A successful class...

Last night was the last session of my scrapbooking class...it went so quickly and it's a little bitter-sweet. The ladies in the class were wonderful and helping them all explore their creative side was SO much fun.

Last Tuesday we discussed the color, the creative process, the various scrapbooking styles as well as ideas for titles and journaling.

Last night the full focus was on photography...something now very near and dear to my heart! I had a lot of fun sharing with them some of my favorite tips in composition and lighting and they seemed really engaged in the presentation as well.

Of course, lots of time for scrapping, too! It was really exciting for me to see them getting excited about certain concepts of design and other items that just 'clicked' with them and turn around and use those concepts in their creations.

They all gave me some very positive feedback on the class and were wondering when I was going to teach another class. Hmmm...I'll have to put my thinking cap on.

Teaching a class of this type was definitely a new experience for me...one that I really enjoyed!

Scrapbooking challenge over at WeScrap

Today was my day to post an April Challenge over at WeScrap:

Did you know that today is Great Poetry Reading Day? To commemorate the day, I challenge you to create a layout commemorating your favorite poem or to use a poem as the journaling for a layout.

Post them to the “Challenge Contest – April” gallery and title your project like this: “Your title – Jillmarie’s Poetry Challenge”. Be sure to link your creations here also so that we can admire them and I can be sure you receive appropriate points. Good luck and have FUN!!

Due: May 2nd at 11:59 pm EST.

Remember, you always get 2 scrap points for uploading to the gallery, here's your chance to earn a few extra!!

Extra Scrap Points:
1 point for completing the challenge, uploading and linking by due date
2 points if you use create a visual triangle on your layout
3 points if you compose your own original poem for use on your layout

You can check it out here.

Here is my example layout:

I wrote the poem included on this layout after a piano performance I attended at the college where I work:

simply something like magic…

there was simply something like magic
about the sound that came
with the sway of his body
as he sat that brought a shiver to mine

there was simply something like magic
about the bounce of the light
off the backs of his hands
that brought tears to my eyes

there was simply something like magic
about the movement of his fingers
that made every hope and
dream I ever had well up inside my chest

there was simply something like magic
about the brush of every ivory key -
no matter gentle or full of force -
that had the power to move my heart

there is simply something like magic
about this man, his piano and passionate notes

A little about my Grandmother...Part 2

After Emil and I Were Married:

- We only had about 5 or 6 horses because we had a tractor to help with a lot of the work.

- Sometimes, when I had to go out and do chores, I would have to leave the little ones in the house. I couldn’t leave them on the floor or they would get into something, so I would put them in the crib by the front window. Usually they were fine, but if they would look outside and see me working they would always start to cry. It was hard to get any chores done with so many little ones.

- Saturday was always baking day. I would either make bread or kolaches. Sometimes on these days Emil would say, “Let’s go to town (Yankton), “ and we would pack up some egg salad sandwiches and go. When I was little 5 cents was a lot of money when you went to town. Everyone was always in a hurry to get the work done on those days so that we could go to town. Emil liked to go to the movies and I would take the children to visit my mother and father (John T. and Anna) or do some grocery shopping.

- We always went to Tabor for church on Sundays.

- Everything was made at home. We did a lot of canning: fruits, meats, etc. We ate a lot of eggs and fresh vegetables from the garden in the summertime.

- My sister, Pauline, was always amazed at how the chickens would follow the girls up to the granary after they got home from school in the afternoons. Those chickens knew it was the girls’ job to get them fed!

- I remember one time when one of the children wanted a pumpkin pie, so Emil locked the cow up in the barn away from her calf so that we could get some milk for a pie. The cow got into a barrel of feed, overate and died. Boy, that was one expensive pie that never happened!

- We heated the kitchen with a cook stove that was fed with corn cobs. The upstairs where everyone slept was never heated, so everyone would stay in the warm kitchen as long as possible in the evenings and listen to the radio. WNAX came on the air in 1928 – nine years before we married – and that was what we always listened to. In the winter, even the water in the stove reservoir was frozen in the
morning.

