Hershey Revisual

So this is our third trip to Hershey with the kiddies. I think that means it's officially a tradition... but this was the first time we visited the Gardens there.



This face painter was not only talented... but a face-painting warrior! She battled kids knocking into her and invading her space, she re-painted several times areas roo had wiped off, and she didn't even flinch when the biggest flying waspy bee thing landed on her ear whilst Nins and I screamed and pointed and went..."omg...omg...OMG.."



I thought it was so weird that Roo would choose to have a unicorn painted on her face and then have it shellacked with glitter...
That last statement is the biggest lie ever.



This one needs a caption... I think they were looking for the rock garden on the map... They as in Noah and Eleanor... Luke was contemplating whether he should start that online rocket science course, or just play baseball next weekend.





This one kinda looks like two kids in love running off into big piles of roses to live happily ever after... until one falls down or gets a rose thorn prick and runs back crying for a bandaid. Or until they realize they're cousins.



Was a good weekend trip as usually. Thanks Aunt Nins for Roo's b-day present! We had an awesome time!

Oh, and a little side-note about taking a Food Allergy kid to Hershey Park: Don't know about anyone else's experience, but so far it's been one of the easier places to deal with. For some reason the first time I was going to take her there I thought... "OMG, I can't take her to HERSHEY!?!..." For some reason in my head I just pictured kids running around with peanut butter in their hair and wiping Reese's peanutbutter cup residue all over the rides... and ...etc... But after I dared to go there, I realized that it's no different than any other amusement park that sells candy and has roasted peanut stands. I just made sure I had her meds close at hand... two sets of EPI pens... and clorox wipes to wipe down any ride or seat that I felt needed wiping.
And as far as restaurants and food in general. The Hershey Park website has all the allergens listed by place so I was able to pick out places she could eat before we even went, and if I wasn't sure, I could just go to my phone and double-check online. There was a restaurant we ate at in the hotel that I couldn't find any information about online, so when we got there, I asked the waitress if she had any allergen information and she was very sweet and asked me what her allergies were and said she would go discuss it with the chef. Not five minutes later, the chef himself came out to double-check and ask me what she liked to eat. Long story-short, he made her dinner and brought it out himself and said he used separate cooking pans and utensils and made her a batch of fries with new oil also separate from the rest. I can't say I've ever had any restaurant be so attentive when it came to food allergies. I almost cried I think...

So I give Hershey great marks for that... I should probably write a letter or something...

xo fitts

Keep Happy in a box, that way you'll never lose it.

So one of my favorite people to follow on Youtube is a gal who's channel goes by the name of PAPERSPEAKS.

Her name is Mel and she has a fun sidekick Pat ( a big white gloved pointer ).  She's a super duper nicehead and she does a lot of hand-made journals and cards and really cool stuff.

She recently posted a challenge to create something that would be like an aid when you're creatively blocked, or, as she put it, when you've lost your mojo.

And it happens to all of us no matter what we're into.   We play a crappy game of baseball, we sing bad notes, or sometimes we just wanna sit in the corner and cry.  And it's times like that where even the thing we love doing the most seems like a waste of time.  Though it probably doesn't seem like it... I feel like that quite often. I just wanna pack up my paper and photos in boxes and try to forget that I ever enjoyed scrapbooking. I start to wonder who I'm doing it for...  Will my daughter dread having her entire life documented in volumes when she's older?  I'm pretty sure the dog (s) don't mind.

Well anyhow... what I decided to make for myself was a recipe box just simply filled with photos that I like to look at. Because for me, the photo is what makes me want to scrapbook.  It's not the scrapbooking stuff...  it's taking a photo, printing it out and thinking...  SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE... this photo is so delicious I could eat it!  And what makes it hard is that I take a gazillion photos a week, so just picking out a few to scrapbook is tricky. So for me ( for you for me... )  scrapbooking isn't solving my problem of getting photos out of boxes (or hard drives) and into scralbums, it's just highlighting what's in the boxes. I may actually get some good ol' fashioned photo albums and coordinate them with my scrapbooks.  So I can have the bulk of a photo shoot in a photo album, and then the real important stuff in the scrapbook.

