Vacation Photos Made Easy

Can you believe we’re just days away from August? Hopefully, you’ve been taking wonderful summer and vacation photos. If you’re like me, you take a gazillion (yes, that’s a real word!) and then wonder how you’ll ever get your arms around getting them all scrapped. I want to share something that has worked well for me – use one line of papers and embellishments for the entire project!

Last fall, we had a wonderful opportunity to travel to London and Paris. It was fabulous, but I was overwhelmed just thinking about how I’d get the photos and stories down that I wanted to capture, let alone actually getting everything organized. Basic Grey’s “Wander” line to the rescue! It’s a travel-themed collection, but you could do this with any set of papers that makes you happy.

Of course, I added some cool travel 3-D stickers, but stayed with the Wander collection throughout the majority of this trip. Even for this page where I have lots of red, white & blue patriotic-themed paper in my stash that I could have used, I just kept rolling with the papers I had in the collection.

The key is to stick with the collection and whatever embellishments you pull. Do this up front and it makes it a less stressful process to match paper and photos. Now, you can focus on telling those great vacation stories! And isn't that the best part anyway?

Summertime Traditions

Do you have summertime traditions? You know, those things that you have to do before the summer is complete, otherwise it just wouldn't feel quite right. I know I have a long list of things that I must do before the summer passes me by. This may be a Puerto Rican thing but I must have a coquito icee from the NYC street vendors. I am not talking about the italian icees, these are typically sold by hispanic vendors. I don't even know the correct name for it, but I know exactly where to find them and that's all that counts. I travel to NYC every summer to visit family and to enjoy my coquito icee. 


I used Aysha's digital kit: Life is Sweet to create this layout that celebrates my mom enjoying one of our family summertime traditions. If you haven't downloaded Aysha's kit from the June/July issue, I encourage you to do it today. It is totally adorable!

Oh So Sweet by Camille. Template: Tiffany Tillman (52 Template Thursday #21);
Digital Paper & Embellishments: Aysha Livingston (Life is Sweet); Software: Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.

What summertime traditions do you have? We would love to see your layouts in the SOC gallery.


Happy Summer, until next time.


Camille

Looking Through the Window

Happy Hellos Everyone!

It's hard to believe summer half of the summer has already passed us by. For me, reality hit yesterday evening as I sat attentively along with other 7th and 8th grade parents at the student, parent and teacher night my son's school held. For the 8th graders and their parents, the meeting was all about, 'what to aspect' for this coming school year--preparing for high school was the theme. In comparison to what I remember about being an 8th grader there is so much more to accomplish  just in the first 45 days of the school year, not to mention the days to follow. It was as if the teacher andschool administrator had provided the students and parents an open window of what is to come and that is where my card comes in to play.

Today's card is all about windows and using those large pieces of scraps that are too small for some things and not large enough for others. I decide to showcase a window pane card. It's a pretty simple card to create that will leave the recipient thinking you spent more time than what you actually did to make this card.

Take a look below...

To achieve this effective, you will need to assemble your favorite cardstock and two different designer papers, transparent cardstock, selected die cuts, hold punch, CuttleBug, ribbon, stamps, and adhesive.  To begin cut the cardstock to the desired size; at the same time cut the front of the card and one of the desire designer papers; cut the transparent cardstock to the same size as you have cut the cardstock base; adhere adhesive to the corners of both sides of the transparent cardstock; place the transparent cardstock in between the cardstock and designer paper; apply the second designer paper inside the card; now embellish your center window and any other part of the outside of the card. That's it! 

Now, you try it and tell us all about how easy it  was to make your window pane card.

Peace & Blessing

to you and yours.

Sum...Sum...Summertime!

