Party like it's 2004

I'm supposed to be getting another cat. At least, Jeff Davis, when he finally came in to drop his paperwork off asked me if I wanted one. After much discussion, I decided it would be good idea to get a second one as it would give Diamond someone else to be attached to. She is rather overly fond of me.

However, when Jeff came by Monday he came without a cat, who evidently had gone outside on Sunday and not returned. The cat had belonged to his neighbor, who'd had their house foreclosed and who'd left, sans cat, figuring the Davis' would take care of him. They already have several and one more was not working well in the household.

The cat's name is Steve, or so I'm told, although that will likely change once I get to know him. Jeff tells me he's a brown tabby with white paws, which makes me lean toward calling him Kitty Deeds, a named I'd used on a similar looking feral I'd been trying to tame back in 2004. And that got me thinking about former Miracle player Dougie Deeds, which is where I got then name from.

Dougie spent the 2008 season with AA Tennessee after being traded to the Cubs during winter meetings and finished up the year batting .349. Kind of a step down from AAA Rochester but hey. We liked Dougie when was here, and we still miss him.

So one thing lead to another and I dug out the photo albums from 2004. All those pictures need to be scanned. I don't have them on CD. And with the exception of guys like Frankie Liriano, Scotty Baker and Nick Blackburn who've all gone to the majors, there's little reason to scrap book any of that year as they're certainly not going to be around to get autographs from. But...one thing sort of lead to another and I figured, well, I could do them for the website...

I discovered my scanner, which automatically scans stuff a 200 DPI, will actually scan up to 9600 DPI. I tried scanning to 1200 DPI, but it takes for freaking-ever to scan one little picture. So I've now settled on 600 DPI, which, if I'm working on 5 x 7 pieces should be fine, and not pixelate if I should happen to want to print them later for whatever reason.

Chaos Priestess has a new free Mini-Taggers kit called an Earthly-Air Romance which I rather like the colors in. (Miss Diamond will tell you "romance" is not a word that applies to me otherwise.) C.P. Designs does a lot on the black, white and gray theme, and I generally find her stuff useful.





The stars in the first piece are from Digital Chaos and available as a freebie element, as is the frame I used in the Matt Yeatman piece, which was done by Yarrow. C.P. Designs has a couple of frames that I've download, but they are in .PSD format and I've not felt like doing the work to convert them over. The brushed Metal Alpha is one I way over-use from Nettie B. Scrapz.

This next one of Matty uses the Eternity scrap kit which I've used on on a couple of pieces I've done in the past as well:



I snagged the little tag from Bluedreams Designs Earth kit.

Eternity and Gray Delight are two little kits from Chaos Priestess that I found came in really handy for scapping the Sara-Reds.

In the same color theme is Yarrow's Minutes to Midnight kit which I used on this one of Travis. In looking at it, I think I need to grayscale that picture and should probably go back and work on that.



Another one of Matty, using Helly's Could be Happy kit:



I rather miss Matty as well. There's some thing really attractive in watching something that BIG throw a ball.

One guy who is still around - but for how much longer? - is good ol' Eli Tintor. 2004 was his rookie year and it was also the year that Joe Mauer found the death zone in the Metrodome and tore up his knee. So we ended up using a number of catchers over the season, Tint was up for like 10 or 12 games in July.



This uses Dale Ann Cubbage's Boy Crazy kit (which Miguel describes as "fruity") and was done to a 12 x 12 format - standard scrapbook size.

Jose Morales is also still around - more or less - although he spent a good chunk of the season on the DL with AAA Rochester again.



This was done using the Satin Grunge kit from Tizzy's Angel, and is in 5 x 7 format.

Not around anymore is Ron Perodin...I used Yarrow's Gothique Violet add on for this one and have made a note to myself to buy the full version of the kit.



I did a few more I'm not really happy with (you can find them here if you really want to, so maybe I will redo them. (Although the J.T. would probably be okay if I sepia toned the picture.

