Thursday, August 25, 2011

Some Pinterest Inspiration!

Happy Thursday morning everyone!  The blog has been kind of quiet lately as I didn't have a new release last week and because I have been SUPER busy!  Just a short list of what I have been up to:  Starting a new job at my awesome friend's photography studio- Alida's Picture Pages, getting ready for a guest designer spot at Scrapping Fairytales, busy creating items for a local festival, still designing kits and products for my shop at Scrapable, starting Art of Digital Design 2 with Carina Gardner, and taking care of my crazy kiddos- one of which has just learned to walk in the past few weeks!  Whew!  I am tired just looking at my list lol!  So that was my excuse for not being here much lately!

My friend Christy recently revamped her blog and inspired me to do a post on some Pinterest inspiration!  Don't know what Pinterest is?  It is an awesome place of inspiration where people share things- recipes, craft ideas, decorating, designing, clothes, and so much more!  So here are a few things that have been catching my eye on Pinterest that I want to try someday!

Weighted pincushion w/tool holder and scrap bag from http://www.noodle-head.com/2010/10/most-complicated-pincushion.html
Milk Jug Jack-O-Lanterns from http://eighteen25.blogspot.com/2010/09/todays-project-spirit-jugs.html
Pie tins and old repainted candlesticks!  Do you know how much these things sell for at Pottery Barn?!

Add two frames together for a chunkier frame!
Bookpage pumpkin!  I LOVE this!!
And we can't forget all the awesome yummy-looking recipes they have on Pinterest!  This is a must try and soon!

All in all, Pinterest is an amazing place for inspiration for everything!  I have several things pinned just for color schemes or design inspiration as well!  It is so fun to go look but I will warn you it can suck you in and before you know it an hour has gone by!  Go check it out and see if you can get inspired! 

I have a new release coming out on Tuesday, so check back for awesome layouts from my CT girls and a coupon to purchase the kit!  Also, next Wednesday I am starting a CT Wednesday post where I am going to feature each of my CT girls, so come check out their awesome work and learn a little bit about them!  Have a great weekend!



Thursday, August 18, 2011

Tutorial Thursday-Creating a transparent vellum-like journaling tag!

Hey scrappers! It is time for another tutorial here on the blog! Today I am going to show you how to add a little something extra to your journaling boxes by making a transparent vellum-like journaling tag!
Let's first grab a new document- my journaling tag was 5x4 inches at 300 dpi. Next you can either fill your layer with the color of your choice or grab a patterned paper and clip it down to background layer. I chose to use a patterned paper out of my Basic Patterns kit.

Next, create a new layer and grab your rounded rectangle tool, set the radius to 50 px and draw a rectangle the size of your choice and make sure your foreground color is set to white.

Now to get it to look like vellum make sure your rounded rectangle layer is selected and go up on the top right corner of your layers palette and click on little arrow on opacity and turn it all the way down to between 40-50%. I did mine at 45%. This results in a fun transparent vellum-like look!

Now to add a little something to bring out the transparent look, you can add a white stroke to your rounded rectangle. Go ahead and ctrl click on rounded rectangle layer and add a new layer above. With the marching ants around your rectangle and your new layer selected, go to Edit-Stroke and set your radius to 10 px and click okay. Voila! You now have a nice little border around your vellum rectangle!

Now you can just add your text and you are all done! An easy and simple journaling tag!

As always, if you have any questions for me, feel free to email me at laceybittner@hotmail.com! Thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

New products at MemoryWorks!

Hey there!  I know it is my second post of the day but I wanted to share with you some new products from MemoryWorks today, who I am now a consultant for!  You can have a party or workshop in your home or just order from a consultant!  MemoryWorks is a company that offers the hottest and trendiest products from companies like Basic Grey, October Afternoon, We R Memory Keepers, My Minds Eye, Tim Holtz and more!  They also have their own line of products called Simple Stories, which is a great line of products for the scrapper who does not have a lot of time but a lot of pictures, or even for the scrapper that does have time but just wants a great coordinated look for an album!  They have added two new lines to the Simple Stories line- Baby Steps and Happy Day!  Here is a fun postcard created by Sarah Jimerson of MemoryWorks for the two new lines!
Baby Steps, of course, is a baby themed kit perfect for a boy or a girl!  It has a soft vintage feel and is so pretty!

