Hello Shabby Shoppe readers!  Rosy here, and today I’d like to talk a bit about a scrapbooking theme.

Comparing then & now or before & after photos has long been a favorite theme of scrapbookers, but it’s one that I don’t get tired of seeing  There’s something so interesting (and sometimes funny) about seeing the long ago beside the now and the changes that have taken place.

There are a couple of ways that you can journal about then & now.

1. Focus on the journey and all that has taken place between the then & now photos.

2. Focus on how they are alike.

3. Focus on how they are different.

4. List both similarities and differences.

If you’re needing some inspiration for then & now photos, here are some projects that might spark your creativity:

• Flickr group: Then & Now I love the blending of old and new photos!
• Dear Photograph
• Young Me/Now Me

Then & now comparisons don’t have to span many years either!  It could be comparing your child’s first day of school and last day of school, or a photo of before and after a haircut.

Here’s a then & now page that I’ve done recently comparing a photo of me then (at age 2) and a photo of Audrey now (at age 2).

Here are a few comparison layouts from the gallery for you to check out:

• Ten Years by Kim
• Then and Now by Kylie
• Such a Sweetheart by ktscrapbooklady
• Our Days by lego

If you are inspired to scrap a then & now layout, please upload to the gallery so I can take a peek!

Kylie will be here tomorrow with some exciting Shoppe news for you!

RosyInspiration, Uncategorized 5 Comments

Hello everyone, happy FRIDAY!  It’s Beckie here today with a little color to brighten your day :)

Today, in fact, is my daughter’s 8th birthday party.  I can’t BELIEVE she’s 8 already!  She decided on a sleepover party with 8 other friends and a rainbow theme.  We’ve had so much fun making her invitations (she insisted on paper invitations – I had to get out my paper cutter and my glue – gasp!) and planning out activities.  We have painting, kraft bag decorating, and polymer clay bead making all lined up as activities!  Oh – and a new movie, of course!

So – where does a mom on a mission for a rainbow themed party turn?  why Pinterest, of course! :)  Want to see a few of favorite rainbow finds from Pinterest?

Rainbow Potion – a fun kids drink with sprite and Kool-Aid that looks so cool and colorful!

Rainbow Fruit Skewers – beautiful, delicious, and healthy!  And you could always just arrange the fruit on a tray in rainbow fashion and leave out the skewers :)

…and check out THIS CAKE.  Truly, it’s the mother of all rainbow cakes!

And there’s rainbow paint chip garland, rainbow woven gift wrapping, and even a rainbow wooden mat!

Seriously, every time I searched i ended up meandering…from food to decorations to completely random things.  But they were all COLORFUL!  So, I got to thinking…why not spice up my scrapbooking a bit with a few rainbow inspired pages?  And I asked our very own Kylie to play along with me!  I hope these cool colorful layouts inspire you to add a little rainbow color to your pages!

First up is Kylie…and all I can say is WOW!

I could look at this page all day.  SO much detail and attention into the background papers!  …the stitching, the random width of the stripes (using a Rise & Shine easy-as-pie template), the little bits of elements scattered about.  And I love how big and bold she went with the use of the rainbow in her design.  Absolutely gorgeous!

Next is one of my creations.  ‘Round these parts (Texas) it’s SO hot and dry all summer.  So when we get a little rain, the kids all go crazy.  They play in it, lay in it, run in it, basically just BASK in the rain!  I’ve had these pics for a few weeks, wondering what to do with them.  I love the way the rainbow papers in the background brighten up the overall design (especially the gray, overcast pics!).  I also like the little sentiment…because these kids really do make each other happy.  ( I love our neighbors so much I made a page about our little cul-de-sac :) )

And finally – one more rainbow inspired creation by me.  I’ve mentioned in the past how much I loved using ink/paint/pens in my paper scrapping days, and I thought a rainbow was a perfect chance to bust out the virtual paintbrush yet again :)  Oh, and yes, that photo of my daughter is totally blurry.  But I still love it.  She’s laughing, she’s being real, and i just love the moment!

