project, it's picture taking day!

After the train ride home yesterday, I had the chance to go see my nephew (one of the triplets) play in the championship finals for his hockey league.  It was a great game.  His team had been tied for last place in the league and managed to win five playoff games to earn a place in the finals.  They played very well and it looked like the game was going into overtime with a tie score of 5 to 5 when the opponents scored the winning goal with just 24 seconds left in the game. 

I had my first try at taking photos during a game.  It sure is hard to capture a single player - they move so fast!  I do think this photo is interesting because all of the other players are blurs around him.  I'm not sure how I got this to work - probably just luck! 

If you ever get a chance to take the train from New York to Boston, you'll see some beautiful scenery.  The train passes along the shoreline for a while and, of course, I was snapping photos from the window.

I wanted to post the reminder for the 12 on the 12th project for those of you who read my blog first thing in the morning.  I have lots to catch up on today - and some crafting to do!  I took nearly 400 photos yesterday and I am going to try to stick to my plan of editing them ASAP and immediately deleting the "duds."  What are you planning to do today?


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Twelve on the Twelfth for February

Today was the 12th of February.  If you are doing the "12 on the 12th" project I hope you remembered to take your photos.  I meant to post a reminder and got the timing wrong - sorry!

My father-in-law and brother-in-law sing in a wonderful Community Chorus called the Heritage Chorale.  You may remember that I have written about their programs before.  We had a great time at the Pops Concert on Sunday afternoon.

The day was cold and windy but the sun was shining and the sky was a brilliant blue.  The concert was held in a municipal building in Framingham.  It is an older building with some interesting architectural details.

I took a few quick photos outside.  If you always have a camera ready, you will be able to take advantage of opportunities to get pictures that you can use for all sorts of projects in addition to documenting your day.  The flag was waving in an interesting way and looks great against the bright blue sky.  I will do a bit more editing on this photo and then I can use it as a background for digital pages.

The massive columns and arched windows are very impressive.  The hall is right in the center of the town.

The pattern in the windows is a fairly typical design.  It reminded me of the cards that I just made which also have a eight section grid.

The ironwork on the stair railings had a design that I wanted to remember - another reason to keep a camera handy.  If you have a camera (or a phone with a camera) with you all of the time you can keep a visual reference of elements that can be used in your art.

While we were waiting for the rest of the family (and our tickets) to arrive, I noticed this mural portraying some of the history of the town.  I got distracted and didn't remember to take a photo of the description plaque so I don't know many details about the people included in the mural.  I usually try to take a photo of descriptive signs to help me reconstruct a trip or remember details.  Digital photos can replace a lot of note-taking!

The lower floor is set up with tables.  Since our group was large, we didn't all fit at one table so my husband and I watched the concert from the balcony.

One thing I'd never really paid much attention to was the large chandeliers.  From the balcony they were much more obvious and I am glad we sat there and had a chance to get a different perspective on things in the hall.

I think the combination of the bare light bulbs and the ornate gilded bands is very interesting.  My husband pointed out that these will look very different (and probably not nearly as pretty) when they have to switch from incandescent to compact fluorescent or other more energy efficient bulbs.

The distance and the lighting made it difficult to get a photo of the performers with my little purse camera, but I did manage to get one shot that shows our favorite singers.  I can't wait to get my lens back so I can take photos with my regular camera again...

During the intermission, everyone has a chance to eat and drink, including the performers.

Once again, not the best lighting (do you like the "halos" above my husband and father-in-law?!) but it is fun to see the resemblance in the three generations.  I don't know how they coordinated their expressions so perfectly!

You know I can't resist taking photos of the ceilings wherever I go - this skylight was no exception.  The grid is interesting and the pattern in the glass with light and dark sections became more obvious after editing the photo.

This was the original photo - it is amazing what some cropping and rotating can do!

After the intermission, I took some photos with my brother-in-law's camera with a big telephoto lens.  I hope that some of those photos will be good ones so I'll have a few better shots to add in when I put together a page about the day.

This year is the 75th anniversary year (the Diamond Jubilee) for the Chorale.  The program was divided into three sections with music from 1937 (the founding year), 1962 (the silver anniversary year) and 1987 (the golden anniversary year).

