Write. Click. Scrapbook.

Another challenge!

Melissa here, poking my head in again to host while Tina is on her way back from CHA.

And, speaking of CHA, I promised more product peeks.  We did receive a few photos from roving reporter Celeste Smith, sharing her favorite find: Jillibean Soup Corrugated Alphabets. What a great way to add texture to a project.

Am I the only one who feels like kicking herself for shunning and shedding her paper crimper a few years ago?

Wasn't yesterday's giveaway fantastic?  I had so much fun playing with this Studio Calico kit.  As Melanie and I were discussing how our layouts came together, I told her how I had really been forced to think outside the box when using the Sassafras Lass "Dream Big" paper.

 

It's so fun, but it's also so unique that it's a little intimidating.  Yet the surprising thing is that when I looked back at my layouts, I realized that I used it on all three!  In fact, I used it in four different places.  Take a look at them again and see if you can identify each instance.

answers:
LO #1: cut out part of the bottom border along with the banner
LO #2: cut out hot air balloon & cloud piece and punched the green bullets from the right-hand yellow section of the rainbow
LO #3: cut the letters for "charm" from the orange hot air balloon

Sometimes paper with a lot of words can be a bit perplexing to use as well, especially when combined with journaling on a layout.  I thought it was interesting that both Melanie and I chose to incorporate the Little Red Riding Hood text with a little twist.

Here's Mel's layout, just to remind you.

(Note to self: I really must learn how to do that drop-shadow effect on my layouts with white backgrounds!)

All of this got me thinking about how many sheets of patterned paper I have that truly grabbed me when I saw them, but that have been sitting in my stash because they're not "easy" to use and so I'm not quite sure what to do with them.  Do you have any of those lying around?

Here's my challenge to you.  Grab one of those sheets that intimidates you just a bit, and force yourself to look at it creatively.  Maybe you need to view it as a collection of elements (as I did with the "Dream Big" paper) rather than looking at the whole sheet.  Perhaps it can be trimmed here and there to make a perfect... something for your layout.  Maybe you can take that sheet full of text and play off the theme like we did with the Studio Calico "My Dear" paper.

Whatever you choose to do, please share your layout (or other project) in our Write.Click.Scrapbook Flickr group.  I can't wait to see what you do with those papers.  I fully expect to be inspired. :)

Oooo, and remember to come back tomorrow when our August gallery is revealed, along with some other fun stuff related to our theme.  Don't miss it!

and the giveaway goes to...

Congratulations goes to Karen M. who said,

i am a kit club girl....i love Studio Calico! i did tell someone about you. thanks for the chance to win a great kit!

We hope you enjoy your Studio Calico kit. Please contact us at writeclickscrapbook at gmail dot com to claim your gift! Thanks to all for your comments!

Reply July 30, 2009 at 08:10 AM

give.away.day. featuring STUDIO CALICO

CHA is yucky. We didn't want to go anyway. It's just a big hall full of friends, fun, and so much new paper my heart about leaps out of my chest. But who wants that anyway? I mean really? What's so great about paper anyhow?

Whoa! How did Little Miss Bitterpants get in here? Well, out she goes. We have no time for sour grapes. No sirree. Cuz today we are over the rainbow for our new
Today we are so happy to bring you a giveaway from Studio Calico. They have generously offered to provide one of our lucky readers with their brand new August kit, Over the Rainbow.

Sing with me now, you know you can't help it...

Somewhere over the rainbow,
way up high.
There's a land that I heard of,
once in a lullaby.
Somewhere over the rainbow,
skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream
really do come true.

Might I just be a little bit omniscient for a moment and say that I know you have been dreaming of getting a free Studio Calico kit. (Please, hold the applause! I know, I know, I'm amazing. Almost as amazing as this kit!) And we here at write. click. scrapbook. obviously live over that aforementioned rainbow as we are going to help your dream come true. Yes we are.

All you must do is leave a comment telling us two things. First, we want to know how you shop. (kit clubs, one layout at a time, like a madman whever you are depressed, online, local only, etc.) Second, we want you to tell a friend about us. In your comment just say, "Yes I did!," and we will love you even more. One of you will be the lucky recipient of the random drawing that will be  posted tomorrow. And then with your new lovelies you can make beautiful layouts like these:

layouts by the lovely, talented, and well coiffed Melissa Kaiserman.

 

layouts by the intimidating (perhaps just to me with her incredible talent!) yet fantastic Melanie Louette.

Don't forget to visit the Studio Calico gallery for more inspiration! And just think, with the money you save, you could get a few addons! And that's the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow!

