Have you taken a moment to see what this months guest designer has available in the MyPicTales design center? I hope you have, but if not I’ll give you a little peek. JennCK has this lovely kit called Wish!

If you think that’s cute, just take a few minutes to browse the JennCK store at Sunshine Studio Scraps! She has some really great kits available and I think this one, called Shimmer, is gorgeous. I love the color palette and the metal embellishments are perfect. Plus it’s got glitter, which I just love!

I also want to share with you today a great layout I found in the gallery at Stuff to Scrap! I think it’s a really clever way to crop a picture and it makes the journaling quite powerful. This is In My Daughter’s Eyes by Beth:

My Internet connection failed me again!  We’ve been offline for most of 4 days (woe!).  One more week and this snowbird flies (well actually drives) home to family (and my own DSL).  I treasure the friendships from our Florida winters, but love home most.

WOW, free shipping until April 15th — what a great time to get your projects sent in!  My favorite layouts are of my grandchildren, but a close second place would be heritage layouts.  I’m fortunate to have old photos to scan and share with family.  So I’m thrilled with this month’s Digital Scrapbook Artisan Guild kit, Origins.

What’s not to love about this layout — give her some love here.  Gather your photos and create photo gifts for yourself or family — scrapbooks, baby photo albums, memory books — head to the PicTales design center for ideas, then upload!  Free shipping!

As Ever,
Pam

We thought you’d enjoy learning a little more about JennCK, MyPicTales’ featured designer for March. So, here are a few questions, both silly and serious, that Jenn answered for us.

Tell us a little about yourself, your design career, family, etc.
I am 36 and live with my boyfriend and kitty. I’ve worked in technical development and project management for over 15 years, but left the field over a year ago. I’ve officially been designing since September 2009 and am a long time paper crafter. I am also a dedicated digital layout artist and am creative for many teams and publications in addition to designing.

Do you create your own layouts? How do you share them? (digitally, traditional albums, photobooks)
I create my own layouts and I share them digitally about 95% of the time. I do print brag books and other gift items using my designs (such as blankets, mugs, t-shirts, calendars).

What is your favorite MyPicTales product?
I love the calendars!

What is your favorite creation?
My favorite kit I’ve made is Shimmer. It speaks most to my personality.

What is your favorite product by another designer?
That’s really tough because I truly love so many things. Since I have to chose, I’d say INDUSTR*E: Full Kit By Flergs. That is my go-to kit when I make gifts for my boyfriend. I’ve made cell phone backgrounds and special desktops for him and he constantly shows them off.

What is your favorite color?
Green

Who is your favorite author, musician or artist?
My favorite author has long been Jane Austen. Her stories are timeless and I love the sarcastic wit.

What hobbies do you have apart from scrapbooking?
I love to travel and we do so frequently. I’m also very passionate about animals and have a little rescue shelter in our backyard where we take care of animals people left behind.

What type of computer do you design on? What programs do you use?
I have an HP desktop and laptop that I use. I’d say I do 85% of my designing on the desktop, though. The monitor is much larger and better calibrated for truer colors. I use Paint Shop Pro x2 and Photoshop Elements 8.

What is your favorite restaurant?
Hands down, The Melting Pot!

What is your favorite holiday?
I enjoy them all, but I look forward to my Christmas Tree every year.

What is on your desk right now?
A very long to-do list and a root beer.

What is your favorite TV show or movie?
We don’t watch much TV and don’t even want or have cable. I usually catch TV shows only once they’re on DVD. We watched season 1 of Lost and had to buy the entire series. We also stream Top Chef.

What is your favorite font?
Goodness. This one is tougher than the favorite kit by another designer. I literally have over 1000 fonts. I think Ray Larabie creates the coolest ones!

What is your favorite sports team?
I don’t watch sports or have a favorite team.

Share your favorite recipe, quote or song lyric with us.
“Be the change you want to see in the world.” Mahatma Gandhi

What was the last thing you ate?
Pizza

What is the last photo you took?
I took a couple photos of my crafting workspace.

What was the last kit you downloaded?
One that I’m sure will become my new favorite… Clementine by Shabby Princess.

