New templates and quickpages

I have new templates created with Lili’s exclusive goodies at ScrapArtist:

Here are the pages I created with it:

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I also have new quickpages I created for Amanda Heimann:

Here is a page I created with one of them:

I am so stoked for being able to share my stuff like this!!!

Thanks for stopping by, now I will continue to fight a very bad headache (I think it is a sinus infection, ugh). Hope you are having a great week!

the Gods have smiled upon me

and now I am a Goddess myself...



yep, a ScrapArtist Creative Goddess
oh I lie, I am a ScrapArtist Hybrid Goddess
that hybrid bug really got me and now I have one more reason to show it off!
this will be fun, I am looking forward to it.

I have started looking into digiscrapping in 2007, the usual freebie hunt, Shabby Princess goodies, until I hit ScrapArtist. First time I ever bought something digi it was there. If I recall correctly it was a kit from Michelle Coleman and a set of templates. I was hooked ever since.

Thank you so much Gabi for invinting me over and Nancie for having me, I hope to rise to your expectations.

Happy Mother’s day!

I had a nice day with hubby and the kids. Melissa also came from Sydney for a birthday party and spent the night. Pity she couldn’t stay for lunch, I love having this girl around :) It was nice to wake up to all the hand made presents from the boys, we went to the movies in the afternoon and now I am trying to catch up with everything on line before a long week starts ;)

I was late sending my mom’s present. We spoke on the phone and all I could do is send her pictures of it. I should have mailed it at least 3 weeks ago. I hate postage between here and my hometown in Brazil, I am lucky when things get there at all :(

Anyway, here is what I did for her (of course I had to share):

Everything (digital) from Anna Russel. Oh, I think have neglected to tell you I am part of her CT ;)

Hope you have a great mother’s day.

Lightroom + Free Presets

I am completely addicted to Adobe Lightroom. If you don’t know what it is and you love photography, you have no idea what you are missing. To be completely honest, it took me a while to like it and to use it for my scrapping. I was used to editing my photos in photoshop WHILE I was creating my scrapbook pages. It was hard to learn to edit something and then create a layout around the end result, but now I know it is totally worth it.

I have learned a lot since I started really using in January, and I would like to share what, IN MY OPNION, is worth doing:

• Increase {exposure} (unless your photo is really over exposed) but if you plan to printing your photos, they will look much better (what you see on screen rarely reflects the printed result)
  If you lose detail, such as clouds in the sky, etc, because of higher exposure, increase your {recovery} and that should help.
• Increase the {black} in your pictures to boost your photos colours. Increase {exposure} and sometimes {fill light} to compensate the darkness, it is well worth it.
  If during editing your photos become too colourful, decrease {saturation} until it is dull enough and then increase {vibrancy)
• Keep an eye on the {temperature} of your photos, increase it to avoid a bluish tint or just to fake and afternoon glow and decrease to get rid of crappy artificial lighting (perfect for indoor nigh time shots).
• Most importantly, PLAY!

So, if you are new to Lightroom I don’t expect you to jump in straight up. I also recommend using presets if you are pressed for time. Kelsey Smith has some greats ones, you can find some of my favourites at Inside Lightroom. Having said that, I would like to share my own! A lot of people have asked what I have been doing to my photos; mentioned that the colours are great, etc. So I have saved my go to presets and put them in a neat package for you guys (sorry, cute model not included):

And it is free ;) (I am getting addicted to giving free stuff LOL) HERE is the link!
Let me know if you like it.

I have saved the first two (the jpg ones) when I was first playing with my photos. I started shooting in RAW last month and noticed things work completely different in RAW images, so I am still finding my way around and discovering the difference {I am loving it}. Either way, no single preset will ever be the perfect post processing solution, it is always good to do some extra tweaking, but presets sure are a great starting point :)

Catching up

I missed out on all the fun of NSD, I tried to participate on the DD chats but things were not too good around here. After an argument with hubby, Lucas got sick. He got worse and worse till I had to take him to the doctor on Monday. Doctor said he was almost “hospital material” and diagnosed him with Asthma, but said we would be able to cope at home. I returned the next day to check if he was on the right course and didn’t need a hospital stay. Thankfully, he is fine, we just need to finish a course of antibiotics and monitor the condition. I think he doesn’t have asthma, but I am no doctor LOL I think it is just bronchitis, but anyway, now both kids are considered “asthmatic”. Mateus just started to get sick today. It is always like that isn’t it? When one starts to get better the other gets sick. Everything is under control though, and I feel I have caught up with a LOT of real life stuff today, just the scrapping seems to have backed up a little. Ack!!

