Center Street

The other day I was out in my garage, hunting through boxes for some old record albums for my collector blog. I was pleased to find pretty much everything intact, mildew and warp free!  I did discover a few treasures, including a couple of very old album covers that I designed for friends and acquaintances when I was first starting out as an illustrator and designer. One album that I was particularly proud of, was one I designed for my friend Guy Randle, musician extraordinaire.  (I recently did a layout about my photoshoot with Guy back in 1975, you can see it here.) Although the cover has gotten a bit beat up and discolored through the years, it was fun to see my design sense from back then.  I realize I haven't changed my style all that much in nearly 40 years!  I thought you might enjoy it too!  Even then, I loved funky old type, and I had a vintage set of rubber letter stamps which I used, imperfectly on purpose, for the title of his album.  I also did all the photography, and of course, set the type and laid out the album by hand. (And I even drew the cute little logo on the back of the album). PLUS I played the autoharp on it too!

Now, my next step is to get one of those amazing record player/ CD player/ cassette players that can record onto CDs. I haven't heard this album for all these years, and I think it would be fun to relive that wonderful spring and summer of '75.

America's Teaching Zoo

We had the privilege of seeing America's Teaching Zoo, the zoo at Moorpark College, up close and personal yesterday. Our son Alec, and his little family were in town; and a friend of his, Dena, a student at the school, gave us a behind-the-scenes tour of the facility. Present were Alec & Alicia, and our darling grandson Jackson, Bruce, Annie and me. The animals were charming! The day was beautiful! The zoo was outstanding! Jackson had a fantastic time! It was altogether a memorable visit.

The zoo at Moorpark College, is a part of their Exotic Animal Training and Management program. This is a world renowned program, and many zoo personnel, wild animal trainers, and aquatic animal trainers studied under this program. The waiting list is very long, and their reputation is stellar. There are very few such training programs in the United States, and Moorpark's is one of the best if not THE best. You can read more about it here.

I hope you enjoy some of my photos of our time at the zoo!

Captain America

My son Alec will be having a birthday in a few days, and I thought that he might enjoy a little artistic gift from his Mom.... a fun graphic of the apple of his eye, his son Jackson. Jackson loves super heroes, especially Captain America. (AND Spiderman, Batman, and anyone from Star Wars). Jackson will be turning three in just a few weeks, and I'm looking forward to his birthday. But I want my little boy to have something special for his birthday, since Jackson will be getting all the toys! I think this will look fun in his office, don't you? 

Historic Oxnard

Last week I spent a few hours in nearby Oxnard, and I took a bunch of photos of the wonderful historic neighborhood, with its gorgeous Victorian, Edwardian and Craftsman houses.

In my early digiscrapping days, I made a number of layouts where I extracted buildings & put them together digitally in creative ways, so I thought it was time to resurrect this old technique. The left side of the layout has 4 separate photos in it, counting the sky.

But there were so many other cool houses, I had to add a second page to feature some of them to, so it became a two page layout.

I hope you like it!

Grand Reunion!

(Click on the photo for a closer look!)

Every ten years, my alma mater South Pasadena High School, holds an 'all years' reunion, where anyone who ever attended SPHS can come and join together at the high school, and celebrate. This year was the 4th one, the first was in 1982.  Bruce and I are on the SPHS Alumni Association board, he as Webmaster, and I as Historian. We worked hard to put this together, with an amazing chairman Craig Bullock. I was in charge of all the graphic design, signs, the historical exhibit, and an art show. The fabulous event was held this past weekend, and it was a GRAND time! Perfect weather, decent attendance, and lots of well-planned activities and features. Awards, food, exhibits, music, and lots of visiting.

I put together a quick layout showing a few of my favorite photos. Much thanks goes to my dear husband Bruce who took most of these photos. I was too busy to man the camera.

This weekend was also his class 40 year reunion. He also served on the planning committee for that, so he was pretty busy too. We had a great time at all the events, and were sooooo exhausted yesterday, when we got home we took a three hour nap.

Jace at Eighteen Months

My adorable grand-nephew Jace is a virtual whirlwind of energy and activity. Nephew Jesse and Lovely Julia brought Jace to Moorpark on Sunday to visit Great Grandma Clark, and Jace had a fabulous time. Julia had a nervewracking time keeping Jace out of GG's knickknacks and electronics, but she succeeded, and the television experienced only a temporary loss of power and formatting. I did manage to snap a couple of cute photos, but Jace moves so fast, it was hard to get him in focus.

