Grandpa's Tools

I'm hoping that after a long creative slump, I'm finally getting back into the swing of scrapping and creating interesting layouts. A new camera certainly helps! I finally finished a layout today... It's been two weeks since I created an actual layout! That's pretty pathetic! But I've been thinking about this one for awhile. I have a couple of very old, kinda cool tools that belonged to my Grandfather Clark... an old ice pick (or perhaps it's a leather punch, not sure which!) and a very old folding yard stick. My grandpa wasn't exactly Mr. Fixit...I don't really remember him doing any building or repairing things. I'm sure he did, I just wasn't privvy to these episodes of manly activities.  During my childhood he had an office in downtown Los Angeles, running his own grain brokerage. My Dad and Grandpa worked together until Grandpa's retirement, then Dad took over the business. But Grandpa had other, less sedate businesses in his early years, long before I came into the picture. Grandpa had been a rancher, a dry farmer, and at one time, a nurseryman. He was responsible for providing and planting many of the trees in Brigham City Utah, and I'm sure, lots of other places as well. In the 1930s, Grandpa was a Utah State Senator.  I'm sure all of these different types of jobs made Grandpa a jack-of-all-trades, and handy with a shovel, plow, or ice pick.

But what I really remember best about Grandpa, was his storytelling.  When Grandpa was a child, growing up in the late 1800s, early 1900s in Cache Valley, Utah, it was common for young people to perform in school and church programs: telling stories, reciting poems, singing songs. There was no TV or radio, so families, churches and schools had to be the community entertainment source. Grandpa learned 'pieces'.... poems or stories that he memorized and then recited for his friends, family and neighbors. He was very good at it! One of the things that set Grandpa apart, was his sense of humor and fun. He could make any grandchild shriek in terror or laughter when he recited "The Bear Story", or "The Cremation of Sam McGee".  He also created his own stories and told them well. He had a fascinating way of captivating his listeners, telling stories of his youth and stories about his ancestors.

He greatly admired Will Rogers, and often quoted him, or recounted an anecdote from his life. I inherited several of Grandpa's Will Rogers books, one of which is in my layout. It just seemed to epitomize Grandpa's best tool: his wit and humor.

Christmas Projects

Every year I try to create at least one creative project as a Christmas gift or ornament. I generally make a new ornament every year (sometimes I don't get it done until it's time to pack away the decorations for the season), and often I make a gift or two. This year I made two gifts. I would have posted them as I completed them, but then the recipients might have seen them on my blog and had the surprise ruined! So I'll post them now!

Here's the original design as it appeared on my computer screen

 The first project I did was for our oldest son Ian and his wife Jessica and son Aidan. They live in Texas, and were not able to join us for Christmas this year. Ian and Jess have wonderful taste in art and design... they love retro looks, modern things, and fun, quirky illustrations and graphic design. They also lean toward modern color combinations,  rather than traditional colors. One day, a month or so before Christmas, I got the idea that I might make a clock for them. I thought I'd start at Michael's craft store, knowing they had clock parts, and I might find something suitable to use as a base for the clock. I wanted to create an unusual, unique and personal clock that would look like no other clock in the world. Modern, fun, but functional. I was lucky enough to find a child's clock kit on the clearance aisle. Although it came with 'the works' (round unfinished wood plaque, clock mechanism, crayons, customizable face designs, numerals, even carbon paper to transfer their awful designs!) I really only needed the plaque and the clock works and hands. It beat buying everything separately, and worked just fine. Bruce helped me by painting the plaque white. Then I designed the clock. I chose colors I thought they would like, and created a fun, mid-century graphic look using photos of each of them, plus some graphic shapes. I needed to use my Photoshop skills to turn regular photos into high contrast images, that I could blend together to get a unique look. When my design was done, I uploaded it to Costco, and had it printed on nice photo paper. After that, it was simple to assemble. I was so pleased with the results! Although I didn't post it to my blog, I did put it up on Two Peas, and from there, the website 'Gallery Standouts' picked the image as one of their daily 'Finger Pointing' picks on December 18th. That's quite an honor, and I was so pleased to have a hybrid project like that chosen! It's usually just digital scrapbook layouts! (This is my 4th GSO!- you can see them all here)

Bruce has been hinting that he wanted a special calendar done by me this year... a few years ago I gave everyone in the family a calendar, but it is very time consuming, because I don't use pre-made calendar templates. I create my own, and add all of the family birthdays and events. (This is over 50 people... nieces, nephews, spouses, grand nieces grand nephews, siblings, in-laws, the whole bit). So I finally got busy and made him a calendar. I just had some of my favorite layouts of the year printed at Costco, printed the calendar itself on my trusty Epson, on regular card stock, then had it spiral bound, and added the photos when it was all complete. I think it turned out rather well!

I used a lot of Dover art for the calendar sections... so that entailed a lot of scanning and editing and futzing around until I was happy with the look. Each month had a unique icon for the birthdays and holidays, mostly simple Photoshop shapes.  It was a fun project, and I wish now that I had taken the time to make one for everyone! (Sigh, there's always next year!)

Merry Christmas!

 We have enjoyed a wonderful, special Christmas weekend!  Although our family was smaller this year, we had a wonderful time, good food, warm home, lots of music and sharing of gifts. I hope that you all had a most special holiday, what ever holiday your family celebrates.

In really teeny tiny font size, I wanted to share the fabulous news that my sweet husband Bruce got me a new Nikon D5100 dslr camera! I'm so excited! It works like a dream, and I can't wait to explore everything that I will be able to do with it! (It takes video as well as still photos,  which I'm definitely going to have to learn!)
I am looking forward to lots of creative photography in 2012!