So this was one of those CTMH recipe boxes I've had forever.   I had two.. but Roo decided to make one also.  She filled hers with smurf.  Who doesn't get a little happy from a box of smurf?

So I have different sized photos in here, some I took from Pinterest, some I took from my own photo stash, and I just tabbed the tops so I can pull em' out easy.

So out of all the challenges I've missed, I'm glad I was able to sneak this one in, because I think I actually will pick through this box when I'm feeling blue.  There's plenty more room in it to keep adding stuff so now as I come across something, I can just toss it in there.

Here's a link to what Mel made to help get her Mojo back.  I love it!

And thanks again Mel for the great challenge idea!  Looks like everyone got a very good something out of it!

Pictures of Eleanor - Jackson Park

I think the only way to stop me from taking pictures of Eleanor everywhere she goes is to get a puppy, or have another kid. I don't know if it's because I just like taking pictures... or that she's always a willing and pose-able subject... or it's just a mom thing. I honestly thought I'd get tired of taking her picture by now... but I honestly feel like she gets more beautiful everyday. (That's def. a mom thing...)



So anyway... I usually do a lot of APP editing to my photos. So the previous two photos I ran through one of my fav. photo apps called Phototoaster. I'm sure I've mentioned it before..
But here's one of the photos in the raw below so you can see the diff. I didn't do much, just added one filter called Aquatic. ( my favorite filter I've ever come across in any app!! Who doesn't wanna look like they're in water? Not anyone I know!) So I think this one filter added so much! It pulled her out of all that green background and really made her the feature.



So there are a lot of cool filters in this app... you can mess with it on your own, or they have pre-sets. Very worth the $1.99 for the 5.0 version. I've used the fiddlesticks out of it! I think photo apps are the only ones I pay for. Especially if you scrapbook... and are doing project life or smashing... or any of that... it's the quickest way to edit aside from pluggin' your camera into your computer. And most of ya'll know how to print from your mobile devices so... what's the prob. Spend a dollar and save your memories in a artsy way! Didn't you just spend $1.82 on a bagel this morning? And that's gone already isn't it??? ...thought so.

The following photos are not edited.. but I might still go back and play with em'.  I have to go through the other 70 and see if any are print-worthy.



OH, and lemme just plug another app while I'm at it. Though this series of pictures were not edited, I did throw them into a collage app called DIPTIC. It's basically just that... a collage app, but you can move your frames around which comes in handy. And I think you can add text... (honestly haven't used it that much...) And it's FREE!



I was actually shooting in monochrome for the first half of the park visit... which I normally don't do. I don't know why, but I tend to edit the color mostly after... but I like the way the monochrome ones shot...



And the hair-style she's sporting is called... combed out after being in a bun for two days! I actually trimed it a bit this morning due to many many knots. So it was fluffier than usual.

Well I'm gonna put my cheese and crackers away and call it a night!

xo Fitter

Eleanor I love you. More than ice cream.

I know I've said this before that I am not a photographer. I just play one on TV. However, 18,678,334,468,499.09 pictures later, I think I may try to actually look into getting a bit more knowledge on the subject. I mean, I at least bought one of those "REBEL T2i for dummies" books when I got this camera a few years ago... and I have to say, I'm still a big fan of this camera. It still gets the job done as far as I'm concerned. I've never tried Nikons so I can't compare... I've always had some sort of Canon. And when my nephews were born, they had trouble with r's, so they called me Aunt Kanen instead of Aunt Karen, so maybe it's fate. I won't mess with fate.

And this year starting on July 4th while were at a town fair, I finally let my daughter use my camera. I KNOW... everyone was looking at me thinking... "did she really just give a 3-year her big clunky camera!" Actually... if they didn't know us I'm sure they thought she was 5 at least... She's a mature 3. So she put the strap over her head and I showed her which button to push and where to look and 800 pictures later she was hooked. So now we share my camera. And I'm sure she'll be taking better pictures than me by the time she is 5.


