Monday, August 31, 2009

Green Day

You know it! Dan took me to see Green Day and we met Kristi at the San Jose HP Pavilion. Kristi took us to the band's tour bus and we had a little fun taking pictures. Kristi took this one:And Dan took this one of us silly girls:
The concert was on a Tuesday night which I wasn't so fond of since I had to work after the concert and then go to work early the next morning. It was so worth the lost sleep though. I crack up every time I look at this photo of Kristi praying to Green Day.
We hung out for a while but then we separated since Kristi had general admission on the floor level while Dan & I had seats up above. The coolest part was being able to spot Kristi from our seats. Franz Ferdinand opened the show and I enjoyed them. I was pretty antsy to see Green Day and I think the rest of the crowd was right there with me.

Green Day's entrance was pretty awesome. They walked in through one of the entrance doors on the floor so they were walking behind and next to their fans. It was such an adrenaline rush to see how interactive they were with the the crowd. At first, I thought their stage was so simple and didn't appear to have much to it. When the lights came on, I was pleasantly surprised.
The lead singer Billie Joe is from Oakland and had us laughing the moment he was onstage by screaming "this is not a Shark's Game, stand up!" The concert was so interactive they brought an 8 year old boy on stage to dance, as well as two women to sing Longview. The first one was pretty bad. The next was decent and had never-ending energy. She was all over the stage, a great performer. She was dubbed an honorary bay arean when Billie Joe found out she was from Los Angeles.
Billie Joe also had his Mother come on stage with a super soaker and spray everyone in the audience while another band member used a toilet paper launcher on the audience. They also launched t-shirts into the masses for some entertainment.
The pyrotechnics scared me every time they boomed because I could feel the heat.
I couldn't believe that Green Day played 32 full songs. You can see their set list at this neat website. It doesn't list the snippets they played like Stairway to Heaven, Master of Puppets, and many others. I was really impressed that Everyone was rocking out from kids to full grown adults. We had some very entertaining people dancing in front of us. I loved when the band laid down on the ground and played their instruments. It really emphasized the small movements they made during one of their slower songs. This was the best concert I have ever experienced. If you ever have the opportunity to go to a Green Day concert, its is a must! Here is one last link of an accurate article written describing this concert.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Sweet Cakes

Heather has been getting in all kinds of fun goodies at Everything Scrapp'n. I love the time when all the new product from CHA begins to arrive. I just received a big box of new goodies and can't wait to play with them. In the mean time, I worked with an oldie but goodie. I love the bright colors from the Sweet Cakes line by Pink Paislee.

I scrapped some of my favorite beach photos taken of my friend Jenny at Montara Beach. She was such a willing model to jump for me. I just love the Popsicle paper and all the orange!

Products: Pink Paislee Sweet Cakes Postcards, Cutie Pie paper, Sweet Nothings paper, Sweet Cakes paper, Hambly Wings Overlay-white, American Crafts Chit Chat accent thickers -white, Doodlebug Loopy Lou white alpha stickers, Hambly butterfly clear stickers, Pink Paislee Office Lingo Cubicle paper, Pink Paislee On Schedule clear stamps, Staz On Brown Ink, Glimmer Mist-Lemon Zest.

One day in January we had a really big heat wave and I found myself at the Taco Bell at the beach. I couldn't believe how long the line was. It definitely lets you know how nice the weather is by how long the line is! I always associate the beach with Taco Bell for this reason.
Products: Pink Paislee Sweet Cakes Postcards, Cutie Pie paper, Sweet Nothings paper, Bazzil Kraft cardstock, American Crafts Chit Chat accent thickers -white, Doodlebug Loopy Lou white alpha stickers, Jenni Bowlin Tiny Circle alpha stickers-brown, American Crafts Elements metal photo turns-silver, Stickles-lime green.

The new Pink Paislee lines Amber Road and and Twilight just arrived at the store so head on over and check it out before I buy it all up. ;)

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Back from Yosemite

It took me a week to edit photos from Yosemite, but I'm back and ready to share my laid back vacation. Sunday we made the four hour drive from San Francisco to Yosemite National Park. I followed behind my parents in my own car since I had to leave a day early to go back to work. We hit up Walmart in Livermore to pick up some necessities: flip flops, snack bars, and clear stamps for scrapbooking. ;)

I listened to Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets on audiobook as I drove. I find that listening to audiobooks relaxes me and I don't get so upset when someone cuts me off and almost hits me. Gotta love the drivers in the bay area for that! We stopped at Carl's Jr since my dad hates all other fast food joints. I went through two chocolate shakes-I dropped the first one in the parking lot just for giggles. One might say I can be clumsy. :D

We arrived to the Yosemite Lodge before 5pm and managed to grab one of our favorite rooms on the second floor in the Dogwood building. It always has killer views of the Yosemite Falls. My family loves to sit out on the deck in the nice cool shade too. See further down to learn how to make this cool photo of the signs.
I met our neighbors as I was unpacking. I accidentally walked right into their room since the door was unlocked and it was on the second floor. I keep thinking I'll grow out of these awkward moments and yet they still happen. We played the "who can get a better parking spot?" game later in the afternoon from our deck. I think in the end my dad won. I scrapbooked a little until Jenna & Logan arrived.

