Digital scrapbooking even faster!

Close To My Heart has introduced Express Collections that make digital scrapbooking with Studio J even faster! Express Collections are groups of layouts that are designed for you. Examples include "A Year in Review", "Travel", "School Days," Little Miss", "Little Man" and more.

I have been loving these new layouts - I used the Travel collection and within a couple of hours scrapbooked 8 layouts from two of our cross-country trips! I can't do that with classic scrapbooking. Drop in the pictures, edit the titles, add journaling and I was done.

Check out this video to see how Express Collections work:

CTMH Stamping Inspiration Video

The new Autumn/Winter Idea Book is here and with it some great new kits and stamps! Drop me a line if you would like to receive a hard copy of the Catalogue and Idea Book. Check out this 2 minute video to see some great artwork using some new Workshop on the Go stamp sets.

Scrapbook layout – Sweet Little One and Computer Journaling Tip

Another layout about Jeremy's determination and mechanical interests! I used retired  Zippidee paper from CTMH (still available through Studio J though!), rub-ons from Making Memories, and chipboard stars from a variety of companies. I stamped the stitching lines around the journaling block and the strips of patterned paper with a retired stamp set “All Stitched Up.”

Do you like computer journaling but hate using a new piece of 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper every time you do?

Here are my steps to my favourite way to add computer journaling to my layouts:

1)Cut the journaling piece the size you want

2) Make a text box in your word processing program the same size as your journaling piece

3) Type your journaling and size to fit the box

4) Print out your journaling on computer paper or scrap paper

5) Adhere your journaling piece on top of the box on the computer paper with removable adhesive

6) Put your paper back into the printer so it will print right on top of your journaling piece

7) Remove the lines on your text box in your word processing program

8) Print again

Voila! You have your jouraling right on your journaling piece without having to cut up an entire piece of 8 1/2 x 11 piece of cardstock!

Scrapbook layout – First Steps

It was fun to remember when Jeremy was first learning to walk. Although, he didn't really want to walk – he wanted to run! Right from the beginning he has been an intense boy who wants to do more than he is capable of and keep up with Nathan and Noelle.

I used Typeset paper and the coordinating canvas stickease. I was even able to write my journaling on the canvas journaling sticker with a black pen.

I love the look and feel of CTMH's new canvas stickers – it is easy to see the texture yet they add very little bulk to my pages – a new goal of mine as I am trying to put one whole year of layouts into one album. After three albums for 2008 I decided I needed to take action or we'd be swimming in scrapbooks by the time the kids graduated! Digital pages, less bulky pages and trying to not scrapbook all the events of the year have been my strategies to have fewer albums.

All supplies are Close To My Heart other than the “First steps” rub-on title and footprints.

Work in Progess Monday - ScrapScene

Scrapbook layout - Christmas 2009 digital layouts

 I loved the pre-set stitched circles on this layout and then I had fun adding brads onto the scallop border and layering stickers. Done!

  This layout came together quickly since after I added the pictures all I needed to do was play with the title and journaling space.

I love being able to add titles on top of embellishments like ribbon! A simple layout that took little time with the pre-set layout and embellishments. I did change the title box and journaling box to picture wells so I could include more pictures.

I had fun adding the stitched stars and then filling one of them with buttons! The stocking banner was made with the stitched pennant banner, covering the pennants with green journaling blocks and placing the stocking stickease over top. A little finicky but I love how it turned out.

Check out Studio J if you are interested in easily creating digital layouts like these! There is no cost to use Studio J - you only pay when you order your layouts!

Birthday Wishes layout

These pictures are from Jeremy's 1st birthday and I had so many pictures that I wanted to include that I used a 8 x 12 flip flap to fit them all in! All supplies are CTMH and while the paper is retired you can always make layouts with it on Studio J!

School Folio Scrapbooked!

A few years ago I created a School Folio for Nathan using Jeanette Lynton's idea and then taught some classes on it. Well, now that Noelle is in school I let her pick what paper she liked (CTMH's Sophia paper pack) and created an album for her!

 Title page

I use True Fit Folios as the base pages so at the end of each year she can sort through her papers, artwork and awards for the year and keep the best of them in the folder.

Here are a sample of some of the other pages in the album. The great thing is that I make up the entire album now and all we need to do is add pictures, fill out the information and fill the file folder every year!

Need Cricut tips?