- Our daughter, Donna (the oldest), didn’t even know how to speak English when she began school. She learned quickly though and the other children picked up a lot from her. This was about the time that we started to speak English at home. We thought it would be more appropriate since that was what the children had to know for school.

- We got real electricity after our son Joe was born in 1949. Before that we had a wind charger that ran a light in the kitchen by batteries, but that was it. One of the first things we got when we got electricity was a television. I remember having friends over in the evenings to play cards and the children would all be gathered around the TV.

- Our son, Joey (my dad), was a good boy. I remember Sylvester Pechan, the city cop in Tabor, told me that he would stop at Binder’s Pool Hall for an ice cream or candy bar and always come straight home for chores. All the kids were really good about helping out at home. Joey always helped Emil and the girls helped me in the house. I never asked Joey to do any housework, but I remember one time at Christmas I said that there would be no presents until the dishes were done and he ran for a dish-cloth!

A little about my Grandmother...

It's been a very busy past couple of days. Last night and today, we celebrated my grandmother's life.

It was the first time in a very LONG time that all of her grandchildren were gathered in one place - 20 in all plus 1 in spirit. I was very nice to see all my cousins again. Since we're all so spread out, we don't get together as much as one would like. Between the 20 of us, we can account for 11 states.

Several years ago, I completed a family history project for a college class. I visited with Grandma about her life again last year. I thought I'd share some of what she shared with me in her honor.

My Story in My Words
by Marcella (Vitek) Pechous

When I was a child:

- I went to country school until I was in the third grade and then I went to the Catholic school in Tabor. In the mornings, my mother would get up, start the stove, and wake the children. Then she would go out to feed the horses, milk the cow and hitch up the mule. We rode to school in a covered, wooden buggy pulled by our mule, Fritz. He was so lazy and we were often late to school because he would not move. I remember trying to chase him with a stick, but it usually didn’t do much good. We would park the buggy at Robert Cacek’s house and tie up the mule in the barn while we were in school and hitch him back up and go home after school.

- We would take a gallon of milk to school to pay for our tuition. We got 50 cents for each gallon and the milk was used for the children who boarded in the school. Our milk cows were very important to the livelihood of our family.

- Catechism was taught in Czech and our other school classes were taught in English.

- Peanut butter and jelly, chicken salad and sometimes luncheon meat were common sandwiches to be found in our school lunches. One of my favorite things was homemade bread.

- At school, the children often played a game called pum-pum-ala-way, which is a lot like tag. The boys played ball and the ball ended up in Mr. Kokes’ hay field many times. Mr. Kokes often got very angry when the boys would go in there to retrieve the ball.

- At home, my brothers, sisters and I played card games like pinochle and solitaire.

- In the summer, it was my job to herd the cows into the ditches so that they could get enough to eat and give more milk. The summers were often very dry and there was a shortage of grass in the pastures. This was my job until I was out of high school. I also did a lot of horseback riding. My family had about 15-20 work horses.

- Since I was the youngest daughter, I wasn’t needed as much at home, so I got to finish high school. I was the only child in my family to do so. I graduated in 1934.

- After high school, I herded cattle because I could make more money doing this than by babysitting which is what a lot of the other girls did. The money really helped the family and I loved horses.

- I met Emil when I was about in 5th grade at a dance. I was friends with his sister, Violet, and once I dance with Emil and asked Violet, “Who was that boy I just danced with?” She said, “Why, that’s my brother!” We didn’t start dating until after I was out of high school. Emil didn’t go to high school. We would go to dances a lot and sometimes to the movies. Girls didn’t have to pay to get into the dance. The boys did though and later, they did start charging the girls also. We didn’t really have a specific curfew, but we were always home before twelve. Emil and I dated for about three years before we were married. I was just about twenty-two then.

I have more from after she and my Grandpa married, but will save that for another post.

