Fun on the Farm

This spring both of my boys went on field trips to the farm.  Seemed like the perfect opportunity to throw a layout together with a photo collage!

This was one of those super fast, super simple layouts.  I got the idea from a fellow LOADster.  You can see her version here.

I made an 8.5x22 canvas in Photoshop Elements and filled it with images and digi papers.  I used the process I posted about here and here.  Then when I printed I cropped down to 8.5x11 on the left side, printed, went back up to edit/undo crop and then followed the same process on the right side.

I placed all the pics of my younger son on the left page and all the pics of my older son on the right.  Even though the trip is to the same place they were not on the same day.  I like separating them trips while still keeping them on the same layout.

For a bit of farmy fun I added this adorable pig from the Cuddly Animals Set over at SVGCuts.com.  Do you like the mud smudges I added on him.  :)  That's my favorite part.

So here's the deal with the title...I ran out of t and e in my sticker set.  So I had to improvise.  But "Down on da Farm" totally works for me!  :)

The digi paper fill spots were from a 4th of July set.  But all the denim seemed a perfect fit for a farm page, don't ya think?

Here's my pigs best bud the cow.  Also from the Cuddly Animals set!  And then while digging around in my brown color bin I found this bit of rope.  Loved the touch it gave to the page!

Hand written journaling was a must for this quick and simple page.  I had fun playing with comparing the two trips.  For every comparison I started with my youngest and followed it with a comment about my oldest.  Just like how the page has my youngest first (on the left) and moves to my oldest.

The journaling reads, "Two farm field trips full of fun!  One was wet and cold.  One was sunny and warm.  One with Mama.  One with Daddy.  One never made it past the playground.  One saw all the animals.  One with a small class.  One with many friends.  One with silly smiles.  One in a cowboy hat.  One afraid to feed the animals.  One ready to try.  Two boys having tons of fun on a field trip to Deanna Rose Farm."

We actually went back to the farm this last week (did I mention it's free!!!).  Here are a couple of my favorite shots from our recent trip.

Have you had two children go on the same field trip?  Try making a comparison page and link us up so we can see!

I Wanna Hold Your Hand

Does the title of this post make you wanna sing a little.  It does me!  For as long as my youngest has been able to talk he has said to me daily, "I wanna hold your hand."  And every time I start to sing...I wanna hold your ha-a-a-a-and, I wanna ho-old yo-our hand.  During LOAD this year I decided to create a layout all about it.

I saw this template by Crystal Wilkerson over at Write.Click.Scrapbook one day and knew I would need to use it!  Since the photos I wanted to use were from many different occasions I made them black and white.  Which made this layout a perfect fit for Crystal's template.  I love all the color!

When using the layered version of the template you can clip your own papers to the border.  I love how bright and cheery it looks!

I still used papers from Crystals Spring/Summer line but I had fun playing around with what went where.

I love the paper strips across the bottom.  I don't often make subtitles but this was the perfect place for one.  This is a staged picture but it is a perfect representation of how often my little guy reaches for my hand.  (cue the awwwws)

For the left page I used another of Crystal's templates.  I did add the stitching to make it match the right side.  For the pics I scrolled back through iPhoto and found several pics of my son and I holding hands.  Just more evidence of his obsession.  :)

I've been working lately on telling everyday stories.  This layout is definitely an example of that.  Which makes me love it even more!

Have you ever scrapped about a song that has a special meaning for someone in your family?  Link us up so we can see!

Picture Winter Layout

On this last and final day of January 2011 I wanted to post my Picture Winter layout.  As with every other Picture class (Summer, Fall, and Holidays) I kept the layout design the same.  The only difference is the pictures and the paper colors.

I love that this cool blue highlights the feeling of winter while still making the colors in the photo collage pop!

It is hard to tell in these pictures but for the title I chose a light blue snowflake print.  Keeps the wintry theme going don't you think?!?

Just like in my prior layouts I used Tracey's welcome message as my journaling.  To give it a bit of added punch I used...well a punch.  :)  I love that I can always look back on Tracey's inspirational words in my layouts!

