Scrapbook Pages

Out of no other necessity than I have a lot on my mind right now and not feeling very "inspiring" I am going to share a few of the scrapbook pages I have completed in the last few days.

First is another one for my little niece, Danica. It's really a picture of my brother, Robert, at his 33rd birthday party this year in May, but Danica is the star of the show now so this page is for her. She was so mesmerized by the cake she didn't even pay attention to all of us singing Happy Birthday to Robert. I'm not sure if she was wanting the candles, the cherries, or all that chocolate. The cake was really good, too. This page is very, very simple. Not much to add to it, the picture explains it all. There's plenty of room for Robert or Stephanie to add their own journaling to the page.

Next is Ian in his overalls. This is one of the photos I edited in Paint Shop Pro leaving only the blue of his overalls showing. And, once again, plenty of room for mom or dad to add some personal journaling to the page. I wish I could get my camera set right to take pictures of my scrapbook pages.

And just to make my entry look bigger, I'll throw in a page I did a while back for my nieces. It's a great picture of Madilyn & Mallory in a cute pose with their heads together. I left the photo alone, only adding things over top of it. I never use original photos, I always scan in and reprint. I keep originals in a safe place.

Be Inspired. -Karol

The Eyes Have It!

Sorry, had to use that as the title to this entry. I just wanted to share how I ended up doing Danica's page about her eyelashes. I kept it simple and clean. Stephanie has mentioned how she likes that I do that on my scrapbook pages. In the end, I decided to face the photo right side up (which technically is upside down in proportion to how I took the shot). Anyway, from time to time I'll share these pages with you. This is something I enjoy doing and enjoy doing for my family and friends. It is a creative escape for me.

I believe if you click on it, you can see a larger image of the detail.

Be Inspired! -Karol :0)

Baby Blues

This post has nothing to do with decorating, cooking, or baking. BUT, it does have to do with Christmas. I am making Christmas presents for everyone this year.

For family, it's all scrapbooking type gifts. I love making them and I know they love receiving them as well. In fact, my sister-in-law, Stephanie told me at Thanksgiving that that's all she wants from me for gifts from now on for her birthday, Christmas whatever, is scrapbook pages from me. That was so sweet. :0) Here's one of the pages I've done featuring her adorable little girl, Danica,that I did for Danica's birthday. I presented the finished pages in a pretty 12 x 12 album with lots of room for me to give more pages that can be added to it...

At Thanksgiving I took this shot of Danica right after she fell asleep in her stroller after lunch. I just HAD to get a shot of these gorgeous eyelashes. Now I have to think of a clever/adorable title for this (any ideas?)... I also haven't decided if I'll feature the photo like this or upside down. I actually took this shot from above her, but I flipped it to add it to my blog. I'm not sure which way looks best, this way or upside down. What do you think?

Next, are two pictures I edited today in Paint Shop Pro. They are of Dylan (blue eyes) and Ian (blue jeans). I call them my nephews, but they are actually my husband's cousin's boys. But, we like having them as nephews so that's what they ARE to us. I took the original photo and copied and pasted an additional grey scale layer on top and then erased just the area of the grey scale that I wanted to show through in color. ie, for Ian his blue eyes, -which by the way I did not enhance any of the color that's just how beautifully blue they really are!, and then I did the same for Ian's picture except I showed the blue of his blue jeans. I haven't decided on how I'll do the pages for these yet, but I love how the photos turned out.

I can't wait to give my scrapbooking gifts to everyone this year. I'll share some of my sister's girls soon. I have some great shots of them, too.

If you get a chance, leave me a comment and help me out with some of these questions, ok?

Maybe you're not a scrapbooker or you don't feel you could make gifts with photos for others. Have you seen the gift books you can make through photo services such as Target -which uses Kodak and Shutterfly, and Snapfish etc.? You can upload your photos, store them, use their online service to edit your photos and build your pages with their templates that will be made in to a hardcover book with glossy pages to give as gifts. No editing, publishing, photography experience necessary! Check that out if it sounds like something you might be interested in trying! You can even make them up and store them until you are ready to order them. These services are free until you order a book. They are all offering specials for Christmas right now.

Be Inspired! -Karol :0)