Scrapbooking | Scraps Of Mind

Archive for the ‘Scrapbooking’ Category

Posted by karooch on

November 3, 2008

Digital Scrapbooking Day

Welcome to Scraps of Mind. I'm delighted to see you. Why not check out the site, and if you like what you see, subscribe to my RSS feed and get daily updates delivered to you. If you're not sure what the RSS thing is, then check out this 'RSS made easy' post. Thanks for visiting and I look forward to seeing more of you.

Well November 3rd 2008 is a very special day in history.

It’s the eve of the US Election 2008. When US citizens will cast their votes to elect who will run the world for the next four years.

It’s the eve of Australia’s most important horse race: The Melbourne Cup. The horse race that rates it’s own public holiday.

but most of all…it’s Digital Scrapbooking Day!!!

I have to confess, this one had almost slipped my notice. Which, considering that a large part of my life is spent teaching people how to digital scrapbook, is rather amazing. But a comment from blog buddy June of Scrappin’ by Design, and a visit to Charmain’s blog Tales of Terror from the Black Lagoon put me back on track.

Digital Scrap Booking Day was born last November, the brain-child of Digital Scrapbooking Magazine, and you can read all about it at the dedicated DSD website.

There are challenges, crops and chats abounding all over the Internet, courtesy of a multitude of Digital Scrapbooking sites so why not get amongst it?

And if you’re not a digital scrapbooker yet but are interested in taking that next step, then click over to Step by Step Digital Scrapbook and get all the info you need to get you started. Incidentally, the scrapbook layouts featured in the round layout above are all from the Step by Step Digital Scrapbook Mentoring Program.

But be warned…digital scrapbooking can be addictive and should not be undertaken without medical supervision.

“I have been digital scrapbooking for over three years now. I am sure I can give it up any time I want. It’s not like I’m addicted or anything.” Karen Bellamy, chronic digital scrapbooker and self-delusionist.

So don’t say you haven’t been warned!

If you still think you have the will-power to handle it…

Click over to Step by Step Digital Scrapbook and let me help you get started.

Posted by karooch on

November 1, 2008

Outstanding Commenter Award for October

October seems to have just flown past and it’s time one again to announce the winner of the prestigious Scraps of Mind Outstanding Commenter Award for October 2008.

Once again it was a tough decision to make as Scraps of Mind is blessed with a wonderful bunch of comenters.

However this month’s winner is…

[drum-roll, drum-roll, drum-roll]

Susan

Susan wins the award for adding to the ideas in my Scrapbook Layout Titles article with her comment describing how her family use kid’s quotes to title their family gathering. I love it when readers add their owbn ideas to my articles. It always makes them so much more interesting.

So thank you very much Susan. I will email you the code for the award so you can paste it into your blog.

And remember next month’s award could go to you.

All you need to do to be in the running is to start commenting on Scraps of Mind articles. The award might go to someone who has made the most comments or to someone who has made a few really really great comments or for any outstanding reason. So why not you?

Posted by karooch on

October 31, 2008

Five Freebies on Friday - Halloween Special

Well it’s a Happy Halloween theme for this week’s Five Freebies on Friday. You’ll have no excuse not to get those Halloween photos scrapbooked pronto with this week’s collection of great Halloween Scrapbooking Freebie goodies

As always I ask you to make sure you leave a thank you when you download your freebie. A simple thank you comment makes all the difference to the designer who will have put a lot of time and effort into creating your freebie.

In a huge kick off to our Halloween Special, this Uber-Mega Halloween kit comes to you courtesy of Pimp Your Scrapbook.
Bluedream Designs has a spooky Halloween kit lurking in the shadows for you.
You’ll find another Happy Halloween kit over at Donna’s Scraps.
To help you showcase those Halloween photos, Brittney Ferguson Designs has a nice little Autumn style mini-kit/add on pack.
Stacey’s Scraps has a pack of Spooktacular papers for you here.

