Month: September 2013

Phone Photos Anyone?

| cristina

Yay, it’s Friday!! My blogging week at write.click.scrapbook is coming to an end, and I am very happy to be wrapping this week up. And, I have some awesome news to share from The Lilypad! They are launching a new series of products – fonts to be used in smartphone apps to add text and images on top of your photos! Very cool!! And there is a free with purchase kit that is just plain gorgeous!

Here is what I scrapped with it.

Credits:
#selfie collab by The Lilypad designers
Sprinkles v17 by Valorie Wibbens
Font: American Typewriter

Both photos I scrapped are self portraits; for the first one I handheld my camera, while in the second one we used a tripod. 🙂

Credits:
#selfie collab by The Lilypad designers
Drama Queen by Valorie Wibbens
Font: American Typewriter

Have a fabulous weekend!

Calendar Week – Wrap Up

| cristina

My Calendar Week blogging over at write.click.scrapbook is concluded. On Day 1, I talked about planning for a wall calendar; on Day 2 I showed you how I get my wall calendars done; Day 3 was all about desktop calendars; on Day 4 I talked about how to use calendars in mini albums and Project Life; and finally on Day 5 I shared some inspiration for how to use calendars in scrapbook pages.

Here are a couple of projects I made for Calendar Week. This page was inspired by a calendar grid design.

 

Credits:
Monthly Gridlock by Amy Martin
Dayplanner kit by Paislee Press and One Little Bird
The Roots fonts by Heather Joyce

And I put together a desk calendar using these awesome templates by Paislee Press:

These templates are so easy to use, and I love the design!

I selected a bunch of photos taken around our home for this calendar.


Credits:
2014 Calendar Kit by Paislee Press

I love how it turned out!

Calendar Week – Day 4

| cristina

{this post was originally written for write.click.scrapbook}

So far, in this Calendar Week, we have been focusing on calendars in their most traditional use, and as standalone projects. Now, let’s look at how to incorporate calendars in mini albums and other projects to keep track of time.

The reason I include calendars in these projects is to add a time reference, but I always like to make the calendars part an integral of the design. I usually accomplish this by customizing colors and themes.

Mini Albums

For mini albums, especially ones that are dedicated to specific periods in time such as December Daily, I love to include a calendar. Here are two examples for my two past DD albums.

In 2011, I included a printed digital calendar element to the inside cover of my album. That year, my album had a red+aqua color scheme, so this calendar was a perfect match.

Last year, I layered the calendar on top of a digital paper, and used it on the first page of my album.

Pocket Page Scrapbooking

I am a huge fan of Becky Higgins’s Project Life concept to document our everyday life. I make weekly 2-page spreads, and each week I like to include a way to keep track of time. Calendars are a great way to accomplish this purpose, and also add visual interest.

For this card, I used Amy Tangerine’s customizable calendar stamp by American Crafts. Since this particular week was spanning two months, I thought this ampersand card would go be a good complement.

Here is another example of how I included the calendar stamp in another pocket. I added some arrows to highlight the particular week.

Finally, here’s a card created digitally, and printed out. I used the calendar cards by creashens. I love how the different elements on these cards come in separate files, because it allowed me to change the colors and rearrange the big numbers as needed to spell out the week number.

Do you include calendar elements in your mini albums? I’d love to see your examples, please share them in the comments!

 

Calendar Week – Day 3

| cristina

{this post was originally written for write.click.scrapbook}

Welcome to Day 3 of Calendar Week! Today I will show you a couple of ways to put together a desktop calendar.

Desktop Calendars

Due to the smaller format, I find that desktop calendars are quicker to put together than wall calendars. I also love that it’s easy for me to put them together at home. I have designed a few over the years, and in most cases I used pictures from scenes around our home.

CD Case Calendar

Here are a couple of pages from a CD case I made a few years ago.

I decorated the background with digital scrapbooking papers by Jenn Barrette, and also printed out a few digital embellishments and adhered them with pop dots to add some dimension.

I repurposed an old CD case to use as the holder for the calendar. I printed these at home, on my old but trusted printer (a multi-function printer and scanner by HP), on matte paper (my favorite for hybrid projects).

4″x6″ calendar

I recently put together a 2014 desk calendar using templates by Paislee Press. This calendar was so quick to make! The templates are in .PSD files, so you need Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to use them. All I had to do was pick my photos, and print them out. The photo selection was by far the longest part of this process.

I shrunk the templates slightly in order to fit four pages on a letter-sized sheet. I love the clean design that showcases my photos.

I printed them at home on matte paper, and trimmed them.

For the theme of the calendar, I chose scenes from around our home. These pictures make me so happy – I love our home and it will be really nice to have this calendar on my desk at work. This is how I will be displaying my new desk calendar.

Once the month is passed, the calendar page can transition to my Project Life album.. which brings us to tomorrow’s theme – using calendars in mini album and pocket page scrapping!

Calendar Week – Day 2

| cristina

{this post was originally written for write.click.scrapbook}

Welcome to Day 2 of Calendar Week! Today we will be talking about wall calendars.

