What's Truly Important

I created this digital layout in response to a challenge in a free online class I'm taking. More and more, I'm learning that scrapbooking doesn't have to be chronological. I'm seeing the value in creating pages based on relationships and connections. This really frees me up from the tyranny of being "caught up". That's not to say that I won't continue to do event or time based layouts! I have some in mind right now.

Supplies used: Digital papers from Crystal Wilkerson; journaling tab from Katie Pertiet.

Celebrate the relationships in your life!
Immi

August Sunshine

I spent some time this morning playing with a layered digital template. This one was a freebie from Designer Digitals by Katie Pertiet. All the cute stuff is done for you; all I had to do was drop in photos and size them to fit the frames. This is so nice for someone like me who doesn't know too much about Photoshop Elements; most of the work is done by professional designers. I decided to use the template "as is", although the possibility of changing or deleting some of the layers exists. To refresh my memory on working with layered templates, I referred to a video tutorial made by Ali Edwards, which was very helpful.

I plan to have this printed by an online service since it's too large for my color printer. I'll have to wait to see it in person to know whether or not the edges seem too bland. If they do, I'll either trim off enough to put it on a more colorful background or do some inking. I will also print some photos from the trip to do some traditional scrapbooking.

All these photos came from a recent trip to see our grandkids. We enjoy these visits so much, and I try to take lots of photos hoping to get a few good ones. It was hot, hot, hot that weekend, but we had a great time!

Do something fun with your photos today!
Immi

Showing Off

Daddy couldn't resist showing off a couple of cute outfits they had for N. The Indian maiden costume was bought with the intention of using it for Halloween, but as you can see, it fits quite snugly in April. No way that's going to work for Halloween! So cute, though.
This page features a leftover strip of decorative paper, edged with brown, and a cute rub-on.

The next page shows off our little bathing beauty. I have a great fondness for baby swimsuits, especially girls' suits. They are so teeny and cute! For this layout, I used more leftover papers (is it okay if I stop saying edged in brown?). A flower at the top left completes the layout.

Enjoy!

Immi

Having Fun

Here are a couple of fun pages. I love the background paper on "Fresh". I added a couple of leftover green strips to frame the photo, edging all the paper in brown. The word is a white sticker with a felt-like finish.

The bath time layout also features a fun paper. I used a small rub-on in the top left corner, and adhered the plastic duckie to the bottom right. Couldn't be simpler!

Happy crafting!

Immi

Precious Face

Who could resist that sweet little face? Looking at this picture makes me want to pick her up and get some sugar! N is about six months old here and learning to sit up by herself.

I had a little fun using up some scraps on this layout, layering as I went. I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but the pink strip to the right of the green paper is folded accordion style. I also used a small piece of sewing trim along the bottom of the picture.

The embellishment at the bottom is a clear acrylic piece, which can be difficult to adhere, because you usually don't want your adhesive to show. Sometimes you can do a work-around by hiding the adhesive under something that sits over part of your clear piece. I wanted this to stand alone, however, so I had to come up with something transparent. I chose to run this through my Xyron machine, which isn't my favorite adhesive, but works well for this type of use.

As I've been doing throughout this scrapbook, I edged all the paper pieces in brown. It's one of the ways I'm trying to tie things together.

Enjoy!
Immi

Santababy

Here's Daddy, holding his little Santababy. Poor babies; they have to put up with grown-ups decking them out in all kinds of outlandish outfits and taking photos for posterity!

The polkadot paper allowed me to continue the pink theme even though the picture is strongly red. The white strips on the right side are leftover trims from other pages. Her hat seemed to be crying out for a white pompom, and the white flower brad fit the bill. I added a little bling on one of the paper strips just for a little something extra. I felt like the upper left corner of the photo needed some interest, so I added a white photo corner, punched from a scrap of white paper. Rather than place it on top of the photo, I chose to slide it underneath. The edges of the background paper are, once again, edged in brown.

Next stop, April in Minnesota!
Immi

Sweet Girl

This is another photo taken in December. It was so much fun to see N smiling and interacting with all of us. This layout has two layers of paper edged in brown, along with a rub-on. I cut the rub-on into three parts (two words and a flower) and placed them to create a triangle. I added some sparkle with little crystals placed on each part of the rub-on.

One of the fun things about a smaller size album is that you don't need to spend a lot of time on each layout. Less room = less work! Sometimes I'm in the mood to spend a lot of time on a layout, but often, especially with a themed album, I'm anxious to get the project done so I can enjoy it.

