A Chanukah Wrap Up

Hi, it's the last day of Chanukah here, and more importantly the last day of fresh jelly doughnuts at the bakery down the block. Sigh. It is also the day after my birthday, and I do accept belated birthday wishes. Amid the mess of trying to paint my apartment, I made this layout with some Chanukah highlights. I used the ever fabulous Crafting Jewish Style papers and stickers. And that baker's twine--actually from the bakery! It tied up a nice box of fresh jelly doughnuts.

I didn't journal anything here. I think I might save that for individual photos and stories that I wish to tell. Mostly involving jelly doughnuts. But also some gifts (like when Max asked for Beats, and Dave packed up a box of beets), and our time spent at my sister's.

I'm off to the paint store. Happy New Year!

One Little Word

I have loved Ali Edward's idea for One Little word for a few years now, and have kind of kept one of the back of my mind for the last two years, or so. But, I never really did anything with them. Except think about them. Which is kind of what they're there for. 

This year, I chose the word "camera." It's not really the typical path for OLW. From what I've seen, and what I've done in the past, people tend to choose more inspiring and general sounding words--"acceptance, focus, joy" are some of the words I've seen or used myself. But, my goal this year, is to learn more about photography. It's something that I've been kind of trying to pick up here and there, but it's not intuitive to me, and I haven't gotten very far. When I see something or someone I want to photograph, I press the automatic button, and hope for the best. But I want to be able to work with my camera (or a future camera, yet to be owned?), to use it as a tool, or an instrument that I can manipulate to create or capture the image that I see. So, it will take a commitment of time and money, but at the end I hope to have learned a new science and art.

So, I made a layout about it:

And added a lot of journaling to explain my word choice: (All those little holes? I trimmed and sewed the page protector right onto the page.)

 Then I signed up for Ali's class. 

And as for how to achieve this goal: I am signed up for a six hour photography class in March, and I plan to participate in Take Twelve over at Ella Publishing. And sometimes, I'll just experiment with some other modes besides automatic.

Counting Down to Chanukah

I love Christmas. There. I said it. I am secure enough in my jewalinity that I can say that. I love the spirit, the decorations, the buzz in the air, the December Dailies, and most of all, I love being able to enjoy it from afar. I love waking up to an almost silent New York City on Christmas day, knowing that I don't have to do anything at all. And if there's snow...nu, noch besser (even better).

And, I have Chanukah. Not quite as much hoopla as Christmas, but fun just the same, especially for the kids who are looking forward to some much anticipated gifts. Especially Sam. Weeks ago he made his wish list, for all the grown ups in his life. He wrote who should get him which toy, and even provided links to make his benefactor's lives easier. Very thoughtful.

And while we have no advent calendars for Chanukah, we do have our plain old school calendar, which Sam used to count down the days to celebrating the Maccabees victory over the Greeks. Or to when he gets his presents. I forget which one.

One more day, kid. 

I'm back-sort of

As I mentioned in the last few posts, I had lots and lots and lots of work to do, and no time for creating. Tonight is the first night that I came home from work, and I had no more reports, newsletters, or anything teacher related to write. I'm sporting a new haircut (well, same haircut, just shorter), I've got a pile of new scrapbooking supplies on my desk, and a pretty clean apartment. Oh, and most importantly, a two week vacation.

I do however feel a slight scrapper's block in the periphery. I hope it doesn't take.

Here is the closest thing to a recent creation. I wanted to use it as a yearbook ad for Max. It's got a private joke and everything. He wouldn't have it. So the final ad is just a plain old, "Dear Max, We are so proud of you..."

This one likes to keep it simple and fit in. (I suppose it's possible that my ad is neither clever nor cool, but I find that hard to believe.)

In other Max news, he had a high school interview and seems to have impressed the pants off his interviewers. So while my attempts at clever yearbook ads have failed, I seem to be doing okay in the kid department.

Simple, fast layout. Cocoa Daisy. October Afternoon, Glitz, Jillibean, American Crafts, K&Co, Prima.
Click on the layout to read. You won;t be disapponted.
That's it. That's all I have time for. Back to work.
I will just add that each memeber of my family, as he passed this layout on my desk, stopped to look at it and said,"I like that. That's funny."
Thanks guys.

I'm not supposed to be scrapping...

I'm supposed to be getting work done for my parent teacher conferences coming up. But, I just thought one more little layout (or 2), and a blog post,  couldn't hurt. 

One of the thrills of being is Israel is eating at a Kosher McDonald's. Well, not for me. But for my kids. After years of seeing heartwarming commercials for McDonald's food, and exciting Happy Meals filled with toys, they can finally partake of this whilesome American staple.We all know how horrible the food is for you (and might not even qualify as food), but they enjoyed it nonetheless. So, the title and journaling says, we traveled 6,000 miles to eat the worst of American food. But I also love this picture because Max is with his beloved cousin Yoav, who, despite being only 5 months apart in age, Max is about a foot taller than Yoav. So, it's sometimes funny to see them together. I thought there size difference was reflected nicely in the size of their burgers. So, I wrote about that too.