Happy Day is a birthday kit and is absolutely adorable!  I had to order it the second I saw it and am going to do my boys' birthday albums with this kit!


Each of these kits are 20.99 and are PACKED FULL of awesome papers, stickers, and embellishment cards!  You will not be disappointed!  I will be sharing projects with Happy Day soon!  I will also be sharing the other Simple Stories lines on the blog here soon as well!  Contact me at laceybittner@hotmail.com if you are interested in ordering!

New Release Tuesday- Cute & Quirky 2 Templates!

Hey scrappers!  It is new release Tuesday and I have a new set of templates in the shop today that are 20% off through Friday!  Use coupon code NEW20 for the savings! (click on template photo for link to store)
Here are some layouts using these templates and some of my other kits as well!
Martina used It's A Boy Thing in her layout!  I would also like to officially welcome Martina to my CT!  This from Martina:  A little bit about me. My name is Martina, I´m 35 years old, married and live in Upper Bavaria, Germany. I´m a SAHM for my three kids (6, 4 + 2 years old). I love digital and hybrid scrapbooking, sewing, reading a good book an craft with my kids.  So happy to have you with us Martina!
Kelley, whom I can always depend on for awesome camping layouts, did yet another with Smores & Campfires!
And Sharon used a mish mash of three different kits- Noah & Co., Sail Away, and an element from Glitzy Girl!  Sharon is awesome at using elements from different kits and shows how they can all be used together!  I have the best CT girls!
I will have another tutorial up on Thursday, so check back for that!  Also have some fun kits in the works.  Some might include a running theme, some handmade and unique extracted elements, a woodland friends theme, and some storyboards, so be on the lookout! 
I am also going to start featuring one of my CT girls each Wednesday and showcasing their awesome scrapping talents!  Hope everyone has a great Tuesday!  Stop by the shop and check out the new templates and the awesome August Collab!

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

New release day!


Good morning!  It is a gorgeous morning here in Nebraska- nice and cool!  Almost feels like a fall morning!  I have a new release in my shop today- Sail Away.  This kit is great for those vacation pictures you have or any water, beach, cruise themed layouts.  Lots of seashells, sand, flowers and more! 
And some CT goodness from my girls too!  I also want to say Welcome to three new CT girls- Heide, Kristen, and Martina!


Use coupon code NEW20 to save 20% through Friday!  http://scrapable.co/store/Sail-Away.html

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Tutorial Thursday: Customizing outlined fonts!

Hey scrappers! Today is Tutorial Thursday and I am going to show you how you can switch up those outline fonts that you have to coordinate with any layout you make! Let's get started.
As always, I start with a 12x12 document at 300 dpi. Grab your type tool and your favorite outline font. I used Arezzo Outline. Go ahead and type in the letter you want to customize and right click on letter layer and choose rasterize type.

You will get a marching ants outline around the inside of your letter. For the first way you can change it up, let's make a scribbly pattern inside the letter. So, grab your brush tool and choose a hard round brush with size of about 10-15. Choose the color you like, I chose green, and start scribbling on your letter and you will see the scribbles stay inside your letter instead of going all over!

Another thing you can do is just select the inside with your wand tool and fill the inside with a solid color, like I did with the letter B.

From here you can keep using your brush tool and doodle inside, draw some dots, stripes, the possibilities are endless! For the C, I just used the same hard round brush as I did for the scribbles but just stamped down once here and there to get a random dot pattern.

For the letter D, I grabbed a patterned paper, shrunk it down, and then selected my letter and clipped it down (hover your mouse between the layer you are clipping to and the layer with the item you wanted clipped and then hit your alt key until you see two intertwined circles and then click your mouse once), which changed the outline of the letter to the patterned paper! It is all so easy and fun and you can customize it to go with aboslutely anything!



Customizing fonts is fun and easy and will stretch those fonts and alphas you have in your stash! Have fun! As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me at laceybittner@hotmail.com.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

New Release Tuesday!

Hey everyone!  Happy Tuesday!  I have a new release in my shop today at Scrapable called Basic Patterns.
Use coupon code NEW20 to save 20% through Friday!  And now I have a few layouts from my CT girls!

Both layouts also used my Cute &Quirky Templates too!  Come check out these products here in my shop at Scrapable!  Have a great week!