While riding on the Valley bus, I requested a bear story from the bus driver. He said that he was doing the last round one night and stopped at the Happy Isle stop. A black bear got on the bus through the front door walked to the back (presumably look for food) and then walked off through the back door while the driver jumped out through the driver's window! How cool and weird is that? I always love those stories.We slept in Monday morning since we were exhausted from the drive and the altitude. They really aren't kidding when they say it takes about 3 days to acclimate. We hung out by the river at our favorite swimming hole near the mist trail at Happy Isles. I found a piece of aqua glass in the Merced river that made both my mom and I very excited. Logan jumped off the rock a few times and I got some cool action photos with the D300 that I borrowed from my co-worker Mat.

We headed back to our room for a nap and some relaxing reading before heading to the Lodge pool. I met a cool kid from Wisconsin named Marcus. We played catch with him in the pool since his parents didn't want to get in the pool. As we were leaving I heard a little kid tell his father that he better get out because he was turning blue. I laughed so hard-kids really say funny things!

I sold a print on etsy on Tuesday morning and it was such a great feeling. I also started working on my Yosemite travel mini for last years visit too. I get most inspired during the time that I am experiencing it. My parents and I tried to go on a bike ride but I had a flat tire. Even with the pump it wouldn't last to ride anywhere. We decided to visit the Ansel Adams gallery instead and then grab a bite at Degnan's Deli. We rested and went swimming at the pool again before heading the Degnan's Loft for Pizza. There aren't a ton of choices of places to dine at in Yosemite Valley. I recognized the cashier at the Pizza place and it turned out he graduated 2 years behind me from TN High School! What a small world! I uploaded photos from the past couple of days to my computer before heading to bed.

Woke early Wednesday morning to take photos in the early morning light around the meadow. I took some panoramic photos and some black and white film while using Dan's incredible tripod. I went on a bike ride with my parents after my photo shoot. We ran into several places where there was construction on the bike paths. On our way back to our room to welcome Dan, we ran into a large group of people watching a black bear climb out of a tree. This made my mom's day!Dan was happily waiting with Jenna & Logan when we returned. We finally got a very entertaining bus driver who asked us questions about trivia and told us cool stories. We love when they engage us and makes us want to stay on the bus for even longer. We got off the to grab some delicious ice cream cones at Curry Village before heading back to the river near some camping grounds.
We met some really cool Irish guys who didn't know how the throw a football, so they got a few lessons from the boys. That evening we played a laugh hearty game of Apples to Apples. We played for so long that Jenna & I had between 14-16 cards each.

Thursday was a laid back morning. Mom, Dad, Dan and I went on a bike ride while Jenna & Logan headed off the Wawona and the Mariposa Grove. We enjoyed more ice cream while chatting with some visitors from southern California before heading back to the room for lunch and shade. I got all the way into the Merced River because of how hot it was. We had pizza at Degnan's Loft for dinner and then I did a blog post for the Everythign Scrapp'n blog hop.

We celebrated my Mom's birthday on Friday. We went for a bike ride and took our annual photo in the meadow of my mom tickling me with a weed.
And here is a photo of the river that we rode by:
The Yosemite waterfalls were fairly dry but had more water than the previous two years.
Instead of our normal hike up to the Mist trail, we opted to spend time taking photos along the Yosemite Falls trail instead. It was just too hot for anything else. I remembered the multiple exposure feature that the D300 has, so I decided to play around with that. Here is an example of my favorite photo that I took:
This is done in camera and can be done with film. To get this look with film,
1. photograph your subject 2/3rds of 1 stop under exposed
2. do not advance the film
3. Then repeat step 1 and adavance the film.

This can be accomplished in two ways with digital photos. The easier way is to take to separate photos and create two layers in photoshop. Then play with the opacity in both, as well as contrast, to get the desired effect.

The second way (the way I did this) is to set up your camera for multiple exposure. For the Nikon (D200, D300, D700) go the the shooting menu (camera icon), select multiple exposure and press the right arrow to the right. Select the number of shots (I selected 2), and then move down to auto gain and select the ON feature. This adjusts exposures depending on how many photos you are taking for the multiple exposure. Then hit OK. Hit OK again and an icon with multiple exposures will appear. Then take the number of photos you set your camera for. And there you have it!

To my knowledge, no Canon cameras can do this at this time.

