Mail Art and Scrapping Fun

Happy Monday! Here's some creative fun to start the week. I'm in a One Card a Month club, and I received this fantastic hand painted card from my friend Tracy.  I also love the envelope she sent it in! Speaking of decorated envelopes, mine is featured this week on Kat's  blog. I sent it  in with my post cards for the Liberate Your Art swap. It's about half way down this post.
On Sunday, I got together with a group of friends to scrapbook, and I made huge progress towards finishing Henry's Sports Scrapbook. The pages are all pretty simple and still need journaling, but here's a sample. {Sorry the lighting is so awful. The photos looked fine on my phone, and I'm in too big a hurry to retake them}
A few baseball layouts:

And a few soccer layouts. The first one will tell the story of when his coach was hospitalized for several months with an awful, degenerative disease. He miraculously turned the corner and, through several more months of courage and hard work, has recovered. Shortly before all the boys were scheduled to leave for college, they organized a trip to visit him in the hospital. I was proud and impressed by  the turnout. It said a lot about the type of coach that Franklin is and also about the great group of young men on the team. The second one is notable for using a Creative Memories die cut from about 20 years ago!

I was surprised by the number of teams that my boy has played on: one club soccer team; one adult city team; one high school team and now his college team. On the baseball side, he's played on little league, all starts, two different travel teams and high school. I'm going to a crop next week, so I might do a few more layouts.

Six Word Sunday: Break

The Egg's Lesson: Crack, don't Break.
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Every week, Miriam posts a word and asks contributors to create a short story with one photo and six words. This week's word is "break." See other short stories here. 

Snap! Artists at Work

Last Thursday, I posted some photos from a recent trip to tour the murals in San Francisco's Mission District. For today's Snap!, I'm posting four photos that form a photo essay about the artists working on the murals. We noticed some artists at work in one of the alleys, and my friend Lane suggested we go talk to them. I asked one of them if I could take his picture. He said sure. Then turned around and said, "Professor Ontiveros, is that you?" It turns out he's one of my former students! Lane snapped this photo of us:

Needless to say, I was totally surprised! It took me a while to recognize him because he was out of place, know what I mean? Anyway, it was interesting to talk with him about his art. He's been painting street murals since he was a kid and on this beautiful sunny day, he just decided that he couldn't stay in the library anymore and decided to head to the alleys to paint. He met the alley owner several years ago when they did a mural painting benefit fundraiser to fight cancer. The alley owner invited him to return anytime he wanted.  My favorite photo in my collage is the paint kit (which includes, uh, liquid refreshment!). My friend Lane who toured the murals with me is also quite a photographer. He took this great portrait of another one of the artists:

Lane had the advantage of carrying his big camera, while I was shooting with my iphone. But I am still happy with my Snap! (a group of four photos that tell a story). For other Snap! groupings, check out Helena's blog.

Six Word Sunday: Interview Time

Henry had a work interview Wednesday!
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Linking up with Miriam's Short Stories (told in six words and a photo)
p.s. Good Luck Henry!

Street Art (Winter Photography Scavenger Hunt)

One of the prompts in this year's Winter Photography Scavenger Hunt is "Street Art." Last weekend, I took some friends to San Francisco's Mission District to tour the murals. You may recall that I took a similar trip with Scrappy Jacky and her family. I thought I'd share a few images of the fantastic murals. I almost saved the four up top for Helena's "Snap!" meme, but I have a few other things lined up for that. 
Here's a few others that I really like:

One of the things that surprised me was how quickly the art changes in the murals. Some were the same as when I visited over the summer, but many were completely new.
Have you seen any interesting street art lately?

Snap! Happy Valentine's Day!

Sunday was Valentine's Day in the United States (is this the same all over the world?), and I made a little collage of three photos to share. Two from our wedding day in 1984 and one of the beautiful roses my husband gave to me this year. I thought they made a lovely Snap! to share at Helena's this week.

Memorandum Monday: A Return to Creativity

Welcome to Memorandum Monday! A chance to share your weekend adventures and reflect on new experiences, hosted by Sian of From High in the Sky. 
Last week I went to a crop and put all my Christmas card photos from 2015 into the proper album. It was great to complete a project and got me in the mood for scrapbooking. So, I organized my photos from 2013 (the only year I have printed and undone) and then sat down to order photos from 2015 and 2016 (somewhere along the line, I had already completed 2014). I discovered that most of my 2015 photos were on my iphone and decided to just print them at shutterfly. Well, this weekend was the first time I used the shutterfly app to download pictures off my iphone, and it worked like a dream! 
After downloading them, I got on my computer and made the first photobook ever for Henry (of their soccer national championship tournament) and ordered all my photos for 2015 and 2016. I was so pleased with myself!
I'm very excited to return scrapbooking and have a few dates planned with friends over the next month. Next step, organizing a few page kits so it will be easy to complete them.
What else was I up to this weekend? Gardening - I've been trying to spend about half hour every few days outside pulling weeds and cleaning up. Getting ready for spring! 
I also did a little doodling of hearts that might make their way into my art journals. For these, I totally owe my inspiration to Laurie over at Lone Black Bird. She has printable heart coloring pages that I copy and use as a jumping off point. Here's a page I made last week:

They're in my sketchbook. I plan to use them as a reference for art journal pages.
What were you up to this weekend? Anything new to share?
Have a great week, and thank you all so much for your comments on my brave post from Friday. Your support means more than you know. I love having a safe place to share.