Whopper Digital Scrapbook Page by Christine Smith

Whopper Digital Scrapbook Page by Christine Smith, originally uploaded by Christine_Smith.

a little fishing from shore at a local lake yielded this fish for our 3 yo this summer.

design credits - everything from design.christinesmith.net ~ (Nothing Girly Kit and freebie add-on; Creased, Curled and Crumpled Overlays)

SALE: Nothing Girly Digital Scrapbook Kit

I have a brand new digital scrapbooking kit in the store at design.christinesmith.net. It is on introductory pricing so through December 31, you can get it for half price!


After the first of the year, the regular price will be $4.99 but right now, it's $2.50.

Thanks for shopping with me!

Happy Digital Scrapbook Page by Christine Smith

Happy Digital Scrapbook Page by Christine Smith, originally uploaded by Christine_Smith.

design credits:
frame- Funky Sewn Frames Christine Smith
clustered border- Dakota Kit - GABHappy Scrap Designs
staples- Birthday Boy - Dana Zarling
heart- Dakota Kit- GABHappy Scrap Designs
distressed paper- So Lovely paper Pack- Meredith Fenwick
floral paper- Spring Fever April De-Zine Kit from The Digichick- Jan Crowley
buttons- Pause CafeVal - pause cafe blog
tag- Because Sampler- Merkeley Designs
torn border & ribbon - Diggin Season - Dawn Wilson

Days of Youth Digital Scrapbook Page by Christine Smith

Days of Youth Digital Scrapbook Page by Christine Smith, originally uploaded by Christine_Smith.

Design credits:
scalloped template - Delicate Templates Series - ScrapKut
arrow, circle patch, striped paper, staple, stitching, clip, blue paper, orange paper - Wonderful Kit - Shabby Princess
aged notepaper - unknown
layered frames - A Day to Remember - Merkelely Designs

Christmas Dollar Deal

the juicy details:

I have a special going on for my Krafty Christmas paper pack - the papers from which the stars freebie were built. It's normally priced at $3.25 but I'm putting it on special for $1 through the end of the month. These papers are GREAT for Christmas projects and beyond because even though they contain traditional Christmas colors, the patterns and Kraft solids are just plain cozy and would be great for outdoor pages and lots more. Grab them in my blog store HERE.

THANKS for supporting my design work with your purchases from my store!

I made some freebies yesterday

But they are not here - they are over at Raspberry Road Designs. Susan uses my DigiScrapShopping service for her blog store and gives away lots of really nice freebies. I thought it would be fun to help her out a bit and made 2 free quick pages from a recent Christmas kit she made.



You can check them out HERE.

Quick Add to Page Keystrokes for Photoshop Elements

Well, today is just gonna be super short because

1. the last 2 tutorials took hours to write so I gotta do extra laundry today
2. it's just that simple

I really did want to turn this into an action that you could simply drag onto an element but it ends up being a long process to save and format an action for all the version of Elements. I only have v 4.0 on my computer and there are versions 5.0 an 6.0 now...plus -- I just couldn't get the dumb thing to work right! I suspect it has something to do with how Elements and Photoshop CS handles the active document when it is the last remaining thing open.

Anyway. Here's the scoop. If you like a clean workspace like I do, you know it's a click-click here and a click-click there kind of deal to put a new item onto a page...and then go back and close the element. Actually more like a click-click-drag ~ and a source of frustration to people who are new to using the photo bin because it's really rather backwards in terms of which direction you drag an item on. So how about this -- learn this shortcut sequence and forget the dragging.

