Embed Morse Code, Etc Into Your Layouts

Are you looking for more creative ways to title your layouts? Have you thought about using a code? You could try converting your message to binary code (like my husband did with my birthday candles last night!), morse code, braille or anything you dream up! In this layout, the knotted rope spells out "ROPE" to go along with a photo where I was learning and practicing rope coiling, but had also learned morse code, knot typing, and a whole lot more at our extended field trip to Mystic Seaport!



Club Scrap: Academy 8/07 - B&B UM Stamps; Interior Designs 11/06 - Brown Plain; Retreat 2006 - Translucent Print; Wild Wild West 10/05 - Brick Plain; Scrapbook Takeout: Adventures in Altering 8/07 - Heidi Swapp Raw Chipboard Alphabet Lemonade Stand; Zig: Memory Writer - Pure Chocolate; Packing Cord (titled with a morse code pattern);

If you don't want to incorporate it into the title, what about using it for a background pattern? There are so many ways to hide messages in your art! Another cool idea is to include your message in a pattern for knitting or crocheting! Knitty Gritty had Adina Klein in Episode DKNG-410 with her Fibonacci Knitting designs. Uncommon Threads featured Barry Klein and Fayla Reiss demonstrating how they use dates, converted to numbers, to create crochet plaid patterns in episode DUCT-242.

Mirror Mirror Kit - 2 Cards and 1 DigiLayout

I really adore the color combination in the newest Club Scrap kit! I've always been a big fan of greens and browns for scrapbooking... Lately, it seems my kids are always dressed in shades of browns, greens, and blues! So the colors worked wonderfully for the book that I just posted, but they also work great for all kinds of other things! Here are a few examples!



Club Scrap: 11/08 Mirror Mirror Light Celery, Dark Celery, Brown, B&B UM Stamps; 2008 Old World Christmas: Greetings UM Stamps; 2008 Holiday Projects: Holiday Collection Stencil; 6/2000 Heritage: Journaling Stencil; Club Scrap Earth Hybrid Ink Pad; ColorBox Stylus Tool; Holiday Ornament Stencil Tutorial Video;Ranger - Distress Stickles: Walnut Stain;

Club Scrap has been filling its new Cinema with loads of wonderful project and technique videos to help you create! They even have a gorgeous video to help with techniques for using the holiday ornament stencil that I used on this card! I added some Distress Stickles to the ornaments and the torn edge on my card, added lines inked through the journaling stencil, and more using the great stripes stamp from the Mirror Mirror kit, both straight on and as a second generation of stamping for the distressed background.



This cute little day and night card combines the papers from this month's Club Scrap kit with some patterned paper and stamps from Scrapbook Takeout. When you open the card, you have a little night scene off in the corner!



Scrapbook Takeout: June 08 Eclectica: Unmounted Stamps; July 08 Potpourri - Unmounted Stamps; Dream Street Cafe Chic Lounge and Fashionista Paper;
Club Scrap: Mirror Mirror 11/08 - Paper in Robins Egg Blue, Dark Celery, Light Celery, Brown, and White;
Ranger: Archival Ink Pad in Coffee;



You'd think that he was a movie star to see my children react to their cousin serving them at Starbucks! So, it seemed only proper to give him the star treatment in this layout! The Expanded Art overlay provided a wonderful, yet masculine, glam for the page! I used the magic wand to select all of the black and gray in the overlay and then used the Adjust Hue/Saturation enhancement to colorize it and turn it to a dark green. To create a colorful custom title, I cut small pieces of the printed tags to fit inside of the font!

Club Scrap: Mirror Mirror CSt Digital Kit;

Travelogue Wired Book

A great way to commemorate a special trip is to create a small coffee table album! To simplify things and to unify the album, pick one color palette for your papers, embellishments, and inks or paints. Choose a small selection of stamps and use them to create accents, borders, decorative strips, etc. In no time you'll have a gorgeous little album to keep or give to whomever shared the journey with you!





I created this originally for a challenge with a specific set of embellishments and stamps to draw from, just added the inks, paints, paper, and binding! I plan to bring it with me to Thanksgiving and have my mom, grandma, and the girls add the journaling since they were all there, but I wasn't!