Meanwhile, I think I'm going to spend the weekend scanning if I can convince Miss Diamond not to sit the scanner while I'm trying to use it.

Small World - or at least, small Cape

There are three boys that hang out at the ballpark - Brett, who is the oldest and getting ready to go to college helps me out the most, with getting autographs. Jeff is Gene's son and was a bat boy for the Miracle for a while and T.J. I didn't really place T.J. except (1) I knew he came from money, and (2) he's Canadian.

I should have figured it out when he told me that he had a twin sister, but I just gave him a hard time about there being two of him.

Anyway, Brett e-mailed me yesterday with some shots of TJ he'd taken at a Cape Coral High School Seahawks game and wanted to know if I could do a layout for him, so that he could get it signed. He thought T.J. would get a kick out of it.

And he said "His last name is Cresswell if you need it. I am not sure if TJ Cresswell or Taylor Cresswell would look better." That's when it hit me. He's Neil's boy.

I used to work for Neil. He wasn't so bad, his partner Art is a big dick however. A few years ago...Summer of 2005, Neil said he was taking his boy to a Miracle game and so I made a point of getting a ball to give to him, which I usually do when one of my friends is coming for the first time. I don't know if T.J. had been out to the park before and I only saw them briefly. Neil's usually pretty busy and doesn't stay in one place very long. The next day, Art fired me, which - from what Shawna told me - pissed Neil off royaly, but he won't over rule Art on business matters. Also, Neil always calls him Taylor, not T.J. so you know...the names didn't click either.

Next time I see T.J. I'll have to tell him to tell his Auntie Shawna hello from me and reminder her we're supposed to go out for lunch together sometime.

I guess I didn't make the connection because I thought Neil's kids were a bit younger, but yeah, I guess the age is about right now that I think about it.

Que it's a small world music....



This is an 8 x 10 layout. In both cases, the background came from a freebie Blues Pack I'd downloaded off of Digi-free. For this piece, the orange paper was from Candy's Treats Fire freebie. The logo I found off a google image seach on one of the school websites. The CC High School site wasn't working. Brett said he took the shots late at night, so they're kind of dark and not all that good.



This one was done to print to 5 x7 size and the orange paper came from Shhhh Scrapz Burnt Orange freebie.

The Brushed Metal Alpha in both pieces is from Nettie B. Scrapz.

Chris & Burke

Some guys, I really want more than just general satisfaction in the layout. I feel the need to do them justice. The Orioles layouts for expample, are satisfactory, but not really very creative.

One of the guys I'm overly attached to is Chris, now with the Florida Marlins, and while I like Amy Blesser's Rainy Day Sunday kit and felt this piece turned out rather well, in retrospect, I wanted something...uhm grungier.:



SO I went with Helly's Could be Happy kit and decided I was much happier.



I wonder if we're going to see the Marlins over here for Spring Training. That would be a really fun game. The Brushed Metal Alpha in the second piece is from Nettie B Scrapz.

Burke I REALLY have to be happy with. This first piece is a combo of kits from Helly:



The background is from A Woman's Love, the frame is from Movin' On, the elements are from Wannabe. It's okay. After messing around some though on a Danny Worth piece, I went back and settled on just the Wannabe kit with much better results:



I knew that kit had potential!

The Bracket Frames and the Cardboard Tags are freebie add ons of course.

Burke is with the Marlins now too, having switched affiliations in the Miguel Cabrera trade. Like I said, a game against the Fish would be FUN!

The masking tape alpha is from Jan Hosford, BTW and can be found at Digital Freebies.

Frame up

I decided I needed tags to go with the Could be Happy kit. Helly's got some layered tags available, but after trying to play with them, I've decided I'm hopelessly inept at Photoshop. Or at least, I need a "how to" manual. The one that came with the program I've sort of lost over the course of the years. As I'm running a old(er) version of PS (5) I think I'll try hitting up One for the Books and see if they carry anything out-of-print like that.

