Month: December 2010

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Title Page done

I spent some time last night selecting some templates to use with specific subject matter for the December book. I picked out #5 for the title page and really like how it turned out.  Of course, any more there’s a little tweaking here and there, add something, nope, undo, add something else…  It’s a pretty simple layout almost all from one kit. I’ve been wanting to try the December glitter styles by Honey Scraps and they are GREAT!

Papers, glitter styles and other elements from Days of December by Cilenia Curtis and Honey Scraps at Digital Designer Shop, 2010 Text Path Cilenia Curtis, Template – Tiffany Tillman 25 Days Holiday 2010, Font – Bodoni MT Black

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aida came to my office today to see the newly painted pink office and the zebra rug.  She seemed to like it.  We had lunch at the Thai place, absolutely yummy!

We’re starting to plan New Years Eve now, mexican food menu.

 

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Layouts from the Boat Parade Party

Two more December layouts, this time at Daddy’s boat parade party. Elysse loves to experiment with night photography and she has a great time at the parade each year. She got home from college just in time to attend.  The entire Peralta/Robles clan joined us there. Daddy and Sharon’s house is always chock-full of family (Sharon has SO many siblings) plus golf buddies and family friends.  The table is always filled with food. Everybody shows up with something or more than one something. People gather at the table and eat prior to the actual boats going by. This year’s weather, like the past one was pretty cool but not COLD. When the first signs of lights start, everyone goes outside to watch all the brightly lit boats go by. I stay inside with Sharon and we convert the table from food to desserts for when everyone comes back inside.

Elysse takes the camera out to the dock to take pictures, no tripod necessary. She took pictures around the fire ring with Simone and Stephan.

Template – Tiffany Tillman 25 Days of Dec 2010, Papers, stitching, tag and leaves – Cilenia Curtis Days of December & Snowman, Holly – Katie Pertiet Holiday Foliage, Word art – Karla Dudley Holiday Wordart, Font – Fertigo Pro & Pea Natalie

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Back to the 25 Days of December templates!

Template – Tiffany Tillman 25 Days Holiday, Papers and other elements – Images to Ink Winter Concert, Overlay – Honey Scraps Xmas Scuffy Overlays, Font – Fertigo Pro

Finally getting back to my December album.  After what seems like weeks of shopping, cooking and cleaning I can scrap again. Spent about 2 hours organizing a little in ACDSee, a bit of all my Christmas freebie downloading frenzy and some of the other stuff left in my “downloads to unzip” folder.  Then, I broke out the 25 Days templates.  One of the events I wanted to document was Tommy’s Winter Concert. One of my digi-sisters, Joan/Images to Ink created a kit called Winter Concert that was just perfect!  Thanks, Joan!

Next, either his birthday or the holiday baking day.

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Christmas Eve!

I am so stuffed that I couldn’t eat another thing if you paid me!  It was a pretty relaxing day for a while.  I was able to sleep in before I had to start the turkey so that was nice. I checked email, uploaded the photos from last night and worked on a few digi Xmas presents. I put the turkey in the oven at 12:30 and it baked until 4:15. It turned out really good! I haven’t cooked the turkey in years because I generally have to work during the day. The kids picked up Simone and Michael and went to play volleyball for a few hours.  I was able to send Tommy to Publix to get ice and iced tea.  THAT was great because I certainly didn’t want to have to go!

Family started showing up at about 5 ish, weighted down with food and presents. We followed some of the photo tips and took our family pictures early on after they arrived instead of before they left when they are tired.  Turns out we forgot to get someone to take a picture of us!  So we broke out the new camera remote and did it ourselves.

We had traditional Christmas fare, turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, pineapple casserole, Delba’s sweet potato casserole, green beans, squash, cranberries and Parker House rolls.  Then we sorted all the gifts and opened presents. For us, Christmas Eve is mostly for the kids but I also exchange gifts with my mom and Ed then too. Our kids have a such a varied age range that we had moon dough and Victoria’s Secret gift cards! It is always fun to see Connor and Mackenzie open their gifts and get excited over the toys and books. Then it was dessert time! I got cake dots from a new bakery near the office and we had pecan pie, pumpkin pie and Reese’s peanut butter cheesecake. We cranked up the coffee pot and had some apple cider too. Then the kids pulled out the game Catch Phrase and everyone joined in to play. Lots of fists raised in victory and laughter.  I really enjoyed watching that part.

Then after everyone left we cleaned up and got a little organized for tomorrow morning. I put the gifts under the tree and Elysse set the table for Christmas breakfast. As I’m typing away here, I’m getting emails about digi gift certificates to my favorite stores.  Looks like Mrs. Santa is doing a little digi shopping! I’m looking forward to watching the kids open their gifts tomorrow. Kids are what Christmas is all about!

Merry Christmas!

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Holiday lights

Shimelle’s class definitely gets you thinking about your feelings, the things you see and do during the holidays. I was remembering as a child we used to drive around and look at the Christmas lights. I wanted to walk around our neighborhood at night and take photos. So the whole family goes, Elysse and I with our cameras. I borrowed ed’s 50mm, the nice 1.4 one and the shots were great. I found I got better results with no flash unless far away, then I could use the night landscape mode. We had a lot of fun! It was cold! Okay, cold for us!

