ADD ink

Happy 2011 to me...

2011-01-20T19:17:00.002-05:00

Just caught up with myself since - OMGosh! - November 2010. WTH??? Somehow (gee, I wonder) I fell that far behind. I knew I was behind, I just didn't realize it was almost 2 months worth... Took myself from 455 emails (some with several blogs combined w/in one email) down to 8.

So feeling a bit accomplished..

Speaking of accomplished, my resolution is to craft more. And blog more. At least once a week for both.

My "one little word" for 2011 is: value.

My commitment is to keep up w/my scrapbooking. I am already seveal events behind. Already. ~sigh~

I'm considering going to a scrapbooking weekend retreat in March. Should I??? It's always nice to get away but I can do anything here that I could do there, so why not save the money??? Remember, my one little word is "value," so I have some pondering to do.

Susan Tuttle's book giveaway

2010-05-02T23:04:00.003-04:00

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT! This book, by Susan Tuttle, is available thru Amazon (my favorite website in the whole wide web!): http://tiny.cc/zp3jg

Or you could win one (see link below).

Either way, it's a must have for me. I am so behind in this digital age - you should have seen me, just now, trying to figure out how to post the book cover picture! I'm so stressed over it, I'm sweating (it's either stress or a hot flash - I'm hoping for stress!). Ugh, I get so frustrated with myself for being behind the times. Reminds me of when I was first in the working world and computers were becoming more prominent. There were old school matrons that flat out refused to convert from the manual typewriter and I swore that would NEVER be me! I'd always stay on top of technology, always be open to learning new things, and yet, here I am - can't download songs from iTunes, can't figure out which remote turns on the TV or which one turns it off (yes, there are 2!), my satellite radio is unplugged & in the glove department because I don't know how to tune it when I lose the signal and could NOT stand the sound of static, just realized I can take a picture on my phone AND email it! I've only had the phone 3 years now...

So! With that said, I'm here to BEG to win a copy of this GREAT book and to let everyone else know about this GREAT giveaway. Here's the link - and sorry it's not "here's" underlined & in a different font so it's just one click away, but re-read the above paragraph & you'll figure out why.

~sigh~

Enjoy & GOOD LUCK: http://tiny.cc/zy259

not there yet...

2010-04-17T21:30:00.002-04:00

Overwhelmed by my own good intentions... not a card made or a page scrapped since early Feb when I went on my weekend retreat. So much for my goal of doing a page a week and NEVER buying another card from a store again. And my idea of noting newsworthy events thru-out the year to include in my scrapping has fallen flat. Why? Cuz I forgot! Yep, sure did. How? I really have no idea. I'm a news junkie so you'd think the light bulb would have gone off at some point. Ugh. Had an ill-fated attempt at retrieving the info (it's only April, right? Shouldn't be too difficult... ha!). Googled "2010 Headlines" and got nowhere. Double ugh.

Life continues to happen so I continue to capture it. Now have so many pictures stored on the computer I had to buy an external drive (a terabyte? I never knew there was such a thing... guy says I'll never need another storage drive again but you know what? That's what they said when I got the laptop: I'd never use up all my memory. Ha! Damn liars.). Triple ugh.

Put myself on hiatus from the blogs I follow. Well, the hiatus was unintentional. What I really meant to do was put myself on a schedule to look @ them. Once a week, every Saturday. That was 2 & 1/2 months ago... I guess I kept putting it off. I just came back tonight and OMGosh!!! Sensory overload. Finally deleted & started over. Literally. I set up a separate email account just for my subscriptions and canceled under the old, resubscribed under the new (there has got to be an easier way but I just didn't want to take the time to figure that out for fear I'd lose my momentum).

So now I'm exhausted and not exactly confident my efforts are going to prove to be helpful, but at least I didn't do "nothing" as has been the case for entirely too long.

~sigh~

The time has come, the Walrus said...

2010-04-04T18:32:00.003-04:00

173 emails awaited me... that is actually not too bad considering I had not checked them since mid-March (the 14th to be exact). On my never-ending-laundry-list-of-things-undone is to reorganize my email subscriptions. I subscribe to an abundance of crafting blogs. They're my inspiration... in my dreams, this blog will be what theirs already is.

I've had this blog for several years. Last year I invested in creating the design for it (about $150) with every intention of utilizing it more often - at least once a week was my goal. Along with working on my creative endeavors once a week, then photographing them, then posting them here and bragging incessantly of how my unique creations came to be so that my many readers (currently 1 and that would be me) can be so inspired as I am inspired by those I read...

oh, ~sigh~ I'm still not there yet!

On the positive side, my creativity hasn't stopped, and I'm quite good @ capturing it, but I'm terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE at displaying it.

And, apparently, terrible, just terrible, about keeping up with those that inspire me.

