Upcoming Classes

I am excited to share my upcoming class schedule with you.

Blending and Beyond: February 13 - March 19, 2012


Blending and Beyond will be six weeks long. The class will consist of 6 recorded videos and "road maps" to guide you along. There will also be two live webinars in which I will give a short demonstration followed with a question and answer time. Each lesson will come right from my desktop as you watch every step of my creative process. The layouts that I have created for this course are packed with my "go-to" techniques. I hope that these pages and techniques inspire you to look at your photos in a new light. There will be a private forum and gallery for you to share your work. I am excited to see what you can create!

You can register here. I hope to see you in class!

*Students must have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements 9.0/10.0

**This course will not be offered again until Fall 2012

***A special note: if you took Blending and Beyond during the fall of 2011 at Get It Scrapped, you can reregister for this course at Creative Passion for free. All of the layouts will be the same, however, I have redone all of the videos and road maps. Tami has the class list from Get It Scrapped so you would just need to let her know here that you are interested in retaking the course.



Creative Composites: April 9 - May 14, 2012

This course is designed for people who have taken Blending and Beyond. Students will receive 6 recordings that demonstrate how I create six different layouts along with "road maps" to follow along. There will be two live webinars in which I do a short demonstration followed with an opportunity to ask questions. In this course, I will cover color enhancements, filters, creating motion, sequencing of photos and adding artistry to a layout.

* This course will not be offered again until Winter 2013

You can register here. I hope to see you in class!

All products are from Designer Digitals.

First Month of 2012

I am so excited about this new approach to Project 365. Each year I try to expand on the previous year and I wanted this year to include more of the photos that tell our story. I've kept the project extremely basic. I need simplicity if I am going to stick with it. These templates are about as simple as they come. From processing the photos to finishing the page, it takes me about 20 minutes per spread. At the end of January....I am thrilled to have 17 spreads for my album. I posted the first two weeks earlier and here are the last two weeks.

I have seen so many great takes on Project 365 and Project Life. It is so fun to see everybody documenting their journey in their own special way. What a wonderful record to have.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Documenting More Than a Decade

A year ago Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals came up with this fabulous idea to "Document a Decade". She created a series of templates to use for this project. I immediately wanted to do this project. I had met Jeff in 2000 and let's just say that it was a decade full of changes. I wanted to document the changes in our family and I am SO glad that I did. Out of all of the albums that I have created my "Documenting a Decade" album is my absolute favorite. It is so fun to page through and see the growth of our family. As you probably know by now, I take a lot of pictures so I was worried about how I could get more photos on one page. I decided that for each year, I would do a family spread and then a spread for each of my kids once we had more children. I also created little sections/chapters for each year.

I have LOVED looking through that album. You can find it here if you would like to take a peek. I decided that I'm not going to stop at a decade. I'm going to continue to do it each year for as long as I can. If I can continue to do this little project for the next 20 years, I will have 30 years of our family's growth all together in one album. I just think that would be pretty neat to have.

Yesterday I started working on the pages for this year. You can find them below...

I also have a little title page for each year...

The back page of my little "chapter" has all of the highlights for that year listed...

All products are from Designer Digitals.

I just think it is such a great project to do. Families change so quickly and it is so fun to see the growth in one album.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Photography - Thinking Ahead

Photography is certainly a passion of mine. I have so much to learn and yet I love the challenge of it all. Photographing children is certainly not an easy task. They are in constant motion and well...so am I trying to keep up with them. Throughout my classes, people have started commenting that my classes have now made them take a different approach to photography. I think that the style in which I scrapbook certainly plays a huge roll in the types of photos that I try to capture. I thought I would share a few tips that work for me when trying to photograph children.

1) When we go somewhere such as the beach or the park, once everybody is settled and doing their "thing", I usually start playing with settings on my camera such as ISO and aperature. I take some practice photos just to make sure that I'm "in the ballpark" with where my settings need to be. I have a lot to learn about my camera but for me...practicing is KEY! It makes me feel more prepared when a photo opportunity comes along.

2) I am constantly trying to anticipate where my children's movement is going to take them. I try to think ahead and get myself in the position that I need to be in to capture the action. The page below is the third page that I demonstrate in Creative Composites. I could see my son was approaching a hill so I rushed to the bottom of the hill so that I could get in position to capture him at full speed. I love this shot because of the look on his face. If I would have taken this shot at the top of the hill, the photo would have probably been much different. I think it is so important to think ahead and anticipate where you are going to be able to catch the best shot.




