Lucky 13

I married my best friend thirteen years ago today. It seems like only yesterday, and yet, my how we have changed! A few more additions. 

A few more milestones! 

Brandon is the light of my life and I sure am the lucky one, here. A wonderful partner and companion, he keeps me on the straight and narrow. I know I couldn't have done what I have in life if he hadn't been here beside me. I love you, Bran. So much. And I am proud to stand by you as you stand up for what you believe in. This year is going to be our lucky one!

This layout was from the first class I ever taught as a Close To My Heart consultant. I still haven't finished my wedding album and I kind of consider it a work in progress, but this is still my favorite layout by far. It's remained unchanged since we made them some 4 and a half years ago. A winning combination of words and pictures, patterns and color. Lucky, to have never been revamped amid life's distractions. May the next 13 be as lucky as the past 13 have been! Love you, Bran!

Warm wishes,

Day four of Marsh Lake

Before we get started, just a reminder to get your Studio J orders in before the end of the month if you are a member so you can get your freebies! Also, the March block party ends tomorrow at 11:59 p.m. Let me know when you want your free My Acrylix block!

One thing I love about the Unitahs is its temper. Take this layout, the picture on the left side is from that morning while Brandon and the kids were out fishing (the very small blob of red on the right shore in the trees.) The picture on the right side was taken a few hours later in the midst of one of the worst rain storms I have ever seen up there! When the storms get fired up, they rip, but it's short-lived in the summer and only last a few hours. I used to hate the rain, but I've come to love it! (And a good thing, because it rains A LOT in the Uintahs!)

The brads on this page were duplicated with the copy and paste option. It's great because you can exactly replicate the spacing and alignment by simply grouping your embellishments (hold the shift button down, then click on each one to be grouped) then click "copy". When you "paste" they will show the same blue line around each one indicating it is still selected. I find it's easiest to orient it first (rotate) before the drag and drop. Then move your mouse over one of the elements then hold and drag where you want it.

All three layouts are pages in which I changed the paper combinations after the initial load. After you choose your paper kit and your layout pattern, it will prompt you with 6 choices of papers and colors. I am not a fan of white space and often prefer to have a dark paper as my base rather than the Colonial White or White Daisy that is suggested in the basic pattern. If you see one you don't like, don't worry! You can always change the paper afterward! In both layout 1 and 2 the Colonial White base was changed to New England Ivy with a click of the mouse! Simply select the paper you want changed and click on the box of colors. It will prompt you with the suggested colors for the kit then below that you can choose from all 60 colors of cardstock. If you want a B&T as in layout 1, you choose paper from the left tool bar and it will give you a selection of the pattern papers available with the kit. It's how I changed the B&T to the distressed Barn Red.

I hope you've enjoyed today's layouts! They have been so much fun to create in Studio J. I'm totally hooked now, and I'm actually getting caught up on my 10-year scrapbooking hiatus! I LOVE IT! You can see the final 3 layouts from our trip on tomorrow's post.

Warm wishes,

Two More Studio J Layouts

These two layouts are from our second day in Marsh Lake. Yes, I take A LOT of pictures. Don't make fun, it was difficult to weed it down to the ones I got, lol! The tips for these pages are less visible, but I wanted to tell you about them just the same.

 This first layout was one of my fastest! I didn't edit any of the photos and I kept the kit the way it was originally designed. However, it didn't always look like this! Notice the Butterfly in the bottom left corner. I loved this photo when I shot it, but the butterfly was much smaller in the overall photo. Through the magic of cropping, though I zoomed in to see the detail then saved it. Fast forward to Studio J time. On my first layout I wanted to highlight the butterfly - it was such a random event -we'd been driving slow waiting for the kids to catch up when low and behold this butterfly landed on the road practically under our feet! So I added this photo to a 4x6 photo well. Up pops a little yellow triangle with an exclamation point in it similar to the one below.

This symbol tells you your photo doesn't have enough resolution to look good in the size you have chosen. You can either rescan and/or resize it and upload it again or choose a smaller photo well. So I chose a layout that had a small photo well where it would still be prominent in the layout. I'm so glad Studio J tells me this because the photo looked fine on my computer's image editor, but if I had printed it for a traditional layout it wouldn't have turned out.

Layout number two uses a few of the same techniques we've rehashed, like text boxes over My Stickease on the Checklist, and in this case, even some stitching! The title is created with the Title Tool, which uses the My Stickease Alphabet and easily matches the spacing and proportion for you. I added a text box beneath "Under" to finish the title. Just remove the "paper" from the text box to get a clear background and you can add text over anything - photos, Stickease, titles. Thirdly, the right side journalling box was modified from the original which covered all 3 papers below the photos across the whole page. I just didn't have that much journalling for this page, despite Studio J's ability to scale the font to the box size, so I deleted the Journal text box, then added another that I could size to my specifications and finished it off with some brads.

