Swinging Under the Sycamore

Great inspiration this week over at the Sweet Shoppe for some photos I took while we were back in Missouri. My dad planted this tree when I was in grade school, and now it's big enough for my girls to swing under it. My parents are trying to sell the farm, so we may not have many more chances for the girls to fly under this sycamore.

My colors for this LO came from the cute flowers & birdie that I got with some of my winnings at the digichick. Then I needed red & green to pull the colors out of the photo and next thing you know I'm making papers - which is good for everyone because here comes my next little kit.

The only little tricks I played on the template were to use the layer->modify->contract and then apply a stroke on that contracted border so that I could erase the stroked line and get that cutout look. I use the contract/expand and stroke combo on quite a few things now. Then I made a custom shadow for the tree so it looked like it had a little more life in its leaves.



Template #35 from Cookie Decorating 101 by Cindy at Sweet Shoppe Designs
Paper from Spring Swing by Scraps from Sarah Belle
Kraft Paper from Backs:Brown by Amanda Heiman
Paperbag frame from You've Been Framed by Lindsay Jane Designs
Ribbons from Give it to me Straight by Amanda Heiman
Flower & Bird Embellishements from Sugar in Heaven by Jeann Gaidecki
Paper Overlays from Grungy Overlays by Misschifis Scraps
Stitching from Stitches by Jasmin Olya
Glitter Frame from Strawberry Delights by Flergs
Glitter Style from Glitter Freebie 1 by Flergs
Action - inked edges by Atomic Cupcake
Fonts - Aubrey, CK Ali's Writing, Century Gothic

Being able to make your own stuff is both a curse & a blessing I've decided. I love to make it and truly customize my LOs, but I hate not to share my creations so I spend a lot of time creating other items to actually make it worth sharing. Its good practice for me I guess, but it does take additional time to do the packaging & whatnot. The papers for this seemed to come together really well and I actually like this preview.


Pick up the Paper Pack HERE.
Now to see what I can come up with in the way of embellishments - I'd love to hear some ideas in the comments. They are disabled in 4shared, so please leave them here for me.

Happy Birthday Sweet Girls

Seems like its been forever since I've scrapped. It's been a busy past two weeks between the girls birthday followed by a trip back to Missouri to visit all our family. Good news is that I my scrapping juices came back quickly - the first 5 minutes or so I got a little scared because I was actually having to think about PSE commands.

I finally made my own scalloped mats - I just made a circle brush and drew the outside and then filled it with a rectangle - a littler easier than I thought it might be. Then I made the template, so it was easy then to find some papers that coordinated with the picture and then just clip away. I fiddled around some with the elements - didn't have anything that just "went" so I had to do some creating and modifying there. The paper kit I used was a Christmas one and I made the black papers using an overlay and brush. Right after I finished the template I thought, I'll be able to do this with just a few things, but now that I've finished the credits I realize that it didn't end up very simple.

I have two bits of "news" that I need to share. Originally this blog was just for me, but I have a few loyal readers now and hopefully they will be excited for me too.

I try to participate in at least one challenge each week at the digichick. In April, anytime you completed a challenge your name was entered in a drawing where the prize was a $10 gift card from 19 digichick designers - and I won!!! I found right before we left on vacation so hopefully tonight I'll be able to go shopping and get lots of fantastic stuff. So head over to the digichick challenges - they really do provide lots of inspiration. My favorites are the color challenge and scraplift challenge.

The other tidbit is that I'm going to be part of a design team at Benevolent Boutique designing kits for charity. The first kits are scheduled to be released in June, benefitting the Make a Wish Foundation. There are going to be two kits - one each for boys & girls, with toddlers in mind since June is National Potty Training Awareness Month (who knew?).



Page Idea from You are so Handsome by ZaCola3 at Sweet Shoppe Designs
Kit - Silly Seasons by Zoe Pearn
Sequins from Sugar in Heaven by Jeann Gaidecki
Brush from Paper Damage by Adobe
Overlay from Grungy Overlay by Misschifis Scraps
Glitter Styles from Chocolate Berry by Flergs
Stitching by Circle Stitching by Natali
Button ties from Lots of Button Ties by Designs by Shannon
Buttons - scanned in & edited by Scraps from Sarah Belle
Actions - Pristine Chipboard by Atomic Cupcake
Fonts - Tangerine, Pea Kate

Packing up the Pappis

WOW - is that red or what? When I first got supplies (paper ones back then) to start the girls baby books I only bought pink & green papers, now their books are full of color.

A few firsts for me on this LO - I've never used a B&W photo. Others do it all the time and it looks awesome, but when I try I just feel like the photo gets lost. This time it was the perfect solution since the photo wasn't that great and the focus needed to be on the pacifiers anyway. Doing the spot color was pretty easy - I just created a copy of the photo, changed it to B&W, and then erased the B&W photo so the pacifiers could show through in color.

Picking a font for this LO was hard for me - it had to be something that could withstand the bold red background, but not bring the focus away from the picture. I ended up using impact and then playing with the size after simplifying the layer. Then I ran the sponged canvas action on it and then embossed it to make it more 3D.

Made more custom shadows using the liquify tool, I'm getting pretty speedy with those and I just really like the unique results. I struggled trying to decide whether I needed to add a fastner of some sort to hold down the notepaper or picture, and tried a few things that didn't feel right, so in the end I left them off.



Notepaper from breathe easy freebie by KSharonK Designs
Grunge Overlay from Grungy Overlays by Misschifis Scraps
action - sponged canvas by Atomic Cupcake
fonts - cac futura casual, impact

And now for what I'm sure some folks have been waiting for - the next part of From a Little Baby. My computer time has been limited this week as we moved the twins into big beds, and I have to guard against them escaping before they fall asleep. Thanks for the comments - I hope you like this next part. About 100 more folks downloaded part 1 than part 2, so they either didn't like the kit or they missed the 2nd part - it's still available in the previous blog entry.


Pick up Part 3 HERE

Stayin' Cool at the Pool

This LO was inspired by the weekly scraplift challenge at The Digi-chick. Somehow have a deadline makes me more creative.

Challenges are aptly named it seems, in addition to getting me to create another LO, they also challenge me to learn new things - this week I was able to use the Distort-> Polar Coordinates to turn straight ric-rac into circular ric-rac, the trick is to make sure your object is 200% taller as somehow it shrinks when it turns into a circle. I haven't been able to really make it work with text yet. I'm also really pleased with the gel action that makes it look like there is water sploshes on the paper - at least I hope it looks that way to everyone else.








Page idea from I Love U by Jennilyn at The Digi-Chick
Kit Happily Ever After by Mary Fran
Stitching by Natali
Flowers from Funky Flowers by Flergs
Ribbons from Straight Set by Natalie Braxton
Split Splat Brush by Stephanie Shimerdia (obsidian dawn)
Graph Overlay from Basics Overlays by Pton Designs
Grunge Overlay from Grungy Overlays by Misschifis Scraps
Actions - gel by Atomic Cupcake
fonts - CAC Norm Heavy, Retro Rock Poster, CK Ali's Writing