Journey

Upcoming Classes

2012-01-31T21:09:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-30T09:36:00.001-08:00

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

2012-01-27T21:54:00.001-08:00

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

2012-01-25T05:21:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-22T21:57:00.001-08:00

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

2012-01-20T05:18:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-17T07:45:00.001-08:00

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

2012-01-15T20:59:00.001-08:00

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

2012-01-12T20:54:00.001-08:00

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

2012-01-09T20:09:00.001-08:00

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

2012-01-07T22:33:00.001-08:00

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

2012-01-05T20:44:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-03T21:52:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-01T21:48:00.001-08:00

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

2012-01-01T05:32:00.000-08:00

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!

Tubing

2011-12-29T20:57:00.001-08:00

The kids have been home all week and we've had a great week. The temperatures are so warm here right now...I can't believe we are at the very end of December and we don't have any snow. Today we went tubing with our dear friends and let's just say that the snow making machines at the hill have been in full force because they have a TON of snow. We had an absolute BLAST today. You can't beat snow tubing with temperatures in the high 30's. I will take that any winter day. Here are some of the photos from today's outing. I can't wait to scrap these.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Christmas Album

2011-12-26T18:32:00.000-08:00

I hope you enjoyed the holidays! We had a wonderful Christmas! It was fun, it was relaxing, it was perfect.....well, I would have liked a little snow. I can't remember the last time that we had a Christmas without snow. The temperature was warm so that made up for the "no snow". I just completed our Christmas album. It feels so good to have it done so that I can move on to other things. The album is very long. On days that we had a lot going on, I created two pages. You can find a link to the album here if you would like to take a peek.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from this Christmas...

We went to my brother's house for Christmas Eve. We had so much fun. Quinn is obsessed with Star Wars. My brother got him a Chewbacca (Chewey) backpack and he was in HEAVEN. When I think of this Christmas, years from now, I know that I will have a visual of Quinn walking around with a wookie on his back. It made my heart melt.

A little note for Santa next to his cookies...

The gang on Christmas morning with you-know-who on Q's back...

Taking in Santa's inventory...

Getting our stocking down....still with a wookie on his back...

It was such a fun morning! We have so much to be grateful for.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Christmas is such a special time but I will have to admit that I feel less stress already. I am excited to get back to "regular scrapping" again. We only have two weeks left until Creative Composites starts. I'm just getting everything finalized for class and I'm really excited for it to begin. I hope you are doing well. Thanks for stopping by!

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T05:49:00.001-08:00

On this very special day, I want to wish each of you a very blessed Christmas. I hope you are happy, healthy and surrounded by love! We are excited around here and looking forward to spending time with our families. It is such a magical time of year and it makes me so grateful for all of the blessings that God has given us....and of course Baby Jesus is on the very top of that list! Merry Christmas!

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Year in Review Journaling

2011-12-20T20:50:00.000-08:00

As 2011 comes to a close, it is a perfect time to reflect on the year. I remember last year, I wanted to do a yearly recap and frankly I pushed it off until I couldn't remember what I wanted to say. This year I was bound and determined to do a recap of 2011. I completed this page for the 3 kits/ 3 ways challenge that is up on the Desinger Digitals blog. I love the kits that were selected for this challenge. I wanted to make this simple so I used my favorite journaling method...write as much as you can and don't worry about punctuation and grammer. I made a lenghty list of all of the points that I could remember for 2011. It took me no time to do this and I know that years down the road, I will need the reminder of what all transpired for our family in 2011.

With the holidays upon us, there is certainly a lot to do but I want to encourage you to take 15 minutes and jot down as many things that you can remember about the year. I think years down the road, you will appreciate reading all of the little details that summarized the year.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Life in December

2011-12-19T20:36:00.000-08:00

Life is in full swing right now.....I thought I would give you a peek into our little world these days.

Quinn has been battling a cold and has not been himself lately. We have had a lot of snuggle time.

I'm in the middle of all of the recordings for Creative Composites. I decided that I am going to offer all six demonstrations in a prerecorded format. The live webinars will also be scheduled. I'm really looking forward to class!

We have had several church programs for the kids which has been so special.

Ellie had a few friends over last week to celebrate her birthday....they had a lot of fun and it made me so thankful that she has such nice friends....one birthday party down....

....one to go..... I'm trying to plan Mia's party...the invites are out....just trying to figure out the activities for the party.

Trying desperately to keep up with my December Daily album...

All products are from Designer Digitals.

I still have a little bit of shopping left to do, some baking and wrapping. Life is good but beyond busy right now. I'm really looking forward to spending Christmas with my family and relaxing!

I hope you are all doing well and enjoying this busy time of the year. Thanks for stopping by!

Middle of December Daily

2011-12-16T18:14:00.000-08:00

I am happy that it is Friday and that we are coming down the home stretch for December Daily. I really am enjoying the project but I will be happy when it is complete and I can scrap something else....let's just say that I chomping at the bit to do some blending and more artistic pages right now. There is so much going on that I have just been focused on staying on top of this project. Here are my pages for the last two weeks...I have a couple that are still in the works. I'm really keeping the pages simple so that I stay on task.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

I hope you are all enjoying this Christmas season! Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Gift Idea - Coffee Tumbler

2011-12-14T13:19:00.000-08:00

You are probably aware that I love to create digital art. I am always trying to look for unique ways to use the art that I create and I also love to give personal gifts to my loved ones. My father-in-law is one of my most favorite people in the world. He is always eager to help me out with the kids and I am so grateful for his presence in our lives. I created this page after our family vacation this summer. I wanted to use it for part of his gift. I found some coffee tumblers at Starbucks for $12.95. You can create your own collage with them. So I took this layout and made it into a coffee tumber. I thought I would show you how I did that.

The coffee tumbler contains an insert that people are supposed to decorate and insert it back in the tumbler. I took out the insert, scanned it into the computer. In photoshop, I extracted the black image to create a template for my tumbler. I took my original layout and moved pieces of it over from the psd file and it worked so well. Here it is how it looked after my additions...
Here is the finished product. It didn't take any time to put this together. I know a lot of us put so much work into our passion. It is so fun to find ways of using that passion beyond scrapbook pages. I'm excited to give this to him and I hope that he likes it.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Amy Kingsford's Blog

2011-12-12T18:11:00.000-08:00

I have been lucky enough to get to know Amy Kingsford over the last couple of months while I was teaching at Get It Scrapped as well as through Masterful Scrapbook Designs. She is just a wonderful person who loves to share her passion for scrapbooking with others. She teaches courses at Get It Scrapped and will also be teaching at Creative Passion. Amy is very inspiring and has a lot of GREAT ideas. She just redesigned her blog and is now sponsoring the 12 days of Christmas which includes some opportunities to win products. I think you will find a lot of wonderful information there. Her blog can be found here.

Ellie's Birthday

2011-12-11T21:55:00.001-08:00

December 12th is a big day around here. We have three birthdays to celebrate in our family including my beautiful Goddaughter, my brother-in-law and our daughter Ellie. She has had the countdown going for weeks it seems. While she is in a hurry to get to her birthday, I don't know that I am. Tonight I went back and took a little stroll down memory lane with some old photos. I'm not quite sure how it happened but she has gone from this...
to this in no time flat.

I look at these pictures and I can't quite grasp how this happened. Once again I feel like I am so very aware of time and how precious it is. Ellie has been such a blessing to us and this transformation only shows how changes occur before our eyes.

I apologize for the lack of blog posts lately. Let's just say there is certainly not a shortage of things to do right now but life is good...very, very good. I've been busy getting ready for Christmas, Ellie and Amelia's birthdays, in the middle of the recordings for Creative Composites, the kids Christmas programs, and trying to keep up with my December Daily album and wrap up Project 365.

I hope you enjoyed a wonderful weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

Visiting Santa

2011-12-08T05:03:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I took the kids to see Santa. They were both so excited and crawled right up on his lap. It took me by surprise that they are no longer scared of him and there were no tears. We had such a fun morning.

I take a lot of photos in general because I enjoy working on my photography and love capturing/documenting life. When I am taking the photos, I just enjoy the process of it all and I always get caught up in what is going on around me. It is at night, after the kids go to bed, that I love to just look at the photos and reflect on the day without any distractions. Last night as I looked at these photos, it made me kind of sad. Who knows how long they will jump at the chance to sit on Santa's lap. This may have been the last...I hope not but it could have been. Time is so precious and I seem to want to hold onto every last minute....well, maybe not the moments when the kids are fighting but more often than not, I don't want time to slip away. Thank God for my camera and the ability to savor these precious moments a little bit longer.

Have a great week and thanks for stopping by!

December Daily Continues

2011-12-05T20:11:00.000-08:00

December is in full swing now. I have been keeping up with my album even though I have a million other things that I should be doing...priorities...right? I absolutely LOVE doing this project. I just wish there were a few more hours in each day. I have stayed true to my plan of doing a large photo on the left and something simple on the right hand side. I have struggled with my photography during this project. I am not very good with the camera indoors and with poor lighting. Unfortunately in Minnesote in December most of my shots fall under that umbrella. I tend to be a perfectionist so I'm just trying to let go of some of that and move on. Here are a few more of my pages for this project.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the holiday season. Have a great week and thanks for stopping by!

Creative Passion

2011-12-02T04:52:00.001-08:00

Finally...the day is here! I am SO EXCITED to share our new website with you. Creative Passion is now open and I encourage you to check it out. I am thrilled to be teaching my classes for 2012 at Creative Passion alongside a panel of VERY talented and inspiring people. Debbie Hodge, Michelle Houghton, Amy Kingsford, Pattie Knox and Tami Taylor will all be teaching courses at Creative Passion.

Tami Taylor owns and operates Creative Passion. She has worked alongside Debbie Hodge for years. I am thrilled with what she has done with the website and she has been fabulous to work with. Please sign up for the mailing list and get registered so you can be first to hear about upcoming courses. In addition to the private galleries and forums that are available to students, there will also be a public gallery that should be ready soon. The Grand Opening Sale (10% off) will run through December 6th.

At the beginning of 2012, I will be offering two courses.

Blending and Beyond will run from February 13 - March 19.

This is one of the six layouts that I will be demonstrating in class:

Creative Composites is designed for students who have completed Blending and Beyond. Creative Composites will run from January 9 - February 13, 2012.

This is one of the six layouts that I will be demonstrating in class.

I have had a number of questions about the two courses and I just want to clarify. Creative Composites is ONLY for students who have taken Blending and Beyond. In Blending and Beyond, I cover A LOT and I go into great detail. This information is very important for Creative Composites. I will offer a second session of Creative Composites after Blending and Beyond. You will be able to register in February for the second run of Creative Composites which will start at the end of March/early April.

One of the many advantages of the new site is that I have the flexibility to teach what I would like. I have a number of ideas running through my head right now and just need time to develop them. I am over-the-moon to be teaching alongside Pattie Knox in the digital area of the site. When I first came to digital scrapbooking, I subscribed to the Digital Scrapbooking magazine and would love to read the tutorials that she had written for the magazine. I am really excited about working with her to develop the digital offerings at Creative Passion. I am looking forward to an exciting year at Creative Passion!

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Elf on the Shelf

2011-11-29T20:44:00.001-08:00

I wanted to share with you what has been going on this week at our house that has been a HUGE hit! On Sunday, I went to Target by myself which in all honesty ranks right up there with going on a Caribbean cruise...it is a luxury. When I got home, I explained to the kids that Santa Claus was outside of Target handing out these boxes to people so I grabbed one and brought it home.

