Rediscovering a Hobby

I haven't done any digital scrapbooking in quite awhile. In fact, I looked in my files and couldn't find any of my digital scrapbooking supplies! But I wanted to make a few pages, so I re-downloaded some supplies and made a few pages, and I wanted to share them with you all. Digital scrapbooking is a fun way for me to play around with design.

I made this page about the beach, which is one of my favorite places to be.

I used mostly neutral colors and it has a bit of a vintage, collage look. The fonts I used are Comic Zine and Prestige Elite (that one is not free, but this font looks pretty similar).

This page is mostly neutral as well, but the frame provides a little pop of color.

I edited the photo so it's mostly black and white with just a little bit of color. I kind of like the soft, quiet colors paired with the daredevil story. :) The fonts are League Script and TeX Gyre Adventor.

This next one is super happy and colorful looking.

As you can probably tell, I really like typewriter fonts. I don't seem to use them very much in graphic design, but I really like the way they look in digital scrapbooking. The one I used on this page is Special Elite.

The supplies I used are from Kitschy Digitals, Paislee Press, and Emily Powers.

What do you think of my pages? I'd love to hear what you think or whether you have a favorite one.

Studio Calico

I haven't been taking many pictures or scrapbooking much lately. While scrapbooking is a wonderful craft, it's just not fitting into my otherwise full life right now. And that's okay. I'll probably do some more traditional scrapbooking in another season of life.

But I do love pretty scrapbooking supplies and fun project ideas, and the place where I find the most pretty products and great ideas is Studio Calico. They're an online shop that runs a monthly kit club, has their own products, and keeps a blog. Their design team gallery is always lovely. I'll share a few images of their products, kits, and ideas.

Here are two recent kits, which are collections of some Studio Calico supplies and some supplies from other scrapbooking companies. The Glee Club kit is bright and fun with a bit of a vintage look.

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The pattern papers are so pretty! I especially love the red dot pattern on the top row and the woodgrain one on the bottom row. The woodgrain alphabet stickers are great as well.

The Field Guide kit is also lovely. I like the mix of bold colors and accents with quieter, calmer ones.

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The butterfly accents are really nice, and I like the cloud print in the top row. The arrow stamp is fun too. The newest Studio Calico kits are posted here. I'm pretty sure a new one is coming in the next day or so.

Studio Calico also has add-on kits that they sell with their main kits. Here's one that I like. It's sold out, but the combination of supplies is cool.

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I like the airmail envelope, the gray patterned tape, the letter stickers - and all the fun little accents.

I'll show you two of Studio Calico's own double-sided patterned papers. They are so fun! I love the way they incorporate a funky, vintage vibe. They are both from the Countryside Collection.

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The triangle pattern is so neat. It's simple and graphic, but at the same time, the colors give it a happy, sunshiney, retro appearance.

This next one is soft and elegant. I like the blue and yellow of the flowers.

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Now for a few project ideas from the Studio Calico blog and design team gallery...

I love this card by Waleska Neris. The dots of patterned paper, gray lettering, and wood accents are so sweet and lovely!

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This layout by April Foster is really cute. I love the colors (no surprise), and the repetition of circles looks bright and playful.

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This mini-album by Kinsey Wilson is really fun as well. I like the transparency and the font of the title.

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Another layout I like is by Lisa Truesdell. I like the way the colors are muted and serene even though there are lots of elements on the page.

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Well, that's all for today. I hope you've enjoyed this little peek at some nice scrapbooking supplies and projects. Do you have a favorite thing from the post?

Collage Book

Lately I've been working on a fun little collage project. I bought this neat architecture book at a yard sale (great find!), and I've been using it as the base for a collage book using clippings from magazines and other fun things - just about anything pretty that catches my eye.

I tear out every other page or so from the book in order to make room for what I'm sticking in, similar to what I did with the quote book I blogged about awhile ago.

I did a little collage on the first page, as a sort of cover/title page:

On the inside are all sorts of pages. Some are real collage-y, and others are just pages from magazines or catalogs that I like and glued in. Here's a collection of some of what's in my book...