Here's how

1. start with your blank canvas
2. open the item you want to add (I like to drag it in from ACDSee - see my post from 2 days ago about that and the Image Basket)
   
3. use this sequence to paste in the element and quickly close it:

• CTRL+A (selects everything on the layer)
• CTRL+C (copies the selection)
• CTRL+W (closes the element...your layout will now be active in your workspace)
• CTRL+V (pastes the element onto a new layer in the active document)

You make this really fast by continually holding down the CTRL button and then just typing in the sequence A C W V

If you have MORE than one thing open and want to keyboard shortcut through those to paste onto the right canvas, you can also put and extra step in there - CTRL+TAB will cycle through ALL open documents, making each one the active document in succession. (Just like ALT+TAB will cycle through open programs in Windows)

So you could do this
{hold down the CTRL button} + A C W [tab] V -- use the tab as many times as needed until you get to the canvas onto which you want the element.

Told you it was easy - now go try for yourself and see if shortcuts make mousing a little more obsolete for adding layers to your pages!

Quick Digital Scrapbooking Workflow in Photoshop CS and above

OK, today's post, as promised, is about how to quickly add new elements to your page and automatically close them. I am using Photoshop CS2. Tomorrow, I will talk about a quick series of shortcuts for Elements. I tried to write an action for it yesterday that could be run in Elements but I keep getting an error :(

Back to today - this method takes advantage of a free script from AVBros called Collector 1.0. I have been using this script for a while when I want to add a whole bunch of things to a layout all at once. I use it when I first start a page to dump all my pictures and first try at embellishments and I also use it when I add a bunch of alpha letters in for a title. This is instead of opening each one and individually dragging it to my page.

So to start off, you need to go to the AVBros site and download the Collector 1.0 script (the download link is at the bottom of the page). The page states the following about supported platforms :

AV Bros. Collector 1.0 works under Adobe Photoshop CS, which is either for Mac OS X (v10.1 and higher) or Windows (98 and higher). This Photoshop script also works under CS2 and CS3, but with the limitation: you can only collect opened documents under these hosts; the Bridge is not supported.

I'm not worried about Bridge not being supported because I drag stuff in from ACDSee.

Next, you need to install the script. There is a User Guide included in the .zip file for the script - the instructions for installing are on page 3 - it is simply a matter of closing Photoshop and copying the script into the correct directory.

Now for an example. Let's suppose I am ready to start a layout and I've chosen a 3 pictures and a half dozen embellies/papers/etc to put on the page. Here's how I would use the script.

1. Open a new Photoshop document at the size I want my finished layout
2. Select the photos and elements in ACDSee by using CTRL+B to drop them into the image basket
3. Select all images from the image basket (CTRL+I) and then drag down to the taskbar - hover over the Photoshop tab until the Photoshop workspace shows on my screen and then drag the cursor up into the work area - when I release the mouse button, all the selected files will open in the Photoshop workspace
4. Make the empty layout page the active window
5. Run the script. Start by going through the menus: file --> scripts --> AVBros. Collector 1.0. Choose the following options so that the script runs on open documents and names them by filename in the layers palette -
6. TaDa! All open files are now in the layout and ready to be placed. At this point, I would normally save the layout (without closing) and then minimize the window. What's left in my workspace is files that are added to my layout so I close them to keep my computer running fast - I just use CTRL+W to close each one until my workspace is empty. Then I maximize the layout again to go back to work.

OK, cool enough, right? But I don't like to have to go through the extra step of closing each file after I've added it because at this point in my layouts, I usually start adding things one at a time to see how they fit/match/work for what I'm trying to do. So that's where I pimped out my AVBros script and wrote and action to make it really hum - it will close the file after I've added it. It's just that in this case - it will only add and close one thing at a time. To make it a little faster, I've also added a shortcut key so I can run it from my keyboard without having to go through the file menus.

Here's how to record the action and assign whatever shortcut key you want.

1. Make sure you have the AVBros Collector script properly installed (test it to make sure it works or it will be pointless to write an action that calls the script!)
2. Create a sample document on which to run the script while recording the action - it can just be the regular canvas size you like to work with
3. Open 1 additional file that could be added to that sample layout (it doesn't matter what it is - could be a photo, embellishment, paper or anything else). You should only have these 2 files in your workspace. Make sure the embellishment is the active document.
   