I have already uploaded all of the pictures that I took last night and today to Shutterfly. For family that is interested, please just drop me an email and I can send you the link so that you can view and/or order prints if you wish.

A sad day...

My grandmother passed away today...this is a picture of her and my grandpa on their wedding day over 70 years ago. I love this picture of them together.

My New "Hit Repeat" Song: Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis

I realized that it's been a long time since a shared a favorite song. Here's one that I heard on the radio recently and LOVE!!

Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis:



Evidently Leona's been big in Europe for a couple years now (she's British), but is just now hitting the US by storm. Her bebut album, Spirit, was released in North America in April 2008 and debuted at number one in the US Billboard 200 chart. She is the first British artist to reach the top of the chart with a debut album.

Enjoy!

Quotes to ponder...

Mary Anne Radmacher, author:

“Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Appreciate your friends. Continue to learn. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is.”

Langston Hughes:

"Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly."

Ella Jane Fitzgerald (1917-1996), jazz vocalist:

“Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there's love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong.”

Teaching my first scrapbooking class...

wasn't as scary as I thought it was going to be. Last night was my very first class over at RTEC and I can already tell that I'm going to be a little sad when the 3-night course is over.

There are eight wonderful gals in the class and all of them are pretty new to the hobby of scrapbooking and they are just a ton of fun!!

Last night, we covered some basics in the areas of 'Why scrapbook?', 'Tools', 'Organization', and 'Design'. I tried to show lots of own layouts as examples so that they could 'see' what I was talking about and even showed them pictures of my own scrapbooking space and how I organize my supplies...if you can call it organizing! :-)

If I'm feeling really brave, I might even share some of those pictures here soon.

The 'lecture' portion took about an hour and then we got to the FUN part...creating!! They got the Pebbles Make a Wish Kit as part of their class fee for the night and some used that to create their layouts and others used items they had brought that better suited their photos.

I basically then just went from table to table answering questions, offering advice, and showing them some of the little 'tricks' that I've picked up along the way.

I had to laugh at them all a little because some of them were so concerned with everything being 'perfect' and 'just so' and I TOTALLY remember being there when starting this craft! Heck, sometimes, I'm even that way once in a while now.

Then, today, I ran across this quote (and you all know that I LOVE quotes):

“That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), essayist, poet, philosopher

As with any interest or hobby, it takes time and practice to get to a place where you feel comfortable enough with your talent to let go of some of these insecurities. "Do these colors match perfectly?" "Ugh, I should have put that flower over here instead of there!"

Often, I've found that some of the layouts when I allowed myself to EXPERIMENT and NOT be concerned with 'perfection' end up being my favorites.

Hopefully, some of these ladies will experience at least of moment or two of this feeling during our short little course.

I think they all enjoyed themselves...I know I did! I can't wait for next week and I will take my camera this time - I didn't want to freak them all out by snapping tons of pictures on the vary first night.

Their photo reprieve is over! :-)

Next week we will be covering the topics of color theory, titles and journaling, the crafting process and a little bit about all the various 'styles' of scrapbooking.

April Card a Day Challenge at WeScrap

Ally & Lucy are conduting a 'Card a Day' Challenge over at WeScrap for the month of April.

Ally asked if I would create a sample for her beautiful sketch to post today and here's what I came up with:

Products used: ALL American Crafts...

The Wakefield Mysteries

Last Saturday, Kaitlin and I attended an outdoor theatre event. It was a very unique performance and the first of its kind every presented at the College where I work - it is called The Wakefield Mysteries.

Basically, there were four different points along the College's main road where audience members could sit and the various scenes where performed on wagons that moved from point to point. There were 5 scenes and the production included over 90 cast and crew members.

The first scene was Hail Mary in which God chooses Mary to be the mother of Jesus.

Joseph didn't take the news so well, but he got over it. What a guy...

Scene two was A Baby Raises a Ruckus, the traditional nativity scene.

Scene three was Miracle and Revolt. Her Jesus bring Lazarus back to life.

