Janet's Smiles

April 2017 – #Atozchallenge – On to O

Posted on April 21, 2017 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

O is for “Old Time Rock and Roll” by Bob Seger.

I’m just a little behind here but definitely not gonna stress or rush through these layouts. This is another one where I’m using a song title to fill the letter rather than the name of the band.

I’d say almost everyone knows this song, made even more well-known by Tom Cruise in Risky Business. We’ve seen Bob Seger twice now and I’ve heard that he may not tour anymore so I’m glad we did. The first time we saw him was in December of 2011. That night was at Oakland Arena and we actually had a celebrity sighting in the Club Bar. Ross Valory of Journey was there and he graciously came and said hello to me after my husband went and asked him to. I wrote about that last November. You can read that here.

The next time we saw Bob Seger was in March 2015. He had just come out with his new album, Ride Out, and we went with some friends to San Jose SAP Center. I’m not finished with the whole concert but here are the first few pages:

For the page on the right I used a 3-D embellishment of a motorcycle from the Debbi Moore collection, Cards for Men Vintage Transport CD.

I think it really adds something to the page.

We had pretty good seats, in the 16th row so I was able to get some really good shots.

I used this punch by EK Success to make a border to match the papers I was using.

You can see that on the page on the left below. On the right is the saxophone player in the band, Alto Reed. I think that is such a cool name for a sax player, don’t you? When he starts the song “Turn the Page” with the sax it gives me chills and his solo on Old Time Rock and Roll is really good too. I can’t get over how big the sax is in the middle picture.

So, there’s my “O.” I’m going to try to get P and Q done this weekend and then I won’t be so far behind.

How about you? Keeping up? Have you seen Bob Seger? Like the sax? Love to hear!

You can click over to the main A to Z Challenge page to see what other participants have come up with for this letter, and come back to see what P has for us!

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April 2017 – #Atozchallenge – Now to N

Posted on April 17, 2017 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

N is for Ms. Stevie Nicks.

I know I mentioned her when I did the letter F for Fleetwood Mac but Stevie Nicks is my idol and she deserves her own letter.

The first time we saw her was in 1983 for her Wild Heart Tour. I have no pictures from that concert but I do have the tickets and the program from the show. We were in the second level that night, which is not where I go now, but it looks like the tickets were only $11.50!! No wonder we could afford to buy a program!

Aside from her performances with Fleetwood Mac, we’ve seen her two other times. Once was with Rod Stewart and the other time was just last December when she did her solo tour. Her opening act was Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders.

I was able to get quite a lot of pictures so the whole concert is not finished yet but here are the first few pages.

For the page with all the small pictures I wanted to match the opposite page, which is like chalkboard so I took a stencil I have and some liquid paint and decorated the edges of the page.

I think it came out pretty good, don’t you?

One of the reasons I love Stevie so much is her gypsy style clothing. I love all the layers and frills and her shawls are to die for. The one on the right page is one she has had for a LONG time.

To make a decorative border around the next couple of pages I used this punch called a Mini-8 by We R Memory Keepers. They come in several different styles.

I used it to make the borders around the middle background papers here.

Then I added a flower to each page to make them pop out a bit with a bit of bling in the center.

I still have to make some notes on these pages about the song she was singing, Gold Dust Woman. When she comes out with her gold shawl on the crowd goes wild because we all know what song is coming. Stevie seems to go into a trance while she is singing it and dances and twirls around. This time she was particularly mystic, even messing up her hair at one point. I tried to catch that in pictures but it is hard when she is moving around so much.

An interesting thing happened a this show. We had pretty good seats on the floor to begin with but my husband went to the restroom during one of her songs and when he came back he had found a ticket on the floor for the 7th row center! We took turns going up closer and he was able to get some very close shots. I was a little hesitant about using the ticket but toward the last few songs I went up closer too. I figured the worst thing they could do was send me back to my own seat. It was magic.

