Hi everyone…Tater here, to host this week’s Saturday Special Challenge.  As I was sitting on my couch trying to come up with something for this weeks challenge my husband, who was straighting up the house at the time (yeah, can’t believe it myself) asked me, “Do you think you have enough flip flops?  I’m finding them everywhere.”  Then he went on to tell me about something else that is So Me!  He said, “And why do I always find several half empty bottles of water?”  All I could do was smile cause he was absolutely right!  Flip flops and half empty bottles of water are….So Me!  So for this weeks challenge, I want you to scrap about something that is SO YOU!  Maybe your like me and have an obsession with flip flops or you never quite drink all of your drink.  What’s the one thing that your friends and family would say that is SO YOU!  Once you find that thing that is SO YOU…I want you to scrap about it.  Here are the rules…

1. You can only use one photo.
2. The photo can only contain the object that is SO YOU.  (Basically, no people.)
3. Journal a sentence or two about the object that is SO YOU.

Here’s my LO…

And here are some LO’s by our Fabulous CT…

Kate scrapped about her favorite scent…

And I think we all know who this next one belongs too…this is SOOOO BRITTNEY!

I love this one by Leah, she decided to scrap about the color pink…

And take a look at Shari’s…coming from a big family myself I can totally relate to this one and I love the fact that she decided to scrap about it…

And Melanie decided to scrap about her many unfinished projects…I love the how she used the notecards in this LO…

Upload your LO in the gallery and post a link to your LO in this forum thread by midnight on June 6 (PST). Everyone who participates will recieve my Stamped Alpha as a participation prize.

Also I’ll choose a random winner to award a $5 GC to the store. Pretty easy right?? Can’t wait to see what’s SO YOU!

Happy Friday everyone!!  Are you as glad as I am to see this week come to an end?  Wow!  For many of us around these parts, we’re finally able to get out in the yard because the random weather is subsiding, today was the last day of school for our kids, and summer is just rarin’ to go!

Because I’m nothing close to a good photographer, I don’t have a lot of expert tips to share with you.  But I am a girl that loves a good photo!  However, I tend to want to pose everything, or just wait too long waiting for that “perfect” shot.  Ha!  Do they even exist in real life?!  Not for me!  So today I want to focus on just capturing the moment.

We are just finishing landscaping the front yard, so as I was walking around viewing the almost finished product, I brought the boys out with me to just wander around.  As they did I thought, why not capture the moment?  I didn’t worry about trying to get their attention.  If they looked, great, if not, the back of their heads are cute too!  

Then my oldest came walking home from the bus stop ending his first grade year.  Why not get a shot of that, too!?  I’ve always taken pictures of his first days at school, but why not get one of the end too?  I’d never thought of that before, at least not until today!

Then as we were spending a few minutes at the park I decided not to make the kids stop for shots, but instead try to capture them in their “normal habitat!”  Hehehe!  Hey, they can be animals sometimes!

Anyway, as I looked back through my pictures, some of the random, not posed, not stressed shots are my favorite!  Here are some of the fruits from that moment:

My little worker bees:

Hello neighbor!!  Wassup?!

They need water, Mom!  Why aren’t they planted already?!?!

Last day of school, bro!  Peace!

K, just too cute, eh?!  :)

What a good big brother, takin’ the baby down the slide!

My personal favorite: Just can’t get enough!

So take a minute to just live in the moment and let everyone around you do the same.  I’m sure most of you have already figured this all out, but for me its a struggle not to say, “smile, look at me, take your finger out of your nose, stop touching him, move closer, back up, turn around…” and on and on.  I’m such a nag!  Maybe you’ll find that some of your favorite candid moments come from those shots when they weren’t expecting it!  Happy photos, all!

It’s FINALLY my turn to write Theory Thursday and I’m TOTALLY excited!! I’ve been anxious to show you guys my little Mother’s Day gift hybrid project since I finished it!! Ok – let’s get to it!!

This is how I made my chipboard albums!

Supplies Needed:

- TIME! I did this project over the span of 4 evenings. It’s not a quickie!!
- Digi-Scrapped Pages – Printed Out
- Chipboard Album
- Modge Podge (I use Matte finish) or the adhesive of your choice
- Sponge Paint Brush
- Paper Cutter

Option Supplies for further embellishment:

- Adhesive for embellishments (I just used hot glue)
- Ribbons
- Flowers
- Buttons
- Gems
- any other embellies you’d like

First thing I did was take a trip to the local craft/scrapbook store (Robert’s Craft). Chipboard albums were slim pickin’s but I didn’t have time to order them online. I think this chipboard album trend is slowly getting to the stores. Luckily I bought the last two of these 5×7 spiral bound alums by 7gypsies. (I also bought, by ribbons, gems, and flowers).

