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new beginnings...

Things have been a little disorganized around here recently. The reason? I just started a new job!

The grant I worked for during the past five years ended in April, which left me unemployed for several months. However, a new grant was awarded to continue and extend the work of the previous grant. I was lucky enough to be hired for the new grant -- even better, I was promoted to a higher position. And while the extra money that comes along with a promotion is never a bad thing, a step up like this often means an increase in responsibilities. That's exactly the case right now, so I'm finding myself in a real adjustment period.

I've got a lot to get situated this week, as the girls start back to school on Tuesday and we've already kicked off the soccer season. As a result, things are going to be a bit quieter in this space for a week or two while I find my bearings. Thanks for your patience -- I hope you'll stick around through the quiet times as I find my way back to a new normal around here. 

August Dollar Days: Confetti & Cupcakes Journaling Cards

If you haven't heard, we're welcoming back our August Dollar Days to the shop at Design House Digital this month. That means that every day will feature a new kit for just $1.00, all month long!

Today's offering from me coordinates with my newest kit, Confetti & Cupcakes. It's a set of fun journaling cards, in both 4x6 and 3x4 size, perfect for Project Life, hybrid cards, and scrapbook layouts. 

I've got a few guest CT members helping me out this month, as well as my regular CT girls. They've made some great pages with the full kit, and I love how these layouts feature the journaling cards.

from Liz:

 from Joey:

 hybrid card from Shannon:

by Jen H:

 by Claudia:

new release: Confetti & Cupcakes

I've got a sweet treat for you for today's weekly release at Design House Digital. My newest kit is called Confetti & Cupcakes, and it's one of my favorites to date! It's 30% off today only, so fill your cart!

It's a combination of simple patterns, delicious colors, and whimsical elements. Let's take a look at what my creative team and the House Decorators did with it:

by Jennifer V:

 by Janell:

 by Amy (also using the 4 Tags template):

 by Mellie (using my Timeline Templates):

House Party: August (plus August Dollar Days are back!)

Welcome to our House Party at Design House Digital this month! The Designers have released coordinating paper packs, elements, word art, templates, and more -- giving YOU the option to mix and match them to your heart's delight!

I've got a fun-filled doodled bundle called Read to Explore available in the shop; of course, you can purchase the papers, elements, word art, and doodles separately as well. Let's see them in use:

by Liz (also uses my ABC Journal Cards)

 by Jennifer B:

 by Crystal:

by Celeste:

 by Katherine (ahhhh, this extraction and scene -- GENIUS!)

 Today also kicks off our annual August Dollar Days. EVERY SINGLE DAY this month, we'll have a selection of BRAND NEW kits, pried at just $1.00 for the entire MONTH! For today's offering, I created a fun set of flairs and embellishable Polaroid frames to match our House Party kits called Bookshots. 

I've got a couple of Guest CT members helping me out this month, too. Here's how they used this product:

by Liz:

 by Joey:


 

book review: The City's Son

The City's Son by Tom Pollock (3 stars)

Synopsis from Goodreads: Expelled from school, betrayed by her best friend and virtually ignored by her dad, who’s never recovered from the death of her mum, Beth Bradley retreats to the sanctuary of the streets, looking for a new home. What she finds is Filius Viae, the ragged and cocky crown prince of London, who opens her eyes to the place she’s never truly seen. 
But the hidden London is on the brink of destruction. Reach, the King of the Cranes, is a malign god of demolition, and he wants Filius dead. In the absence of the Lady of the Streets, Filius’ goddess mother, Beth rouses Filius to raise an alleyway army, to reclaim London’s skyscraper throne for the mother he’s never known. Beth has almost forgotten her old life – until her best friend and her father come searching for her, and she must choose between the streets and the life she left behind.

