Happy Fall Y'All

I'm hopping on a plane today heading for Oshkosh, Wisconsin!  I am so excited I can barely stand it.  I can't wait to see all the Club Scrap gals and my fellow scrappers. By this evening we'll be meeting up for a wine tasting event and catching up on everyone's lives.

 

Tomorrow Cindy, Cathy, Tracey and I will be jumping in the car and road tripping it to Lambeau Field for a tour, shopping and lunch. I love seeing all the fall foliage as we make our way north.

 

Here's a little fall teaser. We went to the pumpkin patch with my niece and watched her just have a ball with all the animals.  After about 10 minutes of her being there, not a chicken was around to be found! They scattered and the word was out to watch out for the little blonde!

 

Studio DD layout, Meredith Cardall word strip. Club Scrap texture overlay and circles.

 

 



Double QDDL

Happy Friday!

I'm looking forward to the weekend. I'm hoping to get some paper crafting time in. 

I love experimenting with the digital QDDL's. When I first download the files, I open all six of them in Photoshop Elements and then decide if I can combine at least two of them to make a two page digital layout. Sometimes I rotate the layout for a better fit.  Many times, I use the same layout side by side. If there is text on the QDDL, I use a brush to cover it or embellish over it. I did both of those to the top center of this layout. 

Club Scrap Office Space digital page. 

Have a fabulous weekend!

Pismo

Happy Friday!!!

Sorry I haven't really posted any paper crafts in a bit.  I'm currently working on a project that you'll see later this month.  Once I finish that up this weekend, I'll be back on track to share more. 

Here's a quick layout that I did with two of the QDDLs (Quick Drop Digital Layouts) provided in this month's Boardwalk collection. For the first time ever, I downloaded the fonts used in this kit and am just loving the look of everything matching! 

Here are some photos from a quick getaway to Pismo Beach



Have a fabulous weekend!



I'm Baaaaaack!

Did you miss me?!  I'm back! We had such an amazingly perfect trip to Spain, France and Italy that I thought...any minute now something is going to go terribly wrong. I hope I kept you entertained with little snippets of fun.

So...the new Club Scrap collection for May is Creative License and it doesn't disappoint! Here's a little sample of a Quick Drop Digital Layout (QDDL) which took less than 2 minutes to put together.  In fact, it took me longer to find the photo I wanted to use than to create the layout!

 

 

I'm going to love this kit! Hopefully the postman will be delivering my paper version today along with my "Mystery Box".

Stay tuned!



 

Painted Perfection

Painted Perfection...what a great title for this QDDL. My sister-in-law was completing a day care project that displays the family's hand prints on top of each other. It's actually quite comical to try and get a single painted hand print from an 18 month old! Gave us some good giggles on this Easter morning.

Timeless

Boy...doesn't she look like she's just about to cause some trouble!

Club Scrap Dahlia QDDL.

My Hand in Yours

Thought I'd share a Dahlia QDDL with you. These are so quick that it takes me longer deciding what photo I'm going to use than creating the entire layout. It's already created for me! Just drop your photo, flatten and save.  That's it!

I love this photo of my mom (Granny is what she like to be called) and my niece. Sometimes it's just as hard for me to get my mother to sit still as it is my niece!

My Sierra

I love my Sierra.  She'll be 17 this year and we just noticed she's going deaf. She wouldn't acknowledge us when her back was to us and I figured she was just getting cranky in her old age. Then we noticed we would accidentally startle her if she didn't actually see us come in the room. My sweet girl is even talking quite loud which makes sense. I love this picture of her!  She sits in my craft room with me and just watches me work. 

Club Scrap Quick Drop Digital Layout. 

Paris Flea Market

Club Scrap has out done themselves again!

Every few months I say..."This is my favorite kit!"  Well truly, Paris Flea Market is one of my top 3 favorite kits because now I can't decide. I absolutely love the colors and I just happen to love everything Paris.  Paris is on my bucket list.  I've been soooo close but never quite made it there. In fact, next month we'll be in France again but in the Riviera.  

So...while I wait for my pizza box to arrive I'll just have to play with my digital kit. Here's a QDDL that took 2 minutes to create. 

Creating Digital Layouts to Share

Over at Club Scrap on the forum we have a digital page swap. These are better known as QDDLs (Quick Drop Digital Layouts). Everyone in the swap creates a digital scrapbooking page using components from that month's digital kit, leaving an open area for the participants to put their own photos. 

So, here's an example of a page I created for the Crewel & Unusual page swap. 

