Young Love

Since this was one of my favourite pictures taken at Vanessa's wedding and I included it here in my blog, thought I would post the picture that I scrapped using it. I am really happy with it....journaling is so important on my pages even though it's hard I always try to make sure I do some!

WEDDING INVITATIONS

KICIAS

I offered to make Jaymie and Bryce's wedding invite and told her to just bring over a template that they would like to have. I was pretty happy with the one she brought! Definitely a lot easier to work on than Vanessa's! Three boxes I could do... spent about a day working on it. What made is even easier was saving it as a jpeg. each time and then quickly sending it to Jaymie, she kept sending me suggestions and then I would change it. The hardest was getting the pink she wanted, until she actually sent me a picture of the pink she was thinking of... I simply used my colour picker in PS and voila, the right pink. We had this done in a day, just by texting and emailing! Happy about that and I think they were both pretty happy with how it turned out, I know I was! The joy of technology...

Album of Awesome

I am taking an online Album of Awesome class that teaches us how to look for the awesome things in our life. It is based on Neil Pasricha's Book of Awesome.  I have really been enjoying listening to Steph on her podcasts for The Digi Show so I am excited to take this class! I'm not always good at finishing albums so we'll see how this turns out, but it's always good to be working on something digital! My first entry:


#1 I received A MISSIONARY MOM LETTER today from a friend who knew I was missing hearing from my Mel, and she generously shared her missionary son's experiences with me. It was the first letter I opened up this morning and it touched my heart and made my day AWESOME! 

ENGAGEMENT PHOTOS...KICIA/PIERSON

BRYCE AND JAYMIE KICIA

Thought I would put up a few engagement pictures that I took last Saturday on my blog because it's a little more private than facebook. Jaymie, my daughter's sister-in-law asked me to take their wedding pictures for this October! My first response was are you kidding....not me, I like being the second camera, I do not like being the head honcho in anything frankly! I'm pretty much good at being a counselor (in my church work) but not being the last one responsible. It really worried me all night, I don't like saying NO but I did not feel confident and for a wedding, one of the most important days of a girls life!! I asked her if I could think about it for a few days. Luckily, my Vanessa phoned me the next morning and talked me into it...she told me I take wonderful pictures and that she would totally help me, would be my photo assistant! That helped me feel better, so I reluctantly agreed. I'm still super nervous about it but I did tell them they are not getting a professional photographer. I also talked to Deanne (Jaymie's mother) and we decided that I would do an engagement shoot to at least get a feel for it.

So I started thrift store hunting, found a cute chair that I painted pink and a huge picture frame (had Don take all the hardware and the picture and glass out) for props. I also had Jaymie bring a huge lollipop since she has a pink/ candy sort of theme. I was worried about the light that morning but we found a bridge and we took lots of pictures under it. Couldn't believe when I got home that in about an hour and a half we had almost 300 pictures so lots to choose from.

So here are some of the pictures that I took:

I was happy with how quickly my Mac made it possible to tag them and sort through them. I also happily added some filters to them.
Bryce and Jaymie were sure fun to work with and didn't once complain about about all the kissing I asked them to do!!

Wedding through the Viewfinder

I love this look that I get from Instagram on my IPhone and haven't been able to find it online. Did find some actions that instagram-actions-by-dbox.atn has put together. In the meantime I am learning how to do some of it with this Jessica Sprague class that I'm taking,  Photo Editing: Frames and Special Effects.

This is one of my favourite pictures from Vanessa's wedding so decided to tweak it! I gave it a vintage look  , then added a "through the viewfinder" texture that I found on Flicker and then added the blending mode multiply. The word art is from Weeds and Wildflowers Everyday Life Kit.  Love how it turned out and I think Vanessa does as well...

Vintage Everett

Glad to be taking another scrapbooking class! This is Jessica Sprague's Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects. This is what I learned in the first few classes, finding it pretty basic but it's always good to go over the basics because there always seems to be something new to be learned. I usually use actions to create my vintage looks but it's good to know how they create them.

This is a picture I took of Everett in his backyard in Calgary having fun in the swimming pool. I just love the curls...which I think he gets from our Granger side.

