Seanna (n. shaw-nuh)

LOAD May 8th: Getting Underway

I sorta used a sketch for this one, but it was mostly about the prompt, which was about color.  I was so happy to get to use that photo of the dumb “ship’s whistle” sign.  I wonder what prompted the need for the sign.  It was right by a ladder-thing.  Maybe the whistle had gone off in the past, startling a drunkard and causing him to tumble down the steps to his doom?  I guess that’s as good a story as any. 

LOAD May 7th: First Night at Grand Lake

This one came together super fast.  I actually took this photo during the daytime, maybe the next day, and I liked it so much that when I ordered it, I had it enlarged a little.  Fun to find little independent places on your travels. Unfortunately, that night it did not agree with one of the children and chaos ensued.  But…man, was it funny.

On an unrelated note, things were starting to get out of control by Day Six of my Layout A Day project.  I had to clean up right after I took this photo so that I could work on the layout above—it was just getting too stacked up and claustrophobic (and cat hairs, yikes—the cats love to sleep on this desk). Here’s what it looked like:

Could be worse—this is literally how I left it when I finished my layout and a card last night.  It’s better now…but probably not for long!

LOAD May 6th: please come to Nashville

This one was pure joy.  Terrible photo, crumpled up ticket stub, writing going downhill in the beginning...I don't care.  It's about the time Garth Brooks came to town and helped a lot of people, about how seeing him live has been on my bucket list since I discovered him, and how at the very end of the night, he came right over to us and sang "Please come to Boston," one of my all-time favorite songs, just a few feet away...just Garth and his guitar.  Great cause, great night, great guy. Plus I got to use my slice, some of my scraps, and my current favorite color (orange).  Pure joy.

LOAD May 5th: The Dropoff

The “D” is really attached—it just looks like it’s about to “drop off.”  Hahahaha, I kill me.  This one took me forever for some reason.  The prompt was an easy one—create a visual triangle.  Not a problem—I try to do that on my layouts all the time.  I ended up just deciding to go simple and make a few easy triangles.  I’m sure you can pick them right out.

LOAD May 4th: surprise

Good times, good times.  Look at little dude on the left sportin’ a tear!

Layout a Day

I’ve been participating but either Flickr changed the options and left out the easy way to link to a typepad blog, or that knowledge fell out of my head AND so did the knowledge for how to find it again.  Anyway, here’s what I have done so far:

May 1st: This one is about how I moved my studio to another room in the house and got the brilliant idea to also move a wood storage unit we were not using anymore into the room too—only to discover that there was about an inch less room for it than there needed to be.  What an ordeal.  Anyway, got me started.

May 2nd: This one is sort of the intro to the cruise scrapbook pages, plus it followed the prompt about using contrast.  I am not entirely sure I really like it, but it’s done and I do LOVE the photos.

May 3rd:  Too much awesomeness to contain in one memorabilia pocket. It has where she misspelled her middle name, and where she “signed” the adoption application and her sister witnessed it, plus a bunch of other cool stuff on some of the other papers.  P gave this to me when we were looking at one of the February layouts that featured a two-pager about this event.  I mentioned that I looked for the business card and brochure and stuff but couldn’t find it and about 30 seconds later she came back into the room with it.  That child is a FINDER.  Anyway, this is just hilarious. 

So there we have it.  Days 1-3.

May is another Layout-A-Day Month!

First, don’t worry.  Neighbor Wars are coming.  I am testing out LiveWriter—had to reinstall it.  I can bear losing a post if it crashes on me but not a Neighbor Wars post.  I have to wrestle those to the ground and run over them a few times until they scream for mercy and submission so it’s a lot to lose in a crash. 

Want to see a photo of all the layouts I did for the Layout-A-Day (LOAD) in February?  Sure you do, plus where else am I ever going to use this photo?  It’s not like I am going to have it printed wallet-sized and carry it around with me.

