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

I took my challenge, did you? Did you pick a window, take a photograph, and make a scrapbook layout? (I hope that there are lots of people nodding their heads, yes. And then you are going to send it to www.mypictales.com to get it printed or bound into a book with a collection of other layouts?  Again, I hope that there are more people nodding, yes, of course I am ) It wasn’t much of a surprise today to see that it is snowing - again in Eastern Pa. We are supposed to get the brunt of the storm tonight into tomorrow, but I took an unplanned snowday with the kids today.  They are pretty funny - they really don’t like the cold weather. They are definitely more “beach bums” than “snow bunnies”. 

The kit I used was a collaboration kit from www.oscraps.com but was offered I think last month at www.thedailydigi.com.  Have you explored The Daily Digi yet? No? They have a great grab bag every month for a low price of $5.00.  There are usually 5 - 6 kits in it from a variety of designers. It’s a great way to pick up a lot of supplies for a little price and try some designers that you might not be familiar with.  The grab bag is slowly revealed over the month.  So, I won’t make you wait anymore; here is Out My Window.

The kit I’ve chosen is from The Digi Files 12.  It is the store collaboration from CatScrap Designs.

I love the flowers and Spring colors.  Oooh, I can’t wait for spring!

Happy Friday and of course -What Stories Are You Going To Tell?

Mary

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!

Hi Everyone,

Well yesterday was my youngest daughter’s birthday, she turned 18.  I honestly can’t believe how fast these past 18 years have gone!  It seemed like yesterday when she was born and now she’s an adult and finishing her first year of college. (She skipped a grade and yes, she’s incredibly brilliant :)   In some ways I feel a bit old, even though I’m actually not that ancient, lol.  Oh well…..

As I was looking for the layout of the day, I came across this wonderful page about age and survival and loved it.  Hope you do to.  It was made by Myra at Rakscraps.  She’s just a doll, always thoughtful and surprising layouts.

Easter isn’t too far off and it’s not early to be thinking about what scrapbooking elements you might want to add to your photo albums.  Here’s a cute set of bunnies to help you out.  You can find these at Digitalscrapn.

Hugs,

Snackpackgu

This Friday, my loving husband and I will celebrate 20 years of marriage.  This totally blows my mind.  Twenty years. My eyes blink in disbelief.  I can remember my parents 20th anniversary.  They were old! How come I’m not! ha ha! We have plans for a nice dinner out without kids.  I might even shave my legs! woo hoo! As you can imagine, humor has been a big part of our marriage.  I went on the prowl to find some fun layouts about marriage and wanted to make one for our journey! I got into total giggles, did you know there is a web site just for funny wedding photos?  Actually there are hundreds of websites that have funny photos.  Here is a good one. and one more!

Look at this one by a friend and colleague micelle aka msbrad: American Express

I love humor and I hope you let me throw this one by me in.  It so captures 20 years in one (albeit double pager)layout!

I would love to see your funny layouts about marriage.

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

 I have a question for you that I am going to turn into a prompt for a scrapbook page.  What do you see from your window? (You are probably thinking, how the heck did she come up with that question?)  I was watching the news last week during one of our blizzards (I live on the East Coast) and the reporter had invited people to email her pictures about what they saw from their window during the storm.  She then went to a person’s house and did a report from there.  This gave me a great idea for a scrapbook page.  We have french doors that overlook a deck and give a great view of the backyard and a fairly busy street.  I’ve taken pictures over time and made a point to take pictures during our most recent snowstorm. I’ll share a layout with you next week about what I saw from my window and I challenge you to pick a window and do a layout from any pictures that you take.

 My featured designer for this week is Sir Scrapalot.  Yes, Sir Scrapalot is a guy digital designer and his designs are pretty awesome.  I loved this kit “One Minute to Midnight”.  The element that caught my eye was the realistic “ball” that drops in Times Square.  His designs can be found at www.polkadotplum.com

The scrapbook layout that I’ve chosen is by nunsixteynine and can be found in Sir Scrapalot’s gallery at polkadotplum.  I loved the selective coloring in the layout and the colors.  She used Sir Scrapalot’s kit, Lucky as part of this layout.

I’ll challenge you until next week to create a layout about what you can see from your window and upload it to MyPIcTales to have it printed. I’m going to do the same. I’d love to see what you create.

So, I’ll leave you as I always do until next Friday - What Stories Are You Going to Tell?

Mary

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:

I just love watching old movies.  One of my favorite channels is TCM - that and PBS on Sunday nights, can’t get enough of Masterpiece Theater.  Those old movies were really quite unique, there was actually some substance to them, well perhaps not the musicals, but over all I do think they were much better than what I’ve seen lately.  Oh you can’t compare the special effects of movies nowadays, that’s true.  But the plot lines were deeper back then.  You didn’t need to shower the viewer with 30 second switch overs - action to action - or risk losing the audience.  No, back then it was certain that the viewers would stay with you while the director let the plot unfurl and slowly sucked you in until you became almost one with the big screen.

There wasn’t any shortage of incredible actors and actresses either.  Some of my personal favorites were Humphry Bogart, Betty Davis, Noma Shearer, Ingrid Berman, Gregory Peck, and Katherine Hepburn.  So imagine my surprise when I was visiting my favorite gallery at Rakscraps and saw this layout!  Wow.  Sparkly Duck always makes such thought provoking and beautiful LOs, this one is right in keeping with her great vision and quirky sense of humor.  Love it!

And speaking of Rakscraps, the mega-kit came out on the 15th.  Remember that’s it free to members, just sign up in the RAKcenter.  With this mega-kit or any digital scrapbooking kit,  it’s  easy to create cards, photo gifts, photo greeting cards, custom photo books,  or even a digital photo album and upload what you’ve created to the printing center at MyPicTales.

So become a member at RAKscraps, download the free kit and while you’re there, why not take part in some of the great challenges in their forum?