3) When I am taking photos, I try to capture the action but I am also thinking about how I could use the photos to create. I really like to capture full-length shots of my children because then I have the opportunity to recreate the entire setting on paper in some manner. There are so many amazing tools available in Photoshop and Elements. I think it is so fun to explore these tools and to utilize them in creating a page that sets the mood and captures the heart of your photos.



As I continue to work on my photography, the key phrase is "thinking ahead"....thinking ahead in terms of my camera settings and preparing for opportunities....thinking ahead in terms of where I am going to be able to capture the best photo....thinking ahead in terms of what types of photos I need to create a strong page that captures the heart of my photos. As I continue to work on my photography, these three little factors have certainly played a huge approach to the way I try to capture our lives.



All products are from Designer Digitals.

Scrapbook YOUR Story

I would have to say that my favorite thing to scrap is my children...hands down. I love to capture the little moments and big moments of their lives and put them on paper so they will always remember them. Documenting life is certainly one of my passions and I think I could say that their lives have been pretty well documented over the years. They each have scrapbooks upon scrapbooks filled with memories that I hope they will always treasure. This year one of my goals is to try and get MY story on paper. I struggle with creating scrapbook pages about myself. I don't know if it is because I don't want my photo on the page, or if I believe that my life is too boring to scrap. Regardless of the reasons, I rarely do a page on myself and yet, I truly believe that I should. Years from now, I think my children will treasure the peek into my world. Today I was dusting our room and came across a music box that is very special to me but the kids have not heard the story about it. I decided to do a page on it and this is how it turned out...

All products are from Designer Digitals.

It felt so good to write about something so special to me and to know that this story is getting passed onto my children. As I look around their home, this is just one little item that has a very special story attached to it but I can see more items that have a story attached to them. I don't think it is easy to write about yourself but I would say that this page was and I feel so refreshed getting it down on paper. I encourage you to do the same. Find an item that is special to you and write the story of why it is special to you. I guarantee you will be happy that you did.

Scrapbook Page Layering with Debbie Hodge

Ever since coming to Designer Digitals, I have enjoyed seeing the work of Debbie Hodge. She has such a gift for page design and creating BEAUTIFUL pages that tell a story. I LOVE to study her pages. She seems to always know EXACTLY where to position photos, layers, elements, and titles. In addition, I'm always in awe of how she uses patterened papers.

Debbie has a new class starting early next week. Scrapbook Page Layering is filled with helpful tips about page design and SO much more. This class is for paper and digital scrapbookers.

Scrapbook Page Layering with Debbie Hodge

January 24 - February 14

The class includes...
- 6 reasons layers belong on your scrapbook pages

- 2 things every layer must do

- 5 layered foundations of scrapbooking any photo combination

- 4- part formula for mixing patterned papers

- 3 mix-and-match approaches to making eye-catching focal photos

- 7 ways to get "layers with lift"

- 3 hybrid foundations that use stash and dazzle the eye

- 8 perfect placements for embellishments

- 3 recipes for making embellishment clusters with your stash

This course is LOADED with helpful tips for any type of scrapbooker. I had the privilege of working with Debbie Hodge last fall at Get It Scrapped and I was in awe of how she operates. She puts her heart and soul into everything she does. It was just a pleasure working with her and I learned so much. You will not want to miss this opportunity to learn so many valuable techniques from such a gifted layout designer. You can find out more information here.

Color Challenge

I love finding inspiration to springboard my creativity. Designer Digitals has a whole host of challenges that I participate in every chance that I get. I think these challenges help me to step outside my box and try new things or just approach my photos in a different manner. There is a new challenge at Designer Digitals. Our newest team members, Connie Cullen and Melissa Hill have started the "Color Challenge". Every other Monday, they will provide a color scheme to inspire us. This is the beautiful color scheme that they selected for this week...


I'm always up for a challenge and couldn't wait to get started on this. I looked for photos that might work with this beautiful color palette and found some from my daughter's birthday.

All products are from Designer Digitals. I also wanted to mention that there is a prize that goes along with this challenge so you can hop on over to the Designer Digitals blog for more information. I hope you participate. It is so fun to see where the inspiration point takes everyone!

