Grapes, Coffee, Lazy Day

Grapes, yes! It is grape season in California and Cal brought some home from the market yesterday. They've been in the fridge - cold, crisp, delicious. Love them. I've always liked grapes. I need to scrap a page about being on the wooden swing in my Grandmere's back yard and plucking those tangy Concord grapes off the vine that grew up over the swing. Great memory. i have wonderful memories of both grandparent's houses. I figure those type of memories are common for folk but mine of course are specific to my grandparents. Concord grapes, raspberries and strawberries, high bush cranberries for jelly and of course my grandpere's homemade bread. Baba made perogies and holuppchi and I remember picking beans and cucumbers and all her jars of canned food near the coal bins in the cellar.

Today is National coffee day and I do love good coffee. I've had my Kreuig coffee maker break down but the company is very good about replacements. The taste of my fresh brewed Columbian is delicious. I have devoted a few scrap pages to this love of mine in the past so no more for now.

Still in my jammies. Cal is off golfing. Slept in and having a slow start to my day. Love late summer, early fall, not a fan of winter but spring comes early here and maybe I can take a trip down to South America for Carnivale!

I wrote a reply to the recent PRT episode http://www.paperclipping.com/prt085-the-many-faces-of-neutral/ about neutrals. (If you came here from there I guess you can stop reading now, LOL!)

Funny how I opened my Martha Stewart Living for September to page 150 randomly to page 150 and there is a decorating article on painting the edges of doors a bright accent color. "A vivid pink or citrus stripe is also easily tempered by a neutral base color such as gray, or a deep shade such as indigo." So, it is a trend to use a base of something low key with more vibrant in home decor and fashion as well as scrapbook pages. You'll note that Martha did not refer to navy (deep indigo) as a neutral. I agree with May (Flaum) - a staple, a classic, not a neutral. Love the color combos that went with this magazine article a magenta (hot lips by Benjamin Moore) paired with a medium warm gray (cement gray, MS); Mimosa by MS paired with Navy (Hudson Bay by Benjamin Moore) and a luscious gold called Melon from MS paired with a light cool gray (Elephant's breath by Farrow-Ball). All great inspiration for pages. 

Kayleigh Wiles often uses a gray base to her scrapbook pages. (Beautiful!)

I think that stores are getting more tuned into what their individual market really is, basically what sells in their store. After all, the economy is bad and the LSS that are surviving are the ones who have figured out what works in their market. My LSS (local scrap book store) has a large altered arts section and they do have a card section but still carry a huge amount of traditional scrap products (very up-to-date merchandise) in beautifully arranged displays. Product moves at Green Tangerines, you cannot count on some things being re-ordered. They know their customers like the latest and greatest.

As to white, it looks fresh and modern without the sticker sneeze. It's popular among fans of Karen Grunberg, who almost doesn't use anything but white card stock as her base.

I think scrapbooking follows color and fashion trends. Indigo and denim blues and black are emerging as basics.There is a trend to realism in color, a lot of talk of authenticity and soft romantic realism. Tree and grass green, rustic red and earthy oranges, earth colored neutrals like sediment grey, camel, and khaki. Yellows tend to be gold or mimosa. It will be interesting to see how these trends get interpreted in scrapbook products. Honest is a word I've seen a lot in fashion and design. Interesting! (at least to me). I think there is always a place for themed patterned papers. I just think as scrappers get more into the art of their hobby they are not always used quite like in the past. Those papers do help reinforce themes. Sugartree makes a huge line of just themed papers. They are available at a lot of places on-line (just not at the store that the Sugartree site links to, interestingly enough).

Of course, one has to find the style one is comfortable with. Like Christine (Urias), I'm rather into patterned paper and more patterned paper. And texture, texture is important to me. We are influenced by trends, though. After all, trends determine the products available to us. Maybe why I like Canvas Corp products. The trend is the authentic neutrals like the canvas and chalkboard. Of course, those have the texture I love.

I did like Nancy's (Nally) comment about using anything and Christine's about making things your own. Of course, with stamps and mediums we can transform so much. I think the recent pairing of companies like the Color Connection with Prima, Tattered Angels and Pink Paislee speak to manufacturers recognizing our interest in making our products more useful for any project.

I laughed about the discussion about the Eiffel tower. Now, I HAVE been to Paris so I adore the abundance of this theme that helps me scrap in a "thematic" manner, LOL!

As always, adore the picks. Some like the Heat Tool and the Mistables that I use already and the digi papers and buttons that I will surely buy!

Thanks for PRT, always a fun spot to my week!

So, off to take photos after I get presentable and check up on Joe. Funny ("peculiar, not Ha Ha" -yes, I loved Enid Blyton when I was a child), I was at Pilates and my trainer, Robyn, noted how the tension in my neck increased dramatically as I spoke of my frustrations with him. Oops, I'm trying to NOT have my neuropathy progress. Oh, well, being a Mom is hard!

Crafting, and resolving not to complain (too much) or be cheerless

Yes, it's been the kind of week that makes me say "Wait a minute, am I not on disability retirement?" Too busy, which is why I am resolving not to complain too much. As you know, too much activity usually worsens my pain and in this case I'm getting so good at protecting my left side that I have oodles more pain on the left. OK, that's all I'll say about it. For someone like me who used to feel the whole world needed to suffer along with me, that's pretty good, LOL! I'll get the cheerlessnes out of the way, too. Joe just cannot recognize how he is hampering his recovery. Today I served him with an eviction notice. He has to decide to get well or it's the street for him. I've been an enabler too long. He needs to take his meds and not take other stuff. It's hard for me to be so tough. It's necessary though or he will not get better. He has either taken his meds and used what he shouldn't or not taken meds and not used substances. I just hope he'll choose a healthy option next. I'm trying not to let his problems get me down.
As for crafting, well I did The Mother LOAD class with Lain Ehmann. It was challenging and I can say that I'm glad it's over. I learned a lot though.
I'm excited about the Double take class at BPC. You can find out about it here: http://www.bigpictureclasses.com/doubletake.php 
 It's a much more reasonably paced class with lots of great material. Two very cool and fun teachers who get involved. I met May when I took a class with her back when, and we are friends. I still love to take her classes, maybe more since I know her and recognize how hard she works to provide a great experience for her students. Nic is half a world away but seems to share a similar teaching philosophy. Two page LO's are an area where I need to learn more. I'm excited about the class!
 Lately, I've been posting a lot of my LO's so I'll do that again and add them at the end of this post.

