At the Ocean

I am apologizing again for my lack of communication. Have been having problems with my eyes. I am on the mend now and even though my vision is less than normal, I have been making scrapbook pages. Coloring has been out of the question and that pretty much eliminates my interest in cards. Thought I would post this latest page and see if anyone is still out there. I have also been pretty absent from my Yahoo groups.

Normally I would have chosen a color scheme to go with the photos. But you know even people who like bright colors tend to wear the same colors most of the time. So this time, I thought I would chose colors I don't work with - mainly gray. I don't have much gray in my stash but some. It is a color I don't care much for but it does work nicely for accents. I have had that dark aqua/turquoise paper for a long time and stripes is also something I don't usually choose. The back of that one has little hexagons which would normally be more to my liking, but this page is all about challenge. Then next I chose Ripe Persimmons which is a Tim Holtz distress color that I adore. There is a light aqua similar in color to the striped paper but lighter. I took my orange paper and layered a "wedding" gray paper on top. One of my goals here was also to use a lot of products! I want new and have lots of old in my stash!! At this point in my process, I was at a standstill. I had orange paper backing my photos (not stuck yet) and decided on a title - Half Moon Bay  a day at the ocean. So I put the words a day at the ocean at the bottom of the orange paper. I did stick those down. When I changed my mind about the orientation of the  photos, I had them vertical, I cut the part with the words off. I change my mind a lot in the process and don't usually stick my photos down until I am really sure how I want them to be. I do use repositionable tape but sometimes it doesn't come back up so well. I had these lovely balsa wood shapes that I thought would be so neat for Half moon bay. Colored them with ripe persimmon and dried them with a heat tool, but knowing they are distress ink, dipped them in a clear, glittery embossing powder and heated them just to be sure the ink wouldn't come back off. Then I glued the silvery letters down and covered them with glossy accents to be sure they would stay on the wood. That banner was one of an entire sheet of banners. I fussy cut the one I wanted to use. I have been doing this in advance of all my scrapbooking - take a day to choose the papers and put them in a 12 x 12 container or folder. Then I go through my stickers and cut out the ones I might use or put that sheet in my stash for this project. I use a lot of little baggies sometimes. I find embellishments - brads, metal pieces, enamel dots. gems, that go and bag them. I cut things to use as embellishments if I have a die I want to use or two. I pick out inks that I might want to use and also stamps. Sometimes I put ribbon or twine in my folder (I use a plastic one that has a thread tie thing. So you have the idea - nothing is planned but even the photos go in that folder. It is a very fun process for me as I get to go through my stash of stuff and it reminds me of all I have. Then when I have time or inclination, I can just work on putting things together. If I don't feel the page, I will usually stop, cover it up (my cat licks photos!) and come back to it. If I am really frustrated. I put it all away in the folder and on my bookshelf for another time. All of it. When I get inspired, I can go like the wind and finish a page super fast because I don't need to look for anything. When I finish, I make myself put all the supplies I didn't use away before I do another thing. So my room stays neat except while I am making something. If I bought some new kinds of embellishments, you can be sure I am trying to use them. For your reference, this page took me 4 times in my workroom. One to put supplies together, two to lay out the photos, and one more to put it together. Usually I only spend a couple of hours at a time in there but it did take me several hours to put the supplies together as it is still a bit difficult to see even colors. Sure missed your comments so we'll see how many of you are still looking. Hugs to you all, Barb F