Hello and happy Sunday, everyone! It’s Sya (syapotter) here, checking in for the first time to do the Sunday Spotlight. I’m so excited to do it! Anyway, for this week, the spotlight is on a fellow ScrapMatters CT member, Kate (kateypie)!

She is one of the scrappers I admired. I just love looking at her layouts and get inspired from it. You can really see how much she loves her girls and I love that there is always a sense of movement in her LOs.

It was really hard going through her gallery and just picking out some favourites (because everything is just great!) but these are some of the layouts that I picked:

Aren’t those AMAZING???

So, without further delay, let’s get to know Kate!

What is your main job/career?
Stay at home Mum currently, but when I’m working I’m an RN (nurse).

Are you married/kids/pets?
Married for 4 years, 2 lovely daughters and one baby on the way, one cat called Gus.

Where do you call home?
Auckland, New Zealand.

What are your three favorite foods?
Oh gosh, this changes weekly. Peppermint chocolate, roast potatoes, mango.

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?
Jelly tip. (Vanilla ice cream, chocolate flakes and solid raspberry jelly stuff – it’s a kiwi thing!), but I’m not a huge ice cream fan.

Do you prefer salty or sweet snacks?
Definitely depends on my mood. Mostly sweet I guess.

What is your favorite beverage?
It’s boring, but if I’m thirsty, nothing beats a cold glass of water. I do like juice though.

What is your least favorite food?
Cucumber. Even writing it makes me almost gag.

PC or Mac?
Mac! Once you’ve had mac, you never go back!

How long have you been digi-scrapping/How did you get into it?
About a year, maybe a bit more. A few friends encouraged me to get into it after they knew I liked paper scrapping.

What program do you use to digi-scrap with?
Photoshop CS3

What are your hobbies besides digi-scrapping?
Reading, bushwalks, paper scrapping, craft etc. I’m also passionate about Home Birth and Intuitive Eating / Body Acceptance. Being involved in those few things takes up lots of my time!

What is the most challenging part of scrapbooking for you?
I hate it when you have ideas but you just can’t get them to work, or you can’t get a page to look the way you want. So frustrating!

What would you like to learn to do (or do better) not related to scrapbooking ?
Photography, but I’d also like a better camera.

What are your favorite books/authors?
Best books ever are by Paullina Simons – ‘The Bronze Horseman’ trilogy. I’ve read them so many times, and I love them. Also her book Tully. I finished it in the middle of the night, and I was crying so hard I started it again and read half the book again. It really struck a chord with me.

What are your favorite movies?
Blues Brothers, Love Actually. I’m sure there are more but I can’t think of any.

What is your favorite quote?
The time you enjoy wasting, is not wasted. John Lennon.

What is one of your goals for 2008?
To keep working on my 101 things in 1001 days list. I’m half way through with 400 days to go.

In addition to that, I also asked Kate some more questions:

What is your scrapping style?
I love layouts with lots of details and things to look at, but ones that look really simple. Now I’ve just got to get good at those sort!

What is favourite subject to scrap?
My daughters of course.

How did you start an LO? Were you inspired from the photo, the kits that you have or from someone else?
I either start a layout with a photo, or start with a kit and search everywhere for a photo that matches. Sometimes I get a whole layout done without adding the photo. Crazy huh?

What do you like most about scrapping?
It’s a creative outlet for me, it keeps my mind busy – also I love sharing my layouts with my kids and family. They all love it!

Which one is your most favourite LO?
Well I recently inadvertently deleted my entire ScrapMatters gallery (I blame baby brain!), but my favourite that is in there right now is this one:

It was really great knowing a little bit more about you, Kate! If you want to check out more of her gorgeous works, take a look at her gallery.

Hi Scrappers—Andrea here.

We’re starting something new on our Something Special Saturdays—new weekly challenges. Tuesdays will now be devoted to template challenges. The Saturday challenges will be something fun, something quirky, something as special as Saturday itself. The Saturday Special is rolling out today and it will be even more fantastic if you come play along.