Want to get the look of those brush strokes?  I started with a basic brush and made a few adjustments.  Then I saved it as a new brush pre-set, so I can use it any time!  Here are the settings:

I started with a basic “flat curve” brush in Photoshop, then adjusted some of the bristle qualities.  And most importantly – check “wet edges”.  This gives realistic color variations throughout the stroke :)

That’s it for today!  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend…wish me luck with our first big sleepover party tonight! :)

BeckieInspiration, Uncategorized 5 Comments

Hi everyone! :o)  It’s Kylie here with our latest GALLERY GIRLS feature!  …and I’m terribly excited to get started! :o)

But for starters…it has been a few months since we got to know our last amazing gallery girl and for those new to the blog…first let me say – WELCOME to all!!!…and next, here is a little explanation on what these super-duper fun and inspired posts are all about.  All of our ‘regular’ gallery posters that we love and feel that we have almost come to ‘know’ – SP affectionately refers to as her ‘GALLERY GIRLS’ :o) – and every once and a while we spotlight a ‘new girl’!  Sooo much FUN!!  To catch up on all our past ‘gallery girls’ click HERE or on your visits to the blog you’ll find the Gallery Girls category down the right side…just a click away from beautiful faces, a sweet little chat, and layout after layout of digi-scrapping heaven!

Today, I’m thrilled to ‘introduce’ you to one of our brightest stars…AMBER! :o)

Amber has such a beautiful, happy and uplifting personality…we just love her!  And if you frequent the Shabby Shoppe’s gallery at all…then you are SURE to have noticed our featured scrappers’ layouts – they shine with personality, are seriously GORGEOUS, and oh so inspiring!  Pagefuls of super-cute pics of her beautiful family and smiles a-plenty, funny little anecdotes and uh-oh moments that make us all giggle, and extra-precious tribute layouts full of life and LOVE.  Amber has a keen eye for color, scraps the sweetest of clusters and loves to layer lots of pretty papers!  Everyday moments or special events, Amber scraps them all with love…and with such style and grace it makes your heart smile!

So without a doubt, I was soooo excited when, the very talented, Amber accepted the invitation to be our latest Gallery Girl :o)  It really has been lots of fun bringing this post to you!  Amber has been a joy to work with and she has crafted lots of exciting new layouts to share with us! YAY!  And, of course, Amber has been kind enough to answer all of our interview questions…sharing with us about her scrapping journey and family life!  We’ll get to know her better soon, but first – let’s check out one of the new pages that Amber created just for this post (there are lots of fabulous new layouts sprinkled throughout…so be sure to scroll down).  Amber will also be uploading all of these layouts to her gallery…so you can see larger images and more info about each one there :o)

I had to start off with this CUTE and perfectly pretty page!  How could I not!!  BIG SMILES!! :o)

Now, on with the interview…and plenty of inspiration along the way…

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF…

I am a Domestic Goddess, (a.k.a. stay-at-home mom), with five children.  I love my children dearly, and wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world.  I LOVE being a wife and mother!  My husband and I have been married for 10 years now, and I love him more now than I did when I married him!  He’s a devoted husband and father, and works very hard so that I can stay home to teach and take care of our kids.  Our lives are very busy, to say the least!  I take whatever quiet moment I can to do some things for me, things that I really enjoy doing, like scrapbooking, sewing, quilting, decorating, or crafting – I suppose it doesn’t happen very often, though!  I was born and raised in Utah, by the most wonderful parents you could ever ask for.  I have three sisters, and three great brothers-in-law.  My mom taught me how to sew, which has been invaluable!  My Dad has taught me perseverance.  And, both have taught me the importance of family, and that I am loved and watched over by my Heavenly Father.

These fall-inspired pages are more than timely!  Beautiful details…amazing photos!

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN SCRAPPING DIGITALLY…AND DID YOU EVER GIVE PAPER SCRAPPING A TRY?

