[serendipity]

'what to use' wednesday: christmas caroling

What??? A What To Use Wednesday page? Doth mine ears deceive me? Okay, well, that's what happens when you need to do a page for the Silhouette blog too and they happen to fall on the same day. lol

So here's today's page. It's using shapes from the scrapNfonts folks--our featured artist on the Silhouette blog.

I love, love, LOVE that little sled! Thought it would be ever-so cool to emboss it with black embossing power...from American Crafts, of course. Same with the background paper and cardstock. Love those guys there at ol' AC!

As usual for What To Use Wednesday, everything is at my fingertips. Never shop for a thing. Just using what's in my office or in my Silhouette. In fact, since I scrapped that page in my pjs this morning, I hope I wouldn't think to go out shopping. ;)

'what to use' wednesday: fabulous

Okay, seriously. I have been having way too much fun playing with all this House of 3 stuff and all the new rhinestone stuff. Really. I think I could just play days on end with all this stuff.

Here's a page I made and I'm sharing it on the Silhouette blog as well.

 

To "read all about it" hop on over there. It's hard when you're doing two blogs. ;)

'what to use' wednesday: seniors

I am giddy as a school girl!

House of 3 is collaborating with the Silhouette artist team to bring you fabulous diecut designs that work so well with their line of digital and craft products! I can't wait to see all their creations!

Here's a page I made to share on the Silhouette blog today.

House of 3 shapes used--and in the store now: chickie_C20091124124726_23444, branches_with_berries_C20091124124653_23444, swirled_vines_C20091124125231_23444

I absolutely LOVE that chickie! How stinkin' cute is he?

I also used several of their digital brushes for the border around the large collage photo--which, I made with one of their collage story boards. LOVE those things! Makes these photo collages so much easier to do than the old way...which took me for-e-ver! And all their elements went so dang well with these photos. I couldn't wait to use them!

Ohhhh, isn't life grand? :)

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend! And be sure to check out all the stuff going up in the Silhoeutte Online Store over the weekend. And tune into the Silhouette blog on Monday for something you won't want to miss . . . I guarantee it!

P.S. Thank you all for your kind comments about my lack of being around. I appreciate your patience as I've been so busy and been a slacker. ;)

scrapbook supplies on a deserted island?

I'm so addicted to using my Silhouette! Man. I think if I was stranded on a deserted island and could only have three scrapbooking "supplies", it would be my laptop, cardstock and my Silhouette. I'd have to do some Gilligan's Island battery thing for power though. I think I could make some great pages during my time on that island . . . wouldn't need anything else. Well, I guess I'd need a camera and a printer, but if I didn't have those, I could do journaling-only pages, right? Okay, so maybe in my fantasy desertion I need to have five scrapbooking supplies. ;)

So, I got my color page done! I thought I would use more actual color, but there was something about that all-white page . . . again. ;) Oh, I guess this is my 'What To Use' Wednesday page. I already forgot it was Wednesday. lol

I've been dying to use that dandelion image (vinyl_art_1171). Love that! I also used the "This Makes Me Happy" title (phrase_happy_1504) and that lacey border (lace_1444). Love that one too (if I do say so myself ;) ). And, as always, have to use American Crafts cardstock (white and red) . . . I didn't have that shade in green, otherwise . . .

I also printed that black line around my cardstock and left an opening where I typed in the date using the CK Becky font.

So, there ya go. Simple. As usual. That's me.

Oh, and speaking of Becky, did you hear that she has now left Creating Keepsakes? Sadness. You can read about it on her blog here. It's the end of an era, but I can totally understand. I have had several opportunities to chat as well as work with her over the years. Even sat by her when we were in the audience watching Lisa on Oprah. Love her and wish the best for her.

And EGADS Jen! Don't read that last post like a text book. It might qualify as a children's book, but it doesn't have near enough pictures. lol

Alas, I guess those of you wanted to play along with the color page must have been busy. That's okay. :) If you get it done this week, still go ahead and e-mail it to me and I'll post it. Believe me, I know how life gets.

'what to use' wednesday & sneak peek

Okay, you all know how much I love grouping my photos these days. Well, I thought it would be fun to create photo mats for Silhouette so you can have a pre-designed base to do the same thing, only with cardstock! They will be available on August 27.

So for my 'What to Use' Wednesday page, I thought I'd use one of them-thar mats! All the photos are under the mat vs. on top of it.

I used Silhouette to cut my title and I used a piece of design from a test cut for decoration. I hemmed and hawed over this page. I kept thinking it needs something on the left side, but nothing seems to jive. Guess I'll just be leavin' it for now.

