I’m still slaving away on my In-Law’s 45th anniversary video! I just finished a slide of them in Oahu in 1968. I saw this digital brush (”stamp”) by Rhonna Farrar called “Vintage Valentine Cupid” and thought, oh I can make those flourishes look like waves!

We went to Hawaii last year for the first time and my husband keeps saying he wants to go back. I’m thrilled because when we married he was a “mountain vacation” type and I was a “beach vacation” type. I now have him hooked on swimming in the tropics! I have not scrapped our trip yet but I did make a Tabblo.

Hawaii is just so romantic, I think this layout captured the mood. The “Unbelievable” caption,”Parisian Flaire”, and the “Swirled Frame” are also by Rhonna Farrar. All available at Two Peas.

I made the layout in Photoshop CS3, but Photoshop Elements would work the same.

1. Place digital “paper” on bottom
2. Open your picture, copy it, then paste it on a new layer on top of the paper
3. With your “brush” ABR file dropped in Photoshop’s “brushes” folder you should be able to see and select the brush. The instructions I followed for installation are on the Two Peas site. Set your opacity to about 50% and “click”, without moving your mouse, as many times as it takes to get the look you want. If it is too big/small use the slider in the brush toolbox to size it downward (left) or bigger (right.)
4. Create a new layer underneath your stamp and use soft round brushes of various sizes to add a color wash under your image. I colored the wings and cloud white. The “towel” color is borrowed from a dark shade on my digital paper. And the waves are blue.
5. Stamp your frame on a new layer over your picture and your stamp.
6. Stamp your caption on a new layer, clicking till it reaches desired opacity. If it does not quite show up, don’t worry, we can make it pop! Add a new layer under your caption stamp and with the eyedropper tool select a dark shade from your paper background. Then with a large soft brush “click, click, click” all around to make the detail in your word art pop.

Posted: August 8th, 2008 under digital.
Comments: 1

My In-Law’s anniversary party is just around the corner. My husband asked me to make a video of their pictures. I recently bought Premiere Elements so I said I’d give it a try.

It has been a long project, and has kept me from working on my blog. So, I decided to give you a sneak preview.

• First I scanned and retouched about 100 pictures.
• Then I purchased a lot of digital graphics from the Two Peas site, mostly Rhonna Farrar.
• I’m in the process of designing each “slide” in Photoshop (I have CS3.)
• Then I import the graphics, minus the text into Adobe Premiere Elements. This is where it gets challenging! I’ve never used the software and have done very little with video. But, I always learn well under a deadline!

Photobucket would not let me upload it with the soundtrack (Legends of the Fall.) This sneak peak is all I have done so far, but I still have about ten days before the party. Hopefully it will start going faster. I need to confirm that everything is set up to play OK on a TV, then I can crank it out! If my readers seem interested then I’ll post it again when I’m finished.

Posted: August 6th, 2008 under video.
Comments: 2

I’ve been adding blog related information to my original “Blog-Ed” post, but I found a site today that just needed to be highlighted on its own. Shabby Miss Jen Designs has the coolest shabby-chic blog kits!

Each kit includes all the graphics you need to make your blog stand out in the crowd. For example: a banner, banner for a photo, 2 background images, picture frame, border divider, journal mat, tab buttons with text and blank tab buttons.

And, they have a video tutorial for editing the graphics in Photoshop and installing them in Blogger. Check it out!

Posted: August 5th, 2008 under blog.
Comments: 2

The last time I did anything for the soldiers was embarrasingly way back in 2004. I raised money to buy soccer equipment for some Iraqi school children. A then co-worker of mine was stationed there and when I pitched him the idea he knew just who to call. We even had press coverage!

I decided it was time I step up to the plate again. This time I’m not spearheading it, I’m just contributing handmade cards to a project on the Cricut messageboard. They are trying to get to 100,000 cards for the year and only have about 7,000 to go. When is the last time you did something for the soldiers? You can contact me to find out how to join in!

I wanted something I could do in an assembly line fashion, so I bought some adorable family character stamps, they will star on every card design.  I chose the new Debbie Mumm glitter mat stack, which is just as cute as the new DCWV fall glitter stack. First I cut a solid sheet of cardstock 8.5 x 11 (DCWV Heritage) in half. Then I trimmed the top off of a patterned sheet from the mat stack and about an inch off the side, setting that piece aside for use on another card. This first card has a standard 5 1/4 x 2 5/8 tag with the end slightly trimmed to fit. I sprayed it with Tim Holtz’s Butterscotch Color Wash then stamped the starring characters with opaque carnelian (orange) embossing powder. The Prima flowers have “skittles” in the center. All of the ribbon is from Joanne’s and this edge was done with Tim Holtz’s Vintage Photo distress ink.