And to finish off, I promised myself to try and post the photos from last month every time I remember so I can catch up. Here are some from the 19th of April. Scouting this pretty place for some photos with a friend (they turned out so cute, her little girl is gorgeous):

Hope you are having a great week :)

Altered notebook

The current hybrid challenge at the Little Dreamer Designs blog is to create a cover for a notebook.

Here is a little explanation on how I did mine:
Get a cheap notebook pack. I got 4 for two dollars at the discount shop :) Create your cover digitally, to the size of your notebook cover. Print it out on your home printer or take it out to be printed. Cut your cover to size and round the corners if desired.

Adhere your cover to the notebook cover with double sided tape or glue; and as a finishing touch, add embellishments (I added pearls) and wrap ribbons to your notebook.

Credits here.

and here is another one I did:

Credits here.

It is fun and because it is sooooo cheap, I don't "feel sorry" for using it :) I have been using them with no problems (this is coming from someone that feels sorry for using her scrap supplies, LOL)

Freebie

The title of this post was Happy NSD - Garoto Sapeca - Freebie - for Miles - Be gentle.... but I didn’t think that would make much sense, so let me explain ;) I wanted to do something for Miles Day (read about it on Kellie’s blog), I missed the day but I still wanted to "pass it forward" and make someone smile. So I thought about National Scrapbooking Day and how it would be another excuse to give out a Freebie. I am no designer, but I have plans of creating lots of templates to give away here, however, I wanted something more, not just a template. Suddenly I had a light bulb moment, oh!!! My apprentice entry. I applied for the Apprentice program at Little Dreamer Designs and didn’t get in, but I still have the kit here. Why didn’t I share it before? Well, that is the "be gentle" part. I am a little bit embarrassed by it. It is not great. But anyway, no time to try and redo it, and I am "over it" and ok to share. Just, no need for feedback, I don’t want to know if you didn’t like it, LOL.
Anyway, here it is:


Link HERE. I added 3 little things to the freebie, a paper, a piece of twill and a wordart in portuguese (Garoto Sapeca translates to cheeky boy in Portuguese).

Enjoy!

*runs for cover*

Anatomy of a page {xoxo}

Lately I really felt like doing some paper scrapping, but I guess it doesn’t exist for me anymore, because everything I do is hybrid. I always get a little help from my handy computer. Also, I had this cool assignment for a challenge at Little Dreamer Designs; to use red and white in a page. So I decided to indulge into a crafty page and do my assignment in one go. I started taking pictures for a tutorial, but I couldn’t come up with one. Instead I will just tell you what I did.

I’ve chosen my red digital paper (from genuine spirit kit by Michelle Coleman) Then i wanted a doodled white background. I couldn’t find any so I made my own with Jackie Eckle’s Doodly font.
I also wanted to emphasize the red and black in the LO, so I converted all my photos to black and white using Lightroom.

I printed out all the photos in photographic paper. I printed the papers in matter paper as well as a red version of XOXO to use as an element. In a transparency I printed my journaling and a swirl (from Le Jardin kit by Michelle Coleman).

I tore the red paper, curled the edge a little bit, cut all the photos, I printed them on different sizes as I had lots, but since I couldn’t choose I included all of the photos and laid it all out:

My favourite photo of the series I printed out bigger and cut out the boys from the background. Then I added mounting tape to make it “pop” off the page.

I am so proud because I decided from nowhere to doodle some wings on the letfover white paper. You have no idea how big this is for me, I can’t draw, I always want to, but I really can't LOL. Proof is when i tried to do the wings again I couldn’t. But these ones turned out very cute so I decided to add some mounting tape to it and include it behind the red xoxo.

Now to the bit that frightens me the most, because if I crew this up I have to start from scratch: the stitching.

It went all right, thankfully... it was not easy though, my little machine doesný handle big jobs too well. But I love the look of real stitching, so I had to add it :)

Here is the finished project:

What do you think? (if you click on the images you can see bigger versions on flickr)

Don't forget to stop by the Little Dreamer Designs Blog and have a look at the Focus on Color challenge.

Simplifying -> are you going to forget me?