I love the big rounded corners on this photo mat. Photo mats are just a fun twist to create a page . . . and it's all thought out for you. Just add photos. And what's even cooler is on Silhouette, you could even double mat your photo mats . . . it's a piece of cake!

Here's what you do:

Bring up a photo mat into your software. I've turned this upside down since the bottom of the file in the software is actually the top in the Silhouette.

Next, copy and paste the image over the top of the original image and then Ungroup that top image.



Select the first rectangle and go into Edit/Offset Shapes.



Select your desired offset value. You can either choose to offset on the outside of the line or the inside. You choose which direction you want to go. In this example, I chose to offset the inside of the square .15".



Once you've offset that second group of photo mat squares, select the original photo mat and delete it and you are ready to go! Cool. One note, I also removed the outer square for the page so that it wouldn't cut that . . . it would just cut the mat part without the page part, if that makes sense.

Here are a few more styles of photo mats to choose from.

          

Here's a few tips and tricks:

1. I know that you can't do 12x12, but you could still include a square 8x8 mat on a page. Or, if you are creating an 8x8 album, these would be prefect to use.
2. You can edit any of the mats and remove a rectangle, make it larger, whatever. Totally customizable! Love that!
3. You're also not limited to using the space for a photo too, you can put an embellishment in there, a title, whatever. The possibilities go on forever.
4. Add other shapes to the page to give you a negative space image, kind of like what you see with the one image above.
5. Remove the outer background square and replace it with another image, like a scallop edge.
6. Practice your cut on a piece of paper first to make sure it's going to line up where you want it to.
7. Use the size of each square to determine what your photo sizes need to be. Or, you can also pull your photos into the Robo Master software, size them into the square area (just roughly) and see if they'll arrange the way you want them to. You get to "see" the look before you actually "do" the look. Cool.
8. Rotate the direction of the photo mat for a different look.

This release is kind of based on essentials . . . backgrounds, titles, frames and photo word corners. All the little bits to make a page come together really quick! Here's a peek at some more:

     

All this comes out next Thursday, August 27! And there's something really cool a-happenin' on the QK blog next week, so stay tuned for that. Oh, that reminds me, the QK blog has a change of address. It's now quickutzinc.blogspot.com, so make a note of that because that's where I'll be playing next week. ;)

'what to use' wednesday: play

I think it's been a while since I've actually done a 'What To Use' Wednesday page. And once again, it's a one-hour page! Even though I've been trying to scrap simply, they still seem to take a couple hours to do...and I don't like that. ;) It's suppose to be about doing it quickly because I don't have time, right?

For this page, I pulled out my Creating Keepsakes' 'Just For Fun' Kit of the Month. Have you guys seen this yet? Bought it? It has so much stuff in it! Definitely worth the money!

This page was truly a 'What To Use' page. I pulled the paper, brad and "Play" sticker from the kit, grabbed a little 7gypsies gaffer tape and word stickers, and then rummaged my Silhouette test-cut pile and found that little circle thing-a-ma-bob to put under the large brad. This is the shape I used (circles_1580):

I also did my usual photo pocket with the index tab, that I like to do so often. I love tucking away journaling, keeping it handy, yet out of the way from the overall look for the page. Oh, and those giant brads have several clear stickers with white or black printing to customize the brad to fit your page color needs. Pretty nifty! I'm tellin' ya, that kit is pretty darn cool! It's got a 7x12" clear album, transparencies, rub ons . . . holy cow, the list goes on and on!

And in case you were wondering what the heck the girls were doing in the bottom-right photo? For some reason they decided to start smelling mint leaves. That turned into "facial hair". Then Jordan said if you sniff it hard enough then it smelled like b.o. Yeah, that made them all laugh pretty hard. Oh, and if you look at my girls between the two pages, you'll notice they got new "do's". Kass cut hers shorter and chunkier and Jordan? Well, she has bangs for the first time ever. Well, unless you count the time she cut her hair when she was three. ;) With her naturally curly hair, I wasn't about to let her have bangs until she could take care of them herself.

Wow, two weeks with multiple pages? What's next??? Maybe I need to buy a lottery ticket...I'm feeling lucky. ;)

Oh, and don't forget, today's the last day to enter the drawing for the Zing embossing powders. Do it in the next post below (Tuesday's post).

'what to use' wednesday: way too cute

Wellllll, blow me down and call me Charlie! I managed to squeak out a page! Thanks, in part, to a tiny bit of scraplifting. Peg Manrique had a really cute page in Scrapbooks Etc.'s 'Scrapbook Page Planner' (p. 92) that I thought could easily be adapted to Silhouette shapes. I also changed the page size and it still worked very well.