You’ll have to excuse the girls on the purple bat card, I smeared lavendar Perfect Pearls on the tag before embossing the gals in midnight black, and it was evidently not dry enough! I’ll do that part the night before next time around. But, you still get the idea, isn’t it cute!  This time the tag was cut and embossed with a Nestabilities long rectangle and the edges are accented with a Colorbox hot pink cat eye. The background was distressed with black soot ink.

I think my favorite is the football card, I used the amazing Inkessentials pen to make a sparkly smile! The tag is cardstock, cut and embossed with round Nestabilities, distressed with Vintage Photo and accented with a Martha Stewart brown pen. The image was colored with my Bic markers as I’m patiently waiting for the Copics we ordered at CHA.

I’ll be posting more designs, I have 6 weeks to get 15 done…but I hope to do at least 30 by then.

Posted: August 1st, 2008 under cards.
Comments: 3

My brother-in-law has a beautiful (and huge) white dog that is half wolf and half Alaskan Husky, he dwarfs his German Shepherd work dog! I really struggled coming up with a manly birthday card, it is just so much easier to make girly cards, isn’t it?! I wanted to use the Adirondack Paint Dabbers that I got from Tim Holtz’s class. I started with the Basic Grey blue/green circles paper as my inspiration and decided Eric would like an outdoorsy theme.

While at CHA I was drawn to all of the designs using butcher block paper, so I used that as my base and mimicked the circles by blotting my Hero Arts “watercolor  circle” stamp with the Adirondack “Aqua” paint dabber and “Lettuce” Earthtones dye ink.

Next I picked up on the vertical lines in the Basic Grey print by embossing a velum rectangle with the new Cuttlebug forest branches folder.  And stamped one side of my background with the Tim Holtz catails stamp in copper embossing powder.

The dog is from Cricut’s Paper Pups cartridge and the happy birthday, grill and beer bucket stamps are all from Studio G. They look great in the copper embossing powder on the velum. The finishing touch was the dog’s collar which I colored with the Versamark pen before embossing and his party hat, also Studio G from the recent January pack.

All of the pieces were distressed first with Tim Holtz’s Vintage Photo distress ink and followed up with Black Soot on the very edges.

The card itself is made from the new “Heritage” fall colored 8.5 x 11 DCWV card stock. I am really looking forward to giving this to Eric and hope he does not see it on my blog first!

Posted: August 1st, 2008 under cards.
Comments: 2

I’m fairly new to card-making, I started doing it when I bought my Cricut last fall. I actually used to use Prismacolors to make cards for people in college, but that was way long ago!

I think sometimes us newbies have some “ah-has” that might seem a little “duh” as time goes on. And they are easy to forget, so I thought I’d capture one here. This is one of the very first cards I made with my Cricut machine. It was for my niece who stayed in college so many years we stopped counting. Ha, just kidding you Emily! She was a music major, which explains it to those of you who know.

Most of the time I make a card and deliver it within a day or two. This card sat on a shelf for a few months before Emily ever received it, and that turned out to be the key to my lesson learned. I bought my Xyron for scrapbooking, and rarely worked with cardstock, or even very heavy paper. I used “re-positionable” adhesive because I’m always needing to adjust and tweak.

After a few days the petals of the flower started pulling away. I’d press them back down, but eventually the whole thing fell off. I don’t think I’m alone in my ignorance, this spring I received an invitation in the mail, I could tell it must have been pretty when mailed, but I just saw it in pieces! I’m sure like me, the maker of that card had no idea it would fall apart!

So, my apologies to all the people I’ve made cards for that arrived in pieces! I now know how to adhere cardstock and ribbon! If you bring the card back to me I’ll repair it!

I’m still experimenting with adhesives and have a couple of others that show promise. But for now, my recommendation is either Terrifically Tacky Tape or permanent Xyron adhesive!

Posted: July 28th, 2008 under Product Reviews, cards.
Comments: 1

OK, so I said I was going to video tape my darling daughters 2 and 5 doing the drawing for me. We did video tape the whole thing. BUT it would be SOOO boring if you all had to watch it! They were running around, trying to see themselves on the camera, I kept telling them they couldn’t see themselves if they were looking at the camera. They were a big help though and we got it done. I have the tape for the record!

Here are the winners of the daily drawings, congratulations to all of you!!!!!

