Common Sense Scrapbooking

Final Week - Journal Your Christmas Pages

2011-12-30T15:54:00.002-07:00

While there are many who are continuing their journals until the first week of the new year, I've opted to finish mine up around Christmas. I tacked on one more entry for the 26th, simply because I thought a list of things I forgot (or nearly forgot) to do might come in handy this time next year. I appreciate all who've stopped by to take a peek at my work.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

Week Three - Journal Your Christmas

2011-12-18T21:27:00.000-07:00

Another busy December week, where I felt the pressure of the season. Thanks to this latest round of entries, I was able to get rid of some of that stress. I hope you enjoy looking at this past week's pages:

OK, ya'll! We've got a week left before the big day. I'm going to try and enjoy these next few days, and feel the joy rather than the stress of the season. I hope you are able to do the same!

Week Two - Journal Your Christmas

2011-12-12T14:58:00.003-07:00

Here are my entries from the past week. These aren't the fanciest or most embellished pages, but I enjoy doing them so much. They are the perfect outlet for stressful December days. Creating this journal is truly a form of celebration for me. I hope you enjoy looking at these layouts:

Whatever you are doing this holiday season, I hope you find your own small ways to celebrate it. We are all busy with our work, so find a some time to do something that makes you happy. Watch a favorite holiday movie, drink some cocoa, or dare I say it, sneak in a nap.

See you soon!

Journal Your Christmas

2011-12-04T22:58:00.001-07:00

For a few years now, I've watched many of my online scrapping pals take part in Shimelle Laine's Journal Your Christmas class. I've always loved the idea of it. It works like this: once you pay for and sign up for the class, Shimelle will email you daily prompts for each day in December and a few in January. Based on what you prefer, you can either write a simple journal entry, create a scrapbook page, write a blog post, etc. based on that day's prompt. And, after you sign up once, you can keep coming back, year after year to receive Shimelle's prompts and the digital and printable goodies she provides. It was a hard project for me to ignore.

Most participants that I know did scrapbook pages, which were heavy on journaling. Since I feel that scrapbook pages are the most complete when they have both photos and the story, I was drawn to this project. I just wasn't sure I could commit to doing an entry everyday. It seemed overwhelming. Taking care of my kids and adjusting to motherhood was enough at that time, so I drooled over my friends pages and lived vicariously through their layouts.

Last Christmas, things with my clan of small rug rats were starting to settle down enough where I could maybe consider a project like this. And, since I'd already jumped into digital scrapbooking, I knew 2010 would be the year for me to try my hand at Journal Your Christmas. I went and browsed over my friends blogs and message board posts, and saw that many of those who succeeded in completing their Christmas albums made up their pages for each day of the month of December ahead of time.

Even though I was skeptical and nervous about the idea of doing a page for each day, I decided I would remember that it wasn't about pressure, it was about documenting the things that made the holiday my favorite. It's about throwing the stress of the season out the window and enjoying Christmas again.

With that in mind, I spent the last half of November creating my base pages, that I would eventually add my words and photos to. It felt good to knock the pages out and have them ready to go before Journal Your Christmas started. When December did roll around, I was able to enjoy journaling each day's entry, and adding in photos when I wanted to. If I didn't want to, that was fine, too. The end result was a Christmas album that I love, and that my kids have asked to look at several times since it came back from Shutterfly. The two pages I posted the top of this entry are a couple of my favorites. You can see the rest of album: here.

So, with the good experience I had last year under my belt, I decided to go ahead and try it again this year. While some bloggers are posting their entries each day, I've decided to post a week's worth of entries here. There were three days worth of entries for this first week, so here are my pages so far:

I made the choice to stick with a very simple page design, since I knew I could work on the base pages here and there when I had time. I didn't want it to be complicated or worry about heavily embellished pages. This allowed me to get my pages done within about a week, and I could relax and enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday.

I used Ali Edwards' 31 Days Overlays, which you can find over at Designer Digitals. I chose these over the ones Ali made up for this year, because these overlays are customizable and can be made to work with any year, not just the current one. And, the kit has bonus templates that work with the overlays, so that made it even easier to complete the base pages. The next trick was choosing a couple of digital Christmas kits so that I could plop in paper and elements in the slots provided in the templates. I chose two holiday kits by Jen Martakis, Holly Jolly Christmas and Holiday Story to jazz up my pages. I love how everything is coming together so far.

I'll be back soon with more pages from this project. I hope you are enjoying the holiday season so far!

A Review: Easy Canvas Prints

2011-11-14T15:01:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone! I was approached by the nice folks at easycanvasprints.com to create a custom canvas using their services and then do a review of my experience.

Here's a little more about the company. They specialize in creating canvases you can hang on your wall, either using your own photo and customizing a canvas to suit your tastes, or you can buy a ready made canvas from their gallery. Since I did the custom canvas, I'll be touching primarily on that.

Ordering a canvas was easy and took only four steps using their website. You can see the process on their Photo to Canvas page.

1 - Choose a canvas size. Canvas sized range in size from 8 x 8 inches all the way up to 24 x 36 inches, or one has the option of ordering a custom size where the height and width can be entered. I was also prompted to choose the thickness of the canvas, where a choice of 3/4 or 1 1/2 inches was given. I opted to go with the 1 1/2 inches.

2 - Upload the Photo You Wish to Use. I myself chose a picture of a beautiful hilltop village we visited in France a few years ago. A suggested size of 180 to 240 DPI is suggested for the best image quality.

3 - Choose a Border Style. There are three border styles (or the way you want the edges to look) that can be chosen from. They can be seen on the Pricing Options page if you scroll down a bit. You can choose either image wrap, mirror wrap, or colored border wrap. I thought the colored border wrap would look best with the photo I had chosen, so I went that style. They have a color wheel slider that one can use to customize the border color. I chose a cream border to go around my canvas:

4 - Choose Color and Effects/Finalize your order. At This point, you can choose add on services, like color tinting and retouching. They cost extra, but may be worth it to you if you have a nice photo that needs flaws removed, a sephia tint, and so on. I didn't use these extras, and chose to simply double check the options I'd chosen, and then proceed to check out.

The whole ordering process took me about fifteen minutes, and I received an estimate of when the canvas would arrive and a receipt through an email that arrived just a few minutes later.

If you have more questions about Easy Prints Canvases, feel free to check out their FAQ Page.

Canvases take about two weeks to arrive by mail. Mine came a little sooner than that, and here's how the wall hanging looked when I removed it from the package:

The box the canvas comes in is specially designed to protect the canvas as it's shipping, and as you can see, my canvas was wrapped tightly in plastic to protect it from getting dusty or soiled. The canvas was at one point securely held down with the brown packing tape shown. However, when I opened the box, I could see that two sides of the canvas had wiggled lose at some point. I was glad to see that the canvas hadn't sustained any damage, though.

Upon removing the wall hanging from the packaging, everything looked great. The resolution of the photo on the canvas is nice, and the back of the canvas has hardware in place so that I can hang it on the wall of my choice.

So how would I rate my satisfaction with Easy Canvas Prints? I would say very good. I was happy with the ease of the ordering process and was incredibly pleased with the canvas I received. There was that very small problem with the shipping tape coming undone during transit, but the canvas still arrived safe and sound. I would still recommend this service to others.

I love the way the canvas looks and it's currently inhabiting a spot that used to be quite lonely in our master bath:

The folks at Easy Canvas Prints would also like me to let you know about a great deal they have going. If you "like" them on their Facebook Page, you can get 50% off your next canvas order and free shipping, too! On their page, click the "50% off + Free Shipping" tab on the left side of their fan page, and you can get started from there.

Thanks for reading my review and have a good day.

Tap, Tap Is This Thing Still On?

2011-11-10T15:41:00.001-07:00

Yeah, yeah. I know. You all thought I forgot about this whole blogging thing. I'm afraid that 2011 got a little busy on me, and my family had some needs that I had to tend to for awhile. Things have settled down some, so here I am again with some pages to share with you.

Most of my creative team work lately has centered around kits by Jen Martakis. She's been busy creating several fabulous new kits and templates. You can check out her digital store to see all her of lovely goodies.

Also, just a quick hint. If you want to get a larger view of any of these layouts, you can left-click on the image of the scrapbook page, and it will enlarge the image so you can read journaling or look closer at the details. Here is my latest page, created with Jen's Toolbox kits: By The Numbers, Fancy Mats and Fancy Frames. I also used the Blossom kit for the papers and buttons:

This page about my son, Tony, used the Lined and Lined - In Color, and Grunge Brushes Set 1 kits:

The next layout uses the Halloween kit:

For Isabella's first day of school photos, I chose Jen's Fabulous Fall kit:

These final three pages are from kits that were released in the summer, and I loved them so much, I wanted to share them, too.

From Simple Starts Kit 1:

Made with the Summer Bugs kit:

Made with the Sunshine and Rain kit:

I promise...I'll be back much sooner than I did last time. Have a wonderful day!

I Am Thankful

2010-12-15T21:38:00.000-07:00

My blog has been quiet for a long time. The biggest reason, I suppose, is because I wanted to get all my thoughts together. It's honestly taken me this long to do so. Okay, here goes.

This summer, I had two sad things happen. At the end of June, my sweet grandma passed away.