This Saturday’s Special will be a themed challenge about opposites. Opposites attract, opposites repel; everywhere you go in this world you are surrounded by good and evil, joy and sorrow, big and little, day and night, dark and light. Opposites usually have some significance in everyone’s life, and I want you to share and scrap any opposite that you have encountered in your life lately—be it people, places, things or what have you.

The rules if you choose to play along:

1. Photograph two opposites, they can be in the same photograph.

2. Use both black and white somewhere in your layout—B&W photos don’t count.

3. Use whatever other colors you want to complete your layout.

4. Use as many embellishments as you want

5. Include two different alphas that could be considered opposites ie black & white, big & little, round & square, grungy & pristine, serif & sans serif

6. Bonus points if you can also use two different fonts that could be considered opposites.

7. This can be a one or two-page layout—but if you do a two-pager both pages must flow together well.

8. Entries must be posted to the gallery by Friday night April 25^th at midnight PDT. They must also be posted to this thread in the forum. Winners will be announced on Tuesday April 29^th.

Two winners will be chosen at random and two lucky winners will be picked as our personal faves (I know that’s not following the theme, but you don’t want us to pick the best and the worst do you?). One will be picked by me and one will be picked by our newest CT member Leah. We are so excited to have Leah on our CT—check out her fabulous gallery here.

Each of the random winners will receive a kit from Andilynn Designs from the shop—their choice, up to $7.50 value. The personal favorites will receive $5 gift codes from the shop!

Each participant will receive the cute word art that Britt made and the glitter swirls that I made. They’re not packaged up yet, but are modeled in my LO below.

Look at some of the terrific examples our CT/DT came up with:

Leah came up with this fantatic example–

Melanie (Sassy Pixie)created this fab LO depicting big and small–it is so sweet–look at that fantastic blending.

Katie (ktkadoo) came up with this LOL LO!

Stacy (Tater) did this one about her relationship with her sweetheart–

Linz made this LO–love the lighting on that photo–

Zakirah’s is so bright and colorful and the photo just pops on that black background–

And this is the fabulous layout that Brittney did–it is full of opposites–black and white frames, opposite colors on the color wheel. While she was scrapping this she was humming the song Night & Day and was inspired to make the fantastic word art that was the perfect touch for my LO.

As you can see opposites are perfect for coming up with interesting scrapbook layouts. I am excited to see how you interpret this challenge. Have fun and make this Saturday special!

Hi guys! Brittney here, and it’s another “Words for Wednesday” at ScrapMatters. I was thinking about words and trying to come up with something to write about today and I it occurred to me that having our WORDS in the perfect FONT makes them all the better!!

Now, I know we’ve had posts about fonts and creative ways to use them. Funky fonts, bold fonts, grungy fonts. But what about those perfect JOURNALING fonts. You know what I’m talking about! Fonts that are cute, but easy to read. Sometimes you feel like typewriter font to journal with. And then sometimes a hand-written font feels right. Well, I just wanted to share a few of MY favorite journaling fonts.

I’ve shared this with you before but I LOVE “Century Gothic”. It’s a font you probably all have built into your computer. It’s a stock font, but its clean, modern and fresh. I love how it makes my journaling look.

(all images are clickable and will take you to full credits)

I also use “Traveling Typewriter” ALL the time!! It’s a free font I got on dafont.com. Click HERE to go get it. It’s the perfect mix of a slightly grungy typewriter but its not hard to read! I love it.

And of course, I love the Pea Fonts. So many adorable free handwritten fonts to chose from!! This one is Pea Glo-Girl. I love this one.

Click HERE to get lots of the Pea Fonts!! Plus, two weeks they added TWENTY-SIX new ones!! Have you seen them yet??

Ok and last but not DEFINITELY least . . . The GoldenGirls fonts. GG Designs has a bunch of ADORABLE free fonts on her site. And lately I’m obsessed with GG Barbara!!! I can’t STOP using it! It’s just so perfect! It’s cute, easy to read, the perfect journaling handwritten font!

All the GG fonts are boss. Go check ‘em out HERE.

So – are you still using Arial or Times New Roman for your journaling? Or is it just time to freshen up that font collection?? Go try out my faves and find some faves of your own!

