My Favorite Winter Layouts created in 2010

Our winter trip to Philly provided me with lots of creative inspiration and the photos to go along with it...many of which became the subject of scrapbook layouts last year. LOL, I am still scrapping the stack of photos now, playing catch up, It is hard to get motivated to scrap winter photos in the summer in Florida. Hope you enjoy and get some inspiration from these.

Cousins Warm Up

I really loved the Happy Meter stamp that I purchased one day in the dollar bin.

I knew it was just perfect for this layout of cousins Kai and Lauren, who despite

the weather and not seeing one another that often, warmed up to winter fun.

Tip: Have a favorite paper that has large dots? Try cutting around them

to create a fun paper edge on your next scrapbook page.

My Snow Dan

One very fun technique to try out on this layout is using a versamarker

and embossing powder to create snowy chipboard layers. I also

had fun cutting snowflakes from paper and felt, layering them with a brad.

Have multiple photos of the same subject? Try angling on your layout

with one long frame as I did here. I used fun metal corners from Karen 

Foster Design to highlight the close up photo of my husband, Dan.

Snow Beautiful

This was created in a hotel room at CHA last year with limited tools and supplies on hand.

I created the title by hand by tearing paper and coloring the edge of the snowball with a pencil. 

I hand drew the letters and cut them out. I also created the torn paper flower embellishments.

This was the definition of creativity on the fly!

Oh Snow Cute, Kai

This is a double page layout I created using the colors in Kylie's outfit

as the basis for my layout. I loved working with the velvety papers

and sticking to high contrast colors and using neutral grey with 

punches of red as the accent color. The title on this continues across

the 2 page spread. I added journaling in my own handwriting.

Here's How to Do Digital Right!

I know the world of digital seems a bit scary for those who are used to traditional ways of scrapping and stamping, but there are so many fun ways to cross the bridge and try using digital on your projects. My fabulously talented friend, Susan Stringfellow, put my new Sodalicious set to use on this great layout of her son Chris eating an icecream sundae. Don't you just love how she printed the image onto the patterned papers and layered the sundae to make it oh so yummy! You can alos just hand color the graphics if you don't feel so skilled with using a knife to cut out the paper pieces.

She also made the title from the artwork in the set into a wonderful 3-D element using her cricket diecutter. To see more of her work, click the link under Other Creative Chicas on 

the right to visit her blog. She always amazes me with her fabulous 

handling of titles and the most creative use of embellishments.

Trust me you will be inspired!

Here is a close up shot of the sundae.

If you love her work as much as I do, nominate her on Cosmo Cricket's blog to 

be a guest designer and help her win their latest paper collection. 

Vote for her by simply leaving a comment on Cosmo’s blog raving about Susan Stringfellow.

To see the Sodalicious set, click here to view it in my shop at mygrafico.com

More New Designs to Share!!!

Before my Sun-Sational Summer Sale ended, I wanted to add some new sets to my shop so you can take advantage of the sale price. Inspired by the Fluidity collection, this Fluid Cross set features and outline and solid version of this cross made of decorative flourishes, flowing lines and hearts. Perfect for use for religious themes and occasions.

Versatile and bright, my new Spotsy Dotsy Floral Collection blends just the right amount of fun items in this clip art collection which is also perfect for embroidery or scrapbook purposes. This set included 4 designer 12" x 12" digital papers, 3 coordinating borders and 15 embellishments that work well separately or together for crafting cards, scrapbook pages and other creative projects. Try these out on a Military, Patriotic, 4th of July or Memorial Day project or liven up the baby and toddler pages of your scrapbook. Great for picnic, back to school and spring/summer themes. A fun mix of red, blue and yellow colored designs, borders and papers.

The LOVE Bug!!!

Well if you live in Florida, you have experienced a snowfall of lovebugs swarming everywhere. It felt like a lovebug snowfall on Monday. On Tuesday, they covered our dining room window and lined the doorway. I have never experienced anything quite like this in the six years we have been here. I guess it is just nature and spring time! Funny that my latest digital product is called the
Love is Plentiful Collection. I promise you it was named way before the love bugs arrived, but I am finding it quite ironic! LOL. Full of vibrantly colored graphics and patterned papers in some of my favorite summer colors, this collection will brighten up any card, layout or project you have in mind. Here is a peek at it...