However, be that as it may...I was scrolling through Helly's blog and found freebie cardboard tags she'd done much earlier in the year, and a little further back, bracket frames. Much as I liked the layouts to date, they kind of look a bit like magazine covers. For example:


This was a try out piece using Helly's Get Real Sampler.

The frames solved that problem:







I also downloaded a whole bunch of freebies kits she had available, some of which look like like they have potential, including the "Wannabe" kit that I used to make a "Movie Star" layout for my little Starlet.



I THINK this is a taggers kit and I did the piece to 12x12, which is standard scrapbook size, so I probably wouldn't want to try printing it. Then again, it doesn't look pixelated on the screen.

A side effect of all this downloading was that I had to come up with a different subfolder system, so now the kits are stored in subfolders by designer name and then by kit name, which make it a lot easier to find things, especially as I tend to use several designers more than the others (Helly, Yarrow, Tizzy's Angel, etc.)

I also decided I needed a certified Helly stalker blinkie, which I added to the side bar. :)

The Chrome Alpha on the Wannabe piece was a freebie from Scrapdolly (I finally found the credit for it), while the Duct Tape alpha is from Maria LaFrance. That Chrome Alpha is the same one I used on the Tosoni piece (below) and the Berg piece as well.

Could be Happy

I'm more or less broke at the moment, it was a short pay this week and after rent and bills and groceries and gas, I'm pretty much done in. So rather that work on something I feel the need to get printed over the next few days, I decided to scrap some of last year's crew, in part because some of these kids went on to win an Appy League Championship and I want the new designs for the sidebar on the GCLTwins site.

In this particular case, I was playing with the "Could Be Happy" kit by Helly. The papers are nice and I love the cute plump little blue bird of happiness.



Ben tore up the Midwest League this year, earning himself MVP despite finishing off the season on the DL with particles in his knee. Couldn't be happier with him!



Stuif on the other hand was on the DL all year long. He could have been in the Olympics. But for the moment, he probably could be happier.



Danny Rondon was on the title winning E-Twins team although his year probably didn't go as well as he would have liked it to go. I was however, no where near as bad as Mr. Berlind's.



Papi played only 10 games this season and was DLed most of the year. Not a good way to start your career as I believe he was DLed for most of last year's GCL season as well.



He was a reliever that was converted to a starter then sent to E-Town and and went back in the bullpen. But he did pitch in relief in the championship game and did a great job. Couldn't be happier.



Brito started the year in E-Town then got promoted to Beloit when the injury bug hit the Snappers. Did a fair job up there.

Not a part of this set, is this piece I did for T-Bone using Helly's Apologize freebie, although the little star doodle is from Could be Happy. I just loved these papers.



As Rene hit the game winning home run yesterday, he couldn't be happier and he certainly has nothing to apologize for.

I've said it before, but the Duct Tape alpha is by Maria LaFrance and is available at Digital Freebies. The Chrome Alpha on the Tosoni piece was an uncredited it I got off Digi-free.

(Speaking of which, I missed new release Tuesday yesterday. Whaaaa! must go see what is going on!!!!

Wicked Cool

Helly is having a sale on her kits at the Ahhh Scrap store, 50% off, over the Labor Day Weekend. This allowed me to pick up a few of her new offerings: Could be Happy, Crime of Fashion, Gypsy (which I bought before but which got lost in the great computer crash) and her new one, Wicked Cool.

Not on sale, but one that I had to get for my Little Diva is Lil Drama Mama, which might also prove useful if I should chose to do something with my mother & sister.

I immediately got to work with Wicked Cool:

















Juan hit a walk off grand slam home run to finish off Friday's game, so I had to add the arrow to indicate that is was "OUTTA HERE"! These were all quite fun. Then I took Wicked Cool and some element from Hard Rock Mama to come up with this layout for Matty:



The boys were asking me about paw prints - well it is that time of year - but I'd rather they focus on winning a pennant first.

