Once Upon a Time
 

cathy,

Would love to see the pages you created with this paper stack. My ds's girlfriend made an 8x8 scrapbook with pictures of the two of them. It is darling and she was very creative in her accents.

Rachael

Cathy, you can add a picture by using the advanced message option. One of the icons there looks like a little mountain and if you hover your mouse on top it is labelled "insert image". A pop up box then asks for the URL of your image.

You can then add a link to a picture on a website or ... and here is the fun bit, sign up to photobucket, upload your image there from your own computer (either scanned or photographed), and use that as a reference. The picture will then appear in your post. Or you can insert a link to the picture or add it as an attachment (again, both in the advanced message option).

Just one thing - adding images slows download time for the page so make sure to reduce the size to suit web use. Most basic image programs have something along that line in their menu, often under "Save as" or as a change size option.

Hi, All, and sorry for "ignoring" this thread this weekend. Besides having a busy weekend, I participated in the VSN challenge -- I had so much fun, I only wish I had been able to do all of the challenges. It was a wonderful event.

Elizabeth, thanks for the info about inserting pictures into a post. I will give it a try!

Now, here is the truly exciting news... First, I added an image of me - with our very little special Cavalier, "Toughie". Tough Nut's "real" name is Eulenburg Voyage Home - Spencer Tracy. Spencer came to us with a catastrophic brain malformation and he so impressed us with his effort to compensate for his disability, he more than earned his nickname and our love and support through two complicated neurosurgeries to save his life. Saturday was his second birthday and 10 weeks post his second neurosurgery, a very complicated seven hour procedure by Dr. Alan Potthoff in Maine to insert a shunt into the 4th ventricle of his brain. This little guy inspires me!

Second, and even more impressive, Rachael, your wish is my command. I added some images of the scrap book pages you are interested in to my gallery. (Not bad for someone who has no illusions about being a technowizard LOL). It took me a while to figure it out, but I did it!

Here's where you'll find a handful of the pages from the wedding album I've been making with the DCWV Once Upon a Time theme pages, and also the cards I made this weekend.

http:////www.splitcoaststampers.com/...&ppuser=188455

I've a bunch more pages to upload -- these are from my personal albums and so have pictures in them as well -- and will hopefully get to that later this PM.

Enjoy!

I may have missed the answer to this, but the color coach is an SU product. I have the old one (older ink colors). It's nice if you want to just use their suggestions for mixing colors, but it's not quite as helpful if you have something in mind already...for example, I knew I wanted brown & blue and was trying to decide what SHADE of blue, and of course the CC didn't help with that.
There is also a generic color wheel, at JoAnn & Micheal's, that shows you how to mix various colors--like if you want just 2, or you want 3 close together or 3 more spread apart, or even 4. It gives some color theory also. Again, it is limited to the shades that are on the wheel but it's arranged more by color theory than the SU one, if that makes sense?
I looked at the Munsell (sp?) website & it was very interesting & helpful! However, I still don't have the "eye," you know? I wish I had something to "measure" the color like he was describing. I can't look at a color and think "oh that has a high gray value so I need something with a stronger hue, or more of a lower gray value, to balance it" LOL
For now, I rely on dh!!! He's a decent artist so he helps me a lot

PS forgot to add, that if you do a link with a picture IN your post from photobucket (instead of an attachment), I can't see it, so others may not be able to either. I can't see them on some blogs, either, so they must be doing that.

Lynn, thanks for explaining about the color coach! I do have a color wheel and it is somewhat helpful, I need to dig it back out again!

Cathy, glad to hear you participated in the VSN challenges this weekend, looked like alot of fun. I wanted to play but this was last weekend before ds heads off to college, so we had a family dinner and started packing. This week will be busy with more of the same as we leave on Thursday to move him in. This is our one and only so this will be an adjustment for sure.

Thank you for sharing your lovely scrapbook pages, lots of detail and loved the mix of blue patterned papers. The punch designs were really striking, especially liked the new home page with the pages and the fence. Also really liked the pink frames with the florishes on them. The cards you made were very nice, too, I think my favorite was the one with the gold and various colors of leaves. Guess I am already getting ready for fall, it rained here this weekend so it felt like it here. Glad to see you were feeling better and like the picture with your furbaby!
Rachael

Those confounding colors!
 

It can be really frustrating when you just don't have an "eye" for color. But like anything else, you can learn to recognize things that work and don't work - it just takes understanding the science behind it and practice.:) However, I wandered through your gallery and your cards are lovely. You probably have more of a knack for it than you realize!

I like the Munsell system because the gray value is what makes the shades of the colors that I like the most and as long as you're consistent in choosing colors with similar gray values, or the same color with multiple values, you're going to get something really pleasing to the eye.

I'm working on condensing a chapter that I wrote for another project on matching papers and combining colors to post here, but I'm a bit overwhelmed with projects and medical treatments right now and assorted other crises at the moment. One of our pts has been very, very sick and we've made the difficult decision to let her go, so tomorrow will be an all around lousy day around here, and then maybe things will settle back down to a dull roar.