4. Open your action palette (F9 will bring it up)
5. Click on the tiny arrow on the right of the action palette to open the fly out menu of additional options for the palette (#1 in the screen shot below) and then click on New Action (#2 in the screen show below)
6. In the next screen, you will give your action a name (such as add to page, as I am showing below) AND assign a shortcut key - your choice of available keys - this example shows using F5. Then hit record - and remember that everything you do now will be recorded in the action!
7. Now it's time to run through the steps you want to record. You will go through the following series of menu commands and/or keystrokes to automate running the script from the keyboard shortcut. You should print this series of commands (or jot them down on a piece of paper) to refer to as you are taking the steps and recording them.

• CTRL+TAB (selects the empty document)
• File --> Scripts -->AVBros Collector 1.0 .... select the options as shown before (if you've run it already, they will be saved that way)
• Click on run
• CTRL+TAB again ((selects the previous document)
• CTRL+W closes the document
• That's all the steps - now click on the stop button to end the action recording

Now, give the action a test! Open a new embellishment or photo and then hit F5 (or whatever you chose as your shortcut key) and see what happens - it should add that file (with the filename as the layer) and then close it. Note: you WILL have to click the RUN button when the script dialog box opens - the ENTER key on your keyboard works, too - that's what I use)

I realize some people may not find this as cool as I do but I just REALLY love shortcuts and a clean workspace. My physical desk is a complete mess but I keep my Photoshop workspace clean so my computer runs nicely. I do love how "slim" ACDSee runs because of this - whenever I have attempted to use Adobe Bridge to organize and import my files, it usually makes my computer slow down significantly!

Now, if you REALLY want to soup this whole thing up a bit more, you may want to consider recording an additional action based on the Collector Script. I haven't done this yet, but the idea came to me as I was working on this post. I am going to record an action to start layouts in all the sizes that I work in (8x8, 12x12, 8.5x11 and 11x8.5). Here's what it will do - after I have dragged in the items I want, it will create the new canvas at the size and resolution I want and then run the Collector script on it.

Tomorrow - quick keyboard shortcuts for adding and closing page elements in Photoshop Elements! For those of you in Photoshop before CS (like Photoshop 7), you can use the how-to's of recording actions in this post with the keyboard sequence in tomorrow's post to automate adding things to your layout - the only big difference it that you can't get the filename into the layers palette.

Keeping Track of Credits in ACDSee Photo Manager

I like to prowl around at digiscrapinfo.com and figure out how to make my ACDSee Photo Manager work really hard for me after I spent the time to tag my collection of digital scrapbooking supplies. That process was like a month of Christmas gifts because I had so much stuff I had forgotten about. Scattered throughout my files were some of the COOLEST papers and elements but I really had no way to find them because they were all in their original kit folders. Now, if I want a cool frame or rusty staple or whatever, I can just click on the tag for that category and find what I'm looking for quickly and easily! Here are screen shots from just a small sampling of my categories (pins, journal blocks and orange ribbons)





OK, so that's cool enough, REALLY it is...but wait, there's MORE! There is some slightly hidden functionality in this program that will allow you to generate a text file with the products you use in a digital scrapbook layout when you take a few additional steps. I find these steps to be easier than my previous method of keeping track of products used when I want to post in a gallery. That method was simply keeping a notepad document open and typing everything in as I added it to my layout.

Like, I said, I originally got this idea from digiscrapinfo.com but I have modified it to streamline it a bit more. The basic idea is to use the PROPERTIES database to record additional information about your digital scrapbooking collection and your IMAGE BASKET to temporarily hold the items you intend to use on your pages. As always, I am a huge fan of keyboard shortcuts to make work go faster. (Tomorrow I will show you how I add items to a layout in progress (with the filename added as the layer name) and close the original items without altering them with one keystroke combo plus and extra click - TOTALLY cool....if you have a Photoshop product that will run a script)

As a caveat, I started using this method after I had tagged in my categories so it is definitely something that can be done "on the fly" as items are used. You do not have to take the step of creating the properties database info when you first start out because honestly, do you really expect to use everything in your digital scrapbooking collection on some layout in the future? Probably not ... so just do this as you are working on something. If you end up using an item over again in the future, it will already be done for you.