Comments close at 8:00 pm EST. One name will be drawn at random and posted tomorrow morning. That person is responsible to contact us at writecliskcscrapbook at gmail dot com by midnight on Saturday to claim their gift. Thank you and good luck!

Newsflash!

 
Very remote CHA reporter Melissa Kaiserman here.  I'm so stinking jealous of incredibly happy for Tina & Emilie, two of our roving reporters who are on the scene.  They were gracious enough to send along a few of their favorite bites of eye candy.  Yum!  Let's dig in!

First up, from Pink Paislee's booth:

Such feminine papers and design.  I'd like to take the layout as-is and replace the pictures with ones of my daughter.  Wouldn't her blueberry eyes just pop?

Love, love, LOVE this color scheme!  We're moving in two weeks (yikes!) and my mind has been whirring with ideas of how to incorporate red and blue together.  Can't wait!  I'm impressed by how the patterns on the brown and red papers work really well together in such close proximity.

 
Damask is always a winner as far as I'm concerned.  And can anyone tell me where I can get a bedspread (or at least a throw pillow) in the color and pattern on the left?  Gorgeous.

I have a feeling all the lucky ducks browsing the floor are seeing a lot of vintage-inspired loveliness.  I may have to shield my eyes when this stuff hits the shelves, or I could be in trouble. 

Next, featuring Cosmo Cricket:

I think I would be cutting out a few of those flowers and adhering them above the leaves with a little hand-drawn stem.  Cute!

Ah, that birdie paper.  The perfect colors for my two little ones' new room.  I feel a home decor project coming on...

Don't those pushpins almost look real?

Speaking of Cosmo Cricket, I get a good chuckle out of the saying on their blog banner: "If we were meant to pop out of bed, we'd all sleep in toasters."  Forgive me if I'm the last person on earth to have heard that one, but I love it. :)

Here's a new company - Nikki Sivils, Scrapbooker.  I would describe her products as a little bit whimsical.

Look!  More blue and red together!

The Nester might call that second paper Lampapalooza.  Don't know who The Nester is?  You should find out.  But don't go there until you're done here, okay?

Can you just picture some Paperkins sitting on those couches?  I kid, I kid.  These papers are very unique.  I can't wait to see them in person!

Wasn't that fun to get a few peeks from our team?  Make sure you check back throughout the day, because we'll be adding more from roving reporters Lain Ehmann and Angie Lucas.

In the meantime, speaking of favorites... A few weeks ago while hosting the blog, I shared that a brand new ATG gun had been sitting untouched in the back of my scrap cupboard for over two months.  Some of you wondered what in the world it was, but those of you who own one urged me to crack open the box and use it.  Thank you.  There was no reason for me to be intimidated by it, because it's so easy to use.  And not only have I scrapbooked with it, but just other day I used it to repair several damaged children's books that have (I'm embarassed to say) been sitting in our storage room for a few years.  I can't wait to see in what other ways it comes to the rescue!
 

Tutorials and Actions

Good Tuesday morning!

As scrapbookers, photos and photography are an integral part of our craft, and, if you're like me, you want the photos on your pages to be as good as they can be. So today’s post will be about photography, Photoshop and actions - just a few of the things near and dear to my heart and my scrapbooking.  

Photography today is so much different than it was even five years ago. Five years ago I was still shooting with one of Canon’s first DSLR cameras (a puny 6.3 MP), and the cameras of today (21.1 MP and HD video) make my first DSLR look like an ancient relic. The basics of photography - the elements of exposure (shutter speed, aperture and ISO) and the theory behind composition (the rule of thirds) - are unchanged, but today's camera and lens technology is light years away from what it was even just those few years ago. 

I am a completely self-taught photographer. I’ve always taken pictures (I describe myself as a Life Tourist), but scrapbooking changed my attitude and increased my passion for photography in ways I had not expected. I taught myself how to use my camera (I read the manual and practice A LOT) and how to edit my photos in Photoshop (PSE 3, CS2 and now CS4) through loads of trial and error.  Much of what I learned was found either in books like this one and this one, or found on the internet. Ahhhhh...the glorious, wondrous internet.

Below are links to some tutorials about photography and Photoshop that I think both the novice and the experienced photographers will appreciate:

 

The Digital Photography School

 

ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed

Photography Tutorials and Tips

The Pioneer Woman - Photography

Bernie’s Better Beginner’s Guide to Photography

Digicam Help

Adobe - Photoshop Elements Tutorials

Digital Photography for Moms

In the last few years I’ve gotten quite a few questions about the use of actions. Actions are a series of photo editing steps in Photoshop (and sometimes in PSE) that have been recorded into a one-click function. You click play and all the steps necessary to achieve the result are done for you. Actions are usually created by photographers who then sell them (or give them away in some cases) so that others can achieve the same quick and nifty results.  

