I’ve got another freebie template for you all! 

Here’s a layout I did using the template.
Inspired by the Monday Night Maddness Sketch choose your own sketch @ SBB
(found here : http://www.scrapbook-bytes.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=185223&cat=700)
Credits :
Ribbons come from Dawn Stocsill - Cabernet kit
Bows - Jennifer Trippetti
Everything else made by myself
Fonts : Engraver, Marker Felt, Handwriting - Dakota

So Wednesday I found out I did my film speed test horribly wrong, but I figured out how to do it AND that I’ve been mixing my developer wrong for 3 years!!!  No wonder my negatives are so crappy!  So I reshot the film speed test today and will develop on Friday along with a whole slew of other things that are on the To Do List for Friday.  

Today I finally talked to Malcolm about the internship at the museum!  She really liked the work I was doing, but now wants me to journal persay everything I’m doing.  Kind of like a conservation journal.  Basically this should consist of high quality images (somewhere around the best 1/5th of the number of pieces I do) printed 8x10 and some context of what it is, why I’m shooting it, the provenance of the pieces in the group, and the condition of each piece.  Basically per group of images (a group being defined as things that are similar and from the same collection that I will be photographing) it should be between 1-2 pages and have about 5 images.  So I’m going to try to start shooting the pieces with my own digital - since I know how to effect the quality of the images so that I can print it out.  Plus I’m gonna try to take the laptop back to the studio area so that I can actually type the journal as I’m working on the pieces.  So all of this sounds super cool, but its gonna be so MUCH work!!  But she said it would be a great thing to have in a museum portfolio, so thats awesome.  Plus she’s gonna talk to some people in St Louis to see if I can get an internship of some sort in the Conservation area (which is what makes all the money in the museum world it seems like).  But thats all I can think of it is how I have to go back and do all this work on things I’ve already done.  I’ve finished one huge collection of diarams and models and yesterday I did a bunch of photographic plates.  So now I have to redo all that basically and check the files to get information on them.  The cool part of this is that I’ll actually learn (hopefully) why we have all this strange stuff at the museum archive.  Now I just have to figure out how to fit it into the rest of my schedule.

This weekend was loads of fun. Since Jon and I couldn’t spend time together for Valentine’s Day, we devoted the entire weekend to spending time together.

Friday we treated ourselves to Red Lobster - despite an hour and a half wait for a table. We got this really good Fondue that had lobster and clam in with the cheese.

Saturday we were suppose to move the furniture into the trailer, but it snowed. So instead we watched movies and went out driving on 149. We spent a good chunk of the day photographing things we found on 149.
Map of Grimsby, IL US

We stopped about the time we got hungry and decided to hit up a Chinese buffet. It was super delicious! Then we ended up looking at some cat stuff at Petco and decided we wanted to adopt a kitty! Lastly we hit up a movie, Pan’s Labyrinth, which was very interesting.

Sunday we went and found a kitty we wanted to adopt from the Humane Society. One of the kitties is a sweet little grey kitten, who cannot be adopted until March 17th. We decided to try and get him then too, but they can’t hold it for us, so we have to be there first. So since we aren’t sure we’ll get him we also adopted Roman, a 3 month old orange tabby. They have to him to the vet and then we pick him up, so hopefully we’ll get him by the end of the week.

Heres a template for any of you who are interested!  It’s my first template, so make sure to leave some comments!  Heres a layout I did using this template.

Background paper is by Vera Lim - SBB 4th birthday kit 

Some layouts that I’ve done in the last week or so.

Inspired by Valentine’s Day Challenges
1 - quote
2 - lines of journaling
3 - photos
4 - papers
Credits :
Stripe paper - Janel Kretschman
Red paper - Janel Kretschman
Gold paper - Crapodo
Green paper - Crapodo
Beads - Sonya Johnston
Font : Marker Felt & Handwriting - Dakota

Credits : Everything by Janel Kretschman - Papers from Creamsicle kit; Alpha and ribbon are from Thankful kit

Everything by me…

This is for the sketch challenge for Monday Madness @ SBB
My sister and her husband and one of the few portraits they have without my nephew.
Credits :
Template : Sarah Vandyke
Everything else from Lie Fhung’s Evening Sampler
Font : Handwriting - Dakota

My boyfriend took me to a WWE show on the second of Feburary and I didn’t get any pictures *pout* but I thought I ought to scrap my first WWE experience as I’m sure there will be many more….so this is the first part/element that will soon be on my WWE layout.
Ribbon is by Dawn Stocstill - Cabernet Kit

In other news, I found out that my prospectus for 410 is due in two weeks, and I still haven’t any idea what I’m gonna write about. I’m thinking a comparison of rock and roll photography between the 50s-80s, or possibly something dealing with the women’s rights stuff.  I also found out that 415 will be having an essay - critical analysis of an image in a museum/gallery instead of an essay test - yay ra, now just need to figure out what to do for that essay too!   Anyway, I think I got everything done that I needed to tonight….Oh keep an eye out for a belated Valentine’s kit coming soon!

Just a quick post tonight.  I’m not really tired but should probably head to bed anyway since I haven’t been feeling good.  My eye started hurting really bad last night and it was completely closed up this morning, so I’ve had a mighty good headache all day.  I made up a freebie template for posting, and I’m gonna try to post some cool freebie everyday (or almost every day), but as for the template - you’ll have to wait until tomorrow I think.  Posting freebies tomorrow should be a nice break from all the house work I’ll have to do….