Happy crafting!
Immi

Mummy

Here is N, dressed in her cute mummy costume that Sooks bought for her. Love the orange hat!

The background of this layout consists of two layers, white textured cardstock layered over a Basic Grey paper. The narrow strips running across the page vertically and horizontally were cut from a very cute glitter paper. The edges of all papers were altered with brown ink. (I love my ColorBox cats' eye stamp in Chestnut Roan for this technique!) I stamped the word "cute" using an acrylics stamp, and that was that! Quick and simple.

What are you doing today that is creative?
Immi

Mommy & Baby

Now we've moved beyond N's very first days. This was taken in Texas as we celebrated Christmas together.

This layout was very quick and easy. I added some brown ink around the edge of the background paper and placed a white word sticker on top of the photo. Nuthin' to it!

If I had it to do all over again, I would have tried to do a little more editing to the photo itself. Mommy's skin is a little green, due no doubt to my very inexpert photography! Even though the photo could be better, it's more important to me to have this recorded rather than obsess over every detail.

Enjoy!
Immi

April Layout

This is one of the easiest type of digital layouts to do, similar to the one I did here. This is called a quick page. Everything is done for you except to add a photo and text. The only change I made beyond that is to add some splatters around the edge. The background layer is locked on this type of page, so I had to make the changes to the top layer which was unlocked. The only quick pages I've downloaded have been freebies. They're a great way to get started, but I don't think I'd pay for any because of the limitations. Since the background layer is locked, any additional layouts I did with this would look waaaay too similar. However, when you get a layered template, you can make any changes you want. You can change colors, papers and the order of the layers. You can turn off layers you don't want to use. Much more useful down the road!

First Year Continued

Here are some more pages of my scrapbook. I'm keeping these pages very simple, so the process is going quickly. For the background of this first one, I used a gorgeous paper I had with a raised glitter design. I put a rub-on on top of the photo, and that was that!

The next page also went together quickly. I combined two coordinating papers, edged in brown. I stamped the word "family" in brown, and added the felt flower to the bottom left corner. I also used a small rub-on over the top right corner of the photo.

Enjoy!

Immi

Siblings

I love, love, love this photo of A & N. This was taken in the morning, while we still had our jammies on. I think Abba was working the camera that morning.

I had a little trouble with this layout. I wanted to use green and pink together, but because of my robe, my patterned papers all looked too busy. (I could have worked around this by converting the photo to B&W, which works well to avoid clashing colors.) The pink paper was originally white textured cardstock. I started with Tim Holtz' distress ink in Worn Lipstick and his ink applicator tool. Wonderful color, but really too strong for the effect I wanted. Next I tried using his Tea Dye distress ink to tone it down, but the brown on top of the pink looked too orange. I added a layer of a Fresco chalk ink (Botticelli Blush), using the direct to paper technique (pressing the ink pad directly onto the paper), but it still wasn't right. Finally, I rubbed Brilliance Pearlescent Orchid over everything. I also stamped flowers in white ink on top. The green was also pretty bright to start with so I toned it down with some of the tea dye ink followed by the Fresco. The stamp in the corner is from a teeny set designed by Ali Edwards. The set has a variety of words, and I combined the ones I wanted onto a single acrylic block, then stamped it in black.

Today

This is a layout celebrating a personal accomplishment. I made this digitally using a quick page, adding text and photos. I printed it on cardstock, using our Epson color printer. This particular layout is 8.5 x 11, which is not the size I typically do (12 x 12).

It's been interesting to watch the changes in page size over the years I've been scrapping. When I first began in late 1998 or early 1999 (don't remember for sure), the only page size available was 8.5 x 11. Later, 12 x 12 became very popular. Now it's possible to find papers and albums in both these sizes as well as 6 x 6 and 8 x 8. With the proliferation of mini books you can bind yourself and other forms of altered books, the sky's the limit now. One of the professional scrapbookers whose style I admire, Ali Edwards, mixes page sizes within albums. It's also popular now to use divided page protectors along with scrapbook pages. The sections can be filled with photos, journaling cards, patterned paper or ephemera. This is an easy way to make use of more photos without doing a layout every single time.

I'd like to encourage you to make scrapbooking about the little, daily things as well as events. The big push today is for us to tell our stories. A scrapbook page doesn't even have to include photos to count!

