3 Little 5 Year Olds on 3 Wheels

I love layouts that have a bit of serendipity! I was looking at some old photos on my computer yesterday, when I came across a fun pic of me when I was 5 years old, riding a tricycle at my cousin's house in Utah. It reminded me of a similar photo of my Dad, taken of him riding a tricycle when he was a child on his family farm. So, I did a computer search for the photo, using 'trike' as the search word. I was surprised when up popped this photo of my daughter Amy, taken on her Popples Big Wheel. Wow, how fun! A photo of three generations riding their tricycles! So, I thought it would be a great idea to put it together into a kind of 'then and now' kind of layout (although that 'now' was 25 years ago!) I'm a little thick sometimes, it wasn't until I started documenting the years the photos were taken, that it occurred to me that we were all five years old when we were riding our bikes. So, here you have 3 Little 5 Year Olds on 3 Wheels!

The Gores Go To War

Created in honor of my husband's grandfather Lawrence Gore, and his Uncle Zane Gore, father and son, this layout features photos of Captain and Lieutenant Gore together. Captain Lawrence Gore was in the Army, and served at the Port of Embarkation at Fort Mason in San Francisco.  Lt. Zane Gore, Army Air Corps, served in the 387th Bomb Group in France. I love these photos, and had to create something dramatic to showcase them. Thankfully, these men returned home safely after the War.

We can't thank enough, those who sacrificed  their lives in fighting for freedom and liberty during times of war, and peace.  Happy Memorial Day.

Happy Memorial Day!

In honor of Memorial Day, I posted a special tribute to the military heroes in our family on my other blog. You can read about it here.

Today is the 'unofficial' start of summer, so in honor of that seasonal milestone, I share a nice photo I took this morning of the cherries I brought home.  Mouthwatering, aren't they?

Bruce and I are going to see Men In Black III this afternoon, then having our own small BBQ in the backyard. Nothing special. I hope you have a wonderful day!

My Final Class Project!

I love my graphic design class. I've learned so much, and done a few pretty-good-if-I-do-say-so-myself projects. But there is one huge downside: there's absolutely no sharing of work, except for turning in assignments. This class is self-paced, which means everyone in the class is in a different place in one of four courses of study: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign & Acrobat. After five months, I'm FINALLY finishing Photoshop, so you can see, I still have a lot further to go, and I'm really slow!

I miss critiques, and art school Fridays, where all the work would be pinned up on the wall for discussion and sharing. So, except for the occasional peeking over someone's shoulder at their computer screen, or a random 3D project I might see sitting on the teacher's desk, I'm really clueless about what everyone else is doing. But I guess the most important thing is my own progress, and I am making progress.

Yesterday I finished my final project, which was to design the cover of our career center catalog. I have no idea if the actual catalogs were designed by students, or if they were designed by our teacher or another professional. So I don't know if it's an actual competition for the coveted catalog cover, but I worked as if it were. There are a lot of different career paths that our center covers, but I decided to focus on the ones that seemed to work best graphically: computer technology, medical and dental technology, and contracting.  I hope you like my design!

Crystal Cove: the Layout

As promised, a layout about our day in Crystal Cove last week. A beautiful little beach community, historical and funky, where you don't see anything modern, fancy, trendy, sophisticated or opulent- what you see is pretty much how it is.

Balboa Island

I've made vintage looking postcards several times since I've been digiscrapping, but I wanted to take this technique a step further by creating a whole scene. I thought it turned out rather well! Everything created by me from scratch, from my own photos.

Photos taken on our day on Balboa Island yesterday.

*I was pleased to be selected as a Gallery Standout Fingerpointing selection on May 20. You can see it here!

Crystal Cove

I posted on 2Ps a couple of photos I took today in Crystal Cove. I thought you might enjoy them. A layout is coming, I promise.

I Wish

Bruce and I are spending a few days near Newport Beach, just relaxing and enjoying the pretty weather. I took so many photos yesterday of our day in Corona del Mar, I wanted to figure out a different way of putting together a layout using ten photos. I thought this one worked pretty well.

Mother's Day 2012

Mother's Day was awesome. I received cards from all my kids, some lovely gifts, and beautiful flowers and treats from Bruce. Church was wonderful, with some chocolate for the ladies (I'm so glad they stopped giving the women potted plants, and switched instead to serious Snickers bars. Can't beat a nice candy bar!)

Bruce made me a lovely lunch after church, and I took a nice long nap. What more could a girl want? FB messages, phone calls, and texts from the kids is the way of the 21st century, and I'm happy to enjoy these messages!

Yesterday was our big Mother's Day dinner. We always have dinner here, celebrating Mother's Day with Mom, who at 100 years old is definitely the Mom of the Century. But this year, in addition to being Saturday instead of Sunday, it was extra special: we were joined this year by sister Leslie, who lives in Chicago. She doesn't usually come out to visit at Mother's Day, but it happened to fall during her visit to Pasadena to meet her brand-new granddaughter Bridget. Since she was scheduled to fly home Sunday, we just moved the dinner up to Saturday evening, and we were thrilled to have my nephew, Leslie's son Jim, lovely wife Colleen, and darling baby Bridget join us. So, we honored 5 mothers at our soiree, but of course the guest of honor was our dear Mom.

My contribution, since my sister Lynne did all the cooking (she's the family gourmet cook), was to create a beautiful table. I recently bought a new April Cornell table runner and napkins. Chartreuse with beautiful cabbage roses. I scanned one of the napkins to create the background on my layout. I thought the table looked so pretty!  The dinner was fantastic, the conversation lively, and of course, little Bridget charmed us all. She's just the cutest li'l gal ever.