Yes, I know, *gasp*, I buy "the competition." ;)

Anywho, here's a sneak peek of one shape that will be out tomorrow! It's those circles. I LOOOOVE the circles! There's both a full-square set of circles and a single-line border set of circles. On this page I just cut a section of the full-square. There perhaps is another sneak peek on this page here, but I'm not sayin' nuttin'.

There is a general theme of Retro shapes being released tomorrow, and those circles totally reminded me of some wall paper we had in a duplex we rented way back when. I think it was grass green and silver. Yes, I said silver. The shiny, you-can-see-your-reflection kind of silver. This page, however, does not fall into the 70s category . . . or maybe it does?

P.S. Today's the last day to enter the contest for the $25 Silhouette "upload" card. Do that in last Friday's post here. I'll pick a winner first thing in the morning!

'what to use' wednesday: friends

Not only am I finally sharing a page for my 'What To Use' Wednesday, but on it are a couple sneak peeks of what's coming out for the Silhouette in a couple weeks! Both the flower background and the scallop border should be available on March 26. I'm in love with that scallop border right now! And it will come in four different sizes, from a really big scallop to very small scallop . . . created with a 12" length in mind. Very fun!

I keep wanting to do more when I scrap, but my philosophy of late is "Keep it simple!" So I'm doing my best to train my mind to do it quickly and not focus on all that I could do and instead, just get 'er done!

Other items used? Let's see, can you guess what paper? Yeah, My Mind's Eye is right. Same with the gems. The white cardstock? American Crafts. I'm LOVING using that to cut on my Silhouette. The flower background was a test cut. I decided not to let it go to waste even though I accidentally ripped just a smidgen. Adds character, right? ;)

Someone a while back asked about using Silhouette with a Mac. The answer is YES, you can use it--without Illustrator even, but you have to run it with that parallel program that allows you to use Windows on your Mac. Then you are able to run the Silhouette software. Definitely something worth checking into!

And Suzzi, so sorry to disappoint you. That "slice" is almost as good as a MM Slice though . . . or at least I think so. ;) And Kelly, do you live in Utah? The Pizza Factory is located in a few places. I tried doing a search for the right Pizza Factory when I posted it originally and they don't have a specific website other than this where you can access a menu--and it does list four of the locations. I do find it funny that they use the web address of breadtwist.com. Good stuff!

And Shelly, I do have a 365 kit! Unfortunately, things went awry for me in the picture-taking department. I so wanted to keep up with it, especially since I wanted to make sure my "year" included my son who's about to leave home for two years. But switching jobs? Yeah, kind of got preoccupied. Still preoccupied . . . and I'm suppose to be getting him ready to go in three weeks! I'm sure I could start back up again, but I dunno at this point. I'll definitely be sharing some of the photos that I take for Karen Russell's photography class though. I think we have assignments for every day. Will that do? ;) Maybe I'll do a photography journal instead. Hmmm . . . something to think about.

'what to use'...friday?

Last, but not least, it's my turn for that Color Combo Challenge. Here's my page. I of course had to use My Mind's Eye paper. It's always a favorite. The buttons I picked up in a bag at Roberts Crafts a few years ago. The one on the left is a weeee bit bulkier than I care to use on my pages these days (okay, it's a lot bulkier), but shucks, it was just so darn cool I had to use it! It's hard to tell, especially in the closeup, but it's a clear center, not silver.

Can you tell what mood I'm in design-wise? Do ya notice a pattern with the pages I've shared lately? Would that be variations on a theme? ;)

P.S. I'm a total dufus! Somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking to myself, "Didn't I scrap these photos already?" And I just thought, "Nah, I just shared the photos on my blog." I seriously did NOT remember scrapping them! Gee, I guess I could have gone and looked back in September and checked it out before I made the page! I love duplicating pages....not! I'm such a ninny. ;) I guess this is more of a "variations on a theme" than I thought!

color combo: a card from cindy

My lovely and dear sweet friend Miss Cindy Schow (she's actually my sister from another life) played with the color scheme this week too. Only, she made this ever-so cute card! LOVE it! Cindy is the queen of cards! She always has the sweetest looking cards with just those tiny little touches to make it wow! And the same goes for her scrapbook pages. She doesn't have a blog, but you can check her work out in the Scrapbooking with Lisa Bearnson books (QVC), among many other Creating Keepsakes publications over the years . . . including Hall of Fame. :)

Thanks for playing "sister Cindy". You're a doll!