Creating Keepsakes 2013 Dream Team

I have some exciting news to share with you today.  Over the last couple of years, I have been SO fortunate to have had a number of my layouts published by Creating Keepsakes magazine.  This summer I was approached by their editorial team and asked if I would be on their 2013 Dream Team.  If you were anywhere near Minnesota, I am quite certain you heard the screams and I will admit there were tears ( I had to explain to my children why I had tears in my eyes when I was SO happy and excited).   I've had to keep it to myself since then and let me tell you that hasn't been easy.  The announcement can be found here.

I have subscribed to Creating Keepsakes since the very beginning.  Whenever I would go to the mailbox and Creating Keepsakes would be there, I couldn't wait to go through it.   I have been a huge fan for all of these years and that excitement when I discover it in my mailbox is still the same.  I find so much inspiration in each issue.  When I found the courage to submit a layout myself and it was chosen for publication....well...it was a dream come true to see one of my pages in a magazine that I have loved for so many years.  I cannot even put this into words.  It has been truly amazing to work with all of the people who are affiliated with Creating Keepsakes.  I cannot believe that my name is on the list with so many talented, creative and very inspiring people.

2013 Creating Keepsakes Contributing Writers

Autumn Baldwin

Deana Boise

2013 Creating Keepsakes Dream Team Members

Gretchen McElveen

Jing-Jing Nickel

Jana Morton

Kim Watson

Laina Lamb

Maggie Holmes

Piradee Talvanna

Stacy Cohen

It has been so fun to be involved on this level and I'm so excited for you to see what Creating Keepsakes has in store for 2013.  I am so grateful to God as well as everybody at Creating Keepsakes for this amazing opportunity to share my passion and work with others.  I would also like to take this time to thank Katie and Randy Pertiet, all of the wonderful designers and all of my dear friends at Designer Digitals, and the fabulous community at Creative Passion. Your words of encouragement, support, inspiration, and friendship have meant the world to me.

Life is good....very, very good!!!!

Scrapbooking Babies and Toddlers

Creating Keepsakes just released their special issue Scrapbooking Babies and Toddlers.   This issue is packed with fabulous designs and inspiration.

You can get a sneak peek of this issue here.  There is also extra online content here.

I was excited to have a layout in this issue.  I created this page for my dear friends who asked me to take some photos of their beautiful baby girl.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Creating Keepsakes is sponsoring a blog hop to celebrate the release of this great issue and I'm excited to be a part of it.  As part of the blog hop, Creating Keepsakes is giving me one issue to give away to my blog readers.  Please leave me a comment telling me what you are looking forward to during the holiday season and on Tuesday, December 4th, I will select a random winner.

I would also like to encourage you to check out these blogs for more chances to win!

Joey Manwarren
Kim Watson
Laina Lamb
Laura Vegas
Mou Saha
Piradee Talvanna
Stacy Cohen
Autumn Baldwin
Deena Boese
Gretchen McElveen

Thanks for stopping by and remember to leave me a comment for a chance to win this fabulous issue!

Days of December Begin

Yes, I know it is technically not December but I've started my Days of December project.  We've had a busy couple of days and I've had to do a few extra pages because I didn't want to miss anything special.    Here is a peek at my start to this project. Once again, I am keeping it very simple so that I can stay caught up.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Thanks for stopping by!

Black Friday Sale

Creative Passion is hosting a sale this weekend.  All self-paced classes are marked down 15% using the coupon code 15BLKFRI.  Creative Passion has a wonderful array of classes to fit your creative needs.  You can find all of the self-paced courses here.

If you are new to digital scrapbooking, Pattie Knox has a whole series of fabulous classes to get you started.  My class Blueprints: The Angles of Photoshop just went on sale as a self-paced course.  It includes four recordings that will allow you to bring dimension to your page.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Documenting the Holidays

As the holidays approach, I have been getting my "ducks in a row" for documenting the special moments of our lives.  The holidays here are pretty hectic and I think most people can relate but I love the excitement of it all.  Each year I create an album that spans from Thanksgiving until Christmas Day.  I love to bring my albums out this time of year and have them on our coffee table so we can all enjoy them.

Here are the links for my last two albums if you are interested in taking a peek.
Christmas 2010
Christmas 2011

I have come up with a system that works for me and the key to it is keeping it simple and being organized    I know how busy this time of year gets so I plan ahead.  I will once again have a large photo fill the page on the left and a small grouping of photos on the right.  I prepare the basics of the pages ahead of time to save time each day.  I don't like getting behind so I need an easy system that will work.

My 2012 pages will be formatted similar to this.  I used a few photos from last year to make sure that it works.  I'm so excited about starting this project for the fourth year.  I can look back on our years and really enjoy these special memories that we have created.

I have already created my basic pages for the right side of the spread.  They all look similar to this.

I am using the following as the base of my pages and then I always add a few embellishments on each page.

Background Paper: Lynn Grieveson's Blackett Paper Pack
PhotoCluster Templates: Katie Pertiet's Days of December No. 7 A & B
Brushwork: Katie Pertiet Red Layered Templates
Date Tags: I created them using Ali Edwards 31 Days Circle Set

Each day during this season, I drag on the photo clusters depending on how many photos that I have, add my photos, journaling and simple embellishments.  It is easy and it works for me.  I do not like to fall behind so it is very important for me to be organized up front.

I know that some people like to document specific themes for the holidays which is wonderful.  It can be whatever type of system works for you.  I like to focus on the day to day because then I get some of the everyday photos in addition to the holiday ones.  I like to look back and see what the focus of our days were.

If you haven't documented the holidays before, I encourage you to give it a try.  It really doesn't have to be time-consuming if you have a plan and you stick to  it.   I'm so grateful for these albums that immediately take  me back in time.

