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

All I Dreamed Of

This is a redo from paper to digital - another one of those LOs where I got one paper one scrapped and got all the pieces cut to do the second LO and just never got the second one done.

In addition to my MoM newsletter duties, I've also decided to try and teach some (so far 14 have joined our little group) of our mom's of multiples how to digital scrapbook. So this page is also serving as the first "lesson" of that process. I'm trying to lead the whole process on-line cause it's hard to get together without kids and with computers, but hopefully I'll be able to do some hands on stuff too.

I was finally able to scan in some ribbons, extract them and have them keep their translucence (sp?). Not something I want to do a lot of, but I did want the ribbon to be similar to the ones that I had on the original LO.



Template 06 by Scraps from Sarah Belle
Pattern Papers from Festival by Shabby Princess
Solid Papers from Sugar & Snails Mini by Scraps from Sarah Belle
Glue Blobs from Glue & Glitter Blobs by Flergs
Actions - Inked Edge by Atomic Cupcake


HERE is the folder with the mini kit & tutorial - take what you wish
HERE is the template

I won't be around much the rest of the month - we're close to halfway so it's time to start the newsletter and my internet browser keeps crashing every 5 minutes, so its not a lot of fun to be on-line and its practically impossible to get anything done. If I do have any spare time I'll be working on things for the OK, Just a Few Boys kit.

More Mother's of Multiples - July

So this is what I've been busy with for the last two weeks. My next issue of the newsletter is just a few minutes away from being ready to publish and I've gotten my LOs complete. I thank God that I found Yin from Yin Design/Simply Yin, her templates have been a huge time saver for me - the hardest part is figuring out which one to slightly modify to make it work for the number of photos I have - but I would be sunk trying to fit all these photos in the newsletter without her marvelous talent.

I really appreciate all the wonderful comments people left for me on "No Boys, Just Girls". It was definitely the most positive response I've received so far. It has gotten me inspired to create "Ok, Just Some Boys" add-on which I'll start working on when the girls & I get back from a mini-trip back to my parents this week. I have a few ideas, but I'm always open to more suggestions. I've gotten 40 comments so far, and 1750 hits and 1000 people downloaded the elements, and about 50 fewer for the paper packs. That's always interesting to see, I guess I'm a numbers person as an engineer, but I'm always curious why people downloaded elements and not papers, I'm much more a paper person myself. Now I'm anxious to see some layouts people have created. There's a little Thank You below all these LOs.

Template 25 by Yin Designs Paper from Strawberry Delight by Flergs (recolored) Alpha from Patriotic by ScarlettSinger Designs Fonts - Arial, Cooper
Template 9 by Yin Designs Paper from Frozen Passion by Pay it Forward Scraps Fonts - Social Animal, CK Journaling	Template 36 (used 1/2) by Yin Designs Paper from Mango Tango by mglscraps Fonts - Placard Condensed, CK Journaling
Template 47 (modified) by Yin Designs Paper from White is White by Dnad Papers from Silly Season by Zoe Pearn Journal Tag from Wild Sorbet by Michelle Coleman Quote from Quote Challenge by Mindy Terasawa Font - CK Journaling	Template 12 by Yin Designs Paper from Shimmer Secondaries by Tracy Lee Designs Date Label from Calendar Labels by Mira Designs Notebook from Nothing Girly by Christine Smith Tabs by Scraps from Sarah Belle Fonts - Chocolate Box Decorated, CK Journaling, Soopafresh
Template 34 (modified) by Yin Designs Papers from Beach Glass by Ginger Scraps Fonts - Death, Century Gothic, CAC Leslie, Blue Cabin
Template 22 (from 2 pages to 1) by Yin Designs Papers from Wild Sorbet by Michelle Coleman Fonts - Elephant, 2 Peas Chatter, LB Punchy, DymoFontInvers	Template 40 (modified) by Yin Designs Papers from Wild Sorbet by Michelle Coleman Fonts - Elephant, Arial

I got my husband one of those coffee mugs you can change the insert on and I love it, so much that I just bought one for myself this weekend and I don't drink coffee. I'll probably make a scrap page just like this mug insert (why didn't I save the psd file????), as I think it turned out pretty cute. All the items are from my two latest kits which you can find on the left sidebar under My Scraps. The kits are "No Boys, Just Girls" and "Spring Swing".

