2007 November | Scraps Of Mind

Archive for November, 2007

Posted by karooch on

November 8, 2007

Are you up for a Digital ATC Challenge?

Welcome to Scraps of Mind. I'm delighted to see you. Why not check out the site, you'll find a bunch of great scrapbooking and blogging articles, tips and tutorials on the Articles Page. And if you enjoy this or any other articles on Scraps of Mind, I'd really appreciate you giving them a thumbs up on StumbleUpon to share them with other Scrapbookers. Thanks for visiting and I look forward to seeing more of you.

In a previous post I mentioned that Digital Scrap Wiki was hosting November-long Challenges in honour of Digital Scrapbook Day.

One of those challenges is a Digital ATC Challenge hosted by Yours Truly.

This should be a lot of fun as digital scrapbookers take on the challenge of creating a digital ATC; many of them for the first time. For those who don’t know what an ATC is, have a read of my article Artist Trading Cards.

The rules of the challenge are simple:

Create your ATC
Upload it to the Challenge Gallery by 25th November
Join in the fun voting for the winning entry.
And have the chance to win not one … but THREE PRIZES!!!

First Prize: $10 coupon for Heather Mannings Designs at Plain Digital Wrapper

Second Prize: A Classic Black and White Paper Pack from DigiNirvana

Third Prize: A $5 Gift Certificate from ScrapMatters.com

And for those of you who aren’t into the idea of ATCs there are other challenges open through November too:

Music Lyrics Challenge
Baby Picture Challenge
DSD Template Challenge
And the biggie of the lot: Design a new logo for the Digital Scrap Wiki and win a $50 iTunes gift card.

So click over to Digital Scrap Wiki now, register and get amongst the prizes.

Blending Your Own Scrapbook Backgrounds - Video Tutorial

I’ve just spent the last day and a half learning how to make web videos so I thought I’d unleash my new skill on you all.

Some of you may recall a previous digital scrapbooking tutorial I did called Blend your own Backgrounds. Well I’ve redone the tutorial as a video, walking you through how I created the layout illustrated in the original tutorial. Plus a couple of other bonus tips. I hope you like it.

Click here for a high resolution version of this video
All the elements used in this tutorial are from the gorgeous Renew Collection by Shalae Tippett from Scrap Girls.

I made this video using Photoshop Elements but the ideas and techniques can be applied to most photo editing software packages.

If you think this digital scrapbooking tutorial is worthwhile, I’d really really appreciate it if you would click over to the YouTube version and give it a rating or share it with other Scrapbookers by clicking on the StumbleUpon button below.

And don’t forget to let me know what you think in the comments below. Constructive feedback is always welcome so I can improve, but please be gentle.

10 Top Ways to Rekindle your Scrapbooking Inspiration

Scrapbooking inspiration Have you ever sat down with those photos that you really want to scrap, but your Scrapbooking muse just won’t come?

I have to confess that happens to me a lot. And it’s so frustrating when the mood to scrap is there but the inspiration has gone missing. Well here are some ideas to help get that mojo juice flowing again. Give one of them a try when you next find yourself confronted with the dreaded Scrappers’ Block.

10 Top Ways to Rekindle your Scrapbooking Inspiration

1. Go for a walk!

I’m blessed with a great public park at the end of my street and when my mind feels cluttered (pretty much every day) I take myself for a good walk there and let the fresh air blow the cobwebs away. I find it’s good to set a brisk pace and just focus on walking. That helps to relax the mind and get rid of the clutter. Then after about 10 minutes I start to think about the photos I want to scrap and just let my mind present me with pictures of how they might look. I use this technique for thinking about blog articles too.

2. Scraplift from layouts you admire in on-line galleries.

Often just having the picture of what your scrapbook layout might look like will be enough to stimulate your mind to make its own interpretation. Layout galleries in Scrapbooking magazines are good for scraplifting from too. If you publish your layout, don’t forget to credit the original layout with your inspiration.

3. Even better…Scraplift from yourself!

Don’t underestimate your own work. Pick some of your favourite scrapbook layouts and turn them around. Literally. Try turning them on their side or upside down and looking at them from that angle. The new perspective can be just what you need to rekindle the inspiration that created them in the first place.

4. Scrapbook Sketches.

There are some great scrapbook layout sketches available on many different web sites that can give you the framework for your layout. And once you get started then the creativity will start to flow. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by karooch on

November 5, 2007

Inside Scrapbooking - latest movie from Molly McGann

Well Scrapbooking legend (??), Molly McGann has done it again.

