Me too!

Yes...I am still around too and like Nicole, PSE is my best friend when it comes to memory keeping. 

I am still doing a physical Project Life but am finding myself drawn to Cathy Z's and Amy's digital versions. Much thought needed for 2014...will be surverying the famly to see what they like (after all, it is for them I do this).

Right now I am including digital pages in my album. My PL album has become my family album so I will be including "event" pages with minimal journaling...it's mostly about the photographic memories, the kinda speak for themselves so I figure don't require much of a story.

These pages use digital elements all from Cathy Z (and they are on sale at Designer Digital at the moment).

Scrapping with the help of Photoshop Elements!

Hi scrapping types.   Yeah, it's been a while. I only scrap once in a while! Even though it's been super long between posts, I thought I should share these current pages, even if only for my simple girls themselves. Any inspiration is good inspiration, right?  The first two pages, above were done by copying and pasting my instagram photos onto 8 x 10 canvases in photoshop. I printed these photoshopped layouts out as 8 x10 and stuck them on 8.5 x 11 bazzill sheets which gave them a border, and made the photos fit the album sleeves.  The first page shows my eldest daughter in three random moments this year. I could have scrapped three different pages, but went for the three in one deal.

 

These next two layouts were done in photoshop as well (Just copied and pasted photos, and dragged each photos from the corner down until it was the size I wanted it for the layout).  I set up an 8 x 12 canvas, because that's one of the standard photo sizes we can print out at here. It's still not wide enough for the album sleeve at 8.5x11" (notice the 1/2" strip of cardstock running down the left side of each layout to bring it up to size). When designing the layout in photo shop on the 8x12 canvas, I had to remember to leave an inch empty at the bottom, which I trimmed off once the photo was printed (to make the photo 11 inches long, again to fit in the sleeve). I love these two layouts because I got a lot of photo moments scrapped in one hit.  We live close to and are close to the cousins, so we have lots of photos, yet each one doesn't necessarily warrant its own layout (and even if it did, I really don't have the time!). Each of these layouts took about an hour on the computer to do, and about 3 minutes to complete with the strap of bazzill up the side! Hope you are inspired to get some scrapping done. My two younger girls were asking me why I 'don't scrap anymore' and how sad they are about that. That re-inspired me!

This last layout below is nothing great, but I share it anyway in case your kiddie does sport and you want to scrap that season but don't know where to start! My girl is passionate about soccer and loves loves loves it. I hate to scrap events like this, but I had to do it as it is so important to her, and she will love to look back on it when she is older. It's a double page spread, not even pulled out of her album to photograph. I am so glad she has these stories documented! Both pages were 8x10 print outs stuck on bazzill cardstock - not even matching colours. (Don't care!)

Hope you enjoyed seeing my current scraps, and hope you can get some scrappin' done yourself.

Nicole xx

Project Life

Project Life is really scrapping in its most simple form. The stories aren't detailed but the memories are recorded. And the kids LOVE to look over the album time and time again.

Are you still sitting down?

Hope you're still sitting, because although you haven't heard from me for what feels like years, there's more to come! 

The following are all instagram pics. 

1. These photos were my very first instagram pics, and I printed them 2 x 2" at home, and stuck them on the cardstock individually, old school. Hand drawn dodgy black line drawn around the collection.

 

2. The layout below was an 8 x 10 photo of a collage made up of 4 instagram pics.  I put the journaling on (CK Kojin font) in photoshop. I actually stuck the pp heart on the photo after it was printed. This was my fave instagram photo of the year.  Stuck the whole 8x10" photo on some black cardstock.

 

3. Printed out these square instagram photos (you can print square at Harvery Norman) and scrapped them the old fashioned way with glue and paper! No photoshop! Apologised to the girl in the journaling for such crappy photos taken on the phone in very low westfield light. I know there's a typo in the journaling on this one. Will fix!

more photoshop collaging

Instagram pics assembled together in photoshop. No templates, just put them in with the help of the 'grids' on photoshop, dragged them down to size, cropping as needed. 

Printed out the whole collage as a 8 x 10" photo (included journaling on the 8x 10 photo), stuck them on black cardstock. Good to get a whole event (in the first case it was a holiday) on one layout. 