So I went to my advisor today to talk about class scheduling for Fall and Summer semesters.  Well - the class I NEED to graduate next year is not being offered in the two parts that it has been previously.  This is because the teacher (Dan Overturf) has been approved for a sabatical and will be taking a semester off to pursue his own work (yay Dan!).  However, he will be back in the spring and they will be offering a more condensed version of the course.  This is all well and good but I only have 28 credit hours left before I can graduate, after this semester.  Right now I’m taking 18 credit hours (this semester) and I have the option of getting approved for an internship (for the museum work I’m doing as a volunteer) which would be another three credits.  So assuming I get approved for the internship (which I need to talk to Dan about), I will only need 25 credits for the next two semesters.  AND I’m staying this summer to take classes because I wanted my SR year to be an easy load so that I can focus on Dan’s Applied Photography Courses (which is REALLLYY hard).  So heres my schedule for Fall :

Anth 450 a - Museum Studies - Learning (I think its exhibit design, but could be realllly wrong)

CLAS 133A - Latin (i love latin….)

CP 470D (i think thats what it is..) - African American Images (with Fern Logan…)

AD something - Art History based African Art (I don’t remember the class number or the exact name….)

Between those four classes I have 13 credit hours.  Plus I signed up for two photography courses over the summer (6 more credits) - Pinhole (Fern) and Environmental Portraits (Dan).  That means that assuming I get the internship for this current semester I only need to take a whole TWO CLASSES!!!!!!  And if I get another internship for the summer or for fall semester doing more stuff at the museum then I’ll only need to take the class with Dan in the Spring!!!  Now as excited as I am to know that my last two semesters of college will be CAKE (as long as I don’t decide that because they’re cake I can work 40 hours a week), I’m SO ANGRY!  I COULD have graduated this fall if I would have taken Fern Logan’s senior portfolio class this spring semester, but because I’m anti-Fern I avoided it like the plague.  GRRRR at myself!!!

The other cool thing about my Fall schedule is that I’ll be able to work during it!!!!  I begin classes at 11 everyday and end NO LATER than 4pm.  I’m excited….

 Anyway onto some funner things!

4 jobs you’ve had in your life: Cashier (ToyRus during Christmas), Reciptionist (for my Dad’s Chiropractic Office), Fast Food (McDonalds), and Cashier (but later Stocker) for Walmart

4 movies you could watch over & over: Memoirs of a Geisha, 10 things I hate about you, Save the last Dance, Princess Bride

4 places you have lived: (All in IL and probably small towns you’ve never heard of) Silvis, Geneseo, Colona, Hampton, and now I live in Carbondale

4 TV shows you love to watch: House, House, House, oh and did I mention House?  I love House.  I was going to be forced to murder the big head honches at Mediacom and Sinclair when they pulled Fox for about a month and half and I couldn’t see HOUSE!  Luckily I only missed one new episode before they put it back on!

4 places you’ve been on vacation:  Mexico, Virginia, Texas, and Florida

4 websites you visit daily:  Scrapbytes, Yahoo, my teacher’s website for our readings for class, and facebook to make sure we still have previously mentioned class….

4 of your favorite foods:  Chinese, Spaghetti, Brocolli covered (and I mean COVERED) with cheese, and Tacos

4 places you’d rather be right now:  Paris, anywhere "Far East", with my boyfriend, and traveling through time so that I will already have taken the two tests I have to take in the next 3 hours…..

 Hopefully I will be posting some layouts/elements I make for Valentines tonight when I get home….if I have any energy left by that time.  I hate Wednesdays…..12 hours long days suck.

Woohoo!  I finally decided to start a blog.  How silly is that?  But with all the scrapbookers who have such lovely blogs I couldn’t resist.  Hopefully this will become quite the lovely blog soon. 

So on to other better things! I went to one of my teacher’s shows today.  And she actually surprised me!  It was awesome, and I was quite impressed with her work, unlike the last show of her’s I went to.   She had some really beautiful images, and she printed them on the strangest paper, velvet watercolor!  Basically her body of work was a narrative about the African Woman going from a free African perspective in Africa and going through the passage of time and process of becoming a slave, being imported into the United States, being a victim of Katrina, and finally a spiritual outlook filled with hope of a changing future. 

And…she made me feel really bad about being white, and not shooting "ethnic" subjects.  But none of my friends let me take their pictures anyway, and the friends I had who were "ethnic subjects" have moved or graduated.  It’s not like I think they should be discriminated against, and its not like I only like shooting white people!  It’s just the people that are around me.

And I’m so excited that I didn’t skip my 20th century art class today!  We’ve actually started talking about photography, instead of crappy blocks or splatters of color (my opinion of painting in 20th century..)!!

Piet Mondrian - Composition Red, Yellow, Blue 
1921
Oil on canvas

(Images from allposters.com) 

And we’re even looking at some cool photographers - Weegee, Frank, Evans.  But even better!  We’re talking about photographers I DON’T KNOW!!!  Not many…but still I love hearing about photographers I haven’t had to criticize or LOVE simply upon sight (that’s what history of photography classes do to you!).  We’re talking about Helen Levitt, Lisette Model, and Allan Kaprow.  So I have to add them to the list of people to check out, along with Paul Outerbridge (really cool color work - found out about him in History of Photography or some related Malcolm-Woods class).

Scan courtesy of Masters of Photography

Helen Levitt
New York
c. 1940

 It’s also my 4 month anniversary with Jon today!  It’s so crazy, the last relationship I had that lasted longer than 3 months was with Danny.  Jon’s so sweet to me and takes such good care of me.  Anyhoo!  Got lots to do today, gonna try to join some new forums and do a layout - maybe I’ll post that!

 Anyway - here’s to my attempt to stay up to date on a blog and still feel free to say whatever I want on it!  No matter how silly it might seem!