Happy font hunting!!

xoxo,

Just popping in before we get to Tami’s new challenge to announce the winners from last week! The random drawing winner is: scrappin5kids with this beautiful LO!

And Melbby’s pick was littlemuffin06‘s LO!

Each winner received a $5 GC to the shop! CONGRATS girls!! ok . . . on with the next fun challenge!!!

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Hi everyone! Tami here with our Tuesday Challenge!

Who would like some free casholla?! If you play along, you could win one of TWO $5 gift certificates to the ScrapMatters store!!!

This week’s challenge will make you look inside yourself a bit… Have you ever looked to the future, I mean really looked, and realized that the things you’re focusing on SO intently now, may not make ANY difference whatsoever in the years to come?! I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, especially since I’ve been able to stay home with my kids. I’ve been forced to realize that if I want to have a great relationship with my boys in 10 or 20 years, I’ve got to make some changes in what I’m focusing on now. So I’m challenging us all to take a good, hard look at what we’re doing now that may or may not have any impact on what we truly want in the future. So here are the rules:

1. You can use ONLY ONE photo;
2. You must list 10 things that you focus on or want to focus on;
3. You must use an actual LIST format (no paragraph journaling for this one!)

You don’t have to use ScrapMatters products, but of course we love it when you do! And you have until Monday night, April 21st, at midnight (Pacific Time) to enter.

That’s it! Relatively easy at first… At least the idea was for me. But then I really started thinking and it became tougher!

Here is my take on this challenge:

Here are some of the LO’s our fantabulous CT came up with, just you get you started…

This one is from our fearless leader, Brittney. I thought this was a GREAT twist on the challenge:

This LO comes to us from Melanie. What a wonderfully insightful page. I was so impressed!

Next we have Wendy’s. Isn’t this beautiful?!

On to Shari’s… Completely amazing!! I love how she incorporated “Family Love!”

Next we have Jeni’s. I love the idea of a “note” to yourself! So clever!

And how precious is Stacy’s version? I love the focus on baby!!

Next is this stunning LO by Zakirah… Totally fabulous!!

Krista comes in with this awesome LO. I love the boxes!!

Aisyah’s LO is so great with that blended photo!

Next we have Kate’s amazing spin on the challenge. I LOVE that she’s looking back on things… So clever!

Up next is Henriette.  Her LO is something I think we can all relate to!!

And finally, this cutie from Tater. A HUGE thank you to all the amazing CT members that played along!!

Anyhoo… Good luck all! I can’t wait to see what you come up with!! Get those entries in before midnight on April 21st! Click HERE to go to the forum to post!!

Its Tracy again, (you sick of me yet? lol) here to give you some shadow pointers.  I have had a few compliments lately about my shadowing and thought I would share with you how I acomplish them.  This is a tutorial for CS3 at the moment.  I cant remember if CS2 had the option of creating a shadow layer, and I know it didnt exist before.  I also dont know PS Elements.  But, I assume that you can make a soft, grey, slightly transparent layer in the shape of your object, and do it that way.  Ok, on now, here we go.  (All images can be enlarged)

To illustrate what I am doing we are using a paper and the wand from Brittany’s wonderful “Her Royal Highness” kit.  Available here at ScrapMatters.  So this photo just kinda shows them sitting there.  Now lets add a shadow.

Now here are the settings that I used.  I dont have a set formula, other then I always trade the color black, for a grey.  I stole the linear burn setting from Brittany’s last tutorial   I just put the settings at whatever lookright to me, for that project.

…..Ok aparently my computer doesnt like to screen capture this pull down menu.  Fine.  We can do without…I hope.  You are going to go over to your layers, and right click the shadow style, and tell it to “create layer”.  You should go from A to B.

 After that, select the new shadow layer.  Go over to your photo and click on the dotted edge so that you get the solid edge.  Again, A to B.

Once you’ve done that, you right click on the solid line, and when the menu pops up, choose “Warp”.  This gives you a kind of grid over your photo (please make sure you did this on the SHADOW layer).  Next you are going to use that grid to pull your shadow out from under your object.

