Monday, March 29, 2010

More March Madness!!!

Can I just say how much I LOVED the March kit from Scrapbook Sussies???? Half of the kit consisted of BoBunny's Flutter Butter line and it was soooooo easy and fun to work with! This first layout I used the sketch that came with the kit and LOVE how well the alpha stickers go with the paper!


This layout was so easy to make because there was so much pretty print on the paper already that I didn't need to add much. My best friend's daughter looks adorable in that coat!

For a layout of my nephew at Peddler's Village I had a really hard time picking the cutest shot...so I scrapped all of them! Anyone else have that problem????


I was away this weekend at a crop for Autism and a woman next to me made the most amazing and colorful layout with a circle covered with ribbon that framed her picture. Can you tell she inspired me? (Thanks, Colleen)....


And...the last layout I made with the Flutter Butter allowed me to use up my scraps. Hope I gave everyone some creative inspiration...and to think I only used HALF of the kit (I didn't even get to the Cosmo Cricket side of March's kit).

Friday, March 26, 2010

there are some left....

have you picked up your March kit, yet??? there are a few left so run over and grab your kits today.... this kit is so full of scrapping goodies i still have leftovers after making 5 pages! i pulled out my leftovers again yesterday and made this lovely page... i forgot about all of the little jewels and the glittery frame i had left and decided to just "bling up" my page added a little here there and everywhere... it was so fun! i hope you like it :)


and some views of that bling and sparkle....




~hope you have the best weekend~

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Origami Flowers

I've had a couple of inquiries on the flower that is on this Layout in the March gallery:
For the most part, when I do fun little techniques like this one, it's something I've incorporated from browsing the scrappy world wide web. I ran across these origami flowers and fell in love!
This definitely was a challenge for me, and I will say that it took a couple of tries to get the folds right. BUT once I got it, it was easy and I even did another one without even looking at the step by step directions.

For this particular flower, I found the instructions on Jana Eubanks blog.
Here is the link to the step by step instructions for making this flower:
http://frommyfeatherednest.blogspot.com/2010/02/tip-technique-origami-flowers.html

If you decide to give it a go, let us see, and be sure to upload your layout to the Sussie Gallery!
Have a great week!

Friday, March 19, 2010

Photo Printing Tips

Hello everyone! Do you ever have a ton of pictures that you want to put on a page? Well, there are a lot of ways to show a large quantity of pictures- while still making room for embellishments and cute paper:)
I use Picasa 3 (a free program) for my photo organization. I will give you a quick run down on how to make photo collages that can be printed on standard sizes (like 4x6 and 5x7...)
First, select the photos that you want for the collage. They will be in the bottom left hand corner.
Then click on Create located on the top tab. Scroll to picture collage. Now you will have a variety of ways to make your collage. I like the grid and mosaic options. You can also choose grid spacing, so if you like some white space between your photos you can choose the width.
You can change page format to whatever size print you like, or even make a desktop background!
The photo strip that I used in the above layout (loving the March kit!) was actually cut in half from a 5x7 print. So have fun trying out new print formats!
Valerie

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Good Morning!

Hello all! I was supposed to post yesterday and I'm late :) And I don't really have any wonderful scrapbooking things to show you or talk about. I'm on spring break (are you?) and we're up skiing in Sol Vista, Colorado. Well, I guess I should rephrase that as I haven't skiied yet and we're leaving tomorrow....

My husband (with my mother-in-law) took two of my girls to try skiing yesterday. I hear it was an exercise in patience - today they are in ski school! I'm a little worried about my youngest (5) because she doesn't have her sisters in her class and it's all day long!

Since I don't have any scrapbooking tips for you, I thought I'd share just a little about a photography rule that I learned. I emailed my photographer uncle (since the last pics my husband took with all the snow turned out grey) to see what I needed to do and he sent me a couple of links about the Sunny 16 rule. One of the websites he sent me explained it pretty well and gave me some tables I should've printed out.

So, here's the general rule:
For daylight an approximation of the correct exposures is possible by following an old rule of thumb: Daylight Exposure = 1/ASA ISO speed at f/16

Example when using a shutter speed of 100. For a sunny day picture, set the shutter to 1/100 of a sec or as close as possibly i.e. 1/125. And the aperture to f/16 this will be the correct exposure "Sunny 16".

Now reading further, I read that for snow pictures (or bright sun on a beach), you should close down the aperture by one. So if you're looking to get on manual, google sunny 16 and see what you can find!

I shot all my pictures on manual yesterday and the pictures look pretty good! I'll try and upload some when I get home!

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

April Sneak Peek!!!!

March kits have either arrived or are on the way! So, it seems that there is no better time than to start looking towards the April kit! This is exciting because it is now all new CHA product in all of the kits...

I'm so excited to show you the Sneak Peek for April. It's going to be a GORGEOUS kit! It will feature the lines American Crafts Dear Lizzy and My Mind's Eye Quite Contrary Jack & Jill. I think this kit is going to fly out the door... so... if you are at all interested, my suggestion is to jump on board with a subscription right away. Remember, you can skip and cancel your subscription at any time without penalty!!! We're all about customer service here!

Also, for those of you in the Year of the Sussie 2010 loyalty program, you'll be getting a free set of Thickers with your April kit - a brand new font and style!!!! Keep an eye out for a blog post about an upcoming little contest for those of you in the program! A chance to win some fun things!!!

Alright... enough chatting... here's your April peeks!!!




Monday, March 1, 2010

March Kit Inspiration

when i saw this month's BoBunny side of the kit i was immediately in love with the soft pretty color scheme. i thought that it would be perfect for some homemade flowers..... here is one of my pages...


and i was not alone... flowers are popping up all over the design team gallery this month. here are a couple of examples....

Leah mentioned she made these with her slice... wow! LOVE those flowers!


and isn't this amazing????? this guest designer has outdone herself!!!!


make sure you check out all of the designs in the gallery this month so you can see so many more fun ideas for this beautiful kit!