Then I scrapped all my pages! Since I was making two books, I decided to save time and keep the design pretty much the same for both books but just swap out the photos as needed. I decided to make my books about our most recent trip to Disneyland (BOTH moms attended).

Once my digi-scrapping was done it was time to PRINT. Now, I don’t have a nice printer at home so my only option is taking it to a print shop. There’s a shop in town called Alphagraphics and they do a brilliant job. They like it when I “pre-mount” which means you arrange your digi-pages on and 11×17 sheet and save it as a PDF, which is what I did. The next morning I picked up my sheets and I was ready to go.

I cut out each page carefully with my paper cutter. Then I gathered all my supplies together, and started the process.

I carefully pulled apart the spiral binding and separated all my pages. Then each page (1 at a time) got a coat of Modge Podge and a scrapbook page. I had to be organized and careful not to glue any on out of order or upside-down. I started at the beginning of the book and carefully did all the fronts. Then went back and did all the backs. (I only worked on one book at a time to avoid confusion).

Some helpful tips:

- Once the page is down, don’t try and pull it back up again. You can push and pull it a little to adjust it, but the more you mess with it, the worse its going to get.
- Take your time and smoothly lay your papers down. I used the side of my hand as a squeegee to try and avoid bubbles.
- BUT bubbles happen. Don’t freak out! Once we’re done they don’t look too bad.

Then once both fronts and backs were glued down it was time for the worst part of the project – in my opinion.

SANDING!!

Now, you don’t HAVE to sand your edges. BUT if you take the time and do this your edges will be more sealed. PLUS you get that cool distressed edge. And your page edges aren’t going to lift.

Tips for Sanding:

- Use the appropriate gague (??) of sandpaper. Too fine will take too long, but too coarse will rip your pages up.
- DO take the time to trim the excess paper off with a craft knife or even scissors. Don’t just try and sand it all off. It’s not impossible, but it wastes a lot of time!
- Next time Im going to buy one of those sanding blocks they sell at the scrapbooking store.
- Put on a TV show or movie while you do this and the time will go by faster. It’s a long process.
- Don’t zone out too much cuz you have to be careful not to scratch your photos.
- BUT scratches happen. I ended up with a lot of them! It’s not the end of the world.
- It’s WAY messy. Be prepared for it.

Sanding completed. Look how nice and distressed we’re looking. (but also noticed the scratches! OOPS – but its ok it really didn’t look bad in the end)

OK – next thing I did was seal each page with a top coat of Modge Podge. Some people skip this step. I guess because they don’t like the look of a sealed over page. BUT for me I wanted these books to last! A top coat will seal your work, protect from finger prints and whatnot.

I painted the Modge Podge over one side of the pages and left it to dry overnight. Then painted the other side the next day.

Once the pages were REALLY dry, I reassembled the book.

Now for the FUN PART!! I fired up the old hot glue gun and went to town! Almost every page got a little sumthin’. Flowers, buttons, gems, it really made the book start to look fab.

Then the ribbons. Both mom’s went ga-ga over the ribbons!! I wasn’t stingy, I tied a LOT of ribbons to my binding to make it look really fun. Sometimes I tied two at the same time, sometimes just one. Just play and see what you like. I just tied a simple knot and pulled tight (a double knot was too bulky).

And then I was done!! It was a lot of work but I really did have fun! I want to make myself one now!

And just to prove that I DID in fact make TWO of these suckers . . .

If you want to see the whole inside of my mom’s album, you can check that out HERE (sorry, they aren’t GREAT photos. The last photos in the set are of all the pages. Click “All Sizes” to see them nice and big).

Hope this helped inspire/motivate you to try one of these chipboard albums. I’m not going to lie and say it was easy and quick. It was time intensive and a little harder than I expected. BUT it was totally worth it. And now that I’ve done it, I know my next one will be easier!!

Hybrid is so fun!! And a little addicting I must say!!

Have a great day!!

xoxo,

Heather (hedderlee) here to take you on a field trip – I am a visual person, so it will be no surprise to you that I will focus on design inspiration based on letters and numbers, words, and journaling. It is known as typography in the design industry. Let’s see what other artists are doing with typography. I’m certain that this trip will breathe fresh inspiration into your layouts:

I love how the letters are positioned into a graphic in this poster. Thanks for the idea, Arounna, who is a weekly craft idea contributor for the blog Bloesem Kids.

