Rapt 2 Scrap

Toodles

2010-08-07T21:45:00.000-04:00

It seemed crazy to be posting to two different blogs so I've just consolidated and I'm just posting over here. Hope to see you there!

Snowshoe 3

2010-02-27T12:22:00.001-05:00

Snowshoe 2

2010-02-27T12:21:00.002-05:00

Originally uploaded by hezro

Snowshoe 1

2010-02-27T12:17:00.002-05:00

Snowshoe 1
Originally uploaded by hezro

Posted by mmesmarie

2010-02-06T10:41:00.005-05:00

In light of the great piles of snow outside, here's a LO to remind of us of warmer times!

2010-02-01T19:21:00.006-05:00

In 5th week of Design Your Life. I think I've learned a ton... not just from Cathy but from the students. Feel very inspired (though have learned that I am also quite rebelious and have a hard time following directions 100%!) Bought CS4 but am scared to death of going digi. I barely have time to do what I am doing right now. Where do I start? Will I ever sleep again?

LO for Ali Edwards class

2010-01-11T21:27:00.002-05:00

Beginner Digi Scrapbook class

2009-11-11T13:51:00.001-05:00

For anyone who's ever thought about digital scrapbooking but hasn't known where to begin, Jessica has a free beginner class. I haven't actually tried it but it looks promising! Good luck! (Did I already post a link to this? I feel like I already did this once.)

Vacation Scrapbook

2009-11-10T23:00:00.000-05:00

I've been working on a vacation album from our trip around New England this summer. I can see why I have a hard time getting new pages done, however, because I decided I had to go back and redo the pages I had done. The colors were just TOO bright for me. So I moved to a more muted color scheme. Anyway, if you'd like to check them out, I've posted them to my scrapbook gallery.

Organized

2009-11-08T16:07:00.001-05:00

I got a ton of my digi scrapbooking supplies organized this weekend! Hurray! I participated in a National Scrapbooking Day chat over at Designer Digitals and in between chatting, I sorted through stuff in my ACDSee database. So now I can get to work on some pages...

Another Friday layout - Before & After

2009-10-30T15:23:00.011-04:00

Here's another couple of layouts that I did and then redid after reading Cathy Z's articles.

Before:

After:

Yesterday & Today

2009-10-25T14:36:00.008-04:00

I'm taking another Big Picture Scrapbooking class...shocking, I know. This one is taught by Ali Edwards who is another one of my scrapbooking inspirations. The last couple of classes that I've taken have been very journaling-centric. I don't actually have any journaling phobia, but these recent classes have given me lots of ideas for topics to write about.

This weekend I did an exercise where I hauled out my old albums to figure out what things I like and what things I would do differently. I hadn't looked through my books in quite a while (we're talking years). So it was a lot of fun to flip back through them. One pleasant surprise was that for the most part I was okay with the layouts. In fact, there were actually lots of things that I liked. One of my favorite techniques is when I scan some object and then cut it out. (Why can I not think of what that's called when you cut something out like that? It's driving me nuts!) I love titles with puns but it was apparent that sometimes I try a little too hard to get a punny title. I definitely do not like overly contrived titles. I love big chunky letters and I love letters that overlay the photos (back in the day I used vellum to do that). I love enlargements. I love pages where I actually put some effort to journal. The most consistent thing that jumped out at me was that I like to keep my designs simple. I'm not a fan of the CM style of embellishments, from back in the day. Nothing made me cringe more than pages where I'd tried to use stickers. Sometimes I can make stickers work but for the most part, that's just not my thing.

Today I worked on three pages. I'm hoping to do the next lesson tonight, and maybe even get to the layout that goes with it. In the meantime, Ali Edward's provided a link to this site which has this great list of questions. Hopefully they will get *your* journaling mojo flowing.

A Friday layout

2009-10-16T15:29:00.004-04:00

Just because it's one of my favorite recent layouts. I thought I'd share it with you all.

2009-10-05T21:05:00.000-04:00

And now two of my favorite scrapbooking entities collide. Hurray!

2009-10-02T18:13:00.005-04:00

Thank you for inviting me to contribute. I've never written on a blog before so thanks for your patience if I don't do something right. I've always been a big scrapbooker (in fact I recently took a look at my jr high scrapbook pages which are in bad shape 26 years later and need to figure out what to do. If it were just photos, I could re-do them but it is magazine cut-out, funny 7th grade writing, my view of the world at the time that I don't want to lose. Any suggestions?) but somehow I let scrapbooking become a chore, always feeling a bit behind. (I think it has to do with moving to Europe and having children -- both events that created more photos than I'll ever know what to do with.) But in a little back and forth with lovely creator of this blog and I'm finding it a labor of love again. I've been stealing away a little time here and there (after the kids are in bed, before I collapse) and loving it. Also, both of C.Z.'s books arrived in the mail to me. I've only read one part and have already had an a-ha moment -- I always feel sorry for myself that I don't have room to scrap (sometimes I'm doing it on my bed!) and then I read that even Cathy Zielske scrapbooks on her dining room table and just makes the best of what she has. Totally cool!

DYL Version 2.0

2009-10-01T12:25:00.001-04:00

Registration for Cathy's Zielske's Design Your Life class opens November 5.

Just a little bit

2009-09-23T12:40:00.005-04:00

Heather so kindly invited me to be a contributor to this blog and in honor of that, the first pages I'm uploading are a before and after. I know Heather really likes Cathy Zielski, and I checked out some of her stuff yesterday. I have to admit, from the little bit I was exposed to, I also like her style and philosophy. Since I'm not in the position to take any of her classes at the moment, I read some of her past articles that were posted on her website (the link is posted to the left under design). Now in the scope of what I'm sure I could learn from CZ, the information I got was just a little bit of what is available, but that little bit has already made a difference.

So here is my first layout...It's ok, but not particularly great. After reading those few articles yesterday, I took another whack at the layout and I think it looks MUCH better.
Just a few changes really, but a vast improvement. Now I hope to quickly get to the point where this deliberateness in design is second nature.

On my list of things I want to do in life: Take some of CZ's classes, oh, and earn enough money to afford it!

More Preaching to the Choir

2009-09-21T13:37:00.009-04:00

An old friend sent me an e-mail asking me some questions about scrapbooking. Writing my response to her e-mail, reminded me how passionate I am about scrapbooking. Yes, I enjoy the creative outlet that it provides me. I love trying to make my pages visually appealing. But most of all, I love telling our story. And even if no one ever cares to read it, I've had fun telling it. And I can't help but believe there ARE people who will be interested...like my kids, for one.

