To download the video –>>House Video

Music: Podsafe music by Colie Brice titled Flamingo Lounge

Another card and another tutorial. This time it’s not a Photoshop tutorial but a card tutorial! Did I use my camcorder? Oh no!!! I just took some pictures and used the free Microsoft Photo Story 3 application.

So for those creative ladies who loves to create tuts and have been doing photo tuts, this is a great, free, way to add more to your fancy tuts. Add voice narration AND background music to your tuts. You can watch a how-to on YouTube (I think he’s using Photo Story for that video).

Many asked me how I create my videos. Well, on the Windows machine, I use Camtasia and on the Mac, I use Snapz, then edit in iMovie AND if I need anything else with the audio I use Garageband. Long winded, huh? You get use to it. I love using Camtasia, especially version 5, because of its ability to zoom in and out and also I can easily save for many devices quite easily. It’s a pity Camtasia only works on the Windows systems.

Photo Story I don’t use personally. This is the first I’ve actually used it. But I teach it to my students who will be future teacher or instructional technologist of America {::SMILES}. K-12 students LOVE using this to create digital stories. If you’re a teacher, pass this info along, try it out, it’s super fun and the kids pick up on it quickly. If you’re a mom, use this for your kids and send grandma a fancy photo story with voice. Let your kids pick the music, etc. Use it to learn history, science, literature, etc.

Ok, back to the card… I used Kristina’s color inspiration for this card. The colors are Almost Navy, Old Olive, So Saffron, Bashful Blue and White.

I created this card for Emma. She so wanted a house card and also a picture of her and me inside. So that’s what started this. She loves it and she did promise to take very good care of it.

The measurements for the card is:

Card body: 4×25x4.25
Roof: 3×4.25
Piece between roof and card body: .5×5 (or the width of your ribbon if you use a wider ribbon).
Grass: 1×4.25
Door: 2.5×1.5
Door layer: 2.75×1.75

Updated Sunday June 1:

I did another card with the color combo since they’re such fun colors and I have all my stuff still out from the house card. This one is using the Spring Solitude stamp set and the Rough Edges Alphabet that I’m still cutting and mounting. For the U, I used Thickers from American Craft.

I hope this was a wonderful weekend for you. It was for us. Just nice and relaxing. M and I will be baking chocolate chip cookies after this post.

Thanks for looking and I really appreciate you all’s visits!!

Since I wasn’t too happy with the way the video looks, I am adding the Flash version. You need to have Adobe Flash Player, which is free, installed on your computer. Most computers have this already built in. Actually, you’ll probably like this Flash version better than the YouTube/Revver ones. You can resize it and it’ll pretty much keep its clearness. Let me know what you think. I just never did it this way because you have to wait until it downloads fully before you can play it. I might just posting two versions like this until my service space gets full. I think I can fit over 80,000 videos if I make them around this size (6 minutes at 15 megs). Yeah, I have 1,000 gigs of web space. INSANE! I have this site, a personal blog that hasn’t been updated and I donated space to my church and I’ve only use 5,500 megs of space!! My church uses it more than I do for pictures.

So the video… There are a few other things too in the video but if I list them all, my title would be super long {::SMILES}. Some info on the action. The action that you saw will only work AFTER you’ve changed the pen path to the marching ants OR if you use the marquee tool. The reason why was because Photoshop didn’t record my right click when I changed the path into marching ants. That’s also why you might want to create a few actions for the same effect. Maybe you might want to do one for a general image, with nothing selected. Just a picture and change that to a b&w or sepia. Lots of different ways. As usual, contact me if you have any questions. Either leave a comment or use the Contact form that you can find under the Contact menu above.

Some video tuts info: In case you haven’t noticed, my tuts that were uploaded to Revver, they got a little warped after I updated to WordPress 2.5.1. The plugin for Revver was only tested up to 2.3 and after the update an 1/8″ is cut off from the left and the right of the video screen. The height is ok. So, for the most part the tuts are viewable but if there are something that I clicked on that was either to the very left or right, you might not see them well. It seems like no big deal on the video portion but because of the “shrinkage” you now can’t close the ads. The (x) sign is on the bottom top right… on that 1/8″ that’s cut. I’m still messing with it when I have the time. Like I said before, I just like Revver better because my videos still look decent looking even after going through their resizing, decompression, format changing or whatever they do to get the videos posted.

