My Favorite Digital Scrapbook Pages

I just love our Studio J digital scrapbooking studio. I can scrapbook while watching TV -- and no mess to clean up!! In order to stay (or try to get?) caught up, I recommend doing your most memorable events using traditional scrapbooking, but then Studio J for all your photos that you want to keep in your album, but don't necessary warrant 2-4 hours of planning, cutting, inking & stamping.


Give it a try absolutely FREE! It never costs anything to create your Studio J layouts. You can up load your photos and create to your hearts content. Nothing to download onto your computer and you don't pay a cent until you want to order your layouts. 


Click here to learn more!


Check out some of my favorites:

Photo Surprise Workshop

Here's the last workshop for my weekend at Purity Spring. It's a fun hidden photo slide layout from CTMH's most recent 'How To' layout book - "Magic". This layout uses a 4x6 photo, but the book includes templates for 6 different sizes. It's a great way to add "Wow" factor to your layouts -- and lots of fun, too!

Workshop will be Saturday morning at 10:30am and fee is just $5. Send me an e-mail if you'd like to pre-register (see profile info on right for e-mail address).

10 Things I Love About Paris

Tomorrow I am off to Paris to cat sit. That's right! My wonderful friends have invited me to stay in their home while they are away and watch their adorable kitten, Graffiti (isn't she adorable?).

With Paris on my mind, I just had to adapt the layout we made at CTMH Convention from "10 Things I Love About You" to "10 Things I Love About Paris".

Of course, there are so many more than 10, but here are the ones I picked:

1. Waiting for the Eiffel Tower lights to twinkle

2. My morning Cafe Créme and Croissant du Chocolate

3. Pont Alexandre III at sunset

4. Sail boats in Jardin Luxembourg

5. Street performers at Trocadero

6. People watching on Champs Elysees

7. Seeing Sacre Coeur on my way to the metro every morning

8. The Musée d'Orsay gallery

9. Book sellers along the Seine

10. The Prud'hommes!

This layout features 'Roxy' - it will be my featured Kit of the Month for August. The bling & envelope with tags are new products, as well as the '10 Things' stamp set. I always encourage my customers to "think outside the 'event' box" - meaning, scrap things that are important to you in your everyday life -- not just the big events. This stam

p set is a perfect prompt for that an a bargain at just $13.95!

What are YOUR '10 Things'?

All materials are Close To My Heart. Click here to order!

Stamps: 10 Things (C1474-$13.95)

Paper: Roxy (X7140B-$9.95)

Ink: Tulip, Black & Desert Sand

Accessories: 10 Things Pocket (Z1412-$3.95) & Bling Assortment (Z1466-$4.95)

"It's America" Layout Challenge

I LOVE 4th of July celebrations! I love the picnics and fireworks and parades and the feeling that always comes over me at some point during the day of how truly blessed we are to live in this amazing country.
When I was in NY this weekend with my daughter, I heard a song that inspired a layout idea I can't wait to try. It's a Rodney Atkins song called "It's America" - here's the chorus:

It's a high school prom
It's a Springstein song
It's a welcome home parade
It's a man on the moon
And fireflies in June
Kids sellin lemonade
It's cities and farms
And open arms
One nation under God
It's America

So here's the challenge... Create a layout with photos from your family that represent life in America. What are some other things you can think of? Parades? Eating ice cream? Laying in a hammock? A family picnic? Take your camera with you this weekend and be mindful of the wonderful things all around us. When you see something great - click it! Leave a comment here with your ideas and when your layout is complete - go to my Facebook Page and post it!

I plan to use the Fanfare papers to create my layout. They have such great, patriotic colors and are very "America"! :) Click here to see the Fanfare products & order yours!

Keeping the Memories

I just love the YouTube video CTMH created to introduce Studio J! It really touches on a great point... you have tons of digital photos on your computer, but will these really tell your story to your children, grandchildren and beyond? Remember how much you loved flipping through your parent's photo albums and reminiscing? Because they were using film, they had fewer photos that captured the moments than we do. Will paging through hundreds of photos on a computer screen really deliver the same feel as we had when we curled up in a chair with an album?

And what about the story? Even those of us who scrapbook often leave out the most important part of the page - journaling. We don't like our handwriting, or don't know where to add it, or don't have the right color marker - - the excuses are endless. One of my favorite parts about Studio J is it has built-in journaling blocks that make it super easy to add a few lines describing the event. Just click the 'scale font' box and it will even allow you to write as little or as much as you'd like and automatically size the text to fit. Perfect!!

Many of us have wonderful intentions, but time is not always on our side and before we know it, we're years behind on our scrapping. Don't become your own worst enemy!! Studio J is such a simple way to stay ahead of the game (or to do a little 'catching up'). Even if you're a hard-core 'traditionalist', isn't having something better than nothing?

So watch this video and let me know if it inspires you to tell your story and 'keep the memories'. It worked for me! Scroll down and check out the layout I did the other night (while I'm still on vacation!! :)

This is one of the layouts I've completed already! I did one while waiting for my turn in the bathroom, another one when the rest of the family decided to sleep in one day. Amazing! It will feel so great to have a big chunk of my photos scrapped before I even get back home... Give it a whirl! Don't forget - - during the month of June CTMH is gifting everyone a free JPG file absolutely free. It's a great time to try it and you'll see what a wonderful tool it really is. Contact me if you have any questions.

February Gathering Projects

What a fun morning I had in my craft room, preparing new projects for some gatherings I have coming up! I'll be doing one for my friends from my old neighborhood & am really looking forward to teaching them a little about scrapbooking, then spending the rest of the night gabbing and solving the world's problems (we're really good at that - just ask us!! *Ü*). I miss seeing them every day! I'm also doing one for my friend, Laura, and her friends & family. She loves the Wings paper, so I know she'll enjoy making these projects.

I love making sample art for my Workshop On The Go workshops, but it's so nice to start with a blank (well, almost! :) slate and just create. Working with the Wings papers is so fun - the colors are vibrant and the designs are really unique. Projects practically create themselves!

Using one of my favorite layouts designs, 'Creative Rhythm' from the Cherish layout book, I made this layout then added some embellishments using the Stamp of the Month for February, 'Friendship'. The stamps in this set are so versatile! As you can see, I stamped one of the larger flower designs twice to create the butterfly and stamped the smallest one across the thin strip of Vineyard Berry cardstock. They're also great for creating background designs - - try stamping them on a darker cardstock with Versamark ink for a very subtle, classy result!

With my scraps ('Don't collect it - Use it!'), I then created this card which is a variation of one created by Lynn Como. Take a good look at the subtle background behind the sentiment... When I teach classes, I always remind people that "there are no mistakes, just happy accidents". Well, this is a perfect example! I had tried using Vineyard Berry ink first, but didn't really like how it came out. I thought I had cleaned my stamp before changing to Juniper, but apparently hadn't :{ Because I was using the 3rd generation stamping technique, there wasn't very much VB left on there anyway, but it created just a hint of red in the design which actually enhanced the soft, watercolor effect and looked great! I just hope I can recreate it at my gatherings!!

All products used are Close To My Heart. Click here to order!

Paper: Wings, Vineyard Berry Cardstock

Stamps: Friendship

Inks: Juniper; Vineyard Berry; Black

Accessories: Pearl & Black Opaques