While it wasn't completely unexpected (she was 97, after all), it was still difficult to say goodbye to her. I'm grateful that she doesn't suffer anymore, but I will always miss her. She was a loving wife, mother and grandmother, but she was also more than that. I had the privilege of giving her eulogy, so I learned so many fun things about her. Things she hadn't told me before, such as she'd been a cheerleader in high school, a rodeo queen, a killer of rattle snakes, and more. There were also other fun details I did know, such as she'd once crashed landed a plane, shot a bear, and didn't hesitate to speak her mind. Grandma was one of my favorite people.

Here's what makes me really sad. The overwhelming craziness of the last four years and adopting our children drowned out some important things I should've been more cognizant of. One of them is keeping in touch with and visiting some of my family members more frequently. I wish we'd visited Grandma a bit more than we did. We did see her some, but not as often as I wanted to. I was trying to figure out how to put together a four generation photo shoot with her, but got sidetracked again and again, and forgot. Then, she took a turn for the worst last spring, and never recovered. Our last few visits with her ended up being in a nursing home where she wasn't always awake or aware of our presence. I wished our last moments together had been at a different place and time.

About a month and a half later, my world was rocked again when one of my older brothers went into the hospital to undergo a routine surgery. I'd been notified that he'd come out of the operation and was recovering just fine. The next morning, however, I my mom called to say that he was getting weaker, and he was going back to the operating table, but this time, his heart needed attention. Just a couple of hours later, I was told to come down to the hospital and I should be prepared to say goodbye to my brother. I was devastated, shocked, and distraught, to say the least. Seeing my brother unconscious and pale, watching my parents sob, and worrying about whether he'd make it through the night was a horrifying experience. But thankfully, God was watching out for him, and he recovered. I rejoiced when he was conscious again and we could talk with each other.

While he was recovering at home, different members of the family came to his house and helped with small things like taking him to appointments, helping with meals, and just keeping him company. When it was my turn, I had a chance to apologize to him for being an absentee sister for the last four years and not being aware of some of his struggles. We shed some tears, had a good talk about some things that needed to be said, and I hope I'll do better now.

So, if you've stuck with me thus far, I'm sure you're wondering what my point is. Let me get to it now: don't just scrapbook your relationships. Get out there and make them better. Say "I love you." If you feel distant from a family member you should feel closer to, call or visit them. Remember that the blessing of family is a precious gift. Life can change quickly, and you may lose the chance to be with someone you love or say something important.

I've been given two amazing blessings that I hope to make the most out of in 2011. The first is that I was given a big box of my late grandma's pictures. I've been charged with scanning them, making copies for my siblings, cousins, and other relatives. While I'll still miss my grandma, working with her pictures will help me feel closer and more connected to her. It will also give me a chance to teach my own children about her and how much I loved her. Also, since my brother was given a second chance, I have opportunities to build my relationship with him, as well as my other family members. For all this, I am thankful.

Digital Scrapbooking: Mythbusters

2010-07-14T17:17:00.009-06:00

Hey everyone! There's been another long gap in my blogging. You know how it goes, right? A busy summer, family functions, the end of school, etc. Anyhoo...

Recently, at one of the sites scrapbooking sites I frequent, there was a discussion pitting traditional, paper scrapping against digital scrapping. I enjoy the parts of the conversation where individuals explain why they like scrapping the way they do and what draws them to the method they've chosen to scrapbook.

The part of these types of discussions that I don't get, however, is when digital scrapbooking is said not to be scrapbooking at all. There's all sorts of misinformation about it that's perpetuated. I think so many folks misunderstand digital scrapbooking and why those who are enthusiastic about it love it.

So, as a former paper scrapper, current digital scrapper, and someone who is bound to do both in the future, I thought I'd chime in with my thoughts on the debate. I hope to bust some of the more prevelant myths about digital scrapping.

Myth #1: Making Digital Layouts is not Scrapbooking.
The relevant thing (to me, at least) about scrapbooking is documenting memories through my pages through pictures and journaling. Wikipedia has a similar definition on their site about scrapbooking. It discusses both paper and digital scrapping. I think there are some who get stuck on the cutting and gluing part of the deal, and believe that if those methods aren't used to create a page, then it doesn't qualify as scrapbooking. I don't hold this view. If a person is documenting their memories on a page, then it doesn't matter if it's done through a Shutterfly book, created in Photoshop, done with paper and glue, or by some other method. It all comes down to personal preference and what each scrapper prefers for themselves. I don't think it's necessary for everyone to do it the same way for it to be considered scrapbooking.

Myth #2: Digital Scrapbook Pages Are Never Printed or Become Part of an Album.
It is true for some digital scrappers that they don't print their pages. They enjoy their pages via their mobile phones, computers, or in a digital frame. That's great and what works for them. However, most digital scrappers that I know and talk with print their pages and put them in albums. Some choose to have them bound through great places like Shutterfly or Blurb, while others have individual pages printed at sites like Persnickety Prints, or Scrapbook Pictures. There are those, like myself, who have printers at home they use to print their layouts. I personally have done one Shutterfly book (with plans to do at least a few others), and have several of those cool American Crafts binders that I'm slowly filling with my printed pages.

Myth #3: Scrappers Cannot Put Their Own Handwriting on a Digital Page.
Lots of digital scrapbookers love using fonts on their pages. I'm no exception, and I fully admit to being a font junkie (which is fodder for a whole different post). Nonetheless, I still want my handwriting on at least some of my pages. I have a couple of ways that I get my writing on my layouts. My favorite way is to use my handy dandy pen tablet. The tablet I have is a few years older than the one you'll see in the following link, but it's similar enough. I use my Wacom Bamboo Fun. Pen tablets allow scrappers to write on their digital pages. Like any other tool, it takes a bit of practice, but it's so fun. Here is a page I made about Izzy that includes my own handwriting:

The other method I employ is to use a font of my own handwriting. This is nice when I don't have the time to hook up my tablet and need to crank out the journaling quickly. This page about Elijah uses my handwriting font:

Myth #4: Getting Pages Done Faster is the Main Reason People Switch to Digital Scrapping.
I will say that digital scrapping is so much faster for me. With no mess to clean, and the ability to hit "save" and close my layouts while they are in progress, scrapbooking on my laptop is fast and slick. While this is a huge perk, there are so many others. There are things I can do on a digital page that would be really difficult or not possible with a paper page. Since it would be too hard to explain completely with words, I'll post some of my pages as examples:

The effect of a grungy/artsy/painty-looking photo mask on a page (the photo of the cathedral is the one I'm talking about):

Selectively recoloring a photo without the mess of paint or pens:

The ability to match text color (and in this case, the stitching) exactly the same shade as my other embellishments. I sampled the blue color from the strip of cardstock running down the vertical center of this page, and now it all matches wonderfully:

Brush files are the coolest thing ever. They work pretty much the same way as a rubber stamp, but there's no way to mess them up. When I stamp in the wrong place, I don't have to start my project over. I just choose the "undo" command, and it's gone. I can also stamp in any color and change the opacity of the brush. For instance, in the page below, the tire treads are a brush. I wanted the treads black, but when I originally stamped them on the page, they were way too dark. I used my opacity slider and dialed it down to about 40% or so. It looks so much better that way:

There are times when I need to an embellishment that I don't have in my stash. When I was a paper scrapper, that meant a trip to the store. I can go shopping at a digital scrapping site, but there are often times I can create simple items in Photoshop Elements. On this page about Elijah, I created the blue brads and arrows, as well as the paper tear. I did it without having to stop my projects in its tracks or leave home. They all complimented the premade goodies I used them with:

On this page about my first Mother's Day, I wanted to create a bracket-shaped border. I'd see the punches in scrapbooking stores and like the look, but didn't have a digital element. Instead, I made one using the shape tool and a bracket symbol from one of the fonts on my computer. You can see the result on the striped and solid pink papers around the photo:

On the layout about the beach, I was working on the title. When I first placed the black letters on the coral patterned paper, it wasn't "popping" enough and I thought the letters were getting lost in the pattern. I decided to modify the text and make it look like letter stickers, which I liked much better:

I could go on and on about this. There is not enough time or space to talk about all the coolness that is digital scrapping, but you get the idea. The appeal of it goes far beyond the speed at which it can be done.

OK, I've been on my soapbox for long enough...:D I hope that this has shed some light on digital scrapbooking. I also hope that those who choose to scrapbook using other methods will understand a little better why so many of us who do scrap this way really love it.

What do you think about this whole issue? How do you like to do your scrapbooking/memory keeping?

Thanks and enjoy your day!

Long Time, No Blogging...

2010-05-01T22:13:00.001-06:00

...sorry about that guys, but um, I have really good reasons why I was gone for so long. Here they are:

-Three sinus infections
-Two ear Infections
-Two cases of Pink Eye
-Doctor's appointments and filling prescriptions
-A crazy dosing schedule for all the antibiotics

All this was followed by:
-Three cases of 24-hour flu
-Lots of laundry
-easing three little sick bellies back onto normal eating
-Lots of disinfecting

The only one in my household who completely escaped all of this was my oldest child, and the rest of us got socked with at least some of the above...ack!

OK, so now that my family has come through all of that, I finally have a couple of seconds to breathe and actually get some scrapping done!

The last month and-a-half hasn't been all bad. I have had the fun opportunity to work on the creative team for Kerry Stewart. I've admired Kerry's skills as a digital scrapper for well over a year now, and she has also started designing digital kits for Two Peas. You can see her cool line of products here.

