Page Maps Contest

This is a layout I did for the Page Maps Blog sketch contest. I love Becky's sketches!
I flipped it because my photos were vertical. It hit me as I was almost done that I didn't have to change the whole orientation ... I could have just flipped the photo section ... but it is what it is :)

I don't remember about Justin (first baby), but Samantha and Andrew both love playing with coffee cups. Maybe it's because they see Kevin (daddy) using his mouth on them all the time. It would be so cool to go inside the mind of a baby and see things the way they do. I wonder Andrew is thinking all the time.

Once again, the background is a download from sxc.hu. The coffee stain and graphic for the brads are from there as well. The striped paper is from Sande Krieger at 2peas. I created the coffee cup tag by myself using a graphic I grabbed from the Internet. Fonts used are Maiandra GD and Got heroin (yes, that's an aweful name). I think that's all ...

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I get to order my 365 project tomorrow! Can't wait!

Winter layout

I LOVE this layout! Snow makes such a great backdrop. The pictures are great, the colors blend and it just flows ...

I got the layout sketch idea from the January issue of Creating Keepsakes. Yes, I scraplifted :)
The background is a downloaded image from sxc.hu that I changed the hue of to blue. The little blue trees and larger white ones are a dingbat font, DB Christmas Trees from ScrapNFonts.com. The title is a font called Flurries. The snowflakes are a dingbat called Faux Snow. The journaling is in a font called Another Typewriter.

I love it! I think I'm going to experiment and send this off to be printed. I wonder how it will turn out ... if it works well, I may print out more digital layouts to put in a traditional album ...

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Digital Layout

As I said in a previous post, I believe I will try digital scrapbooking for a while. I've done some graphics before, but not scrapbooking ones. I use Macromedia Fireworks as my graphics program and there isn't a way to load those magnificent brushes (at least that I know of). I REALLY wanted to because they're amazingly beautiful, but I made do with other things like fonts and dingbats and making my own.
However, I recently discovered that a lot of digital elements are available in .png format (which is the Fireworks format). Yippee! Now I have to decide what would be most practical to buy!

My first attempt at an "official" digital scrapbook page is this:
What makes it official? Well, the square size is the first part. My other graphics were rectangular for a computer wallpaper or a poster printout. I also used official digital scrapbooking elements. The red scalloped background and brown polka-dot 'paper' are part of a free download designed by Sande Kreiger from 2 peas. The swirls are from scrapNfonts. The pointsetta flower is a dingbat font. The notepad paper I downloaded from sxc.hu. The rest is stuff I put together on my own.

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Now, the really important credit goes to journalingjunkie for putting up a challenge and Tanya for the sketch. The gals at journaling junkie have a regular contest and I've always admired but never done anything. I really am bad ... but now that I'm digital, I've already completed two layouts! Yay! I'll show you the second tomorrow!

P.S. I'll elaborate a bit in the next post, but I'm hoping to find out the rules of etiquette for digital scrapbooking and would appreciate ANY hints.

365 project

I'm going to do the 365 project using the kit by Becky Higgins.
I'm excited because I know I can do this and I'll have a completed album of a year's worth of photos. It goes on sale on January 1st, but I've already started because this is the week that the new year starts. Now the biggest challenge will be deciding which photos to use. You don't want them to be redundant and yet sometimes there are way too many to choose ...
My photos are still on my camera, but when I download them, I may share.

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Digital Scrapbooking and 365 project

First, let me share a fantastic opportunity. Rhonna Farrer is offering a huge giveaway of digital items on her blog here. Make sure you head on over and check it out!

It's taken me over a year of agonizing, debating and going back and forth, but I think I'm going to go mostly digital for my own personal memory keeping.


I love scrapbooking. I really do. The problem is that it takes time. Time I haven't taken. I do schedule crop nights and work a little bit at home but that isn't enough time to really catch up the way I'd like to. Some people are good at it. I'm not. It takes me hours to do one layout. I have to get all of my supplies and spread them out. Then I have to pack up and clean up before I'm done! A lot of people have success with seperate craft rooms, but my house isn't that big. I also don't can't stay up until 3 am after the kids have gone to bed.

