Chilly Willy Fun

We only got one great picture of the girls while we were out at Copper Mountain this winter. It was SO cold - it never even made it to freezing (32°) the whole week we were there. But the girls enjoyed their brief outings anyway and can't wait to trying skiing in 2009 - that should make for some great photo ops.

This page stays pretty true to purple & silver because I was inspired to scrap it this weekend because of the color challenge over at The Digi-Chick.

No new tricks or creations here - just a lot of color manipulation - I haven't accumulated much in this color scheme.



Glitter Border & Ribbon (recolored) from Strawberry Delight Mini by Flergs
Star & embellishments from Funky Stars by Flergs
Swirl (recolored) from Funky Swirls & Overlays by Flergs
Date brush from Dated by Fei-fei's Stuff
Background paper & folder tab by Scraps from Sarah Belle
Fonts - Fontdinerdotcom Sparkly, Arial

You Sparkle

55 Layers - FIFTY-FIVE layers - that's too many layers right? This page was inspired by the scraplift challenge over at The Digi-Chick - and it has SO many layers. It's always amazing to me to see these LOs that look so casually tossed together with all these elements and then I try to scraplift it and it's this HUGE task. Just the little details, like putting a french knot on the gem flowers - 3 more layers. Custom shadows, just so the picture & the scalloped accent aren't perfectly flat - 2 more layers. Soft Light blending mode for the photos to make them pop - yet more layers. End result - worth it.

So I didn't try a lot of new stuff with this LO - I did practice using the eraser, and having it limit what is erased by selecting the borders of one shape and then deleting something on another layer (used for the YOU in the title) - I was trying to layer stuff back in December and knew there had to be a way to restrict what you deleted, and then saw a tutorial that did something similar, and today I fiddles around long enough to figure it out - and of course - easy once you know what you're doing. Very clever - you just have to watch how your shadows come out - I ended up having to simplify some layers so I could delete shadows that were in the wrong spot because I couldn't really "weave" the letters like they needed to be in the layers.








Page Idea from That Face is Too Cute by cindys732003 at The Digi-Chick
Kit - Dreams Do Come True by Britt-ish Designs
Flower Gems from Sunshine Sweets by Britt-ish Designs
Straight Stitching from Basic Stitches by Britt-ish Designs
Cardboard from douceurenivrante by Petit Moineaux
Flower shape from Sunshine Sweets by Amanda Kay
Paper Texture by Heather Bostian
Circle Stitching by Natali
Sequin Knots by Scrapgirly
Tied String from Knotted Stitches by Katie Hadfield
Glitter Sparkles from Funky Stars by Flerg's
Layer Styles - Glitter by Flerg's
Layer Styles - Brown Bagging It by Misty Cato
Actions - med bottom tear, frosted glass, gemstone by Atomic Cupcake
Fonts - pea reese, 2 peas tattered lace

Now this doesn't haven't anything to do with my current LO, but I realized that my Bouncing Baby (I'm an engineer so names don't come easy - this was named after the bouncy seat that was in the picture) was slightly "girly", so I wanted all my twin mommy friends with Boy/Girl twins and everyone else that has one or more of each to be able to create complementary pages in their books.


Pick up the Add-On HERE

Please be kind and leave some love or constructive criticism. Enjoy!

So Very Cute

This should have been a very quick page, and in fact it was, but along the way I decided to piddle around some more with "creating" and made a bunch of different papers before the very last one that ended up being the background - had to stop then as I finally created what I needed.

More shapes, actions, brushes & paper textures at work here.







Template Sketch 3-18 by Kresta at The Digi-Chick
Kit - Bouncing Baby by Scraps from Sarah Belle
Font - Pea Cammi-pea

Now for another freebie! I had so much fun creating that I thought I'd share it all with you. Didn't make it far in the way of elements, so if you'd like me to try my hand at that, please be sweet and leave me a comment when you download.

Everything is 300 dpi and there are 11 papers and an alpha. Many, many special thanks to Atomic Cupcake, Seishido and Petit Moineaux for their commercial use items.








Pick up the Quick Page HERE
Pick up the Mini Kit HERE

Spring is made for Strings

Tried some new things and learned alot with this LO. It seems a little squareish, but with 4 photos the current trends aren't as easily followed.

My biggest accomplishment on this LO was making custom shadows for all the photos, so that they don't just look flat with a shadow, but actually have some movement. I found a short tutorial from Christine Smith and it used the Filter->Distort->Liquify tool which I had used before, so applying it to this was pretty easy and I love the results - it does add a bunch of layers to the project though.

