my studio desk and ecojot contest entry

Today I was inspired by ecojot to take a picture of my studio office computer desk. They are running a contest that you can check out here for more details. I thought that I would digitally scrapbook the pictures of my desk with elements that I purchased here earlier this week. 

I like ecojot's mini journals the best ... they fit into a purse ... and I use them all of the time to doodle my ideas and concepts. Once a journal is filled, I add it to a collection of journals I keep in a basket on my desk ... I use the journals as a reference when I am in need of some inspiration.

Ecojot's journals are so cute ... I love that they are made in Canada and printed on 100% recycled stock. The graphics on the journals are always so colourful and inspiring. I really like ecojot's brand and it is on my "wish list" to work for them as a freelance designer one day.  

The contest is on until August 15th so if you have a chance ... check them out! And if you don't enter ... keep your fingers crossed for me!!!!

   

photography through the eyes of a child

This morning I was putting together a cd of photos to take to Costco for developing this afternoon ... a task that usually takes me a l-o-n-g time because I am known for always having a camera in hand and taking lots and LOTS of photos.

But this summer, I have noticed that I really have not taken many photos of our family and things that we are doing together. 

I'm not really sure why ... maybe because I haven't been scrapbooking as much as I use to ... maybe because I haven't felt like we were doing anything new or different. 

My daughter Robyn has been at a photography camp this week ... it's just a day camp ... nothing professional ... but she has been having a great time and everyday she has been coming home and showing me what she shot on her digital camera ... she is so excited about photography right now. 

This weekend we are going to the cottage. Both of the girls will have friends with them ...  including a couple of friends that have never been to the cottage. I'm going to take up some extra digital cameras and let the kids have fun shooting whatever they want ... I think that it will be entertaining and I'm looking forward to seeing what the kids photograph.

Robyn is going to a scrapbooking camp for a week in August ... who knows, maybe she will want to use the photos we take this weekend to camp to scrapbook about! 

By the way, the two photos are of a picture that is displayed in Robyn's cottage bedroom. I made it for her five years ago. The picture is of Robyn when she was 5 years old sitting on a wire swing wearing her favourite "tutu" tee shirt ... she was twirling in the swing unaware that I was taking her photo. She always tell me how much she loves that photo of her (and I am still not allowed to give away the tutu tee shirt) ...  I will never forget that day we spent together.

fairy angels

I've been working on a small project for a friend's daughter the past week ... I can't talk too much about it just yet because her business is not "open" for a couple of more weeks ... but the project has been making my head spin and I keep dreaming about so many new ideas that I just can't seem to get them out of my head and onto paper fast enough. Once everything is in place, I will ask to take some pictures to share.

I have had so many people in my life that have helped me to develop and grow ... too many people to start naming names. I have always felt blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life that have seen a talent in me ... encouraged me ... helped to open some doors for me so that I could dance through them.  It's like having fairy angels watching over you.

Today ...  I feel like I am a fairy angel ... and it feels good. 

organizing digital files and pictures

It has been a crazy couple of weeks around our house ... the kids have had so much going on with end of school activities that I've hardly had time to take a break. As the kids have been re-organizing their spaces and getting rid of papers and books that they will not be needing next year ... I have been looking at my digital pictures and noticing that I have fallen behind a bit on organizing and backing up my files.

I bought a new top of the line computer a couple of years ago that crashed after a few months and I lost all of my files ... so I learned the hard way that you have to back up your files (often) on an external drive. And I do that monthyly ... but what I also try to do is back up my digital pictures onto cds or dvds so that my

children will be able to have copies of our pictures when they are older. 

I put them into protective plastic cd cases and add fun cover "art" to them. You can see in the picture above some of our vacation cds from 2004 and 2005. I use scrap pieces of scrapbooking papers and a single photo for each cover. I embellish the cover with stickers, stamps and whatever else I can find that will not make the art cover too thick that it cannot slip into the case and close. I love to use my sewing machine on scrapbooking projects and I do that a lot with these cd covers too ... I guess that it is part of my style.

 

Whenever I make photo cds to give as gifts I add these custom covers to the cd cases as well. If I'm

making more than a couple of digital cds to give to a number of people, I find that it is easier to create a digital file and print it on a cd sticker ... it's a different look and but it saves a lot of time ... although I am not very good with getting the sticker centred onto the cd so I avoid making those most often.

I've made these cd covers for work when I was consulting as a creative director for fashion retailers. I worked on a lot of photo shoots and I always had piles of cds sitting around my office. Visually they looked nice on my desk and they were so easy to reference because I gave each cover a look that was similar to the client's brand. 

Well, gotta go and get caught up!