A Sense of Place~ Putting It All Together

 

I've just finished a class with Kat from Kat Eye Studio called  "A Sense Of Place."  The lessons for this class were centered around how to capture the places you visit in new and different ways. Through her lessons, images, and discussions she taught us how to take pictures  beyond the normal "tourist" shots; how to take pictures that really capture the story of any place we happen to be and what it means to us. When I first read about this class I didn't think it was for me. After all, I don't visit many places too far from home. I've never seen the Eiffel Tower, Niagara Falls, foreign countries, or even many places outside of Arkansas. Mr. H has never been much of a traveler and as I get older, I'm getting more like him. I sure like my own bed!!  After much thought and deliberation and assurance from Kat that "homebodies" could benefit from this class, I registered. Kat was right, I've learned so much about how to capture and tell stories about the places I go.

 

As a reminder of the class I choose my favorite place to wander and made a mini-album.

 

I'm sure if you read my blog the fact that one of my favorite places to wander and photograph is in the woods behind our house will not come as a surprise. I've walked these trails in every season.  I love to stand by the creek, watch the water, be still, and just listen. Sometimes I listen to nature; sometimes I listen to my heart. I've seen and captured the creek when it's surrounded by fall leaves, when it's banks are covered in snow, when the bare trees are beginning to sprout new leaves, and when I've welcomed the shade of those same trees during the hot summer.

 

 

The shapes and detail of nature intrigue me. I never know what I'm going to spot while walking the trails. I've discovered a perfect little mushroom house fit for a fairy and a potter's wasp nest. I've even found the tin man in the top of a thorn tree.

 

 

I may be a little strange, but I like seedpods better than flowers. Yeah, I'm afraid so. I think it's because they are a such a beautiful object of nature that is very often overlooked. They fascinate me; these little carriers of life.

 

 

My album would not be complete without "love notes from nature." I'm always searching for those unexpected heart shapes. It's kind of hard to see, but if you look closely at the leaf in the picture below, you can see two heart-shaped holes where insects have eaten. The leaf itself is fairly heart-shaped. When I see a heart my own heart always skips a beat and I gasp.

 

I can't walk across the pasture to the woods without seeing dandelions. All it takes is a whisper of wind to carry it's seeds through the air.

 

 

The verse on the back says it better than I can.

Capturing photos of nature is pure bliss to me.

 

 

I had the best time choosing what pictures I wanted to include,  picking paper and embellishments, and putting it together. It was fun to do something different and creative.

 

 

With the heat of summer upon us, I think I'll be inside doing more crafty things than outside with my camera. There's no telling what other things I might experiment with next!

 

Write Now!

I've been playing a little catch-up on my Write Now! class with Amy Sorensen at Big Picture Classes.  I cannot begin to describe how this class has helped me with my journaling.  I am not and will probably never be a "writer" where every sentence has perfect structure and every word is critiqued. I'm not striving for perfection in writing. I'm just striving to present the story on my scrapbook pages more interesting and informative.  Here's the latest pages I've done.

1. Journaling with a summery - taking a particular set of pictures and summarizing what is happening in an orderly manor without obviously stating what is seen in the pictures. We are trying to get away from the "we had a lot of fun making candy cane cookies" style of journaling.

the journaling reads:

Making CANDY CANE COOKIES is a tradition I began with my children when they were small. As they grew up and married, I then had to roll out the dough and make the cookies by myself. Now, I continue the tradition with my grandsons. At first, only Josh was enthusiastic about making the cookies. But, we were having so much fun that Drew decided to help. Well, sort of help, he didn’t like the feel of the dough and had to put his hand on top of his Mommy’s. Finally, Jake joined the fun. Making cookies with the boys was one of the highlights of my Christmas. A memory we will share, just like I share the memory of making CANDY CANE COOKIES with their Mom.

2. In the next assignment we wrote a rough draft about the photos and then learned ways to shape our journaling...breaking it into paragraphs, rewriting awkward spots, and making sure we focus on details to tell original thought of the story.

The journaling;

     Our grandsons are obsessed with trains When trains are included in our outings together they are ecstatic. A restaurant where trains run around the ceiling is the perfect place to take the boys. To keep sanity in the car, the destination for lunch was a surprise. It was worth it to see their excitement when we walked in the door! Their eyes widened, they squealed, they jumped up and down, and they danced around.