I'm getting the hang out of making papers now and used several commercial paper textures. I was hoping to make all of the papers, but in the end I searched through my stash and found something that I could alter (the circly dot one) - the pink was originally orange and I used a photo filter to make the whole thing bluer than it was.

I made my own staple and grommet for this page - many thanks to Atomic Cupcake! The journaling strips I also made and then used the Modify->Contract to add the small white border.

The string which kinda makes the whole LO is part of what I got with my "prize" for winning the color challenge over at The Digi-Chick a few weeks ago. I think their challenges are great, even though I don't get to do them that often.








Commercial Use Paper Textures by petit moineaux
Patterned paper from Run by Digitreats
Polka Dot Paper from Dreams do Come True by Britt-ish Designs
Stitching from In Stitches:Basics by Britt-ish Designs
String from My True Valentine by Dani Alencar
Tag from Whimsical Wonderland by Flergs
Staple & Grommet by Scraps from Sarah Belle(that's ME!)
Actions - old painted metal by Atomic Cupcake
Fonts - 2 Peas Evergreen, Luna Bar

I've also decided to offer a freebie now & then, so here's the first one. The file is large because it includes the custom shadows I created.

You can pick the freebie up HERE. Enjoy!

For My Daughters

This is such a far leap from what my LOs normally look like it doesn't seem like it belongs, but it needs to be in their book. From when I first saw the inspiration for this page I knew I had to do one like it, but how do you condense pregnancy & birth into one page?? I tried to imagine what I would really want them to know if I'm not here when they have kids of their own. This might be one of those that gets edited more than once!

The only new technique here is cropping the picture using feathering and applying a blending mode of multiply so that the picture and background merged. I was so happy I had this paper texture, otherwise the whole thing would have just looked so flat to me.

I think I need to add a date though so the girls know how pregnant I was when the pic was taken - FYI very pregnant - just 8 days before they were born.



Page Idea from Pregnancy Facts for My Girls by Joy Bohon @ 2 Peas in a Bucket
Paper Texture by Betty
Fonts - Pea Johanna, 4990810

Redo - Minutes New (still not satisfied)

Once again, I stumbled into a creative road block trying to get the title to work - and I'm redoing the page - arrgh. This was one of the first digital ones I did so it was rough anyway. It took me just a little bit to put the other pieces together and I knew what I wanted the title to say, but just couldn't make it fit on the page. Still not for sure it's really what I want. I like all the individual pieces, but I'm not for sure that they fit together the way I want.

This time I learned about Modify-> Expand & Contract and used it to create the detail on the number and the borders on the paper tags.

	original LO

Floral Paper, photo Mat from Vintage Garden by Flergs
Pink Paper, brown paper & staple from Blog Freebie by L. Riordan
Ribbon from Spring Romantic bonus by Doreen Stoltz
Flower from Sweety Spring by Miss Vivi
Fastner from Fastners by ScrapMatters
String Knot from Knotted Stitches by Katie Hadfield
Kraft paper from Harvest Spice by Shabby Princess
Actions - inked edge by Atomic Cupcake
Fonts - CK Ali's Writing, 2 Peas Hot Chocolate, 2 Peas Glitter Girl, Death

Redo - Love at First Sight

I had a yearning to create something but couldn't find the right photos/kits for a new LO, so I went back and redid one of my traditional LOs. I was prompted by a ScrapMatters blog entry last week to "scraplift yourself" and while this wasn't a total scraplift, many of the original elements are still intact. I bought these vintage garden papers by Flergs (during her birthday sale) and instantly thought that they would be good for these "first moment" photos of the girls and so therefore when inspiration was lacking for something new - it was time to go back to something that didn't sit quite right the first time.

I learned a valuable lesson today - SAVE and save often. I almost had the LO complete and then accidently closed it. Then while I was almost done the 2nd time PSE locked up on me - a first, but then it become a 2nd and 3rd tonight as well. Fortunately I had learned my lesson, but its frustrating when your program doesn't work well.

Not much new here - a new action and I played around with the blending modes so that the quote would be readable but not the focus. I ended up using two blending modes - vivid light & soft light, both set at 50% opacity for the layer.

the redo	the original

Floral Paper, photo Mat & Tear from Vintage Garden by Flergs
Pink Paper & Staple from Blog Freebie by L. Riordan
Ribbon from Spring Romantic bonus by Doreen Stoltz
Actions - sandededge, inkededge, & pristine chipboard by Atomic Cupcake
Fonts - Stephanie Marie SF, Times New Roman, CK Ali's Writing