Happy crafting!
Immi

Grandparents

Here is the second page, featuring the doting grandparents, Abba & Immi. One of the things that's been so amazing to me since becoming a grandparent is how fascinated I've been with these babies. I can hardly take my eyes off them, and could watch them for hours!

This page was very simple. I used a Basic Grey paper for the background, and edged it with brown ink. The saying came on a piece of transparency; I used my Xyron to add the adhesive and backed it with textured white cardstock. The strip towards the bottom was left over from cutting another sheet; I colored and edged it with some inks. Simple!

Happy crafting!
Immi

New Scrapbook

I've started a new scrapbook about N's first year. I'll be posting pages from this for a while. This is the first time I've done anything with an 8x8 format. A while back, I chose the scrapbook as well as some possible papers and embellishments.

Last week I spent some time choosing pictures and sent them off to Shutterfly. When the pictures came in the mail, I decided which ones to use and slid them in the page protectors.

Here's the first page, using a photo taken when she was only a few days old. I love the way the light coming through the window illuminates her precious little face! I layered some textured white cardstock with a watercolor-look paper (edged with blue ink). The rub-on at the bottom of the page is one I've had for a while. The flowers came in a package; they're made from an iridescent fabric. The flower center was punched from a scrap of pink paper.

I think this project will come together pretty quickly, now that I've got all my stuff together. Enjoy!

Immi

The Results Are In

I want to share my very first "from scratch" digital layout. I used one of my freebie papers as the background. I also used a brush set, coloring it with a color I picked up from one of the photos. I experimented with adding drop shadows to the photos. The label at the bottom is another brush, with text added inside. (I realized after I sent it off to be printed that the date should have been August, but I decided I could live with it.) Finally, I played around with some of the default brushes that come with Photoshop Elements to add the color around the outside edge of the layout. This is not an outstanding layout, but I was happy with my first try at building from the ground up.

If you are interested in experimenting with digital, you can find some great free digital products out there to get started. One of my favorite sources is DesignerDigitals. You have to join their online community to have access to the freebies, but they are very generous. They also have a vast selection of items to purchase, as well as some tutorials.

The online printing service I used is ScrapbookPictures. The service is easy to use, and the turnaround is quick. I sent two layouts to be printed, and I'm quite pleased with the way they look. I was concerned that the layouts would look too flat, but that's not the case. I'm not ready to give up my paper, but this is a fun and creative alternative. It's also nice to have a very thin layout to slide into my album.

Try something creative today!
Immi

Paper and Tulle Flowers

Here is an experiment I tried recently and enjoyed very much. I saw a tutorial for this on a website. It involves cutting circles of increasing (or decreasing, depending on your perspective) size from paper and tulle.

The paper circles are layered, with tulle circles in between each layer. The stack is sewn together with a button on the top. I roughed up the edge of each paper circle with a tool containing a razor blade, made especially for such use. This gives a little more texture and interest.

The end result is fun, colorful flowers to use as accents on a card or scrapbook page. AND, of course, I love the fact that I'm using up odds and ends of my stash!



















Happy crafting!
Immi

Halloween 2008

Here is a layout using a photo from 2008. N was only a few days old - she's filled out quite nicely since then! Love the ninja costume - perfect for a boy with an active imagination!

Somehow this picture didn't "feel" very Halloweeny to me, so I chose to forgo the usual Halloween colors. Instead, I picked up colors from the couch and costumes. It sure feels great to get photos out of a box and into my scrapbook!

Today would be a good day for you to do something creative!

Immi

Gotta Love That Smile!

Here is another page, using an older photo I had of A. He's got such an expressive face! This page came together pretty quickly. The base is a textured cardstock. I wanted part of my title to be computer generated, so I cut the color blocked paper to 8.5 x 11. I placed a text box where I wanted it, and printed a test page before using my "good" paper. The "SMILE" comes from a set of stickers I had. As per my usual good planning ahead, I was part-way through placing the stickers when I realized I didn't have an L. EEK!! I sacrificed a B, cutting off the parts I didn't want to make an L out of it. You'd think I'd learn to be more careful! The question mark I'd had for a while; it just seemed to fit the picture. I don't have any idea what to call the blue loosely woven material I used. It's not fabric, and it's not paper. It's just another random thing I picked up somewhere. The ants were a last-minute addition, and I really like what they add.

Happy crafting!
Immi

Bandana Boy

Here is a recent scrapbook page featuring A, using a photo taken when he was younger. I had this photo in a frame for quite a while, and planned to put in in my scrapbook when I switched pictures. The background paper is from a boy-themed kit I bought a while back, as is the chipboard sticker I placed on the photo. The grunge edge around the photo is from a set of rub-ons.