I started "formally" scrapbooking sometime around the turn of the century. But I have always been a scrapbooker at heart. I would jot dates and notes on the backs of photos. I kept journals. I would make my own little scrapbooks by *gasp* gluing photos to pieces of paper and stapling them all together. I would slap pictures into albums that I bought at craft stores. I have always had an interest in taking photos and recording the details that went along with them. But when I stumbled onto Creative Memories, it was like I had just stumbled onto my own personal holy grail. Wow! This was exactly what I'd been looking for my entire life. And I cranked out the pages...did I ever. I pretty much scrapbooked every picture that came down the pike and I finished big, fat, thick scrapbooks like nobody's business. I gave numerous books away and I still have thirteen books sitting on my own shelves. I will sheepishly admit that those books cover a very small span of time...about a year and a half. Yes, yes, I was quite enthusiastic.

And then I had kids. The amount of photos increased and the amount of time I had to scrapbook decreased. Suddenly I found myself "BEHIND". Gradually the supplies got shoved out of the way, I found myself pulling them out less and less frequently. It was just too hard to do with all the kids. My husband had been telling me that I should just have online photo albums - and I did - but I missed the creative element of scrapbooking that I had always enjoyed. And then I discovered digital scrapbooking.

It was perfect. I could easily share my pages with others. I could do it without a lot of mess whenever I had a few minutes to myself. It was speedier - I could reuse a design multiple times. I can print as many copies of a book as I want (seems good for a mom of four). On so many levels, digital scrapbooking was the perfect thing for me.

As my enthusiasm for scrapbooking returned, I started reading books and magazines. And that drastically changed my thinking.

Ways that I've Changed My Philosophy:

I no longer buy into the concept of being "behind". I figure whatever I've done puts me ahead of nothing so now I'm always ahead. I see myself more as a family historian or a family archivist. I'm trying to keep track of our journey as effectively as I'm able to and I'm using several tools to accomplish this. I'm "journaling" our adventures in my blog. I'm taking tons of pictures and trying to take some video too. Someday I hope to revisit some of those things to put together "baby books" for the kids. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. There's no law that says I have to follow some sort of timeline and document every single thing, every single day. I just want my kids to get the "feel" for my interpretation of our lives. So now I scrapbook what I can and I feel good about it and I don't beat myself up for what I haven't done. I've also stopped thinking that I need to scrapbook every photo I take. Which is a good thing because these days I take a ton of photos! Instead I just think about the story I want to tell and then I find the best photos to go with my words. (For more on that check out Stacy Julian's book Photo Freedom.)

C

2009-09-15T15:31:00.000-04:00

My Color Scheme

2009-09-15T15:28:00.003-04:00

B

2009-09-15T15:28:00.002-04:00

A

2009-09-15T00:56:00.005-04:00

I've started working on pages for the CZ class that I'm taking. LOVE that Cathy Zielske! If you click on this photo it will take you to the Flickr page where I've credited the designers. Cathy gave us this template to use and I'm lovin' it!

I Lost My Tooth

2009-09-13T20:33:00.004-04:00

This weekend I participated in Designer Digitals' all day chat. There were tons of freebies and even more great information. Anyway, one of the freebies was this great template by Lynn Grieveson. If you click on this photo and go to the flicker page where it's hosted, I've put detailed information about all the components I used and I've posted the journaling.

UPDATE 9/14
Tweaked things a little:

Ella Publishing

2009-09-08T21:21:00.002-04:00

Also, check out this cool and FREE ezine: Ella Publishing

Renee Pearson

2009-09-08T21:03:00.003-04:00

I found a great new site with lots of resources for digiscrappers: www.reneepearson.com And this is a great week to visit because she's having an awesome "Back to School Event Thingie" with great chats and giveaways.

Clean Water

2009-08-31T13:34:00.002-04:00

Cathy Zielske has started a "Scrapbookers for Clean Water" campaign.

The story of charity: water - The 2009 September Campaign Trailer from charity: water on Vimeo.

ACDSee

2009-08-30T09:58:00.001-04:00

ACDSee is having a sale! Check it out: http://www.acdsee.com/

Catch Lights

2009-08-23T22:12:00.002-04:00

Here's a great little tutorial for getting catch lights.

Road Trip

2009-08-22T23:16:00.004-04:00

From Scrapt

The top layout is from a Designer Digitals challenge: Kellie Mize, AdChalFree-082408. The fonts I used were primarily Century Gothic and JW ChalkRubons. I did use LD Grunge for the numbers on the cover page. If you'd like to read the journaling, I'm pretty sure it's legible if you go look at the larger photos in my Scrapt album.

Designing Your First Page

2009-08-22T10:49:00.001-04:00

This post at Designer Digitals walks you through creating a scrapbook page in Photoshop or Elements.

Getting Started

2009-08-20T19:13:00.004-04:00

So many people have told me how much they would love to try digital scrapbooking, blah, blah, blah and I always send them over to this blog and wish for them that they really would take it up because it is AWESOME. And I'm sure I've already listed off the numerous advantages to digiscrapping over tradition scrapping. (My top reason is that it's very kid friendly in that there's no mess for them to get into AND you can print off copies of your pages for each of them, should they so desire).

But anyway, today I was on the phone with my aunt and she was being very kind and saying nice things to me and in the course of our conversation, she said that she would love to try digiscrapping but that at this point she wouldn't even know where to get started. So I thought, "Hey, I should blog about how to get started." But then I realized that getting started actually *is* kind of hard. I mean, if you're trying to do this with Photoshop, there *is* a learning curve. I believe that Photoshop Elements is a little more straight forward to use - not to mention MUCH less expensive - but I'm not sure of that because I haven't actually used Elements.

I learned Photoshop on the job. In fact, in my previous working life, I also used PageMaker, Quark, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and probably other similar software apps that I'm not remembering at the moment. So by the time I took up digiscrapping, I already kinda knew what I was doing.

Truthfully I *have* learned lots of new tricks in the last couple of years. Maybe because playing around with Photoshop for hobby purposes allows me to just tinker around, whereas before I felt more pressure to get things done quickly. I'm not sure. But anyway, point is, I guess I'm not really so much help in this department because it's been a long time since I first started using Photoshop. And even though I'm no guru (I'm not trying to be humble, it's true), I can't really remember the process of how I learned either. But, I will say this, there are TONS of tutorials available. The web is amazing in this regard - ask and ye shall receive. So while I'm sure getting started is intimidating, I think you should just jump in and go for it. Choose your software and if it happens to be Adobe Photoshop, I would happily answer your questions. Though, more than likely that would mean a google search on my end. *hehe*

I would love to have some friends who were into it too. When I went through my Creative Memories phase, I LOVED attending scraps and getting together with girlfriends to work on our pages. I keep hoping that maybe someday I'll have a similar digiscrapping network because it was definitely a lot of fun. I miss it.

