On Hiatus

I've been thinking about my blog a lot and after blogging regularly for 6.5 years and over 1,300 posts, I think I need to take a break.  I'm putting my blog on hiatus for now.  I'm not sure when I will be back.  It could be soon or it could take a while. 

I will fulfill my design team blog obligations still, since I've signed contracts for the duration of the term and I don't plan to break them.  I will still be on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, sharing my life.  I have loved blogging and the dialogue I've had with many of you through this blog.  Now that the blogosphere has changed and people don't comment on blogs anymore, I'm unsure of where my place is in this new environment.  I don't enjoy putting hours of work into the contents of a blog post and not receive any feedback on it.  So if that's how the current blogging environment is, then I will need to either make peace with it and give up on getting blog comments, or I need to leave it.  I can't change it, I can only accept it, change how I feel about it, or move on. 

If during my hiatus I am itchy to come back to blogging, then I will know that in the future I will be blogging with a different purpose, one that would be intrinsically satisfying for myself, even if nobody comments.  I"m just not at that place right now, not yet.

So long for now. 


Christine

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Tutorial | Emboss & Watercolor Resist

I blogged a tutorial at the Evalicious blog yesterday, showing a stamp emboss & watercolor resist layout.  I made a layout about our first time at AT&T Park in San Francisco.  

In the video, I show the step-by-step, how I stamped and embossed the white images onto my background paper.

And how I watercolored over the embossed images to create looks like these.  The watercolor only sticks to the paper and not the embossed images, that’s why it’s called “resist”.  :-)

Here’s my emboss & resist video.  It is under 7 minutes.  I hope you enjoy watching my process and learning about stamp emboss and watercolor resist!  :)  You can click over to youtube to see it slightly larger.

 

SUPPLIES USED:

InLinkz.com

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Write Click Scrapbook | June Gallery Sneak Peek

It’s the 20th of the month, which means it’s time for the June gallery sneak peek for Write.Click.Scrapbook.! 

This is my layout for June.

This theme this month is pretty nebulous, so I don’t think my sneak peek of my layout will give it away.  Any guesses though?  :-)

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Digi Dares | A Mother Is…

This week’s Digi Dare #322 is all about mothers.  Originally this dare was going live on Mother’s Day week, so the topic was very timely.  But the Dare got pushed back due to the site redesign and the Digi Dares 6th anniversary.  Click on over to the newly redesigned Digi Dares and join us this week to scrap about motherhood, your own mother, or being a mother!

Here is my page.

Supplies:  Stargazer kit and journal cards by One Little Bird; Splatterific 21 by Karah Fredricks; Three (x4) Stitched Frames by Amy Martin; Wood Veneer Alpha Essentials (free!) by Gina Cabrera; font is PT Sans Narrow.

Journaling:  When I was little, you were the world to me. You showed me unconditional love, which gave me the confidence to explore the world and be myself. Even when I grew up and flew the nest, you were still my champion and my biggest comforter and cheerleader. Now that you’re gone, you’ve left an empty space in my heart. Even as an adult, I still need my mom. You were the moon and the stars to me. You still are.

The photo is of me and my mom.  I think I was maybe three years old in the photo.  I found this photo in an old photo album that I went through, after my mom passed away.  I’m still in the process of going through old family albums and scanning them, and then putting the scanned photos into new acid-free albums.  The project has taken a long time and I’ll blog about it sometime. 

Here is the dare.  We would love it if you would join us this week!

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Sunny With A Chance Of Pizza

Todd and I went to Blue Ribbon Artisan Pizza on Sunday night (5/4) for dinner.  It was only our second time there.  The first time we went with Cassi and Dan and little Madison.  Todd had a craving for it after going on a 3.5 hour bike ride!

Todd said he could eat a whole pizza by himself (they’re about 9-10 inches across).

Which meant I had to order a second one if I wanted any. :p

Todd ate his whole pizza in the same time that I ate two pieces.  I took half home.  But we did share this little treat, which was SO delicious:  Sea Salt Butterscotch Pudding with Caramel sauce and crème.

Oh my.  We had never had it before.  This alone would be worth the trip to Blue Ribbon Pizza!

We celebrated Cinco De Mayo a day late.  So on Seis De Mayo, I made this pico de gallo to go along with some super-awesome chicken tacos.  We loved it so much that we made this again to go with some carne asada tacos a few days later!

I spent most of last weekend working on scrapbooking projects.  I made these emboss & resist journal cards for fun.

Which led to a layout and video tutorial for Evalicious, coming soon.