We sat down and read about the elf that Santa had just given us. The kids quickly named him Elfie. The story explains that this elf has magical powers and if anybody touches him, his powers go away. He stays at our house during the Christmas season and watches how we are acting. Each night after the kids go to bed, he reports back to Santa and then returns to our home before everybody awakes. The kids job is to be good and to find him each morning in his new location. I can't even tell you how AWESOME this has been for the kids. We read the story over and over and they are sooooo excited about it. The one downfall has been that they are getting up earlier each day because they can't wait to find Elfie.

The first morning, Elfie was found on the star.

Here are a couple of photos that I captured of the kids when they found him. It has just been so precious and I highly recommend it if you have little kids in the house.

I hope you are having a good week. I am hoping that in my next post, I will be able to share the new website with you so please check back in the next day or two.

December Daily

2011-11-27T20:22:00.000-08:00

Yes, I realize that it isn't December yet but "December Daily" is what I call this project even though mine should be called "Thanksgiving to Christmas Daily". I started with this project on Thanksgiving just because we usually have a fun Thanksgiving weekend and I want a record of that as well. This weekend proved to be very busy and very fun so I actually had to do a couple extra pages so that I didn't omit anything.

These pages are pretty quick because I'm using a basic template (Scrap Pack Templates by Katie Pertiet) and adding a few embellishments and I'm done. One thing that I really like to do when I am doing a project such as this or Project 365 is to upload the pages to Shutterfly as I go. There is something about seeing them in the book that makes me more committed to a project. I don't like to get behind and that has helped me stay up to speed. I will admit that life is a little crazy right now...there is just a lot going on and certainly not enough time in each day but I love doing this project. Here is a look at my first few pages of my album.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Masterful Scrapbook Designs

2011-11-26T04:20:00.000-08:00

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had an awesome day spent with family.

I just wanted to let you know that I am guest teaching for the month of November at Masterful Scrapbook Designs. The topic is texture and dimension. I have a webinar scheduled for Monday, November 29 at 2:30 EST. This is a reminder to the people that were in Blending and Beyond that you can go to the class forum and sign up. Debbie graciously invited you to check it out.

Masterful Scrapbook Designs is a series of seminars taught by a guest panel of teachers each month. Debbie Hodge owns the site and has done a fabulous job with this series. Each month she brings in five guest teachers to teach on a specific matter of scrapbooking. The panel of teachers consist of both traditional paper scrapbookers as well as digital scrapbookers. It costs $12.50 per month for a WHOLE LOT of inspiration. I have thoroughly enjoyed looking at the breakdown of layouts each month and hearing about everybody's creative process...both paper scrappers as well as digital. Subscribers to MSD get a series of written pdfs that share tips and techniques that work for the guest designers as well as the opportunity to listen to a live webinar and ask questions of each of the guest teachers. All I can say is that it is a TON of information and inspiration. Even when I am not guest teaching, I love having access to all of the different approaches that people bring to scrapbooking. Debbie has created something very unique and fabulous at Masterful Scrapbook Designs. If you haven't checked it out....I certainly think you should.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

First Snowfall

2011-11-23T04:47:00.001-08:00

We had our first snowfall of the season over the weekend. There were screams of excitement in our household. There is something magical about that first snowfall. I would admit that I don't like cold weather but I do like snow. It is so beautiful. The kids took some runs down the neighbors hill. Ellie took one run and she called it a day. Mia, Quinn, Wiley and I spent the entire afternoon on that hill.

Wiley is our English Bulldog who rarely leaves the couch. On this day, he started running down the hill alongside the kids. I almost had a heart attack laughing because he is just not all that "active". I think he almost had a heart attack as well. It was one trip down and he was done. I was thrilled to catch it on film.

I love how his rolls are all pushed back on this shot.

Thanks for stopping by and I want to wish each of you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Blending and Beyond Comes to a Close

2011-11-21T03:59:00.000-08:00

As many of you may know, this fall I embarked on a new little journey. I taught my first scrapbooking class called "Blending and Beyond". As I was preparing for the class, I was nervous and excited. I wanted to make sure that I was able to deliver what people were looking for in a format that was easy to follow. I was very excited for the class to start because I love sharing my passion for scrapbooking with others.

After six weeks, the class has come to a close. I learned so much throughout this process and enjoyed every single step of the journey. I could not have asked for a better group of people to work with. Their enthusiasm, creativity, and insight blew me away. Honestly, I would go to the gallery and I would be giddy. I cannot say enough about how everybody in the class took the techniques I shared with them and made them their own. The gallery is full....FULL of beautiful and inspiring pages. I am so proud of what everybody has done. I thought about posting some pages here so everybody can see what I am talking about but honestly I went to the gallery and started to sweat. There was NO WAY that I could just pick a handful. I want to thank everybody in the class for taking this journey with me. It confirmed two things for me.....1) I LOVE to teach and hope to continue to do it for a long time. 2) There are a lot of talented people out there who are looking for more advanced courses.

I want to also thank Debbie Hodge for giving me this incredible opportunity. I had never taught before and I feel like she took a chance on me and walked me through the entire process. I could never have done this without her guidance, encouragement and insight! I also need to say "thank you" to my husband who played a major roll in all of the technology needed for this course. He has been so supportive through it all. I couldn't have done it without him.

As I move forward, there are some changes that are on the horizon. I have shared a little bit with the people in my class and thought I would share it with you as well. First of all, I will no longer be teaching at Get It Scrapped. Debbie Hodge started Get It Scrapped several years ago because she wanted to also share her passion for scrapbooking with others by teaching. She also started Masterful Scrapbook Designs which has been amazingly successful as well. As Debbie's site has grown, she has found that she has not been able to teach because her time has been focused on taking care of the site and all of the customer support. She would agree that the growth of the site has been fabulous but she wants to get back to teaching herself. In 2012, Debbie will only offer her classes at Get It Scrapped. I cannot say enough positive things about Debbie. I think she is inspiring on so many leveles and I wouldn't hesitate to take any one of her classes. As I move forward, I will be offering my classes at a new site. I cannot share too much with you now but the site will be released in the next couple of weeks. I am OVER-THE-MOON excited to be a part of this new site! I cannot wait to show it to you. There are a number of teachers that I think you will be thrilled with at the new site as well....including Debbie who is offering some classes at the new site. I am thrilled to be teaching on a panel of very creative and inspiring people.

When the new site is released, I will have registration information for "Blending & Beyond" as well as a new class called "Creative Composites". The new class is designed for individuals who have completed "Blending & Beyond". One of the advantages of the new site is that I have the flexibility of teaching what I choose which is wonderful. I have a lot of ideas running through my head right now and just need some time to develop them.

At any rate, please stay in touch with me through my blog and there will be a lot more information coming in the next couple of weeks. Thanks again for checking in and for all of your support! Have a great day!

December Daily

2011-11-18T04:52:00.001-08:00

The last two years, I have participated in December Daily. The idea is to document your life on the days leading up to Christmas by creating a page each day. I have loved this project and it is so fun laying these books on the table during the Christmas season so we can relive these special memories. In the past, I have started this project on Thanksgiving and ended on Christmas Day. I am planning on doing it that way again.

When I start on a project, I really try to make it as simple as possible. I think that there is a direct correlation between the simplicity of the project and me actually completing the project. I don't like to have things hanging over my head. I am very task oriented.

Last year, my album looked like this. I used a template set from Ali Edwards that worked great and really helped make this project feasible. Last year, I used a full page photo on the left side for each day and carried that throughout the album. I really liked that aspect of the book. It made this project come together quickly. I will continue to do that again this year. The only problem with that is that it puts a lot of pressure on my photography to get a decent shot each day but I'm up for the challenge. I'm always trying to work on my photography.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner so I wanted to get my ducks in a row for this season. I have decided to use Katie Pertiet's Scrap Pack Templates. She has two in the store that can be seen here. Katie also has some Christmas versions coming to the store this weekend and next which I am also very excited to use.

Scrap Pack No. 1

Scrap Pack No. 2

The Christmas season is especially busy as many of you would agree so I went ahead and got a jump on the project. I am using the same background paper for the entire album...Krafty Canvas No. 1 and I am using the number charms from one of my most favorite kits Artistry de Blanco. I went through and just placed the background paper and the number charm for each day of the project and saved them. It is a small step but it saves a bunch of time in the long run. If I know that all I need to do each day is open up that page, drag a template on it, add pictures and a few embellishments.....well, I know that I can do it. I just like breaking projects down into a manageable format. Here is a sample page of what I am envisioning for this year's project.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

If you are considering December Daily, I would strongly suggest it. There are little things that you can do ahead of time that makes it easier to keep up when you are in the "craziness of the season".

Happy Friday and Thanks for stopping by!

Green Bay Packers

2011-11-15T14:01:00.000-08:00

Jeff and I snuck away for a couple of days which we have never done before. It was soooo wonderful to ride in the car in peace and quiet and also to be able to have an uninterrupted conversation. We went to the Packer - Viking game in Green Bay. We had such a great time. A huge "Thank You" to our dear neighbor Jan for watching the kids for us. Jeff is a Viking fan and I was born and raised a Packer fan.

It was military appreciation night and I thought this was so awesome! Of course everybody else in stadium is holding up their card except me who HAD to take pictures.

The Packers killed the Vikings but it was still so much fun to be there.

This is a layout that I did last year after going to the Packer game with my dad.

My journaling from last year:

When Mom and Dad first met, one of the things they had in common is that they were both Green Bay Packer fans. They were both born and raised in Minnesota and yet they both loved the Packers. It is not cool to be a Packer fan in Minnesota. In 1970, Mom mailed in the forms to be a season ticket holder. They were placed on a waiting list. In the mean time, we followed the Packers like nobody's business. On Sundays after church, we would spend the day watching football together. They continued to be on the waiting list. In 2003...33 years after applying for season tickets and 10 years after my mom had passed away, my dad got "THE LETTER". He was now a season ticket holder and he couldn't have been happier. Since 2003, my brothers and I have taken turns going with dad to the games. I got to go with him on December 26th of this year. There is nothing that beats Lambeau Field. The fans are crazy, church is held on Saturdays on the weekend of game days, and you cannot go into an establishment in Wisconsin without everybody sporting a Packers jersey. It is unbelievable. It is so fun to see dad at the Packers game...he is like a little kid. I left at 7 in the morning and returned at midnight but you certainly can't beat seeing dad enjoy life like this. He said to me before the game, "thank you for coming to the game with me...you know if your mom would still be with us, she would have loved coming to the games with me". It was so sweet and so true. It touched my heart and I'm so glad that he gets to bask in the glory of Lambeau Field all season long.

I hope you are doing well. Thanks for stopping by!

Recent Pages

2011-11-12T04:03:00.000-08:00

Happy Weekend! I hope you had a great week. I thought I'd share some recent pages with you.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Creating the Scene

2011-11-10T08:15:00.000-08:00

I was just looking at Somerset Memories Fall 2011 issue. I love this magazine as well as their Digital Studios magazine. I find so much inspiration in them.

Throughout my blending class, I have been hearing people say that they are going to approach their photography differently as a result of the class. I believe that the way that I approach photography is probably different than most people. I can't really describe it. I ran across this artist today and I loved the way that she described her work. Her name is Heidi Kelley and this is from Somerset Memories Fall 2011 issue. She wrote:

Somewhere, some time ago, the words "You don't take a photograph, you make a photograph," fluttered past my ears and found themselves ground within my artistic heart. They so accurately described everything that I felt when I watched my children interact with the world on a daily basis. While they were skipping past me - in creative play or gazing into some unknown wonderland they they had created in their own minds - I discovered that I, too, was seeing something around them. When I snapped pictures, I myself, had created a vision of what I saw happening around them. At times I could almost see the "bubbles" that they swore they were dancing in, or the "garden" that those princesses were sitting it. When I heard those words, it became so clear to me how it was that I wanted to create my artwork. For me, it is all about setting a scene and capturing the memory of the very moment in which I "made" the photograph.