…

Take a look at this typographic music video by Uruguayan band Cuarteto de Nos – I must admit that I have no idea what the lyrics mean, but I’m intrigued! Looks and sounds great! (Umm, would someone let me know if the subject content is questionnable? Thanks) If you liked this, check out more typography in motion.

…

I Love Typography is a feast for the eyes. I’ve been pouring over the posts.

…

This poster by Christina Koehn was featured in Smashing Magazine’s article, Breathtaking Typographic Posters.

…

American Institute of Graphic Arts is a treasure trove of ideas to tap. Be sure to check it out!

Inspiration has hit you in the face – now go create!

Welcome to Monday! New creative team member Leah here with this week’s “What Matters Monday.”

How do you organize your digiscrap supplies? Do you keep kits together or separate them into similar objects? Do you categorize by designer? Do you use specialized software (e.g., ACDSee) to tag all of your supplies?

Here’s a little background on me to help you understand my own personal organizational system….I am a total mix-and-match scrapper. I hardly ever use one singular kit to complete a layout. Check out my gallery…my credits lists are always a mile long. I generally have some sort of pre-conceived plan before I even open Photoshop as to what elements my layout will contain. I’ve been digiscrapping since December 2006 and I tend to hoard everything I can get my hands on (even if I know I probably will never use it!) Therefore, being able to locate what I am looking for in a relatively short amount of time is key!

I have a 150 GB external hard drive devoted solely to digital scrap supplies (best investment EVER!) At present, it contains 35,229 files which comprise 42.1 GB.

So, yeah…I have a lot to organize.

I’ve divided my stuff into four main categories, or folders:

1. Papers
2. Elements
3. Alphas
4. Templates

Each category has very specific subfolders. For instance, inside my Papers folder, you’ll see this:

Anal-retentive, you say? Maybe. Hey, it works!

As you can see, I deconstruct all my kits into parts. Oftentimes, files aren’t labeled with the designer’s name or kit name, so I try to rename files before adding them to folders so that creating credits lists is less of a hassle.

Here’s a peek inside my Elements folder:

Here’s a more comprehensive listing of all the subfolders inside the Elements folder:

• Angel & Devil
• Angels
• Animals
• Arrows
• Auto stickers
• Baby
• Bathtime
• Birds, bugs, & butterflies
• Birthday
• Bob the Builder/Construction
• Brackets
• Brads, buttons, & bottlecaps
• Calendars & dates
• Cards & Bingo
• Charms
• Christmas
• Clocks
• Clothing & Shoes
• Comic books
• Crowns & tiaras
• Dinosaurs
• Disney
• Easter
• Fabrics
• Fairies
• Flowers
• Food & cooking
• Fourth of July
• Frames
• Gears
• Girly-girl
• Grids
• Halloween
• Hearts
• Heritage & family trees
• Homes
• Keys & keyrings
• Kisses
• Leaves, branches, & pinecones
• Music
• Nautical
• Overlays
• Paint smudges & ink spots
• Paisleys and flourishes
• People
• Photo corners
• Photomats
• Pins, clips, tape, staples, & prongs
• Post-its, tags, file folders, tabs, and journaliing elements
• Ribbons & stitches
• Rulers & tape measurers
• Sequins & glitter
• Sliders & buckles
• Snowflakes
• Snowmen
• Space
• Sports
• St. Patrick’s Day & shamrocks
• Stamps
• Stars
• Summer & beach
• Sweet treats
• Swirls & doodles
• Thanksgiving
• Torn borders
• Torn cardboard
• Vehicles & transportation
• Viewfinders
• Vintage ephemera
• Weather
• Word art
• Writing utensils

As you may expect, many of these subfolders have sub-sub-folders as evidenced by my Ribbons & Stitches folder below:

Hopefully this has inspired someone to begin the daunting task of organizing their digiscrap supplies! Even if you organize by designer, store, or color, organization is SO worth the hassle.

I just realized how scatter brained I am! Tami here and oh do I owe a big apology to this week’s Sunday Spotlight, scrappin5kids (Heidi)!!! I’m SO sorry!! I completely lost my Sunday somehow, so I’m just now posting the Spotlight, and she’s such a GREAT woman, too!

