Playing around in photoshop

I'm taking a really cool Jessica Sprague class online that is showing me how to use textures, frames, texts, and today she showed us how to use clipping masks (who knew?) to create really cool photo collages. Here's what I did: (shhh...this may become a Christmas present...shhh...)

Here's another that I made of Soze--I'm definitely framing this one!

Taking this one class has made me want to take her others. She definitely knows what she's talking about! Maybe this fall I'll be able to take Jessica's other photoshop classes and learn from the master herself. :)

I just flew back from Atlanta and BOY are my arms tired!

When I think about all that I haven't blogged about recently, my mind begins to swim. That's why I'm not going to stress about telling you every little bit of my summer, but instead focus on the major events. I feel like I apologize every time I get on here because I haven't been keeping up with my blogs like I thought I would, and I am going to stop apologizing. My friend Bonnie put it best when she said "I'd rather be living my life than blogging about it." Amen sister! Thanks Bonnie! :)

For starters, I just got back from a school trip to Atlanta where we presented and attended conferences on High Schools That Work. While I did see some interesting ideas (and people), one thought that popped up in my head quite frequently was how these "professional" people spoke. One woman was so bad that I began to tally each time she said "um" or "uh" during her speech. Before I left at the 30-minute mark, this professional speaker had said 165 ums or uhs. HOLY COW! I just couldn't take it any more. I had to get out of there!

Our group stayed at the Holiday Inn Select, and this was the view from our hotel window--the Olympic torch. How cool is that? Since I had never been to Atlanta before (I don't think just the airport counts.), I was super stoked to visit somewhere new. The following is a list of what I did or saw during my stay:

--LOTS of bad drivers. I thought the people down in Springfield were bad? Ummm...they don't have anything on the drivers in Atlanta. Chad, our administrator in charge and the driver of our minivan, couldn't let everyone else take control, so he felt it necessary to join the ranks of the other drivers. It didn't help, I have to say, to have a British speaker on our GPS who kept telling us to turn either left or right as we were passing THROUGH the intersection. Needless to say, we made LOTS of U-turns!

--Atlanta Underground is a place for food, fun, and weed. On our first afternoon in Atlanta, we ate lunch at the Atlanta Underground, a part of the city that burned way back in the day. Instead of tearing it all out, they decided to build OVER

this section. So now there's a cool little shopping and eating area. As we were making our way to Johnny Rocket's (it's called Rocket's for a reason! Ugh!) to eat lunch, apparently Justin, our second administrator on the trip, looked like he needed some weed. Some random dude offered him some pot! We are really hoping it was an undercover cop, and Justin passed the test. At least that's what we kept telling ourselves!

--The CNN tour was really cool. I skipped out on two sessions because one was with the lady who said um 165 times, and I just didn't care to hear that again. So I walked across the street to CNN and paid my $13 to tour the news. I couldn't take pictures inside the tour (I really, really wanted to take a picture of huge Anderson Cooper on the wall--YUM!), but I did manage to snag this shot from below the newsroom. The wall of windows below the CNN and globe is the actual newsroom where 90% of all CNN news comes from. While I was there, the weather man was getting ready to begin, and a news anchor was reporting behind the desk. I was able to get my picture taken from behind a CNN news desk as well. :)

--Coke World was not as cool as I expected it to be. For $15, I expected more. We did see a cute 4-D show (hence the glasses) about what makes a Coke so special. However, I was expecting more of a tour like the Anheiser-Busch tour in St. Louis where you see production from beginning to end. Coke World only had one little bottling tour that took less than 5 minutes to walk through. Boring! I guess the best part was tasting some Coke samples from around the world. The Korean one was REALLY good! :)

--My new favorite restaurant resides in Atlanta--a place called Two Urban Licks. This is what we drove up to, and my first thought was "Where the heck are we????" However, once we went inside, the place was totally rocked out! The food was unbelievably good--Calamari, tuna tartar, GIANT beef rib with homemade mac and cheese, oh man. My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

--The best part? Getting to know some more people from school that I didn't really know before this trip. They were a great group, and we laughed NONSTOP. "That's what she said!"

(By the way, I'm taking a Jessica Sprague online class on using frames and text with pictures. It's a cool class and I plan on taking more from her later on!)

New header...new world

Notice my nice new blog header?? I created that all by myself!! I would be so impressed with myself right now, except that little header took me about two hours to do. Kodi introduced me to a whole new world of digital scrapbooking, how to find free templates and kits online, and how to even make my own blog header. Thanks Kodi!!

I do want to try to make my own digital scrapbook page sometime--I might try it later today or tomorrow--but part of me doesn't want to give up on the paper scrapbooks. I love the thought of having my own scrapbook room downstairs, and I don't want to give that up. I could see how scrapping digitally might be faster once I really know what I'm doing, but I just have too much scrapbook stuff to go all digital. What would be nice is to become a "hybrid" scrapbooker--one that uses the combination of digital and paper. We'll see if I can even get through my first digital page before I entertain that thought!

Kodi and her family came up yesterday to spend the night at our house before they flew out to Orlando this morning. We all had such a good time just talking, watching Emmarie and Soze (our dog) play all afternoon. Bonnie, Kodi's friend, and hopefully a new friend of mine, came over too to see everyone while they were up here in KC. Now I just have to wait until next Sunday to hear all about their trip to Disney World and imagine myself in their shoes!