I just loved her words. I can so relate to what she is saying. One of my favorite aspects of scrapbooking is trying to convey the mood of the moment. The mood starts by being aware of what is really happening around you when you have your camera in hand. I love trying different angles when I am taking pictures and trying to figure out how that photo is going to work on my page. I have the end in mind as I'm clicking away with my camera. Once the photos are taken, the fun really begins...I love trying to recreate the scene and the mood that was captured in my photos. I think that hands down creating a mood is most most favorite aspect of documenting life.

I read Kelly's words and then reread them. I love her insight and I thought you might find them inspiring as well.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Quarterly Sale at Designer Digitals

2011-11-09T03:52:00.000-08:00

Designer Digitals quarterly sale is this weekend which means 30% off the ENTIRE store including new releases. I can assure you that you don't want to miss the sale. There are many perks to being on the creative team and one of them is certainly seeing the new releases before they hit the store. I'll just say that you are going to love what is hitting the store this weekend!

In addition to the sale, there is a series of chats. It is so fun to connect with other people who share this passion and each chat includes a freebie. Here is the chat schedule:

9 am EST - 30 MM with Cassie
11 am EST - Comfort and Joy with Pattie
2 pm EST - Template Challenge with Kayleigh
5:30 pm EST - Scraplift Challenge with Lynn
9 pm EST - Masking and Blending with Katie

I hope you can take advantage of this fun weekend!

From the Printer

2011-11-07T03:44:00.001-08:00

We had a pretty quiet weekend which was nice. I mentioned in a previous post that I had just ordered some prints from Persnickety Prints. We just received them in the mail and once again I was so impressed with the quality and speed of their services.

I thought it would be fun to show you what life looks like when we get pages in the mail. Most of my scrapbooking inspiration comes from my kids at this point in my life. I always show them the pages that I have created as I'm going along. They usually look at them for a second and that is about it. It is a whole different story when the pages come back from the printer. They sit around the table and we go through each one and put them in their respective piles for their albums. They are so excited to have them in their hands.

When I am creating pages, I would say that my least favorite part of the page is journaling. When we get pages back it reinforces the importance of journaling. I am often in a hurry to move on to my next projec and I know that I don't take the time that I should for journaling in a lot of instances. Once again, I was reminded of the importance of journaling. The kids look at their pages and immediately follow with "mom, read it to me". They treasure the words that I write now...just think how they will treasure them years from now. I would give anything to go through the few photos that I have of my childhood and "hear" the recollection from my mother's point of view.

My kids love to look at their pages as well as their albums. They pull them out frequently. I love seeing them do this and hearing their memories of the event. These days totally reinforce why I am so diligent about documenting life.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Persnickety Prints Sale Ends Today

2011-11-05T04:39:00.000-07:00

As any scrapbooker would say, one of the things that I am very particular about is the quality of my printed images. Last year I started having my pages printed at Persnickety Prints. I have been over-the-moon with their quailty as well as speed. They are having a fall sale right now that ends today (November 5th). Each print is $1.49. I just ordered a lot of prints and wanted to share this with you in case you were looking to have some pages printed.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

My Birthday

2011-11-04T04:14:00.000-07:00

My birthday was yesterday. I will be honest. I kind of like having my birthday. It is just like any other day but it gives me the excuse to use this line with the kids "it is my birthday and you need to be nice to me". I don't get caught up in age...not at all. When I have to report my age on a form...in all honesty, I have to do the math in my head. A couple of weeks ago, I started doing the math for this birthday. 2011-1971 = 40.....40....40...FORTY! And I found myself sitting there thinking....when did that happen? I don't feel like I should be that number although when I look in the mirror now, I am starting to see that number.

Somebody asked me yesterday if it made me feel down to be turning 40. I laughed and said "no". I just like to joke about it. I think of life as a gift...I truly do and to think that God has blessed me with 40 years...I think that is pretty awesome. I don't know where the time has gone. There certainly have been some challenges along the way....things that I wish would have been different but when I look at where I am today....I can't help but be overcome with gratefulness. I am surrounded by a loving family, I get to be home to raise my kids, I am healthy, happy and enjoy life. What more could I possibly ask for?

This is how I spent my day. After getting the kids ready for school, I dropped Ellie and Quinn off at school. Mia and I then headed to one of my most favorite places. The kids and I can frequently be found walking around this little lake, exploring nature, and taking pictures. I absolutely LOVE it!

I took some shots of Mia. I love having special time with her.

We attempted some fun self-timer pictures.

We gathered pretty leaves that Mia was excited to share with her teacher.

Mia and I went to Panera for hot chocolate and blueberry muffins. A cup of hot chocolate was only 338 calories...I couldn't bring myself to look at the calorie count for the blueberry muffins!

The rest of the day was just normal...dropping kids off...picking kids up. We squeezed in a quick dinner out before having to get Ellie to choir practice. Our dear neighbors came over for cake afterwards. My neighbor walked in and saw the balloons that my dear friend dropped off earlier in the day and said "WHAT...this is the BIG one...and this is ALL we are doing....we would have went ALL out if I would have known this was 40"... I just laughed. My birthday was perfect....simple.....just the way that I wanted it.

Thank you to everybody who sent me cards, flowers, gifts, birthday messages and love. I am so grateful for ALL of the wonderful people in my life. I am truly, truly blessed!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

The Beauty of Digital

2011-10-31T19:07:00.000-07:00

We had the best Halloween night. It was my turn to go trick or treating with the kids and they had a blast. It was so much fun to see them run from house to house. The weather was perfect as well.

A couple of years ago, I created this layout for my daughter Ellie who was WonderWoman. Well, let's just say that Quinn saw it today and insisted that he have one as well. He had a few requests though. He needed Robin in the background and I should get rid of Captain American and substitute Hawkman in his position.
All I can say is that I LOVE digital.....15 minutes later and I know that I will have one happy little boy in the morning.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Happy Halloween

2011-10-30T20:41:00.001-07:00

Happy Halloween to all of you! The kids are really looking forward to a fun day. They did trick or treating on Main Street this weekend and had a blast. Ellie informed me that she didn't want to go trick or treating. She thought it would be more fun to hand out candy. It made me kind of sad to realize that she is growing up so fast and leaving stages behind. We'll see what actually happens. I'm hoping that she goes. I thought I would post a few pictures so you can see the costumes.

Hippy Girl

A Fairy

Batman

The whole crew...

Have a wonderful day! Thanks for stopping by!

Deconstructing Project 365

2011-10-28T16:09:00.000-07:00

Almost two years ago, I reluctantly started doing Project 365. I saw plenty of wonderful inspiration in the gallery and I thought it would be so cool to look back on how our days had been spent. I wish I would have done this when my kids were babies. I say "reluctantly" because I wasn't convinced it was something that I would follow through with because I'll admit it, I like scrapping what I want and I generally don't use templates. I think templates are fabulous but I like the freedom of a blank screen. I started the project at the beginning of 2010. I wanted it to be simple in hopes that I would follow through with the project each week. I created a basic template that you can find below. I included seven pictures and a little bit of journaling regarding each picture.

This is what I learned from the first year of Project 365

- I can do it and it is pretty simple if I use a template and stay caught up
- I love having a record of our daily lives
- it wasn't a problem to take a photo a day

When I began thinking about continuing the project in 2011, I tried to figure out what I really wanted out of the book. I would say that the first year, I was just kind of trying it out to see if was something that I could commit to. I found out that I could indeed keep up with the project and enjoyed it. I also discovered that there were some things that I wanted to change for 2011.

1) Journaling - our lives are SO busy that I knew I wanted to record more of what goes on in given week than the description of seven pictures. I love the way that my dear friend Elena who is also on the Creative Team at DD did her journaling for 365. She just listed random things and I followed her lead for this year. I am able to include so many more details with this method. I will certainly be following suit for 2012.

2) Focal photo - I decided that I wanted to include a larger focal photo on each page to make more of an impact.

3) Special Events - In 2010, my book contains exactly 365 photos....one for each day regardless of the day. I decided that I wanted this book to be more inclusive of our lives and that means including special pages for birthdays, holidays, trips, fun family outings. I think that this has been my favorite addition to this years book. I have so many more photos included because of these fun events that I wanted to document on a larger scale. You can see the bottom spread in which I have Quinn's first field trip on the right. I like this because if I fall behind in scrapbooking, I know I still have record of it right here in this album. Honestly, 365 takes the pressure off and allows me to have more time for what I call "fun scrapbooking".

4) Quote - I take a lot of inspiration from what others are doing. My dear friend Carol who is also on the Creative Team at DD has an awesome book going this year. She included in her album quotes that she liked. I LOVE that idea and was quick to incorporate it into my own album. On the bottom of each page, I wrote a famous quote. I really enjoy finding these quotes but I know that I won't do that part again next year....I'm running low on quotes.

5) Color Palette - I used a neutral color palette and color photos. I'm pretty sure that I will use neutrals again for 2012.

I'm just starting to think about next years project and what I want it to include. I thought if you were interested in going on this journey, it might be helpful to hear what things did and did not work for me. I would highly recommend it. My advice would be to just set aside a time that you will complete this project each week. My pages take me about 25 minutes to complete and I know that years down the road, I am going to love having a record of our entire year at my fingertips.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Create your Future Clip

2011-10-27T21:06:00.000-07:00

My dear friend Elena posted this at Designer Digitals the other day. I just LOVE the message and the graphics. I thought you might like to see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SDMwvFr5Gk&feature=player_embedded&noredirect=1

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Holiday Gift Idea

2011-10-25T20:51:00.001-07:00

The holidays are right around the corner and I'm always trying to figure out gift ideas in advance so that I don't have to rush. Angie Wagner who is on the Creative Team at Designer Digitals shared a great project that I thought you might like to see. She uploaded a sample in the gallery last year and I knew immediately that I wanted to give it a try. It was so simple and made for some great gifts last year.

I bought a plain cream (or white) tile that was 6 inches by 6 inches. The tile cost less than a dollar. I purchased Mod Podge which is a sealer.
I printed out one of my 12 x 12 layouts to fit this tile. I'm guessing it was 5.75 x 5.75 inches. I placed the photo onto the tile and then brushed the Mod Podge over the top. I did three coats and let the tile sit over night inbetween coats.

I did one for each of the kids with my favorite layout from that year. I purchased little easels for them and that was it. I gave them to their grandparents. It was such a simple project. You certainly wouldn't need to do a layout that includes pictures. There are so many great products in the store, you could easily create something beautiful for a kitchen or a bathroom.

If you are looking for a gift idea, I promise you that it doesn't get any easier than this. Here is Amelia's tile from last year.

I hope you are having a great week. Thanks for stopping by!

My Style

2011-10-24T04:40:00.000-07:00

I am REALLY enjoying class at Getting It Scrapped. I have been blown away by the pages that people are creating. Absolutely incredible work. The gallery is filled with inspiring pages. My kids have been hearing constantly "oh my gosh....look at this one". The people in the class have been so kind and enthusiastic. I'm going to be sad when it is all over...thankfully we have a few weeks left. One of my students was kind enough to ask me about my scrapbooking style and how I had arrived at this point. I thought I might share that with you as well.

