Digital Designer Toolbox

I have uploaded my new Disney pages! I’ll be picking up my books from the bindery today. I made one for myself and one for my in-laws from our trip in Jan. Check out the new image gallery with the previews and let me know if you like them! These pages are available for custom books - if you have Disney photos laying around, send them to me and I’ll make you a book!

Custom Designed Digital Scrapbook Pages

Choose the More Disney Gallery

Early Bird Holiday Sale!

How cool would it be to have your Christmas shopping finished by October? Give a gift that they will cherish - a digital scrapbook!

I made my in-laws a book of our Disney trip we all took together in January of this year. Then, I got inspired to do pages of all of the times we have been together. I’ve been working on my own personal pages from 2006 forward (I’m caught up before that). So, I gathered the pages from our visits that were finished and created pages from visits that hadn’t been done, yet. Now, my personal pages are more complete and I have over 50 pages for my inlaws to start their own scrapbook.

I’m running this sale to give you an opportunity to make multiple copies of your pages to give as gifts. But, you have to act fast! I must receive your order, paid in full, by September 30, 2008.

Drum Roll please…

75 12″ x 12″ Digital Scrapbook Prints for $100

That’s $1.33 per page. Additional pages are $1.50 per page. Min. order of $100, no matter how many pages (even if you have less than 75, it’s still a bargain). Shipping is based on weight, see our normal pricing for shipping charges.

This Offer Expires September 30, 2008.

Tricky Selections

It’s not always easy to make complex selections in your Photoshop images, but in this tutorial, trainer Geoff Riggs will show you one very effective way to use the highlights in an image to make a selection in order to alter an image.

This moves me so much, I have to share it.

When we adults think of children there is a simple truth, which we ignore: childhood is not preparation for life, childhood is life. A child isn’t getting ready to live, a child is living. The child is constastantly confronted with the nagging question, “What are you going to be”? Courageous would be the youngster who, looking the adult squarely in the face, would say, “I’m not going to be anything; I already am.” We adults would be shocked by such an insolent remark for we have forgotten, if indeed we ever knew, that a child is an active participating and contributing member of society from the time he is born. Childhood isn’t a time when he is molded into a human who will then live life; his is a human who is living life. No child will miss the zest and joy of living unless these are denied him by adults who have convinced themselves that childhood is a period of preparation.

How much heartache we would save ourselves if we would recognize the child as a partner with adults in the process of living, rather than always viewing him as an apprentice. How much we would teach each other… adults with the experience and children with the freshness. How full both our lives could be. A little child may not lead us, but at least we ought to discuss the trip with him, for after all, life is his and her journey, too.

– Professor T. Ripaldi

I found a Wii Fit in Costco a few weeks ago. They are scarce - I’m looking for another one for my mother. I love it! It’s fun and engaging. I hate working out. I need to lose about 60 lbs. If you search my blog, you’ll see where I lost 50 lbs. Yeah, well, I gained back 60.

I do my body test before I start. My Mii starts out looking normal, then it calculates my BMI and the little gauge goes up and up and up and a little voice says “that’s obese” and my Mii plumps up nice and fat like a turkey ready for the oven!

The good news is that I am actually losing weight with it. I’m down a few pounds in since I started around July 4th. I feel it in my body. My back feels great. I was having lots of low back pain - I think the hula hoops have made it much better!

Yoga is hard! I’ve never done it and I have a hard time with the poses on the Wii. I’ve only tried a few and am working my way up. The strength exercises are also difficult. I’ve avoided most of them so far, too. Aerobics is easy and fun and I work up a sweat. The Balance games are just fun. I’m sure they help my balance but it’s a stretch to call them exercise!

It’s worth getting a Wii just for the Wii Fit. It’s more fun than going to the gym and having the feedback while you’re working out makes a difference. Having others in the high score spot motivates you to want to beat them! I highly recommend it and you don’t have to leave home and can toss that gym membership!

Got a Wii? Leave a note about how you like it.

Getting organized is important. With digital cameras you can literally have thousands of photos lying around on CDs, memory sticks, in the camera and on various hard drives. Choose your project - what do you want to scrap? Do you want to do a whole year, a set of years or a special trip? Once you’re clear about your topic, you need to gather all of your photos into one place.