Here Pontius Pilate decides the fate of Jesus.

Scene four, Torture and Crucifixion, was certainly the most moving scene...and graphic.



In scene five, An Empty Tomb - Victory, Jesus rises again and reveals himself to his mother.

It was different watching a play in which each scene brought different actors playing the same characters, but it was also very intriguing. From my work at the College, I knew a vast majority of the people involved and was wonderful to see them perform in this play. I was amazed by many of their portrayals!

There had been much anticipation about this play not only for the theme and nature of the play, but also the weather. Let's just say that we had not been great in the days before the play...including a snow storm bad enough to close the College and the local school district just the Monday before.

Over the course of the week, the temperature slowing inched up each day - just enough to melt the newly fallen snow and dry things out a bit. The day of the play was about 60 degrees and sunny. A little windy, but overall, pretty decent considering.

Every day since has been some combination of cold, cloudy, rainy, and snowy.

Hmmm...sounds to me like the prayers for good weather from the cast and crew prevailed...

Five photography books on my Amazon wishlist...

As a result of having a child and obtaining this obsession with scrapbooking, a natural result (at least I tell myself it's natural) is that I have a growing interest in improving my photography.

I have read several photography-related books in the past couple of years, yet, somehow, my Amazon.com wishlist keeps getting longer instead of shorter!!

Here are 5 photography books currently on my wishlist:

1. Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera by Bryan Peterson - Exposure is something I can definitely say that have do not really have a good handle on...I usually just let my camera choose, so I'd like to learn more and from what I've heard, this book is a great guide.
   
2. Professional Children's Portrait Photography: Techniques and Images from Master Photographers by Lou Jacobs - "Blending advice with example images, this guidebook marshals the wisdom and experience of 15 seasoned professionals to present a comprehensive resource on one of the most challenging subfields in the portrait-photography genre." (taken from Amazon.com book description) All I know is that photographing Kaitlin can certainly be challenging sometimes and any pro tips would be great!
   
3. Complete Digital Photography, Fourth Edition by Ben Long - I've been shooting digital for quite some time, but I have been letting my camera do most the work. From the description and reviews, I am hoping that this book could help me to step over into the manual world a little more comfortably.
   
4. Capture the Portrait: How to Create Great Digital Photos by Jenni Bidner - This book isn't even released yet, but I liked the cover (yes, I tend to be a cover judger...sorry), so I'll be watching Amazon for more details in the future.
   
5. The Moment It Clicks: Photography secrets from one of the world's top shooters by Joe McNally - "The first book with one foot on the coffee table, and one foot in the classroom." (taken from Amazon.com book description) What can I say...I LOVE book with pretty pictures. It also helps that this book comes highly recommended by Scott Kelby, whose books I love.

If any of you have or have read any of these books, I would love to hear your opinion on them. Should they stay on my wishlist? Do you have others that you would recommend in addition to these or instead of any the above listed books??

Here are a few photography-related books I have reviewed on this blog in the past:

1. The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby


2. Photo Idea Index by Jim Krause


3. Expressions: Taking Extraordinary Photos for Your Scrapbooks and Memory Art by Allison Tyler Jones

Here are a couple photography-related books that I have on my book shelf from before my reviewing days:

1. Photographing Children and Babies: How to Take Great Pictures by Michal Heron


2. Creating Keepsakes: Photography for Scrapbookers by Tracy White

Note on Amazon.com preorders: You might have noticed that I listed a book above that isn't even available yet and wanted to make sure that you were aware of one VERY neat feature at Amazon.com. Another way to save even more money by buying your books through Amazon.com is to PREORDER your books through Amazon.com. On most preorder books, you will see a "Special Offers Available" link just below the price info. The special offer is that if you preorder the book, you will receive an additional 5% off at checkout. Also, if the Amazon.com price decreases between your order time and release date, you'll receive the lowest price as well as the 5% pre-order discount. Pretty good deal, I'd say!

Spring Special at ISA...

