I can hardly believe it folks, but this month marks the fifth year anniversary of my first collection of digital Scrapbooking elements. Created in August of 2003, the CD I released to the newly formed digital scrapbooking community, was entitled Digital Illusions. It is amusing and amazing to me to look at that CD now and see just how far I have come…how far digital scrapbooking has come since these modest beginnings. In honour of this event, I have been extremely busy creating Breathless - The Anniversary Collection and I am very proud and pleased to release it today.
Breathless can be purchased as an entire collection for a special limited time offer, and it is also available as individual element packages if you prefer to pick and choose.
In keeping with the anniversary theme, my parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this week and it was my duty to create the scrapbook/guest book album for the event. I have to say that I was really overwhelemd by such a task, especially since it had been a very long time since I had actually scrapped a page and I was feeling very rusty. To make matters worse, I had a very narrow window of opportunty when my parents went away on vacation and I had the opportunity to steal away some of my Mom’s photo albums with out her knowing. Her not knowing was in part to keep the surprise but mostly because she is extremely protective of her albums. I filled up my trunk with over 30 albums and I only managed to grab about a third of them. I had intended to come back and get the rest but after scanning continuously for a whole week I decided that I would make do with what I had. Scanning certainly isn’t fun and it was made more tedious than usual for my trying to protect the integrity of the albums, some of which were very old and frail, and some of which are of that horrible 70’s static cling variety that has completely ruined her photos. I tried to remove some so that I could put them in acid free albums for her but those babies were stuck in there and I had to scan right through the plastic, and then color correct the bunch of them as they were terribly faded. When I finally got down to the fun of creating pages for their photo book, I decided to jump right on in to the delightful digitals of our very own Lorie Davison. Thank goodness for Lorie because her products made it fairly easy for me to put together a beautiful and cohesive book. However, while I was involved in creating the book I noticed that there seemed to be a real need for products (most specifically papers and quick pages) that were devoted to two page spreads. When you watch that Photobook preview at Shutterfly, flip from page to page, it becomes very apparent that the nicest looking books have backgrounds that flow from page to page and a demonstrate a consistent use of coordinated elements through out. While my parent’s book had already been sent off to print, I was still inspired to create the elements, backgrounds and tools to make a beautifully flowing album from beginning to end, that would work well in the Shutterfly Photobook format (although this could also be printed by all standard methods). This was pretty much the inspiration for the Breathless Collection.
Since my husband and I have also been celebrating a significant anniversary (10 years together), I decided to create a special book for him, which I have translated into the Breathless Quick Page Album for those of you that could benefit from a speedy solution to photobook in a classic storybook style that is well suited to a wide variety of special occassions or precious moments.
However, for those of you who prefer to create your own pages you may prefer the collection or to purchase individual element packages which are available as separates.
I just want to take a moment to thank you all for your continued support through out these years. We have all grown together in this art form and as a community and I for one am extremely grateful for what has been an incredible gift and blessing in my life. Thank you!
Stay tuned because next month we are going to start announcing our 5th year celebrations for Scrapbookgraphics as a whole. We are busy planning right now. Who doesn’t love an excuse to party?!?!
Kai walked in the house today and for no apparent reason he kicked Roxy in the face, twice while I watched from the top of the stairs. It wasn’t hard. In fact, Roxy barely noticed. However, it is totally unacceptable behaviour and needed a consequence.
As I mentioned in a previous post, he is currently suffering video game withdrawl and he has been really restless. He had been happily playing outside with his friend all morning but that ended when his friend had to go out with his folks. I gather this upset Kai who decided to take that out on our Golden Retriever.
I have run out of punishments to hand down. Keeping him indoors has served to only make matters worse, for a six year old with too much pent up energy. He already has lost his video gaming for an indefinite period of time, so I opted for a good old fashioned school room consequence and had him write lines.
This kills two birds with one stone. He really needs the writing practice. His fine motor skills are delayed and having gone through this already with two other kids, I know that it is vital that he work hard to develop those skills or his academics may suffer because of it. It can be extremely frustrating for a bright kid with lots of brilliant ideas in his head, not to be able to get those ideas out on paper quickly or neatly enough to be properly indicative of his actual intelligence and understanding. Kai really needs the practice before he goes back to school for grade 2.
