Scrapbooking

I have some physical scrapbooks from the late 80's early 90's when the daughters were little and we moved around a bit. I thought it would be nice to have a journal with photos and various clippings as a memory jogger for the different places we lived.

Those were the days when you had to wait 3 days to get your photos back and my scrapbook was a school project book from Big W where I glued everything in with a regular glue stick.
I don't do much with my photos anymore but I do write a journal of sorts in a physical diary.

I like to blog and I have seen that a bit of embellishment with photos on people's blogs looks really nice. Where do I get pretty backgrounds and elements to use on my blog? There are not many out there that can be used on a blog or webpage without a large fee and some just don't allow it at all.

If you are looking for some nice embellishments and can't make your own I can recommend a look at Pixel Scrapper.

For personal use and at no cost you can register and download several elements or papers a day. There are lots to choose from and free is good. There is also a free mini kit each week that you can sign up for for free. Well worth it. The founders of the site just want to share their joy of scrapbooking so they make it easy to get their images and files.

I was looking for something I could use commercially with my doll clothes patterns. For $20 USD a month I can download 5 kits a day and use them pretty much for any commercial project. If you pay for the year up front you can download as much as you like. I decided to go month to month to see what I needed. I can stop at any time and keep the kits for commercial use for ever.

For $10 USD a month you get personal use downloads.

The site is also a nice community of scrapbookers who share their layouts in the gallery as well as lots of free elements and templates.

The only thing I have done so far is this collage. I made it to promote the free fashion file that goes with the the purchased pattern. My favourite part of my pattern business is designing and sewing. The promotion part just has to fit in somewhere when I feel like playing on the computer. It sucks up a lot of time. But as with my sewing and designing, only practice and playing with it will lead to improvement.

I don't have any affiliation with Pixel Scrapper. I just like them and their product.

Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val

Some scrapbooking

I have only been having a bit of a look in at everyone's blogs lately without much commenting. A lot of my time I have been enjoying the lovely weather and watching the birds and the clouds. In the evening I have been doing some catchup watching of Doctor Who using ABC iView. I have the Apple TV box and can connect the iPad to the TV wirelessly and watch them while I knit or play a bit on the computer with some digital scrapbooking.
I am not much good at creating layouts for the pages so I just look up some layout sketches onlone and follow them approximately. I made this this one with my new coastal kit from Nitwit collections.

I was looking for a free collage maker and found Fotor which seems really good and easy to use. I made a little collage to cut up and put in my hand written journal. DH is not sleeping. He and Stumpy are looking at the ducks. The Energex helicopter flew over really low the other day.

I have joined up for the woolly blog hop hosted at Pieced Brain. It starts in a few weeks. I am hoping to get my knitted doll finished to show and I will work on some more blocks for the Summertime wool applique quilt.

Happy Quilting,
Val

My new tote, some sewing tips and scrapbooking

Scrapbooking

I was going to post about the progress of my tote bag and ended up taking pictures of my sewing room and my light box set up and then I checked my email and found a nice reply from Vanessa at Whirling Butterfly. She is into scrapbooking and pointed me to her guest spot at Tamar's blog. She has included lots of links to free scrapbooking related things. I can see myself spending hours looking around those sites.

Back to the tote.
It is from this pattern. I like the separate inner concept.

I put my patterns in A4 envelopes. I also write the year I bought it and an alphabet letter referring to what part of my pattern box it came from.

I made it to the pattern a while back and it was just a bit too wide for comfort so I narrowed the ends by nearly half. I put a zipper in the side pocket and divided the pocket on the other side.

The end pockets would be too narrow if you follow the instructions. I could only fix one end because I had to have it flat to sew the stitching that divides up the pockets. The other end has two skinny pen pockets but they will need to be long pens so I don't lose them into the pocket :)

I want to add a shoulder strap as well as the tote handles so I can have hands free for check in.  I thought it lent itself to folding the top down (if it is not packed too full) and I have a magnetic clasp that I will use to keep it folded. I will attach the shoulder strap just below the fold line. I will also put a zipper across the top opening. It stops things falling out when it goes through customs.

The lining is dark green and I plan to put a big zipper pocket on each side. One side to put the ipad and one side will have slip in pockets inside the zipper pocket to hold my passport and purse and phone while my travel jacket is in the overhead locker. I plan to keep this tote under the seat.

I think I will also make the inner bag with a magazine or ipad slot and pockets on one side only (since the bag is narrower now). I think if I put tape loops on the back I might be able to attach it to the tray table to have my stuff easily accessible during the flight. Elastic might be too thick to fit behind the tray when it is closed.

Magnetic scissor keep
I found this in Ikea and it is perfect for holding my scissors within reach and out of the way while I am at the ironing board. It is also close enough for me to reach them while I am sitting at the sewing table. Now they don't get lost under fabric or pattern pieces.

My blue screen
In order to make my scrapbooking elements from my own tea cups etc I needed a blue screen so I could remove the background. I do this in Fireworks on my Mac.
The screen is just some blue fabric - you know I have just realised where my light blue homespun is. I was looking for it earlier this week :D  
It is long enough to flow onto the table and under the item I am photographing.
It is just tacked to the window sill.

You can see the pillowslip I am working on and the green tote bag lining.

My light box
I have a little glass top coffee table that also came from Ikea a while back. At some point I realised it would be good for tracing patterns because I had the goose neck lamp that fitted underneath.
I sit on a little stool or just bend over from the lounge chair. It would be possible to do it on the glass doors during the day but the big sheets from the quilting books are a bit awkward to hold up. It is easier to do sitting down.

Just a goose neck lamp that I can twist over.

When it is pressed flat it is easy to trace.

Something I traced the patterns for. A 36" diameter table topper.

Crickey! It is lunch time already and I haven't even looked at any of Vanessa's links. When will I get time to sew :)

Happy quilting,
Val

Got my Postcard Swap Card

What a beautiful postcard I got from Dianne! I just love the colours and the scene looks so realistic. Thank you very much Dianne. She also included a lovely centre piece mat and a bookmark. The mat goes on my table perfectly.

Don't you just love the little quilting note card and envelope. I haven't seen anything like that in my travels. But I will be looking out for it now :)

I was asked to review some digital scrap booking software recently. I decided I didn't want to and went looking for free digital scrap booking kits to use with my Fireworks software instead. There are some lovely free papers and embellishments out there. I was just going to put up a picture of Dianne's handywork but decided to add it to some of the free scrap booking files I found. The paper and embellishments I have used are from Shabby Princess - harvest spice. She has quite a few beautiful kits for free

Update: I am so excited to have made this tea cup element. If you right click and 'save as link' you get the transparent background. On my Mac I just 'option click' to download.

Happy Quilting (and now scrap booking)
Val