In the mean time, just try to live with it and when I have time, I’ll convert and upload a Flash version of each video. Sorry about that. Besides the video issue, I LOVE my WordPress 2.5.1. If you use the installed version, you should update!

My blog buddy, Ally, started a sketch blog site, So Sketchy, and this was her first sketch. I changed it up a bit since I didn’t have anything with three wallet size photos. Instead of a third photo, I layered a few embellishments and voila.

I love sketches. It helps me focus on the content and not the general big picture. If you’ve never done a sketch before, you should. It’s really fun and you don’t have to stick to everything on the sketch. For example you can flip this layout so that the pictures are on the left. Or like me, replace a picture with an embellishment.

This is Ally’s first sketch on So Sketch but she’s got a lot of other cute ones and I can’t keep up (girl, SLOW down!!).

What did I use for this LO? I use a lot of Amy Butler’s (K&Company) new stuff. The swirl paper lace is Prima and the overlay behind M’s first picture is Hambly. The paper I journaled on is Making Memories. For the embellishment, the replacement of the third photo, I just used my thicker pop-dots to layer them. I used pop-dots too for the butterfly, the red/pink flower, and the “special” sentiment. It didn’t take me long to make this page. Maybe 45 minutes. The sketch was awesome and all I had to do was put it together to my liking.

Thanks, Ally! Now I just have to decide on which five sketches that she’s got posted that I want to do next. Oh, not to mention the card sketches. {::SMILES}

Today was a great day. Not only did I have a productive day, I got to spend my productive day with one of my favorite person, my daughter {::SMILES}. To many, this might not be a big deal, but to me, who works outside the home, today was a special day.

I worked from home today. I told myself Tuesday that I was going to start at 6 a.m. so that I could get done early. Well, I was 15 minutes late, but hey, I did get up early and that’s a plus! M didn’t wake up until 8:30-ish. Lazy girl!! She ate breakfast and she did what I asked her to do… I’ve been prepping her since Monday about her playing alone and me working until it’s break time. She did her end and I got a lot done. I had two breaks and a lunch break. I did do a bit of work after 3 p.m. but it was because I wanted to finish a few things and M was napping (until almost 5!). We did talk a lot and I had activities for her so it was quite nice. The dogs were happy too. They just curled up next to me and every so often they’d ask for a belly rub.

Great day! This was the first time that M stayed home with me while I worked. I’ve worked from home before but I always drop M off at school and then daycare. We’ll be doing this again!

This card is a super quick card that I did today. The card stock are Stampin’ Up! (the yellow is Summer Sun) and the pattern paper is Making Memories 5th Avenue. Ribbon, Offrey from Wally World. The bird stamp is from the Natural Beauty set. I’ve had this set for a looooooong time and barely use it. This is the first time I’ve used this bird actually. The sentiment is PaperTrey’s Shapes by Design. The colors were actually inspired by Cindy Beach. You should check her out. She’s one awesome stamper! I think this is her first inspiration challenge… not sure but hey, it got me {::SMILES}.

Finally a card! This is the first time I used this stamp set. I’ve had it for a little while but just haven’t had the mood for it until now. I have a couple other stamps that are in this state.

This is a pretty simple card to make. I just used Cameo Coral and Sky Blue besides white card stock and a ribbon that I bought from my lss. The ink I used is Cameo Coral and black. Just cut, cut, cut and glue, glue, glue and that’s it. I actually used two size dimensionals on the flowers. I paper pierced under the sentiment too. I think it gives the card some accent. Ok, so not the greatest. I don’t think I’ve made the flowers pop but it’s a good start {::SMILES}.

A busy (short) week. I’ll have more later.

Digital scrapbooking: You never run out of stuff! I was trying to finish a traditional layout and I ran out of “e”… hmmm… what should I do?

