Let me 'plain

I have a lot of pictures from Lizzie's fourth birthday. But, they are not "full size" images (they were taken by someone else and I have some smaller version files) and they are all really dark. I have come across them over and over and done nothing with them. Last night was the moment of truth. I found a great Doodleboog template with a bunch of photos (I added a few more to the template, in fact) and then starting working on the images I had from that night. Because the quality was not great, after fixing them up as best I could, I added some effects so that the full size printed version will actually look like the photos were intended to look the way they do.

The kit I used was my own that I used to sell at SOTB. I made the CD's at the bottom just for this layout from a stock photo at sxc.hu.

Square kids

I'm a little bleary eyed this a.m. I stayed up too late scrapping again, but it was a release after working late. I worked with one of Jenn's Digitalwear kits and another Doodleboogs template:

Click here for credits and to leave me some gallery love.

Imagination

Jenn is having a fantastic fundraiser for the Alzheimer's Association in memory of her dear grandmother. I think the fundraiser has been very cathartic for Jenn, so I hope you will support it. This is my layout using her fundraiser kit, Rosy Outlook:

The quote she has in this kit just reminded me of the kids and their imaginative artwork. These particular pieces are from the art show this year.

The layout design is not my own: I used a template by Doodleboogs at SOTB. Well, I started with the template, anyway. I always move things around. The thing I love about her templates is that they have great extra things in them...neat shapes and swirls that are fun to use in layouts with her templates and without!

Hokie hope

Image by nastusia from sxc.hu .

My Sweet Nephew

All of the papers and elements are by Miss Mint. That is a GIFT kit for the month of April...amazing! I did make the "nate" word art to look like the swirl element that came in the kit.

Delight in the Lord

About two weeks ago, I flipped to the Psalms and found encouragement in Psalm 37:4-6. Here is a layout using several of my sun pictures to illustrate the scripture:

This is for the scraplift challenge at SOTB and it also uses the latest charity kit the designers there have put together. I chose kit #2 of the three great Spectrum of Love kits that will benefit the Helping Hand Program which is administered by the National Autism Association.

Click here to see the layout in the gallery and also for the link to hetty's original layout.

Finally playing in the garden

At Christmas, Jenn gave her CT a nice gift: coupons for Tracy Rivera's store at SBB. I snatched up Tracy's templates (do more, Tracy, do more!) and a couple of kits, including Molly's Garden Distressed Paper Pack and matching elements. I finally scrapped with it last night. It is such a fun assortment of colors. I mainly used papers from the kit last night, so this layout doesn't even begin to show all of the fun elements, particularly neat journalling tags and fun borders:

Click here for the layout in the gallery, because you know I love me some loves!

The layout, is, of course, not my own design. I have to have something to scraplift or a sketch or a template. This is a template by Doodleboogs at SOTB. It's in her 12X12 Templates #7, to be precise, or in the 12X12 Template Bundle #2, which is a fabulous deal!

Fall scraplift

This week's scraplift challenge was a great one because the layout we were to lift from is a multiphoto layout, which I love! I ended up scrapping pictures from two falls ago. Felt odd to scrap fall photos, but the layout was perfect for this set of photos.

Click here for credits (although, they aren't very useful to anyone who likes the kit...that is a kit I used to sell at SOTB and I retired from selling).

Another challenge turned on its head

OK. I promise, I don't mean to twist things around in these challenges to the point that you can't tell how what I've done relates to the original. But, I appear to have done it again. This is the left hand page of a two page sketch challenge:

Click here to see the double page spread and credits. The sketch is here in Bry's sketch challenge at SOTB. See, I took the left side and flipped it on it's side. Then, I took the right side and merged boxes so that I have four, not six, photos there.

Those papers are from Betsy Tuma's mystery release of last week and I'm not sure where you'll be able to get them again. But...they are pretty! There was lots of other fun stuff in that mystery pack. Keep your eye out for these bi-weekly events she has!

He Hung the Clouds

So, Tracy's technique challenge for this month is digital painting. I have been meaning to do some layouts with the many nature and sky shots that I take, so I pulled up one of the sky and found a good Bible verse and got started.

Originally, I was going to make a background paper using the digital painting and then decided that the sky was too pretty to try to figure out how I could complement it in that way. In fact, this is WHY I take so many pictures of the sky and flowers. I am reminded when I see them that what God has made is so much more glorious than anything we have "created".

On to the technique: for the frame lines, I used the "stroke path with brush" so that I could keep the lines straight. Sometimes my hand is steady enough to do a decently straight line (good tip for this: zoom way out on your image so that the straight line that you draw doesn't have to be a very movement of your mouse). But, last night, I wasn't, so I used the path instead. The question mark is freehand and I used color variations to acheive the mottled look as well as applying a layer blending style to it (I think it's a color burn, but I'm not sure).

Click here to see the layout in the gallery (and see what others are doing with the challenge).

While I should have been sleeping...

I was scrapping. Jill*D* has been doing a template challenge at SOTB and I downloaded the April template last night and put this together:

Click here for credits.

I guess I had too much fun (and too little sense), so I went back and downloaded the March template and did this:

Click here for credits.

Stylin' & Profilin'

My sister taught my daughter the phrase "Stylin' and Profilin'" and when Lizzie had me take pictures of her one morning at the doctor's office, that was definitely what she was doing:

Click here for credits and a link to the layout I was supposed to be scraplifting for the latest scraplift challenge at SOTB. I say "supposed to be" because I strayed pretty far from the original before it was all said and done.