I mentioned yesterday how much I am enjoying being a VIP Team member at International Scrapbooking Association and I read in the forums today that Jess is issuing a Spring Membership Special where you can join ISA for only $5!! That's 75% off the normal membership fees!

As a member, you can stay up to date with all the contests & calls, enjoy downloads and receive discounts at participating retailers and more. For example, there is a contest running right now where you could win a Wishblade...I've been wanting one of those for a LONG time.

They are also offering discounted rates for retailers, manufacturers, consultants, scrapbookers for hire and other scrapbooking related service providers.

It would be a great time to join if you're interested. Join today and tell them 'jillmarie7276' sent you!!

:ARTICLE: How to Get the Most Out of Your Point and Shoot Camera

My first article was published in the International Scrapbooking Association April Newsletter that went out the other day. It was pretty exciting for me to see it in print so I thought that I would share it here as well.

How to Get the Most Out of Your Point and Shoot Camera

I use a point-and-shoot camera. There…I said it. I’m not ashamed. I’ve gotten some darn good pictures out of my Canon S3IS over the past couple of years if I do say so myself (and, obviously, I do). Not to say that I’ll never upgrade to a DSLR (I’m actually saving my pennies now…), but if there is one thing I have learned about
photography in the last 6 years of scrapbooking, it’s that creating great photos has much more to do with technique then equipment.

In this article, I plan to share 6 tips to help you get the most out of your point and shoot camera.
#1 – Read the Manual
Not the most engaging reading, I know. But honestly, you’ll never know how much your little point and shoot can really do if you don’t read the manual.

#2 – Nix the Date Stamp
This is the first thing you should learn how to do from that manual! There is nothing that can ruin a great shot faster than a glaring orange (or whatever color it might be) date stamp in the corner. The information is still stored in the EXIF data, so it is not lost. Also, most processors include that information on the back of you printed
pictures.

#3 – Optical Zoom Good…Digital Zoom BAD
The next thing you should learn how to do is make sure that the optical zoom is turned on and the digital zoom is turned OFF. Optical zoom uses the lens of the camera to bring your subject closer, which is what you want. On the other hand, digital zoom causes the camera to ‘crop’ your image inside the camera, which decreases image quality and is NOT what you want.

#4 - Bigger is Better…
…with image file size, that is. Although it will mean that you will be able to fit fewer photos on your memory card, it is always best to set your camera for the highest possible resolution (usually termed as ‘L’ or ‘Large’) and lowest compression (usually termed as ‘Fine’ or ‘Superfine’). This will give you the highest quality image possible for your camera and allow you the more
post-processing freedom.
#5 - Lock the Focus
This may seem basic, but I’ve been surprised how many people have no idea what I’m even talking about and it can make a world of difference in your photos. Basically, most cameras now have the ability to depress the shoot button half way without taking a picture to allow the cameras auto focus feature time to find and lock the focus. Once it’s locked, snap your picture and you’re much more likely to have a focused image.
#6 - Use the Preset Modes
It’s not cheating…really, it’s not. That’s why the camera manufacturers put them there. Not all of us have the time (or desire) to learn every nook and cranny of manual photography, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have great pictures anyway!! Most cameras these days come with at least the basics such as action, landscape, macro, night, and portrait and generally they work wonders. My camera also has a fireworks mode which I used for this picture that I can guarantee you I wouldn’t have been able to achieve this result in manual.

I hope you will now take some time to get to know your camera a little better and unlock its potential. Please stay tuned for more great tips in our next newsletter when we take a look at how to improve your photos through composition techniques.

5 Great Books to Help You Enhance Your Skills:
1) Complete Digital Photography, Fourth Edition
2) Get the Most from Your Digital Camera
3) The Digital Photography Book
4) The Digital Photography Book, Volume 2
5) The Betterphoto Guide to Digital Photography

The Death of a Snowman

He was once so happy...