So here is where I’d attach some of the really cool shots we took! I have ones of Tommy with lights in the background, really cool tealish lights, ones of Elysse taking photos, and about 10 or 15 very nice colorful shots of lights… Unfortunately this iPad has the best of me! Apparently, I can blog in bed but can’t figure this part out yet! I’ll attach tomorrow from the computer. THAT I know how to doM

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November 10-10-10 is done!

I am going to finish the 10-10-10 project!  I may have stalled on the ABC project but plan to try that again at Digital Designer Shop in 2011.  My format is set, just need to make some pages.  But this project is almost done!  I thought the Days of December Album pages would be great for this multi-photo type layout. For everything else, I just scrolled around in my DDS stash for items that color coordinated.  I had so many choices!

Template – Days of December, Papers and other elements from the following kits – Hallows Eve, Softly, Natural Basics, Cardstock Basics 1, Gratitude, Art Palette, Love of Art, School Days, Heritage 2, Summers Edge, Inspired, Staples Plus all at Digital Designer Shop

plus Fall Memories word art from internet, Fonts – Festus! and Fertigo Pro

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m going to use another of the Days of December album templates for December.  That one I won’t even have to change too much of the papers as it’s the kit I would have chosen anyway!

Today was Family Baking Day at my house.  We started about 10:30 this morning and made:  Peanut Butter Fudge, White Chocolate Pretzel Bark, Graham Cracker Toffee Bars, Russian Tea Cookies, Spumoni Cookies, Soft Pumpkin Cookies, Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies, Chocolate Chip Cookies and Rum Balls.  Then after all that madness in my kitchen, we cooked homemade pizza and spaghetti with salad and bread to celebrate Tommy’s birthday with the Peralta/Robles clan.  Tommy seemed to have a great day!  Video games with Michael all day, oatmeal butterscotch cookies, homemade pizza and vanilla milkshakes for dessert.  That AND more birthday presents from Mana and Pop-Pop and Aunt Aida and Uncle Ken.

Kitten had to be cooped up all day in his room but I couldn’t have her up on the table licking our cookies.  The kitchen is pretty clean which is surprising after all that activity today. After dinner and clean up, Aida decided it was naptime and I sat down to finish up this layout.  Miracle on 34th Street came on.  I’ll admit that I’ve never seen it all the way through and I did tonight.  Very nice holiday film tradition, you have to keep believing in Santa Claus.

Tomorrow I HAVE to finish my shopping.  I don’t think I have much left except stocking stuffers but I need to check my list to make sure.

 

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Another layout from NY trip

All year long, I’ve been wanting to do a layout comparing a photo from 2010 to one from 2000.  I was able to do this with photos from the Top of the Rock where you could see the Empire State Building with ones from 2000 from the top of the World Trade Center.

I’ve been wanting to try an “artistic type” layout with blending and thought the subject matter might be conducive.  Turned out to be a little moody looking which seems appropriate.

Template – Tiffany Tillman 25 Days Holiday, Papers – Xmas 09, Holiday Embossed and Summers Edge, Chipboard – School Days both by Cilenia Curtis, Mask – Carina Gardner Essential, Wordart – Ali Edwards Travel, Katie Pertiet Defining Words and Neutral WordBits, Sahlin Studio Travel Mixed Media, Karla Dudley Studio 365, Fonts – VTPortable Remington and Fertigo Pro

 

 

 

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Two more layouts

Finally finished a two page spread. Somehow I think having more practice at this makes me take longer… as I’m tempted to keep tweaking certain elements, adding and subtracting, just trying to find the perfect accents.  Ugh!  The kit itself was an easy choice, Blue Winter by Cilenia Curtis was just perfect.  Then I saw the snow alpha in Cilenia’s new Snowman Play kit and knew it would be perfect.  Once I saw Honey Scraps new Xmas Scuffy Overlays, I knew I had to use them and the snowflakes from the Days of December kit were great.  I don’t have a lot of use for snow stuff being from Central Florida but this stuff came in handy to document my son’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in Philadelphia over Thanksgiving Day.  It was truly magical!  It actually snowed on us!

Template – Tiffany Tillman 25 Days Holiday, Papers, other elements – Blue Winter Kit by Cilenia Curtis, Overlays – Xmas Scuffy Overlays by Honey Scraps both at Digital Designer Shop, Fonts – Clipz snowcap and Fertigo Pro

Template – Tiffany Tillman 25 Days Holiday, Papers, other elements – Blue Winter Kit, Alpha – Snowman by Cilenia Curtis, Overlays – Xmas Scuffy Overlays, Snowflakes – Xmas Snowflakes by Honey Scraps both at Digital Designer Shop, Font – Fertigo Pro

 

 

 

 

 

I did get some other stuff tonight too.  Part of my thinking from Shimelle’s Journal Your Christmas prompts was to document how my children have changed over the years.  I wanted to do some sort of comparison between 2000 and 2010 but haven’t done it yet.  I pulled out the scrapbooks and photo albums and scanned in 10 or 12 photos of the kids from 2000 to use in my Holiday book.  The layouts are going to be cute!  I didn’t have one picture of me from that Xmas.  Perhaps that’s just as well…

I’ll probably do some sort of decorating layout next.