Scraps and Sales

Wow-what a week in digiscrap land! So many sales happening it makes my head spin. I haven't clicked the "buy now" buttons yet. I am waiting for the last moment to make sure I don't just buy on impulse. I know that's not fun for the designer, but I can't impulse shop. I mean, I certainly can and enjoy it, but I am too concsious about spending on what I don't really need.
Of course today I see Misty's new kit-Classy and it's gorgeous!!! It's already in my Wish List waiting for a sale :)
Her work is just incredible. You can't go wrong scrapping with her designs. If you haven't tried her designs yet, you can go to her blog (link at side of my blog) and there is a sample up there today. Not only are her designs great, but Misty offers so many tutorials on her blog-a definite place to stop each day in blogland.
I love her new brag book templates too. I have them on my Wish List too. I need to make a book for my parents from their cross country road trip and this will be perfect!

My Mom emails me pics all the time and asks me to do layouts for her. That's what I love-I am not a great scrapper, but my family loves what I make for them and that's what counts!! Don't need to make it in any magazine or a CT or whatever....those things are great, but I think too many give up because they look at other's work and don't think they measure up. Plus, if you post in galleries and don't get a lot of praise it's easy to give up. That happened to me, but I just realized I am not scrapping for others and what they think, but for my family! They love it and are so blessed when I make something for them and it encourages me to do more :)

Ok-so I was thinking, yes, I know, I do that sometimes.....all these different ways to manipulate photos got me to thinking about stuff. I saw a thread at DST (sorry, but I don't feel like looking for the link right now, but it was in the Photography section)about a week or so ago. It was about this site that did amazing transformations to photos. They took all the wrinkles, even some extra skin(that's a nice word huh) and "fixed" it all up. There's nothing I like better than taking a photo of myself and trying to make it look more glamorous. Smooth out my skin, highlight this or that, put a sparkle here or there-but I was wondering how far do we go with photo alerations. You know how eating disorders and body image are so huge in the world and girls and women everywhere are wanting to look like the models in the magazines. Noone really looks like that in real life-we know the secrets of Photoshop now ! :) Yet, we want to manipulate our photos, our kids photos, etc to try to achieve this "perfect look". I don't know how to word this all properly, but hopefully you understand what I am saying. Back to the thread....there was a woman who tried this photo technique and now isn't embarrassed to show a photo of herself. She showed the before and after and was thrilled about the after. Honestly, it made me so sad because this person is so pretty without the photo altering and how sad that she doesn't think so. While technology is good and with Photoshop and other things we the people can now enjoy playing around with it, I wonder what will be next. Ok-thank you for indulging me here...I think out loud a lot and sometimes it's hard to put into words.

Now for my big news... I told you hubby and I are going away on a trip next week (a week from today) and here's where we are going: Athens, Greece!!! We are staying at this beautiful hotel Grande Bretagne. Our friends are going there and are treating us to a vacation also. I just can't even believe it!!! If you knew what it's like to live on a missionary budget (now you realize why I can't buy many scrap items) and yet here we are going to be staying 4 nights in this amazing hotel!!! God is just amazing with His blessings!!!! Truely when I think of all the ways He has blessed us I am overwhelmed! We have a deluxe room (you have to check it out) that overlooks the Acropolis. It's going to be an amazing trip. We will get to stand on some of the places that Paul the apostle was teaching and also we are going to take a trip to Corinth while we are there. I can't wait!! I hope I get lots of good pictures while we are there. I will share them with you when we get back.

Enjoy your weekend and may the Lord minister to your heart that you would know His amazing love for you!

Here are a couple LO's I did with Misty's Old Copper Penny kit (you can get it at SBB). On the LO with my dd and her cousin I used Misty's template and scraplifted her LO from the template. Of course it didn't come out exactly like hers....but :) I also used Jennilyn's photo bends but I couldn't figure out how to use them properly-I have to figure that out still