Here are some pages and a card I've done recently using her kits:

And, something really cool that's happened is that a couple of these pages (Mother's Day and Supa Star) have been featured in the Digital Scrapbooking Newsletter at Two Peas recently. It's nice to know that my pages are getting a little bit of notice...woo hoo!

Thanks again for taking a peek. I promise I'll be back posting much sooner than the last time!

Fun News and My Latest Pages

2010-02-18T22:51:00.025-07:00

Holy cow! January and February were crazy busy months for our household. Lots of birthdays and more going on around here. I'm back on the blogging bandwagon now and ready to go!

By now, a majority of you who read my blog already know this, but I'm going to share it again anyway. Back in January, I was lucky enough to earn a spot on the Creative Team for Jen Martakis. She is one of the fabulous Garden Girls over at Two Peas, and is also one of their digital designers. Click here to see her digital scrapbooking kits. They rock!

Below are some of the pages (and a card thrown in for good measure) I made using her awesome products:

The follow layouts are ones I've done recently for Heather T., who has recently taken a designer gig over at The Digi Chick. I used her "Owl Play," "Stitched 4," and "Darling" kits to create these pages.

See that cool, loopy cursive font I used on the title for the "Owl Love You Forever" page? It's one of my faves right now, and if you are a font junkie like me, you can pick it up over at dafont.com. It's called Clementine Sketch and lucky for you, it's a free download...yippee!

These final two layouts are first "Twelve of Twelve" pages for the new year. I'm doing a two-page format this year to see how I like it. While I really enjoyed doing the one-pagers last year, I felt a little limited with the picture size. It's been nice to have a bit more of breathing room for my photos.

Enjoy your day!

Event Scrapping Made Easier

2010-01-22T13:25:00.044-07:00

The two pages above are some of my favorite from the last year. They highlight pictures taken at a family reunion with my husband's side of the family. I love seeing the kids playing with their cousins and remembering the good time we spent with everyone there.

Most scrappers I know have definite feelings about event layouts. These are the pages like the ones above --- they highlight birthdays, family reunions, get-togethers or trips, holiday parties, weddings or other religious celebrations, bridal or baby showers, and so on. When I broach topic of event scrapping, some of my friends and peers cringe at the thought of it, and there are those who avoid it all together. Other folks really like pages on the important gatherings or milestones, but don't know how to create pages they like without going crazy.

I can understand where the frustration comes in. When we are snapping photos at a party or doing group pictures after church, they often have to be taken on the spot with almost no preparation. Time constraints, poor lighting, lack of an interesting backdrop, squirmy subjects and other variables often get in the way of getting that "perfect shot."

I love posed pictures, and believe they have their place. However, the candids taken at get-togethers and celebrations are some of the ones I look at and love the most. I recently glanced through a mini-album I did of family vacation a few years back. I burst out laughing at pictures of my younger brother and me,the goofy faces we were making, and the silly antics that resulted while we were supposed to be stacking firewood (the photo on the lower page is the one I'm referring to):

I had a little epiphany of sorts when I realized that if I chose not to scrap these photos because they weren't "perfect," the richness of my life wouldn't captured in my pages. I would miss the silly grins, the impromptu games, special moments during meals, and all of the other great things I captured on camera without planning ahead. These very imperfect, non-posed pictures often taken in crappy lighting conditions have turned out to be some of my favorites.

Now, of course, I'd like to become a better photographer, and have all of my photos look better overall, but in the meantime, there is a way to work with the imperfect ones I want to scrap.

I decided to tackle a set of my own event photos that have been dogging me ever since we adopted the kids. I have a set of about 70 or so photos from one of the baby showers (or, I guess it would be more apt to term it a "family shower", since we got four kids at once) that was held in our honor. A couple of ladies from my church group threw my family a wonderful shower on a hot evening in July. Honestly, on that day, I was so stressed, overwhelmed, and exhausted that I didn't get the shots that I usually do when there's a party. I didn't get any photos of the food or gift tables, and in fact, I took no pictures at all. Trace took some, and there were also multiple frames snapped by party guests who were helping us out, since we were trying to keep track of the kids and open gifts at the same time.

The outdoor lighting was hard to work around. We either had bright, bright sunlight, or we had dark shade created from the umbrellas and canopies that were set up to keep everyone cool. The kids were so overstimulated and wired that most of our pictures of them show them wandering the yard. All of the snapshots of me are either from the back or side.

Even with all these factors in the mix, I was thankful that so many moments were captured from that wonderful evening. I knew that a cute scrapbook page could come together if I gave it a try. Here's the end result (click on the layout to see a bigger view of it):

These are the steps I took to get this page done without getting overwhelmed:

1 - Narrow things down. First thing I always do when I'm staring down a large group of pictures is get rid of the ones that are not salvageable. If the powers of Photoshop cannot transform them, then they have to go. The ones that are too dark, incredibly overexposed, or taken by mistake get the ax. From there, I chose the ones that were my favorites, and then went with those that could be cropped down to show people, objects, or something else that helped tell the story I wanted to convey.

2 - Use photo editing software to make improvements. Because of the lighting problems I mentioned earlier, most of the pictures needed some sort of small fix. In Photoshop Elements, I either adjusted the brightness of the photos, pushed the color if it was too blue, too green, etc. And, in a couple of cases, I also added a warming filter to improve they way they looked.

3 - Crop and group photos. I used part of a digital template to provide a framework for the photos. Anytime I feel daunted by a page, I pick a template and work the rest of my page around it. I then popped the pictures into the photo masks to force them into the spaces I wanted them in. See this entry on using templates if you want to learn how they work.

4 - Keep paper and embellishments simple. With so many photos, I wanted them to take center stage, but I also didn't want the page to be just about snapshots and all white space. I used a few well chosen embellishments and two coordinating papers. It gives my page a unified and fun look without being too busy.

5 - Do at least some journaling. I personally never have trouble writing on my pages (I struggle with cutting out some of my journaling instead of coming up with it). However, if writing isn't your thing, just jot down the basic facts so that you'll remember why the event meant so much to you.

So, now that you've read my take on event pages, what do you think? Do you like event pages or loathe them? Have you scrapped any lately?

Thanks again for stopping in...:)

A Look Back and A Little Something For You

2009-12-21T13:31:00.017-07:00

December has been a wonderful month around here, but also a busy one, so I haven't updated in awhile. I've been trying hard to spend time with my husband and kids. I'm back now and feeling so happy about my scrapping this year. I didn't accomplish everything I wanted to with it. I was really hoping to get a jump on the kid's life books, but I still have time and hope to start knocking some of those pages out in 2010. The good news is I completed the final "Twelve of Twelve" for 2009, and that has me feeling pretty stoked. I was looking back on all of them, and I'm so glad I have a snapshot of what we were doing each month. So, just because I think they are worth seeing again, here's a look at December's page, as well as the rest I've done this year:

I've talked in depth about the "Twelve of Twelve" concept before, so I won't go into that much detail now. You can check out Susan Keuter's blog (since Twelve of Twelve is her concept), or you can read my previous post on the subject. I look back on it now that it's been a full year and can tell you that it was worth doing. It wasn't difficult, and as busy as I have been, I could definitely fit it in once a month.

I know a lot of folks are gearing up to start Project 365 (which entails taking a picture every day, then scrapping a week's worth of photos), so I thought I'd put in a plug for those of you who might even be slightly interested in Twelve of Twelve. Scrapping twelve photos once a month is much easier, in my humble opinion. There's no special supplies needed, just the ones you have already in your stash. This is a great opportunity to put some of those lovely papers and embellishments to work.

And, if you dug the idea of using a digital template, like I did this last year, I have some digital goodness for you below. I whipped together some layered templates that I'm pretty sure can be used in Photoshop and will for sure work in Photoshop Elements. I have made it so that everything is completely editable --- you can change the fonts, change any of the layers to your preference, or even delete the ones you don't need. I made them in 8.5 x 11 and 12 x 12 sizes, so that you can use the size you prefer.

I kept the design of them simple, since Twelve of Twelve pages are supposed to come together quickly and be no fuss. If you want to add more, then feel free. I also decided to go with a two page format, simply because the photo spaces in the past year's template were a bit small and I couldn't show as much of my pictures as I wanted to.

You can see what the templates look like below. Even though these thumbnails show the two pages stitched together, there are actually separate page templates for the left and right sides of the layout. I did this because I think it's tons easier to get them ready for printing, and you can always make a larger background and plop the two pages on it if you feel like uploading them to the web as one document.

You can click here to get download the files. I tested this link out and it worked fine, so holler if it you have trouble with it at all.

And, just as you would with anyone else's work, please give me credit if you use the templates on pages to upload to a gallery or send off for publication.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy this small holiday gift from me to you!

Do It Yourself Family Photo Shoot

2009-11-24T20:33:00.024-07:00

I love this time of year for several reasons. One of those reasons is receiving the photos and Christmas/Holiday greetings from my friends and family. I really like to respond in kind by creating a photo card with a picture of our little brood. Above is the one I did up last year using a card template by Holly Brook Jones over at Two Peas.

The difficult part comes when we go to take our family picture. The first year we had the kids, we did the smart thing and had a photographer take photos.

Honestly, though, the last couple of years have been very challenging, and booking a sitting with a photographer didn't happen. Time, money, and sheer exhaustion got in the way, so we chose to do it ourselves.