Simple, but effective. The only real paper scrapping was the patterned paper I added along the bottom of the first 8x10 photo. Even rounded the corners on that strip. Out of control. 

Seriously, sit down!

Okay, It's been so long that I couldn't even remember the password to sign in to this blog. I had little kids last time I wrote on this blog, now I have big kids - that's how long it's been.  I don't get much time to scrap these days, but when and if I do, I go big and scrap 8 - 10 pages at once.
I'm not gonna talk, just gonna share.
I'm shutting up, and I'm sharing now.
Actually, I should just tell you that these were instagram pics on all three layouts that I assembled together on a quick collage in photoshop, added the journaling and title in photoshop, and printed the main bulk of it out as a 6 x 8 photo - then stuck it on some cardstock and called it scrapping.  First two layouts same photos, different takes on it for two different girls. Last layout - a trip to Bunning's hardware.
Shutting up now.

 

Sit down...

I scrapped! It's been a while since I posted a page. And its been too long since I told some stories. Lately the kids have been reading their scrapbooks, Livvy asked me to do more pages because she loves reading them. I was so pleased she asked and felt guilty I had stopped.

So here is the first after too long a break.

It's very simple but it is one more story told.

Hello

Hi there friends of SAG, how are you, scrapping up a storm? Me? Well, not so much. I've increased my work hours and I've been struggling with the home/work/life/children/scrapping balance - I am not sure it really exists actually, more like a time allocation issue I would say!

Two things today. First, a friend of mine and a friend of SAG, has started a lovely monthly journaling prompt inspired by Ali Edwards' class 31 Things. I think it is something that would appeal to many of you and I know Alexa will welcome you with open arms - and, if you need some journaling inspiration, she has it aplenty. You can click HERE to find out all about it and to read her beautiful words. I've included my page here today.

Secondly, I'm about to upgrade my camera body and I was wondering if any of you out there have any experience with the Canon 5D MKII. It's a full frame camera and I want to know if the Sigma 24-70mm EXDG is a compatible lens? My preliminary research says yes, but I thought I'd check here too as I know many of you are interested in all things photography. I'm also interested in your thoughts over this particular body and the 7D, perhaps I am better off saving a few dollars to put towards a lens? I'm only at the preliminary research stage and am in the process of liquidating some assets for the purchase ... I want to make the right decision as I'll have this camera for a while.

That's all for now, let me know your thoughts.

trying to get back in the groove

I don't know about you, but certainly in my part of the world, scrapping, and the time (and energy) in which to do so sometimes isn't abundant. Or the motivation to be honest.  But the other day I got my act together and ordered some prints, and in the meantime did a page digitally with some I didn't get printed.

Wholly inspired by this found somewhere around the goodness of the www.  Nothing like a bit of scrap lifting, even if its just an interpretation, to get one going.

and here, my finished (digital page)

I had lots of photos I wanted to include and so kept the whole thing very linear and graphic. As always with my digital pages, I bear in mind that I have to print them at home, and this 8.5 x 11  double spread allows for plenty of room for trimming or adding any "real life" embellishments I may feel like when I'm sticking this down. I envision that I will "hide" the patterned paper when I go to print (or not, depends how lazy I am feeling!)  and add real paper to the empty spaces, and mount both pages on dark brown (java probably!) cardstock.

So folks, how has your scrapping time been going? As you can see, all of us here at Simple Aussie Girls have been afflicted the same way, life just gets BUSY!

laziness abounds

Not sure this page was executed quite like what was in my head, but its done.

And that's all, she wrote!

buy yourself a gold lotto ticket

the planets have aligned, and I have finally done a page, for the first time in eons. So, without further ado:

And because I am so rusty, I confess this is a blatant, straight-out scrap lift of a page I had saved on my pinterest board. I could go back and follow the links to see who the original belongs to, but I might leave that fun follow-the-breadcrumbs expedition for you, if you are so inclined!

This is a fully digital page above, but I do have slightly different plans for it once I print out the important bits. I'll share that once I'm done, first I have to clear the accumulated clutter off my desk in order to do the real life cutting and pasting ;-)

Here's the story:

I even made the template above, even CZ failing to provide anything that tickled my fancy or get the creative juices flowing (I KNOW! how is that even possible).

Hopefully, now I've started again, I will be able to remove those mental blocks that prevented me from just getting in and making some pages (no lack of stories or photos to be used) before these grey cells of mine loose any more data!