Hey everybody...Barb here. Well summer is in full swing and folks are enjoying all of the fun that summer has to offer; swimming pools, picnics, cook-outs, beach parties, fireworks. And I am sure there is a lot of picture taking going on as well. If you’re like me, you want to be right in on all the action. Here is something I do when I am going to be taking photos around water...Rather than taking a risk of damaging my good camera, I purchase several disposable waterproof cameras.  This way, I get to be part of the water fun without worrying about splashes or waves. The cameras float too, so they are really fun for pool parties. You can just throw them in the water and the guests can snap shots, even underwater! And the quality of the photos is great. Here is a layout I created using photos from our day at the beach. I was right in the water too! I was able to capture shots of our girls really enjoying themselves!

Click to enlarge

 

Beach by Barbara Walker.  Supplies – Template 73: MandaGirl; Digital Kit: Sandbox-Shabby Princess; RubOns: Sandbox Summer Additions-Shabby Princess

Now you don't have to miss out on all the action at the next pool or beach party…grab a disposable waterproof camera and jump right in! If you need inspiration for scrapping your photos, download a FREE copy of E:spire. It's loaded with layouts, how-to's and there are some freebies in there too. Just click on the link on the right of your screen. You've got your photos, you've got your E:spire for inspiration...

So go create something beautiful!

July means celebrating birthdays!

Celebrate! Card & Gift Bag by Tena Ellison. Supplies - Patterned Paper: Pink Paislee, Creative Imaginations; Cardstock: Bazzill; Twine: Pink Paislee; Ink: ColorBox; Canvas Cupcake: Basically Bare; Glue Dots & Lines: Glue Dots Adhesive; Embossing Power; Stampendous; Clear Stamp: Inkadinkado; Punch: Martha Stewart.

For me the month of July means celebrating lots of family birthdays, including my own. So along with gift giving there are the birthday cards to make. To help jump start my card making I used the sketches by Tiare from our current issue of the magazine to make the birthday card and gift bag shown above. This set is for one of my nieces.

The sketches are easily adaptable to use for your cards, gift bags or any other creative project. You can use the sketches as shown; you can also rotate or flip them to fit your photos. Remember that the sketches are a starting point.

I also used Glue Dots and Glue Lines adhesive on the canvas cupcake. I simply placed the glue dots & lines onto the canvas, sprinkle with my embossing powder and embossed. This was easy, fun and definitely another great way to create with glue dots.

So please, go and check out all the sketch inspired pages in the June/July issue starting on page 8. You can also see all the creative ways to use glue dots adhesive starting on page 20. Please share with us any tips you have when creating with sketches, we would love to hear them.

Fun With Paint!

Inspired by Kenyatta's handpainted designs I decided to try my hand at painting. This is a quick mini-layout that I did using Photoshop CS5. They have a tool which allows you to mix & blend colors on a paint brush resulting in a hand painted effect.

I began by brushing stripes of three colors onto the same layer. Then using the Mixer Brush Tool I began blending the colors. I chose colors from the little girl’s shirt so that the whole layout has a coordinated look. I brought down the saturation a bit on my painted background, which helps to allow the photos to stand out.

Try your hand at painting on your layouts and see what you can come up with! Also be sure to check out the current edition of the magazine for some of Kenyatta's painting tips on page 31.

Independence!

Please ... slow the pace of time just a little so that I can catch up! I just this moment realized that this is my day to provide an interesting, enlightening, entertaining and educational post for our blog. The post is supposed to be something relative to this time of year, our paper crafting experiences and/or the information that appeared in the latest edition of E:spire.

As my lights flicker on and off due to rain storms I will attempt to provide something meaningful to reflect on.


The Emancipation Proclamation, yes, the original document is currently traveling throughout these United States of America. Two weeks ago Dearborn, Michigan, had the pleasure to host this historic document at The Henry Ford Museum. For the first time in the history of the Museum it kept it's doors open for 72 consecutive hours and allowed the viewing of this monumental document free of charge.

What strikes me most at the revel of our Nation then and now and as we watch with pride the demeanor and fortitude of our President is just how far we have come in our society and how far we still have to travel. Are we capturing our accomplishments as a people and as individuals into our scrap book pages and albums?

