Outing

I digital scrapped for years, in fact it was my first real form of scrapping. I always held on to a love of creating manually so no surprise I eventually migrated to paper. But I still hold a love of all things digi and find no reason that we can not enjoy both worlds. While I don’t do much hybrid now, I have in the past, I will never leave the use of digital templates. Digital templates are a great way to really get your creative juices flowing. We all have slumps, be it digi or paper, and using templates makes it so easy to pull ourselves out of one. They also help you if you are like me, the slowest scrapper ever, honestly I can win some type of award for that. And if your a new scrapper and just feel overwhelmed well a template will help you fell less like your drowning.

I was a part of Scrap Orchards team, for goodness I don’t know how many years. I went from being on a few designers creative teams, to being on the stores creative team (honeybee) and then went on to more administrative duties. This all worked out as I migrated to paper because I didn’t feel the pressure of having to stay digi and I also had access to fabulous digital designs like that of my friend Cheryl, of Fiddle Dee Dee Designs. Now I’m going to let you in on a secret..shhh keep this on the down-low, every Tuesday there is a digital template that is free on their blog. Yup and it gets better, there is even an off the page project freebie at the end of the month. How awesome is that! And that is where I picked up Cheryls lovely template.

Pretty isn’t it? Feel free to grab it the image is linked to the blog post. As I said digital templates are a fabulous way to kick start your creative juices. You don’t have to stick to the exact way you see it here. You can take the basics and add to it, remove from it, or twist it a bit. What I chose to do was twist it a bit.

I love the way this one came together. Twisting the template is what worked for me here and I just love how easy it was to put all together. Much of this is from a studio Calico kit, my last one I believe along with some bits I had laying around. The alpha is one I love its from a previous kit and I need to be on the look out to restock them.

I love the look of flowers, vines and leaves on LOs I’m not always that awesome putting them together. I got the gold leaves from the kit and the flowers were from a pack that I picked up at Michaels and I spotted the same pack on clearance and picked up another. Hey I figure you can’t have too many flowers in your stash. As you see I did print out my journaling because I absolutely hate my hand writing. I have a large format printer that recently decide not to load paper. So frustrating I’ll you tube answers and take it apart at a latter date. For this LO since the paper that the journaling was on was cut down it was easy to feed through my regular printer and have my journaling. Using the template makes it print in the perfect spot so I can place my elements around it.

I didn’t necessarily follow the same dimensions in the template, I used a strip from one of the bottom of my papers and some washi for the lower layers. The stars were made with my new cuttlebug, which I held out on buying for so long since I have a Cameo. But finally caving in I don’t know why I held out for so long. I used dies from Studio Calico which worked out perfectly. Before I had a die cut machine it was easy to use these shapes with my cameo. Because all of Scrap Orchards templates come with ping files it is supper easy to import and cut there are no needed steps to make the PSD files png files in order to import.

My plan is to do a step by step on my process of using digital templates. It really is an easy process and not something you should be scared by. So stay tuned for that.

Meow Meow

I saw these cute PL cards as a Studio Calico add on one month and knew I had to get them. Obviously my cats need to be scrapped and these cards were on high priority to have. I wanted to use this larger 6×4 card but it was giving me major grief to work in the LO. I ended up cutting it down to a size I was happy with in comparison to my picture I had decided to use.

To be honest I ended up scrapping the original LO and walking away in utter frustration. I think I tossed card stock and a paper I so wanted to use as the back ground from my main kit. I was saying some not so nice things to that paper. It was a knock down fight and I declared winner status as I angrily put it in the trash can. Lets be honest we all do this. Not all LOs go as planned. So we release a bit of aggression dig into our choice gutter words and shut down for the day/night and walk away. Its needed sometimes right? Exactly.. and all of that led me to an end product I am so so happy with.

Now somethings I see in kits that I think “what the hell am I going to do with that” and the little tassels that came in a studio calico kit was one of them. But I think it was just such a cute little addition to this LO. I pinned it on with this little heart pin I’ve had in my stash since forever. And having to route through my stash was a big reason why I cancelled my Studio Calico sub. Besides the fact I looked around my craft room and thought I was drowning in “stuff”, I felt like as much money as I spend on their kits and add ons I shouldn’t be routing through old supplies to finish off a page.

Also out of my stash was that “life” clip, the number brad, and sequence. I do love these sequence and I would love to get my hands on some more. It was a bag, from I believe Studio Calico, with the pink circles and gold stars. My bag is about depleted but I’m on the hunt.

In my early digital scrapbook days I took classes which taught about balance and the natural eye. While I do think it has helped it has also hindered me in many ways as to what I assume looks good. But I have found the notion of balance on a page is very true. So when I add little sequence or brads in a corner I usually have to balance it out in the opposite corner. It may just be a mental thing for me but I think it does make a difference in the LO. So in this corner I added another brad and a couple of sequence not a lot I didn’t want to be a main thing on my page.

Another thing I enjoy doing is using the many washis I have in my stash to add layers to my pages. I have no shortage of washi, do any of us? It will come in handy with my present freeze:)

What’s on my desk

As you can see the one thing that is always on my desk trying to help me out is Henry. I have other names for him but I won’t put them here. I’m trying to make this a clean fun place after all. But this will be my new spot to share what I’ve been dabbling in, creating, making, and messing up. I’m not afraid to expose the fact that I mess up. After all don’t we all? If your expecting a clean craft room, everything bright and airy and free, well you’re in the wrong place.