As you can see, sometimes I group things logically together, i.e. by color, and other times it looks more like a random assortment. That's part of what's fun for me about this project: I can change my strategy and just have fun!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this project!

Digital Scrapbook Pages

I thought you all might like to see some digital scrapbook pages I've made recently! I like digital scrapbooking as a quick and easy way to play around with designing something - it combines my love of scrapbooking with my love of digital things like design and Adobe software. :) Here are a few of my recent creations.

This first one is just a fun (probably too busy) page about my love of Starbucks double chocolatey chip frappuccinos. It was fun to make, though.

This page took awhile to figure out how to design because I had so much text I wanted to include. I ended up putting the main elements and some journaling in the middle with more words around. I hand-drew the "I don't know" and "I know" in Adobe Illustrator. (My friend Mariah took that picture of me, by the way.)

I made this with some pictures of Ruche and Anthropologie items that I had collected from their websites. It was fun to make a little collage of some of the items I really like.

Most of the supplies for these projects are from Kitschy Digitals - my favorite source for digital scrapbooking goods. What do you all think of these pages? I'd love to hear!

2011 Scrapbooking Plan

I thought I'd give you a little peek into my scrapbooking plan for this year.  I will continue making 12x12 layouts, but I'm also using a kit called Project Life to document and journal the daily happenings.  You can get this year's Project Life products here.  I'm actually not using any of those products, although they look great, because I bought last year's Project Life kit... well, last year, and didn't finish the project.  I had been trying to take a picture every day, and that just felt too burdensome for last year.  So this year, I'm doing something different.  I'm using the album...

And the page protectors and journaling cards and all that...

...but I'm not taking a picture every day. I'm just trying to put as much "stuff" from each week in the album as I can. Sometimes that's pictures, but other times it's memorabilia or quotes or just a pretty piece of scrapbooking paper.  I'm adding in a few more of my own supplies, too, as I go.  I keep this little tote with all my Project Life stuff, which helps keep it all in one place.

And then I just keep a running list of pictures I want to get printed.  I'm hoping to finish this project, and have an album done by the end of 2011.  But it's not always going to look like the way I just explained it... there are going to busier times this year where it might be harder to keep up with it, and that's okay.  I'm not counting on every week being the same.  But I like this project so far - it's a fun way to record memories and also recount God's faithfulness.  Here's part of one page... I like incorporating lots of things besides photos.

I haven't actually printed any photos for my book yet, but I plan to do that soon!  In the meantime, I'm enjoying the journaling part and adding in stuff.

Rambling

Usually my posts have a clear topic, something specific I want to say or show you all.  But today I just want to ramble about a few things.

I really like these patchwork embroidery hoop things I saw on Etsy.  Aren't they fun, with all the cool colors and patterns?  I'm thinking it might be fun to try something like this sometime..

And recently I took pictures of a neat vintage lettering guide I have.  I love the colors and the typography in this... ahh.  Here is the cover.  Isn't it so fun and retro?

I love the rainbow stripes.  And inside are all sorts of great lettering ideas, which means some great typography.  Here is one cursive page that I just love.  This typeface is so elegant, and a little old fashioned, too.

I think the little arrows showing you how to make letters like that add a really charming touch.  It reminds me of the font Operating Instructions.  Here's what it looks like...

And you can download it right here!

But anyway, back to my vintage lettering guide.  Here are a couple more images of the inside pages.  This one is a nice blackletter type font...

And this loopy, grade-school looking one is very cute.  It definitely has that retro feeling to it.

And here's the inside cover.  Even the typography there is cool!

And I love that little bit of info. about being a letter-er (if that's a word): "For steady employment, few occupations offer the opportunities enjoyed by poster artists who are able to do good lettering at a commercial speed."  My, how things have changed... now there really isn't any such thing as someone who does lettering for posters!  It's all computerized.

To complete this post full of randomness, I want to tell you about one more thing...a game that I played and really liked.

