Christmas Carol Blog Hop

Even though I'm not designing any more, the gals at theStudio, where I was, were kind enough to let me participate in the annual Christmas Carol Blog Hop.  Each designer chooses a Christmas carol and designs a mini kit to represent that song.

I chose Carol of the Bells for mine.  I hope you enjoy it!  There are 6 papers and 13 elements, plenty for a cute layout or two!  It was nice to do a little no stress designing.  (Truth be told I did this way back at the end of October when I had a couple of extra vacation days.  Loved it!)

Download Carol of the Bells Here

(Download is only available until the end of December.)

Full list of blog train participants:

Nibbles Skribbles

Shelly Marie Scraps

Snips N Snails

Scrappy Cocoa

Aimee Harrison Designs

Snickerdoodle Designs

Let Me Scrapbook

Deli Scraps by Min

Booland Designs

eqrAveziur

Darlene Designs

JW DigiScraps---YOU ARE HERE!

Feli Designs

SKrapper Digitals

Ambowife Designs

Ruby Lane

Digilicious Designs

JanetB Designs

Julie C Designs

Monika Designs

Piggy Scraps

Have a MERRY MERRY MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS!  

Using a Kindle Fire

Greetings all!  Just wanted to check in and let you know about a new little Tumblr blog that I started.  I got a Kindle Fire when it was released last week, and I'm trying to use Tumblr to accumulate some of the good hints and information I'm gathering while I try to make the best use of it.  I had an iPad through a previous employer so I have some tablet experience and comparisons I can make as well.

If you're interested in that kind of thing, check it out at http://kindlefired.tumblr.com.  I also have a Kindle Keyboard (3rd Generation) that I've been using for not quite a year, so I have quite a "team" of e-readers.

I seem to have a lot of interests and I'm debating starting a series of related blogs to share - things like cooking (mostly in a way called Paleo that tries to eliminate grains), technology, and family life.  We'll see.  For now, I hope if you're interested in the Kindle Fire you'll go check out my new Tumblr and follow along with my finds.

Happy Digital Scrapbooking Day (Tomorrow)

It's Digital Scrapbooking Day (Tomorrow) and many stores around digi-land are celebrating all weekend long. I don't know how much time I'll get to spend doing challenges and what not, but I might do a few particular at my favorite home, the Studio.  I'm also going to use whatever time I have to get reaquainted with digital scrapbooking sites and maybe some new designers.  I definitely want to spend some time scrapping, I've decided to dive in and work on an album of my trip to Jamaica last March, so I'm trying to be very organized and plan some things out and get scrapping!

There will be a LOT of great sales, and I hope to pick up a few things.  I don't really have any specific plans, but I know I won't be able to resist a good deal.  theStudio is having a 50% off sale which will be amazing, and my email box is filling up with other great deals.

Thought I'd share my DSD this weekend through a board on Pinterest I've created especially for the event.  Head over to http://pinterest.com/janicew6971/dsd-2011/ and see what I've marked, etc.  Remember if you are interested in trying Pinterest and need an invitation, just leave me a comment with your email address and I'll send you one.

Strategy for DSD?  (Yes, you have to have a strategy.)  Here's how I plan to attack the event.  :)  (At least the shopping part!)

1. Set a budget.  I'm not exactly sure what mine will be yet, but I encourage everyone to set a budget.  Otherwise it would be quite possible to go entirely insane.  For even $20 you could pick up a lot of great bargains this weekend!
2. Go through my emails.  I've been saving the email newsletters from my favorite designers and stores that have been coming in this week.  I plan to cruise through them, shop the good and interesting sales, probably by marking possibles on the Pin board above and then going back and making final decisions.
3. Cruise Facebook.  Going to cruise my Facebook page for the same thing. I really wish there was a good way to mark Facebook posts since they've been coming out all week and I haven't had time to really read them all or follow links.  (Are you listening Mark Zuckerberg?)  Alternatively if I could group all my fan pages like I can friends, it would be VERY useful too!  (Again, hello MARK - pay attention!)  :)  Basically same thing as email, but I might find a few new things along the way.
4. Watch Facebook and possibly Twitter for short term coupons and deals from designers and stores.  If you use these tools, keep them open while you are at the computer for DSD and check often.  I did this hard core one year and got 3 or 4 limited time offers which gave me some items for free.  Don't jump on the deal though unless it's something you really want and will use.  It's always nice to make sure you do a layout or project for the designer when you get a giveaway like this.
5. Cruise DigiShopTalk's DSD forum area.  Sometimes, I find a few things that are new to me this way.  I don't typically spend a ton of time at DST, but they have a forum area dedicated to DSD which is useful for scanning.  http://www.digishoptalk.com/boards/forumdisplay.php?f=119
6. BLOG TRAINS, FREEBIES and the like.  This is a great weekend for high quality freebies, because a lot of designers don't do as many freebies as they used to and as a former designer I totally understand.  But this is one of the occasions where stores and designers tend to offer a little something.  I'll be scouting and pinning the good ones and definitely getting a few things.  The DSD forum area has a section for freebies and giveaways, so it's a good place to start.  Always download these freebies first before your purchases, since they are often for a limited time.
7. THANK EVERYONE!  Get a freebie, thank the designer.  Download a freebie, leave a thank you somewhere.  That few seconds really means a lot to designers (I know) and it let's them know you appreciate their work.  So, don't forget to say THANK YOU.