I tell myself that it's because I have three kids 4 1/2, 3 and 8 months, but it's just an excuse. No matter what the reason, I don't want to get further and further behind.

So, I'm taking steps to try and catch up as well as prepare for the future.

• I'm going to put Justin's baby book on hold because I'm past the 6 month mark. He's over 4 now! Boy am I bad :)
• I'm going to start both Samantha and Andrew's baby books and go through at least 6 months.
• I plan to do a digital photobook as a year in review of 2008.
• I plan to do digital layouts as we go into 2009 (I tend to have more time on the computer than to physically scrapbook with paper).
• I'm going to participate in the 365 project using the kit by Becky Higgins. You take a picture every single day, journal a bit, and DO it! It's a great way to have a year's worth of pictures in one place (not perfect, but really great anyway).
• I plan to scrapbook major events like birthdays and holidays in digital format for 2009. At the end of 2009, I'll print out a digital scrapbook. Perhaps in 2010 and beyond I'll combine paper and digital scrapbooking, but I will not do personal paper scrapbooking until I have caught up with the baby books.
• I will create quick photobooks of the last 4 years to catch up and then decide where to go from here.
• I still plan on creating paper art as gifts and for craft fairs ... got to have my paper fix. Plus, I make more gifts for others than I scrapbook for myself anyway. My mom has more photos of my kids than I do!
  

I know it's a lot and we'll see what I actually am able to do, but it's still my goal!

I've already done two digital layouts of the holiday season. I'll post them for you soon!

Grande finale

Here's the last page:
This is the December graphic for my year in review calendar. I hope you enjoyed it!
Once again, I downloaded all of the background images from sxc.hu. My design inspiration was from Ali Edwards. The font used was CK_Alis_Handwriting. It was a free download from Creating Keepsakes.
No, I didn't do anything incredibly fancy. I enhanced the color of my photos, I collaged a few of them, but for the most part, my design was very straight forward. However, it was all custom. I decided how to place my boxes and how many to use. I worked around the photos I had for that month. You could probably find some great calendar templates out there, but this was my own work and I'm proud of it.
I hope you enjoyed all of the calendar graphics and you can view them all in my gallery here.

Under the weather

The whole family has the sniffles ... no fun.

But, here to cheer you up: The November calendar graphic! I LOVE the photos for this one.

Enjoy!

Visiting relatives for the Holidays ...

Well, I'm off visiting my husband's relatives. Lots of fun :)

Today I'll share the graphic from October. It's one of my favorites. Maybe it's because it highlights my sister's wedding ... gorgeous!


This has the most pictures of any of my graphics. How could I choose?

And, for Kevin's family ... another graphic:


Hope you're still enjoying the Holiday season!

Christmas Eve stocking stuffer

So, I'm up late. No, I'm not wrapping gifts or making last minute preparations. I'm taking care of baby.
But, while I'm up, I might as well share family goodies :)

This is the graphic for September on the year in review calendar.
This is one of my favorites :) Just FYI: the lower left hand picture is of my two eldest in their Grandma's clothes drier ... what fun!

And because we took a trip up to Maine in September to visit Kevin's mom ... here is her graphic.

Enjoy your Christmas everybody!!! Jesus is the REASON for the Season!

Almost Christmas!

You're probably rushing around finishing up last minute Christmas things ... so am I :)

Today it's time for the August review graphic. I really like this one. It's bright and colorful, but the pictures are great as well. For August, I highlighted our trips to visit various groups of water :) The kids are so cute. Justin prefers to play in the sand and Samantha won't get out of the water until she's blue and shivering.
Once again, all of my background graphics were found at sxc.com, designs are my own but inspired by the simplicity of Ali Edwards design, font is CK_Alis_Handwriting and software used is Macromedia Fireworks.

