Recapturing memories from the past!

When my husband and I were kids our family's didn't take many pictures.  The thing to do in the 50's and 60's was to take slides.  Of course now digital photography is the mainstay of my picture taking, but what about all those slides sitting carefully packed away in my basement.  A friend of mine bought a slide scanner, because like me, most of her memories from the past are on slides.  She loaned it to me, and told me to figure out how it worked so I could teach her.  That sounded great to me and I could satisfy my desire to scrap some of those precious old memories.  The scanner she loaned me is a "Smart Digital Image Copier" by Stratford Labs.

It came with software which I found very easy to install on my computer.  The slides fit in a long slim back tray which slides through the scanner.  It holds 3 slides, so the process of scanning very many old slides will be a time commitment.  However, the quality of the end picture (.jpg file) is pretty good, actually better than I expected.

Some of the slides I scanned were even damaged.  For example, I was looking for a picture of my husband as a child that I had seen years ago where he was wearing a firefighter helmet. After much searching I found it, but to my dismay the slide had mold one it.  After some research as to what I could do, I found that rubbing alcohol could be used to clean off the mold.  With this task done I could see that the emulsion of the slide did have some impressions in it from the mold, but I still wanted to give scanning a try.  Here is a layout I did with that precious picture.

My husband was between 3 and 4 years old in the top left picture.  While I lost some of the color from the slide, the clarity in the picture was still quite good.  The two other pictures are recent photos.  While my husband is no longer a firefighter, he really enjoyed this job.  He kept his uniform and with a little encouragement I convinced him to put it back on so I could have a "then and now" layout. 

I had some doubts about slide scanning prior to this project, but now I can see that the end product will certainly produce photos that can be used for many things, including scrapbooking. 

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Punch an Interesting Circle Border

I have been collecting punches for years and from time to time pull out several of them and just experiment with an idea.  Frequently I use circles in my layouts.  They are pleasing shapes that go well with other layout elements.  I was working on a layout with some pictures of Maggie, our new puppy.  She is such a sweetie I had been trying to achieve a soft pretty look to convey what I felt about her. I wanted to make the edge of one circle a little more interesting and the first thing I though of was to use a punch.  Here is the layout I completed after trying several different punch ideas.  The light green circle has just 1/2 of a flower shape punched around the edge.  I then put small pearls in the flower centers for a delicate touch.

Here is a picture of the punch I used around the edge.



I lightly marked my green circle with pencil marks that I had measured and evenly spaced around the circle.   I used the pencil marks as a guide to evenly place the punched flowers.

I punched the flowers out by turning the punch over and lining up my pencil mark with the center of the flower design.  At the same time I made sure that only half of the flower was going to punch through the edge of the paper circle.  With all the pencil marks it was very quick and easy to make this pretty edge.  The best part is the pencil marks get cut away by the punched shape, so there are no worries about erasing pencil marks from your circle.  Have fun!

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Winner of the Autism Awareness Blog Hop RAK!!

Thank you all for participating in the Ideas for Scrapbookers Autism Awareness blog hop!  It was a great experience for me.  I learned quite a bit about this disorder and that will help me as I work with friends who have children with Autism.

I am so happy to announce that Teresa Jaye is the winner of the $15.00 gift certificate to Scrapbook.com.  If you will email me, Teresa, at Joy2scrapbook@live.com, I will send your gift certificate to you.  Thanks again for participating!  Hope you all benefited from the information we shared.

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Autism Awareness Blog Hop & RAK PRIZE!!

Thanks for joining the Ideas For Scrapbookers blog hop today.  If you've been hopping along, you just came from Heather's blog where you learned about the Types of Autism.  If you've just joined the hop, you can get a list of all the participating Artists here.  I'm going to be sharing information about the diagnosis of Autism.


Diagnosing ASDs can be difficult since there is no medical test, like a blood test, to diagnose the disorders.  Doctors look at the child’s behavior and development to help make a diagnosis.  They will ask the parents and caregivers to complete thorough histories of the child to help pinpoint when and if certain developmental milestones have been met.  Scrapbooks and baby albums can play a part in helping to record this important information.

ASDs can sometimes be detected at 18 months or younger.  By age 2, a diagnosis by an experienced professional can be considered very reliable. However, many children do not receive a final diagnosis until much older.  This delay means that children with an ASD might not get the help they need.  It is imperative to recognize the early signs of Autism (see Cathy's blog) and request an evaluation for your child as soon as possible.  Experienced doctors that specialize in the diagnosis, treatment and care of persons with ASD can include neuro-developmental pediatricians, neurologists, and specialty care pediatricians.

To learn more, please visit the National Autism Association
 
A few of my friends have Autistic children and I can see the challenges they face with this disorder. To celebrate Autism Awareness month I put together the following layout using the color scheme and puzzle pieces from the Autism logo.   The cute little guy here is my husband at age 3, I treasure these old slides.
 

