Growing in Unity: DAY 4

WOW! Day 4 already! Well, I'm happy to tell you all that the hurricane passed on by this area and, aside from some rain, we didn't get anything! YAY! Other parts of Newfoundland had some damage to property because of the VERY strong winds, but there were no deaths so all is good! :0)

On to my project! Today I have a card that I made for my aunt's birthday. Wanna see?

I used a piece of clear plastic for the mason jar, which is from the "December 2011 Kit of the Month" and it looks really nice...although this picture is doing awful things with it! I promise! It looks good in the flesh! I stamped it on the plastic (It was some sort of packaging material for something!) with Stazon and heated it a little with my heat gun...but it started to curl...which is probably what the camera is picking up. Then a drew some stems with my Crayola's, glued some ribbon from my stash around the neck of the mason jar and stuck it on the card. Then I embossed some flowers from the "Eco Chic" set on yellow paper with black embossing powder, cut them out, and added them to the end of the stems. I stamped the happy birthday sentiment from the "How you doin" ippity set on white card stock and matted it with black cardstock. A small piece of the same pink ribbon was folded and stuck to the back of the sentiment. Voilà! An aunt's CAS birthday card! :0) Inspiration for this card came from here. 

Remember to leave a comment for a chance to win the Itty Bittys (which I have found out is TWO Itty Bittys not ONE! Even better!) !

Thank's for stopping by!

Love, Patricia

Growing in Unity: DAY 3

Its my Growing in Unity day 3 which means this gig is half over. :( I'm sad to see it go...I've been enjoying doing these posts and getting lots of love for you guys! 

Speaking of love...today I have a scrapbook page to show you featuring one of the loves of my life (yes, I have more than one!!) and he is SO handsome! Here he is:

This was his very first day of Kindergarten and, of course, he had to be silly for our photo shoot! He did think this was the best day ever, so I thought the HUGE ribbon stamp from the "Summers Best" set would be a fine fit! And I included the "seriously best day ever" stamp from the same set for the center. The cute little crossword banner is from the Ippity set "The Best". I stamped two of them and clipped them on with an American Crafts brad. I also used my label maker to put his name on them. All of these colorful papers were, again, from the dollar store! Sometimes  you can find some awesome stuff there! 

By the way, this was a totally scraplift from someone else! You can see my inspiration here. 

You know the drill! Don't forget to leave a comment to be entered into the draw for the itty bitty at the end of the week! 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Love, Patricia 

Growing in Unity: DAY 2

Welcome back for day two of my Growing in Unity turn! Today I have an anniversary card to share with you. My parent's will be married for 32 years on the 19th of September! So I made them this card:

Like most of my ideas...I totally stole this one from Pinterest! Go here if you want to see the original link. 

For this card I started with a piece of stationary that I have had for more than 10 years!! I bought it to use on my very first scrapbook page...which was the baby shower for my first born...and he will be 11 in January! YIKES! Anyway, I though the clouds went well with the theme. Then I drew the tree branch free hand using my good 'ole Crayola coloring pencils. For the owls I used the Ippity set "Wise Guy" and then gave them some cute googly eyes...and gave the girl owl some cute eyelashes and a cute hair sequin. I also added a little glossy accents to their wings and beaks. The banner came form the "You did it" set and I wrote happy anniversary in myself. I also used some twine that I got from the last  Growing In Unity girl, Noelle!

Don't forget to leave a comment to be entered into a draw for an itty bitty of your choosing and come back tomorrow to see a scrapbook page of a VERY handsome man! 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Love, Patricia

Linky Party and Leslie!

Its official...hurricane Leslie is due to hit Newfoundland sometime tonight or in the early morning hours. I just hope it waits until my partner, Brent, gets home from work. Its a half hour highway drive and he has to do this at midnight so I hope he gets home safe and sound before the bad weather.

On a good note, its the Unity/Ippity Linky Party and I have something to share! Now, I have to warn you, I tried to emboss the sentiment and I really thought I might have to invest in a new glue pad...the embossing powder just would not stick once the heat tool got near! I have figured out how to do it now, though...emboss from the bottom, not the top! The powder stays put but melts just the same! SCORE!

