i heart photo masks!

Nothing makes digital scrapbooking easier than photo masks. They come in extra handy for times when I have too many photos of one event but can't seem to weed any out. ;) I know I have a problem.... Here are a few layouts I did using a photo mask I made to help me get the job done quickly. Here is the mask...

and here are the layouts...

Quick and easy! They work great for Project Life/Project 365 too. Photo masks allow you to drop in your photos and elements and with a few clicks crop it all down to size. Since I wont be able to explain it in a way you could understand, (I am TERRIBLE at explaing the workings of photoshop) I found you a tutorial on how to use em. Here is one you could check out, but the web it full of them! Have a great day and get some scrapbooking done! :)

Ahhh Summer...

Hey there! Long time no see huh?! We've been having a great, but busy, summer and I hope you have too! I've been trying to squeak in a little scrapbooking in between trips, projects, and lazy days by the pool. I thought I'd pop in today a share a few layouts.

Aren't they cute! I know I am a bit biased, but I can't help it. Oh, and yes I know my little guy (who is not so little now) will not be happy I scrapbooked him in a tutu. ;) On this layout I used my "Take Note" kit coming soon to my shop. Here is the one I used.

On this 2 page layout I used the "Gypsy Queen" kit from my shop.

Well thats all for today! I hope you are enjoying your summer, spending lazy days with your kiddos, being creative, and scrapbooking!

New Etsy Goods

Well hello there! Happy Friday! Yipee!! I love Fridays, don't you? Things have been pretty crazy around here lately. Lots of fun things like birthdays, The Prairie Sisters Party, spring projects, gardening, and decorating, along with all the usual chores and routine. I'll have more to share on those tidbits later, but for now I wanted to let you know I finally added some more goodies to my Etsy Shop, Pink Owl Paperie. Here are the new kits: Milk Maid

Gypsy Queen

and here's a layout I made the other day using the set...

and Golden Rule Days

I still have 2 or 3 dozen more kits to add to the shop, but I'll keep you updated as I add them. Stop on by my shop and pick one up and get scrapin' this weekend! Have a wonderful Friday everyone. p.s. I can't find the spell checker on bloggers "new format", so please forgive me for any errors! ;)

Scrapin Away

I am NOT a morning person. If I had my way, I really wouldn't get up before 10 am and wouldn't go to bed before midnight... but being a mom to 3 busy kiddos means this is not a possibility. I am always trying to turn myself into a morning person, so I've been motivating myself with some scrapbook time. I get up early have a little coffee and some quiet time then into the craft room. I get a half hour or so to scrapbook before it's time to get the kids up for school. I'm loving it! (not as much as I would love to sleep till 10 but I'm working on it!)

So here the am perks: finished layouts yeah!

I used some of my journaling cards from the Department Store set and the Take Note set (soon to be listed in my shop).


On this layout I used journaling cards from the Pretty as a Princess and the Springtime in Paris sets.

If you are a morning person, I'd love to know how you do it! ;)

Scrapbooking Freebie!

Woohoo! I'm so excited to finally be reopening my Etsy shop. So... I thought I'd give away a freebie to anyone who wants one!

This journaling card is from my set "Noted". Just click on the card, then right click and save as, and it's all yours!



Here's what the full set looks like:



and here is a layout I made with the set:



I also used the "By the Numbers" set in the cream and aqua.



There will be several sets like these in coordinating colors in my shop on Monday. Have a great weekend and happy crafting!

Pink Owl Paperie Preview

I thought I'd share a little smattering of what I'm going to be listing in my Etsy shop when it reopens on Monday.



This is a random selection from different kits that are going in the shop. Lots of vintage inspired goodies, cute kits for baby, calendar cards, school themes, sets perfect for Project Life / Project 365, and more! I've been having so much fun designing! I hope you will enjoy the final products as much as I enjoyed creating them!

Be sure to come by my shop, www.pinkowlpaperie.etsy.com, on Monday the 16th for the reopening!

Pink Owl Paperie is ReOpening!

Finally! I'm reopening my Etsy shop, Pink Owl Paperie, next Monday the 16th! My new shop is going to be filled with digital/printable scrapbooking and paper crafting goods. So if your a digital scrapbooker, scrapbooker, or crafter be sure to stop on by and check it out! www.pinkowlpaperie.etsy.com I'll be sharing some shop previews and giving away few freebies between now and then so stay tuned! ;)

Have a great evening!

Pink Owl Paperie Preview!

Here are a few more goodies I've been working on for my shop. I'm getting close to reopening! I have a few sweet friends helping me with some "test runs" to make sure the downloading process goes smoothly and then I'll be ready for business! Yeah!

Have a great week/weekend! I'm off on a girls long weekend to the Scrapbook Expo in Utah. Hooray!

Shop Preview!

So I mentioned I'm going to be reopening my Etsy shop, Pink Owl Paperie, sometime soon and I thought I'd share a little preview of the goods I've been working on for it. The shop is going to be full of digital and printable scrapbook supplies.