Check out this video by Tresa Black about why Studio J is so fabulous!

Stay tuned this week for more Marsh Lake coverage and Studio J tips and don't forget to take advantage of the Block Party Constant Campaign, now through March 31st where you can get a free My Acrylix block with your $25 stamp order!

Warm wishes,

Studio J and Marsh Lake

Good morning! I can't believe how much I've learned about Studio J in just playing around online. Did you know you play and you never have to pay unless you decide to print? Sure! I know you'll love it if you try it, too. I mean check these pages out? And best of all, I got free shipping, free page protectors, free jpegs to put on my website and I have a full-size jpeg stored and backed up in addition to my professionally printed scrapbook, all for only $3.25 per page (as a consultant I get an additional 22% off - totally worth it even if all you do is hobby!) Learn more about the savings with Studio J memberships by contacting me today!

The first layout uses multiple My Stickease branches to create a log pole in which to stick the journalling "signs". This is a small branch copied and pasted several times to get the desired height for the amount of journalling. The "signs" are a Title, "On the Trail", shrunk down to the size I wanted and then text boxes added  to create journalling strips. The photos on both layouts have been fixed in Studio J to make the colors pop a bit more by tweaking the brightness and contrast. I also gave the center logging picture a surreal effect by changing the hue and saturation.

I confess I may have given myself a face lift on the second page... It's not the best picture. It needed all the help I could give it! A little airbrushing magic and glare removal were all that was needed. I couldn't help the hair, but, eh. You do what you can.

***Studio J Members, have you got your layouts in for the month? There's still time to save on shipping and sheet protectors with your minimum purchase of 4 layouts!***

Warm wishes,

PS- Happy Birthday to Jeanette Lynton our founder and CEO of Close To My Heart!

Marsh Lake Album

Tip #1 - You can resize all of the My Stickease up to 200%! The tags and title have all been changed from their original sizes. 

I'm so excited, I finally finished by Studio J album of our trip to Marsh Lake this past summer! (Click on the photos to seem them bigger and read the journaling!) After watching all of the online tutorials by fellow consultant, Amy Ulen (she has 16 now), I've really had the itch to get these done. I've had them uploaded for several months now, but never could find the time. Silly me! That's what Studio J is for! 

This weekend I completed TWELVE 2-page layouts from our trip to Marsh and 5 MORE from our Disneyland vacation over Christmas! I NEVER would have finished that many with traditional scrapbooking. Well, you know me. I take an hour just to pick out the layout I want to use! Studio J makes it easy though because you can easily choose a layout based on the number of photos, just like our pattern books, but it also gives you 6 kit suggestions to start with the papers picked! This simple feature takes out most of the time I waste wondering what to do! Then, click, drag and drop and you're done!

After having lost my photos many times over the years due to technological malfunctions, viruses, and most recently - Garrett, I LOVE the security of knowing my photos are securely stored online just waiting for my login to scrap them!

Tip #2 - Place a text box over your My Stickease to customize them. Check out the beaver's sign!

I also loved that I could use Back Country My Reflections Kit to get my camping photos done. I've had them sitting in my files so long the paper kit retired! There are at least four exclusive kits in Studio J that have never been released in paper and every kit since 2008 is still available. Never miss a trick!

I'll be showing off my work throughout the week so make sure to stop by and see how our trip went. Don't forget, from now until April 30th, you can order the Hope For Japan A-size set for only $5 and 100% goes to the American Red Cross Japan Relief Fund. See this special set here, and order it here. The block party is still going on through the end of March. Get a free 3x3 or 6x2-1/2 My Acrylix block with your $25 stamp purchase. Shop my website or contact me today!

Warm wishes,

Old School

While at a crop a few weekends ago with my friends, Carma and Karen, I was able to put some pictures on several layouts I had created over the years but had never finished the story. This is a Cherish layout featuring Game On (this is a retired paper pack, but you can still find the kit and all the embellishments on Studio J). When I first saw this sports kit, my first thought was: Great. I don't do sports. As you know, I am a big fan of thinking outside of the box, so my second thought was: Let's fix this!

First, I began seeing the stars B&T as the night sky. Beacause of the darkness, I thought New England Ivy would be a great "land" color. While perusing the idea books and pattern book, I ran across the idea of the landscape with torn cardstock. This layout just seemed to POP for me! The funny thing is I originally thought of it as a camping page, but could never find the right pictures to go with it.

Then, when searching through my old layouts, I ran across these pictures of the Kamas Fiesta Days Demolition Derby. I'd had them printed several years ago and they were mostly 3-1/2" x 5" prints. Some of them had already been cut into shapes, which made them difficult to fit on another page. This layout features photo wells for smaller pictures and it was perfect for my smaller prints.

Warm wishes,

PS-You cn get Cherish for 27% off right now! Check out my website for this and other smashing deals!

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