Hyphenated & Overextended

When entering the world of digital scrapbooking you just can't be aware of all the goodies that are out there.  There are so many artists and designers who offer freebies on their blogs.  I am working on my very first scrapbooking kit right now.  Could you possibly imagine that it might be crochet themed?  LOL.   I am having a lot of fun getting backgrounds together using photographs.   I am also trying to learn how to use the tools in my design program.

As the wife of a graphic designer I didn't want to settle for a ready made scrapbooking program.  Instead we opted to get Photoshop Elements 8  (the newest version available at the time).  It was a fantastic investment.  Although my husband laments regularly that we don't have a full Photoshop version for his Mac he agrees that Elements is perfect for my needs.

I have been crazy busy with hat orders the past couple of weeks.  Not a complaint but an explanation for my absence on my blogs.  I should have a large order finished tonight and will get to the next one tomorrow.

While I am learning some of my favorite sites are:

Scrap Girls
Shabby Princess
Craft Crave (list of freebies)

There are so many others that I have run across in the past year or so.  I will try to share when I come across them.

Just a couple of my more recent pages.  Nothing too elaborate yet, like I said I am still learning.

Just wanting to warn you all that things are getting ready to change...for the better I hope.  I will continue to keep my weight loss blog separate but am going to start writing more about my other creative outlets and life in general.  In addition to crochet I spend a lot of time doing digital scrapbooking.  I am far from a pro at this and am just really beginning to learn the good parts of using Photo Shop Elements to design my pages but can't wait to share what I do know.  I also hope to share some free designs as well.

For today my adventure was cutting my own hair.   What was I thinking you say?  My reasoning was this, first we are completely broke so shelling out $20 or more for a hair cut simply wasn't an option.  Second, every time I let a beautician touch my hair they manage to do the exact opposite of what I tell them I want.  Third, my super long very thick hair has begun giving me headaches and after a while even dinks at my neck and shoulders.

So, my mom has been telling me for years about layering your own hair by putting it into a ponytail and cutting the ponytail off.  Well, that wasn't enough information for me to go on when considering such a drastic move so I began to research.

I found this blog Pony Tail Hair Cut and followed her easy instructions.  I couldn't be more pleased.  I didn't lose any length off of my hair (which my two year old loves to play with) but I got lots and lots of weight off of it.  I cut a ponytail that was just a tiny bit over 11 inches off of my head.  So here are my before pics, I forgot to take some just before.  The one in the hat is from last week.  My hair was basically all one length with a tiny bit of tapering in the front.  The ones with the baby are from this afternoon.  When he gets up from nap he sits with me and plays with my hair for a while. 

Of sleeveless Easter Dresses?  This year should be better than most since Easter falls a little later than usual but those darn egg hunts are always so early in the morning.  My poor daughter invariably freezes her little arms off or we are desperately running around trying to find her a jacket and she ends up in something that just doesn't show off her Easter prettiness to advantage.   This year I decided (finally) to rectify the situation.


The pattern to the pink shrug is available on Etsy.