The first thing to do is to turn on the preview for your image basket. You can do this with the menus: view --> image basket or with keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+5 (not F5, just the number 5). You should now have an additional preview pane at the bottom of your screen. It will be empty at first because you haven't put anything in there.


There are 2 ways to get something into the image basket: drop and drag or keyboard shortcut CTRL+B. I like the latter because oftentimes, I will be clicking through the full-size previews of pictures or elements and I can just hit CTRL+B right from the large preview without losing my place in the things I am looking at. This is especially useful when selecting from among a lot of similar photographs to get just a few choice ones.

Whatever I'm going to add to my layout goes to my image basket - papers, photos, embellishments. At the beginning when I'm just getting ready to start a page, I may have a half dozen things in there, ready to be added to my layout. Once I am ready to add them to my page, I click on just one item in the basket and then hit CTRL+A to select them all (CTRL+I works too since they are images).

To add them to my page, I drag them over the Adobe Photoshop tab in my task bar at the bottom of my computer screen, wait for the Adobe screen to show up and drag back up into the Adobe workspace - when I release my mouse button, they will all open up and I can add them to my page.

I keep finding things I want to use, CTRL+B to add them to the image basket and dragging them to my layout. If I decide NOT to use something on my page, I right-click on it - IN THE IMAGE BASKET and select "Remove from Image Basket". When I am done, there is a thumbnail in my image basket that represents everything I have used on that page. (Note: If I use an alpha, I put the contact sheet for the set in the image basket but drag the individual letters from their original location in the folders down to the task bar to open them in Adobe. I don't put each letter in the image basket)

NOW to generate the listing of those goodies I used. We have to stop and do one maintenance step just this one time to get everything set up. For future pages, you can go right to generating the file list. You also need to take a moment to think about what file information is important to you (or perhaps required by your designers if you are on a creative team). For me, I only want to or need to record the following information

• type of element (e.g. paper, frame, glitter, ribbon)
• kit name
• designer name

Some people may also need to record the site name for a particular designer. For my own pages, designers have moved so often I may have no idea where they sell anymore so I just stick to the above.

Back to that first-time maintenance operation. We're going to let ACDSee know what's important to us when we ask it to generate a file listing. From your menus, open tools --> options.

Next, expand the File List entry by clicking on the plus sign next to it. Then click on Details View. On the right pane, click on Choose Details


Stay with me, now - remember, you only have to do this part ONE time! In the next dialog box, choose everything on the right except File Properties: Filename and ACD Database: Caption and then click on REMOVE to take those out of the list that we will generate.


Now, under ACD Database on the left (click on the + sign if it is not expanded), click the check box for Author and then click Add in the middle to put that on the file listing.


Click OK on that dialog box and the remaining open dialog box. You made it!

Now, what have you accomplished? You have designated the following information to be included when you generate a file listing from your image basket: filename, caption (we'll use that for the kit name) and the author of the file.

LAST step! If you are thinking ahead, you're probably wondering how ACDSee gets the information for the caption (kit name) and author. You may have noticed that the filename came from the file properties section in the dialog box we just had open while caption and author came from something called the ACD Database. This is comprised of additional, optional information you can add to any file. The quick way to display what's in the ACD Database for any file is to use key combo ALT+Enter (the usual key combo for properties). Once you do that, you will see a new pane on the right of your ACDSee workspace (or it will cover up your organizer pane - click back and forth between the two with tabs at the bottom - see screen shot below)


Now all you need to do is add kit names and designer names as you go along in order to get a spiffy little list for posting in galleries and on blogs. When I add this info, I do it for everything in a whole kit, regardless of how many pieces I used because it takes almost no more time to do it for all the files and then if I use something from that kit again, it is already done. Here's how:

Right click on the first item in your image basket and select "go to file". Now in the pane above the image basket, you can see ALL the files from that kit. Click on one of them in that pane then click on CTRL+I to select all image files. If you haven't already, open the Properties Database pane (ALT+Enter). In the top of that pane, type in the Kit name in box marked "Caption".

