Monday, December 20, 2010

Face Painting

My two oldest & I took a trip with my Dad to what many consider one of the largest FleaMarkets in the world.   :)   ...at least in Texas.

It was super fun! We set up a little table to do face painting and had the best time. Just wanted to post a few pics of our work! Hopefully, I can get a scrap page or two out of these!







Ack! Where has the time gone?

It is almost Christmas 2010! The year is almost over and there is still so much to learn and do! 

Speaking of learning, Jessica Sprague has several classes available for 20% off until the 31st of Dec! If you have ever wanted to get into Photo Editing with Photoshop (Elements or the full version) this is the time to do it!!! 



Sunday, November 28, 2010

Freebie!

Yea! Posting my first digital freebie!! Hopefully there will be many more to follow! I have added my Terms of Use in the Mini-Kit for those that download the file. :) I would love to see your layout using any of these papers or elements, so jot me a note, leave a comment, send a link so I can jump up and down, squeal in glee, and *clappity clap* seeing my designs being used by you!!!
Espresso Yourself...Skimmed (this link has expired)

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Digital Designing

At some point in making the kit, I realized I had too many colors and styles. But upon consideration, it looked like the kit could be divided into TWO complete kits, that in their own way could compliment each other. So, here is   ...of the Day

Digital Designing

I so enjoyed taking the Art of Design class with Jessica S.  It was an incredible amount of information that completely blew me away! One of the final projects (in fact was part of the certification process) was designing a complete digital scrapbook kit, including the packaging, logo, etc. This was then submitted, along with our resume, to designer Carina Gardner for critique and a pass or fail. Carina also shared in the last segment of the class to help the 100+ students develop a trademark logo for ourselves.

Here is a preview of my first digital design kit...
Espresso Yourself by CloudyChais.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

CERTIFICATIONS!!

This has been the year of certifications for me. I've taken up a few hobbies in the last couple of years and thought, wouldn't it be great if  I could start earning some cash so I could continue buying/doing things I love. And maybe I felt a vote of 'no confidence' for myself and my claim of being an artist...so, the need for me to be certified seemed real. Earlier this year, my darling husband surprised me with a trip to Florida and a Certification Level One class from Dewberry Designs. This is a type of decorative painting that is used mostly for crafts & things. And, yea me! I passed and am now certified to teach One Stroke Painting. A paying gig at Hobby Lobby, Michael's, JoAnn's, etc. Coolio.  Soon after, I took the plunge and bought the class The Art of Digital Design by none other than Jessica Sprague! Bet you saw that one coming! That was a fabulous five week course that was completely worth every cent!! Amazing!! And now, after that class, I am officially certified with JessicaSprague.com as a Digital Designer. WooHoo! At this point in time, I don't feel the need for more certifications, but if I did...the next one would be for Face Painting & Body Art...maybe even tattoos. Ha!

New Blog Design...

Ok. I am going to attempt to get caught up on posting. 
First things first...
This cute little layout is part of a wonderful class, 
Blog Design Basics for Blogger, by designer Crystal Wilkerson at JessicaSprague.com. I heart that place!! Soon I will be able to design my own Blog Template, but for the time being, this suits me perfectly.  I adore the colors, quirky and fun images, and the font is awesome. Go check it out if you are looking for a kick to give your blog.

Thanksgiving

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!
Count your blessings...outloud. :)

Inspiration Everywhere! Free Class


Just one more reason to love Jessica Sprague! She is offering another free class starting November 29th called Inspiration Everywhere. You do need to register to receive all the incredible goodies, though. Calling all designers! Scrappers, Quilters, Painters, Musicians, etc & etc again. Read all about the details here...Go Be Inspired!

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Whoops!

Just getting the hang of posting LayOuts and stuff and always seem to forget something... In this case it was a major something! I didn't give the credits to all the papers & elements for the last two Pooh pictures.  Silly Willy Nilly old Bear... Credits for kit papers and elements go to Trish Yochum @ Scrapgirls and her kit Mosaic Retreat.  But the template and LO design is from Jessica Sprague! It was the last assignment from Jessica Sprague's Pen Tablet class and includes her template from the class materials as well as a wonderful watercolor brush from Bittbox.com and font from Dafont.com that just worked perfectly! The entire LO was in the class materials...everything from the swirly brushes, stitch brush, rounded corner brush to the button. I just used the Mosaic Retreat for colors and the cute paperclip.  The picture in the button and the faded Pooh and flower are extracted from pictures I took of the paintings on the baby's wall that I did when I was pregnant. :) And the Pooh entry under the More Layouts was a kit named Sew Chic designed by Tricia Curtis.  Everything except my paintings, my pic and the Pooh frame (which I made with paper from kit, font, cs3 & time) came from the Sew Chic kit. Thanks!

