Happy 1st Day of School!

Several Cool Hours Of Ongoing Laughter!!

It's the first day of school in my area, so I made a set of cards for the three of my children who are going back.  My son told me about the acronym "Seven Crappy Hours Of Our Lives", and I knew I had to come up with something better!  Honestly, none of my kids appreciated these cards, but I had a blast making them!

It feels so good to get back into crafting mode, as well as on a schedule again.  I've been quite sick for several weeks, and finally I feel like I'm on the mend.  I've never gotten such a nasty cold in the middle of August!

How about a calendar?  Yup, made a calendar for September, with you guessed it, a back to school theme.

Once again I printed it out at 8in.x8in.  Last month I made a stand to put my calendars on in this post.  So far it's working out well and I don't miss having a larger 12in.x12in. calendar.

I found a great place to learn Photoshop techniques called Digitalscrapper.com.  They have plenty of free videos, and you can also sign up for Premier which gives you even more videos as well as digital goodies!  This is where I learned to create folded corners, which I tried out on this calendar.  It's an easy technique, but I want to practice a bit more.

Of course with today being the first day of school, I had to take some pictures of my two Middle Schoolers getting on the bus.  They did not want any part of it, but how could they deprive their mother of a scrapbooking opportunity?  I had already made a layout using files from SVGCuts.com.  Making a digital page this way is so quick and easy!  I put this layout together much the same way I did the one in this post.  Now the memory of my daughter's first day of Middle School and my son's first day of 8th grade is on a page.

I decided to include the countdown calendar I made from a previous post in this layout because I wanted to try blending two photos together.  Believe it or not, that was the most time consuming part of creating this page.

That's it for now.  Let me know what you think, or if you have any questions.  Until next time.....
Have a Crafty Day!

Items Used:
 Acronym cards:
 Lunchbag digital paper from Sassy Designs
 Kraft Solid digital paper from Weekend at Home Kit by Kate Hadfield
 Georgia-Pacific white cardstock
 Bebas (Font)
 SNF Sketchy (A+)
 Advert (Font- Are you ready...)

 September Calendar:
 Off To School digital kit from Fancy Pants
 LD Writer's Cramp (Font(colored in)- September, 2015)
 Arial (Font- Numbers)

 Layout:
 Make The Cut
 Miss Baker's Classroom SVG Kit
 School Rules digital collection by Lori Whitlock
 LD Charming Bold (Font-Middle)
 LD Chalky (Font-6th & 8th grade)
 LD Hand (Font- Journaling)




 

A Calendar for January

I know it's been too long since I was here last, so let me wish you a very belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  Instead of crafting and blogging I've spent a lot of time getting the chaos creative clutter in my craft room under control.  Since creating digitally only requires the space my computer takes up, I was still able to finish my January calendar.

Chilly!

You might guess that it was verrrry cold when I made this calendar.  In fact, in the twelve years I've lived in my area I've never experienced such low temperatures!  I feel lucky though, as we've not had any snow yet.

I made the template for this calendar back in December using Make The Cut.  I used the basic shapes that are included in the software to create the chevrons and the hexagon grid.  After exporting everything to png, I imported the shapes into Photoshop and clipped some papers from the Keepin' Cozy collection from Echo Park to them.  I created the numbers for the days the same way I created them for my December calendar.  I find it to be way more efficient than doing it in Photoshop.  Making templates ahead of time in Make The Cut also makes the process faster.

I'd love to find an even quicker way to design and create my calendars!  I did come across a site called timeanddate.com, which will create some cool calendars you can use to create a planner or even hang on a wall.  Of course you can't incorporate your own papers and such, but they do offer a lot of options to customize them, and it's free.  I like free.  I'll definitely be using them to create a planner for this year.

Do you like to make your own calendars or are you content to buy them at the store?  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear your ideas!

Here's what I used:
Make The Cut! Software
Photoshop
Keepin' Cozy Collection from Echo Park
LD Handwritten Greetings Font (Days, events)
LD Hot Betty Font (Month, numbers)

 Keep warm and Have A Crafty Day!