Week 2 of 2012

It has been a busy week. We are in the process of remodeling our master bathroom, Creative Composites started last Monday and I'm thrilled with what I'm seeing in the gallery, and I just finished up the last recording for Creative Composites. Tonight I sat down to do my pages for my new Project 2012 album. I completed four pages. I'm enjoying the simplicity of this album. Simplicity in my eyes seems to equate to more production which I'm certainly in favor of. I still feel like there might be something that I might tweak along the way but I haven't quite put my finger on it yet. I really like this template set that I'm working with. It takes no time to plug the pictures in. Here is a look at Week 2...

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Digital Pages

I can't believe that it is Friday already. It has been a very busy week and I'm looking forward to a long weekend. I created a few pages over the last couple of weeks. It felt so good to get back to "normal/fun" scrapping after getting through my December album and Project 365. Here are the pages that I created...

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Learn Digital Scrapbooking with Templates

Pattie Knox is a dear friend of mine and I feel so lucky to be teaching alongside of her at Creative Passion. Pattie's all new class Learn Digital Scrapbooking with Templates is starting on January 30th and runs through February 16th.

In this course, Pattie will cover a number of key aspects of digital scrapbooking including: understanding the layers palette, clipping masks, transforming and resizing, text tool, drop shadows, creating borders, working with elements, template adjustments and more. All of the information will be presented in two formats, video as well as a written pdf.

If you are interested in learning digital scrapbooking, this class is for you! When I started scrapbooking, I will admit that I was overwhelmed. I didn't know where to start. Pattie will show you in a series of recordings the basic tools that are essential to digital scrapbooking. Having these tools in your "tool belt" will allow you to jump right into a whole world of digital memory keeping....a world that I am ecstactic to be a part of. If you are interested in creating artistic pages that include blending, Pattie's class would be a perfect place to get the tools needed for future classes in digital art. Once you have the basics down, you could jump right into Blending and Beyond which will be starting in mid February.

Pattie Knox is brilliant. When I first started digital scrapbooking a few years ago, I subscribed to Digital Scrapbooking magazine. Pattie wrote tutorials for that magazine. I loved these tutorials and couldn't wait to get my hands on them. When I discovered Designer Digitals, I was thrilled to find out that Pattie was one of the designers there and also taught classes at Get It Scrapped. I have taken both of Pattie's Art Journaling classes and I cannot say enough about them. I was over-the-moon with the skills I acquired from Pattie. And now, I am working alongside Pattie to develop the digital offerings at Creative Passion. I still can't believe it. Pattie is just a delight. She has such a wonderful sense of humor and is so kind. You will love learning from Pattie.

If you have ever wanted to start digital scrapbooking, there isn't a better time to do so. I would strongly encourage you to head on over to Creative Passion and get signed up for Learn Digital Scrapbooking with Templates. I know you will be glad that you did!

Life in 2012

In 2010, I hesitantly embarked on Project 365. I wasn't quite sure that I could stick to a project for that long. I was also a little nervous about the template aspect of the project. I knew that I wanted to use a template to keep it simple and to have consistency throughout my album but using the same template for an entire year seemed like a big commitment. I wanted to give it a try though because I wanted record of the little details of how we spent our days. I discovered that I could do it...I committed to doing my page each week...I take photos every day so that wasn't an issue at all and I learned that I enjoy documenting our lives in this manner.

In 2011, I was excited to get started. I decided that I still wanted to keep it simple so I created a set of four templates to use. I also decided that I wanted to include more than 7 photos a week and included special events pages as well using the same four templates. I loved working with that template. My album for 2011 should be here any day and I can't wait to get it. I feel like the inclusion of special events pages really made it so much more comprehensive.

I've been trying to decide what my approach for 2012 would be and I'm excited about taking this project a bit farther. As I was getting ready for Creative Composites, I went through all of my photos for 2011. I discovered that there were a ton of photos that I absolutely LOVE that didn't make it into my 365 album because they didn't fit into the 7 days or I would not consider them a special event. The photos that I found, I would love to create "fun pages" for my children's albums with them but frankly I forgot about many of them. I often use my 365 album as a reference book to find pictures and stories that I want to expand on for my children's albums. I decided that my goal for 2012 was to get as many of the photos that I love in this album as possible and to still include the everyday photos as well as the special events. In the long run, this will help me remember what photos that I want to expand on for my children's albums.

