Easter Recap

Well it's been almost a week since Easter already..wow, where does time go.....really? On Easter day I handed out some super fun bags to all the grownups at our Easter egg hunt. I found the super cool bag template at House of 3. I printed the image directly on the bag and then embellished it with a paper doilie and attached them with flowers and a brad at the top.

Inside the bag was also a card that I made from the House of 3 Easter Bag download kit. Instead of printing the design on a bag I printed it on regular paper, cut it down, then in half. One half was used as the front on the card and the other was used for the inside of the card. I topped them off with some cute Easter stamps and voilla a super easy gift...six super easy gifts that is!!

School is in!!!

Well, the first day of school has come and gone! The girls wore their new outfits and toted brand new backpacks full of new school supplies. Shaylie was fortunate enough to find her best friend Keely from Kindergarten last year! To my excitement they are in the same class again this year!! I am so happy for her, Keely is a super sweet girl and I am glad that they will be able to blossom their friendship some more this year!

Supplies: School Days Quick page by Christy Skaggs at godigitalscrapbooking.com; and font Scrapkids.

Mya looked totally fashionable in her new Hannah Montanna get-up, with detached sleeves and all! I think it is pretty cute...I don't know how I feel about the barely laced Etnies though??? They look like they can fall off of her feet at any second.

Supplies: School Days Quick page by Christy Skaggs at godigitalscrapbooking.com; and font Scrapkids.

If you have kids in school, go grab todays freebie at GDS, I provided the links above...you can finish 2 layouts in under 10 min!!! SWEEEET!

Just for my neighbors!!

My neighbors have the cutest two little girls and I couldn't help but make them a scrapbook page after I was given a couple pictures of them!! They are both 6"x4" perfect for printing and slipping into a brag book!

Supplies: Natures Breath GDS Aug. 08 Collab Kit from GoDigitalScrapbooking.com; and Appendix3 font.

Techniques: I layered 3 frames over the picture (wooden, green flowers, and twigs), added drop shadows to 2 of the frames and bracket, added a flower in her hair and then lightened it and desaturated it until it matched the lighting on her forehead.

Supplies: Angel Of Mine Freebie Kit by Lori; Allembert, and Bookman Old Style fonts.

Techniques: I lightened and lightened the saturation and color on the photo. I added an outer glow and drop shadow to the title of the page.

I have a ton of projects that I am working on and getting ready to start....arggh if I just could complete a few of them to get em' up here....you'll know when they are done though...I promise!!

I'm Gettin Digi with it!!

I kind of stole the title of my post from the T-shirt a scrapbook store retailer gave me...I think you can see it in this post here or just scroll to the "Feeling" some Love post below.

You may have noticed I have posted a few digital products recently. Well it was only a matter of time before I became addicted to this. And with GoDigitalScrapbooking having a free daily download every day...how can I not afford to do a quick digital page every day!!! The problem is I want a bigger hard drive...ooooh or a server, ah that would be awesome! But we can all dream right? Speaking of dreaming, I stopped by Office Max yesterday and they had a computer I WANTED. It was an HP 22" touch screen oh, wow, me and the girls had fun playing with it!!! It was HUGE and so fun to touch the screen...I wonder how doing graphic design would be with it?? I could draw items with my finger!! Hehee, that thought makes me giddy!




Here is todays Free daily download at GDS (Go Digital Scrapbooking)! The only thing I had to do was plop the pictures into the 4 holes and I typed all the text....that's it!! If you want to try out digital scrapbooking this is the best way to go! Quick Pages are already put together and all you do is ad the text and pictures. This one normally retails for $1.5o, so even if you paid for it, it would still be cheaper than "regular" scrapbooking!!!

Supplies: Sunkissed Honey Quick Page by Lori Giles at GoDigitalScrapbooking.com; Papyrus, Pristina, Ruritania, and SA-Eckles fonts; and Photoshop Elements 2.0.

I recently made a card digitally for a fellow blogger friend Shelly!! I made it in Photoshop Elements 2.0 printed it out, cut the two pieces apart and adhered it to a blank card. The top section is actuall the inside of the card, and the bottom is the front of the card. You can kind of see the actual card in her post here!! If you have never been to her blog you have to go right now...she makes the cutest tags and cards and has an adorable addiction to owls (hence the theme to the card ;)

Supplies: Bliss of Happiness Page Kit by Verena Karolyi
at godigitalscrapbooking.com; Owl made with DB Animal Occasions font from Scrapnfonts.com; Decaying Kuntry font; Photoshop Elements 2.0.

Techniques: I added drop shadows on the owl and frame to give them more dimension. I also put a Wood pattern overlay and a bevel on the owl.

Do you like to scrapbook digitally? You should give it a try and let me know what you think of it!

Busy busy bee!!

For starters, I began making a journal to track my accomplishments each day, in an effort to feel better about myself (since I am an evil critic and killer to my own self esteem). It is a horrible habit that at the end of the each day I reflect on all the things I "DIDN'T" get done and never look at how much I really DID get done.


I got the idea for this wonderful journal from Donna Downey's Blog where she made her amazing art journal. Which mine is Kindergarten grade compared to hers, but I am not naturally artistic (bummer). However I made it work for my own needs...which is just to pick myself up after "I am kicking my @#$ do ya mind?" (movie quote from Liar Liar..hahaha) Sorry I digress...bad tendencies to put in every little detail and thought (still rambling).

So if you go to Donna Downey's website there is a video on how to make this book, and she does a much better job, but this is just a quick rundown. First you take a stack of newspaper and I even used the sale inserts. I used an 8x8 piece of acrylic to hold down over the newspaper and tore the pages into 8x8 pieces. You can tear about 3-5 pages at a time.