REVIEW: Paper + Pixels: Scrapbook Layouts by May Flaum and Audrey Neal

Even though I do use my computer to edit my photos, type my journaling and create an custom embellishment now and then, I really still considered myself a 'traditional' paper scrapper.

May Flaum and Audrey Neal's Paper + Pixels: Scrapbook Layouts has really made me realize that I really am a hybrid scrapbooker.

They define hybrid scrapbooking as:

"...using your computer software (whether its a word processing program, photo editing software or a full-out graphic design program) to create some aspect of your page design."

By this definition, there is no mistaking that I am, in fact, a hybrid scrapbooker!

This book starts out with "Getting Started: Technology + Materials" so that you know what's needed if you're just getting started with adding hybrid elements to your layouts.

From there, the book is divided into 4 parts:

1) Photos
2) Text
3) Paper
4) Embellishments

Each of these parts includes five lessons on how to incorporate hybrid techniques into your scrapbooking at a variety of levels - beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

The only two programs used in this book are Microsoft Word and Photoshop Elements, which proves that you don't need a bunch of fancy software to create some amazing effects. As I said in my intro, I have often created journaling blocks and such and thought I knew my way around Word pretty well, but even I learned some new tricks from this book that I will be trying out soon!!

The book wraps up with a beautiful gallery of layouts showing variations of the techniques outlined in the book.

There are 64 layouts in the book and that might initially seem light for an idea book, but the book has detailed, step-by-step instructions that guide the reader through the entire process to create some wonderful results to enhance their layouts.

The layouts within the lessons are all by the authors, but the gallery includes layouts by several other very talented artists - Linda Barber, Angela Daniels, Caroline Ikeji, Amy Martin, Wendy McKeehan, Jennifer Olson, Cathy Pascual, Katrina Simeck, Kathleen Summers.

Want to know the BEST thing about this book??

It comes with a CD that holds 10 digital scrapbooking kits and 2 digital layout template kits!!! And, they are beautiful!! A great way to get started and try the techniques in this book!

MY RATING:
4 1/2 STARS

YOUR RATING:
??? I am always curious and open to hearing the opinions of others. If you own or have read this book, please feel free to share your opinion of it in the comments below.

WANT TO READ MORE AND/OR PURCHASE?
Visit the Paper + Pixels: Scrapbook Layouts page on Amazon.com to read other reviewers opinions and find out more about the book. You can also read more of my reviews or visit my aStore for other recommendations.

Upcoming Review:
The Designing with Recipe Book by Autumn Leaves

Quote and a link...

John Lubbock:

"What we see depends mainly on what we look for."

I really like this quote and it totally reminded me of a great post that I read on the Speak Up blog the other day:

Pay Attention and Give a Shit

This blog focuses on issues of design and I've found a lot of things here that I've been inspired by and adapted for use in my scrapbooking.

This point resonated with me on a much deeper level...it could be adapted to so many aspects of daily life.

Mother Nature must be confused...

She certainly seems to be having a hard time figuring out that it is supposed to be SPRING!! This is what we woke up to on the last day of March here in Yankton...out like a lion, I guess.

There was one good thing that came from it...I got a call from my boss at about 7:30 a.m. to let me know that they had decided to close the College for the day and that the public school was closed as well, so Kaitlin and I both got the day off. The administrators must be just as plain SICK of winter, too, because Yankton virtually NEVER calls off school. It was the first time this winter.

Justin called from work once he heard it on the radio to make sure we knew and suggested that perhaps he and Kaitlin could make a snowman when he got home from work.

So, for the rest of the day, I heard, "Mom, is Dad home yet?" about every five minutes!

The snow was definitely 'sticky' enough for snowman making. It was a super wet, heavy snow. The problem was that there had been NO snow on the ground the day before, so when they started rolling the balls, the WHOLE layer of snow came up together and any little bit of loose dirt, grass, leaves or sticks that were on the ground came up with it.

There's the makings of one dirty man...'snow'man, that is.

Did I mention that it was a very wet, HEAVY snow?

He looks happy, doesn't he? Dirty, but happy...