HINT: Here is an additional step I have started taking to get a nicely formatted final list. I put a dash on the front and on the end of the kit name so it looks like

- Fabulous Exciting Kit Name -

You will see how this works in a minute.

Next, type in the name of the designer in the Author box. Hit tab or Enter after that to make it save.

At this point, you can also think about the name of the actual file. It has been common naming convention for a designer to name their files something like csmith-red dotted ribbon.png (some also have the kit name included in the file name). While it may ruffle some people's feathers to know that I am about to advocate changing those file names on your hard drive, I am going to say just that IF you choose to do so, in the name of providing proper gallery credits as requested by most designers. But before you go and rename your files, please keep reading because you have a couple options on how to do it (permanently or not)

First, take a look at what your file listing will look like with the original file names. Are you ready - this is the cool part! Click on one of the thumbnails in the image basket and then use CTRL+I to select them all. Now use CTRL+G to generate the file listing. You will get a text file with three columns of information. Here's an example:



So here's where the filename decision comes in. You have two options:

1. change the filenames on your hard drive, using ACDSee while you are working in your image basket (F2 on your keyboard will allow you to rename one or a batch of files)
2. change the filename on the text file listing

It's really just a matter of choice. I use the batch rename in ACDSee to rename the files so my file listing comes out "clean" the first time, with minimal editing because I am too impatient to remove all the extra stuff, including the file extension type (.png or .jpg) AND too anal to leave it there in my credits listing. All I really want it to say is "paper" or "tape" or "frame" so I change my filenames. I'm not worried about knowing who made the files later on because they are still in their folders with the designer names on them AND I am adding the designer name to the ACD Database listing.

Then, if you want to take one little step beyond this one to completely "clean up" that text file listing in Notepad, you can quickly remove all the extra spaces in between the columns as well as the file extensions. For example, in the example above the last two entries look like this:

csmith-orange glitter glob.png - Funky Cream Pie - Christine Smith
csmith-pink flower.png - Funky Cream Pie - Christine Smith

The white space between the filenames are actually individual spaces and not tabs so they must be deleted "by hand" to remove the spaces. I am the queen of automation and shortcuts so I Notepad's search and replace function - shortcut for that one is CTRL+H, by the way! In the dialog box, you can remove every instance of extra spacing by replacing two spaces with nothing. So enter the space bar twice in the top box, nothing in the second box and the click replace all. Voila - instant clean-up (I wish I could say that about my kitchen!)


Then I do it again with .png being replaced with nothing and .jpg being replaced with nothing. In my version of Notepad, the dialog box stays open for additional searches until you close it so I can just do all three edits in succession.

So here's and example of what I might get from my file listing with the quick search and replace in - nice and clean and ready to paste:

star - Funky Cream Pie - Christine Smith
flower - Funky Cream Pie - Christine Smith
overlay - Simple Joys - Kathryn Balint
paper - Ralphie Kit - Michelle Underwood
washer - Floralique Autumnz Kit - Ztampf

As a final step, I will also go to the .jpg version of my layout in ACDSee and paste this cleaned up info into the properties for the file - I just put it the NOTES box.

OK! That was a LOT of information but once you do that first database set-up part, the rest is pretty simple. Perhaps you will find the image basket extremely useful in your workflow, like I did. For me, it's really great to digitally "thumb through" my supplies and drop goodies into my Image Basket as I go. It's like laying out supplies on the table in paper scrapping. Of course, the clean up is a WHOLE lot faster.