Supplies Used:

• Scrapbook Takeout: April 08 Graffiti Artist - Heidie Swapp Mini Chipboard Variety Set; June 08 Eclectica: Unmounted Stamps, American Crafts Treehouse Chipboard Shapes, Hambly Brocade Overlay; July 08 Potpourri Works: Unmounted Stamps; August 08 Summer Splash: Maya Road Sheer Journaling Card; Prima Flowers; October 08 Scrap Harvest: My Minds Eye Everyday Journaling Card, My Minds Eye Happy Journaling Card, My Minds Eye Scroll Die Cut, My Minds Eye Happy Graph Transparency, My Minds Eye Coastal "Celebrate" Chipboard Accessories, My Minds Eye Mellow "Happy" Assortment Tags, Kaiser Craft Wooden Button Flowers; Kaiser Craft Rhinestones, Bazzill Crochet Blossom, Dream Street Cafe Chic Lounge and Venti Latte Paper;
• Club Scrap: Mirror Mirror 11/08 - Beads and Paper in Robins Egg Blue, Dark Celery, Light Celery, and Brown; Wired Book Design; Waxed Linen Thread;
• Ranger: Adirondack Acrylic Paint Dabber in Aqua and Lettuce; Adirondack Dye Ink in Ocean Aqua; Adirondack Pigment Ink in Snow White, Archival Ink Pad in Coffee; Claudine Hellmuth Studio Gesso and Paint in Yellow Pastel and Saddle Brown;
• Jewelry Wire;

The College Years - 6 Layouts & 1 Postcard

Ahh, college... It's a time when you have full freedom to reimagine yourself in any way that you wish. You have no permanent career or meetings with your children's school for which you have to maintain proper appearances. You can be you. I do miss feeling free to dye my hair, write and read lots of poetry, etc and may go back to it all one day, but for now, I'll scrap it!



Club Scrap: Simply Beautiful 5/07 - Green 8.5x11 Print, Green Cut Out, Rose Plain, Rose Cut Out, Lilac Print, Lilac Cut Out, Beads, Paper Flower, Mini Brad, UM Stamps; Big & Tall 2004 - UM Font; Road Trip 3/05 - UM Font;
Ranger: Adirondack Dye Ink Pad - Espresso;
Blue Moon Beads: Gold Head Pin;



Club Scrap: Generations 4/08 - Translucent Print, JR WM Stamp; Farmer's Market 10/06 - Pumpkin Plain; Paisley 3/06 - Burnt Orange Print, Olive 8.5x11 CSt Print, UM Stamps;
Scrapbook Takeout: 8/07 Adventures in Altering Kit - Maya Road Fresh Chipboard Scroll Corners; Grungeboard Alphabet (as stencil);
Ranger: Adirondack Ink Pads - Espresso, Pesto, Rust; Distress Crackle Paint - Dried Marigold;
Zig: Memory Writer - Chocolate;



Club Scrap: Egyptian 8/03 - Rollergraph Stamp, UM Stamps, Stencil;
StampFrancisco - Nebti Stamp;
Ranger: Adirondack Ink in Caramel and Latte;
Clearsnap: Fluid Chalk Ink, ColorBox Stylus Tool;

Hymn to the goddess Neith, unknown source:
Most ancient Mother
Great Radiant One,
Lady of the Stars,
Mistress of the Celestial Ocean
Highest Judge,
Fiery One who rose from the Primordial Floods,
It is Neit who reaches down from the heavens
to take the hands of each who dies,
taking them into Her arms
to place them as stars of the universe,
each to light Her perfect body
with an emerald light,
sowing mortals upon Her heavenly self,
as others sow the green plants of the fields.
Though if Her anger was provoked
She might cause the sky to crash upon the ground,
still She was Mother of All
broad winged Goddess who protects from evil,
who defends the good with bow and arrow,
as She once defended those ancient priestesses
who took Her name:
Neit Hotep,
Meryet Neit,
Her Neit,
priestess queens who ruled when Egypt was young,
when only women served at Neit's altars,
each knowing throughout her life
that she would one day glisten as a star
upon the measureless body of the Mother of Heaven.



Club Scrap: Culinary 3/04 - Frame Stamp, UM B&B Stamps, White 8.5x11 JR Print, Olive 8.5x11 JR Print, Silver Translucent 8.5x11 JR Print Green Plain, Silver Plain, Burgundy Plain;
Stayzon: Olive;
Unknown Silver Ink Pad;
Sizzix: Sizzlits Alphabet;



Club Scrap: Generations 4/08 - DP01;
Font: Keetano ATL My Gangsta;
Adobe PSE5.0: Altered Hues; Altered Contrast; Drop Shadows;

Ordeal
I promise to make you more alive than you’ve ever been.
For the first time you’ll see your pores opening
like gills of fish and you’ll hear
the noise of blood in galleries
and feel light gliding over your corneas
like the dragging of a dress across the floor.
For the first time, you’ll note gravity’s prick
like a thorn in your heel,
and your shoulder blades will hurt
from the imperative of wings.
I promise to make you so alive that
the fall of dust on furniture will deafen you,
and you’ll feel your eyebrows like two wounds forming
and your memories will seem to begin
with the creation of the world.

by Nina Cassian
translated by Michael Impey and Brian Swann



Club Scrap: 05/08 Body & Soul DigiKit - DP04; Interior Designs 11/06 - Xtra37;Font: Font Garden - FG Adrian;
Adobe PSE5.0: Altered Hues; Drop Shadows;