Farewell

2009-08-18T00:48:00.004-04:00

From Scrapt

Click on image for credits.

Journaling:
Grandma and Grandpa’s remains, along with their wedding rings, were interred at Sarasota National Cemetary on August 7, 2009.

Aunt Barb, Uncle Rich, Mom, Bill, Danny, Ted, Doug, Andrea, Michael, Rebecca, Kathi, Kardynn and myself attended the burial.

It was a very touching service. The flag was at half mast. A military chaplain spoke. Though Grandma could not be officially recognized, they acknowledged that “behind every good man, is a good woman”. They told us they were sorry for our loss and they thanked us for Grandpa’s service to our country. After the chaplain spoke, there was a three volley salute. A veteran played taps. The flag was folded and presented to Aunt Barb. All the veterans gave Grandpa one last salute.

Julius Daniel VanBelle
Nov 28, 1919 - July 12, 2009

Ethel VanBelle
July 24, 1922 - Aug 23, 2008

Digital Photography School

2009-08-17T10:13:00.005-04:00

I stumbled onto a site with a lot of great information about photography. There are tons of tips and tutorials. http://digital-photography-school.com/ And you don't have to pay a cent for any of it.

If you're just getting your feet wet in photography and want to learn the basics, start here.

Photo Freedom

2009-08-17T07:37:00.003-04:00

I bought Stacy Julian's book a few days ago and have now finished reading it and am ready to share my opinion. First of all, I've resisted buying this book for a while because I thought my system for managing my photos already worked pretty good for me. But I've heard so many great things and when I found myself at a craft store flipping through the book, I thought, "What the heck" and I bought it. In my case, I'm only making a few changes to my system after reading this book. But, that said, I *am* reorganizing a few things and I think her suggestions are fantastic. The problem is just that I was already on the bandwagon. :) But the book did get me enthusiastic to get organizing my photos because of course my system's no good if I never do it...and lately I haven't been doing it.

Photography

2009-08-11T13:53:00.014-04:00

The other day I picked up a Better Homes and Garden Photography magazine. I'm such a sucker for that kind of thing. But as I flipped through the magazine, I was a little bit disappointed because there wasn't really anything new in there. Then I realized the up side to that is that I've learned a thing or two over the years.

From Rapt 2 Scrap

The most compelling element in a photograph - for me - is the composition. I remember taking a home ec class in 9th grade and learning that odd numbers are pleasing to the eye. I think that's the same basic principle behind the rule of thirds. I've actually stumbled onto an alternate but similar composition technique: the diagonal method.

From Vacation - Day 8

Another favorite composition technique of mine is framing. Perhaps even more than creating a pleasing visual result, it's just fun to do. And of course my absolute favorite rule of photography is getting close to the subject. This one came naturally and I found myself filling a shot with someone's face, before I ever knew that was a basic rule of photography. This is also why I'm totally addicted to my zoom lenses.

From Vacation - Day 8

A second element that I think can really set a photograph apart is the lighting. The right lighting can make the end result absolutely magical. My family room has windows facing south and west. On good days, when the light is just so, I can't stop snapping photos. Whether the catch lights in my children's eyes are bright, or the backlighting is perfect, there's nothing that makes me want to pull out my camera more than perfect light. I still have a lot to learn in this regard but I'm enjoying that process. I have a shoe mounted flash, a gray card and a stack of books about lighting and exposure (not to mention about ten more in my Amazon shopping cart).

From Rapt 2 Scrap

My other favorite thing to play with is exposure. Generally I shoot in Program mode but I enjoy flipping over to Shutter Priority mode too. Every once in a blue moon I'll look down on the aperture but usually I'm more interested in the shutter speed.

So there you go. Read up on those techniques with the links I provided or just google them yourself. And why not pull out your camera's manual the next time you have some down time because I'll bet there are still plenty of things that your camera can do that you don't fully understand. That is definitely true for me!

Valuable

2009-08-10T20:16:00.010-04:00

I know that my posts have been very sporadic lately but I'm going to try to be more regular in the future. Scrapbooking, and all of its various components, is something that I really have a passion for and updating this blog makes me happy. Plain and simple.

This weekend I attended a memorial service for my grandparents. The last few years, any sort of event like this, I create a little slideshow documenting the life of the person being remembered. This event was no exception. I assembled a chronological review of my grandparents life in photographs. So far, people have always had kind words to say about the slideshows. As much as I'd like to take all the credit for this and claim that it's simply my amazing talent, I realize that it's actually the photographs themselves that are particularly compelling.

After this particular memorial, I chanced into a conversation with someone. She had just snapped some photos for me of my extended family and it prompted a conversation about photography. I don't think she realized I had anything to do with the slideshow, the conversation just came up because she'd taken pictures for me. She commented that just the day before, as she was sorting through some photographs, she started to question what she was doing. She said, "I was looking at a photo and thinking, my children don't even know who these people are. But this service reminded me that my photographs are meaningful."

To know that I'd had that impact on someone made me feel great. Because I too believe in the importance of pictures. I'm diligently documenting the lives of my family, my life, and on some small scale, the lives of people who are important to me. I don't know how many people will ever want to look at my photographs, but I hope some will and honestly, if no one else cares to, at least I know that I will enjoy looking back through my pictures and remembering times past.

The past few weeks, while working on this slideshow, I've looked at many photographs of my grandparents. As I tried to put the photographs into chronological order, I would ask my mother and my aunt for help. But in many cases they no longer remembered the details - if they ever even knew them to begin with. This is not the first time I've had this experience. When trying to organize pictures from my own childhood, I encountered the same difficulty. On numerous occasions my parents disagreed about the details - when and where the pictures were taken. I was always happy when there was a notation on the back of the photograph to steer me in the right direction. It doesn't take long to forget because even with my photographs of my own children, who have been a part of my life for less than a decade, I look back at pictures from the beginning and I've already forgotten so much.

Taking photographs is only half of preserving your history. The other half is recording the story. To me, that's the magic of scrapbooking. It's an opportunity to showcase photographs AND highlight the special stories that go along with them. And blogging is the newest way to accomplish this same goal. I'm still drawn to scrapbooking because it's also an opportunity to be creative and make something visually pleasing. I enjoy it. But I most of all, I just think it's so cool to put your stories and photographs together.

Sitting next to me is a stack of letters that my grandfather wrote to my grandmother while he was in the war. I offered to scan them so that my entire family can have copies of them. So I KNOW for a fact that if my grandparents had kept some sort of scrapbook, it's something we'd all treasure.

