Hummingbird Stories

It turns out that the hummingbirds are not all gone south for the winter yet. They are still here, but they are different. They sit up high in the tree branches for hours on end making their cute fingernails on a chalkboard noise. They only come down to the feeder fleetingly. They look a little bigger and their throats seem a little blacker.

Dailies 8x10 Templates by creashens

One afternoon I heard one above me as I walked with my laundry. I stopped under the tree and searched the sparse branches. There! I saw him, chalkboarding away. The feathers around his face were fluffed up a bit, in a funny way. Funny because it looked like he had thin twin horns sticking out, one from each side of his face. I was not being stealthy as my laundry bag hit against the half-wall behind me. But the bird completely ignored me. It was only then that I noticed there was another hummingbird perched on a branch about six inches away. A female I think, and the male was screeching away at her. Did she like that sound he blared right in her face? As I contemplated that thought, they suddenly darted away at great speed. Did she retreat and he chased? Or did he lunge and she fled?

I think the birds that have stuck around are mostly males, making their apparently never ending mating calls. Although ... why would they make mating calls if there are no females around? Maybe the females are here too but are keeping warm in their nests. Maybe withstanding the cool weather is a hummingbird sing of virility. I think the birds in the summer were females feeding their babies, explaining why they were constantly visiting the feeder all day long. Those are my guesses anyway.

Lately the hummingbirds come to the feeder so infrequently that I haven't attempted to take any pictures. But today I gave it a shot and was happy with the result. Although, as you can see, no feeder shots; only tree shots. Not quite a partridge in a pear tree, but nice nonetheless. Merry Christmas!

Dailies 8x10 Templates and Juan Carlos & Fifi Kit by creashens; Far and Away by Gennifer Bursett;
layout composition inspired by Captured Moments layout by bcgal00

Simple Digi Cards

I often make simple little cards with my digi supplies and my old paper cardstock stash. Here is one I made today:

Merry Little Kit by creashens

Here's how I make them:

• In Photoshop I make a simple illustrated 4x6 inch card design with a white background. It usually has a little picture and a simple message.
• I flatten all the layers and put a thin inner stroke on it. (I use the stroke lines as a cutting guide.)

• When I print, I make sure that the image isn't centered on the paper, but instead is placed toward one end of the paper. That way, I can use the extra to cut a blank page to place in the inside of the card.
• I use my paper cutter to cut out the card cover, cutting inside the black lines so that the paper is a little under 4x6 inches. That leaves a little border around it when you glue it to the cardstock.
• With the leftover white paper, I use my paper cutter to cut another plain white piece of paper that is a little smaller than 4x6 inches.

Here is the inside of this card, to see what I mean. It just has a piece of white paper glued in so I can write my message by hand.

• Using colored cardstock from my paper scrapbooking stash, I cut a 6x8 inch piece and score it down the center so it folds to 4x6 inches.
• Then I use a glue stick to glue down the paper pieces to the cardstock. For the cover, I glue it down all across the paper. For the inner sheet, I just put a stripe of glue across the top.
• I usually flatten it down really well and sometimes place it under a heavy book for a while.
• I found 4.75 x 6.5 inch envelopes at Michaels, and my homemade cards fit with room to spare.

 Here is a card I made over a year ago, that I happened to photograph.

For The Record by Valorie Wibbens

And these next two I have the digital files, but didn't photograph the actual cards.

Daydream Scrapflower collab (Sabee's Creative World element)

Piece of Cake by Wish Bliss Studio

These simple cards are really fun to make, and I'm always pleased to have a handmade card with little effort. And I'm always glad to find use for the paper supplies that I've kept around. Happy card making.  And thanks for stopping by!

Why I'm Not Scrapping Right Now

Eek! I missed a post on Sunday. The problem is that I haven't been scrapbooking lately. I had been working away, getting caught up on all my 2013 scrapping so that I'll be ready to print ASAP ... and then I saw this:

I did the Month Of Challenges last January at The Lilypad and had a blast. I used it as an opportunity to get caught up on my scrapping.  So I decided to put everything on hold so I can get nice and behind again, and then scrap a layout a day in January to get caught up again!