I often hear people say "I recognize that it is one of your pages before I even click on the thumbnail". I don't know if it is good or bad but it would be safe to say that my pages have a unique look to them.

I have scrapbooked my whole life. As a paper scrapper, I would say that I LOVED the look of pages by Becky Higgins (she is no longer at Creating Keepsakes). I would immediately flip to her sketch when the magazine came in the mail and try to lift her page. Her pages were always simple and clean. My husband gave me Photoshop Elements for Christmas one year and I had no clue what it was or what I would use it for. He said "trust me, this is right up your alley". He installed it on the computer for me and I tried to play with it that night. I was SO frustrated that I let it sit for a year. Then I wanted to see if I could create more unique looks for titles on my paper pages. I figured out a few very basic things about how to use text. Then I saw a blended image in a magazine advertisement that intrigued me and I was determined to figure out how they did that. I bought a basic photoshop tutorial by Scott Kelby. I played and played with it until I had it down. I could blend a photo before I could do anything else in Photoshop. Then I took a couple of classes at Jessica Spragues site that gave me some of the basics of Photoshop.

While I was in Jessica's classes, she included products in her classes from Katie Pertiet which led me to Designer Digitals. I discovered a whole world of incredible products that could enhance my blending and everything else for that matter. I dropped my paper scrapbooking and went all digital. I haven't looked back. I have taken a couple of classes since then. One by Pattie Knox at Getting It Scrapped called Art Journaling...which was fabulous. I also took another class that was very template based which just isn't my style. One of my favorite things in life is looking at a blank screen and figuring out how to use it.

I honestly think that I have two types of pages. 1) Bold and Artsy 2) Bold and Clean. My "artsy pages" obviously involve blending and these are my favorite pages to create. I love to try new techniques that can enhance my photos and I do a lot of "playing" in Photoshop. I always want my photos to be the most important aspect of the page. If you came to my house, you would see some of these pages hanging on my walls as well as some of the walls of friends and family members. The second type of page that I like to create is a very traditional scrapbooking page that could probably be duplicated as paper if I had the right products. When I am telling a story of an event or something that has a lot of journaling, I go to this type of page. Again, I still like the photos to be the most important aspect of the page and I like clean lines.

I guess I would describe my style as bold and graphic which I think is interesting because if you met me in real life, this would not be how I characterize my personality. I consider myself quiet and reserved. At any rate, I LOVE every aspect of creating art and documenting life. It has certainly become my passion in life and I'm just giddy that I get to share it with others. I never would have thought that I would EVER be teaching a class on Photoshop when I opened that Christmas gift from my husband years ago. God has certainly been good to me and I'm so grateful that I get to share this passion with the people in my class, the members of the Designer Digitals community and everybody who reads my blog.

I saw this quote yesterday and wanted to share it with you:
We shape our lives not by what we carry with us but by what we leave behind.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Framing without the Frame

2011-10-22T03:36:00.001-07:00

I just took a stroll through my gallery and I think it would be safe to say that I use some type of a frame on almost every page. There are so many fabulous ones in the store...of course I'm going to use them. But occasionally I try to frame my image without using a frame just for a different look.

I like to create a shape...usually some type of rectangle...add a drop shadow to it and then attach a photo. I think it gives it a clean look and helps create depth on a page. Sometimes I simply attach the photos to the shapes and other times I use that shape as a little canvas for blending. It is such a simple technique to use. I thought I would show you some examples of this...

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Again, this technique is so simple but you might want to give it a try. Thanks for stopping by. Have a great weekend!

October Pages

2011-10-19T10:15:00.001-07:00

I hope you are having a great week. We have had a fabulous fall...so beautiful and warm. This week the temperatures have dropped significantly. Fall is hands down my favorite time of the year to take pictures and also scrapbook because of all of the amazing products in the store.

Life has been extremely busy over the last couple of week which is good but there never seems to be enough time in the day or rather at night when I can be productive...thus the blog has been neglected over the last couple of weeks. I'm trying to get my hands around a few scrapbook projects that I need to get started. The first is a vacation album from this summer, the second is that I decided that I would be more prepared for December Daily this year and I'm also trying to figure out how I want to approach 365 for next year. Each of these projects wil involove templates to make it more manageable but I'm trying to figure out which templates and product line that I want to use.

I'm hoping to get back to a regular blog posting schedule here soon. I thought I would just post a few pages from the last couple of weeks.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great week!

Masterful Scrapbook Design - November

2011-10-15T03:28:00.001-07:00

It has been a very busy week....WONDERFUL....but very busy. Class is rolling at Get It Scrapped and let's just say that I am over-the-moon with what I am seeing in the galleries! It has been so much fun and I'm so proud of how everybody has embraced the material that I shared with them in the first week of class.

I am also excited to tell you that I will be guest teaching at Masterful Scrapbook Designs for the month of November. Masterful Scrapbook Designs was created by Debbie Hodge and it is now in it's second year. Each month she has a panel of guest teachers. Last year it was four guest teachers each month and this year it is five. With each month is a new topic. The topics are fantastic and there is such a variety. The topic for November is Texture and Dimension. The guest teachers provide examples of their work. I am providing 10 examples for my work for November and then explaining design aspects of my pages. These examples are included in pdfs in which Debbie puts all of the layouts and ideas together. Each teacher also writes an article and has a live webinar in which people that register can ask questions. I just think Debbie came up with a winner with this format. There is SO much information included each month from both traditional paper and digital scrapbookers. I have enjoyed it so much and found so much inspiration from everybody. In November, I will be guest teaching with May Flaum, Michelle Clement, Cindy Liebel, and Peppermint Granberg. You can learn more about it here.

October 10th

2011-10-10T04:24:00.001-07:00

October 10th has finally arrived and I am so excited. Class started today. The first lesson was posted at midnight last night and I woke up early this morning and a beautiful page has already been posted in the gallery (thank you Val) at Getting It Scrapped. It was a perfect way to start the morning. I'm so excited about starting this new journey in my life.

Jeff was in Kansas City all weekend with our neighbor. He returns today and that makes me very happy!

The weather here has been incredible....80 degree temperatures and the colors of fall are amazing. My camera has been getting a workout!

Here are some photos from the last few days. On Friday, I took Amelia and Quinn to this fabulous little farm. We had a blast!

This is our sweet little neighbor who always comes to see if the kids will play with her. She just turned two and yesterday when I came out into our garage she was standing there and said "Mia jump leaves". It was precious.

I hope you all had a great weekend!

Blending and Beyond Information

2011-10-06T12:26:00.000-07:00

We have been busy putting the finishing touches on class. It has been so fun to see it come together and we are ready to roll. If you have registered for class, we would appreciate it if you could get all set up in the forum and gallery within the next day or two. We want to make sure that everybody is set for Monday. Here are some important dates that I wanted to pass along to you.

October 8th - Registration closes at midnight Eastern Time

Monday, October 10th - Week 1 (Blending) Recording and Class Materials will be posted
Wednesday, October 19th at 9 PM Eastern Time - Week 2 (Blending) Live Webinar (Recording available within 24 horus)
Monday, October 24th - Week 3 (Spilling Over Technique) Recording and Class Materials posted
Wednesday, November 2nd at 1 PM Eastern Time - Week 4 (Spilling Over) Live Webinar (Recording available within 24 hours)
Monday, November 7th - Week 5 (Extractions) Recording and Class Materials posted
Wednesday, November 17th at 9 PM Eastern Time - Week 6 (Extractions) Live Webinar (Recordings available within 24 hours)

Thanks for ALL of the support. Looking forward to "seeing" you in class!

Have a great day!

My "Stuff"

2011-10-03T20:24:00.001-07:00

Someone recently asked me about my equipment. I thought it would be kind of fun to do a blog post on this. I'll start by saying that I don't like change so if I find something that I like....I usually stick with it for a LONG time.

I have a Canon 7D body which I love. I upgraded to this last fall before we hit Disneyworld. My lens: Tamron 28 - 300 mm
This lens pretty much stays on my camera at all times.

My computer: I work on a PC...specifically Dell.

My software: I upgraded to Adobe Photoshop CS5 over the summer. I had used CS2 forever.

My albums: I keep my everyday pages in We R Memory Keepers 12 x 12 Faux albums and LOVE them. They hold so many pages. My albums are all cinnamon.

When I do an actual album from a trip or something specific, I use Shutterfly.

My Prints: I have my 12 x 12 pages printed at Persnickety Prints and I absolutely LOVE the quality.

My Products: Designer Digitals :)

I have to include this little book which has been with me since my paper scrapping days. I love to look for page titles and quotes in here.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Creating Keepsakes Blog

2011-10-03T06:23:00.000-07:00

Katie Pertiet is guest blogging over at Creating Keepsakes this morning. The blog can be found here. She is talking about using blendable photo cards and even included a free sample for you to play with. These blendable photo cards are wonderful....they are so easy to use and create such beautiful effects. I hope you can hop on over there and check it out today.

Getting It Scrapped Fall Lineup

2011-10-02T04:38:00.000-07:00

There are several new classes at Getting It Scrapped this fall. In addition to Blending and Beyond, Katrina Kennedy and Amy Kingsford are also teaching classes that I would love to take. Katrina has some fabulous photography classes this fall that can be found here. Amy Kingsford is offering a class called the MacGyver's Project Remix which helps you see your products in a new and creative way. Anna Aspnes recently did a post on this and is offering a coupon for those of you who have not registered yet. Debbie Hodge put together a "sneak peek" preview of my first week of Blending and Beyond tutorial and you can find it here. I'm very excited about all of the classes at Getting It Scrapped. I'm looking forward to a very fun fall!

Here is a peek at the very first layout that I will be creating in class which starts on October 10th.

I hope you are having a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!

New Pages

2011-09-29T19:50:00.001-07:00

I can't believe it is Friday already....where did the week go? We have had an incredibly busy week so it feels good to be approaching the weekend. We are constantly on the go....between school, swimming lessons, ice skating, girl scouts, choir practice, and basketball......life is hopping.

When the kids go to bed, I unwind by working....ok, I'll be honest "playing" on the computer....here are some of the pages that I have created over the last couple of weeks...

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Fall is certainly in the air here. The temperatures are beginning to drop and the colors are starting to change. I love fall. It is my absolute favorite time to take pictures so I'm excited about the changes that are occurring.

I hope you had a great week. Thanks for stopping by!

The Weekend

2011-09-25T20:28:00.000-07:00

The weekend through my lens...

Thanks for stopping by...have a great day!

Baby Announcements

2011-09-23T07:33:00.001-07:00

Baby announcements are one of my most favorite things to create. I created this announcement for my dear friends. They had some amazing photos from the hospital that were done by Baby's First Photos. I took the group shot of Sophia and her brothers. I immediately fell in love with the photos from the hospital...isn't she GORGEOUS. I couldn't wait to do these announcements. I really wanted them to be clean and simple because the photos captured her beauty so well.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!

Clusters

2011-09-21T03:56:00.001-07:00

Before we dive into today's topic, I just wanted to mention something about leaving comments on my blog. I have had a number of people tell me that they wanted to leave a comment but couldn't seem to get it to work. Honestly, I couldn't figure out how to do so as well but thankfully my husband shed some light on the situation. When you come to my blog, it just goes to the main page. If you click on the title for a particular blog post, a spot appears on the bottom where you can leave a comment. Please feel free to leave comments. I would love the feedback and also input as to what things you might like to see me cover on my blog.

Whenever I'm involved in something, I always try to figure out what my strengths and weaknesses are. I think it is important to do this so that I can try to improve in whatever I am doing. I am constantly evaluating my parenting skills....that is for sure!