1.  July 18th, Jennie (jcscraphapy from cricut mb). You won from your post at 12:51 PM in the Daily CHA Blog Drawing post!
2. July 19th, Kristen. (Your initials from your email are KDB @ yahoo.I won’t type your whole email here.)  It was your post on July 19th at 11:43 pm in the Hello Kitty Make and Take post that won.
3. July 20, Brandi (prettyinprima.blogspot.com). You won with your 9:36 AM post in the Provo Craft/Cricut Booth was Prize Central comment.
4. July 21, Mary Jean (maryjeansgoldenmemories.blogspot.com). You won for your comment at 11:37 pm in the Nestabilities post.
5. July 22, Rachel (b&wsmommy). You won for your 7:54 PM post in the Copic was at CHA post.
6. July 23, Debbie (Scrappydoo2 from Cricut). You won for your 3:08 pm comment in the Hello Kitty Make and Take post. (BTW, I didn’t know Tim Holtz was in the background of any of my tradeshow pics, I’m going to go look!)
7. July 24, Nancybeth (a Canadian who must love sewing based on her email address). You won for your 11:22 PM comment in the Nestabilities post.

Daily prize details are as follows…

Each day’s prize has approximately a $20 retail value! The color or style of the item will vary slightly from day to day. But each package has:

1. Prima Sweet and Sassy Jar: cute multi-color/pattern flowers
2. WeR Memory Keepers Designer Eyelets & Snaps: baby girl, baby boy or travel
3. Studio G Series 14 “scrapbook” stamps
4. Prima Flowers: bra, panties, purse or large  flowers w/ chipboard center
5. Jumbo brads
6. Basic Grey rub-on accents

AND THE GRAND PRIZE WINNER OF THE CRICUT STORYBOOK CARTRIDGE IS….

• Dailyscrapper (abusyplace.blogspot.com). Congratulations for winning with your July 21 comment at 2:30 PM in the Cricut Embossing Folders review post!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks so much to everyone for following my CHA show posts day by day, and for all of the active participation in the fun blog candy promotional blitz! I will email each of the winners to get your snail mail addresses and get your prizes in the mail ASAP!

 Holly

Posted: July 25th, 2008 under cha.
Comments: 10

Well, I could go on and on. I have a ton of pictures of adorable layouts. I really loved the “Together” collection from Chatterbox. They were displaying these rich monochromatic color stacks in chocolate, pink, red, blue, green, and white. My very most favorite layout of the entire show was in the Chatterbox booth. It is a romantic wedding layout, featuring their white stack, I wish I knew the name, it isn’t easily found on their website and it isn’t in the catalog I have.

I also adore the new swiss dots solid card-stock from Bazzill and all five of the new Basic Grey collections. I’d have to give KI Memories and Chatterbox a tie for my favorite layouts of the show. And May Arts had the most FABULOUS ribbons by a long-shot. I’ll caveat that we didn’t cover the whole floor.

For those of you that get to attend next time…if covering the whole floor is important to you I’d advise that you only enroll in classes on Thursday. And, try to avoid the make and takes until you have seen everything you want to see, they can get addictive and the lines can get long! But they sure are fun!

I’ve been to the Consumer Electronics show in Vegas, one of the largest in the country, this was a fraction of the size and I still didn’t cover the trade show floor! My problem was I’m interested in EVERYTHING at CHA and only in 1 in 10 or so booths at CEA, NAB or CTAM.

Thanks to everyone who followed my CHA coverage and participated in comments! I’ll post the winners tomorrow…maybe quite late.

Posted: July 25th, 2008 under cha.
Comments: 18

Every once in a while if I’m working on something while the girls are coloring they’ll ask me to stamp them something to color. I found the cutest stamps I’d like to get. I’d be interested to know if any of the teachers out there have seen these? I’m not in the education field so I don’t know if these are kind of unique or old hat?

They are finger puppet stamps by Center Enterprises. You can stamp them then let the kids color them. And, you can’t see the “holes” very well here but there are circles that you cut out for their fingers. There are 14 sets with 56 characters in all. Many are nursery rhymes, but there are community helpers and Christian sets as well.

I have not been able to find links for the finger puppets, but I did find several of their products. The first link is for these great 6″ stamp pads, perfect for the kiddos. I tried to take a picture of these at the show and they stopped me! There are also several “lifecycle” stamps that would be perfect for an elementary student’s science project.

Posted: July 24th, 2008 under cha.
Comments: 15

If anyone is a Facebook user and has the “My Family” module displayed on their profile then Me and My Peeps will look familiar. Except their illustrations are in color and adorable. They have a moderate selection of characters. A toolbelt wouldn’t have been my first choice for my dh, but the other options were wearing a tie, definitely not him! He is more of a Levis and polo shirt guy. I thought the kiddo characters were very cute, and since they didn’t have a scrapbook mommy the shopping mommy is perfect….especially considering how much I spent at CHA!

The iron-ons were so easy, I looked for some other iron-ons. I love the rhinestone ones, which I tried at another make and take, and these baby ones would be so cute on a onesie!

Posted: July 24th, 2008 under cha.
Comments: 15