Random Ramblings of a Scramping Addict

You Rock!

I finally got some time to play with some things from the Close To My Heart Spring Idea Book -- it just arrived today, as I ordered waaaay later than I normally do, and I got to playing right away!

Here is the first layout I did using the new You Rock Workshop on the Go kit!  I used the BEST option for the kit which included a few extra accessories on top of the kit cost and assembled the pages pretty much exactly the way the instruction booklet described ~ only a bit of minor tweaking!  I was so thrilled with the way this turned out and it just proves that while it's not girlie in the least at first glance -- you can use the You Rock papers to celebrate the girls in your life!  After all, girls ROCK too!

What do ya think?

You can get your own You Rock Workshop on the Go kit by contacting me or by following this link to my online store.  When you're there, click on 'Shop Online' and drop item G1006 in your cart.  The Workshop on the Go kit is just $35.50 and comes with complete instructions to create the pages you see above, plus complete instructions for 3 cards.  In addition, you'll find an additional 2 page layout suggestions, and an additional 3 cards.  There is more than enough paper in this kit to create all of this!

In addition to the basic workshop kit, I added the following accessories to my layout.

• Z1272 Top Coats 'Rockin' ($4.75)
• Z281 White Hemp ($2.75)
• Z1263 Bitty Sparkles ($3.50)

and I've still got lots of this stuff left over, so watch here for more art coming soon!

P.S.  I'm extending my blog candy deadline all the way to the end of this month!  All you need to do is leave a comment here or anywhere on my blog for a chance to win the CTMH Pure Love stamp set.

CTMH Caboodle Workshop on the Go!

While the snow is flying, and the days are cold, rest assured Spring is never far away!  So why not think Spring, and get crafting with the soft calm colors and whimsical designs found in Close To My Heart's Caboodle Workshop on the Go kit!  The Caboodle Workshop on the Go is available for a limited time (only until April 30).

Workshops On The Go contain all the materials you need plus step-by-step instructions to create both scrapbook pages and cards!  If you're not familiar with CTMH Workshop on the Go kits, click here to find out more.

With the Caboodle Workshop on the Go kit here is what you can create:

{note all prices in Canadian dollars}

For a limited time only (only until April 30, remember) for only $35.50 (plus tax and shipping) you can purchase the Caboodle Basic Kit which includes the following:

• My Acrylix This Way Stamp Set
• My Reflections Caboodle Level 2 Paper Pack
• Dimensional Elements Booksmart
• Workshop Guide

The retail value of the Caboodle Basic Kit is $39 - but is available through April 30 for the discounted price of $35.50!

And....if you want to add even more coordinating products to take your project to the next level (the BEST option), think about

• Z1271 Tiny Tabs ($4.75)
• Z1125 Designer Ribbon Rounds Sweet Leaf Collection ($9.25)

Want to see more?

Click on these links to see exactly what the Caboodle Basic Workshop on the Go kit contains (including the limited edition My Acrylix This Way stamp set)

• Scrapbook Flyer
• Card Workshop Flyer

To order your Caboodle Workshop on the Go kit, you may either Contact Me or visit my Online Store and add item G1004 to your shopping cart --have everything you need delivered right to your door!

If you have any other questions, just holler!

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.

Note to Self: Write it Down!

Have you ever gone to add your journaling to a scrapbook page and couldn't remember the details? Well that where I'm at with this page.

I created this one a while back (sometime in the Fall I think), and I intended to journal on vellum and place it over the embossed rectangle on the right hand side. The story goes something like this.....A couple of years back my son came 2nd in the annual ice fishing derby in Wilberforce, ON (thus my title, "not quite first"). And, lucky for him, he won a fist full of money. For the life of me though, I can't remember how much. I wanted to explain that he was disappointed initially when they handed him the envelope (in past years he got to pick a prize from the table), but that once he figured out there was money inside he was thrilled. I wanted to tell the story of what he bought with his winning, but I can't remember. He doesn't remember either since after all, he was only 6 years old at the time.

So what have I learned from this? That's easy. WRITE IT DOWN! I've always heard scrapbookers talk about having a journal, and recording the details of an event shortly after it happened so that it will be easier to recall later, but I never really 'got on board' with this idea. This project proves however that I must. The details are slipping away far too easily.

As a side note, I also want to share a close-up of the snowflake and tags on the left hand page. I just love how this turned out! The snowflake is a Cuttlebug die and the tags were bare chipboard by CTMH that I inked to match the paper.

So as you read this....send good vibes my way that the journaling can finally leave the pen and be set to paper - sooner rather than later. I so want to get this page in the album where it belongs.

Scrapbook Share

Lucky me.....I grabbed a bit of time on Friday to scrapbook (Geesh it's been a long time since I did that!!) I'm not sure why, but I decided to finally work with pics from a couple of years back - the listing pictures from when we sold our house. I have tried a few times to do something with them, but until this weekend nothing ever came together. I really really wanted to keep this layout simple and let the photos and journalling speak for themselves, but the photo makes it look almost too flat I think. You'll have to trust me that it's not quite so bland in person since the word 'home' is chipboard (brayered in Parchment ink) and Barn Red background cardstock is textured. The challenge I had was the number of photos - since I wanted to use most of them, and I couldn't do a lot of cropping. In the end, I wound up printing the majority of pics wallet sized, and came up with this layout:

Crude Oil for $3 a Barrel?

