Hey all you scrappers–Andrea here,

Welcome again to Something Special Saturday. This Saturday we have some fab FREEBIES for you. As you may know we are having a great sale to celebrate our new designers at ScrapMatters, our two new CT members and of course, the New Year with all the promise it brings for change and growth.

First let me introduce our new CT members Katie (ktkadoo) and Amanda Kay (butterflydreams3). They are a great addition to our already terrific CT featuring Henriette, Danica (babeiz), Morgan, Marci, Tami, HSG, Teresa P, Mandy, Melanie (SassyPixi), Melanie (Mellby), Erica and Becki. We feel so lucky to have all of these friendly, talented ladies on our CT.

We’re proud to announce ***Misschifis*** one of our new designers. Misschifis lives in the highlands of Scotland with her husband and 4 kids. Go check out her store and see the colorful, fun kits and elements that she has created as well as her commercial use grunge overlays. For more information you can visit her blog here.

I just love Misschifis’ style–these are my favorites:

Misshifis is so excited to be sharing her creations with us at ScrapMatters she has very generously agreed to give New Year Cheer, which is a fantastic kit as a FREEBIE!! Grab it while you can–sorry this is no longer available as a freebie, but is available in the ScrapMatters store.

Our other new designer is the fabulous Scrappy Blue Stones. I love her new kit Love Letters–here’s the preview:

Kasia lives in Poland and we’re so excited to bring her grungy, international style to ScrapMatters. For more information on Scrappy Blue Stones check out her blog. Kasia has very generously agreed to give away one of her fabulous kits, Don’t Forget Autumn, as a FREEBIE!! So don’t forget to sneak into the store and snatch it while it’s still free–sorry this is no longer available as a freebie, but is available in the ScrapMatters store.

Well I hope you agree with me that this Saturday is exceptionally special!

Howdy Scrappers–Andrea here…

There is so much to write about I had a hard time figuring out where to start! We have two NEW designers starting tomorrow, plus we have two NEW members on our CT! It’s a NEW year and the store will be flooded tomorrow with NEW products and even more Freebies! So we decided to have a sale to celebrate all the fun, NEW things happening at ScrapMatters.

Now onto our tutorial for today–

Today we’re going to talk about how to turn a png file into a brush. I was going to share all the fun things you could do with them once you made the brush, but then I realized you could almost write a book about that! So this is just a simple tutorial on how to actually make the brush. If you already know how to do this you can skip to the end. But for those of you who don’t know this little trick, read along and you’ll learn how easy it is to turn a simple png file into a versatile brush. This tutorial is written for PSE6 but should work for most photo editing programs that support .abr brush files.

See how simple that was? I will be adding this to the tutorial section of our site in case you want to download it for quick reference. It is available as a printable pdf file.

I had lots of fun playing with the brush and made a little Valentine for you all. Notice that I used the “doodled hearts in a heart” stamp for the inside and then along the outside I took just a plain doodled heart and stamped it in alternating circles on my paper to create a heart border. The papers and word art are from my new kit Comfy & Cozy which is NEW watch for it tomorrow!

You can get both of the doodled hearts and the Valentine at 300 ppi free in the store. The Valentine is packaged with the hearts. Click the preview below to snag it!

We really appreciate you taking time out of your busy day to read our blog. Here is a coupon code good for 10% off everything in the store: b86863f33a. It is valid tomorrow through Monday. Since we are already having a sale on a lot of stuff–you could make out like a bandit! If you make any LOs with the stamps please post them to our gallery for everyone to see.

Thanks for dropping by. Hope to see some great new LOs in the shop soon.

Hello everyone! Welcome to Words for Wednesday! When Brittney first asked if I would contribute to this week’s Words for Wednesday I was so excited! Ok, pretty much terrified because what in the world can this newbie have to say?! But if anyone knows me, they know I love me some words (yes, yes, I talk a lot!) So this is right up my alley! Haha!

This week I’d like to focus on how you can turn any poem, song lyric, advice from a loved one, ANYTHING, into a layout that fills the reader with the emotion of the moment. I don’t know about you, but every time I hear my favorite song or read a poem that I love, it gives me little flashes of pages that I can create that capture the feeling I get from those words. I think of my favorite pictures of my kids and how I’ve always wanted to journal something JUST RIGHT, but could never find the words. Well songs and poems can do it for you!