This one of Jon is done using just Hard Rock Mama in one of my favorite layout formats:



My next assignment....get ready for fall instructional league!



Man I have missed troll boy!


The Duct Tape Alpha is from Maria LaFrance at Digital Freebies. The Metal Alpha is by NettzieB.

Last of the Jurassics

This finishes the Jurassic Art layouts for the 2008 GCL Twins, which does not preclude me from using the kit elsewhere. This was a batters only set, unlike the Under the Sea set which is both pitchers and hitters.















Just a reminder, but you can find Angela Sharrow's Jurassic Art kit at Digital Freebies.

Gulf Coasting

Well, I went through all my back up discs last night, and aside from the new stuff I had just downloaded prior to the the computer blowing up, there are a LOT of kits I'm missing, including some of my favorites, like the BoHo collection and Wild Kingdom.

And while I'm not adverse to re-purchasing one or two kits, the prospect of loosing all that stuff is not really pleasant. So I'm going to have to try something - maybe Saturday - to recover that stuff. After all the hard drive should still be usuable, I just need to find a way to wire it into the new system.

In any case, one thing I did run across was the work file for the Catfish piece I'd done in April. I was sort of pleased by this because I'd used it for a while as my wallpaper at work. This lead to two things. The first is that it needed to be redone, because some of it just wasn't working.

The other was that the kit had possiblities that I'd not seen before.


Catfish - revisited

The kit in question is Maria LaFrance's Under the Sea, which has been retired and is no longer available, although she has an Album set available using the theme. And for some reason the colors got me thinking of the sea and the "Gulf Coast" part of Gulf Coast league and so...I went home and tried it out.

The result is the "Gulf Coasting" layouts which I really like. In fact, I like them enough that I want to do a whole team set using the theme, although I'm sure I'm going to miss a player here or there. I haven't seen Angelo pitch, for example, so I have no pictures of him.

The first set however:



















That's been kind of the interesting thing this year with the baseball layouts...None of the baseball themed kits seem to work because they were mainly created for little leaguers. Besides, it would get boring really fast to do the same thing over and over again. So I have to "discover" kits that work.

Jurassic Art is one of them, strangely enough. Under the Sea, which was designed for creating aquarium pictures, is another, giving the underlying theme of baseball on the Gulf Coast.

I've found several really nice ones that work. I wish I could find some more. I really wanted the Wild Kingdom kit to scrap the rest of the L-Tigers pictures with, but lacking that, I guess I'm struck using Afican Beat.

In any case, I was looking at the Album set last night and liked some of the layout ideas in it - like using the buckle as a frame - so I'll have to see about incorporating them into the layouts for the guys I've yet to get too. I might just have to buy that album set for the heck of it.

Some Enchanted Evening

Chaos Priestess has been a very busy girl and has come up with a number of new tagger sized kits - and mini add-ons for each - which are now available Digital Chaos.

Enchanted Night, Magikal Worker, Natural Magik, Love Is are all new. Also available is Wiccan Pride, Purple Glory, Thinking Pink and Feeling Blue. A total of 36 tagger sized add-ons are currently available for free - and no, you don't have to buy anything to get them!

I just downloaded a bunch this evening, and while I've not had the chance to play with them yet, it's largely because I wanted to work with one of Yarrow's new kits, called Minutes to Midnight. This is an absolutely beautiful Cinderella themed kit and - OH Yes - there is a Freebie Add-On so you can try it before you buy it.



Tonight, Miss Diamond wishes to share with us the story of how a little wild kitty became a feline princess. Hey...if they shoe fits...

On a slightly more mundane use, I did take it out to the ballgame:



While I'd like to snag the full versions of several of Chaos Priestess newest offerings, it will have to wait until my next paycheck. I've already overspent on this one - but hey I got some really cool stuff with it!

In the meantime, I have the Add-ons to play with!