Christmas Card 2010

Let it Snow Christmas

Shop Shutterfly for elegant custom Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Free Thanksgiving Printables from PaperGlitter

The grandparents are coming on Saturday for Thanksgiving, so we have the luxury of procrastinating on the turkey dinner and set-up.  Even so, I'm all about EASY around here, and what can be simpler than these adorable printable decorations?  Thank you, Paper Glitter!  :o)

Inspiration Everywhere - Free Class at Jessica Sprague

Take a free 10-day on-line class with Jessica Sprague on finding "Inspiration Everywhere".  This is a fun, self-paced class for "all crafters & creative souls", with daily lesson pages, forums and galleries.  Go to the class description for more information and to register.

Pretty Little Studio $3 coupon code

Pretty Little Studio has adorable vintage scrapbooking goodies, both traditional paper and digital.  This Black Friday weekend (11/25 - 11/27), enjoy a $3 code at their store for some yummy scrapbooking goodies!

Go to "Digital Vintage" for downloadable products to avoid shipping charges.  I ordered these awesome Candy Cane  Journaling Cards for FREE, which I plan to print out for my daughter's December Daily:

Free Digi Kit at Design House Digital!

Today is Digital Scrapbooking Day and the awesome designers at DHD are hosting a super fun blog hop. I can't wait to play with these digital goodies!

Start HERE and have fun collecting all the elements for this beautiful kit:

Free 6-Pack of Children's Books - Updated

UPDATED 10/15: The company has changed the offer - this is now only for schools (public and private), not individuals or homeschoolers.  Sorry...

Pacific Learning, a source of child literacy materials for educators and parents, is offering new users a FREE 6-pack of books at the grade level of your choice (Pre-K to 12).

Register HERE by 12/31/10 (go to "Create Account").  Then click on the link in the confirmation email and choose your reading level and confirm your address.  Free shipping, no obligation.  Allow 10-14 days for delivery, limit one request per user.

My daughter is really into non-fiction science books right now, and I stated that as my "special request".  Can't wait to see what we get!

Thanks, Couponing to Disney!

HSN.com: Coupon Code for $20 off $20 - DEAD

Drats - this deal seems to be over or closed!

Now through 12/31/10, new HSN.com customers can use coupon code 319175 at checkout for $20 off any single item worth $20 or more.  Shipping starts at $4.95, but they have a "free shipping" section (tab is on the home page at the left column).  Good on sale and clearance items, too!


I see lots of brand name scrapbooking and crafting tools and goodies under $25 (they have a price sort feature for each category) which would make great gifts for a friend...or yourself!  Or check out their Toys section for the kids this Christmas.


If you go to HSN through ShopAtHome, also earn 4% back ($5 for new ShopAtHome members) as an extra bonus!


Thank you, Coupon Pro!

I Heart Faces: Fix-It Friday #73

What started out as a fun and upbeat post, didn't sound so great after losing everything several times to blogger crashes...and so before this weekend officially ends here on the West Coast, I will try one last time to share my Fix-it Friday edit of this photo from iheartfaces.

This photo edit was too cute not to share, even though all I did was use the free Cookie Dough Photoshop action by Gina Miller, with just a few levels tweaks.

Then I used two other really fun new freebies from The Lilypad to complete a digital layout: the October Template Challenge freebie, and an awesome digital kit Summer Slushee by Rachel Young.

A quickie tip for whenever you see the "perfect" digital paper or element, but the color is not quite what you want: just change the color!  I changed the colors on the layout above to suit the picture.  One easy way is to open the digital element, go to Image - Adjustment - Hue/Saturation (PC shortcut is CTRL-U), then simply move the Hue slider around until you get the color you want!  You can also play with the Saturation or Lightness sliders and adjust to taste and click OK.  Isn't digital great?!

Good night, all!  I'm out!  :)

I Heart Faces: Fix-It Friday #72

You know, if there is a kid in the picture, count me in to play along!  So yes, I missed last week because the "kid" was too old (hee hee).