I was looking through a scrapbooking magazine a while ago and came across a poem by Maryann K. Cusimano. The poem is titled “You Are My I Love You.” What?!? I didn’t get it, so I read it, and I’m SOO glad I did! I just felt like it captured in those few words what I had always wanted to say, so I wrote it down and then found the perfect picture for it. Here is the layout I created with it:

So for this Words for Wednesday I’d like to challenge you to find that one photo (or group of photos) that you have been avoiding scrapping because you couldn’t find the words. Then scour the internet, your music library, your friends brains, your kid’s book bags, other people’s layouts, the breakfast cereal box… everywhere! for that perfect something that says exactly what you never thought you could. You’ll be amazed at the number of things that tug on your heart and say, “Hey there! Pick me! I’m exactly what you never knew you always wanted to say!!”

Please post a link to your layouts here so we can all get inspiration from what you find! Good luck and happy hunting!

For those of who would like a copy of this poem, here is a .png you can download! Just say HI if you download! Here’s a preview of what your freebie looks like!

On to this week’s

Tuesday Challenge!!!

Hi Everyone…Shari here with a new challenge for you. I’m really looking forward to see what you put together for this one. This challenge involves COLOR, or should I say the lack of color. It’s really pretty simple. This is a Monochromatic Challenge. You are free to style your LO in anyway you want as far as number of photos, fonts and embellishments. The only rule is that you are only allowed to use one color other than black and white. Your photos can be black & white or color. That’s up to you. And again, you are allowed to use the colors black and white on your LO, but everything else must be the same color.

So, pick your favorite color (or your least favorite if you really want to challenge yourself) and post those LO’s in the gallery and forum at ScrapMatters.

Everyone who participates will “win” the template I used for my LO. I’ll PM you the link once you post your entry in the forum at ScrapMatters.
And, we’ll have three big winners. The LO I love best will receive a $5.00 gift code to the ScrapMatters’ shop! The second winner will be picked at random and will receive a $2.50 gift code to our shop! The third winner will be the Andrea likes best and will win one of her colorful Summer Sweets kits–your choice which one.

Winners will be chosen after the challenge is complete. Get your entries in before midnight PST (GMT-8) on January 21st.

Here is the LO I put together using the color RED. I never really thought of red as being one of my favorite colors but I sure seem to be using it a lot lately!
Just look at some of the wonderful LO’s our great CT has designed.

You know I’m not a real cat person but I’m telling you Henriette’s LO has me falling in love with Raffie. I love all the black and white embellishments she used but what I love most is that her color of choice was green to match Raffie’s eyes. Simply stunning.

Melanie’s I’m The Princess LO couldn’t be any more darling. I love how she framed the photos and added the circle stitching around the smaller one. With such a cute photo subject this LO would be darling in any color.

Next up is Mandi Rae’s very striking hot pink LO. Of course the color is the first thing you notice in this LO but if you look closely you will see many different embellishments (I personally love the black snowflakes) all working together to make this an awesome LO.

Next we have Brittney’s magical LO. If you know Brittney you know she is a big fan of Disney and Red and Black. Her combination of those three loves turned into the darling LO. You might have seen this LO in Brittney’s hybrid blog a few days ago. If you missed that project scroll down and check it out because it is a very fun, easy, inexpensive way to show someone just how much you love them.

Ok, go play with some color but remember you only get to choose one.

Happy Monday, Scrappers! Today I wanted to share with you a scrap project that is one of the things that “matters most” to me.

Some of you may already know about my digi-journal. But for those of you who don’t, let me quickly tell you about it. Last year I made a new year’s resolution to type a journal entry every week, include a photo or two from each week, and then, at the end of the year, have it made into a book. When I discovered digital scrapbooking, instantly the journal project (quite naturally) developed into a digi-scrap project and I started scrapping each week’s entry. Ta-da! A digi-journal.

This past week, I have been arranging last year’s pages and getting my book all ready to order. It’s been so much fun to reminisce through 2007. My entire year is recorded!

I’m absolutely going to do another digi-journal for 2008! To find out even more about digi-journals, and to join us digi-journalists, come join our discussion in the forum. I think everyone should digi-journal!! It’s so important to keep a record of our lives, and keeping a digi-journal is such a fun way to do it.

To help get you started (or to help out those few of you who have already started your 2008 digi-journals), I turned one of my favorite digi-journal pages (from my 2007 book) into a template for everyone so you can go ahead and try digi-journaling. It’s 8 x 10, but it can easily be transformed into different sizes and formats!!

Here’s a preview of the freebie template:

This is the LO I made the template from!

Take the template! Try digi-journaling! You might get hooked like me, and end up creating an AWESOME digi-journal of your entire year!!