I had him write “I will not hurt my dogs.” ten times on a piece of paper and it had to be neat enough that I could read it. This doesn’t sound like a huge task, but for him it took about twenty minutes and he whimpered and sniffled all the way through it.
If he keeps up with the attitude he has had in the past week, he may just end up getting straight A’s for penmanship next year. :)
For a couple of years now I have been pondering the task of creating a scrapbook for my parent’s for their 50th Wedding Anniversary…..and I have been procrastinating it. Mostly, I just haven’t had the time to scrap.
I really like to be leisurely with my scrapping and I usually make the graphics I need for a page, as I am creating it. I don’t usually use anyone else’s products/art to scrap with. It was never part of my process. Every once in a blue moon I would use a fellow designer’s graphics if I was trying to help them with promotion, but it really wasn’t part of the process that I had come to enjoy so much. However, I started scrapping again lately (mostly because I felt rusty and needed the practice again in order to do this album) and decided to change the process and accept the gift of other designers art, as part of a new process for me. Well thank goodness for that brilliant move on my part because without that help I would NEVER have been able to pull off this incredible task.
I have had just over one week with about 30 of my folks’ photo albums. I helped myself into their home while they were away on vacation and I snuck those puppies out of there by the arms full. My mother is very attached to those photos and would not part with them so easily. Plus, I didn’t really want to let her in on the surprise either. I only managed to get about 1/3 of the albums that she does have and who knows how many more photos she has in envelopes or boxes. I had intended to go back for more later but the job of scanning and organizing was more tedious than I expected and I just didn’t have it in me to go looking for more.
Simplifying my parents’ 50 year marriage into only one scrapbook was a ridiculous undertaking. However, I knew that the most important thing to my parents would be that all of the people they love and care about be included, and especially those that would be in attendance at the party upcoming in August. There are more than a 100 people coming and so many others that will not be there but present in spirit or heart. My parents are well connected in the heart department and as much as I know I covered off the dearest to them, I know I have still missed many others.
750 photos scanned later, (plus all of the digitals I had to go through) I decided that many of the pages would simply have to be a collage of as many photos I could possibly fit on a page. Not incredibly creative or artistic but it gets the job done where it matters most to Mom and Dad.
The journaling is corny and simplistic, which is also pretty much perfect for them. They sure do love their Hallmark moments and the light hearted, easy going approach to journaling suits them to a tea. Again, I feel as if there is so much more to say or share but I think the real message of the book is in the love that is expressed through it. My parents are really simple, down to earth people who I know will treasure this as much as they treasured my very first pieces of art, some of which is still stored safely in Mom’s cedar chest and has been for the past 40 years. I also created a few pages at the back of the album to act as guest book of sorts for friends and family to leave some love, offer best wishes or share some stories. I think that was probably one of the smarter ideas I had with regard to this project and I look forward to seeing this interactive part of the project evolve.
I scrapped with some Shabby Princess kits that I had won last year and still had never used. I still love that Olivia kit of hers especially. I also grabbed some little leaves from Birgit at Catscrap, and I used two Jofia embellishments as well. I also combined beach kit products from Vera Lim and Baersgarten for my vacation page and I have to say that one was a lot of fun and went together in about 15 minutes flat. Our very own Birgit at Scrapbookgraphics was a great resource for interesting and thoughtful elements that suited my crazy love of collage, and I couldn’t resist plucking a thing or two from Studio Dianne and Studio Manu. However, for the most part my major resource was my favorite fairy, Lorie Davison, who I find incredibly inspiring. That woman makes it so easy for me to throw a bunch of elements at a page and have it turn out looking like magic. I know I am going to get a lot of praise for this book from my family, thanks to all of the talent I have tapped in to here, and I am going to feel guilty about accepting any of it. Sure, I used a few of my own elements as well but …wow…I just feel so incredibly fortunate right now. It is done and I am extremely thankful to my fellow designers.
In fact, this experience has been very enlightening for me. I believe that the shift in my scrapping process is a good one. I have been feeling really sad about the fact that I have let years go by with only a handful of scrapbook pages of my own to show for it all. I have been so busy creating and providing graphics for others to use, that I had neglected my own story telling. Today, I feel a sense of hope for the return of that part of my life because I can see now that telling the story is more important than how it gets told, and that I am willing and extremely grateful for any and all help I can get to do it.
