Before  I get to my scrapbook page, I want to share this photo that hubby took while we were in Indonesia. Two guys on a motorcycle. No big deal, right? But check out what’s in the middle. A GOAT!!!

Although growing up this was a normal sight, to my wonderful husband, this was a new thing. He couldn’t believe it!

Indonesians are very efficient. They use what they have to the fullest. I should share a picture of a truck sometimes or a picture of a family of five on one motorcycle this size. Talk about a full load!!

Now to my page. This is my first page that I did for WeScrap or the International Scrapbook Association. Last month I was invited to be in their digital Creative Team. It’s cool being in this CT because I will never know which designer I will create for every month. So it’s like being a guest CT without the the appication {::SMILES}. This month’s guest is Madame Mim (YEAH!!). I LOVE her stuff but haven’t had a chance to play with any of her kit until now. This particular kit is call Bird in a Tree. Aren’t the birds super cute? I LOVE them and I want to use this kit for more LO.

This page was an easy page for me. Thursday night I stayed up until close to 3 a.m. because of the storm. Three hours and three pages later I went to bed. It’s been a few weeks I think since I did a digi page like this, with lots of elements. Quite fun, fun, fun!

Off to sleepy land. Will be sleeping in tomorrow… need to catch up on sleep and plus, I need my energy for the zoo.

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

Anybody has any good allergy tip? My poor hubby is in pain. He’s been sneezing and sniffling all day and the medication isn’t helping any.

My poor little M. She’s such a klutz (like her daddy, ha!). They were out, taking a walk, I heard her say, “you can’t catch me” and then a cry. When they got back, M had to show me her bloody chin. Ahhh… I plan on scrapbooking it. I’ll show you then.

This is a page that I did really quick. Hubby took the picture. Pretty nice, eh? This was enroute to Indonesia last summer. It was a trip that I thought would never happen but it did. If you listen to the news from the last few years, you’ve probably heard about the bombing and ethnic riots that have been going on in Indonesia. It’s such a sad thing. Because of the instability we haven’t been able to go until last year. It was the first time that my parents or my huge family really (except my sister who lives in CA) met my little family. I also felt like it was a miracle that we could go because I am bad luck when it comes to planning. Every time, 90% of the time, that I make plans to do something, it always gets canceled. We almost didn’t get married - he got called in to work. The only way we can do stuff is if we’re spontaneous or if it’s a major holiday and he’s scheduled to be off with the rest of the world. I feel like there’s a bug in the house, listening in. Hmmm… are they reading my blog now? I have no plans! I swear!!!

Ok, for the page, I use Tara Sroka’s Word Art. The brushes were found online and I have no clue where. I think DeviantArt.com but don’t take my word for it. Just simple, another graphic style LO.

Here’s the limited supplies challenge from Split Coast last Friday:

1. Make a square card. (Any size)
2. Use only scrap pieces of paper. (The base card doesn’t have to be a scrap.)
3. Use ribbon or fiber scraps.
4. Use only ONE other embellishment.
5. Use any colors, stamps, and tools.

Guess what? I made a RECTANGLE card. I got #2 and #3 and on #4… well, I missed that one because I can’t read English. I thought the ribbon was the ONE embellishment. I missed the “other.” URGH!!!!!!!

My husband wants this in writing, so here goes: I can’t read and follow directions. BUT… when it comes to work related direction following, I am awesome. I mean if not, I’d have half a** installed and running web apps, right? Selective? Who knows!

The material:

Paper: Soft sky, Kraft, black, and white cardstock with the Cutie Pie and 7Gypsies DP
Ribbon: Pomegranate
Tool: Paper piercer (I LOVE that thing, can’t you tell?)
Stamp: SU Lovely Labels

I have some pages to share too. These are my last pages for Dana Frantz (City of the Arts kits were used for the two LO). After tomorrow, I will not be in her CT team anymore. My three months will be over. Sad but at the same time I’m ready to try something new. But, I think I’ll take a little break from CT-ing for individual designers. My job at The DigiChick will be enough to entertain me. I have so many options! So fun, fun, fun!! I’m still a CT at Tara Sroka and so you’ll be seeing a lot of hybrid with stamps besides the good ol scrapbook from now on. I’ll still do digital (maybe not as frequent) and of course videos (which has been around Tuesday/Wednesday when I get to them).