Five years ago, I tried paper scrapbooking.  I did a few pages for an album my sisters and I were making for my parents’ 30th anniversary.  It was really hard for me!  It was like pulling teeth to get those pages done!  Inspiration wasn’t very abundant for me, and I HATED it! LOL!  The mess, and ruining things because I couldn’t see where to place them and I’d keep moving them around…I don’t know.  So, I didn’t do more until almost two years ago.  I had gone through a miscarriage a few months before.  I was SO depressed.  My sister had been doing scrapbooking for quite a while – even designing papers and embellishments for a company here in Utah.  She helped me make my very first digital layout.  I was hooked!  Doing that page helped me to realize what I did have.  It helped me remember the memories of times that I have had with my four other children and how very blessed I am!  I needed that!  I still need that!  While the depression was still there, scrapbooking my memories was my antidote.  It still remains to be my antidote for the tough times..it makes me happy!

Scrap-Happiness!!  Amber’s little ones have the happiest of smiles :o)  Love these pages!

HOW WOULD YOU DEFINE YOUR SCRAPPING STYLE?

“Evolving”?  Is that a style? LOL!  No, seriously.  I look back at some of my first ones and I cringe! :0)  (In fact, I have redone some of those original ones.  They look much better!)  Anyway, in the two years I have been doing this, I’ve been so inspired by others, and I just itch to be able to try new ideas!  I LOVE clustering!  I LOVE color!  Although, I’ve enjoyed doing some more monochromatic layouts as well.  Oh, and I LOVE templates – they have taught me about placement, and I am finding myself doing more and more of my own layout designs.  It’s SO exciting!

A very special photo scrapped beautifully…

WHAT IS THE FIRST COMPONENT OF EACH PAGE YOU CREATE…OR DOES IT VARY FROM PAGE TO PAGE?

Most often it’s the picture.  Those pictures have such a story to tell, and I can’t wait to get it on “paper”!  Other times, it’s the story itself, because I don’t have a picture to go with it.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LAYOUT (TO DATE) AND WHY?

Amber says ~ Do I have to choose just one?  It’s SO hard!  It’s like choosing a favorite child or something!  Then, a lot of them have amazing memories that go along with them – memories that I LOVE! LOL!  Yet, with “Baby Wobert”, I didn’t use a template, it was from my own creativity, and that layout just flowed as I did it.  I love the circles, the colors, the stitching (I LOVE stitching!), and I LOVE the memory!

Then, with “Quarter”, what a day that was!  We still joke about it!  And, I LOVE that xray!  Besides all that, Hopscotch is one of my all time favorite kits!  I go to that one all the time!

SP says ~ This layout is just all kinds of beautiful.  From that gorgeous photo – to the sweet (and honest) words…to the ‘organic’ feel of the page – it’s all perfection!  I really love it when portraits take on a candid/real feel…and that is certainly true here!  The love and happiness behind those smiles…it doesn’t get any better :o)

How could you not LOVE this layout?  Amber’s sweet dad has been through so much lately…yet he still perseveres and shines…and as a result – is an inspiration to his entire family, and many others, I’m sure!  But, it certainly goes far beyond that…because of the internet and digital scrapbooking – we are ALL able to be inspired by him, and by his beautiful daughter!  Amber’s gallery is an inspiration to us all…and her sweet personality is infectious!

WHAT TIP/TECHNIQUE DO YOU KNOW NOW THAT YOU WISH YOU HAD KNOWN WHEN YOU FIRST STARTED SCRAPPING DIGITALLY?

Grrr!  Thinking about this, I feel SO dumb! LOL!  I am self taught in Photoshop, except for the help that my sister gave me at the beginning, of course.  So, I really wish I had known about the clipping mask.  I used to do it the hard way.  Select the layer, move the marquee to the paper, “cut” it, and move it back over to the layer.  So, yeah. The clipping mask is MUCH easier! :0)

WHAT IN YOUR EVERYDAY LIFE INSPIRES YOU IN YOUR SCRAPBOOKING?