I don't think this way is the most optimal. I would always recommend having someone else take your pictures, but this can work in a pinch. And sometimes, around the holidays, we may need a quick, no-fuss method for getting things done.

Here are some tips that worked for us in our makeshift photo shoot:

1. Choose coordinating outfits for family members.
We always choose colors that go together well instead of trying to have everyone wear something that's identical. Last year, as you can see from the card above, everyone wore jean jackets with white tees underneath. The other two years, I've gone down to Old Navy and got everyone cute holiday shirts that had similar colors.

2. Do a practice run with some of the poses.
This worked especially well for us since we have young kids. Here is a picture of my hubby showing our youngest boy how he wanted him to pose:

3. Decide where you will take the pictures.
We have taken ours in or around our house because we are generally pressed for time. Outdoor photos are my preference, but this year, the weather didn't cooperate on the day we planned to take them. Instead, we used the place in our house with the best light. We chose our staircase because of the light, it kept the kids fairly contained and they couldn't get too rowdy. The previous year, we took them outside on our patio.

4. Use a tripod.
This idea is probably an obvious one, but it bears repeating.

My hubby set ours up and tweaked the camera settings so that it would take pictures automatically on continual burst (where the camera takes several pictures in a row until you tell it not to). This allowed him to hit the button on the camera, then run over really fast and jump in with the rest of us.

5. Take a lot of pictures!
If you have squirmy kids or family members that have trouble keeping eyes opened, tongues in mouths, and so on, a lot of pictures to choose from will save your bacon. Using digital cameras makes it easy to decide what pictures to keep or delete. It's perfectly OK to delete the ones you don't like or need.

And let me be perfectly honest here --- there were many, many shots that looked like this or some variation of it:

It makes me laugh now to look at it now, but at the time I was pretty frustrated. As we looked through the hot mess of crazy pictures, we did find some in the set that were good. Here is the one we chose for our holiday card:

6. Use photo editing software to hide any flaws in your picture.
My husband and I laugh when we see this picture, because our oldest son (in the light blue shirt) is leaning forward slightly. Trace says Elijah is doing his "on the potty" stance in this picture. If we had someone else take the picture, then they could've told Elijah to sit up straight, but that's how it goes. We did the best with the time we had. So instead, I will use Photoshop Elements and some cute digital goodies to hide our picture taking sins. I found a fun holiday card template made by Michelle Coleman to plop the photo into.

With a little photo editing magic and Michelle's template, here is the finished card:

The cute white paper strips, the red patterned paper on the left, and tinting the photo to a sephia tone all make the things that bugged me about this photo less noticeable (of course, now all of you will see my son doing that goofy sitting stance forever more). I'm actually quite happy with how this turned out, even if this wasn't our first choice for taking the photos. My husband and I agreed that even though our youngest has a cheesy grin, it's pretty cute and shows his personality at his age.

7. Once the group family pictures are done, take some of individual family members.
While you still have everyone there and dressed nice, take advantage of it and get some good shots of them. This is one of my favorite things about family picture taking time, because the kids really like the one on one picture taking. And, Trace and I also snapped pictures of each other, since we are always behind the camera. Here are some of my favorite individual photos:

I hope you find these ideas helpful. I don't claim to be an expert on the subject of photography or family pictures, but I do know how to make things works when I'm short on time and energy. :)

Enjoy taking your holiday pictures and enjoy the best of the season.

I'm Alive...

2009-11-03T14:37:00.017-07:00

...and finally healthy! My hubby and I both got ill, so between that, all the Halloween festivities, and my husband's birthday, I had a lot going on. I'm back in business now and thought it was about time I did a page share:

Here are two pages I did last month for Heather T with her digital goodies she has available at Pixel Canvas.

This first one uses her "Masked 1" and "Country Dream" kits:

This second page was done primarily to showcase her "Paper Pieces 1: Houses" kit. I also grabbed some patterned paper from her "Burnished Papers" kit:

The next two pages are ones that I did when I participated in the Fall Crop at Two Peas (it was held at the beginning of October). Both of these were created for challenges I took part in, and the layout of Izzy and the dragonfly got me entered into a drawing, which I was lucky enough to win! I got a hefty box of uber-cool scrapping goodies for my efforts...woo hoo!

The following three layouts are ones I created as I took part in some of the Digital Weekly Challenges at 2Ps. I don't always have time to participate in these, but when I do, I feel like they help me grow as a scrapbooker. I enjoy the fact that I can hone my skills by the simple act of doing a page for a challenge.

This layout was a real catharsis for me. While the crux of the challenge for this page was to use a black and white color scheme with a color photo, it was great to actually address something through this page that has been bugging me for a long time. And ya'll know how much I like to be honest in my scrapping:

For this next layout, we were challenged to create a shadow for an object on our page, then warp it so that it actually looked like there was light somewhere casting a real shadow. I made a little shadow for my pumpkin and was quite happy with it:

The next challenge I did required creating a digital paper tear somewhere on my page. Can I just tell you how much I've always loved paper tearing? It's not really the "it" technique anymore, but I still try to sneak it into my pages here and there. I could've just grabbed one of the premade paper tears I already have in my stash, but I really wanted to try making my own. It took a bit of experimenting to find the right type of brush to use, but I finally got it right. I added a texture filter and burned the edges a bit, and I thought it turned out pretty darned good for my first ever shot at it:

Over at the 2Ps digi-board, some of the other gals and I finished another round of the digi-morph challenge, where we are sent a layout by another person in the rotation, and we scraplift the page to create our own. Throughout the process, we see only the page right before ours, and none others. When we all finish, then the challenge hosts reveal all the pages so we can see how the layouts have evolved. Here was my page for that challenge:

If you are interested in seeing the change from the first layout to the last, check out them here.

Now that I've reached the end of my post, I suppose you know what's coming! Here is October's Twelve of Twelve" page. Shhh...don't tell anyone I actually took the photos on the 13th, since the 12th was kind of an icky day...:D

Have a super day!

My Review: Picasa as a Digital Organization Tool

2009-09-25T13:40:00.014-06:00

One of the most daunting tasks in scrapbooking is getting all the cool stuff organized. Ideally, we want to find what we need quickly and easily. I don't think I know any scrappers who love an exhaustive search through their supplies; that can take longer than the actually making the pages.

I've really enjoyed digital scrapbooking because it doesn't take up physical space or make a mess. However, as I have gone along, I've learned that finding those cute embellishments and papers on my computer can be a real drag if the supplies aren't organized well.

Even though I have a folder of digital kits on my computer, and the kits in sub-folders inside that, looking for something was still a bit of a wild goose chase. As a newbie digi-scrapper, I'd right click on the "start" menu, choose "explore," and go from there. Most of the time, an initial look at the thumbnails of my supplies was difficult. I knew this was definitely not what I wanted to do long term.

My thoughtful and computer savvy husband saw me struggling with all of this. He knew I needed a way to get my digi supplies organized, so he went nosing around the web. He found the Picasa website, downloaded the program for me, and showed me a few basics.

Picasa is primarily designed to organize photos and has a few photo editing capabilities on it. While I am doing a little organizing with my pictures in Picasa, my focus right now is on my digital kits. When you know how to use it, the program is wonderful for organizing all the digi goodies.

While I consider myself fairly competent on the computer, I didn't find using Picasa to be intuitive. Lucky for me, I found that Molly Schneider over at Jessica Sprague's site offers a class that teaches how to use the program. Molly's class has demystified Picasa, and now that I actually know what I'm doing, I've liked using it quite a bit.

Once you have configured the settings on Picasa so that it can "see" all of your digital files, then you are able to view all the supplies you have on your hard drive. You will even find some you didn't know were there or that might have been misplaced:

In the above example, you can see that I searched for the term "heart." This is a portion of the items that Picasa found for me --- both the items I tagged and the ones that have that term as a file name. Before using Picasa, I forgot I had some of the items, and wasn't using them because they were hard to locate.

One of the best features of the program is the ability to add tags. For those of you who are not familiar with that term, a "tag" is basically a descriptive caption that you apply to photo, digital element, etc. The idea behind tagging is when you add them to the items you wish to organize, it allows Picasa to find them again quickly and efficiently. So when you put a term, such as "brown" into Picasa's search engine, it locates the things with that file name, and anything you've tagged with that word. See below to view some digital elements that have been given tags:

Even though it's small, you can see the item I've circled has the tags of "beach," and "brown." It would be similar with any other tags that are applied to a photo or digital element. It reduces time spent searching significantly.

To tag a photo in Picasa, it simply requires a "Control T" once Picasa is open. Many times, the tagging window will already be open (provided you are running the latest version, which at this time is version 3.5).

In the above picture, take a look at the top portion of the window. You can see a space to enter the tag you want. At the bottom, there is a section of "quick tag" buttons (see where I've placed the arrow). Quick tags buttons are places you can add the tags you most commonly use. When you tell Picasa what you tags want to apply to these quick tag buttons, you no longer need to type in your favorite ones. You can just click the buttons instead. The top two buttons will show the last two tags you applied to items in the Picasa database.

So, what do I think of Picasa so far? Here's my list of pros and cons.

Pros:
1 - Picasa is free and won't cost you a cent.

2 - The program can be used on either a PC or a Mac.

3 - Tagging definitely rocks. I can scrap so much faster when I'm looking for a specific element, paper, or color. Searching is a piece of cake now.

