Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday Angie!

Today this post is dedicated to my former co-worker but more importantly someone who was a dear friend Angie Werner. Angie was taken from us on Wednesday October 10, 2012 in a tragic accident. I am still trying to come to terms that I will no longer be able to just pick up the phone or text her just to say hi.

 Angie was a bright star in my life. She was always positive and was as just as friendly as could be to everyone she came in contact with. Today would have been Angie’s 49^th birthday. To celebrate her I have attached just a few pictures to celebrate a wonderful person.

 

Great American Scrapbook Convention

I can’t believe it has been January since I have last wrote on my blog and that on Sunday we will actually be in July.

I have had a lot of changes going on and that is part of the reason for the disappearance. As you have heard me say before my job was just hectic and not a happy place but one phone call from my former Director of Accounting changed everything. In March I left my old company and started a new job and that was the best decision I have EVER made in my life. Trust me I was absolutely worried about the change and leaving all of the great people I worked with and my boss who will always be a close friend but change was what I needed and was sad to leave the people but not sad at all to leave. My boss on my last day could not even look at me for most of the day as it just made her sick to the stomach.

 But let’s get to what this post is really about. This past weekend was the Great American Scrapbooking Convention (GASC) in Chantilly, VA and me and my cousins (Robin Shakoor, and her daughter) go every year. This year I took a class that was being offered by Clear Scraps to make a banner and it was so much fun.

We also found this cute little die that we bought to make little cards for down at my family reunion. I tasked my little cousin with doing this as her summer project while at home from college at the summer.

I will be back soon with more projects as I now in the mind frame to actually do some scrapbooking and also have a deadline to get some stuff done for my family reunion which is in like 3  weeks and have not started a thing. Nothing like waiting until the last minute J

52 Photos in 52 Weeks

As I have mentioned that I will be really getting into my photography this year more and in that commitment I have found some photography challenges. This challenge is 52 photos in 52 weeks.

Week 1 theme: New

This is the new barbie I got for Christmas. I LOVE HER!!!!

Week 2 theme: Shine

Every year my Aunt gives all us girls bedroom slippers and these were my new slippers this year. Ever since I was a child we had a theme of what we got. It's fun ever year to see what she type of slippers she has found this year.

The theme for this week is: COMMUNITY



Hello Monday!

I hope everyone had a nice and relaxing weekend! I relaxed on Saturday while my husband was at his figure drawing class and did some much needed chores like washing clothes and then we went to see Red Tails the movie about the Tuskegee Airmen. It was such a good movie and the line to get into the movie looked like the Santa Claus scene from "The Christmas Story" movie. I usually like going to matinees but we knew that if we wanted to see it this weekend we had to go Saturday night because on Sunday I had my first photo safari at one of the airports near me (more on that adventure later in the week).

As promised here is another of the tags that I did using the Dabber Effect. I really like this one and how the butterfly just looks like she is floating. I love that stamp. I believe I found it at Michael's or A.C. Moore.


I didn't get to do any crafting this weekend nor take down my Christmas tree (YES!!! my tree is still up). I hope to get all of that done next weekend since my rule is usually take it down when it snows and we had a freak snow shower and snow and ice this weekend so I am more than overdue to take it down LOL!!!!

Dabber Resist Tag

UGHHHHH!! I return back to work today but I did enjoy my 4 day weekend of getting my hands dirty with ink and trying new techniques.

I have not had much of a scrapbooking mojo and unless I needed to get on the computer in my scrap room I just walked past it but no more. On Saturday I spent part of the day inking up and trying something absoutley new to me. I had gotten the Tim Holtz Compendium of Curiosities book and looked thru to see as a tag beginner what I could try that would be easy.

Well on page 37 I found it "Dabber Resist" technique. It was so much fun that I made three of the tags with that technique. Now my tags are nothing compared to what Tim Holtz does and what I have seen other people doing but hey I am just starting out and I am proud of what I did.

Hope you enjoy!

Spend more time Exploring

Hope everyone is having a relaxing Sunday so far. I am just relaxing and trying out some new techinques with tags which I will show this week.

My husband and I say every year that we are going to explore our city and vist many of the sites that Washington, DC has to offer in monuments and memorials.  Every year we end up not doing it due to life getting in the way and other obligations. Well this year we will be exploring more or the Northern Virginia area.

Here is a picture of our exploring Old Town Alexandria the other weekend when it was seasonably warm. I loved the way the sky looked and just spending time on the waterfront.

My resolution is to capture more pictures like this

Happy Tuesday!

In 2012 I want to take my photography to the next level so I have signed up for a few seminars for this year already so you will be seeing more pictures on this blog beside some scrapbooking. I am even thinking of doing some photo challenges like "Project 12" or "52 Photos in 52 Weeks". Next year I may even do Capture your 365 where you take a picture everyday.

I want to show you some of the pictures I took in my class last spring. The first five pictures will be from the field trip we went on and the game was to take 5 photos that told a story.

Yesterday it snowed here in the area when they forcasted rain. Boy did all those weather people get it WRONG!!!. Here is a picure of the snow out of my office window. I am hoping this is the most snow we get this season but I know that it won't be.

NEW WORKS Exhibition

Hello All! I know that I have been very bad at blogging lately but life has gotten in the way and before I knew it we were at the holidays. Time has definitely been flying by. I hope everyone had wonderful holiday's and were able to relax and spend quality time with family.

I had a very excitable weekend one that goes down the book of big accomplishments in my life. I had a photograph of mine accepted into an exhibition at this place in my area called “The Workhouse of Lorton”.

Last spring I took a class there called “Storytelling with Photographs”. It was a great class that taught me to look at my pictures in a whole different way and want to definitely approve my pictures. A friend asked me is it hard to have your pictures critiqued? My answer to her was NO it actually helped and makes me take better pictures.

I have loved taking pictures since I was given my first camera as a high school graduation gift and it was all it took to get me hooked and I have not stopped taking pictures ever since. My cousin Robin actually calls me “paparazzi” because I always have a camera not too far away that I can grab.

Here is a picture of me and my submission at the opening reception on Saturday night. My picture is of the LA port at night. I took this picture several years ago on a John Mayer cruise.