Time for a Punk Sketch!

I love the Punky Scraps sketch challenges!

Trying to come up with fresh design ideas is the hardest part of the layout process for me so I gladly hand the responsibility over to Marie who is able to provide something beautiful for us Punky Team members to work with at least 1 every month! Thanks Marie!

Here's the resulting page:

Keith's Playground (FDR Dream)
Materials: Scenic Route paper, Studio Calico exclusive radar stamp (LOOVE!) Studio Calico exclusive woodgrain alphas, Basic Grey Alphas, Tim Holt'z waxed kraft paper, Basic Grey brads, Prima heart button. Fiskar's arrow punch, K & Co arrow die cuts, Smash polka dot tape and tag. Canvas Corp tag baggie. That "T" pin is AWESOME! Got it from a pair of men's pants at Banana Republic. Looks like something Tim Holtz would package at 12 for 4 dollars.

I've always wanted to visit Keith Haring's "Crack Is Wack" mural. He painted it in the late 80's. Ever since his death from AIDS in the late 80's,  folks in the neighborhood have volunteered to touch it up to keep it from disappearing. When I arrived, 3 people had just finished retouching the orange side to erase some punk kid's silver tags. They thought I was Park Police and showed me how they stayed away from the outlines to preserve the original design. Gotta love NYC!

Here's the sketch:

Now please feel free to swing by and add your page!
http://punkyscraps.blogspot.com/

MuChoS SmOoChES!
Michelle

When your mojo goes on vacation- shoot photos!!!

The wall- I've hit it.
All my former "no mojo" fixes are out the window.
I'm supposed to be working on a page for Punky Scraps that is due by thursday- so I will TRY to eek something out tonight- it might be hideous.
I'm determined to work through this dry spell!!
Here is an attempt to stamp my way out:

Foiled AGAIN by the ipod's low resolution camera! 

THANK YOU to Adele H. for recommending I check out Nat Kalbach's Creative Jump Start. I joined up today and was rewarded with a GREAT video from fave artist Louise Nelson (YAAYYY!)
If you guys are also hitting a wall, I suggest you swing by and check it out- it's free. (best price ever!)
Today I took photos at a place I have ALWAYS wanted to visit-

Keith Haring's "Crack Is Whack" mural in East Harlem. This is a DREAM COME TRUE! I've been wanting to go for YEARS. It's right next to the FDR so it's hard to get there via public transport but we managed it.

The 80's in the Bronx were like the wild west- with zombies. Burned out apartment buildings, crack vials littering the playground, junkies with half closed eyes walking in circles on the sidewalk. Our neighborhood is actually one of the better ones in the area and my parents did their very best to shield my siblings and I but we still saw a lot. So this mural has a lot of meaning for me. And it's freaking AWESOME.  Can't you just HEAR "White Lines" by Grandmaster Flash playing softly in the distance?

I have to keep reminding myself that there are many ways to stay creative. There's no need to panic. Creativity ebbs and flows- the ebb part sucks.
I also finished my December Daily! YAY!!!

12/24/11 My brother treated us all to the Christmas Ever performance of
The Nutcracker Suite at Lincoln Center- AWESOME!

BY this point the pages had stopped matching- I just grabbed the prints I liked best.

My FAVORITE image from this year's holiday take. I didn't have space inside
so I added it to the back cover.

There's 4 more pages but these are the best bits. Years from now I will look through it and laugh at the first pages being so beautifully detailed and the last so obviously slapped on quickly. I did make sure to take time to journal. I really enjoyed the process of making a holiday mini book. I see many more in my future- if for nothing else- to have a reason to buy KEUUTE holiday themed stash.

MuChOs SmOoChEs!
Michelle

Winter Creative Blahs- Can I beat them?

I'm getting kinda tired of writing about my scrapper block. I'm actually kinda tired of me period. Usually when I get sick of me I take a class so I can learn a new skill and get away from my negative thoughts for a while but unfortunately classes cost money and I have very little of that these days.

Off to the Net for help!