As a scrapbooker, there are things that I think I do alright with....I feel very comfortable designing a page, selecting the right photos for the page and of course blending. There are things that I am not very good at. Clustering elements would certainly be one of those things. A cluster is basically a group of products that bring interest to the page and help the viewer's eye move around the page.

I recently completed the page below, Sneaky. When I look at this page, I can see a cluster on the top left that includes a bunny, a word disc and a date tag. I also have a cluster on the left hand side that includes a leaf, flower, and twill. I don't know if this could be "technically" considered a cluster because it is only one element but I have a heart in the middle of the photo cluster. I believe that heart does what the other clusters accomplish, it makes your eye travel to that part of the page.

Well, recently a dear friend of mine Kayleigh started designing clusters for those of us who struggle in this area. Kayleigh is BRILLIANT at using products. I wish my mind worked like hers. Kayleigh's blog can be found here. Her cluster of elements can be found under the Studio DD area at Designer Digitals. You will also find some wonderful templates. She has another beautiful one coming out this weekened called Family Element Clusters. I used it on the page below. It made this page come together in no time....love it when that happens.

Here are some other clusters that are available....believe me they make life a whole lot easier.

I encourage you to look at your pages and figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are. If designing a page, isn't your cup of tea......work with a template or scraplift. If you can't figure out how to do a title, look through an online gallery for ideas. There are so many great resources available to inspire us, we just need to access them and enjoy the entire process of scrapbooking.

Have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by!

Project 365 - Week 37

2011-09-18T21:04:00.001-07:00

We are on Week 37 of Project 365. I think it is hard to believe. I have really tried to stay caught up all year and it is paying off. I have added some "special events" pages this year so it is turning out to be more work but I think I am going to be happier when it is all said and done. I'm so glad that I have a template to work with and the pages don't take much time at all. I think that is probably the key for me.

Here is my latest spread. It includes a "back to school" page on the left and just every day photos on the right.

Here is a look at a few of the other recent pages for this project:

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week!

Blending and Beyond - Early Bird Sale

2011-09-15T18:06:00.000-07:00

This is just a reminder that the early bird sale for Blending and Beyond will expire tomorrow (9/16). If you are interested in taking this course at Getting It Scrapped, you can find additional information here.

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Quinn's First Day of Preschool

2011-09-13T18:52:00.000-07:00

Today was Quinn's first day of preschool. He is going two mornings a week which is perfect for him. I was a little sad when I really thought about it but he was so excited, I just kept focusing on that. He had an awesome day.....here are a few shots....

Good-bye hugs....

When I walked in to get him, this is what I had charging at me....

Life is pretty awesome!

Selvage Frames

2011-09-13T05:20:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be fun to show you a product that I find myself going to over and over again lately. I love these Selvage Frames by Katie Pertiet. I was immediately drawn to these frames because of the colors and textures.

You might not be able to see the frame here but I used it on the edges of the main portion of the image. I used a blending mode and then positioned it so that it was on the very edge of the image. I love the worn look and color it gives.

I have also used it behind some of my framed images to create a matte for them. I used blending modes on both of these images as well. I just love the rugged edge and how they create a soft home for my framed photos.

The sale is still going on at Designer Digitals. If you haven't looked at these frames, you might want to consider them. I'm certainly glad that I have them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Back to School

2011-09-06T18:06:00.001-07:00

The girls headed back to school today. They were both so excited. Ellie is in second grade and Amelia is going to half day kindergarten in the afternoon. I am thrilled that I will still get to spend so much time with her. Here are some shots from the day...

Ellie went to school in the morning and we headed to the park for awhile. Then we took a few more photos before Mia got on the bus. She was so thrilled to be riding the bus.

The following photos are from this afternoon when we picked them up from school. I think somebody missed his sisters.

The girls both loved their teachers and had so much to tell us. The walk/scoot home from school....what a great day!

Blending and Beyond - Registration Open

2011-09-02T19:17:00.000-07:00

I have wanted to teach a class on blending for a LONG time. Today I am thrilled to tell you that registration is now open for "Blending and Beyond" which will be offered this fall at Getting It Scrapped. I want to give a special "thank you" to Debbie Hodge for giving me this opportunity. She has been AMAZING to work with and I think you will really enjoy the format of the class.

The class will be six weeks long and will start on October 10th. The class will consist of recorded webinars as well as live webinars. I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am about this format. I think it will be a great way to share my "go-to" techniques and allow you to ask questions along the way. Each lesson will come right from my desktop as you watch every step of my creative process. I have created six new layouts for this course that are packed with the techniques that I use daily on my pages. 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 the art that you are creating. I cannot wait to see what you create!

Here is a sneak peek at the layout that I will be creating for Week 2....

All products are from Designer Digitals.

More specific information related to the course can be found here.

I hope you will be able to sit next to me on this journey. I am confident that you will see your pages in a whole new light. I look forward to seeing you in class!

House Guest

2011-09-02T05:54:00.001-07:00

We have the cutest little house guest right now..... This is the son of my best friend and we just love having him here. He quickly found out who the caretaker in our household is...

I found them out back in this position....they are so manly...

Quinn discovered this hill in our neighbor's backyard and was just gunning it straight down...I couldn't get enough shots.

Our little buddy is going home today and I'm going to miss him. We have all enjoyed having him here.

I hope you have a great weekend!

Baby Gift

2011-08-30T21:54:00.001-07:00

I love to make gifts for people...always have...always will. I made this baby gift for a friend last week and wanted to share it with you. It is super easy. I found a frame that was 8 x 20. I found it in the multiphoto section of the frames. I really like the size of it and actually have used this size before for various pictures that are in my children's rooms.

I used Pattie Knox's A to Zoo Alphabet. It happens to be one of my favorite alphabets because I love the color and texture of it. I also like that it is clean and bold. After I had Caitlin's name in place, I placed marching ants around all of the letters. I created a layer below her name and filled it with black. I moved the black slightly to the right to create more depth with the letters. I then positioned these sweet little bunnies around her name. The bunnies are by Katie Pertiet and they are frequent flyers on my pages. I added some shadows to the title and a little word art and it was done.

The photo is not that great but I just wanted to show you how it looked in the frame. If you are in need of a gift idea, keep this one in mind.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Today through the Lens

2011-08-28T17:23:00.001-07:00

My weekend started off on the right foot. I sent my "go-to" lens into get fixed a couple of weeks ago. They quoted me 6 - 8 weeks because it was going to Japan. My stomach turned but I had no choice. Well, I got the call on Friday that my lens was back....15 days later (yes, I was counting) and I am back to full strength and it feels SOOOOO good!

Today we went to my husband's company's picnic. I wasn't all that fired up to go but it turned out to be awesome. They went all out this year. When we arrived each of the kids got a cute stuffed dog....there were 6 different jumping balloons......face painters......cotton candy......popcorn....a huge buffet....arts and crafts for the kids. Let's just say the whole family was in heaven. Here are some shots from the outing....

After the picnic, we headed back to church because they have a program for the 2.5- 3 year olds in which they receive a bible from the church...Quinn was so excited.

He didn't waste any time diving in....

I hope those of you on the east coast are safe! Take care everybody and have a great week. Thanks for stopping by!

All About Me Pages

2011-08-26T19:05:00.001-07:00

I think it is obvious that my favorite thing to scrap would be my children...they have scapbooks upon scrapbooks to prove it. I love seeing the world through their eyes and trying to capture the joy that is so much apart of their childhood. I have scrapbooked for about twenty years and I can honestly say that before coming to Designer Digitals, I had never created a page about myself. Designer Digitals has a monthly "All About Me" challenge. Without this challenge, I probably never would have even thought about doing a page about myself. However when I really think about it sure makes sense to do them.

Earlier this summer, I created a page for each of my kids regarding what they are into at this particular stage of the game. I thought it would be kind of fun to do this for myself. As many of you know, my mother passed away many years ago and there is so many details about her life that I wish I could remember or even that I wish I would have asked her. Once I became mom, this became even more apparent. I was so overwhelmed and had so many questions for her....seven and half years into it and I still feel overwhelmed! As I sat down to write this page, I kept thinking about her. I wrote about the things that I enjoy doing with my kids...I wondered what were her favorite things about being a mom....I wrote about some of the little things that frustrated me as well as the things that I am passionate about. I really wish I could get her perspective on her life as a mom. I kept this in mind as I created this page and I really had fun just rambling out random facts about who I am at 39 years old (YIKES...when did that happen). Someday my kids will get a kick out of this...I hope!

I decided that I should have a photo on this page despite my aversion for being in front of the camera. I set up the tripod on our back patio. Ellie came out and saw what was going on and her eyes lit up. She took over from that point and had me doing all of the goofy little poses that I always suggest for the kids. Then Amelia came out and wanted in on the action. Wiley was wandering through as well...I tried to get some shots with him but he really wasn't interested. It was kind of fun even though I feel a little weird about having my face all over a page. I guess I am just making up for the fact that I am never on any pages because I always have the camera...I like that!

Here is the page that I created:

Here are some additional All About Me pages that I had done last year...

All products are from Designer Digitals.

I hope you take some time to create some pages about yourself. They are fun to do and YOU ARE IMPORTANT. You have a story to tell and believe me there are many people that really want to hear it.

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!

Repeating Word Art - Technique Tuesday

2011-08-22T19:32:00.000-07:00

Word art is one of my favorite products to add to a page. I love the simplicity of it and it works really well on pages that are very graphic. I think the word "graphic" would describe my style. One of the ways that I have used word art to unify my layout is by incorporating it into the background paper by changing the opacity or even using a blending mode. I love how subtle it is but it ties the whole page together. Here are some examples of ways that I have used word art on my background paper.

Unconditional Love: You can see that I took the word art that I used for the title...made it larger and then duplicated it several times and "sprinkled" it around the page.

When: On this page, I wrote the title "When" in a font (Impact which is one of my favorites) and then stroked the outside so only the outline appeared. I then duplicated the title and blended it into the background in several places.

Believe: I used an alpha on this title. I highlighted the title with marching ants, filled in the layer below it so that the title would have a shadow. I duplicated this shadow a couple of times, changed the opacity of each of these layers and used it as a type of brushwork.

Happiness: Here you can see that I placed the quote and title in multiple places around the page.

Write It: Once again, I duplicated the quote and made it significantly bigger and placed it over the right hand portion of the page. I then reduced the opacity of it. I love how it reinforces my message.

This is just a simple technique but I really like the look of it!

At the beginning of the summer, I decided to bring you "Technique Tuesday". I have really enjoyed sharing some techniques with you and I hope that you have found them helpful. This will be the last installment of Technique Tuesday at least for awhile. I will continue to share techniques with you from time to time because I really enjoy it but it will be more random. Let' s just say that life is hopping and that is a very good thing...busy but good!

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

North Shore

2011-08-21T19:47:00.001-07:00

We took a quick trip to Duluth this weekend. Duluth is a city in the northern part of Minnesota and it is located on Lake Superior. It is absolutely GORGEOUS. My camera got a workout and we all had so much fun. Here are some photos from Gooseberry Falls.

This is Split Rock. There were a number of beautiful lighthouses that we saw...this one was my favorite....

Today we were on the pier in Duluth. The kids thought it would be fun to run down the pier together holding hands...

And then they stopped in the middle for a little game of ring around the rosie...

I love this shot...

This is what I call Quinn's "little old man stance". Whenever he is pondering something, his hands go behind his back. I think it is the cutest thing...