Thank you Jenn for telling us a bit more about yourself! Stop by the Design Center to purchase Jenn’s kit Wish while it is still on sale!

JennCK comes to us from Scrapbook Bytes, Inspiration Lane and Scrapable. Her digital scrapbook designs range from deep rich colors, to soft and sweet. A little shabby here, a little whimsy there. It all adds up to beautiful pages. This month, JennCK is offering MyPicTales customers her kit “Wish” for just $3.99.

This full size kit is great for all of your everyday photos. Everything is created at 300dpi for quality printing. I know you’ll enjoy the many unique elements (listed below) and touchable papers. This kit is for personal use and is scrap for hire/other friendly.

This kit is sure to make adorable brag book albums or scrapbook pages. We’ll learn a little more about JennCK and her designs in the coming days. In the meantime, check out her blog!

My husband & I spent weekends at the river — we had a camper.  It seems like we grew to know our weekend neighbors better than those at home — we spent more time visiting and relaxing together.  Now snowbirds, I find similar bonding in our retirement park.  We’re like an extended family.

As extended family, we hurt when neighbors experience illnesses, family tragedies, and hard times.  Sometimes a special photo placed in a layout with journaling or wordart can be just the right expression of caring during trying times.  We’’ve lost good friends in the ten years at this RV Park, but each has contributed to our memories and has left a special imprint on our lives.

Excursions with the Red Hat group or fun at our annual picnic provide special photo opportunities — and I so enjoy when others share their digital photos with me.  Together we’re building memories and a wonderful scrapbook that remembers those who were also here.  It’s a wonderful way to preserve memories and to introduce others to digital scrapbooking.

Memories and preservation of events are reasons to take photos and keep records, and often these are family events.  But remember to also scrap your sporting events, your social events — church, scouts, and even card club!  Create an album about your 4-H member’s road to a blue ribbon!  Research the “Book of Me” ideas and fill pages with things all about you!

Friends & I are taking an oil painting class.  This simple example illustrates the magic of adding a quote.  (quote is from Pablo Picasso and the font used is Darcy Baldwin’s DJB Liz).  I’ve done many scrapbook pages using photos of fun excursions this winter and I’ll be using MyPicTales eight-inch prints to prepare an album for each of us.

As Ever,
Pam

Last week I mentioned that I picked up the pack of 10 best selling fonts by Darcy Baldwin, which are available here at MyPicTales this month! Since then, I’ve decided that DJB Another Mandy is my favorite of the bunch. Don’t get me wrong, they are all great! But this one is just my style. Sometimes a great font is the icing on a great digital scrapbooking layout.

So I went searching for a layout to feature today that showcased my new favorite font. Here is a page I found in the gallery at Sweet Shoppe Designs. It’s by lmccandless and called You lucky Dog. I’m a dog person, so I’m always drawn to pages that show amazing pictures of beautiful canines! The handwriting font DJB Another Mandy just gives the page a handmade feel. It’s perfect! If you’d like more information about what was used to create this page, just click it to visit the gallery for all the details.

Don’t miss out on the great deals here at MyPicTales while Darcy Baldwin is the featured designer this month. Just a few more days to get these great fonts!

It’s always fun to get to know more about designers, so we asked Darcy a few questions.

Tell us a little about yourself, your design career, family, etc.
I’m a homeschooling mom of two little boys who love to geek out like their parents. I got into font designing about 3 years ago, and love being able to provide this service for folks to help them record their memories, their own way.

Do you create your own layouts? How do you share them? (digitally, traditional albums, photobooks)
Yes, I create my own layouts and do them in standard scrapbook form - print and put into traditional items.

What is your favorite MyPicTales product?
Print service, definitely.

What is your favorite creation?
DJB Angel Baby. Definitely - it was done in collaboration with the So You Think You Can Font Contest winner last year (look for that contest to reappear in March @ Sweet Shoppe!) It’s the hippest thing I’ve ever created. But then I also have a lot of love for my Stick*It Dates and use them on pretty much everything that I do now.