If you don't even know what a Cricut is, then don't worry about this post but if you have a Cricut and would love to get some more great ideas for using it, then check out Jeanette Lynton's blog this month! Jeanette is posting one idea every day using the new Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge available through Close To My Heart. Here is a one layout that Jeanette has shared:

Scrapbook layout: Liquid Applique

I made this page for my Artists at Heart team training in June to showcase three different ways to use Liquid Applique! I wish you could feel the blue quarter circle - it has an amazing suede feel. We mixed blue re-inker with liquid applique and brayered it over the circle. After heating it right away you get the faux suede feel!

Also the two stars were stamped with liquid applique mixed with Sunny Yellow re-inker. When you stamp with liquid applique, mix the re-inker with it and then ink your stamp up with the mixture. It is best to use a stamp without too much fine detail. Heat it right away and you get a textured image! We stamped on White Daisy cardstock and cut out the images.

In the top right corner I used straight liquid applique and left it over night before heating it with an embossing heat gun to show how puffy it gets when left a long time to dry.

I used this page as the title page for my 2009 album - which is almost done thanks to Studio J! Let me know what you think. Any other ideas for using liquid applique?

Toronto CTMH Regional Celebration - "It's A Beautiful Day" layout

Here is the last layout we made: We used the new Kraft borders on this layout. First we sponged them cocoa (you can ink them any dark colour or use the back white side to make them any lighter colour you want!). They are self-adhesive which is great. We cut a couple of them in half lengthwise as well as cutting circles out of another one to use an embellishments. We also stamped stars on the back of our layout pages, cut out the star shape with a cutting knife and then attached the yellow patterned paper behind. I love this look because it gives the look of dimension without adding bulk!

It was great to get two layouts made – all I had to finish at home was the title and journaling!

Toronto CTMH Regional Celebration - LOVE layout

Here is the layout we made on the second day at Regionals that used the spray pen!

I hadn't used my spray pen yet so I learned some great tips! We mixed 1 part Tulip re-inker to 3 parts water and sprayed the background pages inside of box which was great to keep the mess to a minimum. Then we spritzed the heart stamps with the spray pen and stamped them on white cardstock which gives a neat distressed look.
We also put a bit of Grey Flannel re-inker into a craft jar and then used a stipple brush to edge distress all the edges of the paper. I really loved the look of this! The key was to brush using an inward-pulling motion.
I also enjoyed using the new epoxy stickers - they've been on my wish list but I hadn't bought them yet so I was thrilled to receive a sheet of them and I have stickers left to use on future projects!

The pictures are of Daniel's youngest niece who just turned one. I can't wait to see how she has grown! 

Scrapbook layout - Jeremy's 1st birthday!

I made this layout using the Mayberry Workshop on the Go with Animal Cookies paper (now retired). It's fun to remember how cute Jeremy was when he was one year old and good times we had as a family!

Scrapbook layouts - Wings Workshop

I didn't know what I would use my Wings paper for but when I looked at these photos from my niece's baptism they fit perfectly! I don't often scrapbook with black but I think I should more! I used the Wings Workshop on the Go for this layout, just changing some of the paper choices and rotating the right page, so it came together quite quickly! Let me know what you think!

Scrapbook layouts - Christmas 2008

I finally finished my Christmas 2008 pages. I started these over a year ago for a workshop I taught with my scrapbook groups last year. I used a "20 pages from 1 paper pack" template designed by fellow CTMH consultant Melanie Gosse and created my twenty pages from one Jingle paper pack! I used my twenty pages for all my 2008 Christmas pictures (the whole month of December!) Here are four of the layouts:

 I had made the pages, put in the pictures but hadn't embellished or added titles or journaling yet! It was fun to spend time playing with embellishing. I dug out all my Christmas goodies and other embellishments that coordinated with this paper and got to work! Most of the embellishments are CTMH with a few other rub-ons, chipboard and stickers used!

If you want to scrapbook a lot of pages quickly and get the most out of a paper pack then a 20 page workshop is a great way to go! Let me know if you want more information or want me to email you a workshop that I have on file. :)

"Coal Mining" - Interactive Scrapbook layout

I wanted to scrapbook Daniel's year at the coal mine but I didn't know which pictures were most important to Daniel. So, I asked him to go through them and take out the unimportant ones. Well, after he removed two pictures there were still 14 left! I didn't want to scrapbook four pages but each picture reminded Daniel about different aspects of the job! So I pulled out my brand new Magic book, compiled three different interactive elements into one layout and had a great time learning new techniques! So how did I get 14 (basically) 4x6 pictures into one layout?