Inside of card

I also made Mom a card, as usual. I had spent some time in search of the perfect photos of Mom through the years, featuring her classy fashion sense. It was challenging to find photos that met my criteria: full body shots, outdoors, in a dress, with enough space at the top and bottom to arrange as I wanted, and no one else in the photo. But I found some pretty good ones, (look at that '80s perm!) and made her a fun card. She loved it, but she always gets embarrassed by the photos I use. she doesn't think she's as beautiful as I do- she's her own worst critic. But isn't she cute?

Morning Grass

This morning, the long grasses in our flower bed were wet with, well, probably sprinkler water drops. But as pretty as morning dew!

Baskets

I'm informally participating in a 'photo a day' challenge on one of my favorite scrapping boards. I say 'informally', because I'm not posting a photo each day, but it makes me think, and strive to make my daily photography more meaningful. I do take photos every day, but they are mostly the pictures I use on my collector's blog.

Today's photo is some of my Longaberger baskets. That's going to be my collection today, and I must say, these babies are very photogenic. I love the soft golden color of the wood, the way they have weathered through the years, and how the texture and weave of the individual slats catches the light.

Van DeKamp's Bakery

Last month, I was in LA for the day, and I went by my old house to see how it was looking these days. Not good. But near our old home, on the corner of Fletcher Drive and San Fernando Rd. stands what was once a venerable Los Angeles landmark: the old Van DeKamp's Bakery. When I was little, this was Van DeKamp's headquarters, as well as bakery, and coffee shop. The little coffee shop was in the shape of a windmill, complete with large moving windmill blades. The headquarters/ bakery building was done in the Dutch Revival style of architecture, and it definitely stood out among all of the Spanish, Mediterranean, and other local building styles. It was built in 1930, designed by architect J. Edward Hopkins.

Van DeKamp's closed down many years ago, the brand itself was absorbed into some other giant food conglomerate, and the building deteriorated. A couple of years ago I stopped by, and took photos of it in it's abandoned and run-down state.

Since we don't actually live in LA, but in neighboring Ventura County, I don't exactly keep up with LA news. Unbeknownst to me, the building was purchased by the Los Angeles Community College District, with the idea that it would become a city college campus. That didn't pan out, so it is now leased out as a charter school. So today, the building is bustling again. The campus looks awesome, the main building was lovingly restored, and the offices and classrooms look just like the old headquarters always did. More campus buildings are tucked behind the main building, with patios and trees scattered around. It looks like a wonderful place to study.  I have heard there were major problems surrounding this project: financial mismanagement, political shenanigans. But to me, the most important thing is that this beautiful building is once again a vital and important part of Los Angeles life, and I'm so happy to see it!

A Doll

I'm in the middle of shooting some of my dolls for my other blog, and I thought this one had such a sweet face. I'm not sure what country she is from, perhaps Portugal?  She looks like she's from the 1940s or perhaps early '50s. I love her pretty floral dress too.

The Super Moon

Last night was a special lunar event: the Super Moon. It was the biggest and brightest moon of the year, and I will admit, I noticed the difference. Coincidentally, I had taken a photo of the full moon on Friday night, because it looked so pretty with the curlicues of branches silhouetted against it.

Friday night's less than Super Moon

I didn't set up the tripod, I just balanced myself against the car as I took a couple of photos last night of the even brighter moon. Of course, there was no awesome Coit Tower, or Statue of Liberty behind it, it was quite late at night, so the moon was fairly high in the sky. But I do think it was a stunning sight.

Happy International Scrapbooking Day!

I'm actually not a big fan of (inter)National Scrapbooking Day, or even Digital Scrapbooking Day, because basically they are a huge day to promote the scrapbooking business, with sales, specials, and other promotions that are a bit too commercial for my taste. But in the interest of being a good sport, I will celebrate, however, in a more low-key way. Instead of shopping, blog-hopping, winning prizes and buying stuff, I thought it might be fun to do something a little different. I actually created something! Actually, to be specific, I didn't really create a new layout. Instead, I modified an old layout I did back in September. I don't generally do that. I mean, once a layout is done, it's pretty much done, unless I find a mistake, or decided to tweak some minor thing. But this layout has bothered me all these months, because it seemed to be missing something. It just didn't have that little 'special' touch.

I was doing a little research on some of my toys that I feature in my other blog, when I got some key information about the little tin dishes that I have had since I was a very little girl. I've been lucky enough to have saved quite a few of my own childhood possessions, and I had a couple of the little strawberry cups from my tea set. But they were very badly taken care of, and are quite rusty and discolored. So, in doing a Google image search, I discovered that someone had a set of these they were selling on Etsy. The photo used in the listing was quite high quality and high resolution. I probably would have bought this set if it had been available, but alas, it was sold. So, it occurred to me, that what was missing from my layout was some of the tea set that I owned, making the layout complete.  I think it looks much better, don't you?

The S Word

Yesterday Mom and I went to lunch. As we were sitting together, enjoying our meal, Mom (who recently turned 100, and is full of fun), suddenly asked, "Have I ever told you the story of when your Grandma Clark used the 's word'?"  No?  It sounded like something memorable, and totally out of character for my sweet and proper Grandma Clark. So, she told me the story. I knew immediately that it deserved a special place in the Clark Family lore, so I told it the best way I know how.  I'm sure there are those of you who find this whole thing either quaint and unsophisticated, or unbelievable that this even IS a story. But in our family, it will make us laugh for years to come. (Click on the layout for a closer view).