Jen's page

My cousin Jennifer had Baby Cashew, aka Raegan in October and since I know she loves to scrapbook but has no time cause of the baby, I made a baby shower layout using the pics my aunt sent us:

My cousin is doing a jungle theme in Raegan's room, so hence the critters:

I only glued the large pic on three sides, creating a pocket for a tabbed card that holds all the gift info on it. Even if this is in a page protector, you can still grab it out from the top (I hate it when people make interactive page elements that you can't access through a page protector!).

What do we learn from this? Save your scraps! This layout was dirt cheap because I didn't buy anything for it- all the animal pieces are cut from cardstock scraps. I designed the animals myself, but you could find animal or other shapes online to trace or even trace cookie cutters. I pre-poked holes in the cardstock before stitching with embroidery floss (which is pretty stinkin' cheap) so that sewing was easier. When sewing on cardstock, you have to be careful that you don't pull too hard or you'll rip through your paper. You don't even have to have knots on the back- I secured the ends of the thread with a little adhesive. I used ric-rac for the alligator's teeth- I love glue dots for attaching things like that on pages. I used my smaller scalloped scissors on the big pic and my huge scalloped scissors on the smaller pic.

Another trick on this page was the collage of all the shower pics- I scanned the pics, then created the collage in Photoshop Elements (I made sure it was 8x10) and then got it printed as an 8x10 enlargement at Walmart. Much cheaper than getting a bunch of little wallets printed (which is what I had to do before I had Photoshop at my house!). With most pictures, you don't need to see them big, you just need them to get a sense of what took place.

I haven't made a page for awhile, it felt good to do so. I liked it alot, it was hard to mail away!

Pattern

I was going through my mom's box of old patterns this weekend- most were ugly clothes patterns from the 70's and 80's, but I found this gem. It was made in 1963! One of these days I'll make me a bag...and if it turns out well enough this could be an Etsy item!

Blue Foam

Ode to Blue Foam

by Elizabeth Chaney

Blue Foam is everywhere

In my nose,

In my hair...

Yes even in my underwear!

Blue Foam is everywhere. (cough)

I've spent the past few weeks working on my final project for 3-D art- an abstract sculpture carved from dense insulation foam. All the little bits of foam stick to you, no matter what you do! After class I looked the abominable snow-woman! The room looked like a snowglobe! I would shed blue foam wherever I went. I'm so glad I don't have to breathe it in anymore and that this project is over! It was hard coming up with an interesting abstract sculpture and I think mine was fine but maybe now I'd tweak it. It was interesting to learn a new building technique- now I can make anything I want!

The maquette:

You laminate pieces of foam together with spray adhesive:

Then carve with a small saw and files:

Then I pegged the appendages on and covered it with Durham's- a dry putty mix that you mix with water to create a hard skin:

Here is my turkey-stegosaurus-bunny ear-cat whisker-melted peep:

(I got so many funny comments as to what it looked like!)

Don't ask why I gravitated to BRIGHT yellow- I don't know!

Here are a few that I liked alot from my classmates:


And here's some not-so-hot ones, unfortunately two of the worst offenders took off with their project before I could snap a picture:
Boring shapes, boring color, boring assembly



A Renaissance Yoda Mermaid?

A shrimp? A fetus? And not well carved or painted at that. That kink in the tail is terrible!

My friend Mike did this one...not bad but he needed more dintinct shading. It looks like it could be in a park! We joked about it needing some graffiti!

The shape is pretty interesting, but the paint does nothing for me! The muddy gray just makes it blah and takes away from the shape. (below)

Everyone in class really gravitated towards this one...but not me. I think they were all distracted by the fact that it was covered in candy....if it was just painted would they find it as interesting??? I think not.

Here's D's bug (or an antelope? I don't know):

D (the girl who couldn't see the carousel horse in my cardboard project) made an ugly bug thing (above) and I was so tempted to walk over to her and say..."You know what I see in your project? If I look real close it looks like...hmmm...a bug!" But I guess I had some class for a moment or two. I liked the bug's body shape before she put a head on it and I don't think the painting goes with the hard edges on the body.

I am getting tired of bailing out crappy slacker art students...I was nice the other day and let a guy from sculpture borrow my leftover spray adhesive...and he thought I gave it to him! And then he walked off with my leftover Durham's cause he thought I said yes to that too. When did I become the supply fairy?? Buy your own! Those cost $16! I probably wouldn't use the leftovers much, but I'm the one who bought them!! And now I'm kicking myself about the Durham's- I got the idea to make little foam ladybugs too late. I guess one of these days I'll buy some more and make some smaller sculptures out of foam leftovers.

Which leads to the question....what do I do with this sculpture now?? It's kinda big (2.5x2.5 ft) to keep but I spent so much time on it to throw it out!

Q&A- Scanning

My friend Megan asked me this question:

Q: What is the best way to get QUALITY digital copies of photos when all I have are the actual printed photos?

A: Well, Megan, sounds like you need a good scanner! There's a lot of great scanners out there and I love how technology is getting cheaper and cheaper. Right now I use the crummy scanner at school but all I'm doing right now is scanning photos that go on the web so quality isn't a huge issue. Santa is bringing me an Epson Perfection V300 for Christmas and I can't wait. It has a lot of great features for being only $99!

Now the experts recommend scanning negatives (you always get better clarity from the source than a copy) over prints but you can still get good digital images from your prints.

Ask yourself: Where is this photo going? If you are wanting to make a print from your scan, you'll want to scan at a higher resolution (like 300 dpi) than if the pic is only going on the web (you'll only need a 72 dpi). You'll want a high resolution especially if you want the print to be enlarged.

Make sure your photo and your scanner bed are clean and free of dust and fingerprints. Some scanners come with dust-fixing software, but it's still important to reduce problems in the first place. You can crop and tweak your photos with photo editing software- I enjoy Photoshop Elements cause it's pretty easy to do what I want.

Both Kodak machines and Wal-Mart 1 hour machines have a scanner attached to them, but I don't know how well they work (and who can guarantee that they'll be clean?). You could test it out and see if that works ok for you. You can make prints or cds (or both!) with those machines.

You can visit www.scantips.com for more info on scanning.

A word about photo printing: I HATE Kodak picture machines with a passion but many people use them- I always find their printouts to be really low quality and the color is terrible. Do yourself a favor and use the Wal-Mart 1 hour photo processing instead- they do real good quality and I prefer the matte paper that they use. And they're inexpensive! Your scanned/printed images can look better or worse depending on where you get them printed.

Megan, I hope that answered your question. Let me know if you need any more help.

-Liz