From Rapt 2 Scrap

Online Class Suggestion

2009-07-04T14:30:00.001-04:00

Cathy Zielske is teaching a class inspired by Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. I'm so excited about it!

Annika's knees

2009-06-21T00:57:00.000-04:00

From Scrapt

Click on photo for credits

ride baby ride

2009-06-21T00:56:00.000-04:00

From Scrapt

Click on photo for credits

2009-05-17T08:30:00.001-04:00

The Great American Scrapbook Convention is coming!

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life

2009-05-16T22:15:00.004-04:00

Some poking around on the web, looking at various sites, has lead me to inspiration. Apparently Cathy Zielske (I know, I know, I'm always talking about Cathy Zielske) taught a class at CKU and then at Big Picture Scrapbooking based on the book Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. If anyone out there actually pays attention to this blog, you may recall that I posted a review of that book a while back. The book was inspiring in and of itself but this class sounds freakin' awesome.

From what I gather, attendees wrote two to three things about themselves, or things they liked, for each letter of the alphabet. Then they wrote narratives for each item and tried to find an image to go along with it. Finally they made a page for each letter of the alphabet. (Someone named Jackie put a link to one of her pages on a forum at DST.)

I found an article in the Salt Lake City Examiner which leads me to believe that Cathy may teach another similar class in the future, which I hope is true. That would be great! But in the meantime, I totally intend to do this exercise!

Font Junkie

2009-05-16T13:50:00.004-04:00

I've become a bit of a font junkie. Thank you Cathy Zielske for that. But the good thing is that I'm starting to be a little more discriminating about the fonts I download. Lately I've been on a quest for thick but simple fonts to use for titles. I love the mix of a thick and thin when making a title.

I've updated my sidebar a little and organized it into sections. There are several font sites listed in the Freebie section. Enjoy!

Digital Scrapbooking Magazine Archives

2009-04-30T13:26:00.001-04:00

Took me a while to figure out how to get to DSM's archives so I'll make it easy for myself in the future.

Kiersten's Great Fall

2009-04-29T23:25:00.001-04:00

Fonts: CK Ali's Writing, CK Tipsy, Times New Roman

Hair Twist

2009-03-30T09:44:00.002-04:00

From Scrapt

Background: Jan Hosford Skipping School
Font: Century Gothic
Template: Cathy Zielske Design Your Life class
Actions: Pioneer Woman Sepia, Totally Rad Actions Super, Fun Happy

A Conversation Overheard

2009-03-28T13:40:00.002-04:00

From Scrapt

Staples: Correen Silke
Background: Shalae Tippetts Fall Watercolors Blue Paper
Conversation Overheard brush: Maryann Wise Journaling Challenge 3/08/09
Font: Times New Roman

Journaling:

Annika: I want to go to Auntie Joy's house.
Me: That's nice, what do you want to do at Auntie Joy's house?
Annika: I want to pet our cat.
Me: Oh...Annika, honey...our cat got sick, sweetie. Our cat passed away.
Annika: Where did our cat go? I want to pet our cat.
Me: Annika, remember when Daddy's grandma died? Our cat died too, honey.
Annika [sobbing]: I wanted to pet our cat before she die-ed.
Maggie to Oskar: Did you know your Daddy's Grandma died?
Oskar to Maggie: Yes, I'm sad about that.
Annika [between sobs]: Why did our cat die?
Me: She got sick.
Annika: Can I pet her when she gets better?
Me: She's not coming back, honey.
Annika: Where do animals and people go when they die?
Me: Well honey, people believe that we go to Heaven.
Someone, perhaps Kiersten: What's Heaven?
Maggie: Heaven is where baby Jesus is born on Christmas morning.

- Conversation while driving home from preschool, March 23, 2009

Labor Notes

2009-03-18T14:20:00.002-04:00

From Scrapt

Purple ribbon Zazou
Tag TCS Scrapgirls Refresh
white font CK Ali's Writing
gray font karabinE.
purple font LD Slanted (and Anna Aspnes Wish plum paper)
Journaling font: Century Gothic
background paper Angie Briggs

Family Tree take 2

2009-03-18T10:18:00.003-04:00

From Scrapt

I redid this page for Kardynn's book last night too. Here's the old and the new pages next to each other, because I don't think I ever uploaded it before. It was a royal mess!!

From Scrapt

A Breech of Protocol

2009-03-18T00:06:00.002-04:00

From Scrapt

Olho de boi font
LD Little Fishie font
Jackie Eckles web challenge 6/25/06
Designer Digitals
background paper is one that I bought back when I was paper scrapping, and scanned to use for this LO

I'm scrapping again! Yippie!

Baby #4

2009-03-18T00:01:00.002-04:00

From Scrapt

Redid this LO. Click here for the original.

Type

2009-01-09T23:51:00.000-05:00

Here's a link to a bunch of Cathy Zielske's articles about type. Awesome!

2008-12-15T23:33:00.002-05:00

I haven't done any more classwork and I'm way behind again. *sigh* I'd better make sure the site won't go anywhere for a while! Anyway, when I have time to work on it I'm really loving my Cathy Zielske design class!

More LOs

2008-11-10T23:00:00.001-05:00

More completed LOs from my BigPictureScrapbooking class.

From Scrapt

Nikon D40

2008-11-09T20:11:00.004-05:00

A little plug for my beloved camera. My husband, who truly is the master researcher, decided that the D40 would be the best camera for me. So I'll have to show him that URL. :) Of course then maybe he'll be annoyed about the days wasted that he spent researching my camera for me...actually no...because he would have had to check everything out for himself anyway.

2008-11-09T19:26:00.005-05:00

From Scrapt

These are the three layouts that I've done for my "Design Your Life" class, so far. Shoot, I wasn't really paying attention to what products I was using. I guess if anyone would be interested in tracking down one of these elements, shoot me an e-mail and I would be happy to figure out where I got it. I'll try to come back later and give proper credit to the designers.

I'm baaack!

2008-11-09T12:55:00.004-05:00

Guess what guys, I actually have some new layouts. Woo hoo! I'm finally diving into the Big Picture Scrapbooking design class that I took and am LOVING it! Of course Cathy Zielske is my scrapbooking hero. *hehe* When I saw her work it was like music started playing from the heavens...because her style is exactly what I like. Clean and simple. (Which is the name of two of her books. *hehe*) Anyway, she's teaching this design class so you know I'm in rapture. A lot of it I was already doing...without necessarily realizing why. But I've also learned some new things...and the funny thing is that now I understand why some of my old layouts drove me crazy. Of course it makes me want to redo them but Cathy tells us we shouldn't go back and muck with old stuff. We'll see...