I used some winter text paper as the mat behind the photo collage.  I love that I was able to highlight this quote.  "Winter is a time to gather golden moments and enjoy every idle hour." -John Boswell

I actually only had one full sheet of the winter text paper and some scraps.  So for this side I had to piece together the mat to get all the edges covered.  In the end I don't think it's all that noticeable and it still gives the feel I was going for.

For Christmas my husband gave me a set of wintry glitter stickers.  I thought they fit this layout perfectly.  I love all the sparkles!

On each page I left some blank squares for text.  I found this fun digital snowflake overlay that I put behind my words.  It adds to the wintry theme!

I have so enjoyed this journey as I pictured winter!  Even though the class is done, BPC will soon offer it as a self paced option, along with the other "Picture" classes.  I highly encourage you to take the journey yourself!  It has truly been a transformation experience for me!  

And don't forget to stop by tomorrow morning at 8 AM PST for the One Little Word blog hop!  I'll even have a giveaway!  Can't wait!  See you then!

Picture the Holidays Layout

Scrap-lifted myself again.  I've decided to make all my "Picture" layouts the same in design.  So here is my latest version.

Once again I made a collage of the photos I took during Picture the Holidays.  You can see more about this on my previous posts about Picture Summer and Picture Fall.

This year instead of scrapping Christmas as I've done in the past I chose to just use this layout.  So I used some Christmas papers and elements on my page.

Like this adorable sleigh and Santa.  :)

I added an embellishment to the collage. And another just above the journal block.

I used part of Tracey's original email as my journaling and only used one line of my own that addressed the struggles we had this month.

Picture Fall

Today I scraplifted...myself!  I loved the layout I made for Picture Summer, which has become one of my most popular posts ever!  I wanted to do something similar for my Picture Fall photos.  Then I thought why reinvent the wheel?

I used almost the exact same layout as my as I did for Picture Summer.

The colors and font are different.  And because of the title I had to flip the journaling block to the other side.  But otherwise it's nearly a carbon copy.

I made two photo collages in Photoshop Elements.  One for each page.  All photos are 2x2 blocks.  I made them to fit an 8.5x11 sheet of paper (filled the 11 but not quite the 8.5).  For directions on how to make this collage with text boxes see the original Picture Summer post.

I chose my color palate with fall in mind.  This patterned paper reminded me of wind blowing.  It's not as noticeable with the collage on it, but I loved the movement of the paper.  Even if you can't totally see it in the final product.  :)

I went digging in my orange and brown color bins and found these adorable chunky leaves.  I thought they were the perfect embellishment for the fall page.  And I wouldn't have ever remembered I had them if it weren't for my color bins!  Thank you for the inspiration Stacy Julian! (see her Scrap by Color Podcasts)

I just realized I never blogged about my new, perfectly organized for me, scraproom.  Will have to do that soon! Ok, but for now back to Picture Fall.  :)

My title was a bit of a happy mistake.  I intended to have it be brown with a cream shadow, but put the Cricut mat in the wrong way.  So I ended up with a cream title with a brown shadow.  In the end I actually liked it better this way.  And I certainly didn't want to waste another 3x12 inch sheet of my patterned paper!

For the journaling on this page I like to use something from the original "welcome to the class" email I get from Big Picture Classes and Tracey Clark.  Her words are so beautiful and summarize so well what the class was about.

Taking these two classes, Picture Summer and Picture Fall, over at Big Picture Classes have not only been fun and inspirational but have truly changed my life!  I know that may sound hokey, but it's true.  My photography improved from simply practicing on a daily basis, and a whole new world with new opportunities opened up to me!  I know sell artistic prints and photo jewelry on facebook.  I'm loving my creative time, and that I can create something to share with others.  I highly recommend Tracey Clark's classes over at BPC, really any class at BPC!  Picture the Holidays is coming up in Dec followed by Picture Winter in January!  The links are on the right hand side of my blog.  And if you decide to join BPC and take a class you can follow this link http://www.bigpictureclasses.com/register.php?refer=802E795D  so that you and I both get a discount!

