My New Camera

Any of you long time followers may remember I was saying I really needed a new camera. Well, it finally came yesterday (Merry Christmas to me!) and today I wanted to check out the features on it as well as the zoom lens. This one is a "real" camera that I can take a picture and it is on a memory card, not like my old one where it went to a disc that had to be finalized before removing each time you wanted to "get" one of the pictures.
It is a challenge learning these new settings (It is a Kodak Max Z990 with 30x lens) and what button does what but here is some of my results.

For normal pictures in the house....I don't remember if I had it set on Kodachrome or what but the color is very true to life. That is the color of the blanket and the couch is the right color too.

Picture taking advantage of the "Photo Booth" Setting.

And of course I had to check out the zoom lens. This is a small bird in my neighbor's tree. (No, the tree was not real close, the zoom lens works good).

Here is a female Cardinal in my neighbors apple tree.

Needless to say I am so happy with the new camera although I do have some concerns about the battery life. It is too early to tell but I already went through a set of regular batteries and now have the rechargeable in. I will need to pick up another set so one can be recharging while I am using the other. One set just won't cut it with me...LOL.

Cupcake Birthday Card

I used Copic Markers to color this card.

Santa Card

Colored this card with Copic Markers.

(Made this for Card Lifters and was inspired by Fiskateer Tamara 437.)

Tim Holtz - Twelve Tags of Christmas - Tag 12

Here it is....last but not least. This tag is so pretty in real life but the worse as far as scanning. The scanner focused on the tissue flower since it was the closest and blurred the rest of the tag. This angel came out beautiful. I wish I could show you but it would just ruin the tag if I pulled the pieces off now. Any ways she was done in chalks and stickles and really turned out nice.
Needless to say I improvised with everything on this tag too. I didn't have the tissue wrap, that partial doll or the metal wings and crown. No dwellings although I could have cut one by hand but I didn't think it would "go" on this tag (especially since I have no stains). Hey, what can I say? At least I had a tag...LOL.

Tim Holtz - Twelve Tags of Christmas - Tag 11

I would have had this tag done sooner but I was caught up having fun with the shrink plastic (I didn't have clear) and the embossing powder. I could not believe how it came out. It is like I made it out of  glass. It is too bad the scan don't capture this but it is very cool. I sort of got carried away playing with it. Any ways, it is done. I had to add extras on it because my Santa and Merry Christmas were not as large as the one Tim used so my tag looked empty. I thought the extra ornament I made when I made the last tag would go nice here since I had the Holly here and really didn't want to let it go unused. All I can say about doing this tag is I am going to the store to buy more shrink plastic and a melting pot. This is just so neat. I can make all kinds of embellishments for cards/pages. If you never tried it, you really need to. I will warn you it is addicting.

Tim Holtz - Twelve Tags of Christmas - Tag 10

Tag 10 I had a bit of trouble on the transfer of the image onto the ornament. I think I have the wrong printer/ink for it because when I wipe the paper away there is nothing on the tape....no ink. I know I use to do this with my HP printer but this Kodak ink just isn't the same.  So I ended up leaving some paper on but it looks like part of the design so it really don't look that bad. It just would have been nice to get rid of all the  paper.
Scanning this tag did not work out either. I had to take the gold colored berries off the end of the tag in order for it to pick up what was in the ornaments. So try and visualize the gold berries on the tag.

Tim Holtz - Twelve Tags of Christmas - Tag 9

This tag is so pretty in person. It does not scan right because I did not have clear embossing powder other than a glittery one. What you can't see (or may be able to make out slightly) is that the background is stamped with a sheet music so it has all these notes all the way down it. The scanner just sees the shine but I assure you it is really pretty in person. I like this tag a lot. I didn't have the right stamps or dies and had to cut everything by hand but it still came out cute.

Tim Holtz - Twelve Tags of Christmas - Tag 8

I had fun doing this one. Again I didn't have all the products Tim used but I did it with what I had and I like the way this one came out. It is "different" and all I think of when I see it is that it is so "Holtz-like". Not really your traditional Chrsitmas tag but it is still nice.

Tim Holtz - Twelve Tags of Christmas - Tag 7

This is my least favorite tag. It was a lot of work and did not come out as I expected it to. Of course if I had all the dies (holly and branch) and all the stains plus the stamps and embossing powder it would have made a huge difference. However on a good note, I did play with things I never did before such as the Kraft Glassine paper. There is nothing else quite like it....amazing stuff. Any ways, here is my pitiful tag.

In fact, I dislike this one so much I changed it a bit. I still am not that found of it although I think it looks better than it did above.