The Country Girl page was just a quick layout that I did with a small portion of the kit. There are so many more elements in there that I couldn’t use because it didn’t quite fit the theme that I had in mind and the photos that I have. They’re all lovely though, check them out!

The second layout, Dreams, was super easy and super quick and I never thought I’d do this but I used Dana’s Quick Page. What’s a QP? Well, a QP is basically a page that’s already been set up for you and all you have to do is plop in the photo.

That’s pretty much what I did, I grabbed this photo and layered it under the QP layer. Voila. Isn’t this QP awesome? That’s why I went ahead and used it because it’s so pretty (some QP are not this nice, ha!). Better than what I could have done with all the elements.

Hope you all have a great night! There’s frost warning though, I need to get my plants in before I go to bed. Laters!

It’s been a while since I made this type of layout. Nothing fancy, just me and Photoshop. I did this fairly quick too, maybe 30 minutes. I really like it because it reminds me of the good old days in graphics class over 10 years ago. Back in the days I wanted to work at either an advertising company or a magazine. Obviously none of the above happened but I’m quite happy. I get to do this for a hobby, no pressure!

I know that there are so many terrific kits out there and I myself just want to buy, buy, buy, and try them out. But, once in a while, sit back, relax and see what you and your application can do (this can be challenging, especially for those who relies a lot on kits or love to fill up the page). If you have a hard time, grab one of your favorite magazine (I love my Country Living) and get some inspirations from there.

If you have nothing interesting to do this weekend and have about an hour, I challenge you to create a graphic style layout. Leave your kits, elements, fancy paper, etc. behind. It’ll be fun. I think you’ll like it {::SMILES}.

Can’t you tell I want summer to hurry up and get here? It’s in the 30’s tonight and suppose to be cold tomorrow. Ahhh…

So here’s a digital page that I did using Dana Frantz kit, Daisy Lemonade. The kit is very cheerful and fun. Love it! As usual, I only used one kit for this LO — maybe one day I’ll go all crazy and use papers and elements from different folks, for now… one kit at a time.  There’s nothing fancy here, no technique to share, just drag and drop {::SMILES}.

Today I had good news and bad news. The bad news wasn’t bad really but I was hoping… I submitted some work to A Million Memories, a scrapbooking kit store and found out that I didn’t make their creative team. I know that there are so many great scrapbookers out there and it’s my first try at submitting to a paper store but I was hoping for the 1% chance that I’d get chosen {::SMILES}.  But, the next email I read was great news I’m accepted to another place… can’t tell you yet until a few weeks. SUPER excited about this store!

I’ll be scrapbooking when this post. Have a great Saturday and I’ll share some of my items that I submitted to AMM this coming week and the next.

Wow, the weather yesterday was crazy! I think if I weighed 10 lbs less I could have been blown away! We have a damaged screened in porch. Not much, the screens in a few places were torn because the 50+ lb futon was blown against the north side of the porch. Crazy! It’s really not bad compare to our neighbors. One had to call the roof guy because their shingles, a few, were blown away, and another neighbor doesn’t have a shed anymore… it collapsed. At least there was no tornado… this is one big reason we’re not 100% loving this place. Without the tornado, this place is great.

Back to my page… I’d probably have other things to scrapbook about if I didn’t have this little gal but since I do, she’s the star of my pages. I LOVE this layout. It took me two days to do it. I put the picture, window, and flower, and stared, and stared Saturday evening. I think I ended up watching Ugly Betty (rerun on the ‘puter since we don’t have cable/antenna service at home) and got back to it Sunday night. See, stopping does help. It took me about an hour to finish this page. All of a sudden my creative juices started flowing and here it is…

I used the new collaboration kit, Expressions of Healing and Calm, from Scrapbook Graphics. Awesome kit and it’s on sale today for $9.99! Check out their blog to see what other CTs did with this kit. I used a lot of what they have… wish I can use more… but they just didn’t fit the theme. I used three pieces of paper for this, just layered it on top of each other. The third piece is actually just that little piece of verse in the bottom. I erased the rest of the paper. I tried to give it a feel of a traditional scrapbook page. What do you think?

Ok, got to go. Big party to go to today at work… I have to be there by 7:30 a.m. — urgh — not an early person {::SMILES}.

