Tut: How to Add Keywords to a Gallery Upload

My friend asked me how to add the keyword to a card she created for a challenge and that’s how this tutorial came about. I hope others will find this useful also.

Note: This tutorial applies to all galleries that has a keyword options. After submitting to all sorts of gallery, it seems like most use the same photo application and if not, the idea is the same. Some have the keyword before the upload, some after, you just have to get use to each system’s settings.

Haven’t done any scrapbooking or card making in the last few days. I’ve just been doing a lot of housework including gardening and shopping for the basement. I’ll add more stuff later and I have an awesome news to share.

NSD

Here’s a page that I did using K&Company new Amy Butler items that I picked up last weekend at Michaels. I love these new items because the paper packaging is 95% recycled material. Also, everything that you buy you can use. On the back of the packages there are little cut-out extras that you can use on your page (granted I’d use a cardboard box if I think it’s cool looking).

I wanted to use more of the pretty pattern papers but then I ended up just cutting out the flowers and leaves out of a half a page. Oh well, I’ll figure something out. For the title, I used Heidi Swapp’s rub-on, American Craft felt and foam alpha and Craft n Craftin chipboard. I’ve never heard of the last company but they had a few cool items at the new LSS.

Now, the lace…. check that baby out. Can you see it? I SEW!!!! I was soooooo nervous but I thought if I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it. I did practice a bit before this and I am quite happy with the result.

EDIT: I forgot to add the close-up photo. I used Prima corner stamps and also the journaling box. This is the first time I’ve used Prima stamps and they are nice. They’re really soft acrylic stamps and after rubbing the image side with an eraser and stamping a couple times, the image came out crisp. I can’t wait to use them for other things.

Alright, we’re going to get ready for the birthday party. M’s being a girl… she can’t figure out which outfit to wear. At this point she’s not making a lot of effort in trying. All I’ve got is a little girl in her undies yakking away instead of finding something to wear.

Again, have a great national scrapbook day!

Mother’s Day Card and Gift

This was what we made at my upline’s workshop last Wednesday. We had so much fun chit chatting, creating, and bringing home fun items.

The first is a bath salt project. Isn’t that the cutest? The stamp set is an old retired SU stamp set, Bubble Queen and the bottle is a cleaned up Starbucks bottle. This was a really easy project to do and it looks so nice. The bottle was full when I came home with it but M used some already {::SMILES}.

To glue the card, we used the red double sided glue. I used my ATG gun to glue between the white and the pink but it wasn’t tough enough. Today, the adhesive is still going strong.

The top of the card, we just covered with card stock. Used a round punch but I think it’ll be cute too if you use pattern paper or use a scallop punch instead of the regular. A lot of possibilities. One of the ladies came up with putting coffee beans, hot cocoa mixes, etc. Get the four bottle Starbucks coffee and decorate the carton. I saw some samples on SplitCoast.

The bath salt was home made and I found a recipe online that is similar to this one. There are many others out there. What my upline did was use a lavendar scent baby oil which you can easily find at WalMart for the essential oil. Smells really good.

The next project is a matching card. This card is a case and that case was a case from Amy Sheffer. I met Amy through H&M stamp even though I’ve been stalking her blog before then. She’s super talented. Love this card. It’s super cute and not hard at all. They’re just paper layered together and the half circles are just half circles. I used my scissors to cut each circly in half.

Last but not least, the card swap. I have one more. The cards are in the mail. Long story. I love them, especially the doggy card. She did that

card using the Cricut machine and then added some dimensions by embossing the brown. It’s nice. M loves the purple bday card and the blue makes a great masculine bday card.

Yes, the theme of the swap was birthdays.

The card that I made for the swap was this in the very bottom. I chose these colors so that it can be for a boy or a girl. I thought that even with the pomegranate color a male recipient would like it. Yes, no?

The set is from the Little Birdie set. One of my favorites can’t you tell? {::SMILES}. I used this week’s SCS color challenge, pomegranate, black, and sky blue. For the scalloped cardstock, I used my corner rounder punch.

I’ll be making a Stampin’ Up! order tonight… hmm… which oh which… hard decisions!

