Catching Up

I have a number of layouts that haven't been posted anywhere - some because they are paper layouts and I haven't taken the time to photograph them, and some because they were for kits that have since come out but I haven't taken the time to upload them to galleries yet. So here are some exclusives (for the time being at least, until I can get them up elsewhere). These four layouts were done using Kay Eflin's new White Space Templates.

Target Exclusive


A Small Stage, A Big Production


Christmas for the Boys


Fashion Sense

A Whole Lotta Scrappin' Going On

For February I had a layout goal of 30 layouts. That's a lofty goal for the shortest month of the year, even more unrealistic when you factor in 5 birthday parties. Suffice it to say, I didn't quite make it. But I did respectable in any event - 25 layouts, 1 card and 1 gift bag. I'm happy with what I accomplished.

What helped (a lot) was the ACOT Crop held over the last weekend of February. It happened to be my least busy weekend of the month, so for a change perfect timing. The most exciting part of the crop was that I did a lot of paper scrapping, something I don't take as much time for these days since digi is faster and less messy. I missed my paper, and I had lots of fun playing with it. Here are a few of my favorite layouts from the weekend:

A Royal Reception (Libby)


Faces of Our Past


Work in Progress


A Means to an End (Bianca)


Even Mom got into the action, I was proud of her for finishing 2 layouts and a gift bag. Here's a really cool one she did where she made the book embellishment freestyle:


Definitely a creative weekend at our house, and a fun one too.

Project 365 No, Recaps Yes

Well at the beginning of 2010 I had the lofty dream that I would complete Project 365 this year. That's where you take one picture a day and you scrap all of them. It's not for lack of ideas on how to do that - Cheryl McCain at ESS provided these really cool rolodex cards for just that project. It's just that I can't remember to take a picture every day. I did however manage to finish all my recap pages for 2009. Here are May - December.

















That's an entire year of memories captured - journaling and pictures. I'm very proud of that accomplishment, and I know I'll be happy to have done that with the year still fresh in my mind. One thing that helped me to so easily finish those layouts was that I organize my pictures by date and event, with miscellaneous pictures in a general monthly folder. The nice thing about digital pictures is that the date and time of the picture is captured in the file and kept when the pictures are transferred to the computer. All of this makes it easier to go back and pull out the pictures that belong to each month. I helped my journaling along by looking at my planner pages from last year (and I keep those for every year, I have them going all the way back to 1993 when I was first introduced to the Priority Manager planner at work).

It's never too late, I'd like to go back and recap every year since I started taking digital pictures (2003). The journaling will take longer on the older pictures as I dig back into my memory banks for the details, but when I'm done I'll have a full picture of each of those years to look back on.

It Did Get Me Thinking

I'm not a big fan of constructive criticism. Personally, I would rather think I'm a superhero than to think I could have made a bad decision or taken a wrong step. But I'm guessing it happens sometimes. And I'm the first person to look at my scrapbook pages with a critical eye, but I guess it still hurts my feelings if I think someone else is looking at it that way too.

Recently I posted this layout at ACOT:

One of the comments I received on the layout said that the pictures and text were too small. Ironically, something I struggle with on digi layouts is to make them look equally good on the screen and on the printed page. I'm guessing for many of my layouts when I print them I'm going to be thinking "Why is that text so big?" Honestly, to make text look good on the screen it has to be 18 font or larger, and on the printed page 18 font is pretty dang big. If I had printed more of my digi layouts I would know for sure how the text sizes translate, but I just haven't gotten around to that yet. Which means I can't 100% defend my choice on this page of using 12 point font size and smaller pictures. Well, I can defend the picture choices because the point of this page is the scene and if those pictures were any larger the tree would look like it was about to topple over, lol. But I don't know about the text size.

I shouldn't be bothered by the comment - surely the person making the comment only meant to be helpful. But as I've said, I don't take criticism well, even the constructive sort. It's a weak area for me - I know I need to work on it. As soon as I get new ink for my printer, I'll need to print this layout out and see whether my font and picture size choices really were "too small." At least then I'll know for sure how font sizes are translating to the paper page.

Not that all of this should turn anyone off of providing constructive criticism when it's requested. Just be aware that even if we ask for it, that doesn't mean we'll like what we hear. ;-) Regardless of the outcome of this experiment, the comments from this well-meaning person have proven one thing - I'm right to be concerned that there might be a conflict in digi between what a page looks like online and what it looks like on paper.

I Am a Violet

A friend sent me a link to a fun gardening quiz, the purpose is to find out what kind of flower represents you. I only partially agree with my results. According to the quiz:

I am a Violet What Flower Are You?

"You have a shy personality. You tend to hesitate before trying new things or meeting new people. But once people get to know you, you open up and show the world what you are really all about."

The people part of this is true - I do take a long time to warm up to new people. But I like to think I'm willing to try new things.

So, what kind of flower are you?
Click Here to Take the Flower Quiz

When It All Comes Together

Don't you just love when you fall in love with the perfect kit that matches photos you've ALREADY taken? No staged photos required? It's pretty awesome. Here's my latest find, these papers and elements from Coppercurls Designs were a match for this picture I took with one of my nieces a few years ago.

I Wanna Be an Athlete, Baby

This blog title only works if you sing it to the tune of Kid Rock's "I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby." Go ahead, read it again, I'll wait.

