plain photos, that pop, ShaZam!

Way to often I have plain photos straight out of my camera. I use a Sony Cyber Shot 8.2mp point and shoot. I love that I can take that photo and make it pop. I almost makes me look like a great photographer! Check out the ShaZam tutorial that Jessica Sprage did this week. I have been playing all weekend with this technique. Her are a few examples:

I had lots of fun extracting this photo from the background. It makes my project look very professional, yeah! This is a file folder that I will be doing as a class soon. Check in later for details.

stampin, too!

I added this to my post becuase.......Again, photo editing is wonderful. I just makes a great project even better, hehe!

I created this project for a class I have in a few weeks. Hope everyone loves it as much as I do. I have been working for the last 7 months and doing nothing fun :( It's great to be back in the zone!

Digi scrapin again with Sprague!

WOW! I have learned so much in the last two weeks. I have played around with digital scrapping for about a year. All self taught...until now! I learned tons of cool shortcuts for Photoshop Elements it makes things so much quicker!

Here are a few layouts I have done this week!

Dare # 25

This was a great dare! I have a difficult time with journaling and this is helping me scrap things that I would never have thought about. I think the kids (and grand kids) will love reading things about their family, too. I always scrap about them but I need to remember that I can leave them memories of things they never knew! Someday I may be brave enough to have my AWFUL handwriting made into a font. I know I enjoy seeing things my grandmother has written. So I can rest assured they won't care if it looks bad, right?

Kids gone Crazy!!!

The kids have been home all week. I love to have them at home, but they have gone stir crazy. They just left to go to Nana's for the weekend. So blogging I will go ;)

Yesterday, I placed a post on splitcoast of a 12x12 page I created for my last club. The ribbon butterfly is soo cute and reminds me that spring is on the way. I added the tutorial for the butterfly on my SU! unit blog , go check em out!

Thanks for looking!

Added favorite sites

Yesterday, I was surfing and found these fabulous sites!!! I had to share them with you. I have added a link on my side bar

If you are like me, I need a little help in the layout department. Scraplifting is an amazing thing and it's even better when I can add my own twist. Sketch lover compiles all of the great layout sites in one! I was on it waaaay to long yesterday;) but I got some great ideas.

The next site is tooo cool. The SU! color wheel is a must but don't have it with me while I am digiscraping. I found this tool very helpful and I hope you do, too. Scraptitude has made a site for SU! color combos. You simply pick the SU! color you want to use then click search and it gives you a huge amount of color choices. Plus, I love that I can pull it up and compare it to the papers I have then *tweak* them if I need to. Our SU! colors rock and I think that is what I miss the most when I am digiscraping.

Ok, here's a page...

Christmas Gifts

I know it's way past Christmas but these are a few things I made for my family members this year. The frame was $1 at Michales, the plate was $.88 at Target and the Napkins were $1 at Target.

Every year I make these frame *ornaments* with pictures of the kids, so they can hang memories on their tree! They love them. My mom's has a magnet on the back so once Christmas is over she hangs it on the fridge.
* Peaceful Wishes Stamp Set stamped with Craft Chocolate Chip, Always Artichoke, and Ruby Red ink.

I stamped with the same things on the napkins. Wash and Dry them first, then heat set them in the dryer after you stamp on them so they can be washed later :)

The plate is glass etched. This is time consuming and hard to get streak free, for those of you who are perfectionist. But with *cookies* on it it looks great! ROFL!!
You can find glass etching tutorial on Splitcoast by Colleen Kidder.

Superstar

Last night I worked on color effects. This page is not my *style* but the boys loved it, so I guess it works! The transparency style of the main picture was fun. I would like to do another one with a full picture as the background paper. Thanks for looking!

The first prints are here

now I just have to figure out which I want to use. I think it is so funny how a grown woman can jump up and down over a package! They look great but I don't see a huge difference. The mate is of course less *shiny* but the quality is all the same. The prices range from $1.50 mate to $2.00 on glossy cardstock. What to do? A friend of mine said that she had problems with her glossy home printed digital pictures sticking to the page protectors. I am wondering if the mate will be better for that reason.

I'll post latter with what I decide to do!

Dare #24, and my first download!

Finally, four weeks of playing around and I think I am getting the hang of this. Today I taught myself how to make *circles* they are way fun. I just had to figure it out, since I had this vision in my head thanks to digi dare (checkout the link below). I am using Microsoft Picture It! and tutorials *hard* to find. If your thinking the shadows look funny that's because they are highlights. Hopefully I can get an upgrade to add drop shadows. If you know of somewhere let me know, please!

The layout idea was inspired by Digi-Dare Ya!. Every week they add a new dare to keep us scrapin'. I am so glad I took the challenge. Come on, join in...it was fun!

Thanks for looking, please let me know what you think!