Download the free template here! Leave us some love if you download. (It comes in an 8×10 psd file, AS WELL as individual PNGs for all you DIP users out there.)

xoxo,

Britt

Mandy Rae here and this week we are shining the spotlight on the amazingly talented Danica or the 2 page Goddess as I like to call her ( giggle). Her pages are amazing and a lot of them are 2-page LOs. She truly is an amazing person and talented scraper. So to get to know the person behind the talent here are a few things I bet you didn’t know about her.

 What is your main job/career? SAHM

Are you married/kids/pets? Married to my AMAZING husband for 4 1/2 years,  a SWEET one year old daughter Isabel, and a AWESOME dog named Moo

Where do you call home? Utah

What are your three favorite foods? Ham, Cheese and crackers, Pretzels (that’s hard, I just like food haha!)

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Cold Stone Cheesecake with Brownies and Caramel (so good!)

Do you prefer salty or sweet snacks? Almost always salty

What is your favorite beverage? Diet Pepsi or Water

What is your least favorite food? Shrimp

PC or Mac? PC

How long have you been digi-scrapping/How did you get into it? about 6 months, I saw it on Brittney’s blog!!  She’s so awesome I had to try it too!

What program do you use to digi-scrap with? Adobe Photoshop 5.0

What are your hobbies besides digi-scrapping? I like to play games with my husband!

What is the most challenging part of scrapbooking for you? Trying to arrange my pictures differently, I tend to be very dimensional, and line things up!

What would you like to learn to do (or do better) not related to scrapbooking ? I really like drafting, like house plans and stuff, I’d love to learn how to use CAD… nerdy huh?!

What are your favorite books/authors? I have a secret obsession with Harry Potter!

What are your favorite movies? I love 50 First Dates, Lord of the Rings, and Pirates!

What is your favorite quote? “A journey of a thousand miles must first begin with one step”

What is one of your goals for 2008?  To loose weight… I think that’s my goal every year!  Danica is such an amazing scrapper! Just look at these awesome pages and the first two are…duh…(giggle) 2-pagers.  I like to call them eye-candy!  They are just way too yummy.

Yes she does make one page LOs too and just look how great they are!

Just amazing!  I am in love with all of her LOs and it was so hard to just pick a few to share with all off you. I find my self almost daily checking her gallery to see what new LOs she has come up with for me to attempt to scrap-lift.  Thank you, Danica, for sharing your talent and giving us a little incite about you!Happy Scrapping,Mandy Rae

Happy Saturday Everyone–Andrea here.

The kit for our quick page exchange this month is Private TMR by Teresa P. I love this kit–it has such great textured papers, unique elements and two terrific alphas. It is on sale through January 31st for 30% off. You get 15 papers, 27 elements and 2 individual file alphas for only $3.85.

I have several special goodies for you today. Last Saturday I gave you a little teaser of the quick page exchange–the square buttons I made to coordinate with Teresa’s kit.

If you buy Private TMR you also get this free mini-kit that you can use in your quick pages for the exchange. It is included in Teresa’s kit.

The quick page exchange ends on Saturday, Feb 2nd. So please have fun creating some great pages for the exchange. Everyone who submits a quick page will receive all of the submitted pages for FREE. These would make great heritage albums and this kit is also perfect for scrapping LOs of the men and boys in your life. If you’ve never done a quick page before, Shari has written a great little tutorial in the forums here. Shari will also post more info about the quick page exchange in the forum too.

Once you get your completed quick page completed and posted to the gallery you will receive this free add-on kit from Teresa P. as a thank you.

So put your layout design skills to use and come up with a great quick page to share!

Now if you’ve made it to the end of this post you deserve another no-strings attached FREEBIE! So have fun with these brads and tags–you can also use these for the quick page exchange if you want! Grab them at the ScrapMatters’ shop here.

I also was in the mood for a sale! So now through Monday all alphabets will be on sale for 25% off. Check out all of our fun alphas here.

Well hope you enjoy all these fun things and that your Saturday is something special!

Happy Photography Phriday folks. Brittney here, ready to bring you a quick tip on how to pump up lack luster photos. I learned this trick not long ago from the brilliant ksharonk, and now I use it on almost EVERY photo I scrap, in one way or another. It’s so simple, but works like a charm! (Especially for those of us who aren’t lucky enough to own a fancy pants camera.)

My instructions will be for Photoshop. But, I think you could use this trick in any program.

Step 1) With your photo open in Photoshop, duplicate your photo (control + J).

Step 2) Change the Blending Mode (drop down menu is found at the top of the layers palette) of the top copy of the photo. Choose “Overlay” for a big pop, or choose “Soft Light” for a little pop.

