Now that our 2009 Family Album is finished and printed (thanks Apple!!) I can get to work on our 2010 photos and scrapbook. I have been sorting through photos as I resolve to be better at weeding them out. I tend to keep EVERY photo - and find it very difficult to just toss a blurry shot. However, my computer hard-drive is filling up — as is my external - and it’s time to sort through my pictures. I randomly chose the June 2010 file yesterday, and while sorting decided to share the pictures of Sasha’s 11th birthday.

I had stopped at the pet-store on my way home as I wanted to bring her a little gift. The Pet Planet owners in Cranston are sooooo sweet and helpful — she asked if I had ever tried their doggie birthday cakes.  I guess I look like the kind of person who would buy their dog a birthday cake. What’s a gal to do? I bought my collie a cake! 

It says “Two teeny weeny layers of our Liver Brownie iced with our own chicken liver pate and toped with a piece of our Treasured Boggle”. 

Sasha shared her cake with Brandi and Cooper, even though the box was only about 6″ square. It seemed like a lot of richness for one dog. As you can see, they all LOVED it.  And yes, Sasha got the ‘Treasured Boggle’, whatever THAT was. I know I certainly didn’t smell it.

And here she is … the Birthday Girl. With a very full tummy.

Here is the layout I finished for our 2010 Family Album:

Templatae by Kristins Scrap Design at Pickelberry Pop, Kit by Verena Designs at Scrapbook Bytes. Font - CK Print and another one for the title, but I don’t remember what it was.

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Since I’m thinking about the August tag I’ll be sending to Sue, I thought I’d better share the June one. I thought I had already posted it, but this morning I see that I just got the photos sized and ready.  The first of each month, Sue and I pop something in the mail to each other (we live in the same province, but not the same city). I was inspired by Tim Holtz’ ‘12 Tags of Christmas’ so decided to do the ‘12 Tags of 2010′ for her this year.

For the June one, I was ready for some DIGITAL creating … so used a bunch of things from Dee Bee Designs at E-scapeandscrap.net** for the tag. I sized it at 6-1/2″ long and 3-1/4″ wide, and printed it out on Kirkland Professional Glossy Inkjet Photo Paper from Costco. Love this stuff. All the digital shadows, stitching etc were added before printing, and this is what it looked like:

**E-scapeandscrap has been having a terrible time with their host and server. It’s been a mess - and my heart goes out to Julie (site owner) and her designers & creative team. This is completely out of their hands — and I hope everything is resolved quickly. Shame on bad hosts … shame shame shame.

This is the finished ’set’ - as I usually make an envelope for the tag to fit into. You can see it was cut into a tag shape (something I took into account when I was designing it on the computer) and matted with pink card stock.

Finally, a detail shot. Oh, don’t I enjoy using pretty fibres. 

Happy Friday - thanks for stopping by!

Time for another digital scrapbook layout, showing some miscellaneous pictures from August 2009. I love the linear look when I scrapbook, and I almost NEVER just put one picture on a page. I take too many pictures  for that kind of scrapping!

Credits:  Backgrounds and elements from the digital kit “Lyrical Romance” @ www.e-scapeandscrap.net. Atomic Cupcake provided the actions.

I did it - I finished off the York Mint Patty candies for our Christmas Craft Sale!  Next I think I will work on the gift card holders — I have several of them started, but none finished.  I’d like to get them off my counter. I hope they will be my biggest seller as I plan to make quite a few. Especially since I will be able to use what doesn’t sell, for my own gift-giving this Christmas!

OK - busy day today so off I go. Thanks for stopping by.

This was one of the cards that went into my friends large card order. She is a Realtor, so likes some ‘house themed’ cards. The decorated panel is completely digital … I created the house using various shapes so it can be changed out to just about any colour or pattern and for this one I used my own digital papers.

I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder right on the turquoise card (and envelope)  and the card was lined with  slightly smaller folded white card stock. That gave her a bright place to write, made the card more ‘weighty’, and hid the embossing on the top inside.

Yesterday was a productive day as far as the Christmas Craft Sale went — I had pre-printed and punched a bunch of circles/scallops and they were all ready to be attached to York Mint Patties. Yesterday I got that all done, AND the candy in their plastic sleeves!! I want to use the Cricut to create a header, however have cut several shapes that I am not pleased with. That will be the next challenge, but I’d sure love to get those finished in the next couple of days so I can move onto the next un-finished craft sale project. Nothing like putting on a Christmas Craft Sale to keep you in the Christmas spirit all year long. 

We are off to a Stampede Breakfast this morning - I LOVE Stampede!!!

Thanks for stopping by today.

 I have another layout to share today … I’m just going tickety-boo on our 2009 album! Only December left to do and I can send it off to Apple. I LOVE having those hard cover photo books to show/share/enjoy.  I have a 3-1/2 year old iMac, so my iLife is the one that came with it. I didn’t upgrade to the newer version when it was released, although I see they have some great new book sizes on it. Eventually I will need a new computer, and of course it will be a Mac, and it will come with the latest iLife. Until then — 11 x 8-1/2″ is the size of our printed photo books.