     We placed our order and found two booths side by side that could hold all of us. That’s when the boys realized that the small trains running on a track around the top of the room where going to deliver our food. Each train had a tray attached to the bottom which carried the food basket. The train dropped the basket on a shelf that lowered to the table.

        As we waited for our food, the boys just could not sit still. They were on their knees in the booths or standing in the aisles. Their faces were turned up watching the trains. Their eyes twinkled with delight. The smaller ones giggled!

       The excitement grew as each train passed overhead. Would this be the train that would bring our food. Finally, the train stopped above our table. Our food had arrived. They were fascinated to watch our basket being lowered to our table. Then, they got another surprise, our food wouldn’t fit in just one basket. Along came another train with the rest of the food. That doubled the excitement. It didn’t matter to them what the food tasted like. We had to keep reminding them to eat because they were so absorbed in watching the trains.

     Our smiles were as big as theirs. We were thrilled to be making this special memory with our grandsons!!

I usually scrap two page layouts. On the second page for this layout, I just wanted to include as many photos of the day as I could.

3. This assignment was very different, yet fun. We were learning to journal in the form of poetry. We were to read Patricia Fargnolito's poem "Naming My Daughter". Then, we were to choose a person to write about. I chose to write the poem about myself. Using her poem as a structure, we were to substitute our own words describing events and characteristics of the chosen person.
This is the description of her poem:  In the Uruba tribe in Africa, children are named not only at birth, but throughout their lives by their characteristics and the events that befall them.

My Poem

Naming Catherine

One who arrived early and fast

One who has older sister
One who has silky blond hair
Child who strives to do right
Child who is shy and quiet
Child who believes in God
Girl with love of music
Girl with friendships dear
Girl with desire to please
Catherine (Greek name meaning pure)
Sue (a name all her own)
Hardin (for father, preacher and house painter)
Wife of high school sweetheart
Wife of thirty-nine years
Wife of loving man
Mother to one lovely daughter
Mother to one delightful son
Mother to one who is in heaven
The quilter
The reader
The photographer
Gramma who rocks and sings

Gramma who hugs and kisses

Gramma who plays and laughs

Woman who loves and is loved
Whose cup runneth over with joy

 

I think journaling will be more fun for me as I scrapbook. I'm finding unique and fun ways to add words to layouts!

Scrapbook Pages Completed

I'm finally getting around to posting pictures of the pages I finished at the scrapbook retreat. In case you don't know, I am working on individual scrapbooks for my four grandsons. I want them to each have a scrapbook of the good times we had together. Therefore, when we're all together, I scrap each of them a layout of the occasion. So if you think you're seeing repeats, not really, just similar layouts.

Aaron lives close to us, so we we were able to go to church with him on Easter and then later that afternoon they came over for dinner and to hunt eggs.  This paper just happened to match Aaron's shirt so well. Notice the flower in the left corner. My sister saw this and showed us how to make it. The other three grandsons, came the next weekend to celebrate Easter and hunt eggs. I need to buy paper for their layouts.

Aaron was old enough this year to enjoy the egg hunt. He was pretty excited when he discovered that some of the eggs had prizes.

 All four boys went to the Wonder Place, a play area with different stations. We had loads of fun. Above is Jake's layout.

 Josh's layout

Drew's layout

 Aaron's layout

At Christmas time we did so many fun things. Since I wanted to include a lot of pictures, I just wrote a numbered list in the upper right corner of our activities and numbered the pictures that matched that activity. The layout above is Jake's.

Drew's layout

Josh's layout

Aaron's layout

And the last layouts are of the twins' (Drew and Josh) fourth birthday party. They had a Thomas the Tank Engine Party. I was excited when I found this paper for their layouts.

I need to journal on their birthday pages, but I wanted to go ahead and post them with the others.

I would say I accomplished a lot!! I hope I can keep the momentum up and finish some more!

Scrapbook Retreat

This has just been a wonderful spring. I've enjoyed another special, fun weekend. I attended a scrapbook retreat with some very wonderful friends and family. We just had the best time. We cropped, we laughed, and we ate. We meet at a great place the...

A great facility in a beautiful location.

Of course, you have to have all your supplies, the Cricut cutter, pens, paper cutter, photos and a 12 x 12 box to take home the finished pages.  The photo box and 12 x 12 box are from Creative Memories. Love them both.

 Oh, and we must not forget the best part...the retreat gift and snacks!!

The morning of our second day, my sister, Judith, and I went out for a walk and took a few (really a hundred) pictures. There's a garden with a wonderful fountain.