I tried to insert a tiny video here but Blogger is not cooperating...  Just imagine some great songs like "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" (1937), "Camelot" (1962), "I've Had the Time of my Life" (1987) and "Anything Goes" for the Finale.  Our son observed that it seemed a little odd to have a man in a tuxedo singing "Blowin' in the Wind"!

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My 12 on the 12th for January

How did you do with taking 12 photos on the 12th yesterday?  I hope some of you were able to try it.  I expected that it would be easy to decide which photos to take and use but I kept changing my mind.  Next month, I might think ahead and make a plan (well...I probably won't...but it's nice to imagine I'll be that organized!).

I promised to share my photos so here goes!  If you have posted your 12 on a blog and want to share the link to your post, you can use the inlinkz tool at the bottom of this post and then anyone who is interested can see what others chose to photograph.

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I cling to the holiday season and decorations much longer than "normal" people.  Last night, (which was actually very early this morning) the "rain turning to snow" had started and I noticed this reflection of the lights on the deck.  I took this photo through a sliding glass door. We'll probably take down the back yard lights this weekend, the front yard decorations (except the wreath) came down last weekend.

Just as predicted, the rain turned into snow and we finally got the first snow of the winter.  This was the first test of our new overhang that was added to help with the ice dam problems we had last year (those of you who live in warmer climates can just ignore this part - it won't make sense to you...).

The snow turned back into rain later in the day.  The rain made an interesting texture on the screen outside the sun room window.  This angel was made by my brother and often stays in the window long past the holiday season - by summer she'll be back in the attic.

I am still using the little "purse camera" since the plastic bits that hold the lens on my DSLR camera snapped when I dropped it and I haven't been able to get it fixed yet.  One of my goals for this year is to continue to work on my photography and photo editing skills.  I like the tight focus and the reflection in the silver ball.  These are "crackled" glass ornaments that I bought the first year or second year we lived in this house.

The kitchen island attracts piles of papers - I never seem to be able to keep it empty for more than half a day.  As soon as the mail arrives, things start to pile up.  We have to complete this Town Census form every year.  Sometimes I don't get it turned in within ten days - they haven't removed us from the voting rolls yet!

I was clearing off the island to make room to roll out a pie crust.  Sometimes I make a "real" apple pie instead of the super easy and delicious Swedish apple pie.  The peeling of the apples takes longer than you'd expect but the results are delicious.  These were some of the last of the apples we had from last year's crop from the family apple farm.

I actually like to make pie crust and this trusty rolling pin has worked well for years.  It isn't a solid piece of wood like the one my mother used to use but the handles have never come off.  I had a few other rolling pins that fell apart before I found this one.

I miscalculated the amount of pie crust needed for this large pie plate (just wasn't paying attention I guess since I have made  many pies in this dish).  Usually I pinch the two crusts together but I had to just roll it and some juices bubbled out - still delicious!  The best thing is that this recipe is actually totally vegan. The recipe for the crust uses canola oil so our son can still enjoy the pie.

After I made the pie, I noticed that we still have a bag of cranberries in the refrigerator.  I should probably cook them up soon.  At least the fridge is clean and has some healthy food in it - a relief after all of the holiday indulgences...like chocolate...

The Don Quixote magnet holds the first Christmas card from the newlyweds - I kept it up because this is such a nice photo.  We finally got to talk to them in the evening for the first time after their long trip to Morocco and the Canary Islands.

My husband always notices interesting papers and printing that I might like and brings samples home for me.  This is a very heavily embossed printing of wood bark that looks a lot like the real thing.  I'll probably cut this up to use for a card or other project - watch for it!  We had a laugh at the tag line, "Cougar - a force of nature." 

I just started playing Words with Friends - I love word games but had never played any Facebook games.  My first game ended in defeat - but only by 15 points.  The rematch has already started. 

So there really wasn't a theme to my photos - just some random things from my day.  That's fine with me, I think it will be interesting to look back on these days of photos at the end of the year and see reminders of a few things that were happening in my life on a certain day.

Reminder:  The Creative Memories 25% off nearly everything sale is on for just a few more days.  Please click HERE to go to the post with more details about the sale.  This is a great time to buy one or more of the Creative Memories exclusive Cricut cartridges.  The sale ends on Sunday the 15th.

I hope you have some nice plans for the weekend - I am looking forward to some serious crafting time...





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