Too many Christmas pics?

If you took more Christmas pictures than you know what to do with, consider putting them in a Christmas mini album.  I created the below mini album for The Scrapbooking Studio.  It's theme is 25 days of Christmas, but the idea could easily be adapted to 25 Christmas memories, 25 favorite Christmas ornaments, 25 Christmas wishes, etc.  I just love all the little flaps and half pages of this album.

Supplies include ribbon and kraft snowflakes from Maya Road, rhinestones from My Mind's Eye, and resin stars from Melissa Frances.  Everything else is the Simple Stories line which makes it so easy to put together!

I'm only going to share a smattering of pages. To see the rest of the album, you'll have to go in to the store.  :  )

5 Tips for Awesome Holiday Pictures!



The Palmer House Hotel, Chicago



Getting scrapbook worthy holiday pictures can be a challenge. These 5 tips will help you take more memorable and better looking shots this holiday season.

 

1) At the beginning of December, think about what the holidays mean to you and what traditions you'd like to document. Also, take a look at past holiday photos to figure out what moments you may not have captured and what things you wish you'd gotten better shots of.

2) Don't wait until big events to pull out your camera. There are lots of great opportunities throughout December for pictures. Food preparation, wrapping presents, gift shopping, decorating, etc.

3) Prepare for low-lit holiday situations by surfing the Internet for information on things like white balance, flash, etc. and do some practice shots to better understand these settings.

4) Get your standard "safety" shots and then try out new angles, perspectives and shooting modes. Pass the camera around so you can get everyone's take on what's going on. And be sure to get plenty of candid shots.

5) If there's a certain spot where you know you'll be taking most of your pictures (like near the tree), prep the spot ahead of time by arranging lighting, removing background clutter, etc.

Tim Holtz is at it again!

For several years, Tim Holtz has done his 12 tags of Christmas making beautiful tags with his products.  Be sure to check it out.  His instructions/videos break it down the most intricate looking design into very manageable steps. 

The Scrapbooking Studio has listed out all the products used for each tag on their blog to make it easy to go to the store and pick up what you need!  I may be doing that for the pictured tag.  It is SO pretty, don't you think?

Have fun!

Cricut Craft Room

Cricut users: you'll be interested in a new online design site just launched by Cricut called the Cricut Craft Room. You can design images, upload all your cartridges, and purchase electronic cartridges.

I may check it out sometime, but personally one thing I like about the Cricut is that you don't have to use a computer.

What do you think?

Thanksgiving cards

I hope you all had a safe and happy Thanksgiving and an "elegant sufficiency" of turkey and fixings.  (My Dad used to say "elegant sufficiency" when he was full. I usually tend more towards a "piggish excess".)

A couple of my Thanksgiving cards . . .

Echo Park projects

I dropped off my first design team assignments at the store tonight!  Here are the two things I made using the Echo Park paper. I wanted to play up the fun elements of the line. I have another page in progress, but have yet to capture the right picture for that.  p.s.- Thanks to Emilee for letting me use her daughter's super fun homecoming pictures!

Stay tuned for some Christmas themed projects later this week!!  The Christmas line I got from the store was the "25 Days of Christmas" line from Simple Stories.  Normally I like brighter more non-traditional Christmas colors.  But I was really drawn to the graphic nature of these patterns.  And I love all those numbers. 

First design team assignment

Part of my first design team assignment at The Scrapbooking Studio is to use this lovely new paper from Echo Park.  It's called "Times and Seasons"

I love how versatile it is. I see heritage pages, fall pages, masculine pages.  And I just love the mustache paper. I have a couple of different ideas for that!  I may have to pester my mom for some old photos. I'll post some sneaks when I get some pages done in the next couple of weeks.

Scary psycho Princess Leia wannabe

Halloween costumes sure have come a long way. When I was a kid, it seems like all that was available were plastic smocks that tied around you and hard shell like masks. Take for instance the costume pictured below. Yikes! I saw this picture of myself when I was flipping through an old photo album and I cracked up laughing at how lame I looked (and a little psycho scary too). I knew I had to scrapbook it!

Halloween Cards

Just mailed off my Halloween cards.  Here's a peek at a few of them.

 

Paper includes Echo Park, Fancy Pants, Authentique and Pink Paislee.

Exciting news!

I've been selected to be on the design team for the new scrapbook store in town, The Scrapbooking Studio.  I'll get my first assignment November 1st so stay tuned for my projects which I will be posting here.  Can't wait!