New Life for Quilt

I have not quilted for about ten years.  I gave most of the quilts away, but did keep quite a few.  Or more than a few.  None of them go in the decor of the new house, or so I thought.  It turns out that this one does.

Mini Book

As a digiscrapper I find myself trying to explain just what it is I create (layouts), plus it is fun to show off my grandchildren.  I was watching this Youtube video yesterday and had an AHA moment.  What about having a small album of some layouts, the size of a matchbook, in my purse to whip out to show people.  It beats searching through my phone for a layout, only to find I deleted it.

The video shows making a portrait shaped book.  Since my layouts are all square, I decided to make mine that way.  My book size is 2.5" square.  You can either resize your jpeg version in PSE,  or, even better, open the.TIFF file and rearrange the layout so the photos are larger.  You will lose some of your layout, but the photos will not be so tiny.

The photos are centered on the paper and printed either on plain paper, cardstock, or photo paper.  I used my home printer and 8.5 x 11 paper. I trimmed off excess paper.  Then I followed the video instructions to make the fold and cut.  I found this illustration.  There are other ways to fold, but what you are aiming for is a horizontal paper with one long horizontal fold and then four evenly spaced vertical folds.  The cut is made on the horizontal fold in the middle.  

Fits in your purse..

Game Night

I HAVE been making layouts sporadically, even if I did stop blogging.  So I am going to go backward over the year and share some of these.  My son and family live out in Texas, a two day drive away, so I don't get to see them frequently, but when we are out there, we get to observe Game Night in action.  It is loud and funny, with three competitive boys, not to mention mother and dad battling for the win.  The 2 1/2 year old Princess can't wait to get in it, I am sure.  Here are two of the boys plaiying The Game of Life.  I used various collected elements, but the background came in a The Daily Digi Collab (TDD_MLAPlay_FJ_pp game board)

NanScraps is Back (hopefully)

We packed up and moved 1 1/2 years ago from Charlotte, NC, to the Lake Oconee area in Georgia.  We built a house.  We decorated a house.  Digiscrapping fell by the wayside.  When I did sit down to do digi, I loved it, but then something else called for my attention (decorating those bare walls, for one!).  

Upon analyzing the issue, I realized that I do creative things in 5 year increments and when I have exhausted all the learning opportunities, I simply moved on:  I quilted for 5 years and made many, many quilts, most of which I did not like when finished.  I moved on to quilted tote bags and in the process rediscovered knitting by knitting small wristlet pouches.  I knitted obsessively, again for about five years, learning as much as possible and collecting yarn.  Once I learned to knit socks, my learning journey was over and everyone was tired of shawls!  

When we moved, I gave away boxes of fabric and yarn.  The past was the past.  (now I want some of that fabric back......)

I had begun blogging about quilting, then knitting, thrown in a bit of cooking.  I decided to figure out how other bloggers made their blogs so pretty and inadvertently discovered the world of Digi, and I was on my way again.....for another five year odyssey.

When we were building the house, I realized the fascination had gone out of digiscrap, but I had no other creative initiative I wanted to explore.  I used digi to make things for the walls of my new house and spent hours on Pinterest and reading tutorials.  I kept on Digiscrapping out of duty to my extended family who expected those cool scrapbooks each year recording the grandchildren's exploits.  

I need to fix this.  I miss the joy of  creating.  I miss clapping my hands when the magic appears on the screen in Photoshop Elements.  So I am going to go backwards.  I am going to stop thinking about those annual photobooks and making them a surprise.  I am going to make myself happy and not do a lot of planning and organizing...both things kill my creativity.

So this year, when a photo is posted online, I will scrap that pic and have fun. I will email the family member a copy to enjoy at that moment, or post on FB and Intagram for all my friends to enjoy. At the beginning of 2016 I will sit down and task myself with making books of the past year. I will not fret if I do not have facing pages that coordinate.  I will simply summarize the year. 

 And since, I do love to write, even if nobody reads it, I WILL blog again.  So hold me to it!

Now THIS kind of thing is FUN.  Turning humdrum into WOW!