Last Call - Blending and Beyond Booster Workshop

I'm getting so excited for my Blending and Beyond Booster Workshop that is next week.   My Blending and Beyond class contains six recordings and we had so many people ask for more layouts that we decided to extend it for anybody who has taken Blending and Beyond.  I will be demonstrating three new layouts.  Two of the layouts will be demonstrated during live webinars (recording available after) and one layout has been prerecorded.

This is the layout that I will be demonstrating on Sunday, November 25th at 8:00 pm Eastern time.

This is the layout that I will be demonstrating on Wednesday, November 28th at 2:30 pm Eastern time.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

The last layout has been prerecorded and I'm going to keep that one a surprise.  In addition to blending and blending modes,  I will be talking about building clusters, product enhancements, creating and using negative space, brushwork, creative uses for masks, and building layers.  I'm really excited about this workshop and hope you can join us if you have taken Blending and Beyond.  You can register here.   The forum is already open so if you have already registered, please head on over and introduce yourself.

Heritage Album

As many of you may know I recently created a heritage album in conjunction with my class Generations.  The class was this fall and I had so many wonderful people in there that shared my passion for preserving our family history.  My finished album came in the mail last week and I just had to share some of it with you.   Putting this album together was a journey to say the least.  I have been researching our family tree for about ten years.  I am very passionate about sharing these people and their stories with our children.  Family is so important and though they have never met most of the people in this album, their lives are a tapestry of the lives, choices, hardships, and values that these individuals reflect.  I feel like by dusting off their photos and sharing their stories, I am giving them new life so their story lives on.  There is something so special about that and I am thrilled that my children and their children will be aware of their roots.

When I started this album, I was planning on having it printed at Paper Kiwi.  At the completion of the album, I discovered that the album was 265 pages.  It was HUGE so in the end I decided to have it printed at Blurb.  Blurb is known for creating large albums.  It came in the mail last week and I was giddy.  The quality of the album blew me away.  The colors on the page where so perfect and I couldn't have been more pleased.  My Capture 2012 will be another huge album and I am really looking forward to having Blurb print it now.

Putting together a heritage album is no small task but I am so glad that it is finished.  I am having three copies printed for each of my children.  It feels so great to know they will have all of this information together in one place to pass on to future generations.

I have been asked about my Generations class.  I know I will offer it again in the future but don't know exactly when yet.  I know there are a lot of people from class who are working diligently on their albums and I hope they continue to plug away.  It is SO worth it!

Mid-November Pages

I hope you had a good weekend.  We experienced a huge temperature drop over night.  Saturday was 60 degrees and on Sunday it was 32 degrees with a bit of snow.  It is crazy how it can change so quickly.  I haven't posted any pages for awhile so I thought I would share some from this fall.  

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Jana's Jumpstarts

There is a new Jana's Jumpstarts up on the Creative Passion blog.  I hope you check it out and jump in to play.

Rosemount Wins!

I just have to share this with our family who were unable to be with us tonight.  Rosemount pulled out an AMAZING victory in the metrodome over the number 1 team in the state.  Rosemount won 14 -10 and played their hearts out.  I couldn't be more proud of the entire team!  We will now advance to the state semi-finals next Thursday and I can't wait although I'm hoping I have my voice back by then.  

I rented a 400 mm lens for this game and let's just say that "we" got along great!  I think if I ever happen to win the lottery (I think I would actually have to purchase a ticket first), this lens will be the first thing in my shopping cart.   It was so much fun and can't wait to start making some sports pages.  For those of you who don't know the connection.  My brother Jeff is the head coach and his son, Jackson is the quarterback.  

We are banged up a bit after tonight.  The kids fought hard so I hope they can heal and get ready for next week.  Here is what the Star Tribune had to say about the game.  Way to go Irish....keep up the great work!

Upcoming Events

Designer Digitals is hosting their fourth quarter sale starting Thursday (November 8th) which means the store is 30% off and you don't want to miss it.  It is a great time to load up on holiday products as well and I can assure you that there are some fabulous new holiday products which will be in the store very soon.

Designer Digitals will also hold some chats that are always fun.  The chat schedule:

                     30 Minute Masterpiece - 11:00 PM EST (Saturday, November 10)

                     Saturday Scraplift Live - 5:00 PM EST (Saturday, November 10)

                     Katie's Throwdown - 9:00 PM EST (Sunday, November 11)

Designer Digitals has been hosting Seven Days of Gratitude and giving out some amazing freebies this week. Today there is a gorgeous paper pack on the Designer Digitals blog that you can find here.

Digital U at Creative Passion is scheduled for this Sunday night (November 11th) at 9PM EST.  With the holidays right around the corner, Pattie, Amy and I will be talking about how each of us document our holidays.  This is going to be a fun topic.  As always Digital U is free and I hope you can make it.  You just need to pre-register and then a link will be sent to you shortly before the seminar.  I hope to see you there!

Birthday Weekend

I had such a great weekend.  It was my birthday on Saturday and thank you to all of my family and friends for the birthday wishes, cards, and gifts.  You made my day so special!

The weekend started out with a bang on Friday night.  My brother and nephew's football team upset the number one seed in their section and will now play next week in the metrodome.  The game was so exciting and fun.  I'm so proud of them.  Here are few shots.

Saturday was spent like most Saturdays....ice skating lesson for the girls and running the kids to birthday parties.  We went out for dinner and then came home for some cake and a movie.  It was a great day!

Today I got together with my college teammates and had a blast.  We hadn't seen each other for awhile and it was so awesome to catch up with them.  They are so much fun and haven't changed a bit over the years.

I really like birthdays.  It just another great reminder that each and every day is a gift!