MiniBullyMom's Musings

Well Sunshine Studios challenge for us should have been easy since all I had to do was use everything in the mini-kit they supplied. We could also recolor and/or use items from other kits if we wanted to but we still had to use each item in the kit at least once. So...I figured "No Brainer"...then my creative juices got flowing and I decided to experiment with drastically recoloring something for the very first time. I turned a dark purple mulberry paper into a turquoise mulberry paper. Of course this was after I "feathered" the edges to make the background paper look like torn mulberry paper. All said it took 4 hours to create the page!!!

I ended up documenting a day at Summit Lake this past summer where the kids were being goofy as all get out. In one of the photos the three of them are actually wearing lifejackets like diapers. There are teenagers for you! Of course they had to "pose" in their "diapers".

Hey.....if you were a fan of the Holly Jolly Blog Train or the Christmas Around the World Kit you may have noticed that several participants also created items for a Christmas Convoy. You may be happy to know that the creators of the Christmas Convoy have decided create a series of blog trains/convoys that happen year round. On Friday they kicked off the Winter Convoy with 32 designers participating. The colors are a way to start transistioning to those warmer spring colors yet still give you winter options. The New Years Convoy yielded me some great items. Go check out the first driver here.

The Valentines Convoy hits the road Feb. 14th is shaping up to be a great one. I love how a glitter is included in all the convoys. Here is the color swatch that the designers are working from for Valentines.

One could end up with a wonderful selection of freebies for every season/holiday under the sun by following the Twisted Convoys all year long.

I have lots to get done today before heading out to the hockey game. It's the last home game of the regular season for our Junior A Tomahawks and I am running the clock. Its a nice change from goal judging and after running the clock about a dozen times over the past four years I have finally hit the point that I'm no longer nervous doing it. The scorekeeper and I get along great so we always have fun working together.
Before I head out to the game I really should get at least one of our two attics organized. Half of the one that has all the holiday decorations and the kids old clothes is done so I'll probably finish that one first. But what's left to go through is all the clothing that I was saving. Those special outfits and such from when they were little kids. Christina has way more saved than Alex does. I don't know if it was because I had sewn so many "party" dresses for her or what. But I did save almost every outfit that I've sewn for either one of them that wasn't stained, torn or ruined. The old joke was that Christina had so many dresses she only wore the same one twice a year. At that time I was working for Hancock Fabrics and as an employee we could make display garments then keep them for free. Well I was the only one that had toddlers at the time which meant that every couple of weeks one of the four "kids" displays was changed and I generally had sewn the clothing. I have several dresses that I made for myself and a couple of shirts I made for my husband. Then there are all the "craft" items we would do for the holidays.

So the half of the attic that is left to go through is pretty jam packed. I'm thinking I'm just going to make sure that the clothing containers are still sealed and go through all the Halloween Costumes we have up there. The kids got into them once or twice in the last couple of years and I know that they are laying all over the place. I'm thinking about just taking photos of the costumes then donating them to Goodwill.

NOT!!! Actually it's been a relaxing morning. I needed it after yesterday and all the stuff I have planned on getting done this weekend. I spent the late morning uploading Microsoft Works to her laptop, setting up an email account for my stepdad and setting up her laptop for him to have his own account and easy access to everything. Now I'm off to go help my friend Christine take her son to a dr appointment, then have a hockey game to work tonight. Won't get back home until after 11pm now.