There are lots of choices when it comes to photo organization software. I personally use a Mac and iPhoto. I’m not thrilled with it and curse it’s limitations, but I manage to work around those limitations and beat it into submission. I have been toying with Adobe Lightroom. I like it because I can quickly retouch all of my photos and I trust the software to do a good job (I don’t trust the iPhoto editing) and I don’t have to open them all in Photoshop.

Now that you have all of your photos in one place, you can start to whittle away at them. Choose the very best, your favorite, images you really want in your book. You should have a space on your primary hard drive for these photos. Make copies of them and leave the originals where they are. A fresh set, on your working hard drive, now you are ready to go.

Open the folder of photos in Adobe Bridge and manually arrange them in the order you want them to appear in your book. At least clump them together if you don’t know the order. Now your photos are ready to go.

For speed and efficiency, I actually design a bunch of pages first. I choose the kits I want to use and crank out pages using pre-made layout templates, “scrap-lifting” from magazines and websites, etc. I create a nice little cache of layered designs just waiting for me to add my photos. I keep these all in a folder on my working harddrive (and usually inside of a folder that holds this folder and my photos folder for this project).

With my templates and my photos both open in Bridge, I can now choose which photos will go in which page. This process goes fairly quickly. I’ve already completed the design - which was speedy because I wasn’t attached to how it looked. Now I can add my photos and make it mine. Sometimes my design is just perfect and I just drop in the photos and I’m done. Sometimes I alter the design to fit my photos. Either way, my pages take 5-15 minutes each to complete.

I create folders called “used inside” of my pre made design folder and my photos folder. I drag the designs and the photos into those as I use them to make my pages. That way I don’t accidentally use them again.

If you find this article helpful, please leave a comment, I would love to hear from you!

Summer is a time when family members get together and want to make heritage and anniversary books together. It can be a daunting task to figure out how to do that, especially with miles and miles between each other. I use a great tool called Basecamp with my customers. It has all the features I need to post images and allow my customers to provide comments and feedback. They can also upload any files they want to add.

Basecamp is flexible and will fit your needs. There is a free plan, the personal plan is $12 per month, basic is $24 per month, and they have more plans for larger companies. The Free plan should work for most people seeking a solution to create together. There is no contract, so if you need to upgrade, you can for just one month or several months.

If you have any questions about working on a project like these, please post it in the comments and I’ll share what I know. I’ve worked on many of these projects and helped many families create beautiful heirloom books.

Tim & Anne are awesome. We have used them many times. I’m not going to bother with my own testimonial, they have plenty on their new website and you can believe every word. People often wonder why bother with a travel agent when you can do it all online by yourself. It is worth it and it doesn’t cost you anything. If the price is reduced or a deal comes along after you book - they can pass that back to you. The know the ins and outs, etc. I highly recommend them for Disney trips. They took care of many of our Disney trips (now we are DVC members and know everything inside and out ourselves). They can book trips for you where ever you are, you don’t have to be local. Visit their website and bookmark it for the future!

FamilyTravelGurus.com

I went to the bindery to pick up a book yesterday and we have new cover materials - Gold, Silver and Copper. They are awesome! They are very shiny and metalic. They are buckram - coated canvas. I usually prefer the faux leather, but these are great. The silver has a thicker coating so the canvas texture isn’t as obvious - it will look great on wedding books with black or blue foil. The gold looks great with copper foil and the copper looks great with black foil. The photos just don’t capture how beautiful these really are.

I am currently designing my personal Disney pages (I have many, many photos from Disney). My husband bought me a DVC (Disney Vacation Club) last fall ensuring we will be visiting at least once a year. We have been going once or twice a year for several years.

I have partnered up with Sophia Sarducci to bring you her wonderful designs. Digital Scrappers can make their own pages from her designs and I am creating templates to use with my customers’ photos. You organize the photos in the order you want them, send them to me and I’ll make you a Disney Themed Photo Book! I am mixing my own designs in there with hers. There will be lots of themes including Cinderella, Mickey, Belle, Buzz, Woody, Bugs Life, Ariel, Nemo, Monsters, Snow White, Tink, Peter Pan and more.

I will post the pages in the gallery as I get them designed.

Polaroid Pictures

In this video tip, you will learn how to take a photo and transform it into an old-fashioned Polaroid photograph.

A friend sent me some new information about cell phone use - “Women who use mobile phones when pregnant are more likely to give birth to children with behavioural problems”.