I once did an art journaling project where I was asked to pick a muse and Stevie Nicks was the most obvious choice to me. One of the prompts was for us to tell about the similarities and differences between us and our muse. I wrote this:

How about you? Have a muse? Like Stevie Nicks? Shawls? Love to hear about it!

You can click over to the main A to Z Challenge page to see what other participants have come up with for this letter, and come back to see what O has for us!

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April 2017 – #Atozchallenge – Made it to M

Posted on April 15, 2017 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

M is for Sir Paul McCartney. When I found out that Sir Paul was going to be performing at AT&T Park, home of our San Francisco Giants, I knew we had to get tickets! He is a Beatle, after all and my favorite to boot!

It was easy for us to get to the concert as the train station is just a block away from our house and it takes us to a couple of blocks away from the stadium. No worries about parking.

The only thing we didn’t particularly like was that Paul took an hour to get on stage. We heard as we were waiting that that is typical for him. Until he came out, they did a montage of pictures on the big screens from all of the Beatles and Wings memories. That was kinda cool, but not worth an hour.

For this layout I chose papers from the Creative Memories collection called Color Vibes,

and a couple of papers from another music collection that I had. I used my template to get all the pictures of Paul playing the piano to fit on the page. I really like all the different faces he makes while he sings. On the page with all the words, I used special metallic pens to color in some of the words to make them stand out.

Sir Paul was very engaging with the crowd. The last time he had performed in San Francisco it was at Candlestick park with the Beatles. He joked about our cold summer weather. He talked about John Lennon and sang a song he had written about him, “Here Today” and also played George Harrison’s, “Something.” He sang “My Love” in memory of his wife, Linda.

He sang 39 songs and had some pretty good pyrotechnics, especially with “Live and Let Die.” I think he could have sung another 39 songs and we would have stayed!

There was a really good write up about it in the newspaper so I included that. It was a great show.

Since I never got a chance to see the Beatles in person, I am really glad we got to see Sir Paul. Oddly, I don’t have any desire to see Ringo Starr, unless of course he’s with Paul. I think a great show would be Paul, Ringo, Dhani Harrison and Julian Lennon. What do you think of that?

You can click over to the main A to Z Challenge page to see what other participants have come up with for this letter, and come back to see what N has for us!

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April 2017 – #Atozchallenge – Let’s do L

Posted on April 14, 2017 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

L is for Loverboy.

Loverboy was one of the bands my husband and I saw in our very first concert together, Day on the Green, in 1982! I don’t have any pictures from that concert but I did make a page in the album using the ticket stubs and pictures of a T-shirt Bill bought me, along with a picture of the promo poster.

Once we started going to concerts again, I wanted to try and catch the bands from that first show (except Iron Maiden – I’m not a fan of theirs).

We live just about an hour away from Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and they have free Friday night concerts on the beach. In 2009 Loverboy was one of the groups playing so we decided to go see them. Free is pretty inexpensive, right?

Well, not quite free since we took our girls with us and we went on some of the rides while we waited for the concert to start.

I have fun riding the rides too!

It was also a good chance for me to use some scrapbooking supplies that were not necessarily music related. I had some papers from a summertime collection that had the tram rides on it and I used some beach-type embellishments like the starfish and shell.

There were tons of people on the beach but we watched the show from the railing on a walkway. We were just about center stage and I didn’t mind standing (as opposed to getting all sandy from the beach).

I am really bummed though because after Loverboy had sung six or eight songs they said they had to take a break and leave the stage. They said they would be back but I thought they would do the same songs over again and I knew we had an hour drive to get home so I said we should leave. I found out later that they did different songs and that we should have stayed to see the rest. I’ve been waiting for them to come around again, but so far I haven’t seen them playing near where we are. If I find them, for sure I’m going to try to catch them.

And there’s L – Have you ever left a show thinking that it was over and it wasn’t? See any free concerts at the beach?

You can click over to the main A to Z Challenge page to see what other participants have come up with for this letter, and come back to see what M has for us!