What is your favorite product by another designer?
Tough one…the Stuck Together frame series by Karah Fredricks @ The-Lilypad.com I spend most of my creating time doing a layout just trying to figure out how to layout the photos. I don’t always want a template, but I need help with photo placement, and those are my go-to’s when I’m stuck!

What is your favorite color?
Blue.

Who is your favorite author, musician or artist?
CS Lewis, Phil Keaggy and Frank Lloyd Wright. He’s not an artist, but I consider his archecture to be art

What hobbies do you have apart from scrapbooking?
I’ve just taught myself to crochet over the holidays, and I love reading and cooking.

What type of computer do you design on? What programs do you use?
I use a built from scratch windows machine (Hubby is a genius) and PSCS to create.

What is on your desk right now?
Everything in the world. I’m a terrible piler.

What is your favorite TV show or movie?
West Wing for TV.

What is your favorite font?
mine

Share your favorite recipe, quote or song lyric with us.
“The stuff of earth competes for the allegiance I owe only to the Giver of all good things.” - Rich Mullins

What is the last photo you took?
My guys doing their science activity for the week.

The Internet is a wonderful tool for communication and for learning from others that are willing to share their experience.  There are tutorials on how to use your camera and how to use the software you’ve chosen to create your scrapbook pages with.  When you come to a roadblock, a simple online search will often bring you information that answers your question.  There are many online forums in the scrapbooking community that allow you to ask questions & you’ll most likely receive helpful replies.

So many friends, worldwide, that I’ll never meet.  We’re all unique, but we have similar goals; we want to capture memories from today and preserve them forever.  Some of us are fortunate to have ancestor’s photos and stories to include in our scrapbooking.  Like many, I participate in challenges that stretch my creativity.

What should we do with all of these layouts?  I’ve created some slideshows — they’re fun to use for reunions and family gatherings — I just let it play in my DVD player.  I bought six-inch albums to hold the layouts I printed (it saved a lot of ink).  Then I was introduced to MyPicTales and decided to create a photo album of eight-inch pages.  WOW, I was so impressed by the quality and delighted with the color that I have had many more layouts printed for myself and for gifts.

Photo books are a bit more difficult, only in that decisions on page placement are permanent (I can add and move layouts in my albums).  I’m semi-retired, so have additional time to work with my projects — now I plan to have some twelve-inch pages printed.  Some of these will be for display on my walls.  The moral of my story is, “just do it!”  Send in your layouts and be prepared to be amazed!

I downloaded the “Best of the Bundle” DJB Fonts this week — notice that they are OK for Commercial Use!  I did this layout for the 3rd round of this year’s Amazing Digital Scrapbook Race and used the font DJB Jenna.  What beautiful handwriting!

It’s time.  Sort through your layouts and have some printed.  You’ll wonder why you waited!

As Ever,
Pam

Have you looked at the MyPicTales Premium Design Center lately? There are some new names popping up, and I’m excited to see what goodies they will be offering! There are plenty of quickpages available for making beautiful custom photo books. Here are a couple of things that caught my eye. They are all linked to the store:

And don’t forget about this months guest designer Darcy Baldwin. I picked up this pack of her 10 best selling fonts!! They are awesome, so don’t hesitate to grab them for yourself!! If you are new to Darcy’s fonts this is a great way to get off to a great start:

And here is today’s Layout of the Day. This is Happy Feet by Keely~B at DigiShopTalk. A very cute page & I love the fun colors!! Image is linked to the gallery:

Best wishes for a wonderful sweetheart’s day.  I’ve seen so many cute valentines made by creative scrapbookers; now get the cameras out and take shots for your Valentine pages.  And MyPicTales has the perfect kit to use for your layouts!  There is also a beautiful paper pack to match!  Click on the image to check it out!

Have you heard of the Amazing Digital Scrapbook Race going on Natural Designs in Scrapbooking?  What fun - there are some great challenges that will result in awesome layouts!  The following is my pick of the day and is from the 2nd challenge in the A.D.S.R. at NDISB.  Click on the image for details.

Be sure to check this blog every day — and all the great values in printing your memories.

As ever,
Pam