project life week 28.

If you are in South Africa and a keen project lifer and you are battling to get hold of Project Life goodies in your area please leave me a message with your e-mail address 
and i will get back to you. i would hate for people to get discouraged because they can't get hold of this wonderful product.
 
Let me just say i am still in *love* with project life. earlier in the week while i was waiting on some products to do a project i grabbed my album and some goodies and in less than an hour i had a double page spread completed - memories, journaling, ephemera and all - done and dusted! I knew i wouldn't have time later in the week or for the next 2 weeks so i was relieved to get it done while i had a few minutes.
our life is not that interesting - imagine my shock when i realized this after starting project life LOL - and it suits us fine. happy, content and without the daily drama of the average person. life is not perfect - but it's perfect for me right here and right now.
what i love most about project life is that things i used to throw away, know has a place to live for example....that little brown heart. i have lots of scrap papers and i love experimenting. to i try new techniques and old products, old products and new applications. sometimes the result is amazing with the discovery of a new technique, other times i just like the cool reaction of the inks on the paper....
but things got too much and i ended up chucking most of my experiments - because i just didn't have the space to keep (hoard) everything! so now i can turn those precious little works of art into features that will last a lifetime.
and for that reason alone i am pretty chuffed with Project Life. some of the cards on this spread was downloaded from the internet and some created by me for my album and simply printed onto photo paper. i love the vibrancy of the oranges (not a colour i usually associate or create with). Project Life doesn't have to be expensive and difficult - it is what you make of it. thanks for hanging around and keeping on this journey with me - i know i have been out of touch a bit since getting back from Cape Town...but here i am ready and willing....have a wonderfully creative week.
To view the collection of Project Life Products currently available in South Africa visit http://www.thewholesaler.biz/Project-Life

travelling and teaching.

I am off tomorrow morning to Cape Town - the oh so beautiful mother city with the big mountain and even bigger blue beyond.i am excited and at the same time i so wish that my better half could come with - he is from Cape Town and so  misses being there. who wouldn't right!
i am excited to see my brother and his wife and kids - they must be so big and my photos of them are seriously dated and outgrown! but i am traveling for work - to teach at the Scrapping4Cahrity event - such a worthy cause raising money for the 'aged'. those who have kids and never see them - those who have outlived all their kids, or those who never had kids.
i am also teaching a card class at The Scraphouse - so looking forward to that as well - meeting longtime cyber friends and getting to meet more new and enthusiastic scrappers and crafters. I love my job! below is a little peak at one of the cards i am teaching - love how they turned out!
it's been a hectic week and i still haven't worked through the to do pile - which has to be done before i can actually get onto the plane. in the meantime i am hoping my kits arrived safely at their destination - always a bit of a worry - bags are triple checked and even then you still think you have forgotten something! oh well....then we just make do! thanks for stopping by - i won't promise to blog from the road - it's Cape Town people!!!
see you next week with some more exciting and crafty news and projects! love you madly!

photography tips (part 1) at The Wholesaler.

As scrapbookers and memory keepers we take loads of photos each year – some of us each day for various reasons. And as Project Life becomes more and more popular we start taking even more photos. There’s nothing to taking a photo – aim and shoot. But then there’s taking better and even great photos. We can’t all be professional photographers – but with a few simple guidelines we can all become better photographers and memory keepers, and with practice comes perfection and better photographs. Here are a few tips I have learned throughout my career working with some of the best photographers in South Africa. These are the basics rules of getting better and more usable photos. This will be a series of tips and tricks on getting better photos – for you the scrapper and avid photographer. Simple, quick and easy! Take more photos than what you need sometimes you take a single photo of something that ends up being more important that you thought.

Always take more photos then what you think you will need
Some will be blurry, some will have the focus on something different than you intended, and some may even have something in the background you didn’t notice at all. The beauty of digital photography is that you can always delete the unwanted images or simply store them in a different place on your computer – but they are still there should you need them. Working in publishing taught me to take at least 20 more photos that what you really need. Changing the angle, the prop, the background and even the setting will help to have the same subject with different images.

Landscape, Portrait, Fill the Frame 
simple explanation really. In everything that you photograph always take landscape and portrait images. If you have a good editing program you can do this for yourself, but it’s so much easier just tilting your camera and taking landscape and portrait images. This also ensures that you are taking more photos than you normally would, giving you twice the possibilities for scrapping and memory keeping. Together with taking both landscape and portrait images you need to get up close and personal to your subject. Fill the frame with your subject by getting really close to your subject or use a macro or zoom lens depending on the gear you shoot with. By filling the frame with your subject you eliminate unwanted background “noise” like people on the beach or more lawn than you really want behind your new puppy. You are simply shifting the focus onto what is really important.
Shoot from Different Angles 
My favourite photos are those of my husband staring into the distance and totally unaware of the photo being taken. The same goes for toddlers playing in a sand pit and not looking directly into the camera lens – the camera captures something really special that would otherwise not be there. Different angles also means that you will climb onto chair and ladders to get higher than your subject, or lie down flat on the ground to get to the same height as the subject you are shooting. Getting a little dirty will mean that you get “the” shot.

Take advantage of themes and make use of props
Don’t be afraid to use props, these are used to add interest to a photo but also helps to focus the viewer’s eye on the subject. It can be something little that will enhance the theme of the photo like a colourful ball on the beach or a simple flower from your garden. Now go out and get that creative shot – we would love to see some of your best photos!

does my star sign make me weak in your eyes...

this is not a pretty post - it's just reality. Some people have very strong personalities, some not so strong yet they have gone through more tough times and have endured a lot more than the so called 'strong personalities'. they thrive on their strength and they prey on the weakness of others. they think so much more of themselves, they think they accomplish so much more, they boast more, they think they rule the world and everyone in it. they don't have much time for the rest of humanity - they might pity them but they have no time for them. in reality they are the ones that should be pitied. the only question that comes to mind is - what would Jesus do? did Jesus think He was better than the rest of those mere humans He found Himself having to save, did He think that He was too good to be amongst the lessor species - or did He accept that God the Father did not make everyone the same, did He understand that some people don't need to be the best and most important or popular, did He get it? Was Jesus humble and went about His work without boasting, or belittling others, or jumped onto His high horse in a second? Did God equip each of us differently to face and deal and handle life differently - then who are YOU to judge people because they do not have such a strong personality. What would Jesus do, and how will you accept others who was made in God's image - and if you think less of me - are you not thinking LESS of God too - in whom image i was created?
this is just a post about how different we all are - it's my personal opinion and view - it's not aimed at anyone specific. i just find it hard to believe that those who claim to be Christians are so quick to judge others - are they not judging God at the same time? afterall i Never asked to be here...
"I don't want to die, but i aint keen on living either" (Robbie Williams) 
excuse me....oops here comes someone to judge me again for being weak.
PS i am an Aquarius 
edited to read - i am not an astrologer nor do i believe in it or make it my religion
society depicts that i am born in January and therefor i am classified as an Aquarius.

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