Currently, I've reduced the 173 to 119... and I'm fearful I'll just need to delete the rest and start a-fresh this week. Which, by the way, TODAY, Easter Sunday, is an EXCELLENT day to renew oneself with positivity and re-establish some goals. Thanks to some inspiring words from the great and fantastic John Schuerholz, I am in a mind frame of renewal and recommitment and optimism and hope. I may have lost my way - uh, lost my New Years Resolutions focus - but I haven't given up actually achieving all my goals. So, today I'm recommitting myself to this blog, to this part of my life - the creative side of me - and I'm getting back in the saddle (office chair), taking the reigns (laptop) and stepping out on Faith. Cannot think of a better day to come up with this decision.

self imposed restrictions

2010-01-24T17:14:00.002-05:00

Read a blog today - wish I could reference which one! Someday I'm gonna get good @ this blogging thing - about "self imposed restrictions." I think the idea was that if we focused our efforts within parameters & guidelines, we could possibly produced the results we wanted. My mind immediately went to cards & scrapping.

I do have some, what I now recognize as, self-imposed guidelines, but sometimes I forget! It won't be until I'm done with my project that I'll say, "ooooh, you were supposed to..." very frustrating! So this year, as part of my resolutions - which include challenging myself to do 1 scrap page a week AND to make any cards I need (not buy them!) - I am imposing my (now recognized as) "self imposed guidelines" into my resolutions (which, needless to say, I've failed both already!). I realize it's not easy to change overnight so I'm not giving up on me just yet. Trying to find my mojo and totally blaming a wonderful 2-week break over the holidays for my inability to get back on track yet, here @ the end of January (almost).

BUT moving forward, I intend to follow these guidelines:

use an inspiration but not copy
include something handwritten
have at least 1 hand-drawn element
use what I have - do not buy anymore!*

* oh, yeah - another resolution already broken! ~sigh~

Baby Shower Blues

2009-12-13T18:52:00.002-05:00

So, here we are in the THICK of the Christmas season & one of my neighbors decides to have a baby in January! Meaning, the neighborhood gathered to throw her a grand ol' baby shower TODAY. With 12 days of Christmas to go.

Now, in all honesty, I'm not complaining. It didn't dawn on me the timing was bad until I went to log my weekly shopping spree totals in the budget worksheet. I get to her receipt and realize, "this is not a Christmas gift..." and the light bulb goes off! Who the heck would plan a baby shower in mid-December?

Despite my consideration of their inconsideration, it was a great turnout, I'm happy to say - and I'm so glad I went. Although getting "there" took entirely too much effort.

By "there" I mean: clothes woes, wrapping issues and.... dare I say it?... CARD catastrophes!

Yes, that's plural. Catastrophes. Third time's a charm.

Wanted to wear jeans, ended up in slacks. Assumed I had baby wrapping paper, but didn't. Found some folded up and in the bottom of a bin - it was just enough for what I needed, but ugh. The cards... well, this is most troubling because I have MULTIPLE stamps, PILES of cardstock, INK galore and IDEAS by the file cabinet full. But when it came down to it, I had nothing. My first idea flopped because I don't have a scalloped oval punch. WTH? How did that happen? My alternative to that didn't work out because my cardstock wasn't a close enough match to my ink. My next option didn't work out with the first run but I pulled it together w/the second. And I ended up with something special, unique and quite adorable, if I do say so myself, and depressed. Yeah, you're reading that right. I was depressed at the end of the day.

I have all this stuff and can't put it together. My workspace is out-of-whack and I'm over-cluttered. The solution is on the horizon but the economy prevents us from actually acting on any renovations just yet. Meanwhile my atelier, and my creativity, sit & collect dust.

It's depressing. :(

Aaaahhh... where do I begin?

2009-11-29T22:32:00.002-05:00

Early October marked a major change in my lifestyle - nothing drastic, but definitely major. My world, as I had been running it, stopped. I had to put the brakes on & re-evaluate how things were being managed and it's been a slow process of getting back in gear. We're not there yet. As a family we're still struggling to find the balance. I haven't hit the craft room in months and I miss it! I think about this blog everyday but finding the time to focus has been difficult. The holidays are approaching and yes, that's definitely time consuming but I'm hoping by the new year, I'll have a plan of action so that I don't have to give up ALL of me in order to have our family in a good place. Priorities...

a murder of crows

2009-09-16T16:54:00.001-04:00

I have been hunting high & low looking for a crow stamp, but coming up empty. :( I've checked online, I've searched row after row of stamps at the craft stores... The other day I found a Dawn Houser with 4 birds on a branch. They look like cardinals to me but what do I know. I contemplated buying it, but changed my mind. They weren't right... not scraggly enough, not sinister at all. So I walked away.