One week since my last post... and it is May already.. where did April go? (do I say that every month? LOL)

I am going to try and blog once a week, but I have set up routine for myself. Forums twice a week, blogging once a week (but then, maybe I’ll do back posts) galleries when I have new LOs. I don’t know when I am going to be able to visit blogs, it has been over a week and I got overwhelmed by the quantity of new posts, I just had a quick look around but left no comments, I feel bad for that :(

Scrapping... when I am not doing all these other things, my time has to be divided into digital pages for CTs, hybrid projects and challenges. Challenges... oh, I have mentioned here a couple of times I LOVE challenges. I know at least 20 weekly sources of challenges, from designer blogs, to stores and the Digidare. In the very beginning I wanted to do all of them... but I haven't been able to... so my new goal is to get at least one done every week. In my current situation, one a week is plenty.

To further help out the simplifying thing, I left two Creative Teams that I LOVED, oscraps and thedigichick. I am going to miss it, but I honestly am happy to just buy their stuff if I feel I have the time to use it, they do awesome stuff I really don't mind paying for ;)

Flickr, as if I had any spare time I joined flickr and got hooked. So far I haven't joined too many groups for fear of getting even more addicted. I am going to try and update my flickr every week, there is no lack of photos for that ;) Oh, photos, I have controlled myself pretty well I would say, but still went over 1000 last month (not counting the zillions of photos I took of the hybrid stuff)

Talking about photos, I have loads of photos of April to share, and I just noticed I haven’t posted any :( so I am just going to show you a couple of old ones today and hope to catch up with April before May finishes LOL These photos were taken at the lake close to my place:

Mateus didn’t stop for one second, so there are not many sharp pictures of him, just a blur here and there on the pictures LOL


Love the setting, and the light here (and someone was in a serious need of a haircut)


All too happy to have his pictures taken :)


Cheeky :)


Then he got tired and went exploring.

And then I scrapped some of the photos, of course ;)

Back to the start of the post....There is just one thing that I am worried about: am I going to be forgotten?
I do scrapbooking for my family and for myself. But the community, the praise, the awards, the prizes, being published, being in the spotlight, there is no denying, it is all a big incentive for me to create MORE. If I just wanted to record my memories in beautiful scraps I would probably just sit for three months planning a beautiful album with all the best moments of a year. Instead, I create a page at a time so I can share with the community; get some praise, some input, some approval! Now, if I am simplifying, posting less, blogging less, doing less, participating less, what is going to happen? Am I going to be forgotten? Maybe. Probably. I worry about that, but at the same time, I know I have to learn to live without EVERYONE's approval. I don't NEED to show my "stuff" for it to be nice, I have to learn that I am the one that has to like it and that's it! But it is hard, that is not who I am, I want approval, I want praise, and once again I hit that reality wall, you just can't have everything.

You color my world (+ freebies)

Something cute I have created this weekend:

I just love when I make something for myself, designed for myself, designed to make me awww and oooh. Something that I don’t have to give away, it is MINE and I can look at it and cherish all I want :) This little book was something like that. I had a whole 20 page album planned with this theme. It was in my head since Mateus as 1 year old, but that is just too much work for the moment, so a little keepsake was the easy solution for my need to have something like this in my hands.

Now, this is a hybrid project, so there was a whole (fun) process to it, which I am getting used to and enjoying a lot. First I had to come out with a way of creating the album with layers/tabs, so I did a mock up in scrap paper, measured it, and brought it to photoshop. I wanted it to be practical and easy to print, so I planned it to be printed on two A4 pages.

It was a lot of work putting the template together, so I saved it for future albums, and I would love to share it with you. HERE is the link to the template.

Then I created my digital pages using the TuttiFrutti papers and elements by Lili:

I printed them, cut them and glued the same sized pages back to back. Then I did my favourite thing in hybrid, added buttons, ribbons and other embellishments (almost everything by doodlebug designs) and you can see the end result at the beggining of this post :)

Here was my process: template, quick pages, digital pages, printed pages with embellishments

Now, why did I create quickpages? Well, onto the big surprise :) I sent this to Lili and she suggested we give the quickpages away as a freebie.... YES! If you like this little project specifically, you can just download the quickpages HERE and add your photos and text, than it is ready to print and play. Isn’t she great? I am so excited! I hope everyone enjoys them as much as I did. I am still oooohing and awwwing at it ;)

I am off to Sydney this weekend to meet my best Aussie friend Melissa, who I haven’t seen in over a year. For those in Australia, have a great ANZAC day, and everyone else enjoy your weekend :)

ETA. You can click on all the photos on this post for larger versions available on flickr (lots more photos there too)