You can see more information here:
Article on Cell Phones and Pregnancy

I found this site tonight, animoto.com. It’s fun, it’s free, you gotta try it! Here’s my first little video.

I am so excited about all of the fabulous designers who now allow their designs to be used in projects to scrap for others. I have a renewed excitement for the custom side of my business, designing pages for my customers. I am scouring TOU files searching for permission! I’m developing a book mark list of sites that offer these products. If you know of any or are a designer, please leave a comment with a link to your site.

Here is what I’ve collected so far:

http://thescrappindivazdesignz.com/
http://www.digitalscrapbookpages.com/
http://commercialcreate.com/
http://dihickmandesigns.com/store/
http://www.ndisb.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=819
http://www.digiscrapwarehouse.com/xcart/home.php
http://www.godigitalscrapbooking.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_dnld_info&products_id=1834
http://digitalscrapdesigns.com/
http://www.elementalscraps.com/shoppe/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=87
http://www.artandscrap.com/store/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=688
http://www.scrappingwhispers.com/
http://www.sweetshoppedesigns.com/shoppe/index.php?main_page=conditions
http://digitalcandy.ca/shoppe/home.php?cat=20
http://www.divinedigital.com/boutique/home.php?cat=365

Grunge Borders

In this Photoshop tutorial, Geoff will teach you how to create a very easy, but very effective, white grunge border around your photographs.

Creating A Grid With A Custom Pattern

In this video tutorial, Geoff will show you how to create and define a custom pattern in Photoshop and then use that pattern to create a grid background for your Photoshop file.

I have a Razr phone and I have pre-paid. I refuse to go on a monthly plan. I don’t use my phone very much. I can’t send photos with plan. I wanted to download the photos I took in Las Vegas but I can’t. I searched a little and it looks like I’m not the only one with this problem. None of my friends know how to get photos off their phone, either. I have a Mac. Anyone know a way besides sending a photo to an email address which I can’t do?

Using Clipping Masks

You’ve all seen postcards or advertisements with a picture of something inside a block of bold text. In this tutorial, you’ll learn just how easy it can be to achieve this effect

With all the press about diet soda making people fat, I’ve gone back to regular. I try not to drink soda, but I gotta have on every now and then. My new favorite is Coke in a bottle from Mexico. DH bought a case from Costco. It’s so much tastier than the US version - why? Because it’s sweetened with good old fashioned sugar - not corn syrup. I did some research - Coke-a-cola around the world is sweetened with sugar - but not here in the US. Unfortunately, corn syrup is in everything!

Corny Syrup is all about the numbers.
Here is the more info about the Coke formula.

My kids and husband prefer Orangina - sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. I personally don’t like it.

After Orangina, Vivi loves cranberry juice. We get the cran-rasberry from Costco - 100% juice. Cranberry juice can be tricky - the bottles are labeled to make you believe it’s all juice when it’s not.

I try to do juice with soda water - tastes great and is more healthy. Like Izze sodas. They are tasty, but pricey.

What do you like to drink?

I don’t recommend washing a digital camera! My Canon Powershot SD750 went through the wash last week. I had taken the kids to the zoo with my camera in my pocket. That’s one of the things I loved about it, it fit perfectly in my pocket! DH likes to toss the dirty clothes over the banister down to the foyer below - years of yelling has not deterred this behavior. I’m sure the camera had a good bump to the floor. Then we went to Las Vegas for a few days. I was annoyed on the way to the airport - I forgot the camera!. Oh well. My stepmother was watching the kids - she loves to do laundry. We called to talk to the kids and check in when I learned of it’s demise. At that point, I was upset because it had been a while since I downloaded the photos from the memory card.

I decided to buy a new Canon, having all the pieces and parts from the old one. I love the screen on the SD750, but hate that there is no battery warning - it’s just done, without warning. I have an extra battery from the first camera. I bought a Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS from Costco.com - came with a free 2GB memory card. It’s about the same size, nice for a pocket - I’ll be more careful! It also has an image stabilizer - good for DH who manages to take really bad photos most of the time. The screen is much smaller, but it has a viewfinder (so tiny, it’s not very useful).

The first thing I did was put the old memory card in there - and it works just fine! All the old photos were there. I tried the old battery - didn’t work. Charged the old battery - it works just fine. So I now have 3 batteries, 2 2GB memory cards, 2 battery chargers and 2 cables to connect.