Then you use just a plain glue stick to glue about 10 pages together. I went through about 1 glue stick per completed page (3 total) but it could be that they were older and drying out. I like the look of the rugged edges, so I don't line them up "perfectly". What was extra cool is I finally used my brayer, by rolling it on each page after gluing it to get the wrinkles and air bubbles out!!! I have had this for about 3 years and never had a use for it until now!!!

Here is 3 pages (3o sheets of newsprint) all completed, they are nice and thick now, kind of like cardstock.

Donna suggests to paint them first with a white acrylic paint, which I did. Then just add whatever colors you want to your page.
Here are some more painted pages.
And a couple more painted pages.
This is the index or first page in the book. I do not have a cover yet, I would like to get some of that sheet metal like Donna shows on her blog, but we don't have any in town that I know of yet. I will be checking the new art supply store in town later today. I just used my handwriting on the pages with markers.
Here is yesterday's journal page!! I am pretty stoked about it, I know it is kind of boring, but they are just things that I accomplished yesterday written randomly across the page. There are a couple of doodles, but the point is to document my accomplishments. I am sure over time they will get a little more artsy, especially if I don't have a ton of things written down.

Totally cool idea huh!?! Big HUGE thanks Donna for being so creative!!

Next up I downloaded another freebie today at GoDigitalScrapbooking.com and put a 2 page digital layout together. I found the quotes on the internet and used pictures from last months vacation at CJ Strike. It was such a beautiful sunset, I'm glad I had my camera with me!!

Supplies: Natural Inspiration Add-On kit by Verena Karolyi at GoDigitalScrapbooking.com; Pristina font.

And last but certainly not least...I just had to share this awesome pic that I took at the races last weekend. It is the whole Team 49 Racing all together...which let me tell you is a rare shot. I am so proud of all of them, they work so so so stinkin hard on their cars and really...if you ask me...I think they are all very talented drivers. Sniff sniff, Love you guys and I'm so VERY proud of you all even if you don't get the respect you so very well deserve!! So here they are from left to right (which is youngest to oldest) in their I.M.C.A. modifieds; 49S Bobby Steensen, 49C Chris Steensen (my hubby!!), 49T Corey Steensen, and 49K Scott Steensen.

If you are ever near Elko, NV during April-September you have to come watch these guys at Summit Raceway...it's nail biting and butt clenching enjoyment (not kidding) let me tell ya!!

Vacation Freebie Template

I found this freebie template for a digital word page in a vacation theme!!! As soon as I was done downloading it, I whipped out last years vacation pics and put these all together in less than a half hour!!!! How cool is that?

The template came from godigitalscrapbooking.com and the direct link to the kit. It was created by Jilly Beans. Isn't that a cute name? I actually saw a license plate here in town that says that....hmm wonder if there is any affiliation or if it is just coincidence?

I also made a card the other day....you ever do something that makes you feel retarded!!! I hope I'm not the only one!! Not telling why, but I made this for someone special!!! I threw all this together with some of my paper scraps....I have a LARGE paper scrap collection, that is pack rat in me again, but hey they are all organized in folders by color. That is organized pack rat...thank you very much :P

Supplies: misc purple scrap papers; purple fibers; purple ink by pretty colors; and swirl alpha stamps by Stamp Craft.

Hybrid Scrapbooking

This was my second hybrid scrapbooking page. It is 6x6 and was created in the hopes of becoming a "flower girl" for Prima. Well, I didn't make it, but that hasn't stopped me from loving their products. The paper (which comes b/w), pictures and fonts were put together in Photoshop and printed out on 6x6 paper. I then added the flowers, lace and gems.

Supplies: IOD paintable Scallywag 2 6x6 by Primahybrid; paper flowers by Prima; white and green diamond stickers; lace; Photoshop Elements 2.0; Loveletter TW and SA-Swirls font.

Digital Scrapbook Layout

OK, so last night I was surfing the internet on an incredible vast amount of scrapbooking related sites and blogs and came across a site to download a freebie digital layout!! I was stoked not to mention I thought it was totally cute so I downloaded it and within 20 minutes minus some interruptions from the kids I had a finished digital page!!!

Thanks again to Andrea Gold for the freebie!!!

Supplies: Template #223 by Andrea Gold at http://www.godigitalscrabooking.com/, Photoshop Elements 2.0.

Scrapbooking Yourself

When you are the photographer in the family, you don't wind up in many photos(which I am thankful for). But just as you scrapbook the lives of those around you to prevent them from being forgotten, you should include yourself once and a while, just as I have done here. For the many pictures I have taken and scrapbook pages I have made for everyone else, so far, there is just this one dedicated to me.

Supplies: One Season digital papers by Vera Lim (Prima Hybrid), Prima flowers, Making Memories ribbon charm and glitter brads, tan sheer ribbon, black rick rack, black fringe trim, pink bungee string, various fonts from scrapbook answers, Photoshop Elements 2.0, Fastenater & slotted staples by EK Success.

This was my first "hybrid" 12x12 scrapbook page. Using Photoshop Elements 2.0 I layered the papers and cut them in a scalloped edge. I created the faded eyes at the bottom by cropping an up-close photograph of myself, lowering the transparency on the layer to 49% and using a 'soft round' eraser with a light opacity. The two polka dotted papers (gray & peach) on the left side of the page were each given a shadow effect to look like they pop off of the page. The smaller polka dot paper on the right was actually printed separately, cut out and placed on the page with foam squares to raise it, and give it that dimensional look. This also helps the fringe attached to the bottom swing freely.