Digi Pages, That's What I Call Them!

Hi Everyone,
I have a few days off for the July 4th holiday so I am happy to say I was able to get into the craftspace for a bit.  The room is filled with all kinds of new and awesome Stampin' Up supplies and I have been enjoying playing with all of them.  SU has just added  "Project Life" to their line and as I was browsing the catalog I kept going back and forth trying to decide if I wanted to jump on the Project Life band wagon.  After much "I think I will" - "I think I won't" I settled on "I think I won't".  Truth be told it was hard to decide.  What brought me to my answer was  looking at all my "digi" pages that I make using my Serif CraftArtist 2.  I love making pages, flip books and such with CAP2 and have shown pages here on the blog in the past.  I just never thought to try to give a Project Life feel to a page.  I went on line and saw many PL templates for digital formats for sale and for free as well. I also could see it would be easy to create my own template using CAP2.  Now I just had to decide what size I wanted to work with.  This was a bit of a challenge as I have been stuck in 8-1/2 X 11 landscape mode for years.  I just like the way it looks.  So to help me move out of my comfort zone I created 2 pages, one 8-1/2X11 and the other 12X12. I was hoping that seeing them side by side would lead me to a clear choice.  Here is the 8-1/2 X 11 (my awesome little Rue):

and here is my 12X12(my beautiful and talented niece):

Once I finished and had a look at them I found that I didn't really like either of them.  It's the BOXES! I have seen a lot of PL pages both real albums and digital and they were beautiful but this format is not for me. Yes it was simplified and the dragging and dropping of pictures into little boxes was easy peasy but to me the template took away my creative flair.  Here are two Halloween digi pages that I made and have posted before:

ahh, much better!  We should always give new things a try because you never know when you are going to fall in love with a new craft or style.  In this case I am staying on my digi page train and leaving the Project Life band wagon behind.  I am glad that there are so many options for preserving our memories and our lives because what works for each of us is different. So however you scrap is the right way.
Enjoy the rest of the holiday weekend and thanks for stopping by,
Lysa
I just have to add last years Halloween digi page!!!

LOVE IT!!!

Digi Halloween - This Year & Last Year.

Hi Everyone,
Wow, Halloween is behind us and I must say we had an awesome one.  All the kids in town looked great and the day was perfect for the parade and for trick or treating.  I think the temp topped out close to 70 degrees! So today is the day to start packing up all the black and orange Halloween things and start to get the house ready for Santa's arrival.  I was able to take time to sit down and get my digi-scrap on and got Rory's yearly Halloween picture done.  Easy Peasy with CraftArtist 2! I went a bit scary this year, which is unlike me but Rory did look scary so it seemed to work. I really get a kick out of seeing last year side by side with this year.  It is fun to see how Rory has changed. CA2 made it so easy to crop Rory from pictures and place her in a different background.  Here is the picture:

ohhh, Scary! Sam did a fantastic hair and makeup job. There are 9 Rorys in the picture. Can you see them all.  My favorites are the one in the upstairs right window and on the roof. She really did look scary with all that paint on her face. So not like last year:

I really think Rory liked being something scary and I can't wait to see what she chooses next year.  I will say that since I am not a very good photographer I had a hard time with her ivory colored costume.  In the house on the black sofa the contrast popped well but out side it was difficult to capture her well. Even when I sat down to scrap I found it hard to come up with a solid background that worked.  Both picture were made in CA2 and as always I can't say enough how awesome the software is.  I always tell peeps to check out the free version at the DaisyTrail website. I am off to start the big pack up and today is the NYC marathon so in this house that means soup!!! Yup. every year the marathon kicks off soup season in this house and the first is a batch of potato cheese soup (yummy)! We all watch the marathon while I make soup.  It's just one of those silly family traditions we have been doing for years. Have a great Sunday and thanks for stopping by,
Lysa

Digi Christmas

Hi Everyone,
Wow! Here we are at the end of 2012! The year just flew by a bit to quick for me.  I just wanted to check in as the year comes to close.  We had a wonderful Christmas here at our home this year.  Great family time, great food and a lot of laughs.  We got a few pictures and I already made a digi page for my Mother in Law. I love how it came out. 

Just look how happy Mom is singing with her grand daughter Amanda (my niece) and Rory, her great grand daughter (my grand daughter). I made this page in CA2 using Stampin 'Up digital art.  I just love my CA2!  I still am hooked on 8 1/2 X 11 pages.  This software is amazing.  I used the palette creator and pulled all the colors from the strip of holly paper in the background.  I also used the cutout studio to create the holly leaves embellishments. The shadow tool is awesome too!  There is a free download of this software available at the DaisyTrail website. You can find it here at this link:
http://www.daisytrail.com/freestuff.html
It doesn't have all the full features but once you play with it I know you will want the full version.  The interface is easy to use.
New Years Eve is here at our house so I won't have much more time to play today.  As soon as I get a handle on putting away all the Holiday things I am going to make an album for sure.
I just want to send wishes to you all for a Happy and Healthy New Year! Thanks for visiting and I will see you in 2013!
Lysa 

Digi Halloween, Last Year - This Year . . .