My thoughts:
This novel felt a lot like Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (which is one of my favorite urban fantasies), except that the events take place aboveground. It's gritty, dark, inventive -- but also disorienting. The copy I read was an ARC, but it needs a lot of cleaning up (more so than any other novel I've ever read an early version of, to be honest) and that was slightly distracting. Still, the disorientation came more from the fact that there's not enough background on this urban London to make me feel like I had a good handle on what was going on. With novels like this one -- where we are introduced to a different London that many of us don't see or just refuse to see -- it's necessary to have that reader orientation if you want them to come along on this ride with you. And while Pollock eventually provides all the information we need to understand the events that are happening, there's not enough backstory provided to offer the "why" and "how" that drives a story like this. For me, that ended up being my biggest complaint. At no point did I really have a clear understanding of the characters' motivations, their reasons for doing the things they were doing. I also thought that there was too much acceptance -- and much too quickly -- from the main character to be believable. I mean, this girl never batted an eye, it seemed, and although urban fantasy really depends on characters being able to just go with this new world they've stumbled upon, there's got to be some pushback. After all, by inviting that person into this new world, this person essentially has to give up their place in their old world. It's a journey story -- and we all know you never come back as the same person you were when you left.  

I received an Advance Review Copy (e-book version) from Netgalley. 

Friday Freebie: Explore Your World Add-On

Happy Friday! As you read this, I'm helping my husband load up the truck and we're heading out with the girls for a weekend camping adventure! We're meeting his brother and his sister and their families in Hoosier National Forest in Indiana for three days of hiking, canoing, bike riding, tent sleeping, s'mores eating, bug slapping, weenie roasting FUN, and I can't wait!

Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter -- we are rapidly approaching the date for the first issue to go live. (Please note: If you do sign up, you won't recieve the download link for your free gift until I return on Monday. Thanks for your patience and understanding.)

In the meantime, make sure to grab today's freebie. It's a quote that I love, along with a few text frames, and it gives you a great sneak peek at what my House Party kits are going to look like next week. Make sure to join us for the House Party at Design House Digital on the first of each month, where participating designers release coordinating kits that you can mix and match. There are great challenges, too, and we're getting ready to kick off our August Dollar Days as well. Lots going on that you won't want to miss!

(click on the image below to download this week's freebie)

 

 

new release: Urban Flair

This week's new release is a bit of a step outside my comfort zone. I've had this color scheme saved for quite some time -- I've been drawn to the colors but just haven't been sure what to do with them. So I started playing around with some damask patterns and woodgrains, and this collection was started. Say hello to Urban Flair!

This kit is filled with damask and woodgrain papers, flat and tied ribbons, paint splatters and washi, awesome quotations, 3x4 and 4x6 Project Life cards, and a marquee-style alphabet. There's a little bit of everything packed into this kit, and it's perfect for scrapping a wide variety of topics. Take a look at a few layouts from our House Decorators.

by Anna: 

by Becca:

 by Jennifer B: 

 The kit is available as one large bundle, or you can purchase the four parts individually. The paper pack comes with 16 papers, the alphabet has a base layer that can be recolored with a woodgrain layer to go on top, the Project Life cards feature stackable cards with cutout phrases, and the elements contain a variety of embellishments, including a woodgrain city skyline and awesome damask paint masks.

Let's take a look at a few more layouts.

by Jeryn:

by Erika:

by Liz:

 by Mandi (using Crystal's Angled templates)

 by Rachel:

 by Shannon (using Crystal's Jumpers 13-16)

keeping my life organized

Every so often, I'll get a comment from someone -- on the blog, in the forums, during a chat -- and they'll ask me how I find time to do all the things that I do. I work fulltime, I teach classes or take classes at the university each semester, I design and blog and scrapbook, I have a busy family, and I still do things like read and knit and thrift. 

The truth is, there are lots of things that combine to make it all possible. Chris and I split up when it comes to practices and games, just like we split up on household chores (though that involves the whole family, not just me and Chris). The girls are older, so they are able to do a lot more things for themselves, instead of needing me to do them for them (even simple things like baths, getting ready for bed. Then there's the fact that I'm a serious night owl, so a lot of work happens in the wee hours of the night.

But the biggest factor is that I have a pretty consistent organizational routine in terms of time management. I thought I would share it with you today. I know that time management is fairly personal, and what works for one person may not work for another. I share it in the hopes that you might find one or two little bits that could be helpful for you.

