ABC Book

In a speed scrap last week, I earned this a cool set of alphabet templates, one for every letter of the alphabet. I'd already been thinking of making an ABC book for my nephew, and these templates made it sooooo easy!!

Here's page A - 

And another preview showing several pages with different colors. For a few pages, I used photos, but for most of them, I used scrapbooking elements for the illustrations.

The full set is over in my Picasa gallery - well, I've done through letter "R" so far, and hope to finish the rest this weekend at a Scrap night with some friends.

The template set that made this so fun is called Monogram It, and it's by Stolen Moments Designs. Definitely recommended!!!

Perpetual Calendar Project

I have some serious blog catching up to do! I've been scrapping like CRAZY for the Queen of Scrap contest over at ScrapMatters, because there are some awesome prizes on the line. :)

One of the projects I completed was 12 pages of a perpetual birthday calendar. I designed it to be used for several years, and now that I have the digital files, I can update one page at a time if there are changes. I haven't proofed these yet, so there may be some omissions or misspellings!

 

This project went together very quickly, thanks to the 3.5" x 10" Perpetual Calendar Templates from Designs by HollyAnn. The templates have a place to include a photo for each page, but I chose instead to use holiday or seasonal embellishments for each month's design. Other than that, the only notable alteration I made was to change the width of each page to 4" so 2 pages would exactly fit on an 8"x10" print, which I'll cut apart to make the calendar.

CREDITS USED IN THIS PROJECT:

Used on every page:

Templates: Perpetual Calendar Templates from Designed by HollyAnn

Handwriting 

Font: Pea Smashtastic in a Hurry

Used on some pages:

Arabian Adventure Add-On and Leave the World Behind by Britt-ish Designs

Beautiful Life, I.Love.You and Fresh Mini by Mistica Designs

Best Friends by Doreen Stolz

Euphoria by Andrea Gold

You Are My Sunshine Collab by the Go Digital Scrapbooking Design Team

Gigglerific by geniaBeana Scraps

Holiday Madness by Tallula Moon Designs

Irish Pride by Dreams Fulfilled

Merry Little Christmas by Michelle Coleman

Monthly Memories Collection by Jennifer Barrette

nitwit!blubber!oddment!tweak! from document.life.now/miss kim designs

Paper Piecing Freebie by Michelle Filo

Rhapsody by Carena’s Designs

Silverscatters by Man in the Moon Designs

A Slice of Life Collab by the ScrapMatters Design Team

Springy by Carola Okeke/FWTS

Summer Cocktail by Verena Karolyi Designs

Sweet November by Christy Skaggs

Up and Away by Dylabel Designs

TreeHouse Fun by ScrapMuss Designs

Tweet by Oscraps

Waiting for You by Majula Designs

Hybrid Project | {Smile} Card

I decided to make this card using a couple freebies I got online this week: the {smile} word art and the sunflower photo.

I printed out most items individually and glued them together. It's hard to see in the photo, but the butterfly is only glued at the center, so it's wings "pop" off the card. The green is a ribbon instead of that paper piece. Once the ink dries, I may add some Crystal Effects to the butterfly, this is a finishing liquid that will make the butterfly appear to be glossy, or acrylic-like.

CREDITS
Template: Created by Julie (ScrapMatters It’s In the Cards 5/27)
Word Art: Krisi’s Kreations
Papers: Queen of Scrap by the ScrapMatters Design Team
Euphoria by Andrea Gold
Urban Cutie by Brenna Coleman
Monthly Memories Collection (July) by Jennifer Barrette
Butterfly: Pocketful of Sunshine by Digital Scrapbook Artisan Guild
Photo: Crestock.com free photo of the day

Hybrid Project | Scrapaholic Tumbler Insert

I'm pretty much inseparable from my coffee tumbler from St*rbucks, and the one I have is a "create your own" design tumbler. I've made several paper inserts, but now I'm making fun ones digitally as well. May 1 was {inter}National Scrapbook Day, and in honor of the event and the whole month of scrap-happiness, ScrapMatters has a new kit out called "Queen of Scrap." I couldn't resist - I made a new "outfit" for my mug

CREDITS
Queen of Scrap by the ScrapMatters Design Team
More Curves by Britt-ish Designs

Hybrid Project | Shirt and Tie Card

I've made my own cards for a loooooong time, but am now making some cards using digital products and templates. I use Photoshop to design the whole thing digitally, using a template to get all the papers to just the right size and shape.

Then each piece is set up to print separately, and I cut them out and assemble the card.
Now I'm all set for Father's Day... only my dad's retired and he doesn't wear ties much anymore!

Credits:
Template by wildblueeyez
Passport Required from Creations by Rachael
Happy Go Lucky by Shabby Princess

Organizing the stash....

I used to be a traditional scrapper, and I guess I kind of still am. I definitely have a big box of paper and tools leftover to prove it!

One of the things I love about digital scrapbooking is that it doesn't take much space... anywhere I can bring my laptop, I can scrap. However, organizing the stash of digital supplies takes some effort too. One of the hardest things is that stuff comes in complete kits (collections) of coordinating items, but someday, I may need a blue button or a red ribbon for a layout and not know which of the 100+ kits it might be in.

That's why I use Picasa, which is FREE (I like that!) and works really well to organize stuff using tags. Over at The Daily Digi, there is a review of Picasa today, and I recommend checking it out:
Picasa – A free & useful tool in your digi scrap toolbox

TAGGING

This is the tool I find most helpful in Picasa, which they do mention in the above review. You can set up whatever tags you want, and then mark each graphic file with as many tags as you want. I tend to use simpler tags, so that I can easily cross-reference. For example, one paper might have these 8 tags:
paper
print
stripe
red
blue
green
black
distressed

If I'm looking for a stripe paper to match a photo with purple in it, I can search for "purple" "paper" "stripe." I use it most often when searching for elements. If scrapping using a themed kit, but that kit doesn't have a button or ribbon or string in it, I can search my entire stash in seconds by element name and color to see if I have something else that will work.

THE CATCH

Tagging a large stash can take a loooooooooong time. I've put in hours tagging, but I did go back and tag EVERYTHING. Now, I tag as I acquire new stuff, so it's much less painful, and once it's done - it's done!

Susannah is here | November 2009 ...and a Word Art Freebie

Little Miss Susannah arrived in November, and is the newest little person who knows me as Auntie Rebo. What's not to love?

I have been doing some serious scrapping this last week, so more posts to come!

CREDITS: Photo by Sharp Images Custom Photography, template by Stolen Moments Designs, Peach-faced Love Bird by Verena Designs, stitching from Birthday Party by Maria Designs, word art created by me. Fonts: Batik Regular, CK Becky

I completed this page for a speed scrap and one of the steps was to use word art, and there wasn't any in the kit I'd selected - aaaack!!! So I made my own, and you can grab a copy of you like it! There are 3 PNG files below, one of the whole thing, and one with each part, so you can recolor it if you'd like. :)

PC users: click on each image to open the full-size image in a new tab/window. Then click and drag it to your desktop, or right click and use "save image as."

Mac users: Ummm..... sorry, I don't know what the correct instructions are. Feel free to enlighten me!