NEW52-Week49, NEW boken and tea

So week 49, I challenged myself to learn how to photograph Christmas lights, especially boken style.  I found this really simple tutorial here that explains it in simple woman's terms.  I still need to practice on getting a subject in focus yet boken in the background.  Maybe next week?  So Bostyn's preschool had a family evening outing to see the Honolulu Lights.  Here I practiced with some lights hanging on the trees.

Another one of the lights on the Christmas tree at Kahala Hotel

Another NEW for the week was Tea with Santa at the Kahala Hotel.  It was such a wonderful delight that we plan on doing it again next year.  Bostyn knew she was going to do something special with me so she didn't mind getting all dressed up (new J. Crew dress, pearls, and sandals) and taking some photos with me before we left the house.

Here is the yummy display of desserts.  The main dishes for adults and kids were yummy too but those photos were not as yummy looking as desserts.  One of my favorite sandwiches was the nutella and banana.

Of course it said tea with Santa so Santa was on hand to take photos with the kids (and adults).  I just had to give him a kiss since I would never do that with everyone looking on at the mall.  I love how Bostyn is watching and wondering what I was doing.

Here is a great shot of our lovely companions for the day, Shari, Kammi, and Kamryn.  I love this shot of the three of them.

Scrapping for the week.  I didn't realize that Elisa, over at Oscraps, selected on of my layouts as the base of the December Copycat Challenge.  So head on over there to pick up a free template and participate.

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Gennifer Bursett, at Design House Digital, FINALLY came out with a Naughty Christmas kit.  Love the colors and patterns to this paper collection.  I just had to show it off her with her December Blueprint Challenge (free template so head on over).

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NEW52-Week48, NEW blog love

Okay, so this one is a little bit of a cheating.  November quickly came to an end and December has been non-stop.  So NEW for week 48 is a blog written by Lauren Reid (shameless advertising here), One Story Down.  I accidentally came across this blog in November during Lauren's big Holiday Kick-Off Bash where she had tons of challenges and prizes.  After this I was hooked.  Why am I sharing this with all of you now, because she continues to inspire me with her articles on photography, gallery pretties, and scrapper spotlight.  My favorite are the scrapper spotlights because they are usually accompanied with a free template.  I actually got a lot of inspiration from paper scrapper, Kelly Noel.  Love this sketch here

and created this page using Lauren's kit, Call Me, available at The Daily Digi (December).

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Another feature on One Story Down is "Girl vs. Scrap."  Here is the December challenge, please play along.  You have until Dec. 31st.

Here is my page:

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Here is another page that I created using papers from Merriment and Page Rims 3 (again shameless advertising).

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Here are some other layouts completed for Design House Digital.  I loved the chevron inspired look so I did this using Robyn's Vintage Holiday and Gennifer's Toolbox Mists Vol. 7 and Toolbox Action vol. 2, InstaAwesome frames.

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I also had 2 hours to devote to a speed scrap last night and did this page using mostly Robyn's Fun and Festive papers.  I loved the & mist, I had to use it although my layout would be better titled "kissing cousins."

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Although I am no longer a decorator for Design House Digital, I still enjoy using their products and promoting their designers.  They are a small store with a huge heart.  Sorry no time for Oscraps this week, maybe next week.  I still have some kits from Paislee Press that are still unused.  I already have my NEW for 49 already photographed so be on the look out for that in the next few days.  I also have tons of photos to share from a girl's tea with Santa.