SPSH 2018 - July Link Up

I'm joining in with the Seasonal Photo Scavenger Hunt hosted by Mary-Lou over at  Patio Postcards.

My sister Deanna and I had a girls trip to a yoga/meditation retreat center high up in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Boone N.C. from July 12-16.  Deanna was taking a Reiki Certification class.  I had signed up for a yoga and meditation retreat called "Essence of the Heart."  I challenged myself to try to get ALL of the photos on the SPSH list during this trip and here's what happened...

1. The rosiness of red was snapped in my own front yard.  And I didn't see any great "red" to photograph during the trip.

2. Stripes.  Our first morning at the retreat center was drizzly and overcast.  But it made for some fantastic shots.  And I was honestly giggling to myself when I took this one for "stripes."

3.  A framed view right through the window of my room.  I have several other photos that actually include the frame of the window, but this one was just too pretty not to use.

4.  Wings.  Outside of the Linville Caverns was a butterfly bush that was full of these butterflies.  It was nearly impossible to get a good shot because they did NOT sit still.  But this shot inspired this... which I created while at the retreat center.

 5. Pedal Power.  Passed this door every morning on the way to the dining hall.  That bike was there the entire time!

 
6. Glorious Green

And to be quite honest ... it was green EVERYWHERE.  I have so many shots that would have worked for this one!  But I was kind of partial to these beautiful ferns.

7. An unexpected reflection.  The building is the
dining hall from the outside.

8. A pile of... logs.  For the Saturday evening campfire.  I just couldn't decide between this photo and the next, so you get both!

8. A pile of ... rocks.  By the side of a very precarious "nature trail" that tried its best to kill me.  To give you perspective...

that pile of rocks
9. looks smaller than you [expected!]

10. A field of plenty.  So I'm taking liberties on this prompt.  Because there were no fields in the mountains.  But lots of hills and valleys covered with trees as far as the eye can see.  So there were PLENTY of trees in MY FIELD of vision.  I think I get credit for creative use of the words in the prompt!

11. Pretty in Pink.  I did get some pink flowers on the trip, but I like these from my own yard better.

12. Bells.  Being sold in the gift shop.

13. Equal Portions - railing along the deck of the dining hall.

14. A Trilogy of Three - of the kind you don't want to mess with! That lined the aforementioned precarious nature trail.  I managed to avoid this stuff.

This was the "nature trail" - climbed straight up to the right of the photo, and fell straight down to the left of the photo.  The path itself might have been about 18" wide (that's being generous).  At one point my left foot slid off the path and headed down that hill... my body naturally started to follow my foot... luckily a dead tree trunk stopped me from going too far down the hill.  My right hand took the brunt of the fall, but is fine.  Sprained my left ankle nicely though.  This trail did NOT come with sufficient warning about not being designed for fat old ladies!

15. Out of the Blue - on our drive up the mountain, we came around a curve and saw this rainbow.  In the minute it took us to get to a safe place to take a photo it was nearly gone.  Amazingly, when we leaving the mountain and headed back to Nashville, on the same stretch of road, we saw...














Another rainbow!

 16.  From a Book or Movie.  The formations in the Linville Caverns reminded me of some of the scenes from the movie "Alien" with Sigourney Weaver.

 Or we could go with this one... That was actually taken on "Friday the 13th"!

 17. Repurposed

18. Currency.  Not so much.

19. I'm liking this one for "Picture Postcard Perfect, although I also thought #3 was a contender.

20.  Mellow Yellow

Alternate B: A coupon that did NOT get used.  My retreat (Friday afternoon - Sunday morning) involved a total of about 12 hours of yoga and meditation (mostly yoga).  I was going to use this coupon on Monday after the retreat ended (our extra day) but by then I had determined that I don't even LIKE yoga.  I'm still definitely sold on meditation though!

And because I simply can't end this post with a boring photo of an unused coupon...

I'm leaving you with my favorite shot from the entire trip.

These are all unedited iPhone 6 photos.

Bidding a Sad Farewell to The Digichick

My time on Kimeric Kreation's creative team was cut very short. I knew when I signed on for Kim's team that she was battling cancer.  Neither of us knew how little time she had left.  I was able to create layouts from two new releases before she was unable to create any longer.

Kim was not just a designer, but also the owner of The Digichick shop.  Although she tried to make arrangements to pass the shop along to a new owner, there just wasn't sufficient time for all the knowledge and information to be shared.  Kim passed on July 11, 2018, at home with her partner Eric.  And ultimately all the potential new owners determined that it was just not feasible to operate the shop without Kim - the shop's true heart and soul.

So right now everything in the shop is on sale 50% off.  Good through July 31 only.  Then the shop closes it's doors forever. If you are looking for a bargain on some beautiful digi supplies, now would be the time to visit!

As a tribute to Kim, all of the designers at The Digichick contributed to this beautiful collab:

This entire kit is available for just $9.00 HERE.

Here's the layout I made with this kit:

In creating this layout as a tribute to Kim, I consciously chose colors, styles, and elements from the collab kit that she would have used in her own designs.  But this kit is HUGE and has something for everyone and every style.  If you want to see how many different ways a single kit can be used, go to the link above and check out all the different tribute layouts made from this kit!

I have plans already in play with a couple of other designers, but I'll save that post for another time.  Today I just want to honor Kim's beautiful spirit and give thanks that I collected so many of her kits over the years that I'll still be scrapping with her designs for years to come!