Pick up the mug inserts HERE.

Grandpa's Girls

I finally got time to finish my latest free kit that's been in the works since the girls' birthday in May! All the right things aligned to make it work out - my hubby took care of the kids for LOTS of hours yesterday, I found a template this week for which I had the perfect photo, and I was determined to create a perfect LO using my own kit. I threw away a lot of stuff on this one, and I'm sure I could have created more elements if I'd given myself more time, but my house turned into the wake of a tornado while I've holed myself up in my office.



Template - Cookie #42 by Cindy Schneider at Sweet Shoppe Designs
Kit - No Boys, Just Girls by Scraps from Sarah Belle

The name of the kit is No Boys, Just Girls. The day of their birthday, the girls said "No boys, just girls can eat cake" and it was so cute it stuck. The color scheme is from their napkins. Bright & cheerful - while it says its Just Girls I tried to make some papers that would work for both sexes, although its going to be a bit skimpy on the element side. If I get enough comments, maybe I'll make a little boy add-on. It's got 24 papers and all the elements aren't shown. Enjoy! I really appreciate your comments and seeing LOs using my kits.


There are 4 files - Solid Papers, Patterned Papers, Elements & Alpha.
Pick up No Boys, Just Girls HERE.

added August 5Everything seems to be working just fine, so if it doesn't work the first time, please try again. And it seems as if someone used my account to "save" something in this folder that required a password. It has been deleted, and I apologize to anyone who got the 5th file because it was huge and it wasn't from me.

added July 31 - I received a few comments that the patterned paper pack link wasn't working. I'm traveling right now and don't have many options to check, but was able to save it on a borrowed computer. My only advice is to try again. I will be back on August 6th and will look again to see if anything seems out of order.

Easy as 1-2-3

This one has been festering for a while. I really wanted to record how easy it was to train the girls - getting them to give up their little potties (which we finally did last week after 10 months) was WAY harder than having them be potty trained at 26 months. So while I'm moving this out of my "in progress" file, I don't know that it s done because I didn't journal very much. These pictures might find their way back again when I finally find the right inspiration for what should be two 4x6 horizontals & 1 4x6 vertical photo - and lots of journaling.

And even I had to look more than once to make sure I didn't scrap the same girl twice - they look SO much alike in these photos.



Page Idea from Potty Training by Sari at Sweet Shoppe Designs
Paper & Label by Scraps from Sarah Belle
Bird from Passarinhos by Dani Siqueira
Funky Flowers by Flergs
Date Stamp by Yin Designs
Stitching by Natali
Fonts: DJB Chris, Soopafresh

The Perfect Pair

I've found the perfect song to scrapbook to - Bon Jovi's (You Want To) Make a Memory. My husband has this aptitude of turning to HDMusic and finding some Bon Jovi special and first it was Jon's duet with Sugarland and now his duet with Leanne Rhimes that he likes, but I like everything about Make a Memory. ok, enough with the side-bar.

A few weeks ago (or possibly a month) I mentioned Ann from The 3 Chickens found me and I'm so glad she did. Her blog is so fun to read and its such a time saver for finding the best freebies & sales. She posted this wonderful template and I just took these fab photos of the girls - so I had to make them work together.

I got to use some of the things I picked from from my April win over at the Digi-Chick. Can you believe I just finally finished my shopping spree? Now I need to go purge my freebies folder cause I'm just getting too much stuff to remember and I'll need the extra memory sooner than later it seems.