And while on the subject of Max and Yoav, I made this layout here. Again capturing their difference in size, but more importantly, that despite how far away they live from each other, they are such good friends, and always pick up their relationship right where they left off.

The best part is, Max said he liked these layouts. Great praise, indeed.

And, while I was procrastinating my work, I've also been working on creating some digital pages with the photos from Max's bar mitzvah. There are over 400 photos, and I know I can't physically scrap them all. I don't love working digitally, but I thought this would be a good time to try it anyway. My plan is to make a photobook that I can easily print more copies of  for interested parties (like, say, grand parents). I also used this project as an excuse to buy some digital products from the always wonderful and talented Ali Edwards. 

So here are my first attempts:

And this one I made without a template or papers, just some digital stamps. Right now it's my favorite of the three, so I might go back and adjust the first two. Grunge them up a little bit. I guess  that's the beauty of digital.

Ok, I'm really getting back to work now. But first...

Thanksgiving Review in Words and (grainy) Pictures

The day started slowly for me. Dave did almost all the cooking, and I decided I was going to force myself to take things slow. I had nothing on my to-do list, and I just let myself do nothing for a few hours. It was a little anxiety inducing to not be working on something, but it also felt really good.

Then, we realized something. When one family member spends and entire day working in the kitchen preparing a huge meal, sometimes we forget that people still need to eat before the big meal is ready. So, at midday, we were all starving. After a quick trip to the store, we sat and ate, sans utensils, some frozen, ready made pierogies, and some snap peas.

Real Classy.

When I took out the camera, Max said, "Are you kidding?" But, I said, "But this is just one of those little family moments that's kind of fun." 

At that point, our table looked like this:

So then I got to work on making it look like this:

I know I'm not going to be replacing Martha Stewart anytime soon, but I liked the way it looked, and I was pleased with my runner made from the back of old calendar pages, a stencil, and some paint. 

After the smoke cleared (due to some grease at the bottom of the oven), the guests arrived, dinner was served, we talked and laughed, kids played, grown ups talked and laughed some more, and then before you know it-pumpkin pie:

Something I need to work on: I always feel shy about taking pictures of other grown ups. You have to be a little assertive to tell people to look at you and smile, or just to keep putting your camera in their face. So, I don't do it  much. Which is a shame. But it also meant that I was totally present to enjoy the meal and the company, instead of worrying about taking photos. 

Oops, gotta go. The kitchen is filling up with smoke again. Got to go clean that oven.

More Cocoa Daisy Crop Projects

I love having lots of projects to share, and this week, I do.

One of the challenges at the Cocoa Daisy crop was to create a layout based on a quilt design. I chose to work from this one:

And from there, I got to here:

It was funny, when Max was almost as tall as I was. And then the same height as me. And then one day he was taller. And very recently when I gave him a kiss, I think I stepped on my tip-toes. Granted, I'm not that big, so being taller than me isn't such a big feat. But still. He's my baby.

Moving on. There was also a challenge to create a piece of wall art. I was very excited to use an itty bitty 4x5 inch canvas. It's just so cute. And that's when it had nothing on it. So, I'm glad I got to use it:

Now, I just have to hang it up somewhere in my home.

The next two layouts were not part of any challenge. I just had some stories to tell.

Cocoa Daisy Crop, and a look back

This weekend was the first time I ever participated in an online crop. Sure, I've meant to lots of times, but I never have been able to actually do it in a timely manner. This weekend, my creative juices were flowing, and I just wished there were more hours in the day. I would have kept going if I didn't think I'd be too tired come Monday morning.

So, with all that intro, while I made 4 projects in the last day, (that's a lot for me. I'm a slow worker.) only one is photographed and ready to go. This daylight savings thing sure makes it tricky to photograph layouts in daylight.

The first challenge that I worked on was introduced by none other than Ali Edwards, and the goal was to use big type. I had this layout in the mental works for a while, and some big Thickers that I usually find too big for my taste, but here it all came together.

Now, a word about bike riding. I have layouts entitled "Deutsch Family Bike Ride" dating back to 2007, when Sam was still riding with training wheels. This year, we rode longer than we ever have before, and Max needed an adult sized bike.

And now, a look back at the years when I knew that bike ride was two words, not one:

And in case you're wondering, I have no idea why 2009 didn't make the cut.

New projects to share

It's always exciting to realize that I have some projects that I haven't posted yet. Especially when those projects are already photographed and ready to go.

First is my latest Crafting Jewish Style project. I do occasionally have some non-Jewish readers, so I will explain. On Saturday night, at the end of the Sabbath/Shabbat/Shabbos (depending on your pronunciation), a blessing is said over a candle, some wine, and a pleasant smelling spice, as a way to mark the end of shabbat, and the beginning of the week.  So I whipped up this little kit, that provides the matches and the spice, all wrapped up in a cute little tin. I simply adore the colors and patterns in the Crafting Jewish Style lines. They just always work perfectly for me.

