Digital Scrapbooking 101

Video Tutorial: Digital Templates in LR - Creating Your Own

Another quick tutorial on scrapbooking in Lightroom - shows you how quick and easy you can create your own layout templates that you can use again and again in Lightroom! Quick and easy scrapbooking!

You can find the first Lightroom Scrapbooking post here.

PS I plan on teaching my Lightroom classs in March 2011.

 

Video Tutorial: Scrapbooking in Lightroom

Finally as promised on this show, a tutorial to give you a sneak peek of how my workflow is working to do scrapbooking inside Lightroom.  I'm looking forward to your comments. :) You can download the Lightroom template here - I'll leave it up until the end of December 2010.  So if you are reading this post after that date, my apologies - stay tuned for my class. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy DSD 2010!

I love digital scrapbooking.  I also love that we have our own day to celebrate Digital Scrapbooking and the generosity and talent of the many members of the digital community who so willingly share so many great freebies!

A few I have found this morning that you might enjoy:

• A darling free kit with a fun challenge over on the Digital Scrapper blog.
• Cute FREE quick pages over at Little Dreamer - only available Friday but I was able to download them early this morning - so run and get them while you can!
• O'Scraps blog hop with freebies from the likes of Paislee Press, One Little Bird, Fei Fei and more!

 

A few other items to note -

My latest tutorial with Digital Scrapper Premier shows you how to make a string of Christmas lights just like the above - in both Photoshop Elements and Photoshop CS - you can find it here.

I used the light string along with a few pieces of this month's premier kit to make this layout:

You can't go wrong with Premier - this month you not only get four tutorial videos in both Photoshop Element and Photoshop CS, you also get the above kit and much more for around $9 monthly - download this month's Premier newsletter here.

Speaking of Christmas and digital scrapbooking, I had a lot of fun playing with this new collab kit by Michelle Coleman and Danielle Donaldson - the papers are just gorgeous and this kit is so versatile it can be useful long after the holidays are over!

you can find it here :)

While we are at it, I thought I would share a few more freebies around the web -

• Shabby Princess' Plentiful Kit - while you are there, subscribe to her blog and check out all the great freebies - the template challenges are one of my favorites!
• Memory Scraps Freebies - I especially love their Vintage Christmas Kit.

Today I am moving my office down to a new space in our home - I am really excited.  I will pop in later and share anything else I find that is fabulous on this Digital Scrapbooking Day - better yet - post your own finds in the comments!

Enjoy!

Lucky...

The entire time I was working on this layout this song was going through my mind...  Going through my photos of late I noticed I have spent a lot more time documenting scenery I love near our home.  So I put this layout together with some of my favorite photos -

The background paper is a beautiful piece from this kit, and the rest was from Michelle Coleman's Wild Hearts kit.  The template is awesome but must have been a freebie - I am sorry I don't know whose it is!  Fonts: Courier New and CK Ali's Hand official. 

It's funny - as I listened to the song again the lyrics are spot on for this layout

I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
Lucky to be coming home again

I didn't realize that song talked about home...It's fun when things come together creatively like that!

I feel very blessed to have my children, a wonderful husband and the life that we have in such a beautiful place.   I especially love that scrapbooking gives me a creative outlet to document it!

Looking forward to a wonderful and relaxing weekend with family - taking it easy and just enjoying a slower pace with time to think and enjoy one another.

A Wonderful Day...

School started today and I don't know about you, but I am not ready for this summer to end!  I miss my kids already.  Luckily my 7th grader started yesterday and has the day off today (because the 8th graders go to school today for their first day without 7th graders) - so I have my two boys home.  I think it will really be a bittersweet day September 1st when - for the first time ever - I will have all five kids at school...

I woke up this morning really early to make muffins and eggs for the kids - my best intentions were not so great as our oven is on the fritz and either cooks too hot or too cold - so the muffins burned and the smoke detectors went off for like five minutes - it is just cool enough to keep our windows open now so I am sure all the neighbors were wondering what was up at our house! :)

On top of all this, we have a new daughter for the school year arriving from China tomorrow.  We are so excited to meet her but oh the preparations!  We finished a room in the basment for my older son (he couldn't wait to get away from his sisters upstairs) and we spruced up his old room with new paint and some fun things for Jessica.

