The Magic of Blending

I think it is no secret that one of my favorite aspects of digital scrapbooking is blending a photo.  I think it brings such a unique and beautiful look to a photo.  Blending allows you to create different moods on a page, it allows you to add textures to a photo, it allows you to create art using your very own photos.  Whats not to love about it?

One of my classes called Creative Composites ended a couple of weeks ago.  I'm always a bit sad when a class ends because I'll admit it, it is a treat for me to go to the gallery each day and see what everybody is creating.  The students in my class inspire me and they are so much fun to top it all off.

The gallery is FULL of amazing pages but I just had to share this set of pages with you.  It was created by Cathy and I think it AWESOME!  First of all Cathy has seven children and I think that in itself is amazing.   She created this page during class.  She had a photo of six of her seven children standing at the edge of the ocean.  I could look at this page all day long.  First of all to have six children lined up like that is a miracle in itself and then look at those reflections.  I told her that this would be hanging on my wall for sure.

Well Cathy was feeling a little bad that her oldest son was not in the photo.  She found another photo in which he was standing at the edge of the ocean and combined it with this photo.  The photo of her son was taken at a different time of day and there wasn't a reflection in the water.  In addition to having to blend her son into the image, she had to alter the colors to match the other photos as well as create a reflection to match the others.  I was SO impressed to say the least.  She said that her son was so happy to now be included in this amazing photo.

Cathy's page is such a wonderful example of how blending can enhance an image.  Photoshop gives us so many tools to create.  If you can imagine it, you can create it.   Blending allows us to take those tools and let our imaginations run.  It is empowering and inspiring.  Thank you Cathy for sharing these wonderful examples with us.  I am so inspired!

Skiing

The kids had off of school today and Jeff had the day off as well.  We did something that we hadn't done before as a family, we took the kids skiing.  Jeff and I would go skiing occasionally before we had children but it has been 10 years since that has happened.  We didn't quite know what to expect and they absolutely LOVED it!  I thought it would be fun to share some photos from our day on the slopes.

The girls picked it up very quickly.  There are a lot of similarities to skating and we couldn't get them off of the hill.  Quinn was all about speed and couldn't understand why you would want to turn to slow down.  I know they can't wait to go again.  It was such a great day together as a family.

Doodling on Digital Pages

Michelle Houghton is an amazing artist and teaches art at Creative Passion.  Her new class Doodles in Technicolor is on sale at Creative Passion and looks like a whole lot of fun!   We had a Digital U tonight and Michelle was nice enough to share her talents with us.  She created some designs for us and I was so excited to use them on my page.

My daughter Ellie recently got her own room.  She is in love with zebras and picked out turquoise zebra bedding for her room.  I think it is so fun and cute.  I sent Michelle a picture of Ellie's new room and Michelle sends me this back:

Isn't this awesome.  I was so excited to play with it.  I immediately turned it to turquoise and Ellie actually thought I took a picture of her bedding (which I of course would do...she knows me well).

I just love that with a few clicks, you can easily change colors and anything else so that it works for your photos.

Here is the layout that I came up with.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Thanks Michelle for sharing your art with us.  It was so much fun to work with.  If you would like to see the recording of Digital U which includes a GORGEOUS page by Amy, the recording will be up shortly at Creative Passion.

Upcoming Events

Hello.  I wanted to make sure that you all were aware of the quarterly sale that is currently going on at Designer Digitals through February 13th.  Everything is marked down 30% and there are new 99 cent items each day.  If you had your eye on some products, it would be a great time to take advantage of the sale.

Digital U - Every month Pattie, Amy and I get together to talk about various topics related to digital scrapbooking and memory keeping.  These live webinars are free and we have one coming up this Sunday; February 10th at 9:00 pm EST at Creative Passion.  This week we are using Michelle Hougton's awesome artwork on our pages and I'm excited to see what everybody came up with.  You just need to register for Digital U.  Once again it is free.  Once you are registered, you will see it in your "Course Materials" and on the "Welcome" page, you will find the schedule with the registration links.

Here is the upcoming schedule:

Sunday, February 10th at 9:00 pm EST - Doodles on Page
Sunday, March 10th at 9:00 pm EST - Brush Discussion
Sunday, April 14th at 9:00 pm EST - Anatomy of a Layout with Jana Morton

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

CK Blog - Free Template

Hi Friends, I'm over on the Creating Keepsakes Blog today with a free template.    You can check it out here.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

New Class - All-Star Graphics

I am SO excited to tell you that my new class is now on sale at Creative Passion.  All-Star Graphics combines two of my passions in life...athletics and creating digital art.  I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am to share these passions with others.

This course will start on Monday, March 11th and will be four weeks long.  The class is for Photoshop and Elements (10.0 and higher) users.  There will be four main lessons and four mid-week challenges.  In each of the main lessons, students will watch every step of my creative process as I bring an athletic image together.  In the mid-week challenges, I will provide an image for inspiration.  I will demonstrate a technique to coincide with the image and to help get your creativity flowing.  There will also be a written "game plan" to walk you through all of the recordings.

Here are two of the four images that I will be demonstrating in class.

Image for Week 1:

Image for Week 4:

All Supplies are from Designer Digitals.

All-Star Graphics will run from March 11 - April 4.  It is currently on sale and you can register here.  There is an early bird coupon code (ALLSTAR10) so you don't want to wait.  I look forward to having you in class!