Disappearing Photos

Anyone who has been to my blog in the last few days will see nothing but words and little grey circles with a line through them.  It seems that Google has taken it upon itself to delete all of the photos from all of my posts.

For that I apologize.

There is, however, not a thing I can do about it without going back through every post and reloading all the photos.  Unfortunately, I deleted all the step-by-step photographs.  Besides, who has the time to reload all those photos?

I believe this sounds the death knell for my blog.  It is just too frustrating to pursue this if Google is going to thwart all my efforts.

I cannot even find a way to contact Google about this problem.  I have written a post in their community forum, but am told that I have to change my photo settings back.  I never touched them to begin with.  I am told I have to make my photos public, but I never made them private. I am told I have to restore my photos from the Trash folder, but the Trash folder is empty.

So, that is the end of that.

Thanks, all.  It was fun while it lasted.

Crop Production - Part 2

As promised, here are a few more layouts I completed at the crops I attended back in last September and early November.

Our yard backs up to town woods and we are about the only ones without a fence.  We are also the only ones without any plants. The paper came with the trees.  I just added the sticker letters, the string and the tiny little bird houses and butterfly.  Quick and easy.

Piermont is a lovely little town along the Hudson River in the shadow of the Tappan Zee Bridge.  There is a wonderful path that juts out into the river.  Everyone walks there. I used both a stamp and masks from Tattered Angels for the compass image.  The flowers are chipboard from a source I no longer recall.

I used up a bunch of Tim Holtz Grungeboard circles on this one, adding Distress Stain, Distress Ink, Diamond Glaze and Viva Paint to create the grungy look.

Our puppy, Rooney, is no longer this tiny and has turned into a terror, but her face is still as cute as it was back when we first brought her home. I had picked up the ribbon and paw border at the Scrapbook Expo in Edison, NJ, the same morning I did this layout. The tag/card is from 7 Gypsies.  The journaling is under the tag.

Crop Production - Part 1

Back at the end of September and then again at the beginning of November, I attended two weekend-long scrapbooking events. So, I thought I would share some of the layouts I completed. I usually shoot for about fifteen pages.  I remember the days when I would do thirty!  Those days are long gone.  Gone, too, are the days when I got all my scrapbooking stuff (paper, tools, embellishments, cutting mat, etc.) into the space in one trip. I have it down to a science, but five trips is a little ridiculous!

Anyway, here are a few of layouts from the first weekend.  More layouts in the coming weeks.

I used up a bunch of rub-on stitches in this one.  I have been carrying those things around for YEARS!

And I used up a bunch of chipboard on this one. The polka dots on the flowers were made by putting paint on an embossing folder before running it through the Sizzix.  I don't think I will try that again as it was extremely messy and not entirely successful. My poor Fairy Garden succumbed to the elements just this week.

It is hard to see, but the arrow chipboard  and title are covered with Stickles in a very bright red. It took forever to dry.

I really like how this one turned out with the gears and bicycle paper that came in a magazine!

Again, I got to use up a bunch of old metal letters that I got from QVC many years ago.  I put them in an embossing folder and ran them through a Sizzix machine.  I sanded them to highlight the embossing. The paper is one of the last paper packs offered by Creative Memories before they declared bankruptcy back during the summer. The paper edges are highlighted with gold embossing powder. I love the look on my son's face!

More coming soon!

Backstory Scraps: Scrapbooking Backwards - A Different Way to Scrap

Like everyone else, when I sit down to scrapbook, I start with the photos.  Unlike everyone else, however, the last thing I choose is the background paper. I discovered a while back that my wonderful supply of embellishments - from chipboard shapes to charms to beads and buttons and ribbons - was not getting used because I always had trouble finding just the right thing to match the paper.  So, I decided to try something different and pick the paper after I had chosen everything else.

The key to this system was simple - two plastic dividers, the ones that come with the paper holders.  I don't use those dividers so I trimmed two of them to 12x12 and then taped them together with packing tape.  Folded, it is a background for a one-page layout.  Unfolded, it is a two-page spread.

 

 

So, for a change, I thought I would walk you through what has proven to be the best way for me to create a layout and to use my embellishments.  Now, I warn you.  This is hardly one of my best creations, but you will get the idea.

The next photo in the file folder was this one from Christmas, of my two boys and my nephew. 

Since nothing was coming to me, I dove into my file of ideas, going through my collection of single photo and two-photo layouts. I cut photos out of scrapbook magazines and occasionally print ideas I find on Pinterest.  I am hoping to switch completely to a Pinterest Board for ideas since it is a lot easier to carry around an iPad than an idea folder and you can watch videos and read blog tutorials from that site.

 Once I had a vague idea, I started looking through my drawer of Christmas stuff - paper, embellishments, tags, ribbon, etc. I pulled out two tags, three pieces of tinsel, and a bunch of really old Fastenator staples from Making Memories that I had.  I was really digging up old stuff here.

Next, I worked on the title.  Again, these letters are so old that I can no longer identify them.  They were a variety of colors so I painted them with (old) dimensional paint from Ranger and then coated them with Diamond Glaze.

While they were drying, I tried out a few different papers.  That top one got rejected immediately, but the bottom ones had possibilities.

I trimmed and then tore the red paper, inked the torn section and then added silver embossing powder.

I added a second layer of paper (Coredinations/Tim Holtz), sanded the edges and added silver Distress Paint.  I put a color wash of the Distress Paint on the tag by spreading a thin layer of the paint on with my finger, spritzing with some water and then blotting with a paper towel.

Finally, I picked the background paper (Creative Memories).  I laid everything out one last time to make sure everything worked before gluing and stapled everything down. 

(One quick note - I do not have the Fastenator stapler.  I sold it ages ago because I found that it was much easier to poke holes where the prongs would go with a paper piercer and push the staple through than to use that hopeless tool. My method allows you to put the staples wherever you want.)

 

Like I said, this isn't the most successful layout I have ever done, but it was definitely good enough. 

 

So, if you find that you aren't using your embellishments because they never quite match or work with the papers you have chosen, try scrapbooking backwards - starting with the title and the embellishments, the paint and the ink, and ribbons and buttons - and picking the paper last!