Foto Friday

I didn't get many pics this week other than what I posted earlier this week and didn't actually think I was going to be posting any pics today but I got two beautiful wraps in the mail today and had to get a picture of the wrap that is finally the perfect red wrap for me.

FOBTY - October 29nd

This week's FOBTY on Sweet Shoppe Designs to is talk about my favorite Halloween Candy. I'm not much of a candy person, but more of a baked goods person but I'd have to say I love Mounds. I love dark chocolate and coconut together... I wish they would make Almond Joys with dark chocolate because then they would be my favorites. Other than Mounds I really like anything with dark chocolate so I like Milky Way Darks too. Anything with milk chocolate though is just too sweet for me. I didn't used to be this way though, I used to love sweets. Oh and if it has a little bit of salt to them those would be the best! If I could find some gluten free pretzels dipped in dark chocolate that would be the best ever. Hmm... now I'm thinking I need to head on over to the store and get me some gluten free pretzels and some dark chocolate and make them myself, YUM!

In searching for a photo to go with this blog post, I found this yummy looking recipe... I definitely think I need to go to the store now.

Nourishing And Scrumptious "Mounds" Candy Bars at The Nourishing Gourmet

Work In Progress Wednesday

Well, we had another really busy week and weekend so we weren't able to get much done and the main project we wanted to get done was dependent on the weather. Sunday looked like it was going to be a dry warm day so we went out and picked a color to paint the trim and the new back door and shutters. Well, as always it was a pretty stressful decision for me. I wanted espresso brown and Mark wanted something lighter. We finally decided on a nice warm chocolate and I'm really happy with the color choice. There was a stretch on Sunday afternoon where the weather was nice so we decided to risk it and hope that the 30% chance of rain meant 70% chance of no rain...

Here is the BEFORE of the ugly chipping green paint

and here is the AFTER



AND THEN IT RAINED, LOL!

Tuesday's Two - ring sling tips and video tutorials

Well, I know I've posted about both of these stores but now I'm going to post about their blogs. They both have such great tips and tutorials on both of them. After having the ring sling giveaway I've had several people ask me for tips and tutorials for ring sling use so I'm going to post about these two blogs and hope that you find them as useful as I do.

Sakura Bloom video tutorials
Sakura Bloom has recently posted some really great video tutorials on their blog. I find that practicing while watching the videos really helps.

Slings I Love ring sling tips
Slings I Love recently asked their fans on Facebook for some ring sling tips and some really great tips were included including one from yours truly ;). Giselle posted them all on the Slings I Love blog today.

Make It Monday - working on Isaac's first year scrapbook

I know it's Tuesday, but the project was done in the evening Monday night and I wanted to wait to take the pictures until we had some decent natural light. Anyways, we had a Ladies Night Out last night to Archivers. It's always great catching up with friends and scrapbooking or cardmaking. I actually worked on 6 pages last night... that's the most I've ever done in a night. I still have some journaling to do on each of them but I'm pretty happy with them so far.

Scrumptious Sunday - Crockpot Lasagna

I made this crockpot Lasagna that I had found on my friend Meghan's blog. I liked it so much that I decided to make it with my own twist. Although, I've yet to find a gluten free pasta that I like to make it as good as lasagna normally is but we're trying. Pasta is one of the things that I really miss having with being low carb and gluten free.

Crockpot Lasagna:

*Ingredients:

1. 1 lb. ground turkey

2. 1 tsp. Italian seasoning
3. minced garlic to taste

4. 1 (28oz) jar spaghetti sauce

5. One box no cook Brown Rice Lasagna Noodles

6. 1 carton fresh sliced mushrooms
7. 1 bag of frozen spinach

8. 1 (15oz) carton ricotta cheese

9. 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
10. grated Parmesan and Romano cheese

*What to do:

1. Brown meat and seasoning, drain.

2. oil the crockpot with 1TB olive oil

3. Place 5 uncooked noodles in lightly greased pot.

4. Layer with 1/2 the turkey mixture, sauce, spinach and mushrooms.

5. Spread evenly with ricotta cheese and sprinkle with 1 cup mozzarella.

6. Layer with remaining noodles, turkey mixture, sauce, spinach, mushrooms, and mozz. cheese.

7. Sprinkle the top with grated Parmesan and Romano cheese
8. Sprinkle w/ Italian seasoning
9. Cover, cook on high for 1 hour.

10. Reduce heat and cook on low for 5 hours.

Foto Friday - Part 2

I love fall and decided to spend an afternoon with the kids at the Arboretum the other day to take pictures of the beautiful fall leaves and colors. Enjoy!

Foto Friday

FOBTY - October 22nd

Another fun quiz from Sweet Shoppe Designs' blog. I found this one to be another accurate description of me too.

Your Autumn Sense is Sight

You are a keen appreciator of beauty, and you believe there is no more beautiful season than the fall. Like everyone else, you love the sight of changing leaves. However, unlike everyone else, you notice every color, shape, and pattern. You love people watching in the fall. Whether you're checking out fall fashions or Halloween costumes, you like to see people dressing for the season. Whether you're in the city or the country, this time of year gives you plenty to look at.

What's Your Autumn Sense?

Work In Progress Wednesday

Well, there isn't much to report this week. We normally work on the weekends but this past weekend we were barely home. We went to an apple orchard on Saturday and then on Sunday we spent most of the day after church in Oak Park doing another photo shoot for Neobulle wraps and Comfy Joey slings. The only thing that we found out was during our annual maintenance of the furnace yesterday... we need a new furnace. We expected it but were hoping it'd last one more winter, unfortunately it's not burning right and we really need to have it replaced soon. So now the research begins to find the furnace for us. The one bright spot in this is that now we will qualify for the max tax credit with the new siding, windows, doors and furnace. Although, we're much more excited about how much money we'll be saving by making our house energy efficient.

