Loving the Weather, Good and Bad

"...oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful..."
It's SNOWING!!  And, luckily, today is my day off!  I work part time now, 4 days a week, with Wednesdays off (usually).  So, I get to watch the snow today and sit in front of a nice fire and enjoy a mint hot chocolate!
.
In one of my earlier scrapbook pages, I made the entire photo my scrap page - very eye catching.  Then added a few small embellishments.  It's a very simple page and still one of my favorites.  I DO love the SNOW!

.

Continuing on a weather theme...

It's hard to believe it was just six months ago, that Hurricane Irene hit here.  Actually, she was downgraded to a Tropical Storm by the time she reached the Mid-Hudson valley, but the damage caused was still devastating!  The
day after, I took a walk around and got some photos.  It was nice to chat with neighbors who were also out to see the aftermath.  I put together a page and included a large circle shape to offset the pictures, using it for a title and some journaling.  With the journaling, you really get to tell the story of the pictures and what else was happening behind them.  A nice keepsake to look back on.

.
Snow, rain... as much as I enjoy them, it will be nice to see those glorious warm, sunny days of summer arrive!  Stay warm and safe everyone!

Diane

A Surprise Visit

Don't you love surprises?!  At the last minute, Jim and I decided we could, in fact, make a trip upstate to see our daughter Kelly compete in a Track meet at Cornell University.  I had no time to make the usual Chocolate Chip cookies and shop for strawberries, track meet staples, but as least I could make a PB&J, and bring up some Gatorade (and raisin bread and a little toy stuffed "red dragon" - Go Cortland Red Dragons!!).

We made it to Cornell's beautiful campus and to Barton Hall's indoor track in plenty of time.  This winter, the weather has been quite cooperative!  Kelly was warming up for the Pole Vault, so I got one of her friends (and suite mate), Sarah, to bring the bag of over to her.  Poor Kelly was quite confused.  You see, Sarah's Mom brings goodies to each meet for Sarah, and has included Kelly, since we're a bit too far to make it to each meet.  So Kelly thought this was from Sarah's Mom, especially since she had NO idea we were there!  HAHA!  She was finally convinced we were here and looked up to find us waving like maniacs in the bleachers! FUN!

She did a great job, too!  I guess having Mom and Dad there added to the incentive to do well.  She had a PR (personal record) of 3.30m, or 10'10"!  Now, depending on where your son or daughter is in their pole vaulting career, you could say a jump of 10'10" is great or just OK.  To us, this is unbelievable!  You see, Kelly never picked up a pole until the last couple of weeks of Indoor Track last year.  Our high school does not compete in that event.  It did always look interesting to her, so when she arrived at college (as a Long Jump special talent at State University of New York (SUNY) Cortland) last January, she asked the coaching staff if she could give it try.  

I think they're glad she asked :)

I've done only a couple of scrapbook pages on this, but I'm sure there will be more to come.  The first one was of the Cortland Men and Women's 2011 Pole Vault team.  Kelly was the only woman pole vaulter during last year's spring season, so it's just her and the guys.  It was a very close knit group.  This page was thrown together very quickly.  I brought my laptop with me and spent some time scrapping in my hotel room after the meet.  I found the Cortland logos online and used those on the page.  I purchased an "action" from my favorite site, www.scrapgirls.com, to make the one photo look like several multiple photos.  (Kelly is front row to the right.)

This second page shows some photos of her making her previous PR jump of 10'8".  The digital papers used were also from the Scrap Girls site, as was the "tear action" to give the look of torn paper.  It makes it look more like a traditional scrapbook page, rather than digital. 

I love how this last page particularly gives me more of a record than just writing on the back of a photo!  But, more on journaling at a later time...

Bye for now.  Hope fun surprises await you all!

Diane

NY Giants - Superbowl XLVI Champs

Superbowl is over.  That makes some folks happy (the hype is over!) and some folks just plain lost with no football to look forward to.  I enjoy football, but I'm not an avid fan.  We lived in Tampa, Florida, for ten years back in the '80's.  We had season tickets on the 40 yard line, up in the nosebleed section.  Got to see the Tampa Bay Buccaneers up close,
sort of.  That was lots of FUN!
(Oh, and remember the USFL??!!!  We got to see the Tampa Bay Bandits.  And Burt Reynolds, a part owner of the team, and Lonnie Anderson.  Our seats were just under the press box that they were in!)

We've stuck by the Bucs all these many years.  The year they beat the Philadelphia Eagles and then went on to beat the Raiders and WIN the Superbowl, well, it was just amazing!  So, I really am happy for all the New York Giants fans.  CONGRATULATIONS!!

We do enjoy sports and so a lot of my scrapbook pages have a sports theme.  Biking, skiing, kayaking, High School and College sports, like Soccer, Track and Field, Gymnastics, Swimming, to name a few!  Haha!!!  I'll probably end up sharing quite a few of them!  But for now, I was thinking football and a scrapbook page I did that showed a technique that I really like.  I saw this, I'll call it "Frame pop-out" technique, on the Scrapgirls site and spent some time trying to duplicate it.  It works really well with photos that show some type of action.  Check out this football scrapbook page where Josh is shown outside of the photo's frame.  A fun technique and very eye-catching!

And, again, CONGRATULATIONS to the New York GIANTS and their many, many fans!

'til next time,

Diane