My apologies

I can not believe its been over a month since I've posted!  Six weeks ago I accepted a new position in another organization.  I had worked at the same place for over 24 years in a variety of positions.  So you can imagine how crazy busy its been wrapping things up in one place and acclimating myself in a totally new environment.  While I still have a lot to learn in my new position I feel like I'm getting my feet underneath me, so to speak, and am not quite so overwhelmed as I was 2 weeks ago.  We also have our house on the market and our realtor held an Open House yesterday so there's been a lot of cleaning and straightening up going on this past week.  Today, we're relaxing mostly.  I'm checking in here & on the Big Picture Classes message boards and looking over my projects' lists in order to see where I am.
How is everyone else's summer going?  Are you finding time for scrapbooking/crafting?
Be back soon!

Jumpstart Creativity Tour 2012

We can all use inspiration from time to time so I was very excited when I found out that the Jumpstart Creativity Tour 2012 will be in Buffalo, NY among many other cities this year.  Buffalo is about 2 hours from where I live so that's an easy drive for me. 

From the Jumpstart Creativity Tour website - "An epidemic is sweeping our nation. We are discontent. Workaholics. Stressed.
Often what we need is engagement in a process that allows us to have a voice. We need places to make things without judgement. We need supportive communities of other creative people. We need space to make art and a creative community to join. 
Painting saved me. My creative community never ceases to inspire me. Everyone deserves that.
The Jumpstart Creativity Tour is about hosting 50 physical events that invite average adults to come find the creative outlet they have been searching for. There are opportunities waiting. The event may only last 2 hours, but attendees will walk away with resources to keep them going."

For further information and to see if the Jumpstart Creativity Tour is coming to a city near check out the website  http://www.jumpstartcreativitytour.com/

On a different note I've not been in my craft room much lately and not due to a lack of inspiration either!  Right now I have less than 2 weeks left at my current workplace after working here in a variety of roles for over 24 years!  No, I'm not retiring but moving on to a new job and I'm very excited about it.  This is going to be a big change for me.  We also have our house on the market and after 2 1/2 months on the market with no one looking at it :( we've have had 4 couples look at it in the last 2 weeks so I feel like I'm cleaning constantly!  So you can see why I've not been creating.  My blog may be more informational for the next month with fewer layouts, etc to share.  I want to thank you for following my blog! 

Camp Scrap 2012

Camp Scrap 2012 begins June 11th with May Flaum and its FREE! From June 11 to July 27 May will be posting projects on her blog and she has a Community set up at Big Picture Classes where you'll be able to post your work & talk with other "campers" Go to www.mayflaum.com to check out the details.  I've taken 2 classes now over at Big Picture Classes with May and I think she's an amazing artist and teacher.  She does more than show you techniques - she shows you her process and I've learned a lot from her.  

Take the work out of summer planning free printables

Need some help with your summer plans?  The "How does she?" blog has several free printables to give you some help.  Go here http://www.howdoesshe.com/take-the-work-out-of-summer-planning-7-free-printables-to-help for a Travel Photo Checklist, a Summer Photo Checklist, Summer Memories journaling page, a Vacation planning sheet and a camping planning sheet and some games/reading lists for kids!  Once you are at her blog you'll want to check out all the other free printables she has - there are a lot!

Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap

Kat Sloma from KatEye Studios is once again hosting the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap.   See her website here   http://kateyestudio.com/   Kat's idea for the swap is to get people's artwork out into the world whether its photography, scrapbooking, quilting, mixed media or wherever your creativity leads you. 

Last year was the first year that Kat hosted this swap and she ended up with 170 people from 37 states and 13 countries participating.  She's hoping for 200 people to participate this time.  She allows lots of time to prepare the postcards and I found it very easy to do.  I was taking a class with Claudine Hellmuth and used artwork from that class for my postcard last year.I ended up with 8 postcards last year - 5 from the original swap, one from Kat and 2 from people that I sent my postcard too!   I'm looking forward to the postcard swap again this year.  Its a lot of fun!  Hope you'll join in!

For more information on the postcard swap and to sign up go here  http://kateyestudio.com/liberate-your-art-postcard-swap

Double Take Week 1 Sketch 1

One of the best things about Double Take is the number of photos I'm getting onto layouts!  Most of the sketches are for 5-9 photos on the 2 page layouts.  For this layout I took orange cardstock and since I'm trying to use more printed paper on my layouts I pulled out the soccer stuff I had.  I had several soccer print papers but I chose this one and cut the soccer balls out and put them on the orange cardstock - I love the way the colors all stand out.  I cut a few banner out of some other soccer print paper and added some black dewdrops.  Pretty simple and I love it!

Art of Observation Week 6 Memory Files

 For this week's assignment I tried using one of Heidi Swapp's Memory Files from her Color Magic Collection.  It starts out mostly white with just a design (in this case a shell/scallop design).  For the front I used a mist from my LSS and for the back I used a Mr. Huey mist.  I used the Mr. Huey mist on the inside as well as it is only white (no design).  If you try the Color Magic Memory Files you'll definitely want to watch a video to see how Heidi does this.  My red did not turn out as vibrant as I had hoped.  Heidi told me I needed to do more layers of red.  Which is what I did with the black but boy that was messy!

It was difficult to make sure that the black didn't end up on the red and vice versa.  I'm sure it gets easier with practice.  Here is a link to Heidi's collection
http://store.scrapbook.com/products/heidi%20swapp%20memory%20files.html?gclid=CNnKnbDBl7ACFQtThwodciiT0w
And here is a link to a YouTube video of Heidi showing how to mist the Color Magic Collection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hmAeMuo8tE&feature=BFa&list=PLE93CBE4DEA0D7B80

The theme for this week if you can't already tell was "love" so I'll be using this Memory File for all the things I love on our trip to see my oldest son and DIL in California.  I like that I'll have the two little paper bags to hold memorabilia in and the "openable" to add journaling to.  I recovered the openable with leftover paper from one of the hearts so it matched.  In the future I'll just make my own little book.