I'm not sure exactly when I will reopen, but I'll keep you posted. For now I'm busy working on new journaling packs, converting some of my paper journaling cards to digital files, and finding a good method for the downloads. So... for now here's a little freebie. Just right click on the image below to save it then add it to your digital scrapbook pages or print it out and use it for all kinds of projects!


Have a great day!!

Is there anybody out there?

Wheeew! It has been a long time since I posted anything on this little ole blog of mine. We finally got the Internet at our new house,and even though we aren't really in the middle of nowhere, I guess we might as well be for the amount of time it took. Anyhoo.... we are in our new house and loving it! Today I thought I'd just say hi and share some digi scrapbooking I've done. I also have plans to reopen my Etsy shop, Pink Owl Paperie, sometime in the near future. This time it will be all digital and printable scrapbook/papercraft supplies. Just think no shipping charges! ;)(more on that to come later)





I've been making some photo masks (they "trim" your photos into a collage) for quick layouts and I'll post one you can use soon. They work great for digital scrapbooking or just print them out as a photo collage. Have a great weekend!

Scrapbook Organization

Hello there! Well I don't know about you, but spring always makes me think of organization projects and right now I have scrapbooking on the brain. I just discovered an awesome way to organize my digital scrapbook products so I can be way more efficient. I'm using Picasa, it's a free photo editing and storage program you can download off the Internet, if you aren't already using it. I got the idea to use it for my scrapbooking supplies from this little tutorial on the Design House Digital website. Go here if your interested. It is working great for me!

I'm also trying to figure out how to organize my scrapbook supplies in our new house. I'm a little slow these days, so I JUST realized that when the house is finished and we move I will have almost NO scrapbook storage. Right now I have wonderful white cabinets that my hubby put up for me, but when we sell the house they go with it. So I'm on a major hunt to find some cheap and cute storage. Any ideas? I'd love to hear what you use or where you found some great pieces! The thought of having my stuffed piled on the floor makes me want to cry! ;)

A little scrapbooking

This last weekend was an extra long one for us. The kids school had parent teacher conferences last week so they basically had Thurs.- Mon. off. It was so nice! We hung out with family, kids played with their cousins, we spent lazy days reading and playing playmobil, we picked stuff out for the new house and spent an afternoon there, we built snow forts, tunnels, had a snowball fight,made ski jumps in the back yard, and I even got some scrapbooking in. So I thought I'd share some of the layouts I did.






I'm done with 2008 and halfway done with 2009... and boy oh boy it's feeling soooo good to get caught up! I'm always so worried I'm going to forget the stories behind the pictures (the stories are sooo important to me) so it is such a relief to be getting these older ones done before the memories become to faded. Good thing I often make little notes about events ect as they happen.

So I'd love to know... you scrapbookers out there, are you like me? Are you years behind with mountains of photos on your computer that you haven't even gone through? Or are you on top of things with only a few months worth of photos to print and scrap? If you are the latter, please let me know your secret! I just hope it's not "take fewer photos," because I'm pretty sure I'm beyond help on that front! ;) Have a wonderful Wednesday!!

More Scrapbooking!

Oh how I miss the days where my Parker wouldn't go anywhere without his wranglers, boots, and a pistol! He makes such a cute cowboy!

Woooo, major shocker I know, I think this is the most scrappin you've seen outta me in a year! ;) It feels SOOOOOO good to be getting caught up! Hope your week is starting out wonderfully! I'm off to get the house ready for a showing, bake a birthday pie for my hubby, and get dinner in the crock pot (I have this super easy really yummy recipe I'll share later) before we have to leave for the potential buyers. What's on your list for today?!

Scrapbook and Craft Season is OPEN!

Well it's bow hunting season here in Montana, and for my family that means lots of "see ya next week Dad" being shouted around the house. Hubby was just gone for about a week so during the evenings, after the kiddos were in bed, I was in serious scrapbook mode. I am really proud of myself! ;) I finished a lot of projects I'd been putting off, things like putting my gazillion scrapbooked pages into their proper albums, finishing couple dozen or so layouts I'd started in the last 2 years and had never finished, scrapbooking baby pages for my 3 year old's baby book, sorting photos and getting kits together to make 14 more layouts, and some digital layouts too! I'm on a roll! It's funny, but I think doing the digital layouts really got my creativity going. It must be because I have felt a bit stressed about being so far behind and that was shutting down my creativity, motivation, and fun! So silly of me, but now that I have a good way to get caught up I've been scrappin like a crazy woman! ...well a little less now that hubby's home.... ;)

Here is another digital layout. I got my first batch back from the printers and they turned out really well. I have to admit I do miss that they are not dimensional, but they still accomplish the goal very well. I used Persnickety Prints and they did a quick and fantastic printing job. My layouts came back looking EXACTLY like they did on my computer, and apparently in the digi scrapbook world that's sometimes hard to come by. They were also much cheaper than most of the places I priced. I would definitely recommend them for any printing need!