Once I get all the photo albums back to my parents house, my studio cleaned and my life back in order again, I will be back again …to scrap…and this time it will be to get back to telling my own story. After all, if I don’t do it……who will?
Being the son of a computer geek and a digital designer/internet entrepreneur our Kai is rather destined to be a geek himself. I am actually concerned about how much of a digital connection he has at such a young age. I realize that these are skills that he is developing but having raised two video gaming sons already I know that it has to be monitored closely. I have seen how playing too many video games can negatively alter mood and emotions. To be perfectly honest, I think Kai has access to too much way too soon, but it has been a losing battle to convince his dad. Mick is a technology junkie and whether it is computers, games or gadgets we usually have most of them.
Last night Kai got up in the middle of the night and I found him downstairs in the living room playing video games. This is not the first time this has happened. In fact, last week he was caught in the living room at 3:00 am with his Nintendo DS and we took it and the Wii away from him for what appeared to be two painful days. Apparently he was willing to take the risk again last night and now both systems are gone for at least a week.
It is raining outside today so I dug out the craft supplies and Kai did a painting. He has problems with his fine motor skills and I have been trying to get him to practice his writing, but he seems uninterested in keeping a journal. He did manage to keep his attention held on painting though and this is now hanging in our front hallway.
If you ask me, this is ten times better than beating the boss in Pokemon but what do I know?
I am back to scrapping again! I have this huge project to do for my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary in August and I just don’t know where I am going to find the time to get it all done. I know it sounds awful but if I could get someone else to do it for me, I would be thrilled to pieces. Not possible though because the main time hog of this project is in the scanning. The scrappy side of things is probably going to be on the slim side of things. My mom has always been a great picture taker, and has nearly as many snapshots as I have digital photos. Plus, many of her photos are still stuck in terrible old 70’s albums that are acidic and the fading photos are in desperate need of repair and colour correction. So while they are away on vacation this week I have snuck into their house and stolen abut 30 of her albums, which is only about a 1/3 of what she has. I’ve been scanning my butt off in between trying to juggle the rest of life and work.
I wasn’t sure I remembered how to scrap but I did a few warm up layouts and it is similar to riding a bike. However, the thing with me and scrapping is that the proper way for ME to do it, is slowly, savoring every meditative, blissful moment. If I have to rush, it just never comes together for me the way I want it to. Sure, I can whip up a layout lickety split but I won’t be satisfied with it unless I have had the opportunity to spend time with it, fiddling around, experimenting and contemplating the memory or thought that I am trying to express. The reason why I had stopped scrapping was that I just don’t have that time any more, and I really miss that and feel like I have lost touch with my roots in some small way. This is something I want to change, however, every time I open photoshop it seems that is is for a design or business purposes.
It is time for a site redesign at Scrapbookgraphics. We are in the middle of an extremely extensive server upgrade and Mick tells me that this would be an opportune time for me to change the visual look of the site as well. So I spent the afternoon banging around ideas in PS today but I’m just not feeling it. It is difficult to be focused when there are other deadlines that need to be met all at the same time. So I am contemplating the idea of recruiting a talented scrapper out there to help me with this project. I have put out some feelers and I am already liking the response so far. Crossing my fingers that we can come up with a new wild and funky SBG look without my having to stress about it.
Now that school is out and summer holidays in play I am trying to get Kai to start writing a daily journal. He has some problems with fine motor skills and needs the practice writing but most of all I am trying to help him start some good habits that he will one day love me for having.
Clearly I am a terrible example of the importance of keeping a daily journal so I have come here today to relieve myself of some of the guilt. Truth is that despite how important I believe it is to keep a diary, I have yet to develop the habit. The best I can come up with is to write when I feel the urge and so here we have it.
We purchased a new Toyota Yaris and it arrives tomorrow. My van died last week and we decided not to resuscitate. The truth is that it had long stopped being my van. Brendan (my 23 year old) had been using it to get to work which was ok with me initially, but things started to get concerning when I noticed he was hanging his own doodads from the rear view mirror. When I found that I had to make an appointment to use my own vehicle, the issue started to become an ongoing problem and an intense one at times.