But once I post my little "cheat sheets" and guides, it will help you to learn to "read" colors. Hang in there -- it's coming! (I know... so's Christmas!!)

Glad you liked them! The one with the fence was pretty labor intensive, but not terribly complicated. My signature style includes lots of hand punched embellishments, so usinfg the "Once Upon a Time" stack was challenging for me. It's already so ornate, I had to "tone things down". But those pages fit so well with the theme of their wedding, I couldn't resist!

When my youngest went off to college for the first time 3 years ago, I thought I would be lost -- HA!!! I LOVE my empty nest. It's amazing how the amount of dirty laundry, dirty dishes, clutter, and mess becomes miniscule when they're gone and you have so much more time to do the things you want to do. I love it when he comes home for breaks, and I love it when he goes back. :D

I especially love finally having more time for me, and time to do the things I enjoy most. But my situation is a little different too. Because of a medical situation, I am totally disabled and have chronic severe respiratory failure. I run out of steam pretty quickly and have to nap with a ventilator during the day and sleep with one at night. When all my energy is used cleaning up after my son and step-son, it leaves me frustrated and exhausted. So I am REALLY looking forward to the end of the week when I get my life back LOL and the most productive part of my day can be spent scrapping and stamping!:-D

Cathy, sorry to hear about your pet. Dh & I have had to go through this 3 times in our married life and it never gets any easier! We love our furbabies! We only have one orange part manx cat now and it is ds's, so she will be lonely and demanding when he leaves, lol. I just thought the other day about the less laundry, dishes, food consumed, etc and thought wow, we will probably save a lot of money, lol! I have not yet realized how much time I will actually have to devote to my hobbies, but I am looking forward to it! Hang in there, the end of the week is coming!

Rachael

Dear Rachael,

Thanks for the kind words. Our latest calamity is our kitty, Miss Frieda Fluff. Frieda is a ~9-10 year old fluffy calico, part angora, with a gorgeous face and independant spirit. We adopted her from the shelter 5 years ago. She was a feral cat who had been paritally socialized when we got her. She never became a lap cat, but we love her and she loves us, and especially my ds.

She does go out, but stays pretty close to home - our yard is fenced. Well, she wandered off and was apparently attacked by a dog. There has been a dog running loose and coming to our fence and barking at our pets, and I suspect he's the culprit, but there's really no way to know for sure.

Anyway, we rushed her over to the vet and she has a lot of internal injuries that would be a nightmare to repair, but the x-rays also revealed that she has a large growth, probably a tumor. That makes surgery to fix her internal injuries ill-advised at best. They are keeping her comfy tonight and Jake and I are going to go over in the AM and hold her while she goes to the Bridge.

I feel badly because part of the decision not to treat her was financial, but we have four dogs as well, three with serious medical issues, not the least of which is our little dog with the two brain surgeries. I'm sure I'll second guess myself from here to kingdom come over this, and being Jewish, I do come by the guilt of it all quite naturally. But after speaking to the vet at length several times today, I do think this is the right decision.

And as I explained to the vet, our vet bills for our GSD (who has irritable bowel disease, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, and perianal fistulas), our little neuro dog (with two brain surgeries, 5 MRI's with anesthesia, and 9 ICU admissions in 2 years), and our cardiac girl (a supposedly "healthy" rescue who was an emergency foster placement but who came to us in end stage heart failure - and no one in their right mind would adopt this poor thing, so we kept her and are just loving her for whatever time she has left) have about put us in the poor house -- I think we singlehandedly financed their new addition to the veterinary hospital. I told him if we treated Frieda, he'd probably be able to install a putting green for pet families to while away the hours while their pets are treated!

I really must post some of the scrap pages I did for our little Toughie. They are awesome! And I'll be making a tribute to Miss Frieda for our pet scrap book as well.

Thanks for caring.....

Cathy,
Thanks for your kind words about my gallery--it is probably not my eye so much as the fact that I copy others! LOL and I go to DH a lot! : )
So so sorry about your pets and all you are dealing with, medically, also. I have not had to deal with such things for myself, thanks be to God, but I have had to deal with them with a pet. I totally understand how you struggle with the decision to pay for medical care (beyond the routine I mean)--but you really do have to weigh all your priorities and obligations in life and sometimes make a crappy decision, and you can't second guess yourself KWIM? I had a dog like that once (who had lots of medical needs), and I was all set to get him a hip replacement, but the vet said he had too many other problems (like arthritis in the shoulders and some kind of strange weakness in his "good" leg) so he wouldn't do it. We just had to watch him struggle to get up and slip on smooth floors for years, before finally deciding it was time to let him go, as he was nearly 13 and wouldn't even get up when I came in the room any more. BROKE my heart, let me tell you. I did a 2 page layout about him, about how he inspired me, and that really was healing (not that I don't miss him, of course) so I highly recommend doing something like that for your cat.
Blessings!