4 - It's nice having the tagging window open along side the view of the items I have showing. It makes searching and tagging really easy.

5 - Picasa allows you to mark certain photos with stars so you can find them later. You can also force the program to search for photos by looking for faces. If you click on the link I provided above for Picasa, it will explain how version 3.5 can be set up to apply name tags to photos as they are being downloaded from your camera.

6 - If you use Blogger, it has a feature which allows you to quickly and easily upload pictures from Picasa to your blog. I believe there is similar functionality if you want to upload to Facebook.

7 - There are other cool features that Picasa has to offer. I'm still learning what they are and how to use them. Honestly, there are too many to cover here. I'm excited to learn them and discover how they will speed up my photo and kit organization.

Cons:
1 - Sometimes when I'm applying a tag to an item, I might misspell it. Let's say I'm trying to type the name of the color "brown," but instead I accidentally put it in as "borwn." Unfortunately, my typo stays in the saved list of tags. I can delete it off of an item if the tag is wrong, but it still comes up if I incorrectly type it again. I find that a little annoying.

2 - Since Picasa is part of Google, the main place to get help is over at the Picasa message boards. That is OK for a short reference, but I find it difficult to
get help from Goggle staff. Maybe that's just because I don't know my way around yet. Thankfully, I haven't had any issues where I needed much help with the program.

3 - Tagging can take a long time if you didn't organize them as you go, but it isn't impossible. It can be done while you are watching TV, or even if you have just 15 minutes somewhere.

My overall verdict? Even with its drawbacks (which I still think are quite minimal), I think Picasa is a great program for organization. I have been happy with it by and large, and highly recommend it. Since the program is free, it would be easy to try out. And, if it turned out that Picasa isn't someone's cup of tea, they could move on to another program.

I've found the program to be a helpful tool and wanted to pass on what I've learned so far.

Thanks again for visiting...:)

Look at My Boy....

2009-09-25T11:06:00.005-06:00

...isn't he cute (yes, I know I'm biased)? It's so hard for me to believe that he was ever this little!! I love this page. This was his first ice cream cone ever, and he didn't know what the heck we had in front of him. He certainly wasn't sure if he wanted to eat it. Once he figured out it tasted good, though, there was no holding him back. It's amazing how fast he's grown. I'm so glad we took these pictures. I forget how his little face looked, and what things he was learning, and these photos are bringing it all back. It's so nice to look at these and relive those moments.

If you have time this weekend, I'd encourage you to find some photos you love and scrap them. This is why we all scrapbook, right? To look back in time and remember why we took our photos in the first place.

Another reason I created this page was to help out one of my scrapping pals, Sam Barrett. She created a digital overlay grid and asked some of her friends to try it out and see how we liked it. I generally use templates, so I sort of created a template that more or less fit into her grid so she could see how others might make a layout with it. Thanks a bunch, Sam, for letting me try it out.

If you like Sam's overlay grid, here is the post on her blog about it.

Enjoy your day...:)

I'm Baaaack...

2009-09-16T10:48:00.012-06:00

Sorry for the hiatus. I hate it when life gets in the way of blogging (just kidding). I took some time out to celebrate my birthday, take a Labor Day weekend trip with the fam, and get my younger two in preschool. It's been a little crazy!

Here the pages I've done recently:

The following two are layouts I made using Heather T's "Tuesday Templates" kits that were released on 8/25 and 9/08:

The next two projects were created with Heather's "Burnished Papers" kit. As you can see, the paper is beautiful works well for both digital and hybrid projects (like the card). When I had my birthday party a few weeks ago, I did up a card kit for each of the gals that came and then they completed it that night. It turned out so pretty!!

Another page I did for Heather was made with her "Ooh, Shiny 1" embellisment kit. There are tons of pretty pearls and gems to work with.

This next page came together for two reasons. First, I've decided to quit putting myself on the bottom of the list behind family, church responsibilities, and all the other stuff that I have to do everyday. Putting my feelings into a scrapbook page about it seemed like a good way to remind myself not to shove "me time" down again. Second, it was a fun page to enter in last week's digital challenge over at 2 Peas, where participants were challenged to use exclusively the free digital kits available there. So cool!

And as always, here is my latest "12 of 12" page. I think this is the first one that fell on a saturday, so we didn't have the hurried schedule we have all the other days of the week. Plus, my hubby and I went to Art in the Park, so we got some fun pictures there:

Thanks for taking time from your busy day to come by!

Simple School Albums

2009-08-25T13:31:00.012-06:00

This time of year is so busy. The children are heading back to school, and those of us who are taking care of them anticipate the workload that will come with that. Getting everyone to and from school each day, making sure they have a decent lunch, keeping their extracurricular activites organized, and ensuring that they are caught up with homework is already adding a lot to our plates.

There is also the pressure document their experiences throughout the school year, take pictures, and hold onto their memorabilia. As a scrapbooker, I want my kids to have more mementos from their school years than I did. However, I'm not up for trying to be "supermom" in this area. I would like to find a balance between creating cute albums for them and still having time for other interests I have, too.

I'm also one who gets overwhelmed with clutter, and while I haven't gotten a handle on going through it all efficiently, I'm not just going to let it accumulate.

Here are a few guidelines I've set up for myself. I find that these keep me sane and prevent me from taking all of it and hucking it out the front door:

1 - I'm not going to keep everything. Since there's more than one kid in this household, we'd be up to our ears in paper if I did. My spouse and I pick and choose what we think is the best, the cutest, shows their growth, or is especially memorable. The rest gets put in with our regular recycling.

2 - The kids can keep one or two bulky projects (such as a volcano created out of papier mache, etc.) they created for school, as long as it fits in their rooms. We will take photos of all of them, created scrapbook pages for them, and then the remaining items will have to go.

3 - We will keep things as easy as we can on the first and last days of school. That means we will rise a little earlier to take photos before school. We will take a few photos when we drop them off (since we walk and they don't take the bus), but we won't drive ourselves crazy.

I'm going to focus today on what things I'm putting in my kid's albums, and in another entry I'll show you how I compile the contents of them.

Great albums always start with nice photos, so a couple of weeks before school starts, I try to list what I want pictures of. That generally includes firsts (such as the first day, the first school lunch, first set of supplies, etc.), the walk to school, a picture of the child near or inside the classroom, and any new clothes or backpacks.

Wherever possible, I take pictures before the first day. The less we have to do on that day, the better. Since my hubby had purchased all of Izzy's school supplies early, I piled them on the table, had her sit by them, and snapped a couple of shots. Boom. One less thing to do and one of her "firsts" is already recorded:

Then, when that busy day finally hits, I try to schedule with my hubby so he can take part of the day off. We both keep a camera handy, that way it's not on one person to take all the pictures AND make sure everyone is ready and cleaned up. It reduces a lot of stress. By doing this, we ensure that we get the adorable and important pictures we want for their scrapbooks:

Here's more on my opinion on children's schoolwork and how much of it to keep. There are some people out there who like to keep everything their kid brings home, and for them, that's great. That just doesn't work for me. So, what I do is to go through all of our kid's papers with my husband. We do this once or twice a week. Some weeks, we may not save anything, and some we save a lot. If the child has done multiple versions of the same drawing/or worksheet, we keep only one. We label their work with the child's name, along with the month and year the worksheet or artwork was done. We keep a manila folder for each child, and their papers or photos of projects go in there.

At the end of each school year, I go through their files, pick a few things to slip into a sheet protector, and place those in their albums. These I will intersperse with layouts I've done and their various school pictures. There are some things that I think are really cute, so I scan and save them in a format I can use in Photoshop Elements. From there, I can incorporate them into a layout. I made the following page at the beginning of Izzy's first grade year because it was just so fun. I scanned one of the first worksheets she brought home and used it to chronicle her growth as a student.

That still leaves a fair amount of items in their folders, so when the folders get full, we are planning on starting a box for each child to hold the rest of their work. Those boxes will stay in the garage and we'll eventually give that to them when they are grown.

For me and my crew, this had made things pretty manageable and kept things fun without overwhelming us all. I have also decided not to give into the guilt that some try to place on me about not saving *every* single scrap they bring home. I think in the long run, my kids would rather see that I kept their "greatest hits" instead of loading them down with boxes and boxes of schoolwork.

If you like the kits I used for my pages, here are the links:

The first two layouts, I used Heather T's Yay, School! kit.

For the third page, I used Katie Pertiet's School Days kit.

Thanks for taking time to visit and have a great day!

Time For Another Page Share

2009-08-15T23:13:00.011-06:00

OK, last week was crazy busy since it was the first week of school for my two oldest kids, so here I finally am with an update.

Here's what I've been working on lately:

These pages I did for Heather T using here "Brad Me 1" and "Softer Side" kits, both available at Pixel Canvas:

Here are layouts I did for Heather over at Gotta Pixel using her "Gotta Grab It" kits from both July and August:

The following layout is one I did for the very cool Digital Morph challenge over at 2Peas. One layout was chosen as the starting point, then the first player scraplifted parts of the design and added their own spin to it. From there, it was emailed to the next person in the group, who saw only the new page that was done, and the process was repeated, until we were finished. None of us saw all of the layouts or the progression that occurred with each page until the very end. It was so fun! When it was my turn, I chose to do a page about Izzy eating her first lunch at school:

And last, but certainly not least, Here is August's 12 of 12 page. The first day of school conveniently fell on the twelveth, so this one is particularly fun for me:

I appreciate you stopping by --- Have a beautiful day!