Tim Holtz - Twelve Tags of Christmas - Tag 6

I really improvised on this one. I did not have the neat embossing folder Tim used. In fact, I couldn't find any kind of Christmas embossing folder at all so I had to use the snowman and snow flake one I already had. This technique looks so much better on the one Tim used but I don't think it looks all that bad on this one. The only thing I should of had the foresight to do is not to use the dark distressed ink to under the clear embossing powder because now it looks like I have a city snowman ....a bit on the dirty side. So....here is my city snowman.

Just wanted to add I never used the foil tape before but loved using this technique. I can see it being used in the future for all them old metal hinges, locks and  keys as well as other metals I may need.

Tim Holtz - Twelve Tags of Christmas - Tag 5

Going back to tags. Here is the alternate tag for tag 5. I do not have any Reflections stamps to do tag 5 (and there is not a substitute for them, either you have them or you don't and I don't (even though I looked in both craft stores in my area). Any ways, I think the alternate tag is cute too.

New Liftateers Layout

Trying to keep up with Tim's tags (both this year and last) while doing all my Card Lifters and Liftateers each week. (Each of these were inspired by other Fiskateers.) Not an easy task. However....since I don't have all the things Tim is using I can do my other projects while waiting to go to the store. So....here is my Liftateer page of my granddaughter Kallista. (Sorry to all my Fiska-friends as I know you have seen it on Fiskateer site however my family and other friends are not Fiskateers so I have to post it here).

Here is another of my granddaughters (Kallista's older sister) Sara.

and last but not least by any means here is my granddaugter Amberly (both Kallista's and Sara's younger sister) on her 3rd Birthday.

The proud parents of "girls".

Be sure to look back at my Nov. 17th post for more layouts.

Tim Holtz - Twelve Tags of Christmas - Tag 1

Finally! Here is my version of tag one. Naturally I had to improvise because I didn't have everything and then to top it off, I ripped the tag when I was gluing the greens and pine cones on it. All that work!!!! So, this tag is a little shorter than what was done. I just cut the part that was ripped off. Who says tags have to be 6 inches long any ways????

Tim Holtz - Twelve Tags of Christmas - Tag 4

Yes, I know the tags are out of order but some are easier than others because you can improvise for what you don't have. For example this tag is all improvised. The only thing I had was the tulle. I didn't have the snowman die or the snowflakes. I don't have any of the stains. Heck, I didn't even have a clear button. LOL However, I made it work somewhat with what I had and this is what I made.

Twelve Tags of Christmas 2010 - Tag 11

Twelve Tags of Christmas 2010

I figured I would try and do last years tags too. This is my version of tag 12 of 2010.

Twelve Tags of Christmas - Tag 3

Unfortunately I do not have that wonderful stamp/embossing folder Tim Holtz used for today's tag so I improvised and used what I did have to make my version of it. Sorry but the yellow didn't show up that good on the scan.

I didn't have a bell but I will pick one up and add it at a later date.

Tim Holtz started the 12 Days of Christmas Tags -Tag 2

I loved these 12 tags of Chrsitmas for years and this year I am doing them (at least trying to). If you never seen them than visit Tim Holtz Blog.

Tag one I had to order the die and the embossing folder so I will have to do that one later.

Here is my version of tag two.

There is a "message" in this tag. Can you guess what it is?

Sorry about the blurry key. I realize you may not be able to see it but it says "Life".

Cute Cake Card

Image by Elizabeth O. Dulemba.

A Card ...Bee cause....

I had fun playing with different things that I bought and just sat there unused. I had a black pearl pen and some flocking and this pretty bee on a flower stamp so I made a card just bee...cause. 

The flower was colored with Copics. The Bee is a combo of black pearl pen and flocking. There is a little diamond for an eye.

Posted some cards so how about some layouts of Mark and Krissy

Here is a simple but cute layout I did for Liftateers. I just love this picture.

And another of them.. I am sure you can tell I was not one for graffitti. I tried to make it look like someone took a knife and wrote on the wood but it didn't exactly come out like it. These are again some great pictures.

Pretty Fall Birthday Card

I used Copics to color this card. I really love the stamp as it cries out to be colored with them.

(Inspired by Fiskateer Karen 6258.)

Thanksgiving Card

Another Fiskateer card that I lifted from Jeano 5242. I love the leaves on this. I was fortunate enough to have gone to the US of Fiskateers for CT and was able to use a fellow Fiskateer (or was that Siskateer?) Bigshot and her die and embossing folder. I want this embossing folder only I didn't take notice of what it was called....I love it.

