Coming Soon!

 Counterfeit Club Challenge
Plan to use these supplies for the challenge.

Lingerie Love

Public radio, I love it. So many interesting topics. Last night as I returned from an evening with AMWA women physicians (a wonderful evening, I might add), I listen to a Rick Steeve's radio show http://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/audio/radio/programs/program-354where he interviewed two women writers who had moved to France, Nina Sovich http://www.thesestolendays.com/ and Sarah Turnbull http://www.amazon.com/Almost-French-Love-Life-Paris/dp/1592400825?ie=UTF8&tag=CoffeeandaBookChick&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969
I suggest that those who love travel and all things French will enjoy his interview. I'm certainly going to check out more from these authors.
The part I liked best was their discussion about lingerie. I have french heritage and I am sure there must be a gene for love of lingerie and scientists can find it there in my genome!
I grew up in a poor household. For the most part, we had food on the table but not much in the way of stuff and certainly we only had simple clothing.Thank goodness for an amazing grandmother who could transform thrift shop finds! My earliest fashion remembrance is that I did not have "days of the week undies" like my friends. Yes, I did want them. It was Canada in the the 50's you must understand. Nowadays, I think every child in America has their favorite cartoon character on their disposable diapers and pull ups but times were definitely simpler then. At any rate, I always wanted fashionable clothing and that definitely included under fashions. I was so relieved that ugly girdles and boring garter belts were vanishing with the advent of pantyhose in the years of my late teens. I think Spanx, etc. are a definite improvement in foundation garments and garter belts now only seem to come in sexy lacy versions. Inexpensive undies were mostly white and boring in those days.
At my late teens, I moved to Montreal to attend university. McGill campus is situated on Sherbrooke Street in downtown Montreal. On Sherbrooke down near Cotes des Neiges Avenue existed a Simone Perele boutique. It was the late 60's and early 70's. Color and pattern were on-trend and this very French brand featured beautiful lingerie fashions in their just-below sidewalk level enormous plate glass display windows. Montreal is basically a mountain island city so my description of the levels of things may seem odd unless you visit there. Do visit! It's a wonderful and quirky city. Simone Perele designs featured vibrant colors and patterns, very unlike the usual offerings in the lingerie sections of popular department stores back then.  I would often stop to drool. Alas, a meagre student budget was not conducive to boutique shopping. Window shopping was much more my thing. Window shopping included browsing art galleries and I still regret that I could not convince the first husband to go out on a limb in 1973 and find the means to purchase that $5,000 group of Picasso etchings in a Montreal gallery. Those might have put us in a good financial position vs the debt in that eventual divorce, but I digress. (Of course, parting with them would have been so painful!)
Apparently, 17% of a French woman's clothing budget is devoted to lingerie, a fact I learned from the radio interview. I believe my budget nowadays may approach that. Yes, Simone Perele is a significant presence in my lingerie drawer. One of the benefits of my recent weight loss is that some of my favorite brands, like Chantelle, fit well now. I've always had a bit of a North American puritanical guilt about spending a lot of money on undies. Now that I've convinced myself it is a genetic trait - guilt no more. I will try to be generally prudent in spending; but, making sure that lovely undies are a part of the budget resonates with  strong "Yes!" and a fist pump.
Thanks public radio.

Keeping Up

 Anyone else doing February LOAD (Layout a Day) http://www.layoutaday.com/?
I am trying. I'm up to Day 6 today and feeling pretty happy about that.
Here a few of my layouts. I've reworked a couple of these. I normally spend a few days on most LO's so this get it done stuff goes against my grain. It's good for me, though (at least, that's what I'm telling myself, LOL!)