Several times a year we escape to the ocean. Our favorite place to go is to the "South Beach"which is what they call the coast between Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay. One of the most famous sections of beach there is called "Washaway Beach". Every year a huge sections fall prey to the ocean forces. A couple of weeks ago a huge storm aka a "Pineapple Express" came through at the same time that there were some of the highest tides of the season. We were blown away with some of the changes to the area. "Evening Magazine" filmed a segment about the beach in 2004 which you can see here. One of the biggest changes we noticed this month was not at Washaway but just before it. The southern most "Beach Access Road" was closed because the end of the road was washed out and it was a good 6 foot drop from the old road to the beach itself. The northern most access road (by Twin Harbors State Park) to the beach was closed last year. This now leaves 3 of the 5 permanent access roads open which should make things rather interesting come Razor Clam season.
The weather couldn't have been better considering it is the middle of January. NO RAIN at all this trip. We spent most of Saturday in Westport, Westhaven State Park and hanging out on the South Jetty watching the surfers. It was sunny and mild (high 40's on Friday and Saturday) but when it's clear skies that means it gets cold at night. It frosted both nights but Sunday was actually warm and in the high 50's. Thank goodness we have a warm and toasty camper to sleep in. After 12 years of tent camping we most definitely appreciate the fact that there are no more midnight runs to the nearest bathroom in the rain.
Alex had fun this weekend because Mike let him practice driving out on the beach. This now means that we can pretty much count on the fact that on June 18th he will be dragging us to the DMV for his permit so he can legally drive (as long as we are with him) to his hearts content.

I finally got a chance to sit down at the computer last night and was totally flabbergasted. It turns out that we were only supposed to use 3 photos and 8 elements (including the frame) well....I used 8 photos and 10 elements (including the frame). Luckily they gave me an extra 24 hours since I hadn't realized that there was a "no more/no less" requirement on this challenge. So I ended up redoing the entire layout with three different photos of Alex. I used Brandie's journaling and title but had to change the alpha. I like both layouts but feel that the first one is more representative of cabin fever.

Challenge #3 and #4 are already posted, so I need to crack the whip and would like to finish them both before we head out to the ocean on Friday morning.

When I was creating the link for my previous post I realized that I totally forgot that there was an element requirement as part of the challenge. So I quickly went back to my original and added some elements and papers to it. I had the opportunity to practice using the marquee tool in Photoshop in order to make the purple and burgundy papers look like they were behing the photos.

Now it looks almost like one of those "what's missing" puzzles with these photos being right next to each other.

The second challenge for the Amazing Digiscrapping Race is being hosted by Elemental Scraps where we arrived to find an intersection. Which means that Brandie and I have to work together to create one layout.

The challenge was to do a layout about Cabin Fever. At first I thought about having a photo of a house with the kids looking out the windows or photos of people "thinking" about things they wished they were doing. What I ended up with turned out to be totally different though. I got looking through my photos I decided to use some of the crazy looking photos the kids have taken over the last couple of years when they were "home alone" and bored.

I used to get mad when they would start playing with the camera or camcorder. I would pick up my camera days later and find photos they took in the act doing stuff that they would never do if we were around. In some cases it ended up getting them in trouble. But for the most part I don't complain when they "borrow" my digital camera anymore. Some pretty funny and priceless photos have surfaced as a result of their "Cabin Fever". We have ended up with some pretty good photos of them hanging out with their friends that we wouldn't get otherwise.

It will be fun to see what Brandie comes up with, her part of the challenge will be the journaling and title. Although I just realized that I missed a bunch of stuff that needs to be added to the layout .....AKKKK!!!

".....it was a dark, stormy night". Actually it is a dark, stormy night tonight. The wind is blowing, the rain is coming down in buckets, there are flood watches on all the major rivers and the requisite "urban flooding" warning. Talk about some freaky weather patterns here in the PNW lately. The Weather Service says that rain from now until Thursday with a brief lull in the high winds tomorrow afternoon.

I'm "jones-ing" to go to the ocean!!! Winter storms are the best time for beachcombing and watching the waves crash over the jetty. Although it means we can't beachcomb on the jetty where you can normally find floats that have gotten wedged between the rocks. About three years ago we hit paydirt there as you can see from the photo above. That crab cage was Alex's big find. All told we have probably found a dozen floats over the last few years. The dogs love running up and down the beach and I can walk for miles rain or shine there. Someday I'll find one of those "rare" Japanese Glass Floats. They are harder and harder to find nowdays because so many of the boats use plastic floats nowdays.

Well...I can survive for another 10 days and then reap the rewards that a week of windy/rainy weather will deposit on the beach. Although, no trip to the South Beach/Westport area is complete until you zip down to Washaway Beach and see how many more houses/trailers have been claimed by natures forces.