Happy Easter

We can finally feel spring coming and it feels wonderful.  Yesterday it was in the high 40's.  We were outside of course and I turned around to spot Ellie in a t-shirt, shorts and flip flops.  Forty degrees feels like ninety in our world.

Yesterday our neighbor (we have THE BEST neighbors ever) had the kids come over and they made this for me.

I absolutely LOVE IT!  She had two jars.  The one inside holds the daffodils and then you place jelly beans and Peeps inside the larger jar.  It is so cute and the kids had fun making it with her.

We are looking forward to spending Easter with our extended family at our house tomorrow and hoping the snow continues to melt.  I want to wish each of you a very beautiful and blessed Easter!

Two for One

I'm all about getting something on sale and digital scrapbooking often makes me feel like I am getting something on sale.  I can create one layout and use it for all of my children.  I frequently do this and it feels like I am getting two for one....gotta love that.

A couple of days ago I created this page for Ellie.

Amelia saw it and said "I like that page", can I have one too......OF COURSE!

I've written before about how much I love handwriting.  I think it seems so personal and in their case right now, it shows growth.  I quick typed out a little questionaire for them and had them fill it out using a fine point    marker so that it would show up.  They love doing stuff like this and it is always fun to have them involved in their own memory keeping.  I am always scanning their artwork, writing samples and everything else that truly documents who they are at various stages of their growth.  Photoshop makes it so easy to incorporate these items into their pages.

Here  are some screenshots that show how simple this is.  I scanned in Mia's questionaire and placed it on the layers palette.

I then changed the blending mode (I love my blending modes!) to "Multiply" and that was it......easy peasy!

When we are recording memories, it is very easy to focus on the photos but what about other things.  Handwriting, artwork, certificates, etc. tell a story as well.  Don't forget that these items can bring a whole different element to your scrapbook.

Documenting a Decade Album

I have several ongoing projects that I am very passionate about that I add to year to year.  My "Documenting a Decade Album" is one of them.  Katie Pertiet came up with this idea in 2010 to document each year of the decade.  She created a series of templates and I immediately knew this was a project that I wanted to participate in.  My husband and I met in 2000 and let's just say that by 2010 our lives were very different than in the year 2000.  I took Katie's fabulous templates and "tweaked" them to fit my style.  I loved doing this project and reflecting on each year that went by.

As I was creating the album, I decided to make "chapters" for each year.  Included in the "chapter" is the title page for the year which includes our family photo, a spread for the family and each of my children as well as a closing page that summarizes the year.

I was very excited for this project and plugged right through it.  I had my album back in 2010 and I'll say that it is one of my favorites.  I love being able to look back and see our growth as a family as well as the growth for each of my children.  After I got the album back, I decided that there was no need to stop at a decade so I am continuing to add to it each year.  I just think if I can keep at this project for many more years, what a fabulous summary of our family life and history.

I recently created our pages for 2012.

Our Chapter Cover:

Our children's spreads:

Our Family Spread:

Family Highlights for the Year:

As you can see, I used the same format and background colors for each page.  I merely changed the colors in the focal base to accent my photos.  Having a system in place really allows these pages to come together rather quickly because most of the decisions have already been made.  I love going through this album now.  I know that if I can keep at it for 20 more years that I will be elated to have all of these photos and information together in one place.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

Memory Boards

One of the things that I love about scrapbooking or creating digital art is that it is so easy to take your scrapbook pages and use them in different ways.  Recently I created some memory boards for my children.

My son has been going through our Disneyworld album from a couple of years ago a lot lately.  I think he is going through withdrawal and trying to make a point.  I am picking up on his point loud and clear.  In the mean time, I decided to make him a memory board for his room with his favorite photos.  I bought a bunch of canvases at Michaels. They were 50% off and I couldn't believe how inexpensive they were.  The ones that I bought were white (they had black ones but they were not on sale).  I spray painted them black.  I took the cover image from our Disneyworld Album, made a few adjustments, and had it printed out.  I used Modge Podge to adhere it to the canvas.  Then I took some ribbon and wrapped it around the bottom of the canvas.  I then stuck my son's favorite photos in the bottom and it worked great.  He loves having this in his room.

I also created a similar canvas for my daughter Ellie.  I had created this image with photos from her first sleepover.  I printed the image out and adhered it to a 12 x 12 canvas that I had also painted black.  I had a little easel in the basement that worked perfectly for this canvas.  She has it sitting on her desk.

I love getting the most out of the images that I create.  I enjoy having them displayed around our home, I like using them for cards as well as coffee tumblers.  I think scrapbookers often get used to just tucking them in the album.  Try to figure out what other ways you can display your work.  I know others would like to enjoy your  images as well.

Advanced Design Class from Debbie Hodge

Debbie Hodge has a brand new class "Tension, Story, Focus and Flow" that I think looks AMAZING!  I've watched several of the recordings and loved every minute of them.  I have had the privilege of working with Debbie and she takes everything to the next level.  She is a fantastic instructor and articulates points so well.

In this class she takes scrapbooking design to the next level.  She breaks it down into techniques that make sense and are easy to carry out on your pages.  You will look at your pages in an entirely new way after taking this course.

You can see a preview for this self-paced class and register here.

Debbie has given my blog readers a 30% discount offer through March 25th.  The code is: tsffjanamorton

I know you will enjoy this class and learn a ton.  Have fun!

Shine On Kit - In Memory of Pattie Knox

The designers at Designer Digitals have put together a gorgeous kit in honor of our dear friend Pattie Knox.  Shine On is now on sale and 100% of the proceeds will go to the American Diabetes Association in Pattie's name.

I hope you can contribute to this fabulous cause and I know you will love the kit.

Quinn's Birthday

Last week we celebrated a very special day in our home...Quinn turned five.  I spent the week getting ready for his first party with friends.  He was so excited and of course it was a Star Wars theme.  I saw some great ideas on pinterest that I was so excited to try.  I made "light sabers" out of noodles for a swimming pool for everybody.  I cut the noodles in thirds and then wrapped silver and black duct tape on the ends and was set.  I decided to give everybody a Star Wars name and made tags for each light saber.  They turned out so cute and the kids had a blast with them at the party.  

We of course had our treasure hunt and the light sabers were the last part of the treasure hunt.  They had all become jedis after finding everything.

My kids all have winter birthdays and sometimes that is a bummer but not this year.  The weather was perfect for sledding in the back of our home and they loved it.

Here are the pages to document Quinn's birthday.  These will go in our Capture 2013 album and eventually I will create pages for Quinn's own series of albums.  I'm a little short on time now and that is why I love this project so much because when I do have time, I have all of the information right here.

I create a spread for his actual birthday and all of the little details about how he spent his day.

I created two pages for his actual party.  I was a little bummed because I had some great pictures of the kids with their light sabers that accidentally got deleted.  I'm still not sure how that happened but that is life.  I'm glad that I have so many other shots that summarize his special day.

It is hard to believe that my baby is now five and headed to kindergarten in the fall.  The time has gone so quickly with him and I'm holding onto this stage as long as I can!

Digital U Tonight - March 10th

I hope you are having a great weekend!

I just wanted to tell you that we are having Digital U tonight and discussing brushes.  I think it is going to be a difficult one knowing that we will be missing our beloved Pattie but we know she will want us to continue what we have all started together.  Pattie was such an inspiration and we miss her dearly!  We have asked Anna Aspnes to step in tonight to help us discuss brushes and I'm excited to hear what she has to say.

If you haven't done so already, please register here and we will look forward to seeing you tonight!

Last Call - All Star Graphics

I'm so excited that All-Star Graphics starts on Monday, March 11th which means that we are within days.  I've been wanting to do this class for a long time and it feels great to finally have it all ready to roll.  This class combines two of my favorite things in life...creating digital art and athletics.  Athletes put their heart and soul into their sports and I think it is so special to capture that in an image.  You will find some of the images that I will be demonstrating below.

The demonstrations almost all involve athletic photos however, I believe the techniques that I share are applicable to all different types of digital art.  I anticipate that our gallery is going to be full of fabulous images using a wide variety of photos.

This class includes four major recordings (the first one posts on Monday) as well as four mid-week challenges that include a brief recorded tutorial.  The class gallery and forum are already open and we already have such a great group of people in class.   If you would like to register for the class, you can head on over here.  I hope you can join us!

Losing a Dear Friend

It has been a difficult week.  My dear friend, Pattie passed away in the middle of last week.  Pattie was a wonderful friend, a pioneer in the digital scrapbooking world, a fabulous designer and I was fortunate to teach alongside her at Creative Passion.  Pattie's sudden death has been another reminder of how precious life is and how we are so truly blessed to be on this journey called life surrounded by people that we love.

I couldn't possibly say enough wonderful comments about Pattie.  The Designer Digitals gallery and forum are filled with messages from people around the world that Pattie touched in so many ways.  Each of the team members at Designer Digitals created a page for Pattie that will be put in an album and given to her family.  Here is the page that I created for my dear friend.

If you would like to read my journaling, you can find it here.

Pattie was a pioneer in the digital scrapbooking world.  She shared her passion for life, family, memory keeping and Photoshop with people ALL around the world.  I feel so blessed that Pattie and I were such good friends.  She was an inspiration to me on all levels of my life....from teaching to parenting and everything in between.  Pattie had such a wonderful presence about her.  She made each and every person that she encountered feel so incredibly special and her wit was second to none.  She had the most amazing sense of humor and constantly left me in stitches.

Pattie recently taught at Masterful Scrapbook Designs and Debbie made her interview available to everybody.  If you haven't had the privilege of meeting Pattie before, you will fall in love with her immediately.  You can find the interview here.

One night Pattie and I were flipping between each other's computers working in Photoshop.  She said "this is like dueling Photoshop....I think people might enjoy seeing all of these little tips".  She came up with the idea, I came up with the name and "Digital U" was born.  Each month Pattie, Amy Kingsford and myself would have a free webinar in which we shared digital tips and our passion for memory keeping.  Each month I looked forward to these sessions.  These girls are so much fun to hangout with.  Tami has all of the Digital U's recorded and you can access all of them here just by registering.  I never want to listen to myself on a recording but I am so grateful that these sessions were recorded and I can revisit these moments with Pattie over and over.

We had some team members who were able to make the journey to Pattie's memorial service and I felt so comforted by the images and descriptions that they shared with us.  Pattie's life on earth was way too short but her kind and loving personality touched so many people during her years here.  First of all Pattie was a computer technologist in an elementary school.  She loved those little children like they were her own.  At her service, the kids had all made flowers with messages for Pattie that lined the walls.  Steph, a team member shared one image that left me in tears from a little boy named Zachary which included his picture in a heart.  It read "Dear Mrs. Knox, I hope you have a nice time in heaven.  Zachary."  Pattie would love this.

If you had any conversations with Pattie you would know that her beautiful family were her world.  You could just hear the love and the pride in her voice any time that they were mentioned.  She recently became a grandmother for the first time to twins and was so in love and happy to have them in her life.

Years ago her love for her family brought her to scrapbooking....a journey that started quite simple but through this journey she touched so many people from around the world with her fun-loving personality and ability to connect and inspire others.  Our team members that attended Pattie's memorial service shared that there were LOTS of scrapbooks there.  Scrapbooks filled with wonderful memories that Pattie had enjoyed.  As people went through these albums, there was laughter...there were tears....there were memories coming back to life.  Pattie left a legacy for her family filled with her voice and her memories.  What an incredible gift that is and once again reinforces how important it is to document life.  Pattie's voice can be heard in the words that she writes and the pictures that accompany them.  I know that Pattie's family will treasure these pages always.

Last week I was in total shock and sadness.  I keep focusing on the fact that I was so blessed to have had the opportunity to get to know Pattie so well.  She inspired me on all levels of my life.  I know I am not the only one.  She inspired people from all over the world and touched so many.  Thank you Pattie for sharing your love of life with each of us.  You will be greatly missed by all of us who know and love you!