Well, have a great weekend. It’s NATIONAL SCRAPBOOK DAY tomorrow. Not that I’m doing anything scrappy, have a bday to go to {::SMILES}. But, if I get things done this weekend, aka chores, I will try to squeeze in some scrapbook time. Besides, I have some stuff I need to do for The DigiChick.

Altered Me

Here’s the front cover of my photo journal that I’m starting. I haven’t thought about what to put in there but I think it’ll be whatever is interesting that I want to remember. The book’s from Target’s $1 bin. I didn’t change the book cover pattern, it was already like that. Pretty huh? I just added the Prima, ribbon, and alphas. Really easy!

I never got a chance to photograph the items from the workshop I went to. I got home late last night. After picking M up, I stopped at the consignment store, picked up a few shirts, and on my way to drop the movie at Blockbuster, I saw that my LSS was open. Its first day! So of course I had to stop by and guess who all were there? The peeps I scrapbook with. Ha ha! So I chit chatted a bit, helped a few customers with some questions, and also talked to the owners. I’ll be teaching my own classes starting August but I might do a few that they’ve already scheduled between now and then. We’ll talk more next week. I am so excited! I might also help with their displays. They have a lot of stuff that many newbies don’t know what to do with and being a new store, they have no samples.

That’s it. I’m going to lunch. I’ll post more later.

Color Challenge

I just got back from my upline’s SU workshop. Great fun! I’ll share what we made tomorrow!!! I think one will make you want to go shopping and make this for yourself and all the moms and teachers. So awesome!!

Here’s my take on Kristina’s color challenge. I had fun last week and I thought I’d try it again this week. The colors are Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Soft Sky, and Vanilla. The stamp sets are Lovely as Tree and Warm Words. The above sheet set is from Restoration Hardware. I LOVE that store!! Every time we go to the KC Plaza we always stop by there. Fun, fun!

My old supervisor is retiring. I think this card will be perfect for the occassion. What do you think?

Well, I am super tired. Going to bed. I have a presentation to do for my class tomorrow. I need to dress up nice. Urgh, I hate dressing up. Oh well.

Card Swap

I made this for a swap (the swap’s tonight) but ended up not liking it as much as another design (I’ll show you after the swap) so here it is. I used last week’s Splist Coast sketch challenge and this week color combo: soft sky, purely pomegranate, and black.

I dunno, now that I look at it, it’s not that bad but, since it’s my upline’s workshop and swap, I figured an SU stamped image would be more appropriate, thus the other design/card.

Material:

Everything from Stampin’ Up! except for the center stamp, which is a Bella stamp. Pattern paper is Cutie Pie. The shoes and pants were colored using my Copic sketch markers. Embossing was done by my Cuttlebug template.

I am so excited for tonight. It’s been a loooooooong time since I went to a workshop. There was one last month but it was when I was out of town for my conference. It’s always fun to meet up with other ladies who love to stamp too and just chit chat about anything.

Oh, I have an M story… since M was born we’ve always done all sorts of educational activities with her. That was why we took TV service out so that TV will not be the center of her entertainment. Since she was 3-months-old we’ve signed with her and she signed back at 6-months-old and she’s always been a little sponge. M knew how to count to 50 when she was just over 2-years-old and we’ve been playing math games since she turned three. I’d show her my fingers and asked her, “If I have four fingers and two went to sleep, how many do I have left?” She’d count my finger and tell me, “two.” Last night I told her that it’ll be a long night, I still have cards to make for the swap. She asked me how many I needed to make and I told her five. She asked me how many I’ve done and I said two. Then she said, “ooooh, you have three more to make.” Wow! I do fractions with her too… we’ll see if that sticks {::SMILES}.

Tut: Text in Path

Last tutorial that was similar to this, I used the pen tool. For this one, I use the marquee tools to join, dissect, or remove an area and then creating a path from it so that you can put your text in it. Lots of uses and lots of fun to use.

Here’s a Mother’s Day card that I created last week using digital paper from The DigiChick: Mom’s Collab kit. Isn’t the picture, the moms, cute? I just printed it on card stock paper. Actually everything I used here, pattern paper and the image, were printed the same time as all the other items I used for the gift card holder from last week; printed on an 8.5×11 card stock paper.