Friday, August 14, 2009

August Blog Hop

First line of business- It's my Mom's birthday so we are celebrating in Yosemite. Happy Birthday Mom! Hope you spend hours at the river.

Heather from Everything Scrapp'n is so wonderful, she's brought back some prizes from CHA for another blog hop. It starts here! Then go to everyone's blog and then leave a comment at the ES blog for a chance to win a prize. I have some more to share from the Pink Paislee Fetching line.

I think this is one of my most favorite layouts I've done recently. I love this line by Pink Paislee. I had so much fun getting messy with this page. I painted over the paper with gesso, then embossed with American Crafts Zing embossing powder. And this is where I got really crazy ;). I splattered brown water color across the whole page. I've seen Michelle Clement do this a million times and I finally got up the courage to try it on a page of mine! I'm thinking about doing a mini tutorial on embossing. Would any of you be interested in that?
And a close up of the embossing and stickled chipboard:
Products used: Pink Paislee Fetching Rugged paper, Spirited paper, chipboard shapes, sticker book, Stickles-Aqua, American Crafts Thickers Lullaby-Aqua, Pink Paislee rub ons, sheet music stamp (unknown company), Staz On Brown ink, Zig pen-brown.

I don't scrap 6x12 pages very often so I thought a photo booth strip would be perfect for that size. I had some left over scraps and wanted to use them for these photos that Dan & I took last summer. Can you believe we've been dating for 4.5 years and we hadn't take photo booth strip pictures until just last summer?
And another close up:
Fetching Confident paper, Rugged paper, Pink Paislee Vintage Moon Full Moon paper, Fetching sticker book, Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Coffee Shop, Jenni Bowlin journaling card, Sassafrass Lass Whimsy Woodland chipboard, American Crafts rhinestone brads, Scenice Route clear Camera stamps, Staz On Brown ink, Hero Arts alphas lower case basic font.

Alright, now that you've seen my recent creations, head on over to the other girls blogs and then to the Everything Scrapp'n blog for a chance to win some awesome prizes.

Zoa Barker
Teresa Matz
Suz Gray
Janaina Oliveira

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Road trip

Its the annual Yosemite trip and I am thrilled to have a whole week off for it! I meant to have a nice long blog catching up with plenty of fun photos but I opted to pack more instead. I see lots of reading, bike riding, swimming, and eating ice cream in my future. I stocked up on audio books of Harry Potter and The Host from the library. Hope you have a great week!

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

December Daily photos

I've been working on a slight blog re-design these past couple of days. I almost switched over to typepad for the three column look, but then I found a really cool website that had this awesome tutorial for html coding. Also, notice that I have become an affiliate for Borrowlenses.com Please click the link on the top, right column to check out what an awesome rental company they are! Anytime you need camera gear, rent, don't go buy until you've tested it thoroughly.

The weather has been warming up a bit here and its not a moment too soon! I am so happy to see the sun when I come home from work. And finally, I found a little time to edit the photos I took weeks ago of my finished December Daily project from this past year. I'll share a few favorites. You may find the rest on my flickr account here.





Thanks for stopping by!

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Happy August 1st!

My newest scrapbooking trend is to scrapbook on my lunch breaks at work. Funny, I know, but I work with a lot of talented artists: photographers and designers. So getting their feedback is always great.

I had this photo of Dan saved on my desk for the longest time. Its my MOST favorite photo I've ever taken of him. When my box from Everything Scrapp'n arrived with the Pink Paislee Fetching line, I knew it was a perfect match. Of course I threw in some Hambly wood grain and film strips for good measure. I stamped a wood grain pattern and then embossed on it with some brown Zing embossing powder by American Crafts. I have always loved stamping and think I have a new love towards the art of embossing! And I must say, I love that Michael's is carrying Tim Holtz products. YAY! I've been going back and forth about adding a title or not. We'll see if I can manage to find something that is suitable.

I bought a TON of American Crafts Backyard & Craft Fair paper to the point that I'll probably be making stuff with it for the next 6 months or more! I had a few cards to make so why not use up some left over scraps from my latest mini? I made this with my cousin Dominique in mind. The owls are too cute, I had to incorporate them into the card title work.
I made this card right in front of Gary and he had no idea what was going on. He was so sweet, he said he always keeps all of his cards. The happy birthday stamp was embossed with Zing embossing powder.
I just finished reading Ali Edward's book A Designer's Eye for Scrapbooking today. It was really cool to see how she designs her pages and the simple sketches she uses. I put a hold on her other book, Sharing Your Story at my local library almost as soon as I picked up the first one. I was thrilled to have it waiting for me when I was done! I get the biggest adrenaline rush from finishing a book and my next trip to the library! Hope your weekend is going great. I'm off to a summer BBQ.

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