My computer is really dragging these days - don't know if I need to increase RAM or video memory or both - as long as I don't need a new computer - DH would probably flip at that thought. I wish one of us was more computer geekish - I don't know how much I trust those guys at Circuit City or Best Buy.

I'm hoping to work on my new kit soon, so no freebies for a little bit yet. If you haven't picked up a July desktop yet, the one from Shabby Princess is too adorable to pass up.



Template 03 by The 3 Chickens
Background Paper, frames & tags by Scraps from Sarah Belle
Graph Paper from Spring Denim by Scraps from Sarah Belle
Bird Element from Tweet Love by Fei-Fei's Stuff
White Lace from White Lace by Gunhild
Orange Lace from Crocheted Lace Collection Two by Shannon Lee Designs
Date Tag from Pinned & Dated by Fei-Fei's Stuff (modified)
Swirls from GXEmbellishments by Abneil Software Ltd (Andrew Buckle)
Glitter Swirls from Swirl Therapy by Jofia Designs
Flowers from Kayleigh's Kleidescope by Flergs (recolored)
Glitter Style from Glitter Freebie 1 by Flergs
Stitched sequins from Sequins by Sarah J Designs
Brush from Point to Grain by Sheishido
Actions - Distressed Edge by Atomic Cupcake
Fonts - Century Schoolbook, Century Gothic

Mothers of Multiples scrappages

I've been busy creating and editing my twins club newsletter and creating scrap pages as we don't have a historian this year(yet - I'm hoping I'll get someone else hooked on digiscrapping) and I'm getting lots of pictures to put in the newsletter. I'm very proud of my first newsletter, we'll see how our members like it. It was quite the effort to get all the photos, then sort through and make categories and then scrap what went together and then make one hodge-podge. I've never scrapped so many pictures before on a single layout, now I'll need to learn how to add a few elements here & there. Many thanks to Yin Designs who had some great templates with lots of photos on her blog.



Templates by Yin Designs (some modified)

Papers from:
Bright by Michelle Coleman
Bohemian Summer by Michelle Coleman
Bouncing Baby by Scraps from Sarah Belle
A Walk in the Park by Amy Sumrall
Not So Perfect by Karen Lewis Designs
Moments by Summer Driggs

Alphas/Elements from
Squishy Dots by Karah Fredricks
Glitter Freebie by Flergs
Stinkertoots by Andrea Burns
Express Yourself by Ronna Penner
Spiral Cutouts by Tamra Burwick Designs

Fonts
Aubrey, Placard Condensed, CK Journaling, Amazone BT, Arial, Cooper Black, Pea Reese, 2 Peas Evergreen, Ravie

Wrinkled Toes

I was so thrilled with how this latest kit turned out I just had to use it! I think I made a real design breakthrough and I really want to thank those that left comments with ideas. While all the elements really don't necessary follow a single theme, getting input really made my creative juices start pumping.

To make the picture "pop" I selected the girls feet that are in the middle of the photo and sharpened them so that the wrinkled part really stood out. For the title work, I typed the title, added a cumpled brush, then simplified the layer. Using the marque tool I "cut" each letter, then moved into place and rotated it. This way the text stays together in one layer. Other than that, it was just standard fair, with one custom shadow under the photo.



Page Idea by Maggie Holmes, June cover of Creating Keepsakes magazine
kit - Spring Swing by Scraps from Sarah Belle
Font - Arial

A BIG thank you to those that were kind enough to leave comments on the paper pack, I hope these elements allow you to create something wonderful. I truly hope that that this kit is LO worthy and that you'll let me know when you create something. Please leave me a comment with a link to your gallery or my e-mail is included in my TOU. It would mean so much to see something you've created. I also think this preview turned out pretty good too.


Pick up the element pack HERE.
pssst - there's an add-on below.
double pssst - the coordinating paper pack is in the previous entry

Again, comments are disabled in 4shared, so leave a little love here.