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Our Week

2011-08-19T20:21:00.000-07:00

Friday has arrived...yeah! We are headed out of town for the weekend and really excited. The week was busy as usual. My camera lens broke while we were on vacation a few weeks ago. It is on it's way to Japan to get fixed which totally bums me out. I used my only other lens as backup...it is going to be a loooooong 6-8 weeks! Here is a little recap of our week...

I survived school shopping with the girls which actually turned out to be fun...I think we spent 1.5 hours and all of our money in one store but everybody came out of there happy which was a bonus. Amelia HAD to get this hat which she ended up wearing all week so it was justified and Ellie HAD to get Vikings sweatpants. The two of them couldn't be more opposite.

A little trip to my favorite park which includes a little trail in which I love to practice photography and the kids love to look for animals...it is a win-win in my book...

I looked at this photo and did a double take....Jeff and Ellie look so much alike here...

Our neighbor boy who is an engineer in the making and is always going through our garage looking for parts assembled this go-cart that the kids had a blast with this week...

Unfortunately the wheels gave out but he came back the next day with a better design...

A lot of time at the park this week...

On Thursday night, a friend invited us to go see the Twin Cities River Rats. They perform every Thursday night and the kids just LOVED it. It is free which is always a bonus and I think that we will be back there again this week. My friend used to be a part of the team. They are performing here on the Mississippi River.

Today Quinn heard heavy equipment in the cul de sac behind our house. I told him he could go watch and when I came to check on him, I found him like this....sitting on top of the fire hydrant enthralled with the trucks.

I hope you have a great weekend!

Silhouettes - Technique Tuesday

2011-08-15T19:45:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we were at this park. Amelia and Quinn were running back and forth through this tunnel laughing hysterically. I just kept taking photos hoping that I could catch the joy in their faces but I knew the lighting was working against me. When I looked at this series of photos on my camera, I will admit that I was bummed because I didn't capture their facial expressions and that is what I REALLY wanted to capture. My pictures got downloaded onto the computer and I didn't even give this series of photos another thought.

Then the other night I was going through photos and this one stopped me in my tracks. I just stared at the computer screen however this time I looked at it in a whole different light. When I really looked at this photo, I found so many things that I loved about it that I didn't see the first time that I saw it. I love that you can see they are in motion...I love the profile shot of Quinn looking at Amelia as he runs by her side...I love the texture of the actual tunnel itself. Although I cannot see their sweet faces laughing, I can hear their laughter when I look at their silhouette. I could have totally disregarded this photo but I looked deeper and found things that I love about it and went with what I had.

I love this silhouette. Here is the original photo...

Although "technically" I added the frame as my last step on this page, I thought you might like to see how it would have looked with just the photo in place.

When I started on this page, I immediately knew that I wanted to make it look like they were running out into the sunset. I decided to extract part of the photo so that just their silhouette and the tunnel remained. Sometimes extractions can be more complicated but this was a simple one. I just used the magnetic lasso tool and traced the edge of the tunnel opening as well as their silhouettes and hit delete. It was as simple as that.

Then I found some beautiful paper by Lynn Grieveson, added some word art, framed it and that was it. The whole page took me less than 20 minutes. I love it when that happens. Here is the end result...

I thought you might like to see some other examples of how I have used silhouettes. I think I wrote about this photo on a previous blog but I will recap. We were outside playing and the chemical truck came to treat our yard. I had to run inside and told the kids to stay in the garage and not go on the grass. When I came back out, I found my daughter and son sitting like this in the garage waiting. This is another photo that I may have disregarded had I not looked deeper. On the surface, I see two kids sitting in a dirty garage next to my van watching a big white truck with a hose coming out of it, spraying icky chemicals on our yard. However, when I removed all of that "stuff", I found a silhouette of a brother and sister who adore one another.

Here is the page that I created with it...

Here is a picture of my husband and our two daughters from years ago. I love this picture. I decided to use this picture for an art journaling class taught by Pattie Knox at Getting It Scrapped. I LOVE learning from Pattie...she is brilliant, she is fun and she is one of the kindest people that I have ever met. By the way, her self-paced classes are all on sale through September 1st.

Here is the page that I created with this photo. This page was published in Somerset Memories 2011 Spring issue.

I created the silhouettes simply by extracting the individuals and then creating a new layer above them. After creating a new layer above them, I filled the silhouette in with black. You can also see that I did some shadow work on these silhouettes. I did a shadow tutorial here if you are interested.

I think it is so important that when you look at your photos, you find their strengths. We are not going to capture the perfect shot every time but if we can "look through different glasses" and find things we love about the photo, we can create meaningful images that capture the heart of the moment. I hope that you look at your photos a little differently after this blog post.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

Week in Review

2011-08-13T09:07:00.001-07:00

WOW...I can't believe it is Saturday already. The week just flew by. The weather has been fabulous here....between 70 and 80 all week but I can feel fall coming. It made me well aware that we only have a few weeks of summer left before we are in full motion with school. We just had a wonderful week together plus my dear friend who has two little boys welcomed a baby girl into their family last night. We are so excited for them and heading over to the hospital later to see her. Here is a peek at our week...

Quinn is now collecting beer bottle caps and the neighborhood is doing their part to make sure that his collection is plentiful...
A little trip to the zoo...

A playdate with friends...

The kids always race around the cul de sac on their bikes and scooters. We have THE BEST neighbors ever. Fritz our neighbor fits in perfectly with the kids. Last year he came back from a motorcycle convention with a miniature motorcycle that he HAD to get because it had Quinn's name on it...it is called a Q-50...here he is racing the kids on the Q-50 with Wiley chasing him of course...later in the week, it was this same scenario except this time he pulled out his Harley. Never a dull moment in the cul de sac.

Wednesday night is ice cream truck night...the kids would be alright waiting on the curb from the moment they get out of bed that day...

Ellie apparently thought that her treat needed to watch her attire...

Wiley smiling for the camera...

Quinn was going through some withdrawals from vacation...

Soccer season comes to a close...

We have a really quiet weekend which is nice. We are having a "girls afternoon out" as they like to call it. We are going to do a little school shopping which will be interesting. My girls are EXACT opposite. One of them won't wear anything except a t-shirt and shorts and the other one goes through about four outfits a day. I'm guessing my family and friends can guess who is who. I will need a lot of patience for this outing.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend. Thanks for stopping by and I'll look forward to "seeing" you on Tuesday!

Titles and Blending Modes - Technique Tuesday

2011-08-08T18:58:00.000-07:00

I will admit it...I have a "thing" for anything that involves the word "blending". This would include "Blending Modes". When I am working on a page, I spend most of my time playing with blending modes. When I place something on a page, I will often think to myself...I wonder what it would look like in this blending mode and then twenty minutes later, I find myself still flipping between them.

I just created this page and I had so much fun playing with blending modes not only on the photo itself but also on the title. Who says that blending is only for pictures? I wanted to show you how different the word "ENJOY" looks using the different modes.

This is the final page and I used "hard light" on it...."hard light" happens to be my favorite blending mode...I just love how it makes the item or photo stand out more.

Here is the page using "overlay". I like the transparent look but the title just didn't pop enough against the background.

Here is the title using "multiply". I think it would be safe to say that I "multiply" comes in second place to "hard light" in my book. I use it a lot.

When I began this page, this is what it looked like without a blending mode. I liked it but I wanted the title to become part of the actual photo.

Next time you are playing with titles, don't just keep switching the alpha that you are using. Try playing around with the blending modes to see if you can achieve the look that you desire. I promise you will have fun trying them all out..

I hope you found this helpful. Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

Summer Vacation

2011-08-06T08:28:00.000-07:00

I hope everybody had a great week. We had a wonderful vacation in northern Minnesota. We go to a resort every year with Jeff's family and it is such a special time for us. We've been at the same resort for the last four years and we just love it so much. The week was spent swimming in the lake, boating, fishing, golfing, racing ducks, biking, swimming in the pool, playing at the park, playing on the beach, doing crafts and just enjoying each other. Each year we have a theme and Jeff's mom announced that this year's theme would be "Week to Win It" based on the tv show "Minute to Win It". Every night we concluded the day with some "interesting games". It was a hoot. My favorite was watching everybody try to move an oreo cookie from their forehead to their mouth without any hands...I couldn't post any pictures because the rest of the family would not be happy but I got some winners. Here are some pictures from our week...

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day!

Blending and Beyond

2011-07-30T04:09:00.000-07:00

"Blending and Beyond" is the class I will be offering this fall at Getting It Scrapped. I am excited to be working with Debbie Hodge. I will have more details in the weeks ahead but the course will include: basic blending, my "spilling over technique", extractions, layering and blending modes. The course will consist of live webinars in which people will be able to ask questions as they watch my screen as I create pages. If you are interested in joining us, registration will begin at the beginning of September and the class will be starting late September. Once again, I will have more details in the weeks ahead but I am so excited to share my passion for blending photos with you. I hope you can join us this fall for "Blending and Beyond"

I thought I would share with you page that I recently did for the Saturday Scraplift. There is so much inspiration in the gallery at Designer Digitals. I always, always enjoy the work of one of our community members Nana Z. This is a lift of this beautiful page.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

We are headed on vacation and I will not be able to blog for a week. I hope you all have fantastic week and I will look forward to catching up with you when I return.

Thanks for stopping by.

Why I do what I do...

2011-07-28T21:26:00.001-07:00

I scrapbook a lot. I am constantly sacrificing sleep for scrapbook time because I love it so much. I find it relaxing, I love the creative side of it, it challenges me to learn new things AND it is a great way to preserve our family memories.

Today we went to the beach in the morning and then after lunch I was out mowing the lawn. The kids were inside. I had no clue what they were doing. Ellie came outside to get me and says "Mom, you have to come and see this". I'm usually worried when I hear this statement. She takes me downstairs and I find all of my "paper scrapbooks" spread out across the basement floor. The kids had been going through their scrapbooks. Ellie wanted to show me pictures and quickly asked "do you remember this..." A few minutes later I went back to mowing the lawn with a smile on my face.

A little while later I went in and found them in the same positions except now they were laughing hysterically. Ellie was reading Amelia's baby books to her. I always did a monthly recap for each the first two years of her life. Ellie was reading to Amelia how she liked to put Ellie's underwear on her head and crawl around with it on. They thought it was the funniest thing ever. Honestly I don't remember this but I looked and there were pictures to prove it. I often think of scrapbooking as "my outlet" because it brings me so much joy but it was fun to see today how it brings them joy.

There are so many different ways to scrapbook. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. The most important thing is that you are getting the stories down and passing them on to future generations. My scrapbooking journey has changed a lot over the course of the last 20 years. My style has changed, my approach has changed, my subjects have changed, my life has changed, technology has changed....there have been a ton of changes and yet I am doing the same thing that I did twenty years ago...telling my story.

I thought it would be fun to share with you how my albums have changed over the last seven years. I am a little hesitant to show you because I worry that the "OCD officials" might show up at my door to get me. I certainly wouldn't argue with them. I guess the first step is admitting it.

I wish my albums all looked the same but they don't. The albums in themselves are a representation of the changes that have occurred in my scrapbooking world. Here is a look at the first set of albums for my kids. I have albums before this time period but they are all random albums put together using traditional paper. When Ellie was born, I used all dark blue Close to My Heart albums. I did all double page spreads. She has a significant amount of traditional paper albums. When Amelia was born, I started with green albums and then Quinn arrived and he got a different shade of blue. He only has two traditional paper albums because I went all digital shortly after his arrival. Quinn has more than made up for it in the digital world.