Here it is:

I made this card for my grandfathers 94th birthday, which was just last week. I used some paper that I got in a grab bag of paper from Walmart a LONG time ago. I sanded the edges to give it some wear. Then I matted some white paper on brown and embellished with brads, twine, and a dog sticker. The sentiment that is horribly embossed is from the Ippity set : Party Hat Wishes. It is a wonderful stamp that I have used MANY times...my embossing did not do it justice at all!

Anyway, thank you for stopping in! And check back for the rest of the week because I'm the Growing in Unity gal this week! YAY!

Love, Patricia

Growing in Unity: DAY 1

I am the Growing in Unity girl this week and I'm so excited!!! I love Unity more than my 10 year old loves his Xbox360! And that's a love you can't mess with! Hee hee! Don't forget to leave comments on my blog posts this week. One lucky commenter will win a Unity Itty Bitty of their choice! How awesome is that! 

My nephew's 8th birthday party was yesterday...and it was a no-brainer on which stamp set I wanted to use for his card. "Hoppy Birthday" came to mind right away!

Isn't this an awesome set for a boy?! 

And here's the card:

For this card I used some bright, happy colors of paper that I got at the dollar store, a button I got in a big bag of various buttons from Walmart, and the twine is a Halloween themed twine from Doodlebug Designs. The image was stamped with StazOn black ink and colored in with Crayola Coloring Pencils. 

I hope you liked the card! Don't forget to leave a comment to be entered in the draw and don't forget to come back tomorrow to see more Unity goodness!

Thanks for stopping by! 

Love, Patricia 

31 Days to a Better Photo: Day 8-11

Its me again! More of the "31 Days to a Better Photo" series from "Life with my 3 Boybarians" coming your way! This time I looked at days 8-11, which included lots of useful information on exposure, scales, and metering. Did you know there is a meter on your camera in Manual mode that lets you know if you are using the right combination of ISO, shutter speed, and Aperture to get a good exposure?? You did? Oh...well, I didn't!!! This is all news to me! No more trial and error to get the right exposure! YAY! 

On day 11 we were asked to go play with the camera in manual to see what we can do with it...emphasis placed on looking at the meter. So, I found the most handsome model in the world and we had a photo shoot!

1/30 f/16 ISO 100

 1/250 f/5.6 ISO 100

1/200 f/14 ISO 400

Am I right?? Isn't he the cutest???

Thanks for stopping by!

Love, Patricia

31 Days to a Better Photo: Day 4-7

Hello! If you have been reading this blog over the last...oh...16 hours or so, you will see that I have been following the "31 Days to a Better Photo" series on "Life with my 3 boybarians" blog. Ok...perhaps its more like "been OBSESSED" with the series!!! But, its a good obsession since the program is great for beginner photographers, or people like me who have had a DSLR for a couple of years and STILL don't understand everything about it! 

I went through days 4-7 last night and was waiting until this morning to do the assignments. Yes! There are assignments!!! But, don't worry...these are FUN assignments! In these couple of days the topics that were discussed was ISO, Aperture, and Depth of Field. While I had a little understanding of these (and that is extremely little!!!) everything I THOUGHT I knew went out the window as Darcy (the fabulous lady who has these tutorials for FREE!) explained these very important topics VERY clearly. Its like I had one of Oprah's A-HA moments! It was finally clicking in! Why oh why did it take me so long to find this blog!! I would like to thank PINTEREST for helping me get there!!

Anyway, on to the assignment that would help us get comfortable with the depth of field. For this I had to set up my tripod and focus on my subject while changing the Aperture for each shot. This showed how the Aperture changed how blurry the background (the depth of field) was. I'll show you a few shots that I took.

1/2500 f/6.3 ISO 100

I know what your thinking...beer bottles?!?! But, they were close and they make GREAT subjects!! They don't move!!! 

1/1000 f/9 ISO 100 

1/800 f/14 ISO 100 

 1/250 f/22 ISO 100

 1/160 f/29 ISO 100

1/100 F/36 ISO 100

As you can see, as the aperture number increases, the clearer the background becomes and the bigger depth of field you have. I have learned something new! Awesome!

I may have another post ready to go up before the day is over! Make sure you stop back to see!

Thanks for stopping by!

Love, Patricia