Ok, so big piece of humble pie done, let’s get to know Heidi a little better! Here are some of the questions shes answered to give us a little insight into who she is:

What is your main job/career? Luckily I am a SAHM…=)

Are you married/kids/pets? Married for almost 12 years! With 5 kids, 4 boys and 1 girl.

Where do you call home? the lovely Northwest (USA)

What are your three favorite foods? Chocolate, Pasta (Olive Garden), Chocolate

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Almost any!

Do you prefer salty or sweet snacks? Sweet!! (with a little salty)

What is your favorite beverage? Water bottle with single drink mixes

What is your least favorite food? Not really picky…I will try most anything.

PC or Mac? PC

How long have you been digi-scrapping/How did you get into it? Actually scrapping since Oct 07, (been downloading freebies since about May 07!) Andrea told me I should start cause I loved scrapping anyway, I thought she was a little crazy, but I am totally addicted now! Poor Shari has recieved more than one phone call, “How do you do this??!”–so I am very thankful to both of them for getting me started!

What program do you use to digi-scrap with? PSE 6

What are your hobbies besides digi-scrapping? gardening is my other addiction thanks to my mil!

What is the most challenging part of scrapbooking for you? Thinking “outside” the page and making my pages look original…=)

What would you like to learn to do (or do better) not related to scrapbooking? be a better, more patient mom!!

What are your favorite books/authors? LDS Church historical fiction (Gerald Lund)

What are your favorite movies? Comedy Romance

What is your favorite quote? Nephi: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them. I love this quote/scripture because I know we aren’t given any trials that we can’t handle!

Where do you find inspiration for your layouts? templates and the inspiring people who post here!

How much time are you able to spend scrapping each week? It depends on if my husband will read this!! JK! I get to spend about 15-20 hours on scrapping–looking at the website, I spend a little more time!

Of all of your layouts, which is your favorite and why? I think I am going to have to pick 2 because I love the journaling. I feel that journaling is so important, my husband loves that I am doing my “family history” this way! I love my 10 Things, and Dedicated: to the one I love.

Here are Heidi’s 2 favorites and I just LOVE them!  

10 Things:

Dedicated: to the one I Love

And I just want to add one more of my favorites and really show you all how sweet Heidi is!  A while ago she asked our fearless leader Brittney for a photo.  Unbeknownst to Britt, she was creating this adorable LO in honor of all Brittney has done for all of us.  How sweet is that!??!  This is another one of my favorite pages Heidi has created:

Our Cheerleader:

How cool, right?!  Thank you to Heidi for playing along with us this week by letting us get to know you a little better.  Take some time to look through her gallery, it’s worth it!  (And Heidi, sorry again!  Watch for a special PM with a thank you just for you!) 

Until next time everyone!

Brittney here just popping in to announce the winner of Sya’s “Music & Lyrics” Saturday Special Challenge last week!  Congrats to sahlink with this beautiful LO, “One Boy, One Girl”.

I will PM you your GC right away!  Back to you stacy!!

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8 SIMPLE RULES CHALLENGE

Eight happens to be my favorite number so for this challenge you have eight rules to follow.
1- Use only 2 pictures
2- Choose at least 4 different papers
3- Use the color yellow somewhere in your LO
4- You must use at least one alpha
5- You need 4 fasteners (i.e. stitches, tape, staples, etc)
6- One ribbon and one swirl which need to be the same color
7- Because there are eight rules, you need to add 8 additional embellishments. That’s 8 embellies anything from flowers, buttons, brads, etc.
8- Add some journaling!

Have fun!

All entries need to be done by Friday, May 30th, at midnight MST. I will pick two winners for a $5 gift certificate to the shop.

Everyone who participates will receive my stampin’ fun alpha.

As always the CT have been very busy – here are a few examples to get those creative juices flowing.

Here’s one by me. This is the first time we saw a koala in the wild – so cool!

Next comes sassypixie, such fun colors and I love how she has the arrow pointing to her son so she will remember where he is in the “line up”!

Apparently I caused Linz a few tears, LOL!! I am not sure she would call them 8 simple rules! LOL! Who is she kidding isn’t the whole thing spectacular? What a great moment to capture!

Next comes Zakirah. I love how she used the color yellow such a fun and happy color which goes well with the pictures she used!

Katie has such a cool picture here – I love how she shows the action of the slide. I also love the stacked papers behind the picture! What an adorable LO!

Last, but certainly not least, is Britt. I love how she continued the swing chains up the page and hung her pictures!