Easy Picture Collage

I'm all about journaling...usually.  But what happens when you scrap the same event every year?  You start to run out of things to say!  Every summer our family goes to a church camp called Reunion.  So when it came to scrapping this summer's Reunion I decided to go for quick and easy!

Since I typically use solid cardstock for my background I decided to use patterned paper.

Before I knew how to make my own collages in Photoshop I used an awesome feature at bighugelabs.com called mosaic maker.  It's awesome, it's easy and it's free!  What could be better.  Create your collage with a few clicks, download to your computer and print it out!  They have lots of other fun toys on this site as well.

My scraproom is organized by color.  Inspired by Stacy Julian's color podcasts.  Love this way of scrapping by the way!  When I pulled out my blue bin I found these word tags.  I added a cute charm to accent.

To balance the pictures on the left page I cut a white box the same size.  Used the remaining photos I had from Reunion and tried to figure out what to do with the remaining white space.  I could, of course, have added journaling.  But after 5 years of scrapping the same event I didn't have much to say.  Then I remembered that I had more word tags in other colors.

Just so happened the tags were in green and yellow.  Which matched the colors on my paper.  How lucky was that?  I love the look these tags give the layout.

Simple, fun, and for me...different!  Gotta love that!

4th of July and Photoshop Tutorial

I love a simple, quick layout.  I'm big on journaling, but recently I've found some freedom in NOT journaling.  Especially when I'm scrapping a yearly event like the 4th of July.  This time it was about the pictures, there really wasn't much story to tell.

I found this cute layout on a blog post at WriteClickScrapbook.com

I did a pretty literal lift of this layout.  I knew that this would work perfectly with my favorite landscape pics from our 4th of July celebration.

I have loved this flag paper for a long time, but never found the right layout for it.  The muted tones of these pictures worked perfectly for this paper.  I used a 5x7 print of my favorite shot from the day.  I used a 1/2 in strip of red and a 2 in strip of the flag paper.

I cut the letters out of white cardstock. I knew that I wanted to pop up some of them so I cut some chipboard in the same font.  I make my chipboard out of cereal boxes.  I inked the edges with red ink, and sprayed the letters with silver glimmer mist.  I LOVE how they turned out.  I actually wish I had gold glimmer mist.  I think it would have worked better on the tones of this layout, but I don't so I used what I had.  :)

On the inspiration layout there were strips of journaling.  I considered doing the same, but could not think of anything interesting to say.  So I freed myself from the guilt of always writing something.

On the left page I had a 5x7 pic and wanted to balance that on the right.  I decided that the best way was to put 4 smaller photos on a 5x7 photo mat.  Now I could print out 4 individual photos and adhere them to white paper.  OR I could make a collage in Photoshop.

While in Photoshop go to File...New...Blank File

This is the point where you can size the canvas.  Since I wanted my canvas to be the same size as my 5x7 print I made it be 5 in by 7 in.

Once you have the canvas go to File...Open...Photos.  Open all the pics you want in your collage.

I knew that to fit 4 pics on a 5x7 canvas they would need to be about 2.5x3.5 in.  So I cropped each photo to that size.

Once you have each pic resized go down to the photo bin and double click on the canvas.

Then chose your first picture and drag and drop it onto your canvas.

Then click on the move tool (+ sign with arrow) and drag the corners to make the photo fit in the space you want it in.  When you have it the size you want click the green arrow.  Don't worry, you can resize again if you need to.

Then drag and drop your next pic.  I resize on top of the first pic so that I am sure I am making each photo the same size.

Continue dragging, dropping, and resizing the pics until you fill the canvas.

I  chose to leave white lines in between each photo, but you could make the photos flush against one another.

When you have the photos placed the way you want go to the right hand side and right click on one of the layers.  Then select flatten image.

Then file save as

You can save as a PDF or, as I did, save it as JPEG.

And now you have a photo collage.  Once you have a little know-how, the possibilities are endless!

I love a simple layout!  And one that involves a collage makes it even easier!  Yay!