Pictures.  Memories.  I go looking through all my pictures – which are a LOT!  And, I remember what was going on, and I feel driven to create!  It’s usually the colors in the photos that inspire the color palette.  If the photos don’t match, I LOVE slight sepia tinting!  My kids are my main inspiration.  I really want to get my memories down of them.  I guess I’m afraid that when I get old, I’ll have Alzheimer’s or Dementia or something, and I’ll forget all these wonderful memories!  So, doing this, it’s like I’m doing my own family’s history, and it’s for posterity’s sake, I guess.  I want my kids to realize how much I love them and the funny, or not so funny, things that they do.

Amber loves to scrap with Hopscotch and I can so see why!  Bright and HAPPY pages!

TECH STUFF :o) Tell us about your camera and software!

My husband bought me a Cannon Rebel T2i not too long ago when my other camera decided to die.  (It’s pretty wonderful!  Although, I’m still trying to figure out how to use all the bells and whistles.)  I use Photoshop CS4, and LOVE it!

FAST FIVE FACTS!

• Favorite COLOR: Blue!  Although, I love how brown can go with almost any color!
• Favorite FOOD: Sugar.  Ooh!  Especially Brach’s Mellowcreme Pumpkins!  One of the reasons that I LOVE Fall!
• Favorite MOVIE: Confessions of A Shopaholic :0)
• Favorite SONG: “Rhythm of Love” by Plain White T’s – You’ve got to find it and listen to it! :0)
• Favorite MEMORY: The day my husband and I FINALLY got married! (He had called off our wedding, and then proposed again a few months later. I loved him too much to say no :0).  And, now, I have something to tease him about!)  And, then, there’s the birth of each of our children.  Very special moments, indeed!

And to finish…WOW!!

—————————————————————————————————————————

Amber, THANK YOU SO SO MUCH for having fun with us…for sharing a little of your world and for allowing us to admire all these wonderful layouts, precious pics and special memories, here at the Shabby Shoppe blog today! :o)  It has been an absolute pleasure and I’m ending this post excited and completely INSPIRED!  Best of all – I KNOW I am not the only one!

THANKS for joining us today!  We’ll see you all again very soon! :o)

KylieGallery Girls, Inspiration, Uncategorized 9 Comments

Hello blog readers!  Kim here today to talk a little bit about photography and sharing a love of taking pictures with kids.  Now, I will be the first to admit that I am self-taught and still have lots to learn myself about the technical aspects of photography, so that is not what I’m going to be talking about today :)  But as early as I can remember, I have always loved photos.  I remember having cameras of my own growing up and how excited I was when we would get my pictures printed at the photo lab (because, yes, there was a time when you had to wait until they were developed to see them!!)  I still have photo albums of my pictures from elementary school and beyond.  Lots of things have changed with photography now, making it easier to learn by just giving things a try.  Digital photography means I can take as many pictures as I want and see how they turned out without having to make the investment in developing and printing them.  So I take pictures of everything all the time!!  And of course, my kids see me doing this and are interested in trying it too.  I admit, sometimes this can be frustrating, like when I want to be taking the picture of them but all they want to do is be behind the camera instead!  And after finally being able to invest in a DSLR, I’ve been a little hesitant to put it in the hands of a three-year-old, know what I mean??  But then, of course I want to take advantage of the interest my kids have in what I’m doing.  I’m not guaranteed they’ll stay interested forever!  So sometimes it’s hard to find the right balance.

Where am I going with all this?  I ran across an idea several months back that I knew I’d love to do with my older kids, and I’m going to share our fun with you today.  The idea was to have a photo scavenger hunt where you intentionally spent time letting the kids be behind the camera.  Love it!  Not only would they love that this time was all about them taking photos, but it would give them a fun way to find what the subject of the photos should be.