Then, I wandered into another store yesterday and found the same stamp. It still didn't work for me, but I thought, MAYBE, if I sketch thru it a bit, MAYBE I could make them look like crows? Elongate the beaks, shaggy up the feathers, scratch out the tail... Well, I bought it and I tried.

I'm not sure if I pulled it off, tho...

Do these look like crows to you???

Ta-Da!!!!

2009-09-11T13:30:00.002-04:00

Announcing... the newly remodeled & renovated "ADD ink" blog!!! A Dawnie Jae design via Veronica @ VK Design Co., heehee. :)

I'm a happy girl... now I've got to put all this hard work to use, right? Right! I've said this a gazillion times but I'm saying it again anyway: I'm going to start scrapping & stamping regularly.

There. I said it. Well, wrote it. Now I have to do it.

anticipation...

2009-09-08T13:41:00.004-04:00

So excited!!! I'm getting a new blog look and CANNOT wait to see it! Hopefully it will motivate me to post more, right? Yeah, right.

Only for Lizzy K!

2009-07-08T13:26:00.000-04:00

Really at a disadvantage here - haven't figured out "linking" yet, which I need for this post, and am putting me in a real unglorified form out there on the net... the picture to the right is me @ exactly 10:11a this morning (get it? 7/8/09 @ 10:11am...). Well, I think I was supposed to get the 12 secs in there, but am not sure if I captured it right on the dot. This is the brain child of Elizabeth Katchner's (one of my favorite and most inspirational bloggers) husband, Colin.

(see post here: http//elizabethkartchner.blogspot.com/2009/07/smorgasbord-of-numbers.html). OMGosh, did I do that right? I know it's better if I have a word like "here" and it's highlighted and/or underlined and all you have to do is click that BUT this is the best I can do at the moment...

As this is my vacation (ha!) week, I figured I could actually participate this time and captured me in a really undignified moment: camped out on the atelier's couch, after a shower, wearing my painters rags, chilling by the set with laptop close by. Ah, life is GOOD!

I did it myself!

2009-06-02T23:24:00.000-04:00

Finally, a Dawnie Jae original! A baby congrats for a neighbor finally got me going to do something I came up without casing. I just pulled out some papers from the scrap crap pile (already cut, haha) and put it together. It didn't just happen. I contemplated & contemplated a long, long time!

I have no idea what I used... the papers are SU!, the overalls are Sizzix, the hearts are from a generic punch I had. The brads are buttons I bought at a discount shop somewhere in North Georgia. I didn't follow my own rule, tho, which is to always have a hand drawn doodle or hand written sentiment on every design. The inside note is handwritten but that just does NOT count in the Dawnie Jae world.

oh, a-croppin' we will go...

2009-04-11T20:41:00.002-04:00

Finally! I'm going croppin'! Next weekend I'll be in Batesville, South Carolina with at least one friend, maybe 3, maybe 4... I don't care. I'd go alone. I need the getaway.

I remember my very first crop weekend. I had been cropping for a 2 & 1/2 years - I totally didn't understand this forfeiting a weekend to do nothing but scrapbook! If I was going to give up a weekend with the family, I was going shopping, or to the beach, or exploring... not sitting in an enclosed room working on my albums. But something made me say "yes" this time - it was November 2001 - and I had nothing but an absolutely wonderful time!

I've gone on crop weekends since, but not any in 4 years. Time has not allowed it, but the truth is, I haven't been motivated. I kinda walked away from my scrapbooks. I continued to take photographs, document memories and buy an abundance of materials, but I wasn't preserving anything. I've gotten into these blogs - mostly concentrating on the card making - but I realized, I miss cropping. So, I've set aside a weekend to crop with a bunch of girls I don't know. And I cannot wait.

Being so behind with my memory keeping, I'm going thru a rigorous process of figuring out what I'm going to do, what I'm going to need & the challenges of getting my hands on everything. Thank goodness I'm a planner & an organizer because I've spent a little bit of time this past week, and will also this coming week, getting everything together. My friend, Dana, who can't go with me this weekend wanted to know "how do you plan for a crop away from home???" So I thought I'd share my process here.

1) Decide what you're going to work on: if you're current w/your scrapbooks, this is relatively easy - you just keep moving forward. The only challenge I would ponder here is whether you have enough to keep you busy for the entire weekend, especially if you're a regular cropper. Someone like me, tho, who is years behind and has a long list of project ideas, it's not so bad to decide what to do. In my case, I'm going to work on 2009, so 4 & 1/2 months worth of "stuff." This seems easy enough, because, really, how much as happened since the first of the year??? Well, apparently, plenty! Much more than I realized... I went back thru my date book and my pictures and was a little amazed. But that's OK! At least I won't run out of material over the weekend, right?

2) Sort your pictures: in this digital era, this means (for me) going thru my pictures on the computer. I wish I was the type of person who immediately organized her pictures @ download. I'm not! I spent at least 4 hours on this step - going thru the various different files on my computer, checking each picture to make sure it was in the right file, putting it where it belonged if it wasn't.

