Random Ramblings of a Scramping Addict

One Kit Different Looks - Studio J Class Act

Today, I want to explore the flexibility of scrapbook kits.  The layouts I'm showcasing are from the new CTMH kit Class Act which is exclusive to Studio J, but the theory behind what I'm saying could just as easily be applied to classic scrapbooking.

I think that sometimes it's easy to 'dismiss' specific scrapbook kits that we have already used in our albums as options when creating a new layout.  After all, unless you're building a theme album, who wants their entire album to look the same, page after page?  Instead, we want things to be unique!  While it might be easy to think that scrapbook kits are for one-time use, I want to prove to you that that shouldn't be the case at all.  Just because you've used a kit in the past, doesn't mean that it's 'done'.  There are so many options in the classic My Reflections Paper packs and Studio J kits that you can create layouts from the same kit again and again without compromising their uniqueness.

Here is a layout that I created using the Class Act kit from Studio J.

As you can see, my layout is not School Themed as the kit theme would originally dictate.  I loved these papers and immediately thought they would be appropriate for scrapbooking my trip to Buffalo to see Tim Holtz.

On the flip side, here is a layout created with the same kit by the amazingly talented Melissa Laverty (or Fancy Melissa as she is otherwise known), a Close To My Heart consultant in Northern Virginia.

Melissa's layout is very obviously school themed - as these are photo's of her son's first day of Grade 3. But don't you agree that Fancy Melissa's layout looks completely different than my own?  But yet we used the same scrapbook kit!  {You can visit her blog for more info on this layout if you like but keep in mind that all of the pricing she quotes is in US dollars!}

In my mind, seeing these two layouts side by side is proof positive that you can use the same Scrapbooking kit in your albums and the pages can look COMPLETELY UNIQUE!  Melissa used the notebook paper from the kit in it's original form, I on the other hand coloured it green to better coordinate with my photos.  Melissa used many of the My Stickease stickers to embellish her layout, and I used only the 'star'.  Melissa chose a red background for her layout, and I chose black - which completely changes the 'feel' of the layout.  Melissa chose to accent her page with black buttons, I chose red.  All of these differences contribute to the uniqueness of the pages.

So keep this in mind the next time you scrapbook.  Don't be so quick to dismiss a scrapbook kit because you've used it before.  I think you'll be surprised at how much flexibility is still there in the papers, patterns and colour you haven't used yet.

If you like more information about Studio J, or the Class Act kit, contact me at [email protected] or by telephone at 905-317-8823.  If you're local to me, I'm hosting an information night on Tuesday September 21st.  If you'd like to come by and see a live Studio J demo, just let me know that you'd like to attend!

Studio J Scrapbooking

I've said this before, and I'll say it again, the more I play with Studio J, the more I love it!

Here's a quick layout I put together last night celebrating the many hours my kids spent fishing with their cousins this summer.

The rather tropical looking paper is from the retired CTMH "Moon Doggie" paper pack which although can't be purchased from the Idea Book to scrap the traditional way any more is still available online with Studio J.  {Isn't that great! There are a whole host of retired items available there!}

Just to give you a peak into how this layout came together, I first chose my photos....10 of them and uploaded them to my Studio J 'studio'.  I then looked at the available layout patterns that would display my photos and settled on this one.  It is called Creative Rhythm which you may recognize from the "Imagine" how-to book by Jeanette Lynton.  Here is what the blank layout looks like online.

Now, you might have figured this out already, but in case you didn't - I didn't leave the layout exactly as is.  To accommodate my photos, and to get the look I was going for, first I 'flipped' the pages right to left, then rotated what is now the right hand page counterclockwise 90 degrees.  Then, I converted the blank spot on my left page (which is the right page in the photo above) to a photo well and dropped in an extra photo to bring the total photo wells to 10 as I required.

Isn't that awesome!  Despite the fact that I started with a 'canned' layout, I was able to swap, flip and rotate things so it was exactly what I needed.  This type of flexibility built into the Studio J studio can't be beat!

Have you tried Studio J yet?  If not, why not?  As you probably realize, I highly recommend it.  So pop on over to Studio J and take it for a test drive -- there is no cost to try so you have absolutely nothing to lose. Happy 'Digi'-Scrapping!

Playing with Studio J

For the first time ever yesterday, I took some time to play with the new Studio J software launching to customers next month.  I created these two layouts.

The first one took about 30 minutes, and the second just over an hour (but I was cooking dinner at the same time!)  How cool is that?

You might recognize that the paper in the second layout is from the Grace My Reflections scrapbooking kit as seen in the Idea Book.  That's because all of the papers included in Studio J are digital versions of traditional scrapbooking kit papers!  With each Idea Book launch, new kits will be added to the Studio J library, plus an exclusively digital kit will be made available also.  My Halloween layout above was created with one of these exclusively digital kits.

I can't give you all the details just yet because Studio J doesn't officially launch to customers until April, but I am totally excited to bring you this sneak peak.

Watch this site for more details as we get closer to launch.