Once I decided to go all digital, I used only Shutterfly albums to document our memories. Each album contained all two page spreads. Each of my kids got about 3 albums a year....some of the layouts would be included in all three of their albums. This was another bonus for the digital world. When I was doing the traditional scrapbooking, I would make the same layout three times. Thank God for digital!

Then I decided that I liked making single pages better than spreads and focused more on the "little stories" of our lives rather than just the big events and holidays. This is where I am today. I use We R Memory Keepers 12 x 12 D Ring Binders and absolutely LOVE them. Each of my kids has their own album(s) and I also have a family album as well as art journal and heritage albums. These need to be labeled...Ellie reminded me again today.

As you can see, my scrapbooking has gone through changes but the idea stays the same. All of these albums contain portions of our story...a story that is worth preserving. I hope that my children and their children will be able to look back and know how we spent our days. It doesn't matter what kind of scrapbook you are creating or even if you are scrapbooking at all. I just think it is important to record the details of life because you are important and you have a story to tell.

Two Wheeling

2011-07-27T22:14:00.000-07:00

The highlight of our week has been watching Quinn ride on two wheels. He is like a MADMAN on his scooter and I told him that I thought he could probably ride on two wheels because he has such great balance. He told me to take the training wheels off. I rolled him to the end of the driveway and he took off. I didn't have to run or anything...it was amazing! He has spent the last three days doing laps in the cul de sac. Let's just say that stopping isn't very smooth (HUGE UNDERSTATEMENT) but we are working on it. Here are some shots from Monday.

Whenever we have a milestone at our house, we treat our dear neighbors to Dairy Queen. Quinn rode to DQ with his helmet on and when we got back, he passed out buster bars.

After the initial few laps, he started working on his speed!

Here is my page:

All products are from Designer Digitals.

I hope you are all having a great week. Thanks for stopping by and take care!

Changing Color - Technique Tuesday

2011-07-25T20:09:00.001-07:00

When I am working on a page, I always try to find digital products that will support my photos. The first thing that I look for when choosing my digital papers, is the color. However, I often find myself looking beyond the color to the texture and "feel" of the paper.

When I think about the products that I have available, I think it is important to keep my mind open to all of the possibilities of these products. I love to change colors, blend products, distort them to achieve dimension...you name it....I like to try it.

I would like to show you some examples of how I manipulate products to fit my vision for a page. This piece of digital paper is by Anna Aspnes. It is from her ArtPlay Palette Seafoam Kit. I LOVE this kit. I started working on some beach pages and I was instantly drawn to the texture of this paper. It felt grainy to me and I thought it would be perfect for my pages. When I started working on my pages, I found that the color was a little off but I still wanted to use it because it contained the texture that set the stage for my pictures.

Because - I used the SeaFoam paper from above for this page. I made a simple adjustment by changing it to black and white (shift-control-u) and then adjusting the levels to fit my photo. I used some blending to make the texture of the paper shine through my photo.

Beach Days - On the page below, I used the exact same paper as my background paper. You can see that this time, I changed the color of it to a sepia tone.

I first made sure that my foreground color was set to the default color of black and my background color was set to white. I then went to "Image"..."Adjustments"...."Hue/Saturation"....checked "Colorize" and played with the sliding scales until I achieved a color that I thought fit with my photos. In this particular case, my numbers were Hue: 45, Saturation: 12, Lightness: 0

Magic -On this page, I blended two digital papers together to get one. Katie Pertiet has a GORGEOUS new kit coming out this weekend called Artistry Azul. This contains my very favorite blues. It might be difficult to see but on this page, I blended two of the papers together. I love all of the papers in this kit but on this page, I wanted a paper with aqua flourishes so I used an aqua color as the base color on the left and then I took a beautiful white paper with blue flourishes and placed it on top of the other paper. I then changed the blending mode of the top paper to Multiply (one of my favorite blending modes) and I was happy with my aqua paper with flourishes.

Green Day - This is a crazy layout that I did for the fun challenge on Kayleigh's blog. On this page, I used a red ketchup bottle from Pattie Knox's cute kit "BBQ Bash Kit" and changed the color five times to make a rainbow of hair coloring products. I was able to do this just by going into "Image"..."Adjustments" and then changing the "Color Balance" by sliding the scales.

The Gang - On this page, I changed the color of the tree. This tree which I have used a lot is from Lynn Grieveson's kit "Gran's Garden". The tree is really pink but I needed it to be green to pop off of my pink background. I took the magic wand tool, tapped on an original pink leaf (I made sure that continguous was not checked because I wanted all of the leaves on the tree to turn green...my tolerance was set at 32 and "anti-alias" was checked). Once I had the marching ants around my desired area, I just filled it in with the color that I wanted.

3- On this page, I just made a minor adjustment on the choo-choo train. In the original train, the highlight colors were red. I needed them to be orange to match the rest of my layout. I used the above technique to change the red on the train to orange so it all flowed together.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

When I am working with products, I always keep in mind how versatile they are. When you think about all of the products that you have and then think about changing their color and texture and so on, the amount of products that you have explodes. There are so many little things you can do that can help maximize the capabilities of your products.

I hope you found this helpful. We are leaving on vacation next weekend. I apologize but there will not be "Technique Tuesday" on August 2nd. It will resume again on August 9th. Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great day!

Project 365 - Midway

2011-07-24T20:21:00.000-07:00

It is hard to believe that we are over half way done with 2011. I keep plugging along with my Project 365. I use this project to keep a photographic journal of how we spend our days. My first round of Project 365 was in 2010. I was really nervous to start this project because I was worried that I would get bored with it. This project has turned out to be such a blessing for me. It has taken the pressure off of having to scrapbook every little event because I still have record of it in my 365 book. Therefore I am free to scrap the photos that I want to scrap. I used a different format this year which seems to be working really well. I'm totally caught up which is a great feeling. In addition to my weekly pages, my album will also include pages of special or fun events that I wanted to highlight. Here are some of my last pages:

All products are from Designer Digitals.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Thanks for stopping by!

Hot Summer Days

2011-07-21T19:16:00.001-07:00

We have been in a heat wave like much of the country. Temperatures have reached 100 degrees three days this week. I am not complaining...as a Minnesota girl...I would take 100 degrees for zero degrees any day of the year. I will complain, however that my camera fogs up every time that I take it outside.

We have been busy to say the least. Here is a typical day in our little corner of the world. Today we started with Mia's tennis lessons which are at 8:30 (getting three kids ready and out the door by 8:20 is no small task)...after lessons we played at the park...then came home for reading time...then delivered Meals on Wheels....went out to lunch at Subway...while we were at Subway, we decided that it was such a beautiful day and we really should go to the beach...we go home and get ready for the beach (this process is a lot more complicated than it might sound)...we go to the beach for a few hours...come home and the sweet, little neighbor girl is in her pool so the kids head over there for awhile to play...Jeff comes home from work and we have dinner....after dinner we go for a bike ride...play some more and then it is bedtime. They fall asleep immediately and I'm exhausted....this old body can't keep up with them but God knows that I try.

We have been spending most of our days near water and I have an abundance of water pages stirring around in my head. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the last week.

I did do one water layout last night.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Life is great...busy...but oh so great! I am so grateful for these days spent together!

I hope that you are having a wonderful week. Thanks for stopping by!

Lighting - Technique Tuesday

2011-07-18T20:32:00.000-07:00

When I am creating a page, brushwork is always one of the last things that I add. When I look through the online gallery, I really study how people use brushwork. It adds so much to a page.

My favorite type of brushwork would be "Foto Glows" and "Magic Flares" both are created by Anna Aspnes. If you went through my gallery, you would see an abundance of foto glows and flares. My favorites are Foto Glows No. 4 and Magic Flares. I love that they are so easy to use and yet they can make a huge impact on a page.

I'd like to show you some examples of how I use Foto Glows and Magic Flares.

DRAWING ATTENTION TO AN AREA

I like to use foto glows and magic flares to draw attention to a particular area of the page. For example if I have a strong photo and the supporting photos are not as crisp, I will use the light that these brushes create to grab the viewer's attention. Here are a few examples:

Here Comes Santa Claus - On this particular page, I used a magic flare to draw the viewer's attention to my favorite photo of "Santa Claus". I think that the flare immediately captures your attention and also adds a feeling of magic to the page...we all know that Santa is magical!

Parading on Main Street - I recently completed my Disneyworld album and I was planning on using a lot of brushwork but then decided that I liked the simple look of a flare behind the title. The flare in this instance is softer because much of it is hidden but it still brings attention to the title portion of the page.

ADDING DEPTH

I also like to use foto glows and flares to add depth to a page. Here are some examples:

Together - This is a busy page for me. I loved all of these photos so I really wanted to include all of them. When I had finished with the page, I thought it was WAY too busy. Everything just ran together and my eye had a difficult time focusing on one area. I decided to try a flare behind the photo cluster to "give it a little breathing room" and that made a huge difference to me. I felt like this added depth to the page and made the photo cluster take center stage.

Fly Like a Butterfly - This is an art journal page that I did of my daughter. The page contains the very first photo that was ever taken of her as well as a photo that was more recent. You can see on this page how I used the glow to create a sense of distance in the background paper as if the butterfly is flying away. Just one little click of the mouse and it totally changes the whole feel of the page...I love that.

ENHANCE LIGHTING ON YOUR SUBJECT

When I am taking photographs, I am always trying to find the best light for my subject. When I am creating a page, I try to accentuate the light that I have captured in a photograph. You can see in my examples below when there is a beam of natural light on my subject, I will often put a foto glow there to make that beam even stronger.

The Light fo Christmas - You can see on this page that the sun was shining right on my daughter's hair. I think that light played such a significant role in this photo. I decided to enhance the light even more with a flare.

On this Day - Again, you can see that the sun was hitting the top of my son's head so I placed the photo glow appropriately to enhance that aspect of the page.

When I am working with a photo in which the natural lighting is poor, I will often use a foto glow or flare to create a sense of light that will illuminate my subject's face. I will often put the flare opposite of my subject to create this type of look.

Taste of Summer

Magical

All products are from Designer Digitals.

I am fairly certain that out of all the fabulous products on my computer, foto glows and magic flares have probably been used more than anything else. I just love the versatility of them. When I am stumped with a page, they seem to be my "go-to" technique because they are simple and add alot to a page. If you haven't given them a try, I hope you consider it. I know you will enjoy playing with them.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Scrapbook Pages

2011-07-16T19:05:00.001-07:00

I hope everybody is having a good weekend. We enjoyed celebrating my sweet niece's third birthday last night, headed to the beach this morning and then had a house full of kids tonight. Everybody is in bed and I'm exhausted. I thought I would just post some pages that I have created over the last month.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Make a List

2011-07-14T18:43:00.001-07:00

I will admit that journaling is my least favorite part of scrapbooking and yet I know it is the most important part of each page. I know that years from now, the photos will give the visual but it will be the words that will be the most meaningful to my children when I am no longer here. I know that because it is the letters that I received from my mom when I was in college that I LOVE to pick up and read. They bring me peace and love.

My own children reinforce this theory as well. When we get pages back, they always want me to read them...and then reread them. When I write to my children, I really try to write from my heart. I want them to always know how much I love them and how much I enjoy them...not just now but I want them to know this years from now when they look back on their childhood.