These two posts provided lots of food for thought this week:

• Julie Fei Fan Balzer's Why I Art Journal Everyday is a great read for those who wonder if it's something they should try. She gives many reasons but the top one for me would be to explore my ideas and FOCUS before I try to make pages that go out in public- a huge block for me as I try to make things "perfect" and end up not making anything at all.

• Lisa Truesdell's take on making Project Life work for her was so detailed it gave me new insights on tackling daily craft projects. That's the real kicker- trying to do this hobby daily so that you stay current and keep your creative flow going for other projects you may want to tackle.

Gauche Alchemy "sneak" for an upcoming post on the 20th.

With Lola quickly nearing three years old I am finding less and less time for thinking and making new designs. Before I would wait for her to nap and I would spend the hours working and reworking my pages- now I'm lucky if she'll let me have 30 minutes and by 8:30pm- her bedtime- I am exhausted.

I am not a designer by training so every page is a struggle to figure out what works- which colors to use for maximum impact, new layout ideas, what techniques to use. These decisions trip me up because when I finally find time to sit and make something I draw a complete blank- no matter how many things I pin up for "inspiration". This journaling thing may help me as I try to figure out WHAT it is I want to say and how to say it with maximum visual impact.

Eventually the question is WHY am I making this work? Why bother? I used to struggle with this before but now I see this is all professional training.

• Blogging makes me explore tech issues and pushes me to stay current with social media- a huge part of many photo editing related jobs since so many are now going online. 
• Scrapbook page design although not really respected in the professional magazine or news editing industry since it's "personal" and "feminine"- keeps me exploring graphic design techniques. 
• Shooting photos keeps me using my cameras and possibly develops a customer base for a photographic business. 

I haven't figured out which direction I want to go in- opening a craft business, going back to school for web design or simply trying to hustle as a photographer (a tough career track full of amazing talent) but it's good to explore the options.

The final question- how to kick the winter creative blahs seems to be- keep working- work not to publish on the blog but to keep the flow going. So I will stop the post here and go force myself to make something- if anything it will keep me ahead of my DT deadlines.

My reward- it was worth taking time off.

MuChoS SmOoChEs!
Michelle

Playing the numbers with Paper Issues and Punky Scraps

Happy Three King's Day! I missed the parade in Spanish Harlem again- 9 years and every year I miss it- no fun photos- I could CRY!

It's come to this- combining challenges from different design teams to try to get my craft engine re-started. I don't generally like to do so since each team I'm in deserves to shine exclusively but I thought I should start slow as one page is better than no page at all.

Over at Paper Issues the current link party has a numbers theme- click here to swing by and add your project.You have until January 13th. So far I see some great cards, 2011 mini books, 2012 calendars and birthday themed scrap pages- how about adding yours?

In this page I tried to capture the whirlwind day we had on New Year's Eve which  included 2 house visits, lunch at a fancy Italian restaurant, dancing with Daddy AND Lola's first "classic" tantrum with all the fist pounding, leg kicking trimmings. (David and I were so amazed we forgot to whip out the camera). We went to bed at 11pm and don't regret it one bit!!!!:

Celebrate 2011
Materials: Gauche Alchemy Scarlet Red Mixed Media Color kit and silver punchinella, Bazzil kraft paper, Ormolu fabric tab, Glitz woodgrain alphas, American Crafts Amy T alphas, American Crafts silver foil paper in gold, corrugated gold and red, Smooch spritz in Tin Foil

And over at Punky Scraps the challenge is all about Vintage Americana:

When I first saw this I immediately thought of circles, the color red, and a grid based photo montage. Since I'm currently reorganizing my entire apartment to regain some SANITY in my life, I didn't want to get overly ambitious and start looking for the vintage images I KNOW I have somewhere.

Not much you can do to "reorganize" an already over stuffed a 400 square foot space.
Dave put these two shelves up and revolutionized my work area- YAY!
Just don't look UNDER the desk. No seriously- don't.