I've wanted to expand on this album before but I didn't because I knew that Shutterfly had a 100 page maximum and with the volume of photos that I take, I would be over that in a heartbeat. Well, I'm taking a bold move this year....I don't like change but I'm excited about this new project. My friend Esther who is on the Creative Team posted an album a couple of weeks ago that I kept thinking about. She takes the "Photo a Day" project to a whole different level. She creates a page for each day of the year. She takes the photo, puts it in her template, journals and saves it. She posted a preview of her album from last year. It is AMAZING and so inspiring! You can find it here. Esther's project confirmed to me that I wanted to go bigger and have my album include as many photos as I can. I'm also hoping to include some memorabilia this year by scanning in some of the kids drawings, notes, etc.

I will be using Blurb this year for my album. I have a very systematic approach that makes this project feasible for me....I think...only time will tell. I am going to stick to a specific night in which I make my pages for the week. Last year, I would do one or two for the week depending if we had any special events. They don't take long at all. This year, I'm going to do the same but I'm not going to limit myself. If I have photos that I love, I'm plugging them into the template and calling it done. I will do as many pages that I want. I'm going to commit to one night of plugging in my photos and see where I end up. Here is a look at my pages for Week 1.

I created seven slight variations of this template using the products from Designer Digitals. I wanted it simple and graphic. Some of the templates have seven photos...some have more...some have less. I am still planning on taking a photo each day and documenting our journey but some days will have a page of their own if I have photographs that I want to include. I used a black background because I love how colors pop off of black. The only scrapbook element that I need to change for each page is the color of the top border by bringing in solid color paper. I used circles throughout this spread because I like to use shapes and repetition of them to help the eye move around the page. I'm hoping this album becomes a combination of Project 365/6 and Project Life.

Here is one of the templates...

I'm excited for a fresh start and really hoping that I can stick with this system. It will not only be a document of our life, it will also be a reference book as well. I still want to do as many "fun pages" for my children's albums as I can...I just love it so much and really need that creative outlet. This book will allow me to have them all in one place so I don't forget about photos....I can look through the album, find the photos that I don't want to forget and the journaling will be right there as well. I believe that it is very feasible if I just commit to one night and see where it takes me. Every year, I learn something more from these projects. I have learned that I can do it...I have learned that using a template makes it very simple to complete each week...I have learned that I can easily take a photo a day...I have learned that I like including special event pages...I have learned that I like having one large focal photo on the page. I am sure that next years project will be somewhat different as I learn from this years project.

To those of you who are embarking on this type of project for the first time. I wish you the best. My advice would be to keep it fun, simple and stay on top of it each week. In the end, you will be so glad that you did.

Just a last minute reminder that Creative Composites starts tomorrow...TOMORROW....YEAH! Registration will close at noon tomorrow so if you are interested, please head on over to Creative Passion. Blending and Beyond starts in February and I will have another class of Creative Composites following Blending and Beyond.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Creating Keepsakes

Creating Keepsakes is a magazine that I have subscribed to since it's very beginning. In my early years of scrapbooking, I couldn't wait to get it in the mail. I always enjoy going through it. I have been very lucky to have some of my work published by Creating Keepsakes over the last year. Here are some of the most recent pages that appeared in their magazine.

Creating Keepsakes January/February 2012 issue
Hoidays and Celebrations Issue 2011

Creating Keepsakes November/December 2011

Creating Keepsakes October 2011

Creating Keepsakes July/August 2011

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Project 365 Specifics

I have had several questions about my Project 365 for 2011 so I thought I would share a little bit more about my approach to this album. I knew there was a direct correlation between keeping it simple and me actually doing the pages each week. When I first started to scrapbook, I did so as a means of documenting life and putting my pictures some place rather than a box. Now....I would admit that it is 50/50 between wanting to document life in addition to my desire to create. It is a win-win!

By doing this project, I feel like I can be "free" to create whatever "fun" pages I want because I have so much documented in this album. In a nutshell, I don't feel the pressure of having to create a page for everything because I still have it documented in this book. AND to be perfectly honest with you, when I am looking to do a...what I call "fun" page, I will go through this album to jog my memory.

My approach to this project last year, included these four templates. I used Jelly Alpha No. 18 by Maplebrook Studios for the word "Week". I used an alpha for this portion of the title because I knew it would be there every week and I could easily change the number of the week by using the text tool.