Today I’ll share this layout. I used Bam Pop’s paper and misc. others to create this (the red square letters is from Daisy D’s Christmas alphabet stickers). What do you think? Different than many of my other LOs but I thought I’d experiment a bit. Doesn’t the paper fit though, rain boots with rain drop paper?

Another thing that I did today was go to my work’s website. I thought the president of the university quit or got hip (and younger) because what I saw was this: David Cook. I think him winning is great, great for him, congrats, but I wish that the university would also post other winnings on the banner (that is more academic). I just don’t remember when the 44th Mersenne prime number that was found by the math department was posted on the banner. It made the front news but not the banner. I guess I’m just into the academics… but hey, that’s why I’m in education.

I’ll have some cards to share with you later. But if you want more inspiration, have you check out SIStv? I have a profile there. I only upload my traditional pages that I think are my better work and the better/different digi pages and cards. The portfolio from the different members are amazing, esp. in the traditional area. That’s why I pick and choose what I upload, feeling a bit intimidated by these girls’ talents {::SMILES}. I have a lot of favorite sisters but check out Larissa’s or Asa’s work. Aren’t they crazy? WOW!! This place, besides the sketches and challenges blogs/forum, is where I get most of my inspirations. That’s why I’ve been trying out paint, different media, paper, embellishments, etc. on my pages.

Happy Memorial Day for those in the U.S.! I hope you are still enjoying a nice long weekend.

I made it to round four in the Scrapperie contest. Lots of awesome entries and it took the judges a little bit more time to choose. But I did see my username. Yeah!!! I’m not looking to win but it’s so fun doing the challenges and to see how far you can go. If I do go to round five, or even six, I’d be jumping up and down {::SMILES}.

So this was last week’s submission. The details are:

Journaling: This is what I would see when I walk into my room, my craft room that is. I do try to clean everyday but within minutes it’ll be messy again. I love it though. It might be small and it doubles as a guest room, this is the place where I can be creative. Markers, inks, paper, stamp, glue, computer and more within my reach.

Right now Drew’s making a small space for me in the basement. It’ll give me more space and more storage. I will be more organized (I think). So before my big move and change I want to cherish this room in its own page. This page.

Material:
Pattern paper: Daisy D, Tinkering Ink (bird on branch cut-out) and Making Memories.
Ribbon: Offrey
Mini clothes pin clips: Not sure, I think they’re 4 years old.
Note card: Collage Press
Measure tape: Collage Press
Alpha: Making Memories

My wonderful husband has been working very hard on the basement. We have sheetrocked walls now. Not a lot but it’s getting there. He’s going to the store to get more 14 more. Wow, wow, wow!! We might have a basement before we know it.

Ok, got to go… making cupcakes for hubby… it’s beeping…

Nice weekend, so far. Drew loved his birthday cards and the outing. He’s so funny though, us girls were still sleeping (this was 9 a.m.) and he’s been up since 8 a.m. and putting up sheet rock. The ceiling is almost done! What a man!! His birthday present hasn’t arrived yet but it’s normal. I think it’d be weird if he opens his present on his birthday. He’d think his wife got abducted or something, ha! Actually, I think last year I bought it locally.

Here’s a page that I did a while back. Nothing fancy, just a bit different with the circle pattern paper. I like it though.

We left for the city at around 11 a.m. We stopped at Brookside Barkery first to get the pups some food. Eek, $49 with tax! But it’ll last me almost 2 months. They each only eat a cup a day. I put the pups in a 6 months rotation. The last six months they were on Canidae and this rotation they’re on Innova. Dunno, the vet and many animal ppl say it’s good. There was a good reasoning for it but I forgot.

Anyhow, after buying dog food, we had dim sum at Bo Lings. I love that place! M’s favorites are usually the dumplings and the porridge but today she tried some siu mai and loved it. We left Bo Lings (with some bubble tea) at 2 p.m. and went straight to the Nelsen-Atkins Museum of Art. This was our first time and wow, it had quite a collection and quite packed with people. We only went to one side, not enough time to see them all. My favorite was the African collection. I just have this thing with African art. We will come back.

