BPS Inspiration Defined Week 1, 2010

I'm taking the Inspiration Defined workshop at Big Picture Scrapbooking. This was a project I did inspired by the ideas presented in week 1. My first ATC cards. I've been trying to get around to making some forever.

Thank You Grandma

My grandmother passed away a few months ago. She was 96 and one of the strongest women I knew. I grew up in her house and am lucky she helped raise me. Years ago my Mom asked what anyone might like from my grandmother's house since she had to move into a nursing home. The only thing was the cookie jar. Everyone had fond memories of helping themselves when they came for a visit. Inside the recipe card folder is a blog post of my cousin, Katy's telling the story of the cookie jar. Check it out here if you'd like: http://kmmurph222.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/grandma-grace/.

Jillian Making Stuff versions 1 and 2

I love this photo of my niece. I did the top layout first and thought I could tweak the brightness of the photos to make it better. So I did it again.

Dead Pet Shrines

These are my dead pet shrine scrapbook layouts. I have placed them in black metal frames and hung them in my living room.

I had the idea for these rolling around in my head for some time. I finished these this past summer.

I use to be an Art Chick

12" x 12" Scrapbook Page

I've thought about doing a page about being an art student for a while. This summer my son, Ian, took a couple of art classes at Tyler School of Art. That's where my husband and I met (and fell in love). Being back on campus brought back a flood of memories. How wonderful it would have been to have had a digital camera back then. Even though my husband, John, graduated with a photography degree, we don't have many photos of our time at school. Film was expensive.

This page took a few days to work out the layout and figure out how to add all the details I wanted. It fell into place when I decided to make a mini paper portfolio to hold photos of the paintings I had in my BFA show and I made a mini sketch book (I even stitched the pages together) to hold pictures of the campus. We took the campus photos on my son's last day at his classes. Link to the Pencilfish blog to see Ian's summer art work.

I feel older (like exactly twice as old) and a bit sad that Tyler will be moving to it's new location in the Spring. We overheard the instructors say the new building is gorgeous. We hope to go to an open house to see it this fall.

Welcome to my blog.

I want to make stuff. Lots of stuff. I hope this blog will be an incentive to be more productive. As I post what I make, I will be sharing some of my life but I am a private person and want the focus of this blog to be about my creative journey.

For years I've been collecting scrapbooking supplies. I've done some pages but I am really inspired by all the distressed and grungy papers and gorgeous embellishments available now. How can one resist? As my children get older I am feeling compelled to preserve my memories of them. I have a lot of catching up to do. I would also like to do a scrapbook of my husband and I before we had kids (which seems like someone else's life).

I regret that we didn't have a digital camera when my children were little. I have very few photos of my life in college or even of my childhood.

Last year I bought Scrapbook factory deluxe 3.0 and challenged myself to create a journal page a day for a year. I did it! It recorded the mundane events of my day. This year I plan to keep a weekly digital journal. I felt it was a good creative exercise for me. However, it was time consuming and I missed making "real" things. This year I want to make actual scrapbook pages (perhaps some digital embellishment might occur). I want to sew toys and home decorations. I want to do some crocheting. I want to make jewelry. I want to make handmade books. I want to make garden decorations. Most important I want to make stuff for me. I can get bogged down with a lot of self imposed "must make this for someone else" stuff. Sometimes I feel selfish if I'm just making something for myself.

I hope as this blog grows I'll have a collection of work I'm proud of.