In this album, I included "special events" pages in addition to the weekly pages. I felt like this made my album so much more complete than my previous run at this project. When I selected which template to use, I always wanted the large photo to be opposite one another (one on top and one on the bottom) to give the page balance. You can't really see my journaling because it is so tiny but it was just basic tidbits about our entire week and not what was just pictured in the photos.
Each year I have learned something new from this project. I thought about using this same template set again for 2012 because I REALLY liked it but decided to do something different just to stay fresh. I'm in the process of finalizing my system for this year. I'm excited to get it rolling.

All products are from Designer Digitals. If you would like to see the specific credits, you can find them here.

It really IS a manageable project. I just kept to a schedule in which there was a specific day of the week that I did my page. It felt good to do a little recap each week and didn't take long at all. I will admit that I was nervous headed into this project the first time around because I don't like starting something that I can't finish. I quickly learned that it really wasn't a big commitment if I just spent a little time each week. My album should be here in a day or two and I cannot wait to share it with my family. I know that years down the road...I will really enjoy seeing this recap of our life "back in the day".

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Creative Composites

Creative Composites starts in less than one week and I'm so excited. As many of you know, I taught Blending and Beyond this fall. I will admit that I was giddy when I looked in the gallery and saw the beautiful layouts that everybody was creating....it was a blending bonanza! I decided that I wanted to teach another course that expanded on Blending and Beyond. I started working on this course in the middle of Blending and Beyond and I'm excited that we are getting so close. In this course, I will demonstrate how I use blending and blending modes for color enhancements, filters, creating motion and sequencing of photos. I'm looking forward to class starting next Monday.

This course is designed for people who have taken Blending and Beyond. I will be offering Blending and Beyond in February. The structure of Creative Composites is very similar to Blending and Beyond. It is made up of a series of demonstrations which include an outline of the demonstrations. There will also be three live webinars. The biggest change with this course is that I decided to prerecord all six demonstrations. In the fall, class participants received three prerecorded videos and three recordings of the webinars in which I did a live demonstration. I feel really good about this change.


I really enjoyed putting these layouts together and I can't wait to see how everybody interprets them. I have gone ahead and posted all six layouts and the credits in the class gallery at Creative Passion. The class forum is also open so if you are all registered, you can head on over and take a peek. Registration will close next Monday.


This is the layout that I will be demonstrating in the first week of class...








All products are from Designer Digitals.

Putting a class together is no easy task and I certainly did not do this by myself. A huge, HUGE "thank you" to Tami Taylor, my husband Jeff, Debbie Hodge, Pattie Knox, Linda Hoenstine, Katie and Randy Pertiet, and John Morton. This class wouldn't be possible without the help and support of all of these wonderful people!

I also just wrote an article on repetition for Get it Scrapped. You can find it here.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Final Album for Project 365

Happy New Year! I hope you enjoyed the holidays! 2012 is here and I can hardly believe it. There is just something about the new year that makes me feel like I am getting a fresh start. I really worked hard to finish up my projects for 2011 so that I could indeed have a fresh start. I don't like lingering projects. I'm very much a "get it done" kind of person.

This morning I plopped in my last picture for Project 365 and ordered it. It feels really good to have this album complete. I REALLY enjoy this project. This is the second year that I have done an album such as this. The kids were just going through the first one yesterday again. My first attempt at this project was to include a photo a day for the entire year of 2010 and that is exactly what I did. When the album came back, I wished I would have included more photos from our special events day so I decided to do that for 2011. I feel like this album is a lot more complete.

There has been a lot of talk about Project 365 and variations of it. I think that there are a number of people who are interested in attempting it but scared for the long haul. I can say without reservation that this is the easiest project for me to do. I love photography so it certainly isn't a problem to take a photo each day. I use a very basic set of templates. I happened to create the templates for 2011 inspired by a template that I had seen of Anna Aspnes. I have a set night each week that I plop the pictures in and that is about all. It really helps me enjoy scrapbooking more because I don't feel stressed to keep up. In fact, I will go through my album to jog my memory of pages that I still want to scrap. I would highly recommend it. Keep it simple, keep it fun and at the end of the year, you have a whole year documented...what could possibly be better than that. I wish I would have started this years ago.


If you are interested in taking a peek at my entire album, you can find it here.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

This week my goal is to figure out my approach to 2012. I know it will be clean and simple....I just need to figure out the rest.

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!