Brendan is finally starting college in the fall so he has been working hard at his summer landscaping job in order to save some money. He was not at all pleased when I told him that his ride had rode off into the sunset without him and that if he wanted to keep it for himself, he was going to have to pay to have it repaired. After some stomping and pouting (yep, still happens at 23) he eventually came to realize that the dream was over, and that the van was no more. A few days later he had found himself a good used vehicle and all of savings have now gone towards that. He tried to make me feel guilty about that but it didn’t work. In fact, knowing that he no longer would be bugging us for a car inspired us to go shopping for a new one.
Mick will be taking the new Toyota to work each day as that vehicle is all about good gas mileage. I get stuck with the 5 year old Ford Focus Wagon but I’m happy about it. It will be great to finally be able to get out and about this summer.
I started off in 2001 with a tiny desk crammed into the corner of my bedroom and I used that as an office/studio until we bought our first house in 2004. For a short while I had my own office space there but I lost it when my son Brendan moved back home and claimed it as his bedroom. We moved to this house a year and a half ago and I have had my own space since then, but it has only been until very recently that I have been able to get it set up so that it is a fully functional space.
I have two computer work stations now. There is one set up for the Mac (which I am still learning) and one for my beloved old PC. There is also a third space beside the Mac that is room enough for crafting or for setting up my product photo studio box. Every once in a while Mick may bring his laptop in here and Kai has a space to do his homework or crafts.
The wall cupboards were new at Christmas and they are from Ikea. I love finally being able to put some of my supplies up and away and behind closed doors. I plan to purchase the matching wall unit sometime this year, to replace the rickety old bookcase. The lamp was purchased after Christmas with a gift card from Home Sense, which is one of my favorite stores.
Kai’s easle folds up and is easy to pack away. He also uses the blackboard that I painted on the closet doors. In just a couple of days I am looking forward to moving the easle out all together and moving a small comfortable reading chair into that spot. I am also hoping to replace the pole lamp with something funkier and with daylight bulbs. While I do have a great deal of light that comes in from the window, it is western facing and sometimes I have to pull the curtains closed because the sun is blinding. I am hoping that the daylight bulbs will help with replacing the missed sunshine caused by spending far too many hours indoors at a computer. :)
I love the tapestry on the wall. It is made from old Indian Sari’s and I love how it brings so much colour vibrancy and texture into the space. Still on the list of things to do include stripping up the carpet and puttind down some cork or bamboo flooring, and I am crossing my fingers that we can manage that this year sometime.
There is still lots of room on the walls and I have some fun things planned to extend my love of collage beyond the screen and onto the walls.
I think the thing I love most about the space is that there is a door and I close it!
Our friend Markus was visiting us yesterday. He was home for the holidays after being away for the past two years. A little more than two years ago he left Toronto and his job in IT and he travelled out to BC where he enrolled in a course to learn how to be a Scuba Instructor. Now he lives on a cruise ship, taking guests on dives at various ports in the Caribbean. Ironically enough he was home for a vacation.
We really had a wonderful visit (we were blessed twice actually, during his time in Toronto), listening to stories about what it is like to live on the ship, awestruck with the transient lifestyle, the gifts and the sacrifices of this kind of life experience. It was just the exact sort of thing I dreamed about doing when I was a very young adult with no responsibilities. We hooked up a little zip drive of photos to our tv and flipped through his underwater photos while listening to ambient trance music. Absolutely beautiful evening indeed.
Kai didn’t remember Markus but the two of them always got along famously and they picked up again where they left off a couple of years ago with Kai dragging Markus upstairs to show him all of the cool stuff that he has in his room. I followed along for the simple joy of it. We looked at Kai’s Knight and dragons collection and we checked out all of his Star Wars toys. There was a bit of a demonstration of the new hot wheels carring case and Kai invited Markus to feel how soft the blanket was on his bed. Kai has been thrilled by the softness of that blanket since the day I gave it to him and people wouldn’t be getting the whole tour without everyone stopping to touch the blankie. :) That lead him to the Treasure box that he stores in the shelf on the head of his bed.