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April 2017 – #Atozchallenge – Kindly follow me to K

Posted on April 13, 2017 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

K is for Kihncert. When Greg Kihn was working at a local radio station, he would put on a concert called Kihncert at Shoreline Amphitheater. In 2009 the line-up was Greg Kihn Band, .38 Special, REO Speedwagon and Styx.

Greg Kihn Band

We had pretty good seats, close to an aisle and several times band members would come and play at the end of our row. It was quite exciting.

.38 Special

Greg Kihn Band was good but my favorites of the night were .38 Special and REO Speedwagon.

REO Speedwagon

REO

Styx – I love when all the confetti flies. Glad I don’t have to clean up that mess though!

This post was originally going to just be about REO Speedwagon and their song “Keep On Loving You” because I didn’t think we had seen any “K” bands and I love that song, so I set up my whole picture presentation around REO. I even made 6 more scrapbook layouts from another concert we had seen them at, but I wasn’t able to finish the pages and time was running out. I decided to just post what I had so far. When I was starting to put together the story, the first thing I typed was about “Kihncert.” DUH!

Has that happened to you along this A to Z? Sudden change in plans the night of the letter? Here I thought I was so well organized.

You can click over to the main A to Z Challenge page to see what other participants have come up with for this letter, and come back to see what L has for us!

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April 2017 – #Atozchallenge – Journey to J

Posted on April 12, 2017 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

J is for Journey. I’d have to say that this is one of my top five favorite groups. It would be number one if Steve Perry was still performing with them. I was really hoping to see that happen when they were recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but unfortunately it didn’t. I never saw Journey when he was touring with them and I didn’t see the other Steve they had (Steve Augeri). The first time we saw them Jeff Scott Soto was their lead singer. He only lasted about a year and then Neal found Arnel Pineda in Manilla and he’s been singing with them since about 2007. He is okay, but he’s no Steve Perry.

In any case, here are the layouts from the first Journey concert in 2006. This was the one where we saw Def Leppard the first time too. Neal Schon came out alone at first and did the Star Spangled Banner. Blew the house down right away!

This is the first time we took a “concert selfie.” Since then I’ve tried to remember to do it with each show. How young I look!

The next time we saw them was in 2008. Journey was the headliner with Cheap Trick and Heart performing first. This time it was Arnel singing with Journey and they had just released a new album so they had some new music to show off. I was not impressed with the new stuff and although the sound was close, I could still tell it wasn’t Steve Perry singing my favorites.

I’m also not really impressed with these layouts. I think I should have put some mats behind the photos. I love the paper, just not with these pictures. Maybe someday I’ll redo it.

We next saw Journey in 2011 and although those pictures are not yet in my concert album, I did make another kind of album to give to some friends who went to the concert with us. This is one of the paper bag albums I make. It is literally made using paper bags and it has inserts that pop out of the top and cards that are in the side pockets.

We had a pre-concert tailgate in the parking lot so I included those pictures and then I added some pictures of each of the bands. Night Ranger played first, then Foreigner and finally Journey.

With each pocket card I included the set list from the band.

I was able to get some really good pictures because we had great seats and a couple of them look like the singer (Kelly Hansen of Foreigner) is looking and pointing right at me!

I like making these paper bag albums and have done them for all kinds of different themes. School days and baby’s are the most common, but they work with any occasion. I think they make great gifts. I have one ready for Mother’s Day in my Etsy shop. (Shameless plug of my crafting work!)

That’s our Journey with Journey. We did see them two other times, in 2014 with Tower of Power and Steve Miller and 2016 at the big San Francisco Fest with Tower of Power, Doobie Brothers, Steve Miller and Santana. I think my favorite show of all was the very first one!

So, have you seen Journey? Like Arnel better than Steve Perry?

You can click over to the main A to Z Challenge page to see what other participants have come up with for this letter, and come back to see what K has for us!

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April 2017 – #Atozchallenge – Interesting I

Posted on April 11, 2017 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

I is for “I Am…I Said” by Neil Diamond.