I also did a layout for Lily Bee.  Here’s a sneak peek of it.

Many times when I’m in my craft studio, Noodle lays on top of the cart and takes a nap.  So cute.  Todd always says Noodle likes to help with “Projekt Katlife”.

On Saturday we went to see Iron Man 3 and it was really awesome.  I love me any superhero movie really, but this one was really good.  And we stayed past the credits for the easter egg.  Past experience told us there might be a little scene at the end, after the credits.  And we were right! :-)

On Sunday night, while watching Game of Thrones, I washed, chopped, and made these mason jar salads.  These are 1.5 pint jars and I made 9 of them.

I saw my friend Peppermint’s mason jar salad post on her blog.  She explained how to wash the veggies, and how to layer them in the jar (basically wet to dry) so that these salads lasts for quite a few days and stay very fresh!  I was super-excited to give it a try.  Often times we come home from work and we’re already hungry before making dinner, so we end up eating a not-so-healthy snack.  Having these around would help a lot with eating a healthy “appetizer” before dinner. 

I took one to work today as part of my lunch.

It was still just as fresh as on Sunday, when I packed them into the jar!  Amazing!

The last few days has been quite warm here in San Diego.  Temps were near 90’s even at the coast.  Thank goodness it has cooled down.

Even Noodle was too warm.  I found him cooling himself off by laying on the cold tiles in the kitchen.

Last night Todd made this amazing Spicy Sweet & Sour Chicken dish.  It was yummy!  We’ve made it many times before, but last night was especially yummy.  Probably because I made the chicken marinade and the sauce, hee hee. 

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Lily Bee Design | Project Life Week 16

I blogged at the Lily Bee Design blog on Friday about my latest Project Life pages.  I scrapped these on iNSD, along with another layout.  I felt so productive!  I’m loving my Project Life album this year because it’s low-pressure.  I’m not trying to keep up with weeks, and I’m not trying to document everything.  I just work on it when I want to, at my own pace.  It feels relaxed and it feels awesome.  Right now my favorite part of Project Life is seeing my photos printed out and in an album.  I’m also into hand-written and typed journaling on photos lately.  It makes me feel like the photos already speak for themselves, which makes me feel more free to do whatever I want in the other non-photo pockets.

Here’s my 2-page spread.


Left side.


I wrote “Noodle” in Photoshop, then typed out the rest of the words on the photo. 


I used a bunch of Lily Bee stickers right on my photos this week.  More handwriting on the photo before printing it.



All the 3x4 journal cards on the left side are made with Lily Bee patterned papers.  For this one documenting Todd’s race, I fussy cut the banner design out of the Jelly Bean paper.


This pocket was made from the Marshmallow paper, which is one of my favorite papers in the Lily Bee Sweet Shoppe collection.  I also used some label stickers and circle & tag stickers.  I used my Sharpie Glitter Paint Pen to color the wood veneer heart.


I printed some polaroid-style photos out again, and used Photoshop to journal on the white blank space underneath the photo.  I still love doing this and haven’t gotten tired of it yet!  For the journal card on the right, I cut a piece of patterned paper to 3x4, then I used a 2.5” square punch to punch out the window to make it look like a polaroid.  Then I adhered it to white cardstock and journaled on it.  The letter stickers completed the title.


This was the week we went on a road trip to San Francisco from Friday to Sunday.  I decided to devote the right side to just the Friday we drove up to SF. 

Right side. 


I had a lot of fun using Lily Bee letter stickers on this title.


I used a circle punch to punch the patterned paper.  Then I layered a circle sticker on top of it and adhered the whole thing to the middle of my photo collage.


I created this California art in Photoshop myself, using some watercolor brushes and my own handwriting.  Then I printed it out onto a Becky Higgins Project Life 3x4 blank journal card.  I put a wood veneer star on San Francisco, for this trip.


I took a bunch of little menus from the places we ate at.  I used some coordinating patterned paper to back them in the 3x4 pockets. 


More circle embellishments on my photo collage.


I wanted to include the whole story of the road trip and drive up on Friday, so I copied and pasted my blog post into a 4x6 canvas in Photoshop and printed it out.  Then I trimmed it and adhered it to patterned paper, and embellished the top left.  I like how this turned out.


I’m sharing my California art that I made in Photoshop. :)

Download:  3x4 or 4x6

Please remember to use it for personal-use only, and don’t sell the digital or printed version.  Thanks! 
That’s it for this installment of Project Life!  I’m really enjoying working on my album when I get a chance!  :-)

SUPPLIES USED:

InLinkz.com

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