Thanks for stopping by!

Sharon

Scrapbooking, what's that?

One of the great things about the SAG blog and all of the contributors, is that we are not trying to sell product, concepts, designs or techniques. We just scrap because we think it's fun and we like it - simple. It means we make the pages we want to, when we want to.

The down side is, we are a bit inconsistent with posting.
That's the truth though isn't it? This is a hobby and we get to it and enjoy it when we need to or when we can. Want to hear another truth?

I have scrapped two pages since the start of May. I don't count the album I made for Ali Edwards' 31 Things class. Good, old fashioned regular pages - two since the beginning of May.

Sigh.

So, here is one of my pages. It relies on a quote from my daughter, this is one of my tried and true ways to kick start some journaling when the ideas are hard to find.

Scrapbooking is fun, but not when you feel as though you are behind or that you're not doing it properly - forget about all that stuff, it's a hobby! Just enjoy the process and the page and the story, all the rest doesn't matter one little bit.

See you when I see you.


PS  Page design is my own, digital paper is from Oscraps.

the lasty krafty

 

 

Some krafty stuff for you!!

black, white & blue...

Oh...how funny. Our favourite sporting team are black white and blue! Go the Sharkies!!!

Well I am here, a few weeks late and worried I may be run out of town by my fellow SAGgy friend??

Looking through my pages I realise I use blue a lot too. I think it is because so many of my photos are taken at the beach, in the pool or near water.

Interestingly, in the above page the top Maddi is wearing is yellow and green. I was scrapping this photo with my scrapping buddy and trying to make it work with those colours, my buddy took one look at the photo and said "her top is yellow and blue"! Mmm...no it is green I told her!BUT in the photo it looks blue she told me...AhHa moment!!!

What you know the colours to be and how the appear in a photo can be very different. I have had this pointed out to be several times by my buddy!

If you can guess who my buddy is I will ask her to do a post on "seeing" colours in your photos when scrapping. Believe me she a "bloody genius" when it comes to colour.

So leave a comment and guess the "buddy"!!

More blue, more pool photos and hehehe just realised there is photo of my Dads butt...sorry!

When it come to black I have realised I seem to always end up with a combination of black, white and blue (Go Sharkies!!!!)

And finally Kraft.

I used this one as it had 8 photos. Thanks 'justasiam' for your feedback. We love hearing from those of you who follow our blog. We all love to look at each others pages but often wonder if anyone else is inspired. It is lovely to know you are :)

oh krafty day...

OK so kraft is not a problem colour for us here at Simple Aussie Girls. It goes with pretty much everything, a bit like how white is the perfect backdrop as well, but just a wee bit tastier and forgiving. And it doesn't get lonely when its out there by itself, with just a bit of a doily to keep it company. (and isn't this digi doily amazing? honestly, well to me anyhow, this page looks pretty darned "real"!)

I've got oodles of stories I want to tell, but felt like doing this one today, completely inspired by this photo someone else took at my brothers wedding recently. I was one of the photographers, but here I am liking the photo that someone else took ;-) you can hardly even see my little boy in this shot, but still I love it.

Because this was such a big exciting event in my kids lives I plan on doing one of two things; using this as an introductory page, slotted into each of their albums, and following with one or two pages of collage photos from the day. Or perhaps just get a little photo books made each. But that is more expensive so I think I will just do the couple-of-pages thing, and follow the kraft & white theme I have started with this page. If you've read my blog you would have seen the gorgeous bright colours of the wedding party, which just glowed against the stark dirt paddock (kraft coloured perhaps ;-) ?) where the wedding ceremony was held. The same effect will be achieved in sticking to the plainest possible colour scheme in these pages, allowing the bright colours to glow.

A lot of thought and breakdown behind something I have done more or less just because I liked it!

And if the page design looks familiar, you'd be right, I've borrowed one of Amy's templates. Usually I have lots of photos and lots to say and wouldn't normally fit both on this pared down design, but for today, just perfect.

I've left room at the bottom beside the date, for a little bitty white brad to go in when its printed.

One more thing: what would you like to see more of here readers? More sketches? more scraplifting? pages with more photos? pages with more writing? or just shush and be quiet girls?! please, we'd love to hear from you!