Actions can help with many of the things you might want to do to a photo, like lighten, darken, brighten, saturate, convert to black-and-white, sharpen, resize, create collages and ad texture. And the effects of most actions can be adjusted if the result is too strong, giving you great control over the final result. You can apply multiple actions to one photo, too.  Some actions cost more than others but the improved workflow and the great results might just be worth the price.

Here are some action sets I found for Photoshop Elements (PSE) users:

The Coffee Shop - Free 

Digital Photography for Moms - Free

And then some Photoshop actions resources:

The Pioneer Woman - Free

Totally Rad Actions

MCP Actions

Kubota Image Tools

LilyBlue Actions

Childs Play by Peta Mazey

Itty Bitty Actions

Some of these sites have previews and samples so you can see their actions in action (ha!), and some even have recipes for using several different actions in one photo.  The before-and-afters are really amazing!

I have an older version of Itty Bitty actions, Totally Rad, a set of actions from Kubota, and the freebies from The Pioneer Woman. I use them all now and then but I have my favorites that I use on the majority of my photos. Here are some of my photos that have at least one action applied. I like my photos to look more natural, so the effects of the actions I use are not too obvious:

And that's it from me until Saturday. Tomorrow and Friday will feature my co-hostess, Melissa Kaiserman, and Thursday is give away day!  YAY!

Have a lovely day!

Sneak Peeks!

 

Helloooooo! Tina Cockburn here, your hostess for today and tomorrow. And I’m actually writing these posts on Sunday because I leave tomorrow (um, today for you) for CHA in Orlando. My shuttle to the airport picks me up at 4:08 am (I’m so not a morning person) and I’ll spend the whole day on airplanes listening to some new iTunes purchases, knitting and reading (really looking forward to that). 

Anyway, just in case you’re wondering, CHA, the Craft & Hobby Association, has a twice-yearly convention, Winter and Summer, that showcases new product releases for scrapbookers and crafters of all kinds. It’s a great way to get to see what’s coming to scrapbooking, watch for new trends, meet new companies, make some cute stuff, and see some friends. It’s also a great way to prepare the pocketbook for future purchases since I usually want one of everything I see.

And since I won’t be able to post from the road (I don’t have a laptop), here are links to sneak peeks some of the new products that I’ll be seeing there:

7Gypsies

JilliBean Soup

Pink Paislee

Cosmo Cricket

Fancy Pants

American Crafts

Maya Road

Little Yellow Bicycle

SEI

Crate Paper

Hambly

Piggy Tales

Jenni Bowlin

Three Bugs in a Rug

Sassafrass

Bella Blvd

My Little Shoebox

So there you go! Just a handful of the great new products we can all look forward to seeing soon. Great stuff, huh?

I’ll be at CHA with Emilie Ahern, Angie Lucas, and Lain Ehmann from our team, and I’ll be spending some time with April Foster and Scarlet Namvong of Studio Calico, one of our awesome sponsors, and who might just have something to do with our giveaway this week. But you’ll have to check back on Thursday to be sure.

Since I'll be away most of the week, the super sweet Melissa Kaiserman will be co-hosting with me. She'll be large and in charge on Wednesday and Friday. YAY!

Have a lovely Monday!

Summer Reading

photo and quote selection by Tina Cockburn

Challenge Round-up

 Hello hello! I'm off to a late start today, my apologies. Thanks so much to everyone who played along with my little challenge! You all rock, I had a great time looking through all the pages. It was really hard to choose just a few to show here, so I posted them all! First here's the page I did, along with a photo of the stuff I grabbed from a box of random items on my desk.

 

Even I was amazed at how quickly it came together! And yes, pink and a flower on a boy page, why not? I like these collage flowers from Prima, they work so well for so many topics. I tend to think of flowers more as design elements, than as something that is feminine.

Celeste played along with the challenge too.

 

And here are the pages from readers:

Lisa:

 

Megan:

 

Hilde:

 

CathyS2:

 

Lonely Scrapbooker did two pages!

 

dpayne1:

and Jennifer:

Cadennova:

I really hope I didn't miss anyone. If so, don't hesitate to let me know and I'll add your page to the post. And if you didn't manage to get a page done in time, you can still play and add yours to the flickr group!