One of My Favorite Timesaving Tools

2009-08-06T11:28:00.020-06:00

Here is a page I made about Izzy. I was just so thrilled with it that I wanted to share it and tell how I created it:

I've had the idea in my head for awhile --- the concept of a page showing the changes that Izzy has gone through the last few years. I wasn't sure how I was going translate the concept from a mere idea to a page. With the demands of my busy days and a gaggle of children, I rely a lot on tools that save me time and frustration.

Digital templates are one such tool. They are simple to use and so helpful when you need to speed up your scrapping. When I'm needing to get a page done quick, a template is my go-to solution. The very best part of using templates is that they are great for both traditional and digital scrapbookers.

The page I did of Izzy (shown above) is an example of how to whip up a quick digital page. I chose to work with one of Heather T's Tuesday Templates because I thought the four slots for pictures would work well to show the progression of time. It took me about 15 minutes to choose pictures and mask them (i.e. force them to conform to) the photo slots on the page. I did a bit of manipulation with the elements on the template; I moved some stuff around, added extra copies of the flower jewels, placed borders in a few places, and added a title and some journaling. While I am not the fastest scrapper, I managed to get this layout done during my children's naptime. It was great to complete a page with just a short window of time...and it turned out so pretty (well, at least I think it is...;D).

Here is a link to a great tutorial on how to use a template in PhotoShop/Photoshop Elements, which was put together by Jessica Sprague (please note that she created this video for Creating Keepsakes; I just linked it here rather than from the CK site for convenience). It really doesn't take a lot of time to learn your way around a template and make it work for you.

Now, since I was a paper scrapper for years before taking the plunge into digital, I've been wanting to try out a template on a traditional page. Just yesterday, I decided to see if I could crank out a hybrid page around one of my crazy days (and yesterday was plenty crazy...I think my youngest had about 6 or 7 tantrums). Besides the template, I pledged also to use only paper and supplies I had in my rather large scrapping stash.

In the photo below, you can see that I chose a typical Independence Day palette of red, white, and blue, with a piece of kraft cardstock thrown in. I also picked out a Provo Craft paper I think I've had in my supplies now for about 8 years. It's called "Warm and Wooly," and I still love it even though it's no longer a trendy item. It has a little white dashes in a circular shape that I think are supposed to mimic snowflakes, but I thought they could also pass as little exploding fireworks. I also quickly grabbed a few buttons that I thought would match.

What I did next was create a custom template in Photoshop Elements (PSE) to plop my photos into. My template will work exactly like the one in the previous tutorial. It is tons easier than trying to manually crop my photos with a paper trimmer --- blech! This is an idea that I snagged from Cathy Zielske. Here is Cathy's video tutorial on how to create your own template in PSE (again, I'm skipping the link to Ali Edwards' blog and just linking to the video itself --- I would suggest fast forwarding about 40 seconds to get right to the tutorial).

Once I create my grid, it takes about 10 minutes to select photos, mask them into each space in the template, touch up and resize them to fit the squares. I created the title with digital elements (blue paper, red scallop, and chipboard letters and numbers). I left one square blank so I could adhere some of that cute "Warm and Wooly" paper. From there, I print out my this grouping of pictures onto photo paper. I then cut out the grid, making sure I have an even margin around the outside. I mounted this large block of photos onto the kraft cardstock, and then the navy blue.

I then typed up my journaling block seperately in PSE, and printed it onto a scrap of the kraft paper. Then, the red scallops were placed(they were cut from the patterned paper), and added the buttons. I had regular tan buttons on there at first, but then saw the stars and decided they fit in better with the theme of the page. Not too shabby, eh?

The cool thing about making your own templates for photos is that you are not just limited to squares or rectangles. You can do any combination of shapes you want using the shape tool in PSE. The software allows you to create circles, triangles, or any number of polygons. All of those shapes can be used as masks. Just to illustrate, here's a page I did using triangles:

So here is my verdict on creating a hybrid page: it did take longer for me than when I do one strictly digital. That may have been just because I haven't done a page that combines both in awhile. Part of the extra time was spent in fixing things that were crooked, gluing elements, and making sure all my traditional supplies fit correctly. I can't really do too much resizing with real paper and embellishments. Honestly, though, doing it hybrid is still faster for me than doing it strictly traditional because resizing the pictures and putting them into a template saves lots of time!

Most of my time on this project was spent arranging elements and ruling the ones out that I decided not to use. This is where I am particularly slow, but it's OK. I still got it done in just part of a day; I worked on it in the late afternoon/early evening in between interruptions and the everyday stuff I had to get done. The layout was finished shortly after dinnertime.

I don't know how often I'll do hybrid pages at this point, but I enjoyed it so much that I can't wait to do more of them once my kids become less dependent on me.

So anyways, I hope you enjoyed seeing me go through the motions on both types of pages. If you are not a template user, I encourage you to try them out! Jessica Sprague teaches great classes on how to use Photoshop/PSE and you can easily learn some basic skills there even if you aren't interested in switching completely to digtal pages. Additionally, Sande Krieger offers free digital tutorials over on the Two Peas digital board. Both are worth checking out (the links to these sites are found in my sidebar).

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

To Each, Their Own

2009-07-27T12:12:00.000-06:00

A few months back, I read a really interesting post on Two Peas. The topic of the thread was, in essence, "traditional vs. digital scrapbooking." Here is the link to the actual thread if you would like to read through it. For the most part, I thought a lot of those who replied to the original post were polite and had constructive things to say. There were some snarky remarks about digital scrapbooking, but some wise rebuttals were posted concerning the unkind things that were said. Here are two of my favorite replies:

"It's just disappointing when, as hobbyists who all enjoy the same hobby, we have this "us against them" mentality...Even if creating a certain style of page isn't for me - I can find something to like in every layout, if only the heart behind it (posted by WriterMom1)."

"From what I can see from hanging out both on this board as well as the digi board, strict paper scrappers tend to be a lot more hostile toward the concept of digi than vice versa. I say just go with what you like (posted by StreetScrapper)!"

All I can say to that is amen, girls! It seems like when I first started scrapbooking, those who were into it were mostly thrilled by idea of creating pages and having a more creative way to showcase their pictures. Most hobbyists focused on their own work and didn't care how different their stuff was from someone else's. Currently, in some circles inside the scrapbooking world, it seems that there's not much room for personal preference or diversity.

It's not just digital scrapbooking that comes under fire; page size, paper and product lines, your style (or a defined lack thereof), etc. are also subjects that are debated hotly from time to time.

We live in a world that offers us a myriad of choices everyday, and we all have our preferences, so I think it's perfectly logical to choose the things we like and that work for us. I mean honestly, most people aren't going to hotly debate the paper, plastic, or bring your own" grocery bags issue with their neighbors. It seems just as silly to insist that your friend take up a hobby like knitting because you enjoy it. The friend might prefer woodcrafts to making things with yarn, and as long as both of you are happy, the two don't have to enjoy the same things. It's fine to have our own way of doing things, while respecting others and their right to do the same.

I see scrapbooking in the same way. All of us don't have to like the same method for getting it done (whether traditional or digital), use the same embellishments, or use the same page size. A few years back, I used to get caught up in discussing page size with other scrappers. I am an 8.5 x 11 scrapper in a sea of 12 inch page fans. In some ways, I felt a bit like I had to defend my position. I finally realizedthat debating page size is silly, since I like what I like and other scrappers like what they like. It counterproductive to talk someone out of something they like and makes the most sense for them. A more valid discussion might be to talk about the advantages of different page sizes, products and so on.

Last fall, I took Cathy Zielske's "Design Your Life" class over at Big Picture Scrapbooking. Throughout the course, we did pages in a variety of page sizes: 12 x 12, 8.5 x 11, 8 x 8, and 6 x 6. Here is sampling of the layouts I did (all of these are lifts of Cathy Zielske's class samples, and Melissa Gaston created the digital templates I used to create these pages, so the design ideas belong to them). The only thing I take credit for are the paper and embellishment choices:

In the above pages, there are two of the square pages that are 8 x 8, and the others are 12 inch, but I did more of each size; these are few examples. I was pleasantly surprised to find as I did each page that it was fun switching things up. It also taught me that size is just a number, and there was not a huge difference in the pages unless I went from one of the larger sizes down to 6 x 6.

One of the most helpful discoveries I made while I took the class was that if I really, really wanted to do a 12 inch page, but didn't want to invest in a 12 inch album, I could make my page that size and then print it out as an 8 x 8 page. Photoshop Elements allows me to print it in the smaller size so that I can still fit it in my 8.5 x 11 album with my rectangular pages.

I also wanted to comment on the whole "digi vs. traditional" pages. Here's where I am on the spectrum right now. I will always love paper scrapping and the "hands on" aspect of it. The dimension and texture of traditional scrapping will always be superior in the "tactile" sense. I don't think I'll ever completely abandon my paper stash.

Honestly, speaking, though, paper scrapping doesn't fit into my life right now. Since I've become a mom, I have a hard time digging through my traditional supplies. I get interrupted too much, forget what I was looking for after my kids needed me for something, and the mess created from it gets to overwhelming and a real hassle to deal with. The kids create enough messes (even though I make them help clean up), and I don't want to deal with any more clutter than I have to.

