My first month as a Creative Team member

I've been on the Creative Team at All You Can Scrap for almost a whole month, so I thought I'd share a few of the layouts I've done so far.

The first was done for the Music Quotes Challenge using the Roses and Hearts kit by Helron Designs. You can find it in the shop.
This a photo of my beautiful niece holding her new baby brother. He's only about a week or two old here, so he was still at the point of being new and exciting for her. She's pretty happy about it. Music quote: You have stolen my heart by Dashboard Confessional from the song Stolen.

The next was done for the Numbers Challenge. Again I used the Roses and Hearts kit from Helron Designs at All You Can Scrap. The challenge was 1 bow, 2 photos, 3 papers, 4 buttons or brads.
Photos are from a 2007 New Year's Eve Parade in Jacksonville. The Jamaica girls joined the Florida queens on a parade float. We met tons of great people from all over the state. It was extremely cold, but also a lot of fun, particularly when the younger girls got to meet Ronald McDonald. They were so excited.

For the January '09 Color Challenge, I used the colour pallette to create this layout. I'm a purple girl and my cousin likes pink, so I thought a photo of us together would be perfect with the colours chosen this month.I used a template created by Gloria Val Verde that I got from the Manic Monday freebies on Moo Two Designs. For the papers, I used an overlay by Cindi Rios Lobo.

So for the Baby Faces Challenge, I had to scrap a surprised little one. I chose this photo of my girlfriend's son on his first visit to the office. After weeks of hanging with mom, dad, and big brother, he was surrounded by all these ladies excited to meet him for the first time. It must have been pretty overwhelming, but he took it all in stride. For this layout I used the Dino kit by Helron Designs, perfect for a little boy. The digikit is available in the shop.

This last layout is for the monthly Theme Challenge, which was flowers and pearls. Isn't my niece just adorable? I thought this photo would be perfect for the theme, and boy was I right. She is just the prettiest flower in the garden.

So that's it for now. You'll be hearing more from me in the months to come. Hope you can join me on this crazy ride into the world of digital scrapbooking.

So I Watched History Unfold...

...and I can say I was there when.

I was there when everyone was talking about the race, the campaigns, and their candidates. When we were debating who should win and why. When support for the policies of one or the other changed almost daily.

I was there when the ballots were being cast. When the polls were open for early voting and there was nowhere to park at the library. When my friends and family sat around discussing the merits of absentee voting versus standing in line for hours.

I was there when the polls closed, and the counting began in earnest. When my classmates and I were on pins and needles waiting for our test to be over, so we could check our computers and phones to find out who was in the lead. When we all realised that the cafeteria was open late and hosting an election party, so we could all keep abreast of the latest development. When my mom got that call from me screaming "Barack Obama just won the election". When she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes (different time zone) and finally understood what I was saying.

I was there when the most moving concession speech ever spoken was delivered by the always classy John McCain. When an amazing orator gave his acceptance by looking to the future and not condemning the actions of current and past administrations. When two strong, courageous men brought tears to my eyes with the words they spoke.

I was there when the forty-fourth President of the United States of America took his oath and was sworn in to the highest office in the land. When a group of workers crowded around a tiny computer screen to view and hear him speak during his inauguration. When 2 million strong braved the bracing winter winds to witness history in the making.

Photo credit: Master Sgt. Cecilio Ricardo, U.S. Air Force
Scrapkit credit: Scrap n' Art Freebie Friday digikit created by Louise Williams of Digital Fingers
Quote from inaugural speech delivered by President Obama on January 20, 2009

Review

The past few days have been very busy for me.

I've been selected to be part of the Creative Team at allyoucanscrap.com, which is quite an honour. As I've only been scrapping for a short time, I hope I can do justice to their wonderful products. Here is my first layout which was done for the monthly challenge. It features my beautiful niece, Ayanna. I thought her very fitting for the theme - Flowers and Pearls.


Over the weekend, a few girls and I headed to the World's Universal Beauty pageant in San Marcos, Texas, where we represented our beautiful island nation of Jamaica. We had a blast in all areas of the competition, particularly during the Western themed party where we led the dancing all night long (or at least till 9:30 since the little ones needed their beauty sleep). The girls did well and I was proud of them all. Photos will follow over the next few days.

Go Jamaica!

Happy New Year to All!

Wishing you all a wonderful 2009.

It is my prayer that everyone has a good and prosperous year. May you and your families have continued good health. Good luck to you all.

My Scrapbook Experiment

The pageant experience introduced me to the world of scrapbooking. After learning I was required to keep a scrapbook documenting my reign, I bought a couple of magazines and took the plunge. The reading materials I purchased lead me to the realisation that this was an amazing creative outlet which was limited only by my imagination. Soon my home was decorated with punches, ribbons, stickers, and paper of every imaginable colour. Yes that's right, I went completely overboard. But it was all necessary if I was going to create the most beautiful pages known to man. Right? Before long I had fallen behind; the perfect embellishment to finish off the page was an absolute necessity. I was never done. All too soon, my year was at an end and I had only 6 pages of "fun times" to show my prospective successor. What was I to do? Help!!! I tried to get some friends together, get an assembly line going, and churn out some lovely pages. No luck. So I decided to proudly display what I had, and wouldn't you know I was the only queen to have taken such time and care with her "art". Everyone wanted to me to work on their scrapbooks. Aaaarrgh!

Luckily, I've found I really enjoy planning and designing my perfect scrapbook, so I'm taking my time and getting it done right.

Of course it wasn't long before I found the world of digital scrapbooking. Reusable supplies, planning and designing on the computer (my fave), and the means to share my life with family members far and near. I got Corel Paint Shop Pro X1 with my new camera and I am really loving learning how to use it for creating scrapbook pages. It's a big learning curve for me, since I keep assuming that all the terms mean the same as the words would in English. I'm learning a whole new language here. It's kinda fun.

So in the coming months, I'll be posting my little experiments. Thankfully, there's tons of help from this fantastic community known as the worldwide web, and I'll be taking advantage of them at every turn. I would like to say thank you in advance to that wonderful online community for giving me the tools I need to take my creativity to the next level. Thank you so much.

Here's one of my first attempts. It is based on the Pink Gavey tutorial found on Kay's tutorial blog. Kay, whoever you are, thanks for helping me with these baby steps. My gratitude also goes out to the writer of the Created by Jill blog for the beautiful digital paper and embellishment kit.

Here goes nothing...

Christmas Cleanup

Smart me, I took a couple days off work for some rest and relaxation, and instead thought it would be a great time to give the place a good cleaning in time for the holidays. Of course those who know me realise that means the house is an even bigger mess than when I first started. So now, instead of straightening things up a little, I've got to clean up this new mess I've created. It gets worse before it gets better and all that jazz. It would appear that my lovely home can be likened to the current economic situation - gonna get a whole lot worse before it gets better. I'm just trying to prepare as best as I can for what comes next, doing what I can to control my personal finances and support my family in any way I can. If we just hang in there and look out for each other, we can make things better in small but important ways. Hey, if nothing else, at least I've got clean floors. Come on over and eat off them sometime.

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