And yes again, I'll apologize for being absent from the blogosphere for a bit, but I've got good reason this time as I'm preparing to move my blog to TypePad.  I've wanted to do this for a while now, and although the site's not quite ready to go public yet, it's getting close.  I'll give you all the details when the site is up and running, but for now I'll continue to post here.

Final Sketch Mania Challenge

Last week was the third and final week of the Sketch Mania competition over at Scraps of Us.  I had such fun with these challenges and I'm certainly going to miss them.  If nothing else, it gave me an excuse to site down and scrap (well, digi-scrap) even during the busy holiday season.

The challenge for week 3 was to create a double page sketch to house 6-8 photos plus journaling.  Loved this! I am always looking for ways to get more photos on a single page.

Here's what I came up with.

Once the sketch was submitted, the next part of the challenge was to scrap it - with a catch:  The layout must have only 2 colours plus black or white (choose one), AND we must use buttons and ribbon.

When I saw this I was stunned since buttons for me are a big problem!  I don't tend to use them much because quite frankly, I am just never happy with the way they look.  So I was a bit concerned.

Nonetheless, here is my layout - and despite the difficulties I had with the buttons, I am pretty happy with the final result.

Unfortunately I can't give the appropriate credit right now on all of the page elements, since they are from a whole bunch of different kits (I hate it when that happens!)  I need to remember to keep track of these things as I'm creating!  Usually when I digi-scrap I choose one, maybe two kits at most and work with them exclusively on a layout, however here, because I needed some buttons and ribbons that coordinated, I couldn't find everything in one place.  If you have a specific question about an element, just holler, because I'm sure I could figure it out if I needed too.

Also, remember if you create a layout based on one of my sketches, I'd love to see it!  Just upload it somewhere, pop me an email or send me a link!  I just love to see how sketches come together as art!

More Digi Fun.

I mentioned the other day that I was participating in a Sketch Challenge over at Scraps of Us.  For week two, we had to create a sketch using circle photos and flowers.

Circle photos are a bit outside of my box, but here's the sketch I submitted.

And here's my layout!

This was done using a freebie collaborative kit that I picked up last year called Mango Tango.  I just love the cool brights colours and the floral accents!  They matched my daughter's bathing suit perfectly!

I also scrapped a sketch submitted by Tracy - one of the other girls participating in the challenge (and funnily enough, she's also my sister).

Here is her sketch and the layout I created based on it!

 You'll notice that yet again I switched things up a bit.  I just couldn't get my head around journaling in the centre section.  I tried several times, but couldn't make it work for me.  That though is the beauty of sketches in my opinion.  They are a great 'launching point' for the creative process.  You don't always have to follow them exactly in order to make them work for you!

Thanks for stopping by - until next time.

What I've Been Up To!

Wow!  The time just slips away doesn't it?

Over the last couple of weeks I've been busy busy busy to say the least but I have had some time (although not enough as usual) to get crafty.

I'm participating in the Sketch Mania challenge over at Scraps of Us which has been really fun.  It started December 1, and so far I've created two sketches, and one layout as part of that challenge.  I can only post the first sketch right now as the second hasn't been released to the group yet, but I will post it as soon as I can.

Here is my Sketch Mania Sketch #1

The directions for the challenge were pretty straightforward - create a sketch that includes 4 photos and one spot for journaling.  If you'd like to create a layout based on my sketch that would be awesome!  I would love to see it!  Just create away and then post it out there in cyberspace, but be sure to send me a link (via email or a comment).

Liz Weber, another gal in the Sketch Mania group was assigned my sketch to create a layout as part of the contest.  I have requested her permission to share her creation here, but haven't received a response yet.  Hopefully she agrees to let me share, since she did a fantastic job with it.  It is so fun to see a sketch come to life.

The layout I created as part of the Sketch Mania challenge is this one.

I decided to go all-digi on this, and used a freebie that I picked up from Studio Baers Garten @ Scrapbookgraphics called Turkey Day by Iara Gomes Baer.  I think the freebie is still available, so if you're interested in picking it up try this link to download.

The sketch I received was by Tracy Sherriff, and is below and while I admit, I did interpret this one a little creatively and incorporated lots of extra 'white' space, the layout of each element matches her sketch exactly, although in reverse.  This was a ton of fun to pull together, and I'm really looking forward to designing future Sketch Mania sketches and layouts.

Tracy's Sketch

The other thing I've been working on, although not quite so faithfully is my Jessica Sprague Holidays in Hand album.  I actually don't even have anything to share on this quite yet, but it is in process.

AND....I haven't forgotten about my KaiserCraft Advent Calendar project that I promised to post, I just haven't had a chance to take the pic.  Hopefully this will get done today and I will post my finished project tomorrow.  The kids are just loving checking out the little drawers each morning.  It's really fun!

Until next time.....

Not Quite What I Planned

but something that needed to be done nonetheless. As I mentioned yesterday, I had hoped to play with some paper and glue last night, but that didn't happen. Instead I Photoshop'd my son's birthday party invitations! This is something I haven't done before, but it was actually kind of fun. He saw them this morning, and chuckled - so I think he was pleased. I was happy to at least have the opportunity to be a bit creative.

Happy 2009!