Scrapbooking Your Life Story - Part 8

Welcome back to Kylie of My Digital Life. and another episode in this fantastic series on How to Scrapbook Your Life Story. If you missed the previous episodes, the links are just below. Once again, Kylie has a special freebie to help you on your journey. See below for the link.

Have you ever felt that life gets so busy sometimes that we forget to take stock and appreciate the little things? I know for me that has been a huge issue lately, I have so many things to do, can’t seem to focus on any of them, and then not get anything done. Then, on top of all that, I neglect my family!

scrapbook life story As I was thinking about all of this, it led me to think about the Life Story Scrapping research that I have been doing. The research that led me to write these articles for you in fact.

It is all well and good to record your memories, your thoughts and things about your life for your children and grandchildren to hold on to, but what about the creation of these memories?

Computers, the internet, mobile phones are all wonderful means of communication with the outside world. They bring us together. But sometimes I think they also tear us apart.

Sometimes I find myself checking the computer many many times a day. Just to check for an email, who is online, who has said hi! So I have made some decisions to step away from the computer, not even turning it on early in the morning like I used to.

So how is this related to Lifestory Scrapping I hear you ask? Well, let me explain ..

Involving your Family

You have started the journey on your lifestory. You have started interviewing the older generation and gathering all sorts of wonderful history to enhance and embellish that album that will be treasured by all who read it.

Now, why don’t you get other members of your family to do their bit?

Not just in talking to them, but get them creating. For example, we recently went to the National Zoo and Aquarium for my youngest son’s birthday. I have edited the photos, even posted some on my blog, shared them with family and will eventually get around to creating some pages for my various albums.

But what I also did was encourage my son to tell me his story. And together we have made a little mini album where I have typed his words. It’s a mini-book now which he takes everywhere, but I will use his words in my family album as well.

My eldest son, has just started digi-scrapping on his own (they all paper-scrap). So I tell him that I would love to hear what he has to say about our interstate move to the ATC (Australian Capital Territory) earlier this year. I will place this page next to my own in our Lifestory, because his voice is just as important, if not more so, than my own in this part of our lives.

Now your family’s contributions do not have to be a Digital Scrapbooking, or Traditional Scrapbooking page. They could be words that they have written for you, a verse or short story maybe. They could be thank-you cards, birthday cards, letters they have written. All of these will add quality to your life story, as it introduces those people in your life.

So get your family involved, and I would love to see what they create!

Click here to pick you your free List Papers

Please Note: This is last week’s freebie. Kylie has been totally swamped with end-of-year- Uni assignments so she has not been able to prepare one for this week’s article.

You can read more of Kylie’s work and check out her designs at My Digital Life. Stay tuned for the next episode next week.

Want to give Digital Scrapbooking a try?
Then click over to Step by Step Digital Scrapbook where you’ll find everything you need to know to get yourself started.

Posted by karooch on

October 29, 2008

Giveaway over at Monique’s place!

But you’ll have to get in quick!

I was going to include this in the Five Freebies on Friday Scrapbooking Freebie round up. But then I realised that this offer is only available until Saturday 1 November 2008.

Monique makes these uber-cool Kitchen Guides which she sells from her site.

But she is offering to custom design one FREE for the lucky winner of her draw this week.

That means you can get one that’s perfectly coordinated to your kitchen. Or to the kitchen of someone who’s very dear to you and you can give it as a gift.

Read on…

There are several ways you can go into the draw. And you even have the opportunity of getting your name in more than once if you follow more than one of these paths.

Here’s all you need to do:

Open to everyone, international entrants welcome!

Open to bloggers and non-bloggers (though bloggers do have a chance to receive an extra ballot)

Winner must be prepared to give Monique their mailing address should they win.

Giveaway closes Saturday (November 1) morning when Monique wakes up (very technical huh?), at which time she’ll draw the winning name and contact the winner by email and announce it on her blog!