I hope I can explain this simply. I'm gonna assume you have some Photoshop knowledge. I use Photoshop Elements 8.  I know that Photoshop is up to like 14 or something but I don't need the latest and greatest.  This is the way I do my pages, I know there are other ways to create as well. 

1.  Create a new 12x12 blank file with transparent background.

2. Add papers, overlays, frames, borders or whatever is moving you at the time. 

     a. I used red paper for background.

     b. Added 2 outside squares from overlay.

     c. Used the "love" stitching.

     d. Added more flowers to balance.

     e. Decided where my photo would go and used a stitched frame.

   

3.To create the open space for the photo:

     a. Use the rectangular marquee tool.  Hold the shift button down while creating your shape to get a square. Hold the shift and space bar down simultaneously to position your square where you want it and release. You should have a marching ants square where your photo will go. 

4. Select the background paper layer and hit CTRL X to cut out the selection.

5. Merge visible layers.  At this point you should have one layer with your entire layout on it. There should still be the lightly checkered (transparent) background where a photo will go.

6. Save as a .png file. This will keep the photo section transparent and allow you to drop in a photo behind the layout. If you save as a jpg the open space will become solid and you'll have to place your photo on top. In this case, the stitching and part of the title would be covered by your photo. 

Congratulations! You've created a QDDL!  All you have to do is drop a photo in behind the layout. You can adjust the photo layer to anyway you'd like. Club Scrap has some excellent digital tutorials to include: QDDLs, beginning Photoshop Elements, template tutorials, extractions and more.

Here are some of my other blog postings using QDDLs. The Botanicals blog post actually uses the layouts I received in the swap.

Navigation

National Park

Botanicals 

Consider joining our swap!  You don't have to be an expert. We'll answer any questions we can over in the digital forum.

Navigation QDDL's

How lucky am I that the December's kit is nautical!  Fits perfectly into my need to scrap our last vacation photos.  

We traveled down the East Coast from Canada to Florida to marvel at the fall colors.  

The new Club Scrap Navigation digital kit comes with 6 Quick Drop Digital Layouts that I only have to add photos to complete. With Christmas approaching fast, I'm not going to have much time to get these photos scrapped.  In about 30 minutes I was able to complete 4 single pages and one double page from all the included QDDLs. I added a few details to some layouts to personalize.

I'm patiently waiting for paper kit to arrive.  I have tons of ideas floating around for the Navigation Blog Hop on December 30th. 

Cannonball!

We had such a great weekend spending time with family celebrating birthdays  We celebrated Doug's birthday by hanging out by the pool with our nephew and watching him practice his cannonball jumps. We enjoyed celebrating our niece's first birthday and planning future vacations in the not-so-blazing California heat. I wish every weekend was like this!

 

Here's a quick digital layout using the Club Scrap Tilescapes Quick Drop Digital Layout. All I did was cover up the quote, did a water drop overlay from Castaway and added a title using The Blues alphabet. Did some blending and just like that...done!  Love it!

 

 

Cantina

Posting a layout from Club Scrap's Cantina Digital kit.  I kinda cheated...I used a Quick Drop Digital Layout (QDDL) provided in the kit for one side, flipped it in photoshop for a mirror image, added a flower in the middle to "blend" it a bit better and then added a cluster element on the right side. Done in about 5 minutes!  I've got more Cantina to share but you'll have to wait for the Blog Hop!

National Parks QDDL

Yes, I'm still ranting and raving about the National Parks kit at Club Scrap.  I just wanted to quickly share with you the QDDL (Quick Drop Digital Layouts) that are provided with each month's digital kit.  The pages are only require you to add photos.  How easy is that?! I put these pages together in less than an hour total.  Some I left as is, some I added embellishments, titles added two together or rotated the entire layout. They are very versatile!

 

 

Botanicals Digital Page Swap

Over at the Club Scrap forum we have a page swap for some of us digital folks. Each person creates at least one digital QDDL (Quick Drop Digital Layout) using elements from that month's digital kit. The creativity of these gals is amazing!  As I downloaded layouts from the swap using the Botanical kit, I knew immediately that these layouts would be great for my Mother's Day photos.

I received 8 fantastic layouts that I can use as is, rotate and add photos or add journaling and titles.  Here is one that I created. The layout is created with sections that are empty so that others can add their own photos.

And here is the layout with a photo added.

Now I want to share some of the other digital layouts created.

Layout created by Cathy

Layout created by Jill

 Layout created by Annette

 Layout created by Barbara

I had Mother's Day scrapped within 20 minutes!  I didn't even have to design a layout today!

I've been reorganizing and cleaning out the scrap closet in my studio so paper crafting has taken a short break.  I do believe I'll be finished up today.  Stay tuned for closet make-over photos.