A little photography experiment

As I was strolling through Pinterest yesterday (yup, totally and blissfully addicted), I came across this picture:

Source: diyphotography.net

So today I was snapping away indoors on this cloudy, snow-expectant day, and thought I would give it a try.  Wanna see the difference a little strategically placed business card makes?

These are straight out of the camera shots taken on full auto mode with flash.

The first shot: dark and shadowy, esp the background:

The second shot, with flash bouncer installed: light, bright and airy

Is that amazing or what?!

Just thought I'd share.

Recipe Album

I have a fun little project to share with you today, complete with video how-to and free downloads.  How fun is that!?!  Let's get started 'cause this could take a while.

The Project:

A cute recipe album using a 6x12 album from Pink Paislee and papers from October Afternoon's Modern Homemaker line and a splash of Graphic 45 thrown in for fun!

The Video Class:

This video runs approx. an hour; feel free to skip through parts (that's the beauty of a video, right?)

The Pages:
My album consists of 6 covered and embellished chipboard pages that serve as the section dividers:

Close-ups of embellies:

and 10 page protected recipe pages.  I love that these pages are protected, because well, let's be honest: I'm a messy cook. A very messy cook.

So far I've only embellished one side of the recipe pages, but I will be doing the other side so this album will hold a total of 20 recipes and photos.

Some close-ups:

The Photography Tips:
I figured since I was going to make a recipe album, I should really brush up on learn how to take photos of food.  I found these great sites with fabulous tips on photographing food, which is really quite an art in itself.

The amazing Pioneer Woman
Photopoly
Photojojo
Digital Photography School

The Recipe Cards:
I uploaded the recipe cards I created for this class to Scrib'd for your own downloading pleasure.  The colors coordinate perfectly with the Modern Homemaker line (complements of Photoshop's color picker tool).  Click on the card to download that color.

Whew!  That's it.  I've taught you everything I know.  Have fun, and hey if you make a recipe album (or have a clever way to organize and store your recipes), drop me a line.  I'd love to see it.

Online Class Tomorrow 8:00pm EST

I am going live tomorrow night to teach a class for Scrapbook Heaven.  I've "cooked up" a super cute recipe album using the Modern Homemaker line from October Afternoon.  I would be super-dee-duper-ee excited if you could join me!  If you can't make it, it'll be recorded.

Saturday, March 19th

8:00 pm EST

UStream

Handmade Baker's Twine

I've been seeing lots of 8 1/2 x 11 pages floating about lately, and I hadn't scrapped that size since I first started scrapbooking.  And I needed a page for the front of a binder.  It was fun to work on a smaller canvas--think I'll do more of it.

I used this super fab idea from Foothill Home Companion to make homemade baker's twine.  

from Foothill Home Companion blog

 So quick, so easy, so genius of her to think of it!

Here's my close up.  I did need to tie the ends or else it would have all unraveled.

And the journaling:

Most of the products for this LO come from the March kits from Scrapbook Heaven.

A green tute: Pop Top Can

We're nearing the halfway point of the Going Green crop at Scrapbook Heaven, and I'm here today to share an oldie but goodie: the pop top can upcycle.

Here's the how to:

I like these mini fruit cup ones, but you could use a larger size.  (Stay away from tuna and pet food).

I purchased this opener at Target a few years back for around $5.

I recommend hand washing to avoid rusting and pitting in the dishwasher (like the one above--I got lazy!)

You can get fancy here and layer punched border strips or piece different scraps together for this.

By trimming off the top, the circle will slip right under the pop top of the can.

Perfect for small candies, money, small crafty supplies, jewelry...

 Embellish your can as desired.

Stop by Scrapbook Heaven for more "green" project ideas and inspiration

Patience is a virtue

Whiling away the hours waiting for my new camera to arrive...

pattern found in current issue of Crochet Today

Wish I had the patience to turn these into a blanket, but I think I'll have to settle for a small bag instead.  Need to leave time for taking pictures!

A new camera and some layouts

I'm still without a camera which is why the posts around here have been pretty sparse lately.  The happy news is that this is on its way to me:

But for now I am borrowing my sister's extra camera so I am able to snap some pics of my layouts, specifically my reveal for Scrapbook Heaven.  So here goes. . .

the Elite:

I love it when a piece of paper does most of the work

I could scrapbook grids all day long (especially with cute kid pics)

This is for an upcoming class I'll be teaching in a webshow later this month.

 Petite kit:

Scrapping some vintage 70's photos (I'm dating myself here)

a little banner love

This one uses bits of non-kit product (the bg paper, beaded trim, pink flowers, ribbon)

For some strange reason, tis post took me two hours to write.  Oh, wait I know why...I kept browsing through Pinterest!

Pinterest: my new crush

I think I first found out about it on Twitter.  So I jumped on the bandwagon of inspiration-seekers and beauty-lovers and happiness-finders and requested to join Pinterest.  I now cannot pull myself away (so much so, my 9-year-old had to cook us dinner tonight--thank goodness for Hamburger Helper).

What is Pinterest?  It's a virtual inspiration board that doesn't need any wall space.  As you browse the web, you can add pins {an item you post} to your pinboards {a visual collection of things you love} for images you come across.  You can also see what others are pinning and add their pins to your own boards.  Here's a sampling from what I have pinned:

from Share Some Candy via Pinterest

from Curly Girl's Crochet via Pinterest

from Sarah Ahearn via Pinterest

  

You can see the rest of my pinboards here. 

And what's more, each image links you to the website where it was originally posted which = tons of new inspiring blogs to visit. {sigh} I am gonna have to stop pinning at some point before tomorrow night so I can make dinner for the fam, though.