Pearl in the 50s - 70s

This is the first page I've done for the album I'm making my mom for her birthday. I hope I get this done on time. I'm notorious for incomplete projects. Just ask Mike about his US Flag blanket. :)

CREDITS

TEMPLATE GP_TDC_KLewis

PAPERS SBG_Ztampf_ChinaRed

EMBELLISHMENTS KLewis (from template), KSC Oriental Mini

FONT Reisling

MScraps Challenge 6.18-25.10

I've never uploaded to a challenge before and I think thats the biggest 'challenge' of all for me! This was a template challenge by EHStudio.

TEMPLATE ehstudio

PAPERS and ELEMENTS: Sonny Hearts Candy

WORD ART Rachness_Scribbles

FONTS A Little Pot, Typo Slab Serif -Lt

I finally got it to go live on the site. Here are the things that I think made it work (I have no clue what it was, really, this is all just guessing).

1) I posted to my personal gallery, 2) I copied the link THEN, I realized that I'd forgotten to give credit for the stuff I'd used, so 3)I went into 'edit photo', while I was there, I noticed an area that said: 4) 'send to (challenge gallery)' - so I clicked that, too.

and it finally worked! :)

Flergilicious Paradise layout

TEMPLATE Tiffany Tillman
PAPERS, ALPHAS, ELEMENTS & FRAMES Flergilicious - Welcome to Paradise
FONTS Andy, (more TK)

Persnickety Prints Layout Contest

Here is my first contest layout, using only the items from Deena Rutter's Scarborough Fair Heirloom Kit freebie. Wish me luck! :)

My First Full Template

PAPERS Gotta Pixel SweetDigiDesigns_MissMae:
TEMPLATE KP_SummerMemories;  recolored string wrap to brown

Father's Day Gift 2010

My lofty plan was to download as many freebies as I could from all the cool sites that Jenn showed me. Then there was the National Day of Scrapbooking. Things were 70% off some places. $1 for a ton of cool things that I had no idea where or how I would use them. I didn't understand most of the terms. Credit cards weren't even necessary, once I joined, I could just use Pay Pal. It was like I wasn't even spending money! I spent full days in front of my laptop to the point where my eyes were suctioned to the screen. I spent more than I care to admit.

Jenn is very strategic. She's been checking out kits and things she's wanted, put them in wish lists, and waited for the kajumbo sale. Me? I'd never even seen these sites before and all this new and wonderous stuff was before me. I just bought. And bought and bought and bought. I don't even know what I have or where I got them from. I'm not even certain that I downloaded everything I paid for. Thank goodness they have defaults so that it doesn't let you buy more than one of the same thing!

I really need to start a project or I will feel really wasteful.

So, here is my project. A Father's Day scrapbook for Mike's gift.
I chose dark brown as a unifying color to tie all the random pages together. Here is the first spread:

Addendum: I found out later that I should be giving credit to each of the page element creators and (where possible) where bought each piece. I didn't keep track because I was only creating these to make a book for my husband; I'm going to try but it was awhile ago, and I don't know my kits yet.

FONTS Handwriting: Andy,

BRUSHES Designer Digitals; Anna Aspnes: Reptiles #1

PAPERS MScraps, Misty Mareda Designs; Jaxson

Layout/Template- Made by Scrapporeia

Scrapbook page uploading HINT

There was a lot that confused me about this new world I was taking baby steps into. How did you upload and how do you know what to do? So, here is a helpful hint that Jenn just shared with me.

I'm writing as if you know Photoshop, so please let me know if I'm skipping ahead for anyone.

The images should be 600 x 600 pixels at 72 dpi. (you can do that in Resize Image)
For some reason, Jenn says you need to Unsharp Mask - I don't visually see a difference, but she claims it must make a difference when its uploaded to the sites. I didn't do it but here are the numbers she gave:

Go to Filer>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask
Amount: 125
Radius: around .5
Threshold: around 15

Then Save for Web. Optimize so that the file size is 150 dpi or under.
We did this by noodling with the 'quality' numbers. Mine generally ranged between 71 and 59.

The reason for this is that some (most?) sites only allow uploads of 200 dpi or less. Some much less. Some don't tell you until you've tried to upload and gotten an error, which can be annoying. Save yourself the hassle, do it now.

Then I made a folder with my Projects folder titled: Web resized.  I drop them all in there.

I still don't quite know how you get to know what sites/pages/links your challenges were on and how to find them again - if they are multiple day ones, but that is a question for another day. :)

Addyson's calendar pages

I love photography, and Jenn had turned me on to this new world that combined my love for the creative and photography. We went to visit Tyler's Godparents, who'd recently had a little girl, Addyson. I snapped away while mommy was cooking in the kitchen and actually got some really cute shots of her, so I thought I'd try my hand at making a calendar page.

My first calendar page. I would make a lot of changes next time, but it was ok for a first shot.

I created this page from scratch, no templates and there are no elements, so no one to credit here- except maybe Addyson... who posed really well for me. :)

My first Digital Scrapbook pages

A few years ago, my friend Jenn showed me her scrapbook that she made for her 'friends vacation'. It was so cool and something I'd always wanted to do.  She had (I think) sand from the trip, tickets, photos, background and all sorts of tactile elements.

Years ago, I'd tried to do something similar. Here are the steps I'd taken:
- about 15 years ago, I cut out silos of my nephews - they were so cute. I still have them somewhere. (aborted)

- hmmm... I guess that was my only attempt.

So I thought, one day, I'm going to see if she'll take like $50 - $75 and make one for me. But I never got around to asking her. Then she got pregnant and already had a 3 year old at home, so ... again, I aborted that mission.

Then last year, Jenn showed me her new hobby, digital scrapbooking. And I thought... I can actually do that. I think. So I went online and looked for free downloads. I came across a site with some themes and elements and started. Below are the pages I made during the Winter of 2009. 

The site was FreeDigitalScrapbooking.com.

I recolored the papers and elements to match so that it would look like a spread that went together. I don't remember what all I did to the pages.

So, now I'd made 6 pages (3 spreads). It wasn't enough to make a Shutterfly book. So these just sat on my hard drive.