First Digital Layout W/O Template

We are in Acadia....and there's so much to do, and the weather has been so beautiful, that we are hiking, biking and exploring...so here's a digital layout celebrating the end of one of my wonderful days  at Acadia.  My first attempt at NOT using a template! Boy, do I have a lot to learn about that! Mostly Katie Pertiet elements, brushes and stamps from Designer Digitals were used.....Katie's products are: Worth Repeating #6, Letter Box Overlays #4, Vintage Photo Frames #18, Stitched Journal Strips #3, then I used another product from a different line, ITM Moments Time Labeled, which is still Designer Digitals, I think!

I've got an overlay on top of my digital paper, I've got a few embellishments, a brush "Remembered" on top of my paper, and a frame. I kept trying to add a cluster of embellishments, but my eye kept being drawn to the embellishments and not to the beautiful sunset, so I'd take them back off. Sometimes simpler is better. I was thinking of using a black photo strip border as a frame, but then thought it might be too black. For my first effort at totally putting something together digitally without any template, I'm happy!...The sunset is at our campground at Mount Desert Narrows in Bar Harbor, Maine.

Too Busy to Craft!

We had our grandkids for two weeks...too busy to craft, too busy to knit, too busy trying to keep the kids entertained. But I did get one layout done...Here it is, my little grandson once again...care of Katiet Pertiet's "A Heart That's Happy" template...

And how my layout turned out....

I should get busy and do some travel layouts...and I should try to do some digital layouts of  my own...sigh...maybe this week I'll give it a go, and do one on my own from scratch! Until next time.....

Another Digital Layout...Practicing Opacity

This is my daughter, Kerry, with her little son, on about the second day home from the hospital. The photo is not a good one, so I thought I would use the opacity feature to dim it in the background, placing it behind the photo mask. I didn't know how much to dim it! But I think it looks ok.....What do you think? I'm also thinking that the shade of digital paper should have perhaps been recolored to match Kerry's shirt a little more closely? I could spend lots of time doing and redoing these layouts, I tend to fixate too much on is it perfect or not? Should I redo it or not? But sometimes I analyze till I'm paralyzed and then get too discouraged to enjoy the process and that's not good!


I forget almost every time to make a note of the digital paper at the time I am making these, it's so fun to jump in and get going. So I don't remember the designer name of this paper. I have so many digital paper files,  buried somewhere, so I will have to do a better job next time of giving credit for the designer. The template is a Katie Pertiet one, called "family memories" purchased from the Designer Digitals website. I've sure been giving them a lot of business lately! :-) Her templates are amazing! The only digital files I put on this layout were 1) a photo, and 2) the digital paper. You can change the other elements if you want to, because of the layers in Photoshop Elements (version 8) I just liked the ease and quickness of using her template as is.


I did another layout which I'm happy with...

This is another Katie Pertiet  template...Stamped and Framed Layered Template No. 21. This definitely makes my heart happy when I look at my little grandson and his cute little smile, that's for sure.  Until next time....

Digital Scrapbooking--Baby Layout #2 and #3

This time I used a different style of template. I've had the template so long, I'm not exactly sure whose it is, but I think it's from Page Maps. The templates are very plainly styled as far as how the layering looks, and they give you a much broader interpretation of what you want to put in for your elements. Here is an example of what I started with:

The different shades of purple color are for different digital papers. The bars are for digital ribbon files, or solid color bars that you can make any color you want to match colors in your photos or papers. Unlike Designer Digital templates, templates from Page Maps are much more generic. YOU make ALL the choices of elements, what kind of elements, what colors you want to use for the photo corners, for example, or the bracket. Page Maps gives you the design principles so you don't have to struggle WHERE to put things, but you DO have to struggle with coordinating papers and elements, unless you've purchased a digital kit that makes it easier to coordinate everything for your layout. 


Here's my layout after I finished it....I'm printing them in 8 X 8 to fit in the same size album.

Layout #2

Again, I struggled with movement, coloring basic elements my own colors, but after researching a bit, I managed to color the photo corners, and recolor some bar elements. I deleted the zig zag ribbon as I coudn't find what I wanted in my digital "stash".  I would have rather placed some teal polka dot ribbon where the plain bars are, but didn't want to spend hours on this layout by having to teach myself stuff as I went along. I'm kinda pressed for time to get at least eight more pages done before we leave Texas in two days. As it was, it took me awhile to get this one done. One disadvantage to digital scrapbooking, is it's hard to see mistakes until after you have "flattened the image" and melded all the digital stuff into a final file for printing. I see that I forgot to add drop shadows to my zigzag stitching on the sides of the layout. There are so many advantages to digital scrapbooking, especially for RVers, that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, in my humble opinion. I was on a roll, so I did another one! Here's the template first....from Studio DD #125, at the Designer Digital Studio.

Here's the final result...this is not an original interpretation. This design was shown in the Designer Digitals ideas gallery. I went back to try and find it to credit the person who did it, but was not able to locate it. Most of the elements and papers used were Katie Pertiet's, and the "hello sweet baby" is Ali Edwards, another digital designer I like very much. And the adorable baby is my grandson, Barron.

One of my problems is, I have files and files of digital stuff, but it takes forever to see the thumbprints and color schemes on a laptop monitor. You are looking at little squares of patterned paper and other items. Once you open the file, then it's bigger and easier to see, but assembling the digital files that you need at first is not an easy visual task. I have all my digital scrapbooking stuff organized into five basic folders on my desktop--digital paper, alphas, embellishments, stamps and brushes and templates. Then it's a major search into the subfolders, and more subfolders under those to look at the thumbnails and place on my desktop. Good job for a retiree....Get better organized! There has got to be a better way to view digital files! 


I had forgotten how much fun it is to scrap digitally once you get some basics under your belt. I'll be doing more layouts about our travels, and my little grandson, that's for sure! Until next time.....