A few additional hints on the Image Basket and Properties Database:

• when you close ACDSee, everything is removed from the Image Basket. If you need to shut down your computer in the middle of working on something, here's a quick way to save your Image Basket contents until next time. (And actually the original method I saw for doing credits on digiscrapinfo.com) - Put them into your Favorites. Select everything in the Image Basket (CTRL+I). Next, right-click and choose "Add to Favorites" - it has the star next to it. Now it's safe to close ACDSee until next time. When you open again, open your favorites pane (from the view menu) and make sure you click at the very top of the file structure so the contents show in the center of your main screen. Select the files and use CTRL+B to move them back to the image basket. After you do that, you can now safely delete them from your favorites because what is actually held there is not the file itself but simply a shortcut to it. You can verify this by looking at the lower left hand corner of any thumbnail in your favorites pane. See that little tiny arrow? That means the thumbnail represents a shortcut and not a file.

• Sometimes, you may think you're going to add something to a page and it doesn't work but then you decide to try it again somewhere else later on the same project - if you leave everything you "tried" (or intend to try) in the image basket, you can very quickly plunk it back on your project without searching all over for it - so leave it in the basket until you are all done and then remove what you ultimately did not use from the basket.
• I drop previews of actions, brushes and other tools into my image basket too. I have them tagged in my database and the file properties assigned same as other things like papers and embellishments for quick inclusion in the credits listing.
• As I said above, I drop my contact sheets in the Image Basket for alphas so I only have one item listed instead o every letter I used in there.
• Fonts can also be tagged and added to the Image Basket -- JUST DON'T CHANGE THE FILENAMES on those or you're going to have a problem on your hands. I don't add additional font info to the database for caption and author because I'm not a couture font collector but you certainly could add the designer name or additional info if you wanted. When I do this, I just edit the text file to remove the .ttf or other file extension.

OK, one last piece of info - if you are required to provide the site name for a designer for whom you're doing CT work, just add it right after the designer name in the ACD Database entry so that it looks like Designer Name; www.hercoolsite.com or in whatever format you are asked to provide it. You COULD also designate an additional spot to put it in, if you like. A natural place would be the "Notes" section. You would need to add this entry to the listing of info generated when you do CTRL+G to generate the file listing. Just go back up to the database set-up and add "Notes" where you did filename, caption and author. It will show up as the end column when you generate the list.

WOW~ that seems like a LOT to keep track of credits, doesn't it? The cool thing is that you can do so much on the fly (like adding the properties info to a whole kit) that over time, you will start to amass a collection of ready-to-credit files. So if I use just 1 item from a kit today but add the properties for all the other 3 dozen pieces in there, I did precious little more work today but it will pay off the next time I use any piece of that kit. In my old way, I was just typing in every bit of info every time and never making any progress for future work. Plus, using the image basket really keeps me organized. So! Come back tomorrow because I'm going to share how I use the Image Basket in conjunction with a free script to directly elements to my pages and then automatically close them. This will work for Photoshop products that can run a script but I am hoping to putter around a bit to deliver an alternate version for Elements users. It will likely have one less feature - the naming of the layer....but should still be kinda cool. I'm hoping to have that done Friday.

Now for my little commercial - if you don't have ACDSee Photo Manager - you may just want it NOW for the ease of collecting credits info. Yesterday I posted a link to the specials but if you just want to look into owning the program without the extras, click here and find out about ACDSee products free trials ~Once you're there, choose the product you are interested - ACDSee Photo Manaer 10 is in the "For Home" section - THANKS

Creating Alpha Sheets in ACDSee Photo Manager

If you count up and tag ALL the individual alpha files on your hard drive using ACDSee Photo manager, you could have a BIG project on your hands. I have a HUGE collection of alphas and I started out tagging just one letter and number of each set so I could get a quick look at everything in my "alpha" category. The only problem with that was sometimes I wanted to know if the whole alpha was the same color, and sometimes if it contained punctuation. Another problem was mixed up alphas - where NOTHING (or little) is the same -- I have about a dozen of these and they were really throwing me off.

Here is my solution: I created a contact sheet of each alpha and I tag THAT sheet. This way, I can see everything included in any alpha with one quick glance.

