My first scrapbook page

4th of July 2003 - love at first sight/love at first bite
Originally uploaded by Kalyber

In November of 2002 my son was born but it took until the Fourth of July weekend of 2003 for me to visit her so they could meet. That weekend was also my son's first taste of watermelon so this is a page celebrating both of those events.

I don't care for my handwriting and I didn't have time to cut out every letter. 2003 (or more likely 2004 as it takes me a while to get going) was BC in my house — Before Cuttlebug, so I typed the subheads, Love at First Sight Love at First Bite, in Illustrator on the computer and did all the text there. I was so new to scrapbooking that I adhered the items directly to the white metal edged page. I wish I hadn't done that now.

Hopefully the pages I create this weekend will be a bit better.

There is no charge for awesomeness or attractiveness

KungFuPanda - there is no secret ingredient
Originally uploaded by Kalyber

This is a page I did a while back at a scrapbook event with a friend of mine. She was shocked that I had no pictures of my son on the page. Shocked at all the "empty" space - we call that "white space" in graphic design.

I scrapped the experience of going to see Kung Fu Panda. The awesomeness and attractiveness. I thought about journaling the who, what, when, where, why and decided against it as it may become too cluttered and detract from the design. Also in a year or 2 or 5 or 10 when we look at this page will all that really matter? The point of the page is to show what we loved about the movie the first time we saw it, on the big screen.

We own the DVD now and although I still like the movie a lot. The lines around the edge that were made to look like cookie fortunes still make me laugh, well ok now it's more of a snicker. And as with most animation there is something new I see each time I watch it.
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This week I am preparing to go on another day-long scrap with my girlfriend so I will be showing you new pages each day of past pages I've done. You'll even get to see one of the first pages. I haven't posted them in the past because I am not a scrapper, I am a card maker and lately I haven't felt like a good carder but I am drawn to scrapping. Could be the 700 pictures we took on our Disney World Vacation in February? Could be because it in National Scrapbook Month? Whatever the reason you are going to see more pages here in the near future.

Stay tuned.

DigiScrap questions

This is my initial attempt at digiscrap, done in InDesign, though I'm pretty sure that was a mistake as the freebies available for digiscrap were for Photoshop. BTW, the studio is much cleaner now and some things have been rearranged to make working a bit easier. Always a work in progress.

I'm new to digiscrap and I have a few questions.

1. What programs do you use most, photo editing (like Adobe Photoshop) or page layout (like Adobe InDesign)?
   
2. I know the rules for blogger: “We accept jpg, gif, bmp and png images, 8 MB maximum size.” When you save your digipages do you save them in one of these formats only or do you save them as PDF too or as something else all together?
3. If I want to print them what resolution do I use? I know 72 dpi is preferred for web stuff because it doesn't suck up too much memory, but the quality isn't that great for printing.
4. If you do print them where to you go for that and how much do you generally spend per page?

This is my second attempt, done all in Photoshop, using no scrap elements. I was playing around in the McDonald's website looking for images to use for a page about my son's love of the restaurant that offers a playland and toys. Did you know they sell more than burgers and fries? They offer scrapbook supplies too. Click here to see them.

While there I found an area that had all the happy meal toys they have offered over the last year or so and at a decent resolution. So I used them in the page above.

Looking Forward

It's Spring Break this week, which apparently means a break for Spring because it's been darn cold. Going through some card pics I found this from last year and it reminded me that summer is coming...eventually.

Crystal Effects Aids Blind Woman

Once upon a time, this past Saturday morning, as I sat at the dining room table eating breakfast my glasses slipped down my nose. I caught them just in time to avoid a milk bath. The weird part was that the right arm was still behind my ear. The screw was nice and tight but the arm slipped right off the peg that holds it onto the frame.

What to do? What to do?

I had a booking that afternoon and wasn't completely prepared, I still had a few things to cut, a few things to make. There was no way I would have time to go to the I put on my old prescription sunglasses and got out the Crystal Effects. It's not only a wonderful way to put a little shiny on your projects, it's also a great glue. I had a bit of trouble getting to glue in the little hole on the glasses arm because  - well it was dark and I was wearing sunglasses. 

The headache began early from squinty through old glasses in my dark craft room. I took my shower and got dressed, activities that didn't require glasses. I put on the old glasses and called the hostess of that day's party. "I've got good news and bad news…" I explained that I would be there, but I may be wearing dark glasses and have a splitting headache which may force me to shorted the party. I packed up the materials I would need for the party and kept crafting.

I tried my glasses on after the Crystal Effects had had about 2 hours to set, 24 hours is recommended for a job like this but it worked. I could see and off I went. I'm sure that if the day's projects had called for the use of Crystal Effects I would have had sold even more.

I'm going tomorrow night to get my eyes checks and get new glasses. The arm of these glasses is secure but the whole pair is a bit wonky because I am the only person at home to wrestle with a strong six year old.

I would love to get rid of glasses all together, supposedly my eyes are one of my best features. Being able to see when I wake up in the middle of the night would be great. Being able to in the shower would be great. Being able to walk into a heated building in winter and see would be great.

Contacts perhaps? No, I had a bad experience with contacts in college plus I don't have time to fuss with it in the morning and I'm often too tired at night. Lasik? I thought about Lasik but I was advised against it by my eye doctor because, "you're at the age where your vision is changing" plus I am WAY TOO CHICKEN! I only have one pair of eyes and I count  on them for my livelihood. I can't afford vanity. So I will be getting new specs.

Being able to see in the shower would really be great. Last week I got in the shower, sans specs of course, and looked down and thought to myself, "I'm sure I took the hair out of the shower after my last shower." I bent down to take care of it and it moved! It was the biggest spider I have ever seen crawling toward me in the shower. I sprayed it down the drain and showered quickly.

The jumbo spider reminded me of a Halloween card I made last year and didn't post. The green background is Kiwi Kiss run through the Cuttlebug. The spider web was made by inking a Fisker's texture plate and brayering a piece of Whisper White over it. The Spider is an older SU! stamp. Boo! was a dollar bin find a few years ago and the ribbons were scraps found in the Big Box of Help Yourself  at the Roger's Park Stamp Tramp Halloween card making party.