I've said again, and again, that I need to scrapbook more about myself -- and I mentioned Friday that I found a new challenge blog geared to just that. Well, I've done it. I have created my very first page based on the prompt....The Beginning.

I had a lot of fun pulling this together, and used a variety of online sources including the Time Capsule at dmarie.com to pull the journalling together. Unfortunately for me, the time capsule information is American, so there were a few things with respect to pricing that I had to verify elsewhere - but it wasn't too difficult.

I think the most shocking discovery for me was the price of crude oil. It was $3 a barrel in 1972 (adjusted for inflation that would be like 6 or 8 of today's dollars). If I'm not mistaken, on Friday, oil closed at around the $115 mark - which is of course the lowest that what we've seen in quite some time. Oh, how times have changed!

In case you're interested, here is a closer look at the journalling, which I computer printed on patterned paper. I used my new Cuttlebug Border Embossing Folder (which are awesome) to give it a bit of punch, and cut the title letters on the Wishblade. The paper, I thought, was a bit 70's retro looking, and while not normally 'my style', I think they suit the mood of the page.

I definately plan to continue to work through the challenges listed on the So Tell Me Your Story Blog. Since I'm a bit behind, the next one for me will be my name. I'm not sure yet how I'll tackle it, but I've got a few ideas to play with.

A Couple More Pages for the Album

Playing with some Freebie kits and templates, I managed to make 2 more layouts for the year-in-review album I'm working on. I'm super excited to report also that one of them even has my son on it!! I have to admit that I'm having some trouble working with his pictures. Most of the freebie digi-kits I've found have some really great embellishments for girls (lots of flowers, ribbons, bows etc.), but I haven't seen a whole lot yet for boys. So, If you have any suggestions for me --- shout 'em out. This one is using paper and elements from the giant (and I mean GIANT) collaborative "Mango Tango kit by the designers at Sunshine Studio. If you want to grab this awesome kit, pop on over to the Sunshine Blog and follow the links - there are 24 of them! I have yet to get all the pieces, but since I've had a chance to play with some of them, I will be definately getting the rest, and soon! The layout is credited to Bree Clarkson. It's another freebie, and you can grab it here.

   

Here's the other one. The layout template was a freebie included in the Mango Tango collaborative. The patterned papers are all from 'Give Freely' by Jan Crowley that I picked up as a freebie last week. Unfortunately, it's no longer a free file, but you can snap it up at oscraps for just $2. I know this one is simple, but like I said, I'm just glad to finally have done a 'boy' page!

   

Canada Day Fireworks - Digi Layout

Decided to digi-scrap some of my fireworks photos from Canada Day. This will go in the year-in-review book that I'm putting together. The top of the layout is a number of photos placed together to form the group.

For those of you with experience printing 2-page spreads....how do I get it ready to send to print (in 2 files). I am using Photoshop Elements 6.0. Will I lose any image quality if it gets cropped? Or should I use the resize canvas funtion. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Credits: Patterned Paper and Title Element from "Canada Day" Digital Kit by Ruth Davis & Karen Aicken (www.e-scapeandscrap.net)

More Digital Fun

I gotta say that I think I'm definately starting to get the hang of this stuff now ~ and it's way more fun than I thought it would be that's for sure. Now, don't get me wrong, my first love is still the traditional paper-based method, but I can see myself making a bit more time for digi-work too. I think that I'll plan on getting a couple of digital photo-books printed for some of the family this year. It'll be a kind of year-in-review I think. So here's what I've been working on. For both of these I stepped outside of my comfort zone a bit and actually designed the layouts from scratch. No lifting, and no templates. It was fun!

This one was really neat, since I followed Jessica Sprague's instructions for fading a photo into the background (something that is more difficult, although not impossible to do with paper). I even figured out how to change the colour of the alphabet that was included with the kit to pink! A way cool trick indeed!

Credits: All paper & elements from the Express Yourself Digital Kit by Ronna Penner (a freebie I picked up at www.shabbyprincess.com, the journalling font is CK Ali's Writing at Creating Keepsakes.

And the next one......

The paper and the flowers came from another freebie kit (gotta love freebies!) appropriately called 'Give Freely' by Jan Crowley - you can download it here. And the star, flourish and wrapped string elements are from Kristin Aagard's 'Pieces of Him' that I purchased from Plain Digital Wrapper. The font is Schindler Small Caps for the journalling, and Impact for the Victoria Day title.

I hope that it's okay that I combine elements from more than one kit and post my pages -- I'm so new to the digital realm that I'm not sure if that's a no-no or not. If it is, speak up and let me know. I certainly don't want to be offending anyone.

Now, I need to do some layouts of my son to balance things out a bit!

Smiles!

Another Digital Layout

I'm trying to make some time to accomplish some of the items on my list, so I sat down at tried my hand at another digital layout. I started by visiting www.jessicasprague.com and had a look through some of her freebie tutorials, and settled on 'Designing with Rings'. I learned A LOT from this quick lesson -- much that I'm sure I'll put into practice regularly, not just when it comes to rings, but also when it comes to creating other custom shapes. Here's the final product - the actual layout design is a lift of Jessica's sample, but it was fun choosing my own patterned paper and incorporating into her overall design.

    I used 2 digital kits that I purchased from Plain Digital Wrapper (they have a big sale on right now!). The pink and oragne element are from the Sisters Garden Collaboration Kit, and the blue elements are from the Boy, What a Garden Collaboration.