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Just because it's Halloween and I'm feeling all festive, run over to my blog and there's a fun quick page (stickit) from the Spooky Dreams kit.

Hugs!

Happy Halloween!

Ahhh how I miss the days when my son was younger and we really got into the spirit of Halloween. We used to decorate the yard like crazy and had such fun with him dressing up and going through the neighborhood trick-or-treating. I'm going to show you a couple of old layouts. They aren't my best ones, but I love the pictures and memories that go with them. That's what scrapping is all about. Right?

Looking at these pictures makes me want to go through my pictures and do more scrapping. Sometimes as a designer that's the thing we struggle with most ... having time to scrap our own stuff. You know I've got kits that I've designed that I haven't gotten to play with yet? LOL

While I'm sharing OLD layouts, here's one of the early digital ones I did. It's of one of my absolute favorite pictures as a little girl. I had to do a bit of restoration on the photo, but it came out considering what I started with.

Finally, here's another oldie ... but a really good journaling one. Don't you absolutely love those little red sneakers?

Ok, doesn't tell you much about my designing today, but gives you a little peek at me. I'm now in the mood to go play and do some layouts. Maybe I'll get to sneak in a little scrap time between dinner and practice tonight. I really should get all my layouts posted in ONE gallery somewhere. I seem to have all the early ones spread out over different sights.

Don't forget my Box of Dreams Crop tomorrow night. Also, any questions you have about getting to know me or my designs, please feel free to ask away.

Here's today's spookable goodie:

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Have a great day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In response to Jen's question about camera and lens. We are using a Canon 20D with a Canon Zoom Telephoto EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS Image Stabilizer USM Autofocus Lens. We had a regular Canon 70-200mm lens, but it just wasn't doing the job for us. Lighting is notoriously bad in rinks and you really need a good professional lens to get good action shots. I can tell you that hubby is now shooting between 200-300 pictures per game and I throw away very few due to blur. I am running them through a noise filter because shooting at a high ISO causes more noise than I like to see. I found a great program that I can batch them through. I have also fallen in love with Adobe Lightroom for editing the pictures. I can run the entire batch through simple white balance edits, etc. and it saves me a ton of time instead of editing one by one in Photoshop. I batch process through Noiseware first, then Lightroom. After that I can do any individual edits on ones that need that extra touch. That's really only for ones that I print or do layouts with though. After I've batch processed, I export out to e-mail size prints and upload to the team's website. Our team loves that they have their own photographer!

I'm pretty organized with the photos broken down into folders by game. However, I am realizing that I have a hard time sorting through sometimes when looking for pictures of Ollie. I think I'm going to have to create a sub-folder under each game and copy only the pictures that he is in to the sub-folder so that they are easier for me to find when scrapping. Sounds like a lot of work up front, but easy once I start doing it from here forward. Right?

Tuesday morning ...

and I'm running behind per normal! LOL Couldn't get myself going good this morning, seem to be dragging about 10 steps behind. I really need to take a day off and organize, clean house and just give myself a mental break. I think they call those mental health days. Can anyone tell me how to sign up for one... or two... maybe three ..... hehe

Ollie's team was supposed to play the same team we played on Sunday again this Friday night at their rink. Their organization cancelled the game and suspended four of their players because of the way they acted on the ice (and in the locker room afterwards) on Sunday. I'm glad to see that organization taking control and not letting the kids get away with it. You don't see that very often that an organization will suspend it's own players for bad behavior.

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Someone asked to see pictures of the hockey, here is a wallpaper I did for this month that have two pictures of Ollie taken with our new professional lens. Hubby is getting better and better each week and before the end of the week I'll show you some newer ones.

Also, did you know we have SIX fur-babies (also known as cats) in our house? They are all adopted from a local rescue organization. I'd like to do a kit for them and donate the proceeds to the organization. I should get to work on that! Here is a layout showing some pictures that were taken last January. I keep the cat pictures in folders by month. This was a fun way to sort of recap a month. I should do layouts like this per hockey game too.

I have tons of work backlogged on my desk and need to get busy. I might try to check in laters, but just in case I don't get here ... here is today's gift.

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Hugsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Spooky peek ...

Here's a little spooky peek at the goodies for the week:

Enjoy!

Link fixed!

The Sunday link is working now and IS still available! I will remove it sometime around midnight EST tonight (24 hours after it was fixed) so don't forget to go grab it. See the bottom of Georgia's second Sunday entry to get it.

Just another Manic Monday ....

wish it was a fun day .....

Up and singing this morning at least. Blah though on Mondays, we should remove them from the week. hehe

Today's schedule is work, a nail appointment (my one girlie girl thing I get to do for myself), hopefully a stop at Curves (I just joined a couple of weeks ago so I haven't decided I like exercising yet... it's more like a chore... but I'm trying!), cook some dinner for the boys and then out the door for a hockey practice at 8:10 p.m. I'll try to squeeze in some Photoshop time in between somewhere to keep me sane.

Very sad news at work last week. One of the two partners I work for was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He got sick on a business trip they were on the week before in Germany. Went to 2 doctors over there and they told him to get home right away without really telling him what they suspected. He was so bad off that he went straight to the hospital from the airport. He has cancer in one kidney and some spots on his lungs. He had an appointment on Friday for diagnosis/treatment/prognosis. He goes today for a 2nd opinion. Please keep him in your prayers, his name is Sig.

This Thursday will be my Box of Dreams Crop. We have a lot of fun at the crops and then there is a series of challenges for the month which earn you pieces of a fun kit. Raylene from my Dream Team created a beautiful Brown Paper Christmas kit for this month's challenges. We are going to be focusing on holiday cards and there will be some great templates available! Don't miss out. Thursday night, 9:00 p.m. EST .... hope I'll see you there!

Peggy's Rose: This was a custom kit created for a lady that won a contest I ran. She wanted something for her Dad who loved the lavendar rose. This was a labor of love because it also reminds me very much of my own grandmother who loves roses. Her favorite color is pink and the main rose in this kit (a photo from my own garden) will also be featured in a wedding kit that I'm working on for her. Since purple is my favorite color, I really love this kit for me too! :)

Butterfly Dance: This also reminds me of my grandmother. I can't tell you why, this was one of those kits that just sort of happened. I love the colors of this Lil' Bud kit and would love to make an add-on or a full size kit with these colors at some point.

Someone asked about a preview of this week's goodies. I'm working on one, but have a couple more goodies I want to add before doing the preview. I will be putting the kit together in the store when my guest spot is up for anyone who misses pieces of it.

Here is today's edition:

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Have a great day!