Inside the treasure box are some typical items and some not so typical. There is a soccer medal that says “My First Goal is Having Fun” . There is a rubber bracelet that is sponsored by the Lifesaving Society and it says “Swim to Survive” on it. That was part of a package of things he received for passing his last swim level. There is a bear claw necklace, a few rocks with shiny bits on them, some pressed pennies and various other Disney memorabilia items. His autograph book was in there and when I grabbed it to look through it, Kai gave me the evil eye to warn me not to show Markus the lipstick kiss that Snow White smacked on one of the pages. I wouldn’t dare. Been there. Done that. I know better now. :) One of his matchbox cars was in there, a small cloth bag of coins that the tooth fairy has brought him, one of my ATCs, a crystal and ……….
“Well what is that doing in there” I said, shocked to see that Kai had placed a photo of me inside of the box.
“I just love you mommy and I wanted to have that in there” .
I’m not sure where he found this photo, and I haven’t seen it in a long while myself. It threw totally off guard and I got all choked up.
What a beautiful son I have and such a beautiful treasure.
I have come here to post so many times and have struggled over what I want to share with the world and what I want to keep private. I never used to withhold much at all when it came to my blog because I am pretty much of the mind that when we share openly with others, even the yucky stuff, it is often helpful to others that resonate with the thoughts and feelings I am sharing. Resonance is a good thing because in realizing our sameness, we are more likely to feel connected, rather than divided.
Lately I have felt a tremendous amount of division within this community. I’m not talking about the obvious stuff either, where friends and aquaintances branch off the shared path and onto some new adventures of their own. Those kinds of things do not make me feel the separation. I have many friends who I will always feel the presence of even if we never again speak or share space in this lifetime. It is the lack of kindness and caring that makes me aware of the break, and there has been a lot more of that stuff in this community than there ever used to be.
Granted, the community is massive now and it is challenging enough it is to keep a stable balance between two people in a relationship, never mind the intricacies of maintaining a complex community, especially when it keeps growing so rapidly. Growth can be an awesome thing when the foundations are strong, but lately, I have felt as if the original foundation of this community feels as if it is a little lost underneath the masses. Maybe it is simply because it is impossible for any one person to feel a personal connection to such a large group anymore. However, when I do have a look around I am often discouraged to see so much, mistrust, finger pointing, accusations, and conflict. The sense of harmony that I look for in a community is distant to me, and it never used to be that way.
However, I know it is a waste of time and energy to simply notice these things without taking any sort of action so I have been giving a lot of thought to what role I want to play in all of this and how I may or may not be contributing to the harmony I seek.
Being in the public eye can be a very stressful experience at times. There is never any way that any of us could please everyone and I’ve never been naive in assuming that I have a personality or presence that everyone is going to appreciate or even like. Sometimes I have to make difficult decisions and not everyone is going to agree with the choices I have made. However, ultimately I truly have only my conscience to answer to as do any of us. As frightening and isolating as it may feel sometimes to go against popular opinion, at the end of the day the noise of an angry crowd would be like whispers against the crying out of an ignored conscience. To sleep peacefully at night, it is always my conscience that should be my guide above everything else. This can grow to be very complicated at times because in business, a decision of conscience isn’t always the norm.
A few weeks back a new designer of mine made a mistake that cost her the opportunity to sell in my store. When the events of her actions were made public, it also made it near impossible for to ever return to this community as a digital designer or possibly even as a scrapper. The wall of shame in this community is a harsh one to survive.
I know what this designer did was wrong, but at the same time, I also know that we ALL make mistakes, in life and in this business, and sometimes the right and wrong of things are not so black and white. It is a learning process and sometimes the lessons are very painful. I know this designer has learned her lesson and she is remorseful and totally willing to be accountable for her actions. However, my concern is that compassion and forgiveness is not something everyone in this community is striving for. Yet, this opportunity is presenting itself, to me, to the person that has been directly harmed by her actions, and to us as a whole. So who am I to judge, perhaps we are ready as a group to rise to the occassion. I truly hope so because I really feel a need to see and experience this kind of energy, especially right now, and I know that the only way to bring something into my life is to give it. That goes for all of us.
I can hear the grumbling from the few who do not understand my position here. I know that there are some that want to see wrong-doers suffer, possibly because at some level there is a need of a visible scapegoat, so that there is a clear understanding that there are consequences for our actions. I personally believe that suffering is only part of a creative process, and that it is unnecessary beyond the point of understanding. I also believe that this world is one of perfect justice, even if we as human beings aren’t always able to understand the inner workings of the law of attraction, or the science of karma. It all happens regardless of our limited understanding.
