Playing with Studio J

For the first time ever yesterday, I took some time to play with the new Studio J software launching to customers next month.  I created these two layouts.

The first one took about 30 minutes, and the second just over an hour (but I was cooking dinner at the same time!)  How cool is that?

You might recognize that the paper in the second layout is from the Grace My Reflections scrapbooking kit as seen in the Idea Book.  That's because all of the papers included in Studio J are digital versions of traditional scrapbooking kit papers!  With each Idea Book launch, new kits will be added to the Studio J library, plus an exclusively digital kit will be made available also.  My Halloween layout above was created with one of these exclusively digital kits.

I can't give you all the details just yet because Studio J doesn't officially launch to customers until April, but I am totally excited to bring you this sneak peak.

Watch this site for more details as we get closer to launch.

And yes again, I'll apologize for being absent from the blogosphere for a bit, but I've got good reason this time as I'm preparing to move my blog to TypePad.  I've wanted to do this for a while now, and although the site's not quite ready to go public yet, it's getting close.  I'll give you all the details when the site is up and running, but for now I'll continue to post here.

More Digi Fun.

I mentioned the other day that I was participating in a Sketch Challenge over at Scraps of Us.  For week two, we had to create a sketch using circle photos and flowers.

Circle photos are a bit outside of my box, but here's the sketch I submitted.

And here's my layout!

This was done using a freebie collaborative kit that I picked up last year called Mango Tango.  I just love the cool brights colours and the floral accents!  They matched my daughter's bathing suit perfectly!

I also scrapped a sketch submitted by Tracy - one of the other girls participating in the challenge (and funnily enough, she's also my sister).

Here is her sketch and the layout I created based on it!

 You'll notice that yet again I switched things up a bit.  I just couldn't get my head around journaling in the centre section.  I tried several times, but couldn't make it work for me.  That though is the beauty of sketches in my opinion.  They are a great 'launching point' for the creative process.  You don't always have to follow them exactly in order to make them work for you!

Thanks for stopping by - until next time.

What I've Been Up To!

Wow!  The time just slips away doesn't it?

Over the last couple of weeks I've been busy busy busy to say the least but I have had some time (although not enough as usual) to get crafty.

I'm participating in the Sketch Mania challenge over at Scraps of Us which has been really fun.  It started December 1, and so far I've created two sketches, and one layout as part of that challenge.  I can only post the first sketch right now as the second hasn't been released to the group yet, but I will post it as soon as I can.

Here is my Sketch Mania Sketch #1

The directions for the challenge were pretty straightforward - create a sketch that includes 4 photos and one spot for journaling.  If you'd like to create a layout based on my sketch that would be awesome!  I would love to see it!  Just create away and then post it out there in cyberspace, but be sure to send me a link (via email or a comment).

Liz Weber, another gal in the Sketch Mania group was assigned my sketch to create a layout as part of the contest.  I have requested her permission to share her creation here, but haven't received a response yet.  Hopefully she agrees to let me share, since she did a fantastic job with it.  It is so fun to see a sketch come to life.

The layout I created as part of the Sketch Mania challenge is this one.

I decided to go all-digi on this, and used a freebie that I picked up from Studio Baers Garten @ Scrapbookgraphics called Turkey Day by Iara Gomes Baer.  I think the freebie is still available, so if you're interested in picking it up try this link to download.

The sketch I received was by Tracy Sherriff, and is below and while I admit, I did interpret this one a little creatively and incorporated lots of extra 'white' space, the layout of each element matches her sketch exactly, although in reverse.  This was a ton of fun to pull together, and I'm really looking forward to designing future Sketch Mania sketches and layouts.

Tracy's Sketch

The other thing I've been working on, although not quite so faithfully is my Jessica Sprague Holidays in Hand album.  I actually don't even have anything to share on this quite yet, but it is in process.

AND....I haven't forgotten about my KaiserCraft Advent Calendar project that I promised to post, I just haven't had a chance to take the pic.  Hopefully this will get done today and I will post my finished project tomorrow.  The kids are just loving checking out the little drawers each morning.  It's really fun!

Until next time.....

Not Quite What I Planned

but something that needed to be done nonetheless. As I mentioned yesterday, I had hoped to play with some paper and glue last night, but that didn't happen. Instead I Photoshop'd my son's birthday party invitations! This is something I haven't done before, but it was actually kind of fun. He saw them this morning, and chuckled - so I think he was pleased. I was happy to at least have the opportunity to be a bit creative.

More Digital Fun

I gotta say that I think I'm definately starting to get the hang of this stuff now ~ and it's way more fun than I thought it would be that's for sure. Now, don't get me wrong, my first love is still the traditional paper-based method, but I can see myself making a bit more time for digi-work too. I think that I'll plan on getting a couple of digital photo-books printed for some of the family this year. It'll be a kind of year-in-review I think. So here's what I've been working on. For both of these I stepped outside of my comfort zone a bit and actually designed the layouts from scratch. No lifting, and no templates. It was fun!

This one was really neat, since I followed Jessica Sprague's instructions for fading a photo into the background (something that is more difficult, although not impossible to do with paper). I even figured out how to change the colour of the alphabet that was included with the kit to pink! A way cool trick indeed!

Credits: All paper & elements from the Express Yourself Digital Kit by Ronna Penner (a freebie I picked up at www.shabbyprincess.com, the journalling font is CK Ali's Writing at Creating Keepsakes.

And the next one......

The paper and the flowers came from another freebie kit (gotta love freebies!) appropriately called 'Give Freely' by Jan Crowley - you can download it here. And the star, flourish and wrapped string elements are from Kristin Aagard's 'Pieces of Him' that I purchased from Plain Digital Wrapper. The font is Schindler Small Caps for the journalling, and Impact for the Victoria Day title.

I hope that it's okay that I combine elements from more than one kit and post my pages -- I'm so new to the digital realm that I'm not sure if that's a no-no or not. If it is, speak up and let me know. I certainly don't want to be offending anyone.

Now, I need to do some layouts of my son to balance things out a bit!

Smiles!

So I did it....my first 100% Digital Layout

Since digital scrapbooking is quickly growing in popularity, I figured I ought to at least give it a try --- and while it was fun, I definately realize that I will never be totally converted. I enjoy the tactile nature of traditional paper-based scrapbooking way too much so I will certainly not be giving up my paper and glue anytime soon (besides, what would I do with my stash of supplies?) Here it is. And Here is my list of credits: Digital Sketch by Jen Caputo: Collection 23 Swirl Photo Frame and 'Perfect' Page title by Jen Sprague All other paper and page elements by Traci Sims 'Treasures' collection So how did I do?