Yes, up until now I have been using the name of the band to make my letter, but I haven’t seen bands with a name that starts with an “I” and so I am using my creative license to interpret the parameters of the A to Z and using the name of a song sung by Neil Diamond. Be forewarned, this is not the only time I’m going to use a song title to meet my category, so if that bothers you, I’m sorry 🙂

Anyway, we got a chance to see Neil Diamond in 2015 and it was a great show. We had an unusual experience at this event in that after I bought our tickets my husband hurt his back and was not going to be able to walk any distances or stand in line. We rented a wheelchair for the evening and when we got to the venue I went and explained the situation to the helpful people at the information counter and they were able to relocate us to the handicapped section, which was on the floor toward the back. Honestly, the seats we were given might have been better than the ones I had purchased! It was also interesting to see what it is like to navigate as a handicapped person. Everyone was very nice and we were taken through some parts of SAP Center we had never seen before, like service elevators under the arena.

Also, we ran into some friends that we hadn’t seen in a really long time and got a chance to say hello and chat with them for a bit while we were waiting in line to get in. Once we were inside, I was able to find them in their seats and my camera had good enough zoom that I could take their picture too!

There was no opening act and Neil Diamond came out and sang 26 of his hits, one after the other, with the whole crowd singing along. He didn’t even take breaks to change his outfit very often.

I had a lot of pictures of the drummer because I was so impressed with the way his hands were flying on the drum set. Once again I used one of the templates from Lea France; this time it was the Stained Glass one. It really makes it easy for me to get all the pictures I want on the page.

Here is the finished page and I think it came out really well. I added a drum set and the “play a little” tag to even out the spaces. Look at the way his hands are flying! Reminds me of hummingbird wings.

Another thing I used a lot on this layout was this corner punch by Fiskars. I use it when I don’t want to use photo mats behind the pictures. This one has 3 different corner treatments to use. I used the one that looks like flower leaves.

Everyone got chills when he sang America and displayed the statue of liberty, eagle and the flag. I used that page to write out the song list. The end of the show was Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show and Heartlight.

We are going to see him again this year. I’m looking forward to it. It is a 50th Anniversary tour. Hard to believe he’s been around 50 years! He still looks and sounds great. At least he did in 2015.

I have to say I’m having a good time making these scrapbook pages and reliving the concerts, especially these more recent ones when I had a better camera and the pictures came out clearer for the most part. Some are still blurry because I have a hard time taking pictures without dancing to the music!

“I Am…I Said!” Ever seen Neil Diamond? Got a favorite song of his? Love to hear about it!

You can click over to the main A to Z Challenge page to see what other participants have come up with for this letter, and come back to see what J has for us!

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April 2017 – #Atozchallenge – Heaven’s it’s H

Posted on April 10, 2017 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

H is for Huey Lewis and the News.

Huey Lewis is responsible for my concert addiction. He doesn’t know that of course, but back in 2006 I won tickets to one of his concerts through a radio station. I wrote about that last year during the A to Z – R for Radio.

It was the first concert we had been to in many years and Huey Lewis really rocked. He was so good, even Chicago, the other group playing that night, had him come out on stage with them. His performance with them was the best part of their show, in my opinion. My pictures, however, are not so good. I even printed some of them in black and white to see if that would help.

Since that concert in 2006, we’ve seen Huey Lewis at least 4 times. All the rest have been at the Mountain Winery, where we are able to get good seats near the stage.

In 2009 we saw them and our seats were pretty close, about the 5th row back!

Dwight Clark was in the audience and he went up on stage to sing “Hip to Be Square,” which is a song that he and some of the other then 49-ers had sung back-up vocals on. At the end of the show Huey says, “I’m Huey Lewis and you’ve just heard the News!”

A few years later, in 2013, we saw Huey again at the Winery. This venue is such a good one that there are almost no bad seats in the house. We were a little farther back this time, Section 11. They were doing a special “Sports” tour, celebrating 30 years of their musical album of the same name. Although the album I am working on is all about concerts and other stage shows we’ve seen, I like to incorporate other things besides music so for this layout I used papers from this We R Memories scrapbook pad called MVP.