Hummingbird Card

I will have to say this is one of the prettiest cards I did. It is designed by Tina Fitch and I used SCAL to cut it out. Each of those are different pieces that I colored it using Copic Markers and H2Os then glued down. I am afraid the scan lost all the simmery look on the hummingbird but in person this card looks even better.

(Inspired by Fiskateer Sondra 4936.)

Halloween

Here are a couple of things I made for Halloween.

I know a few of you are not Fiskateers so you have no way to see these so I am adding them here.

Storm Albert 10/29/11

Last month it was Hurricane Irene with the power outages and we all thought that was weird for us to have one so late in the year but it was nothing compared to Snow Storm Albert. We were on our way to PA to our granddaughter's 3rd birthday when Albert hit. It wasn't suppose to start until later in the day so we figured we had enough time to get there and would only have snow to deal with on the way home. No big deal, right? Wrong!

We were just getting into PA when it started. Here is the rest stop we stopped at on the way.

I didn't think it would get so bad so fast but it did. Seems where we were in PA got about 3" but further up and toward home was measuring in feet and inches. We found that out the hard way. The branches of the trees were so heavy with snow they as well as whole trees were falling everywhere, many pulling the power lines with them. 

Tree heavy with snow

Trees and branches in the road

That is one ride I won't ever forget. Roads closed everywhere you turn (even 84 was closed) with downed power lines. I ran out of room on my disc or I would have some really amazing photos. As it was we didn't get home until 3 in the morning. Naturally we had lost our power for several days and had some damage to our own trees. I am just so sad that the tree in front, a wild dogwood was damaged. (I took these a day or two later.)

Took the following photos yesterday. The tree grew in a "V" and one side of it broke.

The apple tree also had some big branches broken as well as the top of the tree breaking off.

The back yard also had damage.

Our shed really isn't in a jungle, it just looks it now.

Here is another view. I just love the way the sun shine is in this photo.

As I said, we were lucky. We didn't have trees on our house or any damage like that. We did loose power and that really stunk. It was so cold. Luckily my daughter got her power back after a couple of days and she ran the generator over so at least we had that. It couldn't run the furnace but we put the electric blanket on the bed and stayed warm that way. 

The electric blanket wasn't on the bed yet since it only just started getting cold. It's one of those duel ones where each side has its own control which is great because I like it warmer than my DH does so it was perfect ....so I thought. We get in bed and I turn mine up to about a 7 which should be nice and toasty. I was cold and to make matters worse my DH kept throwing the blanket off of his arms and upper chest which made it go off my shoulder and arm. Once my arm hit the cold room air temp. I was freezing. I finally told him to turn his control down instead of freezing me. He said he did but was still warm so he turned it down another notch or so. I had turned my side on high and I was still freezing with him uncovering me. Well, needless to say I didn't sleep well.When morning came and he got out of bed to get ready for work I moved to his side of the bed trying to find some warmth. OMG! As soon as my cold body hit his side I thought I was going to crack like a  glass you just took from the freezer and stuck under boiling water. Was it HOT! I said why didn't you turn your side down as it was too hot. He said he was turning it down all night long and it was still hot. He had it on low.....as low as it goes.......I started cracking up laughing. He looked at me like I just got off the spaceship from mars. It hit me what was going on. I put the blanket on the bed upside down so my controller was controlling his side. I was cold and kept putting mine up all night finally to high and he was so hot he kept turning his down until it was finally on low. So I boiled him and he froze me.

It wasn't too many days later we got the power back. Once again, the emergency reverse calls were a blessing. About the only thing I can say is they failed in one aspect. The water. At no time during this did they say a word about the water in Naugatuck. I heard it on the news saying that many places had a "Boil Water" advisory but for a complete list log onto their site. Now come on....be serious. We are in the middle of a power failure. What makes you think we can log on to any site? Not everyone has a generator and it did no good any ways as there was no Internet. That didn't come back until days after the power. So what exactly was I suppose to log on with? We all don't have cell phones and even so, many are not smart phones. I know I don't and neither does my DH. I know some of the elderly don't even have a cell phone. So needless to say we didn't know we were suppose to boil the water. I thank goodness we didn't get sick. I would have thought this would be something important enough for them to tell us as part of their emergency call.

