Sunday, April 7, 2013

Weebly Wobbly

Just wanted to drop off a short little note to let you know that you should join me over at weebly! I have a website (that's slowly going to be perfected) and a blog over there, now. Everything under one roof. Yay!!

You can now find the Everyday Scrapbooker here! Enjoy!

Friday, April 5, 2013

Feedback Muchly Appreciated

Its come to my attention that some of my blog readers would prefer seeing a picture of the layout/project I am referring to when I share how I went about making them. Its a valid point, and one that's irked me since I ran out of storage here on my blog. I can buy more storage, so I can start posting pictures once again, but its a monthly payment. After discussing it with my husband, I decided to just leave it. Until now.

I want to (in the near future) start adding some more fun things to my page/blog, such as tutorials, guest bloggers, etc, and I would love/need to have the ability to post pictures.

So, I'm looking for your feedback and honesty. Is the way things are presented now sufficient to you, my loyal readers, or would something more graphic be more beneficial? I would love your feedback on this!

Thanks for your support and loyalty! I appreciate you all!

Oh--and in other news, I've been thinking of having a week long 'gossip blitz' (among other surprises still in the works). Tell as many of your friends about The Everyday Scrapbooker as you can, and encourage them to come on over and like my page. For every referral that becomes a new like, a prize will be sent to the person that made the referral, and to the person that liked my page. I'd really love to have more fans, and I think this would be a good way to start trying to build on my fan base.


Maybe?

This is a layout I need to re-create. I absolutely love it, but I feel like it needs more. It feels unfinished; too simple. And, I love the challenge of challenging myself to give it a go again! Ever feel that way about some of your projects? I do quite often, which is why I turn to sketches. But, I must be going through a sketch dry spell, because nothing is tickling my fancy. I've mentioned that a lot over the last couple of days. So, I'm venturing out on my own for a while. Maybe, just maybe, I'll turn my focus to cards for a bit, then come back to layouts. A change of scenery won't hurt!

Maren got a hold of the spray bottle, and commenced washing the floor for me. It was very sweet and helpful. I showed her a few spots on the floor that needed to be wiped up, and she set about cleaning them up. I love it when they take the initiative to help out. I wish it happened a little more frequently. I'm sure every mother wishes that!

What do you think of this layout? Where does your inspiration come from? Who or what inspires your layouts or projects? I'd love to hear!

What's Up Friday

Good afternoon! Wow, you'd think that Mother Nature would get her seasons right already!!? This blizzard weather stinks! Thankfully What's Up Friday doesn't stink. There's some great stuff to share!

Starting with another fabulous font download from Paper Crafts magazine! Every Friday, Paper Crafts brings back one of their most popular fonts for download- for free- but its only available for the week. That means, you can only download this particular font until next Friday, upon which a new one will be available! The font this week is pretty cute. Hurry and download yours today!

It's button mania today! I've got a couple button-related items to share with you, beginning with a button giveaway over at FaveCrafts. Head on over to their giveaway page and enter for your chance to win 1500 beautiful buttons. Its the perfect way to start off your button stash. You could use the buttons that you win to make projects like these- straight from the blog pages of Paper Crafts magazine- cute ice cream cone gift tags or beautiful Christmas tree cards, or, if you have a stamp in the shape of a jar, use the buttons to 'fill' up the jar! Or, use them to frame a picture. The list could go on and on! The possibilities are endless! What would you make with all those buttons?! I'd definitely try the Christmas tree card. Its stunning!! And, the jar filled with buttons? Adorable and ingenious! Now I need to find a jar stamp!!

And, since I'm on the topic of giveaways right now, how about an adorable western themed stamp set? The kit includes a few mini stamps (obviously), some bakers' twine, and washi tape (it looks like). This giveaway is only available for a short time, too, so get your entry in!

That's all I've got so far today. Now, its time to start packing up! We are coming into the city for the night- first to have my hair done, and secondly to celebrate a late Easter with my parents and sister and bro in law. I'm stupid excited about it! (I'm also hoping to make it to Michael's to find track down a replacement blade for my paper trimmer. If one can't be found, I'll be investing in a totally new trimmer! Sadly, if that's the case, this'll be #3 paper trimmer. So, either I'll have to do my homework and find one that's better quality than the other two I've owned, or just find one that's easier to replace the cutting blades! Wish me luck. I'm also hoping to find some more card stock, too, if dear husband will let me splurge a little...)

So, on that note, there'll be nothing else from me after today! Until Monday, that is. So, enjoy your weekend!

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Its spring time, and we all know that means its time to start cleaning our homes from top to bottom, donating clothes and other items that no longer fit or being used, and opening up windows to freshen up stuffy houses that have been shut up for too long. But, have you ever thought about spring cleaning up your craft area, too? I think its a novel idea, and I've been slowly working on just that sort of thing. Go through your stash, and break out those papers you've had for ten years. Use them on a layout or another project! Or, donate what you know you won't use to either a school, after school program, or seniors centre. They'll put it to good use! (I'm so sorry--I don't know where I came across the ideas I just shared with you. I think it was either Paper Crafts magazine or Creating Keepsakes--or my 'old' go-to resource, Scrapbooks Etc. magazine. You can still find them online if you want to go searching for these ideas yourself. I'd love to give proper credit for the ideas I found, but alas cannot. My apologies to the ones that originally came up with these ideas!!)

Have a look at this pretty scrap room. I wish mine could look half as tidy and organized and pretty as hers. Oh, mine's a work in progress, but its slow going. What would your dream scrap room look like?

