Ellie's Trip to South Africa - The Photoalbum

As you can see here, I have created a photoalbum in Shutterfly. I love their stuff.

For Ellie, it was a photo-safari. For Mark and Kohlton, it was a traditional hunting safari. There are a few photographs of the animals they shot. They are not very graphic, but you may want to opt out of looking at the book if such things bother you. I hope you enjoy it.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Visit Shutterfly.com to create your own personalized photobook.

The Quiet Beauty of Winter

The beauty of this month always takes me by me by surprise. I don't know why. This is the first scrapbook page that I have created for our 2012 family album.

Bats, and Cats and Skeletons, ... Oh My! Halloween is Coming!

It's almost here. Halloween is just a bit away. I love the decorations, the silliness, the fun of it all. This year it started for me when the House of Threefolks posted these zipper pull charms on their blog on September 1st. . I just had to check it out. And of course, I decided I needed to have the dingbat set.

Then I was smitten with the brushes. I had to have them, too.
I can't wait to use them! (I love how affordable and mess free digital scrapbooking is!The images above were borrowed from the House of Three store front and the ">company blog. The links are offered above.)

Then I started looking for Halloween magazines at the store. I love to put all of my back issues from Halloween out each October. I found out about Kirsten Beason from the Cloth, Paper and Scissors magazine. Then I found her blog and got to see much more of her art. I loved the skeleton on the cover of the magazine and the dogs in the picture with the pumpkin.

I love the skeleton on the magazine so much that he might need to make an appearance on a quilt I may make. That leads me to think about Jane Sassaman and her great quilts.

Which made me think about making a lap quilt for our couch. I found a fun pattern on the Moda Fabric webiste. It was designed for Christmas, but I think I could do something fun with the idea for Halloween. I already had some fun fabric ticked away:
I also have some of this:
And then I found this fun idea on the Bad Baby Quilts site through Etsy:



And this awesome print in Smooshy's Etsy shop:

Okay, I could keep going, but I think I should move along and do something not computer related. Maybe I will design that quilt I've been writing about. I was thinking about visiting the mall to see the displays. They might not actually be ready yet. Even Target did not have all of their stuff up yet. I think it will have to wait a while.

Have you found any fun Halloween stuff that I might enjoy seeing?\

Jumping into Digital Scrapbooking - Sites I love

If you've followed my blog lately you know that I am diving into the world of digital scrapbooking. At first it was totally overwhelming. I did not know how to go about finding the art stuff that fits my style. Many of the sites I found at first were either too cute or too country for my taste. I have since stumbled upon some great sites. I decided I would start out slow and get to know a company or two really well. I found those sites by looking at digital scrapbooking galleries. The first source were pages I liked in the Shutterfly.com galleries. If you click on the photos you usually get more information. I found that two companies kept showing up.

Now I am a devoted follower and purchaser from DesignerDigitals.com. I love a lot of the stuff they sell. They have wonderful galleries and amazing sales. On Sunday through Monday they feature two items for $.25 each. On Thursdays a bunch of stuff is 30% off. I've even found some that was down to $.99. They also have several inspiring challenges each week. Each challenge comes with a freebie. I love to see what people post in the galleries.

Another one I love is Tracy Anne Digial Art and the TADA Blog. They also have wonderful galleries and freebies.

Other recent finds that I will explore in more depth include Creashen's Blog, Natali Design, CatScrap, Studio Girls and Two Little Pixies. I found these by following links on various blogs related to digital scrapbooking.

I also love some of the blogs for the designers. Creashen's blog is on. I really appreciate the clean lines and lovely color found on Ali Edward's blog. Anna Aspnes has wonderful tutorials on her digital scrapbooking site, too. {We Are} Storytellers is also a fun site. I have only explored it a small bit. If you want tutorials, Jessica Sprague has some lovely ones for free, as well as a few freebie downloads. She also offers online courses.

Okay, this was actually a long list, not just the two companies I work mostly from. As I figure out more, I am sure the list will grown. Now I just have to figure out how to get it all organized on my computer. I am going to try something similar to how I organize my actual, tangible scrapbooking supplies and try to keep track of what company each thing is from so I can correctly label my gallery entries.