This is the other page that I did for the Scrap Artist challenge. I thought I was suppose to do two pages from whatever kit and not one from my own kit and one from the freebie kit. Last night at midnight was the cut-off date and time. I’m just waiting to see what the results are. You can see the submissions in their gallery. Quite a bit, huh? Not hoping much, but we’ll see. Like I said, I had fun, got some LOs done, AND got a free kit. What else can I ask, right?

The Internet is a BAAAAD thing for me. Especially now that I’m so into challenges and contests AND blog candies. I’ve never gotten anything from the last but it was still always fun to participate in all and hope that maybe one day I can get some cool freebie. I can’t do them all but I’m trying to do something from the different ones that I love. Prima has a new monthly sketch contest now. It’s called Prima’s Build-a-Page. You get prizes. Just don’t forget to submit your layout by the 25th. I love the sketch and I have the perfect photos — just found them last night {::SMILES}.

Do you know that PaperTrey has a blog hop contest each month on the 25th? I just found out today but I might try it for next month. I love their stuff. If you have a blog and either have or will be getting some PTI stuff, watch our for April’s hop. Should be fun. I should put it in my calendar, huh? {::SMILES}

Ok, have a great day. We just did our taxes yesterday and I feel so good (although both our muscles were tense during the process). I hate tax time. It was also nice too that we didn’t have to pay. I think the tax people made a mistake but whatever, they did check two-three times. I’ll let you know if we go to prison, ha! It might not be bad… more time to scrapbook and make cards… ha ha ha… I wonder if I’d be able to blog too… ok… enough of that… laters…

Ok, this is a bit different than my usual style but thought I’d go a bit nutty since I was inspired by Dr. Seuss. Thought I’d try a Scrap Mojo challenge (#11). I used “The Cat in the Hat” sketch for this layout. I’m still trying to figure out if I like it or not. Yeah… I’m hard on myself. The kit I used is from Scrap Artist and the leafy floral on the left was extracted from one of the background paper. Although I will blend here and there still, I just love it if I can digi scrap just like how I would paper scrap. Just an update if you’re new to this blog: Last week I submitted a layout for a contest at Scrap Artist (I blogged about it Saturday) and from that submission I received a free kit. I have to create a LO with this kit in order to be fully eligible for the prize which is guest CT. There are a lot of awesome submissions so I’m not sure if I’ll get the spot but what I’ve done so far was worth the work. I got three great LOs done and a free kit.

I have to do one more digi layout for this month and then I’m done. I want to do more traditional LO since I have so many new pretties that I want to use. After this month I will only be the CT for Tara Sroka and guest CT for Dana Frantz for one more month. Unless I get the Scrap Artist guest spot, I won’t look for any new ones. I want to try for some scrapbook kit CT or card CT position after I’m done CT-ing for Dana. I think having a hodge podge of things, paper and digi, will be fun and also keeps me motivated in both departments.

I have a conference at the end of next week that I’m presenting at and I have one PowerPoint done. Yeah!! I’ll probably add more to it but at least the basics of it is complete. I just have to prepare for one more; I have two different sessions that I’m leading. A bit stressed but I think I got it. M will be going with me; I found a drop-in center (actually the YMCA). She’s soooo excited. We did this before and she loved it. My friend might also go with me, we’ll see. So either the Y or my friend will be with Emma for a couple hours each day. Hubby was suppose to go but his work has something in store for him — of course! There’s a good outlet mall there and a scrapbook store. I guess it’s a good thing hubby can’t go {::SMILES}.

Have a great day!

This is a layout that I did last weekend at the girl scout crop. I’ve been wanting to post this earlier but there’s been more interesting stuff to share it seemed. 

There’s typo on this lo but I never got to uploading the updated version. It’s We and not Wee {::SMILES}. This layout was created using Dana Frantz kit that you can find in her store. It’s called Whisper. I’ve only used five of the kit content, there are a bunch more! It’s a fun kit, you should check it out. But the five that did use are my favorites and the reason why I was drawn to this kit.

Now, have you been on Flickr? If you haven’t, this place is an awesome source of inspiration and resources. From Flickr you can find people and their work, maybe a blog, and maybe some other sites that they love to go to that you don’t know about that’s listed on their Flickr or blog. If you have an account, you can favorite different work. You can join groups and send your work/photo very easily to the different groups. Love this place!

Hope you’re enjoying your time with the family! Happy Easter.