The stamps I used are acrylic, which offer some advantages over wood-mounted stamps. (Traditional stamps have their own strengths,too!) The word "BOY" was originally in a vertical format, but I wanted to use it horizontally. I cut the letters apart, and placed them on my acrylic mount the way I wanted them. It doesn't hurt the stamps at all to do this, and now I have the freedom to stamp this word either horizontally or vertically. The other stamp I used is a saying. I bent it into the curve I wanted on the mount before stamping. Neither of these options would have been available had I used traditional rubber stamps.

This page was very quick and easy - the rub-ons took more time than anything else.

Keep on crafting!
Immi

All-Digi Layout

Here is my first all digital scrapbook page. This is from a free lesson available on Jessica Sprague's website. Any beginner (like me!) could do this. The template is already created. All that is necessary is to drop in a photo and add the journaling. There is a video that accompanies the tutorial with very clear instructions. I think I may try a few more of these and send them off to be printed. (I don't have a large format printer here at home.) If I wanted to print them at home, I could change them to 8x8, but I generally prefer to use a 12x12 format. I'm curious to see what I will think of the finished product once I see it in person. I don't know if the "depth" will disappear, giving it a flat look or not. If you've ever wondered about how digital scrapbooking works, I highly recommend this free tutorial!

Happy crafting,

Immi

Green Crafting

Yesterday I spent the morning at Archivers having fun. I did a couple of make & take projects, and shopped the sales. When I came home and began unpacking my purchases, I thought about all the packaging that has to be thrown away. I do as much recycling as I can (it's pretty easy here with curbside service). However, most of the plastic packaging is not marked with the recycling symbol and ends up in the trash. One of the packages was mostly flat rather than curved plastic. It occurred to me that I might be able to run it through my Bigshot Express die cutting machine. It worked quite nicely. The most difficult part was cutting through the plastic to separate out the parts that weren't completely flat. I ended up with several flower shapes - and people pay good money at the scrapbook store for acrylic embellishments! I also decided rather than recycle all the posterboard-type packaging I'd run that through as well. I always enjoy stretching those craft dollars as much as possible!

Happy creating,
Immi

Kitchen Experiments

I have been trying to clean out the freezer lately, so I decided to cook some boneless ribs tonight. I recently saw an idea in the Penzey's spice catalog, using one of their barbecue spice blends. The suggested method was to rub the blend on the ribs and cook 4-6 hours at 220 degrees. I covered the rubbed ribs with foil, and baked for about 4 hours. I then removed the ribs from that pan (a lot of liquid had come from the ribs - I guess it was mostly fat). I think they were done enough to eat at that point, but I wanted to add some barbecue sauce. I put them back in the oven for a couple of hours. The long slow cooking didn't dry them at all, and they tasted great.

I first thought of mashed potatoes on the side with a salad. I decided that instead of mashed potatoes, I'd roast some potatoes along with carrots and mushrooms (the mushrooms were languishing in the fridge and really needed to be used!). While at the store to get the potatoes and some lettuce, I was inspired to buy a small bunch of organic beets to roast with the other veggies. These beets were orange rather than red, with the brilliant green tops still attached.

Now, beets are not my favorite. I am not as fond of vegetables as my husband - I've never found a vegetable he doesn't like. However, in the last few years, I've come to appreciate certain vegetables more. The secret is roasting at high temperature. I've learned to like brussels sprouts this way. I am indebted to Barbara Kafka's cookbook, Roasting: A Simple Art. Following her guidelines, I roasted the veggies with some olive oil and kosher salt. They were fabulous, and I loved the beets!

Instead of salad, I decided to saute the beet tops rather than waste them - they're very nutritious. We love to have sauteed greens for a vegetable. I heat a little olive oil in the pan, and briefly saute some garlic, put through the press. Then I add the greens (we often use fresh spinach), and saute a few minutes until wilted. I finish with freshly ground pepper and a few pinches of fleur de sel. Fantastic - and so easy!

Creativity with Words

I recently learned about a site called Wordle. You enter words, and they'll be arranged into a fun piece of wordart. I had some fun with it, and decided to make use of it in a scrapbook I'm doing for a friend. She asked me if I'd scrapbook her wedding pictures, so that's one of my current projects. It's kind of scary to do a project like that for someone else! Here's what I came up with.

Happy creating!

Immi