Thursday, January 12, 2012
New Blog
Oops, if you came here, we've moved our blog to wordpress, please visit us at www.stufftoscrap.com/wordpress See you there.
Challenge Me
Our weather is supposed to turn south today so I think I'll bet getting a lot of scrapping done while watching the snow come down!
A great way to see how layouts can turn out so different from the same set of instructions is the Recipe Challenge. Every has such a unique take on the recipe given, it's really quite neat to see the finished layouts. This month's recipe comes from Adriana of Adriana's Cafe & is as follows: (1) One HUGE photo that takes at least 60% of your layout; (2) 2 papers; (3) 12 elements; and (4) write a little journaling, make sure you use the words LOVE and DREAM.
Remember that you need to include all the recipe elements, post your finished layout in the January Recipe Challenge thread. For completing the challenge you'll earn 10 points for this challenge & if you use 90% or more of any current STS products you'll earn an extra 5 points! On the left is Catching Bugs at Twilight by Jcb5600 using Family History I am Doing It by Scraps N Pieces; on the right is Sew Sweet by BriannasScrapper using Stitched with Love by This Little Missy.
When you're pressed for time, it's great to use quick pages to get a layout done quickly & a way to get a lot of free quick pages is to participate in the Quick Page Exchange. The designer hosting the exchange will pick out one of their kits & you are challenged to create a quick page with the kit [you may only use the featured kit to avoid copyright issues]. Don't know how to make a quick page? Go to this thread in the forum to download a free action for PSE & PS; you can find some great tips on making quick pages in this thread.
This month the featured kit is Winter Elegance by Misty of Designs by Snowlady. Misty has put the kit on sale for just $2.00 the whole month! Post your completed quick page in the January Quick Page Exchange thread & don't forget to send your quick page to Misty! For participating you'll get 10 points plus at the end of the month, Misty will email you all the quick pages that have been submitted! On the left is Mdkscrapper's quick page& on the right is Gluvsc's quick page.
Everyone loves doing the Scavenger Hunt Challenge as you get to see lots of great layouts that help inspire your own layouts. You'll find the list of 30 layouts to find in the January thread, your challenge is to find a layout that fits each description & leave a comment on the layout. Keep a list of all the links to your comments & when you've found all 30 items, send a private message to the challenge host for verification. Once your comments have been verified, you'll earn 15 points! Do NOT post your completed lists in the thread, as that would make it easier for others to just copy your list & we want y'all to work for your points!
If you're ever stumped for ideas, one great way to get inspiration is to take a peek in the gallery; that's where the inspiration for the Scraplift Challenge comes from each month. This month, Tracy has chosen the layout I Love That Boy by Gyurgyik for us to scraplift. Go check out the layout & then post your interpretation in the January Scraplift Challenge thread. Completing this challenge will result in 10 points earned & if you use 90% or more of any current STS products you'll earn an extra 5 points! On the left is Beautiful Girl by Stacielk using Denim and Daisies by Scraps N' Pieces; on the right is Basketball by Scrappinmama using Nothin' but Net by Scraps N' Pieces.
Find yourself using the same font over & over & over? It's not a bad thing but it's always good to try out some new fonts & if you participate in the Font Challenge, you'll get a chance to play with a font that you might never have seen otherwise. This is a hard challenge for the designers as there are so many great free fonts to chose from; for January, Sarah of In The Small Things has chosen Paper-Mache. Head over to the January Font Challenge to download the font & get started. This challenge will earn you 5 points & if you use 90% or more of any current STS products you'll earn an extra 5 points! On the left is Mega Race Car by LilyAnn using Start Your Engines by Designs by Snowlady; on the right is A Good Book by Filandstef using A Good Read by AmyDane Designs.
The Word of the Week Challenge runs until Saturday, January 14th & this week's word is Humor. Post your layouts in this week's WOW thread by Saturday night to earn your points. Remember that to earn the bonus points, you need to complete each week's challenge, you can find the WOW rules & point tracking thread right here. On the left is Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set by Sgroenke using Going Buggy by Seal Scraps; on the right is First Haircut by Kimberly27 using Spiffed Up by Scraps of Ellay.
The Challenge of the Week runs until Saturday, January 14th & doing a Mash-Up. This is where you take two layouts & scrap them into one layout, go to this week's COW thread to find out what layouts you'll need to combine & post your layouts by Saturday night to earn your points. Remember that to earn the bonus points, you need to complete each week's challenge, you can find the COW rules & point tracking thread right here. On the left is Sweet Child of Mine by Sgroenke using Our Love Story by Scraps by Andrea; on the right is Bubbles! by Ellay using Adventures in Learning by Scraps of Ellay.
This week's Featured Designer Challenge is brought to you Adriana of Adriana's Cafe & her whole store is on sale for 30% off until Sunday so if you don't have any of her fabulous products yet, now you've got a great excuse to pick one up! Here's Monkey Hat by Kendra using Packing My Bags.