Hey, cool polaroid photo effect!  That’s new. That’s also 28 days of a layout each day right there.  One of the best projects I’ve done so far all year.  So I’m in again for May. I am not sure I will make it with a layout each day for May because it’s going to be a busy month, but whatever I get done will be great.  Plus, things are much more organized now—I have gone through all my cardstock and other paper and reordered it all by color.  Pretty, and much more functional.  My fabulous husband also put up these cool Ikea racks for me, so my punches are hanging on the wall now.  I’ll take a photo of it soon. 

In other scrapbook-related news, Stacy Julian has revamped her Library of Memories class over at Big Picture Classes, and those of us who are alumni from past years have been invited to take the course again—for FREE!  That was a big surprise and very much appreciated.  When I got the email, I was actually in the middle of working on my LOM system—adding photos I’ve received in the last few months into my storage binders.  I let it get way behind so it’s taken a little while to get back up to speed but I’m just about there.  I started using her system/philosophy about 3 years ago and it’s still one of the best classes/things I have done. It’s not even just about scrapbooking, or even mostly about scrapbooking.  It sort of transcends that and becomes a life thing, too.  Highly recommended.  So that will be over the summer.  I’m relieved that I already have most or all of the stuff you need in order to start your own system.  It’s an investment, but most of it is a one-time investment, and all of my stuff is still serving me in just the way it is supposed to. 

It’s time for me to go make some to-do lists. I have quite a lot of things I need to get done in the next few days.  Life stuff, bills stuff, mailing stuff, cleaning stuff, paperwork stuff.  Ack.  When I start getting stressed out, I try to write it all down and then I feel a little more focused. Maybe that’s what was wrong with me this week.  Just distracted, unfocused, sort of floundering.  Not my favorite feeling. 

Oh, hey.  Yesterday I let you know that Barry Manilow is cool and not dorky.  Also cool and not dorky?  John Denver.  I had to contemplate which of his enduring masterpieces to put on my blog.  Not being either from the country or a boy, that one never really resonated with me….and Annie’s song mostly doesn’t do it for me.  This one always has, though, and much more so since visiting Colorado a few years ago.  It’s one of my very most favorite places on this planet:

He was born in the summer of his 27th year…did you know this took JD 9 months to write? A masterpiece.

One I had forgotten about until today and one of my very favorites is Calypso.  Soaring, happy and exhilarating, with lots of classical instruments. 

JD wrote this one for his friend, Jacques Cousteau.

Ahhhhh.  John Denver.  Great performer, gifted lyricist.  Gone too soon.

home for now

home for now
Originally uploaded by Sean Scott

This is the last layout of the month. It's about dropping Emily off at school. I took the building photo as we drove away in the rain, so when I went to have these printed, enlarging it and converting it to black-and-white just seemed to fit the mood--the mood of the weather, the mood I was in when I took it, and just sort of the gravity of the milestone.

I'm so happy I worked on this challenge. I learned a lot about my scrapbooking style and also a lot about getting into a creative habit. I can't say I'll make a page a day from now on (in fact, I can guarantee I won't, since I'm not going to do one tomorrow!), but I do think this was just what I needed to get back into my groove. I felt some of the same exhilaration and giddiness that I felt back when I first started scrapbooking in the mid-90s. I can remember having to force myself to go to sleep after I would come home from a Friday night Creative Memories Crop til you Drop. I would set up my stuff on the dining room table and make more pages until I would look up and realize it was 3 a.m. Same thing happened in February. I loved it--but it's time to get back into a better sleep pattern and maybe catch up on a little sleep...and laundry...and cleaning. OK and maybe some TV--I haven't watched more than 3 or 4 shows all month unless it was Netflix DVDs on my laptop while I was scrapbooking!

Soar

Soar
Originally uploaded by Sean Scott

This was so much fun. All sorts of things and so much ORANGE. Tennessee is definitely a state where it's not only acceptable, but desirable, to wear, use or promote ORANGE.

newborn nursery

newborn nursery
Originally uploaded by Sean Scott

Just barely made the deadline this time around! These are some old photos of the girls and their Christmas present one year--a trip to Judy's Dolls in Longwood (Florida) to "adopt" a new baby. They were so so so serious about it and so were the Judy's Dolls people. Ha. Good times.