In the meantime, I'll try to upload some of my new LOs later today.

2008-09-08T22:30:00.003-04:00

Still working on the scrapbook of Danny's & Amy's wedding so nothing new to upload. But I see that Designer Digitals has changed up their weekly challenges, so I'm excited to do one of those soon. Plus I signed up for Cathy's class at The Big Picture so I'm really excited about that. It starts in October. Oh yeah, AND I'm taking a one-day Nikon D40 workshop at the local camera shop. I'm a little nervous that I'm not going to learn a lot because I've been poring over my manual and various photography books, but I'm sure that's mere wishful thinking on my part. :) I'd like to think I've learned a thing or two but no doubt I have A LOT to learn still.

The Pioneer Woman

2008-07-20T22:19:00.004-04:00

Cathy Zielske's recent post about actions turned me onto The Pioneer Woman. I've been enjoying her posts about photography...well, just her posts in general, truth be told.

2008-07-14T23:26:00.003-04:00

As I'm working on this scrapbook of Danny's and Amy's wedding I realized that my style is *so* not the traditional scrapbooking style. I started out doing a book and trying to make it very elaborate and layered like the beautiful art you see in scrapbook galleries. And while I guess I can pull it off, and I *do* think it's attractive, at the end of the day, what I'm really drawn to is very clean, simple. I don't like a lot of extra stuff - just photos and journaling. :) So that's what I'm doing for this album. I'm just ripping off a Cathy Zielske theme album and going with it. :)

my favorite things

2008-07-13T01:37:00.001-04:00

I wanted to add more things...but I'm not 100% sold on the new one.

My Favorite Things

2008-07-11T14:13:00.002-04:00

I want to do one of these for each of us. I have to admit that these aren't all my absolutest, favoritest things but I do like them. (I probably like the house being tidy more than I like those earrings though. *smile*)

Fonts: Verdana, Jane Austen

It's Like Riding a Bike

2008-07-07T00:50:00.000-04:00

Background: Angie Briggs UrbanLive_PaperSpec_Tan
Font: Arial and LD Grunge

4th of July

2008-07-06T11:18:00.001-04:00

Background:
Melany Violette backtexturedsolidblue
Anna Aspnes Designer Digitals AdChall16Dec07_Red

Template:
Anna Aspnes AdChallenge6Jul08

Font:
Franklin Gothic

2008-07-05T00:19:00.002-04:00

This is Andrea Victoria's web challenge frame from way back when (Designer Digitals).
Font: Arial

I wanted to plug in a lot of journaling but keep the text from feeling too overwhelming when you look at the page. I'm not sure whether I pulled that off or not. I'm not going to copy all the journaling here - because it's a lot but basically I wanted to give a "verbal snapshot" to go with the snapshots in the frame. So it's a heartfelt description of how my children are now. (For my family, I was inspired after my post on mf.com the other day.)

2008-07-03T22:35:00.004-04:00

This is a template from a Designer Digitals Ad Challenge. It was designed by Kellie Mize for the April 27 Challenge. The background is also from a Designer Digitals Challenge: Lynn Grieveson, April 2 Web Challenge. The font is Century Gothic (per the template).

My photo wasn't quite as wide as the template so I just made two additional layers of my photo and used one for the square all the way to the left on the bottom and then another layer for the two squares on the far right. I don't think you can tell (thanks to the white frames) although I didn't make any effort to disguise it. The placement is a happy accident. Now I'm thinking I should have fiddled with it a little but I really don't think anyone would notice if I wasn't pointing it out.

Sweet Baby

2008-06-29T14:50:00.001-04:00

I finally did another page. Woo hoo!

Journaling
It’s been exactly a year since you came into our lives. On June 29, 2007 a home pregnancy test let us know that you were headed our way. I wasn’t expecting to get pregnant. It was a big surprise...but it’s been a happy accident so far.

You are as happy as they come. You love to be held and cuddled but you are usually content no matter where you are. You sleep peacefully in your swing or basinette for hours. You don’t usually make a fuss without good reason. When you are awake, you are irresistible. I love the way your face lights up when you see me. You have a delightful laugh. You are truly a bundle of joy.

Credits
Background: LHowell_Botanicals_Blue
Font: Verdana, Joyful Juliana

2008-05-13T12:05:00.005-04:00

Since the arrival of my fourth child in February, I have no time for scrapbooking. So this site is on a temporary hiatus...perhaps sabbatical is a more realistic term for what's going on here. But I'll be back...I promise that. Just let me get through the non-stop nursing phase.

I am trying to make periodic updates on my "all-about-me" blog so if it's *me* you're interested in, just head over there. :)

More on ACDSee Categories

2008-02-18T21:53:00.006-05:00

Well, since someone not only looked at my photo organization post but actually commented on it, let me elaborate a little. (*hehe* The danger of commenting.) Here's more specific information about my ACDSee categories:

Albums
My first high level category is Albums. This is where I keep track of photos that I want to scrapbook. When I created the category, I was thinking that I would have a book for each year...but now I'm rethinking that. But of course it's pretty easy to add new subcategories so I can move stuff around easily. Anyway, I'm getting off purpose here.

Gift
My next category is called "Gift". I have a subcategory for each of the kids. I came up with this idea at my first child's baby shower. I took pictures of each of the gifts - with the card, if possible - to help me keep track of who gave us what. And then it made writing thank you notes so much easier. So now I still do this after birthday parties, et cetera. I try to immediately go add notes about who gave us what. So this is really more a life management thing but it's very helpful.

Layout Ideas
If I come up with an idea for something I want to scrapbook, I create a subcategory and then I'll go look for pictures. So then I can get back to it later. I only have one subcategory so far and that was "legos"...which I've already done (just scroll down a little). After reading all my inspirational scrapbooking books, I was thinking about the things that are important, define us, et cetera and I knew I had to do a layout about legos for my son!

People
This is pretty self-explanatory. I have categories for people that show up in my photos a lot. This is the category I use the most. Just the other day my future sister-in-law came over looking for photos of my brother to use at their wedding. So I just clicked on his category and voila, hundreds of photos of him appeared. :)

Places
Another category that I don't think I need to spend much time elaborating on.

Printing
Back when I was scrapbooking the traditional way, this is where I would keep track of the photos that I wanted to print. I haven't used this category for awhile.