The Fine Print: You'll earn points on almost all of the challenges & when you reach 500 points, you'll receive a $5.00 gift card to the Stuff to Scrap store to purchase anything that catches your fancy. Points roll over from month to month & do not expire! Please remember that to earn any extra bonus points, you must state in your challenge post that you've used 90% or more current STS products or you will not earn the bonus points. There is no double dipping with challenges, i.e. you cannot use a layout made for a speed scrap for one of the monthly challenges or use one layout for two challenges. The only exception is a double page layout where each side is for a different challenge. The use of quick pages for challenge layouts are not allowed, all layouts must be made from scratch or with a template. You are most welcome to make a post in the January Challenge Round-up thread to keep track of all the challenges & points you've earned. As always, any layouts featured in this post are linked to the gallery for easy love leaving.
A great way to see how layouts can turn out so different from the same set of instructions is the Recipe Challenge. Every has such a unique take on the recipe given, it's really quite neat to see the finished layouts. This month's recipe comes from Adriana of Adriana's Cafe & is as follows: (1) One HUGE photo that takes at least 60% of your layout; (2) 2 papers; (3) 12 elements; and (4) write a little journaling, make sure you use the words LOVE and DREAM.
Remember that you need to include all the recipe elements, post your finished layout in the January Recipe Challenge thread. For completing the challenge you'll earn 10 points for this challenge & if you use 90% or more of any current STS products you'll earn an extra 5 points! On the left is Catching Bugs at Twilight by Jcb5600 using Family History I am Doing It by Scraps N Pieces; on the right is Sew Sweet by BriannasScrapper using Stitched with Love by This Little Missy.
When you're pressed for time, it's great to use quick pages to get a layout done quickly & a way to get a lot of free quick pages is to participate in the Quick Page Exchange. The designer hosting the exchange will pick out one of their kits & you are challenged to create a quick page with the kit [you may only use the featured kit to avoid copyright issues]. Don't know how to make a quick page? Go to this thread in the forum to download a free action for PSE & PS; you can find some great tips on making quick pages in this thread.
This month the featured kit is Winter Elegance by Misty of Designs by Snowlady. Misty has put the kit on sale for just $2.00 the whole month! Post your completed quick page in the January Quick Page Exchange thread & don't forget to send your quick page to Misty! For participating you'll get 10 points plus at the end of the month, Misty will email you all the quick pages that have been submitted! On the left is Mdkscrapper's quick page& on the right is Gluvsc's quick page.
Everyone loves doing the Scavenger Hunt Challenge as you get to see lots of great layouts that help inspire your own layouts. You'll find the list of 30 layouts to find in the January thread, your challenge is to find a layout that fits each description & leave a comment on the layout. Keep a list of all the links to your comments & when you've found all 30 items, send a private message to the challenge host for verification. Once your comments have been verified, you'll earn 15 points! Do NOT post your completed lists in the thread, as that would make it easier for others to just copy your list & we want y'all to work for your points!
If you're ever stumped for ideas, one great way to get inspiration is to take a peek in the gallery; that's where the inspiration for the Scraplift Challenge comes from each month. This month, Tracy has chosen the layout I Love That Boy by Gyurgyik for us to scraplift. Go check out the layout & then post your interpretation in the January Scraplift Challenge thread. Completing this challenge will result in 10 points earned & if you use 90% or more of any current STS products you'll earn an extra 5 points! On the left is Beautiful Girl by Stacielk using Denim and Daisies by Scraps N' Pieces; on the right is Basketball by Scrappinmama using Nothin' but Net by Scraps N' Pieces.
Find yourself using the same font over & over & over? It's not a bad thing but it's always good to try out some new fonts & if you participate in the Font Challenge, you'll get a chance to play with a font that you might never have seen otherwise. This is a hard challenge for the designers as there are so many great free fonts to chose from; for January, Sarah of In The Small Things has chosen Paper-Mache. Head over to the January Font Challenge to download the font & get started. This challenge will earn you 5 points & if you use 90% or more of any current STS products you'll earn an extra 5 points! On the left is Mega Race Car by LilyAnn using Start Your Engines by Designs by Snowlady; on the right is A Good Book by Filandstef using A Good Read by AmyDane Designs.
The Word of the Week Challenge runs until Saturday, January 14th & this week's word is Humor. Post your layouts in this week's WOW thread by Saturday night to earn your points. Remember that to earn the bonus points, you need to complete each week's challenge, you can find the WOW rules & point tracking thread right here. On the left is Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set by Sgroenke using Going Buggy by Seal Scraps; on the right is First Haircut by Kimberly27 using Spiffed Up by Scraps of Ellay.
The Challenge of the Week runs until Saturday, January 14th & doing a Mash-Up. This is where you take two layouts & scrap them into one layout, go to this week's COW thread to find out what layouts you'll need to combine & post your layouts by Saturday night to earn your points. Remember that to earn the bonus points, you need to complete each week's challenge, you can find the COW rules & point tracking thread right here. On the left is Sweet Child of Mine by Sgroenke using Our Love Story by Scraps by Andrea; on the right is Bubbles! by Ellay using Adventures in Learning by Scraps of Ellay.