3) Start a notebook: This was the smartest thing I did - why didn't I think of it before? I just grabbed a spiral notebook and labeled the top of a page with the event I was going to scrapbook (not necessarily in order - hope that doesn't trip me up down the road!). I listed out the pictures I wanted to use on this page, and the sizes, and sometimes a sketch of what I thought the page might layout to... I jotted down memorabilia, notes of what what I wanted to include (say a quote on "Spring"). If I thought of a clever caption, or if a particular picture had a certain memory to journal, I noted it here, too. What would make this perfect would be some sort of pockets to include the pictures themselves or some memorabilia... but whatever! I also used this a checklist to make sure the pictures I wanted to print were all received.

4) Print your pictures: whether you do this yourself @ home or send them off, keep a record of which pictures you wanted and then verify they all printed. I took my spiral notebook with me and realized, while still @ the store, that I was missing 5 that I sent to Walmart to print for me via the internet. If they're not in by tomorrow, we're guessing they're lost and I'll have to resend for printing - which isn't going to make me happy after all the time I spent working on this!

5) Sort your memorabilia: using my notebook, I was able to put this together pretty quickly - and despite my backlog, I'm pretty confident I've put my hands on everything I wanted to include.

6) Pack your supplies: since I know exactly what I'm going to scrap and how I might potentially lay it out, I know what I need... I tend to overpack, tho! I'm really going to try to pare it down, lighten my load. Hopefully, the CM consultant will have all of her tools, and I'm sure if I really need something I'll be able to borrow it from someone else. If not, NO WORRIES! Why? Because I've learned to be prepared for such... read on:

7) Pack "crop office supplies": I have these in their own container. They include:

black gel pen: when it doubt, use black! Also serves as a pen. I always need a pen for some reason...
pencil
small post-it notes: I use these to remind me of anything the page needs that I can't produce @ the moment and want to come back to later; this is my life saver for not having every single crop supply or bit of information @ my fingertips when cropping away from home.
stapler: I don't know why, but this has come in handy more than once
a calculator
a notebook for reminders, ideas, notes, sketches, new friend's contact info; my mind is reeling when I'm in creative mode and I want to capture these raging thoughts!
a calendar
rubber bands
paper clips
scotch tape
hand sanitizer (I know, I've read the reports that these aren't as effective as they claim but the way I figure it, something is better than nothing)
hand lotion
lip balm
bobby pins and a hair rubber band so I can pull my hair out of my face as it tends to distract me!

8) Organize, sort & pack embellishments to use: go thru decorative papers, stickers, punches, ribbons, dimensionals, etc.

I have completed #1-6 as of today. I'll finish #s 7 & 8 before bed tonight. I'll be 6 days ahead of the game as of tomorrow. Plenty of time to decide what else I might need & have time to put it together. I'll also be able to spend the next 5 days getting my clothes & other packing things together. For this particular crop get away, the consultant recommended we bring sheets, blankets and pillows! OMGosh! Not exactly the Ritz, huh? Since this is going to be a dorm environment, I'll bring a pair of flip flops to wear in the shower, too. Of course my camera has to go so I can capture all the great memories I'll make that weekend!

It's going to be great fun - I've got high hopes I'll accomplish alot and I'll be nothing but ready to Friday morning when it's time to head out.

tuff stuff...

2009-01-18T18:49:00.004-05:00

I took some time off over the holidays and neglected email. Came back to OVERLOAD! I had to make some tough decisions - I unsubscribed to several blogs! It's a hard thing to do, I just love them all and get so much out of them, but it is seriously taking up too much time just to check them all. I'm reading & not stamping! So... I'm lightening my load.

shall we try again???

2008-11-09T19:55:00.005-05:00

OK, tried to add a picture to my profile and it said it was an invalid url. Uh, no, it's not (I know 'cuz I've used it before). So maybe there is a glitch here! And it's not me.

Maybe.

So, here's my first "creative" to post (if it works, fingers crossed that it will work!) - I got this idea a few years ago when I was browsing thru a friend's SU! consultant magazine (ssshhh! Don't tell!). I had the Fun Faces stamp and have been using for this, and ONLY this, ever since. I'm crazy about these little guys and they have become my signature Halloween treat. If I don't hand them out, the neighborhood kiddies are asking why...

trying to figure this out...

2008-11-05T20:44:00.002-05:00

Today I've been "photo upload challenged" (herein out identified as "puc" - haha, I'm "puc'd"). I wanted to post a picture - my first! - but cannot get it to go thru. You know, I've been at this all day - maybe I'm just tapped out? I will try again tomorrow, but I have to say, I'm disappointed... I thought today was going to be the day I actually blogged something creative I had done.