She’s released a new movie called Inside Scrapbooking. In her words

“Inside Scrapbooking is a hilarious (and loving) look at the die cut, paper doodle world of Scrapbooking.

The short film follows Molly on her quest to Scrapapalooza…held in Las Vegas this year. Along the way she and her ‘Scrubby’ (scrappers husband) Steven meet and compete against the ultimate humanitarian, who scraps to stop world hunger, another creative and innovative scrapper who creates a scrap page out of cake (a ’scrake’) and a mysterious scrapper’s assistant who unravels the scrappy peace and may end Molly’s scrapping for good”

Sounds like a lot of Scrapapalooza fun.

I haven’t seen the movie but you can check out the trailer here.

What a Scrapping Legend!!!

Technology 1: karooch 0

AAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!

I have been struggling for hours to get the Survey widget thingy that I used for the What Kind Of Scrapbooker Are You Survey to work. I had planned to amaze you with wonderful graphs and pie charts showing the results of this exercise.

But sadly, this is not to be. Something has gone wrong with the plugin that I used for the survey and it hasn’t captured the results.

So my apologies to all who participated in the survey. I know that a number of people will have joined in who didn’t leave a comment but tragically, we will never know how many or what denomination of scrapbooker they were.

I HATE TECHNOLOGY!!!!

Posted by karooch on

November 3, 2007

Digital Scrapbooking Day

Today, November 3, is the first ever Digital Scrapbooking Day.

And all across the Digital Scrapbooking World celebrations and events are going on. So I thought I might dedicate this post to highlighting some of the events that are happening so you can join in the fun in places that you might not have thought to go before. I guess this is a sort of Party Door Bitch role.

So let’s get started on the Digital Scrapbooking Day fun and games:

Firstly Scrapmatters is running a celebration from Nov 2nd-5th with freebies, special challenges with great prizes and everything in the store at least 25% off. Sounds like a happening party.

ScrapGirls have a range of chats and challenges going on from 11am - 10pm on Saturday. The message is bring your computer, your chocolate and your favorite fuzzy slippers and join in.

And Scrap Outside the Box is also hosting a bunch of chats and challenges as well as a big sale to commemorate the day.

Taking a slighty different approach, Digi Scrap Wiki is kicking of a series of challenges from Nov 3 which will run throughout the month of November. Prizes and challenges to be announced on the site on Digital Scrapbooking Day itself. But one challenge I can reveal is The Digital ATC Challenge which I’m running. So here’s a chance to try your hand at Digital (or Hybrid) ATCs. Click on over and try it out.

Cindy at DSD-Pro (a website specialising in scrapbookers who are trying to build a business from their hobby) is launching the DSD-Pro Business Association at 10:am, mountain time. There’ll be some special limited time offers up for grabs which will be of interest to any digital scrappbooker or designer who is interested in moving into the digital scrapbooking industry on a professional basis.

There’ll be 6 Posts with 6 Challenges running throughout Saturday at Cen’s Loft. They include puzzles, colour swatch challenge, layout challenge, a blog hunt and freebies.

Even Two Peas in a Bucket, who are mainly a traditional scrapbooking web site, are hosting DSD events.

So this lot should keep you busy for a while. Check them out and join in the ones that appeal to you and get amongst the fun. Let us all know which ones you found really great and maybe share some info about any other Digital Scrapbook Day events that you think your fellow Scraps of Minders might like to know about.

Five Freebies on Friday

It’s time for Freebie Friday again. Have fun with more free scrapbooking stuff.

Remember to leave some love when you download your freebie. It costs you nothing and means a lot to the designer.

Digital Arts Cafe is a very cool scrapbooking site which Scraps of Mind Reader and Contributer, Melothria, is now running. It has some great digital kits in the shop and I feel sure it will feature in a Scraps of Mind Site Review in the not too distant future because she’s just bursting with plans. The reason it is mentioned here is that they have a great Freebie section. Go check it out and don’t forget to hunt down the kits that go with the freebie components in the shop.
I have a weakness for Poppies so I just love this Poppies Kit at Artsy Fartsy Scrap Emporium.
Jennifer over at My Life as You Know it has a very nice November desktop for you to personalise and load on your screen.
For those of you just starting to scrap your Halloween photos, See Jane Scrapbook has a very cool alpha for you.
And to keep you in the mood, Andrea’s Bits and Scraps and Little Ironies has a great double page Halloween template to get those Halloween photos scrapped quickly.