Friday, October 30, 2009

Nostalgia! -Not my Atlantic City!

When my DH and I went to Ocean Beach my SIL's decided we needed a girl's day. So Atlantic City was on the agenda because they do love to gamble. They are a lot of fun so really we had a great ride down and back, and when we got there we each had our own mission! Their's of course was to gamble. Mine was two-fold. First I needed to get warm duds because alas to my surprise the weather turned cold and I was not prepared, and DH were headed to NY for dinner and a play. SO...they had cool little shops (not there when I was young) that I got some great deals; slacks, shoes, long sleeve shirt. WOO HOO!!! I looked sharp! bwahahaha! So after that mission was completed, I decided I wanted to see if I could find any landmarks from yesteryear. Of course Steel Pier was different- its an arcade. No more diving horses or celebrities. Sigh. BUT I did find the jitneys (small buses) that my dad thought were the coolest and EVERY one should have them in their cities, the rides still remain, a fudge shop and the world famous Salt Water Taffy. I didn't get any because A. its really NOT good for the teeth and B. its really not good for my teeth. I had visions of all my caps just being ripped out. NOT pretty. And the board walk was still the board. walk. Different shops, different - yet the same. Its still a cool walk or ride. Because the dudes and now dudettes still do the rickshaw rides. In amongst the glitz and glitter it was really cool to find some nostalgia.

Used some stash on this - my mind's eye pp & brad, sassafrass lass pp & paper whimsies, elle's studio label, sticko bingo card, sbe template 211 (yes i'm almost thru them bwahhahahaha! NOT!!! amer crafts rubons that worked WAY better than the last ones. some of the products were from kenner road kits.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Flashback Friday - 10.23.09 Cherish

It wasn't much of a flashback, but the challenge was to use a favorite picture (hey it does go ALL the way back to last year!). This is a favorite because young teenage boys rarely snuggle w/mom. So there ya go. I even got a little mushy. (I'm talking little-I try to leave the mush alone LOL!). So ok I brought the mush in. I had possession of his cell phone. So there's a bit of bribery there. Hey, you gotta use every tool you got w/teenage boys. I'm just happy my favorite SIL was fast with the shutter. I used pink because I rarely get to use it. I didn't think Shane would mind, after all he had a pink bike (because MOOOOOM chicks dig pink) Sigh.
Anyway basic grey , creative imaginations flower, qk flower, michael's ribbon, mm definitions, buttons? prima journaling notes, noteworthy and played with FANCY that tape. What fun! Of course you may need to tilt you head a tad to make it less crooked. Snort. Part of my charm. bwahahaha!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Surf was up at the Venice Jetty on Sunday!!







Totally BIG news for the west coast - especially Gulf waters. Surf!!! and it was totally rockin' and rollin' and the surfers were out making it sooooo very easy. The water was freezing as was the 15 mph winds that day. It was not a good day for small crafts or any type of craft for that matter. I took 18-55 lens - wanting the challenge of not doing close ups all the time. I do have the 28-300 tamron and I do love it. It's not perfect but I love it as an all purpose lens - however, I do tend to go close up instead of standing back. So I HAD to stand back. Except for the surfers looking like bugs riding the waves, I enjoyed standing back. Getting the BIG picture. What a concept (said dryly).

Also got a shot of one of my favorite birds dipping and wheeling in the water. It was funny to watch because they had to wait until the wind died down and then they'd launch into the air or bounce from rock to rock.

We then headed to Caspersen beach and it was there I played w/the camera settings. The sun was shining through the

clouds and photograph the light. I get emails from photographer Darren Rowse and he gives all kinds of tips and tricks. It would totally help if I could remember stuff from one minute to the next, but I used the ole clicking and method - rebel style. lol!!!! I came close - but most importantly I messed with the settings. Since the pix weren't GOTTA HAVE ONE TIME SHOTS GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME no pressure there. Love that. There's also a boardwalk/nature walk behind the beach that's very cool. Then other than the scenery was the photo op of the run aground sail boat. Can't go wrong w/something like that. It was abandoned and it looks like the anchor didn't hold. If the beach bums play their cards right it could be a tourist attraction. bwahahaha!








Saturday, October 17, 2009

B is for Boy......

and what a cutie-patootie he is. Got this adorable photo via email along w/a note that mommy helped my boy to write. So I copied the email and added it as journaling. What fun!!!! I also didn't want to have the "obvious title" so Cosmo Cricket Just your type came in handy. Love the MME brad - cute touch, and of course qk hearts, kaiser swirl, pink paisley and amer craft pp. added some walnut ink an doodling which never turns out the way I think it will. Doh!!! But overall awesome photo by daddy! He has grown so much. Already a year old. He looks like quite the lil man. Sigh.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Once again Flashback Friday 10.16













The challenge!!! Scrap about your childhood stuffed animal. Since I didn't have a photo of mine. I used Nick because the name of the stuffed animal has been passed down. My brother and I had matching rabbits and both were named BunBun. Yeah I know. LOL!!! AND we knew who's was who's. It always freaked my mom out. bwahahaha!!!

Anyway I adore Fancy Pants kraft kuts, qk blossom - what would I do w/out this font? and bazzill.

Carrying on tradition, when my son acquired a stuffed rabbit, it was creatively named BunBun. Like my brother and I before, BunBun was loved to the point of extinction. As with all BunBun’s, he was a sidekick in pretend play, nap time, and joy riding. BunBun was dragged by his ears, held up by his tail and lost his eyes, yet he remained a best bud. He was further embarrassed by being thrown in the washer, tumbled in the dryer, or in my day, hung by his ears on the clothes line. BunBun quietly disappeared as his stuffing was lost. BunBun will always be remembered fondly.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Relative Fun.......

