January MoMs

Another month has flown by. I have spent the last four hours setting up all the MoM layouts to print and trying to upload them - and my JAVA app isn't working so it's taking even longer than I wanted.

Kit - Miss the Bus by Britt-ish Designs Fonts: EK Periwinkle, Kid Print
Kit -All I Want by Sweet Shoppe Designers Font CK Journaling
Kit - Merry & Bright by Zoe Pearn Alpha - Bedazzled Squared Off by Traci Reed Font - Kayleigh
Kit - Personal Muse by Jana McCarthy Font - CK Journaling

December MOMs

Here's December's installment of MOM newsletter pages. As a historian didn't step forward this year and I couldn't really think of another way to showcase all the photos that everyone sends every month I've just been scrapbooking them to include in the newsletter so I guess I'm the "unofficial" historian for the club too. They always bring me great joy - but I'm ready to go back to working on just stuff for us/me.

Template 8 by Yin Designs (modified) Kit - Feeling Festive by Eve Recinella Fonts: BoysRGross, BlackJack, CK Journaling	Border from Around the World by Ilona Havenaar Black paper from Backs the Dark Side by Amanda Heimann Fonts: Amazone, CK Journaling
Kit - Whimsical Wonderland 2 by Monica Guerra Leiria Font: CK Journaling	A Very Merry Unbirthday by Amanda Slagle
Template 20 by Yin Designs (modified) Kit - Merry by Designs by Krista Stitches by Britt-ish Designs Bobby Pin by Mira Designs Fonts: Wide Latin, Brush Script, 2 Peas Evergreen
Template 47 by Yin Designs Pattern Paper from Winter Gifts by Summer Driggs Bow from Bow Beauties 6 by Royanna Fritschmann Action Tear & Ink by Atomic Cupcake Fonts:Santa's Sleigh, CK Journaling

Girls Just Gotta Have Fun

A big thanks to Brittney from Britt-ish Designs for the big assist in getting this LO done. This was another photo that caught my eye on my screen saver and I decided it would be the next one to scrap and then when I went looking for inspiration I found this great LO by Brittney at DST and it was perfect because it let me use 3 pictures instead of just one - and then I realized that some of her kits would fit the color scheme perfectly! I did have to alter some of the colors a bit, but the gingham ribbon and the alpha (fun) are is the only things that I completely recolored.

DH & I love these photos and these are the few that we have that we didn't take. We had a fabulous babysitter back in VA and she snapped these while she was there one day. I loved that toy too - it was the perfect baby gate between the game room and my office.



Page Idea from Small World by Designer Brittney at DigiShopTalk
Kits - Leave the World Behind & Dreams Do Come True by Britt-ish Designs
Flower from Little Athlete from Scraps from Sarah Belle
Green Polka Dot Ribbon from Give It to Me Straight by Amanda Heiman at TDC
Blue Ribbon from Straight Set by Natalie Braxton at The Lily Pad
Label Alpha from Label Maker Collection by Dani Alencar at TDC
Swirls from Floral Swirl Brush by Pixels & Ice Cream
Stitches from Basic Stitches by Britt-ish Designs
Date Tag from Label the Date by Mira Designs at TDC
Fonts - Schmutz, 1942 Report

Cake Anyone?

I knew I had to scrap this picture when I took it, and I came to my computer with ideas of clusters & swirls and just more stuff on the page. I browsed through some galleries for inspiration and nothing. So I just laid some stuff out on the page and simple just seemed right. I modified the alpha a bit by changing the color the stroke inside the letter from it's original white to a color from the patterned paper.



Kraft Paper from Freestyle Paper by Kimberly Giarrusso
Block Paper from Trendy Pop Add-on by Cori Gammon
Alpha from Promise Collection by Shabby Princess
Clip from Miss the Bus by Britt-ish Designs
Fonts: CK Ali's Writing, CK Journaling, 28 Days Later

Building the Swingset

My scrapping has really slowed down now that the twins are in a big bed. I've lost about 3 hours a day of "me" time due to earlier wakeups, shorter naps, and later bedtimes. I'm sure in time it will straighten itself out, but now I'm still adjusting to being tired again, so there are some days all I get done is check e-mail and other critical tasks, and never make it to my scrapping. I miss it.