As you will notice in my example, I used the selection tool to “section off” a point of the star.  I find it easier to do this on most objects )like individual flower petals, or points to stars) rather then doing the entire object.  Gives me more control.  The key in doing it this way is keeping in mind WHERE your light source is.  I admit I am really not the best at that, but I try.  Just make sure you dont have horrible conflicting directions.  Here is my finished wand.

 And a layout from my gallery that shows a good use of this technique.

 Well, I really hope that was informative.  That was my first time writing a tutorial.  I would also like to invite you to show me your pages using this technique.  Join me in the forum http://scrapmatters.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=3311#3311 <–there.  And show me what you can do with this tutorial   Thanks for listening!!  OH!  And if you have any questions, or if I wasnt very clear in my tut, then you may join me at the forum and I will give you answers

 Hello everyone! Melanie (sassypixie) here, I hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend. I’m excited to get the chance to do another Sunday Spotlight. As I was looking through the gallery finding who I wanted to spotlight I ran across PixieQueen, who’s layouts amazed me and well, I wanted to know more about my fellow pixie.

Here are just a few of her layouts that have caught my eye in the gallery and I even stopped by her blog and found some there too…

I know we all ooh and ahh’d over this one. Everything about this layout is perfect, from the candid photo to the placement of her elements!

I absolutely love this layout. Again, another fabulous photo and the layering of the pictures is just amazing. What an inspiring layout.

We all know why I love this layout! I just can’t get enough of these girly girl pages. I love the crown over the pictures and how she spelled out her name with the hanging alpha.

Here is one more layout that just amazes me. I love the quote (Tread softly because you tread on my dreams…), and again the stacking of photos and elements is just beautiful. And of course, I love candid photos.

So here are the list of questions that I asked PixieQueen…

What is your main job/career?
I’m a certified pharmacy tech, but I’m a SAHM for now. (and I’m loving it!)

What is one of your goals for 2008?
To eat healthier. Which is incredibly hard for me considering my horrible chocolate addiction.

Sounds like Pixie’s do have a lot in common. I also have a chocolate addiction and I have a hard time doing boy layouts, sadly most people wouldn’t even know that I had 2 other boys besides my daughter and baby boy.

It was fabulous getting to know you PixieQueen and we look forward to seeing your layouts in the gallery!

Hi Everyone—Andrea here. I just got back from a whirlwind tour of northern Europe—I visited The Netherlands, Germany, Luxemburg, France and Belgium in 12 days. I had a great time and was wowed by both the historical and modern sites that I saw. I was wowed by the colors and textures of Europe. So I have a new freebie called “Timeless Textures” to share with you this Saturday. It includes 4 texture plates for personal use. These will only be available for a few days as a freebie—so grab it while you can. You can download it from the store by clicking on the picture.

I get asked a lot how to design papers—so I want to share one of the easiest ways I know and that is using texture plates. Here is just a screen shot of how easy it is…

Well that’s it for now—hope you have a super Saturday. I would love to see anything you make with these. Post your layouts in the gallery you make with these and you just may be surprised with a little something special!

Hey all, Tracy here for another hopefully good Photo Phriday.  I got this idea from a thread at DST so Im really hoping that since the thread was a few months old, this is still something that you might benifit from.  Sorry its a little late.  Shelby and I were playing hard all morning

A lot of the time I hate using flash, because of the undesireable shadows and harsh lighting that it can produce.  Since I shoot weddings and seniors a lot, I cant stand shadows, but I needed to do something about it.  I purchased a Gary Fong Lightsphere for my flash unit, and I tell you it does wonders. 

Lightsphere

And here is the difference that it can make (the photos are untouched, taken on auto.  You can always change the settings on the flash unit or camera to get even more light)

But Carrying something like that around can be difficult, especially since my main camera is often attached to a bracket.Unless I am working, its rather embarrasing to be shooting with such a set up. At Christmas time I look like a flippin Paparazzi and blinding the heck out of my family.  And something like that might not be in your price range as it is.   Now in this example you can see (my beautiful daughter Shelby) that direct flash creates a harsh shadow under the chin (ussually there would be one on the wall too, but my camera is on a large bracket, and that ussually stops wall shadows).  It also creates an unflattering light.  Both in color, and that it tends to show all imperfections.