Near the fountain is the rose garden. There are two large beds of miniature roses.  Every color you can imagine.

It had been raining very hard, so most of the roses were drooping, but we managed to get some good shots. The white one in the center of the top row is very tiny, about the size of a quarter. They were all so very delicate and beautiful!!

 We decided to wander further around the lake.

We found a couple of geese that didn't mind us taking their pictures.

Near the lake we found this walking trail. It was a beautiful trail complete with a boardwalk. It was so so peaceful and quiet. Since it had been raining earlier the only sound was the rain dripping off the trees. It was a very cool and refeshing walk.

All along the trail was a small creek. We found this small waterfall. I love waterfalls, they're always beautiful and the rush of the water is a wonderful sound.

Further down the trail was this nature center. On one side was the most beautiful Oak Leaf Hydrangea bush. I've never seen one before except in pictures.

The new blooms were as beautiful as the old brown withered bloom from last year.

After the walk it was back inside to crop. For all of us it was a very productive weekend. I was able to complete 24 pages. As we finished our pages, we laid them on these tables for all to admire. You can see some of mine up the right side of the table.

The weekend helped to inspire me again. I have slacked away from scrapbooking lately. I've set up a table in the living room so I continue to scrap at night. I'll post some of my finished layouts soon.

Thanks for spending time reading my blog. I love that you read it and love when you leave comments.  

I've Been Scrapbooking!!

I just realized it has been a long time since I posted any scrapbook pages. I have been a little caught up in photography, but I've still been scrapbooking! So, get comfortable, put your feet up and grab some hot chocolate or a soda pop, because this may take a while!

I'll start with the ones I just finished yesterday. I finally, finally got completely finished with the pages from my Jefferson, Texas trip with my sister.  I am well pleased with the way these pages turned out. It was a wonderful trip and it deserved some extra treatment!

First, the intro page. We had someone take our picture outside my very favorite home in Jefferson. I'm so glad we did, since I needed it for this page.

My journaling pages are next. I told about our trip on the left page and then told the history of Jefferson on the right. It took me three pages for the history. I stapled them at the top so they could be read if you pulled out the page. I really didn't figure anyone would really read them, I just wanted the history recorded with the album. Now all I need is the album I ordered to put them in. I can't believe I'm finished!

At a recent crop I went to, I worked on Jake's 8th birthday party. Jake had a Super Mario party and his Aunt Aimee brought her punch fountain that was filled with Kool-Aid. It was a fun party!

I tried two new things on this spread. I hand-stitched between the green and orange paper on the left side and then across the orange on the right page. I also used a distressing ink to "dirty" the edges of the papers.

I also did pages of the fun times we had while the boys were here for Jake's birthday. Jake enjoyed playing ball sometimes kickball, sometimes volley ball.

Drew loves to play with anything that has wheels.

And Josh plays with anything with wheels also. And yes, there is a "Watching Aaron Play" page that is in my next to-do pages.

I also worked on a Fourth Of July page for Aaron. We went to his house and celebrated the 4th. Aaron had on the cutest overalls with an American flag on the back.

I tried a new technique on the title. I ran the letters through my Cuttlebug and then rubbed distressing inks across them. The ink only colored the raised parts of the letters.

The next pages I worked on are of Drew and Josh when they were playing in the rain dripping off the porch roof. This was day of Aaron's first birthday party. Drew just couldn't stay on the porch. If you look at the series of photos on the right page, you will see he eventually stepped into the ran.

Josh was more careful, he tried to stay on the porch, although he couldn't resist tasting the water.

 

Being in the holiday mood, I worked on Christmas 2010 for all four boys.

You probably can't see on the photo, but I used brads in the center of the circles and also on for the pom-pom on Santa's hat. I don't know why, but I really like brads. You'll find them on a lot of my pages.

Drew's pages have white star brads that match the white stars in the border on top of the right page. The stars are between the reindeer that really look like bunnies in this photo. But, there is a row of reindeer and white stars.

Josh's has white star brads, also.

And lastly, Aaron's page for Christmas. I used white circle brads for the pom-poms on Santa's hat and also white star brads on the Christmas trees.

Whew, we're done now. These pictures don't show the pages very well. I started to take a shot of each page also, but that would have been 26 more photos to look at!! I figured you'd really grow tired by then.

Thanks for looking. I hope you enjoyed them. I definitely enjoyed making them!

Make some memories each day!!