I think that about covers it.  The best way to see what I've found is to take a look at that Pin Board . (You don't have to have an account to look at the pins.)  It's blank as of this moment, but won't be for long.  :)

Happy DSD everyone!

DigiDares #250

So, I've been doing some more scrapping again. This time I stumbled across a challenge at the Digi Dares. I remember hearing about the Digi Dares when they first started, but didn't really have time to play along. I found them again (I have no idea how) and was really interested in trying out a "non-store" environment challenge and the style of challenge (kind of like a recipe challenge) is one of my favorites. So, here is what I created for Digi Dares #250.

The dare said I had to have at least one picture with a costume or "dress up" idea, a frame, a doodle, a bright color as an accent and a grungy title. The kit is main Urban Jungle by myself and Digilicious Designs, along with bits from Run, Bike, Swim by Dream Big Designs, Follow by Allison Pennington, and Stated Simply by Mad Scrapper Designs. I also got to break into some new fonts including TheFaultyMarker,ChicagoHouse,VTKSDOWNTOWN, and TheOtherTwin.

It was really out of my box to scrap with more than one kit. But I liked it, and I think I've found an easy way to search through a lot of my kits in Windows 7. I believe I will have to turn it into a tutorial at some point. I don't key word my kits (I do my CU), so I've never been great at crossing over into different kits until I discovered this little trick that I'll share with you in the future.

Thanks for stopping by. Let me know if you have an interest in that tutorial I mentioned.

Making a Sunset Photo "Pop"

My tutorials page is now fully functional again!  I finally found a way to host the videos I'd created online, and things are working.  FINALLY.  Because of the new structure for my site, I need to share this tutorial with you as a blog post and then it will be linked from the Tutorials page in the future.  This tutorial has been made available previously, but only from my Tutorials page.

Every year my husband's family rents a cabin on a lake in Northern Minnesota for a week. There is lots of fishing, lots of crazy kid fun, and sitting around a camp fire relaxing and enjoying life every night. This past summer, I took a picture as the sun was setting over the lake. With a little PhotoShop magic, I was able to turn a good picture into a GREAT picture, which I then printed 8x10 copies of for the entire family and gave as Christmas gifts. Believe me, they were well loved!

These steps could be done in either PhotoShop or PhotoShop Elements.

1) Open your photo. Since I knew I wanted to do 8x10 prints, I used the crop tool and set the proportions at 8 x 10 and cropped the photo so I started with it in the right size.

2) Duplicate your photo layer. There are a number of ways that you can duplicate a layer, for simplicity, just right click on the layer and then choose duplicate layer and click OK.

3) Set the blend mode of the top layer to Soft Light. Depending on the look this gives you, you may want to lower the opacity a bit. You can also try different blending modes although I found the sunset colors got too yellow/orange and some contrast was lost in Overlay mode or Hard Light.

4) Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. You will make very slight changes here. I increased the saturation by +7 on my photo and reduced the lightness by -2. Play with these settings making very small adjustments until you get the "pop" that you like. It's amazing what just a little difference can do for your photo.

5) I picked a pretty font - in this case Selfish available at dafont.com and added a caption in the lower left corner in a dark area.

That's it! Here are my before and after photos!

See how the contrast is increased slightly and you get more of that silhouette feeling. Increasing the saturation just a little bit gives a warmer, richer feel to the sunset colors as well.