One of the more simple ways that I have enjoyed journaling is by making a list. Every year, I do a page for each of my children that highlights their personalities, hobbies, likes, dislikes, things they say...you get the point. It is just a list of random little things that I don't want to forget. Each stage passes so quickly and it is my way to take a "snapshot" of their life right now. This technique is so easy and I think it is so valuable. I am including the three pages that I made this week for my kids. I created the entire page first and then I just sat back and wrote about every little detail about their life at this stage of the game. This is my kind of journaling...no worries about sentence structure...no worries about grammar...just a simple brainstorm that took about 10 minutes tops. This technique can be used for anything....you, your spouse, your home, your job, a difficult situation you are going through...a trip....anything. I think you should give it a try. I know that I will be using it again and again.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

I hope you give this a try. I think you will agree it is an easy technique that certainly allows you to record a lot of meaningful details. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Fall Class

2011-07-13T19:05:00.000-07:00

In the spring, Debbie Hodge asked me to be a guest teacher at Masterful Scrapbook Designs for the month of June. I was so excited and jumped at the opportunity to share my passion with others. One aspect of the seminar was a live webinar in which Debbie showed some of my work and asked me about my creative process. It was a lot of fun. During that webinar, there seemed to be some interest in watching my screen as I create. Debbie said that we would get together and make this happen. Well, I am excited to announce that I will be doing a class in the fall and it will include live webinars. I'm in the process of getting the class together...I can tell you one thing though...I'll be blending my little heart out. I am so excited about this opportunity to show others some of the techniques that I use to create. I will have more details for you in the weeks ahead. I just wanted to let you know.

I also want to say "thank you" to everybody who has been leaving me comments. I really appreciate the feedback.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Distortion - Technique Tuesday

2011-07-11T21:17:00.000-07:00

When I design my pages, I really like to incorporate depth and dimension in my pages. One of the ways that I do this is by distorting things such as text, images, and elements. When I get an idea in my head, I usually just sit at the computer and play until I figure out how to manipulate the screen to fit my vision. I posted this page earlier in the week. It contains a photo of my daughter when she was sixth months old that was taken on the fourth of July as well as a photo that I took of her just last week on the fourth. I wanted to make the image appear as if it were a mirror and the photos were facing one another. I thought I would share with you how I created the "mirror effect".

Step 1: The first thing that I did was create a rectangle using the marquee tool. Easy enough...right!

Step 2: Once I had the rectangle in place and that particular layer highlighted, I hit "Control - T" so that I could adjust the shape of the rectangle. I then clicked simultaneously the left mouse, shift and control. (I should note again that I am using Photoshop CS2) This allows me to drag out the shape in all different manners. I simply created the shape below by pulling on the left corners of the rectangle to get this desired shape.

Step 3: I then duplicated the image (control - j) and positioned the duplicate layer so it was "facing" the other side. I simply did this by dragging it into postion. This is what my "mirror" looks like now. Step 4: I then attached my images to the "mirror" and placed some hinges between the sides. I did not distort the photos in this case but I thought about doing that. I decided not to do that because I love the photos of my daughter just as they are and I didn't want to mess with them. You can also see on the final page that I used the shadow technique that I described a few weeks ago to make the "mirror" appear like it is sitting on the counter. The shadow just gives it one more piece of added dimension.

Here are a few additional pages that I distorted some aspect to give it dimension.

Days with You: On the bottom of this page, I used a blended image of a clock by Anna Aspnes and I distorted the clock using the method above.

aDORAble: I'm a huge fan of loop da loops. On this page, I distorted the loop da loop to make it appear like it was circling my son and the characters.

Rain: This page is a little bit more complicated but it all started by distorting the word "RAIN" on the bottom to make it look like my son was standing on the word.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

I hope you found this helpful. I would certainly love to see you put this to use. It is really an easy technique and once you start playing with it, the possibilities are endless.

Thanks for stopping by and happy Tuesday!

Disneyworld Album

2011-07-09T18:15:00.001-07:00

Once I start a project, I usually struggle to put it down. It was one of those weeks when I knew that I needed some "me time". I told Jeff that I needed a day to myself to get recharged. I can't tell you the last time that I had a day to myself. He took the kids today to the park, out for lunch, and to the rodeo. I was soooo grateful! I spent the day sitting at the computer doing this project and by the time they came home, I felt completely refreshed.

Here is the cover to the album. I created this a long time ago and it felt good to finally put it on the book that has been in the back of my mind for 9 months.

When I started doing these pages, I was planning on creating the background similar to the cover. I wanted to use clouds and sparkles and flares to create a magical scene. When I started playing with the brushwork, it didn't feel right. It seemed like the more brushwork that I added, the more it took away from the photos. I decided to take the brushwork off with the exception of one large fotoglow which was set behind the matte and the title for each page. It is so easy to redo things in Photoshop...another reason I love it so much. So the result of my work is a very graphic looking page with clean lines, bright colors and a few embellishments placed throughout for fun.

The two pages below are my favorite. The page below because I had so much fun seeing my kids with the characters. When I look at this page, it brings me right back to this morning.

This page is my other favorite page because I know my kids are going to LOVE looking at this page and seeing all of the familiar faces from the parades that they just loved when we were at Disneyworld. I'm excited for them to look through the album.

One of the reasons that I was so intent on finishing this project right now is that Shutterfly is having 50% off their 12 x 12 albums right now as well as free shipping for orders over $30. This album ended up being very economical for me. LOVE THAT! Shutterfly has redone some things on it's site. I couldn't post this in the regular gallery because they are not currently letting you do that for custom books but here is a link if you would like to take a peek. It is pretty small on the screen but there is button you can hit if you would like to see it bigger. http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=3AcNHLlu3YuxA

All products are from Designer Digitals.

I have to say that I'm happy that this project is over and I can get back to scrapping the day to day stuff which is my favorite. It is always a good feeling to complete a project.

I hope you are having a good weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Album Time - Disneyworld

2011-07-07T21:17:00.001-07:00

Our family enjoyed a trip to Disneyworld last October and I have yet to start the album...that is until tonight. I have done some individual pages for each of the kids with some of their highlights but honestly the idea of putting together an entire album seemed like a lot. I know that I prefer to scrap day-to-day pages much more than tackling an entire album...although I would be the first to admit that I love having everything together in an album once it is complete.

I have made many, many albums throughout the last twenty years of scrapbooking and as I look back over the progression...I can see that I have learned something new with each one of them. My style and preferences have certainly changed. I am not planning on going back to redo the albums that make me cringe...I just chalk it up as part of the process and the important thing is that the memories have been recorded.

I have also learned a great deal about creating albums by looking through the online gallery. There are so many amazing and inspiring albums. I just love to see other people's pages come together and I have learned so much.

Tonight I decided that I had waited long enough to tackle this project. I think one of the reasons that I have been so hesitant to do the album is that I couldn't quite decide what kind of look I wanted it to have. After tonight, I think I have a few things figured out and a few things that I still need to figure out.

Here is what I have figured out (0f course this is all subject to change)...

1) I prefer albums in which all of the pages are tied together with a specific type of look. That doesn't mean that every page is the same but they are consistent. I decided that I wanted to use Lynn Grieveson's Lots of Shots templates. I just love that they are so clean and include so many photo areas. I shrunk Lynn's template down a bit so that I could frame the photo area. I love her templates as is but shrinking it down just feels more like me. Using a template makes the whole project a lot easier as well and it is easy to change templates to fit your needs.

2)I want to use a similar type of alpha for each of my titles. Maplebrook Studios has an entire line of Jelly Alphas. Some of these alphas come in their kits as well. The Jelly Alphas are my absolute favorite and I knew that I wanted to use them on this project.

3) I decided that I want to use bold and fun colors throughout this album because that is what Disneyworld is all about...FUN!

4) When I create an album, I always want things to be consistent and that means using similar types of embellishments, colors, design, and also fonts. My absolute favorite font for journaling is Century Gothic. I love that it is clean and easy to read. I use it A LOT. It was a given that I would use it for this project as well.

I'm going to approach this project a little different than I usually do. I'm going to start by just placing the pictures in the templates, picking the colors and doing the titlework initially on all of the pages. I haven't figured out what kind of brushwork and edging that I want to use yet so I plan on adding that at the end. I also need to fine tune my embellishments. I don't know how this will work but the whole process seems less daunting to me if I break it down into manageable chunks.

Here are the bare bones of my first three layouts:

As you can see, I have a long road ahead of me but at least it is a start. I have found that once I start something, I usually get more focused on finishing the project before I move onto other things. I sure hope that is the case here. My kids will be so excited when I complete this because they really haven't seen much of the Disney photos yet so that is a little extra motivation for me. This album is well overdue.

I hope you found this helpful. Have a fantastic day and thanks for stopping by!

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Park with Friends

2011-07-06T20:53:00.001-07:00

The last week has been a whirlwind of activity which included trips to the swimming pool, waterfights, Jeff's birthday, a bonfire, firecrackers, Twins game, parade, and spending time with family and friends. I'm exhausted. I have so many pages to do from the last week that my head is spinning and now my computer is having some issues which certainly isn't good.

Yesterday we met up with my dear friend who I roomed with in college and her three kids. Our kids are all within weeks of each other so our outings are a lot of fun for everybody. We went to an awesome new park that just opened up in our hometown and it was fun. Here are a few shots from our outing.

Off to the races...

Yes, they all have the same shirts on. Ava and Vivian showed up in their "Irish Girl" shirts from Uncle Jeff and Aunt Ruth and our girls had to run and change so that they would all match.

Maki came across a really big turtle that he thought would be friendly and it turned out to be a snapping turtle. Thank God the turtle didn't get him but Vivian and Quinn were near and Vivian immediately put her arms around Quinn to protect him. It was so precious....I mean Vivian...not the snapping turtle!

Here is the whole crew!

I hope you have all had a great week. Thanks for stopping by.

"Vellum" - Technique Tuesday

2011-07-04T19:52:00.001-07:00

Back in the day, when I was a paper scrapper, I loved to use vellum. I just liked the soft touch of layering that it brought to my layouts. The only problem was that it was relatively expensive in terms of paper so I didn't use it all that much. Once I entered the digital world, I found that I enjoyed using vellum as well except now I could create my own "vellum" and it was FREE...love that!

I will often use "vellum" when I want to frame something or if I want to add just a little bit more dimension to my layout. It is very simple technique to use. I use the rectangular marquee tool. I create a box based on the shape that I am trying to frame. I will then lower the opacity of the box until it feels right. The opacity really varies depending on the look that I am trying to achieve especially if I am using it to soften a blended photo.

I included some layouts in which I used my version of "vellum". On "Beauty", you can see that I used two vertical strips of vellum on the edge of the photo. I reduced the opacity to almost zero but then added a shadow to it, to give it a little dimension and frame the focal area of the page. On "Golden", I used the vellum to add dimension and frame in the blended image in the background.

On "My Sweet Love", I used vellum to give my paper a slight contrast in color. I think I could call this the "lazy woman's way of scrapping". Instead of trying to find another sheet of digital paper that was close to my background paper, I just used the vellum overlay to give it that slight variation in color.

On "Wannabe", I again used the vellum to soften the blended image and then I place a stroke around the edge to frame the vellum.

Again, I created more depth on my background photo and papers by framing my son's face.

"Instant Drool" is another example of this technique.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

I hope you found this useful. It is just a simple technique that I have gone to time and time again over the last few years. I hope you give it a try.

A few of you have been kind enough to leave me some comments and "thank you" so much for the feedback. I have received a number of comments from people asking about my blending process. In June, I did a webinar with Debbie Hodge at Masterful Scrapbook Designs. It was a lot of fun. There seemed to be some interest in an additional webinar or series in which people could see my screen and get a peek into my creative process. I would love to share this with you. Debbie and I are working on this and hopefully I will have more information for you soon. Thank you so much for your feedback and interest. I really appreciate it.

I hope you have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by.