Pixel Scrapper Blog Train - Templates

This blog train is a very special one: It started on a ISO (in search of) topic where two members requested kits with a very similar theme and color palette to scrap their wedding books - and we deceided to turn it a blog train. I deceided to went even further, and having a series of kits about weddings - the wedding series.

I tried my best to have the first kit from my series to join this blog train, but lots of stuff happened along the way - so, you all will have to wait a bit more for the full weding series kits - have you seen these papers with the colors of the kits that are in the oven?

As I couldn´t finish the kit, I hurried up on some of the templates for the Wedding Series Template Pack, to share with all the blog train followers. Even so, I´m late - sorry about that, but I was making sure the templates didn´t have any QC issues, and some of them were kind of hard to fix. In my not-so-modest opinion these templates will look very pretty on a wedding photobook, and they have lots of possibilities... On template 1, originally made for 5 photos and a big white space, you can place a big photo on the paper spot, or put papers/journaling spots in one of the photos place. Template 2 is great for a big pretty photo, a smaller photo (maybe a zoom of the first photo?) and has a quite large journal spot - that you may use as a clustering spot if you don´t want to write anything...

Link expired - these templates are at my store now

This download will be active only for a month - In the morning of April 7th the links will expire and the templates will be available on my store, along with the other templates for the Wedding Series, some days later. In case you still don´t know, I got accepted as a designer from the Scrappy Bee - a new awesome store that will open at April 1st - and it´s not a joke! Get ready to have some fun with us in the first week of April. You what you will find... 

Welcome to the (first?) Daily Life Scrap Week(end)

I thought it could be a nice idea to share some insights about daily life scrapping with you, as I´m very excited with the progress of my 2014 album and I see this excitement about Project Life in different communities I´m at. So, as I have plenty of things to write about, I deceided to dedicate a week  some weekende to post about it. The posts will be different from each other - some will contain texts, maybe tutorials, products I tried and liked, and whatnot... Maybe there´s a freebie or two waiting for you all someday too! Before I start writing my heart out - yes, I´m in a wordy phasis - I´d like to invite you to interact here at the  blog: Do you have any doubt about daily life scrapping? Do you have something you´re desperately seeking and can´t find? Do you have advice for me (I´d like to here!) or maybe want to invite me for a CT guest spot? Don´t feel ashamed of comenting, or even sending me e-mails (to loriensworkshop at gmail dot com).

Daily Life Scrap Week: Day 1 - My Experiences and what I´m doing

If you are following my blog, you probably know that I am trying to put a daily life album together this year. You may even remember that in the beginning of last December I was scrapping photos from January at my daily life album for that year (if you don´t remember that post, check it - theres something you may there). I stopped the 2013 album at Chinese New Year (Last weekend of January).

It wasn´t my first time trying to put a daily life album. In 2012 I tried a hybrid A4 shaped. Take a look on a pages I´ve done for that album - oh my, I like the digital better, lol:

But, guess when this album stopped being done to never get touched again? Yes, at same time as the 2012 one, at Chinese New Year.

Another thing I tried to do last year to document my life was to write, at the end of each month, seven random words things about the month, to put as the month introduction at the album in a page with a photo of myself that month (so I try not to forget to have pics of myself). This one was made with Hey!Robot kit by Scrappiness Designs:

At the first months, it worked like a charm. But then, I was feeling that only words weren´t enough. And I lost one of the months words (I thought I´ve wrote them on my personal blog, but I didn´t), I had a month that couldn´t simply be described in few words, and, in October I´ve given up doing this. But the idea still sounds good to me, just needed some tweaks to keep working... Now that you know what I´ve done before, time to know what I´m doing this year.

How I plan to manage my 2014 life album:

1) Like on the other years, I´ll avoid putting pictures of my cats on life photobook. I take lots of pictures of them, and if I put them on the album I could easily have more cats than people and places on the pics. They will appear only if it´s somehow important, or as placeholders.

2)Also like other years, I assume that my everyday life is made of routine, but not only about it. I´ll try to keep a balance between routine and occasions, alowing myself to scrap about what I please. Although I admire lots of people who take photos everyday and do p356-style albuns, it doesn´t suit my style, at least for now. And, if I have lots of pretty photos of a specific day, I may chose to put more photos on that day (and none of other day).

3) I won´t divide my album in weeks, as I don´t feel my life is divided like that, and I´ll give me the freedom to make whole pages for days I really enjoy - even if they don´t fall on the same double page on the photobook, and, at same time, I´ll give myself the freedom to scrap about totally different things on the same page. I also allow myself to work with two or more kits at the same double spread and to change kits for the next double spread as I please (I can keep the kit from the last one or not).

I deceided this based on what made me procrastinate with 2013 book - sometimes, I was overworried about form, or how to make all the photos of the same thing fall on the same page, that I ended up on a creative block. 

I guess pictures will help you understand better on what kind of freedom I´m allowing myself. Do you remember this spread? It´s for January first (on the left) and second (on the right), made with Snow Capades by Joyful Expressions and I shown it some posts ago:

It´s a super traditional P366 spread, right? Looks what comes next:

Left page is still from Jan 2nd, right side is from Jan 3rd (yes, it´s same event on that hybrid page I shown you above, I attend to it at same place every year, this year was the thenth) and a journal description about the next few days. What is more, this page is made of a blend of different kits from different designers I found on Pixel Scrapper. As I have the option of downloading single elements there, I almost never download the full kits, getting only what I´ll use (and often I get the assets while I´m making the layout...). If you are interested, the full list of credits is here.