OK, now that that's out of the way, let's talk about it. I've spent my whole life on clandestine dreams of athletic greatness. True Story.

Most people I know wouldn't describe me as athletic but that's because they are not paying attention. People rarely do. People would describe me as clumsy, and I am. I have to admit that because I can't walk across a flat floor in bare feet without stumbling or breaking a toe. The problem is that I've joked about it for so long, now people actually believe it's because I'm clumsy. Mostly it's because I am too busy up in my head to pay attention to how my feet are setting on the floor. My brain gets ahead of itself and suddenly my feet are in the wrong place at the wrong time and oops, Tania tripped again. People never focus on the fact that I rarely ever fall. I trip, I catch myself, I keep walking. No problemo. I really should get more credit for that skill. Tania - world class non-faller. It has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

When I was younger I used to practice falling. It seemed like a good idea, with all the ice skating and horseback riding and dangerous stunts. I was so good at fake-falling that when my friends and I had to put together a routine to go with "Little Black Spot on the Sun Today" for music class in the 7th grade, we incorporated one of my fake falls into the routine. I credit my quick rebounds today with all that practice when I was younger.

My first shot at athletic greatness, and an Olympic medal, was Figure Skating. I started when I was 4 and I was good. They certainly weren't kicking me off the ice and I could spin like nobody's business.

The Winter Olympics were a sure thing. I was going to be the next Dorothy Hamill. Until I was distracted by the horses.

I took a turn at tennis when I was 7 or 8. I quit after a ball hit me square in the face and I ended up with a black eye.

My mom finally signed me up for horseback riding lessons when I was 8 and soon ice skating was a thing of the past, something saved for a fun weekend with my friends. I was born to ride horses. Soon I was jumping four foot fences with no (very little, ok some but it was the totally fun, adrenelin-rush type) fear. It helps that I was riding the most awesome horse around, Copper.

I was headed for the Summer Olympics and a gold medal in Grand Prix jumping. I was going to be the next Katie Monahan Prudent, riding for the U.S. Equestrian Team. Until we moved to Florida.

My parents came up with this brilliant idea. "Let's move to Florida," they said. "And while we're at it," they must have thought, "let's move to a town where they don't have any English Riding Barns or horse shows for my soon-to-be famous daughter." (Don't worry, I'm not at all bitter.) And so my horseback riding career was relegated to the back burner. My new plan was to head north after high school, back to civilization, a.k.a. a town with an English Riding Barn. That plan was derailed after I met the love of my life. But hold that thought.

In either Jr High or High School I took a turn at running hurdles. I was good at it, naturally, since I'd spent all that time pretending I was a horse, jumping over the same fences we took the horses over in our lessons (and jumping over the couch, the coffee table, the neighbor's bushes while I was delivering papers, you get the picture. A little known fact - although I worked my newspaper route for the money I needed to show my horse, I enjoyed my newspaper route because I could pretend I was a horse and jump over every obstacle in the neighborhood.). Unfortunately hurdles didn't last because I've never been a fast runner.

When I went off to college I started riding John's mountain bike. I used it as my transportation and as a bonus I got into really good shape. The bike was a lot more fun that I originally thought once I could make it up the hills and still breathe, lol. But then they stole my (ok, John's) bike and my biking career came to an end.

You'll notice that most of my life I avoided team sports. I played basketball for fun when I was younger and we had a hoop over the garage but I never really took an interest in it. In school I was always the last to be picked for any team sport. That's because as I've said I'm not a fast runner, plus I didn't know how to hit, throw, or catch. Ever since the tennis ball incident I had been afraid of getting hit in the face. Team sports seemed pointless anyway so I just tried to stay out of the way and I walked the track whenever possible to get out of playing. Except basketball, I always participated in basketball in gym class.

A few years ago Ricky invited me to be on the company softball team. Actually, for the record, he begged. They were short on girls, and they needed me to make the minimum. I warned him that I was a terrible player. I told him I couldn't hit, catch or throw. I don't think he believed me because once we started playing he was surprised that I couldn't do any of these things.

Still, this is me - I might be terrible at something but once I put my mind to it I find a way to excel. Deciding I would now be a softball player, I enlisted Jennifer and John and we honed (ok, we first created and then honed) my softball skills. Jennifer took me to the batting cage where I learned to wait for the pitch instead of swinging at every ball in a 10 mile radius. Jennifer and John joined me on an empty softball field where they taught me not to run when the ball was coming my way. It turns out if you keep your eye on the ball and your hand in front of your face, catching is not quite as tricky as it looks at first glance. The ball wants to fall into your hand. Then Mike Smith, who is a wonderful coach, taught me how to throw. Over my two season career as a co-ed softball player I gradually improved until I was no longer striking out and usually making it on base. I even got some runs out of the deal. My preferred field position was Catcher but I also played right-field.

I was on my way to the cover of Sports Illustrated and what I hoped would be a multi-million dollar contract when my career was cut short - not enough girls to continue the team. This year I hope to practice on my own and become a pick-up player at the field in the fall. Teams are always looking for girls and you never know when the scouts will appear.

The truth is that one day I'll ride horses again. I still have Olympic dreams, and since I'm older they obviously had to become more grand. I'm not going to tell you what they are just yet, you'll have to wait and find out with the rest of the world. Just remember, you don't have to be able to walk a straight line to be an athlete, baby. I'm living proof.