It features 22 items: twelve 12 x 12 papers, 2 borders and 8 graphics for $7.95!

You can purchase it exclusively at Mygrafico.

I would love to feature projects you create with this collection on my blog and

will post items here and in my Mygrafico gallery once I create them.

Hope Love is Plentiful for you today and always!

What’s New for Spring?

I have been busy designing some fun new products. The first is my Ladybug Garden set featuring a variety of designs in red, black and yellow color combinations. This set is perfect for making cards, layouts and other projects, especially those featuring your own little lady bug!

Want to create your own fun flowers? This Bold Blooms set is a great flower starter. Combine the designs with digital papers, colorize or use patterns to create fun flowers. Layer to create even more designs! Use the free brush files provided in Photoshop to create backgrounds, masks and more! Or simply use to create hi contrast b&w designs & patterns.

You may recognize some of the bold blooms designs used to create some

of the flowers in the Ladybug Garden set pictured above.

This set is also fun to use with Disney theme pages.

Last week was Earth Day and I created a layout especially in honor of that day. Now,

I am sharing this FREE digi template with everyone. Just put in your own

journaling details and photos to complete a scrapbook page in minutes!

I included a Digi Tips file with this download to get you started into digital scrapbooking.

Just go to mygrafico.com to download this freebie!

Preview of New Sets

Here is a quick peek at 3 of my new digital design products available for purchase at MyGraficO. The Elegant Frames has been a popular set for cardmaking, scrapbooking and for custom stationery. You can pair with the Elegant Verses sets to add text or create your own.

These are also great for elegant scrapbook page layouts! I also have a color version.

Another new design that has been well received is my Birthday Pals set with it’s whimsical characters. It comes with b&w art that you can color or edit on computer as well as the 12 bonus colorized designs you see featured. I have some great phrases that go along with these!

I know most of us are just about shaking off the cold winter weather, but Easter is right around the corner. Just think of the fun ways you could incorporate these Spring Chicks designs into your Easter creations! This set has pre-colorized designs that are ready to print and use, or you can use them in a photo editing program, such as Photoshop, to incorporate into digital or hybrid scrapbook pages. As I catch up on some sleep from my designing frenzy, I will be sure to post some examples here for inspiration!

Be sure to check the site and my blog for samples made with all my new releases, and I would love to see your creations in the gallery! Not sure how to use digital designs in your creations? Keep checking back to my blog for tips and examples of how you can, digitally, live life creatively!

50 Years, but whose counting?

It seems like just yesterday that we were busy planing my parent’s 50th Wedding Anniversary celebration, but it has been almost a year, and now Dan’s parents are celebrating their 50th. The party is sure to be a fun reunion of family and friends, and I am sure we will here many stories of old memories shared with my inlaws. This is a digital scrapbook page that I have done to put on display at the party. You have already seen the invitations, coordinating favors and thank you notes in my earlier post. All the digital elements are from Scrapgirls.com. Congratulations, mom & dad! Here is to many more years filled with health and happiness.

I wanna be a Scrap Girl!

Art is my passion, and that is hard to deny! I can't describe how alive it makes me feel to create, whether it is working on an article, making a card or layout, crafting a really cool project or pouring myself into a design assignment.

Lately, I have been really missing illustrating and designing. I used to design stamps, papers and scrap accessories, so when I heard that Scrap Girls, one of the premier digital scrapbooking sites, was looking for product designers, I felt that it was time to get busy working on a collection and my application. Scrap Girls is an amazing site, voted among the top 50 for scrapbooking, digital scrapbooking & hybrid sites. They offer great digital products (such as papers, embellishments, templates and layouts), along with books and creative tools for digital scrapbooking. Thinking about trying out digital scrapbooking and crafting? Sign up for their newsletter to see products and projects that you can create digitally. It is full of inspiration along with digital freebies you can download.