3) Play with the opacity (slider also found at the top of the layers palette) of that top photo to get just the right look.

That’s it! Don’t you LOVE how much better your photos can look?? Merge the photos when you’re all done.

Here are some examples of my photo with different settings.

Hope this tip comes in handy! Have a great day!

xoxo,

Britt

Good morning blog readers!! Today’s ‘theory tHursday’ and I thought it would be fun to do a hybrid project today!

I’m going to be showing you how to make a Layout Tile. I made one of these for my sister-in-law for Christmas with a photo I scrapped of her family, and she LOVED it. So, these make GREAT gifts, but I wanted to make one for ME!

To Make this Project, You Will Need:

1. 8×8 print of your LO
2. paper cutter or trimmer
3. 8×8 ceramic tile*
4. paintbrush
5. Modge-Podge (I prefer matte finish)
6. rubbing alcohol
7. a cotton swab

Tips to remember while scrapping & printing your LO:

8×8 tiles are in reality about 7 ¾ x 7 ¾ . Just keep in mind when you are scrapping that you will lose at least an 1/8 of an inch if not more from the edges.

Also remember that depending on what your easel looks like, if you place your finished project in an easel with a big base, there’s a chance that some of the bottom of your LO might get covered. Just something to keep in mind when scrapping your LO.

I had my 8×8 print made at Costco (only $1.50!), and the edges get trimmed down there too. Don’t scrap anything important (photos, dates, etc.) along the edges!

Step One:
Use the cotton swab and rubbing alcohol to give your tile a good cleaning, just to make sure there is no residue on the tile. Wipe it down and let it dry (it dries really fast).

Step Two:
Lay your print on the tile to see how much you’ll need to trim off. I knew I would have to trim some off, but I didn’t realize HOW much it would be! It was MORE than an 1/8 of an inch off each edge. I ended up losing ALL of my cute black and white polka dot paper around the edges! ? BUMMER! Oh, well . . . live and learn!

Step Three:
Once you have exactly the right size print, it’s time to glue it down. I think a craft sponge brush actually works better than the brush I used, but I couldn’t find my sponge brushes! Brush a medium coat of Modge-Podge all over the tile. Work quickly. Make sure that the edges and corners all have a good coat. Don’t let it start to dry. Keep it all wet!

Step Four:
Lay the print onto the tile, holding it by the edges. I used the sides of my hands (as they were the cleanest) to press the print down firmly, but not letting it slip and get crooked. Make sure it stays lined up. Make sure there are no air bubbles and that the edges and corners are glued down well. If you get a little smudge on it, don’t worry, you really won’t be able to tell once its done!

Let it sit for about 10 minutes to make sure its securely glued down.

Step Five:
Time to seal it! Decide on a direction, and only brush in that one direction. I brushed up and down. Put a nice thick coat of modge-podge all over the tile. You sort of have to work quickly. With this light colored LO, the process looked a LOT less scary than it did the first time I tried this. If you are doing a darker LO, don’t freak out if it starts looking really bad. It’s ok if you can see brushstrokes or if it doesn’t look perfect. The Modge-Podge is white before it dries. You’ll be surprised how good it looks once its dry.

Your’e done!
Let it sit overnight. Even if it sort-of feels dry, Modge-Podge stays a little tacky for a while, and can stick to things or get gauges in the finish if you don’t let it dry long enough.

In the morning, it should be dried nice and hard!

Display!
Place your tile in a cute easel and your project is complete! I haven’t gone out and picked an easel yet, I just borrowed a little plastic one from something else in my house, but I will get a cute black one very soon!!

Here’s my finished project! Isn’t it so cute?! I just love it!!

So there you have it. A really simple project that is really hard to mess up!! I swear, everytime I do this, I feel like I messed it up, but it always turns out perfect! ANYONE can do this!

I was thinking it would be really fun to have seasonal tiles to rotate each season. Like a Christmas one, a Valentine’s one, Easter, Summer, Halloween, Fall, etc! They would be so fun to see each time that season rolled around. Just another idea.

If you make a Layout Tile, take a picture of your finished project and link us up here in the comments! I would LOVE to see your projects!!

Have a great Thursday!

xoxo,
Britt

Andrea here…

Sorry about all of the recent computer problems.  We tried to fix them through using the backup on our server, which worked out ok, except 1) we somehow lost a day of posts and 2) they forgot to turn our site back on after they restored it using the backups, so instead of being down for one hour, we were down for 12 hours.  Sorry again about any inconvenience this may have caused you.  If you emailed me and your email bounced back, please resend it.  I will reply asap.