And, I have a layout that I have not yet shared, about Sam. I did share this one a while ago:

Which I thought captured Sam quite nicely. And it's one of my favorite layouts. But I had a little more to say about the matter of his joie de vivre, so I also made this (using my Cocoa Daisy October kit):

When I planned the first layout, I had originally planned to include all the photos in the second layout. But that big blue picture was so beautiful to me, that anything I added took away from it's beauty. And, so, layout number two was born. Really I love the way Sam loves the world.

Check this lovely out

As promised, a layout from Max's bar mitzvah. Not just any photo, mind you, but The big moment--that is being called up and reading from the Torah. For that he prepared for about 10 months, all leading up to this big day (and the big day two days later, when he read the entire portion on shabbat, in my parent's synagogue, in front of a room full of people that he did not really know, in a foreign country...). We were proud (and relieved), as you can see by Dave's huge grin in the background.

It was hard to know, at first, what to write about with this photo. About him becoming a man? About carrying on tradition? Meh. While that is true, that wasn't really what this picture made me think about. Instead, I focused on how it felt celebrating this huge event, far from our home and friends in America. We all had thought that by celebrating in Israel Max would miss the big party that he would have had with his friends. But, since the choice was big party with friends, or spend the summer in Israel with a smaller party, he chose the latter. I think we were all pleasantly surprised that the celebration didn't feel small at all. Between my nieces and nephews, my first cousins, my parents' first cousins,  my uncle and aunt, and my sibling who traveled to Israel to celebrate with us, it wasn't just a small simple gathering, it was lots of fun.

And, before I go, a quick shout out to our amazing photographer, Doni Lerner  who helped capture the day. He was a pleasyure to work with, and the photos are fantabulous. And while I sing his praises, I will also praise the lovely Basic Grey Cardstock, My Mind's Eye and American Crafts patterned paper, and some lovely embellishments, all found in my Cocoa Daisy kits. Bravo scrapbook kits.

New Layout!

It's a slow blogging season for me, and a slow personal scrapping time. I've been commissioned to make a scrapbook for someone else, so a little less Deutsch scrapping than usual. But not none. I have a new Crafting Jewish Style layout to share, based on this sketch by Anam Stubbington.

This was a great sketch, and very easy to work with, especially when using my Crafting Jewish Style materials. I pulled from the Passover, Chanukah, and Rosh Hashana collections to make this layout with a photo from Max's bar mitzvah.

It's a photo of me with my niece, and a little journaling about the fact that she misses me. And I miss her too.

And while it might seem a bit cruel that my first layout with photos from Max's bar mitzvah has nothing to do with Max, fear not, for after finishing this layout, I made one featuring Max. It is just waiting to be photographed, but will be posted here shortly. (I hope.)

There's a First Time for Everything

This is not such a momentous first time, but it is a scrapping first. Since scrapping is all about the pictures and the stories, it's okay if everyone once in a while you don't love one of your own layouts. Right? Of course, right. Usually. I recently made this layout, and the words with the photo were the perfect summary of our summer vacation.

There isn't really anything wrong with it. It is totally "good enough." But for this particular layout/story, I guess I wanted more than that. So, I made this:

Exact same words, exact same photo. It probably won't change the world in any way, but this time I'm satisfied.

Yom Kippur Layout?

Here it is, Yom Kippur, a time where we ask others for forgiveness. Wouldn't you know it, Just a couple of weeks before this most sacred day, I made a layout entitled, "Saying Sorry." I didn't plan for it to coincide with the holiday; in fact, I had been thinking about it since June. I didn't have a particular photo in mind, or even any particular sketch or product. This is one where the journaling came first.

I wanted to document a small little detail of having school aged children. Yes, gone are the days of baby cheeks, and little kid kisses, but there is a freedom that comes with that. First, the freedom to go to the bathroom by yourself, and second, the freedom to get angry, and make mistakes. Because, when they are older, you can apologize to them, and they can apologize to you. And they get it, and they mean it (usually).

If you click on the photo, you can read my long, detailed, musings.

So Shana Tova, and may all our transgressions be forgiven.

I seem to have a thing for taking photos from behind. I don't think that means that I take photos of people's backs more than their faces. It just happens that I also have pictures where no faces are visible.
For example, in this layout

it wasn't until I had worked on it for hours, got every detail the way I wanted, that I thought, "Hmm. Is it weird you can't see their faces?" But I love what you can see: The movement, and the connection as these two played  together at the pool.

As I looked through my summer photos (again and  again), I noticed that I have quite a few of these sorts of pictures:

All of which is leading up to this new layout, that documents a little bit about what I see.

And, every once in a while, someone turns around.