 The second photo shows what happens when I bounce my flash off of the ceiling.  It creates a warmer, truer light, but most of the time (there can be exceptions in different lighting situations) it causes shadows under the facial features, that can be rather unflattering.

 The third is with my diffuser. It eliminates most shadow behind the subject and it is less harsh under the chin (would have been almost completely gone had I not been shooting her from above, but I was in a hurry   The light is warmer, and just an overall more pleasing photo.

Gary Fong offers a solution for pop up flashes called the Puffer. 

 It produces a great light diffusion that makes flash photos look less harsh.  By the way he also has a diffuser that fits on point and shoots if you are interested.  My point and shoot somehow avoids bad shadows and harsh light somehow, so I have not purchased one.

Moving on.  There are also some DIY options that produce a similiar effect.

1)  Creating a “softbox” with wax paper!

2)  Using a white film canister (you get go to your local photo lab and ask for one, cause they have a hug bucket of used ones)

Try one of these ideas soon and you may never have to toss another good photo because of distracting dark shadows. DIYphotography.net has tons of Do It Yourself photo ideas that you can really put to good use!!!

Little bonus idea:  Bounce your flash off of a side wall close to the subject, to mimic window lighting

Hi Everyone!! This is my very first time posting on the ScrapMatters Blog!! When Britt first asked me to do words for Wednesday I was pretty excited, but once the realization kicked in I was posting on the ScrapMatters Blog well I got plenty nervous LOL. I still am really so bear with me.

Anyhow,  my blog entry today will be about blending text to appear as part of a page design. Its a really fun effect and gives a finished and unique effect to your pages. Unfortunately this is pretty much for photoshop users as I am not familiar with other programs so I do send out a huge huge apology to those that aren’t really able to try this.

So, to start off, you take a good look at your layout and decide where you would really like your text to be. Try to choose somewhere it will really jump off the page. Then you go into your blending options in the layer pallatte for your actual text layer. From there you should see this

You want to slide the layer on the bottom that says underlying layer to the middle a bit to bring the bottom layer through your text. It gives a very cool effect, especially when the bottom layer is textured or busy.

There is also a more detailed tutorial on this here, among many others, but this is just one of the seemingly endless ways to really draw attention to your titling or give it a really fun effect!! Here’s an example of a layout I did using Britt-ish Design’s soon-to-be released kit “Her Royal Highness”.

Thanks SO much for your time!

Signing off!

Sarah (My3Hens)

Hi girls !

Melbby here. This week is my first time hosting a challenge!

I made a template for you . . . easy? Maybe not . . .

Your MISSION, if you chose to accept it:

1) make a page with my template. You can download it here (sorry link expired)
2) add exactly 10 elements – AT LEAST one with glitters BUT NO flowers!
3) use, at least, one of the 3 following colors: pink, purple or green… these colors are my favorites and those of my wedding dress !

Precise details : Title and wordart aren’ t elements. A cluster count as 1, and a stitch frame can count as 1 too… Normally, you must count each element you put on the LO. But, for exemple, if you want put lots of buttons to create an effect of accumulation you can.
The most important : one element with glitters, NO flowers, one of the three colors and respect the template.

Will you be able to complete this mission?

Play with this template. Make it your own and share your layouts with us at the Scrapmatters gallery. Link to the forum here and two of you will win a $5 store credit. I will pick my favorite and then we will randomly pick one winner. We look forward to seeing your layouts!

I’m sure you will make wonderful LO! Have fun! I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

kisses

Here are early entries from the Scrapmatters’ CT ! Thank you grils your are GREAT !!! I was very happy to see your LO !

Heather LO

Jeni’s LO

Katie’s LO

Linzs’ LO

Stacy H’s LO

Amanda’s LO

Brittney’s LO

Henriette’s LO

Wendy’s LO

and… the last but not least…

Sassy Pixie’s LO

Have fun !