Hi Everyone,
I still don't have the Halloween buckets back up in the attic! Hello, its November 11th! Why you may wonder. I have to say every 10 minutes while trying to pack it all up, I would run back to my Huey computer to play with my CraftArtist 2 software and Halloween pictures.  I am sure by the end of today I will be looking at a cleaned house and will be ready to go full force with Christmas crafting.  I have to tell you all that I absolutely love CA2!  The new color palette creator is the bomb! I make all my digi page 8.5 X 11.  I have a large format printer but for some reason I just like the size of a standard page.  I think it is the rectangular shape.  I really need to make a few 12 X 12 pages, just to create a new comfort zone if not for any other reason. Here are last years and this years Halloween digi pages. It is great to see the little one changing from just pretending to be a doll to becoming  a doll!  The one thing that doesn't change is her beautiful smile.

I hope you will take time to play with the pictures you take.  We all seem to take picture after picture (I have thousands) and never play with them.  Pictures are an awesome good craft supply! There are so many great software packages for photos now.  Serif software offers a free download that is not a trial but a scaled down version.  Why not give it a try and get your DigiPic mojo on.  The full version of the software has some great templates for cards, boxes and such.  I hope everyone has a great Sunday, I am off to finish packing up Halloween.  Thanks for visiting,
Lysa

If I Could Be A Rag Doll!

Hi Everyone,
As you may know I am trying to finish old projects while working on current ones.  I was determined to make a large photo project using a vintage Rolodex address card holder.  My plan was to make mini digi scrapbook cards of my favorite pictures of Rory.  Instead of starting at the current point in time, I decided to start with her birth.  Wrong move!  As I poured through about 3000 digital photos I noticed that I spent more time saying "Oh my Lord! How cute is she!" OK, so it did not quite pan out as I had planned.  Meaning I started it and never went back to it.  So being inspired by Kris's "Finish it Friday"  I decided I would try to commit to at least 1 Rolodex photo card a week.  So this week I worked on Rory's Halloween 2011 photo cards.  I wanted to use 3 pictures that were taken Halloween 2011.  She looked great in her costume.  I originally used the Stamp'in up Sizzix die to cut the cards.  Now I am using the ZING and its Print N Cut feature and it worked great.  I am still making the photo cards in DSA2 and importing them as a texture into MTC.  Every time I use the ZING I am in awe of how dead on the PnC is!  Here are my pictures for this week.  I also made one 8X10 photo for my cube at work. Please can I say just one more time "Oh my Lord, How cute is she!"

Thanks for visiting and Have a great week end,
Lysa

Can't Get Enough of DSA2

So I ran home from work today to start to play with the kids Florida pictures.  Maybe this is not the best digi scrapbook page but I am learning this software and boy is it ever fun to use.  I practiced bending text and adding decorative edges to the photos.  So much fun.  Check out the Sarif website 'cause there is free (yes FREE) download version of this software and the vids on youtube are the bomb! LOVE IT!!!!! Thanks tonight go to Melinda for the vids and to ducky designs for her oh so cool graphics.  Thanks to you both for sharing, I'd be no kinda crafter without you all.  Have a great night!
Lysa

A Shout Out To Serif Digital Scrapbook Artist and Denise Too!

Hi All,
Happy Weekend To Everyone!!  I have been falling behind on so many things lately, one of which is all of my pictures. Last winter I had made a commitment to myself that I would keep up on the 2010 year of pictures.  After all it was the start of a new decade.  Well, true to form I don't think I printed one picture this year and here we are in August.  I got bit by some inspiration from Denise (Hi Denise) over at Purple Paper Paradise when she started to get going with her digital pages.  They are awesome!  Denise is doing hybird pages combining digi with the traditional layout style. AWESOME!!! So inspired by her blog I put down the Halloween paper and went back to my friend Huey.  I had bought DSA2 back in I think February.  I have been using it to make bookmarks and coasters.  Melinda over at the yahoo Funtime group has made some great youtube videos.  Please check out this software.  I think it is fantastic.  I think the company is in England but I am not sure.  They even have a free version available.  I have been enjoying playing around with the software and only wish I had hours and hours to spend learning everything it can do.  I think the next page I make I will try Denise's technique and and add some traditional embellishments to my page. Thanks Denise and thanks to DSA2 also.  Have a great day and thanks for visiting.
Lysa