It's probably silly, but I don't care.

I would love to win that permanent CT spot. The Lilypad is my dream team.

I thought that the hustle and bustle of December would keep me occupied, but I'm getting to that point where I just want to scrap something! I need that creative outlet. I did even start a page earlier tonight. I was cleaning my desk and found a scrap of paper on which I had written a quotation. This is what it said: "What word do you want? I'm a human thesaurus." Who do you think said that?

See you Sunday, hopefully.

Elf on the Shelf

This is the third year that we've had Elf Michael celebrate the season with us. He still has surprises up his sleeve.

On December first, we awoke to a special doughnut breakfast with all of our favorite doughnut flavors.

One night Elf Michael was "naughty" and got into the marshmallows with Baby Rose. She is a bad influence.

 

But the biggest surprise was the Saturday morning when we found out that Santa turned off Elf Michael's magic for the day. He could be held and played with, without losing his magic!

 There were helicopter rides.

There was launching from clouds.

He went with us to get the Christmas tree.

It was a great day. This just about sums it up. Thanks, Santa!

Two New Layouts + Story Swoop

I have two doubles to share. This first one has pictures from Thanksgiving morning.

A Little Joy and Pocketful No. 1 by Creashens

Originally this was a single page (just the right hand side), but there were a couple more cute pictures that didn't get included. I wasn't sure what to do with them ... then the Story Swoop from Get It Scrapped popped up in my mail inbox. I decided to give it a try. It was really fun!

It's a free tool to upload one or more photos, and then there are some journal prompts/questions to answer about the photo. The prompts help you to get at the emotion the photo evokes and to zero in on some of the details or backstory that might get overlooked.

Here is the journaling I wrote based on the prompts:

"The best of childhood. They are showing off their jump moves - hand stands and splits. He can't contain his craziness. I'm taking pictures through the gap in the safety net. I look at each one and smile. We don't know what the future holds right now. Will we even be in California next Thanksgiving? I'm thankful for this morning that cousins and sisters can be together."

And here was my original journaling:

"I took these pictures on Thanksgiving morning at Hilly's house. Miller and I spent the morning there before we headed over to Teenie's for the big meal. He had a blast."

I think the Story Swoop journaling is a bit better :)

And here are some pictures from the Zoo. I love the flat collage templates for photography pages. They make me feel sophisticated.

Multi-Mini Templates by Scrapping with Liz; Naturally Organic by Jenn Barrette; Hello There by Allison
Pennington; A Wonderful Day by Sahlin Studio; Everyone Has A Story by Captivated Visions;
Emboss It Tape by Merkeley Designs

Thanks for stopping by.

Another Shutterfly Book

I have another Shuttefly book to share. The content of this book is similar to a book that I printed with AdoramaPix. I had this printed as a gift and shipped it directly to the recipient. I finally got a chance to look at it myself this past weekend.

It's a very nice book. It is the 8x8 inch size, and I used the standard paper which has a very nice print quality. The standard paper in this book seemed a little thinner than the standard paper in the other Shutterfly book that I printed. When I looked at my order history, both books were ordered with "standard" paper, though. I though the print quality was better in this book.

Cover.

Unlike the AdoramaPix book that starts directly with 2-page spreads, the Shutterfly book allows for a single title page on the right hand side.

Here are some inside pages.

The basic Shutterfly book had a few more pages than the basic AdoramaPix book, so I threw in some extra full bleed photo pages.

I've been very pleased with these Shutterfly books. Shutterfly offers two sizes that Blub does not: 8x8 inch and 10x10 inch. (as of this blog post, Blurb has 7x7 inch and 12x12 inch square books.) I may just have to consider Shutterfly for my next yearly album.