Digiscrapping links

So I taught another intro to digital scrapbooking, using Photoshop Elements. I love teaching and I love digi-scrapping so it really was fun. I just remembered my idea to post the links from my hand-out and now I wish I'd thought of this early instead of wasting my time vacuuming (tee hee) because as I'm posting links, I'm finding new sites and thinking of new links to post but my time is running out!! Well, here's a drop in the bucket.

PHOTOGRAPHY

• The Pioneer Woman: This woman is a self-taught, brilliant photographer - she explains techniques as she discovers them. Read and learn, baby. Here is a direct link to "Fresh & Colorful" ; possibly the most valuable (and yet SIMPLE!) method I've ever learned for taking my photos to a professional level. D.LISH!

ACTIONS

• The Coffee Shop blog [insert chorus of angels here]. I'm just going to lead you to the list of actions and you will have to set some time aside to look through them, and follow her instructions for installing them. And if you love her stuff as much as I have, please donate to her site.

DIGITAL PAPERS AND KITS:

• Search engine for free digi stuff (formerly Digifree, now is Craft Crave)
• Two peas in a bucket Last I checked there were 74 free kits
• Shabby Princess Two dozen good lookin' free digital kits!!
• Gunhilde This woman is creating and giving away the exact elements that I'm looking for
• Three Paper Peonies Her freebies are on the right side column
• The Daily Digi Okay, you gotta spend $5 but you get a tonne of stuff from a group of designers that are featured that month - you might discover a new designer that you love.

TEMPLATES:

• Mandagirl Her vacation set is so wonderful. If you reference her blog, you can see how she used the templates she is giving away (for free - have you noticed the theme, here?!?)
• Simply Yin This woman inspires me - the way that she makes haphazard look so organized almost brings me to tears. She's been designing in a more linear manner, as of late, but you can also visit her store for some affordable non-linear templates.
• Simple Scrapper Start with their database of free templates, but then check out the rest of the site, because it's a wealth of knowledge for those getting started.

There is so much more out there!!! I hope that my class inspired you to try out digital scrapbooking and I hope that these sites help you along your way.

Cheers!

Handywoman, I am.

I'm supposed to be a professional house painter. I've been a professional handywoman before. Well, I've scheduled the month for me to work on this area; I've never actually DONE anything. I didn't tile the basement bathroom (yes, I have the tile and the adhesive AND the grout). And I didn't paint the trim in the basement. So I wrote down "house painter" hoping that the new title would help me make things happen. My plan was to wash all the trim and doors in my house and then paint them. I have started washing . . . but then I got sidetracked. I decided to convert our guest room into a fourth bedroom so that my second son won't have to share with my first son anymore. This guest room only fits a queen size bed. NOTHING else, but it does have a big closet. Sooooooo, my husband took the doors off the closet, and we emptied it (now it looks like a closet threw up in our family room) and we slid the bed into the opening. I had considered removing the framing for the closet, but then the drop ceiling would have to be redone, and we just put vinyl flooring in, blah, blah, blah. So I kept thinking and came up with:

I already have 1L of bright red paint, which my son loves, and orange primer so the inside of the "closet" is going to be bright red, baby. The rest of the room is a boring tan, but I'll liven it up with the bedspread. I've measured and know what size I need cut for shelves, so his alarm clock and books can be within arms reach. Then one long shelf will run the full width of the closet, just under the electrical box. That'll be for some storage. We'll hide it (and the electrical box) with a valance; some fabric-as-art idea. Above it is room for one vinyl quote. I don't know that "if you think you can, you can. If you think you can't you're right" is the right quote for over the guest bed that my in-laws frequent, so I'll have to keep thinking. ;)

And by pushing the bed into the closet we freed up ample space to put a 175 cm wide wardrobe (likely a PAX unit from IKEA - They sell for 10% of the retail price in the as-is section and since they are having a sale on them right now, lots of people will be buying them. . . and then returning them after getting it half assembled because you know it's too much work! I've gotta get over there soon!).

Bonne nuit!

My 2010 professional plan

Alright! It's February. I just finished being a professional historian (scrapbooker) in January.

February: House painter (window trim, doors, bathroom, laundry room)

March: Sociologist (make an 8x8 book of our family traditions - I need reminders!)

April: Gardener (water early!)

May: Photographer (can't wait to photo-edit!)

June: Hiker

July: Artist

August: Biker

September: Home organizer

October: Monk (self-discipline is not beyond my reach!)

November: Artisan/shopper

December: Events Planner

Leave me a comment about what professions you have planned!

Surreal

I pretty much post a blog for myself. It makes me feel young and hip to say that I have one. And it's always a wonderful surprise to find a comment left on said blog. Butt I never thought that I'd see the comment that I saw yesterday morning. After going onto my computer with the purpose of posting an update here, I got sidetracked by a game on Facebook. Bad, Samber. By the time I remembered the reason I had gone on the computer in the first place, it had gotten so late that I wanted to go to bed. Grrrrrrr! Well, I had planned to post, so post I would. I was too tired to post all that I wanted, or to make it clever, but I finished it up about 11:00 Sat. night.

Sunday morning I checked emails and there was one from "Ali" via my blog.

You can go look at my previous post and see it for yourself. You can click on "Ali" and it will take you to Ali Edwards' blog. Now I don't know that Ali Edwards truly commented on my blog but maybe she did. That's surreal. I told my husband that it would be like Michael Jordan coming to his men's league game. I'm not a celebrity person. I'm not into 'famous'. When asked which celebrity I'd like to have lunch with, I don't have an answer. But I think it's really cool that my favorite designer/scrapbooking super hero visited my blog (maybe . . .tee hee).

And I am embarrassed that she saw that poorly designed header of mine. Haha.

Well, enough of the surreal, and back to the real. I thought that I would post a few more scrapbook pages from this month, and my 2010 family calendars (I do one for each side of the family).

(credits: Mandagirl vacation template, paislee press "in good company" kit) I need to add the dates and journalling. Pictures taken by Pauli.

(credits: mandagirl template, papers mostly Shabby Princess)

(credits: papers Jessica Sprague and some freebies off of designerdigitals, scraplifted the layout by nana z.)

Baaaaaha! I'm thinking 16x20 canvas frame. . . B is for booger-bubble. This made it into the family calendar on my husband's side. (credit: frame inspired by Ali Edwards' design)