Seaside Beauty

Pages of the girls first trip to the Ocean. Of course we took many more pictures, but for me, these just captured the special moments and are my favorites. I love the one of Alena from behind - I wanted her to know it was her. She loved the ocean, pulling to go into it even though it was still quite chilly in May.

I can't believe that I'm scapping so many single pictures, but sometimes one does a better job than many. The rest are all in a photo album to be enjoyed.

This page is also a simple layout - I didn't want anything to compete with the picture.








Papers from Live for the Joy by Kay Miller
Stitching by Natali
Tag Hanger from Deacon's Closet Mini Kit by Flerg's
Actions - inked edges by Atomic Cupcake
Font - jayne print

This was also one of my first ventures into photo editing back in 2005. The picture was so cute, but there were so many people in the background. Luckily, sand, sea & sky are easy to duplicate, but it makes all the difference in the world to see Iva peaceful & alone on the beach vs. sharing it with all these other people. For the LO, I cropped it even tighter than a 4x6 - all I really did was remove all the people and the book & stuff in the foreground.

Toothy Grin

This tooth chart is something I've been kicking around for a LONG time (about two years) and I finally got the motivation to get it done due to Megan (aka Flerg's) who lives down under and does beautiful design work. She is holding a contest to find CT (creative team) members. I think CT members get to use the designers products free of charge to create LOs that should inspire others to purchase items from the designer. Now, I don't have enough free time to be on her CT, even if she were to select me, but I love using her stuff just the same.

I recently got a few actions from Atomic Cupcake. An action is like a microsoft macro, it just records a series of steps to make it easier on the next person. The actions they have created are just amazing. I can finally have inked edges again because of them. So the edges of the frame & tag are inked, the teeth have a frosted glass effect (which I think makes them look more 3D), the edges of the transparent paper are torn, and the background for the teeth started off using her cutout action (like making it into a sticker), but then I changed the paper.

And then I used a distort filter (liquify) to push in the ribbon so it would appear it was going through the eyelet. The tutorial has a few more steps that I didn't use in this LO, but I'll give it another whirl soon. I used the old paper photo filter on the pictures - they were too bright to go with the muted LO.

So - a lot of things came together to get this LO done, but it's great to have another "traditional" babybook page off the list of pages to do.









Kit (paper & alpha) from Strawberry Delight Mini by Flerg's
Tag, Staple & Eyelet from Decon's Closet Sampler by Flerg's
Brown Glitter Style from Chocolate Berry by Flerg's
Actions - tear, inked edge, cutout & frosted glass by Atomic Cupcake
Font - kid print
Tutorial - how to thread an eyelet by Scrap Your Art Out!

Sweet Santa Baby

Ok - these are done now. Quite the hodge podge of kits, but I guess it's a good collaboration of many things that I've collected. In the end I'm quite happy with the results, but with being gone one week without scrapping, I'll have to go back and relearn that burn & dodge technique.








Paper & alpha from douceurenivrante by petitmoineaux
Other Papers (recolored)from Christmas Around the World by Kim B
Stitching by Natali
Note Paper & Tape (recolored)from Flutter by Karen Lewis
Safety Pin from DreadFullyHappy by Digital Crea (a Thursday's Freebie so it changes)
Ribbon (recolored)from Ashley's Polka Dot Christmas by Angel in My Pocket
Alpha (recolored) from Island Girl Choco Chip Alpha by Mabelle (My Scrap Works)
Tutorial - Realistic Stick Pin Placement by Studio Girls
Fonts - Serrific Grunge, Jayne

Santa Baby - not quite done

These LOs are not done, but I needed to take a break from them and for some reason I find that posting them here gives me fresh perspective. Looking at these LOs it seems as if they should have been so easy, but I've been at it 3 hours now and I still don't have a title or journaling (can't think of a title at all). I was having a dickens of a time finding paper I liked and tried to recolor a bunch of stuff, but the red in the sweater was hard to match. Ended up taking stuff from a bunch of different kits and recoloring some. Learned how to burn & dodge (necessary for really making the safety pin look like it went through the paper). I found some tutorials for that I'll share in case someone else is looking. I spent a little bit figuring it out and you can't even hardly see it, but maybe it will look right on the printed page.








Links for credits to be added later

Paper from douceurenivrantebypetitmoineaux, Kim B's Christmas Around the World,
Stitching by Natali
Safety Pin from DreadFullyHappy
Ribbon from Ashley's Polka Dot Christmas
Tutorial - Realistic Stick Pin Placement by Studio Girls

Birth Annoucement for a Friend

Sorry the DigiFree website brought you here March 3, 2008. It must have picked up the word freebie in the comments. Please feel free to look around, but the only freebie here is on the 2nd blog post for collecting family geneology. TFL.

I just love helping friends design cards to send. I just think it is so wonderful to recieve a totally custom card - and today's printing industry it making it so much easier.







Paper - Jolly Hollydays from LivEDesigns
Ribbon - Happy Birthday from Digital Design Divas
Fonts - Papyrus, Baskerville, Nupital