Author Archives: Leah

Wedding Guest Book

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A girl at work, Lisa,  is getting married next year and she was asking around for ideas for her wedding.  We were talking about venues, flowers, colours, invitations, decor, etc. and I was trying to figure out how to incorporate my new photobook business into her wedding.  It finally occurred to me a few weeks later that I could make a guest book with their engagement photos (if they have any taken!) and the guests would be able to write their comments and wishes to the couple right in the photobook.  I was so excited with my idea that I designed the book in a few days but needed some engagement photos to go in it.  I called up another friend from work, Tricia, and asked if I could use hers in this sample book.  So the pictures you see are of Tricia and her now husband, Rich.  Coincidentally the photographer is also a good friend of ours at the hospital, Conrad –  Thanks for letting me use your gorgeous photos!!  And also thanks to Lisa for the inspiration – I tried to use some of the colours we had talked about, Tiffany blue and a very specific shade of red!

I am also excited to show you something new I learned while writing this blog – how to insert a slide show of all the photobook pages!

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This photobook uses my current favorite digital kit “Retrospective” from my favorite designer, Peppermint Granberg, of One Little Bird Designs.

I hope you like it!!

Leah

Robyn’s Vintage Birthday

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Elements from “Small Talk” by TaylorMade Designs and Fei Fei’s Stuff, ribbon and staple from Stampin’ Up.

I didn’t plan on having a “vintage” birthday for Robyn, it just happened.  And it wasn’t the party that was vintage, but most of her presents.  As talked about in my previous post, she got a refurbished 30 year old doll house that we found in Jason’s Dad’s basement.  Well, that basement is filled with toys from the seventies and eighties, and we found a few other gems down there.  We found lots of colourful My Little Ponies that just needed a good cleaning and hair combing, and we also found the cutest wooden Snoopy dog!

Robyn loves that Snoopy dog and pulls him all over the house.  There was only one vintage item from my side of the family and that was a beautiful dress that my Mom had made for my niece, Pam, when she was two.  Pam is now fourteen and we are so lucky that Auntie Liz saved all the clothes my Mom made for Pam.

Robyn looked so sweet in this dress (as seen in the photos above), like a little princess!

I am so glad that our birthday season is over and that I don’t have to worry about planning any more parties for a little while.  Now I can just relax and enjoy our summer!

Leah

More samples from Two Thousand and Twelve album here.

Playing with Photoshop

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I have been playing around with Photoshop for years and, prior to my interest in digital scrapbooking, used it mostly for basic editing of our photos.  I didn’t really understand how to use the Toolbox and learned from trial and error.  I knew how to crop a photo, add text, make a photo black and white,  and remove blemishes, but that was about it!

For my birthday last September, my husband gave me a two year subscription to Adobe Photoshop Elements Techniques magazine.  He thought I should learn how to use the software and then be able to use it for digital scrapbooking.  (I currently use the My Digital Studio program from Stampin’ Up and will continue to use it for my photobooks because it is much easier and quicker for me to use.)  I have been trying to learn it and the more I learn, the more I realize how complex it is with endless possibilities for your photos and scrapbook page!

In the May/June 2012 issue, there was a tutorial for adding vintage colour to a photo and had the perfect photo for it.

BEFORE

AFTER

I loved the “After” picture and it worked perfectly with this new kit from One Little Bird called “Little Sprout”.  I am using this kit for a baby book and thought the colours were just right for the picture of Robyn.

“Little Sprout” from One Little Bird Designs, pearls from Stampin’ Up

I hope you all had a great May long weekend!

Leah

Happy Mother’s Day

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Every Mother’s Day I am thankful for three things: my beautiful kids, my awesome husband, and that I no longer work at the flower shop!  It is such a crazy time in the flower business that, if I still worked there, I would not get to spend any time relaxing on Mother’s Day.  Ironically, all I want to do on my “day off”  is check out plants and flowers at the garden center and work in the garden!

My husband and kids did spoil me with waffles for breakfast and Jason is making steak and scallops for dinner, my favorite!!  And this is after spending all afternoon building me a raised garden for growing veggies!  I am a lucky girl!

I hope you were spoiled by your husband and kids for Mother’s Day and that you were able to have some quiet time to yourself!

Leah

Buttons, stitching, brads, letter punches, stamp from Stampin’ Up. Paper and flower from “Small Talk” by Fei Fei’s Stuff and TaylorMade Designs.

More samples from Two Thousand and Twelve album here.

 

It’s Birthday Season!

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It seems like most of the kids we know have spring birthdays, including Casey and Robyn.  I have already started planning both of their parties and just finished designing the invites.  I worked on Casey’s first and liked it so much that I made Robyn’s in the same style but, of course, more girly.

All elements from "Retrospective" by One Little Bird Designs.

I think he has settled on a “car” theme for his party and I have scouted out some ideas from Pinterest but, knowing how often almost four year olds change their mind, I will not actually buy or make anything until the week before!  (In that case, I had better take some vacation days from work just before his birthday!!)

One week after Casey’s birthday is Robyn’s turn.  I like it that their birthdays are close as I have a crazy few weeks and then it is done.  Thankfully, Robyn is only turning two so she won’t care what her birthday party is like.  I am hoping for a really great day and have the party at the local playground.  That way the birds and the squirrels can clean up all the crumbs!  Her invitation was a bit trickier because of all her hair in the photo.  This was the best I could do!

All elements from "Sweet Awaits" by Kitty Designs.

I will post some pictures next month so you can see how the parties turned out.  Now that the invites are made and sent out, I can relax for a few weeks and get back to working on those photobooks!

(I know it has been a while since the last post, but I was sick for about four weeks and just never made it to the computer to do anything.  I usually like to do a post every week and I was even asked by someone if they had been removed from the mailing list!  I feel sooooo much better now and the creativity is coming back to me so you can look forward to more regular posts.)

Leah

Silhouette Decor

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"Billet Doux" from One Little Bird Designs

The whole family has been sick for the last two weeks and as horrible as it is to look after sick kids when you are also sick, a few good things did come of it.  There was a lot of quiet time to work on scrapbooking projects and I even had a hint of inspiration one day and did some rebranding.  You may have noticed that I have been experimenting with the image at the top of my blog as it never looked quite right to me.  Well, I finally came up with a new design that I really liked so I also designed new business cards, watermark (as seen in the picture above), and advertisement.   That’s right, advertisement!  I finally put my first advertisement in our community newsletter and I am feeling a bit nervous about it.  We will see what happens when it comes out this summer!

The other good thing that came from having sick and sluggish kids is that I was finally able to get them to sit still for a profile picture so I could attempt to make their silhouettes.  I quite like how they turned out and I will be printing and framing each silhouette for some artwork for our main bathroom.

Happy Easter!

Leah