This LO doesn't strike me as one of my best, but its ok. A month ago I had never used a B&W photo, now I think I have done three LOs with B&W. Odd - but on this LO it really helped tie the pictures together because they were all different colors and it was hard to find papers that worked for everything, so changing them to B&W fixed that issue.

I'm also trying to challenge myself by using a single kit, in this case a mini-kit. I think it helps me better understand what people might want in a design. This is also a color combo that I normally wouldn't use, and it was a good test to feel a little uncomfortable.



Page Idea from May Page Maps by Becky Fleck
Papers from Renewal Sampler by Michelle Coleman
Screw Fastners by Simka
Stitching from Basic Stitching by Britt-ish Designs
Action - Medium Bottom Tear by Atomic Cupcake
Fonts - Soopafresh, BlackJack, CK Ali's Writing, 28 Days Later

Now for the my latest freebie kit - sorry its taken so long. It's been ready for a few days, but with our swingset project this weekend I just didn't have a chance to get a LO scrapped and my DH is traveling out of the country this week.

I'd like to say a big THANKS to those that left comments with the last kit, and especially those who left comments between freebies - those truly warm the heart.

Please, if after you open the kit, you think "Darn, I could use this if it just had _____", then come back and leave a comment and I'll try to put together an add-on with the requests. I could always keep adding to a single kit, but I don't want to put all my design eggs in one basket.


Pick up Little Athlete HERE

This weekend is the twins 3rd birthday - they are so excited - they ask every day to go pick up the birthday cake! Hopefully I'll get lots of good pictures this year.

Bubbles

I suddenly seem to have a fascination with using black as the background paper. I guess it really sets off the bright colors in the photos.

I was browing galleries today looking for inspiration as I want to get some LOs done this month - what I really need to do is 3 Easters and 2 Birthdays, but instead I find something that looks neat and I know I have a photo to do something similiar and off I jaunt down a different road.

Today I used a gradient for the first time to create the two colors on the black paper using an overlay. A few custom shadows for the ribbons and then I "cut" the strips for the journaling.



Page idea from Bubbles by jak8396 at yourfavoritepair
Polka Dot Paper from JUMP by Digitreats
Overly from Dirty Overlay by Sugarplum Paperie
Ribbons from Set Straight by Natalie Braxton
Circle Stitching by Natali
Straight & Zizzag Stitches from Basic Stitches by Britt-ish Designs
Date from Date Bits 2 by Misty Cato
Actions - inked edge, pristine chipboard by Atomic Cupcake
font - the blue cabin

I couldn't help myself and made just a few more things for the Spring Denim kit, so here's a few more papers, flowers and cardboard borders to add to the collection. You can click on the image for a larger view.



I've disabled comments in 4shared. If you've really liked the kit and use it somewhere I'd really appreciate a comment back here someday and a link to your LO so I can leave some luv and see my kit used in another way.
You can pickup the Add-On HERE

And to Pam F who asked for suggestions on how to get started designing.
I use PSE5 so I think anything is possible - I won't ever be able to do what those with a doodle pad and PSCS3 are able to create, but I'm constantly amazed at what PSE5 is capable of doing. For me, purchasing actions from Atomic Cupcake has enabled me to create things that would take me an eternity (or longer) to figure out and those little touches add so much to elements. After that, it's just about slowly accumulating commercial use resources to modify and find things that inspire you. I am not planning on ever selling my creations - I don't want a job, I just want to enjoy my hobby and be able to make things for others to enjoy as well.

Hands Down

whoo-hoo - I got a LO completed during 1 nap!!!! I don't think I've ever done that. This LO really isn't that complicated, but I think I have more people to credit than I have items on the page :-).

This page will always be special as these are my girls little handprints at 31 months. I love it when they do this type of project at Mother's Day Out. I certainly haven't figured out how they do it and not get prints smeared everywhere - years of experience I guess.









Black paper from Vintage Oreo by Summertime Designs
Shape Template from Decorative Templates 04 by Keley Lopes
Sequins from Kimmy by Raspberry Road Designs
Staples from Dreams Do Come True by Brit-ish Designs
Paper Overlay Notebook from Basics-Overlays by Pton Designs
Paper Texture from Commercial Use Grunge by Pineapple Plantation Designs
Layer Style from Brown Bagging It by Misty Cato
Scotch Tape by Mellykat
Font - Pea Sarahloo, Pea Reese

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!

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!