Scrapbook
This is where I'm *trying* to keep my scrapbooking supplies organized. I have subcategories for what it is (alphabet, background, embellishment, etc), for what color it is, for who designed it, for themes (holidays, events, etc) and when I got it. So far I've not done a great job at putting everything into the appropriate categories but the infrastructure is there. :)

Transfers
I try to keep track of the photos that I've given to people. A couple of years ago I made disks for various family members and I wanted to be able to keep track of which ones they had so that in the future I can give them new disks without all the same old stuff. So that's what that is.

Various
The first one is "Art". I have categories for the kids and myself. I've scanned stuff that I drew in highschool, etc so those go in my art category. And then I take pictures of my children's art projects so I just "file" them accordingly. And then I'm a calloused mom and I toss the originals...or at least most of them.

I have one called "Family Stuff" where I keep track of group photos that we take throughout the year, pictures of my pregnancy tummy, pictures of the kids in their car seats, or on a certain chair, you get the idea.

I also have a section for house stuff. There are several subcategories but one of them is for decorating ideas. I've taken pictures at models where I liked something so I can always go look at the photos in that category for decorating inspiration. :)

So there you go. There's my ACDSee broken down. I try to back it up frequently because if I ever lost the information in this database, I'd be devastated. I already had a close brush with that and did lose *some* information. Not fun. So back up, back up, back up!

Getting Your Photos Organized

2008-02-17T10:03:00.005-05:00

Have I ever mentioned my system for storing my photos on my computer? My system works pretty well for me so I'll share it here. The photo manager that I use is ACDSee and I really like it. I just wish I could upload straight from ACDSee to Shutterfly or my blog but I'm hoping they'll add options to simplify online printing at some point. Despite that flaw, ACDSee is great for organizing your photos.

When I download pictures from my camera, I store them by date. I have folders for each decade, then year, then month then specific day. I'll frequently put a short label for the day after the date. In the screenshot below, you can see my folder tree on the left side.

On the right side you can see checkboxes for categories. I have categories for each person in the household plus family members and friends that are in a lot of photos. Some other categories and subcategories that I used a lot are Places, Art, Pictures of the House, Pregnancy Photos, Family Photos.

You might also notice that ACDSee also has a rating system. I don't bother to rate all my photos but the photos that I like, I'll mark a 4 or a 5.

This is where it gets cool. You can use all of this information to create search parameters to retrieve certain photos. For example, when I did my holiday collage to go with our holiday letter, I entered the following parameters: all photos rated 5 in the year 2007. Then I just sorted through those and pulled out the ones I liked. If I want a nice picture of one of the kids at the beach, I can select their category, the beach category and then the rating(s) that I want.

I have categories related to my scrapbooking too. In addition to having all my digital scrapbooking supplies categorized, I also have a category for photos that I want to scrapbook.

I'm not always great about keeping the categories up-to-date but that may partially be fault of the number of pictures that I take. It'd be a lot easier for a more normal person. :)

Public Scrap Gallery

2008-02-03T13:02:00.003-05:00

I have a little gallery at Designer Digitals now.

Lego Love

2008-02-03T00:19:00.001-05:00

My first attempt at a web challenge. Woot!

Fonts: 2 Peas Architect, LD Beatnik
Downloaded the Lego logo from the web

Baby

2008-02-02T21:53:00.001-05:00

Fonts: Verdana and Jane Austen (from the Internet)

Pregnancy Blues

2008-02-02T12:32:00.001-05:00

Much better...at least in my very humble opinion. :) I also wanted to improve upon the journaling because I thought my first attempt sounded way too negative.

Ribbons: RetroDiva, No Room for Grey
Fonts: Cheri (from Internet) & CK Journaling
Hearts: Heart Doodle Brush, One Love, Summer Driggs

Digital Designs for Scrapbooking

2008-02-02T10:43:00.000-05:00

I'm reading Renee Pearson's book "Digital Designs for Scrapbooking 2: Making Your Own" and would love to get her first one but it's out of print and apparently hard to find. You can find it in the Amazon Marketplace for like $140!!! How crazy is that?! I checked on eBay and they're expensive there too. I didn't see one that sold for less $40. It originally retailed for $19.99. Anyway, book #2 is about making scrapbooking elements yourself, which is kinda cool. I'm going to sit down and go through it at the computer where I can try out the stuff as I'm going.

Digital Scrapbooking 5

2008-02-02T09:11:00.001-05:00

I do tend to like the stuff put out by Simple Scrapbooks but this one didn't quite live up to the expectations I had after reading the books affiliated with Simple Scrapbooks. Two of the three free kits were no longer available and the other one I already had (Scrapgirls). But again, I'll be looking to the layouts for inspiration.

Designing with Digital

2008-02-02T09:05:00.003-05:00

Published by Autumn Leaves

I felt like this was more of a layout idea book than an actual learning tool. They have one or two sentence "directions" on how to apply different techniques but I'm not sure how helpful that would be if you're just starting out. And if you're not just starting out, then you probably already know how to do the stuff they're suggesting. I'm trying to think if I learned any new techniques...hmm...I think most of the stuff I was already familiar with. But no doubt I'll be doing some scraplifting. :)

A Designer's Eye for Scrapbooking

2008-02-02T08:47:00.000-05:00

by Ali Edwards

This book features more intricate layouts than the two books affiliated with Simple Scrapbooks, that I just reviewed (The Big Picture & Clean & Simple). This one is affiliated with Creating Keepsakes. I notice that Ali Edwards has designed some memory book templates for Shutterfly, which of course is my online printer of choice.

This is another book that I breezed through in a day. This was a very solid step-by-step introduction to design and layout. She explains how to make your pages flow, how to make them pop, how to use embellishments to enhance your pages, et cetera. I would say that most of the layouts in this book aren't my particular style but I still learned design concepts that I can apply in my own way. Although now I feel a little overwhelmed with so much to think about: white space, even margins, visual triangles, flow, charm, mixing fonts, balance and on and on it goes.

Now I want to go back and revisit some of my earlier page attempts and apply some of the concepts that I learned in this book. :) Anyway, I would definitely recommend it. I actually believe that more people are drawn to this more ornate style of scrapbooking than the simple, linear style that appeals to me.

Perfect Day

2008-02-01T19:51:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling more and more lost as I read all these books...maybe I should stop reading. :) It was kind of nice being blissfully ignorant. I tried to incorporate some of the things I was learning but...I can't say I'm thrilled with the end result.

Anyway, I used a background from Katie Pertiet and another background from the Scrapgirls Refresh Kit (striped - turned it sideways). The fonts are JW Chalk Rubons (Scrap N Font?) and Girls are Weird (DaFont?).

Annika

2008-01-31T23:36:00.001-05:00

I applied some of the ideas that were suggested in two of my recent reads (Clean & Simple, the sequel and A Designer's Eye) but not actually a scraplift. The fonts I used were Verdana and Joyful Juliana (which I got from the Internet). The background paper is from Zazou.

