The Ellen Porter Hall

Did you know there is an Ellen Porter Performing Arts Center? I have known this for maybe 10 years, ever since I first came across the idea of "Googling my name." The website for this performing arts center at Westmont College in Santa Barbara used to be one of the first things that came up. I always wondered what that place was like. I think from 2002 to 2011 we might have driven through Santa Barbara once or twice, never with time to drive up into the hills and find Westmont College. But this year, on our way back from Cayucos on Jan. 2, we did have the time. We snapped a few photos of me at the building, and on our way off the campus saw this sunset descending over the college's athletic field. It's an Ellen Porter sunset for sure.

My newest among favorite scrapbooking websites, Color Stories Inspiration, helped me get this together. So did this sketch from another favorite scrapbooking website, Page Maps.

The sketch I also used, with only three photos, for our quick trip to Refugio Beach we took before driving up to this college. (I don't have that layout scanned, at least not yet.) Even though I knew long beforehand that I would be using this sketch for both, it took "My Building" much longer to come together than "Refugio Beach." I wanted to use at least the small strip of ledger paper I have here, as it is very pretty with the mauve column dividers you see a hint of here. I also like the argyle pattern, which is on the reverse side of the column paper. But while I was able to mix pattern papers from two different lines on Refugio Beach, doing so from the same line was stumping me here.

CSI to the rescue! I could stick with the greys and purples of the ledger/arglye paper, but what if I somehow added pink, turquoise and red? And what if I "distressed" a page. (This background paper has what is known as a distressed look, that is it artificially shows signs of aging. I added to that by rubbing ink on the right corners and on the drywall tape on the left side). And what if I had stripes in straight and not-so-straight lines?And what if instead of just saying "Me at the Ellen Porter Performing Arts Center in Santa Barbara," I told you why I even decided to go there? (Of course you know I would tell you the story behind the photo without prompting from someone elses's website!)

And what if I used a 10-year-old scrapbooking product called Magic Mesh, like Fi Kenward, one of the CSI design team members had? Nope, I could not. Scrapbook products go in and out of style quickly, so generally once you use up any stash of a product you have, you can't get more. Such was the case with my supply of Magic Mesh. But what about drywall tape? I actually get to spend some time "chatting" with members of the design team on Fridays, and member Shaunery Wharton suggested drywall tape as a substitute.

So there you have it. Drywall tape inked red (the color of my departed Magic Mesh, and one of the necessary colors to qualify for the CSI challenge) on the left. The cute little bird I cut out of the ledger paper on the right, along with turquoise and pink hearts, the jewels and brads I pulled off the heart I had cut down to make the turquoise one fit (see my previous blog entry) and a purple flower with a pink button center. A much prettier page than I had before!