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Silly Willy Nilly old Bear

This was the project completed in Week 4 of the Pen Tablet Basics for Scrapbookers. This was an AWESOME class! It had an incredible amount of information about using your Pen Tablet (i.e. even my old little Bamboo Fun tablet...mine is an older version that was about half of this price) with digital scrapbooking. The video lessons were so easy to follow! And we mostly used templates by Jessica or one of her contributing designers which made making the project easy while learning new techniques with the pen! More later!!

More Layouts

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Sprague Classes

In December 09, I started looking at more online classes that could teach not only the fundamentals of the software program Adobe CS3 but also, the quick and easy IMPORTANT stuff for digital scrapbooking. I had been a huge fan of Jessica Sprague & her blog because of all the sincere help & tutorials and her evident desire for people to understand how much fun scrapbooking can be.  There are always free kits and free tutorials available at her website.  But her classes!!! WOW! Fantastic! So in depth, so much detail, yet everything is so organized and planned out and ...here is the main part... taught at an everyman's level. These classes could be taught to someone that is just loading the software on their machine to someone who has been using it for years...there really is that much great, well executed information taught clearly. And, she thinks you're awesome. :) Bonus.  The work I've been doing in her classes have made me sign up for more & more! Simply because I have been able to advance so quickly in my understanding, the ease of the program now is a dream...and I have soooo much more to learn. So go check it out!
I can't wait to post all the great layouts created with the course materials from Jessica's classes.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Not Tired Yet

Another super kit from Scrapgirls, this one was completed with Just Be You Collection Biggie by Angie Briggs. This was the same day at the park!   Not completely happy with the name tag in the corner, but it actually won the layout of the week @ Scrapgirls and was worth me earning a $5. gift certificate to their store! Totally cool!

Josey & the Park



This was an awesome day. Just Josey & me. Her sisters were practicing for the One Act Play competition & this was a treat for us to be alone and just play. We both took several pictures that day. I loved this digital kit,  Beautiful Life Collection Biggie by Thao Cosgrove at Scrapgirls.  I plan on doing several more pages from this day with the same kit. Awesome!

The top pic's name is "Run Jo Run" and the bottom pic is "Photo by Jo".

Christmas Certificates

The girls all got an envelope with a certificate of choice classes that they could choose from. They turned out rather nice looking.
The 12 Days of Christmas Angels set was by Valerie Randall from
ScrapGirls. Just going to post a few to show off how cute they were. Extra parts of the set...can't quite remember what was what, but I did add papers and stuff from these kits. "Holiday Time Collection" by Keri Schueller and "Spice Collection Biggie" by Angie Briggs.

Joselyn

The kit for this layout was an awesome freebie from Jenn @ Dancing Princess Designs blog. It was a mini-kit designed for the gals at GoDigitalScrapbooking. I couldn't find the link to purchase this particular set, but the name of the mini-kit was "SugarnSpice" and you could contact Jenn via her blog to find out how to get it for yourself & for more cool stuff!
In October '09 I took a few classes @ GDS by Andrea Gold. One of the classes for Photoshop CS3 included clipping masks and had one of Andrea's Quick Pages as part of the course materials.  This is the finished product.

Watson's Sweater


Our sweet little Scottish Terrier, Watson, is modeling his latest sweater. Miriam spoils him so much. He has more coats & jackets than me. And he loves wearing them and all the attention that he gets along with his apparel. This was another entry at the GoDigitalScrapbooking site. Digital kit "A New Day" by Christy Skaggs.

Picking Berries, Summer 2009


Picking Berries, Summer 2009.

We spent most of the summer with the grandparents and the girls had a blast in the country. Being able to go outside every day and just run around was so much fun. Josey loved picking berries. They grew around every fence and seemed to be everywhere. She ate as much as she put in her baskets or bowls. This layout was my first digital entry into an online community gallery. Credits for the digital kit go to: Powder Blue by Carena's Design.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Intro

As a homeschool mom to 4 beautiful children, time seems to slip away much too fast. In an attempt to preserve some of the wonderful memories of my family growing up together, I tried to teach myself to use Adobe CS3 and Photoshop to scrapbook these times digitally. The learning curve with this software was more than I imagined...but perseverance is starting to pay off.