There are a few more that need a little more work before I feel they are blog worthy. Done but not perfected, LOL!

Hanging in with the Heavy LOAD

Lay Out A Day is a challenging concept as well as class. Imagine, these need to get done and posted daily. Not that I have not gone back and tweaked a few. However, coming up with an idea, color scheme, papers and a title fresh daily is something I have accomplished to date. Only 26 LO's required. Nonetheless, a lot.
I've had fun with these. Hope I can hang in for 10 more days.

Yes, those last three are digi pages. Pretty basic. Still, I'm happy with them and justifies my large format printer. (Well, it was on sale and I got a discount on top of that, LOL!)
I did block out some personal journaling, if you were wondering.
My family and my life are the main subjects of my scrapbook pages. I do scrap a little about travel and not much at all about current events. However, that could change. I see my style as still evolving. have not yet determined what my style is. I'm discovering some preferences as the result of scrapbooking more.

7 days into LOAD

I'm taking Lain Ehmann's LOAD class at Big Picture Classes and seven days have passed and I'm keeping up! Wow! Today was a retro challenge and while I used some very old supplies it was hard to scrap like it was 12 years ago. Fun,too, though. It's good to get the stories done even if some LO's are a stretch. Here's my current line up.

You'll notice I even did a digi scrapbook page one day, this last photo. Fun to do but my photography would have to improve a lot to really get into that that. I feel I can get away with bad photos on "lumpy" pages but not so much on the digi ones.
Imagine my surprise when my Big Idea class photos were chosen for the Big Picture Classes blog! I would have done a more careful job had I known my scrapbook would be featured, LOL! You can check out the article at http://www.bigpictureclasses.com/blog/. It's the September 5th post.
Planning ahead to some art/scrapbooking and medical meetings in the coming months. At Christmas Danielle will take her winter break with us. Looking forward to a busy fall and early winter season.
My knee is healing, surgery went well. Getting back into exercise. Maybe I can say goodbye to a few inches.

Mama Mia! Toss a Pizza

Tonight we had homemade pizza. Cal put on quite the show tossing the dough. I almost forgot the pepperoni so it ended on top of the tomatoes. Note the egg in the center. That was to remember Betty's pizzeria in Milan where it was a feature of the pizza. Tonight's pizza included tomato paste, mozarella, artichoke hearts, tomatoes, green peppers, pepperoni and an egg. I think it may have needed a little more spice but have to say that it was good and not greasy with a very nice crust.
A cooking experiment for us. Cal likes to be creative in the kitchen while my creativity is behind the camera or on paper or the web.

Sometimes Life is Overwhelming

I used to think I scrapbooked to relax. Now, I know I need to be relaxed to do it. It's been a hard week. I had surgery which should have been tough but has actually been OK. I instantly knew that my knee was fixed. Now my right knee is back to being my bad one. I have some post op discomfort but I would not call it pain. No big deal. I'm being cautious and trying not to overdo because I don't want to screw anything up. It's good. I think I was pretty stressed before the surgery. To make things worse I needed to take my son to the ER in the early am of the day before my surgery. He's in the hospital and I see a little improvement. The hard part is wondering how he'll do once he is released. Maybe Monday? Tough. I'd really like to know. Oh, well. It is the weekend. I know I'll hear Monday, maybe someone will speak to me tomorrow.
My Mom is better after her pulmonary embolus. Tough lady! She is anxious to leave her assisted living and move to a spot in Victoria. I cannot blame her. As pretty as the Okanogan is, it is isolated. The flowers I send her never seem to arrive. It's hell to get there by plane. It's a pretty long drive and thee are the mountains to deal with. At least there is more family in Victoria and it's way easier for me to get there.
I don't feel like photography or scrapbooking. I've been writing a bit and thinking of making stuff. A shout out to May Flaum who always gets those creative play gears churning in my brain!
I was happy to see Joe got to do some arts and crafts today and did some nice creative collage of happier places and times. I hope we can help him get well soon.
So, dear blog readers, no great creativity here this week. Life goes on and have some crop times planned ahead. These escapes always get the juices flowing. It will happen.
Hope everyone is having a pleasant summer!

Weekend in San Francisco

Lyn and Rod were here on vacation from Australia. Cal and I had a great night out with them at Beach Blanket Babylon and then Pantarei restaurant.
The huge head dresses the performers wear are always a treat in this fast paced show. Fabulous talent, very funny!
The drive from Sacramento to San Francisco was not great fun. That trip is getting worse. Too bad there were not good train connections for when we wanted to go. That would have made it a better trip.
The time in the city was splendid though and the drive back not too bad.
This has been our year for musical theater! Season almost over for the Music Circus here in Sacramento. This past Sunday evening was a very good production of Annie Get Your Gun. Our favorite show, so far this year, has been Anything Goes. Vicki Lewis was splendid as Reno.
Getting my knee arthroscopy later this week so may not be doing much blogging for a few days. I'm looking forward to being able to walk faster than a snail and further than 2 aisles of a grocery store!