I have asked for some counsel recently from some very wise women with regard to this matter and I have to say that I found their words very comforting. I am comforted in knowing that those people I associate with are people with an open heart, and that compassion is something they understand and strive for. I really hope their forgiving and understanding response is one that will be shared by the general public. Not simply because there is one designer’s life and career hanging in the balance here, but because I really would love to feel the humanity and caring that I once felt from our community. I know it has to exist, and I can only assume that this very challenging situation has a silver lining opportunity that will allow us to experience ourselves in the highest possible way…..as compassionate souls.
Sometimes it is really hard to get out of bed in the morning. Sometimes even after sleeping in, I wake up and still feel tired. I shower and get dressed and have my breakfast and almostly immediately after that I feel like I need a nap again. On those days it can be a real struggle to do simple things that on other days I would take for granted as easy. And I am not simply talking about physical activity here either. Mental activity and social activity can also be draining and I can do nothing other than withdraw or be cranky and irritable like a toddler would be when dragged around a mall during her naptime. I try really hard to be pleasant and interactive but the fatigue is just overwelming at times. It is hard not to feel like I am in some way failing as a wife and a mother, when I am urging Mick and Kai to go off and do things on their own all of the time. It makes me sad to not be part of those experiences and memories for them, and it would make me sadder for them to hold back on their adventures simply because I can’t join them.
Sometimes this fatigue is something I bob and weave through on a daily or weekly basis, and at other times it grabs hold of me and pins me down for much longer periods of time. The summer months are usually hardest for me. This past summer really got the best of me. It seemed to go on and on and no matter how much I reminded myself that “this too shall pass” I couldn’t help but stress over the feeling that I was losing it. It is really difficult to surrender to the body’s sudden demand for rest when there is always so much to be done. I always have so many things on the go when I am feeling more myself, and I am so much more involved with people and the world around me when I am healthy and rested. When I am not burdened by this incredible fatigue, I can barely remember how completely paralyzing it can be and inspiration excites me into starting activities, and enjoying the social pleasures of friendships and community.
Sometimes I think I am no longer capable of giving to a relationship what it seems to need or expect from me. Clearly it is different with Mick and the kids and family. They might not completely understand what I am going through, but they also don’t doubt that I love them and that if I had my way I would be much more conscious and connected with them. It is that understanding that carries us through the rough patches and I am incredibly grateful for that support. But there are others, who misunderstand my absence, or the lack of connection as being some sort of rejection of them and our friendship. This is the furthest thing from the truth, but sometimes there is just no convincing a person of how much they are loved if they are hell bent on believing differently. Human beings are weird that way. We seem to be programmed to believing less than the truth about ourselves and about most things.
So what am I to do? Am I to give up on making friendships because I am not always capable of giving the relationship a consistent level of energy and attention? The defeatest in me says so, but the optimist keeps encouraging me to stay open and trust in the moment. The challenges I am facing living with MS are different than I thought they may be. Things are much more subtle and complex than I could have imagined.
I’m sick with a cold right now, and this seems pretty typical for me at Christmas time. My over-active immune system wants me to sleep, but my hyper-active airways insist I stay awake, coughing and hacking until my chest and throat burn. I’m already wondering if I will be sending Kai and Mick off to have Christmas dinner at his mother’s house without me on Sunday. The last minute shopping is going to have to be taken care of by Mick because I will never survive the mall. I remember two years ago standing in a line at The Gap to buy Kai’s Christmas jammies. I had stood there for a good 15 minutes and I was only two away from the cash when I started coughing and could not stop. People around me started to panic and the more that happened, the more intense the cough became, until my face was blue, my eyes were bulging and I had tears streaming down my cheeks. I somehow managed to pay for my purchase, drink a quick cup of water and run down the mall to the exit where my car was. I coughed all the way home and it was a good hour before I was under contol and breathing normally again. Just thinking of it now has me coughing again. The stress of possibly being in a situation like that again is a serious trigger. I will be disappointed if I can’t go on Sunday.
My outlook gets pretty dim when I sick and it is a struggle not to fall prey to a false belief that I am always this way. This too shall pass. I just keep telling myself that.