26 Years of Wedded Happiness

Wanted to write a post today because I've been married to my sweet Don for 26 years today! Every year that goes by, just seems to keep getting faster....

I meant to go for a long walk this morning (it turned into a shorter one) but sat down at the computer and looked for an early picture of us, which was a little difficult because the pictures we had taken at our wedding were awful! I think it's one of the reasons why I am so crazy about picture taking now and why I insist on good pictures for my daughter's weddings! I have so few nice ones of my own wedding.

Here is one that I tweaked today that was at our wedding reception. I used Photoshop CS3 and put a "Soft and Faded" action on it from Pioneer Woman which helped to give it that vintage look. Just wish I would have had time to clone out the person behind but will work on that!

Had a few comments that my daughter Melodie looks like me, but I think it's always hard to see when you are the mother. So fun to look back on pictures when Don and I were first married, before kids, before careers, before moving when we were just two young, happy kids trying to make our marriage work. So grateful that Don has been with me through the years, for his patience, faithfullness and willingness to work hard for his family. We love to laugh and read together; I think those are two things that make our marriage strong. I am a blessed woman!

Happy 26th Anniversary Don!

Vanessa and Scott Pierson

 It has been over 2 months now and it's still hard to believe that our little Vanessa is married to Scott Pierson from next door! I love this picture from their wedding because Vanessa looks so happy! Two months later and she is still happy whenever I talk to her on the phone, other than missing home. They are living and working in Edmonton for the summer.

 So glad that Kevin brought our Mel's picture that he had made. Everybody laughed when we included this but it made it just a tiny bit better because we all missed her so much!

 This happened to be one of my most favourite pictures that Russ and Jenn McCue took of the wedding. I think it's because it reminds me that weddings are a community effort! My kids have been influenced, loved and raised by not just their parents but by friends, teachers, neighbours and the community around them. This is the end result of a lot of love and effort! Not only that, but as a couple Scott and Vanessa will now have the opportunity to be an influence and an example to those around them, to take part in the community that raised them...

 Another one of my favourite pictures! What a beautiful daughter I have inside and out!

 Bless Ryan for reading a poem that Melodie wrote for the wedding. I know he had a tough time getting through it but he did a great job! It was pure MEL...a Dr. Seuss poem written to Vanessa and Scott in rhyme, it was funny, touching and full of love!

The end of the night....another daughter happily married but gone forever from our house! We miss our girls but feel so blessed to be their parents!

Vanessa at the Temple

Well we had an amazing Easter weekend because we were at the temple with our Vanessa! This was her first time through because she is getting married on June 10. We drove down Friday night with her and Scott, stopped in Chilliwack at a wonderful little Japanese restaurant called Osaka Sushi and had a fun dinner and then stayed with George and Sharon Hara that night in Abbotsford (they live right next to the Abbotsford Stake Centre). So glad we stayed with them, they are so warm and friendly and so we will be back. Deanne and I went through all her wedding decorations the next day and found lots, including a pond!

Saturday was a beautiful day to go through the temple! How wonderful to be in the temple with our third daughter. There's such a feeling of love and amazement there, a feeling of wonderment.

So grateful that Danielle could fly out for the day to be with us! I know she was disappointed that she couldn't be there for Melodie because she was too far along in her pregnancy, so this was special to her as well.

We were so happy to have the Piersons, Lambs and Wilsons with us as well, it made for such a special day. Melodie was there with us in spirit!!!

WEDDING INVITATIONS...PIERSONS/MATHIESONS

Well I have been working on wedding invitations for Scott and Vanessa and those of you reading this get a sneak peek at the basic idea! While we were waiting for their engagement pictures to be taken, I made up a template for them and just used pictures that I already had. They found the design they liked and I used my photoshop program to try and make one that was similar. Here is the draft copy front:

Here is the draft copy back:

The hardest part was the swirl on the front, I didn't have anything like it and the few edges I tried didn't look right. This scroll was made up of 3 letters from the Ornamental Scroll font and I like how it turned out. It was also fun to try using my gradient as well. The fonts are Bookman Old style and Scriptina for the calligraphy. The cute film strip comes from Designer Digitals, Katie Pertiet's In a Strip Overlays.  I will be working on the final copy as soon as I get the actual pictures! Should be fun, but just trying to get them printed double sided and then finding the right envelopes...