If I get some of my other layouts photographed I'll share them too. I also have some fall decor project ideas to share later. I love Scrapbook and Craft Season! Have a great weekend everyone!

Trying New Things...

Whooh, getting back into the swing of back to school and fall schedules is hard! We've been trying to keep a low profile for these 1st few weeks, letting the kids adjust to the rigmarole. Now next week starts another round of after school activities dance class resumes, fall soccer, school open house, and hunting season has started too. This will soon be followed by Awanas, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and possibly piano lessons. I'm tired just thinking about it! ;) It's actually a very fun and exciting time for our growing family. I can't believe we are at this stage already! Anyway, I digress.... onto the topic at hand.

I have gotten so far behind on my scrapbooking that my family has seriously started to protest about the lack of photos they get to see. So... in order to try and get "caught up" (hahahah like that's really possible with the gazillion photos I take each month) I have decided to try my hand at digital scrapbooking. I figured it couldn't really be too different from designing journaling cards etc for my shop so I down loaded some scrapbook products and gave it a whirl. I've done about 20 some layouts in the last week (so definitely getting more done)and they are off to the printers, so I'm hoping I like the results when they arrive. Now don't get me wrong, I am not giving up paper and glue scrapbooking. I love it too much to ever do that! ;) ...but digital is giving me a much needed solution for some quick scrapbook catch-up and the big bonus is I don't have to wait while I sort and edit photos then order prints. I just do it all as I build the pages and I can make them any size I want and fit a ton of photos on 1 page! YEAH! Sooo... here are a few samples of my first foray into the digi world of scrapbooking.






When I showed hubby some of my digi layouts he said, "Those look great babe. I'm so glad your doing this. I know you love scrapbooking, but maybe all your layouts don't have to be so artistic." Yah know, he's right. I do love to scrapbook, and I will always do it, but what's the point of having boxes of photos and files on the computer that no one sees. As long as my layouts come back from the printer lookin' good I will definitely continue to do both paper and digital and mix em in our albums. That way we get the best of both worlds: all of our memories scrapbooked and recorded to be looked at and enjoyed and I get to be a crafty happy gal! I love it when that happens! Have a great weekend!

A few announcements....

Hi everyone! Some new things are happening over at my shop Pink Owl Paperie so I wanted to be sure and let you know all about them. Starting next month I will be running monthly specials. If you notice over to the left I've added a mailing list sign up... so be sure to go and sign up so I can email you about the special of the month, sales, giveaways and other fun events.

I'm also going to start posting challenges to the blog in hopes that we will all have a very productive and "scrappy" 2009. The first challenge is going to involve getting all those Christmas and New Years photos scrapbooked. So you might want to make sure you have them downloaded and printed this week...I just sent mine off today. To make it a little more "inspiring" those of you who participate in the challenges will receive a little something from the shop.

Some Valentines goodies are finally going in the shop today, so be sure to stop on over and check them out!

Altered Bingo Card and a Sneak Peak

I wanted to show you what I made using the vintage bingo card from the Woodland Fairytale Paper Crafting kit. This cute little boy hugging his teddy is my Dad! I wanted to display this photo in our home, so I decided to make a little "frame" out of the bingo card. I layered paper, a vintage flash card, felt shapes, and buttons tied with bakers twine. It was so quick and easy to make and now it looks so cute sitting on a little black stand in my family room. I thinks it's really cool that it has "Hal 21 months" written in my grandmother's handwriting! (we will talk more about the importance of using your handwriting on your projects later :) It's a fun alternative to a traditional picture frame. You can buy the stands all over the place, I think I got this one at Walmart. I just love finding new ways to incorporate scrapbooking into my home!








I also wanted to give you a little sneak peak at some new fair and carnival themed embellishments I've been working on. I don't know about you, but I want to soak up as much of these last days of summer as I can!



Oh, I wanted to mention I have a few bingo cards left if anyone is interested in a mini kit to make a "frame" or wall hanging. Just leave a post or convo me at the shop! (see pinkowlpaperie link to the right)

New "Polka Dotz"

Here is a layout I used some of the new Polka Dotz on. They are great for masculine projects!

Some detail shots:


More "boyish" embellishments to come later this week!

Exciting Happenings

I'm very excited to begin working with digital scrapbook designer Cori Gammon! She wants to start using some of my embellishments in her digital kits. She is so talented! Even though the digital world is often a mystery to me :), I can't wait to get my hands on some of her kits! They are really cute. I'm going to try my hand at some "hybrid" scrapbooking. You should check out her stuff, great for printing out and adding to traditional layouts ect too. Here is the site for one store that sells her kits: www.scrapartist.com. Here is a sample of one of her kits.

She likes to use handmade items and digitize them. (is that even a word? See how unsavvy I am?) Just type her name into google and you'll find several places you can look at her kits. She has some great ideas like this:

This is a kit designed to print out and go with the Basic Grey bracket chipboard albums! How cool is that!

Ok everyone, go check her out! (and if you're like me, try something new in the digital world!)

Oh, and I should be putting a kit or two in the shop today. So check back later!