This week's Featured Designer Challenge is brought to you Adriana of Adriana's Cafe & her whole store is on sale for 30% off until Sunday so if you don't have any of her fabulous products yet, now you've got a great excuse to pick one up! Here's Monkey Hat by Kendra using Packing My Bags.
The Fine Print: You'll earn points on almost all of the challenges & when you reach 500 points, you'll receive a $5.00 gift card to the Stuff to Scrap store to purchase anything that catches your fancy. Points roll over from month to month & do not expire! Please remember that to earn any extra bonus points, you must state in your challenge post that you've used 90% or more current STS products or you will not earn the bonus points. There is no double dipping with challenges, i.e. you cannot use a layout made for a speed scrap for one of the monthly challenges or use one layout for two challenges. The only exception is a double page layout where each side is for a different challenge. The use of quick pages for challenge layouts are not allowed, all layouts must be made from scratch or with a template. You are most welcome to make a post in the January Challenge Round-up thread to keep track of all the challenges & points you've earned. As always, any layouts featured in this post are linked to the gallery for easy love leaving.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Tutorial of the Week
Welcome to Part 2 of getting your photos organized for the new year! Last week I showed everyone how I organize my photos, hopefully that inspired you to start sorting through your digital photos. Remember that it really doesn't matter what system you use as long as it works for you & that you are consistent with the sorting. This week is going to be a little short as the hard work will be next week.
Now that you've gotten a few folders set up & sorted, we need to talk about what you need to get rid of. Yup, we're going to get rid of pictures. I know that is a little nerve-wracking but really, how many copies of the same shot of Fido do you need? One feature I love to use on my camera is the rapid fire & I'll sometimes end up with a few hundred photos at the end of the day. Taking the time now to sort photos will really help you out in the future.
Chuck all those photos that are beyond hopelessly blurry, any that you really didn't mean to take & those ones that have a close of up your kid's nose. Unless that's what you were going for! Got ten shorts from that recent family photo session? Tossing all but the best one will prevent you from doing a mad search during a speed scrap. Go through that miscellaneous folder & get those photos culled & into the right folder.
One extra step I like to do when I've been given photos taken by other people ['cause I'm a total organizational nut] is to put all the photos in chronological order by renaming a those bonus photos. For example, at the boys' birthday party I got photos from the grandparents & cousins that didn't conform to the naming convention of my camera. Once I got all the photos culled, I took the grandparent pictures & renamed them to match my files so when the photos were dropped into the folder, they would be in a close to chronological order as possible.
If you take a look at my file below, in the third row you'll see that the file names go from IMG_9923 which was taken by me to IMG_9924_01 which is where the grandparents & cousins took over the taking of pictures. I figured out what the rough order was & then renamed them so that when I sorted by name, everything would be in the correct order. You'll also see in the second row of photos how the image names get higher very quickly, that's a time I took about 30 pictures & only kept the best ones of my cousin spinning the kids around on their backs. Don't ask why they found that so much fun, I don't get it either but they loved it.
I know this method is not for everyone but I love doing it to keep things in the right order. I'm a little too organized sometimes.
Once you've gotten the pictures culled, it will be time to rename everything so that you'll be able to find the pictures easily in the future. But that's going to take a little more work so come back next week & I'll tell you how to rename several hundred pictures at once!
Now that you've gotten a few folders set up & sorted, we need to talk about what you need to get rid of. Yup, we're going to get rid of pictures. I know that is a little nerve-wracking but really, how many copies of the same shot of Fido do you need? One feature I love to use on my camera is the rapid fire & I'll sometimes end up with a few hundred photos at the end of the day. Taking the time now to sort photos will really help you out in the future.
Chuck all those photos that are beyond hopelessly blurry, any that you really didn't mean to take & those ones that have a close of up your kid's nose. Unless that's what you were going for! Got ten shorts from that recent family photo session? Tossing all but the best one will prevent you from doing a mad search during a speed scrap. Go through that miscellaneous folder & get those photos culled & into the right folder.
One extra step I like to do when I've been given photos taken by other people ['cause I'm a total organizational nut] is to put all the photos in chronological order by renaming a those bonus photos. For example, at the boys' birthday party I got photos from the grandparents & cousins that didn't conform to the naming convention of my camera. Once I got all the photos culled, I took the grandparent pictures & renamed them to match my files so when the photos were dropped into the folder, they would be in a close to chronological order as possible.
If you take a look at my file below, in the third row you'll see that the file names go from IMG_9923 which was taken by me to IMG_9924_01 which is where the grandparents & cousins took over the taking of pictures. I figured out what the rough order was & then renamed them so that when I sorted by name, everything would be in the correct order. You'll also see in the second row of photos how the image names get higher very quickly, that's a time I took about 30 pictures & only kept the best ones of my cousin spinning the kids around on their backs. Don't ask why they found that so much fun, I don't get it either but they loved it.
I know this method is not for everyone but I love doing it to keep things in the right order. I'm a little too organized sometimes.
Once you've gotten the pictures culled, it will be time to rename everything so that you'll be able to find the pictures easily in the future. But that's going to take a little more work so come back next week & I'll tell you how to rename several hundred pictures at once!
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