So, if I seem a little sidetracked for the next week when it comes to our Lightroom classes, now you know the rest of the story!

However, the good news is I set aside some time to create this morning (this is my new thing to keep my creative fires burning) and I opened my blog reader this morning to find a new kit from Michelle Coleman called Wonderful.  It was a wonderful thing - seriously - to be able to scrap with a very cool kit -I also used her Photo Alchemy Patterns for the background of the layout...I love the patterns as I can use them on photos, backgrounds, etc.  I will have to show you all what I love about them in a tutorial in the next few weeks...  I am also creating a template from the above layout - who knows where it will pop up?

Ok - so many fun things to do - if you are looking for some great deals on digital scrapbooking supplies - don't miss Michelle's retirement sale - there is also a layout contest that you can win $50 to Michelle's store - check it out here.

Hope your Wednesday is divine! :)  I'm off to finish painting and decorating...

Productive and Creative...

I am preparing to teach Blogging 101 at this conference in September.  So I spent all day catching up on laundry, designing some new things to teach with and also updating my Digiscrap101 Beginning Education for DVD.  I am really excited to be teaching in front of a live audience. :)  A little nervous - but having fun!  Here's a preview of the kit in progress...

 

 

Back To Life...

I have returned from Girls' Camp - allbeit very sleep deprived and slow.  You know you are getting old when.... :)  This week I will be trying to get back into the groove - it is a big week for us around here as we are getting ready for school to start next week, the arrival of Jessica from China any day and many more fun things...

Quite honestly, after spending a week here -

and seeing lots of these -

and having the privilege of hanging out with these two -

I'm having a hard time plugging back into all things online.  Do you blame me?

So this morning I decided to just play with a new kit from Brenna Coleman - so cute!  I came up with this -

The great news is I realized there were a few techniques I could share via tutorials on this and on my digital layout process in Lightroom - I wrote them down and will hopefully get to them soon.  If you are looking for the cute products used in this layout you can find Brenna's Poppy Kit here, Michelle's Grungy Edges here (hurry up and snag them in her retirement sale before they are gone), and the Pea Olson font here.

Well that's it for today - I am off to the laundry room where hopefully I can make some progress...there is quite the backup after being gone an entire week! :)  Happy Tuesday to you!

Creativity and Organization

 

Last week I downloaded Expressions Media and tried it out - for about two hours.  All I could think the whole time I was trying it out was, "I wish I could just organize my digital products in Lightroom."   Change is difficult when you love a software interface. I have really enjoyed organizing my photos in Lightroom.  As I was using EM, all I could think about is how much easier and more intuitive the interface in Lightroom was for me - I  could see all sorts of ideas for ways to use the tools in Lightroom to organize my digital collection.

I searched Google again in vain - hoping against hope that since the last time I checked (about three weeks ago) that they might have figured it out.  Then it hit me - there was a way to do it by using Bridge, Lightroom and Photoshop....  so for the past few days (minus a quick trip to Vegas)  I have been testing my theories and so far so good.

I am finally organizing my supplies in Lightroom! :)  One very positive thing about organizing all these digital supplies is getting the chance to go through all my digital kits and being reminded of all the cute stuff I have and almost had forgotten about.  It is also good to purge all the stuff I know I will never use. 

I have spent so much time the past few months getting organized, knowing I have so much more to do, that I haven't made time for as much creativity as I would like.  I think a part of that is that I use so much of the left side of my brain to organize and think of the big picture of things and the best way to use technology to do that - it is difficult to switch to the right side of things and create.  

That is where good templates come in.  Part of me feels a bit of guilt for going to templates and not being "creative enough" but the other part realizes that it is perfectly ok - at least I am scrapbooking :).  The good news is that I truly enjoy organizing.  I also love that my photos and supplies are finally getting to the place where it will be a LOT easier for me to be creative - and that is a very good thing. 