Journaling:
I joke that Annika is my “Tigger girl” because she literally jumps around the room. She’s a delight. She’s full of life. She’s fun. She jumps up and down for joy. She’s a very happy little girl.

I was playing around with my camera while the kids were upstairs for “quiet time”. Annika came downstairs and asked me to take her picture. She had changed into her swimsuit...with about 6 plastic swim diapers on top of the bottoms. So I obliged and took a whole slew of photos of her.

Later that afternoon Oskar had swim class (by coincidence). When I told her to get dressed, she asked if she could put her clothes on on top of her swimsuit. I said "sure". She proceeded to cheer and dance. She yelled, I'm so ess-ited!" She informed me her dance was about swimsuits and clothes.

When we got to swim class, she stripped out of her clothes and wanted to swim. I love my bubbly and enthusiastic little girl.

Designing with Photos

2008-01-31T14:40:00.001-05:00

by Alison Tyler Jones & Donna Smylie

This book has nice photos and some good tips but for the most part I think it's pretty basic...in terms of technique, anyway. Or perhaps it's just that I'm *that* skilled a photographer. *hehe* The second part of the book was about using your photography for crafts and that part didn't really do it for me. I guess I'm too focused on scrapbooking right now. And while I think they did touch on that, as I recall it wasn't really my style. Having said all that, I enjoyed reading it and immediately rushed off to take some inspired photographs. But in terms of technique, the Understanding Exposure book will probably be a better resource tool for me.

Clean & Simple: the Sequel

2008-01-30T20:54:00.000-05:00

by Cathy Zielske

This book definitely speaks to me. Cathy's style is right up my alley - I love it. In fact, it's funny because this evening as I was reading the last couple of pages, I came across a design that she scraplifted from an Amex ad...which, if you read back on this blog, I just did two days ago. *hehe*

I thought The Big Picture addressed the philosophy of scrapbooking in a general way and I would say this book is more focused on design . Cathy and Stacy Julian (author of The Big Picture) actually work together at Simple Scrapbooks and they share a similar approach to the art of scrapbooking. So the books complement each other nicely.

All of the design is pretty high level but I still found it helpful and informative. I took a graphic design class in college...or at least I started one...but the only thing I remember is the difference between serif fonts and sans serif fonts. I think I actually had to drop it for some reason or another. At any rate, this book touches on some simple rules of graphic design including white space, margins and fonts.

I'm walking away from this with some new ideas and techniques to try out and feeling very inspired. At some point I'd love to take another design class. (And I'd like to get the first Clean & Simple now...not to mention a subscription to Simple Scrapbooks magazine.)

Things I Hate About Pregnancy

2008-01-29T13:51:00.000-05:00

I redid my pregnancy page. When I tried to use the tablet the first time, I was having issues (I write too fast, apparently). But I've discovered that the calligraphic brushes (as opposed to the basic brushes) seem to work better for me so I redid it with the tablet...instead of the handwriting font...which I'm not totally sold on. (It was a fun exercise but I didn't do a very good job with it...and now my trial's expired.) Anyway, I added some journaling with Century Gothic but otherwise everything is is the same. Scriptina (from the Internet) at the top and my handwriting for the rest.

playing at the park

2008-01-28T22:30:00.000-05:00

Stole the layout from a dominomag.com ad. The fonts I used were Monteuideo and Angelina (which I got from the web...maybe DaFont). I used Adobe Photoshop CS and my Wacom Bamboo.

Photoshop Shortcuts

2008-01-28T21:27:00.000-05:00

I googled "photoshop cs shortcuts" and found a very nice cheat sheet at this site: Trevor Morris Photographics.

Amex

2008-01-28T20:51:00.000-05:00

Here's my Amex page. Looks a little funky here with the white on white. Oh well. Um...used my Wacom Bamboo to write out my responses. Got the Amex logo off the web and then just copied the questions from a couple of Amex ads that I found in a magazine (Domino to be exact). The fonts are Times New Roman and Arial.

Two Page Spreads

2008-01-28T17:00:00.000-05:00

I don't think I'm going to continue to ALWAYS make two page spreads. It's not like you see very many two page spreads when you're flipping through a magazine. I'll still try to think about how the pages will look sitting next to each other but no biggie if it's not an actual 2 page spread. I'll make that something special. :)

[2/3/08 edit: Who am I kidding?! I'm still going to make two page spreads.]

Pregnancy

2008-01-28T16:59:00.000-05:00

I finally have a new page. Woo hoo! The only thing that didn't originate with me is the Scriptina font at the top (which I believe I got from DaFont). The other font is supposedly my handwriting. :) Used Photoshop CS.

The Big Picture

2008-01-28T14:05:00.000-05:00

by Stacy Julian

I have to give this book rave reviews because it changed the way I'm going to approach my scrapbooking. For the most part this book was already in line with my thinking. But Stacy Julian freed me from the trap of feeling an obligation to scrapbook chronologically and to include all my best/favorite photos. That's always been a problem for me. I'm not good at narrowing down my photos and figuring out which ones to include.

After reading this book, it helped me to understand my purpose for scrapbooking and what I'm trying to accomplish. My scrapbooks are for my kids...plain and simple. They're for me too because I like to go back and look at the pictures and of course I enjoy creating them. But at the end of the day, my purpose is to help my kids understand who I was, how we all interacted with each other, what our lives were like and how much I love them. That's it. So with that in mind, I'm just going to let myself be inspired by photos and scrapbook the ones that jump out at me. Or if I have an idea for a page, I'm going to go back and find the best photos for that. For example, I'm just going to do a page about Oskar's preschool and include photos from various events...instead of thinking that I need to do a page for each preschool event. I'm also going to knock off those American Express ads and do a page like that for myself (you know...the my life, my card ads...Ellen DeGeneres, Tiger Woods, Beyonce Knowles, Tina Fey...et cetera).

I've always been sold on journaling. From my perspective, that's what makes scrapbooking special in the long run. Sure it's fun to try to make the pages attractive, but in 20 years, the most special thing about those pages will be those words that explain the significance of the photos. I don't think you necessarily need to have tons of journaling with every photo, but I think it's great to provide the context of the photo...which otherwise might get lost with time. So I'm going to refocus on telling our story, rather than thinking of my scrapbooks as our "photo albums". Instead I'll treat them sort of like my journals for the year. In 2008, this is what I was thinking. These were the photos I loved. This is something I enjoyed doing for fun. Or for the baby book, when you arrived, this is what I was thinking. This is how I felt about you. This is how you impacted our lives.

