Notes from the side of a volcano

Digital scrapbooking inspiration from the Designer Digitals gallery

Lots of inspiration for using digital ripped paper and torn edges this week. For more scrapbook design inspiration check out the ideas gallery at Designer Digitals.

 

Linda continues her fantastic album of her European Travels with this spread using the new Ripped and Stitched DIY NO.03 and Hint at it texture brushes:

Sam, a digital scrapbooking star from South Africa, also used the new Ripped and Stitched plus the City Rain alpha for this very cool layout:

I love the title of Wendy's great page using InDistress No.03 paper, Ripped and Stitched DIY No.02  and the new Yesterday Alpha. (the other goodies on the page are by Katie Pertiet).

And Anke made a lovely companion page to last week's beach page, using "Totally Trashed and Windswept":

Meanwhile Sharon used "Sugar and Spice" kit for her gorgeous take on the Saturday Scraplift challenge:

And this page by Fiona, using lots of supplies by Katie Pertiet as well as my "Tied and Torn" bows, took my breath away:

These bows of frayed fabric are big enough to wrap around your whole layout, but look gorgeous used as Fiona did here.

digital scrapbooking ribbons and bow, gingham, polka dots.

 

New digital scrapbooking supplies

New in store this week, another set of "Ripped and Stitched Do-it-Yourself".

You can take any patterned or plain paper and transform it into ripped, torn edge paper pieces complete with optional stitching.

It's the easy way to tear paper digitally.

Find it at Designer Digitals

Also new in store are two new distressed alphas for digital scrapbooking:

 

 

I used the torn edge digital scrapbooking  templates and the city rain alpha here, in my Saturday Scraplift page inspired by the very talented Georgina:

(The original page and other pages can be found on the Designer Digitals blog here)

Another page using the new ripped edge digital scrapbooking templates:

 

 

Five on a Friday

1. Daughter-Two received her yellowbelt at Aikido. The Husband did not realise this was happening, otherwise I would have been there. But he did manage to email me some phone pics which, I admit, made me a bit sniffly. Aikido does not come easily to her (like me, she struggles with co-ordination) but she is so determined and she was so delighted:

 

2. The other week she also had her end of term "parent's day" at musical theatre class. She sung and danced her way through "It's a Hard Knock Life" from Annie:

 

3. On top of all this, we went to the allergy clinic where they pricked holes in her arm and five minutes later she had a most impressive crop of red blistery welts. I didn't take the camera because, well, I didn't want to be the woman with the big camera taking photos of her child being tested. Of course, I knew I would regret it. Especially when the specialist looked at her arm, whistled in amazement and said "should have brought a camera, taken a photo". He actually took one with his own cameraphone.

To cut a long story short, I left with no photo but with an application for a medicalert bracelet and a prescription for an epipen. Her dairy allergy is officially as bad as it can get. But what is really causing her problems is a raging grass and pollen allergy. Immunotherapy is the best answer.

4. Given her allergies, the best place to be was probably not the Botanic Gardens on a flax weaving and propagation day on Tuesday. I was there too. It was fun to plant flax seeds and prick out flax seedlings, and harvesting flax would have been enjoyable if it did not involve handing 9 and 10 year olds sharp Stanley knives and crossing your fingers (in the hope they retained all their fingers).

Scraping the flax to get fibre:

What was definitely not fun was the flax weaving class with an elderly Maori teacher. She was all grandmotherly and sweet until her patience wore off and suddenly we were a bunch of dummies for not picking it up. I was hopeless and Daughter-Two no better. Talk about the blind leading the blind. Eventually Daughter-Two burst into tears as the incomprehensible instructions from the teacher continued, so the teacher did her flax fish for her. Relief all round, until she ordered everyone to undo it and make it again. I let out a silent "noooooooooooooooooo" as she made the boy holding Daughter-Two's fish undo it, and the look of horrified disbelief on Daughter-Two's face was priceless.

The other class was following us in, and the teacher and parent helpers were terrified after our frank description of what awaited them. "She was lovely to Daughter-Two when she cried",  I told one of the Dads (a detective in the city). "SO I suggest your best bet is to turn on the tears". He proceeded to practise doing just that.

5. A sneak peek of one of the new products coming to the store at Designer Digitals this weekend:

 

 

Cardstock options for digital scrapbooking

 

You can just use a plain colour fill background for your digital scrapbooking page which is great for clean, graphic style layouts, but for realism and depth in a digital scrapbooking page you will need cardstock type backgrounds, also commonly known as "solids".