Additionally, while I used to view my trips to the scrapbook store as a release and stress reliever, there are just days when I'm too tired to drag myself down there. Trying to concentrate on how many pieces of cardstock I need or what colors I should be getting currently doesn't seem very palatable, and I loathe running out of adhesive.

With digital scrapping, I can buy a kit once, and reuse the papers and embellishments as many times as I need. If I need to go shopping, I can go online and shop for anything I want, pretty much 24/7. I can stay in my PJs and buy things while I sit at the kitchen table. Since there's no gluing, I never run out of adhesive, and if I accidentally put something in the wrong place, I don't have to pry it off.

I would also go crazy trying to figure out what to do if I ran out of a letter I wanted for my title or captions. It always felt like such a waste to buy a whole sheet of letter stickers, have half of them leftover, but yet unusable unless I bought another full sheet to make up for the vowels or consonants I've already used up. This is one issue that virtually disappears when I create digital pages.

I like having everything (i.e. photos, digital kits, etc.) on my laptop. I don't have to get out/and put away so much anymore because I can leave a project half finished on the computer without worrying that someone will get into it. Because of this, I whip through pages much faster than I used to.

I don't find that I miss real texture created on traditional pages so much anymore. Using drop shadows, textures, filters and effects in Photoshop Elements are all things that help me create implied texture on my digi pages. According to principles I've learned in art classes, texture is texture whether it's real or implied, so that's good enough for me personally.

I think most people who read over my reasons can see why they are compelling enough for me to be doing my scrapping this way for now. It may not be what suits them, but I think most could see my point of view. I think that's the key here --- we can at least appreciate another person's point of view.

Am I telling you that I will never again use my paper supplies? Nope. Someday I will return to it --- although I will probably be more of a hybrid scrapper instead of a strictly paper one. I plan to use the stash I've got so far, partly because I love the stuff I've got and party because I want to be frugal and make the best use of it that I can. My return to consistenly paper scrapping won't occur for a few years, until all of my kids hit elementary school. By that time, they will be less needy and I will have time during the day to get into my stash without so many interruptions. I'm sure my preferences for scrapping at that time will be different than they are now.

So until then, I'm going to enjoy my digital scrapbooking, dabble in paper occasionally, and be respectful of other scrappers and their preferences. To each, their own.

My Latest Pages

2009-07-14T15:25:00.000-06:00

It's time for some shameless page sharing! I cannot tell you how nice it is to have my scrapbooking activities back to a regular occurance instead of a sporaidic one. Let me show you what I've been working on lately.

Here are the most recent pages I've done for Heather T's creative team. These are pages for kits she has for sale over at Pixel Canvas. I used the "Painted Corners and Dividers," "Country Dream," and "The Softer Side" kits:

Heather also got a designer gig over at Gotta Pixel, another online store with great digital goodies (yea!), so here's some pages I did with paper and embellies from her "How It Works" kit:

I was also pretty excited to see that Heather had posted about her new creative team here and to see that I am part of such a great team. I'm so lucky ---thank you, Heather!

And, last but not least, here is my July 12 of 12 page:

If you've made it this far, thanks for letting me share my work and have a great day!

Use the Stash #1: A Simple Calendar

2009-07-07T13:54:00.000-06:00

From time to time, I'd like to share how I'm using the supplies I've stockpiled so far. As scrapbookers, we do tend to do a lot of "collecting," sometimes more than we do our actual creating. My goal is to seriously shrink down my stash and use the supplies I've purchased with hard-earned money.

Now that I know how to digi-scrap, I'd like to use those skills and the paper and supplies I have on hand to create more hybrid projects.

Here is one such project:

This past year in school, Izzy, my kindergartner would bring home a calendar she made in class. At the start of each new month, she would show me her simple creation, made on a big piece of construction paper that was adorned with her artwork. She was always excited to show us what she did on each of them, and expressed more interest in learning the days of the week. I was pleasantly surprised to watch her learn how to correctly identify the current date. All we did was put her calendar up on her bedroom wall, and she took it from there.

When school got out a few weeks ago, she asked if she could make a calendar during the short time she had off. I knew somewhere in my digital stash, I had a calendar grid, so I went digging and found the one shown above. It was part of the goodies I got when I bought Jessica Sprague's Computer Tricks 3.

I kept the whole thing pretty straightforward. I saved a copy of the grid and deleted the extra layers I didn't need, printed it in Photoshop Elements, and let Izzy fill in the numbers on each day. She then colored her own picture for the top portion of the calendar, and she glued the picture to one piece of construction paper and the grid to another. We taped the two pieces together, and we were done. Using the construction paper also helped us get into a stash of art supplies I have for the kids to use, which has also gone untouched for quite awhile.

This isn't a groundbreaking idea or anything, but I forget sometimes that I don't have to use my scrapping supplies just for pages or cards. I thought it turned out very cute! And, if it helps my daughter learn a little along the way, then that's great,too.

Thanks for stopping by...:)

Showing More of Ourselves in Our Scrapbooks: Documenting the Peaks and Valleys of Life

2009-06-29T22:07:00.000-06:00

I really enjoyed this past Mother's Day. The kids are getting old enough to understand why we have the holiday, they get excited to give gifts and cards, and love coming upstairs to watch me open them. Their attention spans are longer now and they appreciate family togetherness more, so it was fun for me to create this page about our day together:

I love creating the "happy" layouts! I do feel it's important to document optimism, family togetherness, and everything that's good. But, honestly, I feel equally compelled to make pages about things like this:

It's not the most popular choice amongst scrapbookers to show the unpleasant realities of life in their albums. Some people have questioned why I would create a page about things my kids do that bother me. They have said they don't want to focus on the difficult things, and that the positive should only be accentuated. I do think being positive is important in our pages, but I see no reason why the "rosey" parts of our lives should completely dominate them.

I'll tell you one reason I feel this way. I overheard a conversation once --- I believe it was right before Christmas one year. There was a small group of ladies in an aerobics class I was taking, and before class started, they were discussing things that were hard for them about the holidays. One of the things they lamented was receiving the yearly Christmas letters from family and friends. They were talking about how weary they were of hearing about their friends "perfect" life, their "perfect" children, who were "perfect" in all their extra-curriculars, their "perfect" houses, and etc. These gals said additionally, that they didn't believe those who said everything in their lives were "stunning" and "always ideal."

I thought about what was being said and decided there was some truth to it. Making things appear perfect isn't always interesting. Sometimes, it can also come off as fake and insincere.

So, a few years later, when I discovered scrapping, I decided I would try to present a balanced view as I created my albums. While I don't believe that our scrapbooks need to have a gloomy tone, I think it's acceptable and even important to show that our lives have peaks and valleys. There are wonderful times, and then there those days when things are rough.

I made a choice to document our difficulties because I want my kids to see that life is not always smooth sailing. I think it will be a great teaching tool for them. They need to see that tough times in our life can be overcome and can teach us important lessons. I hope that by showing how we worked our way through the rough patches, we became better as individuals and families.

So how does one create a page on a hard subject? By being tactfully honest, which to me, means:

-speaking from your heart (as corny as that sounds)
-writing about what you've learned during your experience
-ensuring that your content is tasteful and not offensive
-not sharing any information that has been told to you in confidence

As I have applied these guidelines, it has helped me make layouts that tell the not-so-happy story with sensitivity.

For example, before my husband and I adopted our kids, we had a long, arduous battle with infertility. We had made the decision to file adoption papers and have me receive fertility treatments at the same time. There came a point when we knew we had had enough pills, needles, and doctor appointments, and that we were done with the medical aspect of trying to have children.

At that point, I made an album documenting my experience with infertility and the loss of having my own biological children. One of the reasons I did this was to provide a way for me to say goodbye to that dream. It helped me mourn the loss and enabled me to embrace the idea of adoption. One of the layouts I did was a goodbye letter to my biological child, the one I wouldn't ever get to hold in my arms:

When the album was finished, I realized that it has also served as a catharsis. Creating it had enabled me to feel my sad feelings and move on with my life. And, on those days when I still feel the grief and long for that dream child, I read through the album once more, touch the pages, and cry. It has turned out to be a work that continues to heal and comfort me.

The album is too big to share in its entirety here, so if you wish to see more, then you can see it at my gallery over at Two Peas.

Whew! That was a lot to say! I hope that something I wrote today will get you thinking about what you share in your layouts, and inspire you to show the peaks and the valleys.

Have a good day!

I'm Excited to Tell You...

2009-06-22T11:08:00.000-06:00

...that I'm working on a creative team again! Digital scrapbooking designer Heather T, who designs kits, papers, and page elements over at Pixel Canvas, offered me a spot on her creative team and I've accepted. I sent an application over for her latest CT call, and I was lucky enough to be chosen! Each CT applicant was asked to create a page layout from a kit she posted on her blog, and this was the page I submitted for the call:

Additionally, here is a page I created using Heather's "Country Dreams" kit, which you can find over at the Pixel Canvas:

I'm excited that I will have the chance to share lots of future layouts here using Heather's great stuff! Heather has a great blog, and she often gives away beautiful freebies, so if you have a chance, stop by and visit.