4) I will use lots of templates, to help keep pages good looking and in hope that this will save me some time - what isn´t still happening, lol. I take more time on this kind of page than on a 1photo+cluster traditional ones. I´ll talk a little bit more about templates tomorrow.

5) To the opening page of each month, I´ll keep the 1 photo+journalling model, but, for the journaling, I´m planning a flexible list of topics that may be covered, that includes the month´s weather, my mood, what I´m doing that month, the most meborable days and so on. I made the January page this night, based on the instructions of a Scraps´N´Pieces Speed Scrap, hosted by Amy´s Designs:

This page was made with The Best is Yet to Come blogtrain portions by Jessica Art-Design, Scrumptiously; Digi Dewi designs and Catherine Oslon. If you want to check this blogtrain, the list is here and some portions will only be available till tomorrow.

Thanks for reading this long post, I´d really like to hear for you about (daily) life scrapping or anything else you want to comment!

At the beach element pack freebie - PS Blog train

Hello folks,

July was a crazy, unexpected, surprising, exciting but extremely fun month for me. Do you remember that I was trying to put up a full kit for you? I thought "well, I´ll have almost all July days free, so I´ll finish this kit, and that one for August in advance" and... guess what?

The small craft business owned by me along with two friends received an invitation to have a booth on a very huge geekery convention from our hometown, that lasted 8 days - no, I don´t live in San Diego, unfortunatelly, it wasn´t ComicCon :( The only problem was that this invitation arrived to us only 10 days before the convention started. And, as our products are moslty handmade and it was too good to decline, we went in a sleepless scheme to attend the convention.

Everything was fantastic, but I couldn´t have the "free" weeks I was suposed to have before my road trip.  I still have to prepare for another convention in September, just 10 days after my trip ends - this one is held by the LotR fan club I belong, and I´m in charge of some very important positions, and, when this one is done, we will need to prepare for another one we are going to sell at, in the middle of October.

And, as digital scrapbooking still don´t make me any profit, I had to slow down with it. This slowing down, however, just showed to myself how I LOVE to do it, and miss it while I´m away of scrapping and designing - and, as soon as those busy months end, I hope to commit more with scrapping and, specially, designing. For now, I can tell you that I deceided that I´ll keep Lorien´s Workshop as my "brand" for crafts, and start using the name LW designs for digital scrapbook and digital scrapbook designs. In my opinion it´s not a great issue, as LW are the initials I always used on my kits. The only thing is that I need a new logo! I am going to try designing it during my road trip, but not sure if I really want to do it without my wacom... let´s see...

Well, back to the topic: It´s time for a new Pixel Scrapper blog train and, as I´ve played in all PS blogtrains since they start, I couldn´t just drop this one down. So, I made a Personal Use element pack to play along. I try to make everything for Pixel Scrapper as comercial use stuff, but this time I used lots of CU stuff that didn´t allow CU4CU, and it was either use them and make a small pack, or don´t jump in! Since I efective learned high quality standards it´s not an option for me to make poor quality elements anymore. Unfortunatelly, making everything from scratch to offer as limited comercial use kits is still a slow process for me if I´m doing it according the quality standards.

Here is my portion of the blog train. Click on the preview to enlarge, the direct download link is right above the preview:

Download expired

As you can see, my element pack have 4 unique high textured elements, made in a way they seem to be handmade to use on a paper scrapbook work. but then, as I think photo props are really cool, I deceided to experiment and make my sunglasses with semi-transparent pixel lenses; so, included on the download are two sunglasses which lenses have different transparency levels - I´m not sure if you can really see the effect on the preview; also, say hello to my hubby, lol. The elements are all shown in actual size against a 12x12 in background; the background paper isn´t included, but you can download at DigiTee Designs by Sheilla blog, where you can also find the styles I used on the tree and lots of other awesome freebies! 

Click here to see the full blog train list, including previews, and don´t forget to feed the designers you love with comments!

Pixel Scrapper July Colab: Sweet things

Good Morning everybody!

First of all, thank you for the very kind comments on my last posts and, to those who wanted to know how were my sales on that convention I went in the middle of June: They were just AMAZING, I sold everything I prepared for that event, which made me money to buy things in the biggest craft fair where I leave, that will start next Wednesday and is placed... 3 blocks away from my house! How cool is that? And, of course, I´m saving a part of my earnings to buy some CU goodies for my next kits.

What I have of good and free for you today? Some very talented scrappers from the Pixel Scrapper community deceided to make a collaboration kit, to share for free; I helped to organize it, and also made some solids with a very subtle texture. first of all, take a look on how everything looks together:

 

I made one of the solids set, which you can see below; the preview isn´t the most fantastic of all, because it´s the first time I put a 100% zoom, and, I have to confess, I am not satisfied with it. Direct download link is right below the preview:

DIRECT DOWNLOAD: Click here

Now, to grab the full kit, just click here and you will be redirected to a page that shows each one´s previews and link to their blogs.

I will try to have a new full kit for you around next weekend, but not sure if I´ll finish it on time - I hope I can do it.

Happy New Month for you all!