{Life & Musings}

Digi In Deep

So, I've been trying to finish this class.  I really want to take another class but this class is a pre-requisite first.

 

I kind of changed the layout around a bit because my pictures were horizontal vs vertical.  Not my favorite layout ever but it kind of works.

Enjoy! 

All About the Rides

With this layout, I finish JS' Now We're Rocking class.

I'm not wild about the papers in this layout.  They are the ones they gave us in the class.  I'll probably change it when I find something that I like better.

Enjoy!

Magic Morning

Lesson 3:

(Supplies are Jessica Sprague, Katie Pertiet & Mary Ann Wise from Now We're Rocking class)

Yes!  I scrapped again today.  That makes it 2 days in a row of doing both traditional, paper scrapping and digital scrapping.  I gave myself a 2 hour time limit this morning and got a ton done. 

Hopefully I can keep it up.

Enjoy!

Pixie Dust & Lesson 2

(Papers: S. Bartollini, C.Lyle, Katie Pertiet ; Embellishments: Katie Pertiet)

I finished Lesson 2 of the Jessica Sprague class tonight.  I'm trying to get my Disneyland trip from last Summer scrapped.  I like the results. 

It always amazes me just how much you can do in photoshop. 

It was a scrappy day around our house today.  I started working on 2 school days albums that someone is paying me to do.  It's always slow when I get started.  I swear it took me 2 hours to finish 3 grades.  I hope tomorrow I can get double that done.

Enjoy!

Always

I'm taking JessicaSprague's "Now We're Rocking" photoshop class.  This is the first assignment.

I didn't really want to take the class, but she has some cool things coming up and you have to have taken classes 1, 2, & 3 to be eligible to take them.  So here I am.

I still need to finish the Illustrator 1 class and they just announced the illustrator 2 class.  I want to take that.  I'm hoping for another coupon offer.

Still need to finish the pen class that I started in January too.  But I've been busy taking an InDesign class that I have to finish on time.

I can't believe it's almost April 1st. Can You?

Enjoy!

Coming up with a plan

I was coming off of a high.  I had a great experience in Shimelle's blogging class and was feeling the creative itch.  I thought taking another class would be the cure.  I signed up for the 25 days of templates class at reneepearson.com.  Well, the class isn't exactly what I thought it would be.  It's more of the nuts and bolts of scrapbooking than a theme/plan for creating an album.  That's ok, I've figured out a plan. 

As alumnae of Shimelle's JYC (yes, I'm the class of 2006), I get to take it again every year for free.  Well, since I don't have pictures to use yet for the 25dot, aka 25 days of templates class, I think I will journal about the prompts from Shimelle's class here on my blog and then make the album with the 25dot tools and supplies.

Are you doing JYC?  Have you done it in the past?
Stay tuned for my JYC entries here.

Enjoy!

The Secret to Making Friends

Yesterday I posted about becoming friends with Photoshop and that she wasn't my BBF yet, but we are getting rather chummy.  Some of you asked about the secret to becoming friends with her. It's not really a secret but a process, I guess. 

First you need to do some research about her.  For me that was taking some classes.  I must have dabbled in our friendship for quite awhile.  I took a class at scrap-a-faire (remember those?) and from Renee Pearson at BPS, but nothing really stuck.  I bought books and while they were helpful, our relationship still wasn't clicking.  I discovered Jessica Sprague's classes and that helped a lot and things really began to make sense for me, but I still wasn't sure she was someone that I wanted to know. 

About this time, I decided that I wanted to learn more about graphic design with computers.  So I decided to take and online class in Photoshop, and not just digital scrapbooking.  Did you even know that Photoshop had other uses than digital scrapping???   I found this company called ed2go.com and they do online classes for a ton of community colleges and started taking classes. 

The classes helped but the key to making this relationship work is actually USING Photoshop.  Imagine that!  The more I use the program to create digital layouts, enhance pictures, create blinkies and ads, the closer we become. :-)

I now feel fairly comfortable with my friend Photoshop.  Although her sister, Illustrator, and I are barely on speaking terms.  

A few more comments from yesterday:

-I still make paper layouts, probably a majority of the time.  But lately, it's just been easier to scrap on the computer. 

-I'm currently taking an XHTML/CSS class from ed2go.com.  It's the language that most websites are written in now and the wave of the future (or so I read in my lesson today!) Speaking of which, I should be working on right now.

Enjoy!

The Daily Question & a Layout

Every day I ask myself the same question.  "What to make for dinner?" 
I really hate that question.  For once I would like someone else to answer.  

You would think that pasta would be a slam dunk but NO! I have one kid that will not eat it. I struggle to get my kids to eat their veggies.  Please don't tell me your kids would rather eat veggies than candy. My kids love their carbs and it's a struggle to get them to eat protein.

Trying to please 5 peoples' various desires is tiring.  I have to get creative.  I'm always looking for new ideas and recipes. I read magazines and scour the internet.  9 times out of 10, I'll find one recipe in a cooking magazine to try.  The recipe needs to be simple.  Something quick is best.  It has to contain ingredients that they might recognize. 

So Max is out tonight at a dinner meeting or something in the city.  We are having Chili, which the kids love and he doesn't.  It's a recipe that I found in Cooking Light magazine. 

I promised you a layout.  Here it is.  Another digi layout from our anniversary trip. 

Template: Paislee Press
Embellishments: Taylor Made; Paiselee Press & Me.

Enjoy!

Graduation

I don't remember if I posted any pictures from graduation or not.  I think I probably didn't because I haven't scrapped them before today.  This is a quick little page for the inlaws/outlaws album.

template: Janet Philips
paper: fei fei-joyce serindipty papers; Jessica Sprague Echos of Asia
embellishments: MCO corner florishes 2

As I'm trying to remember what I used in the layout, I'm a little frustrated because I did a total rookie move.  I merged the layers to save the layout as a JPG but I forgot to un-merge them before i saved the PSD again and now the layers are lost.  What a lame move!  

Since I started working a lot in digital, I've had to kind of develop a file method that works for me.  I save the completed layout as a PSD, in case I need to change it. I also merge the layers and save it as a JPG file to print.  Then I reduce the size of the JPG and save it as "b" whatever the title, so I know that it's resized for blogs/web.  So that is 3 copies of the same layout.  Confusing, I know, if you don't digitally scrap but it's what works for me.

Enjoy!

A Repeat?

Template: Paislee-Press
Paper: kathryn wilson eastborne kit
Embellishments: Michelle Coleman Corner Florishes II

You may think you have seen this before and you have.  Well, it's a little different.  It's various pictures from our trip for the inlaws/outlaws albums.

Enjoy!