This week's image is near and dear to my heart since we are a military family and "Daddy" is gone more than we want.  I love this capture because it reminds me how amazingly strong a father-daughter bond can be despite the frequent separations.  There is nothing like hearing our daughter (she is now 6) cry excitedly "DADDYYYY!!!!!" as she runs into my husband's arms after a deployment.

For my edit, I first wanted to lighten just the father's face to bring the exposure of his face closer to that of the baby girl's.  In Photoshop CS4, here are the steps I took to selectively lighten:

1. Select the lasso tool from the toolbar.
2. Change the Feather to around 30 px.  This will make the edge of anything you selectively edit much softer, instead of a hard edge line.  Make sure "Anti-alias" is checked.
3. Loosely select the area you want to lighten.  Don't worry - just lasso away, because your feather setting is so high, there is a lot of room to fudge.  If you don't like what you selected, just click anywhere on the canvas to deselect and try again.
4. Go to Curves (Ctrl-M on a PC) and adjust to taste.  What I do is pick a point around the middle or upper middle area of the curve and pull it up slightly to lighten the selected area of the picture.  Hit OK when done.
5. Ctrl-D or just click anywhere on the canvas to deselect.  Ta-dah!

Then, I ran Pioneer Woman's Heartland action, and adjusted the opacity of several of the layers to my taste.  Download her awesome actions for free if you haven't already!  And...that's it!  :)

For a digital layout, I wanted to do something other than 12x12.  My scrapbook albums are currently the American Crafts D-ring binder.  I love being able to mix and match page sizes within an album, instead of being stuck with one size (boring!).  This layout was sized at 11x8.5, which is just a standard letter page turned into a landscape orientation.  It offers a whole new perspective and canvas to work on, doesn't it? 

The digital kit is a Feature Friday Freebie today at Little Dreamer Designs - grab it while you can today!

Thanks for checking out my blog.  Happy Friday, everyone!

I Heart Faces: Fix-It Friday #70

I know, I know, it is SUNDAY and I'm just getting around to posting this week's Fix-it Friday edits.  Well you must know I have a soft spot for girl pictures, so how could I NOT play with this photo?

This is the original:

This color version is pretty much my usual photoshop edit.  I love the summery colors in the picture.

But I thought, let's do something different!  So here is my b&w, which in this case means "brown & white" (he he).  The action is used was Indie Classic BnW by Indie Actions, which I purchased a couple years ago and still love to use today.  They are one of the (very) few action sets I keep at hand for editing.

For a digital scrapbook layout, I was very excited to play with more of a Fall palette with the B&W.  The brown tones are gorgeous when set off with purples and greens, don'cha think?

This amazing kit is a collaboration by ten very talented designers at Design House Digital.  To get this kit, you need to visit each of the designers' blogs to collect everything in this awesome kit.  While it does take a little bit of time and effort, blog-hopping can hardly be considered "work" when there is so much eye candy along the way! To get started on the blog hop, just follow this link.  Tip: open each blog in a different window so you don't have to keep navigating back.

I Heart Faces: Fix-It Friday #68

These days I'm pretty lazy about taking pictures, but I LOVE sitting in my pajamas and editing other photographers' photos.  Want to join in on the fun?  Just go to iheartfaces for tons of photography info, challenges, tutorials and more!

Here is this week's original image:

And here are two of my edits:

For the first edit, I used my normal photoshop workflow, which I outlined here.
For the second edit, I ran an additional PW action called Soft & Faded.

Now for some digital layout fun! 

Can you believe how well the colors of this week's fix-it photo matches this freebie kit?  Even the elements are perfect!  Download the Very Blessed digital kit for free.  The links are at the top left column, under "Categories".