Once I started my scraplift for this page I needed a few extra things, which turned into a Add-On for the kit. No time for a preview, but it includes: 3 scalloped frames, 4 gem brads, 4 photo prongs, an alpha and a flattened quick page (from my LO).
Pick up the Add-On HERE.

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

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.

Dripping with Goodness

I finally made a LO using a bracket thingy - they are everywhere in the galleries and so I had to use a template to get inspired, but I did it!

I also don't think I've ever done a LO just using two colors - it almost seems Valentine's Dayish, but I wanted to use some of my next kit I'm working on to make sure it would work for LOs. I always start these things with one idea and then they just seem to morph into something a little different. This was a good test, even though its a simple LO, I'm going to go back and add a few things to the kit.








Template - Template Challenge #10 by Chrissy W
Kit - Little Athlete by Scraps from Sarah Belle (available soon here!)
Actions - Chalk by Atomic Cupcake
Fonts - Aubrey, CK Ali's Writing, IKHIOOGLA3

I did another little test with the kit - I made some desktop calendars. I had hoped to get these done before May 1st, but my kids had other plans. There is so much more than is showcased in these two desktops - but still a little more to complete before I roll it out.


You can pick up the desktops HERE

Love Your Smile

It's not often that I use only one kit for an entire LO - fortunately it worked out in this case. That's three LOs I've gotten out of this kit, so I'd say it was worth the cost. I did this LO for this week's scraplift challenge at the digichick.

Thought I'd share a few tips in case you hadn't run across them elsewhere yet. For the date text that is on the curve of the curve I used a text template since PSE doesn't do text on paths. But then I also changed the blending mode for the text to overlay which made it blend into the background paper - changing the opacity would have given similar results I'm sure. Blending modes are a neat thing to try if you haven't already.

For the labels I used the Embossing Tape font, but it's flat looking, so I used the emboss filter. I haven't figured out how to get it to be any color besides gray when I do this so I have to recolor the text when I'm done, but I like how it looks.

For the word smile, I found a new font - Soopafresh at dafont, typed in the text, simplified the layer and then covered it in a paper from the kit. Since it was also dotty like the white paper and I had the text exactly where I wanted it before I clipped the paper, the dots from the black & white papers match up exactly - I thought that was a cool effect. Then I added a drop shadow and a simple outer bevel to give it dimension.








Page Idea from Sweet Child of Mine by Kalli at the digichick
Kit Happily Ever After by Mary Fran
fonts - Problem Secretary, Embossing Tape, Soopafresh

Now for the conclusion of From a Little Baby. I won't make you wait any longer to get the final pieces, they are all here - Part 4, the Template and the Add-On. The Add-On includes some word art & an alpha. I've set the template up to be super flexible, so I hope it helps you track your child's growth. The size labels are available in 3 different fonts, and if you do a 2 page LO it will go from birth to 10 years.

Thanks for the comments - I can't wait to see some LOs!







Pick up Part 4 of From a Little Baby HERE (other 3 parts are available in previous posts)
Pick up the Add-On to From a Little Baby HERE
Pick up the From a Little Baby Template HERE

The number of downloads has dropped by about a 100 with each part, so there should only be about a handful that get these last two pieces. Interestingly to me, part 1 keeps getting more downloads each day, but not the others hmmmm???

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

Friend for Life

This LO consists of 5 components - background, frame, picture, quote & date. I tried to make it snazzier (is that a word), but ended up deleting anything I added, so I decided just to leave it simple.

I did edit the photo with a filter plug-in for PSE from Optikverve Labs, its really neat (and free!) and you can get it HERE



Papers from Organic by Kay Miller
action - inked edge by Atomic Cupcake
font - CAC futura casual


Now for Part 2 of From a Little Baby. I have a few ideas for some things, so an add-on will definitely come as well. I really appreciate those that cared enough to leave a comment - those are truly inspiring, and make it feel as if the effort is worth while to someone.


Pick up Part 2 HERE