Wow, wow, wow...

Sorry I'm just being all excited again LOL! It's Monday which means a BIG layout task for the class I'm taking. I have been working through the video tutorials all morning and just finished my layout.

Isn't it so exciting to learn new things? This class I'm taking is so great and I have learnt so many new little tricks for digital scrapping just this morning. We did the circle arrangement of photos, used a grungemask on the large photo, doing the journaling strips with the black background...And maybe coolest of all - adding an overlay (removing some parts of it and then making it fade in better with the background) and adding a grunged effect to the papers with darkened edges.

I think I will have to practice a bit more before I can remember everything I have learnt today (it's one thing doing them just after you have watched a video...and another to remember the exact steps 2 weeks later) but we get this handy .pdf with all the commands etc to print out so that will help a lot. I must remember to print that asap.

Lilypad

Friday saw some new kits released at the Lilypad shop. I got the chance to play with the "Breezy" kit earlier in the week...

I had lots of fun and ended up making this card...

What else? Hrm...let me think...oh yes I'm soooo looking forward to tomorrow. Another new week for the digital scrapping course that I'm taking by Jessica Sprague and Money means big layout task! Yay! Can't wait :)))

Scrapping...

Been doing some more scrapping (though this layout is actually not from today)...and enjoying looking through all the new releases at the Sweet Shoppe this morning. Yum!

Sakura...

Can't wait for tomorrow. Saturday is the big day each week when all the new kits are released at Sweet Shoppe Designs. It's always so exciting on Saturday morning to see what they have all come up with.

Waiting for that, I have had a play with a very pretty kit by Kristin Cronin-Barrow called "Cherry Blossoms".

At first I was thinking of doing a layout but I changed my mind in the last second and did a card instead. Everything I have used for the card is from the kit apart from white cardstock and some pretty silver jewels.

Avital you asked me where I got the stash from that I showed you yesterday. It's from A Million Little Things. Though, yes, the postage is expensive...I guess you can't get away from that when you order from the US.

October Afternoon...

If someone asked me, for a long time I would have said that Autumn Leaves make my absolute favourite stamps. For the last year...hrm...not so sure anymore. I still LOVE my Autumn Leaves stamps but October Afternoon are definitely a good contender! Love their stamps :)

I have not posted stash photos for ...what has felt like ages, probably because...eh...uhm...I haven't ordered any new stash for a long time. But I have just got some new yummies from the US so here we go...

One reason for me loving October Afternoon stamps so much:

Those owl stamps, the baby deer and the rabbit are so cute. Love the trees! And the journaling/calendar ones will be mega useful.

...and they have brought out some new collections of papers too. When I saw them on the website I was not 100% sure, but I took a gamble and am I glad that I did. They look so much better in reality :)

And finally I couldn't resist getting a few sheets of paper from KI Memories latest collection called "Bloom". There were so many items in this collection that it was really hard to pick.

Loved The First Lesson...

I finished the first lesson yesterday and totally love it!! I learnt so many great things. How to turn a photo into sepia and selectively colour one part, how to round the corners of paper using a brush (wow - loved this!), how to create your journaling in two columns etc etc. I so much enjoyed it!

...and that is my finished layout. I pretty much followed the class instructions...the only thing I did differently was the heart embellishment. In the class the embellishment was "floating" in the big empty blue area of the layout (bottom left). But I wasn't too keen on that so I moved mine and overlapped the journaling block instead. That worked better for me.

You know what I love? Brushes!! I mean, how fantastic are they? We used some brushes on the left and right side of the photo and well, I'm just like ---> wow, love it :)))

Today we got this great freebie for the class. When I read the mail, seeing that it was going to be from SSD, I thought it was great news. But at the same time I thought I might already have the freebie kit with being on the SSD CT. Oh no!! Instead Robin and the gang have been sooooo sweet and designed us an exclusive kit just for Jessica's class:

And before I finish this, I have a message for Lisbet who left me a comment: tack så mycket för att du talade om att min länk inte funkade på Jessicas forum - jag tror att jag har fixat den nu.

So Many Cool Things To Learn...

Due to some problems with the class materials I never got the chance to start on the first class yesterday. Today is a different story. We have a huge class full of cool things to learn. As I type this I'm about 40% through the whole lesson and it's great.

One of the very cool things I have learnt so far this morning is to take a normal colour photo:

...and change it to sepia tone and then re-colour a single element in the photo!

How special does that look? I just hope I can remember it all LOL! But the class is really good in the way that we have access to the class videos forever, so if you forget how to do a certain task, you can just go back and watch it over and over again :) Totally loving it!

Okay I better get back to my lesson.

Very Excited...

Today is the first day of the intermediate "Now We're Rockin" digital scrapping course by Jessica Sprague that I'm taking! I'm so excited!! I really can not wait. I'm going to download all the class materials after I have done my blogging for today and then get started on the first lesson. I really, really loved the beginner's class that I took, so I know this will be so much fun :))

You know what - I need to ask: where is the summer?!? I mean - it's the middle of June and the weekend was so cold that we were almost considering putting the heating on inside for an hours or so. That is just WRONG!! LOL!

[Supplies: Fancy Pants papers, Bazzill scalloped cardstock, Basic Grey stamps, American Crafts Thickers alphabets plus some buttons and jewels]

Snowing...

Well....not really...just kinda snowing - on my layout that is LOL! Sorry if I fooled you into thinking we were having some sort of crazy June weather.

This is a layout made for Make The Moment Last DT:

[Supplies: Basic Grey papers and diecuts, American Crafts rub-ons, ribbon...which I'm afraid I don't know who makes, plus some American Crafts Thickers alphabets.]

Class Done...

I have finished off the June on-line layout class for Mel & Jill at A Trip Down Memory Lane and sent that off now. Yay! I can't tell you too much until the class goes up on the 21st, but I might just whisper: ....noteworthy.....ssssh! ;)

As part the SSD CT we got asked if we wanted to play with the June kit for DAM (Digital Artist Magazine) a few weeks ago, so of course I couldn't resist. I just love practising my digital scrapping as much as I can. Can't wait for the next class to start on Monday - I'm so eager to learn LOL!

[Supplies: 'Heatwave' kit by Leora Sanford]

If you haven't checked out DAM - you really should. It's a fantastic digital magazine which reminds me a lot of "Cards" and "Scrapbook Trends" which has to be the most beautiful craft magazines that I have ever seen. And you know what? DAM is a magazine in .pdf format. For me to say this magazine is amazing is a BIG deal. Why? I hate .pdfs...really I do...the scrolling drives me mad! It makes me feel claustrophobic and well...I just hate .pdfs in general LOL! But I L-O-V-E DAM. Why? Because it WORKS! One "magazine page" is "one page on your screen". No horrible jump/scrolling! So I never thought I would say this but I totally love, love, love the .pdf DAM magazine!! :))) Go and have a look for yourself - its great :)