November Calendar with Reflections Fall by Lori Whitlock

November, the month of gratitude has arrived.  What are you thankful for?  It took me a little time to make this calendar, as I started out using a totally different set of papers than what I ended up with (I thank my very honest daughter for that! LOL).  So without further ado, I present my November calendar.  (Normally I don't speak like Shakespeare, I'm just in that sort of mood!)

As I mentioned, due to my daughter's honest opinion about the paper I started with to make this calendar, I changed up everything.  I'm glad I did.  I love the browns and the elegant feel of this paper by Lori Whitlock for Echo Park.

I used my own grid from my August 2014 calendar and resized it a bit to fit on this page.  To make the flourishes of the paper go on top of the lower left square and the borders I used the magic wand tool to select the flourishes, then right clicked and chose layer via copy.  Voila!  The square and borders are "sandwiched" between the paper and the flourishes.

I took the opportunity to use Aaron Script, a font I purchased at Mighty Deals a while back but hadn't used.  I love the elegant feel of it, and I didn't even use the extra swashes that came with it.

So that's my elegant November calendar, hope you enjoyed it!  Try using the magic wand tool, and see what you can do!

Supplies Used:
Photoshop
Reflections Fall (Element Pack 1 & Paper Pack)
Aaron Script (font)
Arial (font) 

Have a Happy November and Have a Crafty Day!

Calendar Day: Summer Shines On

Wow.  How could the last real month of summer be here so quickly?  August is upon us and thankfully, summer is still shining on in my neck of the woods.  Have you done everything you wanted to do this summer?  I sure haven't, but there's still time, so I've got to get to it!

My digital calendar for August is all about the sunshine and that warm summer feeling.  I created my own template for it in Make The Cut!, saved it as a PNG file and clipped papers to it in Photoshop.  Take a look:

Keep on shinin' on, Summer!

I love the colors of this paper designed by Lori Whitlock for Echo Park.  And yes, I bought it at the One Buck Wednesday Sale at Snap Click Supply Co., where I've bought most of my digital supplies, until recently.  I've since discovered another place I heard about on the SVGCuts Facebook page.  It's called Sassy Designs, and it's where I purchased the "wave" template in the upper three squares of my calendar.  This site has tons of digital paper as well as design elements, album templates, frames, and plenty of freebies.  The last sale everything in the store was .25, and I've read there have been sales where everything was only .12!  Then one day there was a deal where you could get unlimited downloads until the end of December for $25!  Of course I jumped on it, and now every time I go there I feel like I've died and gone to heaven!  If you've never been there you MUST go!  Yeah, I guess I'm a little excited. I just love finding awesome deals!

Supplies used:
Make The Cut! software
Summer Bliss Paper Pack 1
Summer Bliss Element Pack 1
Gioviale font by Laura Worthington
3 Waves Layered Border from Sassy Designs
 
So, that's about it for this calendar day.  I hope your summer keeps shining on and Have A Crafty Day!

 (I'm an affiliate for Make The Cut!, because I love it and you will too!)  

Happy 238th Birthday America!!!

Hope you're having a relaxing day, enjoying the freedom of living in our great country!  Here's my "birthday card":

Freedom Rocks!!!

Just a quick digital card to remember today is about 238 years of independence from tyranny.  Let's hope it stays that way for 238 more!

It's fun to experiment in Photoshop, so I used the gradient tool to get the red, white and blue effect on the paper.  Next I used a Photoshop Style I'd purchased from                
JessicaSprague.com to put the glitter effect on the letters and embellishments.  You'd never know they were kind of boring before.  I also played around with the blending modes on the paper layer, since the original color of it was quite drab.

Are you sleeping yet?  Just in case you're not, here's what I used on this digital card:

Constitution Paper Pack
Boom de Yada Cut It Set
Flagpost Graphic Set
Gioviale Font by Laura Worthington
Real Life Everyday Glitter Style by Meredith Fenwick

Be FREE and Have A Crafty Day!

Calendar Day: Feeling Patriotic?

What comes to your mind when you think of the word patriotic?  The flag, right?  That's what I thought when I made my calendar for July, the month we in America celebrate the birth of our nation's freedom from tyranny, our Independence Day.  I feel very grateful to live in America, and my calendar shows it!

I used my own calendar grid I created in Make The Cut a while back.  On the top where the striped paper is, I added the words "Land of the free because of the brave" to it, to make it a little more interesting, and because I firmly believe it.  This country is great because of the people who sacrificed and who still sacrifice everything for our freedom!  This calendar puts that thought in the forefront of my mind.