(Rhonna Penner's Old School Alpha - a good example of a mixed bag!)

Making a contact sheet is super easy. I'm using ACDSee Photo Manager 9 for these instructions.

1. Open the folder with the alpha in it.
2. Hit CTRL+I to select all images in the folder. If you get a few extras like a thank you graphic or perhaps a preview, just keep holding the CTRL key and click to deselect anything you don't want on the contact sheet
3. In the menus, click on create --> create contact sheet
4. Adjust the number of columns and rows (circled on upper left in screen shot below) until everything will fit on one page (indicated in center bottom of screen shot below, under the thumbnails of the alpha files)
   
5. Designate a filename for the contact sheet. I call all of mine "alpha" because I use the properties database to record the kit and designer name (more on that tomorrow) but you can name them however you want. Click on the browse button (circled below, on the right of the screen shot) under "output path" to give it a file name. The folder the same as the default so it will go to the folder containing the individual alphas and then click "save" in that dialog box and then OK in the lower right of the create contact sheet page.
   
6. You will now have a contact sheet in that same folder! THIS is what you can put a tag on so you can see the entire contents of the alpha set.
7. To use an alpha, after you've found the contact sheet that contains the whole collection from your tags, right click and select "go to file"...voila, you are there with all the individual files!

Here are a couple other useful ways to use the create contact sheet function:

• Designers - include a contact sheet with your digital downloads
• Create a contact sheet of photos/layouts/kits that you have archived to disk. I print a sheet for every CD/DVD I burn and keep it in a 3-ring binder
• Create a contact sheet for a set of digital scrapbook embellishments and tag that instead of every individual element in the kit. This is especially useful when the items are all in the same category but are different versions or colors of the same basic idea, like this set of frames.

Tomorrow, I will be back with a simple method of getting ACDSee to spit out credits info for you! This is a streamlined version of some things I learned from digiscrapinfo and how I use ACDSee photo manager to make my scrapping faster and more organized.

If you don't have this program, maybe now is the time to get it! There are some great specials going on and when you click from the link below, I get a small commission for sending you there (THANKS!)

Natalie August 2007 Digital Scrapbook Page

Natalie August 2007, originally uploaded by Christine_Smith.

beaded heart: Vintage Diva - Laura Alpuche
beaded staples: Chris Young
frame: Highland Grunge Feebie - Misschifis Scraps
ribbon: Christmas Brites Freebie - KSharonK Designs
photo anchor - All Things New - Traci Sims
note paper: fee jardine-cherrysnap
alpha (recolored): morning glory - Andrea Burns
paper (modified and recolored) and beaded swirls - Rhonna Farrer

Days of Youth Digital Scrapbook Page

Days of Youth Digital Scrapbook Page, originally uploaded by Christine_Smith.

layered frame: A Day to Remember Sampler - Merkeley Designs
paper, stitched star, stitches, clip, staple: Wonderful Kit - Shabby Princess
round scallop: Delicate Templates Series - ScrapKut
notepaper by bridget from a blog freebie
overlay: creased and crumpled overlays - Christine Smith
font: 2Ps Think Small

new digital scrapbook page

byob, originally uploaded by Christine_Smith.

Finally got a chance to take a few minutes to use my lastest stuff in a LO....wee! I think this turned out really cute :)

BYOB - Bring your own bucket - our solution to people who like to play in the water but have a magnetic attraction to tasting SAND. The bucket offers all the good clean fun of the water with none of the problems of the beach.

Everything from design.christinesmith.net except the stamped alpha which is by Katie P at Designer Digitals

What's been keeping me busy? Well, I took 2 days to give my kitchen a MUCH-needed deep-down scrubbing. It took a 4-pack of Mr. Clean Magic Erasers to get the job done. (sad, I know!) Also...I've taken in 220 print pages at ScrapQuick.com in the last 3 days - THAT'S gonna keep me busy for a while - that's for sure.

That's all the news right now - thanks for reading.