There was a sheet that looked like the sports section of the newspaper so I used that for the second page. On it I was able to include a partial review of the show from Jason Debord of Rock Subculture. He’s got some great pictures but then again, he has press credentials!

Even though the songs aren’t sports related, I used other embellishments on the layouts to give it that sporty feel. I broke the set list up and put it on two separate pages because the first part of the concert was the whole Sports album, front to back, and the second half was other hits of theirs.

They did their typical ending where they all come to the front of the stage and pose together.

We’ve seen them twice more, once in 2014 and again last year but those aren’t scrapped yet and I have to get on to the letter “I” so they will have to wait. Each of those years has a story and I can’t do them justice by rushing.

There’s “H” and again I say it is Huey Lewis’ fault that I am such a concert fanatic now because if he had had a bad performance that first time we saw him, I don’t think we would have been in such a hurry to spend the money on another show. After all, those tickets were free and Chicago was a disappointment so we (I) wouldn’t have felt the pull.

How about you? Ever seen Huey Lewis? Been to the Mountain Winery? Go to concerts? Share!

You can click over to the main A to Z Challenge page to see what other participants have come up with for this letter, and come back to see what I has for us!

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April 2017 – #Atozchallenge – Golly it’s G

Posted on April 8, 2017 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

G is for Genesis:

Phil Collins and the boys reunited and toured in 2007, calling it the “Turn It On Again” tour. My husband was sorry that Peter Gabriel was not going to be with them, but I didn’t have a problem with it. (Side note: The hubs did get to see Peter Gabriel when he toured with Sting last year, but that’s a post for a different time).

This is another layout that was done a while ago so there are no techniques to share and it was before I was including pictures of us at each concert. I definitely have developed a routine over time. There was a good write up in the paper about it so I was able to include that.

Phil Collins was still able to do some drumming and now that he is no longer able to perform on the drums, it makes it even more special that we got to see him play then.

One of the really cool songs was when they sang “Mama” and, with the lights all down low, at the point in the song where Phil Collins sings “Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha” he held a flashlight up to his face and on the screen it looked like he was a demon.

Phil Collins is touring again even though he has not been in the best of health. His son is going to be playing the drums. There are also rumors about another Genesis reunion tour, although nothing is definite yet. I’d like to see them tour again and really would like to see Phil Collins come around. He recently wrote a book, “Not Dead Yet,” which I am looking forward to reading.

And there we have G. Have you seen Genesis? Prefer Phil over Peter? Would you see them tour? Love comments.

You can click over to the main A to Z Challenge page to see what other participants have come up with for this letter, and come back to see what H has for us!

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April 2017 – #Atozchallenge – Flying to F

Posted on April 7, 2017 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

F is for Fleetwood Mac

This is another band that we have seen a few times. The first time was way back in 2003 and I took NO pictures. I used the cover of the new album they were promoting at the time (Say You Will) to make the page. Christine McVie had stopped touring with them.

The next time we saw them was in 2009. It was the day after our 25th anniversary, so we treated ourselves to the show.

We each have our favorite songs. My husband loves Lindsay Buckingham’s Big Love.

Stevie Nicks is my idol and I love her Gold Dust Woman. I thought the swirls in the paper matched with her performance of this song, so mysterious and fluid. It gives me chills every time she gets her shawl out for this number.

John McVie is such a quiet stage presence that it is hard to get him on camera.

Mick Fleetwood can play those drums!

I love Stevie in her top hat.

We saw them again but I don’t have those pictures printed or the layouts made yet. Maybe I will have to do this theme again next year. Christine McVie was back with them and that changed the whole show.

That’s “F” for you. Hope you are enjoying the A to Z!

You can click over to the main A to Z Challenge page to see what other participants have come up with for this letter, and come back to see what G has for us!