Everything except for the fonts and the overlay of the Declaration of Independence (which are from Lettering Delights) is from Carina Gardner's Americana collection, that I purchased at the One Buck Wednesday sale at Snap Click Supply Co.  Gotta love that sale!

Are you feeling slightly more patriotic after looking at this calendar?  I know I am! 

Here's what I used:
Make The Cut!*
Photoshop
Americana Collection by Carina Gardner
Pride and Freedom Overlay
LD Abe Lincoln
LD Remington Portable

Hope you have a very patriotic Independence Day!

Make something red, white and blue and Have A Crafty Day!
*I'm an affiliate for Make The Cut! because I LOVE it!

June Calendar Day

Ahhh, sweet June has arrived!  Summer is on its way!  Only a few more days left of school for my kids, and the lazy days of summer will be upon us.  I'm not sure what we're doing this summer, but I'm hoping for plenty of days at the beach!  What will you be up to?

I finally got to work on my June calendar, which to me looks more whimsical than lazy days of summer but here it is:

I really like the color scheme of this collection called Snap Happy by Dani Mogstad.  I picked up this digi collection, which has a boat load of images, at Snap Click Supply for 1.99 during the One Buck Wednesday sale.  You should check this sale out if you haven't already, but be careful, it's dangerous to your wallet!  Luckily, DH doesn't read this blog.

Getting back to the calendar, there's only a few things I did differently.  I made my own checkerboard pattern for the grid, and I used the pre made tags included in the collection for the days.  I also used the included alphabet for the title and numbers.  The only place I used a font is for the noted holidays or events for this month.  As much as I like the alphabet for the numbers, it made getting them all lined up a bit more difficult than if I had used a font because each number was on a separate layer.  Of course if I had named the layers as I went along it would have made it much easier!  Hint: Naming layers as you drag them onto your project is a good habit to get into, it helps you keep everything straight as you work.  But you already knew that, didn't you?  Well, let's just say it took me a while to realize it, OK?

Here's what I used in case you like what you see:
Snap Happy Collection by Dani Mogstad
Background Masks Collection by Samantha Walker
TXT Modern Mom (font) 

Hope your summer is a crafty one!
 

Happy Mother's Day!

You deserve it, Moms!

To all of the mothers out there, have a very Happy Mother's Day!  For all the work you do that goes without much reward, you deserve a day of pampering and rest!  I should know, because I'm a mother to four children, and my husband is a fifth child.  Not only that but we've got our puppy Molly, who is like having an additional toddler who doesn't understand English in the house!

Okay, now that I've got that out of my system, I thought I'd share a card I made for my mother, who, to put it mildly, went through a lot during her child raising years.  She's now fortunate enough to live by herself in a wonderful adult community where she has plenty of friends, but she tells me she doesn't like living alone (want to trade places Mom?).  Unfortunately she lives quite a distance from me making it difficult to see her regularly.  So I sent her this card for Mother's Day and hopefully she'll enjoy it although it's not the same as a visit in person.

You deserve it, Mom!

I didn't embellish this card at all since I had to mail it and I didn't want to worry about damaging the card.  I think the bright paper from the Tangerine stack by DCWV makes up for it.  The card is a step card from the Cards For Moms SVG Kit from SVGCuts.com.  It was fast and easy to put together, and if you have a stack of coordinating papers it doesn't matter which ones you choose, they'll look great together.

A long while back my mom gave me some old photos to scan and save to a disc for her.  Can't say I've finished that project yet, there are a lot of photos to scan, but I thought I'd include some in her card just to give her a blast from the past.  Here's what I did with two photos of her on Mother's Day in 1973:

That was a looong time ago!

Yep, that's my mom having a nice dinner out with, what, wait a minute, all of the kids???  Mom, what were you thinking???   All I can say is I hope I didn't send her a bad memory or anything!

For this 4x6 layout I used several supplies from SnapClick Supply Co. (formerly JessicaSprague.com) by Meredith Fenwick, Carina Gardner, and Samantha Walker.

I hope all of the Moms out there are enjoying their day!

Have a Crafty Mother's Day!