Believe it or not. The exercise in frustration for this lo was NOT PSE 6.onmynerves. BUT the title. I know I know but there it is. It took a week to figure out a title that wasn't obvious. Here were are at Ocean Beach which has become a tradition for us to meet up w/family over the Labor Day holiday (taking the place of Thanksgiving since I can't get more than the day off now). I adore Labor Day at Ocean Beach - my SIL's have little cottages there and the families swarm in and are happy to jump in the freezing water. LOL!!! Anyway I didn't do much journaling here because I have like 5 years worth and its getting redundant. But I digress. Again. And you're surprised I know.

Back to the title. So I decided Relative Fun which may have been used before, tells it all w/o being oooooooooooooooo say our Labor Day at the Shore blah blah blah that's been done oh a 500 times in my books. HOWEVER, I had a vision. About how THAT should look. So in my infinite wisdom I started with Deja View rubons which worked quite well. I wanted to OVERLAY part of the title and decided that red American Craft was the perfect size because FUN was BIG. WELL....these are OLD Amer Craft and I forgot how sucky they were to rub on (and have since been trashed), but once I was committed I kept going. It looked really REALLY awful. So I took the same colored paper (BG LimeRickey btw) and overlaid with TACKY GLUE, and giving up the title, I decided to use a foam stamp, with black paint that said "loving the moment" . WEEEELLLLLLLLLL that bit the HORRID WTH was I thinking DUST. Of course it was glued down. So because I was a tad annoyed *insert eyeroll* I ripped it UP(that stuff dries really really fast. Really. Sigh. So now I needed a BIGGER piece to cover it. AND decided to put the title on BEFORE I glued the damn thing down. What a concept. Snort. I used Tech Tuesday alpha stamp, overlaid w/MM rub ons (which I dearly love and of course are now discontinued-which also bites). And then added some swirly s**t that looks like waves to hopefully NOT POINT OUT that the paper was overlaid AGAIN. Third time - the charm. bwahahaha. GEEZ but seriously how painful was all that??????Snort. I have a gift for painful. lmao.......

Basic Grey Lime Rickey - pp & embellies
SPE template 106 (and yes I believe eventually I'll be using them all) snort.
fishnet
bellesimo rub ons
tech tues stamp-catalina
mm rub ons heidi

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Flashback Friday - 10.9.09


The challenge was to chat about how technology has changed in our lifetime. Gasp. I don't even wanna go there but alas, I did.

My first ALL DIGI=layout. I know this surprises some, however, for those of you who know how chatty I can be there is no other way. Seriously.

So PSE 6 and I have reached an understanding. I keep clicking and it keeps on keeping on. Works for us. I used reflections cardstock and didn't have to whack it down. Hate doing that to a 12x12. Seriously. Then a few million years ago I downloaded some free stuff from Cottage Arts and after 6 or 7 okay maybe 8 printings, I decided more was needed, and started to play around. With the digi stuff - outta the gutters my friends. lol!! I did download all the other images from the internet which were quite necessary to tell my story which is windy at best. and then messed w/the fonts. American Typewriter and Zarafino which was downloaded free from probably DAfonts.

I'm sooooo diggin it. Hope you do as well.

journaling: All within a span of 100 years.


I began my typewriting journey on a manual Underwood typewriter. You had to REALLY mash the keys. Mashing + Rhythm = Speed. I loved it. I began my journey to become the next Della Street (an awesome secretary to Perry Mason - the greatest lawyer of ALL TV) in the ninth grade. So I learned the keyboard, with many exercises, including the “quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Know why that sentence???? Its a pangram , a sentence containing all letters in english alphabet. The school had a mixture of typewriters and it was there I learned of “electric.” Whoa.

Remember having to fling the paten back to the left edge?

Having to find the middle of the paper and counting every two letters to find the center?

Remember the keys jamming when you typed too fast?


As I entered the workforce, there too was a mix of typewriters but mostly were newer than I was used to. Which was cool. The difference in the workforce was that you had to be PERFECT. And if it wasn’t perfect you had to type it OVER, and OVER. Until it was. Back then if you wanted multiple copies - you used carbon papers. And you had to type HARD enough to make sure ALL the copies were readable. AND you had different color and/or watermarked because they were filed in different folders and sent to different people identified in the CC’s (carbon copies) plainly identified. But there were also BCC’s (blind carbon copies) which were secret to the addressees. Liquid paper was my friend. Whoa.


Then IBM became the king of electric typewriters:

you could back space to make a correction - it typed the ink of the same letter perfectly and you could then type the correct letter. No one would know.

you could record standard greetings and phrases to play back.

you could change the balls to different fonts for snappy titles.


At the same time word processing machines were used mostly in secretarial pools because of the expense.


Then came the computer. But not as we know it now. It was a stand alone high powered word processor that caused wide panic because cc’s & bcc’s had to be revised. Most of the software was a nightmare to use because you had to make a two-three keystroke command for italics, underscore, bold, and center. My employer used SAMNA word processing which wasn’t wide spread but it was the easiest. Whatever you wanted to do - you hit THE F key and when you wanted turn the function off. You hit the SAME F key. Amazing.

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I have to admit that I sometimes don’t do change well. And honestly, I loved the typewriter, however, it only took about a week to decide that the computer totally rocked. It checked spelling, the multitude of fonts was mind boggling, but the BEST of ALL, was you didn’t have to retype the whole document when you made a mistake. You called up your document, made the correction and reprinted. What a concept!


I don’t know about other employers but mine was slow to evolve the intranet and move on the internet. But it happened and now The computer today. WOW!!! I wouldn’t know what to do without it. Especially the INTERNET.


And cell phones (another animal) you can use your typewriting skills to text. Anyone.Anytime.Anywhere. journalng 10.7.09