Paper Passion & Pixel Mania

I don't know where to begin, so I'm going to go with the flow and see what comes out. I'm just so distracted by how cute she is....maybe if her eyes weren't so blue...or her teeth weren't so white...and that blond hair....oh, I'm absolutely green with envy. I was cute when I was younger, but even on my best days I was never that cute! But this isn't about me...it's about Noel Joy.

Noel just happens to have another one of my favorite blog sites, Paper Passion and Pixel Mania, (how creative is that) She's a designer, a SOY finalist and she creates great layouts with the fabulous pictures that she takes with her Nikon Camera. Honestly, she's been published in Computer Trends, and several times in Creating Keepsakes. I know because I've seen them. And if you saw them, you wouldn't be hanging around here reading my blog, you'd be hanging out at Noel's blog and smelling the tulips.

What I didn't know is that Noel Culbertson has been a guest on another Noell's site. And that Noell would be none other than Noell Hyman at Paperclipping.com, another one of my favorite sites. That just goes to show ya...it's a small scrappy world out there. I don't know how I missed that but you can be sure I'm going back to paperclipping.com to look for it!

I love Noel's photography. Her pictures are so sharp and bright that they look as if they'd been taken by a professional. She's SO good that people are always asking her how she takes such great pictures. Well, she posted some photography tips in her blog one day and I just happened to be looking at new cameras at the same time. So you know what I did? I bought the same camera she uses. That may not be the way some of you make decisions on major purchases but I gotta tell ya.....I would have to be crazy NOT to buy a Nikon after seeing Noel's pics. (It's a good thing I didn't know that Joscie had a Canon Rebel at the time, or I would never have been able to choose.)

I can't tell you how happy I am that I bought this camera. You can already see the improvement I've made in just a few short days. Yep, my pictures are looking just like Noel's...

I think my hair's a little lighter too...

Oh, Scrap!

Isn't that a great name for a scrapbook blog? Oh, Scrap! I love it. Wish I'd thought of it but it wasn't meant to be. Instead, it was meant for me to languish here in the dry, dusty desert, while the author/owner/photographer of Oh, Scrap! does her scrappin' and bloggin' from beautiful Hawaii. I know what you're thinking...you're thinking I'm jealous. I don't know why anyone would think that. We both have sun, sand, blue skies, palm trees, tropical breezes...what? Oh, okay, I don't have tropical breezes, I have sand storms. And I don't have ocean....I have desert sand. Now why would those two little things matter to anyone? If you took Joscie's ocean and tropical breezes away, she'd be living in the desert too, so you see, it's really not that different...(so there).

On the other hand, what she has.....(here comes the jealous part) is TALENT! Ohhhh, does she have talent. Her photography is fabulous, she can make a pile of shoes look good (and she did!), her pictures and her layouts are so brilliant and alive with color that I'm often transfixed. And then there's the music. Wait until you hear the music! This blog has the best music. It's upbeat and happy and fits right in with the color and beauty of Joscie's pictures. It kinda makes you want to kick off your shoes and stay a while....you know what I mean? If not, get over there and find out for yourself. It's a great place to be.