Now that you have seen a few ideas go out there and get scrappin! Can’t wait to see what you come up with! Remember you have until midnight MST Friday, May 30th, to complete your LO. I will send you a PM with the link for the alpha after you post your LO in the gallery and link it to the forum!

xoxo,

Stacy H.

Happy Photography Phriday from Heather (hedderlee)! Don’t you just love the anticipation of checking your digital shots seconds after you’ve taken them? I can hardly wait to click play so I can ooh and ahh over the beautiful moments I’ve captured. But what? Why is this one blurred? And that one? Ack, my great moments are fuzzy! This agony is preventable, I’m finding out; let me share with you some highlights of what I’ve learned to reduce camera shake based on an online article by photographer Wesley Tanaka.

Camera shake? What’s that?
This blurriness takes place when the camera moves while the shutter is open. Camera shake is common when the environment has less than perfect lighting conditions and the aperture is wide and shutter speed slow to compensate for inadequate light. Let’s face it: lighting conditions are often less than perfect, so this can happen a lot more than we’d like. And the hands shake no matter how much you try to keep them still.

You don’t have to have high-end equipment to steady your shot. Combat the shakes by holding the camera correctly, adjusting your breathing, and mimicking a tripod. These suggestions are easy and require no extra cash! Hurray!

Hold the camera correctly
Instead of using the LCD preview screen to compose your pictures, take advantage of the viewfinder, pressing the camera against your face to brace it.

And always use two hands for more stabilization, with the right hand on the grip and the left hand cradling the lens (if it’s long enough).

Then, bring your elbows close to your body.

Breathing makes a difference too!
Once you’re properly holding your camera, pointing at your subject:

Release your breath

A lot of camera shake takes place when people press the shutter button too hard. The camera does not have to move downward with the shutter button.

Mimic a tripod
The professionals all agree: the best way to combat camera shake is to use a tripod. And the heavier the tripod, the better. But who has the strength or patience to lug a gigantic tripod around? Especially when a Kodak moment of your sweet toddler is happening before your eyes and you barely have time to whip out the camera. So, try these tips:

There are other things you can do to increase your chances for a blur-free shot, but the aforementioned are basics that will improve any photo. Check out Digi Cam Guides for more information.

Enjoy your blur-free photos!

Hi everyone Andrea here with a tutorial and a freebie just for those new to digital scrapbooking. 

I remember when I first started digiscrapping, it all seemed so foreign to me.  I had been using photoshop elements for several years to manipulate photos, but still didn’t understand how you used that to create scrapbook pages.  I had difficulty getting the photos into my layout.  The tutorials I read had a different version of PSE than I did and dragging photos into a layout is very different between PSE 3, PSE 4, PSE 5 and PSE 6. Once I realized the correct way to drag photos into my layout for the version of PSE that I owned I was set. 

I wrote this tutorial in PSE6 since most people starting out in digital scrapbooking will have the newest edition.  However, if you have a different version leave a comment or private message me in the SM gallery and I will see what I can do to help you.  Everyone except those new to digital scrapbooking will probably be bored by this tutorial, in which case you can just skip to the shop to grab the Quick Page.  However, if you would like to critique or add comments that would help newbies I would appreciate that too.

This tutorial is how to make a layout using the free “Way to Be” Quick Page.  Quick pages are great for creating quick and easy layouts because most of the work is finshed ahead of time for you.  We have a lot of terrific quick pages in the SM shop, you can check them out here.

You will need the quick page freebie from the SM shop and two horizontal, 300 ppi photos approx 3″x4.”

To make it easier I also included full resolution screen shots in the quick page folder, so if the tutorial shots here on the blog are too small to see, you can open the ones in the quick page folder to get a closer view.

Step 1:

After unzipping your quick page folder you will see the .psd file in the folder.  Double click on it and it will open into PSE. The quick page will show up in the main editing window, the layers palette (to the right) and the photo bin at the bottom, if you have it open.

Duplicate your quick page layer by dragging it up to the new layer icon.  Turn off the bottom layer’s eyeball icon so that the layer is no longer visible.  Rename your quick page by using save as.

Step 2:

Open your photos.

Step 3:

 Step 4:

Step 5:

Step 6:

Step 7:

Step 8:

That’s it.  Now you just save it as a jpg at 12 (100%) quality.  Also save it using the save for web setting.
Resize it to 600 pixels wide and about 70 quality so it is under 150 kb in size and then you can upload it to the gallery to share with everyone.