I create each layout (page) as an 11x 8-1/2″ layered Photoshop file, and when I’m finished with it I save it as a .jpg. Same format as most digital photos. Then I simply drag the page from my folder into iBook, and select the ‘one photo template’ for that page. Drag the now-one-large-layout/photo where I want it to be in the book and … that page is done.

Credits:  This template is adapted from one by Katie Pertiet @ Designer Digitals.  (I got it from my Mom in my Christmas stocking last year!).  Background and string tie by Manuella Zimmerman.  Font - CK Journalling.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Time to post another layout from 2009! I have to admit I haven’t done very well working on that album the past week or so.  I’ve been BUSY sorting through the 900+ wedding photos!  I finally did it - got it whittled down to under 170. Last night at 9:30 I hit SEND on the iPhoto photo books I’ve ordered for our side of the family. WOO HOO! First thing this morning I was up and looking at it again on my computer. 

Eventually I’d like to do a fitting scrapbook of the wedding, but if I wait for that to have an album to show people … well … let’s just say THANK GOODNESS for iPHOTO!!

My Mom’s birthday is the day after my Dads, so this page follows his in our 2009 Family Scrapbook…

Credits:  I used both “Lyrical Romance” and “Time in a Bottle” digital scrapbooking kits from E-scapeandscrap. Flower from the “Waltzing Snowflakes” kit, and the alpha for “Grammy’s” is from “Lyrical Romance”. Fonts are CK Journalling and VIP.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Time for a scrapbook page … still working on our 2009 album, but at least it’s coming along! This is a layout that will be on the right hand side in our book, and has random pictures from that month. Pictures I didn’t need to build a whole layout around, but still wanted to include in our album.

Credits:  Background papers and elements “A Spa Refresher” by Julie Mead at E-scapeandscrap.net. “2007 Year In Review” template by Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals.com

It was a gorgeous day in the mountains yesterday, and today looks to be even better! We have had company again this weekend, so it’s wonderful to get lots of ‘deck time’ in.  

Thanks for stopping by today!

I was very happy to find the new “Go To Sketches” magazine, and Jessica Witty’s sketch on page 133 appealed to me immediately. When I shared the magazine with “D”, that was the one that she wanted to start with too!

So.  I decided to try and do a digital version, which of course was all kinds of trouble because Photoshop kept crashing on me. I finally got the program reinstalled and got the digital card done. Well it printed crooked, so I had to trim the fronts into panels and mount them onto the card base. Did I trim them properly? Nope - upside down.  So this is my first VERSION of her sketch:

I tried printing again and this one worked … but I realized that with the margins for the printer I couldn’t get the circles as close to the bottom edge as I would like. More trimming and mounting …

I like the cards and will make them again for sure. In fact, here is a tease of the next ones I started on …

I thought I’d like the more subtle colours in the top cards — and while they are OK — I much prefer the more saturated ones in the bottom teaser picture.  It’s a FUN sketch, that’s for sure!

Credits:  Stamps - Hero Arts; Digital backgrounds - my own (Our Dad digital scrapbooking kit, now retired); Tan cardstock - DCWV ‘Linen Closet’; Christmas digital backgrounds - by NMartin; Christmas Word-art - Ali Edwards (both @ Designer Digitals)

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This is the right hand side to the 2009 Father’s Day layout I posted last month.

I love those (digital) crumpled frame clusters from Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals. My Mom gives me a set in my Christmas stocking each year … sometimes even more than one set!  Background papers by Jen Wilson.

My friends are coming over to scrapbook and make cards today (we do this every week) … they will be surprised by how tidy the studio counters are after my weekend devotion to get that job done.  I still want to work on the piles on the floor, but for now — the working areas are cleared off. Just makes you want to haul out some papers and get creating!

Thanks for stopping by — Happy June!

Before I get to today’s post, I wanted to update you about my issue with one of the cut files from My Scrap Chick.  Yesterday I posted how disappointed and frustrated I was when the cake box didn’t cut so that the lid fit the base. Well I decided that it wasn’t fair to publicly rant without also contacting My Scrap Chick with my issue

They emailed me back the same day, very sorry that I had had a problem. They had gone in and fixed the file for future customers, sent me a new version via an attachment, and thanked me for letting them know there even was a problem. Which I thought was very good of them. I do understand that sometimes ‘things happen’. It is sure nice when a company will stand by their customers, willing to fix an issue and apologize for the problem.

Now I can’t wait to get home to my Cricut and try out the replacement cut file!

Onto today’s post … I am picking away at our 2009 and 2010 Family Albums.  Here is our Father’s Day 2009 page.

Nothing fancy, but — I did leave lots of ‘white’ space.  Sooooo out of my comfort zone. 

Credits:  The template was adapted from a 12×12″ template by Pattie Knox (Speed Byte #73).  Backgrounds by Jen Wilson. Font - GE Centurion.

Thanks for stopping by today!