Wow! Another year has passed....what more is there to say? Like most of you, the holiday season is always busy busy busy. From shopping, to baking, to cooking, entertaining, visiting with family and friends --- honestly, it tends to wear me out but I Love every minute of it! Today though, I'm not doing anything but relaxing (and I think I'll probably find some time to pull out some paper and glue and put together a project or two. Imagine that!) Just to spark up my blog a bit (it's looking a little text heavy), I thought it good time to share my completed digital scrapbook from 2008. I had 4 copies of the book printed and gave it out at Christmas. It was definately a big hit! As I've said before, while I had a lot of fun putting this together, for me, digital scraping will never replace the traditional approach. While you can do some really cool things digitally - I guess it's just not tactile enough for me. Nonetheless, have a peak inside my book and see how it all came together.

Click here to view this photo book.

I hope you all had a safe and happy New Year's Celebration, and I wish you all a prosperous 2009!

I took a bit of time to play today

As I sat with my morning coffee this a.m., I did some blog surfing. I haven't done this in a while, so I had a lot to catch up on and one of the stops I made was over to Artistic Paperie to see what April was up to ---- and there it was a really great sketch and companion Photoshop template. So of course, I just had to download it and give it a go. I have so much work to do that I really shouldn't have taken the time out to do this, but over time I've learned that when the urge to create strikes I need to answer. Otherwise I'm just distracted for the rest of the day and get little (if any) real work done. Anyhow here's April's sketch:

And this is what I came up with:

I'm really happy with the way this turned out. The sketch worked with my pictures perfectly since I didn't really have any really great shots. Most of them were taken from really far away so as prints they really didn't look that great. Being able to focus on specific parts of the photos within the small sections in April's sketch worked perfectly. I did switch it up a little bit as you can see, placing two larger pictures within the grid instead of including 12 smaller ones - but this just shows how sketches are like a launch pad. They are a great start, and while sometimes you can use them just as they are, it's okay to switch them up a bit too and modify the design to suit your needs.

Is it November already?

and almost mid-month at that.

I have been a really bad blogger lately - I admit it - but life happens. To those of you that continue to visit while I'm AWAL, thanks! I even received an email from one of my readers asking if everything was okay - that was sweet.

So what's been happening? Well, where do I start. Perhaps the coolest thing going on right now is that Jessica Sprague's Stories in Hand class has started, and I've printed all my materials to assemble my binder. Today's job is to print and assemble the 'Jotter' notebook as she calls it. I'm a bit behind with the projects since I had some trouble sourcing a 6x6 D-Ring Binder, but it's all good now, I ordered it last night, and it should arrive eventually. I can't wait to get started actually using Jessica's system - I am quite excited to see how all of these pieces come together.

Secondly, I've been taking another online class over at Simplify 101 called Quick & Simple Clutter Control. I'm totally behind on this one, but plan to spend some time getting caught up over the next day or two. I figure now is the perfect time to leanr how to control clutter since we're moving into a very very busy holiday season.

Speaking of the holidays.....I've started my shopping (yay!) and I'm trying my best to get organized for the various family events. I have a breakfast, a dinner and a brunch to plan for as I am hosting all of these gatherings in a 3 day span beginning Christmas day. With this tight a schedule I need to plan plan plan.

I've been working on my digitial scrapbook album - you know the one that I've been working on for a while? One of my recent pages is up top and another double layout is below. I've been using a lot of page templates so that the whole process goes more quickly. So far so good, I've got about 15 pages done so far and the book is really starting to take shape. My original goal was to have this done and sent to print by the 15th of this month, but I don't think I'll quite make that deadline. I plan to work hard on it over the next week though - and get it sent out by the 21st. Wish me luck!

Hockey, Hockey, Hockey! Both my kids are playing again this year and the season is well underway. With a game a practice for each of them each week, I am spending A LOT of time at the arena! Last Saturday in fact I was there for more than 4 hours straight, as each of the kids played and had team photos taken. What a long day that was!

I've got a highschool reunion coming up next weekend that I'm 'mostly' looking forward to (whatever will I wear?). It'll be nice to see everyone again, but I have to admit there's a little anxiety attached to the whole thing. I'm sure that I'm not alone in feeling this way - but I'll work through it and be there with bells on as they say. I wouldn't miss it actually. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. The reunion itself doubles as a fundraiser for one of my schoolmates Haydain Neale who was injured in an accident in August 2007. Some of you may know Haydain as the lead singer of Jacksoul. His injuries were quite severe and Haydain continues to endure rehabilitative therapies. Monies raised at the reunion will be donated to assist him and his family.

On Craft Critique yesterday I reviewed the Circle Circle Dot Dot template by The Crafter's Workshop and I've got one more review scheduled to run before the end of the year. I am really enjoying this opportunity. It gives me an excuse to play with paper (like I need one!) and as anyone who knows me will attest, I love to share my opinion.

Last but not least, work is busier than ever. It's that time of year again and once I get through the crunch of the last couple of months - things will be golden. (Note I say 'if' I get through it)

That's about it for now I think. Again -- Thanks to all of you who continue to visit my blog in my absence. I truly appreciate it.