Today is the day I start my blog.

Okay, today is the day to start my blog. Why today you may ask? What makes one start a blog to begin with you might also be asking. Well, I've wanted to start one for a long time now, but just haven't made the plunge. There are a couple of reasons that I actually need to start one now. I am endeavoring onto a new facet of my life, a creative happening you might say.

For those of you who know me, know that I am very passionate about all types of scrapbooking, photography and digital design. I teach scrapbooking at our local scrapbook store, Memory Lane, PA. I love teaching there. I love the people who come month after month to my classes. I think I get just as much inspiration from them as I do from creating on my own. Over the years I have met some wonderful people who have become my friends. So, this blog is for you and for hopefully new friends along the way.

I think my goal with this blog is to share ideas, techniques, inspiration and teach. I want to make this a place where you all can come to and perhaps learn a thing or two now and then. I want it to be a happy place for me to come and share.

I'm not much of a writer, and I have very limited time, and I think that is one reason I haven't done this before. I am making this a conscious effort to do this. So, please bare with me as I walk this walk and become familiar with this whole blog thing.

Recently, I've been asked on several occasions if I had a blog. My answer has always been, not yet. I mentioned before that I have a few reasons now to start one. One of those reasons is that I will be starting up, sometime in the near future, a place to showplace my digital designs. I am just about finished up with a class that I took from Jessica Sprague, The Art of Digital Design. It was an awesome class. I didn't know what I was going to do when I took it, but I think I enjoyed it so much that down the road I want to make digital kits, hybrid kits of some sort, maybe some page templates for photographers. I get all giddy inside while designing to see what you can do with Photoshop, and I can't wait to share with you some of my work, and hopefully inspire you along the way.

The other reason, well, I can't say at the present time, but in time I will. So, you'll just have to wait on this reason.

Until then, I will leave you with my first 2 papers that I have designed. They were both made from some old red work that I have on a quilt at home. I love red work stitchery. There are some really amazing designs out there. Anyway, when I figure out how to post pictures, I will post a picture of this beautiful quilt that I have that is covered with it and will show you where I got my inspiration from.

So, until then......let me go and hit the "Publish & Activate Your Blog" button and see where I end up.

 

Okay, so I got the quilt on.  It's going to take me some time to get this going.  So, please be patient and come back and visit me from time to time.

 

 
 

I took the square of the little girl jump roping (she's located on the bottom row, 4th in from the left) and made this paper.  I also used the butterfly (top row, 2nd from the right).  It was the same butterfly used on the page, just twisting it here and there.  To do this in photoshop, take your photo or element, go to your move tool, hold down the command button and click and pull on one of the corners.  This will allow you to pull and twist on the corners.  This is a fun little trick to give some realism to things like this butterfly.

 

With this other paper, I used a stitchery that I had gotten at an antique store and scanned it in.  It took about 9 scans to scan the whole thing in, and then it took quite a long time to line all the pieces up and fix little areas here and there until it looked perfect.  This boy going fishing with the geese behind him is also a piece of red work that I extracted and used on the paper.

Here's the stitchery...

This stitchery inspired this paper....

 

Here you have my first post.  I know it's really a rough start, I'm probably all over the place, but I'm so anxious to get this started.  Hopefully, you can see how my brain works a little bit with the images I showed you that shows where I got some of my inspiration from.

So, more to come.  

 
 
 

 

Comments

[Linda228]

Hi Mary - I love that quilt and the papers are wonderful! Wish I had a little girl to scrap for again! Heck I probably still have some pictures of the girls when they were little that they would work with! How can I get these?
Anxiously waiting to hear the other reason . . . . .
Linda Hofacker

[Harvesths]

Mary, Congratulations on your first blog post! Beautiful work, as usual. Question for you: my latest printer died already, and this time I was considering buying a separate scanner. I wasn't too pleased with the quality of my all-in-one Canon scanner, and I want to scan my art from different media projects. Do you recommend a separate scanner?
Donna

[Obsessedcropper]

Donna, I'm sorry I can't help you out too much with your question as of right now I am using an all-in-one Canon scanner. I have a 13" scanner that I haven't yet been able to get onto my Mac as of right now. I might recommend that you look into a large format scanner, which I don't think they make as an all-in-one. I like my scanner actually. When you go looking for a new one, I might ask them if after you scan something in, if there are features where you can change the back lighting, dpi's, lightness and darkness and other things you can tweak in the scan before it's brought into the computer. That's a big help sometimes. Just a thought. Donna, on larger projects or bulky projects, I just take pictures, if that helps you. Hope you find something that you are happy with.

[Obsessedcropper]

Linda, I'll let you know down the road where you can find my kits and all. Right now, I'm still in the process of finishing it up. After that, who knows, maybe I'll be giving it away, so stay tuned. And by the way, it's good hearing from you.

[Denean Melcher]

Congrats on the new blog! Your papers are GORGEOUS!! Can't wait to see more!

[Catherine Wood]

LOVE your papers, Mary! So glad you've got your blog set up (and it's looking good!) - now I can come & ask you how to do it!

[Patti Seiger]

Hi Mary! I quite by accident stumbled on Cathy K's blog and linked yours from her's...i will be bookmarking both of your blogs! Good to see you and can't wait to see what else you post-and the papers are BEAUTIFUL!!!

[Execute]

Welcome to the blogging world. Love the paper designs and can't wait to see more!

[Iris Babao Uy]

Mary congratulations on your blog! Wow your first two paper designs are beautiful! Can't wait to see more!