Creating Keepsakes has a giveaway going on right now! Head on over to their blog for all the deets. Its only open until next Friday!


Thursday, April 4, 2013

My Own Way

Today's layout (which was posted to the FB page last night), started out like most of my other projects- with a sketch or layout I found online that I wanted to replicate. And once again, as per tradition over the last few days, I wound up taking my own route. Nothing was jiving!

I love how this layout turned out. I love the bright colors, I love the layering, which I'm coming to realize is my 'signature style'. A layout isn't a layout if I haven't layered a bunch of papers on top of each other. I have a very hard time not layering paper! Maybe its the depth that I crave so much? The other part of my 'signature style' is that I tend to use a lot of brights in my work. I love neutrals too, but I seem to gravitate towards bright colours quite often. What do you consider your 'signature style' to be? Do you have one?

For this particular layout, I wanted to pick up the colors in the photo, so chose to use yellow, green and blue. And, as I got going, pink somehow got intertwined into the design, and now it overpowers the entire layout! It looks as though it was meant to be the dominant color, but no!! It was supposed to be an accent. Meh, oh well, I think the design is eye catching anyways. I've read, somewhere along the way, that in order to help you create an appealing and 'balanced' layout, break your color scheme into parts- from lots of one color to very little of the last color. (I can't remember how they exactly explained it, so I'm going to paraphrase). So, the dominant color (or the color you use the most of on your project) would be (for example) 75%, the next 50% (so, a moderate amount of that particular color), and the last 25% (or the least amount of your last color) of your overall layout. That's probably pretty confusing, so take my layout, for example.

The pink wound up being the dominant color, and what I mean by that, is there is a lot of it. Proportionately, there's more pink in my layout than there is any other color. Its the largest piece of paper that I used on my photo mat, and it accounts for (I'd say) 75% of the colors I chose to use. Next most dominant color is blue. There's not as much blue as there is pink, yet there's still more blue found scattered around than there is yellow. I'd say that accounts for about 50% of the overall color scheme. Lastly, is yellow. As you can see, the yellow became more of an accent color than anything else. So did the green, but there's so little of that, it most definitely IS the accent color. The yellow would account for 25% of the overall color scheme.

Does any of that make sense? Is it as clear as mud? I'll try and find the link for you and share it in the very near future. It makes sense in my brain, but I'm not sure its translating well onto the computer screen.

Back to my layout. To beef up the scallop circle accent piece, I searched through all my Carta Bella and Jillibean (as well as the ancient CM and SU goodies I've  got) for something, but came up dry. Nothing fit. Then, I turned to Pinterest. I looked up my Quotables board, and found a great little quote to suit the theme of my layout. The quote says, 'When it rains, look for rainbows. When its dark, look for stars'. Its perfect, because the subject in my layout kept up her spirits pretty well while she was out of commission with Mono. It can be pretty rough on a person- any time they get it- but I hear its even worse as an adult. It wasn't as bad for her as it could have been (thankfully!!), and she bounced back rather quickly.          

One last quick little note--the two punched borders on the left-hand side are scraps that I'd cut down and made into my own borders. I'll post what I do with those in the near future, too!

What's Up Thursday

Exciting news to share today! Graphic 45 and Echo Park are teaming up! Graphic 45 is designing a new collection for Echo Park, which is set to be released in May. If you want to join in the fun, head over to Graphic 45's Facebook page, and enter for your chance to win some fabulous goodies. While you're at it, head over to the Echo Park page and do the same thing! 4 lucky winners will be drawn on the 8th. Hurry and get your entries in!

Read this article carefully and bookmark it for future reference! I will definitely do it! There's some fantastic tips for getting fabulous pictures and descriptions of what the different terms means, such as apertures, ISO (which is one that always had me stumped), and the different settings to use when (such as portrait mode, night time, sports and actions shots, etc). Very useful information and very good to know! Thanks, Paper Crafts!

Pom Poms are pretty hot right now. Like the way they look? Want to decorate your space using them, or have an event coming up that pom poms would be perfect for? FaveCrafts has a tutorial up on their blog today, showing you how to make them! Uber cool!

That's all I've got for now. Pretty quiet around here today. Must be coming up on the weekend or something!





Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Count Your Blessings

The layout I created tonight has been circulating in my brain for months. I've attempted a few times to put what I'm envisioning in my brain down onto paper, but it never actually happened. I'd get flustered too quickly and bail.

This time, I sat down and drew it out on paper before cutting up my good papers and hating the outcome. I'm fairly satisfied with the outcome, but what I've got envisioned still isn't totally conveyed. Its pretty darn close, though, so I'm fairly happy. I'm thinking I'm going to hang onto the sketch I made for this layout, and use it for May's sketch challenge.

Although Kyle's blood test for diabetes happened back in November, and he just got the second blood test done recently, I still don't know if he actually has diabetes. Kyle's acting like he is diabetic, but we don't really know for sure. Why make yourself a martyr if you don't have to be? Making changes is great, but don't give out false information.

The embellishments for this layout tie into the whole theme so neatly. Count your blessings- we are still healthy, we can change things, we can even reverse a pre-diabetes diagnosis with the proper diet and lifestyle changes. We are blessed to have Kyle in our lives! And, he's been blessed to have his health. Family-- I know the Krogsgaard family has its health issues; cancer is rampant in our family, and I suspect diabetes is, too, though the only person I know for sure that has it is Kyle's dad. I think his cousin, Roy, has it, too. The girls getting it is a real concern for me. I hope Kyle doesn't have it- and I hope he never gets it. I hope the girls don't get it, either.