Because you have taken some of your time today to join our blog hop and make a stop here, I will be giving away a $15.00 gift certificate to Scrapbook.com to one random guest. All you need to do is leave a comment on this post. I will select one person from a random draw and reveal the winner Wednesday, 4/28/10, on my blog, so stop back by to see it its you. Good Luck to everyone!!

Next stop on the blog hop is Sarah who will be sharing information about medical issues that accompany autism.

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I love border punches!

I have been collecting border punches for a while and added a few to my tools this year when Martha Stewart came out with the "Punch Aroung the Page" sets.  I love to use these when making cards or doing a layout.  The extra detail and texture just adds to any project.  Here is a layout I just finished with photos from a visit we made to Virginia.  My sister-in-law has a beautiful farm in the Shenandoah Valley and I couldn't get enough of the country views.

I have been layering my punches recently and really like the effect.  In the layout above I put a bold blue under my border punch and made three layers of scallop punched strips in the center of this layout to make a nice break in the page.  It make take a little more work, but I do like to use regular border punches to make a frame.  The layout below I created from a Liz Qualman sketch.  I love her work!  This layout uses a wide Martha Stewart border "Trellis" punch and it made a frame that really stood out on the page. 

I had fun with this project because the punch had a wide enough spacing in the design to weave a ribbon through.  This added to the texture and color scheme of the layout. 

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A Heart Swirl template for your Valentine photos!

I was considering what my next post might be to the "Ideas for Scrapbookers" blog and thought about Valentine's Day.  Since the holiday was so soon and I have a tender heart for this holiday I decided on creating a template with a heart.  I have special memories of Valentine's Day for a number of reasons.  I met my husband in February, and our second date was on Valentine's Day.  It wasn't one of those dates where everything turns out perfect, but it certainly showed me how considerate and easy going he could be.  The date didn't fall apart just because things didn't go as he had planned (we didn't get to eat at the fancy restaurant on the coast with the great view).  I had a great evening because he knew how to make the best of it, and make me feel special no matter where we ate dinner.  That's still true today! 

I am posting two examples of the template, one that is simplified and one that is a bit more complicated.  Here is the simple version.

This layout used just two pieces of the template, they run through the center of the page.  The template can be downloaded at http://ideasforscrapbookers.blogspot.com/

I used paper from the Basic Grey Bittersweet collections to prepare these layouts.  I loved the bright colors in this one.  Since I wanted to keep the first layout simple, I decided to adorn it with fancy flourishes.  This flourish is a Quickutz digital image that is available for purchase from their online store.  I cut the shape using my Klick-N-Kut ditigal craft cutter.  It would, of course, cut fine on a Silhouette too!  I decided to add a flower but didn't find anything in my supplies that was just the right color.  I have read a few posting lately about using coffee filters to make flowers.  I also watched a video of a segmet aired on Martha Stewart where a lady has been making lovely roses with coffee filters.  It got me curious enough to try one myself.  Well this is my first attempt at a coffee filter flower, it's kind of my own twist on the process which I have not yet perfected.  However it was fun to experiment and has great potential since the coffee filter paper is easy to paint, has good texture and will hold a shape once it has dried.  It actually looks a bit better in person.  I scan my layouts, so of course I squashed the flower to scan the layout.

My second layout uses all the pieces of the template.  I wanted to combine a full color photo with black and white photos to create more emphasis on the heart.

For this layout the shapes and picutres were the focus, so I kept the embellishments to a minimum.  I did try a new technique that I read in a nice tutorial at the Swirlydoos website.  The flourish embellishment in the upped left corner I made using 3D paint and clear craft plastic.  It was very easy and actually a lot of fun to do.  The tutorial I watched was located at: http://www.swirlydoos.com/page.php?46.  I found clear craft plastic at Michael's and it was not expensive at all.  They also sell the 3D paint.  The colors I used here are Watermellon and Candy Pink.  I then did my journaling in swirls to repeat the look of swirls on the page.  Most of my patterned paper shapes here have the edges distressed with Walnut ink to improve the contrast on the page.

Thanks for visiting.  Hope you have a lovely Valentine's Day!

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I'm a contributing artist....it's exciting!

I am very excited to be joining the team of creative people at "Ideas for Scrapbookers" as a contributing artist. The group of ladies here are very talented and the website is packed with interesting scrapbook ideas. You can visit us here: http://ideasforscrapbookers.blogspot.com/

There are templates, tutorials, tips and tricks to make your pages stunning. There is a contest just starting for those of you who enjoy a good challenge. You'll need to lift one of the contributing artists and there are GREAT PRIZES. So come over and join the fun!

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