Adorable Olly

Widdlytinks.com

Getting Started On Your First Layout

Previous: So You Wanna Digi-Scrap Too?

Pictures? Check. Hardware? Check. Software? Check! All systems GO!

(This is a simplified version for Photoshop users. It's a little bit more advanced than if you're going to use a ready-to-scrap software Scrapbookflair, Smilebox or Scrapblog. Those softwares are very user-friendly with prompts and built-in directions from start to finish. The last two even supplies their own musictoaccompany your finished albums!)

1. Pick out a theme. It'll be easier when you establish a focus for your project like, Our Summer at the Beach 2008 or Christmas Vacation 2007. Being specific is always good as it will help you pick out designs and ideas faster than having a scope that's too general or broad.

2. Select a picture or a set you want to work on, based on the theme you have in mind. You might want to go through them to pick out the good shots. This is when it's toughest, trying to pick out the best among all the cute photos! But, tough love, baby! Leave behind the ones that really don't tell a story, are blurry or too dark to be edited. Put the ones you picked in a separate folder just to segregate them from the rest you aren't working on.

3. Edit the photos on your photo-editing software. Crop, enhance and clean them up to make sure they stand out.

4. Search for papers, elements and other materials that correspond to the theme you picked.

5. Start layouting (For Photoshop, this is assuming you're familiar with the software)

a. First rule of thumb is: KEEP IT SWEET AND SIMPLE. There are a number of free layouts and quick pages downloadable from the scrapbooking community. If you're stumped for ideas, browse through the galleries to get inspired. One thing you will notice is that the layouts may be simple, but they all kick ass. It's a good idea to make a sketch of your composition first so you'll have something to base your final layout on.

b. Set your canvas size to what you would like your final project to be. Most projects are set at 12x12 but you may modify it to 8.5x11 especially if you're printing them. The 12x12's are also printable as photobooks but usually via print shops.

c. Lay out the papers you want to use for the background. Usually, this depends on whether your photos are generally light or dark. I would suggest a light colored background paper if your photos are dark and vice versa for light photos. This is to provide a backdrop for your photos so they ought to provide a certain contrast. However, if you still want to use a dark background with dark photos, you can still provide contrast for your pictures by the use of lighter shaded frames and embellishments. You may also use other papers, placing them side by side or layering them one on top of the other for further effect.

d. Place the picture/s you want to feature on the page. I would suggest a maximum of five pictures on one page and no more. Unless you were going for a mosaic look, too many pictures on one page can overwhelm your viewer. A good layout for me would be to have one focal point and that the rest of the elements and other pictures would visually support.

e. Frame the pictures with your chosen frames and elements. Focus on developing your focal point, leading the eye to it.

f. Save your work periodically. When you're done, save a .jpeg version of it to post or bring to the photo printing shop.

Viola! You're done!

Oona's Second Album: LAST PAGES

It was pretty typical for everyone after that.

Sleeping was our favorite activity. (It still is, with eating and playing a close second and third!)

Before August ended, Lolo Lem got to play with his recovering little granddaughter. She still couldn't see much, as with typical newborns, but she knew how to work the crowd!

It was as if she never got sick!

Evolution of a Wanderer

I have always loved travelling.

There's that thing they say at home about people like me, that we probably have a mole on our feet that's why we can't stay in one place at any given time. Well, my feet are as mole-free as it can get, but I think my soul's feet are another matter.

For Weekend Wanderings, a blog to chronicle my wanderlust throughout the years, I made this graphic. I know it's a little simple than the other graphics I've been posting lately. But as of now, the blog's pretty new so my mind was more on writing for it than making a digiscrap layout.






I have yet to make a banner for the blog too, as I am still thinking about the whole look of the page. But to be sure, when I'm done, I'll post it here as well.




{credits: freedigitalscrapbooking.com andrea rascaglia frames; peppermintcreative.com miss mint tropical popsicle; designerdigitals.com katie pertiet quote challenge 32507, kellie mize ad challenge 100106}

Oona's First Nine Months! My First Album!

My name is Laya and I am a Scrapaholic. (Hellooo, Laya!)

This happened beacuse we just had way too much footage of Oona being the triggerhappy proud parents of this little girl. We hardly knew what to do with the batches of pictures we accumulated.

I was surfing through arts and crafts websites to see what I could see, when I came across digital scrapbooking.

When it came to photographs, I was a glue-and-scissors kind of girl and it never crossed my mind that I could do this digitally. I was calling myself all kinds of stoofid because I used to jazz up static pictures with graphics in my video editing days! Duh! Why didn't I think of that in the first place?! My creative mojo really IS on an all time low!

But where to start, where to start? I couldn't possibly be making ribbons, buttons and stuff from scratch! It would take me too long and I was stumped for design. (Really no mojo to speak of).

It was after beating myself up for running out of creative juice that the universe pointed me in the direction of ScrapFlair. Maybe the universe got sick of my self-pity because not only was it a free downloadable program, ScrapFlair had ready-made templates and elements that were included in the package!

Oh joy and happy days!

Additional freebies are downloadable on the site too. So as soon as I started figuring out the program, I was downloading as much stuff as I liked.

It helps that you join the online community as well even if as a non-member, you can still read through the posts under a lot of helpful topics. The forum posts are very helpful and informative. As a member though, you can post your own questions, ask help for your specific concerns regarding tips and tricks and post in your own gallery to get feedback. You also get an email newsletter with what's new at the site and new kits that the designers launched.

At this time however, I'm still building up my own collection of pages inspired by the Scrapflair designs to post in my gallery. So far, I managed to finish Oona's First 9 Months, an album of my pregnancy.