Then we got to the French restaurant BUT before getting there we went on a little scenic route to Parkville, MO. Not on purpose! Instead of turning right we went straight and there was no exit or a place to turn around until the Parkville exit, a good five miles or so. I’d love to go to Parkville, heard they have very nice shops and restaurants, but not today,

Le Fou Frog was awesome. We didn’t order as much as the first time but the meals were a lot bigger this time around. M, that little piggie, she ate A LOT!!! She had maybe half a baguette to herself with cheese and butter on it (she loved all the cheeses, even the stinky cheese), had space for duck, rice, and veggies (even Brussels Sprouts) AND she ate 80% of my huge Creme Brule. She just kept giggling when I told her to drop the spoon. Oh, she ate some of dad’s tarte + ice cream too.

Nice day. Hubby had a great birthday and now we’re just going to enjoy the rest of the weekend.

It’s his birthday today. The big 30! We’re going to a nice French restaurant to celebrate. We can’t wait. It’s one of our favorite restaurants. Oh so yummy but then I might just be partial since I love anything French {::SMILES}.

This is the card that I made him. It’s simple and bright. The black cardstock is SU, the green cardstock is uknown, the pattern paper is Making Memories 5th Avenue, ribbon unknown and SU’s Spring Solitude stamp set. I do have some 5th Avenue papers, it was part of my Studio Calico March kit but I ordered this 5th Avenue card kit from Etsy (there is no more, this was the only one) I love that place. If you haven’t gone there and at least take a peak, you should. I want to buy a handbag and apron… oh and some handmade dolls… an owl or something… I can go broke there! Etsy’s a place for handmade stuff or a place to buy things to make handmade stuff. LOVE it!

Today’s also our meeting anniversary. I met him on his birthday. Quite nice since my wonderful hubby is bad with dates. He has an easier time remembering when we met than when we got married. Ahhh… we need to redo our vows, pick an easier date, oh maybe on my birthday, so that he can remember {::SMILES}.

Well, au revoir, à la prochaine (good-bye, until next time)!

Made a quick page using Tara Sroka’s elements, Day by Day and Weather Forecast, lines, some brushes and fonts. I love M’s picture too. I love her look and how she pops against the sephia-ish, almost b/w, background. It was really easy to do too. I’ll show you how later! This layout has no drop shadow effect. For graphic style pages, I don’t use drop shadows. I want it to look flat, magazine style flat.

I created this video based on this layout. I did however edit this layout more after I ended the video — this is the final result. I probably spent no more than 10 minutes adding the journaling and readjusting the different layers just a tad. The video was a 13 minute video but since it’s just a demo, I fast forwarded it and now it’s a six minute-ish video. I added music too, so watch out, turn your speakers down a bit. I found a podsafe site that I like with a great amount of options. I’m trying to be compliant here with the whole copyright thing. I’ve also figured out the best settings for my video output. This 6 min. video with audio is only a tad over 13 megs. Not bad {::SMILES}.

So enjoy. This video might not be considered a tutorial since it is quick but I hope it will give you a good idea on what digital scrapbooking is and a glimpse on how I work Photoshop. Oh, always remember to create a new layer each time you use a new brush style or new angle. It’s easier to delete this way. The guidelines going around the page, that’s to help me see the 1/4″ margin for printing purposes. I use WHCC and I need to give them 1/4″ for cutting. I still get a 12×12 page. If you don’t know them, try them. They are awesome. Super fast (it’s the quick UPS they use), the print quality is great and for less than $4 ($12 min.) you get a printed digi page shipped free. Oh, one of the guys who packs (Brad I think — I can’t find his card that he stuck in there, the packed by …. card), he always puts a sucker in the box for M, so sweet!

Shortcut keys used:

- Alt/Option with scroll button to magnify an area (same as the navigation function)
- Ctrl - T to transform
- Ctrl - C and V to copy and past
- Ctrl - (–) zoom out