 First, by following the instructions in Magic I added a sliding picture element to turn a space for two 4x6 pictures into holding three 4 x 6 pictures! (See the picture above and below to see that as the button slides up and down a picture is alternately hidden and revealed).

 Second, with another technique in Magic I created a nine picture mini-album. It was actually quite easy to make and with no special supplies other than cardstock and adhesive!

 Thirdly, I added hidden journaling so that layout would have more white space on the page and have a cleaner feel. By using three hinges I was able to have a flip down title. I also tucked a coal mine brochure into a top pocket so we can pull it out and read it whenever we want.

The last part of the project was putting it in my page protectors! By using the tips in Magic I punched little holes on the ends of the slits I wanted to cut and cut slits with a craft knife. With the nine picture mini-book I actually cut an entire rectangle out of the page protector. Then when I slid my page in, I could pull the interactive elements through to the outside of the page.

I had fun planning and putting this page together. I'm looking forward to playing with more of the interactive ideas that are in Magic on future layouts!

Scrapbook layout - Hanging Out

Here are two more Studio J layouts that I made. I was only going to make one layout with these pictures but the nature of the pictures just worked better with two layouts. I love that about Studio J - it was so easy to create another layout with the same paper pack! I knew it would coordinate and it only took minutes because I already had a lot of the thought work done. Also, because digital pages take next to no space in my album, I don't worry about adding more pages to it!

Layout - Staying Cool

I just had to make a separate layout for these pictures of Jeremy getting completely soaked in a summer rain! I made these with Studio J so it was fast to pick "water" paper, add the pictures, pick the colour of my embellishments and then journal. I really zoomed in on the pictures (I took the pictures from the doorway of our house so I wouldn't get wet!) which meant that they were slightly blurry when they were printed but not as bad as I feared.

Scrapbook layout - Mud-dy!

This is one of the seven Studio J digital layouts I just received in the mail! I am scrapbooking most of 2009 digitally and I had fun with this one. My kids seem to love mixing dirt and water together!
I picked Backwoods as my paper choice, used a basic template Studio J provided, and then added the title, quote, and brackets (they were under "Stickease" and then I rotated and resized them to the size I wanted). One thing I love about digital scrapbooking is always being able to resize what I want - title, picture, embellishments!

Scrapbook layout - Holly

CTMH Paper: Cherry-O paper pack

CTMH Embellishments: Big Pinks flowers, Chocolate polka dot ribbon, Opaque Pearls, chocolate brads

Other: Making Memories rub-ons, unknown metal tags

I made time to scrapbook this week and finally scrapbooked my niece's birth from two years ago! I have to admit it was a fast page though because I used one of my Progressive Pages layouts from this summer. When I looked at Holly's baby pictures I knew that this layout would be perfect for them. When I ran my scrapbook classes in August (just before we moved!) we made Progressive Pages and I sat down with my group to play too!

If you have never heard of Progressive Pages, it is a fun scrapbooking game. You need a group of scrapbookers and everyone picks their own patterned paper and cardstock. Then everyone passes their selections to the left (or right!). That person then adheres one of the patterns to your pages anyway they like. The papers are passed again and another step is done (i.e. add photo mats, add title space, add journaling space, add embellishments etc.) Once your paper has gone around the group once (or twice depending on how many women there are) you have a completed layout just waiting for you to add your pictures! I have played the game with my scrapbook clubs once or twice a year for the last 3 years and everyone has a great time. It can be a little scary working on other pages but once you get in the groove it is a lot of fun. Oh, and I should mention there is a time limit on each step - just to keep everyone moving!

I picked Sweet Leaf green as the base cardstock and chocolate for my photo mats. I picked two patterned papers from the CTMH Cherry-O paper pack and my talented scrapbook club friends did the rest! I did add the Making Memories rub-on words, Opaque pearls and little metal tags myself but that was it.

If you are interested in the instructions I have for Progressive Pages let me know and I can email them to you. I put them together years ago from a short video off the Simple Scrapbooks website.

Scrapbook layout - What a fun day!

This is a digital layout from Studio J using "Tinkerin'" paper. I made three title boxes (I deleted the original title box which you can't edit and added new ones) -  and typed in two of them and added Stickease letters for the word "fun". I find it amazing how 3-D the ribbon can look; sometimes I add real ribbon or other embellishments to the pages after I get them but this one is completely digital.

The pictures are from August 2009 - I am finishing 2008 with classic scrapbooking but most of 2009 will be digital. I am hoping it will help me catch up as well as take advantage of the year membership I purchased (it gives me a deal on the layout price and shipping)!