All my kits include solid background papers, but you can also get packs of background papers for digital scrapbooking. These include canvas style textured cardstock backgrounds for digital scrapbooking, as well as painted or vintage style papers.

You can find all of these (and many more) at Designer Digitals:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jana used Antiquites 2 paper here:

And Carol used Eseential Bases No.02  here:

 

More great digital scrapbooking layouts:

There was lots of great inspiration in the gallery this week.

Debbie used the Peaceful kit here:

Patricia used the new "Little Darling" kit for this magical page:

While Merrilee used a little bit of lots of kits for this fun outdoor page!:

Debi has made a fabulous album using the "Lots of Shots" templates and, in this page, In Distress: Textured Covers :

Another from Debi's travel album:

And I love this sunny, fun page by Jen using "Wild Weekend" kit:

 

Late Summer Add-on paperpack

New in store at Designer Digitals

 

This co-ordinates with the Late Summer mini-kit:

Five on a Friday

(well, actually on a Thursday night but I am going to be too busy tomorrow)

1.  I searched and searched for a 10" x 10" photobook printing option with good reviews from digital scrapbooking users so that I could print my travel album at just the right size. I was thrilled when I heard great things about the quality of the photobooks from Persnickety Prints.

I was less thrilled when, after uploading all my pages and ordering the book, I found out they do not post outside the USA.

It was an especially painful blow since the uploading process was incredibly easy (in fact, I would go so far to say enjoyable) even though at first glance they do not appear to have an option for printing photobooks of digital scrapbook layouts. I would definitely use them again just for that reason alone.

(They have a tutorial on their blog for digital scrapbookers wanting to print custom photobooks)

Fortunately the wonderful digigrandma Merrilee stepped in and offered to forward my book onto me. I am so grateful, since it was very important to me that these travel layouts be printed at the 10" x 10" size they called for. And how fantastic it was to receive the books a short time later ( ordered two copies!). The quality of the  photobook is immediately obvious. I went for the matte cover and I love it. The paper of the pages is high quality and the colours true and noise-free.

So I am very happy with the decision to go with Persnickety but very unhappy that I can't print any more photobooks with them without calling in favours from US based friends.

While Daughter-Two and The Husband are just happy, as they love the book:

 

2. In the weekend we made a quick visit to Eden Gardens, which is in an old quarry site near us (on the side of the next volcano over in fact!). It is very sheltered and it was absurdly sunny and warm, despite being the middle of winter. The cherry trees were all in blossom and there were dozens of tuis having a fine time going from tree to tree. The Husband kept us waiting as he attempted to get a shot with his new phone. So here's a scene from New Zealand with a month of winter still to go:

(A tui is a New Zealand bird which The Husband has a bit of a thing about. They have little white bobbles under their chins, but this one looks like a headless tiu. But it's the best shot he got. Despite spending ten minutes under the tree. Tuis stay still for no-one).

 

3. I was reading a Blogger blog the other day and, for the first time in years, tried a bit of blog hopping by just clicking on the "next blog"button. Five minutes later, after landing on a "living with cancer" blog, followed by a "living with diabetes" blog, followed by an anti-circumcision blog I decided I could live without blog hopping. Imagine if it were possible to do an audit of all the millions of blogs (most lying dormant I imagine!). What would that say about us as a species?

4. Daughter-Two's nightlight and back-up nightlight both gave up the same night so she has gone cold turkey on nighttime illumination. It was about time anyway. Tonight she is claiming an increase in bad dreams due to the lack of a nightlight but I told her I couldn't help her. She was not prepared to accept that until I said that clearly the universe was telling her it was time she stopped using one. "Hmmm" she said doubtfully, but went back to bed. Fingers crossed she stays there.

5. A sneak peek of something new coming to the store at Designer Digitals this weekend....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Digital scrapbook page designs

The possibilities are endless when you open up your photo editing software and create a new canvas.

It's great to have a jumping off point to get you going when you don't know quite where to start with a page.

There is plenty of inspiration in the gallery at Designer Digitals - that's why we call it the "ideas gallery".

Some ideas that caught my eye recently include these two gorgeous pages by Lori. I love how she used the Hint at it brushes to make a rainbow effect here:

And here she used the rainbow (plus papers and other elements) from the weather themed digital scrapbooking kit "Forecast":

I love this simple stunning page by Angie, using Red Beach kit:

Merrilee made a gorgeous page for her grandsons using various kits, including the goldfish from H20:

 

I absolutely love this cool beachy page by Myra using "Venice Beach" kit:

And a beautifully put-together layout by Amber, using the alpha and scallop from "Madras " (an Indian digital scrapbooking themed kit)