MY TOOLS OF THE TRADE
These are the things that are essential to the way I keep track of all of our obligations. Let me just say up front that, as much as I love technology, I just don't feel comfortable keeping track of everything with an online tool. Some people will claim it's because I haven't found the right app yet, but that's not it. I used my iPhone calendar and Google Calendar for over a year, and then switched back to paper. It's just a personal preference. Anyway, here's what I keep on hand:

• a variety of sticky notes
• a set of highlighters in a variety of colors
• a Moleskine calendar
• a set of Moleskin notebooks

I cannot say enough good things about my Moleskine calendar. It's actually a calendar and notebook all rolled into one; it contains a weekly calendar layout on the left side and a notebook page on the right side. It closes with an elastic band, and like all Moleskines, there's a pocket in the back for papers. (Side note: The first one I bought was actually the Academic version, so it was dated from August 2010 through December 2011. I've since switched over to the yearly version.)

For me, this is the perfect solution because I am a note-taker; it's my preferred learning style. The calendar sections offer me plenty of room to write down all of our responsibilities, and the notebook page gives me a place to record all the things that otherwise end up jotted down on scraps of paper -- Cassidy's stats for her cross-country meet, a reminder about what books I want to find at the library this week, a note about a funny thing that Cami said in the car. The best part is that all of this information is in one place, and I can store it on my bookshelf when this year is over, then take it down and look at it again later. I've actually gone back to my calendar multiple times while scrapbooking to find dates, notes, comments, etc. for journaling.

MY SYSTEM: CALENDAR SIDE
If anything has a due date -- soccer practice, a meeting for work, a digital kit release in my shop, a book due at the library -- it gets written on the calendar page. Then I bring in the highlighters. Each person in our family has a color assigned to them.

• Cami -- pink
• Cassidy -- blue
• me (work) -- yellow
• me (design/other) -- orange
• Chris/family/big dates -- green

The benefit of highlighting these items is that I can see at a glance what kind and how many responsibilities I have each day. I chose to use two different colors for my fulltime work and my design work, because I wanted to be able to keep those two things separate. I create my own design schedule, so it obviously can be more flexible than the deadlines and obligations I have for my regular job. To be honest, there's not much information about Chris that gets put on the schedule. If he's taking a class or having to work overtime (scheduled in advance), then I note it. Otherwise, green is reserved for family trips, big dates (like spring break, Christmas break, first day of school).

MY SYSTEM: NOTEBOOK SIDE
At the top of my notebook pages, I keep a blog schedule. I try to plan my blog posts a couple of weeks in advance. Of course, I might not actually get the post written until the night before it goes live, but I at least have topics planned out a couple of weeks in advance. For me, if I at least know what I'm planning to do, then I can be thinking about it in the back of my mind and by the time I need to create something, I have a pretty good idea of what I need to do. 

If I have notes that need to be more portable -- that might need to be moved to a stack of papers, or a folder, or another notebook -- then I'll write them on sticky notes and just stick them to that note page. That way, I can move them around without having to rewrite them.

MY DESIGN WORK AND SCRAPBOOKING
I use a three-pack of Moleskine Cahier notebooks with kraft covers for my inspiration books. I have a simple label sticker on the front, where I wrote inspiration. However, these notebooks can easily be dressed up with patterned papers, stickers, and more, if you'd prefer. 

Inside, I just make lists. I keep lists of scrapbook pages I need to make, photos I need to use, kits I want to design, quotes I want to use. When something is completed, I mark through it. A couple of times a month, I go through the notebook, page by page, looking at my lists. Sometimes I condense lists or move items to another list. Sometimes I decide that an item just isn't worth the effort, so I get rid of it. 

So that's what works for me. My calendar is the first thing I look at each morning, and the last thing I check before heading to bed in the evening. When I sit down at my computer to design or scrap, I pull out my notebook. Both items fit easily into a pocket of my purse/worktote, so I can easily carry them wherever I go.

I'd love to hear how you keep your family and work life organized. What paper tools do you use? What digital tools do you use? 

tutorial: creating negative titles

I've been putting together some layouts for an upcoming class where I'll be featured at Masterful Scrapbook Design. Speaking of, I'm currently one of the featured scrappers there for the Telling Stories class, and I was part of April's Artful Embellishing class. Anyway, this upcoming class has me thinking a lot about the techniques that I use on a regular basis. The layout below (which is from the Artful Embellishing class, incidentally) is a perfect example of many of my go-to techniques: using bold patterns, including different types of journaling, replicating a paper style, and including negative space.

Today's tutorial focuses on that last technique -- using negative space to create a title. 