This “free spirited” butterfly is just one of my other digital brush ideas. Digital brushes can be used at different sizes and in different colors to create patterns or elements on cards & layouts. I thought it was such an appropriate one to share as a sneak peek since it represents my own transition into the world of digital designing. Sorry that I can't share any more ideas with you just yet, but I need to wait until I hear back from them. {wish me luck!} Don’t worry...I will be working on lots of digital artwork and will be sharing with you soon where you can purchase them!

Day 2 - Gettin’ Digi for Christmas

This tired little elf has to draw the line at how many handmade Christmas cards she can make. We have lived in too many places, made so many wonderful friends that how can we choose who would get cut from the Christmas card list. My solution...a Christmas E-Newsletter with pictures and a brief update. This way we can update our friends on all the latest events of the year and share some pictures of the highlights. Dan, my DH, took this amazing picture of our house lit up for the holidays, and I just had to include it in the card/newsletter. It also features pictures of Ashley & Kylie, my two girls, my niece Lauren, our sweetie Wheatie Bella, our family picture from my parent’s 50th anniversary party and a great group shot with my parents, my gang, my aunt, my cousins and their kids from our summer reunion in Orlando...always a fun time for all. All the digital goodies and papers are from Scrapgirls.com, my favorite digital scrapbooking site. 

I am happy to announce one great benefit of Kylie’s food allergies and our dietary changes has been meeting and exceeding my weight goal set in January. Yay, me! Also, some career changes have allowed me to spend more time with my girls which is priceless to me. Although 2008 has been filled with heartache over illness of family members, friends and my immediate family, we have all pulled through and are looking forward to happier times in 2009! I am ever grateful for the support of my family and friends who lifted me up when the going got tough. I just can't imagine a life not being close to one’s family, not having a closeness with God or not having friends to lean on. So if I count up those things that have graced my life this past year, I feel very well blessed! For all my blog friends who I have yet to get to know, may you have a very Merry Christmas and a New Year filled with many blessings, too!

A Layout from Mom

A detail image from layout...

As moms and scrappers, we have pride in our children and lots of wisdom to share with them. As my girls grow older and college years are not that far off, I feel the sands in the hour glass moving at warp speed, yet I have so much that I want to share and teach them. This layout is one of many that will be an ongoing scrap theme for me as I watch my teenage girls grow up so quickly. I took this photo of Ashley shortly after she turned 15. She had such a sweet and innocent look and I wanted to hang onto that memory for a while. I encourage you, whatever the age of your kids, to create “notes from Mom” layouts. There are so many cool quotes and embellishments that you can incorporate into your page that can help you share some of those words of wisdom and inspiration with your children.

The background CS and many of the fun embellishments used are from Around the Block; stamps are Inque Boutique/Darice and chipboard is Chippies from Zsiage. And all the adhesives were Glue Arts!!!

A 50th Anniversary Celebration!

Well the big day is soon approaching. On October 18, 2008, exactly 50 years to the day that they got married, and exactly the same time, my parents will renew their wedding vows at a Catholic mass. Later that night we are planning a huge party with dinner, dancing, friends and family....and of course, a wedding cake. In my Stampin’ Up!® gallery, you can see the invitations for the event. It was also published in Just Invitations this past summer. 

This is a digital layout I did using their wedding portrait and a photo taken this summer in Orlando when we were celebrating my mom's special birthday (no, aint telling her age, but you'd be amazed!) I am hoping to be blessed with these same “young looking” genes.

I did some Photoshop tricks to give the wedding day photo a warm, peachy vintage feel. I used papers and digital goodies from ScrapGirls.com, a great site for digital scrapbooking resources. If you are wanting to try out going digital, they are a great site to get you started. I do both...some traditional scrapbooking and some digital.

So in a couple weeks, our family will be headed back to Philly (where I grew up) for the big event! I can't wait to see my whole entire family...it will be like another family reunion. I still am working on stuff for the party so I haven't been as active about posting. Sorry :D!