SPSH 2018 - June link up

I'm joining in with the Seasonal Photo Scavenger Hunt hosted by Mary-Lou over at  Patio Postcards.  I'm a little late in getting started and busy with work, so just these two entries for today:

For #20 - Mellow Yellow.  These are blooming right now in my front yard flower bed.

 
If you have pollen allergies, keep your distance!

#11 - Pretty in Pink.  Potted Cala Lily plant on my back deck.

May Wrap Up

Better late than never, right?

 May was a pretty good month.  I stuck to tracking with Weight Watchers most weekdays... not so much on the weekend because I'm not usually sitting at my computer and I'm just not that great with the app.  I exercised more than usual, even if it wasn't 5 times a week.  I hit my 5000 steps goal 17 out of 31 days.  And I did some decluttering around the house.  Creative time suffered a bit.  But then, there are only so many hours in a day!  So while far from perfect, this is still progress.  And I'm good with it.

 Our May assignment for FIT was to track the "Good" in our day.  Which for me was pretty much the same as my gratitude journal, but I kept it both ways for the month.  And of course, there is always a LOT to be grateful for!

As you can see from my May fitness tracker, I had three days this month where I went over 10,000 steps in a day! That is a LOT for me, so that was exciting.

 One of the highlights of May was a family trip to New York City - one overnight - to see the 911 Museum, the Statue of Liberty (up close and inside!), and Ellis Island.  It was a great little mini trip, but I didn't manage to take a single photo (well, to be fair, it was raining most of the time!) and I haven't yet pestered my daughters to send me their photos.  Need to get on that!

How do you feel about not taking photos on a vacation?  Ever done it?

Exciting News for Summer!

I have something new and exciting to share for June...

Let's start with the facts.

I haven't done any digital scrapbooking since April of 2016.  Two years.  I know, right?

I missed it terribly but between work, the shop, and just life ... well, I know you get it.

On Sunday, June 3rd, one of my favorite digital artists posted that she needed a few new members for her creative team.  It was sheer luck I even saw the post that day.  I pulled together an application and went looking for my best layouts using her products.  Not easy given that I hadn't done a digital layout in over two years! 

On Monday, June 4th I hit "send" on my application.  Then I saw her blog post saying she had received tons of responses and had added 4 new members to her team.  So I figured I was too late.  But at least I tried!

On Tuesday, June 5th I drove to Rockville MD for work, arriving late afternoon to my hotel.  I set up my computer, connected to the Internet, and was SHOCKED to see an email from Kim asking me to be on her team!!! 

So.... I'm on a new creative team for Kimeric Kreations at The DigiChick!!!  So excited!!!

 This  layout was created with Kimeric's kit All About Attitude.  I needed a new chore list and this just seemed to fit the bill!

And this one features her newest kit - For The Love Of Summer

I hope this means that you'll be seeing a lot more scrapbooking shares from me now!

PLAY - Life Book 2018

Sorry to say that I'm a bit behind in this course.  I'm still creating, but I have a lot of projects in various stages of completion and haven't started anything from the most recent three weeks of classes.  But hey, I haven't given up and packed up my brushes either!  So I suspect the creativity will all come in due time, right???

Here's what I've been up to:

 This is my art for Week 15.  The teacher was Christie Dranak and she wanted us to draw a self-portrait of our super hero.  Of course, with a LOT of artistic license... here's my inner super woman... in power pose... wearing the red dress that's hanging in my closet but doesn't fit me ... just yet ... I'm working on that!

And this is my Sacred Dream Bowl from Week 13 teacher Nanda Boukes.  We were supposed to make a bowl from clay, but sculpting just isn't my thing, so I found a ceramic bowl at a thrift shop for 49 cents to use as my base.  I finished with a white pearlescent paint that muted the colors a bit more than I preferred, but for a first attempt at this kind of 3D art, I'm still happy with it!

April Wrap-Up

I'm definitely sensing a pattern here... each prior month's wrap-up and review seems to be getting done in the middle of the following month.  Which at least means I'm posting monthly, so I'm going to call that a good thing!

Spring has finally arrived in full force in my neck of the woods:

These photos were taken May 3, 2018 when the Kwansan Cherry tree was in full bloom.  Normally this tree is the late bloomer for Spring, following about a month behind everything else.  But this year nothing bloomed in normal succession... usually we would get the early flowers (daffodils and crocuses) along with the forsythia, followed a week later by Bradford pear trees, the the dogwoods, plums, etc.  And finally the cherry trees. And the whole process would take a good month or more.  But this year... everything bloomed in ONE WEEK.  It was kinda nuts.  Last week I read a newspaper headline that said "Particularly Chilly April Brings Extreme Pollen" - yes, extreme because last week my house, my car, everything around here was covered in yellow/green pollen dust!  When you see this happen you have to wonder about the perhaps-less-enlightened people who believe that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.

April's assignment for One Little Word was a sticky note exercise to explore what our word means to us.  I have to admit, I didn't "play" along.

The FIT class creative prompt was a vision board.  I was ahead of the curve on this one and had created and shared mine in March.  You can see it here.

Between work travel and a particularly bad fibro flare at the end of the month, April was not a stellar month for me.  I didn't get in nearly as much exercise OR play as I would have liked.  That said, there was still a lot of good in the month and a lot to be grateful for.

Let me close with a couple of playful intuitive vision boards that I made just for fun: