June Mask Appeal Challenge at Designer Digitals

Happy Friday!  I am over on the DD Blog with another Mask Appeal Challenge.  I hope you head on over, grab the freebie and play along.  Here is the page that I created for it...

All products are from Designer Digitals.

I hope to see your pages in the Mask Appeal Gallery by Tuesday, July 2nd at 6:00 pm EST for the chance to win a $5 gift card to Designer Digitals.  Have a great weekend!

Celebrate Life Through Your Journaling

I love to scrapbook for so many reasons.  I enjoy the creative outlet.  I love documenting our memories.  I love seeing my children remember details that would have been forgotten without their scrapbooks.  I love pushing myself to learn new techniques.  I love sharing my voice and perspective with those that I love.

You may have noticed that I didn't write "I love journaling".  I will admit that journaling is my least favorite part of creating a page and yet I think it is the MOST important part of creating a page.  Journaling allows your voice to be heard.  If you have taken any of my classes, you have heard me talk about the importance of sharing your voice through your pages.  When my pages come back from the printer and we look at them together.  The kids are constantly saying "Mom, read it to me....can you read that again".  They love to hear my perspective on what is happening on the page and I will admit that frequently when I am reading to them, I get choked up.  My voice and heart are on a lot of those pages and they can hear that when I am reading those words over and over again.  

I think it is so important to go beyond the simple details of what is happening.  In the page below that I recently  created, I could have just said "the two of us went to the beach and had a great time".  Yes, that would have summarized it but there was so much more I could share about my observations that day.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

I was able to talk about our day and the specifics of what I adore about my son right now at this stage of his precious, little life.  I wanted to make the connections about the specifics that I was seeing that day to the much larger picture of how he has captured my heart day in and day out.  I really don't think journaling is easy.  Sometimes I get caught up in trying to find the perfect words and sometime I worry about my grammar.  I generally just throw that all aside and just write from my heart.  I want my children to be able to page through their albums fifty years from now when I am no longer hear to "read" it to them and to hear my voice and feel my love for them.  I think that is so incredibly important.

I challenge you to move beyond the basic details on your next page and write from your heart.  Make connections, share your feelings and let your voice be heard by your loved ones......forever!

Creating Keepsakes July/August 2013 Free Template

In my last post, I shared that Creating Keepsakes July/August 2013 digital issue was now available.  I'm super excited about this issue because it contains the first Digital Scrapbooking insert.  You can read more about it here.  Creating Keepsakes is also very excited about this issue and is actually giving the digital issue away for free.  You can access this issue by going here.

In addition to a whole lot of inspiration, there are free downloads included in the digital issue.  I have a free template included in this issue.  It was brought to my attention that the link was not there yesterday but the problem has been resolved so you can pick it up now if you missed it the first time around.

The template is for the page below which was featured in this issue and happens to be my template (variations of) for my Project 365 from last year.  I happen to love this template and never tired of using it to document our memories last year.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

If you haven't already done so, head on over here and grab the freebies which includes this template.  Have fun!

Creating Keepsakes July/August 2013 - Free Digital Issue

I hope you are enjoying summer!  We certainly are.  After a tough spring, the weather has been picture perfect this week. 

 

I am excited to tell you that Creating Keepsakes July/August 2013 issue has been officially released and I am even more excited about this issue for several reasons.  First of all, it is loaded with great ideas and layouts to inspire your summer memory keeping.  When I get an issue, I cannot wait to go through it and study the layouts.  I left this issue feeling very inspired and as a scrapbooker, it doesn't get any better than that.

 

 

The second reason that I am super excited about this issue is because of what you see below!

 



Yahoo!  This issue contains the first of hopefully many digital scrapbooking inserts.  When I first started digital scrapbooking, Creating Keepsakes had just started a new digital scrapbooking magazine and my beloved friend Pattie Knox was one of the contributing editors.  I soaked up everything that I could in that magazine and it inspired me to try new techniques and to see new possibilities for my photos and memory-keeping.  I was very sad when the decision was made to cease publication of that magazine.  I have all of the issues and STILL will refer to them from time to time.

I heard earlier in the year, they would have a digital scrapbooking insert and was overjoyed.  When I went out to Salt Lake City in April, I learned that they REALLY wanted to reach out to the digital scrapbooking community, my heart was pounding.  I was so excited.  Well, this is the start of hopefully a whole lot more.     Creating Keepsakes is very excited about this and I hope you are too.  In fact, they are so excited that they are giving away the digital edition of this issue for free to each of you.  You need to go here for your free issue.

I hope you enjoy it!

Graduation Album

My beautiful niece Kennedy just graduated from high school which is hard for me to believe.  It seems like only yesterday that she was looking up at me with her big, beautiful blue eyes in her flower girl dress telling me that she had waited her "whole life for this day".  I could so relate!

It has been amazing to watch her grow into the beautiful, motivated, and intelligent woman that she is today.  My entire family couldn't be more proud of her and we are so excited for her future to unfold.

I wanted to do something special for this big milestone.  With the help of her family, I created this album for her.   Earlier in the year, I emailed her immediate and extended family.  I asked each of them to write a message to Kennedy.  Luckily I had taken her senior photos last fall.  I paired each of their messages with her senior photos.  I'm so excited to give her this album on Friday at her graduation party.

I thought I would share a little bit with you.  Each spread contains the message from a loved one, a quote to inspire her, and her senior photos.  I kept the design for each page the same but changed the colors based on the photos.

Here is her cover...

The title page....

Some pages from the center of the album (the messages have been removed for privacy).

*As seen in Creating Keepsakes May/June 2013 issue.  All rights reserved to Creating Keepsakes.

Products from Katie Pertiet, Lynn Grieveson, Pattie Knox, and Andrea Victoria.


I ordered the album from Blurb and received it last week.  I'll just say that Friday cannot get here soon enough and I'm so thankful that all of Kennedy's family helped me by sharing their love for her. I love this design so much and plan to do an album for each of my kids just sharing little stories from their lives.

As Kennedy heads off to college in the fall, I know she will treasure the words from her family who adore her and support her in all that she does.

Maximizing My Time

Summer has officially arrived although the weather still isn't cooperating.  The kids finished school last week. The girls were both sad because they had such an awesome year and LOVED their teachers.  We are so grateful for the school that they are at and how these teachers have made such a wonderful impact on their lives.

We have had a very busy spring to say the least.  Five out of the seven nights of the week, we are on the run and often going in various directions between soccer, t-ball, baseball and softball.  There is never enough time in the day it seems.

One of the reasons that I first came to digital scrapbooking was that I found myself creating the same layout three times for each of my children's albums.  With traditional paper, that takes a LONG time and I was determined to figure out a way to be more efficient.  HELLO Digital Scrapbooking!  

Digital scrapbooking has allowed me to really maximize my time.  When I create a layout for one of my children, there is a good chance that there are two or three versions of that layout for my other children.  The layouts below are a perfect example of this.  All of my children are playing some form of baseball now.  I started with this layout for Mia.

I made a few revisions for Quinn and Ellie.  In no time, I had three layouts about their time on the baseball field.  Talk about killing three birds with one stone.  

All products are from Designer Digitals.

As I struggle to find time to actually scrap, I find great comfort in being able to create one layout and make it into two more.  Thank you Photoshop!