Latest Digiscrap Layouts

Still trying to get back in the groove!  So here's another simple post for you...some of my most recent digiscrap.  Hopefully next week I'll be blogging my sister's baby shower and my son's birthday party....

Template: Pixels&Co April Template Challenge

Kit: Day After Day by Sabrina's Creations

Fonts: Telegraphem (with Mommyish gold style), CK Becky, LD Shelli Print, CK Flip Serif

Template: Stolen Moments April Template Challenge

Kit: Reflection by Stolen Moments

Fonts: A Gentle Touch (with Mommyish acrylic style), CK Emily

Template: Cluster by AK Designs

Kit: Little Days by Forever Joy Designs

Alpha: Basic Black by Stolen Moments Design

Font: Penelope Anne

Template: Christaly
Kit: MY OWN DESIGN!  Hoping to get a shop open at some point...
Fonts: Lemondrop, Pacifico, Loved by the King

It's been awhile, hasn't it?

If I hadn't already scheduled posts, there would have been nothing the last few weeks!  Man, it's been a rough month + in our house.  Can I just tell you?  In the last five or six weeks:
I had a 3 day sore throat/runny nose thing.
Then a week of really horrible insomnia.
Then my son and my baby got sick with a cold.
Then my husband and I got the cold.
And I didn't get better. Discovered I had a sinus infection.
Found out my baby had a double ear infection.
Husband's sore throat came back with a vengeance, and the nurse at his work told him his throat is covered in blisters.
Then on Sunday baby threw up repeatedly for about 5 hours and then couldn't eat for another day.
And then I broke out in hives, a reaction to one of my sinus infection meds.
Next, my daughter went through the whole throw up routine.
And yesterday, I went through the throw up routine.

Today I'm feeling better and so far am keeping my breakfast down!  Anyway, I'm really really REALLY hoping and praying this is the last of it.  March was definitely a lost cause for productivity.  Here's to April being better!

The one thing I did manage to do is some digiscrappin'....so I thought I'd post some of my latest layouts.

Template by Marie Stone

Kit: A Da-Doodly Love (retired) by Etc. by Danyale

Font: Smithy XT

 Template: Kimeric Kreations

Kit: Favorite Moments (retired) by Etc by Danyale

Fonts: Quixley LET, Quilline Script Thin

 Template: Rainy Dayz Designs

Kit: Never Fade Away by Scrapyrus Designs

Fonts: Pacifico, Old Newspaper, Pea Dacia

 Template: Cluster Queen Creations

Kit: Let Me Call You Sweetheart (retired) by Stolen Moments

Fonts: Modern No. 20, Olivier, MTF You Are

 Template: Etc by Danyale

Kit: An Innocent Heart charity collab

Fonts: CF Jack Story, Pea Memorable, Northern Lights

 Template: Cornelia Designs (retired designer)

Kit: Set Me Free and Blackbird by Stolen Moments

Fonts: CK Stylish Black, Claudia Jean, Walkway Black, CK Margaret

Template: Akizo Designs (basically just for the scalloped frame)

Kit: Aflutter by Wishing Well Creations

Fonts: Only by Request (with Mommyish Acrylic Style), Penelope Anne, MTF You Are

Digiscrap Tuesday Tip: Light Direction for Shadows

Okay guys, now that you have an idea how to get a layout going, this is EXTREMELY important.  Light source and shadows.  Let me show you an example of the importance of shadows:

No shadows

With shadows!  So much better!

Shadows make a huge difference in creating depth for realistic layouts.  They are a MUST.  I kid you not.  A MUST!!!  AND it is extremely important that every drop shadow cast in the same direction.  This is a great run-down on light sources from Karah Fredricks of The Lily-Pad.  Take a look, and hopefully that helps you understand what I mean.  Next week, I'll be back with some info on creating those shadows.

Digiscrap Tuesday Tip: Design Tips for Layouts

I have something super helpful for you today!  This comes from Suzy Q Scraps (you can find her shop at Scrapbookgraphics).  She put together an eye-pleasing graphic of 10 design tips for visually pleasing layouts, and then goes on to explain each point and shows examples.  Find it here.
Remember to pin from her and not from me!!!

