Chelle Scraps 5.13

Happy Mother’s Day!  I have an inspiring post over at ScrapOrchard today.  And besides taking a long nap this afternoon, I did a bit of scrapping.  I thought about not posting these pages.  They aren’t my favorite.  But I decided that you should see the good, the bad, and the ugly.  LOL!  Not that I think these are ugly, they are just kinda mismatched…photos that I don’t really have anything spectacular to go with them.  Single photos of events that I do want to remember.  So here you go:

For the one on the left I used lots of greens from the Rainbow Collection.  That is such a HANDY collection.  The spider is from a long retired Halloween kit called Jeepers Creepers.  On the right side I used Ride Skate Roll by Faith True & MLE Card.  Turns out I don’t have a bike kit yet, & this one had a bright lime bike…exactly what I needed.

Chelle Scraps | 5.6.12

Woot! I love interNational Scrapbook Day! (Well, I enjoy the whole weekend…) It’s been a busy weekend: I’m hosting a challenge at Scrap Orchard, giving away an i-skin, & today is the last day of my $1 sale at ScrapOrchard.

I did manage to finish up one double layout today. I can’t believe how rusty I am. LOL!


It reminded me of one of my favorite reasons I love digi-scrapping. I didn’t have the perfect colored papers & ribbons & alpha to “go with” my little guy’s clothing. But with a quick move of the hue-sat slider, everything went together perfectly!

Be sure you complete the challenge, enter to win the skin, & shop the sale!

Chelle Scraps | 4.8 Happy Easter

Oh, I am so rusty! These layouts took me nearly 2 hours each. ACK! Of course I am trying to learn/practice/master clustering…and that takes me more time…let’s blame that. LOL!

This one uses Gone Fishin’, On the Water, & On the Trail

This one uses Rainbow Neutrals & Chocolate Lovers.
I had a one-sided layout that needed a partner…

This one uses primarily Techno Love (with the pink stuff recolored to blue), but the pencil is from Back 2 School & the note is from the freebie Take Note & the spills are from CU Stains & Spills & the alpha is from On the Water. Oh, and I used a template! (My odd page size makes that difficult) It’s from Fiddledeedee Designs…Stuck in the Middle. It’s from the exclusive set that is part of the e-book Topsy Turvy templates. GREAT STUFF in that ebook. You should snag it…you won’t be sorry.

This one uses Winter Thrills.
I hope you will carve out some time to scrap…& I hope it brings you happiness. I know I’m smiling :)

Chelle Scraps | 4.1 No fooling

I loved Digisrapapalooza. I have so many “favorite parts”. LOL! One of the best parts was seeing my digi friends. They got me to try crazy things: everything from a Dim Sum Bar to dancing around dressed like Elvis. I was so sad when we had to part. I didn’t get much scrapping done. Between having fun with friends, leading the green team, and teaching 6 classes, it seemed like every time I opened my computer, there was something else I needed to do. But here’s the ONE layout that I worked on. (Sadly, I’d already started it before the trip, and I just finished it now. LOL!)

For more than a year, I’ve listened to the Digi Show….and wished I could be a guest. Imagine how THRILLED I was that Steph planned to record a live show from Vegas…and I was lucky enough to get to be part of the panel! I must confess…I was SO NERVOUS! You can listen to the Live from Vegas show here.
Another one of my favorite parts was the photo walk. When I first heard Katrina Kennedy was doing a photo walk on Sunday morning, I thought, “Oooo! I’d love to do a photo walk at night. I want cool pics of the lights…and Vegas would be a fun place to practice night-time photography.” I put a bug in her ear, and she graciously obliged. I have two favorite photos from that time. The first one…well, I love Ocean’s Eleven. Not sure why, but I’ve seen it more than a handful of times. I was hoping we could get some photos of the fountains in front of the Bellagio…the ones I remember from the closing scene of Ocean’s Eleven. WOWSERS! They were WAY more spectacular than that scene, but I was tickled pink that I got such fabulous shots…and while they played Clair De Lune…just like in the movie. It was a goosebumps moment.

While I was showing Katrina my fabulous fountains shot, she showed me what she’d been shooting…US. It gave me an idea, so the next time the fountains went off, instead of focusing on the fountains, I turned my camera on my daughter (who came with me to learn to digi-scrap).

