A Picture Perfect Day in Canberra

As the title says, today is a picture perfect day in our Nation's Capital. The sky is blue, the temperature is mild (23 degrees celcius), the birds are singing, the bees are buzzing. I have a cold...still, but it'll go away...eventually.

I should be hanging washing, but I'm not (yesterday I had an email from a friend who told me she was doing the ironing...to which I thought, I wonder if we still have one of those here? ;-). I am being a bit of a slacker, but you know what? I don't care. I've been inspired to do a CASE of a scrapbook page. My inspiration was the layout on page 4 of the current Stampin' Up! Spring Mini Catalogue. I have been meaning to make this page for a while now, but after recently seeing more lovely renditions of it, on Rachel Capps' blog here, and by Keryn Campbell on the NZSUblog here....finally last night I got to it.

and so....I have just finished, and now I have craft STUFF littered from one end of the house to the other. My efforts are often a bit uncoordinated. I kind of start in one place, run out of room, move to another...decide I need to do some printing...move there, shuffle different types of glossy paper all over the place, decide I need some thread so rather than bringing it to my work...I take the work to the thread...I have opened packets of rub-ons scattered here and there, unrolled rolls of ribbon adorning the dining table, my camera is on the bedroom floor, my house is CHAOS! But I'm pretty darn chuffed with the way the page turned out:

List of Ingredients (all from Stampin' Up!):

Cardstock: Baja Breeze and Basic Gray Textured, Whisper White plain
Stamps: Great Friend
Ink: Baja Breeze Classic Ink
Accessories: Walk in the Park DSP, Summer Love Rub-ons, Baja Breeze Corduroy Buttons, Baja Breeze 1 Inch Double-Stitched Grosgrain Ribbon, White Taffeta Ribbon, Eyelet Border Punch, Large Oval Punch, Scallop Oval Punch, Sanding Block, White Thread, Mini Glue Dots, Sticky Strip and SNAIL Adhesive.

While I was trimming the photo down to size I accidently managed to scratch some of the ink off the edges....never one to waste the glossy photo paper (it costs a bomb) I pulled out my Stampin' Up! Sanding Block and scratched up all the edges for a purposeful-looking distressed look. Obviously, I mean't to do that!

Guess I'd better go do some tidying up now.....SIGH!
Have a wonderful day :-)
Sam.

PS. Thanks for the lovely comments on my busy bee photos. I can't take all the credit for those. My macro lens is the true champion. It is a beauty. I started out with a tripod and remote shutter release, but those little bees are very, very tricksy and tres quick, and the tripod was just slowing me down...so I lay down on the ground and basically climbed on into the lavender bush and started shooting. I might add that for the handful of decent shots I got, I have about 40 near useless ones. What on earth did I ever do without a digital camera and super huge compact flash card? Frankly, I am amazed I even managed to get out of bed in the morning ;-).

PPS. I thought you might like to see the photo that I used in the above page, before, during and after my tinkering with Pioneerwoman Photoshop Actions:

This is it in the beginning, I have cropped it a little, and cloned out some stray hair across the face...it was annoying me.

...with Pioneerwoman Boost and Define and Sharpen actions applied (sounds like a new bra!)

...with Pioneerwoman Seventies action applied

...with a Pioneerwoman B & W Beauty action applied, then erased out the eyes so that the colour could show through from the background layer.

I love them all, but thought that the black and white worked best with the colours on the layout.

PPPS. More gardeny goodness: