So, is it too early for Christmas music yet?

I adore Christmas music. And movies….

I used to watch Love Actually repeatedly.

In July.

So DH and I came up with the compromise that I would wait until November 1st to watch it so that he didn’t want to tear his hair out. Because by November 1st it’s seasonal and stuff.

What do you think?

Manic Monday: Sweet Spontaneity!

It’s just another Manic Monday! Which means you can get another one of my fantastic kits for 50% off!

and here are just some of the layouts from my fantastical CT

Caits

Charmaine

Erin

Kim K

Trina

Manic Monday: When the Wind Blows

Good morning! Today is Manic Monday and ScrapMatters and for today only, you can grab my fabulous collab with Geek Chic Scraps, When the Wind Blows for 50% off!

When the Wind Blows is the first collab between Jen Graham and Tara of Geek Chic Scraps! Let’s go Fly a Kite… this beautiful and colorful kit is just perfect for scrapping your photos of kite flying, but also fabulous for any fun outdoors pictures as well!

With a mix of unique hand drawn elements, paper pieced and glass elements, there is a variety of styles and textures to complement your photos. The 30 papers are softly textured and include Tara’s “Nearly Solid Papers” to give you more paper layering options and allow your pictures to be the highlight of your layout.

Love That Girl

Hello! I hope you’ve been having a wonderful summer. Our summer weather just got here. It actually reached the mid-80s this week! We have about two weeks before school starts here, so I am trying to enjoy my time with Alton before he starts going to school three days a week.

Last week we did something that was so much fun! We met other digital scrappers in real life! At Disneyland! I was able to meet some FABULOUS ScrapMatters ladies and some of the lovely girls from Mouse Scrappers.

From the left in the back row: Carol (carolc), Czianya (cznycstr713) and her little ones, Kim (kmkarayannis) and her son, me (GrahamLikeTheCracker) and Alton, Lisa (Chef Minnie Mouse), Andrea (tukogirl), Lynnette (mama-si), and in the front row (TanyaH666) and Jan (QuiltyMom)

Not only did I get to meet these lovely SM ladies, I got to meet two of my creative team members!

Czianya, Kim, Jan and myself

Everyone was so sweet and it was WONDERFUL to finally hear voices that matched the forum pictures I have seen all these months! I got to spend my whole time at the park with Czianya and Kim with their little ones. All of the boys had a good time wearing each other out.  Oh and I just want to say, Jan is UBER talented. She made that shirt herself. It looks so cute in person. She made them for her two kids too.

Okay, enough about me. I have new products for you! A re-release of a kit that turned itself into a FABULOUS bundle, and more twisty templates.

Your favorite girl could be 3. She could be 16. She could even be 32 (gasp!) and this is the kit for you. Celebrating girls of all ages with the timeless girl color of pink, Love That Girl is perfect for layouts of your favorite girl.

This kit includes:

15 Papers (5 solid and 10 patterned) and 49 Elements

There is just something about distressed and embossed papers that I can not resist. I love scrapping with them and I ADORE making them.

Next, some thematic word art.

and now we have reached our first set of templates

I love to use LOTS of papers on my layouts. I also love “cutting” my papers into curves. This template set will help you do both. This “Behind Me” set is a great way to get your layouts started. Just clip your papers to the layers and your layout has a curvy start. Then you add the photos and the elements of your choice.

This set contains 4 single page templates.

The downloads contain PSD files, TIF files, and pngs for non-photoshop users.

All four of the above pieces have been combined into one attractive bundle for your scrapping pleasure and convience.

So the bundle preview fibs a little bit. This weekend through Monday, you can get this entire bundle for $6.30 (a wee bit more than the full price of the kit), not $9.00. It will return to $9.00 (which is still 40% off the full price of the collection) when I wake up on Tuesday. The rest of the pieces are also 30% off through Monday, just so you know.

But wait, there’s more and I am not even talking about the awesome CT layouts yet!

I don’t know if you pay attention to my layouts in the galleries… but I like to weave. A lot in fact. I will usually have SOMETHING weaved on my layouts. I adore strings. (Disasterpiece Studios are my favorite for the record). Anyway, I was scrapping a couple of weeks ago and I decided to weave my papers. I did it all the time when I paper scrapped (back when I scrapped my dogs before I had children… please don’t judge me.) and I wanted to re-create the effect. So I fiddled around a bit and created a layout with lots of curves and “weaved” the papers around each other. That is how this set was born!

I may have been listening to The Cardigan’s when it was time to name this set…

Now you can enjoy the look of weaved papers on your layouts too. I have taken care of the shadowing for you.

Four “weaved” paper template sets. These templates include the shadow layers.

Files are in PSD, PNG, and TIF format

The CT blew me away with their layouts this week.

and now for getting through all of that, I have a freebie for you!

Happy Scrapping!

p.s. Love That Girl used to be called Letters to Juliet… but I changed the name to avoid copyright issues because of the new movie with the same name. The elements in this version have been updated and there are some new elements as well. The templates, word art, and distressed papers are all brand new.

Want to Win Dude?

Dude. Did you hear that there is an awesome new boy kit out?

Would you like to win this kit for free? Would you like three chances to win?

Here’s how:

Make one post in this thread for each of these that you do:
1. Post in the ScrapMatters thread and mention your favorite part of this AWESOME kit.
2. Post the link to the ScrapMatters thread on your twitter, and post your Twitter link in the ScrapMatters thread.
3. Post the kit preview, a link to the kit and a link to the ScrapMatters thread on your blog and post the link in the ScrapMatters thread.

I will choose a winner Wednesday.

Look at these awesome layouts!

JennAmy82

KTanker

profiler_mar

Discussion of the day: Who do you scrap for?

So do you ever scrap for other people as gifts? Or do you make all of your layouts for you and your family?

Don’t forget to join the discussion on my Facebook page too!

Gotta Pixel Blog Train and 40% off SALE!

Dude!

This week I got to contribute to a totally awesome ScrapMatters store collab, Dude.

Loaded to the brim with an eclectic mix of all things “boy,” this kit is the perfect addition to your scrapping stash to help show off pics of your favorite teenager. A variety of bold colors and plenty of unique elements, you’ll find yourself coming back to this one time and time again.

It contains:
10 solid papers
9 patterned papers
4 worn & torn papers
45 Elements
1 upper and lower case distressed metal alpha with numbers and symbols

Contributing Designers: Britt-ish Designs, GG Digital Designs, Graham Like the Cracker, LawTeeDaw Designs & Stolen Moments

Online Galleries…

Good morning! Do you post all of your layouts at an online gallery? Which one? Or do you just buy kits and keep your layouts private? Join the discussion on my Facebook page as well!

Discussion of the Day: Saving Your Layout Files

How do you save your digifiles? How do you name them? Do you ever delete your layered files?

I am extremely “detail oriented”. I have almost always named my files like so. 100619 Birthday Boy

I scrap out of order… and I want to be able to put my prints in order as soon as they are in fact printed. So what I do is name the file by the date the picture(s) was/were taken. I put the year first so that all of my photos from 2010 are together, and all of my photos from 2007 are together and so on and so forth. Then the rest of the date and the title of my layout. That last part makes it REALLY easy when I am uploading my pictures to galleries.

The next time I ordered prints from Persnickety Prints, I am going to check and see if they have the option to print the file names on the back of the layout, because that would be REALLY handy if I haven’t dated my layouts.

Now as far as file managment goes, I am a hoarder. I still have all of my PSD files. I keep a 300 dpi PSD file, the 300 dpi 12×12 file, and the websized preview. But after I have finished uploading it everywhere, I add the web sized preview to my screen saver folder so I can see my layouts when my screen saver comes on. I recently discovered TIF files and I now save my layouts in TIF, which is like a PSD in that it’s layered, but a smaller file. If I am REALLY bored sometime, I might go and convert my old PSDs for TIFs, but I don’t see it happening any time soon. I’d rather scrap. LOL

How do you manage your stuff? I would love to hear how you manage your layout files.