Also, because I wasn't blogging a couple of months ago, I didn't get a chance to share my work from a guest CT gig I got. During the month of April '09, I was fortunate enough to do some pages for Erica Hernandez, a digital designer who works at Two Peas. Even though that's been done for two months, I still wanted to show the pages I did. I used her 8.5 x 11 templates (numbers 21, 22, and 23), "Feeling Bookish" letter set, as well as the houndstooth and herringbone overlays:

Thanks for letting me share and don't worry...I'm still going to be doing lots of posts on "common sense" topics related to scrapping. Have a good one!

Twelve of Twelve

2009-06-15T21:52:00.000-06:00

It was about three years ago when we adopted our kids. At that time, everything was so overwhelming. Learning to take care of them was so difficult, and so trying to do any scrapbooking for them was definitely not a first priority. I had little to no time to think about how I would get their life books started, or even find time to take pictures. There would be times when my hubby would take tons of photos of the children, and then we'd get super busy and forget. I'd look through their pictures and see huge gaps where we just had nothing.

Last year, I was wracking my brain, trying to think of something that would remind me to take pictures of everyone in our family. I was feeling tons of “bad mommy” guilt because I was exhausted all the time and wasn't able to keep track of all of moments I wanted to.

In my search to find a solution, I saw that many scrappers were gearing up to take part in “Project 365,” which involved taking a picture everyday for one year. A lot of the scrappers who would take part in this would do a layout each week (or month) showing the photos they took. Part of me really liked this idea, but I couldn't myself see doing this and not falling off the wagon at some point. There are just a lot of days when all I can do is keep the kids clean, fed, and out of the emergency room. I needed a solution that could be done with regularity but not necessarily everyday.

It was around that same time when I came across Susan Keuter's Twelve of Twelve challenge blog. She fully explains the concept there, which I'd encourage you to check out. The gist of it is this: on the twelve day of each month, challenge participants start taking pictures when they wake up. The idea is to take pictures of anything and everything, no matter how big or small. For instance, one might snap pictures of the pajamas they are wearing, what time it was when they woke up, what they ate for lunch, taking the kids to school, how many emails were in their inbox, what was done during a work break, and so on. Pictures are taken from sun up to sun down. Then, over the next few days, challenge participants delete any pictures they won't use or that didn't turn out, cull them down to their favorite twelve shots of the day, and then create a single or double scrapbook layout using those pictures.

Finding the “Twelve of Twelve” challenge was like striking gold for me. Here was a fun yet practical idea that wouldn't take a huge time commitment and would help me document more of those everyday moments I felt I was missing. It didn't mean I wouldn't take pictures at other times throughout the month; of course I would snap a photo here and there when I had a lucid moment. Actively participating in the challenge, though, would ensure that a month would not go by without at least some photos being snapped.

In January, when I had my first experience with the challenge, I was a little nervous at first. I kept thinking, “Will it be a pain to take my camera with me throughout the day?” I wasn't sure how that would work during the “Mom Taxi” portions of the day. I remember dropping the camera on the garage floor and freaking out, thinking I had busted the camera and ruined the whole experience (thankfully, I lucked out and the camera was just fine). After making it through the first half of the day, I realized that it was turning out to be kind of fun. Our point-and-shoot camera was very portable, and not the hassle I was expecting. I got through the whole day and managed to be excited about the challenge. My hubby and kids were enthusiastic, too, and became willing participants, so I saw that it could be something to enjoy each month.

When I got all the photos uploaded, then I started panicking. Will these be the most boring pages ever? After all, we do a lot of the same stuff day after day. I feel like I'm reliving a lot of things over and over again, sort of like Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day.” I'm happy to say that this hasn't been the case. While I did see some of the same things recurring in the pages, each page has had its own “flavor.” It's been fun to watch the seasons change, recall how we change our activities with them, and capture some unexpected surprises along the way. For instance, on March 12th, I was going about snapping pictures as usual. In the late afternoon, Elijah woke up from nap with his first loose tooth. It was a complete surprise to everyone, and it made for some fun pictures. Later that night, my husband helped Elijah pull the tooth out and I captured it all!

This month, I was taken aback by all the things that were happening with us on the 12th. My daughter, Izzy, is attending her last month of kindergarten, had her first school lunch, and went to her school carnival. I also took photos of James because I wanted to remember he just recently got potty-trained (which means no more diaper changes --- yea!), and then I saw that all TV stations were switching from analog to digital. The TV thing was a minor detail, but I thought it would be a fun, small part of history to remember. Additionally, The kids now look forward to the 12th of each month as “picture day,” and they even whip out their toy cameras and snap their own photos. :)

The most important lesson I've learned over the last six months is that taking photos regularly can be worked into a busy schedule. Even if the challenge isn't your thing, designate a little time each month to take some pictures. It's easy and I've found it to be very rewarding.

Here are the rest of my “twelve of twelve” pages if you are interested in checking them out:

Thanks for looking...:)

A Sign of Change

2009-06-10T14:20:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago, I picked up the June 2009 issue of Creating Keepsakes, and here's what I saw on the cover:

It was surprising to see a scrapbook page with not one, not two, but seven photos gracing the cover of the mag. I find it interesting that after years of primarily showing single photo pages on the cover, we see a page that more closely remsembles the work of many in its target audience produce.

Am I saying that single photo pages are bad? Of course not. So many of them are amazing works of art. As well, I see no point in arguing with other scrappers over the page style they like (that's something I will touch on later). What I do notice is that it's a sign of change, and I think it's high time things adapt to meet the needs of the everyday scrapper. After all, they are the ones who are plunking down their hard-earned dough to buy products and publications to help them as they create their scrapbooks.

Three great industry magazines have folded or will in the coming months, and some of that is due to the poor state of the economy. But additionally, many scrapbookers I've talked to don't want to subscribe to them. Why? Because some of the mags only feature a few scrappers with a set style. Since not everyone likes the same thing, is it plausible to publish articles and features on a handful of looks? I would say probably not. Having a little diversity in style, number of photos and products used will probably need to be the order of the day.

I think at the very least, magazines, stores, and anyone else who caters to scrapbookers will need to give equal billing to both single photo pages and multi-photo ones. I see it happening a little here and there, but not as much as I would like. After all, I think one can show how to use great products on a variety of page styles, not just one.

I recall a conversation I had with some of my online scrapping pals not too long ago. Most of them are single photo scrappers and I tend to be a multi-photo scrapper. We were talking about solutions for getting event (like birthdays, holidays, family get-togethers, etc.) and travel layouts done. Many of them were saying that there was no way they could do all single photo pages for those types of topics. They were looking for more ways to do multi-photo pages even though that wasn't their typical choice for scrapbooking. We came away from that conversation with a few ideas, but lamented the true lack of diversity shown for doing pages both ways.

So, seeing a layout that departs from the "standard" on a magazine cover is really encouraging. I hope it means that a wider array of scrapbook pages and styles will be showcased someday. Because honestly, when I see a gorgeous, yet doable and practical page idea, I'm more likely to buy publications and cool items that allow me to do so. I think a lot of other scrapbookers feel the same way.

And, in keeping with the spirit of this post, here is a layout I did that has seven photos on it:

Thanks for looking!

It Comes Down To Common Sense

2009-06-08T14:44:00.000-06:00

Hello and welcome to my corner of the blogosphere! I'm glad you stopped by and hope you'll visit again when you can.

I've been thinking a lot about scrapbooking and what first attracted me to it. It gave me goosebumps. I just loved seeing photos and journaling placed on archival paper and adorned with cool embellishments. It amazed me because of the cohesive way it works together to tell the story of something personal --- a lost tooth, a new baby, a birthday, or a fun trip someone had taken.

There's also the part of me who likes the artistic aspect of memory keeping. It can be thrilling to get published or work on a design team, knowing that one's work may inspire others. Taking part in challenges offered on various blogs and online communities can really stretch us a scrapbookers. It also gave me a way to connect with others who shared my interest in this hobby.

A few years before we adopted our children, I became more involved with the latter: being on design teams for online stores, doing challenges, trying to get published, and so on. I have had a small degree of success in each area. The difficulty I ran into was that I got to the point where I was scrapping too much for other people, and not enough for me and my family. It became less about telling our stories and more about trying to use the materials from the latest kit I got in the mail. I got a little burned out with all of it.

Then, fast forward to summer 2006, when practically overnight, I became a mom to four young kids. I had one tiny baby and three active toddlers. There were three in diapers, and I was overwhelmed. How in the world would any scrapbooking at all get done with four so little? Should I even worry about trying to get published or take part in challenges? At first, I didn't think so.

In the past three years, though, I've learned that it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. I've come to adopt a common sense approach to scrapbooking. Our stories need to be told. I need to scrapbook because it's an important form of self-expression. I hope to find work as a designer once more. I want to show artistry in my pages, but I need to strike a balance between all these things. At the end of the day, there is still laundry to be done, the kids have to get to school, and meals need to be put on the table. I still want to try new techniques on my pages and remember a cute phase my kids went through, but it has to be something I can squeeze in between laundry and fixing up owies. It also means using the stash I've been stockpiling in current ways.

Here's a page I created with this philosophy in mind. I love the story behind this and how cute my boy is being at this point and time:

So, with that in mind, I started this blog. Here's to using common sense to document the important events and moments of life, while still creating pages we can be proud of. I hope also to touch on some things I see happening in the industry that are helping out scrappers similar to my situation, as well as some practical, helpful ideas that enable us to do more in less time and with less hassle.

I welcome constructive comments, so give me a holler if you like.