TWBA on My Great Retreat

This week's blog assignment on My Great Retreat is to create an acrostic with my name that describes myself.

Heart belongs to Jesus Christ
Emotional eater
Artist
Totally shy
Hippie
Educator of my kids
Runner taking a break

Foto Friday

Using templates to design a scrapbook page in Photoshop Elements

I've had many friends ask me how to do digital scrapbooking and I've shared that I started out using templates. I like templates because the layout of your page is already done for you and all you have to do is add the pictures and elements where indicated. I only know how to use Photoshop Elements so that is what this tute will be written for.

First, there are two shortcuts that I find to be really helpful.

Free Transform - Ctrl-T (PC) or Command-T (Mac)... I use this to make the picture fit the photo spot before grouping and also to size the elements .

Group w/ previous - Ctrl-G (PC) or Command-G (Mac)... this is used a lot in templates to group the paper with the element below it and the paper automatically becomes that element w/o distorting or frustration trying to size it to fit the element... you'll see what I mean when we start going through this tute.

OK, let's get started. I picked out a template that had lots of different colors so you can see a little easier how this all works.

Once I picked out my template, I opened the .psd file... this is important because then you can see all the layers, so make sure you open the .psd file and not the .jpg file. You'll see in a bit why you need the layers.

On the lower right hand corner you can see all the layers for this particular template. See the little "eye" icon? You can click/toggle each layer on and off depending on if you want that particular layer in your layout. You can also drag each layer up or down to move that layer above or below another layer. You will be clicking on each layer in that corner depending on which layer you are working on at the time.

Click on the pictures to see them full sized

I like to work from the bottom up... the background to the top layer. So, I will pick out a background paper and open that .jpg or .png file up. I will then drag or copy/paste it on top of the background layer. Make sure that your new layer is above the background labeled layer and below all the elements... In this example I also grouped it with the background layer by hitting Ctrl-G/Command-G... see how the layer thumbnail moves to the right and then has an arrow pointing to the layer below. You don't have to do this with the background... I just did this so you see what happens when you group w/ previous.

OK, some people start from the bottom and go up the layers, but this is where I like to add the pictures in. This particular template only has one photo slot, so I go and find the picture that I want and also the photo layer in the scrapbook page. I drag or copy/paste the picture above the photo layer. I then free transform by hitting Ctrl-T/Command-T. You will find a box around your picture and it is important to keep the proportions the same so that you don't distort the picture, you can do this by using the corner boxes to resize the picture. The picture needs to be bigger then the photo slot, otherwise you'll have white space (or whatever color the template is). Click on the green check mark when you've completed your free transform.

When you have the picture in the desired spot then "group w/ previous" by hitting ctrl-g/command-g and voila! Your picture fits in the photo layer. Now you can still change and move around the picture by pressing ctrl-t/command-t and move around or resize, just make sure again that you keep the picture proportions the same.

You'll soon see that I didn't like the picture that I used so I changed it by deleting the picture from the layers and doing the same thing again to add a different picture.

Now the fun begins... we're going to change the elements on this template. Now that you learned how to "group w/ previous" the next few parts are really simple. Now we're going to change the paper elements from the solid color blocks to paper blocks. We'll do the same thing we did with the picture only I normally don't resize the paper.

The next step is to decide what papers you want to use for the paper blocks. Then you will drag or copy/paste the paper over the block layer. Next you'll group w/ previous (ctrl-g or command-g) and voila you have your paper block... sometimes I do want certain parts of the paper to show like a big flower so I'll free transform (ctrl-t or command-t) until I see what I like as you can see in this example.

You'll keep grouping papers with the blocks until you have what you like.

paper layer above paper block layer on the lower right hand corner

after grouping w/ previous (ctrl-g or command-g)

another example... paper layer above paper block layer in your layers

after grouping w/ previous

and another example...

You can even do it with the other elements, not just the paper block elements. For instance, I really liked this frame so I found a paper I liked that went with the rest of the papers and thought it would work great for the frame.

paper layer dragged or copy/pasted above the frame layer

and group w/ previous

Now you add your embellishments or whatever you want to your page by dragging or copy/pasting in the layers and free transforming (ctrl-t or command-t) and moving and resizing them around... you can also turn them by hovering around the outside of the the box until you see a bent arrow. and turning the box to the angle that you like.

Here I've added a journal embellishment on top of the journaling layer and will turn the eye icon off of the journal layer to remove the "journaling".

Here I'm adding the Title using an alphabet that matched the papers. I use free transform to resize and move into the position I want each of the letters... this alpha was the perfect size as is, but normally I have to resize it to the desired size. Sometimes I use the bent arrow to turn the letters a bit too. When I have my title in place then I'll turn off the "eye" icon on the sample title layer.

Here I am putting button embellishments in place of the flower elements using free transform to move and resize them and toggle off the flower element layers...

I like to add a drop shadow to all of the elements so when I have everything in place, I'll highlight each of the elements and then in the "Effects" palette above the "Layers" palette, I'll find the box with the "low" drop shadow, click on that and then click on apply and it instantly adds a drop shadow to the element. I usually add one to all of the elements so I'll go down the list until everything that I want to have a drop shadow has one. After I have the page exactly the way I want it the I will flatten the image which will delete the hidden (eye icon toggled off) layers and will combine all the layers into one. Be sure that you have the page exactly like you want it before doing this though. I sometimes will do a "merge visible" first to to make sure I don't want the hidden elements before I finally will do a "flatten image"

Here is my final page... I had added some journaling and another button after I had already flattened the picture but normally I have it all finished before flattening. Click on the picture to see it full sized.