If that wasn't enough on my plate, I've been learning more about Photoshop these days. I hope it will make me more comfortable with digi scrapbooking. I'm pretty much OK with templates but not so great with layouts from scratch or a sketch.
Thinking seriously about a new computer. The monitor on this one is beyond hope. It flickers for 10-20 minutes as it warms up and one of these days I figure it will just stop working. The computer is old and was not the top of the line at the time I purchased it, which means it is SLOW.
I listened to The Digi Show http://thedigishow.com/ this week which just happened to be about purchasing a computer. Charr, professor at Sacramento City College, agrees with the panelists and says get the best computer you can reasonably buy because you'll be unhappy with anything less. Those Photoshop files are memory hogs and eat up video card memory, too and RAW photo files need hard drive space. So, I think it may be time for an iMac. It's not the best time for a big purchase, but no real choice, I think. Still, I'm taking a bit of time to think this through. Unfortunately, the salesperson at the Apple store was not very helpful. He probably only knows games or something because both photography and digi scrapbooking drew blank looks from him. Alas, young folk only understand photography if it is taken with an iPhone and posted on Instagram!
I suppose blogging may be a bit passe these days, too. At my age, I think being a bit "retro" is OK. So, I'll continue to episodically post a short essay about life right now.I'm considering studying writing a bit, since I need skills in that area, probably more so than art and photography. I think it will be hard. Then again, you dear readers may be grateful, LOL!

Video and me

I started to do a vlog post about making a scrapbook page in analogous colors but quit after I fumbled about so much that I decided I needed to rewrite the script to be a comedy. The good teaching points sounded entirely too boring, too.
Some of m friends said I should just post the funny bits. After all, folk want to see that other folk do in real life when they make scrapbooks. My headset flies off, I look all over for an item while it sits there in full view of the camera, stuff gets glued to my hair, I drop everything (well, some of that is attributable to my weak left arm; but, not enough gets that excuse, alas), my work space gets smaller and smaller as I collect items and do not put them away as I scrap. So it goes, on and on. Not to mention, flubbed lines!
So, it may be a bit before you see me present a vlog post. I promise I will keep trying.
I like color and layering in my art work and since I'm reasonably good with both, I thought it might be good to make a process video with a bit of discussion. A friend looked at me and said with dread and disgust, "You're not going to talk about that color wheel thing, are you?" Well, I was...now if I do, I guess it will be accompanied by the theme music from "Jaws". Really, it is just a tool. My Crop-a-dile is much more intimidating. Nonetheless, I am giving a lot of thought to how else to present color in a way that is useful and easy to understand and only minimally touches on the color wheel.
My favorite color scheme is the primary triad, though, Lee Andersen, you are so correct that as we age tertiary and quaternary colors, like puce are more appealing.I do believe that interesting combo of yellow, red and blue will always appeal to me, no matter what my age.
Lee is one of my most memorable design teachers.She currently designs lovely clothing lines with interesting textures.I learned about her through knitting, which must influence that desire for texture. Truly, she is a most interesting woman. I think she sparked my interest in color and design. Travel, art and education have helped develop it more.
Right now I'm deep into Lain Ehmann's LOAD for February. LOAD stands for "layout a day". www. layoutaday.com
I have heard so many "craftlebrities" say that Lain's LOAD helped them refine their style and improve their scrapbooking. I always dread the idea of the work involved (though I just do digi pages if I feel overwhelmed). I decide to do it though because I'm convinced that some of those folk know what they are talking about.

These are my first two LO's for LOAD. The double page one needs a bit of tweaking but I'm thinking this will be a fun month even if I miss a day or two.

By the way, look for the "2 Craft Ladies" on You Tube this season. http://www.youtube.com/user/2CraftLadies Their spoof of themselves doing crafts is fun. Somehow I think the wine pairings, though delightful, might have a wee bit of an effect on how their projects turn out? Just sayin' I mention them after discussing the big names (AKA "Craftlebrities") in skilled crafting because they have adopted "Craftlebrities" as a title for the coming season. It's a term we all owe to the amazing and inventive Angela Daniels, AKA "The Guilty Crafter". http://angeladaniels.squarespace.com/
Has this blog post rambled all over enough? Definitely stream of consciousness! OK, off to bed right now and a goal to try to produce a reasonable short video this week. Not sure I'll accomplish that but maybe if I stay away from facebook and apply myself, something might happen.