The wordart is from the Live Well freebie by JoHanna at 2Peas.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Free Post-It Notes

The place I used to work for brainwashed me into believing that Post-It notes were a luxury, and I used to joke that only those in the "Million Dollar Club" (I was in sales) were awarded one pack.  So now that these are free...I am gonna (super)stick 'em everywhere around my house and act like a millionaire!!  :o)

Sign-up to be sent a free sample of the new Post-It Super Sticky Notes.  Then print the $1 off coupon (you can make unlimited prints since it is a pdf) and use at Target, Wal-mart and Kmart where they have Post-It notes on sale (at least this week) for $1.  So, FREE after tax!

Stick away!!

Thanks, Money Savings Mom!

I Heart Faces: Fix-It Friday #66

Even though it is summer vacation, can we say T.G.I.F.? Especially when you get to play with this cute little guy's picture.

I don't even know him and he just melts my heart!  I had to make a quickie page using a couple freebie digital kits available this weekend:

Credits: 

That Was Yesterday {Add-on} Freebie DigiKit by Michelle Underwood

Whimsical Sketches Freebie template by Kitty Designs

I Heart Faces: Fix-It Friday #65

It's another week of editing fun!  I love this little guy's expression and can't help but wonder what is going through his mind.

I *almost* never use actions because they *almost* never work and I prefer to have control over all my layers.  Well what do you know - the sepia action from The Pioneer Woman worked great right off the bat!  It almost feels like cheating to do so little to the picture, but the original was already very good in my opinion and I am NOT a fan of over-editing!

And here is a fun little digital layout:

Credits: 

August freebie template by Amy Martin, found at The Lilypad

Digital elements from the free Memories kit, found at Sweet Shoppe Designs

Digital stitching by Designs by Mörjike, found at Little Dreamer Designs

Freebies at Little Dreamer Designs today

Pick up these two freebie sample packs at Little Dreamer Designs today only (log in required to download)!  I love LDD for their fun and funky digital scrapbooking kits and designs.  Enjoy!

Free Glitter Ball at Borders

Get a fun, free glitter ball at Borders bookstore this weekend!  Just print and bring this coupon between 8/6 -8/8.  Offer is for Borders Rewards members only; if you don't have one yet, just sign up here (it's free, and they send you coupons and notices like this about once a week).

Here is a coupon for 25% off most items (see coupon for details) on your entire purchase this weekend; again, for Borders Rewards members only. 

Has your child participated in the Double Dog Dare summer reading program yet?  Kids 12 and under read ten books of their choice, then bring the log into Borders to pick a free book from a selected list of books.  Be sure to redeem by 8/26/10.

Pretty Little Studio $5 coupon code

Pretty Little Studio has the cutest vintage flashcards, scrapbooking tags and labels, calendars and patterned paper.  They are celebrating the grand opening of their new website by offering $5 off any purchase August 1 - 3.  Just enter coupon code 5dollars at checkout.

I Heart Faces: Fix-It Friday #64

I love playing other photographers' pictures, especially when the subject is as beautiful as this one!

This is my basic workflow in CS4:

1. USM 20/60/0 to defog
2. Adjust Color Balance to taste
3. Duplicate layer, change to Soft Light and adjust opacity to desired contrast (I am usually around 65%) then flatten
4. Ctrl-L (in Windows) to open Levels and adjust middle slider to taste

From there I might play around Hue/Sat a bit, sharpen the eyes or warm up the picture a bit more, depending on what the picture needs. This week's edit took less than 2 minutes. I really like the warm, colorful and natural look.

Then I challenged myself to play a bit with a digital layout.

I'm very much a traditional paper and paste scrapbooker, needing to touch and push pieces around FOREVER until they finally look right to me. But hey, I can do that on my monitor, too...AND get in those FB breaks while I'm at it! Gotta love multi-tasking!
 

Template by Amy Martin, digital elements by Lauren Reid.

I Heart Faces: Fix-It Friday #63

Here is the original:

Here is my play in color:

And here is my play in B&W:

Don't these look perfectly cute set off by the free digital scrapbook kit downloaded from Lettering Delights?