The above layout was created using a template by the fabulous CZ (layered template no. 55),  Collage using Summer Driggs' Freedom Aint Free papers (FREE KIT) and Flag patch by Jen Wilson designs. Fonts: Arial, Baby Bowser and Amelie.

Cell Phone Photography and Scrapbook Layouts

Having a little fun during summer vacation and thought I would share. Yesterday we ventured out to a local amusement park and when we arrived I realized that I had forgotten to replace the battery in my point and shoot camera from the charger - ACK!

Luckily I had my cell phone camera with me. The major challenge with cell phone cameras include: lack of selective focus, setting controls, and image quality. However, when you think that we are moving more and more to the digital instead of printed side of things, it is very possible to take some great images for your blog and even scrapbook layouts (think 4x6 and 5x7) with your camera phone. Especially when you factor in what you can do with post processing in Photoshop. Here is an example image to illustrate my point:

First the negatives - with selective focus, my camera phone decided that the pine tree branches were the area of interest instead of the flowers. The exposure is too dark and the photo quality is a lot less than I would have liked.

However, open it in Photoshop and run the Faded Bliss and Golden Age actions from Holly M's Vintage Love set and you get this:

Want artsy? Take the processed image and add the Free Colorized action set from The Pioneer Woman and you get this:

The best part? Cell phone photos aren't exempt from layouts! I use my cell phone camera so much that many of my most recent layouts have photos from my cell phone in them and the photo quality hasn't been much of an issue - even when printed. Here is the photo in a layout:

Products used: Shabby Princess Cottage (paper colors adjusted), Holly McCaig Faded Bliss and Golden Age Actions (link above), Pioneer Woman Colorized Action(link above), Stamp by Rhonna Farrer, Template by Ali Edwards (Songbird Avenue APR '09).

How about you? Are you using your cell phone camera, webcam, etc. for snapshots you use in your layouts? Tell us about it!

"Happy Accident" Workflow in Photoshop

***This post originally appeared on my blog in May of 2008. 

Inspired by April Anderton's article and amazing layout in the April/May 2008 issue of Digital Scrapbooking Magazine, I decided to see what I could do to get a similar look. April's article talks about pushing the limits of digital by printing your digital layouts on favorite traditional textured and pattern papers (you know the ones you see in the store and then think to yourself, "I wish this was digital!"?)

Using the technique in the article, you can create something that can't be done traditionally - it is hybrid scrapbooking at its finest...the five layouts demonstrating the concept are inspiring - created by April Anderton, Rhonna Farrer, Josie Celio, and Sally Griswold - they will make you want to visit your local store for paper so you can create similar looks!

When I saw Shabby Miss Jenn's new kit, Weeds and Wildflowers, I knew I wanted to try something similar - and I wanted to see if it could be done 100% digitally... While pretty much anything is possible digitally, some of us have to experiment our way to the final results - many of these "results" could be classified as "Happy Photoshop Accidents," and you will probably learn much more about Photoshop playing around with things until you have your own "Happy Accident." Today I am going to share my process...

I started with the paper and flowers - very basic I know - but every layout needs to start somewhere!

Now with the photo I wanted to use added on top...

I can hear you saying, "Ok, now she is going to adjust the opacity..." and you would be right - I am going to adjust the opacity to 57%...which produces this...

Not exactly what I was going for... So I am going to duplicate the layer (at this point you will have two photo layers - turn the copy off by clicking the eye next the layer on the layers palette)

Now I will up the opacity of the first layer to 66% and add a layer mask (click the item with the red circle)...Next grab your brush tool and select BLACK as your foreground color. Making sure the photo layer is selected, begin painting directly on the photo to remove the excess background...(If you make a mistake, select white as your color and paint over your mistake - the original layer magically reappears!) You will end up with something like this... I love how the paper is coming through...

It still lacks something though... So I make the second photo layer visible, change the opacity to 25%, and change the blending mode to Linear Light...

The results boost the contrast and take away the washed out look of her face... Create frame, embellish, and you get this...

A fun look. Keep in mind there are so many different ways to do things like this in Photoshop - play with your blending modes and layer opacity to achieve the look that fits your style.