A huge thank you to everyone for the wonderful week! I am going to miss hosting next week for sure. I am still going through comments and hope to respond to all your questions by the end of the weekend. Make sure to tune in on Monday for a great week with the fabulous Sara Winnick!

Where and What

Happy Friday everybody! I hope you all got your chance in for the giveaway yesterday? Gotta love October Afternoon! Thanks again for all the comments on my process. I am slowly going through and replying to questions and general comments as I find the time. Today I will share a bit of my scrapbook space and organising methods.

We live in a small one-bedroom apartment, and before Kieran came along my scrap space was in the bedroom, underneath our mezzanine (loft) bed, but now that is his nursery and I moved out into the living/dining room. This is my main set up in the corner, using an Expedit shelf and desk from Ikea (I love that they came up with this idea!)

On my desk you will find my most used basic tools

The top part of the shelves is where I keep all my most used items: patterned paper and cardstock, alphabets, journaling spots, punches, and stamping equipment.

 

On the top right you can see my patterned paper and cardstock in Cropper Hopper vertical holders. They were a tad bit too tall for the shelves, so I just cut about an inch off the top. The paper still fits in them perfectly. I organise my cardstock by colour and my patterned paper by manufacturer. When it comes to patterned paper my mind just seems to work that way, I tend to remember what I have by who made it.

I talked about my baskets on Wednesday, here is a better shot of them

 

I have one for punches, one for random stamps, one for alphabets, and one for journaling notes and spots and one for doo-dads. The others are all self-explanatory; the doo-dad basket basically is full of embellishments: mostly partly used packs that I either bought separately or that came with monthly kits. When I am scrapping I keep that basket close by, even after choosing items from it to work on my project.  I got the baskets at Ikea (surprise!) and made the labels myself.

I have two more baskets on the lower part of the shelves, those contain chipboard and blank mini albums. Here is a view under the desk.

 The coloured boxes hold my unmounted rubber stamps, acrylic stamps and rub-ons. Underneath those you can see all my monthly kits. I keep them there until I have made a few layouts from the kit and then I break them up into the general scrap population. As you can see I have quite a bit piling up on me of late!

The black bag is my crop bag. I used to go to a weekly crop before I got pregnant, I'm hoping to start that back up again in September. The three accordian folders hold paper scraps, 12x12 diecut sheets and stickers other than alphabets. You can also see my basket of chipboard, and below it the top of the basket of minibooks.

That big pink box is more paper scraps. I know, I know. It's mostly older papers, as far back as three years ago. I plan to sort through it and keep the ones I truly love, and then donate the rest. Oh and my sewing machine is under there somewhere too!

Across the room I have another shelf and a closet for lesser used items.

 

Well, lesser used except for my stamp pads! I couldn't find a space for them on the Expedit shelf, but they are just a couple steps away. I rigged up a way to cover up the shelf when we have company. At the top you can see a box containing pages that need a home and most of my minibooks.

 

The closet contains general craft items like paints, canvases, buttons, ribbon, flowers, sewing tools, metal embellishments...oh and even more unmounted rubber stamps in CD cases. I went wild for rubber stamps for about a year, couldn't stop buying them!

That's really about it. I downsized alot when I moved out to the living room, I finally got rid of a lot of stuff I was holding onto "just because". I still need to go through and reduce again, to try to get some of the stuff out from underneath the table. But at least all the contortions I do when I need to get something from the lower shelves serves as a form of exercise!

I know that lots of people are looking for ideas about organising embellishments, and I confess that I am not that mush help. I figured out after a while that I am a searcher and dumper, I keep things in bins and baskets that I can rummage through or dump out. I tried having my stuff by colour in nice little jars or embellishment boxes but it really didn't work for me. As far as organisation goes my advice is to really think about how you scrap, and your overall personality, when deciding how to store product. When working on a project, do you think about things in terms of colour, type or shape? Or in terms of who made it? That's a first step there in deciding. Can you deal with small containers for stuff like brads and eyelets, or do you prefer to throw out, dig through and dump back? I think you know what the answer is for me!

If there is anything you'd like to know that I didn't cover, leave me a comment, or if you prefer shoot me an email at scraphappyfran"at"yahoo.com.

And don't forget about the challenge! I'll be sharing my page and others here tomorrow.

and the giveaway goes to...

Congratulations goes to Stacy Doolittle who said:

I have never been to Hawaii but have always wanted to vacation there. I've also never been on a cruise. So, I guess a Hawaiian cruise would be the perfect vacation to me!

Stacy, please email us with your contact information. We hope you enjoy your new October Afternoon products! Please join us next week for another incredible giveaway!