Wall calendars

Around this time of the year, I always start working on the calendar I put together for our parents. It’s now become a tradition since I have been doing this for five years, and I want to share what my process is for that. I design an 11.5″x8.5″ calendar topper (12 monthly pages + the cover), and use a blank grid for the dates. Since I am also a digital scrapper, I find it quite easy to select a few of my favorite 12″x12″ pages and modify them to fit the smaller format. I always make sure that my design is at least half an inch within the edge of the page, so it won’t be cut during the printing phase.

Several printing services offer ready made backgrounds, so depending on what your design preference is, you will find plenty of options. I really enjoy picking a few favorite pages made in the past year and turning them into calendar toppers. If you want to design your own calendar toppers like me, or use a ready made quick page, make sure that the printing service allows for custom backgrounds. I have always had my calendars printed at Artscow, because they have great prices, and allow me to customize my calendars. Other services are known for top quality, so it all comes down to what you are looking for, and how much you are willing to pay for it.

To create a calendar of this size, you could also print the pages on letter sized paper, and bind it yourself. I don’t have the patience to do this, so I outsource.

The inside pages

Here’s a look at some pages from my past calendars. I always include a picture of my husband and me (I try to take them over the course of the year, but inevitably come September I need to schedule a few extra photo sessions to make up for the missing photos!). I decorate the page with colors and themes that match the month, and if at all possible I use a photo taken in that same month.

I prefer to keep the grid part clean and simple, so that everyone can use the calendar to jot down other appointments and events. I always include all the dates of family birthdays and anniversaries on the calendar (this is an option that Artscow offers).

The cover

I like to include some photos of us on the cover as well.

This project takes a few days for me. Selecting the photos and designing the calendar toppers takes a while, but the end result is worth the time for me! Tomorrow we’ll be looking at desktop calendars, and I would say that those are much quicker to put together.

Calendar Week – Day 1

| cristina

{this post was originally written for write.click.scrapbook}

September is almost over, summer is now a somewhat distant memory, and by this time I think we are all well settled into our regular daily schedules. I felt this would be a good time to talk about calendars. Calendars are very useful tools to keep track of time and events, but as scrapbookers I think they can take on a whole other dimension, as design elements, source of inspiration, and gift ideas.

I think it’s only fit that we start with talking about the most traditional purpose of calendars, before we jump in during the next few days into some more creative uses.

Planning

OK, let’s say that you decided to make a calendar. Or maybe you’re just considering it and want to see what’s involved. The first step is to make a few design choices regarding

  • production
  • format
  • content.

Production

Will you be assembling the calendar yourself, or have it made professionally? The main factor to consider here is how many calendars you want. If it’s just one, putting it together yourself might be fun, but if you need multiple copies, I would suggest into looking into printing places. Look into what formats are offered by professional services, before you settle down on one format for your calendar.

Format

There are so many options for calendar formats! From the standard 11″x8.5″ wall calendar, to desk calendars, planners, wallet calendars and more.. Thinking about who you are making the calendar for might help you narrow down the choices.

Content

Naturally, your calendar will include a daily schedule for all the months in a year. But what else do you want to add? Once again, there are several options to consider. First of all, you can use photographs – either of people, or of nature. Another popular choice is to use inspiring quotes.

Here is the plan for the next few days:

  • Tuesday: wall calendars
  • Wednesday: desktop calendars
  • Thursday: incorporating calendars to keep track of time in mini albums and pocket scrapbooking
  • Friday: using calendars as time keepers and/or design elements in scrapbook pages.

I would love to hear from you about how you incorporate calendars in your creations!

Happy Friday!

| cristina

I’ve been having a crazy busy week and I am late blogging today.. but I have some awesome new products to share! Here we go!

This is such a fun kit! I used it to scrap one of the little things I’ve been enjoying lately. 🙂

 

Credits:
This and That by One Little Bird
The Roots fonts by Heather Joyce
A new Project Mouse bundle has arrived too!

This kit is awesome for night-time pictures, but it made for a cool card too. 🙂

Credits:

Finally, a fall kit by creashens! This kit has some awesome non-typical fall colors! I love it!

Credits:

Have a great weekend!

Trend Watch: Wood

| cristina

There’s a great new Feature at The Lilypad – Trend Watch! This week’s theme is wood. There’s a challenge too if you want to play along for a prize! So I made a new page using some of the gorgeous September BYOC that I hadn’t had the time to play with yet (how did it happen that half of the month is gone already??).

Check out the discounted Trend Watch: Wood products, and play along in the challenge!
Credits:
Moving Time papers by Little Butterfly Wings
The Roots fonts by Heather Joyce

The weather has definitely cooled down around here. We had to turn on the heating a couple of days this past week.. I don’t mind it one bit. I am looking forward to my first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season! 🙂

Foodie

| cristina

I am so excited to share the latest collection at Digital Design Essentials!

This collection was literally made for me :), and it’s perfect to scrap all my food photos (and you know I have a ton of those!)! 🙂 I made this page with a recent baking experiment, and I also started using the brushes in my Project Life album – they are the perfect overlay for food photos!

Credits:
Font: Pea Pumpkin Peters

Do you scrap food photos?