Other creative endeavors

I write about my paper crafting quite a bit. That's where I express my creativity the most. I'm a very tactile person (hence not really getting into the digital rage for scrapbooking) and love touching the papers, cutting them, manipulating them into works of art. Lots of people think I'm crazy when I do some of the hand cut items I make because there is a lot of tedious hand cutting involved, but I LOVE it. It relaxes me. I get into my own little zone and can forget about what is driving me crazy, can let my mind wander and problem solve kind of on it's own. But you already know about all of that...

So what else do I do to be creative? I take pictures. I've always loved having a "record" of things and people. I've always loved looking back at pictures and saying "oh remember that!!" I loved looking through my Grandmother's photo albums, so it made sense to want ones of my own. Now I have scrapbooks of my own.

I've jumped from taking pictures for the purpose of visual memories, to beautiful visual memories. Now I don't just want a picture of my friend's little boy I want a beautiful picture of my friend's little boy that tells a story!! (This is where scrapbooking takes over other parts of your life and you get a little crazy LOL!!)

So now I work at taking beautiful pictures and thanks to digital photography I can keep the good, the great and delete the ugly!! I enjoy the process of finding the great shot and what I've learned, especially with children is pick a sunny day and let them play. Here are some great pictures of my friend's kids that they have NO idea I took. I mean they know now (and yes the mom knows...I'm not a like a kid stalker or anything) but I put on my telephoto lense and took a step back and let them be kids. I just kept snapping and after a couple of hours, and 80+ pictues I got around 50 good shots and some of them were GREAT!!

How do you not love this picture?!! Isn't he just a cutie?!! There's more of him too...

And his sisters were total cuties too!!

So, that's another way I'm creative. I love taking pictures and then giving them to the people I take them for. For Christmas I gave their mom a collage frame that holds three 5x7s and put a black and white of the little boy laughing, the blonde as you see above and a different one of the brunette. (If you are wondering why I'm not using their names, it's just because this is a public blog and and while I don't worry too much about posting pics on here, putting kids names with the pictures --especially when they're not MY own kids, I think may not be the smartest thing to do.)

Anyway, I get a lot of enjoyment out of taking pictures as well. Eventually you'll see some of my scrapbooking on here as well, which showcases my photography!!

Enough rambling from me today!! I'm off to shower (I know TMI) make some cards and hopefully put up our little bitty Christmas tree!!

Go make something!!!

God bless and if I'm not back by Christmas, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

LeighAnn