I'm glad everything (except layout templates) are in a format that's editable. I wanted greater elbow-room so I ended up using Adobe Photoshop to make my own layouts, to resize and add effects to the elements themselves.

Since I wanted to add a lot more stuff to the scrapbook I was making, I had to make some of my own "stickers", labels and other graphics.



I also mixed in other elements I downloaded from other design templates.

Using ScrapFlair is a great way to get started on digital scrapbooking. This was all I needed to get me out of the creative funk I was having. From then on, I was able to move on to other projects using other resources that the scrapbooking community selflessly share!

{Credits: Scrapbookflair Sweetie Pie Collection, Aqua Glass Collection,
Princess Collection; Digitalscrapbooking-free.com Heart Sentiments by Lisa W;
Freedigitalscrapbooking.com Child of Mine Set}

THE EVENT REMINDER

{Credits: Shabby Princess Sweet Serenity, Festival, Promise Collection,
CottageArtsHopeSentimentPak,
Free Digital Scrapbooking Delight In Life
and DigiKeepsakes Vivaldi Alpha}

As usual, I had to send reminders to everybody.

I was nervous because less than half of the people we'd invited had RSVP'd and most of those were regrets. What in the world were we to do with 100 pax worth of food?! So using the photo from the first draft, I flipped the layout to come up with this. I was sure the others had forgotten that the event was nearly upon us.

Thinking up witticisms like in the godparent invite was a challenge though. So I ended up with something a little ordinary compared to the first salvo.

Sigh.

Anyhoo, the good news is that most of whom I sent this to responded. I even posted this as an event on Facebook just to cover all the bases.

Will You Be My Fairy Oddparent?

{Credits: Shabby Princess Sweet Serenity, Festival, Promise Collection,
CottageArtsHopeSentimentPak, Free Digital Scrapbooking Delight In Life
and DigiKeepsakes Vivaldi Alpha}

The invitation for Oona's Godparents. Since they're all beloved oddballs, we christened them Oona's Fairy Oddparents (yes, a few are fairy gay and most are gayer than the rest!). I know, I went scrap-crazy over this.

{Credits: Designer Digitals AVictoria-webchallenge-mar23,
and Free Digital Scrapbooking Delight In Life}

This was the first draft, using a different set. I know it's also cute and so HAPPY, what with Oona's laugh and the summery feel of the colors...but the whimsical theme kinda won out. It was more in keeping with being a kid. This one is a little bit too grown-up, I guess.

I still want to use this layout for something though. It's too happy to pass up.

Sweet Sixteen

{Credits: Designer Digitals KPertiet_Web111807, mterasawa-web10608}

I made this for my sister, Diday. I was rummaging through old files and came across these pictures, thought forever lost. She's now turning 18 in December, so as this was two years ago, it was a trip down memory lane.

My First DigiScrap Print

{Credits: Designer Digitals Katie Pertiet Scrap Pink, Cottage Arts Hope Sentiment Pack, Shabby Princess Sweet Serenity; Done in Adobe Photoshop CS}


For Our Firstborn

I hope for you a life
of much joy and blessings,
to have all the love you need,
to be able to nurture your gifts,
to be blessed with good health
in order to be all you are meant to be.

For Urduja Isabella G. Florendo
Born on Aug. 15, 2007
Wednesday, 4:56AM

Triggerhappy

What to do with a bazillion photos of your first-born?

We're new parents, so like the tourists in a new country, Mr. F and I can't get enough of clicking away at Oona's every moment.

With today's technology, taking pictures are easy, hence the tendency to having an avalanche of captured moments. You can only look at so much later on and the rest are stuffed in a computer file folder marked: DO NOT DELETE ON PAIN OF DEATH.

You can't possibly print everything. (So very expensive, as I found out) and unfortunately, you can't bear to throw the excess away, no matter how identical six or sixty pictures would look to the next sixty.

Because you would know THE DIFFERENCE.

It would feel almost like a betrayal, casting aside the frozen memory of your little one like it was nothing.

I'm a parent now, so sue me for the drama!

So, what to do, what to do?

In the old days, there were the usual Kodak or Agfa prints and those free cardboard albums. Then Mom would religiously transfer them to nicer plastic bound albums with plastic sleeves. Or if it were a special occasion on celluloid, the big fancy albums with self-adhesive acetate and cardboard pages would be the trophy of the day.


In even older days, the photo albums were bound pages with white-edged photographs neatly arranged by the lady of the house. Handmade albums, usually with ribbons and other whimsy, were elegant in heavy paper and memories were a lot more formal in presentation. Photographs of course were a lot more expensive in our grandparents' age hence the special care in the preservation and presentation of what amounts to a family heirloom. Maybe a lock of hair or a leaf pinned to a photo, a scrap of cloth imbued with memories stirred by a touch. Albums in those days were more scrapbooks, bits and pieces of lives put together to tell a story to the next generation. They had more personality than the plastic, ready-made albums in vogue nowadays.

You can tell where I'm going with this, can you?

So the next best thing if you can't keep your trigger-finger away from the shutter button would be to scrap them all together!

*applause!*applause!*

This blog started that way. Bazillion photos. Little Cash. Lots of Photoshop and Scrapping time. Today's technology in the time-honored tradition of creating your own albums and giving them a little bit of digital personality and pizzaz.

More bang for my buck too since I can scrap together as much photos as I can, arrange it on a nice page with the elements of my choosing and have the whole shebang printed. Ten photos on a page with all the trimmings? So very nice.

And I don't have to feel like such a traitor for trashing anything!

Parental guilt GONE...totally scrapped to oblivion!

{Credits: Shabby Princess Piece-A-Cake In The Groove Album}