Time to start planning your holiday gifts!

The holiday season seems a long way off right now, but if you are planning on photo or digital scrapbooking related gifts it is never too early to start working on those projects.  Before you know it the shipping deadlines will be upon us, but with careful planning you can avoid paying the extra shipping costs for rush orders.

Here are some great ideas on how to include photo books in your gift giving plans:

• Favorite cookie recipes, along with pictures of the baking process and of finished items can be collected in a photo book and passed down for future generations.
• If you’ve got kids in sports, pageants, dance recitals or holiday programs at school, make them their own book show casing their role in the event.

• Surprise a loved one with a family history book. You might have to sneak pictures out of their house a few at a time to scan. A big project like this, needs to be started as soon as possible so you aren’t rushed to complete it at the last minute.
• Create a personalized ABC or 123 book for a youngster in your life. Kids love seeing themselves and loved ones in print!

Finally, remember photo books don’t need to be more than 20 pages or even big to make a great gift! Viovio has a lot of great options, including some really cute mini books!

Font Conference

This is not really scrapping related – but I know there are a lot of scrappers that are font junkies and you are going to get a kick out of this video called Font Conference.

Reasons to create Photo Books

Every photographer and scrapper is looking for a way of doing more with their photos and layouts.  But they may not be sure what that “more” might be.   Here are some ideas on how you can use photo books to extend your creativity:

1. Tell a story. If, for example, you’ve taken a series of photos – from your summer vacation, from protest rallies or a series about conservation – a printed photo book can put those shots into a collection that captures the emotion or helps to move the viewer in some way.
2. Capture an event. Concert photographers and wedding photographers don’t just snap a single picture – they take a number of photos that really show the completeness of an event. Photo books display the whole experience, not just a single moment in time.
3. Preserve memories. An amazing vacation. Your child’s first year of school.  Your family tree.  With a printed photo book, you can keep your memories fresh.
4. Create unique gifts. A collection of your layouts is a gift that a digiscrapper can give that no one else can.
5. Share a part of yourself. When you capture moments or things that you are passionate about, gathering them in a printed photo book gives you the opportunity to share the world as you see it.

There are a lot of photo book companies out there, and I’ve tired many of them.  To date my personal favorite is Viovio.  They offer a quality product at a very affordable price, plus great customer service!

Pencil Lines

Pencil Lines is an international blog “all about using sketches to expand your artistic horizons, get you outside your box, and lift you out of scrappers block and to help you get more layouts done. It is about thinking outside your normal processes to create something wonderful.”  New sketches are released every Sunday evening.  Previous sketches are available as PDF downloads.

Sketches are not templates or quick pages, they are simply an inspirational starting point for you to add your own personal touch to.

Changes at Hummie’s World

There have been some changes over at Hummie’s World recently.  The biggest is probably that the store has closed and the items that were available there will now only be available in the subscriber area.  In the future, any creations that would have gone into the store will be offered as freebies to subscribers.  Also the videos that were available for free for a few weeks when they first came out are now only going to be available in the subscriber area only.

Hummie will continue to make sample video’s and the occasional freebie’s available on her blog.

Graphics Illustrations

Graphics-illustrations is all about providing illustrations, Photoshop brushes and useful resources in the form of downloads, tutorials and how-to articles.  All brushes offered in both the shop and the blog are Photoshop 7.0 and Elements 6.0 compatible and they have a tutorial available on how to convert Photoshop brushes to Paint Shop Pro brushes.

You do need to register in order to obtain the free brushes and other items including scrapbook pages.

New Free Video Tutorials At Graffi’s!

There are two new flash video tutorials available on Graffi’s blog.  The first is called “Creating a Neutral Density Filter Effect with Photoshop or Elements” and works well on photos with skies that need a little more “pop”.  Especially effective with landscape photos.

The second flash tutorial is called “Adding Drama and Contrast to a Boring Sky” it is a technique that really makes the blue pop out of hazy skies, and adds a bit of depth and contrast to the shadow areas of the image.

These are quick and simple techniques that can really add some pizazz to your images!

7 Photography Questions

Scrappers, especially those that scrap to preserve memories,  will scrap any picture no matter how bad it might be if it covers an important event.  But wouldn’t it be nice if all you had to scrap were really good pictures?

If you would like to improve your skills and learn digital photography tips, techniques and even secrets of world class photographers. Then you should really sign up for the FREE podcasts at “7 Photo Questions”. You can listen to the episdoes via iTunes or you can listen to an episode on the website.  They even transcribe the interviews, so if you prefer to read the edited transcripts, you can do that there as well.

An email is sent out ahead of time alerting you to the comming weeks topic, and if you’d like you can even submit questions to the experts that are interviewed each week.  And you can also suggest topics that you would like to hear expert photographers talk about.

Taggers “Summer Party” Blog Train

Twenty-two (22) designers have gotten together for a Summer Blog Train with lots and lots of free goodies for you. All you need to do is go from blog to blog and collect the goodies. Everything is color co-ordinated so you should end up with a huge mega kit!

You can jump on the train at any of the following sites:

Bittersweet Designs
Twinky
Swheat Creations
Just a Girl’s Designs
Liadan’s Mes – Scraps by Liadan
Cinnamon Scraps
QueenBrat Designs
Aussie Scraps
Designs by Sarah for Pimp My Tags… With Scraps
Scrappy Lover
Danielle [DMK Designs]
Berry Delightz
Farrahs Creations
Jessica’s Scraps
Simply Irresistible Designz
Classie Creationz
Paula at Scrapz A Dasiy
Vamp Productions Scraps n Things
Baby Cakes Scraps
Angie’s Asylum
Krissy’s Scraps
Tantrum Scraps

Funky Playground Designs

Funky Playground Designs caters to both digital and hyrbrid scrappers.   There is a large variety of hybrid kits, including board books, boxes, purses, acrylic albums etc…   There is also some commercial use products available, definitely worth checking out if you like to use grungy papers.

In addition to the shop there is also a gallery where you will find lots of hybrid ideas and digi inspiration and a blog where they run challenges as well.