Project Life at CHA

 I did not put any American Crafts up on my Facebook feed because of the sheer vastness of the collections. There was not time to do it all justice.
Pocket page scrapbooking is something I've experimented with, as a way to do some events with a lot of photos vs documenting my everyday. Even taking a photo a day is more challenge than I can handle most times. (So, you're asking me about a future topic - Layout a Day. I must be mad, I've signed up again for that; and, yes, that project has always been a real challenge. An invaluable experience, though!) As usual, I am digressing from the topic at hand, Project Life.
I think you will see here lots of new products and a nice versatile mix. I think these products can find their way into most memory keepers stash, whether pocket scrappers or traditional page makers. Attractive and useful.
The photos pretty much speak for themselves. Not only was I able to get images of the products but I have some great page examples for you from the show as well. Enjoy!

So much to review

 Yes, I'm unpacking and going through my photos. It's almost as overwhelming as being at CHA itself.
Lawn Fawn had an item I loved that will be coming out in a few months. Dinosaur stamps with companion dies. these and the speech bubble die to the right is of these is a favorite, too. That with a sentiment stamp and two papers could make a simple effective card. Of course, one could get very comic book, too.

Lots of cute new stamps with companion dies. That globe with its companion die is another stamp that caught my eye.

I like those polka dot card bases and the packs of multi-color sequins that coordinate with their collections.

Alas, the 49ers have lost to Seattle so must end this post to drive my son back home. Would have liked San Francisco to win but the Seattle and Denver fans in the family will really enjoy the Super Bowl. I'm happy for them. 

Heading Home

 Almost have everything in suitcases, took some nutrition so just need to get dressed and ready for the day and pack those last few items. Home by this afternoon.
Had to buy another large duffel bag suitcase. I did have some items from CHA but Play is where Imreally stocked up. Wonderful scrappy play things from so many manufacturers. You'll be seeing  these showing up on the blog as I create with them over the next several weeks.
Yesterday was Disney. I did it without a scooter and my joints know it today. Just took a Motrin and am lying down a bit waiting for it to kick in, which is giving me a moment to blog. Have to take advantage of all opportunities.
It was fun to share it with so many wonderful women from Big Picture Classes. The entire group spent a leisurely time together taking pictures and chatting. Chantelle ( not sure I've spelled that correctly), a young woman who owns a scrapbook store in Regina, was willing to go with me to some of my favorite rides. She had not been to Disneyland since childhood and wasn't sure what to try. I like a mix of campy ones like Jungle Ride to the Star Wars Tour and Buzz Lightyear and the gorgeous design of It's a Small World.  No roller coasters for me.
I then went promptly to sleep,when I got to my hotel. So, getting up early today did not cause sleep deprivation. I wondered if I could get everything packed up without problems, but all seems well.
I'm reflecting on what some of the main themes of CHA were and even on the themes of Play's products. Those products are very new and very appealing. Pocket Pages really are dominant. I think a number of folk are very happy to keep their memories with this approach and the variety of products can really make each person have their own style and make a very personal album without much fuss.
On the other hand, those of us who are embellishment crazed layering fans could find a lot to work with. The tiny embellishments for the Project Life scrapers who like a little dimension can add so much interest to a traditional scrapped page. Lots of choices for that, plus the cards themselves can work well as a base for,a cluster.
Die cuts for embellishing are available in abundance. They make great negative space cut out shapes and plenty of those are available on cards for similar looks for pocket pages.
Stencils and stamps to suit every taste from woodland creature, silly sayings to strong graphics and geometries.
Color was everywhere and not just at the fabulous We R Memory Keepers and Doodle bug. From soft water colors to intense saturated hues, it was there. The muddier grungier colors were much less obvious but vintage and grungy lovers do not despair. There is product for you too.
Time to get this wrapped up as I still have things to do before I head home.
Have a happy day folks!