Enjoy!!!

Halfway through ...

We're very close to Christmas and we're halfway through the year in review calendar. Hope you're enjoying it.

Here's July:

Chillin'

Major snow today. Got to love it! There are inches upon inches of snow outside, but I'm toasty by the fire ...

It's time to highlight the June graphic from my year in review calendar. It was warm enough to have some lovely water play photos. One graphic has pictures of my hubbie's brother and family and the other has the kids with my father, so there are two lovely graphics on display.


To be honest, when you're dealing with this many photos, you sometimes forget about a few and this is one of those cases. I had three GREAT photos that I forgot to use ... ugh!

Hope you enjoy :)

Carpeted in snow ...

I love the snow. True, it's cold and wet, but it's so beautiful!

Today, in honor of the snow, we will highlight not one, but two graphics from our year in review calendar.

Here is April.


Here is May - the month that our dear little Andrew was born :)

Snow!

It's becoming quite the winter wonderland in New England ... well, at least it started today! I'm so excited and can't wait to look out my window in the morning and see how much snow has come down! The kids will be able to go sledding for the first time this year and they're just now big enough and old enough to really enjoy it :) So exciting!

Today we'll be highlighting the March review graphic for the calendar ...
This is the generic one of just the kids and us. I'm very pregnant in these photos, but you can't tell :) Kevin had a business trip to Mass and we went to the Boston Green and played at the park there. What fun!

And this one is for my side of the family because it has my family's Easter photo. When do kids start looking good and posing for family photos? I hope it happens soon ...

Hope you enjoyed!

Shipment is in!

I'm so excited! The shipment of calendars came in today! They look great :) It's always so cool to see what you've created digitally in a hard copy format and physically hold it in your hands!

Today, I will highlight the graphic from February:

Believe it or not, I didn't have a ton of photos for February. Then, the ones I did have were cute, but not necessarily calendar material. So, I kept it simple and enhanced it with a bright background and more border accents than normal.

Christmas!

Can you believe it? There's only a week and one day until Christmas!!!
I love Christmas. I love the decorations, the lights, the sweets, the family time ... I love it! It never seems like there's enough time to accomplish what I'd like. I thought about doing a December Daily album but didn't have/take the time. I wanted to handmake more gifts (still working on that). I wanted to have a cleaner, neater house. Alas, we can't all have what we want. But, the important thing is that the family is happy and they are :) The kids are really getting into Christmas. It's a joy to watch them! My favorite new tradition is pointing out the Christmas lights when we drive after dark.

So, while I work on finishing up my Christmas gifts, I'll share something I've actually completed.
As I did last year, I created a year in review calendar.

It was once again really hard to choose only a few photos for each month. I also did a new design concept. I carried this same design theme over all 12 graphics with small variations. At first, I was concerned that it was too graphic and not unique or 'artsy' enough, but I got over that enough to continue.


I've decided to post 1-2 each day leading up to Christmas and hopefully post my other projects after they are given as gifts. I hope you enjoy the glimpse into my family's life over the last year and maybe you'll be inspired in some way :)

So, without further ado, here's January:

There are two versions. The second one here has a picture of my brother-in-law and his children with my hubby and kids that will be included in the calendars for my husband's family.
Credits: Ali Edwards for inspiration modified by me and made my own. Font is CK_Ali_Edwards. Background was obtained through sxc.com (Stock [photo] eXChange).

Scrapbooking for Baby!

Hello all :)

No, I don't have anything to post. I have created a few things, but I forgot to take pictures before giving them away. Silly me!

Anyway, I stumbled across this blog that is doing a series on the best in baby scrapbooking.


So, I think I'll follow along and see if I can get some inspiration. I really like the first post about the mini-book with the tags. I've seen these tags and thought about getting them. I probably will, but who knows when :) Andrew is 7 months old now and I haven't scrapped a thing! Oh, so much to do!