Okay, so again, I must admit that I rarely scrap without a template (kinda lazy, plus then half the creative work is done for me...really helpful if I've having a block of sorts!), so the first few steps of this are taken care of for me (as long as I'm using a quality template, that is).  But the next few are always a concern.  It can be daunting, especially when you are first starting, to look at all those tips.  It still kinda is, and I've been doing digi 6 years and paper scrapbooking for 8 years before that!  I liked Suzy's tip at the end: pick one at a time and focus on understanding and mastering that, and move on.  Remember, the most important thing here is that you are recording your story, those moments that make up a life.  Don't worry about doing everything perfectly.  Just try to improve a little here and a little there, and over time, you will grow as a digiscrapper.

I'll be back with your next tip on Tuesday.

Digiscrap Tuesday Tip: Working with Layers

Okay, folks, this is a long time coming.  I know.  I'm sorry.  I just haven't had the time to put together tutorials myself, so what I'm going to do is every Tuesday spotlight helpful tutorials I've found.  These will all be tutorials using Photoshop Elements (or Photoshop), because I frankly think it is the only way to go!  And if you are going to pin, PLEASE PIN FROM THE ORIGINAL SOURCE AND NOT FROM ME.

This is a great resource!  A free online class from Steph of the Daily Digi.  So great.  She has a supply list so you know exactly what you need and provides you with the other digital supplies for the layout.  Highly recommend starting here.

Another option is a tutorial from the great Ali Edwards.  In this video, she shows how to use a layered template in Photoshop (written step by step instructions can be found here).  She offers a free template (link found below the template photo) to use as she shows you step-by-step.

This is a terrific place to start.  You don't always have to use templates to scrap (though I almost always do!), but this video will give you an understanding of how layers work, so you can create your own layouts in the future.

I'll be back next week with another tip!

Here's the first post if you missed it.

Things have sure been busy around here...

I've been a little negligent in my blogging.  But that's because I've been diving headfirst into digiscrap again.  I love it so.  I'm even dabbling with designing again, so hopefully I'll have another freebie kit for you at the end of the month.  In the meantime, here are some of my most recent layouts:

Merry Christmas!

I needed to let off some steam tonight, so I did a scrapbook page.

Kit: Be Awesome by Libby Pritchett

Template: DAttlan SSD Template August

So about digital scrapbooking....

....you know how I was participating in the Studio's Next Designer competition?  Except I only did it one week?  Yeah, not how I meant for things to go.  It didn't help that the competition fell on an extremely busy month for me.  But I still want to make digiscrap freebies and stretch my designing wings a little bit.  Ideally, I'd like to do a freebie kit a month, but I can't commit to that.  'Cause frankly, it may not be realistic.  But say I was able to get my act together enough to have a kit ready for DSD (Digital Scrapbook Day, first Saturday of November)?  What kind of kit should I design?  Head over to my Facebook page and give me some feedback!

And if you haven't picked up my current mini kit freebie Stick Shifts and Safety Belts

here are the links:

Papers

Elements

Hope to hear your opinion!

Well folks, it's up.

I have officially put myself out there as a digiscrap designer.

You can find my freebie here.

(And loads of others.  You might want to wait until Sunday though, as all entries are due by midnight on Saturday.)

I had a hard time with the theme and rules.  I worked out a detailed plan before I went to bed Monday night, and then scrapped the whole thing when I woke up Tuesday morning, because it was just not me.  Too cutesy.  And since all four weeks of the challenges are travel themed, I wanted to save some of my other ideas for later.

It took awhile, but I finally came up with something I'm happy with.  Funky, grungy, retro.  Inspired by Cake's Stickshifts And Safetybelts and The Distance, and a little Low Rider too.

Anyway, this mini kit contains:
5 papers
     1 retro car patterned paper in yellow and brown
     1 wheels etc patterned paper in brown
     1 herringbone patterned paper in green and sand
     1 cracked paint solid paper in blue
     1 leather solid paper in orange
12 elements
     2 buttons
     2 epoxy street signs
     1 rusty brown key
     1 distressed orange frame
     1 green metal clip
     1 charcoal speedometer stamp
     1 curly blue string
     1 geometic patterned brown and green ribbon
     1 paint smear in yellow, brown and orange

Whew!  It was a lot of fun to design, but a lot of work!  Go download it!