We had the perfect opportunity this month, as we were doing a big family birthday weekend and were looking for some simple fun things to do with everyone who was coming to visit.  (Thus I played our scavenger hunt up bigger than necessary.)  I started by creating a list of scavenger hunt items that I thought could be found in most outdoor places (thinking ahead that we could do this again later with the same list).  I was mindful to use things appropriate for my kids’ ages (turning 6 and 4).  Then I made a 4×6 inch card for each of the photographers that I laminated and put on a string so they could be worn around their neck (keeping little hands free for taking pictures!)  Here’s what my card and list looked like:

Credits: Recipe Card template (rotated) from the Muffin Man set, paper from Heartfelt, alpha from Boo, star extracted from Sandbox swirl stamp, and camera by Heather Roselli

We headed to one of our favorite parks, divided up into teams (boys against girls at the kids’ request), and started taking pictures!  Here are some of the photos that they took.

So what did I learn on our little adventure?  To start with, I could have made the list longer!  Although we weren’t making it a race to see who could find all the items first, competitiveness seems to run in our family and they got through these pretty quickly (about 15 minutes).  I encouraged them to find more things to photograph when they were done with the list.  It was also good that it wasn’t just me with the two of them because having a bit of adult help for each of them was good.  But beyond that, it worked really well!  They were both excited to see the pictures later on the computer and my daughter especially was excited to have my phone all to herself to take pictures (yes, we let her use the phone camera because it was simpler and what she really wanted to do).

Of course, you would expect that this adventure turned into a scrapbook layout!  I thought I’d share that with you too before I go ;)

Hope you’ve enjoyed a peek into our fun with a kids photo scavenger hunt!  And I hope you are all encouraged to find ways to share your interests with the kids in your life.  Be sure to stop by the blog tomorrow, as Kylie will be here with the September project scrap templates.  Bye bye!

KimInspiration, Photography, Uncategorized 8 Comments

Hello everyone!  It’s Kim here today to share a little scrapping inspiration with you.  Ever want to stretch your scrapping style a bit and try something new?  I am in that place a lot and don’t always know where to begin.  But it is good to remember that inspiration is all around!  And with the Olympics just over, and the Paralympics just starting, there was a bit of discussion on the team about how that might inspire us in our scrapping.  So I took on the task of looking for inspiration as the games were going on.  And what did I see??  I thought I’d take a closer look at the prizes themselves… bronze, silver, and gold!  Let’s take a little color inspiration from the Olympics today, shall we?

Now I wasn’t quite sure how to start with metal colors.  I mean, I didn’t really think I wanted the entire layout to be metallic.  So here’s what I decided to do… First of all, I looked through SP kits and found all sorts of metal and sparkly goodies.  I decided I would try my best to get creative with these elements.  Second, I kept the rest of my color palette simple.  In each of the layouts, I used a neutral color and a few pops of another color to mix in with my metals.  I honestly wasn’t sure where all this would go, but sometimes that’s the fun of it!

OK, here we go!  Up first is my bronze layout.  I may have stretched a bit (depending on exactly what you define as bronze), but I think all of these metal elements could be labeled bronze!  With brown cardstock as my background and some pops of red, this worked great for these photos of my son (who LOVES anything with buttons)!

Next up of course is silver.  When I saw these photo frames in the Studio Chic kit, I decided to go with some darker silver elements, but then add in a little silver sparkle by applying a glitter style to a few other SP elements.  Gray seemed like the perfect backdrop for this one (along with the white sparkly paper from Winter Wonderland).  And a few touches of aqua brightened up the gray.  I’ve been meaning to do a layout about my scrapbooking, as almost every layout is about the kids!  This was a good time to finally put that idea to action!

And last, but certainly not least, is gold.  This one was the toughest for me, as I worried that too much gold could look a little gaudy.  But you know what?  I ended up with a special layout about a special guy… Daddy!  The title I chose seemed to make the gold in the layout make sense, know what I mean?  The black, white, and daffodil papers set up a nice background for the sparkles of gold.  And once again, I have applied a glitter style to a couple of SP elements to give them a different feel.

That’s all for my “inspired by the Olympics” post!  I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my thought process as I created these layouts.  It’s good to remember that inspiration can come from anywhere!  All you have to do is look around and give it a try!

Be sure and stop back by the blog tomorrow, as Rosy will share some yummy treats with us.  Bye!

KimInspiration, Uncategorized 5 Comments