It's called Luck of the Draw.

I like it because you can just have fun doodling pictures with friends.  And you don't have to be a great artist to win.  Basically, each person draws something that has been pre-determined by a subject card, and then all the players vote to award category prizes to the best drawing in particular categories... the ones mentioned in the picture are "Neatest" and "Most Likely to End Up Hanging on a Refrigerator."  Fun stuff.

Well, that's all for today!  I hope you were not too confused by the many different topics in this post. :)

Quote Book

I wanted to share a project I did a while back.  As you know, I love quotes, and I altered an old Bible dictionary to make a quote book for myself.  Here's the cover of the book.  I added some rub-ons to it to make it a little bit different than the original cover.

For the inside of the book, I tore out about 1/3 of the pages so that there would be extra room to add stuff in.  I just laid a ruler in the spine and tore along that, removing a few pages every now and then as I flipped through the book.

Then I started adding stuff in over time.  The table of contents has a little pocket with a couple verse cards...

And I separated most of the other quotes into categories, using the letter headings from the Bible dictionary as guides for organizing the categories.  Here's one page.

I tried to use some different kinds of paper and a couple stamps and accents as I stuck stuff in.  Some quotes are typed out and printed, and others are handwritten.

I made a few pockets out of a few of the pages I had torn out.  Those pages have been fun for other craft projects as well - I still have some left somewhere!

Some of the quotes fold out, too.  That makes it more fun and interactive to look at.

And maybe the best thing about this book is that there are still blank pages left so that I can always add more quotes and verses.

Hope you enjoyed this little peek at one of my projects.  And maybe you'll try it yourself with an old book - it's really fun and not hard at all.

Studio Calico Wish List

I love scrapbooking.  And I love Studio Calico products.  The Studio Calico blog is having a giveaway where you post a link to your wish list, as published on your blog, and enter for a chance to win something on your list!  I thought I would participate because 1) It's a fun giveaway with great prizes and 2) I thought maybe some of you would like to see the scrapbooking things that I like!

Here's my list, in no particular order.

1. Documentary Collection Pack | Papers and elements
2. Elementary Collection Pack | Papers
3. fabRips - Elementary | Fabric strips
4. Journaling Card Set | Such fun designs!
5. Mister Huey's Classic Calico | Glimmer mist spray
6. December Kit | Lots of fun stuff

Because I Love Design

I love my job.  I love designing for clients.  I love blogging and I love making freebies for all of you.  I really, really do.  But sometimes I also love to design just for fun (since I love design so much!), and usually when I do that, I like to do digital scrapbooking.  So I thought I would share a couple recent digital scrapbook projects with you.  All of them include elements from a new digital kit I got that I've been enjoying using.

First off, here's a page I made about my friend, Mariah.  I was so happy when I found the deckle-edged photo frames in this kit, and they worked well on this page.

Here's one I made with a self portrait I took awhile ago.  I decided to keep the layout a little simpler than what I usually do, and try a new twist on journaling...using only verbs.

Yes, crying made the list of adverbs.  Please don't take that to mean that I live a sad life...I absolutely do not!  God has been so good to me.  I do cry sometimes, though...sometimes things do get hard.  But those are the times when I have to remind myself that God is always good, and He can even use our tears to draw us closer to Him!

This next page is just a little note about my typewriter, which I love!  I am a big fan of typewriters, and I really enjoy using mine.

This next project actually isn't a digital scrapbooking layout, it's a greeting card.  I used digital scrapbooking supplies to make it, though.  I thought using digital fabric flowers might be a fun twist on a basic Christmas tree shape.

And I will leave you with one more layout to look at.  I made this page about my sister, Emily.

I hope you enjoyed my digital scrapbook layouts!  And if you're new to digital scrapbooking and would like to give it a try, I'd recommend going here for general inspiration and classes, and here for great freebies.  I'd recommend using Photoshop Elements, and you can get a free 30-day trial of Photoshop Elements 9 here.