Melodie's Mission Year Mark!

Well Melodie has been out a year now on April 6! Frankly, sometimes it has seem like yesterday that she left and sometimes it seems like forever since we have seen her. We still miss her tons but love to get her emails. She sent a few pictures a few weeks ago and I thought I would post them.  The whole time she has been in Peru she has only seen one Canadian...apparently she saw a young man on the street with a Canadian flag on his hat and she was so excited she almost went up and hugged him....luckily she remembered she's a missionary and can't! I think she misses Canada although she is loving Peru!   

We had to laugh at this picture she sent! She told us that pigs are allowed to just roam free all over but we didn't realize how big they were! Mel also mentioned that there are dogs that run free all over and they are always hungry, she feels sorry for them. They must not have a very good spaying system there.

Well here she is having ate guinea pig which apparently they eat regularly in Peru! We had heard that they did but she has never mentioned that she had it for dinner until she sent this picture! Apparently she has also eaten cow intestines which she did not care for much, hmmm wonder why! I'm glad she is so brave! In Peru the missionaries have pensionistas that cook and clean for them, I think it is mainly for health reasons. I know she has had some wonderful women who she is grateful for.

Bronchitis Blues

Well I'm sitting here in bed on my laptop getting ready to watch a marathon of Pride and Prejudice! Why? Because for the last week and a half I have been struggling with a cold and flu and everyday it seems to get worse. These last four days I have spent most of my time in bed feeling miserable. I finally went to the doctors today to see if it was anything serious and he thinks I have bronchitis, so he gave me some antibiotics. Sure hope they help because I am tired of being sick. I've missed two weeks of church, missed Young Women's conference and have been struggling with everything else especially because it has been spring break and we have Tim, Danielle and Everett with us and Darci and Ryan stopped in overnight a couple of times. I have read all my books and scrapped a bunch of pages and now I'm just going to do the movie thing for awhile.

We heard from Melodie today and it was wonderful.  I was worried about what she would think about Vanessa moving her marriage date up and she seems okay with it. She is so happy on her mission, really working hard with all her investigators and had 2 baptisms last week. It will be so wonderful to see her again!

We have Everett tonight, hope that goes well since Tim and Danielle booked a hotel and are gone for the night! It has been a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week!

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY EVERETT!

Well as you can see I have been scrapbooking the last few days, nothing like a deadline to get you working. I wanted to get some pages done for Everett's album and what better time than his birthday!

Tim, Danielle and Everett are visiting us from Calgary. They stopped by on Wednesday, went to Vancouver to visit with his family, go to the temple and then came back last night to stay with us for a few days. Everett has changed so much in the last year as so many of these pictures show. He is almost walking now and is started to have real personlity.

 My scrapbooking style has changed over the years. As I look at the pages I am making, I am discovering that I still like to use several pictures but I like my pages with a lot of white on them. I am also using templates a lot because they make it so much easier. Here I have used Songbird Avenue Port O Prince templates and I used elements from Crystal Wilkerson's "Me and My Baby Brother Elements" and "Oh Boy! Planes, Cars and Trucks Elements and the cute little banner is from Jessica Sprague Up and Running Class 2 Lesson 4. I am trying to be more organized in my scrapbooking and have learned to take notes about the pages I make but need to be consistent about it.

 I loved this page and had fun making it! This was a template from Jessica Sprague's Photoshop Friday #8 and I had fun learning how to use gradients in pictures to add journaling. I loved this picture of Tim reading to Everett, but then reading is always one of my first loves. The paper and elements were from Sweet Shoppe Designs Kristen Cronin-Barrow:  I love cocoa.

 I actually used this template over again from one I did of Mitchell's 10th birthday. Made it so easy and fun and it worked great for writing about Everett's bath time. I was happy to find these bubbles which I thought made the page. They are from the K Winiecki "Neverending" collection.