To illustrate, check out the image to the left. What I did was created an 8.5×11 page with 300dpi in Photoshop. Then I used my ruler to give me a 1/4″ guideline around my print area to make sure that my images will not be chopped off when I print. Like most printers, my printer will not print to the edges (no bleed printing), it will leave me with a 1/4″ white border around my print area, so the guideline helps me give a visual on how far to the top, bottom, left, and right I can go.

Then I insert the images that I want to use and put them into different layers. I’d adjust the size accordingly (CTRL-T/transform) and then layer the pattern papers on top of each other. After I have everything set up the way I want, I print.

Pretty simple huh?

Some people like to use matte photo paper to print their hybrid elements/paper. I’ve done both and it all depends on the look you want. You do get a better, more crisp print out, with the matte. But, with my cardstock, I’ve been quite happy.

There’s some talk that Stampin’ Up! wants to dip into the digital world but personally, I think they shouldn’t. BUT, if they do, this is one way you can use digital products. There are tons of digital kits, elements, and papers out there that you can buy, like the stuff at The DigiChick’s. But there are many also that you can download for free (check out www.shabbyprincess.com).

I Can’t Follow Directions

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!

Hi!

Here’s my take on Beate’s weekend sketch challenge #45. I used Kraft, again, as my background paper and the Cuttlebug. This was a really quick card to make. I think it’s another five minute card.

I used the Spring Solitude set and I used the Stamp-a-majig to stamp over the bigger flower. I love that tool! The DP is from SU’s Cutie Pie and the “hi” is American Craft’s alphabet chipboard. Colors: Pomegranate and Marigold Morning from 2007 the in colors. The ribbon is Regal Rose.

Our outing was nice. Short but nice. Went to Michael’s and grabbed a few K&Company’s new items, some Amy Butler series. LOVE the new stuff. Not only are they cute, cute, cute, the packaging is recycled and also reusable. You should check them out!

I cut into my paper already and putting a page together. Another M page. Can’t wait to get it done! Loving the feel of the whole set.

The sushi restaurant was delicious as always. For the first time, Emma skipped the steamed dumplings and opted for the california AND tuna rolls. She LOVED the spicy crab salad and onion soup. She was a little piggy!!! She even dipped the rolls into some soy sauce and was brave enough to try the wasabi although that ended up in her spitting the content of her mouth onto my hands. I told her it was spicy but she wanted to try.

I love that girl, she’s such a great eater. I wonder if she’ll continue to eat if I tell her that the fish is raw… naaaaah, I’ll wait until she finds out on her own, why ruin it {::SMILES}.

I’m Getting Published!

I received an email from Scrapbook Trends Magazine and they liked what I sent them so one of my pages will be in the September issue. Whoo hoo!!!

I wasn’t serious when I sent them the email. I got to their site from Stampin’ Up! demo site actually. SU’s demo site is not the easiest to navigate and one day earlier this month I felt like clicking around to figure out where things are at (being a web designer makes me uber critical of others’ navigational systems). After clicking here and there I got to the “get your work published” page and one that was listed was Scrapbook Trends. After looking at the different criteria for September (now they’re doing a call for the November issue), there was one that fits and so I sent them a short note and an attachment. I totally forgot about it and it didn’t even click when I read their email stating they’ve accepted my layout (ok, I even forgot what I sent them - glad they attached the image).

Of course I’m super happy this weekend and M is too since it’s one of her pages (granted I think she has no idea what being in a magazine means). In the middle of the email, there was this note:

“Although we are planning on publishing your layout, sometimes space constraints change, resulting in layouts not being published. This rarely happens, but if it does, you will still receive the same amount of product as our thank you.”

Now to wait until Sept. to see if mine is actually published {::SMILES}.

I haven’t posted any traditional pages in almost a week, thought I’d post this. I’m going to submit this to One Little Word. Their word for this week: Grow. Check OLW out, they’re so fun, great words and awesome DT.

I love this page and the picture. I took these last Easter and I’ve done a few pages here and there but saved the best for this layout. Not a lot of embellishments really but with the type of background paper, it makes the page look busy. I used a few items from my Studio Calico kit and also a few chip boards from this big can that I got from WalMart. I picked this up months ago and was going to return it but ended up using it at the crop a few weeks ago for giveaways. But I still have a lot left.

We’re leaving for some sushi. Maybe Michaels will still be open. Might see what they have.