I'm also getting organized for a go at the Project Life theme. I'm already shooting one photo a day for Project 365 so I thought it might be easy for me to make 1 page a week using all those photos. It's a wildly ambitious project but I think as long as I make the pages ATC size and keep away from the super expensive binders or project kits (considering my 2012 budgetary goal) I'll be alright.

Here are my Project 365 photos so far- nothing earth shattering as the weather is UGLY so we've been hiding inside all week.

1/2/12- Eating Bubbles, 1/3/12- learning the alphabet, 1/4/12- home made Pupusas for diner,
1/5/12 Winter Berries and the Empire State Building

MuChOs SmOoChEs!
Michelle

Making room for ONE- A True Xoxo Girls challenge

One of my few "goals" for 2012 os GET ORGANIZED and REDUCE because frankly- I'm tired of my scrambled self.

I cleared out all the scrap stuff from the kitchen table so we can now sit and actually eat as a family again. Dave made me 2 shelves so I can put away major pieces of equipment (and my mountain of Thickers) while I use the now former architecture table to scrap. Pix to come later.

Like they say here in Brooklyn- It was BANANAS, YO!
I worried Lola would get hurt by a falling "Whale of a punch" or slip on a wayward piece of Sassafras Lass paper.

So my SECOND goal for 2012 is 30 dollars a month for scrap shiz. That's it.
It will be AWFUL.
I will do a lot of complaining and feeling sorry for my broke assed self.
DO NOT ENABLE ME!
DO NOT tell me "Oh it's ok to treat yourself Michelle."
I have already treated myself to 10 years worth of paper goods and wouldn't you know? It looks just like garbage when piled up or shoved hastily into boxes.
Costly garbage.
Rainbow glitter garbage.
And then I make things worst by producing things like this:

True Xoxo Girls Challenge Page for January
Materials: Basic Grey paper, Sassfras Lass scallop strip, Crate Paper Peppermint collection chipboard, Pink Paislee canvas strip, wood veneer snowflake from Crate and Barrel, Making Memories envelope, Martha Stewart Punch Arround the page burst punch (love!) October Afternoon red alphas, Fiskars small heart punch

It's not all bad, a first draft if you will. But really truly- I liked this month's True Xoxo challenge.
The theme is ONE. One ribbon, one title, one photo- a few DT members took it further and made pieces with one color or one manufacturer. It's a GREAT challenge- can you scrap "simple" beautifully?
I wanted to but my lack of organization killed it.
Actually this page took a LOT of effort. I got a stress headache from my frustration.
I was SCRAP BLOCKED.
Seriously! I FINALLY understand the concept of Chi and why people paint their doors red and refuse to store things under their beds. I felt my energy, my power, my scrappiness (???) flowing elsewhere-
Ahh you say- "A psychotic break..."
No one was hurt in the making of process other than that Xoxo page. YIKES!

A wise person once said... (I am paraphrasing here as I can't remember the actual words):

I believe they were talking about important things like prejudice or grudges but I took it  to concrete heart and threw out so much crap I scared The Hubs who's now REFUSED to participate further.
He's lived with me for 13 years- he recognizes the mad glint in my eye.
More importantly, he knows I'm coming for his 80's music collection!
"Let the music play?" HELL NO! Shut it, sister!
What's in the Salvation Army bag?
Baby blankets, clothes from when The Lolster was 6 months old! It's OUTTA HEAH!!!
Dusty bicycle parts, bank "swag" water bottles, empty photo albums! GONE!
Summer clothes in size 8! Summer clothes in size 10!
Summer clothes PERIOD!!! PARA AFUERA baby!

AAAAhahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa! cackle cackle. WHOOOOOOOO!

GRATUITOUS CUTE BABY SHOT!!!!!
Tip for reusing those 3D cinema glasses you "forgot" were in your pocket:

So I found myself searching online for 2012 winter CHA sneaks. I already have a list 20 items long.
See?  SEEEEE? PROBLEMS (multiple!!)!

MuChoS SmOoChEs!
Michelle