As far as CL&P....they just finished the hearings after Irene and I guess they learned nothing from it. This was even worse. In fact here I sit 11 days after the event and there are still thousands without power. Once again CL&P President blew it. First he tried to say they didn't know the storm was going to have so much snow. Channel 3 (hats off to you) showed the weather forecasts from days before hand right up to the day of saying it would be huge with down power lines. Then CL&P President tried to "redeem himself" by saying he misspoke. Then he was asked if we had such few out-of-state line help because they didn't pay the bill from Irene. The President of CL&P saying that invoices were paid. Channel 3 once again did a phone interview with an electric co. in Ohio I think, not sure what state to be honest with you but they said they sent 17 crews to CT during Irene and never got paid so they only sent 6 this time (and there were 3 others that didn't get paid with one being right here in CT). Once again we hear from CL&P President saying the check is going in the mail tomorrow. Hey.....CL&P.....you ever hear the saying of being caught with your pants down? Well buddy, I suggest next time you wear underwear because now we see what you really are....an a**! As far as I am concerned you have the deaths of these people who froze to death while waiting for you to make good on your word over your head. Just like the ones who died trying to keep warm.

I just need to shout out to all the crews from all the states who once again came to help us. There is so many I can't even begin to name them all. In fact, I need to change that to include another country. A huge thanks to our neighbor up north as Canada was here too helping us in New England with out power outage.

For those still out of power, I am thinking of you....

Birthday Cards Are Up

Finally I got the birthday cards up that we received from the Fiskateers and others for our birthdays. My DH, Jerry's was Oct. 11 and mine was the 15th. These are so beautiful that I will be scrapping them. I did not take pictures of the insides or of everything that was in them as many people put a length of ribbon, a tag, or some other goodie.(What a great idea, I haven't done that but will be trying to add goodies to the ones I send out to scrapbooking/Fiskateer friends from now on. I thank you all for them.

My DH found out what a waterfall card was. He thought it was the neatest thing. (Ok, so he is simple to please...LOL). He would brag to any one who listened how this was the most cards he ever received in his life. He loves them all as I do.

(They are in the slide show posted to the right.) Thank you all again for making our birthday so special.

Problem Somewhere in Blogspot

I couldn't help noticing a few of my pictures from previous posts all disappeared. Not a big deal as as it is only the Random Org. box and blog candy which of course was given away already. I won't even go crazy looking for them in all my discs to put back but a tutorial was gone so should you come across something you wanted to see and it isn't there, just ask and I will do my best to put it back on for you.

Hmmmm.....maybe it is not a problem with blogspot after all. I noticed that all the pictures that are missing are the same pictures I had deleted from my album on Picasa. It seems somehow the pictures in the album are "linked" in some way to the ones on my blog. Weird. I never linked them, in fact the blog pictures were uploaded on my computer and I just got the Picasa account so I can do the slide shows. It is really weird because there are pictures in an album that I didn't upload yet they are mine and from the blog. Wow...I will have to remember not to delete pictures on there.

Missing from my life is my brother, Roy Jeter

I lost contact with my brother Roy about 3 years ago. Who knows, he may be bored someday in front of a computer and put his name in just to see what pops up. The last I knew he was living in Pompano Beach, Florida.  So if you're out that way and see him, let him know I am trying to get in contact with him. Thanks!

(Inspired by Ladydoc Karen 2858.)

I have been reading "The Mating" and "The Keeping" by Nicky Charles

I got a Nook for my birthday and happened to pick "The Mating" to read since it was free. I had little hope of enjoying it really when I started because I am not one to like Vampire or Werewolf stories. I am so glad I picked this book because I couldn't put it down. This is more of a mystery/love story (adults only) and it just happens to be Werewolves. It isn't the traditional type of Werewolf that goes around biting every one's neck or tearing them apart all night long. This was totally entertaining and I had a hard time putting it down.

 

"The Keeping" really held my interest, I didn't want to put it down either. Again, this is not your traditional Werewolf story, this is more of a mystery with all its twists and turns and love story. It is just happens that most of the characters are Werewolves which leads into its own twist and sense of urgency and mystery. I just wish the writer didn't say that every female in the story was biting her lip. I figured by now the whole pack don't have lips...they chewed them off. All females (even when we don't know what to say) do not bite our lip. I found that redundant to the point of being annoying. Yeah, I know...I am nitpicking. Other than that I found the story very interesting....I mean to the point of being addicting. (I even burned dinner because I picked up the book to read "just a few minutes"  well, an hour and half later my eggplant parmigiana looked more like burned bricks.