The Fog Horn by Ray Bradbury
(an excerpt in which McDunn speaks)

“I’ll make a voice like all of time and all the fog that
ever was; I’ll make a voice that is like an empty bed
beside you all night long, and like an empty house when
you open the door, and like trees in autumn with no
leaves. A sound like the birds flying south, crying, and a
sound like November wind and the sea on the hard, cold
shore. I’ll make a sound that’s so alone that no one
can miss it, that whoever hears it will weep in their
souls and hearths will seem warmer, and being inside
will seem better to all those who hear it in the distant
towns. I’ll make a sound and an apparatus and they’ll
call it a Fog Horn and whoever hears it will know the
sadness of eternity and the briefness of life.”



Club Scrap: Body & Soul 5/08 DigiKit - DP06; Tran08;
Font: Exocet;
Adobe PSE5.0: Altered Hues;

Scrapbook Takeout Holiday Workshop Week

http://forum.scrapbooktakeout.com/index.php?showforum=108

ETA: Due to an outage, the forum was down on Tuesday morning and Francine's class has been posted to her blog, for now... http://francineclouden.typepad.com/tuesday_todo/

For the next few days there are a bunch of fun online workshops going on at Scrapbook Takeout!

Today's classes include a Paper Bag Christmas Card and Easy Evergreen Cards; Tuesday's classes include a Stacked Christmas Tree and Mini Album Tin Ornament; Wednesday's classes include a set with a Gift Bag, Tag and Gift Card Holder; Thursday's classes include chipboard ornaments; Friday's classes include Christmas Treet Boxes and a Christmas Ornament!

Please check it out, sign in, and let them know that I sent you!

Here's my quick version of Lizette's Paper Bag Christmas Card! I used only the paper bag, remnants from the FFC Exclusive Christmas Brights ALSB Kit, 2 mini brads, and one ink pad! This "card" would be perfect to fill not only with a nice big letter to a loved one, but stuff a bagged holiday drink mix inside, or some other treat that you can get relatively flat!



Scrapbook Takeout: Lizette's Paper Bag Card Class November 2008 Holiday Workshop;
Club Scrap: FFC Christmas Bright ALSB Kit Remnant Paper and Tags; Generations 4/08 - Berry Mini Brads;

The Natural and the Unnatural - 4 Digital Layouts

Here are a few of my recent digital layouts for you guys!



Club Scrap: Mirror Mirror 11/08 CSDigi Sr Kit;

Uatchet in the Mirror Maze
With so many arrows to choose from, it's so easy to cut one out of a printed tag, or use the stencil shapes to cut arrows where none existed before! Layer them up, copy and paste sections of the arrows from the background print to make it overlap one of them... Add a tall and skinny photo and even borrow a natural border from the photo to help matte it! In no time you'll have the perfect layout! (Of course, if your photo also happens to be of your daughter's first adventure in a mirror maze, then things will really fall right into place!)



Private Eye CS DigiGoodies Kit 10/08;

Look! - Sebek and the Stag Beetle
Zoom in on a photo by enlarging a section of it and clipping it to fit inside the magnifying glass. Create a shaded glass overlay by duplicating the layer with the photo and using Layer Style >> Wow Plasic in Photoshop Elements.



Club Scrap: Retreat 2007 Digital Kit - PS06; Refresh 02/07 Digital Kit - PLtGreen, PTrans, Trans14, Trans18;
Fonts: CoventryGarden, Glider Girls;
Photoshop Elements 5.0: Blending Modes - Difference, Overlay; Altered Hues;



Club Scrap: Avant Garde 3/08 Digital Kit - DP; Great Outdoors 10/07 Digital Kit - Xtra66, Xtra67, Xtra68; Collections 6/06 Digital Kit - Alpha;
Adobe Photoshop Elements: Blending Mode - Multiply; Drop Shadow - Soft Edge; Altered Hues;
Personal Scan of a Tile;
Clay Sculpture by Nekhebet;

Awesome Bracelet from Swap goodies and Prizes!

I just realized that I had not yet scanned the awesome bracelet that I made using Luanne's Charm Bracelet Kit, that I won in her CSChat contest, and charms from the swap that we had at the Club Scrap September 2008 Main Retreat! There are tons of cool finds in it! Luanne hand selected the Scrabble tiles to use my kids' first initials (yeah, in birth order, their initials spell a word!) and the phrase "Be Here Now" in charms along with tons of other goodies, many that I couldn't fit onto the bracelet! I also have another silver charm bracelet that just uses charms from the swap! many of the swap dangles are filled with CS beads and on my other bracelet there are a lot of CS stamps on shrink plastic! I'll have to scan that one for you all later!