There are 3 ways to earn ballots, you don’t have to do them all… but each one earns you another ballot in the draw.

Leave a comment on this post on Monique’s blog, provide an email address in the form so that she can contact you should you win. Answer this question in your comment: What colour/theme is your kitchen? No colour or theme? Then tell her what your favourite colour is, or what themes you love/collect. Example: cows, cherries, retro, Coca-Cola etc. Please only enter this way once!

Blog about her giveaway and include a link back to her post so your readers can have a chance to win too. Then leave a second comment on her blog leaving her a link to your blog so she can check it out!

If you have an account with Facebook, join Monique’s group (MP Designs - Scrapbooker for hire) and leave her a comment in the Giveaway-Mini Kitchen Guide discussion so she knows to add another ballot to the hat for you!

It couldn’t be easier. And three bites at the cherry too.

You can read all the details over at Monique’s blog. So get those entries in before Halloween is over and win your own custom designed kitchen guide.

Texture Tuesday with Wildheart

Join Wildheart of Wildheart’s Works for this week’s edition of Texture Tuesday. Wildheart is a Paintshop Pro expert, but I know you’ll enjoy the tips and tricks even if you’re not a PaintShop Pro user. And you’ll find plenty of ideas to help you work with textures in your own program.

As the Month Winds Down So Does the Celebration

This is the last week of October. Where did the time go?

It is my pleasure to give you a few more of my best pieces of work done with Paint Shop Pro to round out the month with.

Click thumbnail to view larger image

The second one to the bottom is a tutorial I found on the internet. The bottom one is a tube challenge I participated in over at www.pspclassiccreations.com.

The top two are my own ideas you may recognize the golden bars of notes from a piece I showed last week.

I want to thank Karen and her readers here for letting me showcase my work and also for helping me celebrate my blogiversary over here as well. It has been a great year and it can only get better. It has been a pleasure to show my skills to others and to also let them see how much I am growing as a digital designer.

Wildheart has been celebrating her blog’s first anniversary during October. Why not click over there and check out what’s been happening?

You can see more of Wildheart’s textures at her blog, Wildheart Works or feel free to contact her at joecheray@gmail.com

Scrapbook Layout Titles

scrapbook idea inspiration Sometimes I think that coming up with an idea for a title for my scrapbook layout is the hardest part.

I want to do better than just ‘Seona’s 4th Birthday’ but I often find coming up with an interesting and unique title can be really challenging.

Melo wrote a great guest post for Scraps of Mind on this subject last year. You can read it here.

Is this something that comes easy to you?

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Here are a few inspiration ideas that I use to help me find a title for my scrapbook layouts.

Quotes.

If I can’t think of the right words then chances are, someone else already has. A nice short quote can be a great way to come up with a scrapbook layout title. And they are also great to use as journaling ideas too.
Word Art.

A lot of the word art that I make for the Scraps of Mind Word Art Newsletter is designed to be used as Scrapbook layout titles. If you’re a paper scrapbooker and you don’t have a graphics editing program such as Photoshop Elements, you can load the picture into Word or PowerPoint and print it out. If you’re a digital scrapbooker you can use your graphics editing tools to change the color of some or all of the words to suit your scrapbook layout color scheme.
Other scrapbookers layouts.

Often as I’m browsing other scrapbookers’ blogs and galleries I’ll come across scrapbook layouts with titles that i know will be perfect for a photo that I want to scrap. The Internet is a wonderful place for scrapbookers to share inspiration.
Scrapbooking magazines.

I don’t use these so much these days, but many scrapbooking magazines offer title suggestions to go with their gallery themes. Some of them can be a bit trite, but there are always golden nuggets to be found.
Commercial jingles.

Yes the TV ads can provide you with inspiration for your scrapbook layout titles. Try to choose something that is a long lived classic or at least has some meaning outside of the commercial. You don’t want to look at your scrapbook layout in a few years and wonder what the title is supposed to mean.