A little digiscrappin'

I've found some time here and there to do some digiscrappin'.  You know, I have a lot of hobbies, but I love some more than others.  This one is on the more side of things.  :)  It may have something to do with the fact that I am preserving priceless memories of my darling children who are growing up WAY too fast.
Anyway, before I wander any further down that tangent, let me show you some recent layouts:

Template: Stolen Moments
Kit: Hope Chest by Etc. by Danyale
Alpha: Bugging Out by Kristin Aagard

Kit: Almost Spring by Etc. by Danyale
Template: Lorie M Designs
Alpha: Boy Girl Crush by Etc. by Danyale
Font: CK Alayna

Template: Stolen Moments
Kit: Boys in my Backyard by Stolen Moments and Stacy's Backdoor Designs

Template: La Belle Vie Designs
Kit: Stir Crazy by Kristin Cronin-Barrow
Alpha: Basic Black by Stolen Moments

Kit: It Skips a Beat by Etc. by Danyale
Template: Kara Swanson
Fonts: Lt Chickenhawk, Return to Sender, skinny jeans, Engravers

Now, I've been promising for ages to post about how to get started with digital scrapbooking.  And I intend to honor that promise.  Just not in the way I originally intended.  Stay tuned, hopefully I'll be posting about it this month.

Feels so good....

After my difficult pregnancy and tragic hard drive crash....behold my first layout in over a year:

Happy to be back in it!

iNSD (or for those of you who don't speak digiscrap, International Scrapbook Day!)

It's technically Saturday (always the first Saturday in May), but many shops have already started their festivities and sales.  It's an awesome time of the year.  (Cue the big cheesy grin.)

But before I get into that, let me tell you a little story.  Once there was a lovely girl who had almost completely filled up her terabyte external hard drive with thousands of photos and WAY too many digiscrap supplies.  This was her only source for these things.  Her computer was getting older, so to make it run faster she stored nothing on the computer's hard drive and EVERYTHING on the external hard drive.

And then one day it crashed.  And the data recovery folks couldn't get any more than 8% of the data (for a cool $900!).  So she lost everything.  And she cried a lot.

Moral of the story: BACK UP YOUR FILES!!!!!

But that isn't actually why I'm telling you this story (though it is a good moral, believe me....).  I want to tell you about the....opportunity....this has given me in terms of my digi stash.  Before my hard drive crashed, I was trying to slowly make my way through my supplies and eliminate the excess.  It was a hard process.  Not a fun process.  But now since my involuntary purge, I "get" to start over.

When I first started digiscrapping, I collected freebies like crazy.  'Cause they were free!  Well, this time around, I am EXTREMELY picky about freebies.  I only download

1) Templates (I adore templates, they do the hard work for me)

2) Full kits that I REALLY like (no mini kits unless they are absolutely incredible)

3) The occasional alpha or something else that I fall in love with

I do NOT download

1) Mini kits

2) Anything requiring a daily download (I think my time is worth more than that)

3) Blog trains (again, the time issue, and I also feel often they just aren't cohesive, though there are some big exceptions to this)

4) Odds and ends

I have found that all those things just clog up my hard drive and I just don't use them.

This leads me to iNSD!!!  Man, is this a week of craziness in digiscrap land!  There are TONS of freebies, and this event (and iDSD in November) are my blog train exceptions.  So I thought I'd tell you about the freebie trains I'm following this weekend:

Pixels & Co full kit, More or Less

The Digiscrap Parade, That's Life

GingerScraps, The View

Scraps N' Pieces, Queen's Template Jubilee

And here's the top deals I'm taking advantage of:

Etc. by Danyale's Create Your Own Grab Bag

The Digichick's Pick Your Collab Grab Bag

Scrap Orchard's $1 Farmer's Market

ScrapMatter's graduated discount sale (up to 45% off)

The Daily Digi (this is not just a iNSD thing, it runs all year and is a TERRIFIC way to build your stash)

And some eye candy....some of my favorite purchases (or plan to purchase as soon as the sale starts!):
(images linked)

Whew.  Believe me, I could link up more!!!  :)
(And if you think I must be spending a fortune, well, you're right!  My husband offered me a very generous budget to replenish my digi stash since we didn't spend 900 buckeroos on data recovery...bless his little heart....)