Christmas Cabbage Patch Babies

 In my collector's blog The Copycat Collector, I posted today about my small collection of Christmas Cabbage Patch Kids. Every Tuesday I post one of my toy collections, and during Christmas month, I've been adding the few Christmas toys that I have. I thought I'd blog about it here today, because three of the four dolls I have featured, were designed by me when I worked at Mattel in the mid-90s.  (Important note: Cabbage Patch Kids are NEVER to be referred to as 'dolls', they are always 'kids, or babies, or preemies, or whatever! One mustn't break the rules of the Cabbage Patch!) These particular cute li'l babies were sold through the Avon Company,  and were in their catalogs, not sold in stores. So there's no special package or box that they came in. Just a poly bag.  But they are cute, don't you think?

One of the babies, the one in the red dress, is a prototype. The little applique image is actually a drawing,  showing what the final sewn applique will look like. I think it's kind of nice to have that little artwork on there, rather than the perfect machine made patch, visible on the green dress baby.

The funny Christmas tree one, is a collectible special edition Cabbage Patch Kid from OAA (Original Appalachian Artworks) named Treena. She is from 1995. I meant to sell her years ago on eBay, but just never could bring myself to do it. I think I'll hang on to her. She sorta looks like a combination of a Christmas tree and the Statue of Liberty, don't you think?

The Gifts of Christmas

Last weekend I participated in a huge Christmas extravaganza put on by my church. The Thousand Oaks Stake of the LDS Church presented "Finding Christmas", a trilogy consisting of the First Christmas, The Music of Christmas, and The Gifts of Christmas. I was in the Gifts of Christmas. Our portion of the trilogy was a play, combining the magic of Dicken's Christmas Carol with modern times. It was so much work... we put on 5 different performances over 3 days: Friday evening, Saturday matinee, Saturday evening, Sunday matinee, and Sunday evening. Each performance required us to perform our segment 3 separate times, because the audience circulated to all three performances. So, three times each performance meant we put on our show 15 times! But it was so much fun! We had lots of rehearsals over the past month or so, especially the last week. It seems that my whole life revolved around the rehearsal and performance schedule. In addition to doing a little 'acting', if you can call it that, I played my hammered dulcimer as part of the play. It went really well! I didn't make any mistakes to speak of, and I wasn't even nervous. It was exhilarating to be a part of such a wonderful production. The other two segments were more like standard concerts or pageants... with choirs, soloists, orchestra, and dancing. I didn't really get to see the other two shows, but I heard they were wonderful. Bruce video taped some of the segments, and everything looked and sounded so professional.

I'm finally getting back to normal this week, but I feel so bad that I haven't been blogging at all since last Friday. I hope that just because it's Christmas coming up next week, that I don't let this go too long without an update!

I created this simple layout (I even used our Christmas card background) to share a few of the photos of the performance. One of the fun things about the show was that I took photos with my iPhone during the show, while I was onstage, and in character. It was part of the show, and it gave me lots of (mostly horrible) photos to work with. (Trust me, although the iPhone cameras have come a long way since they first came out, the photos can't compare to a DSLR!)  But I think these came out just fine, and they capture the spirit of the performance!
(Click on the picture for a closer look)

Too Much Busy-ness!

It's been nearly a week since I blogged, and although I haven't done anything creative this week (other than work on our Christmas newsletter to go with the card I posted last) I didn't want to wait another day to write something!

Today on my collector's blog, I posted about my small collection of Chris Van Allsburg books. I love his illustrations, they really resonate with me creatively and artistically. Our family's favorite book to read on Christmas Eve (except for the New Testament of course) is the Polar Express. We've read that book aloud every Christmas Eve for well over 20 years. I'm not sure what year I bought it, but probably in the late '80s.

So, in celebration of Christmas Traditions, and the wonderful writing and art of Chris Van Allsburg, I say:

Getting Into the Christmas Spirit

I am really getting into the Christmas Spirit this year- for a variety of reasons. One reason is that I'm surrounded by Christmas music. That's a good way to get me in a happy mood! Not just the usual Christmas music I play on the CD player or computer, but the music I'm playing or working on for various Christmas events. I'm playing the dulcimer in our Stake Christmas Concert next weekend (Ack! It's coming up so fast!) so I've been practicing "Angels We Have Heard on High" and "Joy to the World". Then there's our Ward Choir, which I am the director... we are preparing three Christmas songs for our church service December 18th. I'm helping Annie work on "O Little Town of Bethlehem" (me plunking it out on the piano, she singing it beautifully and sweetly) for our church women's organization Christmas dinner and program this coming Thursday.

Another reason I'm in the Christmas mood, is that I got our Christmas card done early this year! That's early for me... I finished it December 1, uploaded it to Costco yesterday, and picked them up last night. I still have to write and design the Christmas letter that goes along with it, but I'm feeling creative, so that should happen over the weekend.

I'm also in the Christmas mood because I'm featuring Christmas items in my daily Collector Blog all month... I sure hope I have enough Christmas collections to last me that long! (keeping fingers crossed!)  Although I haven't started decorating yet, I think we'll start pulling out the boxes this week. Can't wait!

But the biggest reason I'm in the mood for Christmas, is that I have more time this year to enjoy the holiday preparations. It's great to be home during the day, instead of whizzing off to work, only to return in the evening exhausted and uninspired! (I've even gotten a tiny bit of shopping done, which is so unlike me!)

I hope you enjoy your holidays too, whatever you celebrate!