At first glance, it may seem as though the letters in my title are simply created with the same paper used for the background beneath the patterned paper. However, if you look more closely at the shadows, you'll see that the title has been cut out of the patterned paper, which was then placed on top of the teal paper and shadowed. So the negative space created by removing the letters creates the title. This is the same look you would get by using a Silhouette or a Cameo, both items that are very popular in paper scrapbooking right now. I like using this technique because it's a little bit unexpected, and I just really like how it looks on the page. Here's how I do it:

Step 1:
You'll want to begin with at least two sheets of paper. In this example, I have an ombre paper as my bottom layer and a chevron-patterned paper as my top layer. (These papers are part of my Confetti & Cupcake kit, which will be releasing on 8/2).

Step 2: 
Select a color which highly contrasts against your patterned paper. In this instance, I used the color picker to choose a bright pink.

Step 3: 
Select a font and type your title across the page. I'm using Bebas for this example. In my experience, I've found that bold blocky texts work best if you are cutting them from heavily-patterned papers. If you opt to use a fussier text, with lots of swirls or serifs or other details, then you'll want to cut it from a solid-colored pattern paper; otherwise all the details can get lost in the pattern. 

Step 4:
Once you've placed the title where you want it, you'll need to simplify (rasterize) it. Then you'll need to merge the title layer to your top paper layer (Ctrl+G).

 Step 5: 
Use your Magic Wand Tool to select one of the letters in your title. Right click on the mouse and select "similar." This will select the rest of the letters that are the same color. This is why it is important to make sure you use a high-contrast color for the title, particularly if you are using a heavily-detailed patterned paper or a fussy font. Once your entire title is selected, just hit the Delete button on your keyboard. This will "cut" the title from your paper.

 Step 6: 
Add a shadow to the top layer. At this point, I chose to substitute a different patterned paper for my top layer, because I didn't think there was enough contrast between the two layers. But this didn't mean I had to start over! Instead, I just opened up a new piece of paper, placed it on top of my cut-out paper, and then "clipped" them together (Ctrl+G, Ctrl+E).

 Of course, this technique isn't limited to text. You can create the same look with the custom shapes tool, with brushes, or with the patterns on a piece of paper. 

 

Digital products from Audacious Designs related to this post:

InLinkz.com

books+social media+technology = more awesomeness for us!

I still remember the first time that I interacted with an author on the internet. I was blogging about a book I'd read -- As Simple As Snow by Gregory Galloway. (This was back before I started this blog -- I think I was on Livejournal at the time). Anyway, I had written a post gushing about this YA novel and wondering what other good books involving Houdini were available, and Galloway left a comment on my blog. 

Y'all, you would've thought that a rock star had called me on the phone or something. Honestly, this was probably a bigger deal to me than if a rock star actually had called me -- but we all know I'm a total booknerd, so that's okay -- since authors ARE like rock stars to me. But it was the first time I'd been able to interact with someone who had written a book that I enjoyed so much, and it led me down the rabbit hole of authors and blogs. 

From there, it wasn't long before social media came along, with MySpace and Facebook and Twitter...and the possibilities for interacting with authors increased a hundredfold. Now, I can talk to my favorite authors every day, and while this isn't the same as an extended conversation or anything along those lines, the ease of accessibility makes for interesting possibilities.

One of the authors whose online presence I really enjoy is Maggie Stiefvater. Her Twitter feed is really entertaining and informative -- always a nice mix -- and her blog is top-notch. She writes great posts about her writing process (plus versions from TEN other authors), among other things, and her blog is where I first came across the concept of book trailers.

Where have I been, that I wasn't aware that authors were now making trailers to promote their books, just like trailers are made to promote movies? For all my talk about technology, I haven't done a very good job of keeping up with what's popular, huh?

I wanted to share Maggie's trailer for The Raven Boys with you because I think it is so impressive. Not only did she draw everything and then animate it herself, but she also wrote and performed the music. She details the process on her blog and then ends the post with the trailer. It's worth reading and watching, I think.

So do you have favorite authors whose blogs you read? Or do you follow them on Twitter? To be honest, I spend much less time on blogs than I used to -- I prefer Twitter because it's easier to get the info I need. In particular, I really enjoy the Twitter feeds from Lev Grossman, Libba Bray (oh my dad, she is hilarious!), Patrick Ness, Maggie Stiefvater, Erin Morgenstern, and John Green.