Merry Christmas!

One week until my due date....oh, and Christmas!  We have been extremely busy getting our house ready for this new addition....I have lots to share with you, but I can pretty much guarantee it won't be until the end of January!  Don't give up on me, I have craft room progress to share, as well as two new kids' bedrooms complete with decor.  I WILL be back!!!

In the meantime, have a wonderful holiday!

Software: Adobe Photoshop 10, Template: Aimee Harrison, Papers and Elements: Stampin' Up! Christmas Cocoa II

DIY Wedding M&M: Invitations

My brother-in-law Matt is getting married in two weeks.  TWO WEEKS!!!  He is getting married up in Oregon, in the Portland Temple, as his bride, Mandy, is from Eugene...where we lived when my husband was in law school, and where Matt now goes to law school as well.  Which means there will be an open house here in Utah, where he is from, a week later.  So needless to say, I have been all kinds of busy with preparations, both for the wedding in Oregon and the open house here.  I'll have LOTS to share with you after the blessed event is over, but until then, I thought I'd share their wedding announcement.

I designed it based on this invitation that Mandy really liked.  

I used the ever faithful Photoshop, and a digital stamp by Stampin' Up!  The fonts are the King and Queen for their names, and Tangerine for the rest of the invitation.

We got them printed with Catprint, for a fraction of what our inspiration would have cost!  Mandy paid $158.55 for 300 invitations plus white envelopes, 30 insert cards for those invited to the temple ceremony, and 60 insert cards for those invited to the wedding dinner.  Just 300 invitations alone of our inspiration would have cost $306.00, plus whatever for S&H.  Yet another reason to love DIY!

Mandy then took this lovely photo of the two of them, 

taken in my in-laws backyard before church when they were visiting (and that I prettied up a bit in Photoshop) and got 300 printed at Costco with a coupon for $0.09 a piece, $27.00 total.

So 300 beautiful custom invitations cost them a grand total of $185.55!  Now if only stamps were free.....

I'll be back in a couple weeks with all kinds of wedding ideas and tutorials to share with you!

Another quick and easy wedding gift

We've been in our house for just over a year now, and we've gotten a few wedding announcements from people in the neighborhood.  They have been so kind to include us, but since we didn't actually know their children (the bride or groom), we just felt like it would be awkward to show up.  So we haven't gone.  Until last night.  Our backyard neighbor's daughter got married, and since they are our neighbors and my husband has had some interaction with her as he's been serving with the youth in our ward (she was in Young Womens - ages 12 to 18 - just last year), we wanted to go.  (HOWEVER, my daughter spent the day having a series of meltdowns, and by evening I was exhausted and she was still sobbing like the world was ending, so my husband and son went without us!)

That meant coming up with another fabulous personal wedding gift.

I love making wedding gifts.

I was a bit short on time and brain power, so I turned to the Web for inspiration.  And found this darling print on Etsy (this seller has a ton of cute prints if you don't have the skills to make them yourself).

Now, to personalize it more.  I went to their registry, as I always do, to find out what colors they are planning to use in their home.  Then I took a closer look at their invitation, discovered neither one of them go by their full names, and that they had quoted a line from a song on the inside flap.  Bingo!  Perfect text for the background.  So based on all that information, this is what I came up with:

(I used Photoshop Elements to create the image.
Fonts - background: Traveling Typewriter Monogram: Century Names/Date: New Cicle)

Then I painted another garage sale frame with Krylon Indoor/Outdoor spray paint in Peekaboo Blue, and put it together.

Quick tip: to avoid having any dust sandwiched in your frame, after you clean the glass and it has dried, use some dust remover (basically pressurized air in a can) to blow away any dust particles, then quickly put everything together.

Final product:

I hope they love it.  I do!  Think I might have to make one for myself....

Linking up here:

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