Here's a link to the site Stacy Julian created after coming out with this book.

BHG's The Ultimate Guide to Scrapbooking

2008-01-26T12:12:00.000-05:00

This was my first digital scrapbooking purchase and I LOVE it. There are three different sections of techniques based on complexity and it walks you through these techniques with screenshots from Elements or CS. I love the layouts and have scraplifted several of them. I learned a lot from this magazine. I definitely recommend it. I wish it was something that came out regularly because I would subscribe.

Understanding Exposure

2008-01-26T09:03:00.000-05:00

by Bryan Peterson

I took a photography class in highschool and had a manual SLR at that time...but in recent years have gotten a little lazy with cameras that do everything for you. So now that I have an SLR again, and even though I *could* use the auto mode, I want to improve the quality of my photos. This book has been a great refresher on working with aperture, shutter speed and light. Plus the photos are very inspirational! As I'm reading it, I've been pulling out my camera to try different things and am having a blast!

Photography for Scrapbookers

2008-01-26T08:53:00.001-05:00

by Tracy White

I enjoyed looking at the photographs but didn't necessarily learn anything new in this book. But if you've been very much just a "snapshot" photographer and are wanting to take your photography to the next level, then this is probably a good place to start. There are some good tips. It's a quick and easy read (I read it the same evening that I bought it.)

hezro font

2008-01-20T21:25:00.000-05:00

I made a font! Woo hoo! How cool is that?! I thought about sticking the .ttf on here to share but I'm not sure why anyone would want it. I was trying to make something that looked like my everyday handwriting. Unfortunately my everyday handwriting is a little too fast for my graphics tablet so I had to slow it down a little. But maybe before my trial runs out I can do a neater rendition. At any rate, it was a good learning process. At first I wasn't really getting FontCreator. It's actually very easy to use but I just didn't have enough time to tinker with it and figure out what I was doing. But today it came together. Of course I still have barely scratched the surface of what you *could* do but I think I have the basics now. I'm going to be sad when my trial runs out. I'll have to drop some hints about this as a potential gift. :)

Mandy Mystiques

2008-01-18T05:01:00.000-05:00

My friend sent me a link to this site: Mandy Mystiques.

I downloaded a trial version of FontCreator and started working on a font of my handwriting. But I haven't had time to finish it. I'd better get on the ball before my trial runs out. I'm not sure what I've been doing with myself lately and why I haven't had time to scrapbook. I think I've been watching too much tv (sports) with my husband. I need a laptop so that I can multitask! But hubby will be away all next week so I should have plenty of time for digital scrapbooking...or maybe not...come to think of it. :)

Two Peas in a Bucket

2007-12-29T08:31:00.000-05:00

How is it that I haven't visited Two Peas in a Bucket's web site? I've read about them time and time again and just went there and realized, "hey, this doesn't look familiar!" So check it out. Good site! Plus they have free fonts. Can't argue with that. ;)

Yesterday I hooked up my new Wacom Bamboo Fun! And it *is* fun. I haven't found the perfect brush for writing yet. Maybe just because it's an entry-level graphics tablet but when I write - especially cursive - it's a little blocky...or something (think connect-the-dots). So I need to figure that out. I was having better luck with one of the natural brushes than I was with the basic brushes. It's better if I use bigger brushes too, but that's not great for handwriting. So I need to play around some more. I already tried changing all the settings for the tablet and that didn't seem to make much of a difference. Maybe I just don't push hard enough??

Sale, Sale, Sale

2007-12-28T10:10:00.001-05:00

Let me just mention that there are some great sales going on now and it pains me to not take advantage. But I haven't been working on any pages so I don't even know what I need. But Scrap Girls is having a 25% sale and Digital Freebies just had a 50% sale. *sigh* Designer Digitals had a huge sale too. I will remember this for next year! And in the meantime, I'd totally love to subscribe to this magazine.

DaFont

2007-12-23T00:08:00.000-05:00

Haven't done much scrapbooking lately. Been too busy suffering the ailments of pregnancy. *hehe* BUT...I just found a really cool site that I *had* to share with you: http://www.dafont.com/ Tons and tons of free fonts. Wish I'd found this site before I paid for fonts at other sites. *hehe* But that's okay. I like those fonts too and it's not like I've paid a lot of money for anything. Gotta love digital scrapbooking!!

Happy Holidays!

2007-12-12T18:59:00.000-05:00

This isn't exactly scrapbooking but I used elements and a background from a kit that was posted by Cinzia Loosemore at www.digitalfreebies.com so wanted to acknowledge that. Thanks!

2007-11-17T15:37:00.000-05:00

Okay, I think this new page looks much better next to the Kiersten page...even if it's still not exactly a two-page spread.

Drum Page
Fonts: Title is LDJ Rock It font (my little joke); journaling is Century Gothic
Background: Papers are all from Kellie Mize's freebie kit for the Ad Challenge 11/11/07
Layout scraplifted from Bree at ScrapMaps. (I went back today to take a better look around. Definitely a great site!)

Kiersten Page (again)
Fonts: Title and background in photos is LD Letterpress; journaling is Century Gothic
Background: Red paper from Lisa Whitney's freebie Christmas collection; Brown paper from ComputerScrapbook (designed by Kristine Bents and Jessica Safty). It was part of their Romantic Rose pack but I'm not sure which one because I bought both packs. But this background is called Deep Violet. (I added the red tones to it.)

2007-11-17T13:55:00.000-05:00

Yippee, I just downloaded a background kit that goes perfectly with my "Kiersten" page so that's going to be a two page spread now. Woo hoo! Well, the second page will be about something else but it will look good next to my Kiersten page. I got the paper from Designer Digitals' Gallery. It's from one of their ad challenges (which I think is an awesome idea).

*Ad Challenge: They find an ad for inspiration and then create backgrounds based on the colors/designs of the ad. I remember seeing a bedding set in...hmm...a Pottery Barn catalog that I LOVED. If I ever see that ad again, I'll definitely try to create some matching backgrounds.

Brushes

2007-11-17T13:48:00.000-05:00

I have a hard enough time keeping track of all the different elements that I use - to give proper credit - let alone the brushes. But I have brushes from:

Amber Clegg (ScrapArtist)
Jan Hicks (ScrapGirls)
Katie Pertiet (Designer Digitals)
Lisa Whitney (ScrapArtist)
Lori Cook (ScrapGirls)
Mandy Steward (ScrapGirls)
Melany Violette
Nancie Rowe Janitz (ScrapArtist)
Shalae Tippetts (ScrapGirls)

If you'd like more specific information, please e-mail me and I'd be happy to help you out.