So this photo shoot she staged happened a few weeks ago... but when she was done taking pictures of bear bear and (I don't know the other one's name... her cousin Tierney left it here when she slept over after the BTR concert.. Eleanor said she gave it to her... but I have to double check on that.. ;).. ) So let's just say Bear bear and monkey monkey! When she was done with the camera, she jumped in and asked me to take her photo with them. And I just got around to putting the pics on the computer and for some reason this pic:


just asked to be scraped. So I actually had an idea before I started which isn't usual. And since I planned on almost exclusively doodling for the page, I decided to print the photo bigger than I usually would. SO I did a little more than doodle, but not much.



And these were just American Crafts pens.  The black is mostly a project life journaling pen.. then I did a bit of coloring in with Tim Holtz distresser markers.

So here's a process vid for this layout.  I didn't do them for a few weeks because of poison ivy. .. lol.   Didn't wanna have to cut out all the itching.. :)

 

xo Fitty

Weekend Revisual: Project life July 20-21, 2013

Hi there frens!

Had a great weekend!  Just wanted to throw out some weekend pics, and then how we put them together for a weekend project life spread!

This first collage was actually made with a windows app called Turbocollage.  So far, a benefit is the ability to use a lot of pics in one collage.... like 20!  So I was able to sum up a birthday party pretty completely in three 4x3' spots on my PL layout.  Well... plus a couple 4x6's that stood out...

Here's some of the other pics we used:

And here's our spread!

And here's a video Roo did to tell you a very quick version of the entire weekend's activities...  she also goes on to demonstrate some Gelatos...  so if you're in need of toddler entertainment...  it's right here....  in a barbie dress.

Thanks and enjoy the rest of your crafty week!

Day in Revisual: Big time Rush Concert

Ladies with Lenses - a twelve by twelver

WEEEEEEE! What we did with the Studio Calico June kit (so far...)
The following pic is actually the back of the 12 x 12 layout. Sometimes the back looks cool enough to use as a background for another layout.. haven't decided yet. But this is all my sewing nonsense...  no thyme or reason... or sage. But def. cinnamon!


So anyway, this post is really about spending time with your kid(s). A lot of people tell you to enjoy them while they're young and don't hate you yet... so I decided to listen damn it!
It's all true and that's why I'm just trying to enjoy every second with her. I have a couple jobs, like most moms these days so most of my day is spent away from my daughter, but when I come home... I feel like spending time with her is more important than rushing her off to bed. Schedule Smedule!
So we have fun no matter the day or time! And since my daughter is a veteran at making videos of herself... I decided it would be fun to do a youtube series with her.
We call it Ladies with Lenses. When I got all those stickers from Paperchase, I also found a pencil topper that was a pair of glasses. They were so cute, and as soon as Roo saw them, she immediately took em' over. So when she grabbed them during our first "share" video, the title of the series was born.



And we invited Norma in to take part in the lenses wearing!

She looks nerdtastic in them I think!
So in true Project Life fashion, I decided this was an opportunity to make a layout as well to document the start of our video fun... however long it lasts...



The products used are all from the latest Studio Calico scrapbooking kit:

ROUNDABOUT Scrapbook Kit

Cardstock:
Kraft (American Crafts)
Vanilla (American Crafts)
Surf (American Crafts)
Blush Red Medium (Bazzill)

Patterned Paper:
Carte Postale "Canal Street" (Basic Grey)
Pack Your Bags (Simple Stories)
Divine this line (ILS)
Jet Set (Simple Stories)
Today (Paislee Press)
Pier "Carousel" (Crate Paper)
Optimism (Studio Calico)
Sky Atlas (Studio Calico)

Embellishments:
Black & White Die Cut Clouds (Studio Calico)
Acetate Alpha (Basic Grey)
1 Yard Airmail Divine Twine (Whisker Graphics)
2x2 Stamp Set ( Life-Love-Paper for Studio Calico)
3x3 Photo Overlays (Crate Paper)
Silver Stars (Basic Grey)
Camera and Geo Tag Resin (Freckled Fawn for Studio Calico)
Urban Traveler Chipboard Stickers (Simple Stories)

So I have plenty left for tons more LO's and PL's.

Here's the building of this layout via Youtube:



Thanks for stopping by Fitty's Arty blog!