Today I started the third in the series, "The Finding".
UPDATE: I finished the book and it was another good one. Some things, "I saw it coming" but others took me by total surprise. I do hope Nicky writes another book. She left that possibility open so I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Changed Computers

Well, I think the day has come where I dig a hole in the backyard and bury my Dell. Whatever was wrong only got worse and it got to the point where it didn't even want to boot up. So goodbye Dell and Hello HP! Yes it is a laptop so believe me it does take getting use to especially the typing. However I am sure giving it time it will some day be a no brainer and I will be just as fast as I was on the desktop keyboard. I know you can add a keyboard to a laptop but the thing has limited ports so I choose to add a real mouse instead. I don't think I will ever get use to the one on the laptop no matter how long I try. I have a hard enough time typing and remembering to keep my wrists up so they don't touch the mouse. This is a trial and error thing and I will tell you it is very strange to me and boy strange things happen if I fail...LOL. So it is a bit of a change however I am comfortable enough to start posting now. I am so behind on my posts that things are backing up so I am going to try and do this easier than just posting a thread. If I succeed you will find something new and exciting to see by Wed. evening. So don't forget to check back then.

Orange Blog Hop Winner

I love surprises and I am sure everyone does...well, at least I think they do. So.....I asked "Randy" (Random.org)  who should win and this is what he said....

The winner is....#7

A big congratulations goes to Viji!!!!


Viji Siddharth said... 7

Lovely layouts! I am a follower and I visited and liked bath time fun! So very cute!

Viji, I need you to email me so I can pass it on to My Memories Suite so you can get your code for the software. I hope you enjoy it and congratulations again!

Orange Blog Hop is Over but here is a New Card

Now that the "Orange Blog Hop" is over I will be busy making a list of names for the drawing of the candy. Good Luck to all of you.

I made this Christmas card with all Stampin Up products. The one thing I should point out is that the tree is flattened against the scanner glass so it looks flat with like a two layer tree. When you pick it up the tree opens and the "flap" of the trees stand sort of straight out giving it a real 3 dementional tree.
The card is in a "Z" like pattern. I am not sure what the name of this type of card is but it is the first time I made one. I really love how simple yet pretty it is. I hope you do too.

Welcome to day two of the Orange Blog Hop

Welcome to day two of the Orange Blog Hop where members of Fiskateers, a community sponsored by Fiskars, is sharing their passion for crafting! You should have arrived here from Lyn’s Thoughts. If you just happened to stumble upon this hop, please be sure to go back to The Fiskateers Blog  and start at the beginning.

For my project I did hybrid pages, keeping with our orange theme I did my Thanksgiving Pages from last year. I figured I should do them before Thanksgiving is here this year plus this is one holiday I tend to think of when using orange (Halloween being the other). My pictures are on a brownish mat and then mounted on an orange-ish background (that is the computer part done with My Memories Scrapbooking Software. Everything after that I did.) I took these pages and mounted them on white cardstock then my orange12x12 cardstock background pages. Each one is decorated using different items so I listed what I used below each picture.

As a reminder...I am aware some of these are not stitched together perfectly. My paper is 12x12 but my scanner is not so each page you see is really four different scans stitched to make the one page which means I have four chances of throwing my page off by tilting a scan or not getting it just so. Any ways, as you can see I did mess some up slightly so I ask you to just look past these. My birthday is coming and hopefully I will get the new software I wanted....PSE 9 or 10. (Did you know they came out with a Photoshop 10?)

Ingredients:

My Memories Software

Cardstock (Orange and White)

Variety of stickers from my stash

Fiskars Celestial 3 in 1 Corner Punch

Brads

Ingredients:

My Memories Software

Cardstock (Orange and White)

SVG from Treasure Box Designs

Fiskars Border Punch Kaleidoscope

Copic Markers

Reminisce Accents Cartridge (CM)

Small Leaf punch (unknown)

Page 6 Recipe:

Ingredients:

My Memories Software

Cardstock (Orange and White)

SVG from Treasure Box Designs

Ranger Distress Ink – Vintage Photo

Reminisce Accents Cartridge (CM)

George and Basic Shapes Cartridge

Fiskars Border Punch Kaleidoscope

Copic Markers

I hope you liked the pages I have done for day two of this hop. Of course you have another chance to win...

My Memories software is so easy to use and has fantastic paper to choose from. Even though I used the same paper on all my backgrounds there are so many to choose from. I like using this for hybrid pages (like the ones I showed you) but there is so much more than can be done using it. Check it out for yourself. I hope you like what you see because one lucky person taking this hop will be winning their own My Memories Suite.

How to win.

1. Be a follower.

2. Visit My Memories Suite and click the “New Kits” …pick out your second favorite.

3. Leave me a comment telling me which one is your second favorite and a way to contact you if you win.

While your there look around and explore the different things there. After all, that one person who wins My Memories Suite could be you!

I thank you for hopping by and I hope you enjoyed my Thanksgiving pages from last year. Your next hop is over to Tifany’s blog…. Ink Blots by TRD