Erica Hernandez on 2Ps posted her weekly challenge, and this week's challenge is to find something on the 2Ps Pinterest boards to use for inspiration. I'm not one to use someone else's layouts very often as inspiration for my own work, but when I spotted this beautiful one on the right, created by scrapper EkaSyr, I immediately envisioned a cute photo of Jace, and some blended stripes, and so I whipped mine out.

More About the Jacarandas

It seems that every year I take tons of photos of the beautiful jacaranda trees, and for the last 3 years, I have done layouts. Heavy on the lavender! You can see last year's here.

But it's hard to resist! The color is just so yummy, and I love how it looks against the bright spring green of the neighboring trees. And don't get me started on the wonderful carpet of blossoms on the sidewalks, lawns, and streets!  I combined two photos together into a panorama shot, I hope you like my ode to the jacaranda!  (click on the image for a closer look)

As I was looking on my computer for old jacaranda photos, I happened on this one I took in So. Pas 4 years ago. I think it's lovely!

South Pasadena Welcomes You

It's my working title, I'll leave it if nothing better pops into my mind! Yesterday I went to South Pasadena, my home town, to attend a meeting for a school reunion I'm involved with, and to visit a dear friend. Just as I got into town, about 15 minutes before I was due to meet my friend, I had a brainstorm. Since So. Pas is known for it's lovely Craftsman (and other wonderful styles) homes, it occurred to me that I should drive around and take photos of the gorgeous doorways, and perhaps put them together for a poster. Part of the aforementioned reunion involves an art show that I'm  in charge of, I thought it might be nice to exhibit this poster. So, for about 20 minutes, I drove around with my telephoto lens sticking out of my car window, snapping pictures of the pretty homes.  Later in the afternoon I drove around and took more photos.

When I got home I picked my top 12 photos, and put the poster together pretty quickly. The title was harder, I wanted to come up with something a bit more clever. But the whole point is that these front doors just look so inviting, I thought the welcome sentiment made sense.

This time of year is also gorgeous for another reason: the jacaranda trees are in bloom. These are the amazing lavender trees that bloom for about a month in May-June. Although we have them in our town, they just look so much better in South Pasadena because the streets, flowers and homes are just so gorgeous.

Even the dropped blossoms are pretty, covering the street and sidewalk with a carpet of lavender.

Grandma and Me

When my Mom was in the hospital this past week, we spent quite a bit of time talking about life and family. My mother adored her own mother... she has told me so many stories about how sweet and kind she was, and how unselfish she was with her time when it came to her daughters. Grandma passed away when she was in her late eighties, but unfortunately, I hadn't seen her for over a year when she died in 1966.  Mom and I visited her in the nursing home when I was fourteen. Sadly, Grandma didn't recognize either one of us. It broke Mom's heart.

Talking about my sweet Grandma made me want to look at the few photos I have of her... and of course, that led me to a layout.

So, here you go.

May Flowers

I know, I know, it's June! But I have so many lovely flower photos from last month, I thought it might be a treat to create a simple, graphic layout featuring a few colorful flowers. I added one of my favorite Photoshop filters on each layer, to give it a little more artsy look.

When I saw the thumbnail image of the layout on my desktop, it looked like a little quilt square to me. I'll think of this as my flower quilt!

No Fun

I've been spending the last few days at the hospital, with my sweet Mom. She's been having some medical issues related to her heart, and unfortunately, needed to be hospitalized for a few days. It looks like she's going home tomorrow, so we're really excited about that! She feels much better, today, thank you!

So, not much time or energy for creative ventures, but I have taken a few snapshots with my iPhone camera, I didn't have the heart to haul in my SLR camera.... I don't think Mom would appreciate me snapping photos of her when she wasn't quite looking her usual glamorous self. I did take one pic of her in the emergency room, she looked pretty cute & cheery under the circumstances.

The hospital is so pretty, and her room is quite nice. It overlooks a pretty plaza with plenty of trees. They have a little park on the grounds, and I took a couple of quick photos when I was walking through it, going to my car.

But don't expect a layout!

Nothing gets Mom down!

Looking down at the front desk

The pergola at the hospital park

Another view of the hospital park

The waiting room near Mom's room