I think that might be my favorite photo.
The green team was AWESOME! We had so much fun with the photo scavenger hunt. (My daughter was a wee bit embarrassed that I struck a pose with a couple of showgirls…or that we danced the macarena in the middle of the casino.) And we laughed hysterically during the minute to win it games. Our cheer was awesome…I hope to have a video to share soon.
Just a super fun weekend…I can’t wait to do it again!

Chelle Scraps…

I know. You were wondering if I really do know how to scrap. LOL!
Four years ago my timid 11 year old “tried out” for Dairy Ambassador.

(scrapped a long time ago)
Last year she tried out again and made it.

(scrapped this week — with Happily Ever After and my new Rainbow collection…did I tell you how HANDY it is?)

Yesterday she handed of her crown to a new set of Dairy Ambassadors.  I was so proud as I watched her conduct the program & teach dances to the “nominees” and her fellow ambassadors.  In fact, I’ve enjoyed watching her leadership skills grow and develop all through the year.  With the help of my fabulous CT (THANKS LADIES!) I presented her with a fun scrapbook of her year…and we gave one to each of the girls she served with.  They’d seen her book earlier in the day, but they were THRILLED to have their own copy.  (Isn’t DIGI great!)

Here’s the other layout I contributed:

Now if I can just remember that warm fuzzy feeling while I’m teaching her to drive this week.  LOL!

If I had to do it again…

…I would back up my files starting with day 1.  I didn’t understand the importance of back-ups until I was WAY into digi-scrapping.  In fact, I’d been designing for 18 months.  I had TONS of files.  Every time I heard a horror story of someone’s EHD failing, I would shudder and hide my head.  It took forever to do my initial online backup.  Two months, I think.  (Not as long as it predicted, but still a LONG time.)  And yes, it was difficult to use the computer during that time.  I got to the point where I would shut the back-up rate down to next to nothing while I was working, then turn it up whenever I left the laptop.  Some days when I was designing, it felt like I was going backwards…I was creating new files faster than it could back them up.
But eventually it finished.  And now it backs up continuously.  I don’t even notice it.   I have been to the website & checked to see if new stuff is there (it is)…checked to see if my EHD is there (it is).
I have had a couple of EHDs fail on me.  One of them DD15 accidentally knocked off the counter within a few days of my filling it up.  OUCH!  And one just got too old?  I lost half of 2007 & all of 2008.  Fortunately my favorite photos are printed in photo books, but I can’t use them again…unless I pay $1500 for a restoration company to TRY to get data off the disk.  If backing up sounds expensive, the cost of restoration will put it in perspective.
For the record, I use BackBlaze.  It was the best option available when I started an online backup, mostly because it recognized EHDs as long as they were plugged in at least once every 2 weeks.  Perfect for my laptop.
The Daily Digi did a post about Backing Up.  Steph recommends CrashPlan.  And if I had to do it again today, I’d use crashplan and I’d pay the extra $100 or so for seeding.  That means they’ll send you a 1T EHD.  You put your stuff on it and send it back.  That is your initial backup…the one that took my computer 2 months running non-stop.
Whatever you decide to do, DO SOMETHING.  Before you are the one in the photo.

Do you hear that RUMBLE?

ScrapOrchard is hosting a Rumble in the Orchard CT challenge. Each week 4 of my super-star CT members: Ronnie, Jenn, Jennifer & Carol compete against other ScrapOrchard creative teams. This week part of the challenge was to make each of their layouts part of the whole. Check out their entire entry:

You can see each part up close at ScrapOrchard.
And make sure you GO VOTE! <--linked to voting page

Chelle Scraps | My Felties

Chelle scraps. Really I do. Sometimes. But I also spend time playing with felt. One of my CT members didn’t realize I make all my felt stuff…with felt (rather than digitally manufacturing them.) While there is still a lot of “digital work” involved, I do make nearly everything using my felt collection. I pulled out a bunch of stuff to show her:

And I thought you might like to see it as well. Can you find the elements from your favorite kit?
Take some time this week for you. Fill that need to create. Scrapping makes my heart sing. I hope it does for you as well.