Additionally, as we speak, our Founder, Tiare, Classy Girl herself is providing the type of support that only a daughter gives to her Mom who is recuperating from surgery.

Let us collectively demonstrate our support and continue to create with the genius and inspiration we receive from both the Leader of our Country and our leader in this world of creativity!

Thank you Tiare!

Thank You President Obama

Thank you GOD

Art Is More Than A Paintbrush

I've gotten many emails since beginning to share how I incorporate painting and scrapping .. and I try and tell everyone that it isn't just with a paintbrush that you can incorporate art in your layouts.

Start small .. something as simple as a white gel pen. Take an existing layout and a white gel pen, and just add outlines to the paper .. maybe the letters to make them stand out a little bit more.



Keep doodling ... use some of that blank cardstock in your stash .. and begin to make your own lettering, doodle flowers and build your layout around your larger doodles.




When you get comfortable with your doodles ... then just take a a couple of more baby steps and add color to your doodles with watercolors.




There are so many forms of art that you can use to add special touches to your layouts ... it isn't always with a paintbrush ... but it's always using your imagination.

So have FUN with it ... bet you create something wonderful!

Get (Fire)Crackin' on 4th of July Layouts...

Hope everyone had a 4th of July filled with family, food, friends, fun, and fireworks!!! Now that the holiday is over, it's time to get fired up working on documenting all of those memories. Well, if you need some inspiration just turn to the June/July issue of Scraps of Color E-zine! Totally inspiring! Well, I spent some time flipping through the magazine this weekend and had so many ideas spark from the sketches, tutorials, 4th of July layouts and free digi downloads! For this layout I started with Tiare's sketch featured on page 8 and rocketed off with ideas from the 4th of July layouts featured on page 42, used the digi download provided by Camille on page 19, and (as if that were not enough inspiration) also tried out making felt brads with glue dot technique on page 21!


Have you started documenting your 4th of July already? I challenge you to go back and look through the SOC e-zine and create a project using several of the points of inspiration featured! Trust me, there is no shortage of inspiration there!

Oh, in case you have not printed out your digital pictures yet, don't let that prevent you from getting crackin' on your layouts. When I'm inspired, but haven't printed out my photos I go ahead and make the layout without the photos. Then I photograph my layout, upload it, and open it with Photoshop. From there I upload photos from my camera that I may want to use on the layout. It's great beacause I can drag and drop various photos onto my layout and get a visual idea of how the photos will look when I actually print them off and put them on the physical layout! So, don't let lack of printed photos keep you from blasting off into scrapbooking those 4th of July memories right now!

Happy 4th of July

I hope that you are enjoying this 4th of July. The 4th is such a great time to watch fireworks, parades, and enjoy cookouts with family and friends. In our latest issue of Scraps of Color, you will find 4th of July ideas on page 22, 42, and 43. These ideas were created by the SOC Design Team to inspire your creative juices.

In honor of the 4th I created this little card. What I loved most about it was the use of my Grand Calibur dies to create the card base and additional layers. This card was so much fun to make. The unique shaped card enhanced the complete design.

4th of July Card by Karen Jiles. Supplies-Patterned Paper & Chipboard: Bo Bunny; Cardstock: Close To My Heart; Die: Spellbinders (Grand); Crystals: Prima; Ink: Copic Marker and Vintage Photo; Tool: Air Compressor.

As shared earlier in this post, I used a Grand Calibur Die by Spellbinders to create the card base. I left the card base in the Die and airbrushed the card. This enabled me to keep an outer trim around the card. I then cut additional layers using the nesting dies and added chipboard and crystals. I added Vintage photo ink to the edges to distress the embellishments and layers a little.

How will you celebrate your 4th of July? Any creative plans using 4th of July as a theme?

Please share.

Hugs, Karen